Gripping his hammer he hastened forward, rounded a corner—and stopped in his tracks, trying to take in everything at once.
They had found the owners of the icy voices. For a moment, Arthas was reminded of Jaina’s obedient water elemental, who had helped her fight off the ogres on that long-ago day before everything had taken such grim and horrific turns. The beings hovered over the cold stone floor of the cavern, made of ice and unnatural essence instead of water, wearing armor that looked as if it had grown of and from them. They had helms, but no faces; gauntlets, weapons and shields, but no arms.
Alarming though they were, Arthas gave these fearsome elemental spirits no more than a passing glance as his eye was drawn to the reason they had come here.
Frostmourne.
It was caught in a hovering, jagged chunk of ice, the runes that ran the length of its blade glowing a cool blue. Below it was a dais of some sort, standing on a large gently raised mound that was covered in a dusting of snow. A soft light, coming from somewhere high above where the cavern was open to daylight, shone down on the runeblade. The icy prison hid some details of the sword’s shape and form, exaggerated others. It was revealed and concealed at the same time, and all the more tempting, like a new lover imperfectly glimpsed through a gauzy curtain. Arthas knew the blade—it was the selfsame sword he had seen in his dream when he first arrived. The sword that had not killed Invincible, but that had brought him back healed and healthy. He’d thought it a good omen then, but now he knew it was a true sign. This was what he had come to find. This sword would change everything. Arthas stared raptly at it, his hands almost physically aching to grasp it, his fingers to wrap themselves around the hilt, his arms to feel the weapon swinging smoothly in the blow that would end Mal’Ganis, end the torment he had visited upon the people of Lordaeron, end this lust for revenge. Drawn, he stepped forward.
The uncanny elemental spirit drew its icy sword.
“Turn away, before it is too late,” it intoned.
“Still trying to protect the sword, are you?” Arthas snarled, angry and embarrassed at his reaction.
“No.” The being’s voice rumbled the word. “Trying to protect you from it.”
For a second, Arthas stared in surprise. Then he shook his head, eyes narrowing in determination. This was nothing more than a trick. He could never turn away from Frostmourne—turn away from saving his people. He would not fall for the lie. He charged and his men followed. The entities converged on them, attacking with their unnatural weapons, but Arthas focused his attention on the leader, the one assigned to guard Frostmourne. All his pent-up hope, worry, fear, and frustration, he unleashed on the strange protector. His men did likewise, turning to attack the other elemental guardians of the sword. His hammer rose and fell, rose and fell, shattering the icy armor as cries of anger were ripped from his throat. How dare this thing stand between him and Frostmourne? How dare it—
With a final agonized sound, like that of the rattle coming from a dying man’s throat, the spirit flung up what passed for hands and disappeared.
Arthas stood staring, panting, the breath coming from his chilled lips in white puffs. Then he turned to the hard-won prize. All misgivings disappeared as he again laid eyes on the sword.
“Behold, Muradin,” he breathed, aware that his voice was shaking, “our salvation, Frostmourne.”
“Hold, lad.” Muradin’s blunt words, almost an order, were like cold water doused on Arthas. He blinked, startled out of his trancelike rapture, and turned to look at the dwarf.
“What? Why?” he demanded.
Muradin was staring, eyes narrowed, at the hovering sword and the dais below it. “Something’s not right here.” He pointed a stubby finger at the runeblade. “This has been too easy. And look at it, sitting here wi’ light coming from who knows where, like a flower waiting tae be plucked.”
“Too easy?” Arthas shot him a disbelieving glance. “It’s taken you long enough to find it. And we had to fight these things to get to it.”
“Bah,” snorted Muradin. “Everything I ken about artifacts is telling me that there’s something as fishy here as the Booty Bay docks.” He sighed, his brow still furrowed. “Wait…there’s an inscription on the dais. Let me see if I can read this. It might tell us something.”
Both of them advanced, Muradin to kneel and peer at the writing, Arthas to draw closer to the beckoning sword. Arthas gave the inscription that so intrigued Muradin a cursory glance. It was not written in any language he knew, but the dwarf seemed to be able to read it, judging by how his eyes flickered across the letters.
Arthas lifted a hand and stroked the ice that separated them—smooth, slick, deathly cold—ice, yes, but there was something unusual about it. It wasn’t simply frozen water. He didn’t know how he could tell, but he could. There was something very powerful, almost unearthly about it.
Frostmourne…
“Aye, I thought I recognized this. It’s written in Kalimag—the elemental language,” Muradin continued. He frowned as he read. “It’s…a warning.”
“Warning? Warning of what?” Perhaps shattering the ice would damage the sword somehow, Arthas thought. The unnatural ice block itself, though, seemed to have been—almost cut from another, larger piece of ice. Muradin translated slowly. Arthas listened with half an ear, his eyes on the sword.
“Whosoever takes up this blade shall wield power eternal. Just as th’ blade rends flesh, so must power scar th’ spirit.” The dwarf leaped to his feet, looking more agitated than Arthas had ever seen him. “Och, I should’ve known. Th’ blade is cursed! Let’s get the hell out of here!”
Arthas’s heart gave a strange wrench at Muradin’s exclamation. Leave? Leave this sword behind, hovering in its frozen prison, untouched, unused, with such vast power to offer him? “Power eternal,” the inscription had promised, along with the threat of scarring the spirit.
“My spirit is already scarred,” Arthas said. And so it was. It had been scarred by the needless death of a beloved steed, by the horror of watching the dead rise, by the betrayal of one he loved—yes, he had loved Jaina Proudmoore, he could say it now in this moment where his soul seemed to lie naked in front of the sword’s judgment. It had been scarred by being forced to slaughter hundreds, by the need to lie to his men and forever silence those who would question and disobey him. It had been scarred by so very much. Surely the marks left by the power to right a horrible wrong could not be greater than these.
“Arthas, lad,” Muradin said, his rough voice pleading. “Ye’ve enough tae deal wi’ without bringing a curse on yer head.”
“A curse?” Arthas laughed bitterly. “I would gladly bear any curse to save my homeland.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Muradin shiver. “Arthas, ye ken I’m a solid one, no given tae flights o’ fancy. But I tell ye, this is bad business, lad. Leave it be. Let it stay here, lost and forgotten. Mal’Ganis is here, well, that’s fine. Let him freeze his demonic arse here in the wilderness. Forget this business and let’s lead your men home.”
An image of the men suddenly filled Arthas’s mind. He saw them, and beside them he saw the hundreds that had already fallen to this horrible plague. Fallen only to rise, unthinking rotting hunks of flesh. What of them? What of their souls, their suffering, their sacrifice? Another image appeared—a huge piece of ice, the same ice that now encased Frostmourne. He saw now where this chunk of ice had come from. It was part of something larger, stronger—and it, with the runeblade inside it, had been somehow sent to him to avenge those who had fallen. A voice whispered in his mind: The dead demand vengeance.