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| Details |
| Author: | Aly |
| Summary: | The story of a fateful confrontation between Harvey Morningdew and a certain Death Knight. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
Perhaps it was fate that had led to this moment. The slow calm before the storm. The realization and recognition. He had never believed in fate, not until he had seen her, standing outside the ruins of Andorhal, a flower blooming amid a wash of corpses. Now, on this battlefield, blurred and silent, he saw fate again.
Harvey checked, double checked, triple checked the hollow of the lone tree fortunate enough to die before the plague burned through the area. There was nothing. He searched the base. Nothing. He combed through the dead grass surrounding the tree. Still nothing. A demon dog? A plaguebat? He checked for signs, but there were none. Sweeping his fingers through his hair, he took a deep breath and tried to keep calm. Jenzelle Halveris had failed to report.
His steps were heavy, but made no sound. His sword was heavy too, usually, but today he barely felt it as he slid it from its sheath across his back. The figure before him was small, twin blades already drawn, but her stance was loose and casual, as though they had all the time in the world to be right there, in that moment.
He struck first. It felt so good, taking the first swing. In his deepest heart he had always been full of angst and impatience. Meet their expectations. Be a proper Lord. Lead well. Never fail. Make no excuses. Know everything. There was always so much pressure that he felt it might burst from his skin. Stand properly. Sit properly. Walk properly. Eat properly. Speak properly. Read properly. Smile properly. Sleep properly.
The Light swelled in him, but it was not there to protect or to heal. It answered his call for justice.
Harvey left Light’s Hope Chapel in the dead of night. It was easier this way. His superiors were not concerned with the disappearance of a single Scarlet Crusader. Ralaea would want to come if she knew where he was going. He could not risk anyone else. If he went alone, perhaps the Crusade would find him less threatening. He knew he would face punishment when he returned, but Jenzelle’s safety was a more pressing concern. The gloom of the night pressed all around him, and demon dogs howled in the distance. Together with his faithful charger Temperance, he made good distance. It took him until dawn to realize he was being followed.
He was too slow, he realized, as she deflected his blade with one sword, and drove the other up under his right pauldron. The frigid blade froze even his blood as it bit into his skin. Behind him, a woman called his name.
“Just run!” he shouted at her, without looking back.
Then he remembered. Today he was not here for justice. He was here to protect. His opponent drew away again, her glowing blue eyes sizing him up. Analyzing him. Assessing him for weakness in a cold and calculating manner. This time, she drove forward in a flurry, those small swords offering more powerful blows than they looked capable of. Runes flashed across their surface. It was all he could do to keep those frosty fangs from taking another bite.
"You were not supposed to follow me.” The horses plodded on side by side as the two men kept an eye on their surroundings.
"What kind of retainer lets his Lord wander the Plaguelands alone?” Brendol Westwind flashed him a smile. “It’s almost like you’re trying to die.”
Harvey spared him a glance. “Though it may appear that way, I have no intention of dying. I have to keep an eye on your sister, after all.”
"It was a joke!” Brendol laughed a little, then silence settled between them again. Several minutes passed with no sound but the beats of the horses’ hooves on the ground, but in his eyes, in the way he shifted in his saddle, the way he checked the reins, Harvey knew Brendol had more to say.
Finally, “Maybe…you could keep less eyes on her?” He quickly continued, “The way things are now, you’re damaging her reputation, and to a mercenary, reputation is—”
"I do not want her to fight anymore.” It was the first time those words had left his mouth. That they had escaped so easily was surprising, but perhaps necessary. Brendol fell silent after that, but he did not have to speak for Harvey to guess his thoughts.
That isn’t your choice to make.
“My Lord!” Brendol called from behind him.
“I told you to run, Bren!” he yelled back, keeping his attention on the foe before him.
Her style was familiar, yet refined. Practiced. Beautiful, in a cold and deadly way. He could not help but admire her, even as he fought for his life. The Light afforded him no small advantage here, and he knew that in a contest of pure martial might, she was by far his superior. All of his swings were deflected, or dodged outright. Only the Light drove her back.
“Do you remember me?” he asked, after one such burst of Light sent her recoiling. Did it matter? But she looked so…whole. So similar to when he had last seen her. Her hair was white now, instead of pale blonde, her skin was perhaps a bit pallid, the glow of her eyes was new, but the rest…
She spoke in the hollow echo of undeath, but her expression did not change in the slightest. “Lord Morningdew.”
Tyr’s Hand was empty. Harvey and Brendol checked the houses, the chapel, the stables, and found no one. But there were also no signs of a fight. No damage, blood, or bodies. They searched until mid-afternoon, before finding a road that led deeper into the mountains. It was quiet. No demon dogs, plaguebats, or carrion grubs. No plague at all. Like Tyr’s Hand, this area seemed to have been spared its ravages, but the sight of green grass and healthy trees only fueled Harvey’s anxiety. As the sun began its steady dip behind the western mountains, they saw it. A weeping flower of death darkened the distant sky, sowing seeds that whispered of the end. A Necropolis.
