(9) Baelzar

Rhia glanced about the surrounding forest, alert to any demonic ambushes as her saber pressed on, the elven host of about twenty to thirty soldiers behind her, also mounted up and ready for battle. The forest, once green and lush, was anything but that now. The shadows clung between the branches, obscuring sight apart from eyes that would appear momentarily in the shadows with a hungry look to them before reappearing elsewhere, peering at a different member of the company. It was worrying to think that they could be ambushed at any time, but Rhia insisted on pushing forward, and as the leader of the group they did so.

Minutes of silent, watchful riding became tens of minutes, which in turn became hours as a green mist that had begun to surround them formed in to a dense fog. Eventually the fog became so bad that the riders struggled to see one another, let along the surroundings where they feared an ambush would come from. A young soldier with long blue hair spoke up, yelling through the fog.

"Miss Nyoma, we're lost! We should have reached Suramar half an hour ago by now!"

Rhia ground her teeth together in frustration. Despite asking the soldiers to call her "Rhia" they had insisted on calling her "Miss Nyoma". On top of that, they should have reached Suramar a while ago, but all she could see was the outlines of trees and the ever condensing green fog. It was growing difficult to breathe as well, the fog clinging to their lungs after every breath.

After a few moments of silence, Rhia called out again.

"Gather your mounts around me. I'm going to do a quick headcount before we continue onwards on foot for now. Suramar should be right up ahead, and with this dense fog we can't see each other when mounted up, but we might be able to on foot if we stick together. The sabers can follow on behind us."

As she was speaking, the others began to gather around in two's or threes, some dismounting, some remaining mounted. As shadow begun to do a headcount, the blue haired soldier spoke out again.

"Where's Arsuli, Meliador and Olyemi?"

Before Rhia could look for them among the faces of the crowd, another soldier called out.

"They were our only sorcerers from the moonguard! We're defenceless against any spellwork directed at us."

Rhia's eyes slowly closed with despair. Only three magi had gone with them, and now they had disappeared without a trace or sound. Rhia expected that it wasn't a coincidence that they had all gotten themselves lost in the woods after falling too far behind.

"We can't go looking for them in this dense fog" Rhia's second in command, Aleix'rond Sunblaze stated. "We'd never find them, and even if we did, we wouldn't be able to find our way back here.

Rhia frowned slightly, beginning to speak herself. "What if we were to give everyone torches? We might be able to see each other through the fog that way."

Rhia's third in command, Harafen Wrathfire, shook his head. "Something's out there as well, demons I expect that have ambushed the magi and taken them away whilst we were blinded by the fog. For us to light fires would alert them to our position."

Aliex'rond spoke out again as silence descended upon Rhia. "Yet we can't just continue on like this. We'll get picked off, one by one, until we're all gone."

At last, with a sigh that followed a moment or two's pause, Rhia spoke up again. "Split in half. Aliex'rond, lead a group out to quickly gather some wood for making a fire and search for the missing moonguard. Harafen, remain here with the others and myself and await the others return whilst we make sure that the nightsabers are ready to go."

After a few moments wait where Aliex'rond, Harafen and Rhia sorted out the two parties, Aliex'rond set off with the others whilst Harafen and Rhia waited, tending to the mounts and keeping a wary eye on the surroundings. Rhia checked her own mount for a few seconds, and other than some tired legs he seemed fine to continue onwards after a little rest, so Rhia turned her back on the saber and attempted yet again to peer through the fog, her gut churning as she did so.

Something was wrong.

She spun around again, doing another headcount as her heart began to race forward.

"Where is Relyan?"

Everyone looked around at each other, puzzled. The young soldier with his short green hair had disappeared.

A scream echoed through the forest.

"Draw swords!"

The sound of the shout and of the soldiers under Rhia's command drawing their blades echoed through the forest, as everyone held their blades out in front of them. Rhia reached for her own sword, drawing it and holding it by the handle whose feel she had gotten used to by now. Her heart was beating furiously, her blood racing around her body, ready for battle.

"Gather around me! Tight circle formation, prepare to defend yourselves!"

Seconds passed. Then minutes.

Someone spoke out again from the group. "Where are the others? They should have been back by now."

There was no response. What could she say?

Seconds passed. They rolled in to minutes.

A branch snapped to Rhia's right. She turned to face it.

Nothing for a few moments. Then an elven figure stumbled out from the mists. His armour held deep gouges and dents, and he bled from several places. What more, his stomach had been torn out.

