The stench hit him first. Ash, burning meat, and fel rot thick in the air. Vikstone looked down from the parapets of Honor Hold at the horde stampeding toward the gates. Fel orcs, demons, and warlocks, butchering everything in their path. Winged demons swooped from the blood-red sky, razor talons ripping defenders from the wall.

“Archers … release!”

At their commander’s signal, the archers atop the wall unleashed a volley of arrows into the swarm. Those killed were replaced by an endless wave of reinforcements, felhounds vaulting over their own dead in a mad rush to reach the front gate.

Vikstone ducked low, a winged demon’s claws slicing the air above him. A backhand swipe sheared through one of the demon’s wings, sending it spiraling with an agonized shriek.

Fel orcs surged forward, red skin slick with sweat and blood, bellowing war cries that shook the earth. Safely out of arrow range, their pit lord commanders called out instructions from the rear, conducting a symphony of carnage.

The fel orcs swarmed to the base of the wall, clawing their way upward. As the first orc pulled itself up over the edge, a dwarven defender greeted it with a swing of her axe, sending the invader plummeting back into the writhing mass below. The soldier grinned in triumph—until an arrow, black with fel magic, sprouted from her throat, her expression frozen in disbelief as she toppled from the wall.

Infernals crashed down from the heavens, monstrous behemoths of stone and flame. Each impact sent a shockwave through the battlefield, scattering men and orcs like broken marionettes. The ground cracked and smoldered beneath the creatures’ steps.

Two of the beasts, each fifteen feet tall, charged the outer gate and smashed into it. Shattered wood and twisted iron exploded outward as the gate cracked and buckled, tearing free from its moorings to hang lopsided. Demonic felguards scrambled through the breach, their blackened axes raised.

With a roar, Vikstone leapt from the parapet toward an unsuspecting infernal, twin elven blades in hand. He landed on the beast’s shoulders and stabbed diagonally downward at its neck from both sides, burying his blades deep. The stone monstrosity stumbled, reaching over its shoulder, but the elf had already circled to the opposite side, dragging his embedded blades around the creature’s neck.

With a sharp kick, he sent the decapitated head falling free, backflipping away as the infernal toppled, lifeless. He dove into a roll, evading a pair of leaping felhounds, which collided with each other midair, jaws snapping.

“Hold the breach!” The paladin, Mardagan, thundered into the fray, his seven-foot frame encased in battle-scarred plate armor that glimmered in the glow of fel fire. The human’s thick, greying beard was singed at the edges, his blue eyes cold, as he charged at the demons. For all his bulk, he moved with a veteran’s precision, swinging his greatsword in wide arcs.

Mardagan cleaved one of the attacking felhounds in half as Vikstone dispatched the other. The two old friends exchanged a nod before rushing to defend the fractured gate, Vikstone sheathing his blades and switching to a spiked mace and a round iron shield with a six-inch spike in the center.

All around them, the hold’s defenders—a ragtag band of humans, elves, and dwarves—rushed to meet the demonic charge. Before any of them could reach the gate, it burst open under the force of a pit lord’s hammer.

 

 

Mardagan let out a short laugh as they looked up at the creature. It stood over twenty feet tall, its four legs sheathed in armored scales, its demonic torso crackling with green fel energy. In its clawed hands, it held the colossal enruned hammer that had just obliterated their gate.

“You ever fought one of these things?” Mardagan said.

“Can’t say that I have,” Vikstone said, circling to flank the monster. 

Mardagan grinned from across the beast. “Shadows always fade, brother.”

Vikstone tightened his grip on his mace.

“Come at me, freak!” Mardagan roared. “You look like a blindfolded toddler tried to draw a centaur.”

The pit lord’s eyes flared as it bore down on them, ground shaking beneath its feet. Its hammer came around in a low sweep, faster than something that size had any right to move. Unable to leap back, Mardagan stepped forward instead.

