73rd chapter

Getting to tha’ damned place

Ankthar was grumbling. it was more or less his usual grumbling in his elven form, except this time he wasting in front of Exen’tor who was now quickly beginning to think that letting Mesfer take over his mind wasn’t such a bad idea if it would only mute Ankthar for a little while.
Ankthar was sitting in front of Exen’tor on the gryphon and let his voice carry out his mumbling as far as the wind would bear them. Apparently only one of their gryphons had survived, the one Wisim had been riding since he had been the only one with sense to bind it to him with a binding charm.
The beast had followed him ever since and even now flew awfully close to him as he held on to blanket for his life.
The blanket in question had been one of the tents but was now stretched out between Mizra and Sira’dreth, holding their father, terrified by the height speed and constant calculations of how exactly strong the fabric was.
Despite him being the rightful owner of the gryphon he was the only capable of keeping the lightweight charm going for so long so he made the sacrifice himself although he was really considering whether or not that had been such a good move.
He turned his head to Mizra and asked: “how are you doing honey, you cold? Because I’m freezing my you know what off.”
“No not really, I’m basically immune to cold so I don’t have to worry about these things.”
“Ahh of course. Of course .”
He turned to Sira’dreth, and asked:” what about you? I guess you’re feeling the cold the same as me ehh? My fingers are getting so cold I don’t think I’ll be using them for magic for at least a week after this.”
“Actually dad my organs appear to be more or less molten lava nowadays so I actually feel rather hot right now.”
“Oh,” Wisim said,looked at exen’tor who still looked a bit greenish and mumbled” I wish had some kind of unknown magical thing distorting my body.”

A day passed, they camped in the ruined and lifeless mountains north of desolace, where goblins had rid the earth of trees as far as the eye could see.
Ankthar didn’t say anything but it was obvious to them all that he was silently making a wow to kill the next goblin they’d see.
He was so depressed by the razed earth around them that he didn’t speak a word as they took off from their campsite. Afterwards he didn’t even grumble.
At first Exen’tor was quite relieved at the silence that had so suddenly ensued, but felt how Ankthar had tensed up at the sight of the deforested mountains.
“You really like forests don’t you,” Exen’tor asked.
Ankthar was silent for a moment.
“No i don’t. but i want nature to be left alone. I want the forests to be kept wild, with us on the fringes of their borders.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because civilization always leads to ruin. Ruin of itself and everything around it. Nature preserves, we don’t. we cheat on each other, we sell each other out and do whatever to extend our short existence.”

Exen’tor was silent for a while and asked: “what happened in your past that made think like that?”
Ankthar answered him in a depressed voice, “you really don’t want to know.
Lets just sasy that I have had my share of selling other people out.”
He looked down at the deforested mountains and asked: “just when are we gitting to that damned place?”



Their intelligence had been right.
Ships had been spotted on the north coast of darkshore. Ships made of bones, hides and body parts carrying a tide of death and horror no one alive had ever seen.
The mountains were swarming with spies and necromancers, killing and pillaging everything in their sight.
The undead force had landed in kalimdor. And it was now marching quickly to felwood.
The druids had left moonglade. The war with the shadow had been grounded to a near halt thanks to Manvalas and his recent victories and now the green flight had to hold the line until the current crisis was over.
It had begun months ago. Rumors of greater and greater fall of infernals in felwood reached the ears of the druids who at first did not care much for the information.
Until manvalas had revealed to them that increased falls of infernals was far from normal and actually sounded like a prelude to something horrible.
The walls surrounding their world had been severely weakened by two infernal invasions and excessive use of magic.
An increase in infernals indicated that the walls were falling apart at the seams.
And the greatest rip seemed to be in felwood.
The order had tried to warn the alliance and the horde. But their emissaries were still at their capitals as neither the horde or the alliance wanted anything to dowith it since “it would take important resources they needed to win the war”.
So the druids had made the call, and nature had responded in full.
Felwood was growing full of animals of every size and sort.birds filled the air.
Bears roamed the countryside, trying to reason with their fallen brethrens.
And druids flew , walked and swam their way to the northern part of felwood known as irontree woods.
There under the petrified ancients locked in eternal battle that was long since lost to memory was manvalas’s main camp.
“You were right,” a night elf said apologizing, this whole thing, “we had our doubts,
But the evidence is here and all around us.”
Manvalas took his eyes off the map and said: s”o, I don’t care wether or not you belived in me or not.we have infernals falling from the sky and the undead host marching up the mountains to take this place for whatever reason Arthas has.”
A green stone fell flaming from the sky.
He looked again at the map, “Right now I don’t need apologies, I need soldiers to deal with what is at hand.”
A green giant rose from the crater, bellowing with a voice of apocalypse.
It was soon surrounded by druids, birds and beasts, all focused on its downfall.
Vines began to grow out of the earth and bound itself to its limbs bringing the infernal down to the ground where bears ,deers and owlbears began to hack away.
Within minutes, nature had taken its course and the giant was nothing but dark rubble on the ground.
Manvalas took his eyes of his maps. They were already carrying the stones away, piling them up high and getting ready for the next one.
He looked at the map and sighed, “what I need is soldiers, not songbirds, warriors not cats.”
Another stone began to fall down.
“But this will do”, he said to himself.” This will do.”