AN: Chronologically, this story takes place two years after Swinging Chickens.
Disclaimer: World of Warcraft, Tauren, Azeroth, Blood/High/Quel elves are all copyright Blizzard Entertainment 2005. In fact, so is anything else that doesn’t look like it was invented by me. Please don’t sue me.
This story is rated PG for minor swearing and violence.
The Wolf and The Tauren
A World of Warcraft fanfic
By Kristin Renee Taylor
Part One -
Liathano Tellah stood in a tunnel, a burning torch held high in her left hand. Behind her stretched a nearly vertical slope, ascending an unknown distance into the darkness above her. Before her, the tunnel stretched for a couple of dozen yards before blackness swallowed details.
Moist fingers of warm air stirred across the black-clad warrior's dark blonde hair and set the torchlight to jumping frenetically. Blue eyes narrowed as she studied the darkness. The entrance to her own personal Nether.
Quel'Dorras.
Even the thought of the name brought a sneer of revulsion to her lips.
Elven mages (Blood, High, Queldorei, whatever, they all died the same to her) had created this tunnel, and somewhere along it lay the invisible portal to their home, their own little pocket community in the fabric of reality. Safe from the trolls of Zul'Aman, they'd spent years filching the random adventurer and pressing those hapless individuals into slavery.
One year ago, Lia had held the dubious pleasure of being one of those hapless individuals.
Or so she had at first thought. Elan'dore hadn't wanted to ruin her special little pet with the backbreaking labor the regular slaves were subjected to. No... the Blood Elf sorceress had something different in mind for her shackled wolf.
"-shackled,
muzzled, and obedient to my every whim." The Blood Elf priestess smirks a
malicious little smile at the impotent rage she sees blazing in Lia's mind. Or,
what's left of the human's mind, the rest having long since shattered-
Lia blinked back to the present in time to catch the growl before it burst from her gritted teeth. Chewing curses beneath her breath, she took a few steps further into the tunnel.
A scrabble of rock, quickly growing louder, snapped her back around. She dropped a hand to the sword at her waist.
The worg appeared first, simply materializing from the darkness and halting at the very limit of the torchlight. Dark brown/black fur rendered it nigh-invisible against the walls of the tunnel. Golden amber eyes met narrowed blue. They stared at each other, neither moving, as the scrabbling grew louder still.
In the end, the worg broke the stalemate, sliding to one side to neatly avoid the sudden arrival of a Tauren female that slid belly-first off the ramp and flopped onto the floor with a loud "whuff!" A young human wasn't far behind, dropping off the edge and onto the Tauren's back, eyes squeezed tightly shut in trepidation.
The Tauren peered up at Lia from beneath a scuffed and battered wide-brim hat. A silly grin was plastered on her face. "Gol'main!"
Liathano relaxed her stance and sighed. "I thought I told you both to wait until I returned."
The huntress cocked her head to one side, but it was the human that answered. She rose from Gale's back, then helped the Tauren to stand. "Galerunner got a little bored," she said in soft, gentle voice. She rose, absently brushing off bits of rock and dust that marred her white robe. "Are you angry with us, Miss Lia?"
"...no." Lia sighed again. She raked fingers through her hair. "I'm not angry." She turned back towards the tunnel. "I guess we might as well get this over with, since we're all down here."
The scuffle of hooves, boots, and paws caught up to her. Alexy, the priestess, was quickly at her side. "This is the place, then?"
"Not here. Further in. Quel'Dorras is connected to this world via a system of portals. I know for a fact that I came in this way when I was-"
"-take her
down!" The elf that shouts dies as the breath is leaving his lungs. Alennius cuts an argent swath through skin, bone, muscle
and organs. The power of the sword-blow carries her around, to the two
remaining Blood Elf soldiers that still stand, watching her warily. A third
stands behind them, smirking at her, the glamour that made him appear human
vanished. Fury pounds at her temples. "SENET!" She charges.
He lifts a hand.
Ice forms in his palm-
"-captured," Lia finished. Alexy hadn't heard the slight hesitation. "I'm fairly certain Anri came in a different route."
"But you both left through the same portal. Why did you wind up in Mulgore? And where is Anri now?"
"That's what we're here to find out."
Walking behind them, Galerunner rumbled something in Tauraje.
Alexy translated. "She said she doesn't like it down here. The air is too dead."
Lia smiled grimly. "Tell her that-" And between one step and the next, they were standing in a pavilion, beneath a sky of unbroken fiery red and gold clouds, a permanent sunset that spanned the heavens.
Alexy gasped in surprise, the soft cry underscored by
Galerunner's worg
Lia dropped her torch as she looked around. The unwavering light from the sky painted everything an orangish-red color, but was more than enough to see by.
In a way, the place reminded her of her few trips to Darnassus or other Kaldorei lands. The pavilion was of similar architecture done all in stone instead of wood. Though the dome had long since caved in. Only five of the original six pillars of broken stone remained, bare bones jutting into the air. Beyond the cracked masonry the ground fell away, down the slope of the hill that marked the center of the town.
Paths paved with white stone spiraled away from the base of the pavilion, cutting along the hillside, vanishing into the depths of ruined architecture. To their left rose the sprawling, open homes that the Blood Elves had inhabited. Behind them the trade district, dotted with libraries and arcaneums and shaded courtyards where Blood Elves had sat and talked and discussed everything from the nature of the universe to who was sleeping with (or backstabbing) whom. To their right sat the barracks for soldiers, made entirely out of slabs of quartz, almost blazing white and pink and every variation in between in the never-ending light.
Directly in front of them, rising like a finger of white
bone into the naked sky, sprawled the temple and
Lia pointed towards the tower. "There. That's where we need to go."
"There?" Alexy said, and Galerunner echoed her anxiously in Tauraje. Their voices had a curious flatness to them, as if the weight of the air was crushing the vibrancy from their very words.
Lia shook herself slightly to dispel her darkening thoughts. She headed for one of the paths. "Let's go. Unless you two want to stay up here all day."
"But... what if we run into someone?"
Lia shrugged without looking back. "Only people here are cowards that survived the revolt. Shouldn't be too hard to kill." She continued her measured stride, leaving them no choice but to follow.
End Part One