The paladin brought his greatsword across in a short strike, splintering the hammer’s handle. The six-foot head punched through the hold’s wall—another breach.

The impact knocked Mardagan flat, his sword torn from his grip. The pit lord glared down at him, raising the broken handle to impale him.

Vikstone launched through the air, bringing his mace down to crush the demon’s right hind leg. With a howl, the pit lord whirled on the warrior, raising its arms to the sky.

“Back!” Mardagan scrambled to his feet, flexing his sword hand.

Vikstone dove aside as the skies unleashed a torrent of fel energy. It clipped his left leg as he rolled, sending him spinning. He kicked off his greave—glowing with fel corruption, scalding his skin.

“Shield!” Mardagan called.

Vikstone dodged a swipe from the pit lord’s spiked tail and launched his shield. It whistled through the air toward Mardagan, who snatched it, yelling at the pit lord to reacquire its focus.

“Over here!” Mardagan rattled off a series of protection spells.

The pit lord shambled toward the paladin, dragging its mangled leg. Mardagan glanced toward the night elf, who began scaling the tower wall. “Got somewhere to be?”

“I have a plan,” Vikstone said. “Bring him closer.”

“You’re a lunatic.” Mardagan rushed forward, his shield high. The paladin collided with the pit lord’s scaled torso and lifted.

At the top of the tower, nearly forty feet above the battle, Vikstone swatted winged demons from the sky, his fury building as he waited for his moment.

“Now.” The pit lord’s front legs were off the ground, the beast tilting off balance.

With a primal cry, the elf somersaulted through the night air before driving his mace down in a two-handed execution strike, shattering the pit lord’s skull.

Vikstone crashed to the ground, and the air blasted from his lungs. Nearby, Mardagan struggled to extricate himself from under the dead beast. “That was your plan?”

The night elf coughed as he gained his feet and lifted one of the demon’s giant legs off the paladin. “My successful plan.”

As they started toward the remnants of the front gate, a sharp cry from inside the hold stopped them. Vikstone’s heart sank. The refugees had begun to turn.

In the pen at the center of the fortress, nearly two hundred orcs huddled together—men, women, and children taken from surrounding villages and quarantined. Many wept and prayed as those around them convulsed. The fel corruption was overtaking them. Eyes burning with green fire, veins bulging black beneath their skin, the orcs transformed into the same monsters swarming the hold.

Vikstone and Mardagan exchanged a horrified look.

“Burn them. Burn them now!” the commander screamed—then a hurled boulder struck him from the parapet, crumpling his breastplate like paper.

Mardagan snatched a keg of oil and threw it into the pen. It shattered, coating the ground beneath the orcs. The refugees screamed as fel magic tore through them, transforming them into slavering monsters.

A pair of towering felguards advanced on Mardagan, driving him back as he parried their blows. “Vik, do it!”

Vikstone seized a torch—then froze. An orc child stared defiantly at him from the pen. A young boy not much older than his daughter. Then the child began to twitch, eyes turning putrid as the infection overtook him.

Vikstone threw the torch.

The flames spread across the pen, hungry and unforgiving. The screams multiplied, high-pitched, pleading. He told himself the fire was mercy. That they were already lost. That it was the only way to stop the corruption from spreading.

Vikstone collapsed to his knees. Around him, the battle raged, but all he saw was a single, perfect night lily growing through the blood-red soil. He plucked the luminescent flower. It wilted and crumbled to ash in his hands.

 

***

 

With a gasp, Vikstone bolted awake and staggered from bed, snatching a knife from the bedside stand as his green eyes swept the room. He found only his wife, Namarie, asleep in their bed. He moved to the window, covered in sweat, and drew in the cool night air of Elwynn Forest. Moonlight washed over his pale lavender skin, catching the silver streaks in his long blue hair. The stench of brimstone and charred flesh faded.

“The dreams again?” Namarie asked, hugging Vikstone from behind.

