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This is a little story I wrote for a contest back before I decided this character worked better as a hunter. One day I might alter it to reflect that profession change but otherwise I’m pleased with how it turned out. The theme for the contest was “Another Day in Northrend”.

The clatter of steel on tin announced the sad ending of Aegrid’s meal as she scooped the last of the pemmican out of its tin with the flat blade of her Gnomish Army Knife. She popped the morsel into her mouth and chewed sullenly as she wiped the knife blade on her britches and packed it and the tin away again. After a moment of dedicated chewing she turned and spat out the solitary dried frostberry that had marred the otherwise pristine blend of meat and fat.

“I don’t know how you eat that stuff,” Emry blanched.

“Beats a lot of things out there,” Aegrid grunted and tugged on the reigns of her mule again. The beast was far too over packed for her to ride on, though Emry had managed to find a perch on top of a the second mule’s load by redistributing a few pieces of equipment. Now the bastard of a Gnome sat cheerfully guiding his mule along while Aegrid trudged up the steadily increasing slope on foot.

“Well yes. Technically speaking it’s a good enough ration, although by spitting out the main source of fiber and soluble vitamins you’ve reduced the nutritional value of the rations by,” there was a tiny pause as the Gnome stopped to breath. “Thirty-eight percent.”

“Grand,” Aegrid had regretted volunteering to guard the delivery of these supplies before they’d gotten out of sight of Steel Gate. Generally she found Gnomes to be excellent companions. Most were inclined to indulge her in lengthy conversations about new Engineering schematics or the best fuel for turbo charging a flying machine. Emry Sweetberry only seemed inclined to talk at length about the most boring topics Aegrid had ever heard. He’d started off the trip by giving her an unwelcome lecture on the dietary habits of shoveltusks and progressed steadily through worgs, eagles, elk and bears the further they’d gone along the path. Furthermore the Gnome had insisted on keeping the map as part of his duties as the senior member of the League, a fact that irritated Aegrid to no end. Particularly when she wasn’t sure he knew how to read it.

“Emry, have ye got…” she trailed off as she realized the Gnome was still yammering from his earlier observations.

“… now I’ll grant you that Dwarves need thirteen-point-oh-two-five percent more meat in their diet than the average Gnome, but when you factor in the size ratio it drops to two-point-six percent,” Emry swayed in his makeshift saddle and plucked at his beard. “And females would need a higher fat percentage if they were -”

“EMRY!” Aegrid’s shout startled the Gnome’s mule, who shied a bit to the side and threatened to dump the gnome into the dirt.

“Whoa!” Emry juggled the reigns for a second, attempting to bring the mule under control. The mule’s load wobbled one last time then settled as the beast stepped back into rhythm. “Now what was that, Miss Stonebrow?”

“The map. Have ye got it?” Aegrid ground out.

“Oh! Yes, right here. Safe and sound,” he patted the thick, many pocketed vest and fumbled with the button on the largest pocket finally producing a slightly stained map. He squinted at the map key for a good while before speaking again. “Now let’s see. If this measurement indicates leagues then we’re…”

“Titan’s damn ye Emry, give me the map b’fore I choke ye with it,” Aegrid was sure that the Gnome was formulating another lecture on the nutritional value of the map and so she reached up and snatched at it before he could gather the breath. The Gnome jerked it away, the added height of his perch allowing him to keep it out of Aegrid’s reach.

“Now, Miss Stonebrow. I really don’t think that’s appropriate language to use with a superior,” he held the map aloft as he spoke, waggling it disapprovingly in Aegrid’s direction. “And furthermore I find your threats to be offensive,” Emry twisted in the saddle, revving himself up for a full on lecture. The movement was interrupted as a gust of wind plucked the map out of Emry’s fingers. He stretched, fumbling a grab at the airborne map and proceeded to topple off his perch. Before he hit the dirt Aegrid made a wild snatch for the map, but the wind carried it away and lodged it high in one of the pine boughs down the slope.

After that things got loud.

A couple hours later they stood beneath the battered remnants of a signpost that had once marked a fork in the road. Aegrid stared up at it while Emry continued reading his Pocket Guide to Northrend Birds. After their fight she’d tied her mule to the back of his and proceeded to lead in blessed silence while he pointedly ignored her. She was certain that it’d come back to bite her in the end but she didn’t care. In fact she felt quite a bit better, enough so that the illegible signpost didn’t bother her over much. The correct path was easy enough to discern. What glimpse she’d managed to get of the map had clearly shown that the Amberpine Lodge was located along the river and the left hand path clearly cut down towards the stream that had disappeared into the woods. With a tug on the mule’s reigns they set off down the path. Another hour passed with only the occasional bray of the mules or rustling turn of a page to break Aegrid’s daydream of her eventual destination. Thor Modan. Titan’s willing she’d get to do some real archeology there!

