InsaneJournal

“Death,” growled Kwaaku as they stood on the bottom floor of the tower. “There is the great scent of death here, Nec.”

Necronim nodded. Even his ravaged sense of smell could catch this scent that raged through the tower. Curiously he glanced upwards and couldn’t help a grimace at the sight of blood soaking into the boards of the wooden staircases and ramps spiraling above them.

Behind them Scyllaine wailed in sorrow and he heard Kalya attempting to comfort her. She was a damn fine girl, she was.

“I’m going up,” growled Necronim.

“What killed them?” asked Kwaaku. “Do you believe those riders are the ones?”

The rogue paused halfway up the stone steps that led to the first wooden ramp and frowned thoughtfully.

“If they’re anything like the Scourge I remember,” he muttered, “then, yes, Kwaa. I would say this is clearly their work.” Then he rushed up the steps before another question could be asked. He pounded up them out of sight, the scent of death and blood only growing stronger as he continued upwards. And some part of him gave a happy little cackle at the destruction in the topmost part of the tower as he crested the last stair.

Archmage Xylem, the mage Scyllaine had spoken of, lay in a ravaged mess in the center of the most open part of the room. At least…he figured that this corpse was the Archmage. There were the scorch marks from fire all around the body and a few scraps of undead flesh lain strew about it that gave tell of a magical battle.

Necronim frowned and crouch to inspect one of the scraps, drawing one dagger to use to lift it up on the point. He hissed between his teeth as he realized this wasn’t the flesh of one of those three riders. No, this was rotted skin like his and Scyllaine’s…which meant…

Scourge.

Ghouls.

The unquestioning army of the undead.

All mine for the taking.

“Get out of my head!” snapped Necronim, rising to his feet. He glanced towards the Archmage’s corpse and felt the urge rise up in him to cross that little bit of space between them and bend down… To taste the dead flesh as he had done before… To…

Snarling, he spun away, closing his eyes tightly as he shoved the urge down and away from himself. He was not that monster anymore! He was himself!

You are nothing! Screamed the voice in his mind, scrabbling for control. You are mine!

Necronim flailed against that control and spat aloud, “My name is Saran! And I am my own creature, necromancer!”

You cannot resist!

But he could hear it fading already and with his teeth bared, he shoved that foul presence entirely away from himself, sagging to the floor from the effort. Slowly he stood again, closing his eyes in pain as he realized that to hold onto himself, he had to be himself. And no matter how he had denied it over the past years, he had unconsciously held viciously to the man he had been.

That was the only reason he wasn’t gone back to being the creature he had been before. It was there still – always had been – but his soul still held reign over it.

Necronim shook his head then started down the steps when he heard the scrape of claws across wood. He reached for his daggers then one of the fallen bookshelves exploded upwards, the shattered form of what might have been an apprentice of the Archmage rising up. Feral glowing eyes stared hungrily at him and the broken male form cackled as it lurched forward, body even contorting now into something inhuman as he watched.

Then it froze and the twisted, heavily clawed right arm reached out to him, the disfigured face smiling at him.

“Join us,” spoke the voice through its creature and Necronim glared as he tore his daggers from their sheaths.

“No,” he replied stonily and the smile faded.

“So be it.”

Then the once human twisted by the new Plague leapt at him and Necronim met it in a blur of flashing blades before they both went tumbling down the stairs. They crashed through the railings at the second tier and tumbled straight down to the floor below, causing Kwaaku to turn even as he defended against the others of its ilk trying to get through the door.

“Nec!” bellowed the one-eyed Tauren as the rogue kicked the disfigured creature away. Necronim spared a glance in his direction as he rolled to his feet then had to turn his attention back to the ghoul, meeting its blows with his own. Somewhere in the tumble he had lost his daggers and fought with his hands, the bones at the tips of his fingers turning into claws.

“Join us!” demanded the voice again through the ghoul and he snarled into its face since he couldn’t spit. “NEVER!” he roared back and felt a surge of strength rush through him.