He nodded, his hands trembling as he leaned on the windowsill, unable to meet her gaze. His pulse pounded in his ears, each beat summoning the cries of those he had killed during the Burning Crusade.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Namarie said, reaching for his hand. Her voice and touch soothed his tremors as she took the dagger and set it on the windowsill.

“You don’t know that. You weren’t there.” He stared into the moonlight filtering through the forest.

“No, but I know you.” She cupped his chin and turned him to face her. Even now, trembling and haunted, her husband cut an imposing figure. Her thumb brushed the jagged scar across his cheek. “You’re a good man who was placed in an impossible situation.”

“Daddy, are you okay?”

Vikstone turned, his expression softening. His six-year-old daughter, Lunara, clung to his leg in a sleepy hug. “I’m fine, sweetie. Just had a bad dream.”
Lunara’s eyes lit up, and she rushed from the room, returning a moment later with a battered stuffed yeti dangling from her hand. A remnant from their last trip to the Darkmoon Faire.
“When I have scary dreams, Teddy Yeti always keeps me safe. He’ll protect you too, daddy.”
Vikstone crouched and pulled his daughter into a hug as she thrust the plush yeti out to him. “Thank you, my moonlight. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Without both of you.”
Vikstone scooped the giggling Lunara up and carried her to their bed, where she snuggled tight between her parents. Once they settled in, Namarie sang an ancient elven lullaby, her voice soothing her daughter and husband until both drifted to sleep beside her.

 

Stars above and branches sway,

Moon and night will guide your way.

Close your eyes, dear loves of mine,

Let dreams of Elune fill your mind.

 

***

 

Sunlight filtered through the treetops, dappling the ground with gold. The air inside the cabin was thick with morning dew and the smell of fresh-baked biscuits.

Vikstone sat at the table, Lunara perched on his lap. Her stuffed yeti stomped across the surface, knocking over cups and plates.

“Raaaar! I’m a monster,” Lunara growled, kicking the yeti’s leg into a cup of juice that Vikstone caught before it could topple.

Namarie, a perfect sprig of night lily in her hair, as usual, stood in the alcove off their kitchen where she kept her Elune shrine, her hands resting palm-down on the small altar, eyes closed. She held the pose a moment longer, then opened her eyes and smiled at them. “I think the little monster needs to eat her breakfast.”

Lunara looked up at Vikstone. “Can we ride the kitty later? Or the drake?”

Vikstone chuckled, shaking his head. “Next time they visit, sure.”

Lunara threw her head back in exasperation, stomping the yeti across the table and punching its foot through a biscuit. “Ugh. Can’t you just call them?”

Vikstone kissed the top of her head, removing the yeti’s foot from her breakfast. “They aren’t mine anymore. They’re retired, just like me and your mom. They live free now.”

“Flying monster! Raaaar!” Lunara steered the yeti through the air and into Vikstone’s face.

“Oh, you got me.” Vikstone tumbled backward out of his chair, cradling Lunara as he rolled with her, both of them laughing.

A knock on the door shattered their peace. A heavy steel gauntlet struck wood, rattling the plates on the table.

Lunara scrambled off her father’s lap and ran to her mother. Namarie emerged from the shrine, her eyes narrowing as she shared a knowing look with Vikstone. He righted the toppled chair and let out a steadying breath as he walked to the front door.

“Vikstone!” Mardagan walked in, decked out in full plate mail, dented and dinged from a thousand battles. The paladin pulled his old friend into a bear hug, lifting him off the ground as Vikstone struggled to break free.

Mardagan dropped him and turned with a wide grin toward Namarie, who looked far less happy to see him. He stomped into the kitchen, leaving a trail of mud and Elune knew what else in his wake. “Namarie Moonswept, how is it I keep getting older and you always look just as radiant?”

“Likely a result of a human’s mercifully brief lifespan,” Namarie said with a hint of a smile.

Mardagan laughed before crouching to look eye-to-eye with Lunara as she peeked out from behind her mother’s leg. “And could that be little Lu? Last time I saw you, you were knee-high to a kobold. I brought you something.”

