Broken Tooth

When Diago arrived at the Orc camp, Masley Bearhide was searching the tents one by one. He held two leather bags, each about the size of half a watermelon. He tossed one over. "This one's yours. Good stuff."

"What is it?" Diago caught it casually and asked.

"A Felcloth Bag," the Night Elf said without looking up, intent on rummaging through the heap of odds and ends. "I used to have a Mooncloth Bag about this size, but some Orc nicked it when I was captured at Ragefang Camp. Never found it afterward, either. This will have to do for now. Just smells a bit."

Diago knew what a Felcloth Bag was. He had owned one before crossing over, but he had always wondered how these bags could hold so much. He turned it over eagerly in his hands, examining it from every angle. These two expensive bags were probably the last of the Ragefang Tribe's wealth, likely carried by Gorfork while transporting supplies some time ago.

The bag was blackish with a slight purple tint, with a strange pattern in the middle that Diago guessed might be some kind of demonic script. It was made from two pieces of material sewn together with thick purple leather thread, and looked very sturdy. Several eyelets lined its mouth, with a leather cord of the same material threaded through them to draw it shut. Despite the name, Diago suspected it was actually sewn from demon skin. It was stiff, with the texture of hide.

Diago untied the drawstring and pulled the bag open. A strong smell of sulfur immediately assailed his nose. Holding his breath, he peered inside. To his surprise, the interior was pitch-black; he could see nothing. Thinking the light was too dim, he walked out of the tent and held its mouth toward the sunlight, but he still could not see anything. It was as though a black hole inside the bag swallowed even sunlight. Surprised, he turned it upside down and shook it, but nothing fell out.

Out of caution, he did not rashly put his hand inside. Instead, he drew a long arrow from the quiver on his back and carefully inserted it. Amazingly, the entire arrow went in, though the bag's length should have made that absolutely impossible.

This thing had to be some kind of magical creation. Perhaps a spatial spell had been made permanent on the leather bag; its interior was nowhere near as small as its exterior suggested.

"This bag should be safe. At least before I crossed over, I never heard of anyone finding a trap in their Felcloth Bag," he said, deceiving himself. The truth was that he could no longer contain his curiosity and was desperate to investigate.

He took a deep breath and slowly slid his hand into the bag-which looked as though it could hold only his two hands-and felt around, but touched nothing. After a moment's thought, he pictured the arrow. He felt something appear in his palm again, and just like that, when he withdrew his hand, the long arrow came out with it!

"Now that really is amazing!" Diago exclaimed with heartfelt admiration. Although he knew this world held many incredible things, he was astonished once again. Eagerly, he put his belongings inside and took them out one by one: arrows, his longbow, the two hand axes he had just recovered, his archery glove, and even his stinking, battered boots with two holes worn through them. He tried putting them all inside. Like a child with a new toy, he had a wonderful time.

He was not merely playing, however. After many attempts, he worked out some of the bag's uses. There was no size limit on the objects it could hold. Placed at its mouth, an item would be drawn inside according to the user's will, but it could hold no more than sixteen items. Things such as arrows could be stored in greater numbers. Perhaps, by the bag's rules, many identical small objects counted as one item.

In the end, the Night Elf, who had searched the entire camp, interrupted his experiments.

"We need to hurry. Those Dwarves sent some of their people off to capture slaves, too," Masley reminded him, pleased that he had finally been the steadier of the two for once.

Diago agreed wholeheartedly. After one final sweep of the camp, they set off traveling light-and light they truly were, with their dry rations and other supplies all packed in the bags. If not for needing easy access to them in a fight, Diago would even have stuffed his axes and bow and arrows inside.

There was nothing particularly remarkable about the battle that followed. They waited north of the Uldaman excavation site for half a day before the Dark Iron Dwarves returned from hunting escaped slaves. After a relatively easy ambush, the slaves were freed. To the two of them, the newly freed slaves were far harder to handle than the Dark Iron Dwarves. Their enthusiasm could practically have melted dark iron. Masley Bearhide, in particular, had to steel his resolve several times to resist the Bronzebeard Dwarves' invitation to drink fine wine with them in Thelsamar.

"We should go, too. We still have a long way ahead," Diago said quietly, watching the disappointed former slaves walk away. He turned back and saw the Night Elf furtively wiping drool from the corner of his mouth.

"Come on. I hear the Dark Iron Dwarves have plenty of good liquor, too," he said enticingly, looking for all the world like someone dangling a carrot on a stick before a donkey.

With the persistent trouble behind them finally resolved, the two felt much lighter, rid of the maggots that had clung to their bones. With open hearts and buoyant steps, they took the road south.

This was a small basin in the central Badlands. Unlike the gravelly ground elsewhere, its soil was loose and fine-grained, somewhere between sand and silt. Whenever a hot wind blew, clouds of dust swirled into the sky. That was how it had earned its name-Dustwind Gulch, a dry river valley covered in dust and windblown sand.

Diago and Masley were lying behind a small mound, watching a slab of rock fifty meters away through the cover of several bushes. A thick, fatty slice of meat lay on the rock. Several greenbottle flies buzzed above it, occasionally landing to stroll around and lick up a little of its delicious juices.

