"What is Khaz Modan? Khaz Modan is us!
The Systems Alliance and its Bronzebeard sycophants
Can call our kingdom Ironforge as much as they want,
In honor of the capital and the first home of the current kings,
But I will not do so!
From the Thandol Span to the southern barrens of Blackrock Mountain,
From the Western Mountains of Gnomeregan to the Grim Batol hills in the east—it is all Khaz Modan!
Our home, our first kingdom, created by our ancestors!
I don't care that the Dark Irons founded their 'empire,'
They are but a splintered piece of something greater!
One day we will reclaim everything that was lost,
And Khaz Modan will once again become a single and the greatest kingdom in the world!"
Falling onto an icy ledge, I clutched my chest, feeling my racing heart pounding wildly and catching my breath. My lungs burned with fire; the weight of the kilometers covered was taking its toll.
Somewhere in the distance, gunshots rang out, but they soon fell silent, plunging us into a heavy silence. The shouts of the green-skins rang out from different sides from time to time, but quickly died away. The brutes were looking for us, following on our heels and tracking us by our prints on the bare stones.
Looking around, I counted the survivors from the main hall of Grim Batol on the fingers of one hand. Out of two dozen scouts, too few had survived, and as for the survival of the outer patrols... I didn't even dare voice such a hope.
We were all covered in various wounds and were heavily winded after the grueling run through the mountains. Most of our gear had been thrown into the abyss so that it wouldn't fall to the green-skinned freaks.
Smoothing my crumpled beard, I leaned back, enjoying the frosty chill. Beneath me was a small icy stone, and the main thing was not to fall asleep, lest I chill my kidneys or something.
"Rodgirn, get up, it's time to go," Brann's voice came from somewhere far away. It turned out I hadn't noticed, despite my own warnings, how I had closed my eyes, and the minutes allotted for rest had vanished into nothingness. "We need to move; it's still three days' journey to Dun Algaz."
"That's if we go in a straight line," with a groan, I rose to my feet, shaking the snow off my clothes. Looking back to the east, noticing a couple of tall and broad-shouldered figures in the distance, I spat a clump from my throat, cursing the green-skinned freaks in the ancient language. "They'll catch us; these Rukhas turned out to be awfully hardy and long-legged."
"So the less we talk," winking excitedly, trying to maintain his spirit, Bronzebeard couldn't help but wince, clutching a side that stung with pain. Consequently, he hissed the last part of the sentence through his teeth, "the better the chances of getting out alive."
"Well, yeah," looking once more at those remaining after the skirmish in the cursed citadel, I grimaced, feeling my exhausted limbs sending painful signals. "Alive is good."
Looking suggestively at Brann, I still couldn't get any reaction from the King's younger brother. I just had to wave my hand and, helping the scouts to their feet, be the first to step onto the narrow mountain path, trying not to look back and certainly not to look around... especially toward the steep slope.
Leaning one palm against the rock, I used the other to shield my face from the bright sunbeams. The sun beat down fiercely from the sky, warming our frozen and shivering bodies...
And we are Dwarves! But even our endurance had found its limit. Two days of pursuit and fighting, neither eating nor sleeping—only pathetic minutes of rest and the constant expectation of an attack from these creatures. And with every skirmish, there were fewer of us.
To somehow create distance, several of the most bearded, noble, and gray-haired scouts volunteered to delay the pursuing Orcs. They took up positions on an extremely unpleasant slope and could well have held back the Rukhas for enough time and sold their lives dearly, but something clearly went wrong.
At first, the volleys of rifles rang out briskly through the mountains, but barely half an hour had passed before they ceased...
This thought wouldn't leave me alone. Experienced scouts couldn't have lost so quickly. They were sitting on a steep, almost vertical slope, where a narrow path trodden by animals and rare patrols and travelers climbed. Four Dwarves with pistols could have killed green-skins there for weeks, and a small keg of gunpowder would have helped cause a decent rockslide that would have slowed the pursuit and could have given us a couple more days' head start.
"Maybe they ran out of ammo too fast? Or the Orcs somehow covered themselves with bodies or something else... Or maybe it was that vile magic again?!"
At the memory of the latter, unfamiliar shivers ran through my body. My cracked lips compressed into a thin line—causing a painful spasm that I ignored. A strange chill, which had never visited me before, now wandered through my whole body, whispering in my ears that I needed to run far away and without looking back.
"Damn magic," climbing onto another ledge, I reached back without looking, helping the next scout climb up beside me. "Magic is for fools..."
