He entered the camp to find that at least his sentries had done their job this time. They had detected a night elven outrunner crossing the picket lines, and had accosted her. Seryth interrupted the interrogation before his fel-infused officer could turn it into a torture. Though he disliked the kal’dorei, neither side could afford the infighting now. Seryth didn’t apologize to the outrunner, but he did listen to what she had to say.
The outrunner brought news of another demonic incursion to the southwest. Seryth roused the camp against it, leading the forward charge as he had in Moonclaw Vale.
As Serryth drew closer to the front, he saw that it was not demons who led the incursion, or even the horned kal’dorei. A mix of elves were attacking his camp, night elven druids and high elven Farstriders. The outrunner had lied. This was a trap.
Angrily, Seryth rode to the front and confronted the elves head on. “Why do you attack us? We made a deal! A truce!”
Fordrellon strode from their midst. “There can be no truce with you,” he said bitterly. “You’ve become the very demons we fight.”
“Traitor!” called Seryth. “How did your paladin tenets allow you to break your oath to me, then? Maybe it is you who is fallen!”
“I know I am,” said Fordrellon coldly. “But do you?”
The Nathssysn hissed at Seryth to unleash a firestorm on the elves’ forces and shut the sniveling quel’dorei up then and there. Seryth didn’t need them for his aims, after all. There would soon be more demons coming to Azeroth, with which he could ally and control…
Seryth pushed the blade’s thoughts away angrily. This fight was more personal.
“With or without you, I’ll save this forest,” he growled at Fordrellon.
“I don’t think you understand anymore what that means,” said Fordrellon sadly, but he raised his blade to meet Seryth’s.
The Westfall farmers, who still made up the bulk of Seryth’s army despite the demonic transfigurations he had forced on some of them, had rarely seen any kind of elf. Hence they trusted Seryth over the druids and Farstriders, and Seryth barely had to goad them at all to attack. Seryth supposed — for once — that it was a good thing he was part human, not fully elven.
The elves sent hawks and hippogriffs at them, and Seryth was forced to fall back into his army’s camping grounds to meet them. He and his spellcasters dodged around the tent lines, sending flames up into the air, which scattered like fireworks across the grounds, setting tents ablaze. He supposed Fordrellon would have found it poetically just that Seryth was burning down his own fortifications, but the thought just made Seryth angrier. He would rather burn the entire forest to the ground than see Fordrellon win.
The more demonic creatures of his army reveled in the blaze as much as he did, but it spooked the Westfall farmers. Seryth found his mission for vengeance interrupted by the necessity of rescuing the humans from their burning tents. The elves were also withdrawing.
2 thoughts on “The Story of Seryth”