Warcraft 1. Chapter 1

I own nothing but the mistakes you might find. Feel free to comment, and I hope you enjoy!

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><p>Despite herself, Leora watched from on high as the boastful orc enthralled the crowd a level below. Through the smoky haze of a dozen pipes that filled the Broken Tusk, the brute's wildly waving hands carved shapeless swirls at least as entertaining to the blood elf as his tale of triumph.<p>

"And the human dog went running off with his tail between his legs! Lok'tar!"

A raucous round of laughter swept the inn, echoing upwards off the wooden walls and stinging the elf's sensitive ears. She roller her fiery green eyes, glowing with arcane light, when the barkeep set off a cheer with a fresh round of ale, and wondered yet again when her contact would arrive. Half a day wasted around these oafish clods already…

Of their own volition, her fingers flipped a small titanium coin across her knuckles and back again, never faltering, never slowing. She sipped at her wine as the storytelling began anew, and promised herself that when her glass was empty, she was gone. But moments later, as she set it down and her chair scraped over the floorboards, she found she wasn't alone.

"Belloc," she greeted the finely dressed elf coolly as he took a seat across from her.

If he noticed the chill in her tone he showed no sign, doffing his hat with a grin. "Leora, Leora, always a pleasure. All is well with your travels?"

She fisted the owl-inscribed coin and leaned forward to plant her elbows on the table. "Spare me the small talk, Brightblade. If you wanted to chat you should have shown up an hour ago. Get to the point. What's the job?"

"Alas, I was delayed by other matters. You know how I enjoy your company, my dear." With a sigh, he waved away his regret. "To business then."

Finally, Leora mentally added. Back in her seat she leaned, coin spinning again.

"I shouldn't need to explain to you our… energy issues," Belloc began, somehow missing the shiver that ran down Leora's spine.

She knew all about those issues. Every blood elf did. That ache for the arcane, that gnawing hunger that had almost driven her to the depths of insanity… Even the memory of it formed an icy ball of fear in her gut. Thank the Light the Sunwell once again sustained them.

"And of course, as you know, one of the stated goals of the Reliquary is to find a way to overcome this condition. That, my dear, is where you come in."

She straightened almost imperceptibly, intrigued. If there was a way to be free of the ever-present fear of that descent into madness, she, like any blood elf, would jump at the chance. "Go on."

"According to recent reports, our nocturnal cousins have bolstered their numbers by joining forces with the remnants of the Shen'dralar, a Highborne sect that dwelt in Dire Maul since the Sundering."

"I've heard of them. Heard they survived by draining and purifying fel energy from a demon. That's not exactly a cure, Belloc. In fact it seems lust like what the blood knights tried with a naaru."

"Not quite, though I won't bore you with the intricacies. Regardless, since departing Dire Maul after the death of their imprisoned demon these Highborne have shown no ill effects or signs of arcane withdrawal. Thank you, my dear," he interrupted himself as an orcish… female, if the brute could be called that, set a drink before him.

Thirst momentarily sated, he continued. "Whether that is due to their methods preventing addiction, or finding a new source of energy, or if they've somehow found a cure, I haven't the slightest."

"And frankly, what I believe isn't important. What matters is that inquiring minds far more academically inclined than mine or yours would like to study the system that sustained them for so many centuries, and are willing to pay you quite handsomely for any information you might retrieve."

Nodding slowly as she digested the request, Leora stared off at the animal skins stretched across the ceiling. "I'm interested," she admitted at last, fixing his green-glowing eyes with her own. "Let's talk numbers."

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><p>The problem with wyverns, Leora mused as she drifted lazily over the Barrens, was that they smelled. Horribly. But the ride was smooth, at least, and faster than walking.<p>

Far below, no bigger than ants, quillboars wandered this way and that across the savannah, hard at work scavenging whatever they could claim from the grasslands and its scattered outposts of civilization. Lions and raptors prowled the plains, hunting zhevra, kodo, and any unlucky or inattentive adventurer.

High above it all, Leora allowed herself to ponder the comings and goings of the Barrens' other inhabitants, the Alliance and Horde, locked in their eternal conflict over the perceived slight of the day. Not terribly concerned with either side, the back and forth between the two factions had nonetheless provided her ample opportunity to line her pockets. Life was good.

