Chapter 220 – The Night of the Western Springs

Potions, ink flasks, dried food, water pouches, bags, and the pamphlets of spells and a few scraps of paper inside, after checking all of these things out, Jace headed for the steps outside the small tavern by the gate of Storm City, wrapped his cloak around him, and cradled his staff as he munched on the preserved fruits that he had bought in the tavern while teasing the mare that was tethered beside the nearby stables as he waited for Grider to arrive.

It wasn’t long before a shambling dwarf came around the corner, walking along, carrying a cloth bag on his back while constantly pulling at his sleeves and tugging at his belt like a zombie who couldn’t walk right.

Grid was surprised that he came in a suit of armor!

Although it is not the kind of heavy full body armor that the dwarven warriors who went on the expedition to Draenor wore like sculptures, it is still more or less a “plate armor”, especially on the shoulders and arms, with layers of iron overlapping and quite singing.

After he walked up to Jace, he grimaced and tugged at the cotton jacket in his neck, saying, “What are you looking at, never seen a tin can before? They say this armor is easy to move around in, ah, why is it so cramped over here? Are all the copper whiskers too small?”

Jess said, “It’s you who’s not used to it yet, isn’t it?”

“True, I haven’t worn armor this heavy a few times either.” Grid wiggled his neck and said, “But it’s not bad, I guess I’ll get used to it as I go along.”

“Did you buy this armor from the Dwarf Quarter, and how much was it?”

“Borrowed.” Grid said, “How could I buy something so expensive and unused, it’s not like I was thinking I might face crossbows and arrows or something, a small shield alone might not be so appropriate.”

When he finished, he picked up the hammer and tapped it twice toward his shoulder, grinning, “Pretty funny.”

“What else did you bring besides this big one?” Jace asked.

“I brought two bottles of healing potions.” Grid said, “Shield, food …… and not much else, daggers or anything, do you want to hunt, pick herbs or something else this time out?”

Jace said, “If we see any herbs, of course we have to pick them, there are quite a few Nimbus and Silverleaf Grasses in the Aelwyn Forest, we can’t just see them and pretend we don’t see them… like you said, gathering sand is like a tower.”

Grider said, “But I didn’t bring that big bag with me.”

“Taking out the Hog is still first, of course.” Jace said, “Maybe there’s a bag where it’s hiding, a grain sack or something, that’s not a problem.”

“Did you get the Shadow Protection Potion?” Grid said, “Give me a bottle.”

Jace pulled out two bottles and handed them to him and said, “Have one ready to spare.”

Grid pulled the cork and sniffed it, saying, “This is certainly not the medicine you made, Jace Sesso.”

“Why?” Jess asked.

“That’s a high level.” He glanced at Jace and said, “It rivals those sages on Eagle’s Nest Mountain, did you buy those mages from the alchemy room to simmer?”

Jace said, “I have ways to get high quality potions, so you don’t have to worry about it, I’m sure it didn’t cost me anything.”

Jace was still a bit surprised, he knew Ursula was a pretty powerful alchemist, he didn’t expect Grid to think so highly of her, he really should learn something from her in the future.

The two men set off in a cart from the gates of Stormwind, and in the middle of the ride one of the horses seemed to have a problem, delaying them quite a bit, and by the time they reached the Western Springs Fortress it was dark.

After winter, this part of Western Springs was quite cold, and the barracks in the distance were as cold as if there were not many people there.

There were only a few soldiers in their coats sitting out in the firelight of the campfire, staring.

After eating, Grid fell fast asleep, the dwarf needed plenty of sleep to cope with the next day’s re-tossing, though Jace could never sleep.

Sneaking up to the door of the Western Springs sentry tower, he saw a bounty of the same type as the bulletin board in Stormwind.

He hadn’t actually been able to take a close look at what was written on this bounty.

The bulletin says a bit about the threat to the road posed by the Riverclaw Jackal chief that ravages the southern forests and western wilderness areas, though it doesn’t name the chief, only gives an approximate size and height, marking a bounty of 65 silver coins for returning with the head of a jackal just how big it is.

Sixty-five silver coins, more than double the bounty for Hogg that Ursula had told him about three months ago, and when Grid said that Varian hadn’t raised the bounty when the last squad failed, he’d assumed it was still the same 30 silver coins that it had been.

That means the king had raised the bounty before this, and by a pretty big margin.

Jace looked to the dark forest to the south and wondered just how many people had tried to kill Hogg?

That’s when he noticed a man in leather armor pants and a thin jacket sitting on the fence above the sentry tower staring at him.

“Interested, Mage?”

“Yes, and you are?”

“I’m the sheriff over here, is there anything you don’t see?”

Jace asked, “I wonder how many mercenaries have tried to go there? The past two months?”

“Three teams.” The man said, “There are quite a few teams of mercenaries planning to go in over the past two days, two teams were already inside the day before yesterday, so they might be able to obtain more results, after all, the news that the team had heavily defeated the River Claw Clan before had already spread.”

“Is the Riverclaw clan big now?” Jace asked again.

The sheriff pointed to the river to the west and said, “It’s not much bigger than that part of the western wilderness, there’s about thirty or forty of them throughout, spread out in different parts of the forest to the south, probably even fewer now, but what worries me is that there may be recruiting going on from other tribes.”

He bowed his head and said, “You don’t look much like those mercenaries from yesterday, so I’ll tell you more.”

“A month ago our patrols stopped a robbery targeting travelers, took out two jackal hitmen, and found that one of them was a member of the Red Ridge Mountain clan from the east, and it’s fur was all different from the rest of the Riverclaw jackals. Jackals may be stupid, but they are not beasts, sir, and one cannot underestimate the connection between their different clans.”

“If we continue like this, I’m worried that sooner or later we’ll experience another Jackal War, especially now that Stormwind City hasn’t fully recovered and we can only rely on you mercenary corps. Our current troop strength is only enough to keep the main road safe, we can’t go to full-scale war with the River Claw clans on both sides of Nafiwonte at the same time. Imagine what it would be like to take two or three hundred young men who have never seen an orc before and fight those dogs in the forest? It’s a nightmare! But if we leave it alone and every few days there’s another death because of jackals, there will come a day when the soldiers can’t take it anymore.”

Jace said, “Kill that Hogg and a new leader might be elected.”

The sheriff gave a bitter laugh and said, “That’s true, but at least it will make the Riverclaw clan infight for a while and get or months, or even years of peace and quiet, after all it took so many years past after the Jackal War before we stumbled upon this one Hogg, wouldn’t you say, Mage? You may not think this is much of a solution, but for those soldiers this has been hard.”

Jace nodded, not knowing what to say.

As the sheriff returned to the tower to bring Jace a map of the riparian forest simply labeled with the approximate location of the jackal camp, Jace kept thinking about his earlier speculation that the mysterious Death Knight had something to do with these jackals? Thinking so, the simple bounty quest became a little more complicated. As long as he could take out Hogg, he should be able to clear some of this up.