The lady Pandarian who had hired him had warned him that several shipments had gone awry. Snow had not been surprised; after the fall of Nethergarde, the road through the Blasted Lands were rife with orc desperados, demons, and other hostile encounters. Still, Snow was being paid to do what he needed to do anyways - disappear from the Kingdom of Stormwind for awhile.
He had spent the night with the sorceress Marisa DuPaige, and slept the deep sleep of the exhausted - or drugged. Either way, he had woken tied to an interrogation rack. He knew that Marisa liked her bedsports a little rougher than some (a lesson he had learned the most delightful way), but a rack seemed a little outre.
She and Snow had shortly thereafter engaged in a strange conversation. Marisa had faked her kidnapping to draw me into the open, and captured me so that her boss, Vanessa VanCleef, could pass along a message: stop hunting the Defias Brotherhood.
"Ordinarily, there would be no discussion," clarified Marisa. "We'd just leave a cooling carcass behind in Goldshire where it would be certain to be found, marked by the Defias as a warning... but your family complicates things." Snow had looked up sharply at that; Snow was an orphana ward under the guardianship of the Ironforge Mystic Hall, sponsored by Dane "Griffonclaw" FitzSilver, also called "The Tarnished Knight.
"Your guardian has a half-brother who is known to us; while the Defias Brotherhood does not fear him, he could choose to make the cost of vengeance upon you too expensive, too unprofitable."
Showing uncharacteristic intelligence, Snow kept his mouth shut. She must be referring to a man introduced to him as "Uncle" Jon Chess, who was a well-known mercantile agent for Elling Trias' cheese business. Snow also knew he was a smuggler and intelligence asset for Lady Jaina, whose relationship with Jon went back to before the mana bomb had destroyed Theramore. Snow accompanied Griffonclaw to dinner at the Chess home in Boralus several times. Jon had married a powerful and fiercely intelligent Dalaran mage, so small wonder they were stepping carefully.
"My boss offers this - stop hunting the Defias Brotherhood for whatever crimes you think they have committed, whatever wrongs you imagined they have done you. From today, if you kill a Defias, it had better have been a clear case of self-defense, ir she will have you hunted down and your pieces dropped in Stormwind Bay." She waited for Snow to say something, but Snow remained quiet.
"Snow... tell me you understand?" she said in a low voice that layered concern around a core of iron. She may have come to like Snow, perhaps even care for him a little, but she was the Defias Brotherhood through and through.
"I understand," was all Snow said
"Very well... it might also be a good idea for you to get out of Stormwind for awhile, to avoid any 'misunderstandings' that might end up badly, but that is pretty much up to you." She rose and snapped her fingers, magically unlocking the manacles around wrists and ankles. "Goodbye, Snow."
That night, as Snow was pondering what to do, he had been offered the job in Surwich. Snow had no illusion as to the supposed virtue of honest labor, but a few months away at someone else's expense was vatther convenient.
Surwich was occupied by Gilnean refugees, and Snow found their accents comforting; the white hair he bore was a recessive trait prevalent in the Gilnean royal bloodline.; about an eighth of the population had silver hair or platinum streaks. Gilnean royalty had never cared to exercise restraint, and over the decades it had ceased to have a significant meaning. His Majesty Genn Graymane himself had sown more than his fair share of bastards before his marriage; one might truthfully jibe he was for some literally the father of his country.
Most of its citizens had come following the dream of an idealistic druid named Marl Wormthorn. Wormthorn believed that the Tainted Scar could be healed, and attempted to grow it back. The attempt succeeded, but it also lured the majority of demons still present in the scar into the area.
Now Snow plodded up the mountain trail to Deadwind Pass, and the rain followed him. He realized that it had all likely been a con on her part, but Fel-damn it, he had liked Marisa.
(WIP)
No comments:
Post a Comment