Not for the poor sods in what used to be Camp Taurajo, she mentally amended. Even from a distance the destruction of the settlement was visible, no one having bothered to clear the wreckage past an initial scavenging for valuables, just leaving it to be reclaimed by nature. She shook her head as she always did when she passed over the camp-turned-graveyard, and left those thoughts behind to rest with the bones of the fallen.

More pressing than laments for the dead was the job at hand. Looming ever closer as the wyvern carried her south, the obsidian walls of Desolation Hold held within a prisoner Belloc claimed would be vital in infiltrating Dire Maul. There was only the small matter of convincing the orcs to let her at this prisoner.

The wyvern corkscrewed through a descent, and Leora tightly gripped the saddle to keep her seat. Into the shadows of the hold the beast carried her, alighting softly on the brittle, dry grass. She hopped to the ground, sparing the mount a scratch behind its ear that earned a low rumble of pleasure.

The flight master grunted a welcome, to which Leora flipped him a few silver coins before leaving him to tend to the tired wyvern. She stalked down the hill, leaving the hold's upper tier and the taller of its two towers behind, and as she went she reminded herself of the need for confidence in dealing with the orcs. They admired sheer, straightforward strength and honor in battle, things in short supply for a wisp of a blood elf who much preferred subtlety and shadows to suits of armor.

The rogue marched up to the bonfire some yards inside the hold's main gate, where a solitary orc tossed bits of grass into the crackling flames. The heat radiating off the blaze amplified the already-sweltering Barrens afternoon, leaving his green skin and simple tunic bathed in sweat, and leaving Leora wondering why orcs insisted on burning everything all the time.

She filed the question away for later consideration and caught her host's attention with a loudly cleared throat. "Who's in charge here, orc?"

The orc sized her up with beady eyes before dismissing her with a grunt. "Not me," he grumbled as he resumed his grass-burning, "or we wouldn't have built a hold on a silithid hive…"

Sensing the sulking orc would say no more, Leora didn't bother with any further questioning. Instead, she continued her march along the well-worn path, up a slight incline and past spiked barricades to the base of the hold's second sky-high tower, surrounded by catapults. There she cornered the first guard she found, laid out behind a trio of Horde-marked grain crates stacked against the hold's outer wall, and posed her question again.

Again a grunt answered, though the half-awake female orc at least had the decency to continue into an explanation. "Why, do you want the job?" she asked bitterly in return as she sat up. "No one's in charge. We're still waiting on Bloodhilt's replacement. Went off to fight some pandas," she offered with a wave.

"Pandas? The Pandarian campaign began months ago." Leora, brow furrowed, reclined against a crate. "You've been without any leadership for that long? With an Alliance force at your doorstep?"

The notion of an encroaching enemy seemed more amusing than troubling to the guard. "They're just as disorganized," she answered when her throaty chuckles subsided. "Their king's forgotten them like the Warchief has forgotten us."

Not surprising, Leora knew, with reports of Hellscream's focus on, and frequent ventures to, the newly discovered southern continent. Not surprising, but surprisingly jarring to the rogue, aloof even by blood elf standards. To see the mighty Horde leave itself so vulnerable, with an Alliance dagger aimed straight at its heart…

"Well then, perhaps _you_ can help me. I'm looking for a prisoner, a night elf caught not far from here. I've been told he's enjoying a stay in a deep, dark cell."

The orc clambered to her feet, armor plates clattering. Once upright she gripped her helm by its twisting horns and sank the metal husk onto her head. "We did capture a night elf a few days ago, heading north towards the Overgrowth. Or so he says."

"He was alone?"

The orc nodded, and beckoned for the blood elf to follow. The two fell in step as the guard continued. "Alone, and on foot, not even trying to hide."

And clearly not caring in the slightest about the Horde's territorial claims, or the Horde in general, just as Belloc had told her. Her lips curled into a smirk. She'd found her elf.

But she didn't reach him, not yet. A commotion at the bonfire had other freshly awakened guards streaming from the tower's base. Leora's guide followed behind, snarling a curse and reaching for her axe. Leora herself tailed the group as far as the spiked barricades surrounding the tower, where she ducked behind a solid metal brace and peeked down at the ruckus, hand on sheathed dagger.

No battle awaited, no Alliance force overrunning the walls, bringing death and destruction and a need for a quick, quiet escape. No, the spectacle that greeted her was a bit more peaceful, though only just.

