Flinthammer Hall

Ringo Flinthammer paused on the hill outside the family’s new home in Thelsamar. He closed his eyes and breathed in the warm air and listened to the sounds echoing across the loch: the chirp of songbirds, the grunting of boars, the calls of the waterfowl and the crocolisks.

He opened his eyes to a suffusion of yellow, a blast of golden sunlight filling the small valley that made up the town. It wasn’t the pale light of Northrend, slipping quickly through heavy snow-laden clouds. Ringo was warmer, straight through to the bone, than he’d been since first setting out for Northrend more than a year ago.

His new mountaineer boots weren’t yet broken in, and his uniform was still a bit too new and crisp for his tastes, so Ringo headed down the hill and into town.

“A round of drinks for everyone!” came a voice from one of the tables outside the Stoutlager Inn. “Brombar Higgleby has slain Ol’ Sooty!”

Ringo furrowed his brow and followed the gray-haired dwarf into the tavern.

“I just turned around,” Higgleby was telling a gathering crowd, “And there he was, as big as life, and twice as ugly: The great beast himself!”

“Weren’t you scared?” asked a local woman.

“Don’t panic — that’s my motto! Well,” he paused for a long moment, and the crowd laughed with him, “Not so scared as I couldn’t shoot straight anyway. I stood my ground and plugged the beast right between the eyes. He dropped like a stone. So, drinks for everyone! This will be a great tale to tell my friends back in Ironforge!”

“Er,” Ringo said, raising a finger. “Ye say ye killed Ol’ Sooty? That’s a mite peculiar …”

A heavy hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“Mountaineer,” Magistrate Bluntnose growled into Ringo’s ear, “Might I have a word with you — outside?”

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There’s an old saying in what are now called the Eastern Kingdoms: Dwarven is for swearing, Gnomish is for explaining why the wind-up teapot exploded, Thalassian is for making love, but Common is for talking.

At the moment, Dwarven was all that Beli Flinthammer needed.

“Ringo Flinthammer!” she panted, resting an elbow on the pile of crates in the Silver Enclave. “Ye do not need all these old guns, and Ah’m not going to haul them all the way to the new house for ye!”

“What? Nay, Ah do, Ah do! These have sentimental value! Remember this one we got when we helped Voca in Dire Maul? Just look at this barrel! All wood, and with exquisite carving!”

“And this one? Ye’ll never use this one, not in a million years!”

“Well, that was going ta be Bael’s first gun one day …” He paused, wondering where their boy was. He had ordered Frostmaw to keep the child out of trouble, but the toddler was more than a match for the great white bear most days. The shopkeepers in Dalaran were all mages, so they should be able to handle a small child and a bear … probably.

“Fine! Fine! Let’s take all of them, then! Never mind that when Ah dropped this here crate, the ground shook! Ye know how much it takes to shake a flying city?”

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“Everythin’ comes to an end,” Ringo Flinthammer said from inside. “Even war. Arthas is finished, on the trash heap with what remains o’ tha blue dragonflight, tha black dragonflight, tha Burnin’ Legion, tha Qiraji, the Old Gods, tha naga, tha Amani trolls, Hakkar, Kael’thas, Illidan, and now tha Scourge. Ain’t no one else left to fight.”

“What are you talking about?” Widge Gearloose snapped. “There’s still the Frostmane Trolls, the troggs, the Dragonmaw Clan, the Dark Irons …”

“They’re all on the run, and ye know it. Face it: For the first time in almost 33 years, we’re at peace.”

“So, this is it? You’re just retiring?”

“Everyone’s doin’ it: Dahzabelle is teaching paladin stuff to a new generation of knights. Daenyx is headed back ta tha Exodar to study some crystal stuff. Salvemini’s writing a book. Me brothers are about the only dwarves Ah know who ain’t talkin’ about openin’ a bar: Durkon and Bragh have already asked the army ta station them anywhere warmer than Northrend; Ah reckon they’ll be sorry when they end up in Bael Modan. And me brother Ely’s back in Tinker Town; he’s studying gnomish echogno …”

“Economics.”

