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Croon of the Kraul	By : disscordia Category: +S through Z > World of Warcraft Views: 6737 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own World of Warcraft, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1--1-
- 2--2-
- 3--3-
- 4--4-
- 5--5-
- 6--Epilogue-
- 4
- 5
- 6
Title: Croon of the Kraul

Author: A. Pseudonym, aka 'Dark Morgan'

Summary: After their meeting in the castle Kraltuk finds himself obsessed with a human, much to the disapproval of his elders...

Rating: NC17, YAOI (MxM stuff. Don't like it, don't read. If you do like, enjoy ;)

Quests: [34] A Vengeful Fate[34] The Crone of the Kraul,

Dikclaimer: WoW is obviously not owned by me. If it were there'd be a lot more yaoi in the flavour text & dialogue and rogues would have more quests. These characters, however, are mine One-two more chapters and I should have this story arc wrapped up ;)
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�The Lifespirit calls. We listen to the herblands. We listen to the wind. In its rhythm we find the drumbeat. In its seasons we hear our refrain. Fire without water, water without earth, earth without fire are barren.� As one must need the other, too little upsets the balance. Too much will break the whole.� Balance of the Lifespirit binds the world together.�

*****

They were taken from the place of darkness and giants and half-rotting shadows into a warm and sightless land. Their weapons had been stripped from them. They had been bound by cords of rope and chain. Battle had come and gone around them. Blindfolds were tied around their eyes so that every step in this unfamiliar land was an invitation to the hazards of the terrain to work their guile against them. They were prisoners wandering amidst the heartlands of a foreign race.

Death had not come as swift as Thaelyn had expected and only the occasional stumbling of Dannar against his thigh let him know that they were separately together in this danger. The human had been gagged soon after their capture and Thaelyn�s mouth followed shortly once he tried to intimidate the Hordies into cowardice. The cloth they had forced into his mouth was dry and starched so it cut into his gums the more he tried to breathe around it or keep his tongue from swallowing. He cooled his rage enough as he would need to save energy for whatever their captors were planning.

For a part of the way the orcs and tauren argued with one another, outrage giving way to anger, hatred simmering within tones of fear and disgust. Dissention amongst the ranks manifested in the prisoners� treatment as sometimes they were hit or shoved harshly and made to stumble while other times unseen hands picked them up or guided them gently along the path.

It became apparent their captors were split. The one Dannar seemed to know was defending them while the other orc and a light-voiced tauren, the female perhaps, were dead-set on their immediate, injurious fate. Fortunately neither of them seemed to be leading the posse and of the remaining two one came off as impartial while the fifth hardly spoke.

It had been pre-morning when Thaelyn and Dannar had entered the Barrens. They broke into the Kraul not long after daybreak, so by now it had to be nearing noon. Though blind, he felt the unbridled sun beating down on him with the stifling wrath of a clear and cloudless day in a land that hid its water. He needed a drink. A feverous fatigue had been rising in him and he was stumbling more often now. The gag which at first had been cumbersome was fast becoming a hazard. The more he walked the more he needed to breathe, and the more he tried to breathe the more moisture that parchment rag sucked out of his mouth. What dignity he had left he would trade for a breath of wet, cool air.

Conversation had died more or less on an unsettled note and the only sound the travelers made came from feet and hooves. Perhaps it was the haze or a hovering, nearby insect swarm but Thaelyn�s head pounded and throbbed as if a nest of bees were buzzing in the back of his skull. He felt dizzy, disoriented. One foot fell in front of the other in its rhythmic pace. A warm fugue of light swum before his twice-closed eyes. Sworls of shadows dancing in and out of the yellow-amber glow that found its way through the cloth of his bindings underneath the skin of his eyelids. The next thing he knew he was on the ground being kicked by an iron-shod foot and the sounds of life around him had sprung up as if by charm.

The boot came in again. Thaelyn coughed against his gag and almost retched, shuddering into a dry heave instead. They had come into some outpost or settlement so gradually the night-elf hadn�t even noticed in his heat fatigue. Voices of shock and scorn rose up around them in the orcish language. Thaelyn thought he could hear children yelling somewhere while unidentifiable beasts chewed and squawked at whatever bit held them captive. The conversation which had settled over the course of their blind journey picked up again and Thaelyn felt himself grabbed by his long hair to be dragged off somewhere. Before he knew what was happening he was dropped into a vat of warm water and the only thoughts he had were of praise to the goddesses of mercy. Moments later he realised that mercy had a cruel sense of humour as the liquid found its way through the gag down his throat and he identified it as some mixture of soiled water and urine. Hands again reached down to pull him out and his blindfold came loose in the sudden flurry of appendages.

They were in a small camp of tauren on the outskirts of the Barrens. A couple of painted, hide-covered buildings compromised the hub where orcs, trolls and bull-men gathered to repair and trade goods while traveling through the scrubland territory. The beastial sounds he had heard earlier were coming from a clutch of chained, winged monstrosities the tauren must use for flying mounts that Thaelyn couldn�t remember the names for. He had, in fact, been thrown face-down into the water troth for said beasties which was overdue for a changing as it was indeed fouled, a fact he could now disgustedly confirm.

The surrounding Horde laughed at him unkindly. He could see Dannar standing not far away, the human�s own endurances strained as he suffered hardships similar to Thaelyn�s but confounded by the fact that he was still blindfolded. He saw the orc, the one Dannar had lusted for, standing off behind the paladin, a mixture of helpless pain in his eyes as he held Dannar�s bonds and tried to whisper something in the human�s ears that paladin could neither understand nor hear. Then Thaelyn was taken forcibly from behind by his captor�s hands and the mob was upon him.

They descended like harpies over his helpless form. His armor was cut from him, his clothes were ripped. A glance behind him saw Dannar being treated the same and felt a strange mixture of sympathy and justice in that. Their bodies were stripped of protection from their bracers to their boots and were only left with a scrap of loincloth over their more private areas. Some debate must have gone up over this which was quickly resolved by a quick pair of hands ripping off this last shred of dignity and leaving the warrior and human naked, save for their bonds, before the gathered horde. Though well endowed by night elf standards Thaelyn�s dark purple member flopped flaccidly against his bruised thigh. The Horde laughed and the blindfold was once more pulled tightly against his eyes, still wet with piss and water that seeped grimishly down his face. He should have been glad to see their jeering faces shut out but he burned with rage and self-consciousness, hating his helplessness, hating being treated as an object of loathing and mockery and disgust. Piss-water trickled down his throat as he clenched his jaw, fueling his fury, and he was wrenched up again to be sent back marching down the road.

The second leg of the journey was nowhere as long as the first but was by far the worst. Thaelyn tried to march with dignity, unafraid of what further punishment the Horde could provide, but dignity was not to be had. He stumbled even more, tripping over hot stones and sharp sand, and his every mistake was lampooned by the crowd of children and tagalongs they had picked up from their brief stop at the outpost. These mishaps were further augmented by the fact that he was forced to pick himself up now, a task complicated by the unrelenting bonds keeping his hands tightly held behind him.

