been facing his slayer.
“I warned Samuel not to take this lightly! I warned him that they were dangerous even to us!”
“Who?”
Eadrik did not answer. With a growl, the worgen lunged ahead, on the path of whoever had killed his companion. Utterly baffled at this turn, Jarod had no other recourse but to keep up. That immediately proved difficult, for the worgen dropped down on all fours, increasing his speed dramatically.
The worgen sniffed the air as he ran, following the scent. The pair quickly left the vicinity of the encampment and, shortly after that, even the most remote part of Darnassus. The deep forest beckoned ominously, but neither slowed even though Jarod had a bad feeling about where things were heading.
Eadrik came to a halt, the worgen rising and lifting his snout to the sky. He inhaled deeply, then bared his teeth and growled low. Jarod, who could see nothing around them but the trees, wondered what the Gilnean was up to now.
“Can’t have lost them,” Eadrik muttered. “The scent was there. . . .”
Jarod smelled something. A flowery scent. It should have been nothing out of the ordinary, but to him it somehow seemed out of place.
Eadrik did not note it so. His mind was on other matters. “I shouldn’t even be here. . . . I should’ve left this to you night elves! The king wanted all of us able fighters to go with him except for a handful to stay with the young and ill! I was to go with, but I begged him to let me stay! Why did I do it? It’s your problem, not ours . . . but the archdruid’s tried to do so much for us; I couldn’t leave it. . . .”
“What are you talking about?” Jarod asked, distracted by the worgen’s mutterings.
His companion stared at him. The eyes seemed too gentle for the otherwise bestial appearance . . . gentle, but not weak. Eadrik was still a human beneath the surface. “Never mind that! These assassinations! They happened too near us for my tastes! My lord ordered all of us to leave the matter be, but I couldn’t. I investigated. I found out the truth, but I didn’t think anyone would believe me! That’s why I stayed! I couldn’t leave it—”
He got no further. Suddenly there came the cracking of a tree branch from deeper in the forest.
Something flew their direction.
“Get down!” Jarod shouted, bowling into the worgen. Eadrik let out a startled growl and fell with him.
The glaive cut through the branches just behind where the worgen had stood, then arced. With sinister grace, it darted back the way it had come.
Eadrik shoved Jarod aside. “Stay down, night elf! This hunt is mine!”
Jarod tried to call him back, but the Gilnean was confident in his abilities. The worgen jumped among the trees even as another glaive soared past him.
The former guard captain seized a heavy rock and threw. The rock struck the glaive squarely, sending it off angle. The deadly weapon flew into a tree, cutting a deep gash. The glaive then bounded off the trunk and fell to the ground a short distance away.
Scrambling forward, Jarod recovered the weapon. He was not very proficient with the glaive, preferring a sword. The night elf cursed himself not only for lacking that training, but also for leaving his favored blade behind.
Gripping the glaive as best he could, Jarod crouched low, then followed after Eadrik. He did not see the worgen immediately but knew roughly where the Gilnean would have gone.
Jarod’s body ached as he pushed through the thick brush, but he fought to ignore it. There was always time for aches later, providing that he survived.
He burst through a wall of greenery—and only barely managed to grab a branch before he would have hurtled to his death. The ground dropped nearly a hundred feet. As he pulled himself back to safety, Jarod momentarily pondered the amazing landscape that existed atop the World Tree and how much effort the druids and others must have put in to create a realm that mimicked mainland Azeroth.
Sounds of a struggle brought him back to the moment. He heard Eadrik’s growl and a grunt from someone else. There was a crash.
Glaive held ready, Jarod followed the noise. The struggle had to be very close—
A curved blade barely missed his throat. Only a last-minute glint noticed out of the corner of his eye enabled Jarod to get his own stolen weapon up in time.
However, unlike the previous