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34. Tragedy of War
🕑 Added 2025-02-22 20:00:09 +0000 UTCVandel was breathing hard, his lungs burning from the strain of exhaustion and the smoldering sulfuric air where the smoke from the forest and his village hung heavy in the air. His vision was blurry, stricken with tears, ash, and blood, not his own.
He remembered it all. It had been a regular morning at his abode since the birth of his son Khariel.
He had awakened early in the morning, tenderly kissing his loudly snoring wife on the forehead before passing by his son's room to see him peacefully sleeping for a few minutes. It was a simple yet wonderful routine. What was there more to ask? It was perfection, a dream come true.
Then he got ready to head out. Light leather armor, boots, and gloves were put on. He took a basket, his daggers, and a bow with a full quiver of arrows he made himself. He also took two of the golden-coated acorns from their leather pouch. You never know; an accident is always waiting.
Vandel was no stranger to foraging and hunting, unlike many kaldorei he met in large cities like Astranaar.
It was how he started seven hundred years ago as a humble merchant in this little idyllic, isolated village he was born into.
Of course, he wasn't an exceptional hunter by any means of the word, unlike Elarsel–his wife–but he wasn't half bad. He was decent and could do more than enough to work alone.
He wasn't foreign to fighting either; a merchant leading a caravan couldn't be solely dependent on his guards.
It was exceedingly naïve to do so, and experience had shown him this much beyond that his lovely Elarsel had been vocal on the matters.
He wouldn't be a defenseless fool. That was his love's words, and he abided by them; the lack of choice changed little.
Getting the moon geese off the nearby lake hours before lunch for the kaldorei man to prepare them was well within his abilities.
It wasn't large games, but it was filling, far less dangerous, and quicker to work on and bring back on foot.
There had been rumors of growing danger but not much else; outside of him, the village was content to remain in their little slice of paradise.
It also meant no daily market, at least with everything available, and that was why Vandel had been out hunting.
Their small family garden was rich in herbs, berries, and vegetables–many personalized by his bear-man friend–but lacked fresh meat. Unless a hen was killed, but none were old enough, it would have been a waste.
There wouldn't have been meat, and that wasn't acceptable.
What he had from the furbolgs in reserve was great. Smoked or dry-aged fish and meat with various spices and honey was good, but it was heavy, rich in fat, and to consume in moderation. They were snacks.
The ursine people could eat far more than the night elves and weren't concerned about their figures. Feasts and beverages consumed in large quantities were integral to their culture.
It had been a few hours since then, and Vandel had suddenly stopped in his hunt when he smelled the distinct scent of burning wood in a too-warm wind.
A smell thickened in the air as he ran back to Elu-Fahore. It was a distinctive dreadful aroma of charred hair and flesh that stabbed the sinus in his nose. The smell one got when a particular piece of fatty boar had roasted for a bit too long and was charred.
It was unpleasant to the nose, revolting even. But this was worse: a putrid undertone of rotten egg and boiling blood.
At the time, the father of a happy three-year-old son and husband to a beautiful, strong wife believed it was a wildfire or an accident. The village was in grave danger, but it was the least horrific possibility.
The part of him recalling the warning of Ohto was rejected, drowned in raw fear, despair, and terror. His everything, his entire purpose, was destroyed and lost forever if they became true.
Denying this possibility was natural.
It was his furbolg friend's usual view that the cup was half empty even though it was full. It wouldn't be demons; it couldn't be demons. It mustn't be demons. His bear-man friend cynicism should be misplaced.
Vandel's denial was short-lived as reality enforced itself on him, his nose, eyes, and ears the doors to its cruel forms.
"No… nonononono…" The elven merchant repeated at the sight of immaculate destruction processing before his wide eyes were full of shock. It wasn't a fire alone.
Alien creatures of many shapes ran amok, abominable, and varying armors. Fangs, scales, hides, horns, claws, leathery wings, baleful green fire and blades.
