“-. May 3, Year 581 of the King’s Calendar .-“

  The Dark Iron dwarves arrived with great military pomp on the very last day of the time frame I gave Dagran Thaurissan in our one and only meeting.

  “Why are they blue?” Aedelas asked. “Is it because they’re evil? But even King Perenolde went blue in the face only once in a while, he wasn’t blue all the time like this.”

  Since the Dark Irons were technically a belligerent nation towards everyone here except Stormwind (officially), we weren’t doing the ‘line up to welcome the new guests’ thing. Instead, the Stormwind people were receiving and housing them away from us, Anduin Lothar at their head.

  Meanwhile, I was watching from my spot on the Morgan’s Vigil rampart. With me were Brann, Kurdran, Falstad, and my squire who’d asked his very pertinent question.

  Forgewright (still a ghost) had gone down to be among his people, even if most were oblivious to his presence. It would’ve been ‘all,’ but I’d been providing nourishment to the spirit via the Light and the Aura of Vigor over the past two weeks, so now he could make himself seen even with the naked eye, if he exerted himself.

  He could travel far and wide too, even in spite of any fire elementals or elemental spirits that might have something to say about that. Spirits were too diaphanous to restrain each other, it turned out. The way they enforced territorial claims was through clashes of will and spirit density, and my Light had made Forgewright tough enough to withstand such ill will more than long enough to escape back here, in those rare cases where he was spotted.

  He'd been using this to travel all over the lands of the Dark Iron dwarves to speak to everyone he couldn’t speak to before. But I was keeping that, and everything he told me he did, a need to know secret.

  “It’s the silver,” I explained to my squire. “Silver is a curative, you can put it in teas, potions or what else to treat certain health problems. It’s also an extremely good disinfectant, and particularly effective on burns. The Dark Irons get burned a lot, I imagine.”

  “Serves them right,” Kurdran grunted, grooming his gryphon just so he didn’t steam even harder at the sight of his enemies. “They wanted fire and they got it.”

  “Point is, squire mine, silver solutions applied to open skin stays in the skin. Once it starts accumulating, it turns the skin blue as you can see.”

  “But Prince Brann isn’t blue, I thought Ironforge did a lot of stuff with silver too? Isn’t the Great Forge really big and hot? It’s a volcanic chamber too, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, well, we actually practice workplace safety,” Brann grumbled. “Bathing in silver water every day, can you imagine the waste?”

  “Ironforge and us don’t get smacked on the regular by fire elementals either.” Kurdran’s words barely came out with how tight he was clenching his teeth. “And we sure as hell don’t run slave mines over lava lakes, war footing or not.”

  “But you could be blue if you wanted?” Adelas wasn’t easily distracted, it was a point of pride for him.

  “I suppose.”

  “So I could be blue too!”

  “I forbid it,” I said flatly, not entirely sure he was joking. “None of that nonsense as long as you’re under my supervision.”

  “Sheesh, relax sir, the Light heals better anyway, remember?” The cheek on this boy. “Besides, it’s not like I’m a glutton for self-punishment or anything, I’m not about to burn or cut myself open just to have a reason to turn into that.”

  “You won’t have to when the acne comes in.”

  “What’s acne?”

  “Pimples, lots and lots of pimples. On your face.”

  “Eugh. No way, that won’t happen to me, you won’t let it, right? The Light can stop that.”

  “The Light responds to need, not vanity.”

  “That makes no sense at all! All you glowies look way good all the time, just look at Lady Mara. You’ll never convince me the Light doesn’t have anything to do with it!”

  Across Kurdran from me, Falstad smirked. “E’s got ye there, Pretty Boy.”

  “I suppose it would be good enough practice for diagnosis and precision targeting,” I mused. “That settles it then – Aedelas, Falstad will be taking up that responsibility when he finally gets glowed up himself.”

  “Like hell! Don’t ye go makin’ decisions fer me!”

  “You owe me several debts, though, do you want me to cash them in on something worse?”

  “Grrr.”

  While I waited for Falstad to overcome his teeth-clenched outrage, I continued to watch a while longer. Eventually, the Dark Irons below spotted us and Dagran Thaurissan very pointedly scoffed in our direction, before turning away to just as pointedly ignore our existence.

