World of Warcraft: The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm Page 0,1

might, he could not offer sufficient resistance to escape Palkar’s steady hands pushing him back on the sleeping skins.

“Thrall … he must know,” muttered Drek’Thar, slapping ineffectually at Palkar’s arms.

“If you feel it necessary, tomorrow we will go and tell him. But now … rest.”

Exhausted from the dream, and feeling the cold in his aged bones afresh, Drek’Thar nodded and permitted Palkar to prepare him a hot drink with herbs that would send him into a peaceful sleep. Palkar was a good caretaker, he thought, his mind already wandering again. If Palkar thought tomorrow would be soon enough, then it would be. After he finished the drink, he laid his head down, and before sleep claimed him, wondered driftingly, Soon enough for what?

Palkar sat back and sighed. Once, Drek’Thar had been mentally as sharp as a dagger, even though his body was growing increasingly fragile under the weight of his years. Once, Palkar would have sent a runner off to Thrall immediately upon learning of Drek’Thar’s vision.

But no longer.

Over the last year, the sharp mind that had known so much, had held wisdom almost beyond comprehension, had begun to wander. Drek’Thar’s memory, once better than any written record, was becoming faulty. There were gaps in his recollection. Palkar could not help but wonder if, between the twin enemies of the War Against the Nightmare and the inevitable ravages of age, Drek’Thar’s “visions” had deteriorated into nothing more than bad dreams.

Two moons ago, Palkar recalled painfully as he rose and returned to his own sleeping skins, Drek’Thar had insisted that runners be sent to Ashenvale, because a group of orcs was about to slaughter a peaceable gathering of tauren and kaldorei druids. Runners had been sent, indeed, warnings issued—and nothing had happened. The only thing that had been accomplished by listening to the old orc was that the night elves had grown more suspicious. There had been no orcs within miles. And yet Drek’Thar had insisted that the peril was real.

There had been other, lesser visions, all equally imaginary. And now this. Surely if the threat was real, others than Drek’Thar would be aware of it. Palkar was not an inexperienced shaman himself, and he had had no such forebodings.

Still, he would keep his word. If Drek’Thar wished to see Thrall, the orc who had once been his student and now was warchief of the very Horde Drek’Thar himself had helped to create, in the morning Palkar would prepare his mentor for the journey. Or he might send a runner so that Thrall would come to Drek’Thar. It would be a long and difficult trek; Thrall was in Orgrimmar, a continent away from Alterac, where Drek’Thar insisted on making his home. But Palkar suspected such a thing would not happen. Come tomorrow Drek’Thar would likely not even remember he had dreamed at all, let alone the content.

Such was usually the case these days. And Palkar took no joy in the fact. Drek’Thar’s increasing senility caused Palkar only pain and a fierce desire to wish the world were otherwise, the world that Drek’Thar was so convinced was about to be broken. Little did the old orc know that for those who loved him, the world was broken already.

Palkar knew it was useless to grieve for what had been, for what Drek’Thar himself once had been. Indeed, Drek’Thar’s life had been longer than most and certainly full of honor. Orcs faced adversity and understood that there was a time to fight and rage and a time to accept the reality of what was. Since Palkar had been a small child, he had cared for Drek’Thar, and he had vowed to continue until that old orc’s last breath, no matter how painful it was to bear witness to his mentor’s slow decline.

He leaned over and snuffed out the candle between thumb and forefinger, pulling the furs tight about his large frame. Outside, the rain continued to fall, beating its steady tattoo on the tightly drawn skins.

PART I

THE LAND WILL WEEP …

ONE

Land ho!” cried the lookout. The slender blood elf had established a perch for himself in the crow’s nest, a place so precarious, Cairne thought, that an actual crow would think twice about alighting upon it. The young elf leaped easily onto the rigging, hands and bare feet entwined with the rope, seemingly as comfortable as a squirrel. The aged tauren watching from the deck shook his head slightly at the sight. He was pleased and unabashedly a bit relieved that the first part