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XII
The temperature dropped. Snow pocked the cliff
faces, sitting white in shadows, behind rocks where the warm summer sun
couldn’t melt it. We finally crested the cliffs, flying up and over the
edge of the last one, nearly close enough for the griffin to brush it
with her claws, and suddenly, a beautiful, snow-covered, tree-studded
world spread out in front of us. “Welcome to Khaz Modan,” said the
dwarf. “It’s big, it’s cold, and it’s my home!”
“It’s the middle of summer!” I said, shivering
slightly. “What’s this place like in the winter?”
“Brutal,” he said. “Ye don’t go outside unless it’s
noon or yer a dwarf. We’re made of stone, ye know.”
“Madoran,” I said, “Fang called you a prince. What
are you the prince of?” The question had occurred to me to ask, but this
first view of the dwarven homeland made me think I knew the answer.
He spread his arms wide and looked over his
shoulder at me, grinning. “I am the prince of all that I see!” I nodded
and smiled. “My family has ruled Ironforge for a hundred generations.
Although, for the last five hundred years or so, it’s been the Stone
King and his emissary making all the decisions. No one’s sure how that
happened or when, but it’s turned my family into diplomats rather than
princes. Not a bad job, but not royal, either.” He muttered the last
couple of sentences, thoughtful. The Stone King is the Law, I thought. I
wonder how that’s going. “Anyway,” he said abruptly, “enough
about me.”
“You didn’t tell me about the book we’re in search
of,” I said, after a beat.
“Right, right, the book,” said Madoran heavily. “We
don’t know where it is, or who wrote it, or exactly what’s in it. We do
know that it is a thick, black volume, and that it was first seen by
Dawn soldiers in Northrend, shortly before we returned that land to the
Nerubians. It disappeared some time after that, and we believe that it
ended up in Lordaeron. We know from descriptions that it was written in
a human tongue, and that it contains extensive references to the
unfinished tomb in which Varimathras is imprisoned. If it could tell us
how to strengthen the thing, we would very much like to have it. If it
contains instructions for destroying it, this book would be very useful
to anyone wishing to release Varimathras and make a powerful ally on the
side of evil.” He looked back at me. “Our information suggests that
there is some group, or someone, unknown to us, attempting to locate
this book.”
Ahead of us, the speck that was M’s griffin banked
sharply. Madoran caught my gaze and looked around. He stiffened
slightly, peering forward, trying to make out what was happening. I
squinted, and there were two other figures around her’s, what looked
like two other griffins. “Welcoming committee?” I said.
“An awfully aggressive one,” muttered Madoran. He
shook the reigns and dug his short heels into our mount’s side. She
bellowed, and began flapping harder.
As we grew closer and the scene resolved itself, it
became clear that the griffins, each a bit smaller than hers and ridden
by a lightly armored dwarf, were not in fact a welcoming committee. They
were flapping around Katy M’s mount, trying to get within clawing
distance. M was turning her bird deftly about, avoiding the others and
using her bird’s wings to get in the way of her attackers.
Madoran reached into his backpack and pulled out a
dark red flag with a golden hammer on it, the flag of Ironforge. Waving
it wildly and hollering, he maneuvered us in, diving in at one of the
dwarf birds from above. It squawked and veered away from the fight. Its
rider shouted something to the other griffin, which fell out and flew
off after his flightmate. The farther one pulled the antenna out on a
portable radio, and spoke into it. I leaned forward, letting Madoran
know.
“Such strange behavior,” he muttered. “They were
Ironforge scouts, they should have bowed, not fled, at the sight of
their flag. Why on Az were they attacking a royal griffin in the first
place?”
“No idea,” I said. It was a lie, I had an idea:
with the Law out of Ironforge, who knew what alliances had formed or
fractured? It was only an idea, though, and not enough of one to voice.
“Where’d they come from?” shouted Madoran to Katy
M.
“North,” she bellowed back. “They came in low along
the ground and snuck up around behind me.”
“Did you notice anything peculiar about them?”
yelled the dwarf.
“Yeah,” she yelled back crossly. “They had giant
claws flying at my head.”
Madoran laughed. “We’d better hurry,” he called
back. We flew on.
* * *
I had heard of Ironforge, of course. I had even
seen a photograph or two. That didn’t prepare me for the sight, half way
up the cliffs on the far side of the valley we were entering, of a vast
stone and metal gateway, a titanic hallway into the mountain, surrounded
by turrets and towers.
I didn’t have long to enjoy it. As we winged across
the valley towards Ironforge, six griffins flew in formation out of the
great gateway. If the previous griffins had been scouts, these were
soldiers: each bird, as big as ours or bigger, was topped with a fully
armored dwarf. Their tabards matched Madoran's flag: dark red, with a
golden hammer. The leader wore a gilded, winged helm, and had a large,
coiled, loaded, deadly-looking crossbow mounted on his saddle. He was
carefully aiming it at us. “Dive!” yelled Madoran.
My brain, my big bovine brain, had evolved from
creatures whose greatest joy in life was standing in one spot, in the
sun, in as flat a field as possible, and eating the same grass three
times. There was nothing in my mind, my genes, my breeding or my
experience to prepare me to deal with the sensation of suddenly and
without warning going into an eight hundred foot freefall. My eyes were
squeezed shut, and I was screaming at the top of my lungs. My lungs
emptied, and I opened my eyes long enough to take another breath. We
were scant yards from the ground and still hurtling straight down. I
closed my eyes and started screaming again.
