The burst of magic required for teleportation and portal travel always left Leda feeling hung over in the few minutes that followed. However, with a collapsed lung and pneumonia setting in – she swayed and nearly fell over; a conveniently placed crate caught the young woman and she sat with her head in her hands waiting for the nausea to subside. The Kahnas she had arrived with waited patiently, silently, hardly moving. It was when they didn’t move that made Leda’s skin crawl the most. The fact that they no longer relied on air was unsettling. Anxious to get going, she stood suddenly, nearly losing her balance again and then nodded to her guides – a warlock and what appeared to be a priest. As they passed, they nodded at another of their clan, a rogue which Leda had yet to spot and she wondered how many other Kahna had split off from her “invasion” into the city. This particular rogue had been standing, eerily still, in a neglected corner of the city between the city wall and a single-room building.
“Where in the city are we Sergeant Kahna?” Leda mumbled, mostly to herself, trying to guess her position from her sketchy memory of the map she’d left with Vanfi.
“This is as close as we could get to the big fluffy one.”
“That is their economic hub,” the warlock pointed at a blue banner “and there is where your other half went.” What was left of his finger, was pointing in the direction of another walled off section of Stormwind, which was flying purple banners emblazoned with open books. Even without her Forsaken guides, Leda wouldn’t have had any trouble pinpointing where Iyotanka had gone.
“Come on, let’s go get him and get back to Vanfi.” Shouts and cannon shots could be heard from the direction of the prison they had just left. Birds scattered and smoke could be seen across the water. Soon enough, Leda could even see the flames climbing up the wooden door, the guards fanning it with their shields and chuckling at their ingenuity. It appeared General Savagedawn stood at a crossroads. From her position outside the prison, she could easily beat down the humans there and save every last man and woman – it would take mere moments for smoke to fill the prison. She could be a war hero, saving hundreds of lives, including the Dwarf King and all those who trusted her as their leader.
None of this went through Leda’s mind. She saw the flames and thought only of Iyo – of the millions of campfires they had sat around since leaving Feralas so long ago. She heard the shouts of the guards and thought only of the games they had played in their childhood. She saw the birds, startled by the cannons and thought only of Iyo, soaring above her, racing her to Orgrimmar. In Leda’s mind, there was no decision. She turns and slips into the Mage District, followed closely by her undead companions.
“Ah,” the priest sighs, or at least Leda assumes it was a sigh, more of a fluid, rattling really. “That is why…“
“…the druid came this way.”
Leda scowled. She hadn’t noticed a change in anything since stepping inside the walls of this particular neighbourhood. Yes, the shouts, cannon blasts and the occasional gunshot had more or less faded into the background. Iyotanka had always enjoyed the solitude, but to leave her side to find peace and quiet on a battlefield? There was no logic in it – even Leda could see that, and Iyo was, above all, a logical being. But the Kahnas said no more, beckoning her to the left, striding up the low incline confidently, without fear of being seen by guards. The General’s frustration grew, bubbling up in her chest, until she could suppress it no more.
“Kahnas! Tell me, why? Why would my brother leave my side, in the middle of battle - to find books?!?” She practically screamed, her Orcish sounding stilted and unnatural in the middle of the human capital. The reply of the Kahnas and the shout of a far off guard were drowned out by the racking coughs which overtook the General. Bent nearly double, her head swam and spots appeared behind her eyes and it was a full thirty seconds before she drew breath again. With a grimace, she turned her head to the side and spit out a mouthful of blood onto the vibrant green grass. “We need – need to get moving.” The Kahnas turned and continued up the slope, walking as if they strolled here daily.
As they rounded the corner, Leda spotted the tower through the trees. Her guides both stopped suddenly and the warlock pointed up to a window at the very top, from which a faint blue glow could be seen. “That is why the sometimes-bird came here.”
“ Those of us who use it, can always feel it. Before he was here,”
“the window was much brighter, the pull much stronger.”
“Where is he now?” She spat, careful not to overtax her failing lungs again. The Kahnas simply pointed, in unison to another path down the hill. The General took off running, her shouts of pain as she shifted – midstride – could be heard in the now-defunct tower. She ran, panting heavily and favouring her left-front paw, past two oddly out of place sheep, past an until-now unnoticed Kahna mage and down the sloping path. In front of her lay an inn – the building’s purpose clearly marked with a large picture of a flagon of ale.
One could only hope the bartender didn’t see her coming, but Leda knew – Leda saw the fear in his eyes, heard the desperate pleas she didn’t understand and Leda left him behind the bar, unconscious, and barely alive. His blood left tracks on the floor. The large bear ambled down several sets of winding stairs, her breath now coming in wheezy gasps. She knew the end was near and the General stopped before the door at the bottom, aware of Iyo’s presence in the room beyond. “Even if I’ve lost the war,” she thought, “Even if I failed Asterius and abandoned my troops – let this be my triumph,” her mind reeled, but the solitude of her bear form was comforting, safe. Leda took a deep breath and rammed her shoulder into the flimsy wooden door, her roar born from pain rather than bravery.
