Harry was not easily surprised these days, but Sylvanas had managed it.
"Can you make me an arrow that will kill Arthas?" She'd asked after showing up at the Guardian Tower unannounced.
"To be clear, you want me to make you a silver bullet?" He asked back.
Sylvanas scowled with confused irritation. "Obviously not, I do not use guns."
"Right, sorry. That was a metaphor from my world." Harry shook his head. "It comes from an old legend of an unkillable werewolf terrorizing a town until a hunter came and shot it in the heart with a silver bullet. Since then, it's been used as a metaphor for a quick and final solution to an otherwise unsolvable problem."
"Ah." The former Banshee Queen nodded. "Then yes, I want you to make me a 'silver bullet'."
"Huh." Harry scratched at his chin, honestly surprised. He had thought that Sylvanas would be too stubborn to admit that she was weaker now than she had been as an undead.
Granted, she looked better since binding herself to Azeroth, no longer gaunt and sickly from getting too little magic, though there were visible signs of stress on her face. Without access to the necromantic magic that had sustained her, she had lost much of her strength. The arts of the Farstrider by themselves weren't the most powerful, especially on the attack.
"Can you do it?" She pressed.
"Difficult without a sample of the Lich King's blood or flesh, but with you here I can think of a way." Harry admitted. "I wouldn't advise going through with it, though. In fact, you would be better off distancing yourself from this entire affair. It will cost you dearly and you won't find any closure or satisfaction at the end of this road."
Sylvanas glared at him as if he'd killed her puppy right in front of her. "You're suggesting I give up my revenge?"
"Yes." He said blandly. "I'm not going to preach to you about revenge being bad – I like getting revenge, too – but your rage is misplaced. Arthas Menethil died in Northrend, long before you encountered the empty shell of his body."
"What will it cost me?" She brushed aside his warnings.
"Nobody ever listens to good advice." Harry muttered, shaking his head. Wisest and fairest of all beings my shiny metal ass. "You have enough hate in you to forge an anathema, but if I do that, you'll never be the same again."
Sylvanas just nodded curtly and stared at him with unflinching eyes. "What do I have to do?"
Harry sighed and shook his head again. He suddenly had the feeling that her canonical undead self had probably caused a lot of trouble after he'd stopped paying attention to the developing lore of the Warcraft world. "Come with me. If you refuse to learn anything then at least you can serve as an object lesson to someone else."
"I don't appreciate being made an example of." Sylvanas grit her teeth.
"You're going to appreciate the creation process for your silver bullet even less, but that doesn't seem to be stopping you." Harry retorted flippantly. "You haven't even asked what it'll be like."
"Will I survive it?"
"I'm sure I can design a ritual that won't kill you."
"Then that is all I need to know."
"Uh huh, we'll see if you still think that after seeing what it entails."
Sylvanas refused to dignify that with a comment and they continued on in silence. In the library, they found a familiar draenei curled up in one of the extra fluffy and extra large armchairs, reading a book.
"Harry?" She frowned. "You have a guest?"
She was still fond of rhetorical questions.
"This is Sylvanas Windrunner, formerly the Banshee Queen of the Forsaken." He introduced. "Sylvanas, this is Miall, the draenei's blacksmith. We've been learning each other's tricks. Miall, Sylvanas here insists on enduring unspeakable torments so that she has a better chance at getting revenge against the Lich King. I wasn't going to show you how to mix rituals with blacksmithing quite yet, but since she's ignoring all my hints about backing down from this course of action…"
"I see…" Miall's frown deepened, tail wiggling in agitation. "But is it safe for me to observe a ritual if I am not participating?"
She might not be a proper mage herself, but when you were thousands of years old and lived among a mage-heavy people like the draenei, you picked up a few things.
"You will be participating, if you want." Harry corrected. "I can do all the complicated work and leave the simple stuff to you, as long as you understand that you can't stop no matter how horrible it is."
"I would have to hear the full details first." The draenei blacksmith prevaricated.
"Of course. It'll take me a few days in the Time Chamber to plan it and make the right tools, then I'll go over it carefully with both of you." He gave Sylvanas a sarcastic look and continued in a deadpan. "Who knows, maybe hearing what the ritual entails will knock some sense into Sylvanas and convince her to back down."
She glared back with a distinctly mulish cast to her jaw. Stubborn woman.
