THIRTEEN

Anduin hung on tightly to the great ram as it took the slick, icy path from Ironforge to the small villages in its shadow at a full gallop. He had no choice but to trust in the ram’s sure hooves, and he realized somewhat to his surprise his trust seemed to be well placed. There wasn’t a single stumble. The large beasts were actually more comfortable to ride than horses, he had found, but that still didn’t mean he enjoyed the breakneck pace of the trip.

As they approached Kharanos, they were greeted by several of the mountaineers stationed there.

“Hurry! Several are trapped in town!” one of them cried. “Give me yer ram, lass! I’ve got tae ride tae Ironforge and get more help!”

Immediately Aerin slipped off and handed the reins over to the mountaineer, who vaulted into the saddle and took off. Without a word Aerin quickly climbed up behind Anduin and they hurried on grimly.

The injuries were much more severe here. Anduin saw nearly a dozen people being treated right out in the open, as almost all of the buildings were damaged in some way. He looked around for Rohan, and found him kneeling over an elderly dwarf female. Anduin slipped off the ram and hurried to the high priest just in time to see him pull a sheet over the still form.

Rohan looked up, his eyes looking older than Anduin had ever seen them. “Prince Anduin,” he said, “I thought ye might come. Know some first aid training, do ye?”

Anduin nodded. “And I’m no dwarf, but I’ve got a pretty strong back,” he said. “I hear people are trapped inside.”

“Aye,” he said, “but it’s healers we’re short of, nae strong backs. Aerin, lass, go help the others; I’ll put our boy tae work here.”

“Aye,” Aerin said, “let’s get these people out o’ danger and into th’ fresh air!”

And for the next several hours Anduin was indeed put to work. As more and more victims of the quake were pulled from the rubble, Rohan healed those with the most grievous injuries, leaving those with minor wounds to Anduin. He bathed and bandaged and smiled and reassured, and at one point saw Rohan looking at him approvingly.

He thought about his father as he worked. Varian was a warrior. Anduin knew that he was not. Sparring and the thought of dealing injury had never made the human prince feel the way he did now, when he was doing something concrete to ease pain instead of cause it, to help people instead of harm them. Oh, war was a dark and dire necessity sometimes, as was the case in Northrend, but Anduin knew in his heart that he would always long for, and strive for, peace. The injuries here, caused by nature and unavoidable, were bad enough. Anduin did not want to think how he would feel if he were treating those wounded in battle and not by the accidental fall of rocks.

Someone had set up a cauldron and filled it with snow. The resulting water was hot and clean. Anduin poured a small bit of a healing potion into a mug of water and added a few leaves of peacebloom to steep, then handed the mug to a young gnomish mother. She let her two children, a baby and a toddler, sip it first before taking a drink herself.

“You’re very kind, sir,” she said. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome,” he said, patting the baby’s tiny head and moving on to a cantankerous middle-aged dwarf male who was arguing with another healer. The priestess, a visiting night elf, was dabbing at a cut on the dwarf’s forehead that was bleeding profusely.

“I’m fine, curse ye, go an’ tend tae someone who’s really wounded, or I’ll make ye next in line wi’ a broken nose!”

“Sir, please, if you’ll just hold still—”

“I’ll no waste yer precious healing abilities on a wee cut!” the dwarf bellowed. “Why don’t ye—”

The earth rumbled again. This time Anduin did not feel that he was standing on a large purring creature, but attempting to balance atop a bucking horse. His feet went out from under him and he hit the frozen ground hard. It rumbled beneath him, angry and aggressive this time, and he covered his head and held his breath and waited for it to be over. All around him he heard screaming, high-pitched and terrified, and a low, rumbling, cracking sound. Anduin fought against a primal terror as he squeezed his eyes shut and prayed to the Light. He hadn’t anticipated this. He’d handled the first quake just fine, but now reason seemed to have deserted him. He realized that the screaming he heard around him now included his own voice.

Something warm and calming touched him, and he felt the familiar sensation of the Light. His chest suddenly loosened and he was able to breathe. The earth still heaved beneath him, but he could think now, could ride it out in control of his emotions, not they in control of him. Others, too, seemed to calm, and the awful sound of screams no longer mixed with the sounds of a shaking earth.

