All that I have left

Pain struck Erieannan Sarálondë as he was just engaging the necromancer. He barely had time to call for his Voidwalker, who instantly sacrificed, offering him a temporary shield to fend off the curses of the enemy.

Erieannan knelt, hands against the blighted soil, trying to gather his strength. The shield waned in the exact moment when he sprang back to his feet. He avoided a shadow bolt and charged towards the necromancer, his sword drawn, muttering a quick succession of demonic words in the process.

As he fought, he could only concentrate on keeping his thoughts away from the source of the sudden, searing pain. He knew what it meant. Out of all things a warlock was familiar with, this still troubled him the most.

Eireannan remembered vividly the first teachings of resurrection he had received as an apprentice priest. Death did don’t completely severe the connection between the physical being and spirit. The disembodied soul would linger around for a while. A skilled priest could then communicate with it and guide the soul back to the body, if such was the will of the deceased and thus achieve what was still regarded as a miracle among commoners.

A soulstone, on the other hand, stored a part of it’s owner’s spirit while still alive, thus forcefully maintaining the connection between physical form and soul, in the event of untimely death. Upon releasing the soulstone’s power, the spirit would be drawn back into the body.

In time he had learned that a little part of his own soul was captured in each soulstone he created. It was a thing of power and corruption, slowly tearing apart the one who used it all too often. No wonder that most warlocks ended up either possessed by their own demons or as pathetic madmen wandering the land.

Eireannan shuddered. It still was against his beliefs…or what was left of them. He had used it a couple of times though, out of necessity, and the feeling of coming back…no, actually being violently shoved into his own body, after an endless fall through darkness, could easily beat the pain he had experienced when stumbling upon the pyre in Silvermoon, so long before.

Not to mention the associated nausea and headaches and the recurring nightmares…oh, well, nightmares were a constant anyway…

He dealt an fatal blow to his enemy and stepped back, as if to admire his handiwork. The undead lay in a disgusting pile of rugged bones, oozing fluids and rotten flesh. With an almost careless gesture, Eireannan incinerated the remains.

The repressed thoughts sprang into his attention at once.

The moment of weakness he had experienced was clearly linked to one of the soulstones he had created being used.

But there were only two such soulstones. The one he bore with him. And the other one, he’d made that night, in the Alterac Mountains, like a thief, without HER even knowing. The one he’d slipped to Laandra before parting, carefully wrapped in a piece of magewave, so she wouldn’t see it.

She was in danger.

"Ei'an, behind you!"

He heard Daria's warning just a second before the blow aimed at his head. Turning on the spot, he avoided it skilfully, then knocked down the undead mage in one single move. Daria was now by his side, her face blushed from all the fighting.

"What tha hell's in your head, Ei'an? Should I now guard your back too?"

"I need to go", he said quietly. "We'll pull back."

"We are SO CLOSE...We've waited years for this moment!" She pointed out towards Naxxramas, the citadel of Kel Thuzad, that hovered over the ruins of Stratholme.

"It has waited years, it can wait another three days..."

"Ei'an!" Daria protested, and, for the first time in ages he felt annoyed at the way in which she shortened his name. Her eyes burnt with anger.

" I'd given anything to this fight. Kept nothing for me", he pleaded. "I must go."

" It's about a woman, ain't it?" Daria almost spat the words and Erieannan stepped back, blood suddenly rushing to his otherwise pale face.

She shook her head, her tone now full with bitterness.

" Ya stop denying...it's all about a woman." A sigh, as she pondered her words, and Erieannan realized this was the source of her utter frustration since his return. As if she hadn't tried nearly every man to which she came close! Not that someone really minded this careless, easy-going behavior of hers. They all had scars, some shallow, others going deep, to their very souls. And dealt with them as well they could.

" Are you jealous?" he asked, trying to keep his voice reasonably low.

" For crying out loud, Ei'an, where'd ya take that out?" Daria shrugged, embarrassment obvious in her rush to avoid meeting his eyes. "As a sister may be, yes. And worried...why'd ya need to leave now?"

"'Cause" he breathed, setting a hand on her shoulder. She gazed at it as if the gesture itself was totally strange, or inappropriate, then, with another shrug, she just stepped aside.

" Go. I'll clean up here and we'll fall back for tonite."

"Then you", Eireannan whispered, but Daria hadn't waited for his answer. She'd just leapt away, to engage an approaching enemy, a huge abomination, wielding chains and an axe. He watched her as she expertly dogged its blows with her sword, using the dagger in the other hand to hit, as swift as a savage cat. The mass of putrid flesh barely sewn together hesitated, turning around to find a breach in Daria's defenses. But there was none. She mastered the art of combat. With something like a sigh of relief, Eireannan summoned his felsteed and went away.

Pain and worry followed him all the way through the grayed, destroyed fields of the Plaguelands.