Intermission: The Shattering: Hallowed Be Thy Name

Unless you encounter them in the wilds, most members of the Twilight’s Hammer don’t go around advertising the fact. Fortunately, my infiltration into their ranks not long ago taught me the simple set of challenge phrases they used to identify themselves to each other without revealing their actual allegiance. From what I’d observed, most of the rank and file were too terrified of their masters to question where the challenge phrase has come from and would just respond blindly to avoid being killed or worse. Tragic, then, that their blind obedience was what had gotten them killed that night. I’m sure that the few who survived the slaughter thought it was random luck that they had been spared. It’s possible a cultist or two slipped out with the innocent, either being smart enough to wonder why, in a deserted hallway, they were getting challenged, or just a little too slow on the draw to spit out the proper response. Either way, the only people to meet their end that night all clearly identified themselves as members of Twilight’s Hammer.

Call me a monster if you will, but I take it as a mark of pride turning that place into an abattoir that the Twilight cultists still whisper about in horror to this day. For all the pain and misery and fear that those cultists have inflicted on both Stormwind and all of Azeroth, I figure a night of fear and death is just a small drop in the bucket of what they are truly owed.

The Watch came with the dawn. They had no idea what to do with me. They just weren’t equipped, mentally, procedurally or manpower-wise, to deal with a crime of this nature or scale. The Watch dealt with muggers, thieves, rapists and murderers. They seldom saw more than one victim of the crimes they investigated, three or four at the most. The scene they arrived at was just beyond their abilities to handle, despite how I had made it easier for them.

After the last cultist had left, the one I let live after carving a warning into his chest and back, I’d dragged all of the bodies into the grand ballroom and laid them out in neat order according to their rank within the cult. I had been surprised to see that Lord Arkenhill hadn’t actually been the top dog at his own place. There had been two others even higher up the food chain. Whether they were permanent residents or just visiting was pretty much a moot point now.

Throne may have been too grand a word for the chair that Arkenhill had placed on the dais between the twin curving staircases at the back of the ballroom, but only just. That throne was where the Watch, and subsequently Mathias Shaw and several members of SI:7, had found me waiting for them. I sat calmly, smiling vaguely, completely at ease and patiently eating an apple.

I waited for Shaw to get his apoplexy under control, which really only took a moment or two, then stood suddenly, making the collective Watchmen jump and reach for weapons.

“Well, then, my work here is done,” I announced, pitching the apple core out a nearby window and dusted my hands off for effect. I didn’t need to see Shaw’s signal to his men to know what was coming. There was a motion of air, a black bag over my head and then sweet, merciful unconsciousness. I felt no need to resist; I knew what I’d done.

Sometime later, I’m not sure quite how long as time tends to blur oddly during near-constant beatings, I came to and I found myself in one of the cells of the Stockades. That was a little surprising, since I’d expected I’d be stuffed into the Vault or summarily executed. Of course, those options were still on the table and this could have been just a stopover. The bag had been removed from my head so I could see, which was nice, I thought. I was sitting in a chair, my wrists and ankles chained to the arms and legs to limit my movement. A pair of thin metal plates had been welded to the manacles on my wrists that kept my hands immobile and made it much less likely I could excrete a lock pick and get free.

It’s like they thought I was dangerous or something.

Escape, while always an attractive option when restrained against my will, was actually not the top priority in my mind at the time. I was more concerned with the various aches and sharp pains left behind by the beatings I’d been enduring. There was a particularly unpleasant poking sensation in my chest that had to be a rib, hopefully just dislocated and not broken. One eye was swollen nearly shut, which either meant the damage was recent and it would soon be completely closed or it had already started healing and opened a little, it was hard to tell which at this point. My lips were split, my nose broken, my right leg would be doing amazingly well to be able to bear my weight for a while and my abdomen was just one big mass of dull ache. Shaw’s boys certainly know how to hurt a man and leave him still alive. Most annoying, though, was the sharp ache of my left hand being forced flat with my fingers fully open. It had never healed entirely properly after being shattered by Arkenhill’s boot. I could still wield a sword, but it hurt like felfire to open fully.