  “Don’t mind if we return the favor,” Falstad muttered under his breath before turning to leave, only to stop when a distinctive shadow began to grow on the ground.

  One of the Wildhammer gryphon riders came down from the sky then. There was always a wing of them on scouting duty.

  “That’ll be my news, I’m guessing,” Brann told the scout.

  As I’d known for days through Forgewright and far sight, Brann was only half-right.

  The delegation from Ironforge was, indeed, coming. In fact, not only Muradin Bronzebeard but King Magni himself had been spotted, accompanied by a veritable throng of Ironforge dwarves, easily overshadowing Thaurissan’s decisions to put in just a ‘token’ display of military power.

  However, Ironforge wasn’t alone. They’d picked up stragglers on the way. Quite a few of them. Including some very particular, very colorful, very much multi-species stragglers.

  This time I went down to be among the welcoming committee, and so did all the other worthies.

  The result was that the War of the Three Hammers almost restarted on the spot.

  “King Anduin Lothar,” said Brann Bronzebeard when the newcomers arrived, valorously doing his duty despite the absolute curveball that his kin had brought with them. “Please be known to Magni Bronzebeard, King of Khaz Modan, Lord and Thane of Ironforge, High Thane of the Bronzebeard clan, the King Under the Mountain. With him is my brother, Muradin Bronzebeard, Mountain King of Dun Morogh.”

  The Bronzebeards inclined their heads. They were astride great, white rams but didn’t stand any taller than Anduin even so. “Well met.”

  “Brothers, you stand before Kurdran the Brave, Gryphon Master of the Aerie Peak, High Thane of the Wildhammer Kindred, and his brother, Falstad Cloudhowler.”

  Falstad gaped in outrage at the name, which was more than fair, I didn’t know Brann had decided to participate in my running gag either.

  “Looming here a lot shorter than his real height, if you can believe it, is his Radiance Himself at whose behest we’re all here – Ferdinand Rogasian, Chosen of the Light, Prophet of the Eternal Fire from whence all things sprung, Chosen of the Makers and a host of other titles.”

  “Chosen of what?”

  “Long story, a teeny bit longer than his full list of titles even, I’ll tell you all later.” You had to acknowledge Brann’s sheer gumption, if nothing else. “And of course, we have His Royal Majesty, Sir Anduin Lothar, of the Kingdom of Stormwind and all its territories King, Knight Champion of Stormwind, Lord Commander of the Brotherhood of the Horse, Demon Foe, Demon Chaser, Lion of Stormwind, the Risen, the Resurrected.”

  “Now those are some big titles and then some,” Magni remarked.

  “Is that list abridged too?” Muradin muttered.

  “No.”

  “Well I’ll be-”

  “I’d love to hear how it all came to be,” Magni spoke over his brother. “When can I look forward to the tale?”

  Anduin’s smile was more of a grimace, but honest for all that. His eyes were stuck on the emaciated, some burned, all prematurely aged humans that had come with the new dwarves. Not all of whom were Khaz Modan dwarves. “I won’t relish telling the story, but I’m willing to suffer through it for friends.”

  “Then we’d best become the best of friends as soon as possib-”

  “I’LL HAVE YOU HANGED!” Dagran Thaurissan came roaring just then, using his arcane power to shove aside the sentries so he could stomp over to us with just two dwarves in tow, an obvious bodyguard and a woman barely managing to keep up with both. “I spare Darkbargainer against the Firelord’s explicit will and this is how he repays me? This is where you’d all gone?! To – to sabotage the realm! You – my own senator, is this why you declined to be part of my delegation? Because you’d already betrayed our people?! How long have you been conspiring with our enemies?!”

  “Less time than the Ancestor’s been able to talk to us again,” answered Overseer Oilfist, a dwarf dressed in blood-red armor with a fiery crown floating above his head. He was the leader of the Thorium Brotherhood. To my extremely amazed and conflicted happiness that I’d been doing my best to hide these past two weeks, his group of Dark Iron dissidents – with a lot of help – had used that time while Blackrock Mountain was looking in our direction, to launch a liberation of the slaves in the Searing Gorge. Successfully. “And we’ve not been conspiring none, we just ran into our Ironforge cousins here and saw a chance to clear the air.”

