Grendel became more anxious the deeper they delved into the forest. Arthas doubted that such a flighty youth was a reliable source of information but he was the only person he had seen in the forest. Which meant that the boy was the only one to help him. The boy's anxiety fueled Arthas's awareness of his surroundings. The forest closed in around them, giving the air a thick, claustrophobic feeling.

"We shouldn't be here," Grendel whispered.

Stub crested over a moss-riddled hill. Arthas easily crested over it but the boy had to climb on all fours to get over the hill. An ugly dead tree dominated the depression in the earth. It looked like a large skeleton reaching up to the sky. It was the least impressive tree Arthas had ever seen.

Grendel shrieked. "Not Gol Inath! No, no, no! We can't be here!"

Arthas glanced down at the youth. "I see. I guess this place is bad?"

Grendel nodded furiously.

"Yes...We can't be here. The Huntsman comes out of that tree and take people like me."

it sounded like a tall tale that peasants told their children to behave. Arthas wanted to not believe the kid but Stub was already descending down the hill toward the tree. Grendel whimpered.

"I didn't know Snowfur was one of me! She seemed like a normal stupid human," Grendel chirruped.

Arthas narrowed his eyes. "Excuse me? Are you telling me you aren't a human?"

As a deathknight, Arthas could sense different kinds of magic. He felt no sort of illusion towards the young man, so unless he was more skilled than his appearance presented, or he was what he looked like.

Grendel sighed. "Well...I am part human. I am a Drust, or Drustling depending on who you ask."

Arthas knew a lot of different kinds of humanoids, from simple murlocs to northern tuskarr, but he had never heard of any people called Drust. Grendel, seeing Arthas's confusion, went on to explain more.

"Drusts lived on Kul Tiras before humans did. When the humans killed most of them off, some of them joined the human society. So, they had children with the humans. Did your daughter have any Kul Tiran blood in her?"

Arthas nodded gravely, though he tried to push out the thought of the Kul Tiran that he was thinking of. Grendel pointed to the ugly twisted tree. "Dead Drusts live on in the Blighted Lands and the entrance is in that tree. The Huntsman takes Drustlings into Thros. My mother never told me why they take children but they never come back out. Your daughter is in Thros."

Arthas smirked. He knew how to deal with the dead. He could handle anything in this so called Blighted Lands.

"How do I enter?" He asked the boy. Grendel's eyes widened in horror.

"You can't! Even if you could, you would be insane to try. I'm sorry but she's gone for good! Death would have been preferable."

At this, Arthas turned to look down at the boy with the darkest look he could manage. Grendel cowered in terror.

"How do you enter Thros?" He demanded. Grendel winced at the man's tone.

"I...You need to be a Drust. I could open the way...but I'm not going into Thros. No way."

Arthas nodded. He had not expected the cowardly child to help him in that way. Honestly, he was surprised the boy had stayed to help for as long as he had. In response, Grendel quickly started to head toward the tree, muttering under his breath.

"Mother is gonna kill me, if Father doesn't."

"So, are your parents Drusts too I assume?" Arthas said as they approached the tree. Mist curled around them as they walked. Dead tree limbs littered the ground.

Grendel shook his head. "No, my parents are wolves."

This caused Arthas to stop briefly. "Wolves?"

The boy nodded, then smiled weakly. "Yes! In fact, my father is a powerful wolf! Protector of the entire region of Drustvar. His name is Greenstalker...He warned me to never go close to Gol Inath...or stay out after dark. He protects Drustlings like me."

Arthas smirked. "And yet, if my daughter is a Drustling as you say, this wolf of yours did not protect her."

Grendel's mouth dropped open. He tried to speak, but after a few stutters, went silent. He hung his head shamefully.

"He would have...If I had told him about her. I'm so sorry! I didn't know what she was and I was so scared of the Hunstman. Please don't kill me!"

The boy collapsed to the ground and started to cry. Normally, Arthas would not have been so soft, but he needed the boy to help him. He knelt down and put a hand on the kid's shoulder.

"It's alright, kid. Just help me now and I won't crush your skull with my bare hands." This was no idle threat. If Grendel kept sobbing, he would just kill the boy and find another way to enter this place.

Grendel sniffled. "O...okay. But I'll do even better. I'll go tell my dad as soon as I help you. Will that make things better?"

Arthas gritted his teeth. "Sure, whatever. Now get up and stop whining."

They entered the doorway in the tree's trunk. Arthas did not expect stairs descending into the earth, with hard stone walls. Grendel hesitated before the darkness but Arthas fixed that easily. He summoned a small cold flame in one hand, illuminating the stairs. Grendel whimpered and followed.

Skulls and spent candles lined the stairs. Arthas had to step over puddles of used wax. At the bottom, there was an empty doorway of stone. Runes lined the doorway's arches. More skulls and candles crowded the platform of which the door stood.

"What now, forest child?" Arthas asked, turning to Grendel. The boy inhaled deeply, and walked over to the door. He picked up a handful of ash colored earth from the ground and started to draw a complex symbol with harsh angles. He put candles at five points in the symbol and lit them with a snap of his fingers.

"Do you have a knife?" Grendel asked.

Arthas unsheathed the simple knife he had scavenged off a corpse when he left Northrend. He flipped it to hand it over handle first to the boy. Grendel took it and cut his palm, wincing in pain.

Blood dripped off his hand and fell onto the symbol he had drawn. Black and blue magic sizzled upwards and the entire symbol started to glow. The candle lights flickered and turned from a normal color of fire to pure black.

The runes on the door started to glow as a well and a mass of darkness pooled within the doorway. Stub growled angrily at the doorway, fur standing up on the back of his hunched back.