At length the scrubland gave way to meadow as coarse grass gave way to a softer turf under his feet. The sun beat just as harshly down as before only now it baked the full breadth of his naked body. The parts of him that had been immersed in the troth water suffered doubly so, for what moisture they had acquired was burned off leaving behind only a salty residue and the two wet rags binding his eyes and mouth. The smell of the winged creatures� urine invaded his nostrils but no matter where he turned he could not escape it, and whenever he tried to wipe it off by rubbing his face against his shoulders a sharp crack on the back by some pitiless tormentor was more than enough to deter him from further pursuits.

They arrived at their destination before he thought they would. Thaelyn knew it because the coterie of misfit hecklers and their group ascended some kind of wooden ramp and suddenly stopped. They waited there for something to happen. He listened and strained for some clue as to what was going on. He tried to find the sound of an executioner�s axe or a sword or club being unsheathed but he heard nothing, only a faint creak, creak, of something large and heavy descending that grew the closer it came. Something bulky, made of wood and rope was coming slowly towards him, and before he understood what it was or where it might take him, he was ushered off into the unknown for final judgment.

*****

They were rising. The sensation of weight, of gravity giving way beneath them, became a step from the sloping platform of the ground onto a rickety dance floor of uncertainty as the world was lifted tremulously from underneath. He stepped back, autumn leaves rising in his chest as if that part of him were hollow while the bulk of his body pushed at its extremes like an ill-cast urn perched on some ethereal wheel that shifted and turned chaotically beneath him. His blood began to churn. Breath tersely left him. The wheel was going to fall.

A hand at the small of his naked back steadied and calmed him. �Dan�Nar�� a heavy tongue called softly his name. The world steadied, reoriented itself and settled around that hand and voice. Ages had gone by since the heated events of the morning, hours spent in darkness and silence, stripped of his powers and pride, threatened by malice with only that comforting presence to keep him safe. He wanted to call out and cry and bury his face in its warmness.

Kral�tuk, he thought but wanted to say. And then another voice, curt and sinister, called out unto his protector.

*****

�What�choo got goin� with him mate?� Gukkar asked quietly over the creaking of the lift. �Yas can�t hides it from me, I know you better�n the others.� They were alone with Dannar, the design of the cage-like platform they rose on not built to accommodate more than the few passengers it held. The rogue approached his lover. �Theys weren�t �Jus helpin� yas kill that boar, Allies or no�.�

�What�re you saying Gukkar?� Kral�tuk asked, taking his hand from off the human�s back. Gukkar grabbed Dannar by the phallus and squeezed.

�Kinder exotic, no?� Gukkar said tersely, lascivious and bitter. �Yas don�t see many of thems these days around �ere,� the darker orc said swirling his thick fingers around the head of Dannar�s penis. The human gasped and tensed, whimpering as Gukkar applied pressure to his balls while at the same time swelling due to the sudden attention �Was �e goin� to �ave you lick his nizzle?�

�Don�t,� Kral�tuk threatened.

Gukkar gave him a wicked smile and twisted the human�s nutsack, hard. Dannar cried out against his gag. Kral�tuk tried to intervene but Gukkar evaded him, punched the human in the gut and threw Kral�tuk against one of the lift�s cage-posts. Kral�tuk grabbed out for the cage posts as Dannar crumpled like a child�s forgotten doll. The rogue ignored the human to pin his compatriot against the post, gripping him about the throat and one arm, holding the other arm down with his elbow. Against the other orc�s weight and actions Kral'tuk felt the lift shift dangerously beneath them.

�Gukkar!� Kral�tuk grunted out in shock.

�Don�t fool aroun� with me mate. I seen you look at him all wanting like on the way back. You�ve got sump�fing for him.� He stared Kral�tuk in the eyes, his own steely and lascivious, burning yet cold. �We was all gallavantin� around lookin� for ya and there he was, feelin� you up while tha� elf watched. Thing is, you wasn� lookin� like you was hatin it. Ya wanna know wha� I was thinkin�?� the darker orc asked. �When ah saw you like that?� As he spoke his eyes darted over Kral�tuk�s body, deciding perhaps whether to take him or push him off or if there was some special way he wanted to hurt his lover. Kral'tuk's life was being threatened but Gukkar was the one panting. He leaned in as if to kiss, inhaling, taking Kral�tuk�s scent in, letting it linger in his nostrils. Kral�tuk felt the press of his companion against his chest, enwrapping his body, drawing attention to the growing bulge in his crotch. Despite the danger of situation he was in he was still aroused by his lover, but part of that was due to fear, and Kral�tuk couldn�t tell if it was fear for himself or Gukkar. �Don� I do it fo� you anymore?�

Kral�tuk stared at his friend. Gukkar had become unreadable but for a moment, just one, he thought he saw something underneath the masks he wore. Beyond the licentious, beneath the cutting edge, Kral�tuk had seen some kind of softness, a thing the rogue had never shown in all the time he had known him. It was some part of the rogue he had never seen. Something he had betrayed. Something he, for all that Kral�tuk could tell, had hurt.

Gukkar stepped back, reading his momentary lapse in Kral�tuk�s face. Kral�tuk opened his mouth to speak but in a motion almost too quick to be seen Gukkar cast something from his hand and disappeared in a gust of powder.

The lift shook to a stop at the top of its rise a moment later. Kral�tuk, lost in his thoughts, didn�t see or hear the shouts of the Bluff Watchers until it was almost too late.

*****

In a moment it was back. The fear. The pain. The madness and confusion. The sinister voice had come for him, grabbed him by the balls � quite literally, and in a burst of motion sent him to the floor of their shaking wheel-world with blossoms of pain paralyzing his body. There had been words, quick and bitter passing between his two captors, but what they were or even what they might have been could Dannar understand the tongue they spoke in were lost. The world had gone back to shaking again, choked by blindness and the taste of rasping cloth.

There was a thundering. Shouts. A scream. His chest shook and mouth found it hard to breathe. Rough hands grabbed him by the shoulders. A hoof larger than his hand came down on his skull. This is it, Dannar thought, I�m not ready for death. He tasted something warm and wet and salty seep into his mouth.

Another yell, this one from behind him. The hoof stopped. The pressure about his temples withdrew. His guardian, his saviour, had intervened.

The hands were pulled away and he was drug from the wheel-platform onto an equally wooden but more stable-feeling surface. Hands from behind him undid the gag binding his mouth. He coughed. It wasn�t blood but tears trickling off his cheeks. Dannar gasped. Air, clean and free of bindings filled his mouth and lungs. In the flurry of movement his blindfold came free and he blinked across his surroundings.

Tauren. They were everywhere. Guards held their weapons at the ready. Ragtag males and females of their species passed by less interestedly, many bearing the tell-tale signs of adventurers like himself. There was a speckling of orcs, trolls and the occasional undead wanderer or two, but the most striking aspect was the spanse of generation represented here. They were all ages from young, calf-like tauren children to older, wizened bovines whose relaxed bodies and wrinkled faces spoke of a greater tales their lives had to tell. They had a greater purpose than just being here. They were the reason this place existed. This wasn�t an outpost. This was a city.

