* * *
The raven soared, its superlative vision taking in the scene below in in detail that ripped at his heart. Even those with poorer sight would have been able to see the destruction, though; it was blatant, excessive, and seemingly everywhere. Amidst the healthy green of foliage, the bare spots, gray and black and burning, stood out starkly. One, and another, and another—
Medivh collapsed beside the font, barely able to plunge a hand into its restorative depths. Energy infused him, but more slowly and less thoroughly than it had in the past. He was drained dry, and recovered less completely each time he pushed himself. But he had to. It was his charge.
Moroes knelt beside him, calm, steady, eternal. The castellan had dwelt at Karazhan for a very, very long time. Longer than Medivh had. Longer than the previous Guardian, or the one before that. In his own way, he was as much a part of Karazhan as its stables, or its kitchen, or even its font of magic.
Quietly, sorrowfully, the older man asked, “Is it as you feared?”
Medivh pressed his lips together and nodded. He kept his arm in the font as he replied, his voice weak and cracking, “The fel. It’s everywhere.”
“Then you mustn’t leave again,” Moroes stated.
“They need a Guardian’s help now more than ever,” Medivh answered. His voice was so hollow, so terribly weary, even in his own ears.
“Maybe the boy could help,” his old friend suggested.
Could he? Khadgar had shown initiative and courage. Maybe he could. Wearily, Medivh turned his head to look at Moroes—and froze. He stared over the castellan’s shoulder, his eyes fixed on something or someone that might—or might not—have been there; a ghostly black form, pointing directly at him.
“Begone!” hissed Medivh. Moroes turned, but saw nothing.
* * *
Llane sat upon the great throne of Stormwind, and despaired.
It had taken this—an incursion of bestial creatures determined to wrest the entire world for themselves—for the diplomats currently scowling in front of him to even agree to meet. And now that they had gathered, no one seemed to want to listen.
Taria had often commented on her husband’s cool head—one that had not been nearly so cool in years past. Now, it seemed that he alone was keeping even a semblance of calm as those assembled ranted, protested, and took below-the-belt verbal strikes at one another.
The representative from Kul Tiras was holding forth. His people had recently tasted the fury of the orcs, and he was not about to let Llane forget it—though he himself seemed to forget that Elwynn Forest had been among the first targets.
“Stormwind, the high and mighty—always thinking itself better than the rest of us. You knew what would happen to us, yet we fought and fell alone. Where was your army as our ships burned?”
“My army is losing a regiment a day,” Llane replied. His voice was tight, even though he fought to stay calm.
“Stormwind, Kul Tiras, Lordaeron, Quel’thalas. Dwarf, human, and elf. All of us in peril—and all of us squandering precious time arguing among ourselves. We need to work together!”
The representative of Lordaeron scowled. “What we need,” he snapped, “are more weapons! Dwarven forges must work overtime.” He turned and regarded King Magni with an expectant expression, as if the dwarf ought to immediately start spitting out swords and battleaxes.
Magni was apoplectic. When he was able to manage words, they came out in strangled, staccato bursts. “You treat us no better than dogs! You refuse to protect us with the very weapons we make for you! We shall supply you no more!”
Llane leaped to his feet. “Enough!” he shouted. The raised voice of the normally mild king silenced the bickering—for the moment. Everyone turned to look at him. “All of you have called on Stormwind in the past. Either for troops or arbitration. If we do not unite to fight this enemy, we will perish. Stormwind needs soldiers, arms, horses—”
“Ha! We have our own kingdoms to look after!” shouted Magni.
“Fight your own wars!” added the Lordaeron representative.
The doors swung open. Lothar marched in, Varis following a step behind. Everyone turned at the interruption. Both men were dirty and sweaty, and Lothar had a wild but determined look in his blue eyes that Llane recognized. Whatever this was, it was bad.
“The orcs are building a portal,” Lothar stated bluntly, “through which they plan to bring an army. If we do not stop them now, we may never get another opportunity.”
The two old friends locked eyes. Unspoken was the question that the elven representative had no trouble articulating.
