The sun beat down over Vol’dun. Blistering winds seared over the Arid landscape, as coughing and spluttering the figure hauled himself from the cloying waters, and up onto the ruined stone dock the waves had dashed him against.
Sopping hair slicked dark chestnut down over thrashed and flayed skin, as far as his waist. His hands and forearms bandaged in cloth and leather braced against the rough hewn stones.
Defined muscles coiled over one another, writhing as if corded snakes fought beneath his sweat drenched skin whilst sand and grit and dirt carried by costal desert winds dusted and scoured exposed flesh.
The figure shoved himself to his feet, and swayed. Standing comfortably over six and a half feet tall, clad only in tattered trousers, he turned.
There in the far distance, all that remained of the Goblin ship was the raging fire, consuming the last of the oil-slicked across the waters surface.
A voice cut across the deserts silence. A harsh, nasal voice.
“You! Yeah you! You survived too! Wanna give me a hand up there buddy?”
The figure strode over to where a pair of oil stained green hands scrabbled against the stone. He crouched down and peered at the Goblin, as a wolf might curiously observe a rabbit whose Warren has accidentally burrowed into the predators Lair.
“Look Pal, help a goblin out will ya? I know you might be sore about the circumstances but we had a very profitable year together, didn’t we? I’m sure we can come to an arrangement-”
Mathanir smiled. There was no joy or mirth in it. He crouched beside the goblin, fingers steepled as if in thought.
“An arrangement you say? Excellent. I’ll set the terms shall I? You tell me what I want to know, and I won’t leave you scrabbling on this here rock. Agreed?”
“Yeah Yeah, anything you want, just make it snappy will ya?”
“Who Sold me to you?”
“No can do Pal.”
Mathanir frowned, he shoved the Goblins right hand from the stone, causing him to slip deeper into the water.
“Hey! Hey!! No can do because we don’t deal in names! I can tell ya though! Yeah, a description like-”
“I am waiting.”
“Yeah, yeah course. He was an elf, like you, but shorter than you, yeah, smug bastard, blonde hair, greenest eyes. Red robes-”
“You are aware you just described approximately two thirds of the population of Quel’thalas?”
“Yeah but I ain’t done yet. He had me traipse all the way to Silvermoon, meet him in this Swanky alley-club. ‘A Gentleman’s club’ he called it, I am telling you, there were more women, hookah and cushions there than men, but not many clothes, now I’m on the wrong level to fully appreciate the view if you catch my drift but-”
The goblin abruptly stopped his rambling as Mathanir slowly applied pressure to the remaining hand.
“-Right! Right! Yeah don’t need to know that, just him, gotcha, right on target. When I got there he was in a private room, two pretty things playing on the bed while he watch- yes back on point. Said you were uptight, needed a little ‘holiday’ maybe a nice long cruise. All the time he was rolling a little ball of fire between his fingers like my boys can do with coin out on the street scams… Otherwise he looked like the rest of ya do to me. Push comes to shove from my place in the world yo lot are all pink, nostrils and ears. That’s everythin’. I kept my end of the bargain, you keep yours.”
Mathanir continued to smile. “Ah of course, what was it again? I won’t leave you scrabbling on this here rock.”
Mathanir reached down and grasped the front of the Goblins shirt.
“I am after all, a man of my word.”
Wrenching the his last hand free from the dock, Mathanir lay down on the stone with outstretched arm, and plunged the Goblin beneath the surface.
The water frothed and splashed as the luckless Goblin thrashed, hands clawing at Mathanir’s arm, desperately fighting for freedom.
The fighting became weaker. The movement slower. Until finally it all just stopped. Mathanir let go, and the last remaining survivor of the wreck sunk beneath the waves.
Ten Months Earlier
The ship rocked and swayed as it crashed through the tumultuous black seas that skirted the Maelstrom. The cacophony of the crew screaming orders, answers and different contradictory orders echoed around the metal hull, driven by the rumbling baseline of the ever-churning engines.
Mathanir woke. He was, as far as he could tell, alive. Stripped and bound upon the cold metal floor,the scent of blood rich and close, the tang of iron and oil permeated the sackcloth bag that encased his head, tied tight at the neck. With every roll and pitch in unsteady seas his stomach lept to his throat, choking back bile, certain that the cloth encasing his head wouldn’t drain fast enough to save him from drowning in his own expulsion.
Rolling onto his back he swore, he had found the source of the blood then, the back of his head bearing a sticky, pain laced welt. His shoulders roared in agony, pinned in one position far too long. His lips parched he did not know how long he had been unconcious for.
The sting of magic nearby tore at his senses, lacking the strength to shield himself from it, he could feel as it seemed to search those long forgotten wounds, the scars to the psyche ever Spellbreaker wore, those of having been severed from the Sunwells touch, from the Lights embrace. The Solitary, crushing isolation. A soft, feminine laugh murmured nearby, and a sultry voice nearby called out.
“He’s Awake.”