Leather tents, brightly painted in enigmatic designs, sprung up from the ground intermittently. Cooking fires and cauldron�s, blacksmith�s anvils and semi-permanent forges staked their places out amongst the crowd. Vendors selling everything from armour to jewelry displayed their wares in an open market environment. Great structures made of wood and rope combined art with utilitarianism and served as meeting houses, guideposts and pathways bridging plateaued rises. Dannar gulped. For they were on a plateaued rise.

High, high up in the air, the world turned slowly below them. The rickety lift had brought them to this wavering perch of a wooden dock some thousands of feet up from the valley floor. It was a mountainous rise where cloud banks became fog, birds roosted below, and Kalimdor spread out all of its glory, verdant and craggy, in every direction around them.

More inspiring than this view and the near-certainty of death in a wrong step however was the life that populated the terraces. Artisans proffered up their wares to interested passers-by, outlining the intricacies of their work as if the world did not ramble below them. Children ran laughing after prairie dogs or nonsense, chasing each other in games of �tag� as old and universal as the differences between fish and sky. Lovers entertained their paramours, too enrapt with one another to notice anything beyond the breadth of this moment here above the earth. Old mothers watched new fathers passing by, trading gossip as easily as the passing of the weather.

He was not forgotten in this menagerie of everyday life, however. Potters, still proffering their wares, gave uneasy glances his way between attempts of selling to some stranger the wonders of their craft. Gossips directed their attention at him, trading theories or stories as to the reason for his presence in their midst and perhaps hinting at his fate from past experiences that they or someone they knew had been party to. A few children heckled the paladin � from a safe distance of course � while one old crone brayed something to him in her broken, lowing tongue while gesticulating violently with a plucked chicken. Parents of younger children hurried their progeny along while one small calf peeked and waved and smiled at him from behind her mother�s skirt, still too young perhaps to know of the hate-filled divide that separated the Horde from the Alliance.

All this and more Dannar gasped in as he strained, naked and helpless, on the bank of the lift holding him suspended over the awning gulf of the world wither wind and sky existed. He was on an island above an unfilled sea that nevertheless pulled and washed over him with its own streams, inviting him in to weightless waters and an ocean touched only by gods. Light flooded the vista as if he had never seen it clearer, painting the distant clouds and mountains, the swamps and plainslands, each with a soft texture and glow, filling them with life and essence and the spirits of the terra. As Dannar had called upon and recognized the Light within its people, he was struck dumb looking for the first time upon the Light within the land.

Like an unwelcome odor, the bitterness around him gradually grew. Here above the heart of the world, hate was there. In the air before him, an unfounded bias against his presence; against who he was and what he represented. Against his presence in being here and his alien body. He was a stranger in a foreign land, and its people did not like him. Save one.

The orc came around to face him, pity in his eyes, yearning in his heart. He touched Dannar�s face and Dannar tried to say his name but Kral�tuk put a hand over his mouth, made a shushing motion, and gently lifted the blindfold back up. That was the world then, back into darkness. Comforting darkness, where it was safer. Where he was protected by his unseen guardian and taken by gentler hands to somewhere away from this hate, away from the cries and screams of prejudice and secret, sympathetic eyes away from the wonders of the world. He was safer without sight. And time would soon be telling if that was protection enough. How strong was his guardian? How long could his protector last? And was one tryst binding enough, or was he merely a passing fancy in this orc�s life ready to be brushed away, tossed aside and sent unto the winds?

*****

Kral�tuk walked the human up the inner stair of the great tree that had been hollowed out which connected the three main rises of Thunder Bluff. This day had just gone from bad to worse. He�d felt better on the wyvern flying away from here, and that wasn�t saying much as far as his predilection towards such things went. The situation, for one could not be any direr.

He had been caught with a human. He had been caught messing around with another male, on top of that. Both of which were crimes punished by death. And to the person he was unofficially, secretly attached to, he had been caught unintentionally cheating and in doing so hurt that person he cared deeply about.

The harshest part of all though was, had he really been caught cheating? Some part of him desired the human � this human � deep down inside which he could not deny. Maybe because he had been his first, or perhaps it was some crazy, self-destructive urge, but the fact remained that that passion was there. What about Gukkar then? What did Gukkar mean to him? He had been drawn to Gukkar as well � nay, still desired him � but there was a coldness to Gukkar that had always left him feeling unfulfilled. His quick, bursts of passion that were there one minute, gone the next. Like him. What was it about this human then that filled him with hiw own reckless need, and why did he fear more for his safety than his own?

He walked slow, marching Dannar carefully ahead of him, so he knew a tauren had entered the tree below and was coming up behind him.

�Kral�tuk��

Kral�tuk turned and was surprised by the deep, bass voice that called.

�Artak?� he said uncertainly.

The dun bull looked quickly around them. He had come alone, through the press of the crowd that the Bluff Watchers had been obliged to keep at bay outside the central tree. Seeing that they were fully alone on the stair he held out his hand and placed something in the orc�s own.

�Good luck,� he said, staring into Kral�tuk�s eyes with orbs of the deepest brown. Kral�tuk looked at the wrapped item in his hand and stared at the druid.

�Artak, I��

The tauren clasped his arm in a warrior�s salute and continued on, changing into a cat form further on and disappearing from sight. Kral�tuk put the item in his pouch and continued on with Dannar.

Near the top of the staircase he exited the tree with his charge. They had come to the highest rise of the central bluff. News had spread quickly, guards had been called in, and a path to the elder�s meeting pit had been laid open for him amidst the crowd of onlookers. But it wasn�t the firepit to which he was destined to go. Not yet at least.

Kral�tuk unbound Dannar�s eyes so he could walk without assistance. That was the law of the elders, that friend or foe alike should meet their fate and judgement with eyes open to the vast glory of the Earthmother, a right denied to no one regardless of their crime. The night elf had been brought up before Dannar by Tyrrh and Laughingwind and were already waiting for them beside the open pit. Fear and rage shone from his eyes, his mouth still gagged by a soiled rag. Kral�tuk felt sorry for him. He was truly an innocent in this, a victim of circumstance, but given the chance to save just one of the two Alliance trespassers Kral�tuk had already made his choice.

The orc nudged Dannar lightly and together they both walked that silent walk of spastic, shameful thoughts and guilt-laced tension leading up to the tent of the High Chieftain, Cairne, leader of the Bloodhoof clan, uniter of the Tribes, guardian of Thunder Bluff and final arbiter of Horde law within the heart of Kalimdor.

*****

Justice, whatever it meant to the tauren, was neither swift nor trivial. To the orcs, trolls, and other miscellaneous rapscallions gathered around the High Chieftain�s tent however, it was not justice so much as a sport that was sought after in these matters, and the name of the game in this instance was �punishment.�

Thaelyn watched, already alienated � first by his companion whom he had brought to these shores, then by the jailers who had captured them. As soon as Dannar disappeared inside the tent with the two tauren who had brought him up in the lift and that one orc Dannar seemed all too excited to get his mitts on the moment he saw him, the other orc, a rogue of sorts, wasted no time in stepping out of nowhere to take charge of his situation.