The quaint hearth where, in ages past, the village celebrated big and small was now no more than rubles and charcoal. The arches burned, and within them were corpses—night elves corpses.
Stomping, eating, or playing with them were the monsters of the Burning Legion, for they couldn't be anything else but them. Descriptions in books and paintings of the War of the Ancients had been far too kind.
There were screams amidst the gleeful laughter of the demons of kaldorei. They were fighting, hiding, or running for little worth it had on their survival, and even seasoned warriors were overwhelmed.
His long ears twitched at even one of them as they felt clear, and the visceral agony and terror within was clearer. Vandel knew and was friends with those people for as long as he could remember in this hamlet.
Each of their quirks, their favorite foods, their birthdays, hobbies, likes and dislikes—none of it was a secret as was the same for the others. They were almost like a family.
The first corpse he saw had been Tarnil, a childhood friend and Elu-Fahore's sole baker after his mother, a reservist huntress, died in the war a millennia past.
His usually smiling face was in a terrified rictus while his bloody guts were sprawled on the grass.
A golem of stone and sickly green flame crushed the body underfoot, leaving behind a muddy, scarlet, formless paste of blood, skins, entrails, and sharps bone fragments.
However, this brought a darker realization that sent spikes of anguish in Vandel's heart, drowning every other emotion, be it disgust, terror, or sadness.
The chaos and death felt insignificant, as did the arrival of a battalion of night elves at the side of his vision.
"Elune, no!" He screamed, rushing onward to the family home. It was a short run, yet a dangerous one. But adrenalin fueling his body shortened it, and he arrived at the sight of nightmares.
Where once was a small two-story house grown into a tree next to a potager and chicken coop with a small garden, now it was ash and baleful green fire.
There was no pleasant clucking of hens or the calming buzzing and flipping of bees and butterflies.
The house was broken, and the tree it was in had fallen, revealing to the world the living room evolving into a kitchen.
Or what remained of it, claw marks marred the ground as Vandel entered, and a moment later, his body went still as he came face to face with a grisly spectacle of all his fears.
It was an image he would forever remember. Next to the corpse of three alien crimson-colored eyeless beasts with tentacles was a mangled female kaldorei body on the ground where dirty laundry and wood fragments were strewn.
Above her was another of those eyeless canines dead like the three others, its maw crushing her skull with its massive fangs like it was a vulgar nut.
Her eyes were wide open beyond their normal orbits, showing the extent of the damage if the gory flash of the brain wasn't enough.
Her hair, drenched in blood, obscured most of her face, and death wasn't pretty. Yet a resolute and enraged visage could be seen behind the fear and despair.
The green pajama she wore was the same as the woman he had kissed mere hours past but ripped and bloody with wide gashes between the ribbons of tissue.
The typical three-bladed moon glaive with the first blade in the demon canine torso was in her left hand.
In her right hand were two golden acorns shining in the fiery light while the effect one was trying and failing to heal the lacerations, making them squirm without real progress.
It was a gruesome, morbid sight, yet unlike all others, it hit differently.
Who this was and what unfolded was evident to the elf, his face paling as he stared lifelessly at the still-warm body of his wife.
He felt lightheaded, his muscles tensing without his will, and tears flowed down his cheeks as he fell to his knees.
Elarsel had fought those creatures–felhounds–distant memories, gave those monsters names, and managed to fight thanks to Ohto's gift for longer than she would have.
Yet, as his young furbolg friend said, it was no miracle, and certain wounds couldn't be fought.
Vandel swallowed with immense difficulty and a pounding heart as he delicately took the acorns, slowly closing the fist down and the wide-open, dull eyes that were once so vibrantly beautiful with shaky hands.
The chaos outside grew in volume and intensity, but he didn't care. It didn't matter.
But before any further emotions could settle, the foundation trembled, and the sound of stone falling and glass breaking followed.
Then a tormented boyish scream echoed from behind the door the mother of their child had died protecting.