“You did?” she gasped, eyes wide.

“Yep. It’s in here somewhere … and here we are.” From his backpack, Mardagan removed a tiny sheathed dagger and presented it to her. “This is Frostbite, which I crafted from the claw of the great frostwyrm Nal—”

As Lunara reached for the blade, Namarie snatched it away, scowling at the paladin. “Mardagan, she is six years old.”

He shrugged, rising to scope out the leftovers on the table. “What? When I was her age, I’d already felled my first deer.”

Vikstone shot Namarie an apologetic smile as he tried to herd Mardagan toward the door. “How about we go for a walk and you can get me caught up on the old crew?”

Before following, the paladin took a biscuit off the table, his brow furrowing as he examined the tiny yeti footprint in its center, before devouring it in a single bite.

 

*

 

“You’ve built a good life here,” Mardagan said, crouching as he skipped a stone across the lake.

Vikstone sighed. “Why can’t I shake the feeling that you’re here to ruin it?”

“I wish I could say you’re wrong, old friend. The Scourge situation in Northrend grows grim. The Lich King, Arthas, has returned, bringing with him the floating necropolis Naxxramas—I saw it with my own eyes over Dragonblight. We need every available warrior.”

Vikstone looked away, his eyes following a loon taking flight across the lake. “I am not among them.”

“He’s raising death knights, Vik.” Mardagan’s voice dropped. “Our old friends are getting back together to venture to Northrend and take the fight to the Lich King. Gabe and Calvey are already there.”

“I’m retired.” Vikstone’s voice was firm and almost mechanical, a conversation he had practiced a hundred times.

“A night elf, retired?” Mardagan laughed. “You have thousands of years left in you. Do you intend to spend them all planting flowers and skipping through the woods with your kid, while the world burns? You’re a warrior.”

“I was a warrior. And I have given enough. You of all people should know that.”

Mardagan skipped another stone across the water. This one veered right and thudded into a rotten log. “No one’s questioning your sacrifice, least of all me. We lost a lot of good people in the Burning Crusade.” He paused, his gaze distant. “On that note, we spotted Karg Bloodfury in the Borean Tundra.”

Vikstone’s fist clenched at the mention of the orc’s name. He let out a slow breath. “I don’t care. He’s someone else’s problem now.”

“You can’t hide here forever, Vik. The Lich King is coming. It’s not a question of if, only when.” Mardagan turned to face his friend. “Where are your weapons? Your armor? You’ve grown soft these past two years.”

Vikstone gestured to the distant silhouette of the capital city. “And you’ve grown more pigheaded. I live in the shadow of Stormwind, the heart of the Alliance. The greatest army in Azeroth trains a day’s march from my home. The war is over, Mardagan. We won.”

“The war has just begun. And it will come for us all, one way or another.”

 

***

 

Namarie’s head snapped toward the door as it opened. Vikstone entered alone. She rushed to his side. “Vik, you can’t go with him. Your life is here now, with your daughter.”

Vikstone sighed, glancing toward Lunara’s room. “The Lich King has returned, and Naxxramas has been spotted over Dragonblight.”

“A problem for the next generation of heroes. You and I have sacrificed enough,” Namarie said, taking his hand. “Mardagan has always been reckless, even by human standards. That man has never met a war he didn’t like. Every time you leave with him, less of you returns.”

“Namarie, I—”

“I won’t let him take you from us. Not again. We swore a pledge … for our daughter.” She lowered her head. “For us.”

“Hear me out … please,” he said, lifting her chin. “I told him no.”

Namarie gasped and pulled him into a fierce embrace. “Truly?”

“You have my word.”

“Daddy … are you leaving again?” Lunara stood in the doorway, eyes wide.

He crouched in front of her, meeting her sparkling violet eyes. “Nope. Daddy’s staying here with you and mommy. Right where I belong.”

“Yay!” Lunara cheered, throwing herself onto her father and sending them both tumbling in a flailing pile of limbs.