It was clear that the Bluff Watchers had no love for the Alliance, and the mere presence of a night elf in the midst of their city had made more than a few of the ones gathered here highly displeased. A few crafty words from the dark-skinned orc and they stepped aside, clearing out a fair-sized circle in the centre of the plateau for whatever devious purposes the orc had planned. Thaelyn caught sight of the looks on their faces, and from what he gleaned the rogue had shared enough of his intentions to spread a mood of general malicious delight amongst the guards of the tauren city.

The centre of the meeting pit was cleared. Rugs were rolled up, jugs put aside, and a log that looked as if it were used for reclining upon was moved to the middle. The orc took Thaelyn roughly by his bonds and threw him down across the log. Forcing one foot against the night elf�s wrists he knelt behind the warrior, mashed his crotch against Thaelyn�s buttocks and yelled some orc gibberish to the crowd.

Goddess above, Thaelyn grimaced, the damn bastard�s going to rape me. The crowd definitely thought so too, or at least were going on with the show, and broke out roaring in cheers, jeers and unseemly laughter at the orc�s antics. Thaelyn felt the rogue�s member bulging beneath his codpiece just waking up, waiting, teasing itself with the promise of plunging into a puckered, helpless hole exposed for all the world to see. The fucking bastard�s going to RAPE me! Thaelyn ground his teeth against his gag, preparing to fight back the only way a captive in his position knew how.

But it wasn�t rape the orc was going for. At least not yet. Forcing his weight onto Thaelyn, pinning him there against the log, he undid the night elf�s bonds and began tying them anew around each wrist. Thaelyn bucked against the orc, using his newfound liberty to find an opening, but the orc had expected this and a quick blow to the balls incapacitated the night elf before he even knew what was going on. All he knew was a sudden, blooming pain from the foci of his loins and the rogue had more than enough time to finish tying his knots around the warrior�s wrists. Throwing an end of the ropes to either side, Bluff guards took up the slack and at a word the night elf�s arms were pulled taut away from him.

The orc flipped over around to face him and grabbed his mug in one hand. Thaelyn glared at the fiend who stared wickedly into his eyes, but bound and gagged and painfully exposed as he was the night elf could not even spit effectively into his assailant�s face. The orc chuckled, reading the night elf like a book, and slapped his head around playfully a bit, before landing a sharp blow across the warrior�s face that snapped his neck to the side, promising a bruise for later. Thaelyn closed his eyes, not giving the orc the satisfaction of what he would see in his eyes, but the orc was moving behind him now. At a command the ropes were pulled tight, forcing Thaelyn to stand to alleviate the pain lest his shoulders be pulled from their joints. He stood heroically, or as much as he was able to given the situation and his condition.

Nude and brilliant, his lavender body stood defiantly strong against the afternoon sky. His dark-rich purple hair hung down like a thick-crowned veil around his head. Golden eyes glared above chiseled features, highlighting his face with a soft glow that disappeared somewhere lost into his shortly bearded chin. Muscles sculpted by a lifetime of training stood taut and sleek, winding down a soldier�s chest in front to abs that defined perfection. His smooth legs supported his weight effortlessly, shifting a rounded, tight ass around with their own interplay of defined, muscular spectacle as his well-built calves and thighs sought for balance upon the ground. The sinuous lines of his shoulders, back and arms stretched out in an eagle�s spread of motion, outlining the animalistic potential barely contained therein. His violet cock hung swaying, long and thickened and slightly throbbing in the air from the orc�s earlier blow. Plum-coloured tufts of soft, curly hair nested at the apex of his crotch, in the cradle of his arms and along a slight trail up his abdomen. Angry, mutinous and proud Thaelyn stood daring all who saw him that he came from a caste unafraid of death or of bringing others to it.

In that moment Thaelyn became aware of the power he held over his captive audience. He wished Dannar was here to see this moment; to see him boldly exhibited in the heart of the Horde. Here they had power over him, yes, but they were nothing without him. They would not be here, they would not have a reason to be gathered or unified if his body had not called to them, had not been presented as an object of derivation, and envy, and promise, and beauty. He was the centre of their universe. The thought almost brought a smile to his face, perhaps a twinge of smugness at how the human would react if he saw him.

Since he had spent all the their time trying to get into Thaelyn's pants, what would the paladin think if he could see the warrior helpless now, here in the buff, at the peak of his prime, and completely in control of his enemies� satisfaction? Probably wet himself. Thaelyn would laugh at that.

A sharp crack brought Thaelyn to the present, and he felt much more than saw the orc tormenter coming up slowly behind him. Then it struck him that he was not the only one in control here. He was but one player in this game, and the orc was the other. He was the pleasure provider, and the orc was the musician for whom Thaelyn�s body was the perfect instrument.

He came up and whispered something dirty then. Something fouled in even the orcish, guttural language not meant for anyone but him. Like a conspirator in a play, or a fellow actor coaching him lines, the orc said words heated and fluid and potentially wrong that filled the night elf with a trepidation he had not earlier felt. Had he impacted the dark rogue too? Had he swayed him with the power of his naked body? What was this power the rogue held over him, promising his body a twisted pain it would never knowingly submit to?

A soft strap stroked the sinuous indentations of his back, hidden from the crowd by virtue of the orc�s body. It was the butt of a whip, of a lash the rogue had acquired. Something medium-long of oiled leather that Thaelyn could not see but felt, like the orc�s presence, like the orc�s passion. Not unlike Dannar�s, the touch held him electrified, but where the human had acquiesced to his protestations here there would be no such quarter. Even if the night elf and the orc spoke the same tongue, even if it was but a language of their own, he knew, deep down he knew, that the orc would never relent. Never give up his planned course of action. And Thaelyn waited the first kiss of that lash with a horrid, burning anticipation.

The orc hesitated a moment longer, his breath hot on Thaelyn�s neck, his lash cold against the small of his back. The tormentor forced him away then, turned, and Thaelyn knew a terrible heartbeat of isolation there in the centre of Thunder Bluff�s watchful eye where all eyes were on him again.

The moment, and then the crack.

The first hiss of the lash struck him across the back and the crowd broke out in an avaricious roar. White fire, cold and then burning, scorched its way across Thaelyn�s flesh, across his mind in a sharp stripe of awareness that cut down his body like lightning. He screamed, he cried against his gag but the knotted cloth held it in, the foul stench of urine returning once more to sour his senses.

Another strike of the lash and a second stripe of awareness opened across his right shoulder. The brightness came again, striking his mind open to the sensitivity of his skin. When had he ever felt so naked and exposed across twelve inches of skin before? The rest of him, unclad, clothed itself in exposure. It was as if his masculinity was no longer tied to his sexual organ but that portion of skin which had no aspirtations to such libidinous extremities was.

