[Writing] - Episode 1

[enveri]

Cursing under her breath as she stepped down onto the cobbled streets of Stormwind, Enveri bit her lip and frowned, trying to think. She had been to every inn and stable in the city, checked the various parks, even the Royal Library, and been unable to find the mysterious stranger that had been inquiring into her whereabouts. She sighed heavily. There was no hope for it, whomever the stranger was... they would find her eventually. None of the citizens she had spoken to had been able to provide her with a name, only that it was a woman, and that she was Draenei.

Enveri had been only been in Stormwind for a few months, and there were few that would attempt to contact her. She had been sent back to the city to recuperate after a severe wound in Icecrown, and was not expecting to receive orders for her return for some time. At first, she had hated the confinement, finding the area loud, odorous and unpleasant. As her healing progressed, her activity levels increased, and she found herself slowly coming to love the place. With the hot summer days that baked the streets, the children swimming in the canals, people of all races bustling about their lives, the loud cacophony of a large city filled to capacity filled her ears.

She began to wander aimlessly, ignoring the cries of vendors hawking their wares, the noise of the streets fading into the background of her mind. That someone was looking for her... that was cause for concern. Her thoughts wandered, trying to think of who might be searching. The only ones she could think of would be family, and she felt a sudden chill at the base of her spine. She had not seen her sister Keialaaria in several years, and her mother... had it really been decades? They wrote infrequently, but each woman had found herself living a life that made keeping in touch with loved ones difficult, and... Veri’s choice of undertaking shamanism training had not been a popular one with her family.

She sighed as she found herself just inside the stone arch marking the entrance to the city, leaning carefully against a stone balustrade so she could shift her weight off her left leg. A painful twinge had begun high up on her ribs, and she absently massaged her side as she pondered the question of whether her family had sent a messenger. She was distracted from her musings when a cry went up among the nearby guard post, the Stormwind guards emerging from their station with voices raised, challenging a figure not yet visible. They clustered together, gesticulating and pointing, fingering scabbards and gathering the attention of passersby. Veri watched with interest as one of the men darted back into the small stone hut that housed the guardsmen on duty, then emerged a few minutes later with another, obviously an officer.

At a word from their captain, the assembled guardsmen formed a loose rank behind him, shifting uneasily and loosening their blades in their scabbards. This caught Veri’s interest, her thoughts of family lost as she wondered who or what was coming through the gates. The guards had not sounded the general alert, so it must not be an incursion of horde forces, but their demeanor suggested something unwelcome or unpleasant was about to happen. A tingle too faint to be a premonition rippled down her spine, her scalp crawling unpleasantly. She blinked, reaching up to rub the back of her head, looking around slowly. Nothing out of the ordinary stuck out at her, although the strange behavior of the guardsmen had caught the attention of the people on the streets, and a crowd was beginning to gather.

An odd chime coupled with the creak of harness caught her attention, and she turned back to the gate in time to see a heavily cloaked rider approach, the hooves of its war steed chiming on the cobbles like a blacksmith’s hammer. Enveri felt as if she had been punched in the stomach, all the breath leaving her body with a soft whoosh. Shortly after Varian had made the proclamation of amnesty, she had traveled to Stormwind, spending weeks scrutinizing the faces of each death knight that came through the gates, looking for one face in particular, one as familiar as her own. She had been half mad with grief, her memories of those days hazy and confused. She shivered wrapping her arms around herself, the memory rising like a flood to envelop her mind...

***

She began hearing rumors that King Varian Wrynn of Stormwind had issued an amnesty for the Death Knights serving under Darion Mograine, but such a thing seemed utterly preposterous. Her eldest sister Sibeal, a Vindicator, had vanished during the fighting at Light’s Hope Chapel, and Enveri had been among the volunteers from the Shattered Sun Offensive that responded. She was in the plagued lands helping with the survivors when she received word she was being dispatched to Stormwind with a report on the fighting.

The sun had been hot overhead, trickles of sweat running down her sides beneath her gear. Her previous assignments had taken her on various deployments in the Outlands, and she found herself wilting in the heat of a Stormwind summer. She had stopped to rest for a moment before searching for lodgings, eying the sign of a local wine shop and wondering if she had time for a drink when a commotion rose at the gates of the city nearby, the guardsmen boiling out of their station like angry ants. She moved to her mount, fatigue forgotten, grabbing her weapons and heading for the gate, ready to offer assistance, when the rider came through the stone archway.

She had heard of the fearsome Knights of the Ebon Blade from the survivors that fought with the Argent Dawn, but had never seen a death knight in person, nor one of their horrific war horses. The rider pushed back her hood to reveal a pale night elf woman. She might have once been a beauty, before she was raised. Now her hair was tangled and brittle, looking as if it had been hacked at with a sword. Her skin was a mass of dark smudges, pale and sickly where not dark. The rider murmured something at the assembled guardsmen, passing them a leather packet while her mount shifted restively.

