At Gred's warning, Jess looked over as well. A young man had appeared in the doorway at some point. He looked about Jess's age and was watching them sort through their packs.

"I should be the one asking questions," the young man said coldly. "I'm a guard in this town. What are you doing in Raven Hill with all these weapons?"

Jess looked the fellow up and down. Although he claimed to be a town guard, he carried no weapon and wore no uniform. Was he some idiot swindler hoping to extort a little money?

"We're only passing through," Jess said. "We came from Sentinel Hill. Some of our luggage got wet while we were crossing the Nazferiti River, so now that we have time, we're checking whether anything was damaged."

"Right, right, exactly," Gred hastily agreed.

"I don't trust you," the young man said. "Please come with me. Otherwise, don't blame me for getting rough."

Jess wondered what a half-grown boy like this could possibly mean by getting rough. He glanced at Gred, who seemed to understand something as well.

Jess suddenly sprang up, tackled the young man, and pinned him down. The youth roared like a madman and somehow reversed their positions, pressing Jess beneath him. He had only just raised a fist when Gred seized his arm and lifted his entire body into the air.

"Morgan!"

A girl's voice made all three of them freeze.

At the far end of the corridor, a blond girl stared at them in astonishment. She looked blankly at the boy dangling in the air and asked, her voice trembling on the verge of tears, "What are you doing to him?"

"Who are you to him?" Jess asked.

"I'm his wife," the girl said firmly.

His wife? Jess froze for an instant. This fellow looked about the same age as him. He was married already?

Although that was not unusual in the Middle Ages, still...

"Let go of me!" The boy gripped Gred's arm and struggled furiously, to no effect. "Lys, go back! I... I can handle them!"

Although the boy remained stubborn, even the girl, who looked as though she had never been in a fight, could clearly see who had the upper hand.

"Is he really a guard?" Jess asked.

"He..." The girl hesitated. "More or less."

"Either he is or he isn't. What does 'more or less' mean?" Gred looked at Jess. "Should I put him down first?"

Jess nodded. Gred tossed the young man onto the floor. The boy sprang up with astonishing speed, straightened his collar, and said, "You're certainly strong."

Gred snorted contemptuously. "Never met a dwarf before, boy? Then you've learned something today."

"So what exactly is going on?" Jess asked.

The girl hesitated for a moment, then finally said, "Explain it yourself, Morgan. I still need to take care of Sarah."

The three men exchanged glances. Though none intended to start another fight, they remained wary of one another as they went downstairs and sat at a table.

"Morgan, was it?" Jess asked. "What exactly do you do?"

Morgan kept his eyes fixed on Gred, apparently still on guard. Only after a while did he answer, "I'm actually a guard from Grand Hamlet to the east."

Jess asked, "If you're a guard from Grand Hamlet, what are you doing in Raven Hill?"

"I'm a resident of Raven Hill. I went to Grand Hamlet for Lys—the girl you saw when you arrived, my wife. Later, more and more residents left Raven Hill, and even the original guards were unwilling to stay. I asked the captain of the guard in Grand Hamlet to let me return here, and he agreed."

"Why did all the residents leave?" Gred asked. "I heard Grand Hamlet still has quite a few people."

Morgan answered, "Grand Hamlet is doing all right. If the gnolls in the Redridge Mountains hadn't been blocking the roads so often lately, life there would be bearable. But Raven Hill... Raven Hill..."

He pressed his lips together. "There are worgen."

Gred frowned. "What in the world is a worgen?"

Morgan said, "I've never actually seen one either, but that's what everyone says."

Jess looked at Gred with disdain. The dwarf claimed to be sixty or seventy years old, yet he had never even heard of worgen.

"They're creatures from human legends," he explained. "Half human and half wolf. They're very powerful and steal children at night to eat them."

"What's so powerful about being half human and half wolf?" Gred asked. "Dumber than a human and clumsier than a wolf. Doesn't that just make them useless?"

Morgan let out an anxious sigh. "None of you outsiders believe us."

Gred said, "You've never seen one yourself, yet you sound so certain."

"Someone was wounded by a worgen," Morgan said. "His chest had been torn into a bloody ruin. When they rescued him, he kept saying he'd encountered a worgen, and he died soon afterward. But before they could bury him the next day, his corpse vanished. Many people said the worgen's attack had cursed him and turned him into a worgen too, so he ran away."

"Maybe a ghoul dragged him off and turned him into an undead creature," Gred said.

"When Raven Hill prospered, it was famous for its funeral trade," Morgan said. "If someone had been bitten by a ghoul and infected with corpse toxin, nowhere else in the entire Kingdom of Stormwind knew better how to handle it. But that man's injuries were completely different. There was no corpse toxin, only terrible shadow energy."

At that, Gred's expression froze. "So you still haven't seen a worgen with your own eyes."

"That's true," Morgan admitted.

Then he added, "You don't look like bad people. I'm truly sorry about earlier. I'm simply wary of every outsider, especially at a time like this. Whatever brought you here, remember not to go out at night. Never go out at night. People have said the worgen appear after dark. And even if there are no worgen, Duskwood is far more dangerous at night than during the day."

"Thank you for the warning," Jess said.

"It's my duty," Morgan said. "I haven't introduced myself yet. Morgan Ladimore. If you run into trouble, you can find me. Everyone in town knows where I live."

"Gred."

"My name is Jess."

"A pleasure to meet you. May the Holy Light be with you."

Morgan went upstairs. Jess looked out through the door and felt that the town had become even more sinister than before.

"Do you believe that boy's story?" the dwarf asked.

Jess said, "Since he warned us, we'll leave the herb gathering until tomorrow. It can't hurt. There may be fewer undead and animals during the day. Perhaps we can't tell day from night here, but the difference may matter greatly to animals and undead creatures."

Worgen certainly existed, and in the game they ran rampant throughout Duskwood.

But Jess remembered that this was supposed to happen much later and was connected to an ancient artifact left here after a night elf was killed—the Scythe of Elune. Could the worgen of Duskwood already exist more than a decade earlier?

Perhaps Gred was right. The locals might have mistaken some other monster for a worgen. After all, worgen legends had always been popular bedtime stories for children in this region.

"Good. I'm tired after traveling all day anyway. I'll go upstairs and lie down." Gred yawned, and once he mentioned it, Jess felt sleepy too.

In the middle of the night, Jess listened to the dwarf's thunderous snores and stared at the silent forest outside the window. It was a long time before he finally fell asleep.