Another lashing. Another gasp of awareness. Each subsequent strike came sharper and even, more painful than the previous yet just as powerful. Thaelyn�s body writhed with each hit. His body twined and twisted, trying to avoid the next lash that would come, eagerly curious and anticipating where the following ones would be. They were never quite in the same place and, goddess be damned, that orc knew he was wanting it. He knew how to hold it just long enough so Thaelyn couldn�t tell when it would come down. It was always timed just so that if fell before or behind the previous lashing, and that the night elf was driving himself mad trying to prepare his body for the moment of strike.

There was blood. Somewhere he was bleeding. Sometimes the lashings would come fast, almost preternaturally fast after their predecessor. Sometimes moments stretched on for minutes between each lash. Each time he reacted in kind, and the crowed cheered on, feeding off his pain, sharing in his suffering, taking his experience for their own and lavishing him with their eyes and voices. He hated it. He hated them. And yet he could not imagine life without this experience.

He was bleeding. He could feel it. A trickle at first, tickling down his spine, but then there was more, pooling in the small of his back to drip down his buttocks like a slick, crimson oil lubricating his hidden nerves.

He was bleeding. And then the lashings stopped.

*****

They stood before the great Chieftain, Kral�tuk, Tyrrh, Laughingwind and Dannar. Another tauren Kral�tuk didn�t recognize but whom he suspected was one of the Bloodhoof tribe stood by Cairne�s side, casually guarding his elder. Kral�tuk squirmed, disliking the silent intensity with which the chieftain scrutinized him via softened, ancient eyes. He looked away only to see his traveling companions staring at him, Tyrrh infuriatingly neutral, Laughingwind with unguided fury.

�Tyrrh tells me an interesting story, Kral�tuk,� Cairne said at length, his melodious voice ringing in the empty spaces of the tent like a grandfather culling the disputes of his god-children. �He tells me that on your journeys you got separated from their group, that there was some nasty business with a boar, and that when they found you again you were being� molested? �by this human and the night elf right outside. And, if that weren�t strange enough, it seems that when your friends rushed to your aid you stood between them and these two. Now why is that?�

�High Chief,� Kral�tuk began, �let me explain. The human and elf, they saved me from the giant boar. But they weren�t� that is, I wasn�t��

�Oh come off it!� Laughingwind exclaimed. �First ye say ye don't know what either o' them's doing there, then ye say ye know one,� she pointed at Dannar, �and then ye argue the whole way back sayin' ye don't think they're Allies at all but some kinda goblin��

�Steamwheedle Cartel,� Tyrrh interjected. Laughingwind threw down a medallion she had taken from the night elf earlier when they were being stripped.

�Well if that ain't a corporal's insignia o' the Alliance they ye can just shave me horns an' call me a horse right now. I know Alliance scum when I see it!� the younger shaman bellowed.

Cairne glanced down at the medallion and up to Kral'tuk. The orc snatched up the medallion and tucked it away.

�Ok, so maybe they are with the Alliance�� the orc started.

�Maybe?� Laughingwind all but shrieked. Her lover put a hand on her shoulder.

�They weren't hurting me, as I tried to say,� Kral'tuk continued. �They saved my life while I was fighting that boar. While I was saving Artak.�

�Artak took care o' himself mate,� Laughingwind continued. �Was you who needed the rescuin'.�

�And I got rescued!� Kral'tuk defended.

�If that's what you call it!� the girl continued. �Looked a lot more like slobberin' all over that... that jackananny to me!�

Kral'tuk thought he caught a chuckle out of the corner of his eye from Cairne, but he was too stressed to

�He was healing me!� the warrior replied almost shrilly.

�Oh, givin' ya mouth-ta-maw? 'Cause that's what it looked like mate,� Laughingwind pointed accusingly at him. �Tha's a lot what it looked like.�

�I... he was...� Kral'tuk floundered.

�So ye know him do ya?� the female tauren accused, �Or was just a happy coincidence? Random encounter with perverts who're better off dead than��

�I don't know what they were doing in the Kraul!� Kral'tuk shouted. �All right? I don't know why��

�The Kraul?� the elder's voice asked. Tyrrh, Laughingwind and Kral'tuk froze. �What were doing there?� Those four words spoken by the High Chieftain filled even the cool-headed Tyrrh with discomfort.

�Kral'tuk!� Laughingwind hissed.

�What?� the orc hissed back?

�He didn't mean�� Tyrrh tried to say.

�What, Tyrrh? What didn't Kral'tuk mean?� That question from Cairne silenced the shaman and Kral'tuk reached into his pouch.

�He means this,� Kral'tuk said removing the package Artak had given him. Laughingwind's eyes went wide and Tyrrh stared intently at the orc, accusation for the first time marring his bovine features ever so slightly with their bitter tinge.

�After the boar, before we came back,� he unwrapped the soft mass within. �We went there for someone from your tribe. To kill and cut out the heart of Charlga Razorflank. And guess what?� He removed the last of the wrappings and held out a purplish, seeping, charnel mass that could only be one thing. �We did.�

Cairne stared at the heart in Kral'tuk's hand without saying a word. Tyrrh and Laughingwind had gone silent. All trace of grandfatherly mirth had left the chieftain's face and for the first time any of them had seen him, he seemed old. Older beyond their years or any of his, as if age had caught up to him in that instant with interest.

�Leave us,� the High Chieftain said. Kral'tuk wondered if he had made a mistake, saying too much too quickly, but it was one of many and it was too late now.

�But�� Laughingwind started but Tyrrh grabbed her arm and bowed to Cairne. Laughingwind stared at her lover, at the Chieftain, at Kral�tuk, then strode out of the tent. Her look was no less kind than the one Tyrrh gave the orc, but Kral�tuk wasn't moved to care. Left alone with Dannar and the leader of the Bloodhoof tribe he suddenly felt very, very susceptible.

Cairne smiled gently, his face lacking the mirth that had graced it earlier. �Ah, the fire of the young.� He took Charlga�s heart from Kral�tuk and looked at it thoughtfully. �Do you know what this means, young greenskin?� Cairne asked. Kral�tuk shook his head, sinking down submissively now that he as alone with the great tauren. �An honest answer. Let me ask you another question. Do you know why I forbade our tribes from going back to the Kraul?� Kral�tuk hesitated for a moment then shook his head again.

�Tell me,� Cairne began as he set the old quillboar�s heart down on a stone, �what is to be gained by cutting the head off an enemy if there will only be a new enemy to take her place?� Kral'tuk shifted slightly, very certain that he did not want to be here. �A new chieftain, another Charlga Razorflank, will appear to take over the Kraul now that she is dead.� The old tauren blinked. �Perhaps this new chief will be thankful for his or her rise to power. Perhaps not. Perhaps it will be the spark that starts the fire and the next quillboar invasion will not be another Kraul but Thunder Bluff itself. Who knows?