The magic tingled. From the top of his horns to the soft underside of his hooves, Iyotanka could feel it. It was agony, it was heaven – all rolled into one and it got stronger as he followed his twin sister through the human capital. He knew the path the Horde was meant to take, through the canals; he had studied it and with his near-photographic memory, was able to recall the map easily. He knew they made it to the prison safely, had heard the doors slamming shut; saw the guards frantically trying to break into their own prison. But as he moved away, away from his sister and toward the purple banners, the tingling got stronger. He could identify it – arcane, with tinges of shadow marring its perfect clarity. The young Tauren followed its pull, easily slipping past the guard at the bottom of the tower before following its spiral stairs to the top. Laid out in front of the curious Moonkin was a massive portal, easily quadruple the size of the average mage portal. Interestingly, it seemed to be comprised of the same concepts.
Had Iyotanka thought to look, he would have found it odd that there was no one present in this all important room, but he didn’t check. Instead, he approached the gateway, bathed in its almost blinding blue light and stuck a hand through. Nothing happened. Convinced it was indeed a portal to another place or perhaps another time, Iyo wandered around behind it, looking for an adversary to question about the accomplishment of such a massive portal. Usually, a mage was required for such endeavours, but he was suddenly startled to find himself alone in the giant, sparsely furnished and purple room (and he decided, once and for all, that purple was indeed a very mage-y colour). He set about investigating the odd mage-less portal, and was pleased to find a variety of powerful crystals and gems set into its decidedly metal rim. He hunkered down next to one section of the rim, his feet splayed out in front of him and enjoyed the mental task of identifying them all.
The guards had come running when the portal suddenly winked out of existence. Iyotanka had all but froze with an azure moonstone delicately resting between his thumb and pointer finger. It seems he had removed the correct gem, but frantically stuffing the moonstone back into its former hole did not have the reverse effect. Desperately, the Tauren attempted to reform the portal, randomly moving crystals, gems and pearls from slot to slot, but to no avail. At one point, as the footsteps on the miles of stairs below him grew louder and louder, he even tried summoning the portal himself, throwing his feathered arms in the air and squeezing his eyes shut tight.
His captors hadn’t been particularly violent or aggressive and he had submitted himself to their will easily. They bound his hands and, upon seeing his staff, quickly cast a weak silencing spell, effectively preventing his use of any magic against them. Iyo was lead, down the long swirling stairs and across the lush, dew damp grass into a tavern. He should have been satisfied that the tower no longer glared arcane-blue beams out its highest windows, but he was only disappointed at having destroyed such a marvellous feat without knowing how it truly worked.
He regained consciousness again, his hands were still bound in front of him, he could no longer see out of one eye and it stinged to try and open it. All he could taste was the coppery-tang of his own blood, now crusted over, but once flowing from where the ring in his nose used to be. His captors might not have been violent or aggressive, but they definitely knew someone who was. Movement was not recommended, but also could not be avoided. His exposure to a long lasting warlock spell had lead to spasms in every muscle in his body – his left arm in particular twitched painfully. At one point, the Moonkin dreamily remembered a woman, a human woman, with a grotesque smile on her face and razor in hand. She had meant to cut out his tongue, but someone had stopped her, why… he couldn’t fathom. Iyo had yet to see a friendly face and had yet to hear anything relatively close to any language he knew.
“Wake up.”
To Iyo, the voice sounded calm, collected, gentle even. He must’ve slipped back into unconsciousness and thankfully, none of his new friends were in the room any longer. “They say you’re a General, a leader even. You are the one who sabotaged the portal, aren’t you?” He didn’t stop to hear an answer, preferring the sound of his own voice. “You’ve sent us into quite a state and our Lord won’t be pleased at all. Not at all.” The man circled in front – or at least he looked like a man – and eyed Iyotanka suspiciously.“How did you do it?”
His voice was rusty and cracked from disuse, “I – I don’t know.”
“Lies!” The man turned, the crack of a whip following his exclamation. The sting was felt nearly before the sound – it had landed directly on Iyo’s left hand, the skin beneath his fur turning a bright, angry red. “How. Did. You. Do. It?” The man asked again, through clenched teeth. To Iyo, there was little reason to lie again, knowing his fate before the question was even uttered. His interrogator had an air of desperation about him – as if his very life depended on finding the answer to this all important question. The whip cracked again and Iyotanka’s thigh would bear the scar until the end of his days.
The door hurt. Yes, it was flimsy and broke easily, but it hurt. The interrogator, a flimsy man himself, spun around still brandishing the now bloody whip and his screams brought like-minded men. They cornered the large bear, rushing into the small, dark room from behind her. In her weakened state, Leda managed to knock three to the ground, her paws now steeped in more than just blood as their skulls hit the stone floor. There were too many. The druid, impossibly large in the closed-in space, was bound at her wrists and around her snarling muzzle.
