Margoz entered the building, which was probably originally constructed as a four—room house, but now had each room rented out to a different tenant. Strov took up position behind a tree across the way from it.
Three of the rooms already had lanterns burning. The fourth lit up about half a minute after Margoz entered. Strov casually walked across the way and then stood near Margoz's window, making as if to urinate on the wall. He made sure to stumble as he approached, so that any passersby would assume he was drunk. It wasn't all that unusual late at night to see drunks relieving themselves on whatever surface presented itself.
From Margoz's room, Strov heard the words: "Galtak Ered'nash. Ered'nash ban galar. Ered'nash havik yrthog. Galtak Ered'nash."
Strov started. He didn't recognize the rest of it, but the first and last part were things the orcs who attacked them at Northwatch had said.
Pleased with himself for having rightly made this connection, Strov continued listening.
Then his entire face scrunched up in revulsion at the sudden stink of sulfur. On the face of it, sulfur should have been more pleasant, or at least less revolting, than the cesspool's overwhelming odor. But there was something wrong—something evil—about this smell. Margoz's words had sounded like an incantation, and now this. Not only was magic afoot, but Strov was willing to bet his sword that it was demonic magic.
"'M sorry, sir, I didn' mean to—" Margoz paused. "Yeah, I realize y'don' wanna be bothered 'less it's important, but it's been months, sir, and 'm still in 'is same hole. I jus' wanna know—" Another pause. "Well, it's importan' t' me! And wha's more, people keep talkin' t'me, like I can help 'em or somethin'."
Strov couldn't hear the other half of the conversation, which meant that either Margoz was crazy and was talking to himself—which Strov had to admit was likely, especially given his inebriated state—or the other half of the conversation was meant for Margoz's ears only.
"I dunno whatcher talkin' 'bout. Nobody didn'—" Another pause. "Well, how's I s'posed t'know that? Huh? I ain't got eyes'n the back'a my head!"
What Strov knew about demons was mostly how to kill them, but this odd one—sided conversation definitely had the stink of demon to Strov—and not just because of the sulfur.
He did up his pants. At this point, he had enough to report to Colonel Lorena. Besides, he didn't much like the idea of being this close to a demon.
Turning around, he found himself facing absolute darkness.
"What the—?" He whirled around, but there was only darkness behind him as well. Theramore had completely disappeared.
I do not like spies.
Strov didn't so much hear the voice as feel it in his very bones. It was as if someone had sewn his eyes shut, only his eyes were open, but he couldn't see anything.
No, it wasn't just sight that had gone quiet. The darkness extended to his other senses. He could no longer hear the bustle of Theramore, nor taste the salty air, nor feel the breeze wafting in off the Great Sea.
And the only thing he smelled now was sulfur.
Why do you spy on my minion?
Strov said nothing. He wasn't sure he was capable of speech, and even if he was, he would never give up information to a creature such as this.
I do not have time to play these games. It seems you must simply die.
The darkness caved in on Strov. His body grew cold, the blood freezing in his veins, his mind screaming in sudden, terrifying agony.
The last thought Strov had was hope that Manuel wouldn't blow Strov's entire pension on boar's grog…
Eleven
Muzzlecrank used to like being a goblin bruiser. Truly, it had been easy work when he first signed up. Bruisers enforced the peace in Ratchet, and the pay was good. Muzzlecrank's shifts were spent wandering up and down his section of the pier at Ratchet, beating up the occasional drunk or vagabond, taking bribes from shipmasters moving contraband, arresting the ones who were too stupid or too cheap to pay bribes, and generally getting to meet all manner of people.
Muzzlecrank had always thought of himself as a people person. Ratchet was a neutral port—goblins as a rule did not take sides in the numerous conflicts that ravaged the land—and as a result, pretty much every type of creature you were like to find in the world came through at some point or other. Elves, dwarves, humans, orcs, trolls, ogres, even the occasional gnome—it was the crossroads of Kalimdor. Muzzlecrank always liked seeing the different interactions, whether it was dwarves shipping construction materials to elves, elves shipping jewelry to humans, orcs shipping crops to elves, humans shipping fish to ogres, or trolls shipping weapons to pretty much anyone.
Lately, though, things had gotten somewhat less pleasant. Especially between the humans and the orcs—which was problematic insofar as the most common patrons of Ratchet were those two races. Ratchet was right at Durotar's southernmost border, and was the nearest port to Theramore as well.
Just last week, he had had to break up a fight between an orc sailor and a human merchant. The former had apparently stepped on the latter's toe and the human took umbrage. Muzzlecrank had been forced to break them up before the orc beat the human into a pulp, which hadn't been any fun at all. Muzzlecrank preferred to get into fights with vagabonds and drunks because they were kind enough not to fight back. Fighting—mad orcs were another kettle of grease entirely, and Muzzlecrank preferred to stay as far away from them as possible.
Fights like that usually meant that he had to draw his net—gun, and every time he did that he ran the risk of someone figuring out that he was really bad at using the stupid thing. Oh sure, he could fire it easily enough—any idiot could do that; just point and pull the trigger, and a compressed air burst sent a net out to snare whatever you were shooting at—but his aim was lousy, and the net always missed the target and usually made a big mess. Luckily, the site of a bruiser pointing a gun with a giant muzzle at you was enough to stop most fights—or at least slow them down long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
Since then, no more actual fights had broken out, but there were a lot more terse words and heated exchanges happening. It had gotten to the point where many of the merchant ships were now coming into Ratchet with armed escorts—the orc vessels with warriors from Orgrimmar, the human ships with soldiers from Northwatch.
Muzzlecrank's beat was the northernmost section of the pier, a section that had twenty berths. As Muzzlecrank wandered down the wooden—planked pier, he saw that fifteen of the twenty docks were filled, but things were mostly quiet. This was a huge relief. The sun shone down on his face, warming him in his mail armor. Perhaps today would be a good day.
After a few minutes, the sun went away. Muzzlecrank glanced up to see that several clouds had rolled in, and it looked likely to rain soon. Muzzlecrank sighed—he hated rain.
As he neared the end of the dock, he saw a human and an orc having an animated conversation. Muzzlecrank didn't like the look of this. Animated conversations between humans and orcs these days tended to end in violence.
He moved in closer. The human's boat was docked right next to the orc's, in the two northernmost berths. Muzzlecrank recognized the orc as Captain Klatt of the Raknor, a merchant who served as the dealer of crops from the farmers in the Razor Hill region. Though he could not remember the human's name, Muzzlecrank knew his ship was a fishing trawler called the Passion's Reward for some odd reason. Muzzlecrank had never understood human naming conventions. Klatt had named the Raknor after his brother, who died fighting the Burning Legion, but he hadn't the first clue what the name Passion's Reward had to do with anything, least of all fishing.