The Blight

[PepsiWhirda]

Whirda stalked behind the frostsaber in silence. Two elven guards flanked her on both sides, hands on the pommels of their blades, an inch of fine steel poking out of the sheaths. For the better part of a day, she and Nyx had scrambled against the goblin horde. The elves postured warily, still enemies as far as Whirda was concerned, no more subtle in their intent than the dozen corpses she'd left in her wake. One slip up, and she'd find herself face down on the forest floor. Despite herself, she felt like smiling.

Shafts of sallow moonlight poked and prodded through the canopy. Swarms of insects whirled and eddied in their wake. If she looked up, she could see the stars, a welcome change from the clinical blankness of the Nexus. She looked sidelong at the blood mage. Nyx returned the stare blankly. Whirda could see the exhaustion in her stride, the way her shoulders sagged, the charcoal smudge bags beneath her eyes. If nothing else, their visit with the elves would be a welcome reprieve for the girl.

After an hour of walking, Tyrande turned in her saddle and fixed Whirda with an appraising stare. "We will soon reach the blighted lands. If you are still unconvinced at that time, we will part ways. Is that agreeable?"

Whirda set her jaw. "Agreed."

"I know you don't trust our kind, Whirda," Tyrande said, "though I cannot fathom why. But I feel like you might be our only hope." Her angular features were etched with equal parts pride and sorrow. The grief resonated from her like something tangible. Whirda caught herself feeling sorry for the elf queen, for what the blight was doing to her home. She squared her shoulders and shook the thought from her head. Never trust an elf.

"She's so sad," Nyx whispered.

Whirda opened her mouth to reply, but the words caught fast in her throat. They emerged from a tight-knit copse of trees, and she felt like she'd been kneed in the stomach.

The blight was worse than she imagined. A vast expanse of what once was forest stretched before her, now a withered, broken landscape. What few trees remained standing curled sickly in on themselves, the cold gray of embers devoid of a spark. Skeletal limbs groped at the sky beseechingly, or bent low as if to scoop handfuls of leaves from the ground. Even the air was lifeless, somehow heavy, wrapping around them like a shroud. The darkness revealed no end to the affliction in any direction.

On each side of Whirda, the elves dropped to their knees, like the hope had been sucked like marrow from their bones. A few wept openly, their tears streaming in silence.

Lady Tyrande dismounted, caressing the frostsaber's fur with the back of one hand. She approached Whirda and Nyx in silence. "Now you see why we come to you," she said after a time. The words were thick heartache. "Each day, the blight spreads further. Our libraries provide no information. The combined strength of our wizards and priestesses grant the forest no reprieve from its inexorable progress. Our home is under attack from something we do not understand, Whirda. We need your help."

Before Whirda could reply, Nyx said, "We'll do everything we can, Lady Tyrande. Everything in our power. Just tell us how."

The blood mage and the elf queen turned to Whirda, who became intensely aware that every pair of eyes in the clearing was trained on her. She looked to Nyx, to Tyrande, then past them to the devastation of the blight.

"Right?" Nyx implored.

Whirda breathed through her teeth. "Right."