Aegospotami
19-08-2009, 04:14 AM
Even sitting down, the Tauren was massive. He sat in meditation a few feet beyond the entrance of the cave, the top of his giant form expanding and contracting with his breath cycle. Shadows from the flames of a dozen candles danced against the walls like a black wave, and incense lingered in clouds that swayed with the wind.
Standing at the entrance to the cave, Ellada bit her lip. She could hear the crickets chirping behind her in the wild undergrowth of the ridge, and a prairie wolf howling from the Mulgore plains in the distance. She opened her mouth to speak, but stopped short when the Tauren's eyes snapped open and fixed on her.
"The wind told me you were coming."
There was a gentle expressiveness in the Tauren's eyes, a reassuring calm in the rumble of his voice, and Ellada felt her fear wash away.
"I've come..." she began. "I've come to warn you that.."
And suddenly the Tauren was on his feet with a reflexiveness that betrayed his huge form, two massive axes rising in his fists as he covered the distance toward her in one stride. She was wrong to come here, and she was going to die. She cursed herself for being so stupid, and frozen with renewed fear, grasped desperately at her magic.
But the shaman nudged her aside, gentle but with enough force to knock her off her feet at the lip of the cave, and in her peripheral vision she saw his axes crest and then fall, finding their mark in a black-clad figure behind her.
The assassin crumpled and fell as a second intruder lunged at the Tauren, turning a patch of dark fur scarlet with a thrust of a sickly green dagger. A third figure emerged from the shadows, then a fourth, forming a semi-circle around the mouth of the cave as they faced the shaman.
For an instant they regarded each other, the towering Tauren and the three human assassins fingering their weapons as they inched toward him. In a moment the black-clad figures rushed, daggers and swords raised as the shaman lifted a hoofed foot and brought it crashing down into the earth. The cave shook, and the assassins paused momentarily to keep their balance before refocusing on the looming figure.
Ellada shook off her disbelief and fear, knowing that she had to intercede. She raised her hands, weaving a layer of frost from underneath the earth that emerged from the grass and solidified into crystalline ice around the momentarily stunned attacker's feet. The shaman dropped his axes, and both cave and ridge shook with the sound of booming thunder as lightning ripped from his gauntleted hands.
When the brightness faded and Ellada's eyes readjusted to the gloom of the cave, the wounded Tauren stood above the smoking corpses.
He turned to face her.
"We have to go."
-----
Holding one of the railings that ringed the wooden platform, Ellada willed herself not to look down, focusing instead on two burly Tauren working the rope that lifted the elevator. They were several hundred feet into their ascent, and the rooftops of wooden lodges and brightly painted totems came into view, illuminated by firelight.
Blackhoof stood beside her, seemingly oblivious to the perilous height. Hasty introductions had been made as they fled the carnage in the cave near Red Rock, cutting across the moon-lit plain of Mulgore toward the Tauren city.
The elevator creaked to a halt with the two Tauren atop the mesa offering soft-spoken greetings in Taurahe to Blackhoof. They regarded Ellada with curiosity. She was certainly not the first Blood Elf to have come to the secluded city, but arriving in the middle of the night accompanied by a shaman was certain to occasion comment among its inhabitants.
Blackhoof beckoned for her to follow as he made his way across the main rise, quiet except for the crackle of fire from torches and the snapping of tent flaps against the wind. They crossed the rise in silence, making their way up a hollow central totem that rose into a stylized version of a Tauren face rendered in a solid trunk of wood.
They emerged after several looping turns through a spiral walkway, stepping out onto the highest rise of the elevated city. Before them was an assembly area, with large oak benches forming a sort of amphitheater around a central fire. Its embers still glowed in the dark. On the far side of the rise, members of the Tauren chieftan's honor guard stood silent watch on the steps leading to his hall.
