I am running … the wind is cool and fresh in the dawn’s early light, blowing through my mane as I pound the soft earth beneath my hooves, stopping only at the crest of one of the low, rolling hills. Breathing deeply from my run, I inhale deeply the distinct smell of the plains – the sweet scent of the rich, green grass, mingled with the loamy, earthly richness of the fertile soil. The expense of long grass, swaying in rhythmic waves as the day brightens, extends as far my eyes could see.
Suddenly, I hear a shrill squeal behind me, and the ground around me erupts in twisting and entangling roots. As my quillboar enemies fall upon me, I draw my weapons, slashing and parrying blows, all the while straining to get my legs free from the deadly embrace of the roots. Slashing left and dodging right, I break free, barreling into the quillboar blocking my path. I run … this time in fear of my life … dodging and slashing at the endless stream of quillboars that seem to sprout from the ground. I feel my strength ebbing fast, and I know … it was only a matter of time … before … I stumble …
… and awake, sweating, heart pounding and gasping for breath, in my bed.
The dream … no, the nightmare … it is always the same. The same one I have had since I was a young calf, orphaned by the war with the quillboars. I had been left for dead, indeed, would have died, if not for the wandering Hunter. She had been tracking the marauding quillboar for days, in an attempt to kill their leader, known only as Sharptusk, for the bounty on his head (actually, his tusks, as I was to learn later on, which were of a distinct shape and sharpness).
Who knows why she stopped to help a hapless and half-dead young Tauren? I only know, from the stories told to me by my adoptive clan, that she coolly walked into their camp the next night, her pet cat by her side, startling the warriors *not* on sentry duty, and risking certain death from the assembled Tauren. Placing my bandaged, and barely alive body at the foot of the chief of the village, she unwrapped the bag on her other shoulder to and tossed the de-tusked head of Sharptusk next me. Once satisfied that her message was understood – that she had nothing to do with the death of my tribe, and had in fact avenged it, and saved me, she turned her back to the campfire and, as silently as she had come, disappeared into the night. The pandemonium that must have ensued after her departure was something I could not describe … suffice to say, many heads were cuffed that night for the fiasco of letting the intruder penetrate so deeply into the camp ….
…. Oh, did I forget to mention that the Hunter I owed my life to was a Night Elf?