The sulking orc from earlier lay sprawled not far from the fire, where a tauren slapped at his smoldering, smoking shin. Standing over them, two guards arrayed themselves, weapons drawn, between the downed pair and the single largest orc Leora had ever seen.

The brown-skinned brute, clad in blackened chain mail, shoulder pauldrons scowling with demonic facades, made no move for the enormous maul strapped across his back. He merely sneered at the sniveling orc whimpering on the ground and shook the blood from his knuckles.

"Pathetic little maggot," growled the newcomer, glaring hard at his victim, paying no mind to the weapons drawn against him. "Human filth so close I could hit them with a throw of your bodiless head, and yet you cower here and whine about bugs? Crush them underfoot and do the same to the Alliance! Take back what belongs to the Horde!"

"We await orders from the Warchief," protested one of the guards standing over the fallen orc, not relaxing a fraction. "And a replacement for Warlord Bloodhilt."

The newcomer grinned in savage delight and straightened his heavily muscled frame to tower overhead. "Your wait is over."

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><p>Even before she opened her mouth Leora knew the recently arrived Warlord of Desolation Hold would deny her request. His sneer upon seeing such a weakling as a sin'dorei besmirching his stronghold spoke volumes, and she was more than a little surprised she hadn't been ejected with the handful of Forsaken present out onto the scarred plains of the Southern Barrens.<p>

But words were free, so she asked anyway. "Warlord Sokramm," she greeted with a bow to the massive orc, still barking orders at the too-lax guards from beside the bonfire. "My name is Leora, and I've come to speak with a prisoner of yours."

Sokramm showed surprise that momentarily outshone his perpetual scowl. "Prisoner? You mean these wretches actually managed to overpower an enemy? You," he grabbed a passing troll by the nape of his neck and spun him around, "show me this prisoner."

With a gulp and a nervous nod the troll waved for Sokramm to follow. Leora, who hadn't seen the captured night elf herself, quickly followed behind. "As I was saying," she started again, "I'm here on behalf of the Reliquary. We believe that this night elf can provide us vital information about—"

Sokramm cut her off with a snort and clacked his teeth contemptuously. "About where to dig for centuries-old pottery? The Reliquary…"

"About how to cure the blood elves of our arcane addiction," the bristling sin'dorei shot back as the trio ventured back up the hill leading to the flight master.

"Magic," the warlord spat. "The strength of the true Horde lies in the keen edge of its blades, not in the handwavings of a broken people. No, I care nothing for your weaknesses. I'll have all this one can tell me about our enemies, and then I'll hoist his head on a pike to show them the fate that awaits them."

Leora, not nearly as pleased by the thought as Sokramm seemed to be, rushed in front of him and halted. "But you can't—"

Suddenly the brute's yellowed tusks snapped inches from her face, and the rogue, who'd laughed off a hundred brushes with death, felt a tinge of fear coursing through her. Her hand drifted to her dagger, but a straight-on fight with this one was madness. And her eyes, caught and held by the simmering fury in his, couldn't tear away to search for a shadowy refuge from which to strike.

"Begone from this place," Sokramm warned, deathly quiet. The world halted around them, only the crackling of torches breaking the momentary silence. "For the sake of the bonds of the Horde, I give you this chance. But I care nothing for your people, and I will not have you interfere with my duty to retake what is ours. Begone. One elf looks no different than another, not to me."

Then he was past, shouldering her aside as if she was just so much more air and breaking her trance. With that paralyzing hold broken Leora sagged with a shuddering breath and, though loathe to admit it, with relief.

With that admittance, though, came a surge of annoyance. The simple beast had the gall to threaten her? Her, who had picked apart Alliance soldiers with ease before they even knew she was there, a veteran of the Horde before he even set foot on Azeroth? And feeding that annoyance was the fact that some of it was directed her own way. Intimidated by a single orc?

Shaking her head, she hustled up the hill after that orc and his less-than-enthusiastic guide, only to see them disappearing through a thick wooden door at the base of the higher tier's tower. Before she could reach it the thud of a locking bar sliding into place reached her ears, followed closely by her curse.

The guard flanking the door, suddenly manning his post where he'd been absent just moments prior, eyed her curiously. She paid him no mind, and instead crossed her arms over her chest, already thinking hard.

