-13- The White Wolf

A cool breeze tickled his arms and face. The darkness parted before him to reveal a room of white. It reminded him of the Elven temples; columns of pure white, reflecting the afternoon sun. Long, flowing sheets of the same color were draped over the openings between the archways, pushed inward by the breeze. They rose and fell like a slow dance, as if to savor every moment in the cool wind. Guro'jintal looked down and saw his feet poking out of the white toga he was wearing. He didn't know how he got it, but he didn't think it mattered, either. He looked up again and began pacing around the marble floor, relishing how peacefully cool the rock was. A particular gust picked up, and the flowing white sheets went skyward. There was a Human in a toga as well, standing next to one of the giant marble columns on the edge of the terrace and staring out into the world. Guro'jintal could not tell what was out there; one minute they were overlooking the treetops of a vast forest, the next he could barely make out a line of mountains in the distance of a desert. And others, he could see endless, bottomless ocean that reflected the bright sun like a giant emerald.

He returned his attention to the gazing Human. As he approached, the man turned around, and immediately Guro'jintal recognized him. The warm smile wasn't even necessary. He ought never to have frowned upon this individual.

"Stefan," he said in a low voice, as if in fear of disturbing the serenity of the place.

"Guro'jintal," returned the Human.

The stood apart for a quiet moment, then Stefan turned back to the scenery. Lush green hills rolled away in the distance. It could have been Arathi.

"You've changed since I last met you," said Stefan.

"I was in Northrend. A fight with a dragon seared my skin and bleached my air," answered Guro'jintal.

"Plus, you're missing a few fingers on your left hand," returned the Human.

Guro'jintal looked down to find, with a mix of amusement and wonder, that he was right. His index and middle were severed midway, but there didn't appear to be a wound. It was as if they just ended.

"A lich," chuckled the Troll. "Bit me while I was prying his skull off."

They laughed. Stefan continued to stare out, and Guro'jintal kept his eyes on the back of his head.

"Is this how it ends, Stefan?"

The question had been bubbling to surface when the doors had opened into the terrace. He had been forcing it down ever since he had seen Stefan. He was torn between wanting to hear the answer and plugging his ears. His old friend turned and was looking at him with an expression that didn't seem right considering their setting. It was a stern face that all at once seemed old and tired.

"Yes," he started. "For some, it is. For me, this is the end. I have made amends, and for that I was repaid in full."

"There's regret in your voice," said Guro'jintal.

Stefan didn't speak for nearly five seconds. "I wish I had had the opportunity to raise a child before it was over, that's all. But that's just it, my friend. No matter how hard you're going to try and do everything you want, there's going to be something you missed."

"I have done everything I ever wanted to, Stefan. I fought and died in glory for my people. There is--"

"No greater an honor than glory in death? It's not all it's cut out to be, Guro'jintal. The only glory in death is those for the living, so they may strive for a more 'glorious' death. This is death, Guro'jintal. This is it. You live with everything you've ever accomplished, and everything you haven't."

"Well...now that I am here..."

"No, you're not," said Stefan. "That's just it, Guro'jintal. You're not dead. You've been given something I never had. A glimpse of death. You've been given the chance to weigh your options."

He almost sounded angry, possibly even jealous.

"Answer me this, truthfully," started the Human. "Now that you've seen it, what do you think?"

Guro'jintal looked out over the world. He saw the desert of Durator, where he grew up. He saw the swamps of Dustwallow, his first great battle. He saw the jungles of Stranglethorn, and Un'Goro. He saw Silithus. He saw Northrend, above and underneath. Everywhere he had gone, everything he had seen. And that's when the answer came to him.

"I think the journey here is what makes it so grand. To have known you tread so far on the same two feet you were born with is a great enough honor. But I know now, that my time has yet to come. There is still more earth to tread."

"Glory in life and honor in death, Guro'jintal."

"Aye. Glory in life, honor in death."

---

"He's awake!"

Guro'jintal opened his eyes. The Northrend sky was gone, replaced with a bare, brown ceiling. He sat up and saw that there were several figures standing around him. One was a Troll, one he recognized as Hijawath. There were several Dwarves gathered around as well and in their bearded, jovial-red countenances he saw Kelar Fireward. And then he felt a sense of relief and excitement when another familiar face, one that was elegant and beautiful, emerge from the crowds to grab him in a tight and constricting hug. He felt a knot of pain in his shoulder, but left it alone so as to savor the moment. When the Night Elf finally released Guro'jintal, he brought his arms around to embrace her himself.

"Iyana! You're alive!"

"And finally you are too! You were beginning to scare me, Guro'jintal," replied the Night Elf. "You slept so long!"