He collapsed, just a few meters from the others. A brief moment of silence passed.

Someone broke ranks, rushing for the figure.

"No!" Rhia called out. It was too late.

A pair of invisible hands grabbed on to soldier that rushed forward, dragging him in to the undergrowth. The sound of a blade sliding in to flesh reached the soldiers' ears. Rhia winced, before going back in to her battle ready trance, a snarl dancing across her lips.

Blood would be spilt. Demon blood.

Leaves and branches started snapping. They were coming out in to the open, in full force now, ready to slaughter. But what poured out of the dense, choking fog was not any kind of demon that Rhia had heard of. Instead, it was something a little more closer to home.

What looked to be a Night Elf, dressed in the normal forest green armour that belonged to soldiers of the Kaldorei Defense stumbled out from the undergrowth, his helmet missing to show his long, messy purple hair somehow fail to cover the grim wound that he bore. Part of his left jaw had been ripped out, the bone splintered and in fragments. In addition, he seemed to have been bitten in the knee of his right leg, causing him to limp along, whilst he also had a stab wound in his torso, near to his right shoulder, yet close enough that it should have killed him. To Rhia, it was a mystery how he was alive at all, yet alone walking in full armour, his sword drawn.

A soldier, and Rhia regretted not knowing his name, darted forward quickly to help his injured brother in arms, laying an arm around his shoulders and placing his hand over his torso wound in an attempt to support him and quickly get him back to the safety of the others. Oddly to Shadow however, he raised his weapon arm, his sword glistening red.

Everything suddenly clicked.

Rhia darted forward, out of her position, and stabbed the soldier through the chest with her dagger, and then decapitated him swiftly with her sword. In his final moments however, he lurched forward, and plunged his already blood soaked blade in to the soldiers chest, causing him to stumble back and finally collapse, dead.

"They're turning our dead on us..." A soldier muttered, looking at the corpse of the newly slain soldier as he was enveloped in a sickening green magic, before rising once more, ripping the worn blade out of his chest and brandishing his own, before charging at the Night Elven ranks in a mad rush, before swiftly being cut down before any harm could be done. He was not the only dead though. Out of the mists came more dead ones, soldiers but also civilians who had died in Suramar after it had been taken by the demons. Stumbling towards the living, they attacked with as much ferocity as those with weapons, using their clawed and gnarled bony hands, their feet and their teeth as weapons.

A savage battle was fought; living versus the dead, some of which were slain at the hands of crying soldiers, who had once known them back in their lives before or during the war, and had counted them as friends. Rhia had no such thoughts, barely holding off an inner bloodlust as she hacked and stabbed at everything in front of her, letting loose a savage battle shout as she did, challenging the dead and their masters who had raised them.

A laugh echoed through the forests, mocking the roar of defiance as felhounds sprang out of the undergrowth, laying in to the unsuspecting soldiers whilst ignoring-No, fighting alongside the dead. Rhia, glanced over in the direction of the laugh, and a fury, more primal than many people could hope to imagine was within them, burst out of her at what she saw.

The dreadlord that had led the demons which had killed the entire Nyoma line, stood, gazing at the battle in front of him as if he was watching some kind of sport, laughing at the dead who fell, only to rise again at his spellwork. His gaze shifted on to the little soldier among the ranks of the undead and demons, who was hacking their way, consumed entirely by bloodlust, fueled every more with each hit and by a blazing furnace of rage within her.

Rhia, after taking many blows that would have stopped many people in their tracks and forced them backwards, reached the dreadlord in front of her, who laughed at her, his pride swelling up as he thought of how he could toy with the little and insignificant soldier, both in life and in death. Before he could put any of his plans in to action though, Rhia struck out first, swinging her sword in upwards arc towards his right leg whilst stabbing with her dagger at his left leg. Both attacks seemed to glance off of an invisible barrier that surrounded the dreadlord, but Rhia kept on hacking and slashing until an attack caught his leg, drawing out some thick grey blood which dripped to the ground.

The dreadlord grimaced slightly in pain. Quicker than lightning, he swooped down and grabbed Rhia by her neck, lifting her up to his eye level, where he spoke to her, his own voice portraying his irritation with the soldier.

"Look upon the face of your demise, whelp. I am Baelzar: Your End."

And slowly, he began to crush her throat.

Oooo interesting. Looking forward to the rest!