https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxMWhQQJJeQ
The Elf sat, poring over the documents, chilling reading, there...there was no such thing here as a winnable war. The Alliance had neutralised every target, and with the fall of Undercity, they were isolated. Cut off. Oh Aye, portal Magisters could make their way to Orgrimmar and back, but. Supplies? War Material? Logistics?
Reinforcements?
He had even heard it as a joke, in a semi-joking, semi-worried way “How can you tell a military officer these days?”
“Look for someone with a face like a smacked backside”.
Everyone knew it, the number of neutral traders had dwindled, now was the time to sell up shop in Silvermoon and get out! The Hit on the Economy, frankly , not his problem. His, and the other military officer’s problem was to make sure there -was- an Economy.
That there was a city.
Aside from the Forsaken guerilla’s, and he had no idea how to contact them, they were on their own. The….
The last time this had happened..it had not ended well for Quel’thalas.
The worst of it was, he could see it...with his most cynical head on, he could see it. The Horde, undisputed masters of Kalimdor. It was beautiful in its simplicity. “You have your patch, we have ours, lets not cross over”
But no one had asked the Elves of Quel’thalas.
Was this accident of fate, or were they truly being cast to the wolves, or Lions in this case. He wracked his brains, How could the Horde get reinforcements to them? Sunsail? Quel’Danas? Were they even inclined to send aid? What happened, what did they tell the people if they sent for aid, and the answer from Grommash Hold was simply.
“No”
Everything was moving too quickly, in a few weeks the world had tilted on what had seemed such a firm axle, There wasn’t time. He had been asked already…”When do your fliers start readying the aerial defences of Quel’thalas?”
He hadn’t even -known- they needed readying…
I mean, he had, he had prepared, but...no one could have seen Teldrassil...seen Undercity…
He bit his fist and rested his other hand on the crib, the twins sleeping, between them, the kitten, Starflower opened eyes and looked at him, each of his children with a hand on her, and in her eyes he saw desolation, a city in flames, Darnassus. Was this to be Silvermoon?
No. He had flown, his fliers would have flown had the children screaming in terror been Elven, Orcish, Tauren, Human, Gnomish, even Trolls.
Would the Alliance? Would they have flown to a burning Silvermoon, to rescue his screaming children?
Did the Alliance have compassion, beyond their Imperialistic nature?
Did they love their children too?
He slammed his fist, in mid air, imagining the speeches, the arguing. He growled “By Sun and Stars one fall of Quel’thalas have I seen! I will not see another! Never Another!
The military events which have happened during the past fortnight have not come to me with any sense of surprise. Indeed, I indicated a fortnight ago as clearly as I could that the worst possibilities were open, and I made it perfectly clear then that whatever happened in Kalimdor and Lordaeron would make no difference to the resolve of Quel’thalas and the Thalassian people to fight on,
If necessary for years,
If necessary alone.
We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all the strength that the Fates grant us; to wage war against an implacable tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of mortal endeavour. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be.
I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once more able to defend our High Home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.
At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of The Regencies Government – every one of them. That is the will of the people and the nation. The Thalassian Regency and the Free People of Lordaeron, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength.
Even though large tracts of the Eastern Kingdoms, and indeed many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Alliance, and all the odious apparatus of that state, their infamous fingernail-pullers of Stormwind Intelligence Bureau Seven, we shall not Flag or Fail! We shall go on to the end. We shall continue to fight in Lordaeron, we shall fight on the seas and oceans! We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the Air! We shall defend the High Home, whatever the cost may b-
A Stirring, Tarri opened her eyes. Her gaze was bleary, but focussed enough on him, she hissed lowly.
“Gant”
“I will be abed in a moment my love”
“Gant… You are not the world’s policeman.”
“I am just trying to make sense of things in my own mind, that is all”
“Very good, now can you do it lying down?”
Brigante smiled wryly as he shucked his robe and clambered into bed.
It took a time, before that room was not lit by two glowing green eyes, and lapsed into a darkness for all of them.
“Surrender is not in my vocabulary” he muttered.
“Excellent. Getting a good night’s sleep -is- in mine” Tarrithael hissed wryly.
She opened her eyes, not unsympathetic and caressed Brigante’s brow, his eyes wrinkled even though closed.
“This is not all on you. Oh Gods and fates, it can’t be on you…”
His body heaved and he shook his head “And when the bombs fall on Eversong, on Silvermoon, when the Alliance come for us the way -she- did for Teldrassil, who will they blame for not stopping them? How many children held aloft as mute sacrifices to war must I see before I act, before I say “Enough! I will stand against this!” He sat upon the bed and shook his head “I cannot do it Tarri. You know I cannot….”
She raised herself on one elbow and stared at him “Gant….it isn’t your fault”.
He turned a scarred face on her, tears in the corners of his eyes “Don’t you see it? You should...of all people….” Tarri just looked at him, tears in the corners of her own eyes “you’re going to fight this War anyway aren’t you Gant?”
“I have to. I have to. This is no longer a war confined to small territories, this is a War that spans the globe, a World War.”
Tarri looked away “I have not been in the field since…”
Brigante nodded, “Since the Legion War, I...since…”
The sentence lay unfinished, neither wanting to end it for risk of laying guilt, the heaviest burden that lay between them. The saddest story never to be told.
“It has to be us, Tarri. It has to be us….because if they can’t rely upon us, who can they rely upon?”
Tarri frowned “So you’ll go and die, and leave me to bring up the children?”
Brigante frowned. “Don’t make this harder…”
“Than what? Than what, Brigante Summerisle? Harder than telling growing children their father coveted glory rather than watching them grow older?”
Tarrithael gestured angrily at the crib “go on then! Go on, say good bye to them! Go on! DO IT!”
Brigante shook his head slowly “I...Just stop Tarri...I can’t...I am pulled in so many directions at once...I can’t...I have so many...duties, and cares, and….
Tarrithael looked at him and slowly nodded.
“Then just follow this one, come to bed, sleep, and I will hold you and ask no questions.”
The world had too many questions, and he could not answer them all...
“Not Again” He spat into the forest “Not so soon”
Six Escadrilles he had, two on patrol, two on rest, two on readiness. Oh aye, he had a seventh, oh he had a seventh, and they eagerly carried out their duties but he would not...could not send them up. They were -Children- for goodness sake...And the worst thing...the absolute worst thing, that made of him a monster? If he asked them “Will you fly?” They would say “yes!” with all the childlike glee and enthusiasm, And they wanted to, they -wanted- to. But he could not allow that.
Could not.
Would Not.
A Blossom of fire in the sky, the Troll next to him asked “One of ours, or one of theirs?”
Brigante listened and watched a moment. “One of theirs. See it burns, thats a machine.” He huffed out a breath”Our fliers don’t blaze when they fall”
“Good way of keepin’ score mon”
Brigante watched the blazing comet as it crashed to the ground, there was no parachute.
“They don’t blaze, they just scream” he murmured.
The Troll moved away, Flier-folk were odd folk, but it was understandable, Quel’thalas was under attack. It was the last city of the Horde in the Eastern Kingdoms. He’d feel odd if it was Sen’jin under attack.
Brigante kept his eyes on the skies, That would have been one of the Cloud Reavers or Sky Sabres, Third or Fifth Escadrille...either way, someone had either ‘opened their book’ or added to their tally. Perhaps someone had made Ace..
“This can’t last” he muttered. “We haven’t the numbers…
They hadn’t. The numbers that was. Every day his messages to Orgrimmar went unanswered. Every day another name was wiped clean from the chalkboard of available fliers.
Day and night the Alliance tested them. Sooner or later he would have to face the uncomfortable, but inevitable fact. Silvermoon could not stand. Not alone...not for long.
This was not even the worst of it, their main efforts upon Arathi, That was where the warfront was, now, but looking forwards, looking to the future, looking not to this week, but what came the week after, and the week after that…
He growled and lit a cigarillo, his letter to Orgrimmar must have seemed begging...cap in hand, but what was he to do? He could but trust in the Regency, the atmosphere in Silvermoon was one of grim resolution, they had weathered a worse storm, and would weather this, but it was -his- job to stop that storm breaking. His job to hold it off, and if he could not… Why was it his Job! Such Arrogance!
He shook his head and held his head in his hands.
Our Dear friends in Orgrimmar, I write to you in time of dire need. The Alliance is at our gates, has destroyed Undercity and must soon move upon Silvermoon, Whilst our forces heroically continue their struggle, whilst there can be no doubt! None whatsoever, that every soul and spirit of the Horde will rise itself to the utmost, to their highest might! For the protection of this great continent and assured security of the Horde upon it, I must ask for added support, we need more aerial forces, Give me a hundred Windriders, and I can assure you a victory...Fifty even! Forty if it must be...For with such forces as we have, if the Alliance come for us with their full fury, and anger, and rage at past perceived injustices, then Silvermoon alone cannot hold against their aerial wrath, their fury. Give me Thirty if that is all you can spare... We will try. But you...Cannot abandon us.
Too Desperate? He huffed out a breath of smoke and shook his head. “Not desperate enough” he muttered.
To call Silvermoon’s situation as ‘parlous’ was to describe mass murder as a ‘mild social deviation’
They would come, soon enough, and in textbooks in the future, in the flier academy they would ask the question”Why did Summerisle not ask for reinforcements before the event?”
If there was a future..
They had to fight, and they would Fight! But...right now, with the odds.. With the Alliance in the ascendant, and he had to walk the streets and smile, as if everything was -fine-, when everything was not. Everything was far from fine.
His fliers were…
He closed his eyes, wiping them with a gauntlet as he remembered the screams, the burning people.
They had done their best. And he could not ask more. But he had to. He had to. Their people needed more!
He had to send them up again.
Half of them sickened by the smoke inhaled from Darnassus, or the gases over Undercity. He had to. He had to send them up again. It wasn’t just the numbers…
He realised that with a sickness in his stomach, and his brows furrowed.
It wasn’t just the numbers. The Horde needed to see the First Escadrille flying again.
The Red Death too.
He swore. This War would get him killed. But then, what war wouldn’t?
The morning would see the First Escadrille fly, red banners trailing from their leader, as if inviting an enemy would-be Ace to make a move, to try, just try it….just try…
Then, then he would feel alive...
He saw them then...Gryphonriders screaming as fire engulfed them, the dull, black smoking comets that Gyrocopter riders made, the crackling Lightning as a Wildhammer fell, The stink of jet fuel as a Rylak, one of those beasts so abused by the Iron Horde, was laid to rest, free of its suffering...the smell was unmistakeable, five of them he had shot down, a Mercy killing, though truly he would rather have ten minutes in a locked cell with whoever crafted such horrors upon a creature, with but an iron rod as his interlecutor.
He sighed.
“So many dead, and yet I’m a bloody hero?” he growled
He shook his head and walked down the Royal Exchange.
“BIgger heroes than me, more famous ones, I need to get back to my wife and children… They need me now...”
He set his feet that way but the voice called him.
“Wing Commander Summerisle. You attendance is needed now”
His voice must have sounded like a whine… “now?”
“Now, Sir”
Where must a dog go, but to his master, where does the Hound go, but to the Huntsmaster.
Brigante set his feet towards the Sunfury Spire. The Game was Afoot, The Hound must be set loose.
Nothing more. Nothing.
“I expect you to be ready to deliver a full report on our aerial defences, should the Alliance come at us in full force, to the Conclave.
There was no leeway here...It was on him, or he looked incompetent….This was not -his- job!
He laughed slightly..It -wasn’t - his job. It -Wasn’t-, it now was, and he’d been playing too keen at leading the First Escadrille to forget that. It -WAS- his job….It was the Job he was supposed to be doing…
Suddenly it settled upon him, the mantle of responsibility, but also the dread certainty that he -was- the person responsible for the ensurance of the aerial defence of part of the nation, he had...kidded himself that someone else was doing it...But no one was...it was on him.
Part of the nation depended upon him doing his job right...As he worked out the figures, and aerial defence, and what the Alliance could send against them his brow furrowed “We can’t...Perhaps if we draw forces from...no, that will then need them to be reinforced...we can’t do it! We don’t have the numbers!” He shouted.
“Then Make the Numbers Work!” Was the rebuke.
Against which, there was no reply….