XXXXX
Sylvanas had not seen many magical rituals performed. Those she had seen usually consisted of several mages standing in a circled and chanting in tandem to perform a greater working.
Being chained to a slab that hung over a stone channel, which in turn led to a forge, was very different.
Sylvanas was spending entirely too much time chained to slabs these days, and this time she had to be naked on top of it. She hated it, but she hated Arthas a whole lot more and Harry insisted that it was necessary. In spite of herself, she believed him. The archmage from another world took visible enjoyment in being honest with his schemes and intentions… after setting them up in a way nobody could protest his goals, except to say that they were politically inconvenient.
The notion of asking him to make her a weapon that could kill the Lich King had occurred to her some time ago, but she had kept herself from asking for it out of suspicion. With the campaign in Outland drawing to a close and the one into Northrend approaching, Sylvanas couldn't delay any more, because she wanted to be the one to put down Arthas Menethil.
"Alright, are you ready?" Harry asked, sauntering up to her with a ritual knife in hand. He was as naked as her and looked quite comfortable about it. "Still time to back out by the way."
Sylvanas glared back at him. "Get on with it."
"Well, I tried." He shrugged and then there was suddenly something in his hand, a bright red ball held in black leather straps. "Here, bite down on this. I hate the sound of women screaming in pain."
She glared harder and opened her mouth in a clear indication that she was going through with this despite his constant hints. He snorted, rolled his eyes and put the ball in, before fastening it around her head. It was an odd material that had some give to it and had a strange, somewhat sour, taste.
"Alright, then." Harry clapped his hands. "Miall, are you ready?"
The muscular draenei blacksmith was standing at the other end of the stone channel, where a cold crucible hung over a stone basin. She, too, was naked.
"Sylvanas, remember to stay focused on your hatred for Arthas and your absolute determination to see him destroyed no matter what. If the pain overwhelms your hate and you start wanting it to stop, then the end result will be worthless. And if you start hating me for the pain I'm causing you, not only will the end result be worthless, but I'm also going to get yelled at by my girls for getting my arms burned."
Sylvanas snorted in contempt. She was well past the point of being distracted from her hate. Now that she was counted among the living again and could feel the full force of her emotions, it had consumed every aspect of her life.
No matter what she was doing, the hate was always there. When she read reports and sent orders, because there were constant reminders of his butchery. When she ate her meals, because just the sight of food was a reminder of how their farmlands had been devastated. When she walked down the street and saw how diminished her people were. Even when she looked at her hands, because she knew that this was not her original body, for all that it looked the same.
When she practiced her archery, she saw his sneering face in the targets. When she sparred with her blades, it was a struggle to keep the hate in check so that she didn't hurt her opponent. When the shame of those she'd hurt both under his thrall and later as the Banshee Queen burned her, the hatred burned right next to it. It was there when she went to bed and the first thing on her mind when she awoke, because her dreams were just endless loops of nightmarish memory.
The hate squeezed her heart like a dragon's claw with every beat, its sharp tips piercing the flesh with reminders that Arthas Menethil still existed. Every moment not spent working towards his destruction felt like an intolerable waste of time.
She needed this as much as she wanted it, because if this endless well of hatred wasn't put to use, it would never allow her to move past it.
Her heart began to thunder in her chest from the force of her hate and her breathing sped up with the rage that she normally tried to distract herself from.
"You really do have a heart of gold – hard and pure." Harry spoke solemnly and slammed the ritual knife into her chest.
Sylvanas screamed into the gag and instinctively strained against her bonds, but not really at the pain of having her heart pierced. The physical pain was nothing. She screamed to give voice to her hate, her heart beating still beating ceaselessly despite the blade impaled through it.
No blood came from the wound. Instead, golden liquid began oozing down from the knife pommel and into the stone channel beneath her. It was as thick as tar, had golden flames flickering from it and moved sluggishly towards the stone basin. The knife was draining it out of her and it hurt in ways that only things that wounded the soul could hurt, but this pain she accepted gladly, knowing it would result in the utter destruction of Arthas Menethil.
As it collected in the basin, the golden flames grew brighter and larger, until they were a raging inferno lucking at the bottom of the crucible.
"Undirected, hatred burns all it touches." Miall spoke soberly once the crucible glowed cherry red, used a lever to move it a bit and tipped it over. The molten adamantine within poured out, drizzling over and into the golden sludge.