"You can now enter Thros, but you should know that once someone enters they never leave," Grendel warned.

Arthas dismissed his warning. "Then I will be the first to leave. With my daughter. Anything else?"

The boy scowled. "Yes. I hope you have no fears, doubts or painful memories."


Grendel watched Arthas and the strange Stub enter the doorway, fear clutching at his breast. Not only had he been stupid enough to follow the man and strange dog to Gol Inath, but he had actually entered the tree and helped open Thros! Grendel figured he had lost his mind. He was no hero and did not like the feelings he was having. Guilt over leaving the girl alone in the forest, as well as shame for not even telling his parents about it. His father would have been able to save the girl easily. Grendel hated himself, but was trying to make up for his cowardice.

As soon as the man disappeared, Grendel sprinted up the stairs of Gol Inath and burst out of the tree.

Fur sprouted all over his body. The flesh of his face hardened into bone. Antlers grew out of the top of the skull. Claws ripped out of his fingernails. He started on two feet but ended on all fours. Instead of a normal looking boy, a skull faced creature ran through the forest. Grendel ran as fast as he could, leaping over roots and dodging thorny bushes.

"Mother!" He howled.

A few seconds later, a howl answered him. He did not stop running until he practically ran headfirst into his mother. He yipped and skidded through the leafy groundcover.

"Grendel! What are you doing, sweet pup?" The female wolf asked, rubbing her skull against his worriedly.

"I...I did something wrong, Mother. I met a girl last night and she was a Drust! But I didn't tell you about her and I should have. Now..."

The boy returned to his normal body and started to sob uncontrollably. Immediately his mother pawed at him and licked his tears away. Through wracking sobs, Grendel managed to explain the situation. His mother grew angrier after each sentence, but it was not directed at him.

"That vile monster! I'll rip out his intestines and shove them down his throat! I will-" Grendel's mother barraged the boy with more threats and graphic depictions of her rage. Grendel sniffled.

"I'm so sorry, Mother."

The wolf stopped her tangent briefly and smothered the boy. He wrapped his arms around her furry neck.

Disturbed by all the commotion, more wolves came out of the forest. All of them looked similar to Grendel and his mother, with skulls and antlers. They came in all shades and sizes, even tiny pups that Grendel could carry in one hand. A dark mass stood farther from the rest of the pack. It stayed in the shadows and was almost too large to fit underneath the trees.

What is wrong, child of the forest?

Grendel stood up, trying to keep his head up but did not look into the larger creature's eyes.

"I made a mistake. A huge mistake! Will you try and fix this for me, Father?"

Pups normally right their own wrongs lest they become weak. It seems like this time however, your mistake could be devastating to us all.


Snowfur held up branch and showed it to Stub.

"Go fetch, Stub!" She squealed and flung it as far as she could. It flew off past all of the flowers in the meadow and landed somewhere in the forested area. Snowfur loved the flowers so much she did not feel like going back into the disturbing forest. But, things were starting to become uneasy even in the meadow. Stub did not even watch the branch fly off. He merely stood there watching Snowfur, his eyes empty and lifeless.

Snowfur frowned. "Are you okay, Stubby? You seem so different."

Since Snowfur showed no signs of walking away, Stub laid down in the flowers. He sniffed one of the flowers and yawned. Snowfur sighed and decided to do something else. So she collapsed into some flowers and snatched a bright yellow one. She started to pick off the petals of the flower. Once, there were no more petals, Snowfur dropped the flower and grabbed another. Soon a pile of petals grew next to her.

"Kalma! Dear one, where have you gone?"

Snowfur sat up. Gorak Tul stood in the meadow. He looked around and finally saw her. He bared his teeth into a smile.

"Dear one! There you are. Are you enjoying yourself?"

Snowfur nodded. She picked up the flower petals. "Look, what I did!"

Gorak Tul strode over to her on his giant legs and looked at the petals.

"Ah, fantastic. You know, in my youth I would often make crowns out of flowers."

Snowfur's eyes brightened. "Really? Can you show me?"

Gorak Tul knelt down next to her, crushing a swathe of flowers underneath him. He started plucking some blue ones and delicately tied each of them together. Snowfur watched, fascinated. After he finished, he placed the crown on her head, causing the girl to giggle.

"Now make one for me, sweetling."

Snowfur attempted a crown, but it was hard. After a few failed attempts, Gorak Tul took her hands and showed her how to tie the flower stems properly without crushing them.

"There, like this. Flowers are fragile creatures, like you. It doesn't take much to...crush one."

The girl's nose wrinkled up as she tried to concentrate. Since Gorak Tul was so large, it would take a lot of flowers to make a crown for him. Halfway through the crown's construction, Lilith came running towards them.

"Master! There is a situation!" She gasped.

Gorak Tul quickly stood up. "I must see to this, little one. Have no worries. Lilith, why don't you feed the child while I am gone?"

The woman nodded and held her hand out to Snowfur. She smiled down at the youth with sparkling teeth.

"Come, girl. I am sure you are starving! We mustn't let you waste away. You are too thin as it is."

Snowfur shook her head and didn't take the woman's hand. "Oh, I'm actually not hungry. Besides, I used to be thinner than this. My friend Volugg-"

Lilith gave the girl a piercing look and without regard to Snowfur's wants, took the girls hand by force.

"Nonsense, you are nothing but bone. We need to fatten you up more. All good children eat when told."

Snowfur was taken aback. Lilith wasn't as nice as Volugg, but she had not been so brusque with her previously. Rather than argue however, Snowfur agreed to follow the woman.