Which he promptly used to rip off the ghoul’s clawed right arm and shoved it back into its face. As it staggered back screaming, he heard Scyllaine’s wail of outrage and Kalya’s frightened shriek.

“SARAN!”

Necronim spun at that cry and his already dead heart felt like it crumbled to dust as he saw her gripped in the claws of a ghoul ready to descend hungry jaws down on her. She lashed out in a mix of fury and fear, the dagger he had given her scoring a line across its face. But it wasn’t enough…and there was no help from Scyllaine, who was being overpowered, nor Kwaaku, who was doing all he could to keep the ghouls from flooding over them.

He knew what would happen if it bit her – she would disappear, lost underneath a monster that couldn’t even be brought back to consciousness as he had. In response, something in him snapped. Fury roared through what was left of his veins and, unarmed, he leapt into the fray at the door with his fingers twisted into claws.

What happened after that was a blur but when Necronim came to he was swaying in the doorway, coated in the gore from the ghouls with their shredded corpses at his feet. He stared down at them, feeling sick in a stomach he no longer possessed, then staggered forward into the open outside. Into the grass he collapsed, screaming hoarsely as he started tearing at his gore coated leathers. They were just as they had been when he had come back to himself in a field in the Western Plaguelands and, just as then, he could not remember the moments from just before the slaughter.

When he finally was rid of everything but his ragged underclothes, he crawled away from the torn pile of torn leather and fled as far as he could get before he collapsed from exhaustion and terror. Ragged half-sobs wracked his body and if he but could, tears would have been flowing from his eyes.

It was not that they had once been just innocent humans and possibly the orcs of Valormok…it was that he had lost that precious space of time again. And he half feared that if he turned to look at that pile of bodies, he would find those of his companions amongst them.

But he felt her hands only moments after he collapsed and flinched away from the gentle touch with a hiss.

“No,” he begged, eyes closed tight. “No, Kalya.”

“Shh,” she bid him, fingers kneading against his back. He stilled and leaned into the touch, sobbing weakly into the ground and not caring for a moment. “We’re safe. You saved us, Saran.”

Saved you? Thought Necronim. Did I really save you, Kalya? Did I really save you when I attacked them in the same way they attacked us? With teeth and fingers twisted into wicked, tearing claws? Was it rescue as I ripped them apart?

“I can still feel the blood,” he murmured. Sitting up abruptly, he started scrubbing frantically at his face, screaming as his hands came away with gore. Kalya moved to touch him and he shoved her away, snarling, “Don’t! Don’t touch me!” She stared at him, hands still outstretched towards him, and he pushed himself back against the cliff wall, muttering constantly under his breath as he shook his head, a distant look in the glow of his eyes.

Kalya scooted slowly forward and strained her ears to hear him.

“Monster…monster…killer…Mother, Abi…I’m sorry…I’m sorry sorry sorry…”

“Kwaa!” she called desperately and the big Tauren loomed above them. After a moment he knelt down and placed his large hands on Necronim’s thin shoulders, rumbling, “You are safe, Saran. Be at ease.”

The distant eyes focused for a brief second and the rogue breathed, “Safe?”

“Safe,” confirmed Kwaaku gently and then he caught Necronim as he slumped, carefully lowering him to the ground. Then he turned to take the blanket Scyllaine had brought from their packs and laid it down, lifting him a moment later to rest on it.

“What happened to him?” demanded Kayla in a hiss at his elbow. “Kwaa? He mentioned his mother and someone called ‘Abi’, telling them he was sorry, after he called himself a monster. And a killer.”

Kwaaku looked at her gently then murmured, “He was, Kalya. Did you not hear him when he said he was raised in the halls of SI:7?”

“That doesn’t mean he was a killer!”

