The Eerie Camp

Kel'Thuzad had a headache. A very, very bad headache. The situation was far more troublesome than he had anticipated: the Cult of the Damned's followers had gone silent before they could spread the plague through the grain bound for every corner of Lordaeron.

According to the original plan, he should never have appeared in this little village. He should have been unleashing the plague in Andorhal, one of Lordaeron's major cities.

But the Cult of the Damned's spies and acolytes kept vanishing without a trace in Andorhal. With the growing numbers of paladins, priests, and guards there, Kel'Thuzad increasingly felt that it was no longer a place where he could linger.

The situation in Stratholme was much the same. Apparently, Baron Rivendare had received orders from the king to investigate all suspicious individuals and tighten the city's administration and defenses. As a result, the Cult of the Damned's followers had been caught by the guards and lost their heads.

The Dreadlord Mal'Ganis considered this a normal human response to the orc problem. Kel'Thuzad, however, suspected that the demon had already decided the Lich King's plan would not work and begun devising alternatives of his own.

An inexplicable unease began to rise within the former archmage of Dalaran. He felt that Lordaeron was somehow different from the kingdom he remembered, but he could not tell exactly where the problem lay.

"I hope His Majesty the Lich King is right."

Clutching the Plague Tome, which held records of evil spells, the necromancer felt his foreboding grow stronger. He even began to doubt whether the plan could succeed. Regardless, he had to face that prince, and he had to die by his hand.

Fortunately, the part he had handled personally had gone according to plan. He had already turned this little village north of Brill into a plague-ridden realm of death.

While he was meditating in one of the village's wooden houses, an acolyte of the Cult of the Damned stumbled inside. "My lord, Arthas is here!"

Upon hearing this, Kel'Thuzad picked up his staff, topped with what resembled a goat's skull, and stepped past the panicking acolyte. "Good news. On His Majesty's behalf, I grant you eternal life."

"Aaaaaah!!!"

Amid hoarse screams, the acolyte's corpse slumped limply to the ground, then trembled and crawled back up. By the time he stood upright again, his flesh had begun to rot, and his exposed white bones twisted and grew under the influence of dark magic.

Soon, a mindless ghoul had replaced the cowardly acolyte, becoming yet another minion in the Lich King's undead army.

"Go. Show that self-righteous prince His Majesty's might." Pale flames burned in Kel'Thuzad's eyes.

The ghoul raced out of the village with a grotesque gait, joining the other undead in blocking Arthas's advance.

Bang!

Kel'Thuzad looked up just in time to see the corpse of the ghoul that had only just run outside arc through the air like a rag doll and slam into a thatched cottage not far from him.

Arthas's warhammer blazed with dazzling holy light. Every sweeping strike reduced four or five zombies and skeletons to ash.

Kel'Thuzad began tapping his staff against the ground in a steady rhythm. Guided by his magic, the villagers who had long since died of the plague rose once more.

Seeing the villagers' corpses reduced to tools of undead magic, Captain Falric burned with fury. Raising his sword, he shouted, "Your Highness, that sorcerer over there is casting spells!"

"Leave it to me!"

Jaina raised a hand and summoned a skyful of ice shards, bringing down all the undead Kel'Thuzad had summoned like a rain of arrows. Arthas smashed a skeletal soldier blocking his path with his fist and strode straight through the defensive line formed by the lesser undead.

Kel'Thuzad neither dodged nor retreated. Without the slightest panic, and without casting a single spell, he watched Arthas charge up to him, seize his neck with one hand, and lift him off the ground-this was part of the plan.

"Urgh... cough, cough. Your Highness, I've been waiting for you for a long time." Kel'Thuzad's face was so pale that it was impossible to tell whether he was alive or dead. "Do you think killing me will end this?"

Kel'Thuzad had expected the furious prince to demand the identity of the true mastermind. If he did, the first step of his master's plan would be complete.

Yet as Arthas looked at the necromancer, he showed no anger. Instead, he was utterly calm. Kel'Thuzad could find none of the emotions he wanted in the prince's eyes.

Slowly, Arthas said something that left Kel'Thuzad bewildered and alarmed. "Yes, that's right. I've been waiting for you all for a long time-the next one will be Mal'Ganis."

Before the stunned Kel'Thuzad could utter another word, Arthas snapped his neck.

Arthas tossed the corpse of the necromancer, who should never have died here, onto the ground. Jaina and the knights quickly finished off the remaining undead and came to Arthas's side.