Guro'jintal smiled. "Perhaps the dreams were so real, I thought I was already awake."

---

They sat around a circular table of wide girth, food and drink piled high. Guro'jintal, Iyana, Hijawath, Kelar and all his crew. They laughed and talked merrily, as if the war had ceased to exist. In times like these, one could argue it didn't. All that did was the warm smiles of friends and the reassuring grasps upon reality that was off the battlefield. Guro'jintal had nearly forgotten the tenderness of a leg of pork, and how juicy a slab of beef was. The berry juice tasted strange to his tongue after so many months of nothing but water.

"...So after we saw you off at the edge of Dragonblight, we did as you wanted and headed to the Alliance camp for fuel and supplies. Before we were about to leave, a messenger arrived with news that a small regiment of Scourge forces had broken through the line in northern Dragonblight, and heading south. We weren't sure where you'd be at the time, but decided it would be best to try and find you. Figured you already had yourself in a sticky situation, or were going to anyway. Couldn't just leave you like that."

Guro'jintal nodded. "I know. I thought you might have eventually followed us, but I did not want to get my hopes up. A lack of proper nourishment for so long has addled my mind. But now, I can see things quite clearly."

He looked to Hijawath, who nodded jovially and took Guro'jintal's right hand in a clasp. "Had you not arrived as you did, there would be no legacy of the Darkspear effort. Our brothers on the front lines, ancestors watch over them. But our efforts might have been lost to the annals of yet another war. Thanks to you, they are not."

"I'll drink to that!" replied Kelar. The Dwarves raised their glasses a second later.

Guro'jintal turned to Iyana, who had been mostly silent with the recent talk. Her silence was a mystery.

"Iyana...you never told me why you came here," he said.

She forced poultry down her throat and drank deeply, smiling. "I told you, Guro'jintal, I came to fight the Lich King."

"No. If you came to fight the Lich King, you would have headed north, to the Wrathgate. Why follow a contingent of Human knights to the lost edge of Dragonblight, a wasteland? Why shut yourself inside a place you didn't know, and wander freely?"

Iyana looked sick. She excused herself from the table and walked off. Guro'jintal went after her. She was standing at the doorway to the small barracks, leaning against the wall and staring outside, into nothing.

"I wanted to die, Guro'jintal," she said. Her voice was wobbly, but she was making every attempt to hold it level. "I just wanted with every thread of my being to die. I was so attached to Stefan...even when I knew that he had done something so great, he had also done something so selfish. He left me alone, Guro'jintal. Just like that. And then I wanted to die. So I came to Northrend, hoping the chance would come."

She turned and looked at him, her eyes big and glassy. "And you know what? That chance finally came. I took a pellet in the shoulder. I couldn't move, and breathing almost too hard to be worth it. And you know what happened then, Guro'jintal? I didn't really want to die. I was too afraid. I was a coward. I..."

She buried her face in his chest as the tears finally fell in torrents. Her shoulders shook uncontrollably, almost too much for him to handle. But he held her tightly, and didn't let go.

"I loved him so much, Guro'jintal."

Guro'jintal turned and looked into a small mirror that hung on the wall. He saw the tattoo splitting his left eye like a black fissure. He saw the burn that subtly ran over the left side of his face, and the bleach-white of his hair. And then his eyes, clear white and pure as ever, softened. For the first time since the moment before a spear had been placed into his hands for the first time, his eyes softened.

"I loved him, too, Iyana. And he loved us back."

---

Warsong Hold smelled like seasoned tinder and smoking metal. It was like the old traditions of war coming to life in the breeze, teasing the nostrils and heightening the senses. The smells were familiar to one and all, even those that didn't look like they belonged. One such individual sat between an Orc and a Tauren. The three were making idle chat, something a few passerby found strange. But it wasn't the Tauren or the Orc, but the Night Elf.

"How much longer?" inquired the Orc.

"Not too long, I am hoping. I've kept you from your labors long enough as it is," replied the Night Elf.

"Our labors never end, Kal'dorei. As such, it doesn't really matter when it begins," chortled the Tauren. "Sorry, what was your name again?"

"It's Iyana. Iyana Moonbreeze," replied the Night Elf. "And I don't think your superiors would find your comment on labor to be very amusing."

"It's nothing. We're always working when they're looking," answered the Orc.

"And why aren't they looking now?" asked Iyana.

"Lunch break," laughed the Tauren.

A horn sounded in the distance. Iyana could see that a ship had arrived. Her heart swelled with such excitement she couldn't help but to stand up and watch the off-ramp with anticipation. Figures were coming off like an endless row of ants. It had to be him.

"Probably is! He's kept you waiting long enough," said the Orc.