The Battle For Azeroth raged on, on so many fronts, and so many battlefields….
The Numbers had to Work.
Quel’thalas’s skies would not fall….
Six Escadrilles he had, two on patrol, two on rest, two on readiness. Oh aye, he had a seventh, oh he had a seventh, and they eagerly carried out their duties but he would not...could not send them up. They were -Children- for goodness sake...And the worst thing...the absolute worst thing, that made of him a monster? If he asked them “Will you fly?” They would say “yes!” with all the childlike glee and enthusiasm, And they wanted to, they -wanted- to. But he could not allow that.
Could not.
Would Not.
A Blossom of fire in the sky, the Troll next to him asked “One of ours, or one of theirs?”
Brigante listened and watched a moment. “One of theirs. See it burns, thats a machine.” He huffed out a breath”Our fliers don’t blaze when they fall”
“Good way of keepin’ score mon”
Brigante watched the blazing comet as it crashed to the ground, there was no parachute.
“They don’t blaze, they just scream” he murmured.
The Troll moved away, Flier-folk were odd folk, but it was understandable, Quel’thalas was under attack. It was the last city of the Horde in the Eastern Kingdoms. He’d feel odd if it was Sen’jin under attack.
Brigante kept his eyes on the skies, That would have been one of the Cloud Reavers or Sky Sabres, Third or Fifth Escadrille...either way, someone had either ‘opened their book’ or added to their tally. Perhaps someone had made Ace..
“This can’t last” he muttered. “We haven’t the numbers…
They hadn’t. The numbers that was. Every day his messages to Orgrimmar went unanswered. Every day another name was wiped clean from the chalkboard of available fliers.
Day and night the Alliance tested them. Sooner or later he would have to face the uncomfortable, but inevitable fact. Silvermoon could not stand. Not alone...not for long.
This was not even the worst of it, their main efforts upon Arathi, That was where the warfront was, now, but looking forwards, looking to the future, looking not to this week, but what came the week after, and the week after that…
He growled and lit a cigarillo, his letter to Orgrimmar must have seemed begging...cap in hand, but what was he to do? He could but trust in the Regency, the atmosphere in Silvermoon was one of grim resolution, they had weathered a worse storm, and would weather this, but it was -his- job to stop that storm breaking. His job to hold it off, and if he could not… Why was it his Job! Such Arrogance!
He shook his head and held his head in his hands.
Our Dear friends in Orgrimmar, I write to you in time of dire need. The Alliance is at our gates, has destroyed Undercity and must soon move upon Silvermoon, Whilst our forces heroically continue their struggle, whilst there can be no doubt! None whatsoever, that every soul and spirit of the Horde will rise itself to the utmost, to their highest might! For the protection of this great continent and assured security of the Horde upon it, I must ask for added support, we need more aerial forces, Give me a hundred Windriders, and I can assure you a victory...Fifty even! Forty if it must be...For with such forces as we have, if the Alliance come for us with their full fury, and anger, and rage at past perceived injustices, then Silvermoon alone cannot hold against their aerial wrath, their fury. Give me Thirty if that is all you can spare... We will try. But you...Cannot abandon us.
Too Desperate? He huffed out a breath of smoke and shook his head. “Not desperate enough” he muttered.
To call Silvermoon’s situation as ‘parlous’ was to describe mass murder as a ‘mild social deviation’
They would come, soon enough, and in textbooks in the future, in the flier academy they would ask the question”Why did Summerisle not ask for reinforcements before the event?”
If there was a future..
They had to fight, and they would Fight! But...right now, with the odds.. With the Alliance in the ascendant, and he had to walk the streets and smile, as if everything was -fine-, when everything was not. Everything was far from fine.
His fliers were…
He closed his eyes, wiping them with a gauntlet as he remembered the screams, the burning people.
They had done their best. And he could not ask more. But he had to. He had to. Their people needed more!
He had to send them up again.
Half of them sickened by the smoke inhaled from Darnassus, or the gases over Undercity. He had to. He had to send them up again. It wasn’t just the numbers…
He realised that with a sickness in his stomach, and his brows furrowed.
It wasn’t just the numbers. The Horde needed to see the First Escadrille flying again.
The Red Death too.
He swore. This War would get him killed. But then, what war wouldn’t?
The morning would see the First Escadrille fly, red banners trailing from their leader, as if inviting an enemy would-be Ace to make a move, to try, just try it….just try…
Then, then he would feel alive...
He saw them then...Gryphonriders screaming as fire engulfed them, the dull, black smoking comets that Gyrocopter riders made, the crackling Lightning as a Wildhammer fell, The stink of jet fuel as a Rylak, one of those beasts so abused by the Iron Horde, was laid to rest, free of its suffering...the smell was unmistakeable, five of them he had shot down, a Mercy killing, though truly he would rather have ten minutes in a locked cell with whoever crafted such horrors upon a creature, with but an iron rod as his interlecutor.
He sighed.
“So many dead, and yet I’m a bloody hero?” he growled
He shook his head and walked down the Royal Exchange.
“BIgger heroes than me, more famous ones, I need to get back to my wife and children… They need me now...”
He set his feet that way but the voice called him.
“Wing Commander Summerisle. You attendance is needed now”
His voice must have sounded like a whine… “now?”
“Now, Sir”
Where must a dog go, but to his master, where does the Hound go, but to the Huntsmaster.
Brigante set his feet towards the Sunfury Spire. The Game was Afoot, The Hound must be set loose.
Nothing more. Nothing.
“I expect you to be ready to deliver a full report on our aerial defences, should the Alliance come at us in full force, to the Conclave.
There was no leeway here...It was on him, or he looked incompetent….This was not -his- job!
He laughed slightly..It -wasn’t - his job. It -Wasn’t-, it now was, and he’d been playing too keen at leading the First Escadrille to forget that. It -WAS- his job….It was the Job he was supposed to be doing…
Suddenly it settled upon him, the mantle of responsibility, but also the dread certainty that he -was- the person responsible for the ensurance of the aerial defence of part of the nation, he had...kidded himself that someone else was doing it...But no one was...it was on him.
Part of the nation depended upon him doing his job right...As he worked out the figures, and aerial defence, and what the Alliance could send against them his brow furrowed “We can’t...Perhaps if we draw forces from...no, that will then need them to be reinforced...we can’t do it! We don’t have the numbers!” He shouted.
“Then Make the Numbers Work!” Was the rebuke.
Against which, there was no reply….
The Battle For Azeroth raged on, on so many fronts, and so many battlefields….
The Numbers had to Work.
Quel’thalas’s skies would not fall….
The knock came late, the Elf set aside his papers and raised, adjusting his robes around him, setting down the quill, the writings fading from their arcane blue. He had no worry, as he made his way to the door. For someone to have gotten this far, past the security and Arcane Golems, they would have to be someone known, someone trusted, or someone well above his paygrade to worry about.
As it turned out, they were two of those things. The door opened to a craggy grey haired elf, dressed immaculately, in his lacquered armour, not a hulking figure, but one of implied menace, “Here is an elf who has lived long enough to ruin all of your tomorrows, for he has lived through all the yesterdays” it said. he looked briefly at Brigante’s robes before smiling wryly “You even dress like a politician these days” before he pushed the doorway open and stepped in.
“Tarri and the Children are asleep?” he asked, as he sat in one of the chairs.
“Forenth, it is late, and I don’t have time for this...look, a drink, we’ll talk whatever it is, and then you need to leave, I was finishing up and then going to bed, I really don’t have the time”
Brigante poured two measures of brandy out, setting them down on the table.
Forenth sipped from the Brandy, then the older elf looked at Brigante “You’re right.”
“I generally am, people would be amazed at how often I am, especially at damned Conclave, I mean I acted the giddy goat, and I -think- most of them bought it, but even s-”
Forenth held up a hand. It wasn’t a threat. It was his stillness, his absolute assurance that what he said, was important, more important than whatever crazy thoughts and words were coming out of your mouth.
“You’re right” He said, nodding slowly, sipping from his brandy “Ahh, hits the spot..” The aged elf smiled slowly “You’re right though, you don’t have the time”
Forenth nodded slowly, “And the thing is, you know it, up here…” Forenth tapped his temple, and instinctively Brigante did too, touching the scar tissue left from the attempted assassination in Darkshore, the wound that had plagued him ever since, the bulletwound tracing its way across the side of his head. The scar that he couldn’t help picking at...thinking that it was bleeding, thinking that it was making him mad.
“You don’t have the time...I’ve seen it before, my boy. Day by day, you know it. You’re flying too close to the glass mountain, and don’t don’t give me any platitudes about what it means, you know what it means”
Brigante shook his head “You’ve really got me at a loss there Forenth”
“You sent for me.”
Brigante stood and adjusted his robes “I really did not, You’re going mad in your old age, Forenth, perhaps you should take a break?”
“A Break?” Forenth laughed and sipped from the brandy, stretching his legs comfortably “if you were honest with yourself, you would know that you had sent for me”
“The Alliance will come for us in their full might and fury because of the Warchief’s actions”
“Your words?”
Brigante furrowed his brow and nodded “Yes, and I stand by them?”
“When was the last time, you allowed yourself a break? A Rest? A Time that was not spent with the Dragonhawks, or planning the next War? Those papers, about the upcoming threats I take it, The War?”
Brigante shuffled the papers into a pile and sipped from his own brandy. “We are the last bastion on the Eastern Continent, Quel’thalas is a logical target for the enemy.”
Forenth looked sympathetically at him “Oh my boy, you think I mean -That- War”
Forenth set his glass tumbler down on the table. “Don’t you understand it yet?”
Brigante bristled “Well as you’re all full of wisdom why don’t you tell me?” He set his own tumbler down, sitting across from the elf, his brows furrowed in annoyance.
Forenth sighed “You, sent for me. Not the you sat in robes and ready to retire to bed, but the -You- in a rookery nested on straw, the -You- that is not even an elf, but a Dragonhawk, don’t you even understand? There is such a thing as bonding -too- much...Don’t you understand that too is a Glass Mountain….?”
Brigante glared “You go too far.”
Forenth sighed slowly, “I am -Allowed- to go too far, thats the point”
Brigante glared and bared his teeth at Forenth “Not this Far!”
Forenth just stood and shook his head “Which -you- is it I am talking to? The one who lives in a house with a wife and children, or the one who lives in a Rookery? Is there even a difference anymore?”
Forenth collected his cloak and left looking over his shoulder. “I Know what you ordered at Teldrassil… what you did, what you ordered your fliers to do...thats why I came here with words, and not a dagger to put down a monster… Just remember that. This time I came with words. I serve Elves”
“Not Monsters”
The door clicked behind him as he left.
Brigante stood seething for a good few minutes, How Dare He! How Dare he come in and make such a claim!
Then the childs voices started crying from the next room, probably aroused by his angry ranting.
Was it him, or was it a trick of the mind that he was finding the crying of Elven children inseparable from the cries of Dragonhawk hatchlings?
Was it him, or did it sound like the scream of Teldrassil’s dying, as the flames rose and they could save no more. When they had to fly, knowing that those they left would burn.
His fingers scratched at the scar on his temple, setting it to bleed again.
“What have we done?” He whirled and turned into the room, the crib with the two infants filled with wailing examples of misery at the injustice of adults. Tarrithael shifted i her bed “I can’t’ Gant”
“No, No, I have them, my love, rest”
He Scooped up the two children, and held them close, two tiny moppets, as he jogged them in his arms, walking next door, to allow their mother some time to sleep, so fragile, so small, tufts of white hair like their parents, Their eyes...even as children, fierce and intense...what future of theirs was he fighting for?
He knew it then.
He knew it when they stopped crying, and instead reached out for papa’s face to touch it, and him stick his tongue out, and laugh, to slap each other with childish ineffectualness and giggle.
It didn’t matter what future he thought he was fighting for.
He was fighting for today.
Tomorrows problems?
He looked at the two infants rolling around in his lap, spiritedly trying to stick fingers up each others noses.
Tomorrows problems?
They were theirs. But no need to tell them that now, even if Forenth was right, he had...time yet...surely…
Surely?
Surely this world can give us a life without torment, with a hope that our children may grow up safe….That is not too much to ask, for such innocent children as these? He thought.
