The Time has come

The gray mists of morning light slowly made their way across the tournament grounds. Biting wind shook the tent walls and caused the various pendants and banners to give off sharp snaps as they whipped in its embrace. Cream colored Hippogryphs and their riders circled in the air above keeping watch in the hostile environment.

A lone figure emerged from the stables and made its way quickly across the hard packed snow. Watchfully eyes made note of its progress from the coliseum ramparts, weapons at ready but the figure made no threatening moves, just pulled its well worn cloak tighter as it faced off against the swirling snow. Stopping briefly before the Argent Crusade tent the figure seemed to strain to hear the muffled voices emanating from within. The guards on both sides of the door monitored closely, prepared to rebuff entrance. While the cloak had obviously seen better days the leather boots firmly planted in the snow and leggings tucked into them were of recent design amongst the Alliance forces giving the guards pause. Apparently satisfied the figure raised one gloved hand in greeting, nodded then moved off towards a smaller tent not far off disappearing into its entrance like a shadow.

Once inside Daraia pulled back her hood but the dim interior was little warmer than the wind swept landscape she had just left. Placing her helm on a nearby armor rack she picked up a coal filled bucked and began filling the brazer. Soon the glowing coals sprung to flame filling the area with light and warmth. Once that task was completed she turned to survey the paper strewn table. Grimacing slightly Daraia took a seat and began sorting, creating neat piles out of the chaos.

The sound of the tent flap being raised caused her to lift her head from her task. Large blue eyes greeted her as Therigwin’s squire entered baring a large tray.

“OH! Commander Daraia! Thank you!” A grin split his face as he glanced around the now cosy and much neater tent. “I was just going to try to do all of that.” Hurrying over he placed the tray down on a cleared section of the table.

  “Are they almost done then?” Daraia ask, eyes once again scanning the various parchments before delegating them to a pile.

“Yes Ma’am. Sir Therigwin sent me here to relight the blazer and bring breakfast. He said he would be following shortly.”

“Good. Well, since those tasks are completed and I know you have been up since before dawn why don’t you go join the other squires? Wrap YOURSELF around some breakfast and get some sleep. My husband is going to need to take care of some other duties today. That should keep him busy for most of the morning so he shouldn’t need you again until this afternoon.”

“Yes Ma’am. I will put the drinks near the fire to warm then do just that.”

Nodding absently Daraia continued to sort, the table now almost cleared of its earlier clutter.

The sounds of someone in plate armor approaching the tent soon reached both the squire and Daraia’s ears. Scampering quickly the squire managed to have the tent flap opened just as Therigwin arrived.

“Good Lad!” Therigwin boomed, dropping a gauntleted hand down to ruffle the boy’s hair. Eyes alighting on his wife seated at his desk Therigwin sent the boy off with another quick pat. “You really need to replace that cloak Love.” Therigwin continued, “You have had it since well before our campaign on Ulduar.”

Snorting Daraia got up and came to help him remove his own cloak, helm and weapons. “I would if we ever got any in the supplies we request. But so far I have only seen one and someone else was in even more need of it than me.” Therigwin grimaced as he considered that piece of information. “But enough about my cloak, Tirion pulled you all in for a meeting this morning and I saw Darion arrive as well so am I right in assuming we will finally be moving against Ice Crown Citadel soon?”

“It certainly is looking that way. My orders are to let Tirion know who all we have available to participate in the assault after looking at their performance in the trials.” Together the two removed the covers on the breakfast tray and settled down to eat. “So my little organizer, where do we stand? How are we looking as we prepare for the next phase in Tirion’s plan.?”

Sighing, Daraia let her head fall back, hands firmly clutching her steaming mug before replying. “While I understand WHY Tirion came up with this silly Darkmoon faire like event in Northrend, it has had both a positive and negative impact on us directly.

First Fizzlebang’s miscalculation took out the majority of our warlocks and many of the mages. Noddlee and Llano have been off dealing with Violet Citadel business ever since so other than a few brief incidents when she gets a chance to pop in and report we haven’t seen either of them in months. Have to say I miss them both greatly.

Second, with Holysmoke still out with injuries from that same incident and Enok deciding to retire we have a lot of young blood now working to fill those positions. We still are not certain what demands Darion may make of his Deathknights. For Alador and Reibisch especially this is even more personal than for the rest of us.

