Chapter 5 – Blood, Flame and Ash
On the road to Stratholme, they were greeted by the sight of a peculiar old man, standing on the roadside as if waiting for someone. There was something to his presence that they could not put into words, something unsettling, made all the more intense by his graying hair and beard and the strange garments, a set of hooded dark gray robes decorated with what appeared to be black feathers. The brown staff held tightly in his gloved hand looked like it had been fashioned from a single piece of wood, with the head meticulously carved into the shape of a raven and with a strip of red cloth tied right below the head.
At the sight of Arthas at the head of the column, his face lit up in the approximation of a smile, though there was still an almost maniacal urgency in his eyes.
"Greetings, young prince." he said. "We must talk."
"We are in a bit of a hurry." Arthas said.
He might normally have reacted with annoyance, given the stress of his situation and what was at stake, but having Jaina and Uther by his side, along with greater forces and Clark, easily worth an entire battalion on his own, gave him the added confidence he sorely needed.
"Listen to me, boy." the old man said in an urgent tone. "This land is lost! The shadow has already fallen, and nothing you do will deter it. If you truly wish to save your people, lead them across the sea... to the west."
The ludicrous statement incensed Arthas, and he had a quick retort ready.
"Flee? My place is here, and my only course is to defend my people!"
"Then your choice is already made. Just remember, the harder you strive to slay your enemies, the faster you'll deliver your people right into their hands."
"Now wait just a minute there!" Clark cut in, clearly annoyed. "You've said your piece, and now you're just going to leave and be done with it? If you want people to listen to you that badly, why not start by speaking plainly? If you know what's happening, then you know we don't have time for cryptic nonsense."
This gave the old man pause. Most people he had tried to convince were either too set on their ways to listen and therefore too quick to ignore him. This reaction was new. To his own surprise, he found himself chuckling.
"Perhaps you do have a point, boy." he conceded. "I do not recall seeing you at the king's court with all the self-absorbed representatives. Who might you be?"
"Just another person fighting for the realm's future." Clark said, unaccustomed to and frankly uncomfortable with titles and grandiose introductions. "Brother Clark Kent of the Silver Hand."
"Well… this is unexpected." the old man said, staring intently at his face.
"What do you mean?" Clark asked.
"I mean… I did not foresee your involvement in any of this. In fact, I dare say that your mere presence here is... an inscrutable anomaly."
Hidden behind a nearby shrub, a diminutive pair of golden eyes watched.
"That's one way of putting it… He's not supposed to be here at all. If this continues, who knows how much damage he might cause to the continuum?"
Clark turned abruptly, his eyes darting around nervously.
"What's the matter?" Arthas asked.
"I get the feeling we're being watched." Clark said with a suspicious frown.
The figure watching them did not even dare to breathe for a few moments, despite the magic concealing it.
"Oh crap baskets! He's definitely not one to be taken lightly… and most definitely NOT head on. What to do… what to do..."
"Well, never mind." Clark said. "It doesn't matter who's watching. What matters is that if that rambling necromancer was speaking the truth, the Burning Legion's hand is in all of this."
"And what if it is?" the old man asked with a smirk. "What do you intend to do about it?"
"What's your role in all of this?" Jaina asked, opting to confront him head on after having witnessed his earlier display in Dalaran. "Who are you?"
"That, I cannot say." the old man said with a frown. "Believe it or not, I am on your side… but if you knew my identity you might doubt my intentions."
"What do you mean?" Uther asked, catching up with the others and staring intently at the old man.
"For a very long time… I was not quite myself." the old man said with a look of regret on his face. "It's safe to say I did not even know who I was anymore."
Then he took a deep breath and straightened up, looking at Clark.
"You were not part of the plan. Regardless, my warning still stands. The plague will continue to spread no matter what you do. Curing it is beyond your ability. Most likely not even the Dragon Queen could do that. When you finally understand that the coming war cannot be won on this front… I will be expecting you on the shores of Kalimdor."
And with that, he started glowing with an eerie light and transformed into the shape of a black raven.
"What the…" Arthas hissed.
The raven took flight and quickly vanished into the sky.
"Even if we don't know who he is or what he really wants..." Jaina said cautiously. "Once again I sensed a tremendous power in that man. We should be careful."
"We should be careful and make haste." Arthas said. "His words won't save the people of Stratholme if we're too late."
Hesitant to openly display his abilities again in front of the entire troop contingent, Clark tried to think.
"Lady Jaina, how much time do you need until you can teleport again?"
"That depends on the number of people and distance." she explained. "I can't possibly take everyone here to Stratholme right now. I'm still too spent."
"What about the four of us?" Clark asked hopefully. "Yourself, me, Prince Arthas and Lord Uther?"
"I suppose I can do that much." Jaina said with a nod. "But I won't be able to pull this off again for a few more hours. If we're walking into a trap, things could get complicated."
