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| Details |
| Author: | Luridel |
| Summary: | Mordecai tends to the wounded at Fordragon Hold during and after the Battle for the Wrathgate. It's a bad time for everybody involved. ~1900 words. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
Chain: Morson
Mordecai feels the wash of three different paladin auras pass him by. Colson’s is very familiar and easiest to identify - he would know it anywhere. Ben’s he’s gotten used to by now. The third paladin is Sister Aiseia, and hers is relatively new - enough that he needs to look up to visually confirm that he’s guessed correctly (and he has). He waves to the squads as they ride past him up the hill. Most of them seem focused, but Colson looks directly at him.
The Blessing of Wisdom is deeply refreshing, like cold water on a hot day, and he smiles his thanks to Colson. He watches until the last of them has rounded the bend up the hill, out of sight, and then turns back to his patient.
Anchorite Osric, a tall, burly man even by draenei standards, doesn’t so much as look at Cobalt Company passing him by, but he does catch Mordecai’s inattention. “So you can smile,” he says in a warm voice as he sets a bucket of fresh water down by Mordecai’s side.
That draws a nervous giggle from Sister Lorraine, who is maybe twenty, if that. She was very grateful when Mordecai came to offer his help, earlier, and Mordecai suspects she has never worked the tents for a battle this large before.
Mordecai also suspects that his ears have gone a little red, but he nods to Osric.
“That was Cobalt Company,” Sister Lorraine says. “They’re famous mercenaries. Did you see?”
Mordecai dips a cloth into the bucket and squeezes some of the water out. “Mmhm. My husband was in that group that went by.” He doesn’t mention that he himself is also a member of Cobalt Company. That would surely invite more questions if he did.
“My partner is fighting in the vanguard,” Osric says. “Vindicator Aulon. I have never been able to talk him down from the front lines, and we have been together several hundred years.”
“Several hundred,” echoes Lorraine in awe.
Talk him down? What an odd thought. Mordecai understands the desire to keep one’s loved ones safe, but to ask that of a vindicator? A draenei paladin?
“It is good to have work to do, to keep minds away from the worst things that can happen,” Osric says. It’s not at all subtle.
There are horns that sound, and Mordecai settles the cloth on the brow of the unconscious soldier and turns to watch Highlord Fordragon descending down the hill along the road, accompanied by some of his men. Cobalt Company is not with him.
Where have they gone? Has the Highlord sent them off on yet another errand? Are they still up at the top of the hill, overlooking the battlefield? Has Cressidha or Jocoza portaled them off somewhere? He has not seen them pass him by, not even to pick up gryphons from the nearby flight master.
Mordecai pushes those possibilities aside. If they pass by him, he will know. He will feel Colson’s aura, and he will know.
There are other camps and healing tents lower down the hill, closer to the action. Closer to the danger. Mordecai suspects he might be of more use there than he is here - but he has already chosen, and Anchorite Osric and Sister Lorraine seem grateful for his help, and he knows that it will help Colson, too, to know where Mordecai is and that he will be safe.
Being safe does not mean he is idle.
Mordecai walks the row of tents, tending to the patients he has. A kaldorei man with delicate purple markings that curl up the sides of his face has managed to sit up with help, and he takes slow sips of water at Mordecai’s urging. An elderly gnomish woman who needs to rest and recover but seems to want to get up and return to the battlefield all the same receives a stern lecture from Osric.
Surely Mordecai will know when Cobalt Company joins the battle. There is no way he will miss those three auras passing by again: Ben, Sister Aiseia, Colson. Surely he will know.
He doesn’t need to worry yet. There is no reason to worry yet.
A Wildhammer gryphon streaks from the sky - not towards the landing zone, but towards them at the tents. There is something wrong with the way it flaps its wings, and it loses altitude more quickly than it should. Its rider wears a full-face helm, and they carry no weapon.
The kaldorei man drops his cup of water. What little remains in the cup splashes out and soaks into his bedding.
Mordecai stands just as the gryphon crashes into the dirt in front of Osric. It twitches, spasming, and Mordecai cannot see any visible wounds.
“Lorraine, see to the bird,” Osric calls, and picks the rider up and out of the saddle like they weigh nothing. Their gauntlets are locked in a tight grip on the reins, and Lorraine has to peel them free. Osric lays the rider down inside a tent and flicks up the visor of their helmet. There is the faintest wisp of green smog that dissipates into the air.
The face of a dwarven woman, pale and glassy-eyed, stares at her would-be saviors. She is struggling to gulp in air, Mordecai recognizes, and he murmurs a quick prayer as he moves into the small tent, kneeling down in front of the woman. His Light cannot find a wound to take hold in. There is something wrong with her throat, but the Light will not settle.