It was a voice the night elf would recognize among thousands. And it violently stopped, replaced by a laughing yips and happy growl.
'Khariel…!' Vandel stood with strength and speed he never knew he possessed as he ripped his son's bedroom door off its hinge.
He froze; the uncomfortably warm hair from the shattered wall was barely acknowledged.
In front of him was his son's messy room. It was never clean; the little guy was never one for tidiness at his age, but now it was different.
The wooden toys and plushies range from colorful building blocks and jumping sticks–the birthday gifts of Ohto–to a simple hippogryph marionette and clothes.
They had been dragged to form a small fortress with the bed as a foundation.
At the heart of it was the same beast that had murdered his Elarsel.
It was accompanied by the sharp and wet sounds of small bones breaking, organs chewed, and satisfied deglutition were louder in the deafening background of his beating heart and choked sobs.
It was sickening.
Vandel lost it, and with a roar of rage and grief, he threw himself at the felhound, his daggers held high.
There was no care for his own well-being, his bloodshot gaze eyeing the destruction of the monster and that alone.
The lupine demon barely had the time to lift its head in annoyance with the shredded elven boy's face still between its jaws that the howling kaldorei was on.
Its aggravated growl at having a succulent meal interrupted shifted to a loud, painful whine.
"Die!" The enraged father roared, his voice hoarse as he stabbed the felhound in the back.
His daggers easily dug through the demonic skin and reached the inside just as easily before getting hoisted and plunged again and again and again without stopping.
"Die! Die! Diediedie!" Vandel screamed and screamed, his voice rapidly becoming hoarse and dry with each scream, but he didn't care. His everlasting fuel was fury, hate, regret, despair, and anguish.
The glowing green blood of the demonic dog soon painted his armor on his face and soaked his hair, but he didn't relent. He couldn't relent. It wasn't enough and never would be.
"Stop." A harsh demand in a deep shadowing voice cut through the music of mindless stabbing and sorrowful wails, but it didn't stop them.
No, the grieving father was continuing, a thin smile of madness etching itself on his lips as he minced the thing that took his son into an unrecognizable pile of meat.
He had long since run out of tears, but their trails remained over the ash and blood as he went.
Something had broken inside.
"I said stop! It's dead. Stabbing it serves no purpose but making you prey." This time, it was harsher.
A large, calloused hand ending in long, dark claws grasped Vandel's raised forearm with a certain firm gentleness, stunning him for a moment.
"I'm not finished… I'm not finished…" He growled with venom, his head snapping to whom stopped him. His eyes widened by a fraction at what greeted him.
It was a male night elf, yet it wasn't. Long curled horns grew from his forehead, he had hoofed goat-like legs both like a satyr, strange tattoos over his body, and large leathery wings.
It was a demon like none other, the leader most likely.
The most glaring physical aspect was the eyes or the lack thereof. A bandana hiding a pair of glowing hollow sockets of green fire–Fel–staring down at him with understanding and respect.
However, Vandel's reaction was not to cower as any would but to attack the demon with wild abandon.
It was vicious and deadly in intent, but it was slow, clumsy, and telegraphed—the result of an exhausted mind and body.
The strange satyr snorted in clear amusement at the effort, but it wasn't mocking in the least. He was impressed by the sheer will.
And faster than Vandel could comprehend lest react, his second hand with the dagger was taken, held with the same gentle but unbreaking hold.
The night elf, crying out in anger, abandoned all logic and restraint and threw himself at the blind Fel-corrupted kaldorei's throat with a wide open mouth as if he were a feral animal.
It predictably failed once more in spite of the surprise factor as the winged demon let go of him and jumped back with a single beat, fang showing as a smirk formed.
Vandel fell to the ground, and the physical pain brought clarity back to his eyes—blurry as his eyesight still was.
Be that as it may, he stood up, his position ready to fight to the death, and his eyes remained locked onto the monster with fierceness belying his position.
Few would ever believe this was the same fair, gentle, and patient merchant.