  “Clear the air – clear the air?!” The air shimmered around the greatest fire mage of the Dark Irons, just from his sheer rage. “Who helped you? You’re too few to have done this by yourselves, which of those traitors did it?” That would be the Chieftain of the Iron Summit, Mountain-Lord Rendan, the only Dark Iron Lord brave – or mad – enough to eventually throw off the rule of Shadowforge, some thirty years and change in the future. Something Forgewright was very keen to reduce the time frame for, when I told him. “You think I’m oblivious to all the fools that nurse secessionist delusions?!”

  “I don’t know about any of that,” hedged the leader of the Thorium Brotherhood. “But I didn’t think we had so many options either, before the Ancestors started speaking to us again.”

  It wasn’t just Forgewright I’d empowered, I’d also empowered Elder Ironband when my men and I passed through Blackchar Cave, and a few of the other spirits who came to me and asked for help too. Ancestor Ghosts and the saner elementals both. I didn’t ever think that results would be so swift and so dramatic when I did it, but the butterfly effect was really something else.

  “Other options?” Dagran hissed. “They’d better be good ones, because I have trouble seeing any besides public execution for treason.”

  “They requested asylum,” said Magni Bronzebeard with dark, unashamed glee. “I wasn’t sure whether to grant it, but I’m coming around to the idea more and more every second.”

  “Keep butting into our business and there’ll be a lot coming around to you, Bronzebeard!”

  “Bring it on,” Muradin spat, hands twitching near the hooks of his axe and hammer. “That’s what your lot always wants, isn’t it? Come on, you and me, right now.”

  “Not while you’re my guests you won’t,” Anduin cut it. “You are on Stormwind land and have accepted Stormwind hospitality. While this remains the case, you will conduct yourselves accordingly.”

  What a way to reject any land claims that the Dark Irons might have wanted to lay on the Burning Steppes.

  “King of Humans,” Oilfist addressed Anduin, a snub towards his former ruler that was not missed by anyone. “On behalf of the Dark Iron nation, I offer my apologies, worthless as they might be, for our race enslaving your people.”

  “… They are not worthless at all,” Anduin replied, eyes going back to the emaciated, some burned, all prematurely aged men and women that had come with the last arrivals. “If only because it will spare me having to swallow my words on this very topic, during the upcoming talks. You have my deepest thanks for this, and the thanks of the Kingdom of Stormwind as a whole.”

  Wars had been declared for much less than taking slaves from the neighboring country, and everyone here knew it. The Dark Irons took slaves from Khaz Modan and Stormwind whenever they could chance it, I was still amazed that Anduin hadn’t been planning to bring it up during the upcoming talks. It was a deal breaker like nothing else.

  This was, however, the first time that the Dark Iron nation wasn’t the one with the power advantage in such a situation, with practically the entire continent collected here to see it descending into schism, however lopsided. Not that I was going to blow the whistle on just how far Rendan may or may not be willing to go.

  “Thanks are fine and all, but words are empty,” said Overseer Oilfist. “Human King, I request a private meeting to determine how we, at least, might pay weregild for our part in these crimes.”

  “I appreciate the enthusiasm, sir,” Anduin replied. “I’m afraid I know nothing of you or your people and interests, however. I’m not one to bargain with such a disadvantage.”

  Dagran Thaurissan grit his teeth instead of trying to assert his own sovereignty again, or some other outburst. It was as relieving as it was disquieting, because I could think of nothing we did that could have prompted him to accept such a loss of face. Which meant the enemy had done something instead.

  I already knew he wasn’t here in good faith, but it was a hell of a thing to see the shadows of ulterior motives so soon.

  “Then we’ll share a pint or five and talk to your heart’s content,” Oilfist offered Anduin, oblivious to my thoughts. “No skin off my nose.”

  Anduin glanced at me for my opinion. It immediately caused the Thorium brotherhood and Oilfist to do the same and change mental gears, especially after the spirit Forgewright came to stand next to me and gaze meaningfully at them all.

  “These are certainly disruptive developments,” I decided, glancing a Dagran Thaurissan. “Perhaps an extra day to settle in won’t be amiss.”