The sounds of the river grew steadily louder, from a gurgle to steady roar and presently Aegrid could see the falls upstream through the thinning trees. Her mouth twitched into a frown as she looked and found no signs of a lodge, merely a massive hollowed out log that spanned the river, creating an odd covered bridge to the other side. She grunted and truned around, “Oy, the lodge was on the other side of the river, aye?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.” Emry huffed as he refused to look up from his Pocket Guide. He sounded distinctly aggrieved still so Aegrid left him to stew.

She scowled at the greenery growing all over the interior of the log as they passed through. She couldn’t believe that the Alliance architects had allowed this sort of thing to stand in place of a proper bridge. It was an accident just waiting to happen. Poor footing, unstable moorings, and wood rot would put someone in the river before long. She just hoped it wasn’t her. As if to prove her point part of the canopy had been broken off, so that halfway across the river she got her first really good look at the far bank. The trees were thinner there and the earth had been churned up by some familiar machinery which was being guarded by two large and heavily armored Orcs.

“Aw @*#$,” Aegrid swore to herself. She backed up slowly, trying to quietly encourage the mules to do the same. Once under the canopy they could turn around without risking being spotted. She hissed at the Gnome, who had yet to look up, “Ssst! Emry!”

“Miss Stonebrow, I am not interested in holding further conversation with you!” Aegrid flinched as Emry mustered his loudest, most authoritative voice behind the protective wall of his book. A bellow from across the river snapped the Gnome out of his self righteous funk and the book lowered before Aegrid could get a whispered warning out. The Gnome’s scream echoed off the inside of the log like a tea kettle going off at the bottom of a mine shaft.

With all pretense of not being spotted abandoned Aegrid jerked the mule’s harness and fought with the beasts and their loads on the narrow bridge. Emry’s mule rolled it’s eyes in panic the moment that the bridge began to shake with the Orc’s heavy footfalls. The Gnome was pale faced and babbling by the point Aegrid threw him the reigns, “Wh-wh-what’reyoudoin’?”

“Saving yer hide,” Aegrid shouted as she pulled her mallet off of its loop. The Orcs were halfway to them already and her blood was up and itching for a fight, she’d buy the Gnome time and then catch up after she cracked some skulls. The Gnome goggled at her in a daze until she slapped the nearest mule on the rump, “Fel’s bells, ye moron! That means RUN!” It didn’t really matter if the Gnome steered at this point, the mules would get themselves and their cargo out of the way, hopefully in one piece. Aegrid had more pressing concerns anyways.

The Orcs were too big to cross the bridge all at once and they bottle necked underneath the canopy, a point in Aegrid’s favor. One wore an enclosed metal helm bristling with horns and spikes, the other went bare scalped his eyes wide and menacing. Hopefully that one was a berzerker, she hadn’t had the chance to fight in close quarters with one of those yet. Aegrid grinned and swung the shield off her back, her hammer already raised for action. Then she charged.

Her mentor had once said that she fought like a ten keg evening. Which was to say that she did it loud and sloppy and that there were usually consequences the next morning. She couldn’t really argue with his logic. As she slammed into the closest Orc, shield first Aegrid remembered that Orcs had a much lower center of gravity than other large species and that their wide set shoulders and legs were as ideal for keeping their balance as her own stocky frame. The effort wasn’t completely wasted as the second Orc plowed into them both and promptly fell backwards onto his rump. The tree-bridge shook with his fall even as Aegrid was backpedaling to dodge a wild swing of the first Orc’s axe.

The Orc in back scrambled to his feet and bellowed something in his rough tongue. The other orc snapped back at him, distracted enough that Aegrid was able to get a blow in, her mallet connected squarely with the top of the Orc’s boot. The iron shod covering crumpled and clamped down on the toes underneath, mashing and pinching. Aegrid grinned as the Orc bellowed in anger.

An axe blade rose with its enraged owner’s intentions then caught fast as the spiked end of the axe buried itself deep in the wooden canopy of the bridge. Aegrid barked a laugh at the sight of the Orc with his weapon stuck in the ceiling above him. It was quickly muffled as the axe ripped free and swung in a jagged arch that bit out a massive chunk of the log’s sidewall, opening up a gap to the river below. Aegrid took a hasty step backwards and immediately regretted it, the Orc had a much larger reach than she did. He demonstrated this with ruthless efficiency as his axe slammed into her shield. She crashed into the damaged sidewall and felt it splinter underneath her weight.

