This is great stuff. Good job and kudos to all. I love to see these stories. Much fun to read and very well done.
Shortchanged
((Part 2 of 3, here we go!))
…He remembered…
Galeas tightened his grip upon his axe as the thing lumbered forward, intent on ending this last living man in the world. He could feel the magics that drove it, the shadow and fel stirring in its workings, and above all the loathsome will that commanded it: The prince who had betrayed his people. The prince who had violated all sacred oaths.
The prince whose sins had cost the Harcourts their lives.
Galeas had sought to make himself known to the Lich King, and now he was getting his wish.
He snapped back to the moment as the great iron hook whipped out toward him, and he threw himself forward in a dive, coming to his feet expertly. But the thing was faster than it looked; the hook lashed out again, and the axe flew from his hands.
He dodged, he ducked and danced away as the thing came on. Galeas almost tripped over the first undead he had downed, lying in the dead grass behind him—and its mallet.
The abomination yanked furiously at the hook embedded—
Yes! It had worked before; it would work again. The undead did not learn.
Galeas grabbed up the mallet and ran as fast as he could for a stand of decaying pines. The abomination followed, roaring its frustration at the fellow who should have been a much slower target considering his size. It was too stupid to hesitate when he stopped and brandished his new weapon, shouting a challenge.
“Come for me, then, fiend! So long as I draw breath, I defy you!”
((One more part, coming right up!))
…He remembered…
Galeas tightened his grip upon his axe as the thing lumbered forward, intent on ending this last living man in the world. He could feel the magics that drove it, the shadow and fel stirring in its workings, and above all the loathsome will that commanded it: The prince who had betrayed his people. The prince who had violated all sacred oaths.
The prince whose sins had cost the Harcourts their lives.
Galeas had sought to make himself known to the Lich King, and now he was getting his wish.
He snapped back to the moment as the great iron hook whipped out toward him, and he threw himself forward in a dive, coming to his feet expertly. But the thing was faster than it looked; the hook lashed out again, and the axe flew from his hands.
He dodged, he ducked and danced away as the thing came on. Galeas almost tripped over the first undead he had downed, lying in the dead grass behind him—and its mallet.
The abomination yanked furiously at the hook embedded—
Yes! It had worked before; it would work again. The undead did not learn.
Galeas grabbed up the mallet and ran as fast as he could for a stand of decaying pines. The abomination followed, roaring its frustration at the fellow who should have been a much slower target considering his size. It was too stupid to hesitate when he stopped and brandished his new weapon, shouting a challenge.
“Come for me, then, fiend! So long as I draw breath, I defy you!”
((One more part, coming right up!))
((Part 3, go!))
The hook lashed out and, instead of catching meat, drove deep into a large, thick tree trunk. The abomination yanked furiously at its weapon embedded in the splintered wood, but fruitlessly.
Galeas charged, seized with one hand the chain from which the hook depended, and brought down the mallet on its rusty links with the other.
He was yanked off his feet as the abomination hauled on the chain, flew through the air—
--and turned in mid-air to drive his heels into the thing’s shoulders, knocking it onto its back and severing its third arm. He fell in a clatter of metal among the thrashing limbs, rolled out of the way and let the thing hack itself well apart in the confusion of the moment.
Tired, streaming sweat from under his helmet, his right hip and thigh aching, Galeas approached the abomination slowly.
“Arthas, traitor knight, I know you hear me,” Galeas said to the misshapen creature’s face. “You hear with the ears of your creations. Know this now: you have failed. Though you have slain every other living thing in this realm you abandoned, every other living thing in this world, one yet remains. So long as I live, you have failed. And so long as I live, I am coming for you.”
He did not say these words now, but he remembered them, every last syllable. He had prepared this speech to defy the Lich King, the day…the day…
…The day he had burned his mother’s Scourged corpse. The day he had said farewell to the last of his kin…
The day he had finally been freed from protecting the living, to take up arms against the risen dead.
The day Galeas Harcourt had ceased to be.
Galeas brought down his mallet upon the abomination’s tacked-together head, crushing out the magic that made it, and remembered more of that day.
“Well done,” a voice congratulated him—and it was not the sepulchral, hollow voice of the undead, but a living, warm voice. Hands clapped, hands that still had flesh upon them. He turned to see his audience: four humans, all clad in red and with a stylized flame upon their tabards.
“We knew there was someone alive still here, but we had not expected to find you before you perished,” the leader said. “But now that we have, tell me, what is your name?”
The paladin looked to the crushed corpses that had walked longer than they had lived. So too had been his life: a hollow shell existing only to satisfy the will of another, given life and motion to fulfill someone else’s thwarted purposes. Who was Galeas Jeremias Harcourt, anyway, but the bastard puppet of his maternal grandfather, only living to rebuild a name not even his own?
