Stormwind Wizard God-Chapter 623: Duke’s alive

"Duke!? Sweet mother of mercy, is it really you?" Two mountain-sized figures thundered over from the heart of the military encampment like charging war elephants, with Mograine bellowing first.

"Hold your horses there, man! Are you some damned Death Knight playing dress-up? I heard tell these new Death Knights can fool a man's own mother!" Abendis, who shared thicker blood with Duke than molasses in winter, jabbed at Duke with the subtlety of a battering ram.

Duke swung down from his mount and threw up his hands like a man surrendering to the hangman's noose: "Well, if you're betting I'm a Death Knight, just hit me with some Holy Light and see if I don't light up like a bonfire..."

Before Duke could spit out another word, a blazing ray of holy light slammed into him like Thor's own hammer.

Duke's fists clenched tighter than a miser's purse strings: "You absolute son of a bitch! You actually went and did it!"

"Don't get your britches in a twist, friend. Right now, Holy Light's the only thing standing between us and those cursed, devil-worshipping bastards who'd sell their own grandmothers for a copper piece." Mograine remained steady as a rock in a hurricane.

Then, faster than you could say "jackrabbit," Mograine's granite-hewn face—weathered by a thousand campaigns and harder than coffin nails—cracked like spring ice, and a smile rarer than hen's teeth spread across his battle-scarred features.

He threw open his arms and crushed Duke in a bear hug that could've cracked walnuts.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Duke!"

Then came Abendis with another bone-crushing embrace that would've made a grizzly bear weep with envy.

The frigid steel armor made Duke's ribs scream bloody murder, but his heart burned warmer than a blacksmith's forge on Christmas morning.

By God's beard, it had been ten long years, and the mark he'd carved into their souls back then hadn't faded like morning mist. This was what made him prouder than a peacock in Sunday clothes.

Just then, Mograine's eagle eyes spotted two figures hovering behind Duke like whipped dogs: "Renault!? What in Sam Hill are you doing skulking around Lord Edmund's convoy?"

"Father, I can explain..."

Old Mograine's razor-sharp gaze caught the battle scars decorating Renault's hide faster than a hawk spots a field mouse, and his temper exploded like a powder keg: "Didn't I tell you not to go gallivanting around when hell's breaking loose all over creation! Look here, you've gone and caused a heap of trouble for Lord Edmund, haven't you, boy?"

"No, father, I was just trying to..."

Sally jumped forward faster than a cat with its tail on fire to shield Renault: "Sir Mograine, don't you go blaming him! It's all my fault, sure as shooting. I heard tell some poor old soul was sick as a dog, so I snuck out of the barracks without so much as a by-your-leave to tend to her. Who would've thought I'd run smack dab into Sir Edmund... well, I mean, I literally ran into Sir Edmund."

The tale these two young'uns were spinning sounded fishier than a three-day-old catfish. Old Mograine's blood pressure was climbing faster than a squirrel up a hickory tree. Just as he was fixing to blow his top like Mount Vesuvius, Duke threw up a hand to stop him: "Now hold on there, Alexandros. Truth is, all my gear and clothes got blown to smithereens when I teleported here... Your boy and Miss Sally here saved my bacon something fierce."

The expressions on old Mograine and Abendis turned stranger than a two-headed calf at the county fair.

Wait just a cotton-picking minute—are you saying this man arrived buck naked as a jaybird?

Generally speaking, showing up in your birthday suit would be more embarrassing than a skunk at a garden party, but Duke seemed about as bothered by it as a fish is by water!

Never heard the old saying...

A wise man keeps his privates private, while a fool lets it all hang out?

Well, there ain't much a fellow can do when ultra-long distance teleportation turns your belongings into confetti!

Duke shrugged like a man who'd just lost a penny bet: "Hell, even this wizard robe was a gift from Ilucia's own wardrobe."

Clear as day, this was a Duke-sized outfit that fit him like a glove.

Old Mograine felt his head spinning like a weathervane in a tornado. How in tarnation did Duke manage to bring back enough gossip to choke a horse every time he showed up?

Truth be told, Duke was sitting on information hotter than a branding iron himself. He never would've guessed that the boy and girl he'd just met were famous enough to make headlines!

That's right, among the adventuring folk, they carried a reputation nastier than week-old roadkill—they called them the Bloody Hounds.

Not that they were genuinely the kind of low-down, snake-bellied varmints you'd expect.

It was purely because they'd served as dungeon bosses and gotten their hands on more treasure than King Midas himself, and somehow along the way they'd become quite the notorious pair.