It seemed to go on forever, but finally the aftershock ended. Anduin lifted his head cautiously. His breath misted in the cold air as he looked around. The gnome woman and her children—they were all right. So were the cranky dwarf and the night elf female, although both were pale. Where was—there was Rohan. It must have been he who had calmed him and the others, using the Light to protect them from the crippling attack of fear. Anduin put hands to the earth to push himself up and splashed in something wet. For a horrible second he thought it might be blood, but it was brown and cool. What … Slowly Anduin got to his feet, staring at the liquid on his hands. He sniffed it cautiously.

It was … beer.

For a second, it made no sense, and then he realized what had to have happened. He whirled to look behind him, seeing several shattered casks that had rolled away and a blanket of ominous white where a building had once been.

The Thunderbrew Distillery had caved in, and snow and collapsing earth from the hill behind it had smothered it all.

“Oh, Light,” Anduin breathed, the words a panicked prayer as he broke into a run and went toward the mound of snow that had once been a pleasant little inn. Others joined him, calling out reassurances, grabbing shovels and starting to dig with a will. A gnome mage rushed forward, robes fluttering in agitation. “Don’t worry! I can melt the snow!” she cried, preparing to suit action to words.

“No!” Anduin cried. “You’ll flood it!”

The gnome, bright red hair tied back in two pigtails, glared at him, but nodded, seeing the logic in the words.

“Wind,” came a soft voice. An elegant, long-legged draenei woman stepped forward, looking at Anduin. He wondered how it was that a thirteen-year-old boy had suddenly been put in charge and thought frantically. Yes—properly directed and controlled, the wind could blow away the enveloping snow without causing harm to anyone trapped inside. They could then see how much earth was piled atop the rubble.

“Uh—yeah,” he said inelegantly. “But be careful!”

She closed her eyes and fluttered long, blue fingers, tossing her blue-black hair. Despite the direness of the situation, for a moment Anduin simply stared at her, enraptured by her beauty and grace, then blushed and concentrated his attention on the magic she was summoning.

He heard a slight thump and a small shape appeared. It was jar shaped, filled with a glowing light, and he knew it to be a totem—a method for shaman to contact, summon, and control the elements. Radiant jewels seemed to swirl about it, and runes he did not recognize moved in a slow circle.

A heartbeat later, a little dust devil formed, blue-white and whirling. It grew larger as the shaman began to chant, and with a flick of her wrist she released it. It did not move. The draenei opened her eyes, puzzled, and said something in a language Anduin did not understand. Still the little elemental she had summoned did not obey her.

Her face showed her confusion and a trace of fear. She spoke again, imploringly, and finally it moved forward, whirling, sending the snow flying so that the onlookers had to take a step back. A few moments later it was done. The snow was gone, revealing the gray stone that had once been the distillery’s roof. The elemental whirled in place, faster and faster, until it suddenly vanished. Out of the corner of his eye, Anduin saw the young draenei shaman lift a trembling hand to her face.

The crowd rushed forward again, eager to begin assisting those trapped inside. Anduin was among them.

“Wait, wait!” It was Rohan this time. “Silence!” Everyone obeyed, staring at the high priest, who closed his eyes and listened. Anduin heard it after a moment of straining—a faint tapping and clanking. Someone was still alive down there. There was also the sound of muffled voices, their words too faint to be heard.

“Dinna waste yer breath shouting!” Rohan said in a deep voice. “We can hear ye an’ we’re coming fer ye!”

People began again to dig by hand. Others brought in some equipment to help with the process. Unsurprising to Anduin, Aerin was in the forefront of the recovery, her arms quivering with strain after a time but her determination overriding her exhaustion. Bit by bit, the rock was lifted away, revealing dusty, wounded bodies beneath it. Rohan moved about as needed, attempting as best he could to see and heal those he could not physically touch. His concentration was utter, his eyes sharp and focused, his hands moving in a swift motion that belied his age. Anduin felt tears sting his eyes, tears of joy and gratitude for this dwarf and the blessing of the Light, as victim after victim of the earthquake was removed alive and well.

“How many levels?” Anduin asked, pausing at one point to wipe his forehead. It was cold, but he was sweating profusely from the hard physical labor.

“Three,” someone said.

“Nay, f-four,” someone else corrected. It was the innkeeper, Belm, sitting off to the side with a blanket wrapped around him and a mug of hot tea. His hands were wrapped around the mug for warmth, and he trembled as he spoke. “There are rooms deep b-below for those stayin’ overnight. We had no guests and I d-dinna think anyone was in them.”

“Thank the Light fer wee favors,” muttered Rohan. “Three levels tae worry about, then.”

“Och, nae so great a task,” Aerin scoffed, although the strain on her face belied it. “The sooner we rebuild, the sooner we can raise our mugs wi’ good Thunderbrew ale!”