“Poison,” she says with her dying breath, and she makes the most horrible sound, and here they are: three priests, with no paladin or druid to save her life.
Poison.
Osric moves to help Lorraine with the gryphon, leaving Mordecai kneeling in front of the dead woman to try and bring her back. He reaches out with the Light–
There they come - the three paladin auras. Ben’s is thick with rage and fury, but Mordecai knows better than to feel threatened: Ben is his friend, and he’s safe. Sister Aiseia’s aura is very similar, bristling with Retribution, and difficult to pick out from Ben’s - but Mordecai knows the difference. And of course, Colson’s is Devotion, steady and sure, a solid wall of safety and Light that Mordecai would know anywhere. Mordecai cannot see any of Cobalt Company from here, not with the way the tent is positioned, but he recognizes all three of them as they pass by and rapidly vanish from his perception, as they must be riding back down the hill towards the battle.
–and there is nothing that remains of the woman’s soul for Mordecai’s Light to grasp. She is already gone.
In the wake of the horses’ hooves, Mordecai can now hear the running of feet. Screams and shouts ring out. “The battle is lost!” he manages to pick out, and “The Forsaken have betrayed us!” Something smells like it is burning. He can hear Sister Lorraine’s voice shaking as she prays. “Everyone’s dead!” he hears - a horrible wail from an unseen source.
Osric’s hand lands on his shoulder. “I must go,” he says. “I will be needed there. And I must - I must find my - Aulon.”
Mordecai nods. Behind him, the gryphon dies, and Sister Lorraine cries out in despair.
Colson is alive. Colson was alive only moments ago, and heading towards the battlefield, towards… the poison? There was poison. The gryphon rider told them that. (“Poison is one of my greater dangers. I’ve died from it more than once.”)
Mordecai fights back against the sudden surge of panic with logic as best as he can. The real danger, Colson had said once, is of him being caught by poison unawares. (“But, when I am on my guard, poison will not take me. It never has.”) There is no way Colson won’t be expecting trouble.
A sudden thought occurs to him, and he springs out of the tent, pulling the flap shut. He takes a deep breath, just to make certain he still can. Something is burning in the distance, he can pick that out easily enough, but he has no difficulty breathing. Whatever residue trapped inside the gryphon rider’s helmet must not have been significant enough to poison him, too, thank the Light.
He can’t afford to panic right now. Mordecai traces a Fear Ward over his own heart and lets the Light’s calm settle over him.
Here is the truth that the Light brings to him, whispered to his soul like a naaru’s song: The worst of the day’s harm has already passed, but there is much to be healed. Today’s dead are beyond your reach, but the living will have need of you, beacon. Shine your way into the dark for those who seek your light, today and in the days to come. It is M’uru’s melody, the true one, free of corruption and distortion.
Mordecai can feel the fear simmering somewhere under the surface, but it is deeply buried, now, and he can think.
“Brother Mortimer,” says Sister Lorraine in a tremulous voice, “What’s happening? What do we do?” She’s forgotten his name already, but Mordecai sees no reason to correct her.
Mordecai turns to her and sees once more just how young she looks. “Osric should be back soon,” he says in a calm, confident voice, knowing as he speaks that it is probably a lie. “But I may have to leave before he returns. I need you to tend to these four, and I know you can do that, Sister.” He gestures to the patients they still have, and then makes the mistake of looking at them.
The kaldorei man is crying in soft hitching sobs. He makes no attempt to dry his tears. He is still seated in his tent, but he looks out through the flap and makes eye contact with Mordecai. There is an unexpected depth of despair that he finds there, a deep and drowning well: something terrible has happened, and this man knows, despite not being there to witness it.
Sister Lorraine speaks up again, drawing Mordecai’s attention back to her. “What if they bring more, and I don’t know what to do?”
Everyone’s dead.
Mordecai knows that the tents closer to the bottom of the hill will receive the wounded first, and send them back as needed. For someone to make it this high up, they will likely be able to walk of their own power. The gryphon crashing was an anomaly, but unlikely to happen again.
“I believe in you,” he says, “but if you need more help…” Mordecai points to the next row of tents, where a priestess of Elune paces back and forth. “Ask for it.”
Mordecai sets his hands on the young woman’s shoulders. Light, she’s so short. “You can do this,” he says, trying to bestow as much confidence as he possibly can.
The shout cuts above the noise - the voice he has been hoping to hear this whole time. “Mordecai!”
Colson. Colson, looking for him, of course.
“I have to go,” Mordecai tells Sister Lorraine. “You can do this.”
She nods after a beat, and the moment he sees that she will be able to manage on her own, he pulls away without a goodbye.
“Colson!” Mordecai calls back, taking off down the hill. The fear prickles, held deep beneath the ward, but none reaches the surface. The living will have need of you, beacon.
Starting with this one.