Harry had warned her it would hurt, been descriptively graphic about it, but she hadn't cared as long as it got her what she wanted. When the molten adamantine joined the gold sludge extracted from her chest, Sylvanas found herself caring a great deal. It burned worse than if the molten metal had been poured on her skin, because that golden sludge was part of her soul.
Now she clung even more tightly to her hate, because it was the only thing keeping her sane. The ritual would not allow her to pass out.
Harry used a metal rod to wind the mixture around it like it was taffy. Then he brought it to the nearby anvil and raised a hammer high into the air. A golden string connected the piece he took to the whole still inside the stone basin.
"Your pain, I harness it." He intoned, bringing the hammer down. Sylvanas strained against her bonds again as it felt like her soul had been struck.
"Your rage, I shackle it." Another strike of the hammer and again she felt her soul being beaten into a different shape.
"Your desire, I focus it." Another blow, another agonizing resonance.
"By my hand and your will, let your hate be an arrow of singular purpose." He finished his little chant with a final blow of the hammer.
Then he stuck the metal rod back into the stone basin and wound more of the gold soul-sludge mixed with molten adamantine around it, and once again brought it to the anvil.
"Your pain, I harness it." He began again.
Sylvanas quickly lost track of how many times the process repeated itself. Her soul was burning and being hammered into an unnatural shape. His words echoed in her mind, always reminding her of why she was going through this torment. They even became comforting and she at some point surrendered to the pain of it, simply focusing on a sneering, cadaverous face, cold blue eyes and colorless white hair.
She fell so deep into a trance that she barely noticed when the pain stopped.
"You did good. Rest now." The gentle words were accompanied by a brutal yank of the dagger from her chest and Sylvanas passed out instantly.
XXXXX
Sylvanas woke up feeling… mixed. Her body felt great, but her spirit felt like it had gotten set on fire and beaten with a hammer. Which it had, as she recalled.
"Hey, good morning." A soft voice said.
Sylvanas looked over to it dully, somehow unable to muster the jolt of fear and anger that she knew should have accompanied any surprise. Luna was there, looking at her sympathetically.
"Here, have some water." The priestess of Elune offered a glass of the liquid. "You've been asleep for three days."
She sluggishly pushed herself up and drank the water. Her throat was more parched than she'd realized and she quickly emptied the glass.
"Did it work?" She asked once she was done.
Luna frowned at her. "It did, but you really shouldn't have gone through with that ritual. Harry shouldn't have let you go through with it."
"Where is the arrow?" Sylvanas brushed the words aside.
"You know where it is."
Huh, she did know where it was. The former Banshee Queen looked to the nightstand on the other side of the bed, seeing the golden arrow sitting there innocently. It looked beautiful, but the point was a vicious and jagged thing, meant to rip and tear. As soon as she grasped the arrow, the dull hole inside her chest filled up with the familiar burning hatred. The contrast was so powerful that it took her breath away.
"If it was aimed at a living person, that arrow would stop their heart even if you hit them in the foot." Luna spoke up again, frowning. "For someone like the Lich King, it's at least going to be awfully painful."
Good. "Why is it golden?" Frankly, Sylvanas had expected it to be as black as her hate.
"Because you poured all your passions into it." Luna said sadly. "If you fire that arrow, you'll lose things that you'll never get back."
"It doesn't matter, as long as Arthas is destroyed." The elven archer said firmly, heaving herself out of bed.
That was the truth. The Forsaken were gone and her people didn't need her anymore, not really. Nobody needed her, so it didn't matter what her revenge cost her. If the destruction of the Lich King was the last thing she did, then she could be satisfied.
"That's really not a healthy attitude." Luna complained, but thankfully didn't press further. "Come on, we should go talk to Harry before you leave here."
"Very well." Sylvanas acknowledged, putting on the rest of her armor. Someone had stripped her down before putting her to bed, which she wasn't going to think about too closely.
They found Harry in the kitchen… making sandwiches. Her stomach growled at the sight of food.
"I'm almost done." He said as if in reply to the embarrassing sound, using a knife to smear something across the bread and adding toppings with practiced motions.
"There is no need for that, I will eat when I get back to Silvermoon." Sylvanas frowned.
"Nope. We have some stuff to talk about first, so sit down and wait for your snack." Harry dismissed.
