The impending assault on Ulduar seemed to have had no effect on the mortal world. After the brutal Northern Expedition ended, the whole world entered a rare period of peace-at least on the surface.
Having just returned home, Baron stood quietly in Northshire Abbey's Meditation Chamber, contemplating the will of the Holy Light. For a devout believer in the Holy Light, such leisure was the greatest happiness. Yet compared with the gentle, scholarly young priest he had once been, Baron, returned from the battlefields of Northrend, had inevitably acquired a trace of a veteran's air.
The savage blade scar on his arm, in particular, testified to just how brutal everything that had happened on Icecrown Glacier and the Angrathar Battlefield had been. Baron felt he had to thank the Holy Light's grace for surviving such a war. With ammunition and provisions exhausted as they had been, never mind Baron-even the kings and chieftains charging on the front lines could not necessarily guarantee they would come out alive and unharmed.
And no victory, however glorious, could conceal war's brutal nature. Of the thirty thousand soldiers the Kingdom of Stormwind had sent, fewer than ten thousand left the battlefield alive. For a month after the war ended, the sounds of funeral music filled Stormwind City. It had been too cruel.
Baron did not want to consider whether such a price had been necessary. In truth, the question needed no consideration. Anyone who had truly witnessed the Undead Sea charge would have no doubts about the answer.
For a time immediately after the war ended, Baron had even been jolted awake in terror by nightmares. He felt as though he had forever left part of his existence scattered across that battlefield.
"I hope it was worth it."
Baron traced several gestures before his