Cal'iathros Bloodmourn patrolled the great tear in the landscape that ran through Quel’Thalas. The perpetually empty and lifeless stretch was the ever-present reminder of what the Scourge had done to the elven kingdom. The undead army was gone now, having taken the power of the sunwell and leaving a trail of dead in their wake, but their touch remained, tainting the land and leaving a savage mark stretching south to north. If one were to look in the other directions away from the road of destruction, it would look just as it had before; a lush land of beauty and prosperity, the towering arcane towers of the blood elves standing as monuments to their great civilization. Yet the damage was done, and dreadfully severe. Much like the land itself, the blood elves struggled to recover.
A few shambling corpses still walked the scar, having a mind bent only on taking the lives of those that remained. Cal'iathros took it upon himself to purge as many of them from the land as he could, whenever the Horde or Silvermoon were not calling for his service. He had been doing so ever since the ravaging of Silvermoon, taking up the hammer and pledging himself to the Blood Knights, the paladin order so named for their tragic history. He believed the light would be the best way to rid the world of the Scourge.
Over the years, he had put the training to good use. His favoured path was heading out towards the scar where so many Scourge, leaderless, would wander the dead stretch of land. Going out alone, he’d use his light-given powers to cleanse the land of evil. It was where he found himself now.
A skeleton wandered towards him, lifting an old sword and shield marked with the notches and dents of many battles. This one, similar to so many others, had a shield with the crest of Lordaeron. It must have made quite the journey, having likely died in the defense of its city and having followed Arthas in death to destroy another. Bloodmourn put it to its final rest, a blast of holy light disintegrating its bones and a swing of his hammer spreading what was left of it to the wind.
Cal’iathros took no direct joy in the work, but rather a profound sense of duty. Mostly by luck and chance had he survived the Third War and the destruction of Silvermoon. The least he could do would be to help secure its resurrection from the ashes, like the phoenix so commonly associated with his people.
It was a task that felt endless, however. A thinner skeletal form followed in the first one’s path, running with a rusted staff in one hand - the other was missing - and dressed in tattered robes. The staff was dirty but once golden, a description that could easily have also fit the clothing that hung off its withered frame. This one was surely a former blood elf, raised into service and either discarded or forgotten by its necromantic masters. Before Cal’iathros sent its spirit to rest, he couldn’t help but wonder who they had been. Had they met in life? Were they a hero that had fallen in battle? Were they a coward, abandoning the front and getting trampled in the retreat? It mattered little. Now, they were dust.
From just over the ridge of the scar, a blood elf messenger was coming towards him, giving him a temporary reprieve from his quiet laments and grim duty. He could tell she took additional care while entering the scar, a wariness all blood elves share of the place. “A message from Lady Liadrin,” she said, handing him a document. Having delivered her message, she set off quickly, not giving an opportunity to send a reply. Once he read the message, he understood why that was.
It was a summons, demanding he return to Silvermoon at once to be dispatched to the front in a new Horde offensive. The paladin set off right away, knowing that while there were plenty more undead to destroy, their time would wait. They would surely be there upon his return.
---
Bloodmourn met Liadrin under the towering spires of Silvermoon City. Liadrin had a personal history as tumultuous as the blood elves themselves. Having lost faith in the light after the scourge invasion, she and the rest of the Blood Knights retook its power by force through a captured naaru. Now, with the sunwell revitalized, she has found her faith again. Full of conviction and determination to right the wrongs done to her people, she was someone Bloodmourn felt was right to follow. Her ideals - one of a rekindled appreciation of the light and the unconquerable desire to support the plight of the blood elves - closely mirrored his own.
“Lady Liadrin,” Cal'iathros greeted, finding the matriarch of the Blood Knights sitting in quiet contemplation in the majestic Court of the Sun. “I’ve received word you’ve been searching for me.”
“I have,” she responded. “You’re being dispatched to the front. You’ll be leading a war party in Darkshore.” With Liadrin, there was never any time for pleasantries or the mincing of words. There were many opinions on the paladin commander, but almost all of them would note that she was strictly military.
