Part 1
She knew now why her parents and even Old Wolfhammer hadn't been enthusiastic about her leaving home. They'd tried to tell her it would be overwhelming, but of course she hadn't listened. Announcing to the entire house full of people that not only was Mount Ratchet's golden daughter accepted as apprentice to Master Wolfhammer but that she was determined to leave Dun Morogh and explore the world perhaps was not the best way to start her career as a mage. Up til that moment, it had been such a happy, boisterous birthday party. It ended with worry lines on her parents' faces and the Dwarves giving her solemn looks.
But Gnomes were not meant to sit still. The Dwarves might be content to dig into their mountains and hold fast against storm and ice and fire, but Gnomes were meant to explore and seek out new worlds and peoples. Her grandfather, Light bless him, had understood and encouraged her to seek out every nook and cranny of Mount Ratchet's mountainous, icy crags. And usually was the one following behind, just out of sight, to pull her out of trouble with a well-thrown Fireball. Or drop a rope down when she couldn't climb back up or down from wherever she'd managed to land.
But this... this was something she didn't think even her old Master could have prepared her for.
She'd seen other races in Ironforge, of course. They came all the time to Master Wolfhammer's Magery Shop and Mistress Elise's shop where Ancasta was often on errands for her Master. Mostly Humans, a few Draenei, all just passing through and looking for some spell they'd heard of out of Dwarven magery. They were all mages of one sort or another, so there was a familiarity there even if they were as exotic as a blue moon. But in Mistress Elise's case, there were others. For Mistress Elise sold glyph inscriptions of very fine quality, and it seemed the entire Known Lands came to her wanting to buy them. Or tried to beat them out of her, in the case of the Horde. Ancasta generally hid in a cupboard until she heard the spellcasting stop and a solid thud herald Mistress Elise's victory. Most times, the Ironforge Guard arrived too late to provide any help short of fetching a broom and dustpan to deal with the remains.
But now -- this -- there was no Grandfather here to yank her away from the wolves. Light keep his soul.
Walls of houses rose up around her, and over them walls of white stone. Not like Ironforge's expansive, comparatively airy caverns, but close packed so that the houses had no more than a handspan between them. Dwarven fires burned here and there, filling the air with stinging smoke. She could hear voices speaking in other languages, the clank of hammers. She could see two merchants through the haze not a hundred yards away, with two Draenei warriors and a Night Elf examining the blades and daggers. There was a crane lifting a load of logs on the corner, and five of her own people on the partially-constructed third floor of a tavernhouse. There was a loud, startling growl to her left and she jumped and whirled to see a giant cat easily twenty times her size glaring down at her with cold yellow eyes.
"You're in the way," said a sneering voice above the cat's head. She jerked her eyes up and saw a warrior, a Human by the size, scowling down at her from the cat's back.
"Pardon, sir," she said nervously, and ducked back into the shadow of the tram entranceway.
Trying to calm her pounding heart, she took serveral deep breaths. She fumbled her pack from her back and rummaged inside for the map her old Master had given her.
"If you're determined to go gallivanting off into the unknown," Master Wolfhammer had said, "Ye'll do better to go to Stormwind first. Conquer that, and ye'll be on yer way. 'Tis safe enough, if ye keep yer head."
She wondered if this was one of Master's jokes, for this place was anything but safe.
All the better.
Stormwind looked to have been constructed by a committee. The route Master Wolfhammer had lined out on his map twisted and turned in a fashion so illogical it made her head spin.
She resolved to take it one district at a time and first was one marked "Old Town". She came to the tunnelgate between the two districts and squeaked in starlement as two giant horses suddenly burst around the corner and thudered toward her, two Human wariors in fine plate armor atop them. She flattened herself against the wall of the tunnel until they passed, then trotted quickly through the gate and ducked to the side to look at the map in her hand again.
"Turn left. Go over bridge, turn left again, and through the tunnelgate into Old Town. 'Don't linger here, shady characters,' " she read in her Master's spidery Dwarvish runes.
It certainly felt ominous, for the streets in Old Town were scarcely wide enough for a donkey cart to pass through, the cobblestones worn and grimy and the houses obviously older and beginning to fall to decay. She smelled a moldy taint to the air, and felt eyes peering down at her from the second floor windows as she passed. There were lines of washing drying high overhead, strung between the buildings. Rats chittered in the sewerage drains as she passed. Even narrower alleyways opened between buildings every so often, giving brief glimpses into tiny shadowed courtyards full of weeds. She passed an archer's shop, which seemed to be the only trade concern before she reached the next tunnelgate.
"Over bridge, through tunnelgate, turn left, then right at the next corner," she read. She stopped, her ears registering the sound of a loud rumbling growl approaching, and flattened herself against the tunnel wall again.
This time another gigantic cat with a Draenei in fantastic robes atop its back thundered past and across the canal bridge. In its wake, two tall Human warriors in mail armor and bright tabards followed.
"It's getting out of hand, Bayern," one said to the other. "So far it's been the odd incursion, but -- "
"Odd incursion? Near daily sudden and random attacks are 'odd incursions'? We have our share of passing maniacs -- what city of this size doesn't? This has gone past that. I say this has long since shown a pattern. These attacks are terrorist actions."