"Do it." Arthas said with a nod before turning to the captains following closely behind them.
"We will go on ahead and assess the situation at Stratholme." the prince said. "Meet us there as soon as you can. Don't waste time with stray undead unless any innocents are in danger."
"Yes Milord!" the captains said simultaneously with a stiff salute.
Arthas took his place next to Jaina as she began to focus on her destination. As he did so, he exchanged a brief glance with the sorceress and, finding himself in such close proximity, a brief pang of regret crossed his face.
"What was I even thinking?" he thought bitterly, not saying anything. "You deserved better..."
Clark noticed the brief change in expression but did not comment on it.
Uther and Clark took their place next to her as well and soon an elaborate rune circle began to appear around them, as if traced in the air by an invisible hand in glowing blue ink. With a flash of light, they were gone.
A split second later the four found themselves standing on the royal road, right in front of the gates. A small inn, likely a resting place for merchants and other travelers outside the city walls proper stood on the right.
The increasingly familiar stench assaulted Clark's nose and his gaze darted around nervously.
"More crates from Andorhal!" he cried out, pointing his finger at a pile stacked against the inn's wall near the front door.
He rushed in, closely followed by Arthas, and to their horror, the top crate was mostly empty.
"No…" Arthas muttered. "We're too late..."
"Wait..." Clark said as he started going through the others.
There was still some blighted grain left in the piled up crates by the inn entrance. Not wanting to take any chances, Clark acted swiftly.
"Stay away from those!" he shouted in a commanding voice, making sure that anyone in the vicinity would hear him clearly.
With a look of utter disgust, he glared at the crates and his eyes lit up again. An eerie red light shot out of them and the crates quickly burst into flames.
Uther watched the display and was more than a little unnerved, but knew they had no time to waste.
"That boy… Just what was the Archbishop planning?"
He couldn't help feeling some annoyance at the fact that his old mentor had found such a promising pupil and trained him without mentioning anything about it.
"They were not completely empty…" Jaina pointed out, trying to find a reason to preserve a shred of hope. "That means…"
"It's still not enough..." Arthas said with abject horror. "The people in the city are already… unless..."
Dark thoughts formed in his mind, contemplating an unthinkable solution.
"I've been waiting for you, young prince. I am Mal'Ganis." a deep voice proclaimed, with much of the same arrogance as the necromancer's, rousing the prince from his stupor.
Clark immediately decided he hated the creature, with its grotesque visage, the fetid stench that seemed to offend even his other senses, the tasteless outfit that looked almost like a gaudy dress and, most of all, the supremely smug tone.
"As you can see, your people are now mine. I will now turn this city household by household, until the flame of life has been snuffed-"
The sight of the towering winged demon, so brazenly flaunting his plot and bragging about snuffing out the lives of an entire city struck a chord, and for the second time since catching up with the prince's party Clark literally flew into a rage.
Arthas, Uther and Jaina were speechless at the sight, as he darted through the air, charging at the dumbfounded dreadlord with a raised fist and a menacing red glow in his eyes. Even the dreadlord himself seemed stunned as the fist collided with his jaw with a sickening crack. Caught by surprise, he stumbled backwards, hitting his backside against the half open city gates.
"Y-you dare?!" Mal'ganis shouted, trying to reassert his menacing presence.
In lieu of retort, Clark charged the head of his hammer with the Holy Light and sent him tumbling through the thick gate with a mighty two handed swing, in a shower of splintered wood. Giving chase, he saw the creature seemingly fade into the air, dissolving into what looked like a cloud of bats made out of smoke. His senses told the young paladin that his quarry was retreating further into the city.
"Damnit, boy..." Uther thought, baffled both by Clark's incensed reaction and the frankly inhuman strength and speed he was displaying. "Charging in blindly like that… Almost reminds me of that squire. Jenkins, was it? I wonder what happened to him."
"After them!" Arthas shouted, recalling the last time Clark had lost his cool and ended up taking a cheap shot from Kel'Thuzad's spells.
As Clark plowed ahead with reckless abandon he heard the chilling sounds of more innocents throwing up and collapsing on the ground, followed soon after by the gurgling moans of the risen dead. Once again his eyes lit up and he incinerated the shambling zombies as they tried to approach him.
"Please let someone still be alive..." he silently pleaded.
He could still hear heartbeats. He could still sense living presences, though most of them were fading fast. A faint hope blossomed, clashing against the fear and rage that were already threatening to overwhelm him.
"By the Light!" Uther shouted at the sight of an old man puking his guts out on the cobblestones before falling limp. As the corpse arose mere moments later, he ignited the Light on his hammer and put him out of his misery.
"Forgive me..." he thought dejectedly.
"Some of them are still alive!" Arthas realized, some of the fear fading away. "Jaina, could you help carry my voice?"
She nodded and cast a simple amplification spell on him.