Laughter rippled through the crowd, and for the first time since the whole ordeal began, Anduin saw smiles on some of the faces. It did not detract from the dire need to recover the wounded, but it eased the tension and the workers moved the swifter for it.

The first level was cleared out now, of rubble, injured, and, more somberly, bodies. Again someone tapped a rhythmic tattoo, and again the reassuring sound of a response made people sigh in relief. Several gnome volunteers were the first to wriggle through a small cleared area into the next level, ropes tied around their tiny waists. A few tugs told those above how many survivors: three. A cheer went up, the hole was widened, and even as others worked to clear it, Aerin and a second dwarf dropped down.

Hopes were high. The recovery was going well. More and more people were coming to offer aid. Food and hot drinks and blankets were being passed around. At one point Anduin glanced over at Rohan, who caught his eye and nodded.

“Dinna worry, lad, we’ll rebuild. We dwarves are tough, an’ so are our friends the gnomes. And believe me, the distillery will be th’ first thing that gets rebuilt!”

Anduin laughed along with all the others and returned, smiling, to the task at hand. It began to snow again, which helped nothing at all. He was soaked and cold, but the activity helped keep him warm. His fingers were scraped and bleeding. He could have had Rohan heal them with a quick prayer, but he knew that others were in far more dire straits than he. His fingers would recover. The injuries suffered by others would be harder to—

It came again, another aftershock, and Anduin barely had time to leap out of the way as the floor beneath him buckled. He landed hard, the wind knocked out of him, gasping like a fish for air even as he winced when small chunks of stone pelted his body. The earth finally ceased its angry shaking, and for what felt like the thousandth time Anduin got to his feet and wiped a trickle of blood from his eyes to peer at the distillery. He blinked sticky lashes, and for a moment refused to believe what he saw.

There was no distillery. Not anymore. There was only a dreadful hole in the ground, a hole covered with pieces of walls, and ceiling, and tables. Dust was still rising, mingling incongruously with the peaceful image of falling snow.

Aerin. …

Rohan clambered up and tapped on the stone, cocking his ear to listen. After a few seconds he tapped again. Then he sighed heavily and stepped back, shaking his head slowly.

Something snapped in Anduin.

“No!” he cried, surging forward. Fear gave him new strength, and he forced his cold fingers to obey as they grasped a large chunk of stone and hurled it away only to reach for another one. “Aerin!” he cried, his voice hoarse. “Aerin, hang on, we’ll get you out!”

“Lad,” came a gentle voice.

There was something in that tone that Anduin refused to acknowledge. He ignored Rohan’s voice and kept going, his breath coming in hitching sobs. “Aerin, just hang on, okay? We’re c-coming!”

“Lad,” came Rohan’s voice again, more insistent. Anduin felt a hand on his shoulder and angrily shook it off, glaring with blurred vision at the priest, seeing the compassion and sorrow on the aged visage and denying it utterly. He looked around at those who were supposed to be helping him. They stood still. Some of them had tears running down their faces. All of them looked stunned, shocked.

“There’s no tapping,” Rohan persisted inexorably. “It’s … over. No one could have survived that. Come away, lad. Ye’ve done all ye could an’ then some.”

“No!” shrieked Anduin, lashing out with his arm and barely missing Rohan. “You don’t know that! We can’t just give up! They’re not answering because they’re wounded, maybe unconscious. We have to hurry—have to get them out—have to get her out. …”

Rohan stood quietly by, making no further attempt to stop the young human prince. Anduin, tears flooding down his face, kept going, for how long, he did not know. Stone after stone he moved, until his slender shoulders screamed in white-hot agony, until his hands bled furiously and numbed and cramped until finally he crumpled on the snowy stone and sobbed violently. He reached one hand out, palm flat, trying to contact his friend, who was trapped beneath the implacable stone hurled upon her by the violently agitated earth.

“Aerin,” he whispered, for her ears alone, wherever she might be. “Aerin … I’m sorry … I’m so so sorry. …”

Now he did not resist the gentle hands slipping about his exhausted body and lifting him up. He accepted, unable to fight anymore, his heart hurting and his body too drained to protest. The last thing he knew before merciful unconsciousness finally claimed him was the gentle touch of gnarled hands upon his heart and forehead, and the soft voice of Rohan telling him to rest now, rest and heal.

And the last thing he saw in his mind’s eye was a cheerful dwarven face framed by brown hair, smiling, as Aerin always was, and in his heart always would be.