As she’d predicted earlier the log bridge was an accident waiting to happen, though she didn’t have time to contemplate the irony as the sidewall gave way and dumped her into the river below. The water was numbingly cold, hardly warmer than the glacier that had birthed it, and it stole Aegrid’s breath as she flailed about. Heavy armor and weapons threatened to drag her down as she churned through the water, her legs pumping beneath the surface. By whatever Light blessed bit of fortune had still been afforded her she’d been knocked into a shallower part of the river adjacent to a small sandy island. Her feet quickly found purchase in the gravely riverbed and she wrenched herself into a standing position.

For a moment she thought that perhaps the Orcs had figured her done for, as they’d disappeared from the bridge above her. Then she heard them yelling in Orcish from the bank. Somehow in the moments she’d been fighting the river they’d multiplied from two to four. Aegrid swore viciously, they must have had an outpost near enough to hear the commotion. Two to one odds were just good enough to ensure a fight worth contributing to. Four to one odds were more than Aegrid had bargained on. Fortunately she’d listened to at least one of her mentor’s old axioms. Plan for the best, prepare for the worst.

As the Orcs streamed down the smooth slope and began to ford the river to where she stood she stowed her shield and yanked one of the grenades off her belt. She squinted upstream at the Orcs, mashed down on the compressor and yanked the pin free. The bright yellow happy face painted on the grenade’s end flashed merrily as she lobbed it in a high arc. It overshot the Orcs by some distance and landed in the beaver pond upstream. Aegrid could hear one of the Orcs laughing about it as she grabbed a second grenade and repeated the process. “Five, four, three…” Aegrid counted as she scooped her mallet up off the sandy island and hauled for the safety of the near bank.

CRAK-DOOSH!

Aegrid looked over her shoulder in time to see the dam of wood and stone at the top of the small falls explode in a shower of water and timber. Two seconds later the other grenade exploded, this time taking out the straggling pieces of debris that had strained against the weight of the water. The river burst loose of its artificial restraints and poured over the lip of the fall in a gushing torrent. One of the Orcs grunted out some sort of warning, but it was too late. Foaming whitewater closed over their heads and swept the armor laden Orcs over the rough shoals. Aegrid wasted no time in hauling herself up the steep riverbank and back out onto the road. If the Orcs didn’t drown she doubted they’d waste much time before coming to looking for her and she planned on being long gone by then.

By the time Aegrid dragged herself up the final slope to the Amberpine Lodge her armor and hair were full of pine needles and other evidence of a hard slog through the underbrush rather than an easy trek up the road. At the perimeter of the lodge she was met by a tall human in a long green cloak that obliged her with news that Emry had arrived safely with the mules some hours earlier, though most of the food items had been torn open and scattered halfway across the Hills during his mad flight.

The thought of food set Aegrid’s stomach to rumbling as the hooded human left her on the stoop of the lodge to knock the caked on mud and leaves off her boots while he reported her arrival to whatever boss was currently debriefing Emry. It would be anything but brief Aegrid was sure. With her boots somewhat cleaned off she stamped into the entry hall and looked around, stomach still complaining. To her surprise there was a bucket of fragrant nuts set aside on one of the chairs. There was something to be said for the human’s hospitality even in such trying times.

Usually Aegrid wasn’t much for foods that weren’t made out of meat but in a pinch she’d take these any day. The first mouthful revealed the hearty smoked flavor of the nuts. They certainly tasted as good as they smelled. She was still helping herself when the hooded man came back and promptly snatched the mostly empty bucket out of her hands. Apparently she’d overestimated the human’s hospitality and perhaps their common sense as well; she said as much when she was brought before the Lodge Master.

In hindsight that was probably a bad idea. She spent the remainder of the evening locked securely inside the Lodge’s only outhouse with her pants around her ankles. Per the Lodge Master’s orders she’d been locked inside with orders not to come out until she could return the Lodge’s property. Each cramp was accompanied by a string of multilingual cursing as she rode out the effects of the concoction that Emry and the Lodge Master had shoved down her throat. As soon as she passed these blasted nuts back to their owners she was going to put the Lodge, Emry and hopefully the bulk of the day’s events as far behind her as she could.

Tomorrow might be better, but today was just another $#!@ day in Northrend.