A few paces from the rock, a Yellow Leopard paced back and forth. It glanced at the meat from time to time, then warily surveyed its surroundings, as though longing for the meal but fearing it might be a trap.

In fact, its concern was justified. Hidden from its sight beneath the slab was a Freezing Trap Diago had painstakingly set. The moment it came within range, he would trigger it without hesitation.

The mountain leopard had pale yellow fur without spots, a protective coloration in the yellow-earth landscape of the Badlands. A thick mane grew from the back of its head to behind its shoulders. The mane was slightly darker and looked rather stiff, unlike a lion's soft, flowing mane. Two tear-shaped markings descended from the corners of its eyes on either side of its nose, extending down to its nostrils.

Excluding its tail, the leopard was about two and a half meters long and probably weighed over five hundred pounds, making it a giant among the relatively small mountain leopards. A pair of saber-toothed-tiger-like canines grew from its upper jaw, one apparently broken off halfway. This did nothing to diminish the beast's imposing appearance. On the contrary, it made it look even fiercer.

The Yellow Leopard circled the meat several times but refused to approach. This worried Diago a little. The meat came from a vulture they had killed a few days earlier. Although he could make vulture meat somewhat less unpalatable, neither of them could quite stomach eating a carrion bird. It did, however, make convenient bait. In this hot weather, the meat had already begun to rot, and Diago was unsure whether the Yellow Leopard would still be interested in it.

Unlike what Diago had seen in the game before crossing over, beasts in Azeroth usually chose to flee when they saw humans rather than charge in and fight, especially when they were not particularly hungry. In their eyes, humans were more dangerous to beasts than beasts were to humans. And if this Yellow Leopard took fright and ran, Diago could never catch it, no matter how hard he tried.

"I am a stone. I do not move. I breathe slowly. I let it come closer..."

Diago murmured under his breath. For a moment, he felt like Vasily in Enemy at the Gates, lying hidden in the snow and ice, waiting for a wolf to approach. Only Vasily had been waiting for a wolf, while he was waiting for a Yellow Leopard.

Just then, the Night Elf's voice interrupted his reverie.

"It's called Broken Tooth? It looks very clever. Do you think we can catch it?" Masley whispered. This curious fellow always had plenty of questions.

Diago turned and gave Masley a stern look. The latter immediately fell silent, but as soon as the hunter turned back toward the Yellow Leopard, he spoke again.

"Are you sure you don't need me to help with Beast Soothing?"

"Shut up!" Diago whipped his head around so sharply that the Night Elf worried he might fling it clean off. "Keeping quiet would be all the help I need."

This deeply hurt the Druid, who had been brimming with eagerness to help. But Diago had no time to comfort this sensitive overgrown boy; he was waiting for the beast to take the bait.

When he turned back, he was disappointed to find the beast gone. The rotten bait still lay quietly atop the trap, completely untouched.

"Ah, another failure..." Diago sighed and slid dejectedly down from the crest. He glanced at the aggrieved, teary-eyed youngster and felt he ought to soothe the big boy after all.

"Other classes have a hard time understanding a hunter's obsession with pets," Diago said gently, patting the Night Elf's shoulder. "Can a hunter without a pet even be called a hunter?"

As though something had occurred to him, he turned and gave the Druid a look full of mischief.

Though he said nothing, Masley immediately understood what that look meant. He sprang up, his hair standing on end.

"No! Don't even think about it!" he raged, nothing like the self-pitying figure of a moment earlier.

Diago sighed again. Before he crossed over, how many hunters had dreamed of catching a Druid as a pet? Judging by Masley's reaction, plenty of Darnassus's elven hunters clearly shared that idea. Perhaps someone had even put it into practice.

Diago remembered that during The Burning Crusade, Muereseek, a lord of the Underbog, had been famous among hunters, because he was the only hunter who had successfully captured a Druid as a pet. When they had rescued that captured elven Druid back then, his words had been unforgettable: "You have to understand how humiliating it is for a Druid to be captured by a hunter as a pet!"

Clearly, the Night Elf Masley Bearhide was angry. This time, he was truly angry, and the consequences were serious. For several days straight, he did not speak to Diago. Even several carefully prepared meals failed to soothe his fury. He would rather gnaw on his sulfur-flavored dry rations than share Diago's food. Things looked genuinely bad.

This left Diago somewhat irritable. He was not very old himself; even before crossing over, he had been only twenty-eight. As a homebody, how mature could he really have been? He was plainly unsuited to playing the understanding older sister.

What irritated him even more, however, was that the Yellow Leopard had not appeared for a long time. It seemed the suspicious beast had realized danger was approaching.

That was not a good sign. Based on Diago's experience before crossing over, Broken Tooth had no fixed den in the Badlands. It preferred roaming the wilderness, and Dustwind Gulch was simply the place it appeared most often. If it sensed danger here, it might never return.

Although reluctant to admit defeat, Diago still felt this trip might end up being wasted. He decided to wait another three days. If there was still no sign of Broken Tooth, they would continue west to Searing Gorge.