Spitting on the ground under the scout's understanding gaze, I sat down on a stone, giving my legs at least an extra second of rest. A very long journey lay ahead, and I didn't really believe we would manage to shake off our pursuers.
The Orcs felt far too easy and natural in these mountains. It felt as if they had spent many weeks or months carefully studying them.
"And yet, according to the human soldiers, they only recently came to our world..." Rubbing a handful of snow in my palm to then rinse my face with it, I stared intently at the mountain range stretching further east. If these creatures were already so bold as to come this far, then... it wouldn't be long before they poked their noses into our lands too.
"What are you muttering about there, Gazardul?"
One of Dolf's contemporaries sat down nearby, quickly packing a pipe, hoping to manage at least a couple of puffs before we set off again.
"The Orcs are like perfect trackers," deciding not to burden my kinsman's head, I shifted the conversation to a more relevant topic. "They always find us..."
"We're not exactly hiding well." My companion noted fairly, having managed his pipe after all and now puffing on it with delight. "Even a Goblin scavenger could find us... by such tracks."
His gaze flicked to the path we had climbed. Blood, mud, large footprints in the snow.
"That's now, but before? How did they track us? And the ambush apparently failed," picking up a handful of snow, I rubbed it between my palms, then washed my face again with the melted water. "I don't like any of this."
"Heh, youngsters." Chuckling kindly, offering me a puff of the pipe, which I didn't refuse, the scout closed his eyes, trying to delve into memories. "I remember, during the War of the Three Hammers..."
"Stop spinning yarns, old man," one of the young scouts interrupted the elder mid-sentence, "that was more than two hundred years ago. You were still dangling between your father's legs then."
"Be glad I'm already too old," the answering bark made the insolent lad flinch, but not look away, "so you don't end up dangling between mine!"
A hoarse, tired laugh went through our ranks. Emptying the snow, lighting pipes, and giving our legs a rest, we lingered here a bit longer, raising scraps of morale and endurance.
"So, what was I saying? Ah, yes!" Slapping his forehead mockingly, the old Dwarf leaned on his knee, beaming a mocking smile. "During the war, then... right, my father told me that the Gurubashi Trolls start crawling out of every crack during any conflict, selling their skinny asses to anyone who pays well. They reduce hungry mouths, train the youth, and gather sacrifices for their cursed gods... They even fought on the side of the Dark Irons, well, if you can call it that..."
He said the last sentence with distinct doubt, knowing as well as any Dwarf of Ironforge how the Dark Irons treated anyone not of their clan... and the fate of a slave in the quarries would be a fairly lucky option, because...
The most powerful artifacts of their cursed line always required others' lives, suffering, and despair.
"Are you saying," we exchanged doubtful looks as I asked the question that had settled in each of our heads, "they're with the Orcs now?"
"Anything is possible..."
"That's all rubbish," Brann, who had sat down next to us, interrupted the moment of cozy atmosphere. His Majesty's brother didn't look well—then again, none of us did. His habitual smile was gone, and his elegant suit of unusual cut was covered in holes and crooked, hasty patches. A dried cut ran across his forehead, and a large bruise from an Orc fist adorned his cheek, but Bronzebeard remained firm in spirit, confirming the strength of his lineage. "According to reports from Stormwind survivors and our patrols, the Orcs and Trolls are currently cutting each other's throats in the jungles to the east."
"Hmm, so that's how it is."
"If they once fought on the side of the Dark Irons, they can come to an agreement with the Orcs too." The old scout stubbornly insisted, feeling no particular piety before a member of the ruling dynasty. "Different tribes, different clans; some will find a common language."
Then an argument began between everyone, but for the most part, the three of us argued, as the young ones were in no hurry to interfere in the conversation of respected kin, especially while Dolf's deputy was speaking, upon whom the heavy burden of ensuring our survival had fallen, and especially the rescue of Brann Bronzebeard.
I don't think he wanted to take the honor of command upon himself at all, but there wasn't much choice. The most active and enterprising were already dead; only those who were ready to follow remained. Through fire or water. But to follow, not to lead.
Peering into the faces of the young but already world-weary scouts, I locked eyes with one of them. With a suggestive nod to the lad at the newly burgeoning argument, I watched the pantomime on his face with a smile. He rolled his eyes to the sky, clicked his tongue, and already imagined how he would be scolded for butting into the conversation.
"We need to go; it'll start getting dark and cold soon..."