I must have made some kind of sound while I catalogued my various injuries, since I saw a guard poke his head around the cell door and vanish just as quickly. Well, may as well get whatever was going to happen over with sooner rather than later. I hate waiting for the other shoe to drop, anyway. Shaw showed up a few minutes later, followed by a striking draenei woman in priest’s robes and the warden of the Stockades. This did not bode well at all.

Shaw’s face was grim but even he couldn’t conceal the look of I-told-you-so in his eyes. He looked me up and down and shook his head. The disappointment there was palpable. He looked to the warden and nodded once. Warden Thelwater fixed me with his remaining eye, “Has the condemned any final words?”

The condemned. Well, that narrowed down the list of possible outcomes here. I suspected as much when I saw the priestess, but I didn’t want to believe it. At least, until now.

I looked down at my bare feet for a moment, trying to come up with some pity last words, something clever or defiant. For once, I didn’t have any quip or barb ready to my tongue. I looked up and squared my shoulders as best I could and looked Shaw in the eye, “I removed a cancer from the heart of Stormwind and she is safer because of it. I have no regrets.”

“And you can’t be allowed to live because of how you did it,” Shaw turned and left the cell. The warden motioned to the priestess and signaled a pair of burly guards to enter and unshackle me from the chair. I briefly considered making a break for it but rejected the idea out of hand. I had nowhere to run to and even less reason to do so, save simple self-preservation. After the massacre of all those people, deserving or not, I wasn’t so sure I didn’t deserve to die as well.

The guards roughly hauled me to my feet, bringing an involuntary whimper of pain from my lips as my battered body protested moving. The musical lilt of the priestess’ recitation of the Last Rites eased a bit of the pain, somewhat, though. In this ugly place, the pure, simple beauty of her voice was completely incongruous. Half-dragged, half-walking from my cell, I focused on her words, letting them dull the ache in my body and delay the consideration of exactly what it was that I was being marched toward.

Tears rose to my eyes then, unbidden. I couldn’t figure why I should be crying. It’s not like I was afraid of dying. I’d faced certain death so many times I barely felt it anymore. Perhaps it was the simple certainty of walking to my own execution, that this was the last few minutes of my life. There would be no daring escape, no last minute rescue, this was it. This was the end; the sands of time had run out.

The other prisoners here on Death Row gathered to the doors of their cells to watch the procession, their future, as we walked by. More than once I heard someone murmur, “Light be with you.” I was pretty sure the Light had given me up for lost a long time ago. Still, it would be nice if I could find a place with the Light in the end. It would be nice to see Sayessa again.

The light of day was blinding after so long in the darkness. I had to squint my one good eye for long minutes until I could finally see again. By the time I could see, I was being pushed up the steps to the gallows. The priestess finished the Last Rites and fell silent, stopping at the foot of the gallows stairs. The guards replaced the manacles at my wrists and ankles with another set that locked them together, to keep me from doing the Dead Man’s Jig. The warden offered me a hood, but I shook my head. I wanted to be able to see everything I could until the very last moment.

Thelwater shrugged and motioned to the hangman to practice his craft. The noose was snug and well-made, fitting closely to the base of my skull. When the trap door opened, I wouldn’t ever know when I reached the end of my rope. I quietly thanked the hangman for his mercy. Had he done his job more sloppily, I would dangle at the end of the rope slowly strangling to death. This way, my neck would snap and that would be the end of it.

The guards, warden and hangman all stepped down from the platform and it was only then that I noticed how few people were present. Shaw and the priestess stood a dozen feet away, the hangman stood at the lever to the gallows with the warden next to him. The two guards had departed. Other than the five of use, the execution courtyard was deserted. The witness stands, which should have had at least a dozen people in it, as well as the usual stations for guards were all deserted.

I narrowed my eyes at Shaw and opened my mouth to speak. Unfortunately, that was the moment the hangman pushed the lever down and I found myself suddenly standing on empty air. There was a sharp pain behind my head and everything went black.

* * *

I awoke with dust in my mouth and all new sharp pains in my legs. Shaw stood over me, holding the loose end of the noose in one fist, pulling my head from the ground with it. He leaned close, pitching his voice so only I would ever hear his words.

“Understand this, Drake, you live purely by my will now and if you don’t want this noose to become a permanent accessory, you will exactly as you are told, when you are told. Am I clear?”

Stunned and still shocked to be breathing, all I could do was nod.

“Good,” he snapped and then punched me in the face and it was lights out all over again.