Gritting her teeth in irritation at his attitude, she nonetheless allowed Luna to lead her to the table, Where Miall and Sally Whitemane were already sitting. Then the priestess went to help Harry with the sandwiches, leaving three women who had absolutely nothing to say to each other sitting at the table.
The draenei only gave her an occasional curious glance, but was otherwise content to sit in silence. Whitemane, on the other hand, was staring at Sylvanas with what could only be described as a confused glare.
"What?" Sylvanas finally demanded.
"Nothing." Whitemane retorted with a scowl, glaring harder.
"Don't mind Sally." Harry interjected, setting a plate of sandwiches on the table and pulling up a seat, Luna right behind him. "She's just dealing with some cognitive dissonance, which is an improvement over flat out rejecting reality like she was doing before. At least it means she's finally thinking."
"You are still a blasphemous abomination!" The former High Inquisitor shouted at him, either outraged or merely indignant.
"Thank you." Harry grinned back at her mockingly.
"Don't be mean, Harry." Luna gently scolded.
"What is cognitive dissonance?" Sylvanas ignored the horseplay as usual. "Another one of your homeworld's concepts?"
"Cognitive dissonance is the state of discomfort one feels when attempting to hold on to two or more contradictory modes of thought. In Sally's case, her newly rediscovered ability to think is allowing her to draw some parallels between your hatred for the Lich King and her hatred for all undead, and it's making her uncomfortable. Take a sandwich."
She looked down at the plate of sandwiches and contemplated refusing to partake of them. Another growl from her stomach told her that she was being stubborn for no reason.
"Do not speak of me as if I am one of your experiments!" Whitemane snapped at Harry.
"You're not one of my experiments." He agreed. "You're one of Luna's projects."
"We still have work to do, but I already got her to admit that torturing your enemies for fun is the path to the Dark Side." Luna chimed in brightly.
For some reason, this made Harry snort in amusement.
"I apologize for the pain the ritual caused you." Miall suddenly spoke up.
"Please don't apologize to her, she was literally asking for it."
"It is fine." Sylvanas ignored Harry's 'contribution' and spoke to the draenei instead. "If this arrow can destroy the Lich King, then it will all have been worth it."
"It probably won't destroy him flat out." Harry spoke up again. "Not only is he very powerful, but your hate was focused on Arthas Menethil, which I've told you before is not the same as the Lich King. It will, however, absolutely ruin his day. Just don't miss."
"I will not." Sylvanas vowed, staring at the arrow. It was a weapon of solidified, Light-infused hate alloyed with adamantine, and she could already see it piercing that bastard's heart. "I assume you will be at the forefront of the war against the Scourge?"
"I'll be both at the front and the back, but I definitely want to be there when it's time for the final showdown." He nodded. "Frankly, I don't trust anyone else to properly handle the Helm of Domination."
Sylvanas' eyes narrowed. He didn't have to tell her that bit of information, so why had he? "What do you intend to do with it?"
"I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise… or boast about doing something that might be impossible." Harry demurred. "But I will tell say that you're going to like it."
"Hmm." Was all the reply she gave to that, annoyed with the way he dropped little morsels of information, but not surprised. Archmages were all the same in that regard. "Where is the rest of your… group. I would have thought you would be preparing for the campaign."
"Oh, they wanted to do some adventuring in Outland." Luna chimed in. "I invited them to come with me and Sally to purge the Plaguelands, but they thought they could do more there. I hope they're alright."
"They should be fine, they promised not to do anything too dangerous." Harry reassured.
XXXXX
Meanwhile, in Outland.
Everything was on fire.
The floor? On fire.
The ceiling? On fire.
The walls? On fire.
The air? On fire.
Why was it all on fire? Because Kael'thas Sunstrider was absolutely losing his shit.
"You've ruined everything! You and that meddling mongrel you whore yourself to!" The fallen prince of the high elves bellowed. His eyes blazed green with fel energies, his fingernails had turned claw-like and his skin had a distinctly red tinge to it. He also had two stumps on his forehead that promised to grow into horns. "I was going to save my people!"
Opposing him were a large group of adventurers, with mages, priests and paladins standing at the forefront to fend off the corrupted prince's powerful magic.
"I am beginning to understand Jaina's fears about turning her lovers evil." Colette grunted, using Void magic to snuff out the fires threatening to engulf all of Tempest Keep.
