Fallen (Part 10) - A Deathknight's Story

Once, in life, I was a dwarf of the Steelhammer clan. I do not recall much of the time before the Deathwar. But I remember the name.

According to the dragon we spoke to, your dwarven friend and I, there is another Azeroth out there, on some different plane of existence. A different Azeroth, where different choices were made.

In my Azeroth, former Highlord Tirion Fordring was executed for treason. His son, Taelan Fordring, grew up hating the Silver Hand and all it stood for. That hatred drew the attentions of Kel’Thuzad, and through him the Lich King. In time, he became the commander of the Ner’zhul’s military forces.

As for Prince Arthas, he died a hero, leading the tattered remains of the Silver Hand against Lord Taelan’s forces. Under his leadership, we held them at bay just long enough, allowing Lady Jaina and the last members of the Council of Tirisfal to cast a gate spell. A handful of survivors escaped from Azeroth altogether through that gateway, to lands unknown.

Arthas paid for that victory with his life – and unlife. Lord Taelan turned him into a mindless, shambling husk. The rest of us weren’t so lucky.

Those few who survived the Scourge were eventually turned, or slain. Once all the lands had fallen, the Lich King, empowered by the conquest and desecration of Azeroth and Kalimdor, rose up against the Burning Legion, and was betrayed by Lord Taelan in turn.

It is a ruined, dying world, where death – true death – is the only escape.

How I got here, I do not know. Not exactly. My brother – a spineless traitorous toad, a lapdog of the Lich King – tried to recreate that original gate spell, as cast by the Lady. I tried to stop him. I thought I killed him in time. But the spell did not end with his death, it merely became unstable. Something hit me, and I was felled.

When I woke, I was in Ironforge. For a time could not recall much of my past. I slowly recovered my memories. I realized that I had somehow become linked to this other version of myself. Your dwarf did not know of my intrusion, at first. It gave me time to learn, and plan.

Originally, I plotted to oust your dwarf, and stay in this place forever. Here, where I was free, and no pawn of demons and their ilk. And after all, she was weak, like all the people of this place. Soft. None of you have known the horrors that we of my world have suffered. I felt I deserved it, more than she ever did.

But before my plans were in place, another intervened.

Just as my spirit had been torn from my homeland and brought into this land, so had my brother’s spirit been brought here as well. But where I had become aware only months before, he had had years to accustom himself to this new world.

And he had plans. Whatever they were, they involved your paladin.

She consulted one of the magic wyrms for aid against him. That one sent her to another, a time wyrm. The time wyrm sensed my presence, as well as the presence of my brother’s spirit. We did not belong here, in this time and place. But the wyrm said she could not directly interfere, and neither the paladin nor I were powerful enough to best his spirit alone.

Instead, she proposed something different, which could only succeed with our consent. She cast some manner of spell, allowing us to speak, the paladin and I.

The paladin could not let my twisted brother succeed. Nor could she let her brother’s captive spirit remain in torment. And I knew that I could only be free with my brother’s death. We agreed. Using draconic magics, the wyrm melded our two spirits – deathknight and paladin – together into one. Our memories and powers, virtues and sins, all bled into each other.

I do not recall much of that time. I remember it was not pleasant. I know that, somehow, we succeeded in destroying the physical vessel of my brother’s spirit, and freeing her brother from damnation.

We… suffered wounds from that battle. Not all of them have healed. For a time, I… we… had no memories of what had befallen. And when at last the memories began to return, they were blurred – some mine, some hers. For a time, it was a strange balance.

But the melding is not perfect. It begins to fray. And as I have become slowly aware again, I understand why.

The Light rejects the darkness I embraced, when I pledged myself as a deathknight to the cause of the Burning Legion. Now that oath is broken as well. And the fel-blood brand, the mark of my oath, blazes to claim my soul. I am thrice-damned – by the dark, by my betrayal, and by my forsaking of the Light I once bore.

My spirit is bound to the fel-blood brand. Somehow, I know this to be true. By severing the brand from the paladin, the bonding between our two souls will be broken. The fel energies would consume my essence, but leave your paladin whole and unharmed.

By my own choices, and by my own deeds, I am damned. I accept this. But one last decent act I can do, is to keep your paladin from sharing my fate.