The Dread Citadel 5
The preparations for the attack on Naxxramas continue. Exercises and drills occupy the army, still squatting in Anderhol, and daily companies are marshalled, brigades marching east toward the Dread Citadel.
The strategy at present is to seem occupied, to seem like the army will march in force, but then to swiftly strike with a prepared force at the necropolis itself. You have a part to play there, but for the moment no information is to be given to the Scourge regarding the plan, and so you drill and train as well.
Swords flash, armour is checked over, and in time you sit at rest, overlooking your warband.
Though it's a strange thing to say, it's peaceful here. Even while the city buzzes with anticipated violence, you sit in contemplation.
Occasionally an orc will approach you to make some request, a blessing usually, or advice on a dream. You are known to be a powerful shaman, a firecaller following the traditions of your people, and a blademaster besides, and the respect you've earnt is clear. One supplicant though is not like the others.
Through the throng he comes, walking slowly, unconcerned with worldly things, though the chains on his arms and chest jangle quietly in the wind. The orcs show their respect to him too, as they would any shaman, but the response among the humans is more mixed, from adoration to disgust.
"Light's blessings upon you." Inquisitor Fairbanks says, making the gesture of his faith and bowing, and you gesture for him to join you.
"I know of what is to come." the Undead says, drawing close enough that you can smell the dry bandages of his embalming. "I have come to offer a benediction, and any advice that I can."
He's a strange one, a man who died and rose again, full of fervour. One who became something he once hated, but at his heart is the same man he was. You thank him for it, and as he makes the gestures of his rites over you, you do feel something, a warmth perhaps, like a north wind out of the canyons at home that carried song and chime.
"You are prepared?" Fairbanks asks, looking out to the warriors below.
You nod, "Myself and ten others, all attuned by the mages' works, we are ready."
"I was to be posted with Dawnbringer and the Brotherhood, but Dathrohan has ordered differently. The Brotherhood will be using some gnomish toxin to destroy the undead as they go and there was concern this would affect me too. Perhaps it would, but it is no less disappointing. Nevertheless, my order taught, teaches I suppose, obedience, and I know I'm no strategist."
"You do what you can." you assure him, "Your presence will be a balm to others, know that at least."
Fairbanks smiles. You can't see it, he wears bandages over his form to hide his condition, and a veil of thick cloth over his lower face, but you see the way he moves, "Thank you." he replies, and you smile in turn, seduced by the simple courtesy.
"Who will you call on in battle?"
The question is a strange one, for in truth you're likely to call on no one. Your sword, your power, the rage inside you to smite the death knights of Naxxramas, the spirit bound in your bracer, but no others, and you say so.
"Are you then alone?" Fairbanks continues.
"What do you mean?"
"Though I might wish to join the battle and do what I can against the foe, I don't envy you your mission. You will face a time when you're lost in the dark, against foes beyond you, foes you have no hope of escaping."
Again the wind whistles through the new thatch and again you hear the call of hearth and home, the windchimes on the eves of your father's tent.
"When you face that time, when hope is lost, call on the Light, and it will answer." Fairbanks continues. "That's the best advice I can offer you."
"I am no paladin, the Light is not my religion, even if it is worthy enough." you reply.
"Perhaps." Fairbanks acknowledges, "The Light hates the Undead. You know this no doubt, it burns them, as it does me each day. I feel the warmth of my faith within me, it sears me, and through pain I know righteousness. The Light hates the Undead not because of some cosmic opposition upon an arcane chart as the Kirin Tor claim, but rather because of what the Undead are."
Fairbanks paused there, looking at you, his golden eyes somehow a comfort despite his crown of chains and mask of dead flesh.
"'For there are many treasures that others desire, and I give freely.'" you quoted, remembering the story from one Mirador had told you.
The golden eyes smiled. "Yes!" The Apostle to the Forsaken said, clapping his hands excitedly, chains rattling, "Truly, I hadn't thought you'd grasp it, you have a talent for scripture, one rarely matched by even some knights of the host!"
"I had a good teacher." you replied.
Often you had spoken with Mirador, often he had preached to you or others of the Light, and this was but one story.
"Once," Fairbanks recites, "a pious man went out into the wilderness, he walked among the hills and shore, and as he walked he gave what he could."
The story goes on, familiar save for minor variations in the telling. The man received gifts, yet gave away as much as he received, even when those gifts were his own just reward for defending others from trolls, or healing the sick. It was a parable upon the virtue of compassion, one of the Three Virtues of the Light, and you fell into meditation as Fairbanks spoke, letting those faith chimes lull your mind.
"And then lo, a spirit!" said Fairbanks, drawing up one hand before him, "And it held evil in its heart, and power too, and said: 'Give of yourself what I desire, I thirst and hunger, as those have before, give of yourself, flesh and blood, that I might sup', and truly, the pious man held out his hands and embraced the spirit, and together they ascended into the Light."
Mirador had told him competing interpretations of the parable. Once, the paladin had said, the Church of the Holy Light had interpreted the story as one of compassion, of a selfless individual willing to sacrifice themselves to save another, but more recently the interpretation had turned to darkness, now, Mirador said, the parable was used by the Scarlet Crusaders to preach of the foolishness of compassion, of the need for resolution against the Undead.
Mirador had turned sorrowful then, spoken of how the war had strained even the human religion, of how it represented but one of the schisms between the old Knights of the Silver Hand and Dathrohan's new Red Guards.
"The Undead lust for life, they are essentially selfish. They have no respect, for they cannot, they have no tenacity, for they constantly hunger, they have no compassion, for they can only consider themselves. It is only through our action that their souls might be saved. That is why the Light hates them, for Undeath is a blight upon the very essence of a person."
But where others might have hung their heads in shame or sadness, Fairbanks was unmoved. The Light burned within him, his faith, his trust in his convictions, was as strong as any you'd seen.
"Among my people," you began, "We care for the Spirits, we respect them, some worship them in other clans, but we do not do so selflessly. I know the Light is not akin to the Spirits of my people, but neither are the Three Virtues." Your sword lies before you and you gesture to it, "Among my clan strength is prized. You may respect a warrior, a blade, but not a concept itself, or so I think. You asked if I'd been alone, I have and truly I've been surrounded by enemies and fought alone in darkness, but it is not our custom to call for help, even the custom of shamans. In my clan, strength is the strength of the warrior alone, their own skill, their strength… The very concept of calling upon another force is strange to me, especially without exchange."
You were rambling somewhat, you had none of the skill in philosophy that Akinos had once demonstrated, but you felt you'd gotten it across. It was just so alien, the idea of calling on a force without the associated sacrifices. When a shaman called on the Elementals they'd contracted with it was through a web of previously agreed contracts and relationships, not simply a plea hurled into the Void.
"And yet, the Light loves us without constraint." Fairbanks replies. "We all face a tribulation, but once in man's life a Trial comes. For me, I thought I'd passed it many years ago, I fought in the Second War you know, so I thought I had passed my test. But I was wrong, I saw my friend fall to treachery, I was unable to move, trapped under fetid corpses, I called out to the Light to give me the strength to move, to save him, but it did not answer. I almost lost my faith then, but soon after my Trial came. You've heard my story, I fell to Undeath and bid my brothers seal me away for their own safety, and in that hour I was truly tested, I fell and rose again, like the spirit in the parable, into the Light."
Fairbanks looks into the middle distance, golden eyes unfocused. "You too will face a trial, a time when evil closes in around you, and in that moment, Grok'mash Fireblade, if you call, you will know the Light's Grace."
