Jess and Gred took the main road back to Raven Hill. For a long time, they could sense wolves or other predators following them through the grass, probably drawn by the smell of blood from the wolf meat and bones. The animals stayed with them almost all the way to town.
In the end, they didn't attack. A dwarf carrying a long staff with a sword and hunting bow on his back was a pretty good deterrent.
Still, the two men were worried all the way. The day had drained them of strength. Having to fight a pack of starving, crazed wolves now would have been too much to ask.
By evening, Raven Hill was as quiet as it had been the day before. Even the old man who'd sat outside the inn was gone.
Inside, though, the lights were still bright. A short man sitting near the window looked at the new arrivals, gave their various bags an uninterested glance, then turned back to the hard cheese beside him.
"Innkeeper." Gred placed the wolf meat he'd cut off on the counter and laid the bone across the table. "Could you roast this meat for us, with a little salt and maybe some soothing herbs? Everyone can share."
The innkeeper was an older-looking bald man who spoke and moved slowly. He weighed the meat in his hands.
"Add some bread and pickled vegetables, and we could have a little evening party, Master Dwarf. The people of Raven Hill haven't gathered together in a long time. With this much food, quite a few would come. What do you say?"
"That sounds great." Gred rubbed his hands together. "Any drink to go with it?"
The innkeeper lifted the meat and bone onto his shoulder. "There is some red wine left in the cellar from before the explosion. Many people say it's been contaminated. Still interested?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" Gred said. "If the contamination's really that bad, we must be dirtier than the wine by now."
Jess reminded him, "Remember those black things we saw in the tomb? That evil energy spreading from the south might gather underground."
"Who cares? That's wine from before the war!" Gred complained. "I nearly got killed several times today. I can't get through the day without a drink!"
"As you wish, then."
The innkeeper smiled and went into the kitchen.
And so, a small bonfire party began in the center of town. One long wolf bone, several fatty pieces of wolf meat sizzling with oil, a few large plates of dry bread and sour cheese, and several jars of pickled vegetables made up the entire feast.
Many townspeople were too afraid of the nighttime "werewolves" to come out, so only a dozen or so attended, mostly old people who no longer feared death very much.
Gred drank and danced with a human old lady about his age. They sang and jumped around the bonfire as though he hadn't spent the whole day wearing himself out.
Jess held a wooden cup and stared at the red wine inside, afraid to drink it. But its special scent was tempting. After several bites of greasy wolf meat, he badly wanted a mouthful to cut through the richness. He was just afraid it might poison him.
Then Morgan Ladimore came over holding his own cup and raised it to Jess's.
"To being alive today," he said with a smile.
"To being alive," Jess answered, taking a tiny sip.
Ever since realizing that Morgan Ladimore was the legendary Mor'Ladim, Jess had felt uneasy whenever he looked at the young man.
It felt even worse when he looked toward Lys Ladimore, Morgan's young, shy wife. In a pale-green dress, she sat on a log holding a baby in her arms and smiled in their direction.
The baby girl gazing at the fire from her mother's arms had to be Sarah Ladimore, the future leader of the Night Watch in Darkshire.
If the game's events went as Jess remembered, a little more than ten years from now her family would die in pain, torment, and despair. For years after their deaths, they would find no rest, wandering the dark woods, threatening and hurting innocent travelers.
Sarah herself would be powerless to change any of it. She could only let the wild rumors about her parents spread between Raven Hill and Darkshire.
"I heard you went hunting today," Morgan said, staring at the greasy wolf leg bone. "Looks like you did well. A wolf that big... I'm guessing Master Gred killed it?"
"Why couldn't I have killed it?" Jess asked jokingly.
"Even you have to admit a dwarf warrior fighting a huge white wolf to the death sounds more like something from a poem," Morgan replied with a smile. "I hope someday I'll be written into stories like that, stories people will tell their children. I'd bring that kind of victory back to my wife, Lys, and to Sarah. I want them to see their husband and father become a real hero... not a weak man who can't protect his own hometown."
Jess looked toward a window in the distance where someone had just put out the light.
"People can still live here because of what you've done."