A Knock at the door.
Brigante set the children down, safely, before opening the door, he hoped his expression was of sufficient anger as to give the caller no misapprehension as to their welcome.
“Well?” He uttered.
“Sir, there have been reports of massed Alliance Aerial units out of Theslamar Sir.”
“Thats a long Trek…”
“Even so Sir, headed this way,”
Brigante pinched his nose “We’ll gather information later, Thank you for your expedient notification”
He closed the door. Walked back in the room.
War waited for no one.
He looked down at his children playing with each other and smiled. Perhaps it waited for these two. He scooped them up “HO, What Scamps have I here!” He wandered next door and set them next to their mother, before sighing, as she turned to embrace both the children.
He needed to say nothing, she said nothing, she knew. She just touched his hand and he nodded “We’re Up”.
She didn’t wish him ‘Good luck’, that was..hah, ironically, bad luck for fliers.....She just looked at him, as if this was the last time she would see him, which it might be, and simply said “Come back”. He smiled sadly “I’ll try to”
He tried to think of some words to say..some pithy or dramatic words, but he could not…
He stopped...his eyes suddenly filled with tears, he was a wordsmith beyond compare, but he had nothing? This most important of times and he had nothing?
He frowned, looked at his two infant children “Just...Tell them to be who they want to be, not what they think their father wanted them to be. Thats important” He nodded, before affixing his cloak and heading to the door.
Brigante stopped and sighed before turning back. “A Future is enough? Don’t you think?”
“I mean, it...isn’t a bad show for a life?”
“You’ll be back then, after your rough and tumble with the Alliance?”
“Well of course I will, Johnny Blue doesn’t have anything that can match even the rawest of my recruits.”
“But you?”
“They’ve got no one. No-One who can match me. Isn’t anyone in the world who can match me. I’m untouchable…”
No one is untouchable.
As it turned out, they were two of those things. The door opened to a craggy grey haired elf, dressed immaculately, in his lacquered armour, not a hulking figure, but one of implied menace, “Here is an elf who has lived long enough to ruin all of your tomorrows, for he has lived through all the yesterdays” it said. he looked briefly at Brigante’s robes before smiling wryly “You even dress like a politician these days” before he pushed the doorway open and stepped in.
“Tarri and the Children are asleep?” he asked, as he sat in one of the chairs.
“Forenth, it is late, and I don’t have time for this...look, a drink, we’ll talk whatever it is, and then you need to leave, I was finishing up and then going to bed, I really don’t have the time”
Brigante poured two measures of brandy out, setting them down on the table.
Forenth sipped from the Brandy, then the older elf looked at Brigante “You’re right.”
“I generally am, people would be amazed at how often I am, especially at damned Conclave, I mean I acted the giddy goat, and I -think- most of them bought it, but even s-”
Forenth held up a hand. It wasn’t a threat. It was his stillness, his absolute assurance that what he said, was important, more important than whatever crazy thoughts and words were coming out of your mouth.
“You’re right” He said, nodding slowly, sipping from his brandy “Ahh, hits the spot..” The aged elf smiled slowly “You’re right though, you don’t have the time”
Forenth nodded slowly, “And the thing is, you know it, up here…” Forenth tapped his temple, and instinctively Brigante did too, touching the scar tissue left from the attempted assassination in Darkshore, the wound that had plagued him ever since, the bulletwound tracing its way across the side of his head. The scar that he couldn’t help picking at...thinking that it was bleeding, thinking that it was making him mad.
“You don’t have the time...I’ve seen it before, my boy. Day by day, you know it. You’re flying too close to the glass mountain, and don’t don’t give me any platitudes about what it means, you know what it means”
Brigante shook his head “You’ve really got me at a loss there Forenth”
“You sent for me.”
Brigante stood and adjusted his robes “I really did not, You’re going mad in your old age, Forenth, perhaps you should take a break?”
“A Break?” Forenth laughed and sipped from the brandy, stretching his legs comfortably “if you were honest with yourself, you would know that you had sent for me”
“The Alliance will come for us in their full might and fury because of the Warchief’s actions”
“Your words?”
Brigante furrowed his brow and nodded “Yes, and I stand by them?”
“When was the last time, you allowed yourself a break? A Rest? A Time that was not spent with the Dragonhawks, or planning the next War? Those papers, about the upcoming threats I take it, The War?”
Brigante shuffled the papers into a pile and sipped from his own brandy. “We are the last bastion on the Eastern Continent, Quel’thalas is a logical target for the enemy.”
Forenth looked sympathetically at him “Oh my boy, you think I mean -That- War”
Forenth set his glass tumbler down on the table. “Don’t you understand it yet?”
Brigante bristled “Well as you’re all full of wisdom why don’t you tell me?” He set his own tumbler down, sitting across from the elf, his brows furrowed in annoyance.
Forenth sighed “You, sent for me. Not the you sat in robes and ready to retire to bed, but the -You- in a rookery nested on straw, the -You- that is not even an elf, but a Dragonhawk, don’t you even understand? There is such a thing as bonding -too- much...Don’t you understand that too is a Glass Mountain….?”
Brigante glared “You go too far.”
Forenth sighed slowly, “I am -Allowed- to go too far, thats the point”
Brigante glared and bared his teeth at Forenth “Not this Far!”
Forenth just stood and shook his head “Which -you- is it I am talking to? The one who lives in a house with a wife and children, or the one who lives in a Rookery? Is there even a difference anymore?”
Forenth collected his cloak and left looking over his shoulder. “I Know what you ordered at Teldrassil… what you did, what you ordered your fliers to do...thats why I came here with words, and not a dagger to put down a monster… Just remember that. This time I came with words. I serve Elves”
“Not Monsters”
The door clicked behind him as he left.
Brigante stood seething for a good few minutes, How Dare He! How Dare he come in and make such a claim!
Then the childs voices started crying from the next room, probably aroused by his angry ranting.
Was it him, or was it a trick of the mind that he was finding the crying of Elven children inseparable from the cries of Dragonhawk hatchlings?
Was it him, or did it sound like the scream of Teldrassil’s dying, as the flames rose and they could save no more. When they had to fly, knowing that those they left would burn.
His fingers scratched at the scar on his temple, setting it to bleed again.
“What have we done?” He whirled and turned into the room, the crib with the two infants filled with wailing examples of misery at the injustice of adults. Tarrithael shifted i her bed “I can’t’ Gant”
“No, No, I have them, my love, rest”
He Scooped up the two children, and held them close, two tiny moppets, as he jogged them in his arms, walking next door, to allow their mother some time to sleep, so fragile, so small, tufts of white hair like their parents, Their eyes...even as children, fierce and intense...what future of theirs was he fighting for?
He knew it then.
He knew it when they stopped crying, and instead reached out for papa’s face to touch it, and him stick his tongue out, and laugh, to slap each other with childish ineffectualness and giggle.
It didn’t matter what future he thought he was fighting for.
He was fighting for today.
Tomorrows problems?
He looked at the two infants rolling around in his lap, spiritedly trying to stick fingers up each others noses.
Tomorrows problems?
They were theirs. But no need to tell them that now, even if Forenth was right, he had...time yet...surely…
Surely?
Surely this world can give us a life without torment, with a hope that our children may grow up safe….That is not too much to ask, for such innocent children as these? He thought.
A Knock at the door.
Brigante set the children down, safely, before opening the door, he hoped his expression was of sufficient anger as to give the caller no misapprehension as to their welcome.
“Well?” He uttered.
“Sir, there have been reports of massed Alliance Aerial units out of Theslamar Sir.”
“Thats a long Trek…”
“Even so Sir, headed this way,”
Brigante pinched his nose “We’ll gather information later, Thank you for your expedient notification”
He closed the door. Walked back in the room.
War waited for no one.
He looked down at his children playing with each other and smiled. Perhaps it waited for these two. He scooped them up “HO, What Scamps have I here!” He wandered next door and set them next to their mother, before sighing, as she turned to embrace both the children.
He needed to say nothing, she said nothing, she knew. She just touched his hand and he nodded “We’re Up”.
She didn’t wish him ‘Good luck’, that was..hah, ironically, bad luck for fliers.....She just looked at him, as if this was the last time she would see him, which it might be, and simply said “Come back”. He smiled sadly “I’ll try to”
He tried to think of some words to say..some pithy or dramatic words, but he could not…
He stopped...his eyes suddenly filled with tears, he was a wordsmith beyond compare, but he had nothing? This most important of times and he had nothing?
He frowned, looked at his two infant children “Just...Tell them to be who they want to be, not what they think their father wanted them to be. Thats important” He nodded, before affixing his cloak and heading to the door.
Brigante stopped and sighed before turning back. “A Future is enough? Don’t you think?”
“I mean, it...isn’t a bad show for a life?”
“You’ll be back then, after your rough and tumble with the Alliance?”
“Well of course I will, Johnny Blue doesn’t have anything that can match even the rawest of my recruits.”
“But you?”
“They’ve got no one. No-One who can match me. Isn’t anyone in the world who can match me. I’m untouchable…”
No one is untouchable.
“This might just work….” he mused as he cast his eyes over the massed aerial wings of the Horde Forces. As he had hoped, the Queensguard had answered his request. Enemy air forces were sighted out of Theslamar, a long trek, but headed north.
Elven eyes were good. Damned good. But a Batrider who knew what they were doing, on a Bat that could sense things beyond the horizon….
They were better.
No one had given a name to it yet. It was just one of those mystical senses animals had. He didn’t know if giant bats were intelligent, they only had a few at the Aerie, and of course he could not try to Bond with one in order to find out, that would be disgusting...as vile as the idea of cheating on his wife, such a close relationship could only...he shuddered, and not just from the cold at five hundred feet as they crossed over the Thalassian Pass.
Grows Emotional, Wingless Self
The voice came unbidden in his head, before he leant forward and remarked
“Don’t tempt me to trade you in for a newer model” his voice whipped away by the wind, but his words heard, nonetheless.
They Stink.
“Not any of our faults how we are made, Sunspear, I remember you as an Egg, the Forsaken have proven good allies to us, and true”
Didst not mean the wingless ones.
Brigante looked to his left and right, behind him, his own fliers, to their left, and right, Forsaken. He had a plan, should battle be joined, but so much depended upon contact being made, and that depended upon…
He raised a gauntlet, for a moment struggling to remember the appellations the Queensguard fliers had given themselves. Some of them were clearly more expert than others, some he would have benched if they were under his command, Straggling across the skies like wayward pups, dipping and rising like uncertain Orca’s, their resolution was solid, if their skill was not, and some of them did seem to have natural skill...and beggars could not be choosers, and the Forsaken had much to fight for, they had after all, just lost their home.
Brigante intended to make sure the Sin’dorei did not lose theirs.
Again.
The names came to him, and he clicked his communicator “Fayewing, Roachwing, We need your Bats to tell us where to head, can you do that?”
A Few moments of silence to both Elven and Undead ears, before a voice came over the Comms, rasping, harsh, clearly one of the unliving gifted a communicator by his Lieutenant. “Over Andorhal, Headed North”.
Brigante nodded, before speaking again “All Wings, Head due West, initial point of intercept is Andorhal”
He smiled to himself, a crooked smile, half happiness, half grimace. He had watched them file in, his Fliers, all wearing their Flight Harnesses, the straps and buckles that would attach them to their Battle-comrades trailing, unwieldy on the ground, never worn normally except when flying. They held both state secrets and methods that made them a weapon unparallelled in the skies. The Queensguard would not have these of course, and it was above his paygrade to issue them, even if, which there was not, there was time to individually fit each rider to their mount. Did the Forsaken even -care- for their mounts the way his fliers did? Were they Battle Brothers and Sisters? Equals in life and death, or had that cold embrace stolen from them any empathy.
He had to believe it had not. Had to, else they would not have come to the aid of the Shining City, the one bastion of Hope for the Horde in the Eastern Kingdoms.
He had looked up from the briefing table, and seen them, stood in the Ranger’s Lodge. So Many…A Host such as less than twenty years ago he would have loosed arrow after arrow into their heads….Funny, the games that time plays with us… He knew there were mutterings, he had heard several, “Why are there Forsaken -Here-?” He did not care. Elves already thought him either a warmonger, a madman, or something in between.