Ancasta gulped and hurried on.
She turned at the corner and looked up, and gasped. For the Trade District square was full of people and beasts, and it was pure chaos. She had no idea how she was going to get through it without getting trampled. The giant cats, horses, giant ophilants, all with riders. Great owls perched high in the brances of the tree at the center of the square. Humans, Night Elves, Draenei, Dwarves, blades and bows and staves of fine workmanship at every hip or carried across the back. Those who were clearly mages in fine and often fantastically figured robes. Beyond the tree, one great stone archway stood open and the sounds of voices calling auction prices. The signs over the doors of two other nearby buildings showed the signs of armor and weapons, and a steady stream of folk went in and out of those doors.
She gulped again and saw that most of those present seemed to be in front of the tree at the middle of the square. Taking a look at her map again, she saw she was to go straight across and turn right at the corner, then through another tunnelgate. If she hurried and stuck to the wall of the building to the left --
She clutched her staff and started to trot toward the chaos.
She had almost made it past the throng when the unholy, distorted shriek of a horse sliced through the air behind her. And then the sounds of cries of alarm, and the sounds of magic and blades and the pounding of hooves and the roar of the giant cats.
Ancasta reached the shelter of a small pile of crates at the side of the street and peered out of her hiding place, her heart in her throat.
Where a moment ago there had been the chaos of a lively crowd at peace, now it seemed as if the last battle of the Twilight of the Gods was taking place not thirty feet from where Ancasta hid. At the center, a demonic horse-shaped thing reared and spun, lashing out with burning hooves. On its back, a terrifying vision of red-glowing, spiked black armor, the helm's eye slits only gouts of flame, the black longsword in its hand whirling while the other hand flung balls of the most powerful magic Ancasta had ever seen. Most terrifying of all, with every swipe of the blade or every ball of magic flung, another of the folk now fighting against it fell dead to the cobbles. Others were trying to flee only to be caught by the spells howled by the black warrior's screeching voice. Warriors were now boiling out of the auction house and poured from a side path just ahead of Ancasta's hiding place, flinging spells, daggers, and racing forward drawing axes or swords.
Surely, surely, the black warrior would be defeated! By sheer numbers if naught else! But the black horse and its black rider whirled and spun and howled and killed, endlessly, senselessly, for what seemed in Ancasta's fear to last for hours.
Panicked, she scrambled and climbed out of her hiding place in the crates and ran for the open door of an inn a few yards away.
Hands snatched her up and swung her up against an invisible body. She struggled against the hold as long hair brushed across her face and big, long-fingered, white hands suddenly faded into view around her middle.
She looked up, still struggling, to see a white face, glowing silvery eyes, and long tapered ears bobbing through ebony hair as the Night Elf ran with her clasped against his chest.
He tucked her up against his shoulder with one arm and used the other to shove other people ahead of him as he ran.
"Go! Go! Quickly! Get behind doors! Quickly! Out of sight!" he yelled as he ran on past a few more open doors and windows. Then he swerved and ducked into another tunnelgate and freed one hand to sketch a sigil in the air. In a moment he was not only running but the world around them blurred as they all but flew across another bridge and swerved to the right, down the street beside the canal, and swerved at last into a dim alleyway. At last, he slowed and came to a stop.
Ancasta wondered if her heart would ever quit pounding so loudly she could hear her blood roaring in her ears.
The Night Elf still clutched her, panting from his panicked run.
"What -- what was that thing?" Ancasta squeaked.
The Night Elf tried to grin then shook his head. "Would you believe -- the end of the world?"
Ancasta nodded. "I would. I believe it."
He nodded and very carefully set her down on a nearby up-ended barrel. She saw his big, elegant hands were shaking badly. He put a hand against the brick wall of the alley and ran the other hand over his face.
Ancasta gulped. "I -- I just came here. To Stormwind. I just got here, not a half candlemark ago."
He glanced at her, his glowing silver eyes flickering over her. "From Ironforge?"
Ancasta nodded, speechless.
He huffed a humorless laugh. "Not the best of welcomes." He straightened his fine gray shirt and purple leather vest, ran a hand back through his flowing black hair. It was then she saw the long daggers at his belt and the throwing knives in their sheath on his leg.
"Is nowhere and no one safe from that thing? Who is he? What is he?" Ancasta asked, her voice rising in fear.
"No one is safe. If you're caught out when they appear, you die. If you try to fight, you die. It doesn't matter if you are a master blademan or master mage, you die as fast as the cheese merchant and the milkmaid. The only way to escape is to get out of sight," he said quietly. "As to what they are, they're called the Death Knights. Most we've seen have been of the Horde, of the Blood Elvenkin. They have no reason to the attacks. They appear, they kill, they go on to the next place and kill again. They'll go on to Goldshire from here, then the Abbey or Westfall or Redridge. They kill everyone in their path."
"Can't anyone stop them?" Ancasta asked.
He huffed another weary laugh and shook his head. "The King is powerless. The City Guard fall like blades of grass in the teeth of a storm."
Ancasta dropped her head in her hands and felt tears sting her eyes. Suddenly her warm little bed in Old Wolfhammer's attic seemed not only a lifetime away but the most wonderful thing in the world.