Over all that is what we are looking at, many of our veterans are down with injuries or have been out right killed these past months. We have some really talented new blood coming in of varying degrees of expertise. The biggest issue is getting them all to learn to work together and trust one another. Add to that the difficulties we have in getting the RIGHT supplies way up here and it is slowing us down a bit. Hopefully that will be corrected shortly but everyone is working hard to do the best they can with what they have....” glancing down she flicked her own cloak at him “even if it MAY be more well worn than we would prefer.”

Waving her hand towards the desk she continued. “The top few papers on your right are Schaikera and Syyand’s report giving their assessment of the various injured troopers and when they think they will be able to report for duty. The forms in the center stack give you a complete run down on where everyone is gear wise according to Banker. The final stack is a collection of reports from all the section leaders giving their assessments of each of the troopers under their jurisdictions. So if you take all that information together you should be able to come up with your list for Tirion.”

Nodding Therigwin looked over the neatly stacked pages. “That is all we can ask for at this point. They are good people everyone of them. It is an honor to lead them but I’m concerned that they may not bind together in time.”

“All we can do is try my love. You lead them as best you can and the up coming battles themselves will do more to refine them into a team.”

“What about you? Do you have any new commissions coming in from SI:7? I know you stepped down but that doesn’t mean they don’t still ask you to do side jobs for them.” Therigwin questioned as he surveyed the various reports.

“You know how I have never been comfortable with the conclusion of the investigation following Wrathgate and the Battle for the Undercity in regards to Bolvar. Mathais has finally given me approval to look into the matter more closely. But I need to keep it quiet as he doesn’t want word to get back to the King that we may have accidently abandoned a man on the field, at least until I have more solid information.

But that is not all. While conducting my preliminary scouting of the Ice Crown Citadel for the Ashen Verdict I stumbled across something that...well I am not quite sure how to take it.” Reaching into her shoulder pouch Daraia pulled out a small scrap of parchment and handed it across to Therigwin. Taking the stained and torn piece he could decipher but a single line: Please Help Me.

“I don’t understand.”

“I found that hidden in a piece of armor during my investigation regarding routes into Ice Crown Citadel. Remember I am a Grandmaster Inscriptionist. One of the things you learn with that is to take note of an individuals hand writing. It tells you a lot about the person. Well I was leader of this company for three years. During that time I saw a lot of correspondence that needed to be forwarded on to specific troops. That handwriting matches packages I have seen that came from Enok’s wife. In addition to that the armor piece I found matches a set I know Enok had custom crafted for her as a Winter Veil gift shortly before her death.

Unfortunately with Noddlee and Llano away I wasn’t sure who to have look at it to see if they could date it. I ended up taking it to Miep. He has shown a lot of promise and despite being a gnome seems to know when I need him to take things seriously. I didn’t tell him anything about it other than I wanted to know if he could give me a general idea as to when it was written.

“What did he have to say?”

“This is where it gets interesting. Miep was more than happy to help and assured me that he could easily do as I requested. He also of his own violation asked if I had discovered anything else WITH the note. Rather reluctantly I admitted I had and allowed him to see the wrist guard as well. According to Miep the letter seems to be no more than a few days old, a week at most and he was SOME HOW able to determine that whoever had last worn the armor piece was still alive. Not in the best of shape mind you but alive.”

Therigwin just stared at Daraia. “Are you trying to tell me that you not only think that Bolvar is alive but Enok’s late wife as well?”

Leaning forward Daraia continued. “I don’t really know WHAT to think. This came completely out of the blue. But I do think that Enok needs to know about it. Miep still has the wrist guard attempting to get as much information as he can from it.”

“I need to send Justin to Stormwind during our next supply run.” Therigwin tapped his desk absently as he thought about what Daraia had just shared with him. “While it would be preferable to send an old comrade that isn’t an option at the moment. Even though Justin may not know Enok personally I think he is strong enough personality wise to make sure Enok will at least hear what he has to say.”

“So you think I should send him our findings?”

“Yes, why don’t you get every last bit of information you can with Miep then find Justin and debrief him. After that we need to focus our efforts on preparing for the assault.”

“So this is it then. The time for us to move against Ice Crown is finally upon us.” Together the two stepped out of the tent and into the morning light.