Blackhoof moved towards the wide building with urgency in his steps, but Ellada tugged at his elbow, keeping her voice low as she pointed him towards the vista from the edge of the rise. From their vantage point nearly a thousand feet up, they could see as far as the mountains that separated Mulgore from the Barrens. Out beyond the Golden Plains, at the edge of Stonebull Lake, thousands of tiny lights flickered against the dark.
"Campfires," she said. "They weren't there when I rode through earlier. I hope they belong to your people."
Blackhoof didn't answer her at first, and Ellada began to wonder if he had heard her.
"They don't," he said after a long pause, his eyed still fixes on the sight below them. "We have to wake the Chieftan."
-----
Most of the city had been roused, but if they hadn't, the sounds of the approaching invasion force would have been enough to wake even the Undead in the caverns below.
There was activity across the main rise now, and Ellada could see the large outlines of Tauren defenders moving to prepare for the siege on the lower rises. She sat cross-legged near the edge of the bluff, looking east where the enemy fires extended for miles toward the Barrens. A few paces away, a young Tauren sat staring with rapt attention, fingering the blade of an axe that rested across his knees.
Ellada cast a glance behind her, where Cairne Bloodhoof and a small group of the city's elders stood around a high wooden table. Blackhoof was among them, and she watched him nod agreement at some military consideration as the chieftan drew a thick finger across a map on the table.
"They are moving toward us," said the young Tauren sitting next to Ellada, drawing her attention back to the massed enemy.
"And if your leaders had any sense," she told him, "they'd have started evacuating the city by the western lifts hours ago."
The white-furred creature regarded her with a look that said she was mad. "But we would miss the dance," he said, nodding his head back toward the approaching armies.
She started to reply, but he sprang to his feet before she could speak, beaming at the approach of some two-dozen Orcs who emerged from the great totem's stairway.
"Lok'tar ogar!" he exclaimed, to cheers from the assembled Orcs. "The greetings of the battle-day."
"Ak'magosh," came the reply from one of the foremost Orcs, who put one hand on the young Tauren's shoulder in greeting. "I trust your blade is sharp, young Ghostwalker?"
The Tauren hefted the axe, and Ellada could see it crackle with luminescent energy, tiny motes shimmering over the midnight-black horizon of the blade.
The Orc grunted approval and clapped Ghostwalker on the shoulder before turning toward Bloodhoof's small assembly.
Ellada heard a deep voice calling her name, and turned to see Blackhoof beckoning her over to the table. She stood up, brushing grass from her cloak, and blinked to the table, drawing surprised glances from some of those Tauren who had gathered. They were not accustomed to such casual displays of magic, and for some who had never ventured beyond Mulgore's verdant plains, it was the first time they had seen an arcanist in the flesh.
Blackhoof gestured toward her.
"This one is called Ellada," he told Cairne in Orcish. "She came to me at the cave, a warning with the wind before the assassins attempted to take my life."
He looked at the chieftan, then regarded the druids, shaman, and warriors who formed a circle around the table, tapping a finger against the dry parchment of the map where a mountain range separated Mulgore from the Barrens. "She came to tell me of another threat."
All eyes snapped to Ellada, and she regarded the chieftan as she met his gaze.
"I saw a wyrm," she said in Orcish, her voice steady. "Its reigns were held by a skeletal rider, and it was itself undead."
Ellada paused as Blackhoof nodded at her words and repeated them in Taurahe, watching recognition spread among the faces of those who had not understood her earlier words. Cairne considered the news, and when his reply came, it was low and soft. "You speak of a creature from Northrend?"
"Yes," she said, casting an uneasy glance at Blackhoof. "It was reanimated, and I recognized the sickly blue glow as the work of the Lich King."
She swept her gaze across the Taurens and Orcs who watched her from around the table. "As you know, my people have an affinity for every manner of magic. It's instinct for us, reaching out when we feel the arcane." She sighed. "I reached out cautiously, and when I touched it, I recoiled. It felt...wrong. Very wrong. Instead of energy, there was horror."