“Where is he?” he demanded, his musical voice rising with his anger—and, likely, his fear. His robes whirled about him as he turned back to Llane. “Where’s the protector of Azeroth?”
“Aye!” the Kul Tiras representative chimed in. “Where is the Guardian?”
Taria leaned over and whispered to her husband, “Where is Medivh?” Llane’s jaw clenched and he took a deep breath, forcing calm upon himself as he turned to address the gathering.
“I suggest we take a recess—”
“Take as long as you like,” the Lordaeron representative interrupted as he and his companions rose. “We’re done.” A courier shoved his way through the departing Lordaeron group, handing a missive to Varis. Varis read it quickly, then approached Lothar.
“Commander,” Varis said quietly, “what’s left of the Fourth has retreated from Stonewatch.”
“What’s left?” Lothar echoed. His face had paled beneath its layer of sweat and grime.
Varis hesitated, then said, “Callan is among the injured.”
Llane had overheard, and despite the disaster unfolding in front of him, he did not hesitate. “Take the gryphon. Go.”
* * *
Lothar flung open the canvas door of the makeshift field hospital tent, heading straight to the figure on a bed. His boy’s eyes were closed, but as if sensing his father’s presence, Callan turned and managed to partially sit up.
His boy. His, and Cally’s.
Light, but the boy looked so much like his mother, it cut Lothar every time he laid eyes on him. The sandy brown hair, the gentle hazel eyes. Seeing him lying here reminded Lothar of the last time he’d seen his wife. The beloved face had been pale as milk, circles of pain underneath her eyes like bruises. She’d always been so fragile, his little Cally. Too fragile.
There were no bandages wrapped around his son’s slender body, no white saturated with red, and he remembered a day when there had been red, too much red. Callan had only a gash on his forehead. It did not look too bad, but Lothar took his son’s head in his hand and turned it this way and that, checking. Callan regarded him almost sheepishly, with his mother’s hazel eyes.
“Dad,” he said. “I’m fine. It’s fine.”
Lothar forced a smile. Those eyes had nothing of him in them, they were all hers.
“You had me worried,” Lothar admitted. There was an awkward silence, then he added, trying for a little levity, “You should have been a baker, like I wanted.”
“Too dangerous,” Callan deadpanned. “All those oven burns.”
Lothar found himself chuckling. When he was very young, Callan had stated that he wanted to be a soldier. Lothar had replied, “Wouldn’t you like to be a baker instead? Think of all the cakes you could eat!” Callan had thought about it for a moment, head cocked to the side in a gesture so much like Cally that Lothar’s heart had felt like lead. And the child answered, “Well, I bet lots of people would be happy to bake cakes for soldiers, ’cause they’re so brave.” When Lothar had mock-complained that no one made cakes for him, Callan had suggested that Lothar himself become a baker.
He was surprised, and moved, that Callan remembered the moment. He ruffled his son’s hair, his hand not quite knowing how to do so, and looked around. He’d been so focused on his son that he hadn’t realized that Callan was the infirmary’s sole occupant. A chill settled over him.
“Where’s the rest of your troop?” Callan shook his head. “They can’t all be dead!”
“They took most of us alive,” Callan answered. “They—people are saying that they eat us—”
“Fear-mongering,” Lothar said, though the reality facing the prisoners was possibly even worse. Callan winced slightly at the harshness of his father’s voice, and Lothar gentled his tone. “You hear the same stories about every enemy, every war. Don’t worry, son. We’ll get them back.” Callan immediately sat up, as if he was about to head out right now. Lothar placed a hand on his chest. “Don’t be in such a hurry.” He played with Callan’s rumpled uniform, smoothing it, as he had done when the boy was small. “You’re all I have,” he said, softly.
Callan endured it for a moment, then squeezed his father’s arm—a gesture of appreciation, but also of rejection. Lothar removed his hand.
Callan’s face looked strangely old on such a young man; the expression of one who had seen too much. “Dad. I can do this. I’m a soldier.”
