- Keeping the Wolves at Bay
A prince must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves. Those that wish to be only lions do not understand this.
Time to catalogue again what I do remember:
First: My name is Vail. "Vale for the valley, veil for the loss; Ale for the spirit and ail for the cough." - a snippet of a rhyme, void of tune and nearly voiceless from the passage of time; spoken by a nameless shadow in the haze of a nearly forgotten scene. Is that my father's voice locked inside my skull? My mother's? Somehow neither seems to fit.
Second: I am descended from a proud line of . . . Something. Whether this is something remembered or something felt I am entirely unsure. It is, however, almost certainly fact; a part deep within me - my gall perhaps, if not my kidney or liver - cries that this earlier wolf business is beneath me! Yet, I had kept at it anyhow, culling the vile, reeking beasts and removing their skins for sale. I cannot abide the fur, be it attached to a creature or no; watching the wretched stuff rot away in the blistering sun was the only joy worth keeping at that task for.
Third: I can fight, to some degree. Though my training, if there was anything of the sort, seems rough and unfinished. Certainly not military grade - I would loathe to find myself toe-touch-toe with an oppenent, much less with one of these hardy leiutenants, keeping to the shade in an attempt to prevent the sun from baking them in their tin suits. No, my combat had artistry to it - a dance of steel and shadows, a duck here, a weave there. Some of it felt like waiting: "Wait, wait, wait," rang the voice of instinct "Wait . . . wait . . . GO!" There it would be, the opening I need: Jab to the eyes or kick to the groin. Find a fistful of hair to pull until there, again, a red plume follows my dagger from their back - directly between the shoulder blades, always. Back into the shadows then, to ambush the next hapless bandit.
For bandits it was after wolves, and infinitely more interesting they were to me. Here was a group after my own guts - ruthless and organized, if lacking somewhat in ambition. They called themselves the Brotherhood and, as a whole, vastly overesteemed their prowess; spouting drivel such as "The brotherhood will not tolerate your actions!" Oft as not, such proclamations would end in the delightful gurgle produced only by one who finds his lungs suddenly full of blood and bile, rather than air.
This "Brotherhood" led me on a merry chase for many a day, through thicket, stream and field until finally I was directed to a certain organization within Stormwind, the SI:7. A secretive and fascinating group certainly, though far too embroiled in politik for my palette. Simply put, working too closely with the SI:7 would likely mean taking hostages, gathering evidence and the like - nothing sours the taste of a good, old fashioned assassination like the knowledge of how it will affect the machinations of the politicians involved. This attitude of mine brought a smile from my newfound contact in the SI (whose name will never be found printed by my hand) and, with a minimum of explanation or rolling around in the muck of proof and circumstance, I had an informant leading me to the command center of the Defias - for that was the common name for this brotherhood, though I had long since been thinking of them privately as "the Botherhood."
My instructions were very succinct and precisely to my liking. Find the Defias leader, kill him, bring his posessions back to my contact. I did so, save for his armor, which I kept as it is very becoming and merely needed to be taken in at the waist slightly, for this man was of an aristocratic build. Van Cleef, I believe his name was. This knowledge caused quite a stir when it was brought out from that dusty mine. I was glad for that as well, for I was nearly immediately to be found lying in wait for some politician or another whose death could not wait for evidence to be gathered. The evidence was there, naturally, I simply kept it to myself; What matter does the proof hold when the deed is done, anyhow? Oh, and the thrill of the kill - in the King's own castle no less! But I digress.
Fourth: "Hide your face." Even if this piece of advice were not part of that shattered mirror which serves me as a memory, I would have followed it the same. There was more to it as well: Always state the facts, never shy from responsibility. Every soul should know that it is I who did the killing, but not a soul can know who, exactly, that is. Those who require my services will find the correct channels. In other words, I can be nothing but a reputation in the public sphere, a spectre lurking in the dark recesses behind each and every individual fool enough to make rich enemies.
Fifth: The right weapon is the first matter worth considering. This scrap of my code became abundantly clear to me upon my journey into Duskwood. After I had put down the petty revolt in the city's stockades - led, unsurprisingly enough, by members of the broken defias gang too incompetant to have kept from capture even when the botherhood had Stormwind nearly in its grip - There was an attempt on my life by remnants of said gang. Ordinary enough, save that the attempt involved a truely vile poison which kept me bound in the reeking canals of the King's city until an antidote could be developed. This poison was circuitously traced by the SI:7 to a necromancer or sorts hiding in a place called Raven Hill.
Naturally, upon my recovery, the contract for his head fell to me. Sweet is the taste of a job well done. Sweeter still are the results from a great amount of work put towards personal ends. Great work it was, for in order to pierce this fiend's defences I needed a particularly rare weapon, crafted from particularly rare metal that was to be delivered into the allied port in a place known as the "Wetlands." Long travel and hard work it was to acquire that weapon; the kill was all the more satisfying for it. So, the right weapon comes always first; said weapon is all the righter if coated carefully in poisons. I had, of course, done quite a bit of research into that field while inconveniently city-bound.
With the necromancer now dead, my trail had gone cold. Admittedly, it is possible that the Defias are now really and truly shattered but something tells me that I have not quite seen the last of their sort. The King called me to audience, upon the recomendation of the SI:7, to thank me for my work in stifling the miserable bandits but his opinion and trifling thanks mean little to me. The fool is incapable of keeping the country safe even this close to his castle, even within his own city! If I had smaller loathing for politics I might have been of a mind to have the crown off his head then and there. As it is, I wished only to get far from the turmoil and vile stink of that poorly managed city.
Towards that end, I wandered back north, farther even than the Wetlands had been. I had heard tell of a basin within the highlands of Arathi where young warriors went to prove themselves and their potence by driving the Horde away from valuable resources therein. I imagine the area would reek of death and I would find myself as comfortable in that place as in any other.
I say "imagine" because I never found my way to the highlands at all. My horse lost his footing crossing the bridge, sending us both tumbling for an eternity into the bleak canyon which we were to cross over. I swam about looking for a place to scale the cliff and resume my journey, when I found myself here, witness to a most curiously intruiging sight.
Oh, Sixth: There will always be a reckoning, look for its coming.
- V