Warcraft: Official Movie Novelization

“But that’s not what I asked you.”

Khadgar squinted up at the blue sky. “When the sun is hot, it makes excellent shade.”

Medivh shot his old friend an impressed glance and, seemingly despite himself, couldn’t hide a smile.

Once they had clattered over the bridge and through Stormwind’s gates, Lothar gave the signal that the group should break into an easy canter as they headed down the road. A crowd had gathered to cheer the soldiers as they passed the Lion’s Pride Inn. Lothar took care to make eye contact and return some of the children’s salutes. Part of this battle, he knew already, would be won by keeping rumors to a minimum and the populace feeling safe, and a full company of fifty mounted knights in full plate armor thundering past certainly helped achieve that goal.

The company was too well trained to make idle conversation, so the way was silent save for the rhythmic sound of the horses’ hooves and the fluttering and scolding of birds and squirrels. Lothar thought about what he’d seen; the vile mist surging forth from a dead man’s mouth. He’d been quick to calm Llane, but in truth, he had no better idea of what these “beasts” were than a farmer gulping ale in the Lion’s Pride Inn.

And Callan. He really didn’t like the idea of the young man being involved, not until they knew what they were facing. Damn Taria anyway. She meant well, but she didn’t…

He frowned. The forest was silent. Medivh, who rode a little ways ahead of him, had brought his horse down to a trot, then a halt. Lothar lifted his fist and the rest of the company clattered to a stop behind him. He kneed Reliant forward to the edge of the clearing beside Medivh.

What had once been an ordinary broad path through a pleasant part of Elwynn had become a battlefield. Not a proper one, consisting of soldiers and armies, but the worst kind—the kind where the weapons were scythes, pitchforks, and small axes, and the “soldiers” were farmers and townspeople. Carts lay everywhere, smashed and overturned. Some cargo, like linen and wool, had been rummaged through and discarded. Other carts, presumably carrying food, had been picked clean. Several of the trees had their limbs hacked off or smashed by weapons so large Lothar was having a hard time grasping the size of them.

And there was blood—both the red of human blood and also splashes here and there of a thick, brown fluid. Lothar dismounted, removing his glove and touching the liquid, rubbing it between his fingers. Something very important was missing—bodies. Medivh and Khadgar, too, had dismounted. Medivh strode ahead, absently planting his staff in the ground. Khadgar caught it before it tumbled to the earth. The Guardian was staring at a burned tree trunk that gave off a sickly green smoke. Glowing embers in the blackened wood winked like emeralds.

“It can’t be,” Lothar thought he heard Medivh murmur.

He saw Khadgar’s attention shift to something behind one of the carts. “Here’s a body,” the boy said, then called out, “Guardian!”

There was a blur of motion. Lothar’s head whipped around just in time to see one of his knights go flying, his mail and chest crushed in by a thrown hammer a third as large as he was.

The hitherto silent forest was now filled with a terrible roaring sound, and the beasts they had been hunting poured into the clearing, exploding out of nowhere, dropping from the trees.

Giants—armed giants.

Wolves to carry them.

Huge, unstoppable beasts—

Lothar’s first, absurd thought was that the rumors hadn’t gone far enough.

7

“Mother of—” Sir Evran whispered. He, like the others, like Lothar himself, was frozen, rooted to the earth as the monsters charged forward.

Like the trolls, they were tall, had tusks, and adorned themselves with tattoos and bones and feathers. But they were not just tall, they were massive. Their chests were enormous, their hands large enough to envelop and crush a man’s skull without effort, and the weapons designed to fit such hands—

The biggest one of all silenced Sir Evran before he could even finish his sentence. Towering above the others, tattoos crawling over his hands, he sprang with the speed and power of one of Stranglethorn’s great cats, bringing an enormous hammer crunching down on the hapless knight. The gargantuan thing turned, and, almost casually, hefted a shrieking horse into the air and tossed it as if it were little more than a sack of grain. Two soldiers fell, crushed beneath its weight. A female, her skin more green than brown, laughed maniacally at the spectacle.

It all happened in the span of one heartbeat to the next.