Lothar thought about the violence the orcs had displayed in their attack. He imagined his gentle-natured, somewhat shy son battling for his life against the oversized monsters, which were shockingly strong and eerily fast for their size.
Tell him, he thought. Tell him that he’s brave—maybe braver than you were, at that age. Tell him you love him, and you’re proud of him.
Tell him… it wasn’t his fault.
Lothar only nodded, and turned to leave.
12
“Garona, pull your hood down and ride between us,” Karos said in a low voice. His head was bandaged and his face was bruised, but considering he had been knocked unconscious by an orc chieftain, he was in good shape.
Garona heard the sound of horses and carts behind them. They were no longer alone on the road, now that they were on the outskirts of Elwynn. She was not afraid of a handful of farmers, but a scuffle would serve nothing. She obeyed, and observed. More and more humans joined them on the road, funneling in like small rivulets that swelled a stream to become a river, until at last, at the castle gates, it was not even a river any longer, it was an ocean.
Thousands of refugees thronged here, with the wide, frightened eyes that Garona recalled from countless cages. She caught sight of one of the short, barrel-chested beings that were known as “dwarves.” He was attempting to lead a spooked pony pulling a small wagon. A female dwarf and two small children clung to one another inside, glancing about worriedly at the angry human tide swirling about them.
One of the harried-looking guards held up a mailed hand, forbidding the dwarf passage. “Them first!” he shouted.
The dwarf’s brows drew together. “I work in the Royal Armory, man!” he bellowed.
“Find a cave to hide in, dwarf!” a human, safe in the anonymity of the crowd, shouted angrily. Others began to jostle the cart, and one of the children cried out for her father. Any patience the dwarf might have had had clearly evaporated long ago, and he reached back into the wagon and grasped a hammer so large Garona marveled that he was able to wield it.
“I’ll ‘cave’ your skull, you stinkin’—”
“This is unacceptable,” Karos muttered. Louder, he called, “Sergeant! Muster a line up here! We’ll have order or we’ll be closing the gates until we do!” He turned on the people who had been shoving the cart. “Kaz is making weapons for all our safety. Not one more word out of you.”
The dwarf nodded his thanks, his face flushed, and was permitted through. Karos and Garona started to follow, but Khadgar caught Garona’s arm. “I need to gather my research. Tell the king what happened. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
* * *
Khadgar’s mind was awhirl. The same orc who had looked at him with calm intelligence when he had erected a protective dome around himself and Medivh during the initial fight with the orcs had captured him, covered his mouth with a hand the size of a trencher, and then released him unharmed. Not just unharmed—with a request to work with the humans to bring down Gul’dan and the fel.
He inserted the key in the lock of his room’s door. He had never been more afraid in his life, and then never more… well… honored, than when this powerful orc chieftain, Durotan, had given him what was obviously a friendly—
“What is this?”
Khadgar jumped about a foot in the air and lifted his hands reflexively for an attack spell, but recognized the intruder in time to bite back the incantation.
“Guardian!” He felt the panicked energy bleed out of him, leaving him weak with relief. He struggled to get his mind working again and answer the obviously furious Medivh’s question. The Guardian was gesturing at the clutter of notes, open books, and drawings that papered the room. When Khadgar had run out of flat space, he had taken to hanging them from string, as if he were a washerwoman hanging laundry. Notes were, almost literally, everywhere. “The gate… We saw it! In the Morass! I’ve been putting together all the clues I can about it.”
“This,” Medivh demanded, gazing at a sketch he held. “This drawing. Where did you copy it from?”
Khadgar felt like a bird mesmerized by a snake. He stared, knowing he looked foolish, feeling even more so as he tried to collect his thoughts. He didn’t understand Medivh’s anger. “G—Guardian?”
Medivh snatched a piece of parchment dangling from one of the loops of string “And this? And this?”
Another, and another. He marched up to Khadgar and shoved one of the pieces in the boy’s face.
Khadgar’s hands and his voice both shook as he replied, the sweat of genuine fear popping out on his brow. What had he possibly done wrong?He swallowed, his mouth as dry as the parchments that were crushed in Medivh’s hands. “I’ve been researching ever since I felt the presence of the fel.”
