The Power of Hate (SPOILERS)

[Desolane-sisters-of-elune]

Desolane Felrunner sat alone along the canal outside Cathedral Square in Stormwind, digesting the news that had come out of the front in Darkshore. He had thus far remained in Kul Tiras with Admiral Aximand’s flotilla, except for the occasions when the admiral went out on expeditions to the outlying islands, or ferried troops to Zandalar and to the front in Lordaeron. It was said that Tyrande had conducted a ritual to embrace the “dark side of the moon”, something that had not been heard of since the War of the Ancients - mainly because the legends said that whoever conducted said ritual ended up being destroyed by the power of Elune’s fury.

Whatever had happened, it had apparently worked - and it was not just Tyrande who was changed by it. There were others whose eyes had become as black as the night, something that disconcerted even him - and he had torn out his own eyes when he had embraced his own dark path.

“You.” He turned at the sound of that voice, and felt his heart sink when he saw the black eyes in a face he recognized. “You have a lot of gall being anywhere near our people, minion of the Betrayer.”

“A Betrayer whose legacy I uphold as both wisdom and warning,” Desolane replied calmly. “I have spent years reliving the past in my mind, and have wondered whether I would have still become what I am had I known then what I do now.” His horned head tilted slightly. “Would that others were less willing to, as the humans would say, ‘jump on the bandwagon’ whenever their role models embrace the darkness.”

“The Night Warrior is nothing like you and your foul master. Whatever you think he did on Argus, he is no hero. And neither are you.”

“Unlike you, Arrenhae, I have never presumed I was.”

That triggered a reaction. The elf in front of him drew her daggers, not giving a damn she was in the middle of Stormwind with guards watching, and looking like she was about to cut out his heart. “How dare you use my name, foulspawn! How dare you presume some kind of bond of friendship!”

“Our bond is far more than that, and you know it,” the demon hunter replied, remaining unfazed. “You think I chose this simply to ‘look cool’ - another humanism - or to claim power, as Illidan did? No.” Even with his eyes covered, the green glow from his eye sockets stared at her. “My brother was your forefather, Arrenhae - yours and your daughter’s. I have mourned him every day for ten thousand years or more. As I mourn for her.”

Lowering her blades to her sides, Arrenhae Leafrunner looked away from him. “What do you know of my pain?” she whispered.

“I understand loss, Arrenhae. And I understand vengeance just as well, too.” His tone remained absolutely level. “I wonder if you do. I paid a terrible price, as you see - given that you’d spat a lot of the same words at me that most of our people have for millennia. As I said, if I had known then what I do now, I would not have been so quick to emulate Illidan. I wonder if, millennia hence, you will ask yourself the same thing in choosing to emulate Tyrande.”

She seemed stirred for a moment…and then her face became a mask of hate. “You know nothing,” she hissed, and spat at his feet. Then she walked away.

[Gehn-sisters-of-elune]

Archmage Menarian Talashar always kept his eyes peeled for any tails, especially nowadays with Sylvanas’ goons regularly killing or “disappearing” anyone who didn’t follow her line. Like the fellow he had come to see. Kitrik had told him where he was during a brief sojourn into Freehold, where the goblin had regularly travelled as a privateer outside the bounds of the Horde.

When hiding in plain view, he mused, hiding amongst the dead in northern Lordaeron was an inspired decision. But it was also obvious. The word had got out.

Entering the village of Northdale, near the Thalassian border, he stepped into a ruined old house. “Master Archivist.”

The figure he was addressing looked up from his writing, a smile creasing his death-stiffened face. “Let’s not stand on ceremony, Menarian. We’re too old for it.”

Menarian couldn’t help but chuckle. “Fair enough, Gehn.” He sobered quickly. “I’ve heard word in Silvermoon. They know where you are. Father Shankolin has placed a one thousand gold bounty to whomever brings him your head.”

“So low? I should almost be insulted. Still, it would pay your bills nicely, wouldn’t it?”

“As if I would stoop that low. What do I look like, a goblin?” Menarian considered that. “Kitrik aside, that is.”

“He’s a rare one, that,” Gehn agreed. “His code of honor is refreshing in this day and age.”

“Come on. We can discuss more on the way.”

The undead mage looked at him in confusion. “On the way?”

“We have to get out of here, Gehn. The Deathstalkers are en route through the Ghostlands. I can get us a portal to…” When he saw Gehn shaking his head, it was his turn to be confused. “Why the hell not? You do know these people are coming to kill you?”