He had only just begun to rise from the stones when at that very moment, a huge spear made of bone flew into his back. Piercing the poor fellow right through, it stuck into the ground, pinning the already dead Dwarf in a standing position.
The poor kinsman's eyes went out instantly, and his face was forever frozen in a strange mixture of surprise and chagrin. It seemed he had died so quickly that he hadn't even felt pain.
But there was no time to linger over the dead body. We had to save the living.
From behind the hillock came shouts familiar to every inhabitant of Khaz Modan. Guttural, distorted, and ugly, like the speakers of that vile language.
"Move!" I don't know which of us shouted. Maybe I did, or maybe it was a collective cry... "Fast!"
Spears began to rain down nearby; one of them flew very close to me, piercing the calf of the scout deputy. With a quiet cry, hissing under his breath, the old man collapsed to the ground and, deftly twisting, fished a pistol out of his pocket—immediately firing at our pursuers. The scent of gunpowder, the crash of the shot, and a painful cry from a Troll followed. The stubborn mule didn't even try to get up, merely stubbornly continuing to try and reload the pistol in his hands.
"Gazardul, give me a hand," ancient speech escaped my mouth, affectionately calling the scout deputy an old fool. Catching the extended limb, I hoisted the scout's body onto my shoulders, grunting from the strain—he'd fattened up on government rations.
"I'm allowed."
The old man croaked in response, dropping the pistol from his weakening hands. Doubling over from the strain, I continued to run after the others, trying to step exactly in their tracks so as not to slip. A death cry rang out behind us, and we were once again one fewer.
Clenching my teeth in hatred and bitterness, I gripped the old man tighter, working my legs harder, catching up with the comrades who had run ahead.
"Step! Step! Step! Come on! Just run! Don't think! Run."
I encouraged myself, knowing that the pursuit could end with the first spear that successfully hit my back.
The last relatively healthy scouts suddenly turned, dropping to one knee and giving a synchronized volley behind me as soon as I ran past them.
The crash of pistols cut off the martial shouts of the stooped filth, but it wouldn't stop them for long. Unlike Orcs, Trolls are much more enduring, though it would seem... Besides, they have thin and flexible fingers. And they themselves, accustomed to speed and agility, relied on them more than on simple strength. Though there was no lack of the latter in these two-meter-tall monstrosities.
"Rodgirn! Over here, quickly!"
Brann was actively waving his hands at us, calling us to take cover in a small cave. In his hands were our supplies of gunpowder, as well as several artifacts found near Grim Batol. Continuing to periodically finish something on his handiwork, he waited until we had all vanished under the maw of the tunnel before he threw the bag of gunpowder and the other finds at his feet.
"Move!" Notes of panic crept into the prince's voice and despite his wounds and fatigue, he was the first to bolt deep into our temporary shelter. "Fast, fast!"
Without asking unnecessary questions, I dove into the turn, hearing only hurried footsteps behind me until the explosion covered us.
The force of the impact was quite weak, but concentrated in one place and a narrow opening, so that it would surely work. Brann had clearly worked on the Dark Iron toys before throwing them into the common pot with the explosives.
The crash of stones was heard overhead. Displeased by such treatment—the mountain peaks expressed their protest. To my senses, the landslide or avalanche lasted an eternity, until it reliably cut us off from our pursuers.
Through the clouds of rising dust, we blindly found each other, falling to our knees and relaxing. It was too early to let the adrenaline fade completely, but now we had at least a couple of hours before the fanged freaks would start clearing the rubble.
"If they survived, of course."
A malicious smirk crept onto my face. The mere thought of that entire gang of fangs perishing under the collapse made my heart feel lighter and more pleasant. A fine payment to the degenerates for our murdered kin. Generally, if you think about it, we gathered a generous harvest. Both from the Trolls and the Orcs. For every one of us killed, the savages paid double, if not triple the price! And if it weren't for those cursed Biotics users with them, we might have wiped out the entire band gathered in Grim Batol.
"Eh, if it were up to me, I'd slaughter their whole cursed tribe."
With these thoughts, I finally released the body of the deputy Pathfinder from my stiffened hands.
"Well, we're almost out," I said, finding the old man's shoulder by touch and patting it, but I received only silence in return. "Hey, beardless polecat, you okay?"
Running my hands over the quiet body, my fingers brushed against arrow shafts protruding from the old scout's back. The poor soul hadn't even had time to warn me. One of the arrows—likely the very first—was sticking out of his head.
