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.And he, Arthas, would take what he wished when he wished it.There was no more silent disapproval from his father, no more scolding from the too-pious Uther.No more dubious glances from Jaina, her brow furrowed in that dearly familiar expression of—Jaina…Arthas shook his head sharply.Jaina had had her chance to join with him.She had refused.Denied him, although she had sworn she would never do so.He owed her nothing.Only the Lich King commanded him now.The mental shift calmed him, and Arthas smiled and patted the jutting vertebrae of the undead beast, who tossed his bony head in response.Surely, it was the beautiful and willful ranger-general who had unsettled him and made him question, even momentarily, the wisdom of his path.She, too, had had her chance.Arthas had come for a purpose, and that purpose had not been to obliterate Quel’Thalas and its populace.Had they not resisted him, he would have let them be.Her sharp tongue and defiant behavior had brought her people’s doom upon them, not he.The water seeped in through the joins of his armor and the breeches, shirt, and gambeson he wore beneath the metal plate grew wet and cold.Arthas did not feel it.A moment later Invincible surged forward, clambering out onto the opposite bank.The last of the meat wagons rumbled onto the bank as well, and what corpses were sufficiently intact slogged onto land.The rest lay where they had fallen, the once-crystal clear water flowing over and around them.“Onward,” the death knight said.The rangers had retreated to Fairbreeze Village.Once the shock had passed, the citizens did everything they could, from tending the wounded to offering what weapons and skills they had.Sylvanas ordered those who could not fight to head to Silvermoon as quickly as possible.“Take nothing,” she said as a woman nodded and hurried to ascend the ramp to an upper area.“But our rooms upstairs have—”Sylvanas whirled, her eyes flaring.“Do you not yet understand? The dead are marching upon us! They do not tire, they do not slow, and they take our fallen and add them to their ranks! We have delayed them, little more.Take your family and go!”The woman seemed taken aback by the ranger-general’s response, but obeyed, wasting only a few moments rounding up her family before hastening down the road to the capital.Arthas would not be stopped for long.Sylvanas cast a sweeping, appraising glance over the wounded.None of them could stay here.They, too, would need to be evacuated to Silvermoon.As for those who were still hale, few though they were, she would need to ask yet more from them.Perhaps everything they had.They, like she, had sworn to defend their people.Now was the day of reckoning.There was a spire close by, between the Elrendar and Silvermoon.Somehow, she felt certain Arthas would find a way to cross and continue his march.Continue to wound the land with the purplish-black scar.The spire would be a good place to mount a defense.The ramps were narrow, preventing the crush of undead that had been so disastrous previously, and there were several stories to the building, all open to the air.She and her archers could do a great deal of damage before they were—Sylvanas Windrunner, Ranger-General of Silvermoon, took a calming breath, dashed water on her heated face, drank a deep draft of the soothing liquid, and rose to prepare the uninjured and walking wounded for what would no doubt be their final battle.They were almost too late.Even as the rangers marched on the spire that would be their bastion, the air, once so sweet and fresh, was tainted with the sickly odor of putrefaction.Overhead, mounted archers hovered on their dragonhawks.The great creatures, golden and scarlet, stretched their serpentine heads against the reins unhappily.They, too, scented death, and it disturbed them.Never had the beautiful beasts been pressed into such a ghastly service.One of the riders signaled Sylvanas, and she signaled back.“The undead have been sighted,” she told her troops calmly.They nodded.“Positions.Hurry.”Like a well-oiled gnomish machine, they obeyed.The dragonhawk riders surged south, toward the approaching enemy.A unit of archers and hand-to-hand fighters hurried forward as well, the first line of defense.Her finest archers raced up the curving ramps of the spire.The rest spread out at the base of the structure.They did not have long to wait.If she had harbored any faint hope that somehow the numbers of the enemy might have suffered from the delay, it was dashed like fine crystal falling to a stone floor.She could glimpse the hideous vanguard now: rotting undead, followed by skeletons and the huge abominations whose three arms each carried massive weapons.Above them flew the stonelike creatures wheeling like buzzards.They are breaking through….How strange the mind was, Sylvanas thought with a trace of macabre humor.Now, as the hour of her death doubtless approached, an ancient song played in her head; one she and her siblings had loved to sing, when the world was right and they were all together, Alleria, Vereesa, and their youngest brother, Lirath, at twilight when soft lavender shadows spread their gentle cloaks and the sweet scent of the ocean and flowers wafted across the land.Anar’alah, anar’alah belore, quel’dorei, shindu fallah na….By the light, by the light of the sun, high elves, our enemies are breaking through….Without her realizing it at first, her hand fluttered upward to close on the necklace she wore about her slender throat [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]