“I’m the Guardian! Me.” Medivh moved closer, forcing Khadgar back one step, then another, bearing down on him. “Not you. Not yet.”
Khadgar tried one last time. “I just thought that you might appreciate some help…”
Khadgar stared into the bloodshot, blue-green eyes of the one who was supposed to be the protector of the world. And who, he was fairly certain, was about to kill him.
A heartbeat later, every single note, scribbling, illustration, and map that he had worked so hard on went up in magical fire. They burned swift, hot, and utterly, not even leaving behind ashes. It was as though they had never been.
“Don’t presume you can aid me. You have no idea of the forces I contend with.” He took a deep breath and steadied himself. “If you want to help, protect the king. You leave the fel to me.”
He turned to depart. Khadgar sagged against the wall, relieved. For exactly one heartbeat. Then he saw what was on a chair beside the door.
The runic book he had “borrowed” from Karazhan.
Don’t let him see it, Khadgar willed. Medivh was halfway through storming out the door. Don’t let him see it, don’t let him—
The Guardian paused midstride. He froze, then as Khadgar shrank inwardly, Medivh’s head turned slowly and he stared directly at the book.
Silence.
The Guardian, moving deliberately, picked up the book and looked at it. He did not turn around. The young mage was slightly surprised he wasn’t incinerated on the spot.
“Interesting choice.” The Guardian’s words were icy.
“Guardian…” I can explain, Khadgar thought wildly. There was a sudden flare in his hand as the sketch he’d forgotten he was holding turned into a sheet of flame and disappeared. By the time he looked up, Medivh had already gone.
* * *
“He would not ask for this meeting if he thought he could defeat Gul’dan alone,” Llane stated. He was seated on his throne, flanked by Lothar and several other advisors whom Garona did not know. His queen sat in her own throne beside her husband, smiling kindly down at the orc woman. “The fel must truly terrify him.”
Garona bridled on the Frostwolf’s behalf. “Durotan is scared of nothing.”
“The location, the suddenness of the meeting… it sounds like a trap, Your Majesty.”
Garona shot him an angry look. “It’s not.”
“It could be.”
She glared at him, her nostrils flaring at the implied insult to both her and Durotan. Lothar returned her gaze without flinching, his blue eyes boring into hers. “It is not!”
“What do you think?” Lothar asked, appealing to his friend.
Llane. “It’s too good an opportunity to ignore. I think we have no choice. We must stop the orcs from opening the portal. That’s a given. But we will need help.”
“And if he’s lying?” Llane wanted to know.
Garona shot him a look. “Orcs do not lie.”
“What if he is?”
“There is no honor in it!” Garona said, as if that explained everything.
“And where’s the ‘honor’ in him betraying his own people?” Lothar challenged.
She turned back to him, to the assessment of those strange eyes. She had learned the human language enough to converse, but she was far from a master of its subtleties. How to convey who Durotan was? She was silent for a moment, choosing her words with care. Finally, she spoke.
“Durotan is protecting his clan. His enemy is the fel. Gul’dan is the betrayer.”
Still Lothar regarded her, gazing into her eyes as if searching her soul. She was not accustomed to such scrutiny. Most orcs treated her as if she were not even present. If they did acknowledge her, it was only to jeer at or spit on her—or worse. She had not lied to Khadgar and Lothar when she had told them her bones were very strong. She lifted her chin and did not look away.
Taria’s voice came to her. The queen seemed to have something on her mind. “This orc, Durotan… how do you know him?”
“He freed me… and he is loved by his clan. He puts their needs first. Always. He is a strong chieftain.”
“Strong chiefs must earn their clans’ trust.” Taria regarded her steadily, as Lothar had done, but with a compassion that made Garona shift her weight uncomfortably. Then the queen seemed to reach a decision. Her hand went to her narrow waist and deftly unfastened a small dagger. “If we are to expect you to join us, we must earn yours.” She handed the dagger to Garona. “To defend yourself.”
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