  “I should leave the way I came and let you all burn,” Dagran growled, glaring at me before averting his eyes as if he’d just committed a lapse he shouldn’t have. He must have warning about my soulgaze too. “But then I’d miss the chance to see you all choke to death on the fumes of your own cooking bodies. Human!” He said to Anduin. “The punishment for traitors is public execution. If you don’t want a front-row seat to what that looks like in Shadowforge City, keep these treacherous pigs well away from us.”

  “That will suit us just fine,” Oilfist said, trying to look unconcerned with Thaurissan’s rage and failing.

  “Gavin,” Anduin called. “Please escort our unexpected guests to the secondary camp, after you see the former slaves to the healing tents.”

  “I’ll be there presently myself,” I told them both. “Burns are a bit tricker than other wounds, but we’ll manage.”

  The tense gathering dispersed, until only I, Anduin, and the good dwarf kings and princes were left… along with the Priestess of the Dark Irons, who came to me and asked if she might be allowed to help with the healing.

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  “That won’t be happening,” was the flat rebuke of King Magni Bronzebeard of Ironforge. “I don’t care what assurances you have to give, you and yours will stay away from us, and especially from those of my people you were working to death in your accursed mines.”

  “I understand if my assurances are not enough.” the Priestess inclined her head at the decision, but didn’t leave. Instead, she looked up at me. In my eyes, and didn’t look away. “But they needn’t be mine.”

  My my, how daring.

  “The Firelord told the Emperor to never meet your eyes,” she revealed. “And so his Majesty instructed us as well.”

  “Yet here you are.”

  “Here I am.”

  “The Soulgaze does not leave one the same. It’s been known to cause everything from minimal impressions to dramatic changes in people’s core character. That’s what happens when you really understand someone else, and their understanding of you in turn. It’s a lot for something that only takes an instant. Your Emperor will never believe you’re not compromised.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  “No. Contrary to what you, he or even Ragnaros thinks, I actually really am here to do right by your people.” I made sure not to react to the hard stare Magni and Muradin were both throwing me now. “Come ask me again only when he’s given you leave to do so, and preferably is willing to be present as witness.”

  “That will be almost impossible.”

  “Almost.”

  “… Yes. Almost.” With a bow, the Priestess took her leave, though she stopped briefly to look back at me and the Bronzebeards. “We learned the Light from slaves not unlike those you escorted here. That such Grace was bestowed upon us despite all our crimes should count for something.”

  Finally, she left.

  “Prophet,” Falstad said lowly. Dangerously. “I dunnae want tae make the same mistake I did the first time, so I ain’t gonna storm off screamin’. I’m gonna ‘sume there’s a good explanation for how them cunts overt there got the Makers’ Light tae come to them when we never got a single whiff.”

  “The Light responds to need-“

  “Spew tripe like ‘the brightest light casts the darkest shadow’ at me and I’m punching ye in the nads.”

  I scoffed. “Whoever said that fails at common sense forever.”

  Falstad deflated from sheer confusion.

  “The brightest light is liable to go around and through objects to eliminate shadows completely. Even when it doesn’t, the shadow will always be fainter and smaller than otherwise. That you see it clearly in comparison to the stuff around it is a credit to the light, not the darkness.”

  Honestly, that cliched statement was only less idiotic than ‘a ship floats and a stone cannot because the stone sees only downwards, and the darkness in the water is vast and irresistible.’ That was about the same level of sense we were talking about here.

  “The only reason the Light didn't come to you unbidden is because you were already doing everything right.”

  My reply seemed to shatter something in Falstad such that he looked at me as if he’d just been smitten by thunder.

  He wasn’t the only one. “Can you really say that, Prophet?” questioned Kurdran this time, shifting on his feet uncomfortably. “We may trumpet to the sky that we’re completely different kindreds, but a dwarf is a dwarf is a dwarf.” The admission seemed to rile Falstad and the Bronzebeards up something fierce, but something in the High Thane’s look made the other dwarves hold their tongues. “After the mess we made of things in the beginning, and now this – what other race can boast of degeneracy like ours?”

  Magni and Muradin gaped in outrage at witnessing such a thing said, only keeping silent because Brann raised an arm.