He closed his eyes and thought of his children, of the world he wanted for them.
One day, people would see him as a saviour. Or rather they would not. They would never know.
They didn’t need to. This wasn’t about that…
He heaved in a breath. Not all Hope was lost. Their Allies were still true.
He had given a speech, it was probably a good one, he could not at this moment remember a single word of it, as his vision focussed and what was Brigante Summerisle faded, and the Predator took over, scanning the skies like an eagle.
Some of the Forsaken had wandered off, by accident or choice he could not know. He heard scattered reports “Stratholme is clear!” He grimaced and his scarred eye twitched, a sign of annoyance “Who asked them to go there!” he growled to himself.
“Get all your Wings in Order!” He barked down the Communicators.
“Fayewing, Roachwing, I need more information on those inbound, can you get me that?”
A Few seconds of delay, before the same rasping voice came back “I Have what you need Commandant. Thirty, Inbound, over Andorhal now, headed North, I would guess about five hundred feet”
The Same Forsaken...Useful piece of kit, whoever that lad was, he would have to find out, later...although….Thirty? If there was a later perhaps..
“All Wings head due North West, make approach to Mender’s Stead, climb to seven hundred feet.”
Whoever that Forsaken was...he was bang on the money, there they were, a formation, twenty Alliance Fighters, Gyrocopters, and ten of the twin engined bombers, headed north. No telling for sure where they were going, but no reason to take chances.
“Roachwing, Fayewing, engage the Fighters. Sunwing, engage the bombers” It was with bitterness he said the last, for that was the dangerous task, they would come under fire from both the enemy bombers themselves, and their escorts, and there were not enough Forsaken to occupy them all. The Alliance had the numbers, and as good as the Forsaken may prove to be, being an unknown factor, numbers always told. He was setting his Sun Hawks to be in the crossfire, but there was no other choice, it had to be this way.
In Thalassian he muttered down the Comms “Sunwing, hold one…”
The Forsaken Batriders dived down upon the enemy fighters, who broke and turned to fight, all of them eager for a kill, the Bombers carrying on.
He smiled. Good, that taught him all he needed to know, they regarded their lives as more important than the mission. Of course they did. An Invader never fought as desperately as the one defending their home, but still, he could use that knowledge…
The Bludgeon had smashed them in the face, now the time for the Stiletto in the ribs…
“Sunwing engage”
Unlike the bulky bats and shining Gyrocopters the Dragonhawks peeled off and turned, thin missiles diving through the aerial combat, as he passed through he saw a particularly daring Forsaken, slam his Bat at the tailpiece of a Gyro, ripping it off even as its Gnomish pilot fired a gun over his shoulder, as the Gyro bellied up, the Batrider had his steed grab the mechanical contraption and hurl it at the close by mountains over Mender’s Stead, an explosion of black smoke and red fire.
“Inventive!” He remarked calmly, as his eyes narrowed, the sky a sudden aerial bar fight, nothing of finesse, the Forsaken fliers obviously working off some tensions.. his Hawks however sailing serenely through it, their focus on the bombers. Callous? Yes. Practical? Yes. and the Sin’dorei were nothing but practical.
And then the bullets started to flash by his head, from a pursuing fighter as yet unengaged, and ahead, he set his sights on a target, and saw the human in the rear of the bomber swing around the gun mounted on the back and with a ‘Pom Pom Pom!’ sound, rounds lazily zipped towards him, only seeming to take on speed as they neared, when suddenly they were like lightning flashes around his head.
HIs fliers started to take hits, he could hear, through the lended Comms on a different frequency, the Forsaken were also. Didn’t matter to him right now, a fixed grin on his face, banners flying behind him proclaiming who he was, his kills, as if the red armoured Dragonhawk was not enough... the panic on the enemy gunner’s face even behind their goggles, it wasn’t that he didn’t care, but if he stopped to care, he’d get them all killed..
Sunspear’s flame washed over the left engine which started to trail black smoke, the pilot was clever, play to your strengths, He went with the damage, spinning the bomber, bringing his gunner into play again ‘Pom Pom Pom’ sounded the gun, trailing in closer to Brigante, he was still taking fire from behind., so dived even lower, below the Bomber, the gunner couldn’t hit him here, Before rising and giving flame to set the left engine not to smoking, but to explode, taking the wing with it, the bomber span over and over, before slamming into the patchwork fields below..
There were no parachutes.
“Bad luck” he remarked.
All over the Comms he was hearing similar, from Sin’dorei and Forsaken fliers alike “Enemy Down”. Equally, he was hearing that both Sin’dorei and Forsaken were taking Hits, they had to break the enemy morale, or lose this battle, they could not win it on numbers.
“Press On! Press on! Break Them!”
Elven eyes were good. Damned good. But a Batrider who knew what they were doing, on a Bat that could sense things beyond the horizon….
They were better.
No one had given a name to it yet. It was just one of those mystical senses animals had. He didn’t know if giant bats were intelligent, they only had a few at the Aerie, and of course he could not try to Bond with one in order to find out, that would be disgusting...as vile as the idea of cheating on his wife, such a close relationship could only...he shuddered, and not just from the cold at five hundred feet as they crossed over the Thalassian Pass.
Grows Emotional, Wingless Self
The voice came unbidden in his head, before he leant forward and remarked
“Don’t tempt me to trade you in for a newer model” his voice whipped away by the wind, but his words heard, nonetheless.
They Stink.
“Not any of our faults how we are made, Sunspear, I remember you as an Egg, the Forsaken have proven good allies to us, and true”
Didst not mean the wingless ones.
Brigante looked to his left and right, behind him, his own fliers, to their left, and right, Forsaken. He had a plan, should battle be joined, but so much depended upon contact being made, and that depended upon…
He raised a gauntlet, for a moment struggling to remember the appellations the Queensguard fliers had given themselves. Some of them were clearly more expert than others, some he would have benched if they were under his command, Straggling across the skies like wayward pups, dipping and rising like uncertain Orca’s, their resolution was solid, if their skill was not, and some of them did seem to have natural skill...and beggars could not be choosers, and the Forsaken had much to fight for, they had after all, just lost their home.
Brigante intended to make sure the Sin’dorei did not lose theirs.
Again.
The names came to him, and he clicked his communicator “Fayewing, Roachwing, We need your Bats to tell us where to head, can you do that?”
A Few moments of silence to both Elven and Undead ears, before a voice came over the Comms, rasping, harsh, clearly one of the unliving gifted a communicator by his Lieutenant. “Over Andorhal, Headed North”.
Brigante nodded, before speaking again “All Wings, Head due West, initial point of intercept is Andorhal”
He smiled to himself, a crooked smile, half happiness, half grimace. He had watched them file in, his Fliers, all wearing their Flight Harnesses, the straps and buckles that would attach them to their Battle-comrades trailing, unwieldy on the ground, never worn normally except when flying. They held both state secrets and methods that made them a weapon unparallelled in the skies. The Queensguard would not have these of course, and it was above his paygrade to issue them, even if, which there was not, there was time to individually fit each rider to their mount. Did the Forsaken even -care- for their mounts the way his fliers did? Were they Battle Brothers and Sisters? Equals in life and death, or had that cold embrace stolen from them any empathy.
He had to believe it had not. Had to, else they would not have come to the aid of the Shining City, the one bastion of Hope for the Horde in the Eastern Kingdoms.
He had looked up from the briefing table, and seen them, stood in the Ranger’s Lodge. So Many…A Host such as less than twenty years ago he would have loosed arrow after arrow into their heads….Funny, the games that time plays with us… He knew there were mutterings, he had heard several, “Why are there Forsaken -Here-?” He did not care. Elves already thought him either a warmonger, a madman, or something in between.
He closed his eyes and thought of his children, of the world he wanted for them.
One day, people would see him as a saviour. Or rather they would not. They would never know.
They didn’t need to. This wasn’t about that…
He heaved in a breath. Not all Hope was lost. Their Allies were still true.
He had given a speech, it was probably a good one, he could not at this moment remember a single word of it, as his vision focussed and what was Brigante Summerisle faded, and the Predator took over, scanning the skies like an eagle.
Some of the Forsaken had wandered off, by accident or choice he could not know. He heard scattered reports “Stratholme is clear!” He grimaced and his scarred eye twitched, a sign of annoyance “Who asked them to go there!” he growled to himself.
“Get all your Wings in Order!” He barked down the Communicators.
“Fayewing, Roachwing, I need more information on those inbound, can you get me that?”
A Few seconds of delay, before the same rasping voice came back “I Have what you need Commandant. Thirty, Inbound, over Andorhal now, headed North, I would guess about five hundred feet”
The Same Forsaken...Useful piece of kit, whoever that lad was, he would have to find out, later...although….Thirty? If there was a later perhaps..
“All Wings head due North West, make approach to Mender’s Stead, climb to seven hundred feet.”
Whoever that Forsaken was...he was bang on the money, there they were, a formation, twenty Alliance Fighters, Gyrocopters, and ten of the twin engined bombers, headed north. No telling for sure where they were going, but no reason to take chances.
“Roachwing, Fayewing, engage the Fighters. Sunwing, engage the bombers” It was with bitterness he said the last, for that was the dangerous task, they would come under fire from both the enemy bombers themselves, and their escorts, and there were not enough Forsaken to occupy them all. The Alliance had the numbers, and as good as the Forsaken may prove to be, being an unknown factor, numbers always told. He was setting his Sun Hawks to be in the crossfire, but there was no other choice, it had to be this way.
In Thalassian he muttered down the Comms “Sunwing, hold one…”
The Forsaken Batriders dived down upon the enemy fighters, who broke and turned to fight, all of them eager for a kill, the Bombers carrying on.
He smiled. Good, that taught him all he needed to know, they regarded their lives as more important than the mission. Of course they did. An Invader never fought as desperately as the one defending their home, but still, he could use that knowledge…
The Bludgeon had smashed them in the face, now the time for the Stiletto in the ribs…
“Sunwing engage”
Unlike the bulky bats and shining Gyrocopters the Dragonhawks peeled off and turned, thin missiles diving through the aerial combat, as he passed through he saw a particularly daring Forsaken, slam his Bat at the tailpiece of a Gyro, ripping it off even as its Gnomish pilot fired a gun over his shoulder, as the Gyro bellied up, the Batrider had his steed grab the mechanical contraption and hurl it at the close by mountains over Mender’s Stead, an explosion of black smoke and red fire.
“Inventive!” He remarked calmly, as his eyes narrowed, the sky a sudden aerial bar fight, nothing of finesse, the Forsaken fliers obviously working off some tensions.. his Hawks however sailing serenely through it, their focus on the bombers. Callous? Yes. Practical? Yes. and the Sin’dorei were nothing but practical.
And then the bullets started to flash by his head, from a pursuing fighter as yet unengaged, and ahead, he set his sights on a target, and saw the human in the rear of the bomber swing around the gun mounted on the back and with a ‘Pom Pom Pom!’ sound, rounds lazily zipped towards him, only seeming to take on speed as they neared, when suddenly they were like lightning flashes around his head.
HIs fliers started to take hits, he could hear, through the lended Comms on a different frequency, the Forsaken were also. Didn’t matter to him right now, a fixed grin on his face, banners flying behind him proclaiming who he was, his kills, as if the red armoured Dragonhawk was not enough... the panic on the enemy gunner’s face even behind their goggles, it wasn’t that he didn’t care, but if he stopped to care, he’d get them all killed..
Sunspear’s flame washed over the left engine which started to trail black smoke, the pilot was clever, play to your strengths, He went with the damage, spinning the bomber, bringing his gunner into play again ‘Pom Pom Pom’ sounded the gun, trailing in closer to Brigante, he was still taking fire from behind., so dived even lower, below the Bomber, the gunner couldn’t hit him here, Before rising and giving flame to set the left engine not to smoking, but to explode, taking the wing with it, the bomber span over and over, before slamming into the patchwork fields below..
There were no parachutes.
“Bad luck” he remarked.
All over the Comms he was hearing similar, from Sin’dorei and Forsaken fliers alike “Enemy Down”. Equally, he was hearing that both Sin’dorei and Forsaken were taking Hits, they had to break the enemy morale, or lose this battle, they could not win it on numbers.