She was testing him. The thought crossed his mind once or twice. While he couldn’t land any decisive blows, neither could she, or so it appeared. Behind him a swarm of ghouls kept Brendol and the woman with him from coming to his aid, though part of him was grateful. Brendol could handle ghouls, but this creature, this death knight was too skilled.
“What about Ralaea?” he asked. This time, her hands twitched visibly on the hilts of her blades, but she did not grace him with a reply. Her next attack was stronger. So strong that his sword cracked from the force, and his arm vibrated painfully. If not for the strength the Light blessed him with, he might have broken a bone or two. She did not wait for him to recover before launching her next attack, then the next, each strike driving him back until he was trapped against a fence.
There was nowhere left to retreat. When had his arms gone numb? If this drew on any longer…
They found Jenzelle seated in the grass in front of a small house with a dead man in her lap, sobbing as she tried desperately to call him back. More bodies surrounded her, two male, one female. A pale-haired death knight stood over her, blade raised for the finishing strike.
“Back!” Harvey leapt off his horse and reached for his sword, his other hand calling a protective bubble of Light around Jenzelle as he sprinted forward. The Light held against the death knight’s blade, buying Harvey time to skirt the small wooden fence surrounding the yard and close the distance. The death knight pulled back seeing his rapid approach, allowing Harvey to take up a position in front of Jenzelle.
Brendol rushed forward and helped Jenzelle to her feet and out of the way, as Harvey stepped in to cover them.
When the death knight’s eyes fell upon him, Harvey recognized her immediately. Kaela Mondragon.
Anger boiled up from within him. “I did not come here to die!” The Light responded to his anger, his call for justice. It built up and swelled within him, consecrating the very ground on which he stood and washing over everything nearby like the light of the dawn. Ghouls screamed as they burned and perished into dust, and his sword glowed golden with its power. He swung everything he had at the death knight, with the full force of the Light behind him, only…
She stopped him. Sickly green runes surrounded her in a shell. A shell the Light could not penetrate. His sword, earlier cracked from the impact of her blades on his, now shattered under the force of their swings meeting. She must have known this impact would be the last. Or perhaps that had been her aim all along. To break him first. Either way, he had no time to ponder it, or to question what her swords were made of. No time left at all.
As her blade drove into his midsection, her eyes scanned his face, taking in his shock, then agony, then fear, panic, despair. He called to the Light, prayed to it, pleaded with it. If he could just heal himself, he could find some way to beat her. But the Light never came. These moments, these feeble, gasping moments would be his last. He would die here.
Kaela Mondragon leaned in close, drawing up to his ear to whisper, “I will find Ralaea Westwind. And when I do, I will bring her before her rightful King, and she will serve beside me forever.”
Ralaea.
Harvey cursed himself for quitting. For giving up while life remained in him. He reached for her, his hand closing around her throat. Around a jagged scar running across it, revealing the tale of her death. He squeezed her. Squeezed with all his might. If she left here, she would find Ralaea.
Anything.
His world began to spin.
Anything but that.
His vision darkened. Each breath grew steadily harder to take. How much blood had he lost? Impossible to tell. He fought to stay conscious. For her. For Ralaea. He could imagine her expression, when she heard the news. Empty as that day in Andorhal. The day they’d met again.
Ralaea. He tried to reach for her. I did not want you to lose anyone else. Your friend was in trouble. I thought I could save her.
His hand passed through her shoulder and she turned to walk away. Back to Andorhal. To the crowded streets of the dead. The realization pierced him. He was no hero. Not hers. Not anyone’s. Just a man who had lived the wrong way, given up the only thing he had truly wanted, and died nowhere, and for nothing.
Harvey’s grip on the death knight faltered, and she slid out of his reach. He felt his legs give out, now that she was not holding him up.
Brendol. Bren. Run. He saw Temperance’s hooves as she broke into a gallop, and Kaela’s boots, unmoving.
He recalled the stuffed Gryphon, Bren’s gift to him, the first nights they had spent together after Lordaeron, the day he had presented to him his first sword…
Be safe, Bren. You have good instincts. Don’t do what I did.
But now it was time for the festival. For midsummer, fires, and dancing. She wore a dress this time, red and orange like the fires themselves, her hair braided as always, with matching ribbons. She had her hand in his, pulling him along, laughing and smiling. He resisted at first. What was he forgetting? It felt like something important. But the music played, the dance began, and Ralaea pulled on his arm. Yeah. It was time to go. Time to let go.
Time to die.