Still, Bloodmourn could not go to a place such as that without question. “Darkshore? That’s night elf territory…”
“Indeed it is. The Forsaken,” Liadrin said with thinly veiled disgust, “are leading the charge. You’re to be at the head of a small stealth brigade as the Horde pushes into enemy territory. You’ll find your orders from a commander…” She rifled through a number of scrolls she had at her side. “...Dietrich Moore. Report to him. He’ll direct you from there.”
“A Forsaken commander? And leading a stealth mission? With respect, my lady, I don’t understand-”
“At the moment the needs of Silvermoon are to work in tandem with the desires of the Horde, and the Horde are led by Sylvanas Windrunner.” She could clearly sense Cal'iathros’ misgivings. “At the very least, she fought for Silvermoon once. Perhaps our ideals will align with hers.”
Bloodmourn saluted sharply. There were a number of magisters opening portals for other blood elves who had likely been given similar orders. Looking over towards them and then back to Liadrin, she looked up briefly from her scrolls and nodded in acknowledgement. Already having his gear from fighting at the scar, Cal'iathros Bloodmourn was prepared for war. There would be no reason to delay. He set off for the portals.
“Bloodmourn!” Liadrin called back before he left. “It’s clear you’re... troubled... by this assignment. Just remember this while you step through that portal - who do you serve?”
“Silvermoon,” he said without a moment’s hesitation.
“Good. Keep that close at heart.”
Cal'iathros saluted again and stepped through the portal, far from Silvermoon and finding himself deep in enemy territory.
---
The base camp was set very near to the front lines. So close, one could hear the sounds of battle distantly in the trees, echoes of pain and triumph amidst the crashing waves near the coast of Darkshore. Cal'iathros knew this place. They were not far from Auberdine, a city in ruins from the events of the cataclysm.
Bloodmourn had met with the commander, Dietrich Moore, shortly after recovering from the disorienting effects of the portal. His hunched back arced even further over a table laid with battle plans, his spine exposed through gaps in his rotting, mottled skin. Cali’athros, coming just from the beauty of Silvermoon, had to suppress a gasp as his new commander turned. His jaw was dangling down, attached only on the left side.
Moore held it up with his hand when he saw the blood elf approaching, connecting it enough to allow him to speak in a muffled, laborious effort. “Cal’iathros Bloodmourn?” he asked, his voice difficult to understand through the additional effort he had to take in speaking.
“Yes, sir.” Talking to what was little more than a skeleton, and calling him sir. He longed to return to Silvermoon.
“Meet your war party,” he said, holding a gnarled hand up towards four leather-clad, black-masked undead huddled around one another, staring at a map as well. They looked him over briefly, snickered, and continued to whisper among themselves. “You’re here to guide them. As you may know, rogues often tend to lack the ability to lead or follow directions. Lady Sylvanas deemed a paladin a good choice to keep them in line. We hope you’re up to the task. Meet with them, and they’ll tell you where you need to go.” With that, he let his jaw drop from one side as a way of saying that the conversation was done as he returned to stare at his maps again.
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Bloodmourn shook his head. He thought of the lush gardens of Eversong Woods, the quiet of the arcane sanctums, the gentle sweeping of the enchanted brooms that kept their homes so clean.
“Coming or not?” the hacking voice of one of the rogues called to him. Again, he had to suppress his disgust. The undead woman was, even by the standards of the Forsaken, particularly monstrous. Of course, she was the only one that did not cover her face. “My name’s Shadowed,” she said, a sign she had fully forgotten her old life and left that name behind. “I’ll be your knife from the dark.”
“Greetings,” Bloodmourn returned. “Commander Moore said you’re aware of where we’ll be heading.”
“Simple enough,” one of the masked undead replied. “We’re heading northeast, clearing any scouts and would-be hindrances so our blight troopers can pass through unharmed.”
“Blight troopers?” Cal'iathros asked with shock.