  “Alterac?” I offered, being deliberately obtuse after Kurdran specifically lumped his whole race into one unified mass, but-

  “No, see, even if we were to treat countries separately, that’s not true even then, is it?” Kurdran seemed to disagree anyway. “When one of yours goes bad, someone like you shows up to smite them. Compared to that, what did we do?” Kurdran’s face turned dark. “What can we do? The Dark Irons came marching in full military pomp, but those aren’t no ceremonial arms. Such a display puts them on a combative footing even though this is supposed to be a diplomatic council. If they came here meaning to cause strife, we’ll have to respond accordingly. They never sued for peace, we’re still at war.”

  “S’ why they came at all, mark me words,” Falstad grumbled. “All they gotta do is bog us down thinkin’ the war’s gonna resume and we won’t be moving tae reclaim nae capitals.”

  Gladly, I had replies to all manner of doomsaying by now. “Then I’ll just cleanse Grim Batol myself like I said I would even if you didn’t help, it’ll just take longer.” Much longer, but nowhere near as long as it would’ve taken to cleanse Alterac of Old God taint parcel by parcel.

  “The war won’t go like the first time, this time,” Brann Bronzebeard threw in. He took out a spyglass to make sure the Dark Irons really were going back to their cordoned off area. “All the new tools and what else the Prophet gave you Wildhammers, they’ll more than make up the difference.”

  “That’s true, at least.” Kurdran, who was experienced enough to make his own judgments about this and everything else, nevertheless glanced at me for confirmation. “Unless you’re gonna give the Dark Irons something ridiculous too?”

  “Not them, no, they’re not the sort who will reciprocate good faith right now.”

  “What ridiculous stuff?” Magni asked suspiciously. “Should I have brought food tasters? Or merchants?”

  “Nay, brother, you won’t have to negotiate anything, just smile and nod when the time comes, and swear eternal friendship like everyone else.”

  “I trust someone’s going to talk at length with us about all this?” Magni said testily, trying to hide how unprepared he felt for how things had already diverged from expectations, and not succeeding any more than Dagran had. “I’d hate to think I came all this way through enemy territory for nothing.”

  “I’ve got documents,” Brann told his brother. “Ledgers, reports, all that good stuff. Come with me and I’ll tell you all about our Makers.”

  “The what?”

  “Sorry, brothers, but I’ve had to leave a lot of stuff out of written messages. Come with me, we really need to get through this as fast as possible.”

  Magni didn’t move. “Brother, are you drunk?”

  “Search his pockets,” Muradin grabbed the youngest Bronzebeard by the shoulders and lifted him right off the ground. “He’s probably smoking strange weeds again!”

  “Don’t you two dare go all ridiculous now, seriously, can’t I invite you anywhere?!”

  Other than Anduin, the rest of us moved away while the Ironforge dwarves were distracted.

  “You do have something for them too, right?” Kurdran asked. “I mean – we’ll share ours if you don’t, you’ve already done so much-“

  “Peace. I’ll think of something.” In truth, I already had – I was going to introduce revolvers, sniper rifles, gun magazines, and magnetic railways – that last one was probably how their underground railway worked in the future, even. If Ironforge ended up needing Alterac’s electricity and the precision-tools of the Wildhammers to get anywhere fast with them, well, that was just a happy alignment of interests.

  I wouldn’t be fooling anyone, but I didn’t want to. I never pretended I didn’t have my own agenda here. Good will never win without ambition at least equal to that of evil, in scope if not flavor.

  The High Thane was more willing than the others to trust hope, at least. But he didn’t bring up the matter of me giving the Wildhammers the secret to Dark Iron. It showed that he still thought the situation was dangerous enough that he didn’t want to risk that secret getting out, even though he knew my spirits were preventing us from being overheard.

  I couldn’t begrudge him that, I’d been even more cautious than that, in the past. Even then, my best caution proved rather limited. The best-case scenario didn’t turn out any better than Stormwind losing its royal dynasty overnight at the same time that Alterac did.

  Now, not even a few hours since everyone got here, instead of diplomacy and peace things had moved towards a new world war because of independent actors. My kind of independent actors, instead of agents of evil and slaughter. It was enough that I seriously had to consider the possibility that I’d fail to rehabilitate the Dark Iron leadership, just like I’d failed with Alterac.

