Warcraft: Official Movie Novelization

Lothar thought about the violence the orcs had displayed in their attack. He imagined his gentle-natured, somewhat shy son battling for his life against the oversized monsters, which were shockingly strong and eerily fast for their size.

Tell him, he thought. Tell him that he’s brave—maybe braver than you were, at that age. Tell him you love him, and you’re proud of him.

Tell him… it wasn’t his fault.

Lothar only nodded, and turned to leave.

12

“Garona, pull your hood down and ride between us,” Karos said in a low voice. His head was bandaged and his face was bruised, but considering he had been knocked unconscious by an orc chieftain, he was in good shape.

Garona heard the sound of horses and carts behind them. They were no longer alone on the road, now that they were on the outskirts of Elwynn. She was not afraid of a handful of farmers, but a scuffle would serve nothing. She obeyed, and observed. More and more humans joined them on the road, funneling in like small rivulets that swelled a stream to become a river, until at last, at the castle gates, it was not even a river any longer, it was an ocean.

Thousands of refugees thronged here, with the wide, frightened eyes that Garona recalled from countless cages. She caught sight of one of the short, barrel-chested beings that were known as “dwarves.” He was attempting to lead a spooked pony pulling a small wagon. A female dwarf and two small children clung to one another inside, glancing about worriedly at the angry human tide swirling about them.

One of the harried-looking guards held up a mailed hand, forbidding the dwarf passage. “Them first!” he shouted.

The dwarf’s brows drew together. “I work in the Royal Armory, man!” he bellowed.

“Find a cave to hide in, dwarf!” a human, safe in the anonymity of the crowd, shouted angrily. Others began to jostle the cart, and one of the children cried out for her father. Any patience the dwarf might have had had clearly evaporated long ago, and he reached back into the wagon and grasped a hammer so large Garona marveled that he was able to wield it.

“I’ll ‘cave’ your skull, you stinkin’—”

“This is unacceptable,” Karos muttered. Louder, he called, “Sergeant! Muster a line up here! We’ll have order or we’ll be closing the gates until we do!” He turned on the people who had been shoving the cart. “Kaz is making weapons for all our safety. Not one more word out of you.”

The dwarf nodded his thanks, his face flushed, and was permitted through. Karos and Garona started to follow, but Khadgar caught Garona’s arm. “I need to gather my research. Tell the king what happened. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Khadgar’s mind was awhirl. The same orc who had looked at him with calm intelligence when he had erected a protective dome around himself and Medivh during the initial fight with the orcs had captured him, covered his mouth with a hand the size of a trencher, and then released him unharmed. Not just unharmed—with a request to work with the humans to bring down Gul’dan and the fel.

He inserted the key in the lock of his room’s door. He had never been more afraid in his life, and then never more… well… honored, than when this powerful orc chieftain, Durotan, had given him what was obviously a friendly—

“What is this?”

Khadgar jumped about a foot in the air and lifted his hands reflexively for an attack spell, but recognized the intruder in time to bite back the incantation.

“Guardian!” He felt the panicked energy bleed out of him, leaving him weak with relief. He struggled to get his mind working again and answer the obviously furious Medivh’s question. The Guardian was gesturing at the clutter of notes, open books, and drawings that papered the room. When Khadgar had run out of flat space, he had taken to hanging them from string, as if he were a washerwoman hanging laundry. Notes were, almost literally, everywhere. “The gate… We saw it! In the Morass! I’ve been putting together all the clues I can about it.”

“This,” Medivh demanded, gazing at a sketch he held. “This drawing. Where did you copy it from?”

Khadgar felt like a bird mesmerized by a snake. He stared, knowing he looked foolish, feeling even more so as he tried to collect his thoughts. He didn’t understand Medivh’s anger. “G—Guardian?”

Medivh snatched a piece of parchment dangling from one of the loops of string “And this? And this?”

Another, and another. He marched up to Khadgar and shoved one of the pieces in the boy’s face.

Khadgar’s hands and his voice both shook as he replied, the sweat of genuine fear popping out on his brow. What had he possibly done wrong? He swallowed, his mouth as dry as the parchments that were crushed in Medivh’s hands. “I’ve been researching ever since I felt the presence of the fel.”