"Citizens of Stratholme!" he shouted. "This is your prince. If you can still move, listen to me. Get out of the city now! If anyone in your household is not affected, take them and go! Don't touch any of the grain!"
Already halfway across the city, Clark flinched at the sudden assault on his ears but nodded approvingly.
"Well thought. If I'd tried that I would probably have deafened half the city."
Still, he was not done, not by a long shot. Though their haste had apparently made the difference between life and death for a few, too many people were still suffering and dying all around him, and he felt each of their deaths like a stab to the heart.
"I'll get you, you bat winged son of a bitch..."
More shambling undead kept stumbling forward, trying to reach both him and the remaining uninfected.
"Hell no!"
In the fight between hope, fear and rage, rage won the day, and he barreled towards a pack of zombies, flattening one while incinerating two others with the fiery beams from his eyes, just in time to save a terrified little girl.
"Go..." he pleaded, feeling his eyes turning moist as soon as he stopped firing his heat vision. He couldn't even see her face through the watery veil.
"Thank you." she managed to say before scurrying towards the nearest gate.
An old, primal rage he had tried to keep buried under years of training and schooling was slowly emerging, overwhelming his senses. Another pack of undead crossed his path and he filled his lungs for a brief moment before forcing the air back out in a terrible gust that crushed them against the front of some sort of shop, reducing them to a fetid paste.
Scattered through the city, he could hear the agony of more innocents, the shambling of the risen dead and the terrified cries of those who had avoided getting infected as they watched their loved ones, friends and neighbors turn.
Suddenly, he felt like a little boy once again, charging through the snows of Alterac Valley in the middle of a howling blizzard, shouting obscenities in Orcish against Gul'Dan.
Suddenly, he felt like the same boy again, charging through the fields of Hillsbrad to crush a pack of marauding ogres and avenge the first humans he had ever met as an unconscious Jonathan Kent lay on the ground.
He remembered the orcish war drums, the chanting by the fireside. The tales of the blood rage, which had driven so many orcs to madness and self-destruction. Blood and rage of crimson red.
Focusing his supernatural vision on detecting as many heat signatures as he could, he exploded into motion, faster than the naked eye could follow, plowing through anything in range in a flurry of destruction, focused on obliterating anything that tried to harm the remaining dwindling survivors. In the span of mere instants, he was soon covered in ichor and fetid paste, but he didn't care or even notice. All he could see were the innocents and the sneering face of the dreadlord. All he could hear was the screams and the pounding of his own heart. Amidst the chaos, either due to stray heat vision bursts or someone knocking over a brazier or torch in the panic, the mostly wooden buildings had caught fire and the blaze was quickly spreading. Thankfully, anyone still alive and uninfected soon made it outside the city.
Thanks to his rampage, a few more would live. Countless more had already been lost. As he finally found himself in front of the local headquarters of the Order of the Silver Hand, he saw the dreadlord standing there with his arms crossed as if waiting for him, once again looking supremely smug.
"This changes nothing." the dreadlord hissed. "The Cult's reach is longer than you can imagine. If you truly wish to settle this, then come to Northrend… if you da-"
He was cut off by a mighty two-handed swing of Clark's hammer, ablaze in the Light and fierce enough to snap the handle in two. Once again in the throes of rage, Clark stabbed the dreadlord in the left eye with the pointy broken piece of the wooden shaft. Before the surprised fiend could react, the enraged paladin grabbed both of the dreadlord's horns and snapped them off before proceeding to skewer him with them, stabbing over and over again until his corporeal form was destroyed and he once again vanished in a smoky cloud of bats. Clark watched him disappear and threw the horns aside.
Not far behind, a pair of green eyes was watching him with a mixture of conflicting emotions.
Chronormi had taken on this assignment without knowing what to expect. Rogues mages, demons, magical anomalies… those she had come in prepared to face.
The sight of a giant of a man, ablaze in the Holy Light, slamming his fist into the ground as he wailed loudly enough to shatter the windows of the nearby houses… now that was not something she was prepared to face. She had been told precious little about what to expect beforehand, other than there was an anomaly in the form of a person that she needed to monitor for the sake of the timeline's integrity. An outsider from a dead world that was by no means supposed to be there.
"Just what did I get myself into?" she wondered, feeling genuinely bad for him.
Then, he suddenly got back on his feet, raising his fist into the air. With a menacing red glow in his eyes, Clark let out a roar that shook the burning buildings and knocked the disguised dragon off her feet.
"I will hunt you to the ends of the earth if I have to! Do you hear me?! To the ends of the earth!"
His choice of words sent chills down her spine.
"Oh no… This is all wrong! If he goes on this path then… nothing could stop him!"
Elsewhere…
"Keep your voices down." a man hissed. "There are strangers about..."
"Brothers and sisters, I have called you here today to discuss the fate of Lordaeron."