However, in the original timeline, Renault Mograine was destined to become another classic example of a son who'd sell his own father down the river for thirty pieces of silver!

As for the girl named Sally, there wasn't a shadow of doubt she was Sally Whitemane, also known as 'Holy Thunder Thighs.'

This was another tragic and beloved character who'd captured more hearts than a traveling carnival. Throughout the blood-soaked history of Azeroth, Sally had played the role of a half-crazed zealot in the fanatical anti-Scourge organization called the Scarlet Crusade for most of her days.

However, when all was said and done, when Bolvar Fordragon claimed the mantle of the third Lich King and threw his lot in with Azeroth's defenders, Sally transformed into one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as a Death Knight, then became a powerhouse in the war against the Burning Legion.

Good Lord! Those legendary legs! Watching her spiral into madness and then rise as a death knight seemed like watching a prize thoroughbred get turned into glue!

Duke shook his head like a dog shaking off fleas, trying to banish these troublesome thoughts to the back forty of his mind.

"Alexandros, I may be late to this dance, but thank the stars I'm not too late. Lay it on me straight—I need to know everything that's been happening, and I mean everything..."

Old Mograine immediately ushered Duke and Ilucia into the command tent with more urgency than a man whose barn was on fire.

After getting the lowdown on several old comrades including Tirion, Mograine cut to the chase faster than a hot knife through butter.

"We're here to give those damned orcs a taste of cold steel. The intelligence we got painted a picture of an orc war band over 3,000 strong getting ready to cross the Alterac Mountains and lay siege to Castle Durnholde... but then we lost all contact with Lordaeron like a candle snuffed out in a windstorm. Considering that His Royal Highness Prince Arthas was throwing a victory parade just three days back, we're scared stiff that demons have overrun the capital city."

Abidis chimed in with news grimmer than a funeral on a rainy day: "What's worse than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick is that not only can't we open a portal back to Lordaeron, but every messenger and griffon rider we've sent has vanished without a trace. Then, like ants crawling out of a rotten log, hordes of undead started showing up around our camp. The real kicker is they used to be folks from Tarren Mill and the surrounding settlements."

Mograine ground his teeth like millstones: "If you hadn't shown up when you did, we were fixing to march back to Lordaeron hell-bent for leather."

"March back to get yourselves killed?" Duke's words were colder than a witch's heart and made the temperature in that tent drop faster than a lead balloon.

Mograine, Abendis, and more than fifteen mid- and high-ranking officers all went stiffer than corpses at a wake.

"The news I'm carrying is that this whole Northrend expedition was nothing but smoke and mirrors—a devil's own con game from start to finish. Arthas and every last man jack in his army have been wiped off the map."

When Duke dropped that bombshell, you could've heard a pin drop in a thunderstorm.

"That's impossible as a snowball in hell..." Mograine, who was more loyal to the Menethil royal family than a hound dog to his master, staggered like he'd been pole-axed.

"Duke, every soul in Southshore saw His Royal Highness march home in triumph with their own two eyes. This kind of tall tale..." Abendis was clinging to hope like a drowning man clutches driftwood, praying this was some sick joke.

Duke shook his head with the finality of a judge's gavel: "Arthas and his soldiers did come home, alright—as Death Knights riding pale horses."

Suddenly it all clicked together like puzzle pieces falling into place—the reports from his scouts that most of Arthas's triumphant troops had their faces hidden under hoods. They'd claimed their mugs were frostbitten in the frozen north, some even missing ears that had to be hacked off, but how in blazes could thousands of men all get frostbitten?

Mograine felt the world spinning around him like a child's top, like everything he'd ever believed was crumbling to dust and ashes. For a man whose family had served the Menethil royal bloodline more faithfully than the sunrise, this news hit harder than a sledgehammer to the gut.

The kingdom's only heir had become a Death Knight?

He stared at Duke with the intensity of a man searching for water in the desert, hoping against hope to catch even the smallest sign this was all a monstrous lie.

Unfortunately, he was destined for disappointment bitter as wormwood.

"Remember that Emergency Evacuation drill I hammered into everyone's thick skulls before I left? If I'm right as rain, we'll be finding survivors holed up near Lake Lordamere before you can say Holy Light.'"

Mograine's body shook like a leaf in a hurricane, but he finally straightened up like the soldier he was born to be: "Duke, lay it on me straight—what's the worst that could happen?"

Duke spoke each word with the weight of a funeral bell: "Arthas has turned three million souls of Lordaeron into walking corpses, and now he's sweeping across this continent like the Angel of Death himself!"