�The same could be said of the Horde and Alliance. You have heard it mentioned that this was a heart filled with hate, yes?� Kral'tuk nodded. �And Charlga had a bitter heart. One filled with loathing for the tauren. But do you know why?� Here Cairne leaned in, the wise father sharing a story's secret with the captive child. �It was we who took their sacred lands first. We who took the Kraul from them, many generations ago. In her heart she knew this, the loss of her ancestral grounds. And so she gathered up her people, fed them her hate, and led them in force against the 'evil' tauren who took that heritage from her.

�But perhaps it goes older than that,� Cairne continued. �Perhaps her people had taken those lands from someone else, and those people took it from ones who came before them. Hate burns its own circle of vengeance. Revenge leaves some child an orphan. Such children grow up knowing no other mother, father or guiding spirits, so they live on for hatred and in turn are cut down by the same revenge their actions cause.�

Here Cairne picked up the heart of Razorflank and plucked a feather from one of his armbands. As he spoke he drew sigils in the heart with it; symbols of the earth spirits and totemics the orc recognized from his comrades' spells when they had been fighting together.

�The circle goes on,� Caine continued. �The same game plays but the players change. Now it is the tauren and the centaur.� He made two punctures in the heart with his feather. �Now it is the quillboar.� He brushed the feather across Charlga's heart, taking off some of the grime that had accrued on it. �Now it is the Horde and the Alliance.� Here the old tauren paused and looked back to Kral'tuk. �There has been bloodshed on both sides many times over, and the treaties we hold now with the humans and their allies are based on the truce that what has gone on before between our races is gone.� Cairne set Charlga's heart back down on a stump. �Forgiven, if not forgotten. We must never forget.

�I cannot speak for others of our own, strange alliance, Kral'tuk, and perhaps in Ogrimmar you would see justice done another way,� Cairne said for emphasis, �but for the people of my tribe we have our own ways to purify the malevolent spirits that have come to us in the form of these two strangers.� Here Cairne placed his hand on the orc's shoulder, causing the warrior to look up as he had been avoiding the High Chief's gaze.

�What they have done and who they are are not allowed in these lands. We must protect our people and our lands as one. We must not be afraid to fight back, young warrior.� Cairne looked deeply into the shaking orc before him. �It is all right to be afraid for from knowing fear comes true bravery, and what they did to you will not go unpunished.� The gravity of what Cairne was saying finally struck home. �Here is your chance to face that fear and become stronger for it. Kral'tuk froze inside.

�That will be my judgement,� the High Chief said, �Unless there is something I should know that has not been said yet.�

Swallowing the cold lump that had settled in his throat, Kral'tuk looked up. The High Chief wanted him to kill the Allies. To take the lives of Dannar and his friend. But he also knew. He had to tell him. Cairne knew he was hiding something. He couldn�t hide it anymore. If he didn�t say anything, Dannar and the night elf would die. Whether by his hand or any of the Bluff Watchers. He could hear the rituals and the dancers already. He could see Dannar tied to a post, pierced with feathers, painted for ceremony like Razorflanks heart. And then with drums and torches the tauren would come; the shamans with their magic and ties to the earth would call forth the elments from their sleep to witness and partake...

Kral'tuk couldn't handle that. He would not. If he burned, then he'd burn with him. And so he leaned in. And he said. He whispered to the Chieftain�s ear his secret of secrets, his hidden heart of hearts. Like a frightened child confessing its crime to a strict but loving father, he said in a handful of simple words the tie between this human and himself. His voice quivered and cracked with what he spoke as his eyes shook, fluid and glassy, and when he leaned back, he looked into the Great Chief�s face with the most tenuous sincerity his courage could mustre.

�Ah,� Cairne said, a strange pallor falling over his eyes like smoke-filled nights and dying campfires. Something moved through his voice like a breath of memory, of sympathy perhaps or understanding. Perhaps it was remorse, or longing for a thing he had lost or seen taken away? It took another moment for Kral�tuk to realise that what the Great Chieftain was musing over were not memories or feelings of his own but of those for Kral�tuk. The tone he had gathered in his voice was pity.

�Ah.�

*****

He stood shivering and wet, a fine film of sweat glazing his body in places where the lash had not even touched. The wild winds around the Bluff picked up on this and danced all over his body. Vaguely he was aware of his nipples standing pert and hard against the elements but he could not focus on them for long. His mind swam in electric currents, jumping and lighting from one half-formed thought to another, but all for naught. He could not think, he could not rationalise, he could only feel, and his feelings were somewhere between the Nether and the moon.

A boot kicked Thaelyn in the back of the knees and he crumpled against the log. Unseen hands busied themselves upon his legs and his ankles were soon bound like his wrists. The guards had followed in kind and now, at four different corners of the ring, held him spread upon the ground to the further degradations of the crowd and its sole tormentor.

Thaelyn relaxed slightly as the orc moved away. The lash�s stings were already fading as the discipline and training in him knew they would, and his blood was already drying fast in the strong winds that moved constantly around the bluff�s edge. The cuts from the lash were not serious enough to cause real harm, but these, he suspected, weren�t the worst of the humiliations � or torture � to come. Cursing again the knots keeping him from quick vengeance and an honourable death Thaelyn turned his head what little he could to see the rogue reaching into an old cooking cauldron with a look of malicious disgust stretching across his face. Whatever he was planning was as much a secret from the gathered horde as it was from him, and the suspicious mutterings that flew around when the rogue pulled out a huge glob of semi-solid animal fat heightened the dread that filled Thaelyn as he felt, more than suspected, what was to come next.

The crowd broke into expected jeers when the dark-skinned orc forced him down with a kick more intended to wind an opponent than cause actual harm. At a command the ropes holding his arms and legs were drawn tight so that he was effectively held spread-eagle, face-down against the ground over the log he had previously held onto as a means of escape. It wasn�t until he was adjusted to where the log was under his stomach, with his cock and balls exposed face-down against the coarse wood thus forcing his posterior up at a sharp angle, that he realized the danger of his situation.

Thaelyn�s struggling began anew, only this time instead of being met with a boot on the back of the head the dark orc leaned over and grabbed him by the neck. Leaning in close enough that the elf could smell the sweaty tang of his body underneath the leathery scent of his clothes, the thief began whispering things in his gutter-language that carried with them the hint of expediency as well as a seedy, sordid undertone, as if what he was saying was more than not meant for the crowd; as if he were sharing some luscious insight about what he was going to do like some sick lover basking in the desecration of publicly pornogrifying the night elf�s body. The conspirator was back, cuing him his lines clandestinely in the face of the crowd.

The first touch was gentle � a quick smearing of the animal fat on his buttocks. The sudden sensation of lubrication brought with it its own sense of violation � of being sensitized in ways he had never had opened up before. He slid in ways he never had before. He could feel his body touching itself as the wind, colder than ever, forced the globes of his ass closer together where they shivered in waiting fear. Then the sharp sensation came. A jabbing, thrusting proboscis shot out of the darkness into his awareness forcing its way against his sphincter with a ragged nail. Thaelyn cried out against the gag and his body closed itself off. The orc spat in his face and pressed again, using the callused meat of his thumb to work the elf�s clenching anus like an unbroken-in bowstring. Thaelyn closed his eyes, willing his muscles tightly shut against this intrusion while the orc�s spittle dripped down his face but felt the battle of wills failing. Smoothly, far too easily, his sphincter succumbed to the rhythmic sensations of his tormentor�s hand and he felt the thumb slide in past his outer defenses.

