The Last Guardian (26 page)

“Huh,” grunted the sergeant. “Well, boyo, wefound your prisoner out here, armed, with you nowhere in sight. I’d say your prisoner escaped. Pity the orc would rather die than surrender.”

“Don’t touch her!” said Khadgar, and he raised his hand. Flames danced within his curled
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fingers.

“You’re flirting with your own death,” snarled the sergeant. In the distance, Khadgar could hear the heavy footfalls of horses. Reinforcements. But would they be any more willing to listen to a half-orc and a spellcaster than this lot were?

“You’re making a horrible mistake, sir,” said Khadgar, keeping his voice level.

“Stay out of this, boy,” commanded the sergeant. “Take the orc. Kill her if she resists!”

The footmen took another step forward, those closest to Garona bending down to grab her again. She tried to squirm away and one kicked her with a heavy boot.

Khadgar bit back tears and unleashed the spell against the sergeant. The ball of flame slammed into his knee. The sergeant howled and dropped to the ground.

“Now stop this,” hissed Khadgar.

“Kill them!” shouted the sergeant, his eyes wide in pain. “Kill them both!”

“Hold!” came another voice, darker and deeper, muffled by a great helm. The horsemen had arrived in the town square. About twenty riders, and Khadgar’s heart sank. More here than even Garona could take care of. Their leader was in full armor, with a visored helm. Khadgar could not see his face.

The young apprentice rushed forward. “Sir,” he said. “Call off these men. I am the apprentice to Magus

Medivh.”

“I know who you are,” said the commander. “Stand down!” he ordered. “Keep the orc guarded, but let her go!”

Khadgar gulped and continued. “I have a prisoner and important information for King Llane. I need to see Lord Lothar, at once!”

The commander lifted his visor. “So you shall, lad,” said Lothar. “So you shall.”

Fifteen

Beneath Karazhan

The discussion at Stormwind Castle had not gone well, and now they were circling Medivh’s Tower on gryphon-back. Beneath them, in the gathering dusk, Karazhan loomed large and empty. No lights shone from any of its windows, and the observatory atop the structure was dark. Beneath a now-moonless sky, even the pale stones of the tower were dark and brooding.

There had been a heated discussion in the King’s Privy Quarters the previous evening. Khadgar and

Garona were there, although the half-orc was asked to surrender her knife to Lothar in the presence of

His Majesty. The King’s Champion was there as well, and a gaggle of advisors and courtiers all hovering around King Llane. Khadgar could not smell a single spellcaster in the group, and surmised that any that had survived Medivh’s poaching were either on the battlefield or squirreled away for safekeeping.

As for the King himself, the young man from the early visions had grown up. He had the broad shoulders and sharp features of his youth, only now starting to surrender to middle age. Of all present, he was resplendent, and his blue robes shone among the others. He kept an open-faced helm to one side of his seat, a great helm with white wings, as if he expected to be called onto the battlefield at any moment.

Khadgar wondered if such a call was not exactly what Llane desired, remembering the headstrong youth of the troll-vision. A direct conflict on an open and level field, with his forces’

eventual triumph never in doubt. He wondered how much of the assuredness derived from the faith in the Magus’s eventual support. Indeed, it seemed that one led naturally to the other—that the Magus will always support

Stormwind, and Stormwind will always hold as a result of the Magus’s support.

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The healers had tended to Garona’s split lip, but could do nothing for her temper. Several times Khadgar winced as she bluntly described the orcish opinions of the master mage’s sanity, of the paleskins in general, and Llane’s troops in particular.

“The orcs are relentless,” she said. “And they will not let up. They will be back.”

“They did not get within bowshot of the walls,” countered Llane. To Khadgar, his majesty seemed more amused than alarmed by Garona’s direct manner and blunt warnings.

“They did not get within bowshot of the walls,” repeated Garona. “This time. Next time they will. And the time after that they will get over the walls. I don’t think you are taking the orcs sufficiently seriously, sire.”

“I assure you, I take this very seriously,” said Llane. “But I am also aware of the strengths of Stormwind.

Of its walls, of its armies, of its allies, and of its heart. Perhaps if you saw them, you too would be less confident in the power of the orcs.”

