"Misssssstresssssssss Easssssstberg!" the voice called out.
Beckyann rolled her eyes, pausing to glance over her shoulder. She was passing through the heart of Acherus and headed back towards her quarters after a long patrol in the plaguelands. The last thing she wanted to deal with at the moment was a conversation with a geist. She wanted to get back to her quarters and get all of the dust and dirt of the plaguelands off herself before curling up with a good necromantic tome and simply relaxing for a few minutes.
Although she was hoping it would simply forget what it was doing, to Beckyann's irritation the undead thing saw her looking at it and it began to wave her over frantically. With a long suffering sigh she signaled to her squad that they were dismissed and headed over to the table where the geist was standing, noting the large number of strange pots or urns sitting there. In her most waspish tone, she snapped at the creature, "What now?"
"Misssstresssss," the creature hissed at her. She rolled her eyes again as it continued its long-winded way of speaking. "I have ssssssssomething sssssssspecial for you! Dropped off jussssssst today. I wasssssss told to notify you immediately when it arrived!"
"What? What do you mean something 'special' for me?" Beckyann said, staring at the urns. "These are nice but they're nothing out of ordinary."
"They sssssssaid you needed them for sssssome sssssssssspellssssssss you are working on, Missssstressssss," the geist replied. "Thesssssssse are perfect. I wassssssssss told that thissssss one here isssssssss exactly what you need."
Beckyann looked at the urn that the geist was pointing at, shaking her head as she reached out to pick it up. She could tell by the weight that it was full, likely with the ashes of the deceased. She shot the geist a withering glare before examining the urn. She held it up in front of her, studying it. She saw that it had a dusty inscription on it, and she set it down to wipe the inscription clean, peering at it closely.
"Maxwell Potter," She murmured, still wiping at the urn. Something tickled the back of her mind, and she frowned, biting her lip as she picked up the next urn in the line. "Eliza Potter..."
Something began to burn in the back of her mind, and Beckyann grabbed the next urn and wiped the inscription clean on it. "Bethany Tanner...Kevin Tanner....Lisamarie Lefaire...Anna Smith...Timothy Smith..."
Beckyann reeled back away from the table, her eyes wide as the names stared up at her from the urns; the urns of the dead of Corin's Crossing. Urns that had been safely buried in a cemetery that had not been despoiled by the Scourge due to the lack of actual corpses. And now here they were, the men and women she had grown up with, their ashes sitting before her, dug up from their final rest and brought here as if to mock her.
"Who gave these to you..." Beckyann said, her voice a deadly whisper.
The geist was not intelligent enough to detect the potential threat in the words, and happily grinned at her with its broken teeth, "A Knight, Misssssssstresssssss. He ssssssssssaid you sssssssssshould have thessssssssse for your experimentsssssss!"
Her runeblade came out in one smooth motion, the deadly ring of the metal bringing the bartering in the area to an abrupt halt as silence descended amongst the undead in that part of the Ebon Hold. Beckyann's words would have cut through the chatter anyway, her tone unmistakably full of malice, "Who. Gave. These. To. You."
The geist blinked once, its runny yellow eyes looking confused. Unfortunately, it hesitated a fraction of a second longer than Beckyann's rather thin patience lasted, and her blade lashed out and down, destroying the table and shattering the urns. Ashes swirled in the air as cold winds began to rip around the infuriated Beckyann, ice and snow mixing with it to create a dirty maelstrom of magic. "WHO GAVE THESE TO YOU?!?! TELL ME THIS INSTANT!"
The other Knights and undead in the area stared at Beckyann as she raged, and the geist cowered before the ruined table, squealing and begging Beckyann not to hack him to pieces. With a shaking hand he pointed across the room, at a Death Knight that had been standing quietly back in the crowd. Other Knights standing near the man backed away a step as he was pointed out, and he smirked.
"Captain Pendagast of Central sends her regards, Sergeant Eastberg," the Knight said snidely before turning to walk away.
It was, of course, the absolute worst mistake he could have made. In an instant the swirling storm of necromantic magic around Beckyann dissipated as she focused all of her burning ire on the back of the retreating Knight. She pointed and tendrils of black magic wrapped around him, yanking him back towards her. When he landed, she immediately backhanded him across the face with her gauntlet, sending him reeling.
"Y-you can't touch me! I'm under orders from Captain Pendagast!" the Knight yelled at Beckyann. She merely shrugged, wading into combat with him without the slightest concern for the onlookers, several of whom had begun to grin and one or two of whom had actually began to place bets. The prone Knight attempted to rise and Beckyann brought the flat of her runeblade down on his spine hard enough to dent his plate armor, driving him to the floor again before she delivered a devastating kick to the side of his head.
"You like delivering packages, do you?" Beckyann snarled. The Knight on the ground brought an arm up to ward off another blow and she brought her runeblade down again, this time blade first and hard enough to bury the weapon in the bones of his forearm. He snarled and she merely kicked him a second time, sending him sprawling. "Don't worry, I've got a package for you to deliver as well you miserable little bastard!"
The Knight was only able to mewl out an incoherent response as Beckyann kicked him again and then brought the flat of her blade down on his chestplate, denting the metal there as well. She stalked past him, reaching down to grab him by the hair as she began to drag him across the floor. He shouted the words of a necromantic spell, but wards lit up on her runeblade and the energy was harmlessly absorbed into her armor. She was, after all, still in full combat gear and prepared for Scourge attacks using necromancy.
Two of the Ebon Hold's guards stepped forward as she dragged him along, looking at her harshly for a moment. She stared them down and after a tense stand off one of them shrugged and stepped back; as long as they weren't wrecking the entire Hold it didn't really matter if one or two of the Knights was getting a bit of revenge here and there. They'd let their commanders work it out later. Beckyann abruptly brushed past the second guard, actually shouldering him over a bit and earning a snarl from him as she continued to drag her now kicking victim behind her.
She reached the edge of the observation deck that Red often enjoyed, pausing for a minute to turn and deliver a brutal beating to the prone Knight with the flat of her blade. After he'd become a bloody mess on the ground, she bent down and whispered into his ear, her voice a sensuous whisper now, "When they reanimate you, tell Captain Pendagast that I will fill every single one of the holes she dug with her bones. I never forget, and a brother or sister that would betray me like this would betray any one of us. You're too blind and ambitious to see that though, so be a good, loyal little dog and deliver my message."
The man moaned something that Beckyann really couldn't make out, not that she cared to hear it anyway. She dropped her runeblade with a clatter and reached down to hook her fingers in his armor straps. Using her unnatural strength, she heaved the ragdoll-like corpse up and over the observation deck's railing, sending the Knight plummeting into the Eastern Plaguelands like so many others had who could not stand the curse of undeath any longer.
As Beckyann retrieved her runeblade and stared down the crowd of onlookers until they went about their business again, she smiled to herself as an errant thought passed through her mind. She'd need to go and clean up the ashes and ensure they were properly returned to the ground of course, but at least Captain Pendagast was down one in the scorebook.
"And it really is such a nice view from here too," Beckyann murmured. She began walking back towards the bizarre, humming an old tune from Lordaeron to herself as she got to work.
In the distance, the sound of something heavy and metal colliding with the ground echoed up into the Hold.
No comments:
Post a Comment