"I went for a look around the Mage Quarter," Jess replied to Gred, tearing off another piece of bread with his teeth.

The building that housed his rented room stood right in front of him. If Gred wanted him to go drinking all night, there was no chance he would agree.

In fact, Jess did not want to agree to anything or even deal with Gred. He only wanted to rush into his miserable little room and sleep. After the torment he had endured, he felt ready to pass out on his feet.

Gred looked him up and down and muttered, "The Mage Quarter? Look at you. You seem drained dry. Anyone who didn't know better would think you'd been to the Old Town."

Jess prodded Gred in the chest with the half-eaten loaf in his hand. "I'm not you. Out with it. Why are you looking for me?"

Gred glanced at the workers lying on either side of the street and lowered his voice. "Work, of course."

"Can't do it. Can't." Jess waved him off. "I'm not doing anything else today."

"Tomorrow, we're making a trip to Westbrook Garrison. One silver and thirty copper for the round trip. Are you in or not? We don't even have to walk. We ride in a wagon, and you can nap on the way."

"Escorting grain?"

"Military grain. It's coming from Moonbrook and going to Lakeshire for the expedition at Nethergarde Keep... Things around the Dark Portal sound complicated. Seems like fighting's about to start. But our leg only goes as far as Goldshire. We'll be traveling with soldiers, so there's nothing to worry about."

"And if orcs ambush us? You're willing to risk your life for one silver?"

"What orcs would be near Westbrook Garrison? Let the next escort worry about them!" The dwarf started up the stairs. "Orcs come from the Redridge Mountains. Westfall and Moonbrook are safer than this place, little brother. With soldiers alongside us, the money's practically free!"

"That doesn't sound bad."

Jess smiled weakly. With that extra silver, his rent would be safely covered.

At noon the following day, the two signed in and joined the convoy bound for Westbrook Garrison.

Just as Gred had promised, they encountered nothing on the road there. No wolves, murlocs, kobolds, or orcs. Nothing at all. Elwynn Forest was peaceful and quiet.

But the grain that should have arrived at the garrison around three in the afternoon was delayed by several hours.

At dusk, red sunlight filtered through the trees and spread across the tents beside Westbrook Garrison, making the military camp on the riverbank look like a row of freshly baked pudding cakes.

The wagons finally arrived. The quartermaster spoke with the soldiers, and it sounded as though they had run into trouble near Sentinel Hill.

There was no more time to waste. The hired escorts and soldiers put on their armor and took up their weapons. It was already late, and they had to leave as quickly as possible.

Six fully armed soldiers escorted the convoy. They carried longswords and shields marked with Stormwind's lion crest and wore intimidating full helmets with nose guards and blue plumes. The equipment looked ruinously expensive.

With more than twenty armed militiamen like Jess and Gred accompanying them as well, no band of raiders with any sense should have dared attack them over a few wagons of grain.

The returning wagons were empty, however, and the soldiers had to walk back. Everyone had grown rather complacent.

Several recruits on their first escort discussed the gray wolves and bears in the forest and how hunger might drive the beasts mad enough to attack a convoy. Jess had faced down a few wolves while transporting timber from Eastvale Logging Camp, but he had never been in a real battle.

Listening to them made his skin crawl whenever he looked toward the forest.

His mind had been so occupied by the Curse of Agony he had suffered in the Slaughtered Lamb's basement that he had not stopped to consider what the name Westbrook Garrison signified.

A lone wolf howl came from deep within the woods. The quartermaster responsible for the grain blew a sharp whistle, warning everyone to prepare to depart.

That howl suddenly awakened a memory from more than a decade ago.

Wasn't this... Westbrook Garrison, the place plagued by gnolls?

Gnolls were humanoid monsters found throughout the Kingdom of Stormwind. Many young people could not tell the difference between gnolls and kobolds.

If kobolds were rotten little thieves, gnolls were bloodthirsty bandits. In size, fighting strength, and ferocity, the two could not be compared.

Several gnoll tribes had once united and fought the Kingdom of Stormwind in a conflict large enough to be called a war.

They had ultimately been unable to stand against the human regular army and fled in defeat. Nearly eradicated from Elwynn Forest, they scattered through the surrounding mountains and wilderness. But after decades of recovery, those savage, semisapient creatures had returned, crossing rivers and bridges from every direction to infiltrate Elwynn Forest once again.

Westbrook Garrison was still being rebuilt after the war against the orcs. More than a decade later, however, it would once again serve as an outpost against the Riverpaw pack living in Westfall.

Jess jogged over to a Stormwind guard. "Have gnolls attacked grain wagons before?"

The guard tilted his head. "Gnolls? When the orcish Horde attacked Westfall a few years ago, they killed one of the Riverpaw leaders. The pack has no chieftain now, so they can't organize well enough to harass us. Of course, you still shouldn't go near the riverbank alone. It remains dangerous."

The Riverpaw had no leader?

Jess nodded and slowly returned to his place. As he stared at the darkening shade beneath the trees, he could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.

If the Riverpaw had no leader, when had Hogger appeared?

In World of Warcraft, that gnoll chieftain had struck terror into countless new Alliance players, repeatedly beating back Stormwind's attempts to capture him.