Llane was similarly adamant about the Magus as well. Khadgar laid everything out before the privy council, with assurances and additions from Garona. The visions of the past, the erratic behavior, the visions that were not visions at all but rather true demonstrations of Sargeras’s presence in Karazhan. Of

Medivh’s culpability in the present assault on Azeroth.

“If I had a silver groat for every man who has told me that Medivh is mad, I would be richer than I am today,” said Llane. “He has a plan, young sir. It’s as simple as that. More times than I can count he has gone off on some mad dash or another, and Lothar here had worried his beard to tatters. And each time he’s proved to be right. The last time he was here did he not hare off to hunt a demon, and bring it back within a few hours? Hardly the action of one demon-possessed to decapitate one of his own.”

“But it might be the action of one who was trying to maintain his own innocence,” put in Garona. “No one saw him kill this demon, in the heart of your city. Could he not have summoned it up, then killed and provided it as the one responsible?”

“Supposition,” grumbled the king. “No. With respect to both of you, I do not deny that you saw what you saw. Not even these ‘visions’ of the past. But I think the Magus is crazy like a fox, and all this is part of some larger plan of his. He always speaks of larger plans and greater cycles.”

“With all due respect,” said Khadgar. “The Magus may have a larger plan, but the question is, does

Stormwind and Azeroth truly have a place within that plan?”

So went most of the evening. King Llane was adamant on all points—that Azeroth could, with their allies, destroy or drive back the orc hordes to its home world, that Medivh was working on some plan that no one else could understand, and that Stormwind could withstand any assault

“as long as men with stout hearts were manning the walls and the throne.”

Lothar for his part was mostly silent, only breaking in to ask a relevant question, then shaking his head when Khadgar or Garona gave him a truthful answer. Finally, he spoke up.

“Llane, don’t let your security blind you!” he said. “If we cannot count on Magus Medivh as an ally, we are weakened. If we discount the capabilities of the orcs, we are lost. Listen to what they are saying!”

“I am listening,” said the King. “But I hear not only with my head but with my heart. We spent many years with young Medivh, both before and during his long sleep. He remembers his friends. And once he reveals his thinking, I’m sure even you will appreciate what a friend we have in the Magus.”

At last the King rose and dismissed all, promising to take the matters under proper consideration.

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Garona was muttering under her breath, and Lothar gave them rooms without windows and with guards on the doors, just to be sure.

Khadgar tried to sleep, but the frustration kept him pacing the floor for most of the night.

Finally, when exhaustion had finally claimed him, there was a sound pounding on the door.

It was Lothar, in full armor, with a uniform draped over his arm. “Sleep like the dead, will you?”

he said, holding out the livery with a smile. “Put this on and meet us at the top of the tower in fifteen minutes. And hurry, lad.”

Khadgar struggled into the gear, which included trousers, heavy boots, blue livery marked with the lion of Azeroth, and heavy-bladed sword. He thought twice about the sword, but slung it onto his back. It might prove useful.

There were no less than six gryphons clustered on the towers, rustling their great wings in agitation.

Lothar was there, and Garona as well. She was similarly dressed to Khadgar, with the blue tabard marked with the lion of Azeroth, and a heavy sword.

“Don’t,” she growled at him, “say a word.”

“You look very good in it,” he said. “It goes with your eyes.”

Garona snorted. “Lothar said the same thing. He tried to convince me by saying that you were wearing the outfit, too.And that he wanted to make sure that none of the others shot me thinking I was someone else.”

“Others?” said Khadgar, and looked around. In the morning light, it was clear that there were other flights of gryphons on other towers. Around six, including theirs, the gryphons’ wings pink with the unrisen sun. He was unaware that there were this many trained gryphons in the world, much less

Stormwind. Lothar must have gone to talk to the dwarves. The air was cold and sharp as a dagger thrust.

Lothar hurried up to them, and adjusted Khadgar’s sword so he could ride gryphon-back with it.

“His Majesty,” grumbled Lothar, “has an abiding faith in the strength of the people of Azeroth and the thickness of the walls of Stormwind. It doesn’t hurt that he also has good people who take care of things when he’s wrong.”

“Like us,” said Khadgar, grimly.

