Eadrik came to a halt, the worgen rising and lifting his snout to the sky. He inhaled deeply, then bared his teeth and growled low. Jarod, who could see nothing around them but the trees, wondered what the Gilnean was up to now.
“Can’t have lost them,” Eadrik muttered. “The scent was there. . . .”
Jarod smelled something. A flowery scent. It should have been nothing out of the ordinary, but to him it somehow seemed out of place.
Eadrik did not note it so. His mind was on other matters. “I shouldn’t even be here. . . . I should’ve left this to you night elves! The king wanted all of us able fighters to go with him except for a handful to stay with the young and ill! I was to go with, but I begged him to let me stay! Why did I do it? It’s your problem, not ours . . . but the archdruid’s tried to do so much for us; I couldn’t leave it. . . .”
“What are you talking about?” Jarod asked, distracted by the worgen’s mutterings.
His companion stared at him. The eyes seemed too gentle for the otherwise bestial appearance . . . gentle, but not weak. Eadrik was still a human beneath the surface. “Never mind that! These assassinations! They happened too near us for my tastes! My lord ordered all of us to leave the matter be, but I couldn’t. I investigated. I found out the truth, but I didn’t think anyone would believe me! That’s why I stayed! I couldn’t leave it—”
He got no further. Suddenly there came the cracking of a tree branch from deeper in the forest.
Something flew their direction.
“Get down!” Jarod shouted, bowling into the worgen. Eadrik let out a startled growl and fell with him.
The glaive cut through the branches just behind where the worgen had stood, then arced. With sinister grace, it darted back the way it had come.
Eadrik shoved Jarod aside. “Stay down, night elf! This hunt is mine!”
Jarod tried to call him back, but the Gilnean was confident in his abilities. The worgen jumped among the trees even as another glaive soared past him.
The former guard captain seized a heavy rock and threw. The rock struck the glaive squarely, sending it off angle. The deadly weapon flew into a tree, cutting a deep gash. The glaive then bounded off the trunk and fell to the ground a short distance away.
Scrambling forward, Jarod recovered the weapon. He was not very proficient with the glaive, preferring a sword. The night elf cursed himself not only for lacking that training, but also for leaving his favored blade behind.
Gripping the glaive as best he could, Jarod crouched low, then followed after Eadrik. He did not see the worgen immediately but knew roughly where the Gilnean would have gone.
Jarod’s body ached as he pushed through the thick brush, but he fought to ignore it. There was always time for aches later, providing that he survived.
He burst through a wall of greenery—and only barely managed to grab a branch before he would have hurtled to his death. The ground dropped nearly a hundred feet. As he pulled himself back to safety, Jarod momentarily pondered the amazing landscape that existed atop the World Tree and how much effort the druids and others must have put in to create a realm that mimicked mainland Azeroth.
Sounds of a struggle brought him back to the moment. He heard Eadrik’s growl and a grunt from someone else. There was a crash.
Glaive held ready, Jarod followed the noise. The struggle had to be very close—
A curved blade barely missed his throat. Only a last-minute glint noticed out of the corner of his eye enabled Jarod to get his own stolen weapon up in time.
However, unlike the previous blade, the one that came at him now had not been tossed. Rather, it was wielded in the expert hand of whom at first Jarod thought a Sentinel—until he saw the face.
Neva grinned as she slashed again with her umbra crescent. There was madness in her eyes, but a madness with much cunning. She pressed him against a tree and forced his blades back.
“Is this not romantic?” she mocked, steering the crescent closer to his neck. “Just you and me. . . .”
“Where is . . . Eadrik?”
“The mutt? I have left him for skinning later! Make a nice cloak. . . . ”
Anger filled him upon hearing of the brave worgen’s death. He had been afraid that the Gilnean had, despite his own warnings to his countryman, underestimated those shadowing Jarod.
The last was something that still puzzled Jarod too. Why had he been followed in the first place? Had Neva been concerned that he might know something and was about to warn Maiev?
Maiev . . .
Jarod cursed as it all made sense to him. Neva’s grin grew wider, more mocking.
“Figured it out, did you? You are not just pretty but smart too! Your sister is going to cleanse our people of all their taint! No Highborne, no mutts, no humans . . . no Alliance! We need nothing from them, and all they do is bring their foul ways to us!”
She was insane if she believed what she said, and if she did indeed serve Maiev in this “cleansing,” then Jarod’s sister was even madder. He could see how it might have come about. Her entire existence had consisted of preserving the night elf race in one way or another. The Highborne’s return must have been the breaking point. It was as if Zin-Azshari had once more claimed dominion over their people.
The crescent edged nearer to his throat. Neva was strong, and although she might not be as much as Jarod, she also had leverage on her side.
“Why . . . does she want . . . me dead?” he rasped.
“Maiev does not! She thinks you are useful as a puppet! But I have been watching! You are more dangerous than she thinks! She will appreciate why I killed you. She knows that I believe!”
Jarod saw no point in trying to talk her out of her murderous ways. Neva was a fanatic who saw him only as an impediment.
From behind Neva there erupted a dark form. Daring to look beyond his attacker, Jarod saw Eadrik, his coat matted with both his own blood and surely that of others, fall upon Maiev’s second.
But Neva was very skilled herself. She pulled her crescent from Jarod and twisted it around just in time to gut the oncoming worgen.
Unfortunately for Neva, that left her open to Jarod. Too late to save his rescuer, he managed to avenge him. The stolen glaive cut deep into the back of her neck.
Neva spun, then fell to her side. Her foot missed the ground and she started over the edge. Even then, though, her obsession remained with her and she grabbed Jarod by the arm, intending to bring him with her.
A set of claws ripped through the wrist of the hand clutching Jarod. Hacking and coughing, Eadrik shoved into Neva as she lost her grip.
Tangled, the pair fell to the ground far below.
The thud shook Jarod to the heart. The night elf peered down. The two bodies lay separate now, Eadrik on his stomach and almost looking asleep rather than dead, and Neva—
Neva moved. Barely. There was no chance that she could recover, not this far from any priestess or druid, but the assassin was not yet dead.
Jarod suddenly prayed that she would hold on. Struggling with his own injuries, he scrambled down to the two as quickly as he could. He who had seen so much death on the battlefield had no trouble assuring himself that the worgen was dead.
Neva moaned. Jarod knelt down beside her just as she managed to open one eye.
“C-come to kiss me good-bye?” she whispered, smirking.
“No. I have come to watch you die slowly, painfully. I have seen injuries like yours. You will survive for several hours, maybe a day or two. I will be gone before then. You will die alone, unless some animal comes to gnaw on you while you are still fresh.”
The smirk vanished. Neva looked uncertain, off balance. “Kill me. Y-you know . . . you know you want . . . to.”
“I have no reason to grant you any peace. You killed my friend and his friend. . . .”
Neva laughed, which sent blood out of the side of her mouth. “The worgen . . . better than I thought. Must have killed Tas’ira after . . . after we both thought we killed him.”