Flinthammer Hall

Beli Flinthammer, Widge Gearloose and Frostmaw arrived on the deck of the Skyfire. Beli had been on Alliance gunships before — the Skybreaker during the war against the Lich King — but they always made her nervous. To her, the mighty ship seemed eager to plunge out of the sky at any moment. At least there was water below.

“Civilians on deck!” barked a soldier, startling Frostmaw, who growled in response.

Beli looked over at the soldier’s uniform and slumped.

“Oh, nae … it’s tha 7th Legion …”

…

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Beli Flinthammer was out walking Frostmaw when she got the summons.

“Would nae mind, except fer this bloody stupid wee bag they make me carry around to pick up his …”

“Excuse me, miss,” a voice said behind her.

“Ah see it, Ah see it! Jus’ tryin’ tae figure out how tae pick up a giant steamin’ …”

“Nae, nae,” the dwarf behind her continued. “Are ye Beli Flinthammer?”

“Aye, Ah am.”

The dwarf mage was covered head to toe in dark robes and seemed to be attempting to conceal his feet beneath the hem.

“Excellent; Ah’ve been told to get ye and yer gnomish assistant …”

Beli winced, and glanced around to make sure Widge was still out of earshot. She put two fingers to her mouth, stopped, removed her filthy glove, and repeated the action with bare, clean fingers, issuing a whistle like a steam whistle.

Widge arrived a moment later, rubbing one ear with the heel of his hand.

“Malygos’ gizzard, Beli! I’m seeing spots!”

She gestured at the dwarven mage.

“This fella here was lookin’ fer us.”

Widge blinked.

“Is it a message from Jaina? Did she get my letters?”

“Ah’m supposed tae open a portal tae send ye tae th’ Skyfire.”

“Oh, why’s that?”

The dwarf mage shrugged.

“Donnae,” the dwarf mage shrugged as he began casting a spell. The portal opened a moment later. “Jus’ told that Commander Flinthammer sent fer ye.”

By the time Beli Flinthammer and Widge Gearloose arrived in the Krasarang Wilds, it was easy to find Lion’s Landing. The Alliance outpost was now a full-fledged fortress city, complete with two full keeps, a flight master and a community of merchants and support staff, in addition to the soldiers, sailors and marines stationed there.

There were a large number of dwarves in and around Lion’s Landing, most of them riflemen.

“Me rifle is dwarven, even as I, because it is me life,” the riflemen recited in Dwarven, working in unison to clean and reassemble their weapons. Beli and Widge waiting in silence a respectful distance away. “Thus, I will learn it as me brother. I will learn its weakness, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel. I will keep me rifle clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will.”

“How’s it hangin’?” Beli announced, sauntering over. “Ah’m lookin’ fer me husband.”

“Sorry, lass; I’m married.”

“Nae, Ah’m … Ah’m married, too!”

“Well, ye should know, I’m not that kind of dwarf. More traditional-like, not a modern thinker, like yourself.”

“What? Nae, Ah’m … argh!”

“Allow me,” Widge said, lowering Beli’s staff before she could smack some sense into the rifleman. “Sir, her husband is here, or he was. Big guy, big blonde whiskers, yells ‘KHAZ’GOROTH ON A CRACKER’ a lot. No? Friends with a big white bear?”

“Oh, aye — I remember the bear!”

“Good,” Widge smiled, nodding back at Beli, who was clearly working out what the rifleman’s “modern thinker” suggestion meant about what kind a dwarf she was supposed to be. “And where’s the bear now?”

…

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It was during the years between the Second and Third Wars.

Despite the relative peace, it had been a bad year for Ringo Flinthammer. Little arguments and slights had festered and now, during the Feast of Winter Veil, when all of Khaz’s children should be gathered around the family hearth, singing songs and feasting together, he was alone, trudging through the heavy snows in the Coldridge Valley, hunting for his dinner.

“Ah’m nae responsible fer how ye choose tae get offended by completely reasonable opinions, nae matter who ye …”

He paused, raising his blunderbuss. It had been a hard winter in Dun Morogh, following a poor harvest and a dry summer. The animals who could afford to were hibernating and dreaming of a green and prosperous spring. Scrawny wolves stalked the barren hills, hunting bony rabbits and, occasionally, raiding dwarven farms for their rams.

Ringo’s stomach growled as he peered through the thick snows. The wolves would have some competition tonight — it’d been a while since he’d eaten himself, after storming out of his parents’ home before dinner, not remembering, at the time, that he didn’t have enough coppers for dinner at the Thunderbrew Distillery.

There was that noise again — but what was it? The Frostmane trolls, as hungry as the wolves or dwarves, had been out raiding as well, and it was rumored that some of the dwarven disappearances of late — which normally ended in finding out someone got pointed the wrong way when going home from the pub and had ended up sleeping it off in another pub the next town over — had ended up roasting on spits in Frostmane camps.

It suddenly occurred to Ringo that storming out on his family might have felt good, but against a pack of cannibal trolls, the rest of the Flinthammer Boys would be very welcome.

The curtain of snow cleared for a moment and there was a blur of white fur. Ringo jerked up his gun and prepared to fire.

“Rabbit, wolf or boar, ye’re gaein’ in the stew pot t’night!”

…

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For whatever reason, most Forsaken never spoke the Common tongue, as they had in life. Maybe it was a spell cast by their Dark Lady. Maybe it was an edict from the warchief. In any case, they tended to only speak a strange gibberish that sounded like Common, but wasn’t.

But this undead soldier, Ringo understood, which was just the way he wanted it.

The Horde was assaulting Lion’s Landing Tower — and, at the moment, they looked like they were going to take it. Ringo had arrived with other Shieldwall Riflemen, laying down cover fire and taking out scouts and observers. But now, they were nowhere to be found. Ringo had somehow ended up in a forward position alone, cut off, and surrounded. Even Frostmaw was nowhere to be found.

“Heh heh heh,” the undead soldier cackled as he approached, his black tongue waggling, his lower jaw rotting somewhere in a grave in Lordaeron. “Rumembuh Southshowah? Rumembuh Dun Gawok?”

“Did ye say ‘Dun Garok?'” Ringo snarled, raising his rifle and squeezing the trigger, only to be greeted with the click of an empty chamber.

The undead soldier waggled what remained of his eyebrows.

“Menethuh Hawbaw is necks. An then Thelshamuh!”

“LIKE HELL YE WILL!”

Ringo sprang forward, wielding his rifle like a club; if he couldn’t shoot his way out, he’d at least smash this Forsaken bastard’s skull in before they got him.

There was a loud thunk behind Ringo. In the fraction of a second before he sank into unconsciousness, he realized it was the sound of a Horde rogue — likely another damned undead — thwacking him with a blackjack. Then he fell forward into darkness, the sound of jawless laughter echoing all around him.