Enveri and the assembled crowd watched in disbelief as the Captain opened the packet and read through the contents, his men muttering among themselves. He threw the letter packet up at the knight with a scowl, gesturing for his men to let her pass. The elf caught the packet neatly, tucked it against her body, and clucked to her mount, sending the unearthly steed chiming into the city.

“MURDERER!”

The voice rang out from nowhere, the gathered citizenry muttering angrily amongst themselves. Enveri stared, her weapons forgotten in her hands as one of the knights she had spent the last several weeks fighting rode calmly into the capital of the Alliance. A tomato hit the cobbles in front of the charger with a dull splut, followed by a half rotted apple. The people of Stormwind had sent their brothers, sisters, children and parents to the Eastern Plaguelands to fight, and now their anger had a target. The enemy had walked through the front door.

“Get a rope!”

“That monster killed our families!”

The crowd was swiftly turning into a mob, and Veri stood, numb and shaking, unable to move to diffuse the situation. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. She glanced over at the gate, but the Captain of the guard had turned his back, ordering his men back to their posts, clearly unwilling to intervene.

“My children! You MONSTERS killed my children!”

Something in her snapped. She had seen the broken little bodies, witnessed first hand what the scourge did to children, and everyone else they could get their hands on. She had seen things that made her wake in the night in a cold sweat, and they were perpetuated by...this knight. This knight, and others like her. Enveri wasn’t aware of stooping down and picking up a large rock. She watched herself throw it, dispassionate and detached, as if she was watching someone else.

She screamed out her grief, her fury. Sibéal, all the nameless mothers, daughters, fathers and sons that would leave gaping holes of pain behind them. Sibéal’s body had never been recovered. Her weapons had fallen to the stones with a metallic clatter, forgotten. Others in the crowd picked up the cry, the mob surging forward to surround the death charger, and Veri was swept along at the forefront.

The noise was deafening. She was buffeted through the crowd, struggling to keep her feet. Veri found herself at the knight’s stirrup and gazed up into the face of the scourge, the terror that had haunted her dreams for the past several months now had physical form. She found herself shaking her head in denial; she could not believe that King Varian would allow these creatures, these monsters to align themselves with the Alliance.

“NO! You BETRAYED us!”

Enveri did not recognize the voice as her own, did not hear the screams of the men and women around her as they took up the cry, the mood taking a sudden and violent turn from angry and resentful to angry and violent. The war horse, already restive from the shouting, laid its ears back and squealed, reaching out to bite the nearest person, a human woman. This seemed to be the cue the mob was waiting for. Rocks pelted through the air, striking innocents as much as the struggling death knight, adding to the chaos. Veri watched as hands gripped the woman’s forearm and yanked, toppling her out of the saddle. She found herself on the ground, kneeling over the prone knight, who was ineffectually trying to shield her head with her hands. Veri grunted as she felt feet thudding into her ribs, her eyes locked onto the pale form below her.

Hands... her hands.. were wrapped around the throat of the night elf woman, and Veri felt her lips curl in an unconscious snarl. She heard herself crying out, “For Sibéal!” in a cracked and broken voice. The dark dead eyes beneath her sparked, the expression in them bleak, lost. Their eyes met, and there was a moment of recognition. Veri was able to see, as a connection had opened between their minds, the horrors the woman had experienced. Every depraved and degrading thing one sentient creature could do to another, the death knights endured. The elf’s eyes were deep wells of anguish, her lips cracked and bleeding, her hoarse whisper over and over again; “Thank you.” Then the light in her eyes went dim, her body limp.

Enveri lifted her hands, horrorstruck. The encounter took no more than a few minutes, but she felt as if it were her laying on the cobbles growing cold, not the elf woman. She reeled at what she had just experienced, numb to the shouts around her, the thudding blows of feet striking the limp form beneath her. She, like many other that had fought against the scourge, had not given any thought to the plight of the death knights who had broken the Lich King’s control. She had been so blinded with hatred that she had never considered once, the horrible grief and guilt that must weigh upon their souls. She shook her head in silent denial, tears streaking her cheeks. She didn’t want this knowledge. She tried to summon her hatred, her anger, but found herself fumbling after smoke, the contamination on her soul draining away like water. Veri stared dumbly down at the form beneath her, feeling hollow and empty. She never saw the blow that sent her spinning into unconsciousness.

***

The sounds of the city pressed loud against her ears, bringing her back to the present. She breathed deeply, surreptitiously wiping her eyes and squinting against the glare of the afternoon sun. The cloaked death knight was stopping at the gates for the guard’s challenge, presenting her papers for inspection, her hood shadowing her face.

Now, such sights were, if not common, much less remarked upon. The townspeople went about their business with no more than frowns for the cloaked rider, and if they didn't like the influx of dangerous fighters, at least most of them only wrecked taverns, not people. She stretched, wincing at a deep ache in her hooves from all the walking on stones.

The confrontation at the gates seemed louder, raised voices attracting more attention. The charger was restless, its hooves chiming on the stones, its rider gesturing to the cluster of guards surrounding them. Enveri squinted toward the group, something about the gestures triggering a memory, the way the figure moved. She shook her head, moving off toward her rented room. Perhaps it was time for her to move on.