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| Details |
| Author: | Cambrin |
| Summary: | Cambrin fights at the battle of Light's Hope Chapel and discovers the limits of his strength. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
The eastern Plaguelands are grim as ever as Cambrin’s gryphon glides in to land near the Argent Dawn camp around Light’s Hope Chapel. He dismounts quickly, knowing a few other gryphons–so few–follow behind him bearing other reinforcements.
Carlin Redpath accosts him almost as soon as he steps away from the landing area. “What are you doing here, Cooper?” Redpath’s eyes flick over the younger man. “No tabard? I thought you Cobalt types always wear them when you’re working.”
Cambrin glances down at his unadorned armor. “I’m not here for the Company,” he says. “I’m here on my own behalf.”
Redpath looks at Cambrin again, searchingly, saying nothing for a long moment. At last he sighs. “You’re from the north, aren’t you lad?”
The young warrior nods. “Brightferry, in the Silverpine.”
“I see.” Something glints in Redpath’s eyes for a moment before he brushes it away. “Well. We can certainly use another strong sword-arm. Go see Marshal Tyrosus, he’ll find you a place in the line.”
To the west, a wall of dark clouds have gathered, sweeping towards this last bastion.
-0-
The Scourge flood into the valley like a storm-maddened river crashing over its banks, a mass of undulating gray and black and sickly green forms dotted here and there with the pinkish tones of the newly-turned. Abominations tower over their lesser fellows, and here and there Cambrin sees the glint of armor that marks the undead knights raised into the Lich King’s service. The feeble sunlight that in other times manages to penetrate the murk is long gone. His hands, wrapped around the hilt of the great stoneforged blade he hammered out under the guidance of the aging orc smith, clench ever more tightly.
“Breathe,” the woman next to him says. She’s clad in the armor and tabard of the Argent Dawn, and she looks like she’s been at war as long as Cambrin’s been alive. She claps one steel-clad hand on his shoulder. He does as she bids, drawing in the fetid air and blowing it out as he rolls his shoulders to try and dispel the tension. “We just have to hold,” she tells him and the rest of the squad stationed on the low ridge just southwest of the Chapel. “Don’t worry about stopping that whole gaggle. Just focus on the one in front of you.” She raises one arm to point with her sword and the surging mass of undead that rushes toward them like an ocean wave. “Remember, this is a fighting withdrawal. Our job is to thin them out and break their momentum. We just need to hold out until help arrives.”
In the back of his mind, he wonders how many times people in his position have heard that lie, and how many have believed it. Then, for a few fleeting seconds, he sees his comrades and new friends in his minds’ eye - exuberant Rissa, Sil with his mask of carefree unconcern, Taelei’s gleefull excitement when she discovers something new, the steadfastness of Ben and Colson and Elohad and Atley, Captain Jo’s thoughtfulness, Gwen and Sandy and Cress and Mizzy and all the others. He knows, in that moment, he’s not likely to see them again, and it hurts in a way he never expected. He wonders if this is what his uncle Borel thought when he met whatever his fate was in Stratholme years ago.And then, a single thought fills his head.
Make them pay.
And then the wave crashes into their line as steel meets steel and undead flesh, and there is no time to think.
-0-
The foe are many, and the defenders few, so few.
Behind them the archers rain down volley after volley, which helps, as do the spells cast by the mages. But there’s at least three for every one of them to deal with in close combat there along the ridgeline. Not so many for seasoned fighters to handle; by themselves, no single lesser scourgeling is a match for Cambrin or those beside him. And young as he is compared to the typical member of the Dawn, his time in Outland and the tutelage of Ben and Atley give him the skill to stand beside them and do his share of killing, and more besides.
There is nothing noble about this fighting. Other children grew up with the stories of knights and tournaments and all that, but Cambrin first learned this trade at the knee of his uncle, a weathered sell-sword who looked a decade older than his sister, Cam’s mother, despite being only half as many years her senior. He is no stranger to this butcher’s work, then, or the brutality needed to survive on the field of slaughter. Killing is his trade, no matter if it’s a Defias bandit, a raging elemental, or a pack of ghouls before him. It doesn’t bother him the way it does some others. There are people to be protected, and sometimes that takes a strong arm and sharp steel and the will to use them.
Cambrin hasn’t been a non-combatant since he was 13 years old on the harrowing retreat from Lordaeron to Stormwind. He’ll be damned if any other 13-year-olds have to do what he’s done, at least before they come of age.