“Press On! Press on! Break Them!”
He span, confronting for a moment a grim faced Forsaken Batrider, chasing the the Gyro on his tail, he looped overhead and span, letting loose flame at a Gyro chasing one of his Sun Hawks, before a hail of bullets spat past him, a Gyro followed by another Batrider pursuing it, he turned and loosed an arrow at the Gyro rider, before spinning right to avoid a mid air collision with another Dragonhawk, themselves pursuing one of the stray bombers, He dived low, with a burst of flame raised up at a Gyro pursuing a Batrider, he couldn’t tell if it did any damage, but it scared them off his? Her? Tail.
The sky was full of bullets, spite, and fire. A twisting aerial melange of Dragonhawks, Bats, Gyro’s, and quite simply, aerial death. For all the meticulous planning, on either side, it had taken on the attributes of a tavern fight, where now it was all about hitting the other fellow harder than you were getting hit, and if that meant smashing metaphorical chairs over heads then so be it!.
As it reached a crescendo, Brigante noticed something, Even as he swiped his Dragonhawk left to avoid an incoming attack...they were fighting over Andorhal now… The Alliance air raid was...retreating.
He blinked. He was unharmed...untouched…How? That never usually happened….
Perhaps he -was- invincible…
Looking at his fliers, and their gallant allies, he realised the same was not true of many..of most..in fact...in fact...this battle had come at bitter cost..
He winced and spoke into his Comms. “Sunwing, Roachwing, Fayewing, Let them flee. We Won. WE WON!”
As the Horde Air Force headed north, to lick its wounds, and prepare for doubtless harder testing in the months to come, Brigante mused.
“Whatever the cause of this war, we will repel any invader to the High Home, so it has always been, so it is, and so it will always be”
Despite his words, it was sagging and bleeding Dragonhawks, Bats, and riders that made their way north.
But then, no one said War would be easy.
The sky was full of bullets, spite, and fire. A twisting aerial melange of Dragonhawks, Bats, Gyro’s, and quite simply, aerial death. For all the meticulous planning, on either side, it had taken on the attributes of a tavern fight, where now it was all about hitting the other fellow harder than you were getting hit, and if that meant smashing metaphorical chairs over heads then so be it!.
As it reached a crescendo, Brigante noticed something, Even as he swiped his Dragonhawk left to avoid an incoming attack...they were fighting over Andorhal now… The Alliance air raid was...retreating.
He blinked. He was unharmed...untouched…How? That never usually happened….
Perhaps he -was- invincible…
Looking at his fliers, and their gallant allies, he realised the same was not true of many..of most..in fact...in fact...this battle had come at bitter cost..
He winced and spoke into his Comms. “Sunwing, Roachwing, Fayewing, Let them flee. We Won. WE WON!”
As the Horde Air Force headed north, to lick its wounds, and prepare for doubtless harder testing in the months to come, Brigante mused.
“Whatever the cause of this war, we will repel any invader to the High Home, so it has always been, so it is, and so it will always be”
Despite his words, it was sagging and bleeding Dragonhawks, Bats, and riders that made their way north.
But then, no one said War would be easy.
Brigante looked hard at the roster for the upcoming mission. His finger traced the words.. He did not have trouble reading..It would surprise many but he was a polymath, fluent in many languages, through his centuries of service. It wasn’t the language he had trouble with...it was what the words meant…
We all make promises..and we mean them.
He meant his. He just didn’t know whether the Fighting Starglows knew what...what it would cost him. He knew, or could only imagine, could only imagine the horror and importance this would have for them.
No.
He remembered Asharion. He remembered Durovante
He knew what they would be feeling. Or at least had an idea….
He slammed the pencil down on the desk, turning quickly to make sure he had not woken Tarri or the Twins.
This next mission...two of his fliers would have a vastly over inflated, and righteous fury towards the target...how could he manage that...should he even try to?
There was no swaying them, certainly not Yasmyr, When he tried to draw away from it, feigning indignation at Rainmaker’s words, she snapped into focus, Aiechi had said naught, but the pair, like focussed eyes on a target.
Fliers Eyes.
And he had made a promise.
A Promise that violated his very principles to his core.
A lesser elf would have asked why...he knew why...He hoped Rainmaker would have been killed by now, or would die in combat, but now...now there was a real chance he would have to uphold his promise...To just...walk away...and let it happen… To drop that last mask….to give up that one pretence that kept him who he was, that he was a Good Man.
He remembered...hells, more than a thousand three hundred years ago, he had only been nineteen. The sweep and clear during the tail end of the Amani Troll Wars. The Village, the inhabitants naught but bones, gnawed upon, and not by animals… They’d taken an Amani prisoner, bent down five saplings, tied them with ropes to the ground, then tied another rope to extremities, arms, legs, and the fifth? Well, it would not have worked if the prisoner was female, put it that way. Again and again the questions, where were the Trolls who had cannibalised that village, The prisoner refused to answer...they must have been in agony…
Brigante learned something then..They were in agony and said nothing. And then everything changed.
The Ranger-Lieutenant had lost his patience “Chop that rope”, The Young Ranger did and with a hideous tearing sound, like the swift tearing of a meat joint, the Sapling sprang back into place, taking with it the Trolls left arm, who screamed in agony. Brigante had been sick, an older ranger had patted his back, “they’d do worse lad, they -do- worse” Brigante looked up, his chin still covered in vomit “Does that mean we have to?”
The Ranger looked away, and pointed, “listen, he’s talking”
Brigante listened .
The Troll was talking, rapidly, as if his life depended upon it, as if he had only just realised that the Farstriders were every bit as cruel as his own people could be, but it was all jumbled and wrong...He was saying that commanders long dead were responsible for the attacks, and naming troops that they knew were already destroyed were responsible, there was nothing of worth in his words, he was just talking...a lot...almost in a frenzy to get words out.
Nineteen year old Brigante wiped the vomit from his chin and listened carefully...not because he believed the words, but because he wanted to know how not to be fooled. He almost had to be called by the Ranger Lieutenant three times before he answered “Yes Sir!” “Cut him loose” Thats what he heard, he took his hatchet and slammed it down on a rope, which sent a sapling spinning into the skies, taking with it a part of the Troll that they were likely dearly attached to
“I...didn’t.. Mean that” The Ranger-Lieutenant said, “Alright, Cut the ropes, Summerisle has set the trend for brutality, Kill him horribly”.
Brigante was sick again. Sick as the blood from the disjointed and gelded troll started to rain down on them. “I am -not- doing that again!” he growled, his eyes closed as the blood matted his hair.
He opened blazing blue eyes, even though his face was smeared with blood. “I am a Good Man”
Almost one thousand and four hundred years later, he hunched over the map, scarred, worn and weary, lamed in one leg, and opened blazing green eyes, looked at the latest map, and the roster…
“I am a Good Man. But that means I keep my promises.” He stabbed a finger on the map. “Our next deployment. I lead them in, I lead the fight, we get to Rainmaker and then….”
His eyes looked empty for a moment.
“Then I keep my promise, and I walk away.”
It never rained in Quel’thalas, but as he robed himself for bed, Brigante could swear he heard the rain of blood falling down as the sapling trees snapped into place, so long ago….
To the echoing sounds of screams...
We all make promises..and we mean them.
He meant his. He just didn’t know whether the Fighting Starglows knew what...what it would cost him. He knew, or could only imagine, could only imagine the horror and importance this would have for them.
No.
He remembered Asharion. He remembered Durovante
He knew what they would be feeling. Or at least had an idea….
He slammed the pencil down on the desk, turning quickly to make sure he had not woken Tarri or the Twins.
This next mission...two of his fliers would have a vastly over inflated, and righteous fury towards the target...how could he manage that...should he even try to?
There was no swaying them, certainly not Yasmyr, When he tried to draw away from it, feigning indignation at Rainmaker’s words, she snapped into focus, Aiechi had said naught, but the pair, like focussed eyes on a target.
Fliers Eyes.
And he had made a promise.
A Promise that violated his very principles to his core.
A lesser elf would have asked why...he knew why...He hoped Rainmaker would have been killed by now, or would die in combat, but now...now there was a real chance he would have to uphold his promise...To just...walk away...and let it happen… To drop that last mask….to give up that one pretence that kept him who he was, that he was a Good Man.
He remembered...hells, more than a thousand three hundred years ago, he had only been nineteen. The sweep and clear during the tail end of the Amani Troll Wars. The Village, the inhabitants naught but bones, gnawed upon, and not by animals… They’d taken an Amani prisoner, bent down five saplings, tied them with ropes to the ground, then tied another rope to extremities, arms, legs, and the fifth? Well, it would not have worked if the prisoner was female, put it that way. Again and again the questions, where were the Trolls who had cannibalised that village, The prisoner refused to answer...they must have been in agony…
Brigante learned something then..They were in agony and said nothing. And then everything changed.
The Ranger-Lieutenant had lost his patience “Chop that rope”, The Young Ranger did and with a hideous tearing sound, like the swift tearing of a meat joint, the Sapling sprang back into place, taking with it the Trolls left arm, who screamed in agony. Brigante had been sick, an older ranger had patted his back, “they’d do worse lad, they -do- worse” Brigante looked up, his chin still covered in vomit “Does that mean we have to?”
The Ranger looked away, and pointed, “listen, he’s talking”
Brigante listened .
The Troll was talking, rapidly, as if his life depended upon it, as if he had only just realised that the Farstriders were every bit as cruel as his own people could be, but it was all jumbled and wrong...He was saying that commanders long dead were responsible for the attacks, and naming troops that they knew were already destroyed were responsible, there was nothing of worth in his words, he was just talking...a lot...almost in a frenzy to get words out.
Nineteen year old Brigante wiped the vomit from his chin and listened carefully...not because he believed the words, but because he wanted to know how not to be fooled. He almost had to be called by the Ranger Lieutenant three times before he answered “Yes Sir!” “Cut him loose” Thats what he heard, he took his hatchet and slammed it down on a rope, which sent a sapling spinning into the skies, taking with it a part of the Troll that they were likely dearly attached to
“I...didn’t.. Mean that” The Ranger-Lieutenant said, “Alright, Cut the ropes, Summerisle has set the trend for brutality, Kill him horribly”.
Brigante was sick again. Sick as the blood from the disjointed and gelded troll started to rain down on them. “I am -not- doing that again!” he growled, his eyes closed as the blood matted his hair.
He opened blazing blue eyes, even though his face was smeared with blood. “I am a Good Man”
Almost one thousand and four hundred years later, he hunched over the map, scarred, worn and weary, lamed in one leg, and opened blazing green eyes, looked at the latest map, and the roster…
“I am a Good Man. But that means I keep my promises.” He stabbed a finger on the map. “Our next deployment. I lead them in, I lead the fight, we get to Rainmaker and then….”
His eyes looked empty for a moment.
“Then I keep my promise, and I walk away.”
It never rained in Quel’thalas, but as he robed himself for bed, Brigante could swear he heard the rain of blood falling down as the sapling trees snapped into place, so long ago….
To the echoing sounds of screams...
The last day dawned, the same as any other. No fanfare, nor roll of thunder. The mists receded sluggishly from the scorched soil, the light of the Eternal Sun seeming pale and sickly until the fog burned away, revealing dead trees and wrecked Scourge plague-wagons reaching up like skeletal fingers towards the sky. Once there had been life in the Blackened Woods; once the sprawling, sickly weeds had been a garden, where once a child had gazed up and dreamed of eagles. Now only ghosts remained.
She stubbed out her cigarette in an overflowing ashtray, scratched the livid pink scarring where her left arm ended (the flesh of her stump cold, always cold, beneath her fingers), took a pull from her hipflask. In centuries to come, when they wrote her story, they'd claim Yazputor Silvergrab had been her making – more than Averdale taking her arm or Trinovante crafting her a new one, more even than the other Summerisle pinning increasingly gaudy wings to her chest as she climbed the Escadrille's ranks – and how delicious an irony was it, to think the armsdealer known as Rainmaker had crafted his own destruction by honing a grieving mother into a weapon, each step along the way tempering her from flesh to steel?