"What did this mage know?" Jaina asked, looking down at the corpse. Her expression froze. "Kel'Thuzad?"

"It's him."

"You killed him? Just like that... with a squeeze?" Jaina found it utterly unbelievable. Kel'Thuzad was a genuine archmage. Even if he had fallen into darkness, his power should not have declined so drastically.

She had thought Arthas had merely caught some insignificant underling. She had never expected him to have slain Kel'Thuzad himself.

"That's right. It shouldn't have been so easy." Arthas gazed at the village, which had all but become a graveyard. "But necromancy had corrupted him and left him terribly weak. Besides, he came here intending to die. Our task isn't finished yet."

Jaina was puzzled. "Intending to die? Wasn't he the mastermind? Whose orders was he following?"

"My spies are tracking down the target, so we'll have to keep investigating."

Arthas shook his head. Mal'Ganis was exceptionally skilled at concealing himself, and with his immense power, the spies Arthas had dispatched did not dare tail the dreadlord as they would the Cult of the Damned's expendable lackeys.

One careless move would only leave them at the dreadlord's mercy. The nathrezim could probe people's souls and easily extract whatever information they wanted. While this would not expose Arthas's entire plan, alerting the enemy would make subsequent operations more difficult.

"Jaina, burn this village."

Arthas surveyed the devastated village. Kel'Thuzad's Cult of the Damned had infiltrated it long ago, and the plague had already consumed its people. Though called a village, it was really nothing more than a nest of plague and cultists. Only now had it erupted in full.

The Secret Council Bureau had limited manpower, too. It could not station large numbers of people in every village and town. Doing so would only put more innocent people in danger.

Jaina was reluctant, but fire magic was the best way to deal with a large-scale outbreak of the undead plague-even more effective than the holy light. With a sigh, the mage set the grain heaps and corpses alight, purging all the plague here in one great blaze.

While the flames were still burning, Arthas led his party out of the village, preparing to head for Andorhal, the political and economic center of West Weald.

Not long after the prince and his knights left, another group of masked figures in black leather armor rushed into the flames and carried away Kel'Thuzad's long-dead body.

On the road to West Weald, Jaina remained downcast. Arthas offered some comfort. "Are you still grieving over what happened to those villagers?"

Jaina first nodded, then shook her head. "With an archmage's abilities and power, there's nothing we can do if he decides to target a little village like that. I'm just worried that what happened today might happen again somewhere else."

"We're continuing this investigation precisely to prevent that," Arthas said, somewhat wistfully. "But this incident won't simply end here. Jaina, until the mastermind is eliminated, none of this is over."

"Then we must make him pay in blood," Jaina said through clenched teeth. "We must avenge those innocent people!"

Mait Whitemane was a physician in Lordaeron's First Legion. His wife had died during the Second War, leaving him and his daughter, Sally Whitemane, to live together.

His home was in Southshore in the Hillsbrad Foothills, but his work forced him to bring his daughter along to the First Legion's camp. Fortunately, the knights and physicians were all kind people, and Mait felt that spending time with them was good for his daughter.

Recently, however, Mait had felt that something was wrong in the camp. Many soldiers who came to him for treatment complained of headaches and mental fog, making him wonder whether there was a problem with the camp's water or food.

After he reported it, the priests accompanying the army inspected the water and food but found nothing unusual. Following that, fewer people came to Mait for treatment, as though everything had returned to normal.

Yet the unease in Mait's heart did not diminish. He increasingly felt that things were becoming strange. Over the past week or two, he had rarely seen their commander, Colonel Carl Wesley, who used to enjoy sitting in the camp and chatting with the soldiers.

Colonel Wesley had shut herself in the command room. Mait had encountered her the previous night and nearly jumped out of his skin-this tall, burly woman in her prime had a deathly pale face and heavy dark circles beneath her eyes, looking as eerie as a ghost.

But when Mait blinked again, he found that Colonel Wesley's complexion was normal. She was asking in confusion why he looked so startled.

After offering an offhand explanation, Mait hurried back to his room and warned his young daughter not to wander around the camp lately. Little Whitemane obediently agreed to her father's request.

Lying in bed, Mait still felt uneasy. Early the next morning, he went to find a newcomer who had joined the unit only a few days earlier-their only new recruit in the past month.

His outstanding performance during training had earned him special recruitment into the First Legion. The young man, named Thassarian, hoped to distinguish himself in the coming battle to defend against the orcs.