The Wolf Den

They walked one behind the other along the edge of the riverbank. Gred watched the raised ground near the trees, waving his torch back and forth to light up the holes hidden beneath roots that stuck out of the short cliffs.

"What if the den isn't here?" Jess was so sleepy he could barely walk. Gred, strangely enough, was full of energy, nothing like his usual self.

"Want to bet?" Gred said. "Five copper says we find it within half an hour. I can already smell it."

"I'm not betting with you. Why didn't we follow the wolves that ran away?"

Gred shone the torch toward Jess's face. "If they'd run away normally, we could've followed them home. But you scared them out of their minds, and their leaders are dead. They're not much of a pack anymore. If you'd watched closely, you'd have seen they all ran in different directions. Which one would you follow?"

Jess tried to remember, but the only thing in his head was the chaos. He had no idea where the wolves had gone.

By the time he'd finished thinking about it, Gred had gone on ahead.

Without footsteps or the crackle of the torch, all Jess heard was the flowing river, the wind in the trees, and the rustle of leaves.

He took a deep breath and looked toward the water. The brief silence finally gave him room to think.

What Gred had said earlier had hurt. Jess had worked so hard to find a path forward, only to discover that his closest friend couldn't approve of it.

But he couldn't blame the dwarf. As an old Warcraft player who knew the history, Jess should have remembered the Wildhammers' ancient hatred of shadow power.

Yet shadow magic seemed to be the only way he'd found to grow stronger in this world. If he gave it up now, he might spend the rest of his life as an ordinary man, hiding away and struggling to get by.

He was almost eighteen. If he let this chance go, how many paths would still be open to him?

Most heroes of Azeroth had shown their talent and achieved something by eighteen. He was still doing odd jobs around Elwynn.

Suddenly, he heard crying from somewhere he couldn't identify.

In the quiet night, the sound sent a chill down his back. Then it struck him. Could that be the child from Great Lake Farm?

"Gred!" Jess shouted. The dwarf answered from far ahead.

"Did you hear it? A child! I hear a baby crying!"

"What?! You heard something? I can't hear a thing!"

"Over there! Across the river! Right there!"

They ran together into the stream. They started by splashing through the shallows, then had to float, and finally swim hard against the current. Once they reached the other bank, the crying was much clearer.

They followed the sound deeper into the forest. Before long, they reached a low slope covered by bushes. A hole had been dug into the earth beneath it.

Jess crawled straight inside without worrying about the danger. Gred wanted to warn him that something might still be in there, but Jess had already squeezed his thin body through the entrance.

"We're here to save you, little Fryer!" Jess called as he crawled deeper. By the time he reached the back, he realized he couldn't see a thing. It was completely dark.

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He couldn't hear the baby anymore. Only then did he remember she was a few months old and couldn't talk. She might have gone quiet because she was frightened.

Gred shouted his name from outside. Jess answered and kept feeling his way farther in.

The deeper he went, the stronger the rotten smell and the rank odor of wolves became. His stomach churned.

He forced himself onward, feeling around in the dark. He touched what seemed to be several dead small animals. They didn't feel like prey the wolves had brought back and killed. They felt more like dead wolf pups.

This was a wolf den, wasn't it?

Why would the pups have died inside their own den?

Following the faint sound of breathing, he reached farther forward until his hand touched something wet and made of cloth.

His scalp prickled. In a place like this, what could something wet be except blood?

He rubbed his fingers together. It didn't have the sticky feel of blood.

He touched the wet cloth again and followed it upward. When his fingers met slippery skin, the baby suddenly cried out. He'd touched the girl's lips and teeth. It was saliva.

The sudden cry was painfully loud in the cramped space. He didn't mind at all. He gathered the baby tightly into his arms.

"Found her?" Gred called from outside.

"I found her! I'm coming out!"

Jess crawled out with the girl. When Gred shone the torch on his face, he saw that Jess was covered in blood and wolf fur.

"Why's there so much blood?"

"I don't know," Jess said. "It smells like blood in there. There might be meat or bits of other animals. I couldn't see anything."

"Any wolves in there? Pups?" Gred asked.

"I think so, but they're all dead. They could be other prey animals, though. I'm not sure."

Jess looked down at the baby and let out a relieved breath. "Just think how happy your mother will be."

The girl stopped sobbing for a while. She stared at Jess's face and reached out to touch the dirt on his neck and forehead.

Gred looked at the evil warlock who had just scared more than ten wolves—and Gred himself—half to death with a Fear spell. Somehow he couldn't bring himself to be angry.

He glanced at the hole again. "Should we pull one of those dead wolves out and have a look? The baby didn't kill them, did she?"

Jess looked at the girl, who wasn't even six months old. Surely not. Still, curiosity drove him to take another look.

He handed the baby to Gred, bent down, crawled back in, and dragged out the nearest body.

The wolf pup was a horrible sight. There were no obvious wounds, but swollen, pus-filled lumps covered its body. It definitely hadn't starved to death or died of anything ordinary.

"Doesn't it look like those zombies in Duskwood?" Gred asked.

It did. Jess suddenly remembered the cemetery. He looked at his bandaged hand. Had he been infected by corpse poison again? He'd have to visit the Cathedral of Light when he got back.

"Why would these pups die of corpse poison?"

"Easy," Gred said. "They probably ate a poisoned corpse the adults brought back from the woods to the south. They're not like the people of Raven Hill. They don't cook their meat. What's strange is, why wasn't the baby poisoned?"

"Maybe she's a picky eater. Lucky for her." Jess wiped dirt from the baby's face. "But whether she ate anything or not, we should tell her parents to get her checked."

"Agreed." The dwarf nodded.

"Maybe that's why the pack went mad," Jess said.

"Could be," Gred agreed. "The wolves might have been infected too, like those sickly wolves farther south. There could be other dens around here. A pack that big wouldn't all live in this one little hole. And this doesn't look like a wolf dug it. Looks more like an old bear den they took over."

"A pack that fled here from the south?" Jess asked.

"Who knows?" Gred said. "We've got the child, and we've dealt with most of the pack. Even if the survivors gather again, they won't come back around here. Let's go."

By the time they reached the farm, the sky was deep blue and both moons had disappeared.

The girl was asleep on Jess's back. Gred could barely keep his eyes open.

When they saw the man running toward them from a distance, Jess was so dazed that he thought another wolf was charging and flinched all over.

"My child, my child..." The man clutched the baby's clothes and mumbled something that neither of them could make out. He hurriedly wiped away his tears, looked toward the dark woods behind them, and said, "You're hurt. Are there wolves chasing you? Do you need..."

"No wolves. They're all dead. In the woods to the south, not far. You can go look," Gred said with a sleepy laugh. "Don't think the survivors will dare come back. Even their grandmother's dead!"

Hearing the voices, a woman peered outside. When she saw her husband carrying their child back, her knees nearly gave way.

The girl opened her eyes and looked at her parents as if she had no idea what had happened. Neither parent could put together a proper sentence. They just held her and cried.

Jess sat against the lower part of the house's outer wall. He could no longer understand what the couple was saying. All he wanted was sleep.

He glanced beside him. Gred was already sprawled by his feet, snoring.

Seeing the dwarf sleep so soundly was too much. Jess tipped his head to one side and lost consciousness.