"It isn't my blood. It's the beast's." The dwarf approached the wolf's head and examined it. "This isn't an Elwynn wolf. It's an orcish dire wolf. The orcs brought many alien creatures from Draenor. Apart from ogres, these wolves have caused the most harm. There are no horses to ride on the other side of the Dark Portal, so the orcs ride wolves into battle."

Looking at the giant wolf lying on the floor, Jess gripped his axe. "Would its claws count as Wicked Claws?"

"They're certainly wicked enough," the dwarf agreed.

Jess had just raised the axe to chop off its claws when another question occurred to him. Could the claws of a beast from another world and those of an Azerothian creature both serve as the reagent called Wicked Claw?

Whether they could or not, he would chop them off first.

Gred pulled up the dire wolf's upper jaw and examined its knife-like canine teeth from every angle.

"What do you think that world is like, Jess?"

Jess raised the axe and lined its edge up with the wolf's paw. "Which world?"

"The other side of the Dark Portal, of course." Gred patted the giant wolf's forehead. "Look at this wolf. It has a mouth full of teeth, ears, fur, and the same bright-red blood... You could call it an enlarged gray wolf with a longer neck and legs. If I hadn't known what animal it was and you told me it was a wolf, I would absolutely believe you. Maybe that world has deer and sheep for these wolves to eat. Maybe it has grass, flowers, and trees. Perhaps it even has dwarves and humans—Draenor humans and Draenor dwarves."

Jess suppressed the urge to explain the world's cosmology years ahead of time. "Perhaps."

"Once the expedition returns, everything will become clear." The dwarf rolled his shoulders and neck. "I can hardly wait."

They worked for half an hour. Gred cut off some meat and hacked free a leg bone to carry back to Raven Hill for an extra meal. Jess carried the claws.

The whole wolf hide was a regrettable loss. The beast was absurdly heavy, and skinning it would be several times harder than skinning a smaller wolf. Even if they removed the hide intact, carrying it back would be difficult. They could only leave it behind.

Just as they prepared to depart, Jess suddenly remembered something.

"Didn't we come here to find an orc warlock?"

"Wasn't there only a wolf here?" the dwarf countered.

"Then what was the wolf eating?" Jess asked.

They both turned toward the corner where the beast had been feeding.

The wolf's corpse had filled the mill with the smell of blood. A chaotic heap of severed limbs, scraps of flesh, and bones lay against the wall. They clearly did not belong to another wolf.

"Look at this, Jess," Gred called from another corner. Jess looked over and saw a dark-brown head lying at the dwarf's feet, its eyes wide and staring in their direction.

It was an orc's head. The skin was much darker than that of a normal orc. Such black skin was rare among both green-skinned orcs who had drunk demon blood and brown-skinned orcs who had not.

The dwarf said, "You search over there. I'll look here. There are more things on this side."

Jess nodded and lifted a piece of shredded clothing. It was a scrap of black-and-gray fabric with a faint pattern, though the blood soaking it made the design difficult to see.

He spotted an iron chain buried beneath bones and torn cloth. He seized it and drew it out little by little until a bloodstained leather bag emerged.

He could not identify the kind of leather. The craftsmanship was exquisite and did not resemble orcish work.

When he untied the bag, the first thing he saw was the spine of a book.

Jess's heart thumped with excitement. He carefully pulled the book free, only to discover that the spine was its sole intact part. Most of the pages had burned away, and the remnants were yellowed and curled by fire.

The bag was undamaged while the book had burned, so the orc had probably found it elsewhere. No ash clung to it, and someone seemed to have carefully removed the badly charred portions where the writing was illegible. Nearly everything left was yellowed but still readable. The orc had clearly tended this damaged volume with care.

If he had kept it, then the book must have been useful.

Jess could not read a single word. He could not even determine whether the writing was demonic or Orcish, since he had never seen either script. No matter what, he could take it back and study it.

Searching deeper, Jess found a second book.

This one was mostly intact, though blood stained many pages. Dense writing covered everything, and Jess understood none of it. The book contained no drawings or runes, only large and small characters with additional lines resembling annotations. Merely looking at it made his head hurt.

But with the little knowledge Jess possessed, he could roughly tell that the book contained two languages and that one appeared to correspond with the other.

Could it be a language textbook teaching orcs a demonic tongue?

