Flinthammer Hall

“Are they alive? Dwarves have big lungs, you know, not just big livers. And stomachs.”

“Helmsman, eyes forward!” a deeper voice snapped. “There may be some stragglers about who don’t know their leaders have left the field.”

“By Mekkatorque’s mustache,” a third voice piped, “That was ugly.”

Mountaineer Ringo Flinthammer rolled over and expelled what felt like several pints of salt water from his lungs. He opened what felt like frozen eyelids to see his wife climbing to her feet, ignoring her violent shivering despite the thick blankets wrapped around each of them.

“Where are we?” Ringo coughed, trying for all the dignity he could, with snot dripping into his beard and mustache. “Ah donnae remember aught but yer hands pullin’ us free o’ th’ battle.”

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“The boy will be fine,” Mountaineer Ringo Flinthammer snapped at his wife, urging her away from the stern of the ship. Menethil Harbor had retreated into a mere speck on the eastern horizon and Bael Flinthammer was now long out of sight. “Bethaine has enough animals to play with fer 30 children. Worry more about them animals in her stable than about Bael.”

“Can we see the new island yet?” Beli Flinthammer sighed, turning around, facing out into the Great Sea. “Reckon we bend the right ear in the Earthen Ring and we’re back home in a day or so.”

“There’s a smudge thataway that might be the island,” Ringo said, not wanting to throw cold water on his wife’s optimistic vision of their chances of enlisting the shamans’ help in restoring King Magni Bronzebeard to flesh and bone. “Ah ain’t no sailor, but Ah expect that’s it.”

“Not much of an island.”

“Nay, but apparently close enough to Stormwind to be o’ strategic importance if Garrosh’s orcs take it.”

There was a rumor that Garrosh Hellscream had assassinated Cairne Bloodhoof and Thrall and had taken command of the Horde for himself. Ringo was taking it all with a grain of salt — it seemed much more likely to him that Garrosh, the bastard child of a demigod-slaying, demon’s blood-drinking orc warlord, had simply done what Rend Blackhand had done years ago, and formed his own rival incarnation of the Horde.

“Mmmm,” Beli grunted, patting her bags, trying to find her spyglass. “No Horde or Alliance sails that I can see, though.”

“Well, that don’t make no sense. Mebbe that’s just a reef, and no’ the real island at all.”

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“So, what is it ye’re doin’ here, anyway?”

“Didn’t ye read me note?”

“Yer note? Here’s yer note: Blurred and unreadable. There was a crack in the ceiling that let rainwater piddle all over it.”

“Huh. That damned dragon must ha’ cracked the ceiling when he flew over.”

“Aye. So, nay, Ah didnae read yer note.”

“Ah jus’ said Ah was headin’ ta Ironforge wit’ the boy ta meet up wit’ ye, and ye were ta rendezvous with me there.”

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If anything, Menethil Harbor was worse off than Mountaineer Ringo Flinthammer had ever expected. When the loch’s water had burst through the shattered Stonewrought Dam, it had poured down into the now-wetter-than-ever Wetlands. Other than the deep channel it carved beneath the dam itself — which was quickly refilled by the soft peat and soil resettling after a time — the water didn’t do much lasting damage.

Until, that is, it reached the mouth of the delta and emptied into Baradin Bay and the Great Sea beyond. There, the wave of lake water rushed beneath the town of Menethil Harbor, lifting buildings from their foundations, depositing them several feet deeper in the loosened soil of the swamp, and there they stuck fast, as the water joined the ocean beyond.

It was a town now sunk up to its collective knees in brackish swamp water, with much of the dwarf-made island the town had rested on now washed out to sea.

The path squelched beneath Beer Run‘s hooves as he entered town. Ringo drew disinterested glances from those in town — Dark Iron zealots had apparently attacked the town in the wake of Deathwing’s reemergence, judging by the bodies being removed from Menethil Keep. Sandbags were piled everywhere, in a vain attempt to keep the surviving portions of town dry.

Ringo was suddenly very tired. Although he hoped to see his cousin alive and well, what he found himself most hoping for was a hot bath in the Deepwater Tavern and a relatively dry bed to sleep in.

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