In a fit of rage, I grabbed one of the arrows and snapped it with a crack that sounded deafening in the silence of the cave. For several seconds, we were plunged into a grim, oppressive silence before one of the survivors asked a quiet, timid question.
"Is he...?"
A voice barely cracked by age. Just a boy, who by rights should still be chasing skirts...
Sitting down beside me, sniffing quietly and clearly holding back the emotions begging to break out, he nonetheless held firm, perfectly understanding that now was not the time. But later...
Later, when the beautiful halls of Ironforge once again surround us on all sides... When the army of Dwarfs, encased in iron from head to toe, descends upon these vile marauders and desecrators of our brothers' graves...
That is when we will remember him. Him and all the others.
"Dead."
Giving the brief answer, I swallowed an identical lump in my throat. Before my eyes flashed the faces of Dolf and his fallen subordinates, whom I had gotten to know well during this time...
"Old as he was, like the rest—he was strong in spirit... His soul will find the way to the Ancestor Spirits," I said, moving the body aside, carefully turning it onto its back and trying not to listen to the quiet prayers of my kin nearby. My hands quickly found the face frozen forever in its death agony, and after a few brief movements, I managed to close the Pathfinder's eyes.
"Sleep peacefully, you died a good death," I muttered, smoothing my beard and leaning back against the tunnel wall. "In battle, and under a weight of stone instead of the endless sky."
"A glorious death." A pair of fists struck chests, and words of the ancient tongue—parting oaths—sounded over the body of the old deputy Pathfinder.
The remaining scouts repeated my words in their own way. They sat quite close to me, sluggishly fumbling through their pockets in an attempt to find something that could burn and light our way.
Brann Bronzebeard was the first to succeed. Raising crumpled scraps of paper above his head, he slowly moved them from side to side—illuminating smooth walls of clearly artificial origin—until his gaze stopped on a gap leading deep into the mountain.
"That's where we need to go."
As if entranced, he pointed a finger at the dark maw of the tunnel, but neither I nor the scouts moved from our spots.
"Maybe we should wait a bit? We'll need our strength," I said, trying to bring up logical arguments, but I hit a wall of incomprehension and had to try another angle. "Do you even know where this cave leads?"
"Hmm," the prince muttered, stroking his chin with calloused fingers, peering into the dark void for a few seconds before giving his answer... apparently spoken at random. "If I had to guess, somewhere south."
"Great, just perfect..."
"Maybe it turns west later." Carelessly shrugging his shoulders, clearly losing to his inner adventurer, Brann Bronzebeard swept us with a strange look, full of cheerful sparks. "On the other hand, Trolls might be waiting for us... and by clearing the rubble, we'd only be making their job easier."
He was still trying to lead us into the unknown.
"And what if it leads us to the wastes or to Blackrock Mountain?" Following logic and listening to reason, I agreed with the prince, but my heart desperately whispered not to go down into that place. A strange, or rather bad, premonition hammered like a bell in my chest. "Wasn't our introduction to those green-skinned monstrosities enough? What if this is one of the passages into Grim Batol?"
"Even if it is," the King's brother said, choosing his words as he sat down near the Pathfinders, realizing he wouldn't convince me easily, "we must report that the old fortress is no longer empty. The more we delay, the more danger faces not only Loch Modan, but the entire Kingdom of Stormwind!"
Waving his hands pathetically, causing the firelight to cast shadows that seemed alive, Brann leaned closer to the pair of young Pathfinders but didn't have time to say anything.
"You're exaggerating," my voice made the trio of negotiators flinch and turn toward my grim face. "A band of Orcs has holed up in the ruins..."
Holding my hands out in front of me as three bristling beards jerked in my direction, I smiled reassuringly. Grunting into my beard at their reaction, I looked each of them in the eye in turn.
"Yes, I don't like it either, but it's a simple fact." Starting to count on my fingers, I also paid more attention to the scouts, who were now torn and couldn't decide on a course of action. "A band of Orcs has holed up in Grim Batol, a couple of Troll mercenaries came through the mountains, and...?"
My speech was successful, and the Pathfinders bowed their heads thoughtfully, while Brann Bronzebeard himself snorted indignantly into his red mustache. I didn't understand his dissatisfaction and his strange thirst to go deep into the mountain in an unknown direction.
"Though, Muradin often said the youngest of the Bronzebeards has a fire under his seat; maybe that's all it is? And he's still young, and with so much happening, his blood is boiling, he wants to do at least something."
