Prologue

SACRED Ashes

"Three orcs, left side!"

Arthas' savage war cry reverberated from the alley walls. He bounded across the intervening space and met the onrushing orcs head-on. One prodigious sweep of Slackbite, his massive double-bladed faery-forged sword, hewed two of the attackers clean through the midsection, and the backstroke clove the third from crown to colon. The remaining dozen swirled around him, slipping in the entrails of their comrades, but Slackbite wove a song of death among them, and heads, limbs, and viscera were scattered across the muck with every vicious swipe.

Elgarain hopped onto a box and drew her bow, her ample breasts straining against her leather bodice. She feathered two orcs with a single black shaft.

Arthas thundered his Delgathiona battle song as he mowed down adversaries like dogs on the ridge. The few remaining orcs, realizing that their careful ambush had crashed upon the rocks of the giant knight's blade and assassin's bow, broke off and charged at Princess Caterina, desperate to fulfill their mission.

Beorn instantly interposed himself, whipping out Frostmourne, his short sword. Caterina clutched his jerkin in terror, her heavy breasts pressing against his back, her sweet elf breath hot on his farmboy neck. He tried to stifle his trembling, for he had never seen battle before. Three orcs bore down on him, their piggish eyes twinkling like gems of hatred in a night sky of evil. Suddenly, a black arrow hummed past like an angry harmonica and thudded into chest of one, knocking him sprawling. Another arrow, another dead orc.

But the last was now too close. With a foul-breathed, broken-toothed growl, he chopped at Beorn with a rusty hatchet. Gritting his teeth, Beorn pictured the orc as a dire gopher and Frostmourne as a hoe. He met the hatchet mid-swing, beating it aside even as the blow numbed his arm and drove him to his knees.

Caterina shrieked, and the orc laughed cruelly, raising his weapon again.

"No!" Beorn cried. How could he ever reach Where the Moon Falls Not without the princess?

The orc took a single step forward, then lurched suddenly and unnaturally to the side, transfixed through the sternum by Slackbite—hurled with the full might of Arthas' iron thews—and crashed against the alley wall. His head and arm slid to one side, the rest of him to the other, spraying gouts of thick green ichors.

"What ho, stripling!" bellowed Arthas, idly combing brains and gore from his dark brown hair. "Art thou and the fair Lady Caterina unharmed?"

Beorn swallowed and staggered to his feet. Caterina, her fist held to her full lips, and her limpid violet eyes wide, nodded at him and smiled demurely.

"Yes," he replied shakily. "We're fine."

Fists on hips, Arthas threw back his head and roared with laughter. "By Gromm, these misbegotten devil-spawns provide ill support indeed. Not even a fair stretching of my limbs. What say you, archer-woman?"

Elgarain paused in cutting free one of her barbed arrows from its victim. "They die easily."

Arthas whooped again. "Well said, assassin-wench!" Placing a huge blood-clotted boot on the remains of a nearby orc, he yanked free another arrow and squinted at it critically.

"Fie! This dark wood reeks of skullduggery. A weapon for night-slaying. Give me the stout yellow yew from the forests of Delgathiona."

Elgarain strode up to him and took the arrow, replacing it carefully in the quiver. "I prefer the ebon shaft," she told him boldly, "for its greater length and strength."

"Look!" cried Caterina, pointing towards the far end of the alley.

There, a guttering, dented oil lamp swayed in the night breeze and beside it a warped and faded sign with only one word upon it: POTIONS.

"It's the sign the beggar at the market told us to look for," she continued excitedly.

"'Tis so, by my troth." Boomed Arthas, wiping Slackbite clean on a fallen foe's tunic.

"Make haste," urged Elgarain, her lithe form padding along the alley as silently as a snake, "before more of Octopus's thugs find us."

Unhesitatingly, Arthas strode to the dingy door below the sign and hammered it with the flat of his sword, a single blow that sounded like a clap of loud noise.

"Proprietor!" he bellowed. "Open the door for Arthas Menethil de Klehia!"