“Most times that is exactly what it means. But you are correct, he was not a killer at first.” The one-eyed Tauren lowered his head then, muttering, “He would not wish me to tell you this…but I am anyway. Abi was his younger sister and a sickly child; when she began to get worse and they did not have the coin to pay for any sort of healer, that was when he began to steal for it. It was an accident that the first died then the second happened and the third…after that, he was too desperate to stop.”

“As to what just occurred in his attack,” continued Kwaaku in a slow rumble, “the soul’s of the Forsaken were restored but did not take the place of the monster that had been there. They overpower it and sometimes, at moments of great stress, they fall back onto that monster. He was returned to himself in the midst of Scourge ghouls and instantly fell back onto that monster in order to survive. But no one, no one, can fault him for that.”

Kalya blinked then gasped, “You – you mean for one moment he was…”

Scyllaine made a noise in her throat, shaking her head. She started to make motions with her hands then grunted and pulled something out of a pouch at her belt – paper and a piece of thick charcoal, Kalya saw. For a moment the Forsaken scribbled on it then handed it to her with a gentle smile.

‘We still have it within us, that beast,’ she had written. ‘When we fall back onto it, we do not become it in truth. We reach for its strength and its resilience and its lack of fear when we are afraid. A survival instinct, if anything else.’

Kalya nodded and smiled up at her, the Forsaken woman returning it tentatively. “I understand,” murmured the young woman. “But, Kwaa, his reaction…”

“He hates that part of himself,” rumbled the Tauren. “And he has always been afraid of returning to that creature he once was.”

“He’s done this before?”

Kwaaku bowed his head, nodding slowly as he looked mournfully towards his friend. “Once,” he said softly. “We were in the Hinterlands helping a friend attempt to find some kin of his he had heard rumor of. After we failed to find them, a group of passing Night Elves spotted us – the druid apparently had a particular hatred of Forsaken and High Elves and provoked the others to attack. I killed one then was trapped by the druid’s called vines, unable to move as two of the others struck killing blows at me. Hresden was kiting one of them away from us so Nec threw himself between their blades and me, taking the blows himself.”

He closed his one working eye as he finished, “I watched him recede from the pain and it take over. It…it was something I never hoped to see happen again.”

Scyllaine laid a hand on his shoulder gently and he smiled, raising his to cover hers briefly.

“I have no issue with what he did,” rumbled Kwaaku reassuringly. “Him letting it go saved us. The druid was so shocked when he turned with the gaping wounds in his body and lunged at the other two that he lost control of his spell. I was able to strike him down and Hresden returned just as Nec recovered.”

Kalya nodded slowly, looking mournfully towards Necronim, wincing at the tremors running through him even though he was unconscious.

“What now?” she asked.

The big Tauren snorted, replying, “We get away from this cursed tower firstly. Scyllaine, were we here to speak to the mage only?” At her nod, he cursed softly then sighed. “Very well then. We will move down the hill from here, away from the stench, and make camp. Then I will come and bury the dead – they deserve that at the very least.”

Scyllaine made a sound of agreement in her throat then moved towards Necronim’s abandoned leathers, carefully gathering them up in her arms. She then started down the hill to where they had left their wolves before climbing upwards and Kalya followed her nervously. Over her shoulder she glanced once, to see Kwaaku wrapping the blanket around Necronim and lifting him up easily in his arms then plodding after them.

Then, shaking, she folded her fingers around the dagger he had handed her and showed her the beginnings of how to use. She trusted him, this bitter Forsaken rogue…loved him even. But she had seen him up close as that other him took over, watched the glow of his eyes dim until they were pale, fiery points at the back of his eye sockets. He had stood protectively above her, body shielding hers as he tore through the ghoul’s with an ease that was terrifying, and she had realized why the Lich King’s army had been so feared. Why the Forsaken were feared so.

If they were this powerful before regaining themselves, imagine what they might do if they knew how to harness that power and wield it.

Kalya shuddered and closed her eyes for a moment as she drew in a shaky breath. She did love him and wouldn’t abandon him but now there was a tremor of fear within her; a fear of him, not for him.