Yet luck always arrived when least expected. On the morning of the third day, Diago stepped out of the tent to relieve himself and was astonished to discover Broken Tooth strolling leisurely along the gully just below his feet, a little over two meters beneath the rock. The Yellow Leopard looked completely at ease.

At that moment, Diago felt his entire being fill with overwhelming happiness. Without hesitation, he leaped high, spread his limbs in midair, and pounced toward the Yellow Leopard's back. In that instant, he thought neither of Freezing Trap nor Beast Soothing. A hunter's wild instincts drove him to envelop the beautiful beast like a great net.

Broken Tooth was badly startled by this sudden "attack" and nearly flattened by Diago landing on it. But once it understood its predicament, the Yellow Leopard immediately began running for its life.

The clever Yellow Leopard did not run blindly. It deliberately chose difficult terrain, sometimes plunging headfirst into thorn thickets like a wild boar. Diago suffered terribly for it. Having only just awakened, he had not put on his leather armor. The sharp thorns easily tore through his shirt, cutting wounds deep enough to expose bone.

But Diago did not let go. His hands clasped beneath the Yellow Leopard's neck, locked together as firmly as a dead knot. His legs clamped tightly around the big cat's waist, entwining it like two snakes.

"Come with me. I promise you'll eat and drink like a king. Oh, right, I don't know whether you drink... You can have meat every day, all fresh. How well done do you like it? Raw is fine, too. Dripping blood, absolutely delicious..." Diago babbled incoherently. Although he could convey his thoughts to the beast through a soul link-a closely guarded secret of hunters, something even mages could not do-he still liked to speak while transmitting them. It was purely a matter of habit and did not affect the communication.

The Yellow Leopard was evidently unmoved by the promise of good food. It abruptly changed tactics, rolling over and sliding forward on its back. Rough rock scraped across Diago's back, carving furrows into it. In places, entire patches of skin were peeled away, exposing red muscle and white tendons beneath.

"All right, I'll take you all over Azeroth instead of staying in this godforsaken place. You'll see the sea, mountains, thick forests, endless grasslands..." Diago continued rambling. In truth, even he did not know what he was saying-his whole body hurt. But that did not matter. The most important part of taming a beast was to keep talking, overwhelming it with as much information as possible. It was essentially a con: if you could talk it into submission, you had succeeded. A sketch comedian from northeastern China before Diago crossed over had been especially gifted in that respect. More than once, Diago had imagined that if that uncle could cross over to Azeroth, he would surely be a Beast Master hunter. Of course, talk alone was not enough. You had to convince your chosen beast that you were powerful and worth following; even by the law of the jungle, you were a mighty creature of the wilderness, and submission was its only way out.

Broken Tooth kept racing through the wilderness, darting through every gap and heading for the narrowest places. Finally, it even charged beneath a fallen dead tree. Diago, on its back, slammed hard into the trunk. Unlike the earlier scrapes and scratches, this was a solid, head-on collision. He even heard a sharp crack as his skull caved in.

Diago grunted and nearly fainted. Had he not been holding on so tightly, he would almost have been knocked off the leopard's back. An enormous swelling rapidly rose on top of his head. But even this failed to interrupt his endless chatter.

"I'll show you the world. Humans, Dwarves, Orcs, Trolls... Every race in Azeroth, we'll go see them all. Maybe someday we'll even go to Outland to see the Draenei, and to Pandaria to see the Pandaren. Can you imagine? An intelligent race covered in fur just like you. Heh..." Diago felt himself on the verge of losing consciousness, but he still clung tightly to the beast. He failed to notice that Broken Tooth was gradually slowing. After all, cheetahs were not known for endurance; their strength lay in high-speed sprints.

"We'll try everything we've never tried. We'll explore with curiosity, adventure with courage, and live wonderfully. You have to believe me. I'll give you a different life, I promise. Right, you're a leopard, so a wonderful leopard's life. Your kind will be green with envy..." Diago rambled groggily. He felt exhausted beyond measure. What he wanted most was a large, soft velvet bed and a good sleep, but he stubbornly kept himself from passing out.

Just then, the Yellow Leopard finally admitted defeat and collapsed in exhaustion. Beside it, the human hunter finally loosened his arms and legs. He lay flat on the ground with his limbs splayed, one hand and one foot still pinned beneath the Yellow Leopard.

Oh no, why did I let go? Will you take the chance to run away, big cat? If you do, I'll never catch you again. The thought drifted hazily through his mind, and then he lost consciousness entirely.

A quarter of an hour later, the surrounding grass parted. The Night Elf Druid had followed their trail, and his black panther form poked its head out from behind the grass.

"Heavens, did you just take a trip to Skinning Hell?" Masley cried in shock. Before him, Diago Asnar had barely an inch of intact skin left. He looked like a tattered rag doll trampled by a giant bear.

"Well, it looks as though we'll have to delay at least another week before we can leave." The Night Elf crouched and pressed Diago's chest. It was sunken, and more than one rib appeared to be broken.

"Perhaps longer," he added.