“Of course I do. I’ve been watchful ever since I spoke out against her, when I renounced the title of Forsaken. But it’s not been for myself that I’ve been hiding.” He closed the tome he had been writing in when Menarian arrived. “It’s been for this.”

“The archive…you still have it? Even after all…”

“Taeril’hane is gone, and Ord’taeril now fights against us; the future of House Ketiron is shrouded. But the history must be maintained…for the time when, Light willing, Azeroth will have some semblance of peace again.” Gehn held the book out to him. “I’ve finished my part of the story, Menarian. Now you must carry it on without me.” He looked up sharply. “They’re here. My sentry wards have picked up their movement.” He gripped Menarian’s arm tightly. “You must leave. Quickly. Don’t let it all be in vain.”

Menarian bowed his head sadly as he stepped away and faded into invisibility. A moment later, four Deathstalkers, blades in hand, walked into the main square. Upon seeing him, they pointed. “There’s the faithless traitor!” one of them shouted.

Gehn merely smiled serenely. “Welcome, my friends. I have been expecting you.”

[Vendross-cenarion-circle]

The wind from the peaks of Highmountain above had grown colder, as winter arrived. Randarel, lord of House Vendross, found it appropriate. The chill in the air matched the chill in his soul.

He stood within one of the open-air tombs in Tel’anor, on a ridge high above the city of Suramar. The sarcophagus he stood next to gleamed white in the setting sun’s light, being far newer than the other tombs in this city, and the effigy that made up its lid was noticably that of a Nightborne, rather than that of the night elves and ancient Highborne who rested here. The carver had included a scarf wrapped around the neck, for that was how the body had been prepared for burial - hiding the stitches of the embalmer who had reattached her head, after it had been removed from her body by the blade of Spellfencer Relsyn.

Relsyn had no tomb. Randarel had seen to that; she had been burned on a pyre in the forest, along with the rest of the traitors who had nearly doomed Suramar. If he could not take any measure of vengeance on Elisande, he could at least allow himself the pleasure of ensuring that the murderer of his wife would not be allowed the dignity of resting in a place like this.

He laid a hand gently on the face of Elerina’s effigy, as if by touching her image, he could feel her spirit. Then he looked over at his visitor. “You think it will be civil war?” he asked in Thalassian.

“It may be unavoidable now,” the other replied in the same tongue. “Sylvanas’ thugs have taken to murdering anyone who even thinks of opposition. It may reach the point that no one with a contrary opinion will be safe, not even the people we’re courting to be allies. You and I may well end up being targets, Randarel.”

Randarel smiled sadly. “Something we are accustomed to by now, would you not say, Menarian?” The sin’dorei magister had been the first to greet him when he had arrived in Silvermoon; the ring that Randarel wore, enchanted with the ability to comprehend (and make himself understood in) other languages, had been Menarian’s gift, to welcome him to Silvermoon and to the Horde. They had been friends ever since.

Menarian had just told him of what had befallen Gehn; Randarel had heard rumors of others who had incurred Sylvanas’ ire for the crime of questioning the murder of innocents. They would not be the last.

“Still,” he continued, “it had been my hope that after Elisande, we would not have to contend with further lunatics as our leaders. Yet it seems that was inevitable as well. If it were not Sylvanas, it would be Tyrande.”

Menarian looked confused. “What do you mean?”

“I recall the rumors of the Night Warrior from the War of the Ancients. If Tyrande has embodied Elune’s vengeance, then it will cost her far more than the color of her eyes, believe me.” Randarel shook his head. “Has it ever occurred to you, Menarian, that we elves, irrespective of which side we happen to be on, seem destined to suffer?”

Menarian smiled grimly. “All the time. Certainly ever since Arthas came marching in. The draenei would probably agree; Light knows they’ve seen their fair share.”

“And then some,” Randarel agreed. “And we, like the draenei, have very long memories. It’s the curse of the elder races. We do not forget.” He looked back down at the carving of his wife, the fingers of one hand caressing the stone image of her face, while the other touched the white diamond pendant around his neck. His jaw clenched. “And we do not forgive.”