"Or maybe he turned out this way because she turned him down." Jessir bantered back, firing arrows at the insane archmage to disrupt his spells, even if nothing seemed to make it through his defenses to actually kill him.
"Please don't support Harry's ideas that everyone just needs to have more sex." Arko groaned, half in effort from maintaining a bubble of protective moonlight and half in exasperation.
"You're one to talk, I bet you're going to pin me down and ravish me as soon as this fight is over." The huntress teased.
"Jessir!" The bubble of moonlight wobbled as her concentration slipped from embarrassment.
"Ladies, perhaps we should stay focused?" Maraad suggested, throwing out waves of Light to disrupt the felflames coming at them.
Kael'thas, meanwhile, was getting increasingly less coherent in his rage. His magic was likewise growing less sophisticated and more wild.
"He's already dead, we just have to hold on a little longer." Arko shook her head.
That actually got the fallen prince's attention and his gaze sharpened, looking for where their supposed finishing attack will come from.
A battle cry came from behind him, and he turned around just in time to see a brown-skinned orc woman with purple eyes come down from a jumping attack, curved dagger in hand. He raised his hand to blast her with fire, but an arrow struck him in the back at that very moment, making him stumble. The dagger sank into his skull up to the hilt.
"I suppose that's why Harry insists on helmets being worn at all times in combat." Jessir muttered, feeling an almost sympathetic twinge of pain at the top of her own head.
Kael'thas had worn an impressive suit of enchanted plate armor, but no helmet. She had been trying to shoot him in the face the whole fight, but he was good at deflected spells and projectiles. Not so great at deflecting assassins, apparently.
The rest of the adventurers with them cheered at their win, giving out many congratulations and backslaps.
"What are we going to tell Harry about this?" Colette asked pointedly. "He and Luna specifically asked us to not get involved in anything too exciting without them."
"I'm sure he will understand." Maraad said reassuringly. "A great evil has been vanquished this day, and we could hardly pass up an opportunity to retake Tempest Keep."
That was true enough. The group of adventurers that had decided they would challenge Kael'thas in his stolen citadel had been reasonably strong and already on the move when they stumbled upon them. There hadn't really been time to wait for Luna to reinforce them and Harry couldn't even leave Azeroth thanks to his bond with the titan slumbering within it.
"We could just not say anything unless he asks." Garona shrugged, flicking blood and brain matter off her dagger.
The three girls of the Battle Harem exchanged looks and nodded in agreement at the plan.
XXXXX
Aurastrasza, red dragon currently in the form of a red-headed high elf female, watched curiously as the moonlight dragons frolicked by the moonwell, splashing and snapping at each other playfully. They were clearly more animalistic than whelps from one of the Five Flights would be, more like the proto-drakes still wandering Northrend, but obviously less vicious.
After long deliberation, Alexstrasza had asked for a volunteer to take the measure of this Moonlight Dragonflight that had been created from purified black dragon eggs. Aurastrasza had stepped forward because she had experience watching over the eggs and whelps of her own flight and because she wanted to see a bit of the world.
She was just about to continue towards the front door of the Guardian Tower when a large, blonde woman of indeterminate species practically skipped out. Her smell was very strange, but her life force was incredibly potent for a mortal.
"Hello, Ms. Red Dragon!" The likely priestess of Elune greeted cheerfully. "Are you here to look after the moonlight dragons?"
"I am." Aurastrasza nodded seriously. "My name is Aurastrasza, pleased to make your acquaintance."
"Welcome!" the blonde beamed an actually hugged her. How oddly affectionate. "I'm Luna. Come on inside, I'll introduce you to the others."
Not giving her a chance to refuse, Luna took her by the wrist and excitedly led her into the tower. Aurastrasza was bemused. I didn't know mortals were this bold.
The tower had a curious aesthetic. The floor was polished black marble and the walls had the hard lines favored by humans, but many of the decorations were night elven or draenei in origin. It looked like someone had just been picking out whatever they liked from each race and adding it to the tower. There even seemed to be a bit of orc here and there.
"Have you had any trouble with the whelps?" Aurastrasza asked as she was led up a flight of stairs.
"Not until recently." Luna admitted. "They used to be happy to just play around with the nearby dryads, but lately they've been wanting to stretch their wings. We don't want to stifle their instincts, but we also can't watch over them all the time, so I'm extra glad that you're here now."