The night elf wouldn't last long through the brutal orc's… "interview," especially since he wasn't actually a member of the Alliance and would have no information Sokramm would deem life-sparing. Which meant that Leora had a very small and ever-shrinking window to get inside before the information he did have in his head, information that could lead her people to a cure ended up impaled on a pike atop Desolation Hold's walls.

Leora looked again to the door that barred her way, but it had no lock to pick, not even a knob to turn. Maybe she could talk her way inside, she thought, only then turning her attention to the orc beside her.

That guard shifted in his heavy, blood-red armor, and his weight swayed from foot to foot. As soon as he realized he was under scrutiny, the orc grunted a weak "zub zub" and tried to turn away.

But Leora stayed with him, a little curious as to his reluctance to meet her gaze and mostly wondering how exactly she could sweet-talk an orc. If that was the route she had to take to get inside that tower, though, she'd promise him a thousand bloody victories and the accolades to go with them, not that she could or would deliver.

Leora peered through the slit in the guard's helm, where widening eyes waited. The orc shifted again, looking away, off to the side. She followed his gaze but saw nothing except the same smoky haze hanging over the Barrens as always. She saw nothing, that was, until she looked back to the guard.

Whether it was the turning helmet or the sweat that must be dripping on such an oppressive afternoon that dislodged the mask, she didn't know. But once jostled even a fraction of an inch the magic of the "orc's" disguise dispersed, and the rogue found herself face to face with a very desperate human. Just like that, she thought, she had her ticket into the tower, no sweet-talking necessary.

The infiltrator, though, somewhat less eager to join the captive night elf in chains, lowered his shoulder and bull rushed the slender sin'dorei, the first obstacle between him and the relative safety of the open plains. Leora threw her hips sideways and just managed to avoid being gutted on the human's spiked pauldrons, but took enough of the impact to topple to the dirt.

"Sp—" she started to call, before a boot thudded heavily into her gut and blasted the breath from her lungs. Through a halo of stars bursting before her eye, she saw the human's sword flash high. For a brief moment of clarity, its gleam in the dull sunlight was almost… pretty.

Until the blade descended.


	2. Chapter 2

Good news, everyone! I've completed another chapter! Apologies for the long wait, the holidays kept me pretty busy. Hope you all enjoyed them as much as I did. As to the story here, I still own nothing. Any comments, criticisms, and ideas are welcome, please pass them along. And now... on with the show!

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><p>Leora punched hard across her body, jerking herself into a sidelong roll a scant second before the descending sword's razor edge dug deep into the ground. A painful yank on her scalp drew an involuntary yelp as a trailing golden lock fell victim to the strike, but it quickly gave way and she rolled on.<p>

She came around with twin fistfuls of dirt and grass to find the human still tugging at the weapon he had, in his desperation, implanted too firmly in the earth. With both hands on its hilt and wide eyes on her, he pulled again. The blade broke free, but only after a heartbeat of resistance.

That heartbeat was all the rogue needed. One hand, then the other launched its projectile into the man's face. As he reeled, momentarily blinded, her dagger gouged at his sword arm, tore at tendons in his wrist, and the sword slipped from suddenly unresponsive fingers.

Before Leora could make another move, the infiltrator was buried beneath a flying tauren. She wiped her dagger in the grass and gulped in deep breaths as she did, and wondered if the warlord would swap one useful prisoner for one not so useful. Not terribly hopeful, she backed away as the tauren pushed himself up off the barely conscious human until she flanked the tower's entrance.

In her gut she knew the brutal orc would see this one as nothing more than another head to decorate his walls. Diplomacy wouldn't get her the information she needed, not with Sokramm in the picture. And though she wouldn't admit it, she preferred it that way.

The warlord had rattled her, unnerved her in a way that she hadn't experienced through a hundred life-threatening experiences. Such a response, coupled with the orc's insults, were an unforgivable blow to her pride. And if there was one thing prized above all… No, she would take what she wanted in spite of Sokramm, just to prove that he couldn't stop her.

When the tower's door swung inward and a pair of greenskins rushed out to secure their new prisoner, Leora slipped inside in their wake. Immediately she ducked behind a stack of crates three long and two high, and listened intently for any others coming in or going out. Footsteps overhead pulled her gaze upwards, and she flattened herself against the crates when she realized that anyone on the staircase winding up the tower's hollowed interior could spot her from above.