[Tenatsali-cenarion-circle]

Sitting alone on a ridge outside Thunder Totem, Tenatsali Windspear did not know whose skull he had wanted to crush in his palm most at that tavern in Pandaria - the smug draenei sellsword, the dour blood elf renegade (she had to be, to be speaking out so against her own people), or the clearly mad Forsaken stirring the pot. Probably all three of them; he certainly could have, if he had wanted. He had never felt that angry in his life, not even when an entire tribe of his own people had betrayed the others to the Legion. Purging the Bloodtotem - or Feltotem, as they had become - had been an unfortunate necessity.

But no one had blamed his entire race for the Bloodtotem’s corruption. So why now, when he said only that he wanted to serve his people, did such ignorant, judgmental people - heroes at a thousand paces, shooting their foes in the back, he thought bitterly, thinking of the firearms both the draenei and the elf had carried - call him “baby-killer” and treat him like he had been the one holding the torch that had burned Teldrassil?

Not for the first time, he began to wonder if Mayla had made a mistake in aligning Highmountain with the Horde. Come to it, this whole war made him rethink what he had seen over these past months; the Alliance and the Horde, so far as he was concerned, were no different from the Legion. Both demanded absolute obedience at the expense of what made their people unique. The only difference was that Anduin was not in the habit of murdering dissidents. Not that Tenatsali had heard, anyway.

“I thought I might find you up here.” The Taurahe words had come from the antlered eagle perched on a rock next to him. Immediately, it took on the familiar shape of Arihnda Wingmender, the Skyhorn archdruid. “Kegren told me you’d sulked off up here when you arrived.”

Tenatsali scowled. “I do not sulk. And doesn’t he have better things to do than gossip?” Kegren Dawntotem was a Sunwalker from Mulgore who had settled in Thunder Totem, having embraced his antlered kinfolk during the war against the Legion.

“Don’t you have better things to do than mope?” the archdruid retorted. “You look like someone murdered your best friend…Talako is fine, though, right?”

“Off feeding his face down in the river below. No…that is not what troubles me.” He briefly explained what had happened at the tavern.

Arihnda merely smiled, albeit a bit sadly. “Does it bother you to think they might be right?” The hunter looked outraged at the idea; she continued before he could say a word. “Mayla made the choice to join us with Baine and the others as part of the Horde, that is true. As you say, the alternative - of being pitted against our own people for no reason other than politics - was unthinkable. But does that mean we simply hide behind excuses when we are confronted by the truth?”

“And who provides eagles and their riders to help Horde soldiers kill Alliance, whether they hold a sword or not?” Tenatsali nodded his antlered head at the Skyhorn totem she wore on her back. “Seems to me a lot of them carry one of those around.”

“I know that.”

“Then you’re no different than I am. Ignorant fools like that mercenary will paint with the same brush because you identify with the tribe that carries Forsaken Deathguards and orc raiders into battle.”

“I know that, too.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?”

“Of course it bothers me. But I do not try to excuse it, either. We are not innocent anymore, Tenatsali. We are bound to the Horde, and all of the baggage that comes with it.”

Tenatsali snorted. “So…what? I should betray our people simply because we chose the only option?”

“Take a good, hard look at my chieftain, Tenatsali. Lasan is a fool who blindly follows the banshee because he thinks only of glory in battle. He is actively aiding and abetting evil. You’re just doing it passively, because you’re afraid. You hide behind ‘protecting our people’, because you’re afraid of Sylvanas and her thugs - not that you’re wrong to be so. But I would be more worried about people like that draenei or that elf, if I were you. Sylvanas and Lasan and their ilk will get theirs in the end, just like Dargrul, and Torok, and the Legion. No matter the cost, such people always pay. How do you want people to think of you when it comes to that? As someone who truly protected their people from the evil that threatened to corrupt them? Or as a coward who sat by and let it happen?” Arihnda stared levelly at him. “That elf had the right of it about another thing, too. There are many ways to oppose evil that do not require weapons. You need simply find one.”

Tenatsali laughed incredulously. “How?”

“You’re the one who says that living is easy, and surviving requires work.” Arihnda smiled as she shifted back into her eagle form. “Prove it.” With that, she took off into the distance…leaving the hunter to think.

[Shankolin-sisters-of-elune (Shankolin)]

Father Shankolin Blightpath stood on a lower terrace of the great pyramid of Dazar’alor, gazing at the oncoming Alliance fleet on the horizon.