"It was like..." she paused, mouthing the word in Thalassian. "Like dying from cold."
Thanks for reading, there's more to come soon!
Standing at the entrance to the cave, Ellada bit her lip. She could hear the crickets chirping behind her in the wild undergrowth of the ridge, and a prairie wolf howling from the Mulgore plains in the distance. She opened her mouth to speak, but stopped short when the Tauren's eyes snapped open and fixed on her.
"The wind told me you were coming."
There was a gentle expressiveness in the Tauren's eyes, a reassuring calm in the rumble of his voice, and Ellada felt her fear wash away.
"I've come..." she began. "I've come to warn you that.."
And suddenly the Tauren was on his feet with a reflexiveness that betrayed his huge form, two massive axes rising in his fists as he covered the distance toward her in one stride. She was wrong to come here, and she was going to die. She cursed herself for being so stupid, and frozen with renewed fear, grasped desperately at her magic.
But the shaman nudged her aside, gentle but with enough force to knock her off her feet at the lip of the cave, and in her peripheral vision she saw his axes crest and then fall, finding their mark in a black-clad figure behind her.
The assassin crumpled and fell as a second intruder lunged at the Tauren, turning a patch of dark fur scarlet with a thrust of a sickly green dagger. A third figure emerged from the shadows, then a fourth, forming a semi-circle around the mouth of the cave as they faced the shaman.
For an instant they regarded each other, the towering Tauren and the three human assassins fingering their weapons as they inched toward him. In a moment the black-clad figures rushed, daggers and swords raised as the shaman lifted a hoofed foot and brought it crashing down into the earth. The cave shook, and the assassins paused momentarily to keep their balance before refocusing on the looming figure.
Ellada shook off her disbelief and fear, knowing that she had to intercede. She raised her hands, weaving a layer of frost from underneath the earth that emerged from the grass and solidified into crystalline ice around the momentarily stunned attacker's feet. The shaman dropped his axes, and both cave and ridge shook with the sound of booming thunder as lightning ripped from his gauntleted hands.
When the brightness faded and Ellada's eyes readjusted to the gloom of the cave, the wounded Tauren stood above the smoking corpses.
He turned to face her.
"We have to go."
-----
Holding one of the railings that ringed the wooden platform, Ellada willed herself not to look down, focusing instead on two burly Tauren working the rope that lifted the elevator. They were several hundred feet into their ascent, and the rooftops of wooden lodges and brightly painted totems came into view, illuminated by firelight.
Blackhoof stood beside her, seemingly oblivious to the perilous height. Hasty introductions had been made as they fled the carnage in the cave near Red Rock, cutting across the moon-lit plain of Mulgore toward the Tauren city.
The elevator creaked to a halt with the two Tauren atop the mesa offering soft-spoken greetings in Taurahe to Blackhoof. They regarded Ellada with curiosity. She was certainly not the first Blood Elf to have come to the secluded city, but arriving in the middle of the night accompanied by a shaman was certain to occasion comment among its inhabitants.
Blackhoof beckoned for her to follow as he made his way across the main rise, quiet except for the crackle of fire from torches and the snapping of tent flaps against the wind. They crossed the rise in silence, making their way up a hollow central totem that rose into a stylized version of a Tauren face rendered in a solid trunk of wood.
They emerged after several looping turns through a spiral walkway, stepping out onto the highest rise of the elevated city. Before them was an assembly area, with large oak benches forming a sort of amphitheater around a central fire. Its embers still glowed in the dark. On the far side of the rise, members of the Tauren chieftan's honor guard stood silent watch on the steps leading to his hall.
Blackhoof moved towards the wide building with urgency in his steps, but Ellada tugged at his elbow, keeping her voice low as she pointed him towards the vista from the edge of the rise. From their vantage point nearly a thousand feet up, they could see as far as the mountains that separated Mulgore from the Barrens. Out beyond the Golden Plains, at the edge of Stonebull Lake, thousands of tiny lights flickered against the dark.