  Still… There was one major difference that wouldn’t let me give up on them yet: Dagran Thaurissan had met my eyes despite himself. It had been enough for me to confirm that, unlike with Aiden Perenolde, I could achieve a soulgaze with him, if I pushed it. He wasn’t the triad-made-flesh. He was definitely a manipulator, but he wasn’t a narcissist, and he wasn’t a psychopath either.

  Even just one could be enough to lead to failure here, but…

  I’d prepared as well as I could. My strength was the greatest it ever was, all the allies I could collect were here – more, even, if you counted Stormwind and Antonidas. I hadn’t even considered the Thorium Brotherhood before Forgewright and Ironband made common cause to catch up on lost time. I certainly didn’t expect that independent Dark Iron Lords Under the Mountain might start cropping up to free the slaves.

  I’d even managed to get everyone important to let me inscribe staves into their bodies, not counting those same newcomers. That was a monumental achievement for the future. My men did anything I told them, and the Wildhammer dwarves were damn near just as compliant after everything I’d done for them. But I’d also gotten Brann Bronzebeard, Sylvanas Windurnner, and even Anduin Lothar himself to let me brand the Aegishjalmur on their skulls.

  I lied a bit to Lothar and didn’t tell him that I also imbued him with the Lukkustafir, since he had a strong enough spirit for two staves. He wasn’t wrong to think he didn’t deserve the Light’s grace, but he was wrong to think that his moral failings were big enough to keep the Light from sticking with him.

  Not telling him about giving him the ability to evade and detect evil was the only way to let the Light work through him to power it, since it was an always-on drain unlike the triggered nature of the Helm of Awe. It was the same mental block that had been affecting my knights, in that way.

  I was beginning to feel a bit like one of those fairy tale mystics or gods from the ancient Earth mythologies, who went around bestowing secret blessings that the heroes only figured out at the climax of the story. I could only hope the climax didn’t come prematurely this time.

  I watched the Ironforge dwarves give some hasty, bewildered goodbyes before leaving as bidden by their youngest.

  Soon, after verifying with Anduin whether he needed anything else from me, I took my own leave to go to the healing tents, as I said I would.

  I spent the day and night healing the slaves, my Knights-Exemplar and Lady Mara there with me the whole time. I turned it into a teaching opportunity as always, and then did it again when a handful of the freed people ignited as clerics mid-way through.

  The day after, a runner from Stormwind came to ask me if I was willing to lend my ‘unique insight’ to the negotiations between Oilfist and Anduin. I said yes, of course.

  When I arrived, though, I found out that the message was a white lie. Oilfist had never planned to negotiate terms of recompense, he already knew what he was going to give. What he really called the private meeting for was to inform Andiun of all the slaves elsewhere than the Searing Gorge that they hadn’t been in a position to rescue… but which might be possible to smuggle out if Stormwind was willing to work with them – and their benefactor – to create an ‘underground minerail’. Not all of the Thorium Brotherhood had come here, some had stayed as behind-the-lines agents.

  Anduin had called me to ask for my prophetic knowledge on whether said benefactor, Mountain-Lord Rendan, could be trusted. Which was actually debatable – I knew that the dwarf was loyal so long as you bought him richly enough, but his realm was also smack-dab in the middle of the Searing Gorge, on the other side from Blackrock Mountain from the Burning Steppes. His position – and influence – had to be much more unstable than he pretended.

  The Iron Summit became relevant only after the Cataclysm, in the future, I recalled but didn’t say. Deathwing’s Destruction must have done a lot to lighten the pressure on Rendan, his camp appeared in the area only after Deathwing wrecked the Dark Iron nation like he did everyone and everything else.

  To say that Anduin was displeased to learn that he couldn’t rescue all of his other people from slavery for the foreseeable future was putting it extremely mildly. While Blackrock remained a belligerent nation, the only way to free all the slaves was outright war. War we might just see, depending on how badly the upcoming Council concluded. Especially after the stunt Rendan and the Thorium Brotherhood pulled, one that none of us were willing to call out on account of freeing the slaves.

  To my absolute amazement, though, Anduin had managed to browbeat Oilfist into agreeing to a soulgaze with me, to prove his true intentions. No doubt Lothar had an ulterior motive – he surely wanted to witness it from the outside – but it was still impressive.