Other than the braids that ran to his shoulders, he no longer bore any resemblance to Saavedro of Stratholme, no more symbols of Light and piety; his dark robes were adorned with sigils of death. So was the gear of the dozen or so Forsaken who stood at his back - former servants of Sekhesmet, who had had their free will stripped away by his new powers and his rage at their master, until they were little more than meat puppets who obeyed his will. The long months he had spent trapped within his own body - until Sekhesmet had at last been destroyed, and he had been freed by the most unlikely savior - had awakened an inferno of hate and a lust for power that had utterly burned away any last vestige of the noble paladin he had once been; his weapons now were the weapons of the dark. Fear. Pain. Death.

Now he was prepared to use them. For the invasion that everyone knew had to come, Alliance and Horde alike, had finally begun. Yet it seemed the Alliance had sent so few, compared to the might of the Zandalari’s Golden Fleet, which had begun to open fire with their explosive-tipped ballistae. For all their contempt for the undead, the Zandalari had proven to be surprisingly worthy allies; perhaps the forlorn hope of bringing the Zandalari into the Horde was not so forlorn, after all. It made him wonder about the shaman he had made the voyage here from the Echo Isles with. She had been banished to Vol’dun by the late, unlamented General Jakra’zet, was the last he had heard, and though he had gone there a number of times himself, he had not seen her there.

A massive explosion in the harbor interrupted his reverie. To his astonishment, the entire Zandalari fleet had gone up in flame, and the Alliance fleet - led at the front by the flagship of the fanatical Jaina Proudmoore - prepared to make landfall. In the harbor, he recognized a number of figures dismounting from one of the ships: The death knight in the naval hat, the worgen druid and her bruiser bodyguard…and the void elf monk Ord’taeril Ketiron. Being more attuned to the darkness than the others, Ord’taeril peered up at the great pyramid and stared right at him. He could sense Shankolin just as the priest could sense him, tied by their mutual connection to Sekhesmet. The Dark Father had been subtly enhanced by the void goop he had collected from Mac’Aree, the same substance he had used to transform Ord’taeril…and with Sekhesmet gone, Shankolin had taken his powers (or taken them back, as he thought of it).

Shankolin smiled, a glint of insanity clear in his eyes as the shadows began to writhe around him. It seemed to him that the Zandalari would end up becoming part of the Horde as supplicants rather than allies, when this battle was over. In the meantime, however, there was killing to be done…and this promised to be much more challenging, and much more invigorating, than dealing with a bunch of night elves who claimed to have “embraced the darkness”. If any of them were here, he would show them and all their friends what real darkness looked like.

“Come,” he commanded his slack-jawed entourage as he began descending the pyramid, moving at a leisurely pace compared to the other Horde forces scrambling to mount a defense.

As stiff as puppets, his servants obeyed, and began to follow him.

[Talashar-sisters-of-elune]

For the crimes of sedition, defeatism, and allegations of treason against the Warchief of the Horde, we the people of the Horde, in the name of the Warchief Sylvanas Windrunner, hereby sentence the coward Menarian Talashar to death, and place a bounty of five thousand gold sovereigns for proof of decease…

Erdanel, heir to House Vendross, crumpled the missive in his hand and tossed it aside angrily. “This is what we have been reduced to? Escaping the whims of one lunatic to place ourselves at the mercy of another?”

“So it would appear,” the aforementioned Menarian Talashar, archmage and now-disavowed Magister of Silvermoon, replied grimly. He met the gaze of Erdanel’s father, Lord Randarel. “Events have accelerated. The Zandalari fleet has been wiped out, and the Alliance marches on Dazar’alor.”

“One would think the Horde would concern itself with defending their allies instead of butchering people for having thoughts,” Randarel replied, his expression sickened.

“They’re trying to do both. While Blightcaller leads the defense of Dazar’alor from the front, her zealots hunt for ‘defeatists’ in the rear. They may well put a price on your head as well. All three of you.” Menarian’s gaze narrowed as he turned to the captain of the guard. “And there might be some here willing to collect.”

Captain Valya Tiren was incensed. “How dare you even suggest such a thing?”

“Because you have bought into the ‘necessity’ for genocide against the night elves, Captain - hook, line, and sinker,” the archmage replied. “You slaughter them in Darkshore just as readily as the Forsaken do. The only difference is that you have a pulse and they don’t.”

Randarel glanced sharply at her. “Is this true, Valya?” he demanded in Shalassian. His voice shook with rage.

