Flinthammer Hall

((A guest post over at A Druid’s Doodling, as part of Blog Azeroth’s Furtive Father Winter 2011: Forest Song.))

“Ah’m gonna make this th’ best Feast o’ Winters Veil ever,” Mountaineer Ringo Flinthammer thundered, slamming his mug down on the counter at the Stoutlager Inn.

Deathwing’s second pass over Thelsamar had been much less destructive than his first, and the residents had managed to prevent the worst of the damage with a quickly organized bucket brigade and Hodir’s blessing, in the form of an early snowfall. And if everything still had a bit of a smoky air to it, the dwarves just chalked that up to being festive.

“Oh, aye?” Vidra Hearthstove asked, polishing a glass. “What do ye have planned, then?”

“Me brothers want to have us all dress up in holiday sweaters — which Ah’m sure will be horrible, given that Ely’s pickin’ them out — and pose fer a portrait. The wee one wants Greatfather Winter to bring him his first ram, so we’ll be takin’ him to Amberstill and seein’ if there’s a kid gentle enough fer him to ride. Me, Ah’m just hopin’ fer a few quiet nights around the fire before … Well, a few quiet nights around th’ fire.”

“Sounds like ye’ll be makin’ a lot of great memories.”

“That’s the idea.” Ringo stared into his mug a moment. “Years ago, me friend Widge and Ah discovered the Caverns of Time and went back to visit me father on the eve of the Battle of Mount Hyjal. There was another dwarf there, another traveler …

“Well, we’ll see, Ah reckon,” Ringo said, raising his mug in a toast. “Here’s ta makin’ holiday memories.”

The air screamed as it passed through the demonic portals and the air stank with fel energy. Mountaineer Ringo Flinthammer put one hand to his nose and jerked it away in shock.

“My hand!” He stared in horror at his purple skin. “My voice!”

He whirled around, staring upward. The purple foliage, the greens so deep and rich that it hurt them to look at them — this wasn’t Loch Modan. This was … where was this?

He had been in Dragonblight, he thought, but it was a dead place now, far deader than even the frozen plains normally seemed. There had been the corpse of a great dragon draped over Wyrmrest Temple. But when was he there? How could he have been?

“Ringo!” A voice burst in on his reverie as the world jerked and shifted beneath his feet. He stared into the eyes of a night elf priestess, her gossamer white dress more of a nightgown than what a proper dwarf woman would wear out in public. “Ringo! Wake up!”

He opened his mouth to reply and spat as dirt and dust flew into it. He sat forward, coughing out a piece of plaster that had fallen from the roof of Flinthammer Hall.

“Beli?” Even in the darkness, his wife’s wide eyes shone with reflected moonlight. “Ah had th’ strangest dream …”

There was another thump, and this one bounced him from the bed onto the stone floor. Somewhere in the darkness, Frostmaw was whining — a pitiful sound to come from a bear of his size — and Bael was calling out for his parents in confusion, although not in pain or fear, praise Khaz’goroth.

Beli jerked open the curtains as she passed by the window on the way to retrieve their child. The room filled with orange light.

“’s Deathwing,” she barked, “He’s done ano’er flyby o’er Thelsamar. Th’ town’s burnin’!”

Ringo jumped to his feet, doffing his nightshirt and grabbing for his mountaineer’s uniform.

“Someone should put an end ta that beastie once and fer all — and soon,” he snarled, jerking on his boots.

“Ah donnae reckon that’s possible,” Beli muttered, returning to the room with Bael in her arms.

“Nay, it is,” Ringo said. “Now. … How in blazes do Ah know that?”

Mountaineers Kadrell and Flinthammer sat on the roof of the Stoutlager Inn, watching the sky for the Headless Horseman. There had also been reports that the Horde had been flying over some settlements, throwing stink bombs. It hadn’t happened here, and if Captain Rugelfuss had anything to say about it, it wasn’t going to.

“Me neck hurts,” Ringo Flinthammer muttered, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

Kadrell grunted non-noncommittally.

“Heard a rumor earlier,” Ringo continued, “Th’ mountaineers are gonna start bein’ trained to shoot at point-blank range.”

“Say what?” Kadrell snapped. It was the first time he’d spoken in hours.

“Instead o’ smackin’ someone with an axe or a polearm or a staff or what have ye, we’ll just, ye know — shoot ‘em.”

“What about all th’ melee training we’ve had?”

“Nae time fer it any more. We’ll jus’ use our guns for all o’ that.”

“No Raptor Strike? No Wing Clip?”

“Seems not.”

“… good riddance.”