The interrogator returned moments after the dispensable human soldiers left. His whip was no longer with him, but an errant ray of sunlight danced off a dagger at his waist. He sneered, his lip curling, “Are you both shapeshifters then?” Leda glared defiantly at him, trying to bite off any part of his face as he inspected her close up. The interrogator chuckled, stepping back to survey both his captives. “Wait, wait…” he said slowly, “Now I see the family resemblance.” From her place, immobile on the cold, stone floor, she could see Iyotanka’s eyes widen. The close relationship between the two druids would be monumental to the interrogator’s quest for information. “Beasts! The lot of you! All beasts…”he smirked, laughing softly to himself. “Now… back to business: How did you disable the portal, Cow?”
After seeing his sister beaten into submission in her weakened state Iyotanka had had enough. The sudden steely look in his eyes made the interrogator hesitate on his next lashing. “Oh, what now? Don’t like being called a Cow do we?” There was no answer and the room was silent, save Leda’s gasping breaths and slight wheeze. “Or is it this thing? Does it mean something to you Cow?” The interrogator smirked, glancing down to the arms of Iyotanka’s flimsy chair, where his hands were balled into defiant fists. “Perhaps you’ll talk if I do this...” A boot, with a reinforced metal toe, made direct contact into the soft fleshy side of the bear dying on the floor. Upon her next shaky breath, impossibly vibrant blood stained her lips, lazily dripping onto the cold stones beneath her. “Oh that seems to have made a difference, shall I do it again Cow?”
Far above Stormwind, past the clouds, past the sun, a star quivered. It wiggled and shook and began to fall, leaving behind a blinding trail of stardust. Down it fell, down, down, down, past the clouds, past the sun, through the roof of the inn, past a soldier attempting to seduce the bartender’s daughter, past the bartender’s still unconscious form and finally straight through the skull of their interrogator, landing quite happily embedded in the stone floor in front of Leda’s nose. The interrogator crumpled and was still. Iyotanka knew they had but moments before the humans would rush in, trapping them. The flimsy chair was broken against a wall, the arms and legs to which he had been bound were easily flung off and Iyo stood shakily, weak as a newborn. His mind raced. Not even at full strength could he manage to carry Leda, but there was no way she could walk let alone shift back. Desperately, he prayed he wouldn’t kill her as he gently rolled her onto his tattered cloak. The leather she had so carefully tanned (making the whole campsite reek, which he complained about for weeks) didn’t rip under her weight and Iyo sent a silent prayer to the Earthmother for whoever designed the inn with a slope up instead of stairs.
Once outdoors, Iyo could breathe easier. At a loss, the Tauren leaned against the stone wall, resting his weary body and attempting to find the magic solution to get Leda some help. She stirred and gargling noises in the back of her throat spurred Iyo into action. His sister would not die the pathetic death of drowning in one’s own blood. He rolled her over gently and sighed in relief as she drew breath again. Summoning strength from Ysera-knew-where, several trees hopped up to attention, scurrying to the side of their commander. Iyotanka gestured vaguely at his ailing sister and the tall, thick maple helped a stubbier oak lift the majority of her body and after another gesture, scurried along the grass toward the exit to the canals. Following behind, nearly running after its brothers, was a stubby rose bush, its fragile little arms holding Leda’s tail way above its head. They reached the stone archways just as the trees ran out of steam, the lack of water, soil and nutrients making them brittle to the point of breaking. But Leda was safe, gently laid on the cool stone path.
Around the corner a shuffling of feet grabbed Iyo’s attention. In a flash, despite every muscle in his body complaining, the Moonkin was on his feet and ready to defend against whatever Stormwind had to throw at them. They stepped out of the shadows as if they had been born in them and one Moonkin found himself face to face with half a dozen Night Elves. Behind them, a Kahna rogue, which Leda would’ve recognized, shimmered into nothingness. A female stepped forward – amber eyes bespoke her calling and her long ears were unadorned, her face was delicate and strong and her stature spoke of education and refinement – Iyotanka could have easily loved her in another time, another place. Her Taurahe was stilted, verbs in wrong places, inflection missing entirely, but it wasn’t how she said it that mattered.
“Us druid too,” she smiled gracefully, holding up her staff, which still grew as if it had never been hewn from its birthplace. “Us live there. Care not war is. Come? Help, us do.” Iyotanka barely understood her, but she had yet to kick Leda in the side, which was definitely in her favour. Iyo nodded, almost imperceptibly, his shrewd Moonkin eyes passing over the other 5 druids quickly. None of them appeared to be aggressive; one – a shorter male – carried bandages over one arm and was eyeing Leda with pity. Out of nowhere, a wooden pallet was produced and several of the elves hurried to transfer his ursine sister onto it, the cloak left behind had several bloodstains covering it, but Iyo scooped it up regardless. The leader turned, her soft blue-green hair falling gracefully down her back, “Come home,” she said, pointing across the canal to another walled-in community.