Why should he not be a blank slate, upon which he could write his own words?
“Slate—Slater,” he said. “Jeremy Slater.”
Jeremy Slater. That was his name, his identity now.
Jeremy Slater, the Argent Demolitionist. The Light’s Derision. He who mocked the Lich King’s dominion with tactics most unbecoming to a paladin, but through a combination of faith, tenacity, and dumb luck had lived ten years in constant warfare…
The Scarlets had stood where his team stood now. In fact, Jennessa had been one of them. Her expression was stunned now as it had been then, though her hair was whiter now and her skin more laced with scars.
Jennessa’s lips curved in a smile. “I remember you now, Crusader,” she said quietly, and Guruun and Brightwind looked at her in surprise.
Jeremy Slater returned a lopsided, twisted smile to her. “So do I.”
The hook lashed out and, instead of catching meat, drove deep into a large, thick tree trunk. The abomination yanked furiously at its weapon embedded in the splintered wood, but fruitlessly.
Galeas charged, seized with one hand the chain from which the hook depended, and brought down the mallet on its rusty links with the other.
He was yanked off his feet as the abomination hauled on the chain, flew through the air—
--and turned in mid-air to drive his heels into the thing’s shoulders, knocking it onto its back and severing its third arm. He fell in a clatter of metal among the thrashing limbs, rolled out of the way and let the thing hack itself well apart in the confusion of the moment.
Tired, streaming sweat from under his helmet, his right hip and thigh aching, Galeas approached the abomination slowly.
“Arthas, traitor knight, I know you hear me,” Galeas said to the misshapen creature’s face. “You hear with the ears of your creations. Know this now: you have failed. Though you have slain every other living thing in this realm you abandoned, every other living thing in this world, one yet remains. So long as I live, you have failed. And so long as I live, I am coming for you.”
He did not say these words now, but he remembered them, every last syllable. He had prepared this speech to defy the Lich King, the day…the day…
…The day he had burned his mother’s Scourged corpse. The day he had said farewell to the last of his kin…
The day he had finally been freed from protecting the living, to take up arms against the risen dead.
The day Galeas Harcourt had ceased to be.
Galeas brought down his mallet upon the abomination’s tacked-together head, crushing out the magic that made it, and remembered more of that day.
“Well done,” a voice congratulated him—and it was not the sepulchral, hollow voice of the undead, but a living, warm voice. Hands clapped, hands that still had flesh upon them. He turned to see his audience: four humans, all clad in red and with a stylized flame upon their tabards.
“We knew there was someone alive still here, but we had not expected to find you before you perished,” the leader said. “But now that we have, tell me, what is your name?”
The paladin looked to the crushed corpses that had walked longer than they had lived. So too had been his life: a hollow shell existing only to satisfy the will of another, given life and motion to fulfill someone else’s thwarted purposes. Who was Galeas Jeremias Harcourt, anyway, but the bastard puppet of his maternal grandfather, only living to rebuild a name not even his own?
Why should he not be a blank slate, upon which he could write his own words?
“Slate—Slater,” he said. “Jeremy Slater.”
Jeremy Slater. That was his name, his identity now.
Jeremy Slater, the Argent Demolitionist. The Light’s Derision. He who mocked the Lich King’s dominion with tactics most unbecoming to a paladin, but through a combination of faith, tenacity, and dumb luck had lived ten years in constant warfare…
The Scarlets had stood where his team stood now. In fact, Jennessa had been one of them. Her expression was stunned now as it had been then, though her hair was whiter now and her skin more laced with scars.
Jennessa’s lips curved in a smile. “I remember you now, Crusader,” she said quietly, and Guruun and Brightwind looked at her in surprise.
Jeremy Slater returned a lopsided, twisted smile to her. “So do I.”
Edited by Galeas on 1/30/2013 7:34 PM PST
I am Galeas Jeremias Harcourt, Marquess of Highmarch.
I am also Jeremy Slater, former Argent Demolitionist.
I am both at the same time now, and it confuses me.
I was born three years before the First War, to an unwed mother and an unknown father. They said he was a great hero and a nobleman of high birth, but I have no reason to believe that. He was likely a common thief, disguised as a great man so as to scam a hot meal and a place to sleep for the night.
I have no illusions about that. I left the illusions up to Grandfather. Grandfather was never as pleased with reality as he was with his own imaginings. He certainly was never as pleased with me as he was with who he thought I should be.