Bargains and threats. Favours and blackmail. He had not been raised by his parents, nor served the Solanum house this long to have failed to learn the lessons. Politics and nobles might show the face of outward civility, but scratch just a little and they were little more than wretched scrabbling and clawing over a spec of power. It was always purely a matter of leverage. Knowing where to apply pressure so that motion began, as benign as a single snowflake, one that may fall upon field or building, but instead caused a shift, others moving, gathering pace until to the perspective of everyone but that initial impetus, an entire mountain was made to move.
The crowd roared, its vast throng cheering, a wall of sound drowning out the nasal, amplified voice of the announcer.
Mathanir lay on his back, his arm pulled tight around the throat of his foe, muscles shifting and glinting in the torch lit depths of the pit. The wildcat yowled and thrashed, it’s jaws snapped close to the Spellbreaker’s head, it’s legs flailing, caught upon its back, desperation driving it’s will to survive as it’s airway was crushed. The beasts claws found purchase. Mathanir cried out in agony as his side was torn and flesh split from ribcage to hip, sanguine blood staining the sands of the pit and the fur of the wildcat. With the final few thrashes the beast slowed and stilled.
“And there we have it Ladies and Gentlemen! He’s demonstrated his battle prowess against his fellow Gladiators! He’s demonstrated physical strength against the most vicious creatures we here at Triple-S entertainment work with. But the night is young-”
Mathanir’s vision was hazy, he watched as a group of Mooks approached. Two dragged the great cats corpse from the arena. The others swiftly lifted and bound him. Lashing him to a post in the centre of the pit.
“- We here at Sun, Sea and Sangria pride ourselves on the quality of our exhibits. Though what stands -hm? Yeah yeah- what is 'lashed to the post’s before you, may look like any typical Blood-Elf, is in fact an Exceptional Rarity.”
There was a pause. Mathanir assumed some form of gesture had been made as twelve individual doors around the ring opened. Through each door walked a scantily clad woman, each bound by a collar and chain running back into their cells.
“Ladies, how kind of you to join us for this demonstration. Patrons and Guests, tonight we are delighted to be able to bring to you, and publicly test the limits of-” Mathanir grimaced, the crowd hung on baited breath as the Announcer built the tension. Every time it ended the same way.
The Goblins voice shifted to a conspiracy whisper, though magnified for every soul in attendance to hear.
“One of the Regent Lords Chosen. One of Quel’thalas’s Very Own.”
The Drumroll began, Mathanir braced himself. Each “performance” pushed him further, every time wondering if this would be the night-
“A Spellbreaker”
The end of the word was consumed by the shocked gasps, and on cue the Magestrix and Pyromancers, Warlocks, Cryomancers and Arcanists began their bombardment.
The crowd roared their encouragement, each attack fizzling to nothing as it passed the threshold of his dampening Aura. Slowly, but surely, they were getting closer.
A great whoop erupted as an Arcane Lance tore through his defences, ripping through the flesh if his shoulder.
“And that’s Sundew with the first Hit! It won’t be long now Ladies and Gentlemen -was-”
The heat of the firebolts now so close they prickled against his skin. A dark blast struck him from behind.
“-And that’s our resident void weaver, Amberly Thaneton! Daughter of Stormwind, travelled many months to be with you here tonight-”
As his strength collapsed, he was battered by every form of magical projectile, swaying as they struck him this way and that.
There was an eruption of screams from the women around the pits edge as their collars shut down their magic.
“Wait for it… Wait for it…” The crowd was Silent. Mathanir turned his gaze towards the Goblins platform hazily trying to pick out the speaker. With an almost gentle sigh Mathanir collapsed, the last sound drifting as he fell into the welcoming blackness of unconciousness.
“And he’s down! That’s Seven Forty Six, Seven Four Six - those of you who believe you are close enough to have won make your way to…”
Mathanir leaned upon the rails if the building, his reflection distorted in the waters of the small pond behind the ruin. Meredil. He had found his way here, his core filled with a roiling, seething anger, one he had expected to unleash the moment he found the wretch that had seen him disposed of. But there had been the call to air, the heat of battle, the fear of what had so nearly been unleashed.
For the first time in centuries he felt his loyalty, his certainty waver. He had kept the boy at arm’s length his entire life, knowing the Contempt shown towards Mathanir was what kept him safe.
But in those moments once he had been stripped of what was not his, his confusion and uncertainty in what had happened, his clear fear and depth of feeling for Everstride, he had seemed almost vulnerable.
Mathanir pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes shut tight.
Those few scalding clipped words of Eredun, their inherent demonic taint left them twisted and muffled in Mathanir’s ear, the Spellbreaker’s ‘gift’ silencing words that had power over mortal minds, rendering them little more than burbled sound heard beneath a waters surface.
What had been done to the man was monstrous, but Mathanir could not deny that what lay beneath was monstrous too.
Gradually he began to steel himself, but in the echo of his thoughts a confused uncertain figure rose once more.
“Wait… was I promised tea?”
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