“Right. Says he’s going ta change the nature of money.”

“What does that mean? Like putting it on paper?”

“Paper? Where’d that come from? Nay, the gnomes are making it scented for blind folks to use.”

“Oh, yeah, I can picture that.”

“Besides, the Kirin Tor have offered membership to every mage what fought in tha Nexus War and ye all seem ta have taken them up on it.”

“Only because real estate in Theramore is so expensive,” Widge muttered. “Stop changing the subject! You can’t retire! You fought with the Shattered Sun Offensive and the Ashen Verdict! You fought beside Brann Bronzebeard in Ulduar! The blood elves still have a price on your head!”

“Aye,” Ringo growled from the room behind Widge, his voice muffled a moment by the sound of him pulling something over his head. “But we have a wee bairn now. Ah don’t want him growing up only knowin’ Ah killed a powerful number o’ elves. Beli and meself, we’re goin’ ta settle down. We already bought a wee place overlooking Thelsamar. Beli’s goin’ ta paint landscapes and Ah’ll fish and hunt and we’ll raise the wee one together.”

“That’s it? You’re going to fish and hunt? You’ll go crazy! You’ll be back fighting dragons in six months, at most.”

“Well, Ah thought about that,” Ringo said, walking out. “So, Ah’ve got something else to occupy me time …”

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It would be funny under normal circumstances; he was always the first to fall in battle. It would still be funny if some of the healers were alive and if his body wasn’t turning that blue color and there wasn’t all that blood.

It wasn’t very funny now.

Ringo Flinthammer crouched down behind the body, hammering at his rifle with the heel of his hand, trying to knock off the thick supernatural frost that coated everything inside Icecrown Citadel, even braving the magical flames of the firing mechanism on the rifle Ringo had seized off a fallen foe in the Crimson Halls.

The frost gone for the moment, Ringo frantically unjammed the gun and chambered another round. He turned and, using the unmoving body of his fallen comrade to steady his rifle, took aim and waited for his shot.

The world went silent. Ringo once again heard the words that Tirion Fordring had used to rally the troops before the assault:

“This is our final stand. What happens here will echo through the ages. Regardless of outcome, they will know that we fought with honor. That we fought for the freedom and safety of our people.

“Remember, hero, fear is your greatest enemy in these befouled halls. Steel your heart and your soul will shine brighter than a thousand suns. The enemy will falter at the sight of you. They will fall as the light of righteousness envelops them!”

Fordring had been wrong about the enemy faltering. Ringo was covered with the spattered blood and gore of his own comrades. There were no cowardly necromancers here: These were implacable foes of life, driven by hatred of the living, and were untouched by fear.

“If Ah die in a combat zone,” Ringo sang quietly to himself, the tune coming to him across the years, back to listening to his father and the other soldiers drill in the snow fields of the Coldridge Valley. “Box me up and ship me home. Pin me medals on me chest. Tell me son Ah done me best.”

He took his shot.

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Seven years ago, in the Dragonblight of Northrend.

“Prince Arthas and his men are heroes!” Robaz the Frail said, tromping uphill through the snow. The two dwarves were walking away from the camp, and out into the pre-dawn gloom. “Without them, we would have been trapped until the undead finally overwhelmed us.”

“Yer nuts,” snapped Baelan Grimaxe, an axe slung over his shoulder. “Muradin could have rescued us on his own; he was just gatherin’ his strength. And anyway, Ah told ye; Ah didn’t like that look in Arthas’ eyes when he was grillin’ the prince about what brought us here.”

“Who goes there?” barked a voice from the darkness.

“I knew we shouldn’t have left camp for this discussion,” Robaz muttered, gripping his worn mace tightly. “This land is haunted.”

“Is that ye, Flinthammer?” Baelan growled back. “Didn’t think ye’d be skulking in the trees like a marmot.”

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