On Draenor, many young orcs had turned to the Void and fel only within the last few years. They might not have mastered the demonic incantations used in dark magic in so short a time. It was entirely possible that they still needed to study after reaching Azeroth.

But Jess could not draw conclusions recklessly. He truly understood nothing and had no clues.

This was not like a native English speaker reading a French article or a Chinese speaker reading Japanese news, where at least a few words or characters on each page might look familiar enough to suggest the general subject.

To Jess, these two books might as well have been written in Arabic. He did not know whether to begin from the left or the right. He was not even certain he held them the correct way up.

Beneath the second book, at the very bottom of the bag, lay a parchment scroll.

The scroll was undamaged and bore no blood or other stains. Someone had maintained it exceptionally well.

Jess picked it up and examined it. As before, he could not understand a single character, but a symbol in the lower-right corner caught his attention.

It was a purple rune shaped like the letter S or a bolt of lightning. Its sharp strokes looked like a stone rune carved by a knife.

A dot sat within the upper curve of the S, giving the whole symbol a style remarkably similar to the Horde emblem of later years.

Jess remembered seeing the symbol somewhere—in the game. It was the emblem of the Shadow Council.

Yes. In the level-seventy Burning Crusade version of Outland—the shattered remnants of Draenor—purple banners bearing this symbol hung everywhere inside the Shadow Labyrinth of the draenei mausoleum city Auchindoun. That place was one of the Shadow Council's principal gathering points.

Had this orc actually been a member of the Shadow Council?

The Shadow Council was no ragtag society. Gul'dan, the first orc warlock, had founded and led it. He recruited orcs and even wise ogres to study shadow and demonic magic, making it the most powerful organization of warlocks at the time. Some even suspected that actual demons numbered among its members.

The Shadow Council colluded with Medivh while he was controlled by Sargeras, orchestrating the orcs' corruption and the opening of the Dark Portal. After Warchief Blackhand fell under Gul'dan's influence, the council became the hidden hand controlling the entire Horde.

At this time, every Shadow Council member was not only a fanatical follower of Gul'dan but also one of the Horde's unquestioned elite.

Their eyes glowed either dark purple or emerald green from consuming too much shadow and fel energy. Prolonged exposure to the Void also blackened their skin, perfectly matching the changes visible on this orc's severed head.

Then why had a member of the Shadow Council met such a wretched death here?

Jess worried that the orc's black skin and gray robe had led him to force a connection between the symbol and the Shadow Council. He could not be completely certain that his memory was accurate. The possibility remained that the warlock did not belong to the council.

If he could understand the contents of this letter, perhaps everything would become clear.

"Look what I found." Gred walked from behind the door carrying a black rod. "Take a look at this."

He held it before Jess. "What do you think it's made from?"

Jess touched the rod. Its material felt neither metallic nor wooden, but somewhere between the two.

At one end was something resembling a mounting socket. It looked as though an object had once rested there, but the space was now empty.

"Could this be the orc's staff?" Jess asked.

The dwarf said, "Are you certain the orc was the warlock that elf mentioned?"

Jess shook the bag in his hand. "Look at this bundle and this scroll... See the mark on it. Does it look familiar?"

He handed the scroll to Gred. The dwarf turned it over several times. "How am I supposed to read this? I understand none of it. This symbol... I've never seen it either. It looks like the emblem on the orcish Horde's banners."

"He wore a black robe—or at least a long garment," Jess said. "And there are two books inside... I can't say what they're about, but an ordinary orc warrior probably wouldn't have the patience to read books packed this densely with writing. Even if he wasn't a warlock, he must have been some kind of scholar."

"An orc scholar." Gred scratched his chin. "That sounds as absurd as an ogre thief."

He used the rod to lift the bag. "Whatever it is—a staff or a walking stick—it can serve as a carrying pole and save me some effort. Did you find any herbs?"

"No," Jess said. "This orc definitely didn't come here to gather anything."

"Then we made this trip for nothing," Gred said. "At least we got some meat."

Jess looked at the scroll. "Could this be an orc message? Maybe it carries orders. If we translate it, we might learn something about their movements."

"We'd better not speculate," Gred said, glancing at the scroll again. "Why not show it to your employer?"

Jess did not answer. He did not know whether giving the scroll to the Wizard's Sanctum would be good or bad for him.

He glanced toward the door. "We should leave quickly. If we don't go now, we won't reach Raven Hill before dark."