It was nonsense, of course. Brigante at least had to have come to realise that the Starglows had not been 'remade', so much as awakened from a decade-long slumber. Did he regret the promise he had made, before they enlisted, before he knew what lay beneath the veneer of respectable civilian life? Assuredly. He had begged – though without actually begging, frustratingly indirect as ever – to be released, and she had denied him. Since then? He had wielded I keep my promises as a flagellant might their scourge, as if the Rainmaker had not struck at the heart of the Escadrille – as if that had not been the point, and her family not so much incidental collateral damage in its wake. Feth, he should have been contesting for the honour of wielding the blade, not trying to tear it from her fingers.
Her skin itched where Aiechi had healed her burns, the shot she'd intercepted aimed at Narmë – at the precious cargo she carried, rather, the one that had earned them the location of Rainmaker's fortress. If she'd fallen then – if she fell tonight – she knew she could trust him to see their Mission through to completion, and hold Brigante to his word even if he tried to argue the pact had been with her specifically.
The last day dawned, the same as any other; the sun rose, the world turned, and the dead – the truly dead, not those shambling remnants that still plagued the scar - remained stubbornly silent. Soon either she or the Rainmaker would join them.
She stubbed out her cigarette in an overflowing ashtray, scratched the livid pink scarring where her left arm ended (the flesh of her stump cold, always cold, beneath her fingers), took a pull from her hipflask. In centuries to come, when they wrote her story, they'd claim Yazputor Silvergrab had been her making – more than Averdale taking her arm or Trinovante crafting her a new one, more even than the other Summerisle pinning increasingly gaudy wings to her chest as she climbed the Escadrille's ranks – and how delicious an irony was it, to think the armsdealer known as Rainmaker had crafted his own destruction by honing a grieving mother into a weapon, each step along the way tempering her from flesh to steel?
It was nonsense, of course. Brigante at least had to have come to realise that the Starglows had not been 'remade', so much as awakened from a decade-long slumber. Did he regret the promise he had made, before they enlisted, before he knew what lay beneath the veneer of respectable civilian life? Assuredly. He had begged – though without actually begging, frustratingly indirect as ever – to be released, and she had denied him. Since then? He had wielded I keep my promises as a flagellant might their scourge, as if the Rainmaker had not struck at the heart of the Escadrille – as if that had not been the point, and her family not so much incidental collateral damage in its wake. Feth, he should have been contesting for the honour of wielding the blade, not trying to tear it from her fingers.
Her skin itched where Aiechi had healed her burns, the shot she'd intercepted aimed at Narmë – at the precious cargo she carried, rather, the one that had earned them the location of Rainmaker's fortress. If she'd fallen then – if she fell tonight – she knew she could trust him to see their Mission through to completion, and hold Brigante to his word even if he tried to argue the pact had been with her specifically.
The last day dawned, the same as any other; the sun rose, the world turned, and the dead – the truly dead, not those shambling remnants that still plagued the scar - remained stubbornly silent. Soon either she or the Rainmaker would join them.
He felt empty.
The worst of it was, it wasn’t even his emptiness to feel. He wasn’t the aggrieved party here, that had been the whole point. The Promise.
He had never realised how hard it would be to just Walk Away.
Through all these years, fighting for the Horde, after so much of his life had been spent fighting for the Alliance, he had clung to that one truth, that one sweet little lie he had told himself.
“I am a Good Man”
He could not claim such anymore. He had looked Yazputor Silvergrab, the ‘Rainmaker’ in his eye, his shattered war machine now so much scrap metal... turned to the Starglows and just said “I keep my promises” and turned and walked away.
He knew what would happen. A Father and a Mother’s grief for a child killed, a death that had for his people sparked a war in Redridge, that had caused him to order the use of weapons so terrible that the Alliance had put a bounty on his head.
Played.
All of them. Like pawns. Rainmaker had set the stage, and they had played their parts.
Oh, it was over, but Rainmaker had done far more than simply attack the Aerie. He had attacked their souls. He doubted, but wondered, whether the Goblin knew what wreckage he left behind.
Something dark and terrible had been reawoken in the Starglows, Oh Yasmyr was the most vocal, but Aiechi was the one you wanted to watch. Both deadly in their own ways, both dangerous,
Both Ex-Sunfury.
It made him re-examine himself, was he so clean of sins? He remembered when Yasmyr had first came to him, with her request, to join, to fight, to avenge her daughter...He could have said no. He could have cited her personal investment, he could have cited her lack of experience.
He could have done -something-.
He hadn’t. He had made a promise, never expecting it to become real. “When the time comes, Rainmaker is yours”.
And then the moment had come.
And if there was one thing he always did, it was keep his promises.
He never knew what happened, exactly, he waited, he heard Rainmaker scream, a protracted wail, terminated by a final explosion, and then silently, Aiechi and Yasmyr had rejoined the other Hawks, and they left that old Blackfuse manufactory depot.
On the grander scheme of things, they had done a good act. Rainmaker had been repurposing Legion technology, selling it on to nefarious parties, he had tried to start a war just to…
No. Brigante shook his head.
He hadn’t tried to start a war.
He remembered Redridge, how sure his Hawks were, how sure the Horde were. The fire, the fury. The hunger for vengeance. He remembered turning a key, and the dreadful seductive allure of the Tactical Mana bombs within.
He hadn’t tried to start a war.
He -had- started a war.
He had almost wanted to know...had almost wished that his own personal morality did not impose such boundaries on him, had wanted to punch and beat the arms dealer, to smash bone and grind the twisted bones in their sockets, whilst screaming at him for an answer.
Had he known?
Had he known that which he did, what he had done to all of them, or was it all, all of it, purely motivated by coin. He almost hoped there was some sinister motive, some knowledge, there had to be, it couldn’t just be coin, surely not.. The ….damage...the deaths, even the collateral damage that his Hawks and he waved off as ‘Inevitable’.
He rubbed his eyes. Fliers had hit the Glass Mountain over this, so many had died, and something dark and horrible had been reawoken, some subterranean beast hidden away under the veneer of civilian life, in the Starglows, whatever it was, and he knew their records, it was awake again, and it was not going to pass back to sleep now that Rainmaker was dead.
And himself? He had authorised dread protocols and Use of Weapons on common soldiery, he had become death, a winged angel of destruction, He forbade torture, but he had left Rainmaker alone with the Starglows, ‘Theirs to deal with’. He hadn’t asked exactly what happened. Is forbidding torture the same as tacitly allowing it by turning a blind eye? In law, possibly not, in the harshest of courtrooms, and under the strictest of judges, the ones one stood before when you closed your eyes and tried to sleep, he knew the answer.
He hadn’t cared.
The Starglows could have tortured Rainmaker, they could have killed him swiftly, mercifully. He would never know. He couldn’t ask.
Because he was afraid of the answer.
Whatever they did, he had allowed to happen, and after so many centuries of fighting, there are certain things one needs to cling to, to hold tight and never let go, the things that let you carry on, day by day, year by year….decade by decade, and beyond.
He’d never know. He couldn’t know.
That knowledge would be Rainmaker’s last blow, last weapon, and even as he had talked to Yasmyr, he could see that she knew it, that even from beyond the grave, Yazputor Silvergrab, the Rainmaker, could still strike a mortal blow to the Aerie, or at least its commandant.
And that is why he could never ask her, and that is why she could never tell him.
Because she knew what it would do.
Because after Teldrassil, Lordaeron, after so many deaths, there was one thing that he could cling to.
He was a Good Man.
He had to believe that.
He had been pacing in his office, and every time, he made a slight detour around an area on the carpet in front of his desk. He remembered the look on an Equerry’s face when they had stood on that spot, he had paled, and with a roar of rage thrown a copy of Lourde’jan’s “On Guerilla Warfare” at them, that hefty tome striking true. Everyone knew now, you go into the ‘Old Man’s’ office, do not stand central, left or right, but never directly in front of the desk. No one stood there.
Foolish of him. It was a new carpet...much was, his office had needed to be refurbished after the…
He looked down, then knelt, his bad leg protesting with its signature aches, running his fingers through the fibres of the carpet.
“Is this it?” he asked empty space “Is this sins swept clean?”
He still remembered the explosion, and in moments of introspection his hands still scrubbed at his face, to wipe away blood long gone.
He frowned and stood, forced himself to stand on that spot, Where..
Where young Starglow had died.
Where the Sun Hawks had changed, from a thing of perceived justice...to a thing of Vengeance.
And he had let it happen.
The path of least resistance, some called it.
But it wasn’t. In the heat of the moment, the fury, it was easy to go with the rage, the all consuming anger that drove one on, but afterwards…
Afterwards, regret and a wish that you had stood firmer, “No, this we will not do” He could have said those words. He could have…
Done something….
The worst of it was, it wasn’t even his emptiness to feel. He wasn’t the aggrieved party here, that had been the whole point. The Promise.
He had never realised how hard it would be to just Walk Away.
Through all these years, fighting for the Horde, after so much of his life had been spent fighting for the Alliance, he had clung to that one truth, that one sweet little lie he had told himself.
“I am a Good Man”
He could not claim such anymore. He had looked Yazputor Silvergrab, the ‘Rainmaker’ in his eye, his shattered war machine now so much scrap metal... turned to the Starglows and just said “I keep my promises” and turned and walked away.
He knew what would happen. A Father and a Mother’s grief for a child killed, a death that had for his people sparked a war in Redridge, that had caused him to order the use of weapons so terrible that the Alliance had put a bounty on his head.
Played.
All of them. Like pawns. Rainmaker had set the stage, and they had played their parts.
Oh, it was over, but Rainmaker had done far more than simply attack the Aerie. He had attacked their souls. He doubted, but wondered, whether the Goblin knew what wreckage he left behind.
Something dark and terrible had been reawoken in the Starglows, Oh Yasmyr was the most vocal, but Aiechi was the one you wanted to watch. Both deadly in their own ways, both dangerous,
Both Ex-Sunfury.
It made him re-examine himself, was he so clean of sins? He remembered when Yasmyr had first came to him, with her request, to join, to fight, to avenge her daughter...He could have said no. He could have cited her personal investment, he could have cited her lack of experience.
He could have done -something-.
He hadn’t. He had made a promise, never expecting it to become real. “When the time comes, Rainmaker is yours”.
And then the moment had come.
And if there was one thing he always did, it was keep his promises.
He never knew what happened, exactly, he waited, he heard Rainmaker scream, a protracted wail, terminated by a final explosion, and then silently, Aiechi and Yasmyr had rejoined the other Hawks, and they left that old Blackfuse manufactory depot.
On the grander scheme of things, they had done a good act. Rainmaker had been repurposing Legion technology, selling it on to nefarious parties, he had tried to start a war just to…
No. Brigante shook his head.
He hadn’t tried to start a war.
He remembered Redridge, how sure his Hawks were, how sure the Horde were. The fire, the fury. The hunger for vengeance. He remembered turning a key, and the dreadful seductive allure of the Tactical Mana bombs within.
He hadn’t tried to start a war.
He -had- started a war.
He had almost wanted to know...had almost wished that his own personal morality did not impose such boundaries on him, had wanted to punch and beat the arms dealer, to smash bone and grind the twisted bones in their sockets, whilst screaming at him for an answer.
Had he known?
Had he known that which he did, what he had done to all of them, or was it all, all of it, purely motivated by coin. He almost hoped there was some sinister motive, some knowledge, there had to be, it couldn’t just be coin, surely not.. The ….damage...the deaths, even the collateral damage that his Hawks and he waved off as ‘Inevitable’.
He rubbed his eyes. Fliers had hit the Glass Mountain over this, so many had died, and something dark and horrible had been reawoken, some subterranean beast hidden away under the veneer of civilian life, in the Starglows, whatever it was, and he knew their records, it was awake again, and it was not going to pass back to sleep now that Rainmaker was dead.
And himself? He had authorised dread protocols and Use of Weapons on common soldiery, he had become death, a winged angel of destruction, He forbade torture, but he had left Rainmaker alone with the Starglows, ‘Theirs to deal with’. He hadn’t asked exactly what happened. Is forbidding torture the same as tacitly allowing it by turning a blind eye? In law, possibly not, in the harshest of courtrooms, and under the strictest of judges, the ones one stood before when you closed your eyes and tried to sleep, he knew the answer.