Iyana hadn't realized she had spoke aloud. "Aye, I do hope it is."

"Well we will know in a minute. Here they come now!" said the Tauren.

The crowds momentarily parted to let through the newcomers. There were too many to count. The frost wolves they rode were armored for war. Atop their proud hunting beasts were Trolls, each with a unifying vertical slash of black splitting their left. They wore fur coats of blacks that concealed their weapons and armor, but they looked more like warriors than any Iyana had ever seen. They were ancient warriors of myth, dressed in savagery and armed with intelligence. And at the their front, Iyana saw the greatest warrior of all. The Troll raised a hand and called for a halt as they approached.

He stood out like a star in the night sky. His fur coat was pure white. The skinned maw of a dire wolf sat atop the crown of his skull, the eyes staring out like a second pair. The sharp claws of its paws rested atop his shoulders, making his chest bulge with pride with the added armor of his war gear. A bone dagger sat at his hip while a spear rested on his back. The left side of his face looked discolored. The pure white of his eyes was unmistakable.

"Hail, warrior," said Iyana, bowing slightly.

Guro'jintal laughed. "You need never bow before me. I am no king."

Iyana recognized the Troll riding next to him. It was Hijawath, the only other Troll that had survived the encounter in Dragonblight. The Troll nodded silently to her.

"Then what are you, Guro'jintal?"

He smiled at her again. "To my people, I am the White Wolf, returned from the immortal snows of perpetual winter with strength and pride. I am the ultimate predator, to have seen death and crawled away alive. I am the ultimate warrior to be treading on his doorstep once again. I am Darkspear."

He raised a fist into the air, and the Trolls around him answered with a glorious howl. Then a horn sounded, and Guro'jintal looked out to the distance behind Iyana, in the snows of the Howling Fjord. He looked back to Iyana with determination.

"The drums of war are sounding again, Iyana Moonbreeze. And I have upheld my end of the bargain. It's time you did yours."

She nodded, already unclasping the buckle of her belt. She raised the leather harness and presented it to Guro'jintal. He took it and held it in his left hand. She unstrapped the leather war harness and let the chest piece fall. Then she crouched down to her boots, and slid the third dagger out of her right one, and dropped it into the cavity of the chest piece. Then she stood up and looked back at Guro'jintal, in nothing but a plain shirt, pants, and boots. She shivered slightly from the cold.

"Today, Iyana Moonbreeze, the warrior, is dead. Today, Iyana Moonbreeze, the Darnassian alchemist, returns home," she said. Her eyes sneaked a final glance at the twin daggers clutched in Guro'jintal's grasp, then looked back to his eyes. They were soft again.

"When the war is over, I will come see you," he said.

"Promise me, Guro'jintal."

He remained silent momentarily. "I can promise you only one thing, Iyana, as best a soldier can unto a citizen."

He stood up stiffly in his seat, and beat his chest with his right hand in a fist. The leather armor echoed dully. She stood up stiff as well, and returned the gesture.

"Glory in life and honor in death."

"Glory in life, honor in death," she repeated, feeling the words ooze into her chest like sweet honey.

Then his eyes hardened as they had always been. With a final, curt nod he turned in his saddle and said something in his native tongue. The Trolls replied with a hail of shouts and cries of fervor. She stepped out of the way as they left the camp at a skipping pace. Guro'jintal looked back once, when Warsong Hold was nearly a mile away. She would still be standing there, knowing Iyana.

He turned back. To his left and right, the Trolls rode in tight formation, perfect unison. Their weapons clanked and jingled against their armor. It was like a strange music. Guro'jintal looked ahead, where the Scourge forces were crossing a rough plain. They hadn't noticed the Trolls yet. A shame. He barred his teeth and unsheathed the bone dagger, raising it above his head. Then he lifted his head skyward, closed his eyes, and howled with all the ferocity of a dire wolf. The Trolls answered his call with their own. The sound rolled over the snow like an invisible wave, and suddenly the Scourge necromancers were aware of their imminent death, and began scrambling to defend themselves.

As they came within sight, Guro'jintal took a final look at Iyana's belt, at the twin daggers that had drawn more blood than most would ever see. Then he leaned back and threw it with all his might, watching it disappear from sight in the white landscape.

---

With the same two feet you were born with, you shall walk further than you thought imaginable. You will see the strangest, most gruesome, most beautiful things the world has to offer. You may turn and diverge from the path once, perhaps several times. But you will keep on walking. Never look back on where you have tread. The day will come when you know you can walk no further, and[/i]then[i] you will turn around. You will trace the path you walked with your eyes, and you wonder if it could have been any other way. But then you'll smile, because you know you would not change it even if you could. Glory in life, and honor in death.