"Campfires," she said. "They weren't there when I rode through earlier. I hope they belong to your people."
Blackhoof didn't answer her at first, and Ellada began to wonder if he had heard her.
"They don't," he said after a long pause, his eyed still fixes on the sight below them. "We have to wake the Chieftan."
-----
Most of the city had been roused, but if they hadn't, the sounds of the approaching invasion force would have been enough to wake even the Undead in the caverns below.
There was activity across the main rise now, and Ellada could see the large outlines of Tauren defenders moving to prepare for the siege on the lower rises. She sat cross-legged near the edge of the bluff, looking east where the enemy fires extended for miles toward the Barrens. A few paces away, a young Tauren sat staring with rapt attention, fingering the blade of an axe that rested across his knees.
Ellada cast a glance behind her, where Cairne Bloodhoof and a small group of the city's elders stood around a high wooden table. Blackhoof was among them, and she watched him nod agreement at some military consideration as the chieftan drew a thick finger across a map on the table.
"They are moving toward us," said the young Tauren sitting next to Ellada, drawing her attention back to the massed enemy.
"And if your leaders had any sense," she told him, "they'd have started evacuating the city by the western lifts hours ago."
The white-furred creature regarded her with a look that said she was mad. "But we would miss the dance," he said, nodding his head back toward the approaching armies.
She started to reply, but he sprang to his feet before she could speak, beaming at the approach of some two-dozen Orcs who emerged from the great totem's stairway.
"Lok'tar ogar!" he exclaimed, to cheers from the assembled Orcs. "The greetings of the battle-day."
"Ak'magosh," came the reply from one of the foremost Orcs, who put one hand on the young Tauren's shoulder in greeting. "I trust your blade is sharp, young Ghostwalker?"
The Tauren hefted the axe, and Ellada could see it crackle with luminescent energy, tiny motes shimmering over the midnight-black horizon of the blade.
The Orc grunted approval and clapped Ghostwalker on the shoulder before turning toward Bloodhoof's small assembly.
Ellada heard a deep voice calling her name, and turned to see Blackhoof beckoning her over to the table. She stood up, brushing grass from her cloak, and blinked to the table, drawing surprised glances from some of those Tauren who had gathered. They were not accustomed to such casual displays of magic, and for some who had never ventured beyond Mulgore's verdant plains, it was the first time they had seen an arcanist in the flesh.
Blackhoof gestured toward her.
"This one is called Ellada," he told Cairne in Orcish. "She came to me at the cave, a warning with the wind before the assassins attempted to take my life."
He looked at the chieftan, then regarded the druids, shaman, and warriors who formed a circle around the table, tapping a finger against the dry parchment of the map where a mountain range separated Mulgore from the Barrens. "She came to tell me of another threat."
All eyes snapped to Ellada, and she regarded the chieftan as she met his gaze.
"I saw a wyrm," she said in Orcish, her voice steady. "Its reigns were held by a skeletal rider, and it was itself undead."
Ellada paused as Blackhoof nodded at her words and repeated them in Taurahe, watching recognition spread among the faces of those who had not understood her earlier words. Cairne considered the news, and when his reply came, it was low and soft. "You speak of a creature from Northrend?"
"Yes," she said, casting an uneasy glance at Blackhoof. "It was reanimated, and I recognized the sickly blue glow as the work of the Lich King."
She swept her gaze across the Taurens and Orcs who watched her from around the table. "As you know, my people have an affinity for every manner of magic. It's instinct for us, reaching out when we feel the arcane." She sighed. "I reached out cautiously, and when I touched it, I recoiled. It felt...wrong. Very wrong. Instead of energy, there was horror."
"It was like..." she paused, mouthing the word in Thalassian. "Like dying from cold."
Thanks for reading, there's more to come soon!