  I soulgazed the dwarf. I witnessed self-interest that was almost enlightened, held back from that final wide-eyed leap by the same thing that had made him brave enough to flee Shadowforge in the first place – contempt. Towards his kin, towards Dagran Thaurissan, towards Ragnaros, and especially towards the long dead Thaurissan of the previous generation, who’d ruined everything for everyone alongside his foul wife.

  It was more or less the same as what Forgewright and Ironband had told me about Rendan himself. The Mountain-Lord had helped the Thorium Brotherhood with their slave liberation because they gave literally all their smithing and engineering knowledge in payment, the same knowledge that Ragnaros had banned for whatever reason.

  Now, though, Rendan had a lot of buyer’s remorse… but he also wasn’t blaming anyone but himself. He was greedy, but he knew it, and he was neither petty nor delusional about anyone being to blame for his choices other than himself. For that reason, he didn’t put too much of a resistance when the Thorium Brotherhood asked him to take some of their members under his protection, while their places were taken by some of Rendan’s own trusted dwarves. Those dwarves were who Oilfist was really offering to work with Anduin on that underground minerail.

  Anduin wasn’t impressed by the layers of deception the dark irons lived by

  As always, I didn’t know what Oilfist got from me though the Gaze, but Anduin later told me that the dwarf begged off for a break to collect himself, after which he returned with a sincere apology for the pointless extra deception and a change of heart about what all he could offer in payment for their complicity in their nation’s crimes.

  As he’d done with Rendan, Oilfist ended up offering up all the thorium-related knowledge – which Lothar shared with me with no string attached, mostly redundantly but the gesture was appreciated – and even inquired after mages that might be able to help with transportation, or other miscellanea. Oilfist also floated the idea of having his people play go between with Rendan if I played go between with the Wildhammers for aerial contact and trade.

  Sensing an opportunity, I brought up the idea of airforce carriers, ships that could double as roosts for flying creatures and – eventually – craft. Ordinarily it would make more sense to stick to land routes, since Stormwind and Blackrock shared a very long border. But those mountains were treacherous, there was a reason only one pass was used as a thoroughfare between the two nations. Worse, there were dragons all over the place, almost all of them black ones.

  A three-way collaboration between Stormwind, the Wildhammer dwarves, and the Dark Iron insurgents would get around all that. Four-way, if Ironforge joined in. Even if they couldn’t carry the slaves off too often, gryphons could aid in other ways. Magic bags could help a lot to reduce the volume of goods, for one, and to send messages with time and place on the coast to go looking for ships to flee on. If Stormwind had to establish more regular trade with Khaz Modan to the north, to provide a smokescreen for the slave liberation missions, that was just another thing that would help when and if the Horde arrived.

  I’d masterminded this Council in the hopes of getting a ceasefire between the dwarves, while we retook Grim Batol and I got a chance to work on reforming the Dark Irons the steady way.

  Instead, I’d ended up facilitating a Dark Iron insurgency that may well escalate to full civil war over the next few years, depending on how far Stormwind decides to take its foreign interventionism. I couldn’t even begrudge the plans being drafted, seeing as it was on account of literal slaves.

  Still…

  As arrogant as it might seem, I still had hope that I could get through to Thaurissan. And, through him, to the rest of his lot. They were slaves too, in the end. Admittedly, any sympathy that might have earned them was forfeited when they started to enslave others in turn… But Ragnaros was still a better extenuating circumstance than anything else I’d run into so far.

  It was with all these mixed feelings that I went to the Grand Pavilion, on that first day of the Great Council.

  Magni, Muradin and Brann Bronzebeard were representing Ironforge. Behind them, one Gelbin Mekkatorque was standing witness on behalf of Gnomeragan. Not yet the High Tinker, the gnome was bouncing back and forth on his steampunk platform, thankfully inactive at the moment.

  He’d not been there for the introductions – or their dramatic turn – because he’d wandered off the moment he sighted the camp, to pester my knights with questions about the firearms they were drilling with. Yes, that had been a show of power, the Dark Irons needed to know that I had the means to make up the difference in numbers all on my own.