“I will not have my loyalty impugned by a child,” the captain replied in the same tongue. “Will you trust the word of an outlander over that of someone who has stood at your side for ten thousand years?”

Randarel’s eyes narrowed. “You have not answered my question, Captain. Have you partaken in the butchery in Darkshore after I expressly forbade it?”

Tiren met his gaze evenly. “And if I have? The Warchief has called upon us to fight, and so we do. And the tree-dwelling vermin would do the same to us without hesitation. Tyrande is mad, Stormrage is feral…”

“And Sylvanas is a monster, Valya. Yet you seem willing to accept her commands over mine.” The Vendross patriarch sighed. “You have stood at my side for ten thousand years, and yet somehow you have proven no different than the monsters we have fought in all that time.” His tone hardened. “I release you from my service, and banish you from my household and from the borders of Suramar. If you are found anywhere near our lands again, you will die.”

Tiren stared at him in complete shock. Banished? “Randarel, please, I have always been–”

“Loyal? You can show loyalty to a murderer like Sylvanas, or to me and my heirs. Not both. You have betrayed me, Valya. Be glad I am allowing you to leave with your life…to go and die for your Warchief as you see fit.” Before the captain could protest, Randarel’s tone was curt, acidic. “And if you say another word, I will kill you where you stand. Now begone, before I change my mind.”

Her mouth hanging open, Tiren continued to stare. Then her expression became one of disgust. She inclined her head as if to bow…and then spat at her one-time friend’s feet. Then she stormed out.

Menarian was astonished, as well as worried. “You may well have just made things worse, Randarel. She may end up going along with the extremists and be sent after us.”

“Maybe,” Randarel replied tiredly. “But even so…I could not bring myself to end her, like I did Relsyn. Perhaps she will come to the same realization we have, and choose to redeem herself.”

“And if not, Father?” Erdanel asked.

“Then we demonstrate to her what will hopefully become of her Warchief,” Menarian replied icily.

Randarel nodded. “She defended us at our weakest. We are not weak now. She will find that out if she chooses to follow the path of dishonor.” He gently grasped Menarian’s arm. “In the meantime, my home is open to you, as is our city. Fate willing, this will come to nothing.”

“I hope so.” Menarian sighed. “Like I said to the folks back in the Bluff, my getting killed does not frighten me. I have risked it often enough over the years. It’s who will get killed in the meantime that worries me. Like you, and Erdanel and Telisa. You’ve lost so much already.”

“Like Valya, we made our choices,” Randarel replied with a sad smile. “And like Valya, we must accept the consequences. Come what may.”

[Shankolin-sisters-of-elune (Shankolin)]

The word spread quickly throughout Dazar’alor. Rastakhan was dead. More than the loss of the fleet, this signaled to Shankolin Blightpath that the Zandalari Empire was done. The campaign had failed.

This meant that the Zandalari themselves, so far as Shankolin was concerned, were no better than simply more meat for the grinder, more fuel for Sylvanas’ war machine. Just like the Nightborne, the Highmountain, and the Mag’har…and the other mortals as well. If that had been the objective to start with (and in the back of his mind, he wondered why it wasn’t), then perhaps this whole bloody mess could be considered successful. But it wasn’t. Now it was a matter of surviving the aftermath.

Easier said than done, Shankolin mused bitterly.

In the back of his mind, he recalled something he had heard just before the fleet had arrived. That storyteller woman, the one who held her little shindigs in Thunder Bluff, had been whispering among the population in Silvermoon about protesting “needless destruction”. Some of the people who heard those whispers were here in Dazar’alor. A number of them were now dead. If he still had blood, it would be boiling with rage. Small wonder the campaign had failed - whisperers at home, safe and lazy, undermining the morale of those fighting on the front lines so they could be safe and lazy. He made it a point to pay her a call when he returned.

If he returned…

For now, however, the business at hand - as the Alliance made to retreat back to their ships, their job done, Shankolin and his remaining thralls (about half of them had fallen in the fighting), accompanied by a mixed bag - two blood elves, a Nightborne, and a number of Zandalari guards - were chasing a group falling back to one of the battleships. He recognized them at once. Some of them were Genevra’s little errand boys. If nothing else, he wanted to make sure there was at least one group of pests he would not have to deal with before going back to Orgrimmar…

---

Keeping an eye on the rearguard as the others headed back to his flagship, the Springhawk, Admiral Eliphas Aximand spotted them coming. “Lucia, with me,” he said. “We need to delay them.”