The orc leered and Thaelyn tried to close up again but he was already inside him, twisting and turning his hand to touch the hidden membranes lining his flesh. He tensed and immediately saw the error of his instincts. Rather than forcing the intruder out he had locked the bastard in who now had the full breadth of his rectal guardian at his mercy. Gently pinching and rubbing, the rogue began moving his hand in circular motions. Around and around again the orc�s thumb twisted and clenched, fighting the muscle�s strength with its own. Forcing its way in slightly growing circles, the bastard worked Thaelyn�s aching muscle gradually more and more open. The elf�s mind became one with his nethers, and each twist around its inner loop sent his head swirling with a singing of ringing flesh.

Had he known it, he would have shuddered to know his anus stood open like the portal of a hidden cavern or that his dick had grown perversely bloated. He didn�t even notice when the orc�s thumb slipped out from his rectum, only that there was a beat in the flesh-song. He did notice, however, when second finger slid its way in alongside the first intruder to take up the primal refrain. Thaelyn tried to clench shut but his resistance was less this time, even with the widened girth invading his body. He tried to close his mind, to move it elsewhere while this atrocity happened but the massaging fingers pulled his thoughts back to the sensations they elicited. That was Thaelyn realised the depravity of his situation; that even though his mind rebelled his body was accepting this violation, opening up despite his will to the sordid hands of his captor. The orc worked his way inside him, touching him in secret ways, subjugating Thaelyn with pleasure for the amusement of the crowd.

The thumb and forefinger spread him open and a third finger worked its way in. Thaelyn whimpered against the gag, moving involuntarily as his hips rocked back and forth to escape the motion of the orc, intensifying the sensations instead. This isn�t happening, he thought. This isn�t happening, but it was. He looked up while the rogue worked his ass. Assorted faces watched him; some with amusement, some with disgust, some with outright hatred and a seething lust. Many passed by, looking on this ritual of humiliation and punishment with impassive, bovine faces. They were not all Tauren, however. The most human of those belonged to the rotting undead who had the worst expressions as their features were made even more demoniac by strips of hanging flesh, bands of leather and hollow eye sockets defining their faces. The ones enjoying his degredation most though were the other orcs and trolls from nearby Durotar where the heart of the Horde lay just a short flight away. They practically seethed with excitement, mocking his arousal despite the conditions of his torture, and Thaelyn hated to think what they might have done with him had he been caught near Ogrimmar.

One orc woman with wild, unfettered hair broke through the outer ring to run up to Thaelyn. She said something in a mock-flirtatious tone, fondling his ears while the rogue behind him worked him even more open. Clamping down on his ears suddenly hard she mashed his face forward against her armored crotch, thrusting her hips repeatedly forward so his lips bruised as the dirty gag was forced deeper and deeper into his mouth and the crowd jeered wildly. Thaelyn couldn�t hear what was going on but sensed the orc behind him said something for the woman let go of his ears with a laugh and, slapping him across the face, turned back into the crowd. For what he could do, the night elf coughed against the gag as his body quivered in the afternoon sun.

A strong hand clamped down on his shoulder from behind as the fingers slid out of his ass once again. Here it comes, Thaelyn thought, preparing himself for the worst, loathe as he was to be labeled �Horde Bitch� for the rest of his life however short that might be. He was not expecting a fresh dollop of the animal fat and not one or three but all five of the orc�s thick digits probing around his already suffering hole. Thaelyn�s eyes shot wide in horror but the cur had already forced the tips together, thrust in past the anus, and was slowly pressing his advantage the rest of the way towards the night elf�s inner body. He cried out against the gag, biting down, squeezing shut as tight as he could go but the orc pushed in. Brusque fingers, thick and callused from a lifetime of leatherworking, wormed their way in twisting and sliding as they massaged him wider and wider open. Thaelyn spread his legs wider, scratching his cock against the wood as his anus sought to accommodate the new intrusion, his mind shouting, No! No! while his body shouted Yes!. It could accommodate the orc, it could take anything the Horde could dish out, and it was going to show him how.

His captor�s hand was already up to its widest part, and with a solid thrust from both hands going opposite directions the orc *popped* the rest of the way in. Thaelyn would have been disgusted at how greedily his ass seemed to swallow the rest of the orc�s fist but his mind was already riding on extreme sensations. On one end he was consumed by a fiery hatred of everything the orc was doing, his body wracked in pain, his mind lashed by dishonour, while at the other extreme he fell prey to wave after wave of a euphoria he had never known that was far more intense than anything he had experienced with a lover either physically or ethereally. Regardless of which he was screaming, uncertain of why and pleasing the crowd in every sense.

Now locked inside him the orc opened up. Thaelyn thought the worst of the degredations was over but his tormentor was by no means finished. Hands expertly skilled at disarming traps and picking locks now worked on discovering his own inner secrets. The orc�s fist clenched and opened, testing the night elf�s membrane, teasing the warrior�s sphincter which now sucked hungrily at his green paw like a second mouth savouring its treat. Thaelyn�s head swam amidst the crowd�s noise as he felt the fingers spread out as if floating within some inner, warm space of his being. Tears came to his eyes, crisp, salt-laden tears that pooled around the gag as the orc pressed his search deeper and deeper into his body. The hand began sliding in again, sliding out, moving further and deeper and down and up bringing with it a solidly-muscled forearm which had also been coated in the grease to allow for a slicker entry. The orc worked further and further in, pulling with his other hand that massaged Thaelyn�s shoulder.

He�s� enjoying this� Thaelyn thought around the tears. Wanting me to enjoy it as well. Why? Oh goddess, don�t make him� stop I don�t want him� stop this please. Kill me. Oh goddess, kill me with pain, not like this� Don�t make it this� this� pleasuring�

He cried. He was crying. Even as his cock roared hard, even as the orc worked his forearm back and in, further and deeper diving, he cried. He felt as if a force were constantly filling him, drilling inside yet he found that he was equally afraid that it might go, that it might not be there anymore and he would be left open � ravaged and raw � to the harshness of the world; a cavern devoid of life. He hated the orc. He hated himself for having these thoughts. He hated how public this humiliation was for a crime he never committed. All he wanted was to be left alone and forgotten. He thought of Teldrassil and the innocence of a childhood gone by.

There were voices around him � stout and different from those of the crowd. His captor said something from behind him. Thaelyn felt the intrusions halt. Someone with a deep, authoritative voice said something to the rogue behind him and the crowd broke out in terse laughter. All too soon the orc pulled his arm back, leaving it in a fist as he neared the elf�s abused sphincter, and pulled. Thaelyn cried out as the fist began to exit en masse. The deep voice called out again � a command, there could be no mistaking it now � and the orc relaxed his fist, sliding out almost naturally leaving Thaelyn feeling hollow and used.