Mother let him strike me, scream at me, shame me for not measuring up. Mother let him take away my childhood and replace my life with nothing but the gray dullness of endless study and endless practice. When the rod ceased to work on my back, he took up a whip. I bear the scars upon my shoulders and back, scars that do not belong to a knight.
Mother never cared for me. I was a duty she had fulfilled. Just another in a long line of women who ignored me if they couldn’t use me. One reason among many that I don’t like women.
Grandfather had visions of my future, a future that would mean the perpetuation of the Harcourt name. It was the future he had never bothered to try for himself; he resented his own laziness, and took it out on me. No, no grandchild of his was going to miss out on an opportunity like he had.
I had no friends. I had no time for friends. My whole present was absorbed into the future. So I never learned to make friends, and when I came of age and took up my education as a paladin, I was an outsider with no way in. They might have scorned me less if I had enjoyed less success, but I had already had most of the lessons and knew how to fight.
And then I was ordained. And then I was put into the service of His Highness, Prince Arthas. And then the Plague began to consume the land.
And then I went home to retrieve what was left of my family, my household. We could not escape. We went to ground, and I spent a year hiding them, skulking, moving quietly through shadows and keeping them alive with what food I could scrounge, and kept them alive by leading the Scourge away from them.
They were not grateful. Grandfather spat on me one last time by taking his own life, six months in. Mother tried to prompt me to heroism by wandering away and making me find her.
I found her too late. She had already been turned. I had to destroy her.
As the pyre consumed the last of my kin, the last of my kind, I went forth to issue a challenge to the Lich King. To this day I don’t know that he heard me, but my act of stupidity got the attention of the Scarlet Crusade.
The Scarlets, before their hands became the color of their Crusade with the blood of innocents. As Slater, I had a place among them. I had friends. I met Adinas and Archbald and Jennessa and many others. I had purpose, a purpose of my own choosing. I had a self at last.
Then Dathrohan went wrong, and I left to join the Argent Dawn. I was not one of the first, but thankfully not the last. And then my life was one battle after another, trapped in what was once Lordaeron and was now known only as the Plaguelands.
I am also Jeremy Slater, former Argent Demolitionist.
I am both at the same time now, and it confuses me.
I was born three years before the First War, to an unwed mother and an unknown father. They said he was a great hero and a nobleman of high birth, but I have no reason to believe that. He was likely a common thief, disguised as a great man so as to scam a hot meal and a place to sleep for the night.
I have no illusions about that. I left the illusions up to Grandfather. Grandfather was never as pleased with reality as he was with his own imaginings. He certainly was never as pleased with me as he was with who he thought I should be.
Mother let him strike me, scream at me, shame me for not measuring up. Mother let him take away my childhood and replace my life with nothing but the gray dullness of endless study and endless practice. When the rod ceased to work on my back, he took up a whip. I bear the scars upon my shoulders and back, scars that do not belong to a knight.
Mother never cared for me. I was a duty she had fulfilled. Just another in a long line of women who ignored me if they couldn’t use me. One reason among many that I don’t like women.
Grandfather had visions of my future, a future that would mean the perpetuation of the Harcourt name. It was the future he had never bothered to try for himself; he resented his own laziness, and took it out on me. No, no grandchild of his was going to miss out on an opportunity like he had.
I had no friends. I had no time for friends. My whole present was absorbed into the future. So I never learned to make friends, and when I came of age and took up my education as a paladin, I was an outsider with no way in. They might have scorned me less if I had enjoyed less success, but I had already had most of the lessons and knew how to fight.
And then I was ordained. And then I was put into the service of His Highness, Prince Arthas. And then the Plague began to consume the land.
And then I went home to retrieve what was left of my family, my household. We could not escape. We went to ground, and I spent a year hiding them, skulking, moving quietly through shadows and keeping them alive with what food I could scrounge, and kept them alive by leading the Scourge away from them.
They were not grateful. Grandfather spat on me one last time by taking his own life, six months in. Mother tried to prompt me to heroism by wandering away and making me find her.
I found her too late. She had already been turned. I had to destroy her.
As the pyre consumed the last of my kin, the last of my kind, I went forth to issue a challenge to the Lich King. To this day I don’t know that he heard me, but my act of stupidity got the attention of the Scarlet Crusade.
The Scarlets, before their hands became the color of their Crusade with the blood of innocents. As Slater, I had a place among them. I had friends. I met Adinas and Archbald and Jennessa and many others. I had purpose, a purpose of my own choosing. I had a self at last.
Then Dathrohan went wrong, and I left to join the Argent Dawn. I was not one of the first, but thankfully not the last. And then my life was one battle after another, trapped in what was once Lordaeron and was now known only as the Plaguelands.
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