He hadn’t cared.
The Starglows could have tortured Rainmaker, they could have killed him swiftly, mercifully. He would never know. He couldn’t ask.
Because he was afraid of the answer.
Whatever they did, he had allowed to happen, and after so many centuries of fighting, there are certain things one needs to cling to, to hold tight and never let go, the things that let you carry on, day by day, year by year….decade by decade, and beyond.
He’d never know. He couldn’t know.
That knowledge would be Rainmaker’s last blow, last weapon, and even as he had talked to Yasmyr, he could see that she knew it, that even from beyond the grave, Yazputor Silvergrab, the Rainmaker, could still strike a mortal blow to the Aerie, or at least its commandant.
And that is why he could never ask her, and that is why she could never tell him.
Because she knew what it would do.
Because after Teldrassil, Lordaeron, after so many deaths, there was one thing that he could cling to.
He was a Good Man.
He had to believe that.
He had been pacing in his office, and every time, he made a slight detour around an area on the carpet in front of his desk. He remembered the look on an Equerry’s face when they had stood on that spot, he had paled, and with a roar of rage thrown a copy of Lourde’jan’s “On Guerilla Warfare” at them, that hefty tome striking true. Everyone knew now, you go into the ‘Old Man’s’ office, do not stand central, left or right, but never directly in front of the desk. No one stood there.
Foolish of him. It was a new carpet...much was, his office had needed to be refurbished after the…
He looked down, then knelt, his bad leg protesting with its signature aches, running his fingers through the fibres of the carpet.
“Is this it?” he asked empty space “Is this sins swept clean?”
He still remembered the explosion, and in moments of introspection his hands still scrubbed at his face, to wipe away blood long gone.
He frowned and stood, forced himself to stand on that spot, Where..
Where young Starglow had died.
Where the Sun Hawks had changed, from a thing of perceived justice...to a thing of Vengeance.
And he had let it happen.
The path of least resistance, some called it.
But it wasn’t. In the heat of the moment, the fury, it was easy to go with the rage, the all consuming anger that drove one on, but afterwards…
Afterwards, regret and a wish that you had stood firmer, “No, this we will not do” He could have said those words. He could have…
Done something….
He stopped touching the carpet, stood, and limped to his desk, sitting before the flood of reports and documents about the War in the isles to the West.
Would he stay silent again?
Teldrassil had been wrong, and his fliers had acted. Had acted well.
Lordaeron was...well, was Lordaeron. There was never going to be a happy resolution there, but even he was astonished at the green clouds that engulfed it, disbelieving, just barking orders “We Leave! NOW!”
He struggled with it all, and he looked at the series of reports, and he struggled with it all.
What the Hells was he fighting for?
What were they -all- fighting for?
What was the bloody point? Wasn’t this supposed to be IT? The Legion destroyed, Sargeras had done his worst and the world endured, and yet still like two savage dogs separated by a fence, once the fence was removed, Horde and Alliance had flung themselves at each others throats. Was it -that- simple? That no reason was needed anymore? We fought because they were the ‘Other’?
It affronted his ancient sensibilities, You -disciplined- Dragonhawks who acted that way...Hells, you -Disciplined- fliers who acted that way, a nod at a Subaltern and the baton would come out, and a whack around the shoulders or two, and the fighting would stop...
Who was going to discipline a World?
With a sinking in his stomach, he realised the real blow.
Oh it was clever. It was fiendish..Swive Rainmaker, he was a petty symptom, oh, no, this was clever. This was horribly clever. Oh he had used the phrase so many times himself,”Give them enough rope, and they’ll hang themselves” and never once considered that it applied to him, and everyone on the planet. The Irony? There was probably one entity on the planet who actually ‘Got it’, and it was the one whose name he bore as a mocking epithet for his aerial skill.
Incredible.
Incredible, and unchangeable...It was beautiful...Beautiful and horrible….
He limped to his drink cabinet and poured himself some brandy; ‘Greymane Reserve’ a remnant of a gift from their friends of the Queensguard,Spoils of War from Gilneas, the honey coloured liquid pouring neatly into his ‘Ace’ Tankard, almost perhaps mockingly engraved with the name “Magni” . “You clever caitiff” he growled as he sat, and looked at the plans of the attacks across the globe.
“Its a World War” he growled…”Beautiful...you’ve won, whilst losing… How did we miss this?”
The Cities were all but empty, the soldiers were sent. He’d done it...Brigante laughed and swigged his brandy. It didn’t matter the outcome, he’d done it…
Sargeras had won.
He was arrogant, Brigante, He meant undoubtedly Sargeras was also, but Brigante was not arrogant enough to think that his, of all the minds on Azeroth, just essentially a jumped-up Dragonhawk Jockey was the only one to have thought this way…Other minds in the Horde would have, there would doubtless be minds in the Alliance reaching the same conclusion...
-This- was how the world ended, not with a whimper, but a Bang….
A World War.
With his last act, Sargeras had caused, been the catalyst for the end of their world, the end of Azeroth. All the pieces were in place, it just needed the game board to be laid down for them. With the Sword, he had done that.
He’d torn away the veil, he had unlocked the fence, the two savage hounds, so long baying at each other, whilst united against the outside threat, were suddenly unleashed upon each other.
“It was never going to be you” He smiled wryly as he sipped the brandy and looked at the reports.
“It was never going to be you” he grinned sadly as he saw the genius of it, the horrible certainty.
“You were never going to finish your Burning Crusade…”
“We were”
Brigante shook his head in silent admiration.
“Magnificent”.
Would he stay silent again?
Teldrassil had been wrong, and his fliers had acted. Had acted well.
Lordaeron was...well, was Lordaeron. There was never going to be a happy resolution there, but even he was astonished at the green clouds that engulfed it, disbelieving, just barking orders “We Leave! NOW!”
He struggled with it all, and he looked at the series of reports, and he struggled with it all.
What the Hells was he fighting for?
What were they -all- fighting for?
What was the bloody point? Wasn’t this supposed to be IT? The Legion destroyed, Sargeras had done his worst and the world endured, and yet still like two savage dogs separated by a fence, once the fence was removed, Horde and Alliance had flung themselves at each others throats. Was it -that- simple? That no reason was needed anymore? We fought because they were the ‘Other’?
It affronted his ancient sensibilities, You -disciplined- Dragonhawks who acted that way...Hells, you -Disciplined- fliers who acted that way, a nod at a Subaltern and the baton would come out, and a whack around the shoulders or two, and the fighting would stop...
Who was going to discipline a World?
With a sinking in his stomach, he realised the real blow.
Oh it was clever. It was fiendish..Swive Rainmaker, he was a petty symptom, oh, no, this was clever. This was horribly clever. Oh he had used the phrase so many times himself,”Give them enough rope, and they’ll hang themselves” and never once considered that it applied to him, and everyone on the planet. The Irony? There was probably one entity on the planet who actually ‘Got it’, and it was the one whose name he bore as a mocking epithet for his aerial skill.
Incredible.
Incredible, and unchangeable...It was beautiful...Beautiful and horrible….
He limped to his drink cabinet and poured himself some brandy; ‘Greymane Reserve’ a remnant of a gift from their friends of the Queensguard,Spoils of War from Gilneas, the honey coloured liquid pouring neatly into his ‘Ace’ Tankard, almost perhaps mockingly engraved with the name “Magni” . “You clever caitiff” he growled as he sat, and looked at the plans of the attacks across the globe.
“Its a World War” he growled…”Beautiful...you’ve won, whilst losing… How did we miss this?”
The Cities were all but empty, the soldiers were sent. He’d done it...Brigante laughed and swigged his brandy. It didn’t matter the outcome, he’d done it…
Sargeras had won.
He was arrogant, Brigante, He meant undoubtedly Sargeras was also, but Brigante was not arrogant enough to think that his, of all the minds on Azeroth, just essentially a jumped-up Dragonhawk Jockey was the only one to have thought this way…Other minds in the Horde would have, there would doubtless be minds in the Alliance reaching the same conclusion...
-This- was how the world ended, not with a whimper, but a Bang….
A World War.
With his last act, Sargeras had caused, been the catalyst for the end of their world, the end of Azeroth. All the pieces were in place, it just needed the game board to be laid down for them. With the Sword, he had done that.
He’d torn away the veil, he had unlocked the fence, the two savage hounds, so long baying at each other, whilst united against the outside threat, were suddenly unleashed upon each other.
“It was never going to be you” He smiled wryly as he sipped the brandy and looked at the reports.
“It was never going to be you” he grinned sadly as he saw the genius of it, the horrible certainty.
“You were never going to finish your Burning Crusade…”
“We were”
Brigante shook his head in silent admiration.
“Magnificent”.
HIs hand juddered, the cigarillo in it falling to the ground in Bloodhoof village, cursing he picked it up again, inhaling. Bad for his health, he knew, but then so was his career. Fliers rarely made old bones.
Yet somehow, he had. He still ached, and felt a residual burning, the Warframe’s Light Cannon strike, agonising at the time, now the slow throbbing ache of a scalded hand placed on a stove.
Who, what, was the Herald of Dawn? Not any normal Warframe, that was for sure..
“We have come to your world, to bring the Light’s Grace” And then the screaming, the Horde soldiers, retreating across the Battlescar, blasted and sundered by The Light, only skeletons visible before they too were atomised, nothing but powder.
And they called -him- a monster...at least he did not kill and exult in it…..
Ah, but there was the rub. He leant back against Sunspear’s Saddle, the vast Dragonhawk whickering in acknowledgement.
He did exult in it.
He just never pretended it was an act of ‘grace’.
“Five years, Brother” he muttered. “Five years.” He inhaled on the cigarillo. “So many faces gone, so many new faces, So many battles”
“Thee love it, Wingless Self”
Brigante smiled. “Are right, Winged Self, for all the pain..I do love it.”. He felt the Dragonhawk coil around him, corded muscle that could constrict him and crush him in a heartbeat, yet he had never felt safer. He rested in his Battle-Brother’s coils. Inhaling again, before speaking.
“Five years, coming up, the seventeenth...an important date, I should mark it for them, but we will still be overseas, not at home in Quel’thalas”
“Thy Hatch-day also, Wingless Self”
“That isn’t important, the First Escadrille, my Sun Hawks, will be Five Years Operational on that day. They deserve a feast”
“Couldst do with feast for me, Wingless Self”
Brigante rapped a hand on the chitinous armour of his Dragonhawks body and laughed.
“Get your share you will, you and the other Winged Selfs”
“Five Years...Swive me, the things we have seen. No, they deserve it, even if it is in Orgrimmar, we will celebrate”
“Dost mean to prattle all night, Wingless Self?”
Brigante shook his head slowly “Nay, Tomorrow will be hard fighting, let us rest.”
The Elf lay coiled in his Dragonhawk, the flame breathing creature’s body temperature keeping him warm as they slept.
So Yeah, much to my astonishment and delight, we made five years, or will have, on the 17th, Anyone who wants some casual RP with a bunch of Fliers eating and getting drunk, we’ll be on the riverbank somewhere between the Wyvern’s Tail, and the Barracks, in the Valley of Honour. Sun Hawks Fifth Anniversary as a Unit, feel free to drop by and chill. Absolutely informal IC party, feel free to drop by any time after 2100 Realm time...
Yet somehow, he had. He still ached, and felt a residual burning, the Warframe’s Light Cannon strike, agonising at the time, now the slow throbbing ache of a scalded hand placed on a stove.
Who, what, was the Herald of Dawn? Not any normal Warframe, that was for sure..
“We have come to your world, to bring the Light’s Grace” And then the screaming, the Horde soldiers, retreating across the Battlescar, blasted and sundered by The Light, only skeletons visible before they too were atomised, nothing but powder.
And they called -him- a monster...at least he did not kill and exult in it…..
Ah, but there was the rub. He leant back against Sunspear’s Saddle, the vast Dragonhawk whickering in acknowledgement.
He did exult in it.
He just never pretended it was an act of ‘grace’.
“Five years, Brother” he muttered. “Five years.” He inhaled on the cigarillo. “So many faces gone, so many new faces, So many battles”
“Thee love it, Wingless Self”
Brigante smiled. “Are right, Winged Self, for all the pain..I do love it.”. He felt the Dragonhawk coil around him, corded muscle that could constrict him and crush him in a heartbeat, yet he had never felt safer. He rested in his Battle-Brother’s coils. Inhaling again, before speaking.