As Namarie smiled down at her husband and daughter rolling around together, laughing, the morning breeze through the kitchen window sent an unexpected chill through her.

***

 

Vikstone moved through the underbrush, bow in his left hand, an arrow notched but relaxed. The forest was his haven. The gentle rustle of leaves in the autumn breeze and the distant call of birds had become familiar comforts. He had traded the cold weight of steel for the presence of nature.

But today, something felt off.

The woods, normally alive with a symphony of sounds, were muted. The birds, always chattering amongst the branches, were silent, and no deer were in sight. He paused at a small patch of ferns.

The plants were withering, their leaves curled in on themselves like the fingers of a dying man, veins turned an unnatural black. He knelt to inspect them, his nostrils flaring at their putrid scent. A stench he knew all too well. Necrotic magic.

He rose, watching the trees as an icy shiver ran down his spine. Something foul had tainted this place.

The vibration reached him before the sound—a low, furious growl. Vikstone dove into a forward roll as a massive wolf’s jaws snapped shut behind him.

The night elf sprang to his feet, arrow notched, and turned on his attacker. The giant wolf’s eyes burned green, its flesh marred by rot, patches of fur sloughing off its decaying body, exposing sinew and bone.

“What in Elune’s name?” Vikstone loosed an arrow that thunked into the wolf’s side, piercing its heart.

Unfazed, the undead beast clamped its jaws on his right collarbone. Vikstone took an arrow from his quiver and stabbed the beast in the throat, which only seemed to aggravate it. Its teeth still buried deep in the elf’s shoulder, the wolf thrashed its head.

Vikstone’s collarbone gave way with a wet snap, the wolf tossing him like a rag doll. A white-hot rush of agony shot down his arm.

He snapped out of the daze and grabbed a rock with his left hand, bashing the beast in the face and knocking it aside. He drew his hunting knife and rose to his feet.

The wolf circled, moving in for the kill. It hit him full force and sent them tumbling to the ground together in a blur of fangs, claws, and steel. He struggled to keep it off his throat. Vikstone’s berserker rage, long buried, simmered deep, reigniting a part of himself he’d tried to leave behind.

Raw power coursed through Vikstone’s veins as he surrendered to the rage, his vision going red, and his pain briefly fading. Unable to use his ruined right arm for leverage, he instead clamped his teeth on the wolf’s neck, holding the thrashing beast in place long enough to drive his hunting knife into its brain.

Vikstone rolled the corpse off him, spitting the taste of decay from his mouth as he scrambled to his feet, nearly a mile from home. 

“Namarie. Lunara.” He broke into a staggered run, his right arm cradled tight against his side.

His senses clouded with pain, and his body was losing blood from half a dozen bite and claw wounds. He channeled his rage to keep himself upright as he shambled toward home. Cheeks stained with tears, he spotted the smoke rising ahead. He increased his pace, now moving at a dead sprint. 

“Namarie!”

His breath coming in ragged gasps, Vikstone hurdled roots and ducked under branches. His foot slipped on a moss-covered log, sending him stumbling into a tree with his broken shoulder. Darkness threatened to engulf him, but the image of his little girl kept him moving.

“Lunara …” he mumbled as he put one foot in front of the other, desperately clinging to consciousness.

 

*

 

Vikstone broke free of the treeline; the sight before him stopped him dead.

Plague cauldrons bubbled and hissed, their foul green contents spewing noxious fumes into the once-pristine sky of Elwynn Forest. The normally lush ground beneath his feet was blackened, grass curling into ash. The air was filled with the low, mournful wails of ghouls, their emaciated bodies twisted and spasming as they slaughtered any living creature in their path.

A shrill, terrified cry pierced the air.

“Daddy, help!”

Vikstone threw himself into the ghoul swarm, scattering them. He grabbed a dagger from a fallen guard and charged. Blood thundered in his ears as he let the rage guide him.