  Kurdran and Falstad Wildhammer were representing Aerie Peak, along with elder Mastran Thundermantle, who commanded the respect of all his race by dint of being the only dwarf anywhere old enough to have actually been alive for the War of the Three Hammers itself. Instead of other witnesses, the Wildhammers had the two royal gryphons watching the gathering instead, gimlet eyes roaming.

  Dagran Thaurissan, Galgann Firehammer and Harrold Grimstone were representing Shadowforge City. They had no need of any witnesses besides themselves, they claimed, though I suspected the Priestess might have been here if Thaurissan wasn’t so concerned with looking weak after what Ragnaros did to him. Either way, that only left the space behind them open for the spirits of Forgewright and Ironband to stand in judgment over events instead.

  Sitting like a living border between the Dark Irons and Wildhammers, King Anduin Lothar of Stormwind was flanked by Grand Conjurer Hugarin – finally recovered enough to function – and Harthal Morgan. They would preside over the whole gathering as the only thing approaching a neutral party. Mara Fordragon was also there, bolstering Hugarin with the Aura of Vigor she’d learned from me.

  Behind Lothar’s seat, Sylvanas Windrunner was witnessing the event on behalf of Quel’Thalas. She and hers had been disqualified from being neutral arbiters, on account of the long association between the Widlhammers and the Rangers, more so than the high elves’ friendship with the Arathi bloodline that she’d taken it upon herself to rekindle while here.

  Finally, sat between the Dark Irons and the Ironforge party, there was me. The two seats at my sides were taken by Sir Magroth and Antonidas. The latter’s ambiguous status in Dalaran I had not been given a reason to share with anyone yet. Behind me, Aedelas stood in waiting while Emerentius guarded all of us, while the invisible shapes of a certain Valkyrie and raven watched everything avidly from the spirit world.

  Magroth and Antonidas wouldn’t be participating in this, really, they were mostly here to fill the seats. Also, the wizard hadn’t recovered from what Apocalypse had done to him, even now. I mostly gave him the chair so he didn’t need to stand, in his condition, and so he’d be within the range of my Aura of Vigor. I’d also given him a fragment of spirit through which I was constantly imbuing the Light into him, to further accelerate his spiritual healing, but he still needed time even so. It would soon finish diluting and dissolving into his own, but until then I could still use it to ignore any issue of distance or line of sight when it came to him.

  My wizard friend had been plotting something for days now, but I didn’t call him out on it. I didn’t get any impressions similar to what Kairozdormu or Granodior had put me through. Not through the spirit link, and not whenever I Reflected on the matter either. I did, however, get the feeling that it was a done deal already, so there was no way I could affect or undo whatever it was that he was preparing to blindside me with. It wasn’t anything that would jeopardize what I was doing here, at least, and that was enough for now.

  I was beginning to see a bit of why Odyn thought some of this would be funny, and I had no doubt that the more revolting gods of this world did as well.

  Gods and mortals. Friends and allies. Antagonists and enemies. An incipient courtship with a lady fair. The largest concentration of authority on the continent, wherein fully half of the worthies were a powder keg of resentment waiting to go off after being left to simmer for two hundred years. The heat had even been turned up to full boil by the unplanned addition of rebels and refugees, who came with hundreds of slaves in tow.

  All of that was now in one place, one spark away from lighting a wildfire.

  Despite all that, though, as the Council finally convened and I took my seat in the luxurious pavilion that Anduin had commissioned for the occasion, I was certain that this was still not all that Odyn had meant, when he spoke so glibly of the things that were apparently in store for me. A lot of what all had happened could be funny for the uninvolved, but he wasn’t uninvolved, and he specifically said ‘most amusing for me.’

  What the hell else was going to happen, if this still wasn’t it?

  As it turned out, nothing I imagined. Again. Because the unexpected slave liberation and the dissident Dark Irons that carried it out weren’t the only things I didn’t see coming.

  No, it was Antonidas. Specifically, the way he chose to make good on his offer to ‘provide a distraction’ when the Council was about to devolve into open war. Because of course it did.

  Clearly, I had grown too comfortable letting other people handle prescience for me, because even a god, who knew what he was doing on account of several tens of thousands of years of experience, was no match for the lure of schadenfreude.