“I’ll do my best, Admiral,” Lucia Zherron replied. “But you’re the one driving the ship; you should go with the others.”

“And leave you alone to that monster? Not on your life.”

“No.” That voice had come from the brutish, blue-eyed worgen behind him. Aximand had heard that Liam Branscombe had been a serial killer in his native Gilneas. Looking at the glint in his eye, the admiral could believe it. He had unsheathed a pair of daggers the size of small swords. “We will hold them.” A number of other worgen joined him. Former members of Eidan Zherron’s Shadowhowl pack, rallying to his daughter - and to the “reformed” murderer who had been her protector. “Tie them up, Lucia. Then go with him.”

Lucia hesitated, not wanting to leave him behind. But he was determined. So were the others with him. She nodded, and tapped the moon-crescent scythe in her hand hard into the cobblestones. The roots of the trees themselves erupted and began snaking their way towards Shankolin and his entourage.

Howling in bloodthirsty rage, the “Ghost of the Northgate” and his companions took off running…

[Aximand-cenarion-circle]

Armor dented and spattered with blood - none of it his own, as anything left in his veins had dried up years ago - Admiral Eliphas Aximand remained at the rearguard as he directed his party into the harbor to return to his flagship, the battleship Springhawk.

Behind them, the admiral could hear the howls and roars of Liam Branscombe, the “Ghost of the Northgate”, as he grappled with the creature that had once been an honorable man, a paladin, a man of Light. Now he was a freak in the service of Sylvanas. As I am a freak in the service of the King, he thought with a hint of grim amusement. The difference was that he had not allowed circumstance to erode his morality. Whatever hint of Saavedro of Stratholme had been within that cursed form was dead… as dead as the soldiers on both sides around him, killed in a war that had no gods-damned point. The world was bleeding to death, and when they weren’t harvesting the blood for themselves, both Alliance and Horde were hell-bent on killing each other. It sickened him.

Shankolin screamed in rage as Branscombe managed to tear apart his robes and rip off one of his legs right at the exposed knee joint; the dark priest collapsed to the ground, unable to keep the balance on his remaining leg. Then came a single word, not so much heard as felt in the minds of everyone close at hand:

DIE!!!

An explosion of void magic caused Aximand, Lucia, and their guardians to stagger…even Ord’taeril, as exposed to it as he was, reeled and clutched at his head. When the darkness cleared, the murderer and all of the other Shadowhowl worgen lay dead in the ashen cobblestones. Short a leg, Shankolin was forced to levitate.

Then he looked up at them. ALL OF YOU, DIE!!! he screamed psychically.

Aximand raised the jeweled sword he carried in his right hand and pointed the tip in Shankolin’s direction. From above, another roar ripped through the air - Amaranth, Arrhae Leafrunner’s frostwyrm, which had bound itself to him after her final death. Raising a shield around himself, Shankolin braced for the barrage of ice that was coming. His companions were not so fortunate, either frozen solid or cut down by flying shards of frozen water.

The others had kept going, and he used his Scourge-granted power to quickly close the distance, preferably before the priest was able to pursue them. Running up the ramp, Aximand called out to the Tidesage at the bow. “Push us off!”

“Hold on,” the Kul Tiran replied grimly. The water began to roil around them as it pushed them off from the harbor, following the ships of Jaina Proudmoore’s flotilla - and the surviving ships of the Golden Fleet pursuing them - out of Zandalari waters, moving like a bat out of hell.

They were in such a hurry to leave that they didn’t realize they had a stowaway who had snuck in with them in the Port of Zuldazar.

Ord’taeril, leaning against the mast as if it was the only thing keeping him upright, smelled something familiar very close to him… which meant someone was sneaking it around. “By the Ancients…” He whirled around to face Aximand. “We have a sapper onboard!”

“What?!” Aximand, gripping the wheel like a lifeline, peered over it and down at the deck. “Are you sure?”

“I was an engineer back before the change, Admiral. I’d know the smell of goblin explosives anywhere.”

“Find him! Now! Even with the Tidesage, we’re still days from Kul Tiras! We can’t afford to go down here!”

“Too late for that, human,” grinned the goblin who had snuck aboard, charges strapped to his chest. “For the Horde!”