"You call this living normally?" Morgan asked. "People keep leaving, and even those who stay are thinking of going. They don't trust me. The few other young men who want to protect this place feel just as helpless. And now even they're starting to give up. I think before long they'll move to Grand Hamlet, or somewhere even farther away. It's not really because of some werewolf curse. It's because they don't think this town is worth defending anymore."
He drank some wine and shook his head.
"I don't think I've done enough. Maybe I'm just not capable enough. I'm young, and I haven't trained much. I'm nothing like a real warrior who can shoulder this responsibility. I can't handle things on my own. I can't blame people for seeing me as a child, even though I'm married and have a child of my own."
"Sometimes I envy adventurers like you. You can leave your homes behind without looking back, and you get chances to prove yourselves. I wish I had a chance like that. I want everyone to know I can make Raven Hill thrive again. When people see me here, I want them to know there's nothing to fear for this town."
He'd drunk too much. Jess could see he was drunk—even drunker than Gred, who'd been drinking nonstop since the party started.
"Put your family first," Jess said. "They're the most important treasure you have. No... No treasure is worth more than them, Mr. Ladimore."
The dwarf, still dancing, seemed to hear their conversation. He kept shouting and singing songs no one could understand, but his eyes flicked in their direction.
"Of course." Morgan smiled. "I love my wife and daughter. They're the most important people in the world to me. I'll protect them with my life and take care of them."
"I don't doubt it," Jess said without thinking. "But what I mean is, never leave them."
Morgan let out a long breath. "Stay in this little town forever? Then..."
Jess badly wanted to tell him that the Scourge invasion more than ten years from now, the outcome of the war, and the fate of the whole continent of Lordaeron wouldn't change whether Morgan took part or not. But once Morgan left this place, his family would lose all protection.
In the end, Jess held back. He didn't want to interfere too much with the course of this world. If history followed the path he knew, the world would eventually be saved from destruction by all kinds of people.
But if he stepped in and changed even one tiny thing, where might the future go?
Perhaps his words had already affected Morgan. Perhaps Jess's very presence had changed the world forever, even if the change wasn't clear yet.
Jess said nothing more. Morgan seemed lost in thought as he looked toward Lys and Sarah.
Lys was looking back at her husband, her eyes full of love and hope. The child in her arms slowly closed her eyes as her mother rocked her, opened them again, then gradually shut them once more.
Raven Hill's night was full of warmth and laughter. Firelight shone on Jess's face. Although he sat among the others, he felt like an outsider, as though he'd never truly become part of Azeroth. He didn't like the feeling.
At midnight, Jess lay in bed and watched his clothes hanging outside the window, moving back and forth in the evening breeze like a harmless ghost.
His whole body ached after the long day. Several injured spots still hurt in waves, and once he finally relaxed, the pain struck even harder.
He was terribly sleepy and completely exhausted, but he couldn't settle down and fall asleep, almost as if he didn't want tonight to end.
Even stranger, Gred wasn't snoring.
"You're awake, aren't you?"
"So are you," the dwarf said quietly.
"What's wrong?"
"Sometimes I really don't think you're a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old man, kid. I'll admit it. I heard what you said to Morgan."
Gred rolled over and looked at Jess with his one eye.
"I wonder, did you have some incredible love affair back in Lordaeron that ended in a terribly dramatic tragedy? I've got a feeling you envy that Morgan Ladimore kid."
"Nothing like that. What kind of love life could a poor kid have?" Jess asked.
"Just listen to yourself," Gred said, clicking his tongue. "A boy your age ought to be full of hope for the future, dreaming about romance, full of energy and passion. Instead, you act like some bitter man who thinks he's seen through every lie in the world, making up half-baked excuses for his own cowardice."
Was that true? Was his refusal to interfere with the world's course really just fear?
Jess didn't argue. Gred seemed to sense the mood had turned strange and spoke again.
"How about this? Tell me what kind you like, and when we're back in Stormwind, I'll introduce you to someone. Young or mature, thin or fat, rich or poor, human, dwarf, gnome..."
"I just want a pretty elf girl," Jess said.
Gred immediately rolled over, turned his back on Jess, and started snoring loudly.