There were more voices, more exchanges. His bindings were relaxed, a blanket was thrown over him. Thaelyn looked up through the tears in his eyes and noticed figures hurrying around him. Of his tormentor he could see no sign. The touch of cloth to his nether regions sent him back into himself anew. His anus quivered. It felt raw and bloated, like a dark purple rose stretched to the limits of breaking. It had learned it was not just an opening but an entrance into his body, and despite the violations it had endured it craved that sense and feeling of being filled. The elf knew this and hated admitting it even to himself.

More shouts, more orders flew. The gag was taken from his mouth and Thaelyn coughed coarse and bitter. A waterskin was dropped by his head and like a dog he scrabbled weakly to get it open only to gag on the sudden intrusion of water into his parched throat. The manacles around his wrists and ankles were cut and a rucksack containing what he suspected to be his clothes were tossed on the ground by unseen hands.

What now? the tortured elf thought. Am I to have some dignity before they kill me? Goddess, they want to hurt me even more. I won�t let them. Thaelyn looked along the ground to where the closest edge of the bluff lay. No more of this.

He hadn�t stumbled more than three paces on quivering legs from the log when the deep voice shouted out and guards appeared to restrain him. Thaelyn struggled weakly but his strength had abated soon after the torments were over. What constitution he had left turned to find the voice of the newcomer.

He was there. Him. A great tauren decked in war feathers and tribal armour. The name he had only know in stories of modern-day myth, the tauren hero himself, Cairne Bloodhoof. He did not need to see the radiance of reverence or awe the others around him gave this figure � the tauren radiated wisdom and otherworldliness, as if Elune herself had gifted him with starfire. Old in years, grey about the fur, it seemed as if the bull had walked on planes unheard of, or perhaps merely traveled so well in this one that he knew every rock, every herb, each heartbeat of the sky so well that he moved with the terra itself. And there he stood, a night elf abused, disheveled and naked before this walking legend like flotsam from the tide.

The Chieftain stooped by the fallen log and picked up the rucksack and blanket, handing them to Thaelyn as the Bluff Watchers stepped back. In his eyes were neither hate nor loathing nor disgust nor pity but some emotion the night elf could not read. He took the affects back with timidity, wrapping the blanket around himself, afraid at any minute that he might break down and cry at the simple grace bestowed by this great shaman upon him. But it was not him the Chieftain was interested in. He turned as through the crowd came more familiar figures to the bruised elf.

�Dannar!� Thaelyn croaked. And� him. That orc, the one the human was tied to the human in some way. What was his name? Kra-tunk? Kral Tok? Thaelyn wanted to feel an upsurge of rage at the sight of that orc but could not as he was being herded, just like Dannar, through the crowd towards where he stood.

�Thaelyn!� Dannar called out, worry and fear in his eyes turning to concern as he assessed his friend�s distraught condition. He rushed forward, the incantations of a spell of healing already on his lips, when one of the guards docked him, knocking his concentration aside with obvious dissuasion. Dannar glared at the guard but made no attempt to say anything even remotely spell-like after that. He and the first orc took their places beside Thaelyn to await judgement from the Great Chief.

Cairne spoke. His voice, aged and wise, crossed the plateau easily resonating around its heights as if made of the Bluff itself. He spoke long, both to the prisoners as to those in Thunder Bluff, indicating Dannar and Kral�tuk in some form of relation to a greater power. Around them faces reacted in various ways. Many looked on disgusted some were bemused. A few seemed concerned and Thaelyn even thought he caught one or two who, perhaps guilty of what Chief Bloodhoof was condemning, hid behind furtive glances. Many more were as of yet impassive and unreadable, shielding their thoughts as the High Chief shielded his voice while at the same time maintaining dominance.

At last the Chief stopped, having said his piece, and all eyes turned to the trio at the centre of Thunder Bluff who stood looking like they would be happier if made of dust so as to blow away on the wind. The orc, Kral�tuk, did not look up and Thaelyn could tell he was all he could to hold back a flood of tears. The High Chief�s words had meant something ominous for him as it seemed he was to share both his and Dannar�s fate, and that death was to be perhaps more preferable. At a command the guards returned, surrounding night elf, human and orc as one to carry out Cairne Bloodhoof�s orders.

They were taken out of the city, down the mountain lift, out past lush Mulgore, to the encampment just inside the Barrens where Horde children tossed insults and offal at their passing. Though the Bluff Watchers did them no harm neither did they protect them. Most of the hecklers soon lost interest and they were turned free outside the tauren post the had first come in at, the spears of the guards standing as a clear warning of what awaited them should they turn back towards the city of Thunder Bluff.

They set up camp some ways up and off the Gold road so as not to draw unwanted attention. The guards had given them one knapsack containing the basics to keep three people alive through one night � flint, tinder, old bread, some water skins and a dull knife. It was not much but it would do. Thaelyn dressed in what clothes he had left. Dannar had healed the worst of his wounds once they were out of sight of the outpost and was out gathering firewood but the internal scars the night elf suffered would take more than any paladin could offer. He turned to regard their new companion who had not said one word since the High Chief�s proclaimation.

The orc was broken. Something inside him had died, that much was clear, but he seemed frozen in other ways. Something was not right in his world and it never would be again. Thaelyn wondered how he could ever feel pity for such a creature, or even hate. He wondered if he should be resenting Dannar � it was the human�s passion that had led them here to begin with; unbridled lust, for this creature, for this enemy of the Alliance. Perhaps he had always intended to come to Kalimdor and just used Thaelyn�s quest as an excuse to give in to his desires. The quest, goddess, the quest. That was one piece of fire-hardened mail Thaelyn, with the favours of Elune, never wanted to see. He�d have to start all over, get new mail, new weapons, he�d have no gold save some resources in the bank � the bank! Well at least he could have some older gear to work with until he got enough finances to afford something decent�

Dannar returned with the wood and some hares with which they were able to make a decent meal with the bread and water, alongside a discarded helmet the paladin happened upon along the way. Thaelyn ate what food he could stomach and turned in, taking the blanket as his for the night. Halfway through his dreams he awoke to a crying and realised it was coming some short distance away from the camp from Kral�tuk. He sobbed in his half-gibberish tongue in the moonlight while Dannar held him close, not needing to understand what the orc was saying to just be there.

What if� Thaelyn wondered, it wasn�t just lust that led us here? What if Dannar needed something more? Something he couldn�t get from the Alliance or Azeroth? The elf watched from the shadows as the paladin kissed whom he held.

The sobbing faded under the night sounds as stars flew over the Barrens, a wide universe filled with many bright lights, small, fading and insignificant. Yet each one held worlds, each one grew and shone bringing light and life to countless others around it, and sometimes one shone in the darkness because there was no other light to give. And sometimes one faded bringing light to another�s world. And sometimes, just sometimes, one would flare brighter again because another star had come closer in the darkness to share with it its warmth and light and life.

He saw them flickering there in the night, two stars alone in the darkness, and wondered for the first time why he felt it was right.
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Croon of the Kraul