"I see. They must be getting territorial, then." The red dragon explained. "They won't fully leave the nest until they grow into drakes, but the instinct to seek their own territory always develops early."
"Good to know, and here we are. Aurastrasza, the man over there is Harry, my husband."
"Hi." The dark-haired man greeted. Much like Luna, he had a very powerful life force.
"Next to him are Arko'narin, Jessir Moonbow and Colette, our wives."
Aurastrasza thought nothing of the relationship. A single powerful individual with multiple mates was the norm for dragons.
The three women gave greetings of their own Luna moved on.
"Next to Jessir is her animal partner Della." Luna gestured to a large wolf gnawing on what smelled like a bug hunk of dinosaur meat. It also smelled very strongly of magic.
"Over there in the corner is Garona. Don't let her piercing stares fool you, she's actually a sweetheart."
Red dragons had a bad history with orcs, but this one also smelled of some other race, so she must be a crossbreed. Most likely half-draenei given her age. Either way, she lacked the corrupted green skin, so she could not be too bad.
Garona grunted with a faint hint of embarrassment at Luna's introduction.
"And the sulky one is Sally Whitemane. She might call you names and say you need to die, but please don't take it personally. She can't help herself."
"I see." Aurastrasza had no idea what to make of that last one. The white-haired human did look rather angry, though.
"Everyone, this is Aurastrasza, our new dragon nanny."
"Luna, please be a bit more respectful to the Red Dragonflight." Jessir said with the exhaustion of one who knew they wouldn't be listened to.
"It is alright." Aurastasza reassured. Frankly, she found the priestess more amusing than offensive. "I am not here as a representative of Alexstrasza, although she is curious about this new dragonflight that you have apparently created."
Aurastrasza didn't mention that the Lifebinder was also wary of the fact that they were originally eggs from the Black Dragonflight.
"Whatever the case, we're glad to have you with us." Harry spoke up. "With the invasion of Northrend due to start soon, we weren't sure if we would have time to look after the whelps. Come on, I'll show you to your room."
"I will show her to her room." Arko corrected, pushing an amused Harry back down into the couch and getting up herself instead.
Aurastrasza followed behind the night elf, wondering what that had been about. There was obviously something behind that interaction. Still, she stayed quiet as she was led through the tower and into a room. It was quite large and comfortably furnished so that even royalty could find nothing to complain about. Although she expected to spend much of her time in dragon form, Aurastrasza still appreciated the effort.
"Feel free to change it however you like while you're staying here." Arko way saying. "Now before I got to let you get settled in, I just have to warn you about a few things."
"Warn me?" The red dragon repeated with a frown.
"Yes… well, there's really no way to ease into this, so I'll just come out and say it. Don't be surprised if Harry and Luna try to seduce you."
"They would do that?" Aurastrasza had only heard stories of mortals from more worldly dragons.
"They're both very enthusiastic about experiencing all that Azeroth has to offer." Arko explained wrily. "And don't be surprised if Luna asks if you can make yourself look more draconic. She doesn't mean anything by it, but she's quite passionate about features like horns, tails, scales, hooves, claws and so on."
"I was told that mortals tend to find such things off-putting." Her current form was indistinguishable from an average high elf, save for the red hair, which was very rare among their kind.
"Luna isn't exactly normal." Arko snorted. "Anyway, don't feel like you have to put up with their antics if you don't want to. They'll back off if you tell them to."
"Thank you for telling me this." Aurastrasza nodded.
The night elf licked her lips nervously. "But, ah, if you are interested, then don't feel like you have to hold back on account of the rest of us. Colette isn't really interested in women, but Jessir and I wouldn't mind… experimenting… with a dragon."
I did not expect that. Aurastrasza was still a young dragon, barely four thousand years old and had rarely left the Ruby Sanctum. She was not prepared for bold mortals wishing to mate with her.
"I will keep it in mind." Was all she could say.
"Alright, good. I'll just… go." The night elf was clearly embarrassed and practically fled the room.
XXXXX
Once again, a summit was called in Theramore as a convenient neutral ground. This time, the topic was the impending invasion of Northrend. Although many people in both the Horde and the Alliance might have been content to ignore the situation as long as the Scourge stayed in Northrend, Harry had been pushing for a proactive stance since before his little forced vacation with Azshara.