"You are a strong one… I'm Illidan Stormrage; join me-" The newly named Illidan was cut short by his interlocutor with a tone of blame and hate.
"Join you… No…" Vandel coughed, getting his voice back and yelling accusingly, "No! What madness are you speaking of, demons?! No! You're the Betrayer! It was your doing!"
The Betrayer sighed but was anything but vexed; it was the opposite.
The smirk he had been constraining bloomed as he openly chuckled. It was cold and mirthless, but it wasn't mocking.
There was a certain madness to it, not antithetical to the one growing in Vandel.
It was the first grain of delight since his apotheosis yesterday and Malfurion's stubborn rebuttal of his efforts to save Azeroth.
The irony of the blind twin of the two alone to see what was ahead wasn't lost on Illidan; as much as he preferred the opposite, fate had chosen differently.
"No, it is not me, little elf. I would have killed you otherwise. I'm not in service to the Legion… The idea is repulsive." Illidan spat with an intensity that shocked Vandel into silence.
"I'm leaving those lands per my brother's wish. It was destiny that we met. If you survive and seek vengeance and retribution for what was taken, you may seek me, the Betrayer. The Burning Legion shall pay the toll by its annihilation."
And with those final words and strange metallic token akin to a demon head with rapidly deeming green eyes as the lesser of the Stormrage brothers left.
His demonic form shifted between dark smoke and flesh as he took to the sky.
Ten minutes later, Vandel was found by the sentinels clutching Khariel's silver leaf pendant–the last part of his son–where he had learned why everything unfolded.
The owl sent with the message to evacuate in quick orders had been killed.
The absence of a message or the owl back had been the signal that something had gone wrong with night raptors; more were sent, but the results were the same.
The sentinels, priestesses, and druids had come personally arrived, but it had been too late.
Elu-Fahore was a settlement of hundreds, some deep in lost territories to the undead and the Legion.
Vandel couldn't bring himself to care or blame them. It could have been avoided that tragedy if he had listened, but the truth was that his anger wasn't at himself but at the demons.
Illidan's words kept ringing in his mind as, hours later, he was brought to a camp like the few of his village who had survived.
The token flashed at moments and where he buried it. But he remembered the present, not now; it would be his death. He wasn't ready yet.
To his surprise, there were furbolgs, though it should have been expected as when he was evacuated, there had been fights with demons and walking corpses.
Fights that Vandel tried to join these but he was quickly halted from doing so. It was even why he was escorted farther away from any battle—judged as dangerous for himself and any not serving the Burning Legion.
His mental and physical states were deemed unfit for the frontline or even as menial help to his immense fury. The young night elf had tried to escape, but it had been in vain and destroyed any hope for him to be of use—to have vengeance.
For that very reason, he was deep in the Wise Bear's defended domain. That he was known and respected among furbolgs for his connection to the Chosen of the Twins enforced that he stayed there. They wouldn't let him slip.
Alas, the reasons he was there were the painful truth, and the fresh pain they brought were insignificant to the gaping void from the death of his son and wife as they may be. The numerous truths were there.
He, Vandel, a merchant, was slow, weak, powerless, and incompetent.
A failure of a father and husband with no foresight for the warned danger, but the heat of anger and revenge was stronger even than any degree of self-pity and loathing.
As is, he would kill himself, fulfilling nothing. A pointless end rendering Khariel and Elarsel equal to nothingness, memories to be forgotten and never remembered.
If he was to bring retribution, dying on the same day wasn't the favored path.
It was why a simple decision was taken, and in the evening, the elf man found himself standing in front of an incredibly massive wooden bear head with its jaws wide open.
This carving, older than the World Tree itself, was the entrance in Ashenvale to Timbermaw Hold.
"Wish enter. Have blessing Ohto." He choppily spoke in Ursine, his sore from the morning still hurting even after druids checked and cleaned him up was even more painful from the need to growl and huff in the wild language powerfully.