Aximand’s eyes widened in horror. “Get him before --”

The sapper detonated his payload.

---

Hovering on the balcony of the great pyramid, Shankolin saw the explosion on the horizon, and somehow instinctively knew it was the Springhawk. He smiled to himself. Perhaps this day would not be a complete bust after all.

For now, however, he had to return to Orgrimmar, and get this damn leg reattached. He hoped that Undertaker Mordo was one of the survivors evacuated from Tirisfal - drawing from Sekhesmet’s memories, Shankolin knew he did good work…

[Zherron-cenarion-circle]

Lucia Zherron was certain they were dead. They were dead, and this was hell.

But if this was hell… why was there a chill breeze coming in?

And for that matter, where was she in? The last thing she remembered, she’d been on the deck of the Springhawk. Her eyes fluttered a moment, trying to get a grasp of where she was.

“She is stirring, Inquisitor,” she heard a woman’s voice say.

Lucia made to sit up, but a pair of hands pressed gently on her shoulders to keep her immobile. A serious-looking woman in a robe was there, her white hair tied back.

“Let’s not jump up too quickly. You’ve had a long trip.” The voice she heard now was distinctly male, and she peered up behind the healer at the owner. A generously-fleshed man, long brown hair with just hints of gray, and a beard and sideburns. He wore well-tailored leather in earthy colors. A normal looking man, but for two things.

One was the rosethorn staff he carried, the roots wrapping around a mottled skull. Having had one herself when she was a novice, she recognized it as something typically carried by the harvest-witches of Gilneas.

The other was the sword piercing the open book on his tabard. The sigil of the Order of Embers. The witch hunters of…

“Drustvar,” she whispered.

“Yes,” the man - the inquisitor - answered. “You’re among friends, Gilnean. And you’re damned lucky to be alive, let me tell you. The wreckage from your ship washed up near Falconhurst some days ago; judging from the smell of you lot when you washed up, you’d been out there longer than that. The way you were all raggedy, we thought you were pirates. Especially that greenish-looking fellow. But then he gave us this.” He held up a worn-looking seal.

Lucia recognized it instantly. It was the royal seal from a letter of marque, the authorization for a privateer to act independently on the high seas with the blessings of Stormwind and the Alliance. Only one person on the ship had carried that seal. And based on what the inquisitor had just said, he was alive. She felt relief. Unable to speak much higher than a whisper, she was only able to get out one word, a question: “Others?”

“There were others,” the inquisitor replied with a nod. “The shadowy elf, a few humans. Most of them sailors from the crew, I would imagine. Lot of corpses, though, and bits of armor. Whatever happened to you and your ship, you must have been in a hell of a fight.”

Lucia nodded, and felt a wave of dizziness from the movement of her head. “Z…Zandalar.”

“Zandalar, eh?” The inquisitor stroked his beard. “That narrows down how long it’s been, at least.”

“Inquisitor, let her rest now,” the healer said admonishingly. “There will be plenty of time for questions and answers later.”

The inquisitor inclined his head. “Of course.”

But Lucia had one last question of her own. She was looking at his rosethorn staff. “You…a druid, too?”

The inquisitor smiled broadly. He raised his right hand, and his arm took on a slightly bestial aspect. But the claws were seemingly sheathed in what looked like bone or worn bark. Then it returned to normal. “In a manner of speaking.”

[Valkia-cenarion-circle]

While most of the fighting had been going on in Zuldazar and Nazmir, there was one other region of Zandalar that was more or less ignored by both sides in the conflict: Vol’dun. But then again, other than two active temples (one to Sethraliss, now in the hands of Vorrik and his sethrak loyalists, and the other to Akunda, liberated from a madman who sought his power) and whatever the vulpera kept finding in the desert, there was not a whole lot to fight over.

That suited Valkia’jin the Spiritseeker just fine.

Sitting on a dune not far from the ruins of Atul’Aman, the former prison of Mythrax the Unraveler, the exiled witch doctor underwent her daily meditation. Unlike other exiles, who banded together in little groups and fought each other for the meager scraps they could get in the desert, Valkia made it a point of remaining alone and ever on the move, sleeping wherever she could find shelter (if she managed to sleep at all), and staying relatively close to vulpera caravan routes. While understandably wary of their reluctant neighbors, the vulpera did not tend to be hostile, and had a spirit Valkia couldn’t help but admire; they lived with what they had, when they had it. Just as she now did.