“Of course,” added Shadowed. “Just look behind you.” Great clouds of green smoke arose from the pines of Darkshore to the south. “When a spider finds a new home, she must make her web to her liking.”
Bloodmourn looked on in shock. Carriages carrying blight canisters and other weapons of war cut straight through Darkshore, leaving a trail of death and destruction behind them. To use the blight in this manner was against what he stood for as a paladin. Is this what the Horde had become? Where was the honour they so lauded? He could only imagine how long it would take for the land to heal. After all, he had seen this before. The trail from the carriages began to look disturbingly similar to another great scar left by an undead army as they trampled the ground towards an elven city…
“Let’s move out and get this over with, then,” Bloodmourn said sharply, wishing to leave right back the way he had come as soon as he possibly could. “You attack only on my mark. You follow where I go. Quick movement forward, eliminate any scouting forces, and a retreat back to the lines as soon as it’s sufficiently clear. On my lead and mine alone. Understood?”
The Forsaken nodded. They were on their way.
---
Bloodmourn could feel the eyes on him. He could only hope that the undead had indeed stayed near him as he directed, as he could not hear a single of their silent footfalls on the soft dirt of Darkshore. The night, while the rogues favoured it, did the blood elf no favours. His heavily plated feet scraped against the metal of his legguards, the sound of metal incongruous to the silence around him. Suddenly, he felt like he had been brought to this expedition as heavy, metal-clad bait.
In the blink of an eye, a night elf sentry stepped from behind a tree and fired an arrow directly towards his head. He turned sharply and let it deflect harmlessly off his pauldrons. Bloodmourn was about to raise his hand to order an attack, but found he didn’t get the opportunity. Shadowed had slipped through the dark behind the elf and buried two daggers into her, one in the neck and one in the ribs. The only sound the night elf made was the slipping of her corpse into the dirt.
Bloodmourn was irate. He stormed towards the rogue, who held her daggers out to the side as if she were a mischievous child having been caught stealing treats. “I told you to attack only upon my express direction!” he raged, trying to keep his voice to a whisper. “If there had been others, they would have had a clean shot at your back!”
The rogue only smiled back at him. “She walked right into my web.” Stepping towards him, she traced her dagger lightly across the paladin’s chest, leaving a thin line of blood. “You don’t mean to tell me not to hunt, do you, sweetheart?”
“I will tell you to follow my orders or I’ll have you put in chains for insubordination,” he said flatly, batting away the dagger. He looked down at the body. Elven corpses, felled by the hands of an undead monstrosity. The familiarity made him grit his teeth. “Forward, then. And on my mark, next time!”
“As you wish, pretty elf,” Shadowed said as she waved her bony fingers in farewell and faded into the dark.
Cal'iathros pressed on further, leaving the body behind. It wasn’t long before another huntress stepped out to fire another arrow his way. Bloodmourn gave the order and two of the masked rogues dispatched their enemy in a matter of moments, the body falling into a pile of leaves. It was bloody work, ruthlessly efficient and undeniably effective.
The sound of plate, not unlike his own, was the harbinger of another Alliance soldier. He motioned for the rogues to lie low, waiting on his orders. A warrior - a human, of all things - stepped forward into the open. He was clearly a veteran, his grey hair long and his body scarred. It looked like the battle gave him another, as a wound on his arm was mostly sealed after having clearly bled down his side.
Bloodmourn gave no motion to attack. Not yet. The warrior and the paladin met in the open, face to face, their weapons not yet drawn but a great tension hanging heavily in the air.
“What brings a human out this way?” Bloodmourn asked. “You’re a long way from home.”
“Could say the same thing about yourself,” he replied.
“Duty calls.”
The human snorted. “Is this your duty? Helping the undead slaughter towns, now?” The warrior looked closely at the blood elf. “Don’t tell me… that hammer, your armour… are you a paladin?”
“A devotee of Silvermoon and the light,” Cal’iathros said with pride.
“A butcher, more like. Servant of the Horde…” The warrior scoffed at the name.