“Like us,” repeated Lothar. He looked at Khadgar hard and added, “I had asked you how he was, you know.”

“Yes,” said Khadgar. “And I told you the truth, or as much of it as I understood it at the time.

And I felt loyal to him.”

“I understand,” said Lothar. “And I feel loyal to him as well. I want to make sure what you say is true.

But I also want you to be able to do what needs to be done, if we have to do it.”

Khadgar nodded. “You believe me, don’t you?”

Lothar nodded grimly. “Long ago, when I was your age, I was tending to Medivh. He was in his coma, then, that long sleep that denied him much of his youth. I thought it was a dream, but I swore there was another man opposite me, also watching over the Magus. He seemed to be made of burnished brass, and he had heavy horns on his brow, and his beard made of flames.”

“Sargeras,” said Khadgar.

Lothar let out a deep breath. “I thought I had fallen asleep, that it was a dream, that it could not be what

I thought it was. You see, I too felt loyal to him. But I never forgot what I saw. And as the years passed I

began to realize that I had seen a bit of the truth, and that it may come to this. We may yet save
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Medivh, but we might find that the darkness is too deeply rooted. Then we will have to do something sudden, horrible, and absolutely necessary. The question is—Are you up to it?”

Khadgar thought for a moment, then nodded. His stomach felt like ice. Lothar raised a hand.

On his command, the other flights of gryphons strained aloft, springing to life as the first rays of the dawn crested the earth’s rim, the new sunlight catching their wings and turning them golden.

The chill feeling in the pit of Khadgar’s stomach did not ebb on the long flight to Karazhan.

Garona rode behind him, but neither spoke as the land fled beneath their wings.

The land had changed beneath their wings. Great fields were little more than blackened wreckage, dotted by the remnants of toppled foundations. Forests were uprooted to feed the engines of war, creating huge scars in the landscape. Open pits yawned wide, the earth itself wounded and stripped to reach the metals beneath. Columns of smoke rose up along the horizon, though whether they were from battlefields or forges Khadgar could not say. They flew through the day and the sun was ebbing along the horizon now.

Karazhan rose like an ebon shadow at the center of its crater, sucking in the last dying rays of the day and giving nothing back. No lights shone from the tower nor from any of the hollow windows. The torches that flamed without consuming their source had been extinguished.

Khadgar wondered if Medivh had fled.

Lothar kneed his gryphon down, and Khadgar followed, quickly setting down, and slipping from the back of the winged beast. As soon as he touched the ground, the gryphon shot aloft again, letting out a shrieking cry and heading north.

The Champion of Azeroth was already at the stairs, his huge shoulders tensed, his heavy frame moving with the quiet, agile grace of a cat, his blade drawn. Garona slunk forward as well, her hand dipping into her tabbard and coming up with her long-bladed dagger. The heavy blade from Stormwind clattered against Khadgar’s hip, and he felt like a clumsy creature of stone compared to the other two. Behind him, more gryphons landed and discharged their warriors.

The observatory parapet was empty, and the upper level of the master mage’s study deserted but not empty. There were still tools scattered about, and the smashed remnants of the golden device, an astrolabe, rested on the mantel. So if the tower was truly abandoned, it was done quickly.

Or it had not been abandoned at all.

Torches were fired and the party descended the myriad stairs, with Lothar, Garona, and Khadgar in the lead. Once these walls were familiar, were home, the many stairs a daily challenge. Now, the wall-mounted torches, with their cool, frozen flame, had been extinguished, and the moving torches of the invaders cast myriad armed shadows against the wall, giving the halls an alien, almost nightmarish cast.

The very walls seemed to hold menace, and Khadgar expected every darkened doorway to hold a deadly ambush.

There was nothing. The galleries were empty, the banquet halls bare, the meeting rooms as devoid of life and furnishings as ever. The guest quarters were still furnished, but unoccupied.

Khadgar checked his own quarters: Nothing had changed there.

Now the torchlight cast strange shadows on the walls of the library, twisting the iron frames and turning the bookcases into battlements. The books were untouched, and even Khadgar’s most recent notes were still on the table. Had Medivh not thought enough of the library to take any of his volumes?