He barreled through the undead, exploiting one gap after another in their disorganized ranks, not stopping to fight lest he be overwhelmed by their sheer numbers.

His rage was the only thing keeping him upright as he lurched toward his home, visible now, surrounded by undead. “Namarie!” he called, drawing the attention of the swarm.

In the doorway of their home, behind a waist-high semi-circle of ghoul corpses, Namarie Moonswept howled as she jammed her twin daggers into both sides of a ghoul’s head, adding it to the pile. With a loud crash, ghouls smashed through a window in the house and climbed through to flank her.

“Lunara, stay close.” Namarie ducked under a ghoul’s claws. Her husband was staggering out of the sea of undeath, his face wild, barely recognizable beneath the blood.

Behind him, towering over the undead horde at nearly twice the height of the ghouls, stood their leader, a skeletal figure draped in dark, enruned robes. In one of his rotted eye sockets sat an emerald, casting a sickly green light over Vikstone.

Malthrax the Undying, one of the Lich King’s most trusted generals. 

“Behind you, Vik!” Namarie called, but it was too late.

As her husband emerged from the ghoul horde, the lich’s flail struck him square in the back, blasting the air from his lungs and hurling him face-first into the muck.

Namarie stepped forward to help, but she and her daughter were surrounded, ghouls now pouring through the windows to press in from all sides. 

“Lu, hold onto my leg as tight as you can, and close your eyes. Close your eyes, baby.”

Vikstone gasped for breath. His ribs were cracked, his vision narrowed from pain and blood loss. He reached a hand forward as he tried to crawl to his family. “Na … ma …”

Malthrax’s armored foot crashed down onto Vikstone’s back, grinding him into the mud with a wet crack of ribs.

Namarie continued hacking at ghouls with her blades, but the circle was closing, claw swipes now getting through her defenses to tear at her flesh. Lunara clung to her mother’s leg, her eyes clamped tight. “Mommy, I’m scared.”

Namarie tried to calm her daughter while slashing a ghoul’s reaching hand clean off. “I know, baby, I know. Just keep your eyes closed. Everything’s okay.” 

Malthrax watched the exchange, his iron boot continuing to overwhelm Vikstone. The moment it seemed the horde would overrun Namarie, the lich raised a hand, and the ghouls backed off.

Her breathing wild, her arms bloodied, Namarie faced the lich. “What do you want from us?”

Malthrax’s skeletal face widened into a sickening smile, his voice terrible. “I want … your souls.”

Ghouls strained to topple a nearby plague cauldron, sending a cloud of swirling corruption rolling toward their once idyllic home. The emerald in Malthrax’s eye flared brighter, its baleful glow washing over Namarie and Lunara moments before the toxic cloud engulfed them.

He tried to scream, but the weight of the giant lich stole his breath. For an instant, Vikstone felt a flicker of hope when he saw Namarie’s foot emerge from the cloud. Then she stepped fully into view.

His wife’s gentle smile had been replaced with a sneering, snarling maw of jagged teeth, her violet eyes now a venomous green. Namarie’s thin, elegant fingers were tipped with claws, and the howl that escaped her lips sent shivers down Vikstone’s shattered spine.

Malthrax had transformed his soulmate into a banshee.

And still clinging to her mother’s leg, Lunara had been similarly corrupted, her once adorable little face now warped and twisted with rage. She giggled and clapped her clawed hands as she watched Malthrax. “Squish him till he pops.”

“No …” Vikstone rasped before surrendering to his fate as the air was crushed from his lungs, the final blackness fast approaching.

A feral roar echoed through the valley. Stormclaw burst through the ghoul horde, covering the final twenty feet in a single bound and into Malthrax’s chest, blasting the lich into the mud. Vikstone’s old sabercat, Stormclaw, had joined the battle.

The air rushed back into Vikstone’s damaged lungs, leaving him coughing and sputtering. Next to him, Stormclaw bit and swiped at the lich—until Malthrax slammed her into the ground.