The four guards' attention wasn't on him but the glowing wood paw pendant he held above his head.
"Uh! Yes!" The one to the foremost left, female by her higher tone, left, and it didn't take more than five minutes of awkward silence for an older-looking furbolg to show up.
Feather and fur adorned her–female by the feather collar–white fur as she carefully huddled toward him until Vandel could smell her breath of raw fish. Not that he dared voice it.
She smacked her lips, her head tilting to the right in confusion as she studied him, sniffing him and his wooden pendant, feeling it with her leathery fingerpads.
The bear-woman expression softened as she concluded from her observation; he didn't need to read her mind to know what it was.
"I'm Ferli, Elder Shaman of the Timbermaw. You may enter, Friend of the Honored One. You are welcome in our dens. Now go and rest." Ferli said and, with a flourish of her paws, mentioned that he should enter without waiting.
"What…" It was all the male kaldorei could utter as he entered the tunnel–almost pushed in– smaller doors in the large heavy, duty doors of living reinforced in various metals carved in runes he didn't recognize nor understand.
It was beautiful.
It was as if he stepped into an alternate world. It was alight with plants and fungi he had never seen before, creating a seamless tapestry of life no inferior to the night sky.
It evolved as he walked, changing and growing in density without ever growing to be choking to the path and world around. It was a manicured ecosystem, a garden of perfection he was invading.
Minutes felt no different than hours to him, each second an eternity of sorrow and rage as his boot dragged on the vibrant bioluminescent moss.
Golden veins pulsing like a heart was the epicenter that started to appear at his every step; all the while, motes of soft emerald light floated in the air band and began to draw his attention.
It was fantastical, and at this instant, Vandel wished the two he lost had seen it.
But it wasn't to be.
'If only…' His fist clenched, his knuckles whitening and nails digging into his skin until a voice on its way to deepen from puberty in Darnasian called to him from a smaller tunnel to his left.
"Vandel? Is that you? By Ursol, you're here! What happened?!" Karhu said, coming into view, a full backpack on his back as he ran to kaldorei.
Behind him was a gargantuan mole with even more bags. Holding the blind mammal's leash was an equally young, if notably taller and heavier, furbolg cub—Hukar, the sister of the duo.
And behind her was a furbolg between both in size, Softjaw, her big eyes curiously observing the unfolding scene.
The biggest female sniffed the air, her large nose aimed at the elf. Her ever-cheery and bubbly behaviors took a dramatic shift, and the puzzle she had been trying to solve to pass the time was crushed in her paw.
"His mate and lil' Khar are dead. Was it the demons…? The undead? No… no… this is bad… why?!" Hukar snarled at Ursine with rage that caught Vandel off guard.
She remained there until her brother nuzzled her, and her friend hastily hugged her, calming her down and bringing her back into focus with the fur below her eyes, which were wet.
The elven man understood and answered, in turn, his raw emotions stronger than the young female's, and the potent hate vitriolic was contrary to the twins, who had known of this jovial merchant all their lives.
"It was demons," Vandel whispered, but his words were heard.
Hukar and Karhu stiffened, but it wasn't fear; the cubs of nine communions may still be cubs, but they weren't afraid of a night elf who could kill in a heartbeat.
Their big brother had trained them well in all matters, be it martial, magical, or educational, even if only the male of the pair grasped why from end to beginning.
No, it was more profound. Something innate and integral to Vandel had shattered today, and something new was forming from the broken pieces, something different.
Comments
Noknok
I'm just angry that Ohto could've saved them but I guess he already had to many things on his mind.
TITOO
Well, it would change quite a lot. Just something for later. Vandel himself isn't so much the entire point here and the situation can't be hand waved away.
Noknok
So it happened like in the original kinda pointless chapter, maybe if the child survived... Ohto could've tried to convince him to come with him for a vacation or a sightseeing with the whole family...it is what it is i gues.
Bat
Fantastic chapter! This man has for all intents died and what replaces him will be something new.