Though Zul’s fanatics had destroyed her totems in front of her before Jakra’zet had pronounced his sentence, Valkia knew that she had done no wrong to the spirits, and had been able to collect stone from the ruins in the desert - though not from anywhere near Zem’lan, as that place was cursed - to carve new ones. Her skin was leathery, her braided white hair brittle, and her robes and mask frayed and worn. Yet she did not complain. For following Zul in the first place, she mused, she deserved far worse.

She frowned as she sensed something different approaching from nearby. Another exile, but not Zandalari, or even troll at all. A hooded robe concealed his features from observers, but nothing could hide what he was. She could also sense the arcane power he wielded, in the form of ice magics - a pitiful means of recreating the spirits’ blessings with sorcery.

When he had approached within earshot, she spoke without opening her eyes. “What be on ya mind, mage?”

“I recall hearing about you from the Darkspear.” A blood elf. The accent gave him away. “You were in Pandaria. You came back to Zandalar with…the priest.”

She noted he could not say his name, but knew exactly who he meant. “Dat be so. He be sendin’ ya?”

“No,” he replied bluntly, as she expected he would. “I doubt he even knows I’m here. If he did, I would be dead. And if he knew you were here, he wouldn’t care.”

“Ah. So da man dat me brothas knew from Yojamba Isle is indeed no more.” She did not so much as move a muscle beyond those it required to speak, and her voice was clear despite the mask that concealed her features. “So what d’ya want, mon?”

“I have come to invite you back to Zuldazar, and to join us formally as a member of the Horde.”

Valkia laughed. “A member of da Horde, eh? Too bad Jakra’zet be dead, as he’d be havin’ words about dat.” She had heard from the vulpera that the general had been killed raising Mythrax. “Given dat dere still be a Zuldazar, Mythrax failed ta take da place.”

“It did, though not without cost. The Faceless and its master, G’huun, were hunted down and destroyed in the Titan vaults beneath Nazmir. There were a lot of deaths, but…it worked out.”

“Titan vaults, ya say. Like Pandaria?” At the elf’s nod, Valkia considered this. “And Zul be gettin’ what came ta him, too, I hope.” Another nod. “Dat’s good. Dis ‘G’huun’ business was why he stabbed Rastakhan in da back in da first place, though I hear he lived…”

“No more,” the elf replied. “Rastakhan is dead. Talanji now rules in Dazar’alor.”

“Ah. Proved he be only mortal aftah all, den, eh?” Valkia gave a light snort. “Well, Zul always been a crafty one. He’d know how ta make it slow and painful…”

“Zul had nothing to do with it. Rastakhan was killed by the Alliance.”

That surprised her. “De Alliance? As in humans, dwarves, dat Alliance?”

“The same. The fleet is destroyed, and the king is dead…but it seems that Sylvanas is not allowing a potential resource to be unused. She is still welcoming the Zandalari into the Horde.”

She noted the way he spoke Sylvanas’ name, the sarcasm at the bit about the Zandalari being “resources”. She stirred, and looked up at him through her scowling mask. “An’ ya be against it?”

“Not at all. What I am against is the Zandalari just being more meat for Sylvanas’ grinders. She cares nothing for the lives she wastes in a war over the blood of our world, only the petty satisfaction she gets from the bloodshed.”

“Dere were whispers about da burnin’ of Teldrassil when I left da Echo Isles,” Valkia recalled. “Even some of da deaders not be likin’ it.”

“And she’s taken to imprisoning or killing anyone who speaks out against it. That priest you mentioned is one of those who puts out death warrants for people like me. What the Horde is doing is not war, it’s murder. And if it is not stopped, all will be lost.”

“So what den d’ya want with me, mon?”

“For a start, as I said…to bring you home. Beyond that…there will be others like me in the Horde, who will work with anyone who can help restore what little honor we had as a people. Even working with the Alliance…those in the Alliance who are not as blinded by hate as Sylvanas and her ilk.”

Valkia was silent for a moment. Home. For the longest time, she had begun to think this would be her home now, forever. And in a way, perhaps it could be. But Vol’dun, for all that it was bleak, isolated, and avoided like a plague, was still part of Zandalar. And no matter the mistakes she had made before, she had come back because she was Zandalari, and the spirits of the homeland still had uses for her…

Finally, she asked him, “Ya got a portal in ya pocket, den, mon?”