And so his arms rise and fall, his blade sweeping in great arcs up and down. This is the trick to wielding a greatsword: you strike from high and let the blade’s momentum carry it through to knee-height and then back up as high as it will go, using just enough strength to bring it back to the top of the arc before beginning again. It is a dance with moves choreographed by masters now long-dead, sweep and turn, step left, then right, creating a whirling zone of razor-edged death.
But however many he cuts down, however many limbs and heads he severs and splits, the Scourge keep coming. And coming.
Only four of them remain as his squad falls back to the reverse slope of the ridge, and for a moment they have respite as the archers and mages can target the enemy directly. The woman from the Dawn leans on her maul and sucks in great gulps of air, and Cambrin does the same, his greatsword and trembling legs keeping him upright.
Thunder crashes behind them and the archers’ volley falters. At that moment the grotesque head of an abomination tops the ridge. It sees their little band and charges towards them with a roar.
“Sword and board, lad,” the squad leader says, and in seconds Cambrin changes weapons. The weight of his shield pulls at his shoulder but at the same time feels comfortable. This is his usual mode, after all, and in his hands the shield is as much a weapon as the blade in his right hand. His surviving comrades rally behind him and he braces to meet the abomination’s charge.
-0-
Only he and the paladin remain on the slope by the time the abomination crashes to the earth.
She claps him on the shoulder again. “We’ve done what we set out to. Time for us to fall back to the main-”
She never finishes the sentence. Another wave of ghouls, this time backed by a handful of undead knights - not death knights, nothing that powerful - rushes them. The hulking armored forms are dangerous, and some of them have a touch of the unearthly powers of the Lich King’s chief minions. There is no time to run, no retreat, no time for anything but to raise sword and shield and meet them.
Somewhere behind them, someone still gives them support, and Cambrin feels the power of the Light rushing through him, healing the relatively minor wounds he’s suffered. The pain is still there, but gashes close and his left arm no longer feels quite so numb from the glancing mace-blow that nearly made him drop his shield. A handful of arrows take out the first ghouls and he and the paladin have time to stand back-to-back before they are surrounded.
It’s worse this time, and the smell is awful, rotting flesh and all the other noxious fumes the ghouls exude. Claws grasp the top of his shield and he brings down his sword, cutting away the hands at the wrist. His backswing catches the ghoul in the throat and Fireguard takes its head off. He thrusts at another while bashing his shield with all his strength into the head of a third, feeling the crunch of bone and the cloying grip of flesh on steel shiver up his arms. He pulls his blade free and strikes another, and another, and his world shrinks to become just this tiny space, these few square feet of ground, the smell of blood and sweat and the weight of his steel.
He doesn’t realize he’s alone for a few moments. No clue what happened, whether his partner was overcome or simply driven away from him, he can’t tell. But one thing he knows is that he can’t let any of these creatures get behind him. He remembers the ruins of the old mill nearby. He slams his shield just under the edge of the breastplate of an undead knight and then shoves his sword into the gap. The hideous light in the corpse’s eyes fades as he withdraws his blade, turns, and sprints, or, rather, staggers the few yards to the ruin. He puts his back to the wall.
Suddenly the words of an old prayer come to him, and he murmurs them as he raises his visor. “For all we ought to have thought, and have not thought; for all we ought to have said, and have not said; all we ought to have done, and have not done; we ask for forgiveness.”
He has so much yet to do…
The mass of the enemy is moving past him, ignoring the lone battered human standing amid the ruins. He draws a deep breath and bellows his challenge. “I’M STILL HERE, YOU MISERABLE SHITS! LORDAERON STILL STANDS!”
Some hear, and come his way. He closes his visor and braces.
-0-
The wall helps. His shield helps. But the wounds accumulate, and blood flows, and as it leaves him so does his strength.
He pulls back his blade after dispatching yet one more ghoul and finds himself face-to-face with another of the undead knights. This one carries a greatsword not unlike his own. He can feel the waves of malevolence radiating from the Scourge as it stalks forward and brings up its sword for a powerful overhead blow.
From somewhere deep within him, Cambrin draws for the last of his strength. He steps forward, raising his shield. The sword crashes against it and the force hammers him to his knees. His helm rings from the glancing blow the sword struck as it slid away and for a second he sees nothing but stars. But his eyes clear, and he sees the undead knight standing above him, readying a final strike.
Cambrin drops his shield and with both hands wrapped around the hilt of his sword, drives it up into the creature’s groin, through the mail and deep into whatever remains inside it. The monster shrieks as he twists the blade and yanks it out, ichor and Light knows what else spewing forth to cover him. With a final scream and clatter of steel, the knight falls away.
Cambrin drags himself to the wall and props his back against it. Whatever happens next is not up to him, not within his power to influence or shape.
Tired. So tired. He closes his eyes, sword still in his hands.