Chapter 066: The Walls at Night

Jess followed the middle-aged man into the room. Two young people who looked like apprentices or trainee mages were inside, along with a slightly older woman. Morgans was the oldest of the group and was probably their teacher.

"I'm Master Marin's assistant. He asked me to deliver this package to an apprentice named Martin Harold," Jess said, holding it out. "There's a letter inside as well."

One of the young apprentices came over to take it.

"I'm Martin Harold."

"Edan actually sent an assistant all the way here to deliver a letter?" the woman asked doubtfully. "And such a young one?"

"Master Marin hired me specifically to help with his business in Redridge, ma'am," Jess said.

"I see." Morgans asked, "Do you know what's inside?"

Jess shook his head.

"I haven't opened it."

"Whatever the case, stay here tonight," Morgans said, pointing right. "Go out, turn right, and take the room at the end of the corridor. It's empty. There isn't a key, but this is a military fortress. You won't have to worry about safety, so get some rest."

The apprentice put the package on the table and began speaking quietly with the other young man.

"Teacher, look." Martin unfolded the orc battle standard from the package and showed it to Morgans.

"Then I'll leave you to it, Master," Jess said.

He was about to turn away when Morgans stopped him.

"Do you know what this banner represents?"

Jess glanced back.

"It's the emblem of the Dragonmaw clan."

Morgans opened the letter and read it through.

"Now I see why Master Marin asked you to help him search for signs of the red dragons, Mr. Jess Seso. Marin was right. The Dragonmaw orcs didn't flee Azeroth through the Dark Portal with the other clans. They're still here—and they're still enslaving the red dragonflight. This banner disproves my earlier theory."

"But the letter says the banner was found by mages near Menethil Harbor in Khaz Modan, not at Blackrock Mountain. That's different from what he'd suspected before too. He wants me to return to Stormwind. Andromath is organizing an expedition deep into the Wetlands to find the Dragonmaw orcs' real stronghold."

"Could it be Grim Batol?" the woman asked.

"Do you really think the orcs could find that cursed dwarf city?" Morgans said. "No living person has come out of Grim Batol since the Wildhammer dwarves vanished from there two hundred years ago."

"I've heard dragons live there," Martin said.

"Some people claim they've seen red dragons there. Others say black dragons. Whether any of those stories are true or not, it's an extremely dangerous place. Perhaps Andromath has the same idea you do, but I don't think an expedition into the heart of the Wetlands is a sensible decision right now."

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He sighed, sat down, and looked at his students.

"Our great Master Andromath wants achievements that will put the Kirin Tor to shame. He wants to uncover the connection between those green-skinned invaders and the red dragons before Masters Antonidas and Krasus do. And Edan Marin would stop at nothing for rank and reputation. Maybe he wants it even more than Andromath does. They're a perfect pair."

"But if the Wizard's Sanctum has decided to send an expedition... damn it, I have to obey. After all, I'm no different. I'm trapped in these people's games and can't get free."

Morgans gave a bitter smile and rubbed his forehead.

"I'll write a reply tonight. Mr. Seso, could I ask you to deliver it to Edan tomorrow? Oh, and what I just said... don't tell him."

Jess agreed. He had just opened the door when a guard came bounding up the stairs, rushing past him into the room.

"Master Morgans! We've found traces of dark magic in the eastern woods. The colonel thinks that gnoll dark mage has appeared again. Every previous hunt failed, so this time the colonel is taking troops himself. He wants your help too. He means to get rid of the menace for good and end Stonewatch's troubles."

Morgans rose at once.

"I'll be right there. Tell the colonel I'm ready."

By the time Jess reached the room Morgans had mentioned, the mage was already hurrying downstairs with the guard.

Knowing what Morgans would do in the future, Jess couldn't help wondering whether he was really going to help the soldiers hunt a gnoll warlock. Maybe he wanted to study the gnoll's possessions—its spells and magical tools—and take them for himself.

Or perhaps he was going out to help the gnoll escape. For all Jess knew, Morgans might already be working with the gnolls of Redridge.

Then again, he was probably judging the mage by his own habits.

Jess put down his bag and went through the door at the end of the corridor, out of the keep and onto the walls.

He looked toward the eastern forest. He wanted to see what those supposed traces of dark magic actually were.

Night was settling in. The sun had already disappeared behind the Redridge Mountains, and only a last red glow kept the sky from turning completely black.

Even so, with his own sensitivity to dark magic, Jess could feel a faint, ominous presence in those woods.

Hooves were already pounding in the courtyard behind him. Soldiers called to one another, with the colonel's orders rising above the noise.

In the game, the most powerful gnoll warlock in Redridge had been a creature called Fangore. In the local language, that name meant "Bloody Claw," which said plenty about his cruelty.

Worse than the name was his dark magic.

Jess didn't know whether Fangore had been born yet, or whether he'd already become that powerful. But the darkness drifting through the woods suggested that the gnoll clans already had warlocks of much the same kind.

He heard a door open and close behind him. Martin, the apprentice, had come onto the walls too and was looking east.

Jess took the opportunity to ask, "Can you feel the shadow energy in there, Mr. Martin Harold?"

"What dark energy?" Martin glanced at him. "We're too far away to see anything. By the way, you're only an assistant, aren't you, Mr. Jess Seso?"

"Still," Martin continued, "I suppose there might be darkness in there. The soldiers here are veterans of the Orc Wars. They're much more sensitive to shadow than I am. That doesn't necessarily mean what you're sensing is real, though. Being able to sense magic takes talent too."

Jess said nothing. More than Martin's attempt to belittle him, it was his own unusual sensitivity to shadow that bothered him.

The apprentice couldn't sense a thing, yet Jess could make out something.

Perhaps each time he used shadow power and reached into the darkness within himself, his connection to shadow grew deeper. Perhaps that was why he could notice things in the forest that Martin couldn't.

Or was it all his imagination?

Jess went to a watchtower at the other end of the wall, climbed its ladder, and took up the position where sentries usually watched the forest. He looked over the trees more carefully.

Wasn't this a good chance to train his sensitivity to magic?

He searched the forest for the direction Stonewatch's cavalry had taken. He could faintly hear hoofbeats and shouts, but the canopy hid the riders completely. He couldn't pick out their exact location.

"I hope they come back safely," Martin said from the wall below. He might have been speaking to Jess or simply talking to himself.

Then the apprentice turned back toward the keep.

Jess glanced down at him. Martin hadn't even reached the door when something whistled through the air.

In the torchlight, the apprentice was suddenly snatched away like a white shirt caught in a gust of wind—dragged straight into the darkness below the wall.

He didn't even have time to scream.