We pulled out of the dive seeming inches from the
ground, skimming the snowy fields, the downdraft from our mount’s wings
sending great puffs of snow up into the air behind us. We sailed through
a clearing between trees, barely wider than our griffin’s wings, and
scattered a herd of wild pigs. There was a sharp ping from above, and
one of them stumbled to the ground and slid to a halt in the snow. I
looked up, and the lead griffin was diving at us. The winged-helmed,
stone-faced dwarf was pulling his crossbow’s reload lever. “Madoran!” I
yelled. He pulled up on the griffin’s reins, bringing her head up. We
rose sharply as a crossbow bolt whizzed by in front of us, burying itself
in the snow with a light piff. The other griffin pulled out of
its dive in a panic as we rose towards it, and we landed a heavy
beak-blow to its underside. It squawked, bleeding slightly, and flapped
out of reach. Calling mournfully, it spiraling down to the ground, where
its rider leaped off and began rapidly tending its wound.
We flew back up over the valley. Two of the
griffins guarded the Ironforge gate, barring us entrance. We scanned
around for M and her pursuers. The rest of the valley was quiet.
A moment later, I spotted some movement on the
ridge above and east of the Ironforge gate. “Look!” I shouted, pointing.
Madoran shook our reins and we took off for the ridge. Three griffins
were dive-bombing M’s. Her huge, square, spiked mace was out, and she
swung it heavily at any claws that came too close. As we rose above the
mountain and the combatants, one of them took a heavy mace-blow to its
foot, squawked in pain, and flapped up out of reach.
We dove in from above, Madoran brandished his flag.
“Halt your attack!” he boomed. “I am Madoran Bronzebeard, your prince
and prince of Ironforge!”
The red-tabard dwarves hesitated for a moment,
looking at him, then at each other. “Not any more,” shouted one of them
back. I felt Madoran tense in front of me.
“Aye,” called another. “And an order’s an order.”
He shook his bird’s reins. Obeying orders, his bird charged at us. We
dove under him, towards the mountain’s face, then soared up the
mountainside towards the peak. The three red-clad dwarves followed.
M had used the respite to begin winging her way up
into the mountains. I saw her destination: a small cluster of buildings
and a large flat area lined with griffins tucked into the mountainside.
She landed deftly, yelling something towards one of the buildings. A
moment later, a pair of dwarves in green tabards tore out of it, jumped
on two of their birds, and, as we passed over the landing strip with our
three pursuers, M and her new companions took off into the air.
We peaked the Ironforge mountains. Below us and to
the north, the world disappeared: it dropped suddenly and rapidly into
nothingness, into a greenish fog of distance and humidity some thousands
of feet below. As we soared out over it, I gasped. “Don’t look down,” I
chanted quietly to myself. We faced about there, over the edge of the
world, turning towards our pursuers.
We were the anvil, and M’s small battalion was the
hammer. As our three pursuers pulled up to avoid the certain death which
a fall here would entail, M and the two green-clad dwarves rammed them
full-force from behind. Madoran and I flew back over the Ironforge
mountains, flapping about M and her enemy, who were tangled in each other
and falling towards the snowy peaks. A moment before they landed, M’s
griffin struggled free, beat its giant wings, and rose triumphant back
into the sky. The tauren had a look of fierce pride on her face, and she
patted the griffin on the neck. Her opponent crashed into the snow
below, and lay still.
M waved us on to the next battle, but it had broken
up: the red-clad dwarf who had spoken first to Madoran before, had
pulled up and was retreating. He called to his compatriot, who broke
free as well. They regrouped, holding formation, coasting back and forth
over the peak, waiting for something. The two green-clad dwarves flew
back to us. M winged back and forth behind us, watching the Ironforge
dwarves intensely.
“Welcome back, Prince,” called one of them. “Ye
missed a bit of an upset.”
“So I gathered,” Madoran called back. “The airstrip
is friendly to us, then?”
“Aye,” answered the other, “we hold it.”
The conversation would have continued but for a
shout of warning from the first green-clad dwarf. Cresting the peak,
rising on repaired wings and a bandaged chest was the red-armored
Ironforge battalion leader’s griffin. He called to the two red-clad
dwarves, and with a battle cry of “Traitor Prince!” he charged at us. He
unloaded his crossbow with a sharp ping, too quickly for us to react. I
felt the bolt whiz by my left ear, barely missing me.
Directly behind us, there was a sickening thud. A
griffin squawked. I turned around. Katy M’s bird had lurched backwards,
out over the green misty abyss, and was struggling to beat its wings. A
wound, a red gash, formed and grew on the griffin’s neck. M had a look
of panic on her face, pulling at the reins. The beast thrashed its head
back once, and went limp.
And then they were gone, rag dolls off the edge of
the world.
* * *
Somewhere far away, someone was yelling her name.
There was a feeling: leather reins in my hand, and I’d kicked the
griffin’s sides. My throat was sore. The voice yelling had been my own.
I leaned forward, and we dove off the edge of the cliffs and into the
void. Madoran swore loudly, grabbing at the reins. “Damnit, Horse, get a
hold o’ yerself or yer going to get us killed as well!”
The world below us was empty, except for a lone
crow flapping off in the distance.
Madoran angrily grabbed the reins back from me,
pulling our mount back up towards what was now a pitched battle. I
kicked the griffin’s sides again, urging it forward, towards the
murderer, oblivious to all else. As we passed him, I gathered my legs
under me, on the griffin’s back. I closed my eyes for a moment, pulling
my body apart and reforming it: I leapt lithely across the sky, growling
and hissing, and knocked the winged-helmed dwarf off his winged steed. I
latched my cat claws in his neck and face as we plummeted towards the
mountaintop, rending and tearing, hissing and yowling in his terrified
face.
The fall broke the dwarf and stained the snow red.
It knocked me out, and I felt rage fade to grief as I slipped into
darkness.
END OF PART TWO.
Part Three
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