A slit slid open in the door, and a pair of eyes, black as pits of a well, glared out at them. "What do you want?"

Beorn peered around Arthas' giant frame. "Please, sir. We have an urgent need to see Ergandane the Magnificent."

The eyes narrowed. "There's no one here by that name."

The slit slammed shut.

"Stand thee aside, plow-lad," Arthas growled. He spit in his hands and took hold of Slackbite. "Gromm strike me down if any portal ever wrought balks a Barbarian Knight of the Royal Order of Kusmuthoses."

"Wait!" Caterina pushed her nubile form to the fore and cupped her slender white hands around her luscious red lips.

"Please," she called into the potions shop. "I am Princess Caterina of Elfenheim. My grandfather was Porhu the Wise. He knew Ergandane at the College of Alethiomancy."

A pregnant pause ensued, gravid with expectancy.

Arthas glowered.

A rattling at the door heralded its unlocking, and presently the portal swung inward. The party entered to find themselves in a cramped shop where bottles of all shapes, sizes and colors festooned the shelves from floor to ceiling, glittering like stars in a crown.

A man stood there. Tall, he was, nearly as tall as Arthas, with wide shoulders, powerful arms, a jagged scar across his neck, and dragon tattoo on his back. A black cloak swathed him from head to foot, revealing only his untrusting eyes.

"Follow me," he commanded in a rasping voice, "and woe betide any who bears ill will against my master."

Arthas snorted. "Woe betide any who betides woe on well-meaning adventurers," he retorted.

Down a narrow hallway they walked. Beorn tested his injured knee and found it strong, which relieved him, for it, had been hanging over his head ever since his flight from Idylldale over a month ago.

The hall debouched into a cozy sitting room with deep rugs and well-turned tables. A fire blazed in the hearth, and in an overstuffed chair sat a wizened old man sucking on a long thin pipe, his trailing white beard draped across the breast of a robe festooned with yellow moons, orange stars, blue diamonds, and purple horseshoes. His kindly, elderly eyes alit on Caterina.

"Ah," he said, "you have your grandfather in you; I can see that. What does Porhu's progeny want of an old thaumaturge such as me?"

"If you please, Master Ergandane," said Caterina, pulling Beorn's arm, "this young man has proof that the Dark Dwarves are rising."

The tall man in the cloak laughed derisively, but Ergandane plucked the pipe from his mouth dramatically. He leaned forward, the orange flames casting his face in high relief.

"What's this?" he whispered expressively, his eyes fixed on Beorn.

"Yes, sir," stammered Beorn, producing the Dwarfknob from his breeches. It glowed red in his fist. "I found this when tilling our turnip field."

"Then it's true," muttered the old sorcerer. "The red Dwarfknob has come to light. The prophecy is coming true."

"What mean you, potion-peddler?" demanded Arthas. "Where the Moon Falls Not truly is a fable spun by maundering fishwives in the marketplace. This hobbledehoy's rock is a gnome's jape, I wager."

Ergandane leaned forward, the crackling red flames shrouding his face in deep shadow. "Not so, my massively proportioned-friend. 'Tis a place real enough, I'm sorry to say. Under the Devilbone Mountains, they dwell. Deep in the earth where the goodly kiss of moonlight has never shone. A place of unutterable foulness will spread far and wide. All of Billerikah will be in peril."

Elgarain slithered toward him like a jungle cat. "If the Dark Dwarves do exist, old man, then what of the other legends? The hoards of gold and gems they supposedly protect?"

"They are true enough, the spoils of lands conquered when the world was young and swathed in eternal darkness. Verily, the treasures lurking there cannot be overestimated."

Arthas barked gleefully. "No man woman-born pursues booty with more fervor than I. Point me towards this moonshineless kingdom, ancient one, and then stand ye well beyond the sweep of Slackbite."

"Address the master with respect, barbarian," demanded the man in the cloak, whose name was Ferric, "lest I thrash the insolence from you."

Arthas gripped his sword handle menacingly. "Thou has but to try, sirrah."

