She eyed his army for a moment, her anger penetrating her forced smugness. “You’ve won through this gate, butcher, but you won’t get through the second. The inner gate to Silvermoon can only be opened with a special key, and it shall never be yours!”
She nodded to her companions, and they raced across the bridge to join their fellows on the other side.
Arthas’s humor faded and his pale eyes flashed. His gauntleted hand tightened on the runeblade. Its markings thrummed. “You waste your time, woman. You cannot outrun the inevitable. Though I admit it is amusing to watch you scurry.”
Now Sylvanas did laugh, an angry, satisfied sound that rolled up from some place deep in her soul. “You think I’m running from you? Apparently you’ve never fought elves before.”
Some things, she mused, were deliciously simple. Sylvanas lifted her hand, threw the extremely non-magical, quite practical incendiary device, then turned to run as the bridge exploded. The trees welcomed them, arching above them in hues of gold and silver, hiding them from their enemy. Before she faded from earshot, she heard something that made her grin fiercely.
“The ranger woman is starting to vex me greatly.”
Yes. Vex you. Harry you like a sparrow does the hawk. The Elrendar bisects Eversong Woods, and you will find no crossing for your monstrous engines of war any time soon. She knew it was a delay, nothing more. But if the army was delayed long enough, perhaps she could get a message through.
Worry fluttered at her mind. Arthas had seemed supremely confident that he would be able to defeat the magic that powered the elfgates. He had already shown some knowledge in that he had been able to destroy the first gate. Of course, the first gate was not as magically defended as the second. And, from what she had seen, arrogance seemed to be his normal state, but—was it possible? The nagging uncertainty that had prompted her to add a final warning to Tel’kor’s message to the magi stirred within her again.
Did Arthas know about the key?
The traitor, a wizard by the name of Dar’Khan Drathir, should have made it easy. And to some extent he had, of course. Arthas would otherwise never have known about the Key of the Three Moons—a magical item that had been split into three separate mooncrystals stashed in heavily-guarded, hidden locations throughout Quel’Thalas. Each temple was constructed on an intersection of ley lines, similar to the Sunwell itself, the traitorous elf had told him, gleeful to be betraying his people so. The ley lines were like blood vessels of the earth, carrying magic instead of scarlet fluid. Thus interconnected, the crystals created a field of energy known as Ban’dinoriel—the Gatekeeper. All he needed to do was find these sites at An’telas, An’daroth, and An’owyn, slay the guards, and find the mooncrystals.
But the excessively pretty, surprisingly tough elves presented a challenge. Arthas sat astride Invincible, idly fingering Frostmourne, and reflected on how it was that so fragile-seeming a race could stand up to his army. For army now it truly was—many hundreds of soldiers, all already dead and so more difficult to permanently dispatch.
The ranger-general’s clever little trick of blowing up the bridge had indeed cost Arthas precious time. The river ran through Quel’Thalas until it bumped up against several foothills to the east—foothills that posed the same challenge to the mobility of his engines of war that the water did.
It had taken a while, but eventually they had crossed the river. As he pondered the solution, something had twinged at the back of his mind, a tingling sensation he couldn’t quite figure out. Annoyed, he dismissed the strange sensation and instructed several of his unfailingly loyal soldiers to create their own bridge—a bridge made of rotting flesh. Dozens of them waded into the river and simply lay there, forming layer upon layer of corpses, until there were enough of them that the meat wagons, catapults, and trebuchets could make their lurching way across. Some of the undead, of course, were no longer of use, their bodies too broken or torn to hold cohesion. These Arthas almost gently released from his control, granting them true death. Besides, their bodies would foul the purity of the river. It was an additional weapon.
He, of course, could and did cross easily. Invincible plunged without hesitation into the water, and Arthas was abruptly reminded of the horse’s fatal jump in the middle of winter, slipping on the icy rocks as he leaped, utterly obedient to the will of his master then as now. The memory crashed on him unexpectedly, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe as pain and guilt washed over him.
It was gone as quickly as it had come. Everything was better now. He was no longer an emotionally shattered child, racked by guilt and shame, sobbing in the snow as he lifted his sword to pierce the heart of a loyal friend. No, nor was Invincible a mere living creature, to be harmed by such a thing. They were both more powerful now. Stronger. Invincible would exist forever, serving his master, as he had always done. He would not know thirst, or pain, or hunger, or exhaustion. And he, Arthas, would take what he wished when he wished it. There was no more silent disapproval from his father, no more scolding from the too-pious Uther. No more dubious glances from Jaina, her brow furrowed in that dearly familiar expression of—
Jaina…
Arthas shook his head sharply. Jaina had had her chance to join with him. She had refused. Denied him, although she had sworn she would never do so. He owed her nothing. Only the Lich King commanded him now. The mental shift calmed him, and Arthas smiled and patted the jutting vertebrae of the undead beast, who tossed his bony head in response. Surely, it was the beautiful and willful ranger-general who had unsettled him and made him question, even momentarily, the wisdom of his path. She, too, had had her chance. Arthas had come for a purpose, and that purpose had not been to obliterate Quel’Thalas and its populace. Had they not resisted him, he would have let them be. Her sharp tongue and defiant behavior had brought her people’s doom upon them, not he.
The water seeped in through the joins of his armor and the breeches, shirt, and gambeson he wore beneath the metal plate grew wet and cold. Arthas did not feel it. A moment later Invincible surged forward, clambering out onto the opposite bank. The last of the meat wagons rumbled onto the bank as well, and what corpses were sufficiently intact slogged onto land. The rest lay where they had fallen, the once-crystal clear water flowing over and around them.
“Onward,” the death knight said.
The rangers had retreated to Fairbreeze Village. Once the shock had passed, the citizens did everything they could, from tending the wounded to offering what weapons and skills they had. Sylvanas ordered those who could not fight to head to Silvermoon as quickly as possible.
“Take nothing,” she said as a woman nodded and hurried to ascend the ramp to an upper area.
“But our rooms upstairs have—”
Sylvanas whirled, her eyes flaring. “Do you not yet understand? The dead are marching upon us! They do not tire, they do not slow, and they take our fallen and add them to their ranks! We have delayed them, little more. Take your family and go!”
The woman seemed taken aback by the ranger-general’s response, but obeyed, wasting only a few moments rounding up her family before hastening down the road to the capital.
Arthas would not be stopped for long. Sylvanas cast a sweeping, appraising glance over the wounded. None of them could stay here. They, too, would need to be evacuated to Silvermoon. As for those who were still hale, few though they were, she would need to ask yet more from them. Perhaps everything they had. They, like she, had sworn to defend their people. Now was the day of reckoning.