But the arrogant warlord marched on, not peering into the shadows but instead focusing on the door through which his latest trophy awaited. Soon enough he lumbered outside, and before the portal even swung closed behind him Leora darted from cover.

Silent as a shadow she spiraled upwards, gliding over the obsidian steps, all the while watching further up the tower for any other guards. Not particularly eager to complicate the situation by spilling Horde blood, her daggers stayed sheathed. Instead she drew forth a small but heavy club, perfect for knocking someone senseless just long enough to slip by, ask her questions, and escape.

She needn't have bothered with even that much of a weapon. At the top of the stairs was an unguarded entrance, through which she found a hallway that stretched beyond the meager light of the pair of torches some yards away from her. Rooms lined either side of the hall, cells she assumed due to the barred viewports centered at orc height in each door. One by one she rose to her tiptoes to peer into those chambers until, huddled in a corner behind the flat metal slab serving as his bed, she found her elf.

The cell's large iron lock proved no match for her lock picks. As the door swung inward the battered elf looked up, noting Leora's presence with cool, detached eyes, seemingly unfazed by the fist-sized bruises and jagged cuts scattered across his face and arms, and probably where his tattered, bloody robes covered as well.

"Further attempts at coercion will avail you nothing," the night elf informed Leora as she crossed the threshold. "I know little of your conflict, and care even less. As I told the orc, and as you can tell him again."

"I'm not going to tell him a thing. He doesn't know I'm here. In fact, he probably wouldn't be too happy if he did know. Azj'Tordin, I presume?"

The prisoner straightened in his corner but said nothing, just blinked slowly. Leora pressed on, knowing she didn't have long before Sokramm dragged the spy up for an interrogation of his own. "I need to know all you can tell me about the Shen'dralar. How did you feed off the demon's magic without becoming corrupted? How have you fed the addiction since he was slain? Did you find a cure?"

Azj'Tordin chuckled and closed his eyes, resting his head against the wall. "You feel it then, child? The hunger? The ache that penetrates to the deepest reaches of your very being?"

Leora nodded, though he couldn't see it. "I do. We all do. But you found a way around the madness, didn't you? The wretchedness? You can help us."

"Perhaps."

The quiet echo of distant footsteps and a smug, coarse voice had Leora peering out the door. Time was short. Sokramm was returning.

She turned back to the captive elf to plead her case, only to jump and choke back a gasp when she found he'd somehow crossed the cell without making a sound. Yellow eyes stared into green from inches away, sending shivers through the rogue.

"If you wish for my aid, child, you must aid me as well. Free me from this place."

The footsteps grew louder. Leora glanced over her shoulder, through the cell door, where freedom and answers awaited, and back to Azj'Tordin, her race's chance for salvation.

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><p>Dark as the hall was, it was child's play to slip the keys from the trailing orc's belt. Too intent on the spectacle of his new warlord dragging the captured Alliance spy up the stairs of the supposedly secure tower and throwing him into the chosen cell, neither he nor his companion noticed the rogue crouched in the shadows. The pair followed dutifully behind Sokramm into the cell, grinning wide in anticipation of the upcoming show.<p>

Leora wondered who was about to bear the brunt of Sokramm's violent rage, the poor bastard she'd unmasked or the idiot underling whose keys she used to lock the three orcs in their own prison. She didn't intend to wait and see.

The lock clicked into place, and shortly after a furious howl split the air. A brown mass slammed into the door, and through the bars Sokramm's flaming eyes bore into the sweetly smiling elf, promised to rend the flesh from her bones when that wooden barricade gave way. But the orcs had built their prison well, too well, and the barrier held for the moment.

Leora pushed open Azj'Tordin's cell and he joined her in watching his jailors struggle futilely to escape. Only for a moment, though, before he asked her to wait and strode into the darkness. He returned almost immediately, cradling in his arms an ancient tome, bound in cracked and pitted leather.

"Twice now have I let my guard down, and twice has my book of incantations been taken from me," he offered as explanation. "It will not happen again."

The blood elf cursed to herself, but carefully kept her face carved out of stone. He'd be that much harder to control if he could defend himself. Daggers didn't usually match up well against fireballs, after all. But the thud of a body against a cell door reminded her of where she was and what she'd done, and spurred her towards the stairs.

