((A collaborative effort between myself and Tarq. He wrote the good bits
Shit's going down round Krasarang way!))The rain had been falling for three days straight. Krasarang seemed to see far more than anywhere else in Pandaria except maybe the Jade Forest. Here, it had a very distinct smell, similar to, but not quite Stranglethorn Vale.
It fell onto what had been a dirt road three days prior. Gathering in muddy pools that overflowed and streamed in rivulets to the river and eventually out to sea. It tapped a rhythm on the leaves overhead.
Lorelli didn't even notice the rain anymore. It was just something that was. Like so many things, that's just how they were. There was no sense in getting worked up about it 'cause what the fuck can you do anyway? Wreak some havoc, that’s what.
A Horde supply line that was bringing food stuffs down from the "neutral" town of Halfhill. Getting the information hadn’t required a very long interrogation. The Horde irregular she’d caught wandering a day earlier had been a damn poor specimen. He cracked under the most minimal pressure. Disappointing, really, she’d been looking forward to it. Afterwards she’d just fed the body to the crocolisks. They didn’t seem to mind the semi-freshness of the meal.
The rain continued to fall and she continued to wait. If they were on schedule the supply train should be passing through within the hour. She had no plan, she rarely did, it didn’t matter.
***
The first thing Lorelli heard were the wagon wheels. They squeaked and squelched through the muck. This was followed shortly by the ground shake of kodo footfalls. Lastly the creak and rattle of armor. Leather, chain, plate. There were no voices. Either they were sullen from the weather or communicating via gestures and hand signals.
The guards marched with their heads down, hoods pulled up against the downpour. The slump of their shoulders suggested they had been moving a while without rest. The scouts, however, seemed to be accustomed to the weather. Or at least they were more professional at dealing with it. The orc gestured to his companion and they headed off in different directions amongst the trees. Their precision suggested they had done this many times over the trip and been working together a while.
Lorelli slid from her vantage point, not even a twig disturbed to show anyone had ever been there. She could barely make out the sounds of the blood elf passing through the underbrush ahead of her. ‘Barely’ was enough; she caught the body as it fell and lowered it the rest of the way to the ground.
The slickear’s companion was a bit harder to track. It seemed he had been working Krasarang a bit and was more familiar with the sorts of things he encountered and how it reacted to his passing. His mistake was the pause of surprise when he spotted her. It was all she needed to slip inside his guard and take him down. She rolled the body into the river no longer overly concerned with the splash it made. There was still plenty more to do.
Lorelli shadowed the carts just inside the tree-line. The protection detail seemed to be made up mostly of green recruits. Some of them still seemed a bit awkward with their weapons as they tried to look everywhere at once and jumped at every sound. The rogue caught hold of a tree branch, she swung herself up and hopped to another branch that stretched out over the road. She paused, barely breathing as some of the bark shook loose and littered the ground but none of the guards appeared to take notice. Slowly she edged her way out as far as her weight would support her.
The front of the first cart was passing directly below. Suspended from the branch by her knees, she only needed a moment to slit the lead driver’s throat. A throwing dagger took care of the driver of the second cart and heartbeats after that the caravan erupted into chaos. One of the kodos wandered off the trail and stuck its wheels fast in a mud filled ditch, it’s fellow wandered into the back of the cart before it. The guards were finally waking to the realization that something had gone very wrong. The beasts, without a live driver to handle their reins began to stomp and whuff driving the guards back from them.
Lorelli dropped from her perch and onto the back cart. The thud of her boots hitting the wood and the shuddering movement of the wagon caught the attention of a tauren female in mail. The rogue jumped from the cart landing on the other woman, interrupting her attempts at spellwork. The shaman dropped into a furry heap, blood seeping from between her armor.
The remaining guard had regrouped and closed ranks around her. The packet of chemicals was already in her hand; from here she’d vanish in a burst of smoke, get out of sight, and come back when an opportunity arose to take the next one. Whittle them down, one by one, from shadows. The way she always did it. The professional way.
They crowded in around her with weapons bristling, shouting brutish war cries, filling Lorelli’s nostrils with the stink of enemy. The little packet was gone from her hand, and her fingers found the hilt of a killing knife.
The professional way could go fuck itself.
She moved and blood washed the air in a perfect arc, like a lady’s fan if it could have hung in the air long enough. Fake left, then right, and two bodies collided, heavy fur and gray-green flesh nearly entwined. They were too close for the heavy weapons they carried, and she whipped around them, hearing a shriek in her wake. Somehow her knife had found its way into an unprotected knee. Knives, they had a way of doing that.
She was up and over the top now, a kodo bleating and bellowing beneath her steps. The arrow that might have hit her, in some other world a long long way from this one, thudded into flesh and the beast roared and thrashed at its reins. A dumb, angry animal, enslaved to other dumb, angry animals. That didn’t seem right to Lorelli. Her knife flicked one way, then all of her went the other, and another arrow thudded into the kodo occupying the space where she’d been. It roared and lurched forward, and she skipped along its side, offering a word of encouragement, and then went under and up.
On the other side of the kodo, knives first, an orcish corpse in her wake. A goblin frantically working at his rifle, fear making his clever hands useless. She took one hand, and her boot cracked him across the face in passing. There was a tauren, and a limping troll, and a Forsaken bowman scrambling away from the maddened kodo. From one perspective, there was that, anyway. From another, there was just meat waiting to happen.
Right, then left, then up and over again, and in a wet red flash she made it happen.
It took a long moment for Lorelli to realize she’d run out of targets, and then another one to realize just how short that moment was. From letting go of the packet to standing in the empty forest with her knives dripping, could it have been more than a minute? And for that matter, had she let go of the packet? Where was it, anyway? You couldn’t lose track of your tools, that was unprofessional, almost as unprofessional as–
“Oh.” It was tucked into her glove, safely, where she always kept them. Obviously. Lorelli took a long breath and let it out, turning a slow circle. Nothing was moving except for the kodos, the loose one wounded but hale, stomping what was left of its Forsaken tormentor into the muck. Lorelli thought about it, but what had a kodo ever done to her? Only crazy people killed dumb animals for no reason.
She checked the bodies. They were all good and dead, and that was something; in her experience, you could usually kill either quick or clean, but not both. She was getting better. Maybe not something to be proud of, but, what the fuck can you do anyway? Her job was done – well, almost done.
It took her a moment to ignite the cart in this wet, but soon the flames were dancing merrily across sacks and boxes. She cut the kodos loose, and stepped back. The fire would take the cart with it; hell, it could take the whole forest with it if it wasn’t for the rain. That wasn’t her concern. The job was done now, and done damn well, as far as she was concerned.
Then again, she had to wonder at this weak gray meat the Horde was sending out on patrol. They’d seemed so slow as to hardly be moving, and even the Tauren had crumpled like wet paper when she got to him. Nobody had any standards anymore, she thought, as she dropped back into the forest, away from her good work. Maybe the next hunt would be better.