Calming myself with such thoughts and finally relaxing, I gave myself over entirely to exhaustion, allowing my body to rest. My frame began to ache in every joint, my legs burned like fire, and sweat poured down my back. My run with a Dwarf on my shoulders had drained the last remnants of my stamina, and I could no longer hold back the fatigue, blacking out.
The first thing I felt when I opened my eyes was silence. A frightening, deafening silence that filled the cave. The firelight was gone, and a bone-chilling cold reigned in this place...
Rising to my feet and smoothing my bristling beard, I listened to my surroundings but heard nothing. No snoring, no breathing, no quiet rustling of sleeping Dwarfs. There was no point in being particularly stealthy now, certainly not after what we had pulled...
And that was alarming. It felt as if this was still my dream, but the faint stench of the corpse suggested otherwise, clogging my nose and clearing my mind better than good vodka.
Repeating Brann's trick, I held a piece of paper before my face, trying to see something in my satchel. The flint easily struck a spark, lighting the sheets, and my gaze revealed an empty cave; only the eerie dark void leading somewhere deep remained in the same place, but my kin were nowhere to be seen.
"Are you kidding me? They left, seriously?"
Unable to believe my own assumptions, I slowly trudged toward the gap, straining my sight and hearing to be the first to see danger if it truly existed. And the closer I got to the passage into the darkness, the louder my senses screamed that I was making a mistake.
"I don't want to go in there," my fingers clenched tighter into a fist. My breathing became ragged and deep, and the beating of my heart was deafening. "I won't come back out of there."
Inhaling deeply, I held my breath as if before jumping into water to calm my frantic system even slightly, and quickening my pace, I darted into the gloom, illuminating the tunnel with a flimsy flicker of light that crept closer and closer to my fingers.
Minutes seemed to stretch into hours, and the viscous aura pressing on me from all sides grew worse, slowly penetrating the subconscious, whispering about... all sorts of things.
Sticky as old tree resin... thick and black as oil from the deepest sea depths. I felt this strange presence everywhere...
In the air, in the earth, in the stones...
It settled on my skin and hair like dry summer dust.
"To hell with you!"
A fierce thought pierced my mind as my reflections went in a second circle, urging me to take revenge on that stupid Bronzebeard when we met, for leaving without me to god-knows-where.
And thanks to the ancestors, I found an excellent way not to listen to the intrusive desires and the whispering voices: imagining myself surrounded by busty lasses of the human and elven races, joyfully burying their faces in my beard. And not just in the beard.
Tall, slender, so neat and fragile... with soft bodies and tender skin, mmm.
To finally shake off the bad mood, I decided to break the eerie silence with something, anything.
So I walked on, making up songs as I went, wandering in this terrible darkness until I stumbled upon something frightening.
"I walk in the dark,
Light of heart, light of heart.
My life isn't hard,
But sometimes, by the stars,
Shit happens... holy mother of!"
Leaping aside, I dropped the crumpled sheets, and now they fell down, slowly and gracefully settling to the ground, illuminating the surroundings for me—and there was plenty to see.
On the cave floor lay one of the Pathfinders, and dried blood was slowly oozing from his head. His face was twisted in a disgruntled shout, as if he had been fiercely arguing about something before his skull was split open.
The blow had been swift and precise. The attacker had clearly had time to aim and drop the poor fellow with the very first strike.
"Damn you, Brann." Checking for a heartbeat and breathing just in case, I only confirmed that he was beyond help. "What happened here?"
Picking up a couple of the dying sheets, I tried to figure out what had happened from the tracks, but I only made it worse, staining my boots with blood and getting confused.
"I hope I don't have to find out the answers firsthand."
With those words, I took a confident step forward when a roar from an explosion rolled through the cave. A collapse began behind my back...
"Or a clearing of the rubble by emergency methods. Bitch!" Spitting on the ground, I cast a final glance back, where the noise of active work could be heard. "A great choice, damn it."
I didn't want to go further into the darkness, especially after discovering the corpse of this poor soul. But there was no point in going back either. Apparently, the Trolls or Orcs, or maybe all of them together, had managed to bring up some construction equipment from Grim Batol, though more likely they just used magic or spirits to clear the blockage.
Now the way back was cut off, and only one exit remained.
Into the darkness.
With a stubborn expression, I turned to the stretching opening and, shaking my fist at it, set off forward with a firm stride, reciting prayers to Khaz and the ancestors. Asking my long-departed kin to save my ass one more time, so that this time I could definitely thank them properly after I got out.
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