They were all empty. And had been for some time, if the layers of dust on the floor and the spiderwebs in the corners were any indication.

“The shipments have already been sent out,” he said brokenly as Jaina stepped up beside him. “We’re too late!” He slammed his gauntleted fist into the wooden door and Jaina jumped. “Dammit!”

“Arthas, we did the best we—”

He whirled on her furiously. “I’m going to find him. I’m going to find that undead-loving bastard and rip him limb from limb for this! Let him get someone to sew him back together.”

He stormed out, shaking. He’d failed. He’d had the man right there and he’d failed. The grain had been sent out, and Light alone knew how many people would die because of that.

Because of him.

No. He was not going to let that happen. He would protect his people. He would die to protect them. Arthas clenched his fists.

“North,” he said to the men who trailed behind him, unaccustomed to seeing their generally good-natured prince in the grip of such fury. “That’s the next place he’ll go. Let’s exterminate him like the vermin he is.”

He rode like a man possessed, galloping north, almost absently slaughtering the shambling wrecks of human beings who attempted to stop him. He was no longer moved by the horror of it all; his mind’s eye was filled with the vision of the man manipulating it and the disgusting cult that perpetrated it. The dead would rest soon enough; Arthas had to ensure that no more would be made.

At one point there was a huge cluster of the undead. Rotting heads lifted as one, turning toward Arthas and his men, and they moved toward him. Arthas cried out, “For the Light!”, kicked his steed, and charged in among them, swinging his hammer and crying out incoherently, venting his anger and frustration on these, the perfect targets. At one point, there was a lull, and he was able to look around.

Safe and secure away from the field of battle, overseeing everything while risking nothing, stood a tall figure in a fluttering black cloak. As if waiting for them.

Kel’Thuzad.

“There!” he cried. “He’s there!”

Jaina and his men followed him, Jaina blasting clear passage with fireball after fireball, and his men hacking the undead that did not fall in the first round of attacks. Arthas felt righteous fury singing in his veins as he drew closer and closer to the necromancer. His hammer rose and fell, seemingly effortlessly, and he didn’t even see those he struck down. His eyes were fixed on the man—if you could even call such a monster that—responsible for everything in the first place. Cut off the head, and the beast would die.

Then Arthas was there. A bellow of raw fury exploded from him and he swung, sweeping his brilliantly glowing hammer parallel to the ground, striking Kel’Thuzad at the knees and sending him flying. Others pressed in, swords slicing and hacking, the men venting their grief and outrage on the source, the cause, of the entire disaster.

For all his power and magic, it seemed as though Kel’Thuzad could indeed die like any other man. Both legs were shattered by Arthas’s sweeping blow and lay at odd angles. His robes were wet with blood, shiny black against a matte black, and red trickled from his mouth. He propped himself up on his arms and tried to speak, spitting out blood and teeth. He tried again.

“Naïve…fool,” he managed, swallowing. “My death will make little difference in the long run…for now…the scourging of this land…begins.”

His elbows buckled and, eyes closing, he fell.

The body began to rot immediately. Decomposition that should have taken days happened in mere seconds, the flesh paling, bloating, bursting open. The men gasped and started back, covering their noses and mouths. Some of them turned and vomited from the stench. Arthas stared, horrified and enraptured at the same time, unable to look away. Fluids gushed from the corpse, the flesh taking on a creamy consistency and turning black. The unnatural decomposition slowed and Arthas turned away, gasping for fresh air.

Jaina was deathly pale with dark circles around her wide, shocked eyes. Arthas went to her and turned her away from the disgusting image. “What happened to him?” he asked quietly.

Jaina swallowed, trying to calm herself. Again, she seemed to find strength in her detachment. “It is believed that, ah, if necromancers are not perfectly precise in their magical workings that, um…if they are killed they are subject to…” Her voice trailed off and suddenly she was a young woman, looking sickened and shocked. “That.”

“Come on,” Arthas said gently. “Let’s get to Hearthglen. They need to be warned—if we’re not too late already.”

They left the body where it had fallen, not granting it another glance. Arthas said a silent prayer to the Light that they were not too late. He did not know what he would do if he failed again.

Jaina was exhausted. She knew that Arthas wanted to make the best time possible, and she shared his concern. Lives were at stake. So when he asked her if she could go through the night without stopping, she nodded.

They had been riding hard for four hours when she found herself half off her mount. She was so bone-weary she’d fallen unconscious for a few seconds. Fear shot through her and she grabbed onto the horse’s mane wildly, pulling herself back up into the saddle and yanking on the reins so the horse would stop.

She sat there, the reins clutched in her hands, trembling, for several minutes before Arthas realized she’d fallen behind. Dimly she heard him calling a halt. She looked up at him mutely as he cantered up to her.

“Jaina, what’s wrong?”

“I…I’m sorry Arthas. I know you want to make good time and so do I, but—I was so tired I almost fell off. Could we stop, for just a little while?”

She saw the concern for her and frustration at the situation warring on his face, even in the dim light. “How long do you think you’ll need?”

A couple of days, she wanted to say, but instead she said, “Just long enough to eat something and rest for a bit.”

He nodded, reaching up to her and helping her off the horse. He bore her to the side of the road, where he set her down gently. Jaina fished in her pack for some cheese with hands that trembled. She expected him to head off and talk to the men, but instead he sat down beside her. Impatience radiated from him like heat from a fire.

She took a bite of cheese and looked up at him as she chewed, analyzing his profile in the starlight. One of the things she most loved about Arthas was how accessible, how human and emotional, he was to her. But now, while he was certainly in the grip of powerful emotions, he felt distant, as if he was a hundred miles away.

Impulsively she reached a hand to touch his face. He started at her touch, as if he had forgotten she was there, then smiled thinly at her. “Done?” he asked.

Jaina thought about the single bite she had eaten. “No,” she said, “but…Arthas, I’m worried about you. I don’t like what this is doing to you.”

“Doing to me?” he snapped. “What about what it’s doing to the villagers? They’re dying and then getting turned into corpses, Jaina. I have to stop it, I have to!”

“Of course we do, and I’ll do everything I can to help; you know that. But…I’ve never seen you hate anything like this.”

He laughed, a short harsh bark. “You want me to love necromancers?”

She frowned. “Arthas, don’t twist my words like that. You’re a paladin. A servant of the Light. You’re a healer as much as a warrior, but all I see in you is this desire to wipe out the enemy.”

“You’re starting to sound like Uther.”

Jaina didn’t reply. She was so weary, it was difficult to compose her thoughts. She took another bite of cheese, focusing on getting the badly needed nourishment into her body. For some reason it was hard for her to swallow.