Howls of impotent, imprisoned rage followed the elves all the way to the tower's ground floor. Leora unbarred the entrance and cracked it wide enough for a sliver of sunlight to stream inside, while Azj'Tordin idly drew his fingertips across the cover of his spell book and watched the stairs high above them.

Through her slender peephole the rogue spied the flight master tending to his wyverns, still somewhat ruffled by the earlier excitement. No one else was visible in her very limited field of view, and she didn't dare open the door wider until she had some idea of how to get a night elf through a Horde base in broad daylight.

"I assume you have a plan of sorts," Azj'Tordin said, somehow reading her mind. She glanced back at him to find him still watching the ceiling. "It would be in our best interests to make haste, before the orc realizes—"

A thunderous crack of splintering wood reverberated through the largely open tower interior, pierced the elves' keen ears and forced a wince from Leora. A second crash followed close behind, even louder.

Azj'Tordin, still unerringly calm, finally looked at the rogue and continued. "That he has his weapon with him."

"You'll suffer for your treachery, elf! I'll rip your still-beating heart from your chest and—"

Leora yanked the exit open and bolted outside before Sokramm could finish his threat. With any luck, Azj'Tordin would follow. She gripped her club once more and bore down on the oblivious wyvern handler. A swing, a crack, and she lowered his limp form to the dry grass as smoothly as she could.

The agitated beasts shifted on their perches, but didn't flee and didn't fight. Leora murmured to them, peacefully she hoped, while looking around for any witnesses to the takedown. But the hold's upper tier appeared blissfully empty of conscious occupants outside of her and her quickly approaching fellow escapee.

Though skittish, a pair of wyverns responded to the rogue's coaxing, old habits combining with the few tricks she'd picked up from watching dozens of flight masters at work to overcome their distrust of her and her companion. Azj'Tordin mounted easily, but Leora, slow to join him as she soothed her soon-to-be escape vessel, was still on foot as Sokramm charged out of the tower, one guard limping in his wake.

The warlord didn't bother with threats, not this time. His maul went wide over one shoulder and a wordless war cry burst forth from his lips. Stunned into stupidity, Leora didn't move, didn't react at all but for her jaw dropping as doom approached.

Azj'Tordin was not similarly affected. A page of his precious tome leapt to mind, etched into his memory by thousands of viewings over thousands of years, and arcane sigils sparked to life around him as his magic answered his call. A wave of his hand, a few wiggled fingers, and the two oncoming orcs were largely encased in ice.

Dumbfounded, it took Leora a moment to find her voice. "You can do that? Why didn't you escape on your own, then?"

Azj'Tordin shrugged, seated astride his wyvern. "The magic did not answer my call. There are ways to prevent use of the arcane. I assumed they employed them against me. It would not be much of a prison otherwise."

Leora scoffed at him and shook her head, and Azj'Tordin continued. "They will not be held for long. Come, we must depart for safer lands." Without waiting for her response, he and his wyvern leapt into the skies and started to the south.

The rogue, though, wasn't quite ready to depart. Not after this same accursed orc had twice reduced her to a mindless, spineless whelp for the second time in as many hours. She drew a dagger and sauntered towards the frozen warlord.

"You could have just let me talk to him, you know," she chided softly, inches from the eye and ear that were the only parts of Sokramm not iced over. "I just had a few questions, and then you could have had his head for decoration."

She lightly traced the tip of her blade across his skin, circling his eye. To her disappointment, there was no fear in that bloodshot orb, only hatred. Pure, gut-wrenching hatred. Suddenly she felt colder than if she'd been the one encased in ice. The urge to be away from this one overwhelmed the urge to humiliate him.

"Don't follow us. Stay here, win back the Barrens for the glory of the Horde, and you'll never see me again. But if you come after me, if I so much as get the faintest feeling that your killers are behind me… well, I'd hate to accidentally end some orc bystander, but I'm afraid there's no way to tell the innocent apart from your henchmen."

She leaned closer, her lips almost touching Sokramm's ear, and pressed the tip of her blade into the flesh of his cheek just hard enough to draw blood. Unable to resist a final taunt as that red stream stained the ice, she whispered, "One orc looks no different than another, not to me."


End file.