“Perhaps if the Alliance had stood by our side when the Scourge came for our homes, I’d be standing with you,” Bloodmourn snapped. “But you let us fight on alone. Now you sit there moralizing as we fight for our very survival! Typical of the Alliance. Endless arrogance.”
The human laughed again. “I think it's the elves that are known for their arrogance.” The warrior took a step forward, the weapon of his still at his side, but his expression suddenly grave. “Now let’s be serious about your motives here. Do you wish to make this land a second Silvermoon?”
Bloodmourn paused for a moment. Did he? Was that the wish? Was this retribution? Justice?
“Enough elf blood has been spilled today. Don't make me add yours to the dirt,” the warrior said.
It was Cal’iarthros’ turn to laugh. “I see the Alliance's arrogance hasn’t changed. You don’t even know the danger that you’re in.”
The warrior looked around to what felt like emptiness. “Got a feelin’, maybe. Point stands, though. Why are you here? Are you going to kill me just to serve a cause you don’t believe in?”
“You haven’t even so much as drawn your weapon. To me, it looks like you’re backing down. Perhaps a little fearful of the vengeance of the Sin’Dorei.”
“Elf, I haven’t made it to grey hairs by taking every fight that came my way. Just ask yourself - is this…” The warrior pointed towards the clouds of blight drifting above the line of the horizon, “worth the blood you’re shedding?”
Bloodmourn stared the old veteran down, the pulls of duty and decency playing a tug-of-war in his mind. “Head back to your lines,” he demanded. The paladin turned, whistling retreat for his rogues. He completed his mission, as directed. The way forward would be free of any Alliance forces. Still, he could feel the eyes of the rogues on him like daggers at his back.
--
“You let him go?” the commander roared at Bloodmourn, holding his jaw up to allow him to yell with clarity. “You disobeyed a direct order!”
“I followed it,” Bloodmourn countered, gritting his teeth again, remembering Liadrin's words.
“I had him in my sights,” Shadowed added, gripping her daggers tight in frustration. “He was right there, right there, sitting for me, waiting… they’re not meant to escape!”
“You blood elves, I knew you couldn’t lead!” Moore slammed his half-bone fist down on the table laden with battle plans, causing small pieces representing undead and night elf forces to shift and fall over. “You’re a bunch of cowards! That’s why you couldn’t defend Silvermoon, and that’s-”
A gauntleted fist slammed into the commander’s face, making his jaw swing from side to side, sending him flying over his table. Bloodmourn had enough. “You will not speak of Silvermoon in that manner, commander or not.” Cal’iathros pulled out a small, familiar stone and held it tightly in his hands.
Immediately, all four of the rogues surrounded him, blades drawn, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. “Insubordinate wretch!” the commander screamed. “Seize him! He’ll face Sylvanas herself for this!”
As the rogues came forward to take him away, a protective shield of light surrounded the paladin. Holding onto his hearthstone, he made one final, definitive statement before teleporting back to Silvermoon. “I am a Blood Knight, commander. I will answer only to the light and to my people. I will find my judgement there.”
A moment later, he was gone.
---
“Using blight?” Liadrin asked again, ensuring she had heard clearly.
“Yes, ma’am. I will accept whatever you decide as punishment,” Cal'iathros said, kneeling.
Liadrin paused, running a hand through her hair and grimacing. “Have we learned nothing from the Wrathgate? How can we be…” She shook her head. “You’re a soldier of Silvermoon,” she said definitively.
“Always,” he agreed.
“Then stand up. If you believe that the task that was given was not befitting of the light and our people, then you’ve chosen well.” She held out a hand and he took it in his, standing up again.
“Thank you, Lady Liadrin.” He looked to the towering spires of Silvermoon, the marketplaces bustling once again. “The ideals of Silvermoon - of the blood elves - matter far more than the whims of our current warchief. And when the Dark Lady’s time comes, we will still stand proud.”
“May the Eternal Sun guide us,” Liadrin agreed.
“Glory to the Sin’Dorei!” Cal'iathros returned proudly.