"Enough!" Beorn snapped. The large men, startled by his brashness, stilled themselves. "Sir," continued Beorn to the mage, "how can the Dwarves be stopped? Does the prophecy say? I feel the Dwarfknob pulling me there, and yet I know not what to do."

Ergandane leaned forward, the dancing yellow flames bathing his face in warm light. "The Dwarfknob, the heart of a champion, and blood of the royal house of Elfenheim must combine to quell the rising. That is all that is known."

Beorn looked at his hand. "I have the Dwarfknob, the princess is of royal blood, and surely Arthas has the heart of a champion."

The Delgathionan preened. "Fairly flattered I be, and yet you are aright. Fret not, callow youth. I shall lead you to Where the Moon Falls Not—and me its booty."

"And I," added Caterina sweetly, gently squeezing his shoulder.

Ferric scoffed at Beorn. "You think thou art up to the task? Pshaw! Where the Moon Falls Not is not a place for boys, but for men. Only those who have girded their loins and faced true horror can brave it."

Beorn gulped, for he knew Ferric was right.

"I am very apprehensive about why you brought this information to me," Ergandane said, placing his pipe on his bottom lip and sucking it into his mouth. "For why did you not take this to the Valkyrie council?" Arthas puffed out his chest and spread out his arms to make himself look bigger against Ferric, who was hunched over slightly, yet still about a foot taller than him, which irritated him immensely.

"We come to you," Beorn started.

"We come to you for your wisdom." Elgarain finished, cutting Beorn off entirely. "The Valkyrie Council has nothing to offer us except for a long discussion about what to do and what not to do. That could've taken years, we don't have that long."

"Though they seem to have the time." muttered Arthas, pressing his chest against Ferric's, a frown on his face.

Ergandane leaned back in his chair, the light from fire now washed away from his face and the consumption of shadows took his face, the smoke from his pipe barely visible. He lifted his hand up crudely, revealed a chalk white finger and pointed at Ferric. "Fetch me a book, wouldn't you Ferric. The Book of Unmentionables, if you'd please."

Ferric turned towards his master, bowed, took one last glance at Arthas, and walked into another room for a moment, returning with a giant book in his hand. Cobwebs surrounded the leather cover; elvish writing was encrypted on the binding along with a black grapevine swirling around the entire thing. Ferric traced his finger down the bind, along the grapevine, and gently handed it over towards Ergandane.

Resting it on his lap, Ergandane motioned for Beorn to come closer to him. "Boy, do as I say when I say. Understand?"

He didn't, but nodded.

Ergandane hesitated, a strange look on his face. But he eventually opened up the book and turned to the second page. "Thou know the main factor of the prophecy, but do you know of the side story, the story of the Valkyrie?"

"Please, don't get onto that again." Elgarain shouted. "I told you, we want nothing to do with the Valkyrie, they've brought us nothing desirable, just talk."

"And why is talking not desirable?" Ergandane objected. "Would you rather see a thousand people die or twenty, Lady Elgarain?"

"War is young men fighting and old men talking."

"I am old and yes I do talk. But do you mean to talk down on me as if I were an inferior?"

"Y—"

"If I wanted to, I could turn you inside out. I could make you explode with a snap of my fingers. So if we are talking inferiority, you would be way down the list. Behind the Valkyrie Masters."

"The Valkyrie buy their power with empty promises, basic government that says they will do something and end up having it at the bottom of their to-do list. I doubt they could do anything we would need of them, unless we need a stupid history lesson—"

Ferric struck her with his fist, shouting, "Never speak of the Masters like that again!" Elgarain grabbed his hand and his elbow, twisting his hand and punching his elbow, and knocked him on the ground.

Ergandane chuckled lightly. "Do you now see as what I mean by judgment of inferiority? He struck at you with the assumption he could take you down because you are a woman. Yet you attacked him with power to the tenfold."

Ferric stood, panting heavily and rubbing his arm.

"Now shut up and listen," Arthas playfully punched Elgarain's shoulder. "If he has something to say, it must be important."

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