Flinthammer Hall

Mountaineers Kadrell and Flinthammer sat on the roof of the Stoutlager Inn, watching the sky for the Headless Horseman. There had also been reports that the Horde had been flying over some settlements, throwing stink bombs. It hadn’t happened here, and if Captain Rugelfuss had anything to say about it, it wasn’t going to.

“Me neck hurts,” Ringo Flinthammer muttered, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

Kadrell grunted non-noncommittally.

“Heard a rumor earlier,” Ringo continued, “Th’ mountaineers are gonna start bein’ trained to shoot at point-blank range.”

“Say what?” Kadrell snapped. It was the first time he’d spoken in hours.

“Instead o’ smackin’ someone with an axe or a polearm or a staff or what have ye, we’ll just, ye know — shoot ’em.”

“What about all th’ melee training we’ve had?”

“Nae time fer it any more. We’ll jus’ use our guns for all o’ that.”

“No Raptor Strike? No Wing Clip?”

“Seems not.”

“… good riddance.”

The screams of frustration echoed through Flinthammer Hall.

“Bael Flinthammer!” Beli Flinthammer half-yelled, half-sobbed. “Ye already ken yer numbers and yer letters and ye bloody father taught ye how to field-strip a blunderbuss. How come ye cannae get this?”

“Nae poop!”

“Ye did poop! Ah kin smell it from here! Magni’s been turned ta diamond and he kin smell it!”

“Nae poop!”

…

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“Spit it out, already!”

Ringo Flinthammer swallowed and cleared his throat.

“Sorry — pretzel. What was th’ question, again?”

His cousin sighed, and gestured with his beer stein.

“In all yer travels, havin’ seen all the changes since the Cataclysm, which was the craziest? Like, the people.”

“What? Ah reckon ye’re drunk, Mangorn.”

“Nay, I mean, like night elf mages. That’s madness!”

“Pfft, they’ve always been ’round — Ah reckon this lot jus’ found out they couldn’t blow up a continent again, and are just lookin’ fer something to do.”

…

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The youngest son of Flinthammer Hall hiked up the small hill outside town, using the gun his father had given him as a walking stick, and took his post.

Bael Flinthammer did this every day, trailed by Lucky, the black lion his father had tamed to serve as his guardian. The residents of Thelsamar were bemused by a child standing watch alongside the mountaineers, and Bael didn’t have the vocabulary to explain why he did it, even to himself.

He wasn’t like his father — even at his young age, that fact tickled the back of his brain and made him sad when he let it. He couldn’t command animals the way his father could: Ringo Flinthammer could summon Lucky to his side just by rubbing his calloused fingers together and summon up very undwarflike snarl to get even the massive polar bear who followed him everywhere into line. Bael could do none of that, although Lucky seemed to like him, and certainly put up with the boy attempting to ride him the way he’d seen elves ride their nightsabers.

Bael couldn’t even fire a gun, although his mother had hidden all of the ammunition after she’d found him trying. Instead, he just used the shotgun as a club, wielding it with two hands and hammering foes real and imaginary.

He’d had occasion to chase off a very old and blind kobold who’d wandered up to his post a few weeks ago. The beating had been accompanied by a chorus of barking kobold laughter from the intruder’s fellows.

Even his mother didn’t understand why he came up here, but Bael felt compelled to, standing on the little hill and watching, eyes straining, for the beating of dragon wings. His eyes weren’t as sharp as his father’s, which sometimes seemed almost supernatural, but his eyes were new and sharp and he could sometimes see wings flying around Blackrock Mountain, although it had been about two months since he’d seen the great black dragons whirling around the peak.

But … he could hear them.

Bael spun around in place until the young dwarf spotted the source of the sound: A dragon, heavily beating the air as it flapped toward Thelsamar not from Blackrock Mountain, but from Ironforge Mountain instead.

“Dwagon!” he yelled, causing Lucky to leap to his feet in concern. “Dwagon!”

The boy and the great cat half-ran, half-tumbled into Thelsamar, racing for the Stoutlager Inn.

“DWAGON!”

“Eh?” Beli Flinthammer dropped her paintbrush on the table — she had been commissioned to paint a portrait of some lady who always pinched Bael’s cheeks — and reached for her warhammer. “Deathwing? Is he back?”

She shoved past her son and headed out onto the main drag of town.

“Ah’ll die with a war cry on me lips, ye bastard …”

…

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