Climbing up on Stonetalon Peak, Kazlin could see the fires of Sun Rock below. At the end of the day, he had let himself be talked into the mission to destroy the Kaldorei elfs and the Cenarion that inhabited the vale at the top of the mountain. Not for himself – he had a bad feeling about the quest – but for his companions. Kazlin knew that Tashtego sought to prove himself a great and terrible warrior. For Bendi, he wanted the reward promised in return for their success. If she were ever to be happy, she needed a home and a husband. The spoils they were due to receive would go a long way to helping her achieve the first part.

An' maybe some day I can help her with tha second part, he had thought.

Kazlin's unease grew as the trolls jogged up the frost-covered path just south of the summit. Tashtego had said a female elf had been the quest giver. Why would an elf be seeking aid in Sun Rock, a Horde camp? And why would she wish the death of her own kind? Tashtego, never the brightest troll, didn't care and hadn't asked. Kazlin had sought out the elf for answers, but she had seemingly vanished from the village.

Now, as the party reached the final rise, Kazlin silently brought them to a halt.

"I do not like what I am sensin'," he whispered. "I think we needs ta be careful, sneak 'round an' listen b'fore we do anythin' else." He glowered at Tashtego. "Agreed?"

"Wha' yah eye-ballin' me fo'?" the other troll said, defensively. "Okee, fine. Mah promise."

Crouching low and cresting the hill, Kazlin and the others beheld a valley unlike any they had seen before. Lush, fertile, misty, with green and purple trees in full bloom despite the winter snow covering the rest of the mountain. In the center of the vale, they could make out marble columns fronting ornamental platforms that were not quite buildings, but more like altars. Using hand signals to communicate, the trolls snuck closer to the innermost dias.

There, surrounded by a half moon of genuflecting elfs dressed in robes, stood what Kazlin could only assume were the Cenarion. Though centaur-like in appearance, the Cenarion were bigger and appeared to be not just fauna, but flora at the same time – their hindquarters covered in bark, with wood appendages growing from their heads like antlers. More than a few had branches for arms and twigs for fingers.

Bendi was spellbound. "They're so… beautiful," she whispered.

Suddenly, lightning flashed and wind ripped through the treetops. Rising from where he had been kneeling at the heart of the congregation, a god-like figure stood and raised his hands to the skies.

"Even in winter, you are not safe. Stay indoors. Attend your hearths. Try to keep the night at bay by the telling of your tongue," it chanted. "For at this time, the dead begin to stir, riding upon hallowed roads, galloping through villages and wastes, flying through the forests of the mind. Such raids are reminders that the past is not a dead thing, but may return, like a hunter, to follow us for a time."

The massive humanoid wore black-green armor, and a vicious whip hung at its waist. Around its neck was strung a worn hunting horn; on its head rested a black helmet topped with a ragged rack of bone antlers. As the figure slowly turned in the direction of the concealed trolls, its glowing red eyes marking the bushes in which they hid, Kazlin felt his heart sink.

"I see Braelyn has sent more lost souls for the having," intoned the spectral leader. He put the horn to the face of his helmet, and as a terrible din like the sound of shrieking poured forth, a pack of coal-black hounds appeared from the mist. "Tear them down," ordered the figure. With that, the fell beasts broke for the trolls.

The hunters had become the hunted.