Fortunately, all of the various faction leaders were decisive sorts instead of useless bureaucrats, so they easily conceded that leaving the gigantic undead army alone was a bad idea. Of course, having a room full of willful people generated a whole different breed of problems. Just getting the Horde and the Alliance to sit at the same table again was hard enough, trying to get them to cooperate properly this time instead of the weird mess that was the Outland campaign was even harder.
"Look, I'm not going to build another fortress with temporal acceleration chambers just because you don't want to share space with orcs." Harry said irritably. "Forcing them to spend some time together can only be good in the long term, even with the inevitable bar brawls."
"Especially with the inevitable bar brawls." Magni Bronzebeard opined with a small grin.
Varian Wrynn scowled mightily. "This is no laughing matter! It wouldn't take much for an argument to get out of hand and result in deaths. Then where would we be?"
"He's right." Thrall supported his Alliance counterpart. "While I would like to say that my people would know better, it only takes one hothead to start a riot. And I am sure the Alliance has plenty of those as well."
"Completely avoiding each other isn't a solution either." Harry shook his head. "Bad enough that there are two logistics chains in this invasion, but that can't really be helped. The bigger problem is having two separate military operations in the same theater, as you've seen with Outland. How many times did you work at cross-purposes even when you tried not to? You need to communicate properly as well as get your soldiers to see each other as at least non-enemies. Using the same fortress for downtime will get you at least part way there."
What he didn't say was that it be yet another way to show the elves that they just didn't fit in with the Horde even if they were politically part of it.
"Communication can't really be established until the commanders for both forces are chosen." Jaina pointed out.
"I will lead the Alliance forces myself." Varian proclaimed.
"I intend to have Garrosh Hellscream lead the Horde in this." Thrall said.
The rest of the table was silent for a moment as they digested this.
It was an unavoidable fact that Stormwind would be contributing the bulk of the manpower, with the Ironforge dwarves coming in at second place. It was also true that Varian Wrynn was an accomplished man of war. Magni could contest his leadership, but tradition and practicality would keep him in Ironforge. Jaina could also do it, being effectively royalty, the leader of her own city state and having greater personal accomplishments than the king of Stormwind, but she was not a frontline general by inclination. She'd do it in a pinch, but preferred to stay in a more support role.
On paper, Tyrande might seem like a superior choice, having vast military experience and personal accomplishments, but the night elf numbers were too few, their combat doctrine too different. Frankly, the night elves were simply not suited for an offensive style of war and would likely be relegated to support roles in the form of scouts, healers and elite archer units.
On the Horde side, Garrosh Hellscream was also not necessarily a bad choice. He was the kind of leader that orcs would follow into battle.
However…
"That is a fucking terrible idea." Harry said what nobody wanted to point out.
"Harry!" Jaina hissed, facepalming at his bluntness.
"You know I'm right." He shot back at her with a smirk. "Garrosh is angrier than a sack full of honey badgers and Varian has a grudge against the Horde. They'd be at each other's throats in a week."
Thrall and Varian both tried to respond at the same time, stopped and glared at each other.
"He be right, mon." Vol'jin spoke up, rubbing at his pointy chin. "I did tell ya that Varok Saurfang be the bettah choice."
"Yes, he definitely would." Harry was quick to support the troll. "Especially now that he's been reunited with his son. He'll be less suicidal."
"Bolvar Fordragon would also be a less confrontational choice to lead the Alliance forces." Jaina jumped aboard the newly forming Coalition of Common Sense. "He's a highly respected figure and wouldn't have any problem coordinating with Overlord Saurfang. Between the two of them, they should be able to keep the Horde and Alliance pointed firmly at the real enemy instead of each other."
"And it would further marginalize Garrosh Hellscream, as per my master plan."
"Your master plan?" Thrall frowned in confusion.
"The master plan to reduce tensions between the Horde and Alliance as much as possible."
"What do you gain from doing this?" Varian asked suspiciously.
"Don't look at me like that King Varian, my goals are hardly secret – I want allies against Azeroth's enemies. If you're too busy killing each other then you won't be there when I need you to fight the Undead Scourge, the Burning Legion, the Old Gods and whatever other nonsense shows up."
"But how does marginalizing Garrosh serve this goal?" Thrall was frowning even harder now. "The Mak'gora you baited him into has already shaken the faith the Warsong Clan has in him."