“I want to play with the kitty,” the little banshee said, drifting along. As they closed in, the wounded cat straddled Vikstone’s body protectively, prepared to die alongside her former master.

A screech pierced the air. Malthrax craned his head upward—a dark blur moving toward them. The projectile slammed into the ground, sending ghouls flying. The impact left a small crater, and standing at its center was Vikstone’s netherdrake, Veridian. Twice the size of a warhorse, her translucent green hide shimmered against the plague smoke as she shrieked at Malthrax, coiled and ready to pounce. 

Stormclaw used the distraction to grab Vikstone by the back of his shirt and flip his battered body onto Veridian’s back. As the undead swarmed in, Stormclaw pounced atop Vikstone and sank her claws deep into the drake’s flank to hold them both in place.

Veridian soared into the air, a pair of ghouls briefly dangling from her legs before losing their grip and plummeting into the horde. Vikstone’s last image before the blackness claimed him was his beloved Namarie staring up at him, her corrupted eyes filled with hate where love had been.

 

Nighthaven, One Month Later

 

The morning wind moved through the ancient trees of Moonglade and across the sacred waters of Lake Elune’ara, carrying a chill. A harbinger of winter. Thal’dorin, the elder of two night elf druids walking along the riverbank, pulled his cloak tighter around him as he looked to his younger companion.

“He’s awake?”

The younger druid, Feylana, nodded, her jaw tight. “He is. It is by Elune’s grace alone that he still draws breath, but he refuses to lie still long enough for our healing magics to do their work.”

Thal’dorin chuckled. “Such is the nature of warriors.”

They walked in silence for another moment before Feylana asked, “Respectfully, why are we treating a warrior in our sacred grove? There must be better—”

Thal’dorin silenced the young healer with a wave of his hand. “He is our guest because Namarie Moonswept is … was a great friend to our people. We owe her a debt that can never be repaid.”

“Of course, Master. I didn’t mean to …” Feylana’s voice trailed off at the sound of arguing from the Nighthaven Inn up ahead.

 

*

 

“Sir, please,” the innkeeper said, positioning himself between Vikstone and the stairs. “I have instructions to keep you in your bed for two more weeks.”

Vikstone pushed past the innkeeper, striding toward the door with a slight limp. “I’m fine, and I’m leaving.”

Feylana rushed up to Vikstone. “Okay, how about one week? Just to give your shoulder a chance to mend.”

He shrugged, lifting his right arm before wincing and continuing out. “Close enough.”

Thal’dorin blocked the doorway. “Your impatience is understandable, but you have not yet healed. You risk permanent—”

“My wife is out there. My little girl is out there. The monster who killed them is out there. You would have me rest while my wife is a banshee in service to a lich?”

“I cannot fathom your pain.” The druid smiled kindly, laying a hand on his bandaged arm and channeling Elune’s power, casting spells in rapid succession. “And your quest for vengeance is a righteous one. I wish only to ensure your success.”

“Noted,” Vikstone said, the soothing blue glow of healing magic seeping into him as he stared expectantly at the elder druid. Thal’dorin nodded and stepped aside, allowing the warrior to pass.

Outside, Vikstone whistled. A dark shadow passed overhead, growing larger until Veridian swooped to the ground, lowering her neck for him to climb into the saddle. With a grunt, he pulled himself up.

“Wait,” Thal’dorin said, extending a belt pouch. “Apply this mana thistle salve to your shoulder each night—lesser, perhaps, than the healing powers of Lake Elune’ara, but it should aid in your recovery.”

Vikstone accepted the pouch with a grateful nod. All around, druids stepped from buildings to see him off. “Thank you for your help. Send word to Mardagan in the Borean Tundra. Tell him I’m on my way.”

With that, Veridian raised her head, letting out a piercing cry as she took to the sky. The drake and her rider vanished over the horizon.

Thal’dorin looked after them, his voice barely a whisper. “May Elune guide him.”