“Five years, coming up, the seventeenth...an important date, I should mark it for them, but we will still be overseas, not at home in Quel’thalas”
“Thy Hatch-day also, Wingless Self”
“That isn’t important, the First Escadrille, my Sun Hawks, will be Five Years Operational on that day. They deserve a feast”
“Couldst do with feast for me, Wingless Self”
Brigante rapped a hand on the chitinous armour of his Dragonhawks body and laughed.
“Get your share you will, you and the other Winged Selfs”
“Five Years...Swive me, the things we have seen. No, they deserve it, even if it is in Orgrimmar, we will celebrate”
“Dost mean to prattle all night, Wingless Self?”
Brigante shook his head slowly “Nay, Tomorrow will be hard fighting, let us rest.”
The Elf lay coiled in his Dragonhawk, the flame breathing creature’s body temperature keeping him warm as they slept.
So Yeah, much to my astonishment and delight, we made five years, or will have, on the 17th, Anyone who wants some casual RP with a bunch of Fliers eating and getting drunk, we’ll be on the riverbank somewhere between the Wyvern’s Tail, and the Barracks, in the Valley of Honour. Sun Hawks Fifth Anniversary as a Unit, feel free to drop by and chill. Absolutely informal IC party, feel free to drop by any time after 2100 Realm time...
Grats on your anniversary Sun Hawks! You're among the best guilds on the realm. It's a pleasure to read your stories and interact with you IC.
Here's to five more.
Here's to five more.
Happy birthday ourselves! :D
Happy birthday! Congrats with 5 years!
Reposted here for mah Guildies benefit!
The different breeds of Dragonhawk have different qualities that they tend towards.
Silvers tend to be the largest, and most aggressive, fiercely independent, they can be hard for a prospective rider to bond with.
Blues, Whilst as large as their Silver counterparts, tend to have a calmer demeanour, however of all the breeds, they tend to be more resistant to extremes of temperature, hence their usage in icecrown as shown in game, they simply handle adverse weather best.
Reds tend to be smaller and sleeker than both Silvers and Blues, whilst their temperament is equally capricious to that of a Silver, they tend to be playful, rather than aggressive, of all the breeds they are undoubtedly the fastest, as Brigante often says they are “Quicker than a Harlots smile, and they climb like a homesick star”
Golds are an interesting one, similar in size to Reds, they are also without a doubt the most affable in nature, of all Dragonhawks, friendly even to those not their rider. A Bonded rider can trust ‘his’ Dragonhawk to look after his infant children and they will, but they could trust -any- Gold breed, with even the most cursory of social interaction. The breed is not naturally given to malice, and is the only Breed of military pedigree Dragonhawks that is omnivorous rather than carnivorous, supplementing their diet of meat and fish with berries and vegetation, perhaps this explains their easy temperament, as the ‘Passenger Hawks’ that the Flightmasters lend to people on their journeys around Azeroth are all fed on a purely vegetation diet from hatching, and are generally more docile than the Military bred ones, and therefore suitable and safe for unskilled riders. Whilst all Dragonhawks can swim, Golds seem to enjoy it most, and are quite adept at catching fish in the ocean around Quel’thalas.
Purples, also known as ‘Eclipsions’ or ‘Phoenix Hawks’ are rare, but becoming more prevalent in recent years, they are the breed that Kael’thas and the Sunfury took to Outlands. There is some debate amongst breeders as to whether their qualities are -because- they were exposed to the magical energies there, or the -reason- the Sunfury took them there, but they seem to have a higher sensitivity for magic than the other breeds, they seem to be able to sense it, and also are slightly more resistant to it. Perhaps for this reason they are often highly prized by magic using Riders.
The rarest seen in military service, is the ‘Amani’ Dragonhawk, so named obviously after that tribe who enslaved the beasts, generally very wise and cunning, they are also the most loyal to the Blood Elves, somehow realising that their relationship is that of partners, not slaves. There is much debate as to whether there is any connection with Jan’Alai, the Amani Loa of Dragonhawks, however such debate is obviously one-sided, as no Amani scholars understandably wish to share -their- views with their hated enemy.
Like all flying mounts of Azeroth, Dragonhawks are fiercely intelligent, obviously they cannot physically talk, but they can understand basic instructions, and indeed when a Bond is formed with their rider, it is a very basic telepathic one, akin to the relationship between some of the more mystical Hunters and their Companions, and it is possible for them to convey fairly complex concepts to their riders, and vice versa. Such is not absolute telepathy however, for all their bond, a Dragonhawk and an Elf will have vastly different ways of experiencing life, and some concepts are just beyond explanation. Dragonhawks are fairly long lived, perhaps why the long lived Blood Elves favour them, perhaps because they are Draconic in nature, not simply reptiles. The term for a newly hatched one is as it sounds, a Hatchling, an adolescent too small to be ridden is referred to as a ‘Drake’, The male progenitor of an egg is referred to as a ‘Sire’, and the female who lays the egg is a ‘Dam’.
They are the Apex predator in Quel’thalas, and unusual in the way that whilst they can happily eat and digest raw meat, they do prefer it cooked, or perhaps seared is the right word. This is likely due to their primary method of killing prey, which is of course their flame breath. It is likely a simple evolutionary outcome rather than any conscious preference for cooked meat.
In terms of their senses, the most acute is their Vision, as would be expected of an Aerial predator, their hearing works on a higher scale than even Elven hearing, however it starts higher, so they are functionally deaf when it comes to low pitched sounds, yet perceptive of higher pitched sounds than most humanoids can hear.
This is the reason that most Military Pedigree Dragonhawks have a different name as a Hatchling, than when they become a Drake and get their ‘Proper’ name, these names generally being two syllables and can only be said with at least one or two higher pitched syllables, but starting low, examples would be “Crito” or “Tiro”, this is to condition them and get them used to sounds starting at the low end of their hearing spectrum and rising higher. A Dragonhawk so trained is capable of hearing slightly lower frequencies than a wild one, an invaluable trait.
Their sense of smell is nothing to write home about, but from a creature that breathes fire, this is not surprising, their sense of smell is superior to an Elf’s, but nowhere near as good as say, a Dog. They can nonetheless acclimatise to the smell of their rider and comrades, to an extent where they can smell their rider on a long term romantic partner, and even their offspring, making them surprisingly safe, and protective, babysitters, regarding their riders children as an extension of their own clutch of Hatchlings, this trust seems to extend both ways, as when a Dam has laid her eggs, and they need testing to make sure they are safe, then woe betide -anyone- who tries to take those eggs to be tested, that is not their Bonded rider or Handler, they seem to have an understanding that they have two families, the ‘Winged ones’ and the ‘Wingless ones’, and both are important to protect, and can trust the other.
No one knows what their sense of taste is like, even the tightest of bonds does not give the rider any insight, it just seems to be one of those concepts that is impossible to convey. Some Breeders contest that they -have- no sense of taste whatsoever, that the evolutionary trait of breathing fire has simply caused any tastebuds to atrophy, some say that they -do- have a sense of taste, but it is such an alien concept to our own understanding of it, that they simply cannot convey what it is like, and if they try, we simply would not understand.
In terms of Tactile senses, they are creatures that are essentially coiled muscle plated in thick scales. They -can- be gentle, with the smaller and frail ‘Wingless selves’ however this is likely behaviour from their natural way of looking after their own Hatchlings, you don’t be too hard, or you’ll just kill them. They themselves are not extremely susceptible to touch, they are essentially flying anacondas with natural plate armour, as such, it can often surprise onlookers when the Sun Hawks take to their steeds, and their greeting is a smashing of heads together, or an affectionate punch to the beak. It looks cruel, but in reality a simple pat just wouldn’t be felt by the armoured creature, you have to put some force into it.
They obviously understand the intention behind gentler gestures, but they aren’t actually -feeling- anything, they’re just understanding the intention.
9 Likes
Great roleplay today, would recommend the Sun Hawks to anyone!
6 Likes
Despite the numbers being massively against us tonight was a lot of fun <3 Would be stranded behind enemy lines and scramble to escape to an evac point with you any time, Aeola
5 Likes
Thud… Thud… Thud… Cold salted beads of sweat trickled wet lines down chilled, mud caked skin. The stench of body odour and blood, like the taste of pennies assaulted his dry parched mouth, where his tongue lay like sand paper, creating sores along the insides of his cheeks.
He stood beside the warm body of his Wyvern, eyes watching the short silhouette of his commanding officer blotting out the dying sun before him. He could feel his mind reeling as he watched the onslaught of the alliance and the Horde below, it felt like his body was wading in water. A hand collided against his pauldron, rooting his focus back to the swarm of soldiers at the edge of the cliff in the Howling Fjord.
The hand belonged to the short, weather beaten commander known by many as ‘Red Death.’ Brigante’s mouth twisted and contorted like someone had pressed mute on a recording device, drowned out by the thudding of De’vontae’s hammering heart. Swallowing bile and gulping back his breath, the soundscape of the surrounding area came flooding back like a hit to the diaphragm.
"They need us Rookie, it’s time to show me what I pay you for." Inhaling again, the tube that had been sifting the air into his lungs evaporated and he was over come with a feeling of calmness. De’vontae met the gaze of his commander and nodded, grabbing his bow from his Wyvern. He had expected the fight in the air, but the fight on the ground was rare for him, so he rode into the battle on the tail coats of his fears.
As he ran after the silhouette of the short figurehead, he could hear the familiar voice of his inner dialogue remark ‘It’s a good day for a hero on the battlefield.’ Leaping from the top of the raised ground, the wind catching his hair, De’vontae yelled into the gathering throng "AAAH-HAAAH!"
The Sun Hawks had arrived.
4 Likes
Howling Fjord Campaign, Day 2
One day. Yasmyr’s conviction that the best place for an Intelligence Officer was in an office with a map and a number of toy soliders to move around it had lasted One Day. The Horde had needed every warm body (to say nothing of the cold-but-animate ones) that it could muster, and who was she to send her Operatives to brave dangers she was unwilling to face herself?
An Officer, that was who. It was a small mercy that Aiechi lacked the strength to lecture her on the impact a shattered command structure could have on a unit. And a fine figure of an officer she no doubt cut, slumped in the Infirmary, Brigante’s ‘medicinal’ brandy barely covering the sour tang of bile in her throat or the bitter mess of copper and salt that coated her teeth.
She had bought them all home, hadn’t she? There was a victory in that, if nothing else, though Aiechi would no doubt have some choice sermons on the role of the solider and the necessity and honour of sacrifice when (if? No, that way lay madness) he woke. A hefty measure of the credit had in truth to go to Dustripper; the orc had proven his worth a hundred times, at least, and there would be dispatches to write and commendations to request, as soon as her fingers stopped twitching and the room stopped spinning.
She remembered - or thought she remembered, it was hard to be certain, old ghosts and things that never were bleeding in around the edges now her purified blood no longer blurred them beyond recognition (small fingers, warmed by the sun, thread through hers; someone, somewhere, laughs through a slit throat, organs pooling at his feet) - the Red Death himself, so much smaller and frailer on the ground, telling her to move somewhere less uncomfortable, and a voice that felt like hers ask for five minutes, just five minutes, with no questions or demands. Brigante sighed, and raked a hand over his face; “On the front line, we never have time to just be people, do we?”
If she tried, really tried, somewhere beneath the heaviness of exhausted limbs and the nagging sense she should be doing something useful regardless but before the clamour of voices demanding vengeance and intoxicants in equal measure, she could still recall being ‘people’. The decision not to enlist and march north against the Scourge, the little world they’d tried to build - as fragile and intricate as Aiechi’s clockwork creations, as stifling as the heat in her own workshop - to house the new life swelling inside her…
“We’re not people, Magni.” she croaked, once she’d finished retching into the bucket between her feet. “We’re soldiers”. But the Commandant had long since left the Infirmary, and only broken things remained.
6 Likes
Sun Hawks? More like Sun Talks ![:sun_with_face:](https://d1bg94bbsh66ji.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/sun_with_face.png?v=6" ":sun_with_face:")