Had he been born yet? If so, how old was he? Was he already an adult?

A cool breeze swept past, a rare relief in the summer heat. Gred gave a comfortable hiss and scratched his neck.

The wind moved on through the forest, rustling the leaves. The air was damp.

Jess thought he heard metal scraping. Gnolls?

Unlike the rhythmic footsteps of the armored soldiers, those noises were chaotic and hurried, as though something were chasing through the woods. But when the wind passed, everything fell silent again.

The lingering effects of the Curse of Agony—the ringing in his ears and the nausea—had not entirely faded even after a night's rest. Jess did not dare conclude that enemies surrounded them on such flimsy evidence.

Besides, gnolls had hardly attacked humans since the war. Surely disaster would not strike on the very day he joined an escort. What were the chances?

As he drew a deep breath and tried to force back the urge to vomit, a sudden thunk came from the other side of the wagon.

Something had struck it.

"What was that?" the quartermaster at the front called, looking back.

Whoosh...

Thud!

Whoosh... squelch!

"Ah!"

Whoosh...

"By the Light... Orc bolts! Orc attack!" Shouts erupted from the front and rear alike.

"Orcs?!" Gred gripped his logging axe in both hands and looked around wildly. "Where are the orcs? Didn't they say there weren't any here?"

"Ha! Lalalalala!"

"Ahlalalalala!"

"Wadadadada!"

Bizarre howls erupted throughout the dark forest. Twisting shadows lurched out from behind trees, bushes, boulders, and beneath the roadside fence.

A militiaman fled, clutching the bolt lodged in his neck. A shadow rushed him head-on and sliced off his head with a cleaver. His body ran several more steps before collapsing.

"Damn it, those aren't orcs! They're gnolls!" Gred leaned against a wagon and muttered something in Dwarven, then climbed aboard. Standing atop the grain sacks, he raised his axe and bellowed, "Come at me, you half-brained wild dogs!"

The gnolls apparently understood Common. At the dwarf's sudden abuse, three or four began shouting and converged on him.

They wore crudely fashioned, ragged armor and carried a motley collection of weapons stolen from orcs and humans. Their fighting style was chaotic but utterly frenzied, without the slightest concern for their own safety. Apart from the Stormwind guards, who fought in groups of two or three and supported one another, most of the militia scattered almost instantly.

One gnoll climbed onto the grain wagon. Gred buried his axe in its head, and it slid twitching from the wagon. But the dwarf failed to keep his grip, and the axe fell with it, still lodged in the gnoll's skull.

At the same time, another gnoll climbed up and swung a small hammer at him. Gred caught its wrist with his bare hand, and the two locked into a contest of brute strength.

The raging gnoll stood slightly taller than the dwarf, yet Gred held it in place. He shouted incoherently, oblivious to the smaller gnoll climbing onto the wagon behind him with a butcher's cleaver.

"Behind you, Gred!" Jess ran around the wagon and drove his sword into the smaller gnoll's waist. It howled and scrambled on all fours, trying to climb farther and escape Jess's attack. The wound in its side barely slowed it.

Jess slashed again but struck only the gnoll's hind leg. It lost its footing, and Gred kicked it off the wagon into the mud.

Rain was falling heavily now. Jess wiped the hair plastered across his forehead and eyes aside with one arm, approached, and aimed his sword at the small gnoll's chest.

"If I don't kill you, you'll kill me..." he murmured, then drove the sword down with all his strength.

The gnoll, stabbed through the heart, sprang up like a rabid dog and sprinted toward the river, coughing violently. Jess jumped in shock. He had never imagined it could remain so ferocious with a sword wound in its chest.

"Jess, hurry! Get my axe back! I can't hold this one much longer!"

Gred was still wrestling with the tall gnoll atop the wagon. Jess abandoned everything else and ran to the corpse that had fallen with its skull split open. He planted a foot on its neck and hauled on the axe with all his strength. Something cracked, wrenching the gnoll's head around at an unnatural angle.

"Catch!"

Jess threw the axe onto the wagon. Without even looking, Gred caught it out of the air and drove the haft into the gnoll's eye socket.

The gnoll stumbled back two steps, howling, and fell off the wagon. Gred roared and leaped after it. Flesh and metal clashed, then that side went silent.

Jess gripped his sword and looked around for anyone else who needed help. Before he could see much, a Stormwind helmet—with a head still inside—flew out of nowhere and struck the wagon wheel in front of him, splattering his face with blood.

What was happening?

Jess looked in the direction from which the head had flown. Through the curtain of rain, a gigantic shadow stood atop a headless corpse, gripping an absurd iron axe and hacking again and again at a Stormwind guard. The guard's helmet was already full of blood; he could not hold out much longer.

Jess did not stop to think. He hurled his sword. The slightly bent, battered blade spun once, struck the monster's grotesquely oversized orcish shoulder armor, bounced away, and planted itself in the earth.

The enormous gnoll turned, and its features came into focus.

Its expression could hardly be called vicious. Idiotic was the strongest word that came to mind. But no witless stare could diminish the menace of its sheer size.

Jess's heart hammered so hard it seemed ready to burst from his chest. Every trace of discomfort left by the Curse of Agony vanished at once.

Then the gnoll sneered and muttered a single word. "Hogger."