Fires of Azeroth

Epilogue

It was a late spring… green grass covered all of Azeroth's plain, with wildflowers spangling areas gold and white.

And it was an unaccustomed place forarrhendim.

Four days the two had ridden from Shathan's edge, to this place where the land lay flat and empty on all sides and the forest could not even be seen. It gave them a curious feeling of nakedness, under the eye of the spring sun.

Loneliness came on them more when they came within sight of what they had come to find.

The Gate towered above the plain, stark and unnatural. As they rode near, the horses' hooves disturbed stones in the tall grass, bits of old wood, mostly rotted, which remained of a great camp that had once sat at the base of it.

They drew rein almost beneath the Gate, in a patch of sun which fell through the empty arch. Age-pitted it was, and one of the great stones stood aslant, after only so few years. The swiftness of that ruin sent a chill upon them.

Thekhemeis of the pair dismounted… a smallish man, his dark hair much streaked with silver. An iron ring was on his finger. He looked into the Gate, which only looked through into more of the grassland and the flowers, and stood staring at that until hisarrhen came walking up behind him and set his hand on his shoulder.

"What must it have been?" Sin wondered aloud. "Ellur, what was it to look on when it led somewhere?"

Theqhal had no answer, only stared, his gray eyes full of thoughts. And at last he pressed Sin's shoulder and turned away. There was a longbow bound to the saddle of Sin's horse. Ellur loosed it and brought it to him.

Sin took the aged bow into his hands, reverently handled the dark, strange wood, of design unlike any made in Shathan, and strung it with great care. It was uncertain whether it had the strength to be fired any longer; it had been long since its master had set hand to it. But one arrow they had brought, green-fletched, and Sin set that to the string, drew back full, aimed it high into the sun.

It flew, lost from sight when it fell.

He unstrung the bow and laid it within the arch of the Gate. Then he stepped back and gazed there a last time.

"Come," Ellur urged him. "Sin, do not grieve. The old bowman would not wish it."

"I do not," he said, but his eyes stung, and he wiped at them.

He turned then, and rose into the saddle to put the place behind him. Ellur joined him. Four days would see them safe in forest shadow.

Ellur looked back once, but Sin did not. He clenched his hand upon the ring and stared straight ahead.