Harry stared at the Warchief for a long few moments, wondering if he was serious. Sadly, he was. "Thrall, you are ridiculously sentimental for an orc."
"Thank you?"
"That wasn't a compliment. Grom Hellscream was a short-sighted, brutish thug who thought that honor meant fighting hard. He had all the subtlety, tact and diplomatic acumen of a battering ram. When you came to Kalimdor and he ran into Jaina's expedition, the first thing he did was charge into a fight without taking a single moment to question the situation despite knowing that you sailed to Kalimdor because of a prophecy of doom. Then, when you punished him for it by assigning him to chop wood where you thought he couldn't cause trouble and he ran into the night elves, he once again didn't bother taking a second to think and instead began swinging his axe around like a bloodthirsty lunatic. Then, when that failed, he knowingly drank demon blood again because he'd rather be damned than retreat from a fight." Harry summarized.
Thrall didn't look pleased by the short rant, judging by his scowl, by he did not contest it. "What does this have to do with his son?"
"The point I'm trying to make here is that you have a bad habit of giving a lot of slack to dangerous loose cannons because they're your friends or the children of your friends. Garrosh Hellscream is a lot like his father. Worse, he wants to honor his father and thinks that the way to do this is by proving how strong the orcs are. If you give him a chance to cause trouble, he's going to do it and never realize why that's not a good thing. Right now, he still has a chance to be a hero, but he's too stupid to do it himself except by accident. By all means, give him a chance to fight, but never, ever give him a chance to decide who he fights. As a bonus, keeping him away from prominence will also make the night elves less angry at you."
"Indeed." Tyrande frowned, not liking what she was hearing about this orc.
"You seem awfully convinced that you know what Garrosh is like when you only met him once." Thrall countered, scowling. "And about Grom for that matter, whom you have never met at all."
"Not true, I went to the place he died and used necromancy to call up his spirit. It was an enlightening conversation."
"You WHAT?!"
"Don't worry, I put him back where I found him. I even put up some extra precautions to make it extra hard if anyone tried to raise him."
Jaina sighed, braced her elbows against the table and hid her face in her hands.
"You defiled my friend's spirit!" Thrall bellowed, surging to his feet and smashing his fists on the table.
Harry gave him an unimpressed look. "First of all, saying that I defiled your friend makes it sound kind of dirty. Second, I didn't defile his spirit any more than you defile the elements when you call them with your shamanism. Necromancy isn't innately evil, just… really easy to abuse. And mostly used by idiots looking for shortcuts to immortality."
"We seem to have drifted away from the matter at hand. Again." Velen spoke up, the venerable draenei still looking like the soul of patience. "We were discussing the main thrust of our invasion into Northrend."
On paper a very simple subject. It would begin in the Borean Tundra, the southwestern part of the frozen continent. Then, once a firm foothold was established, a secondary invasion point would be launched into the Howling Fjord, on the southeastern side.
The problem was that there were two separate invasions happening at the same time, with only minimal cooperation between them. It made Harry more certain than ever that the Horde needed to be cut down to size, if only to do away with the logistical complications of treating them as an equal.
Why was Harry even here, at a war meeting of faction leaders? Because he was the main supplier of specialized anti-undead weaponry that everyone wanted, and he was providing a place where the soldiers could rest and eat better than frontline soldiers could expect so that they wouldn't fall prey to battle fatigue. Those two things and his status as Speaker for Azeroth forced them to give him a seat at the table.
Most of the people present didn't actually have much to say. Aside from Varian Wrynn, Thrall, Magni Bronzebeard, Jaina and Rhonin as the representative of the Kirin Tor, none of the others really had the military strength to be at the forefront of this tangle.
The fact that Harry was able to be so opinionated when he was basically just the leader of a small adventuring party visibly grated on some of the people present (cough, Varian, cough), but it couldn't be helped. Left to their own devices, these people would be far too medieval with their long term strategies.
"Can we at the very least agree that the Horde and Alliance should attack at the same time and help secure each other's strongholds while they are being constructed?" He asked drily. "An overwhelming first strike would keep the casualties down, which, I remind you, is particularly important against this of all enemies."
Of course, that started an argument on who will have their stronghold built first.
Harry slumped back in his chair and sighed. War might be hell, but preparing for war was purgatory and that was way more boring.