The cold morning winds blew over the ice floes to the west, bringing more than just a stinging chill. Upon them were memories. The Lich King, the Horde, friends and allies come and gone; it was all there again, brought to him through the brisk air and the sound of ever-shifting, crashing ice. For Corbin Waldhardt, as for so many others, it was bittersweet. Where there was pain, there was also triumph. For every moment of camaraderie, there was the accompanying sense of loss. It was the confounding experience of the old soldier, to wish to forget so many dreadful, terrible moments but to have them inextricably linked to the accomplishments and pride of one’s record. To forget the pain would be to forget it all.

He would stand at the ramparts of Westguard Keep, the Alliance fortification along the western coast of the Howling Fjord, every morning this way, thinking the same thoughts, beset by the same emotions. Nothing if not methodical, he would be there in the early hours with the sun still just over the horizon, suited in his armour, his beard fastidiously clipped back, his ponytail tied tightly behind his head, and his searching eyes just as wary as they had ever been. The passing of decades did little to his morning routine, save for finding a few more greys and slightly fewer hairs. That, and perhaps having to wake up a touch earlier to arrive at the same spot. He saw it as a cruelty that the less time you had left in life, the longer things took.

He’d watch the waves beat against the cliffside. A draenic shaman aboard his first voyage here to Northrend told him the water would crash against the coast for countless years, and even the strength of the rock would wear in time. Gradual, unending, eventual. Never would he have thought to identify with a coastline before, but service in the Alliance was never simple.

It was time. With a sudden about-face he found his recruits dutifully behind him, all standing at the ready - save for one. Private Calder, yet again, raced up in clamouring armour to find his place in line, his chest heaving beneath the metal. “Punctuality,” Waldhardt growled. “You might think it trivial, private, but when an orc of twice your size swings at you, you best know the exact moment to lift your shield. I hope I do not have to instruct you on what happens then if you’re late.” He lifted his arm to drag his thumb across his neck, and could hear his shoulder popping with the motion. Nerubian spellcaster, ages ago, frostbolt through the back. The healers took weeks to fix him up. “Tomorrow, wake earlier, give yourself the time, and above all?”

“Remain calm,” the other six recruits spoke in unison.

With a nod, they set off to the training fields just outside Westguard, a short distance away. He heard grumbles from Private Asa, complaining again about the ceaseless, biting wind that shook one to the very core. He allowed himself a smile. These training exercises were meant to harden the new recruits, make them strong, toughen them into a cohesive, unstoppable fighting force because above all else that discipline is what will keep them alive. This was not the time for coddling. He knew what would happen to them if they weren’t prepared. He knew it all too well.

They formed ranks and began to run the standard drills, and as always, he would demonstrate first. “Fall in line,” he’d bark out, his voice carrying far into the Northrend landscape. “Keep to the routines, because when the battle comes, you may panic. Let the routines set in, and they’ll ease you, and you’ll settle, and you’ll live. Calm, always, that’s what will get you through. Now, lift the shield, tighten your grip-”, he said through gritted teeth as he tried to clutch the handle tighter. Orcish battleaxe, Draenor, a swing so powerful it shattered his hand through his shield. Strange to remember that one, knowing it wasn’t even truly in this timeline. Strange places, strange times, soldiering brings you anywhere. “Tighten your grip,” he repeated, “and swing through. A larger opponent will knock it clean out of your hands if you’re not ready for it.”

They ran through the drill, countless times, each soldier giving it his or her all. They were good, but battles had a way of shaking the nerve.

“Sir, it’s been hours,” private Libold said through ragged breaths. “Could we-”

“Stop,” Waldhardt called. “Stop now.” And so they did. They froze, each one, while he looked off into the distance at nothing and everything at once. He sniffed the air. Waited. Looked further. Something was off. While he didn’t possess the magical abilities of mages or shamen to see beyond where his eyes could take him, there was a soldier’s intuition that was just as critical and no less real. He could feel it in his bones that there was danger somewhere, somehow. A thin, wispy mist crossed their path. “Form ranks,” he said, this time quieter. “Remain calm. Each one of you.”

“Sir, please-”

“Form ranks! Shields at the ready!”

They paused. Only the wind could be heard. Looking westward toward the coast, the mist had turned into a thick fog. It covered their feet and obscured the sightlines to the ocean.

“Sir, are we afraid of a little ocean breeze now? Rusted boots, the new Alliance threat?”, private Asa joked.

“Quiet,” urged private Matilde on her commander’s behalf. “It’s not the mist. It’s what’s in it.”

“Kvaldir,” muttered private Libold through a held breath, visibly shaking.

The word seemed almost to summon them. Deep in the mist, one could see three silhouetted figures. They were the disembodied spirits of vykrul, roaming the waters, raiding, pillaging, sowing death and destruction for their goddess Helya. Two came forth wielding massive tridents, their skin the sickly green of the dead and drowned, their bodies draped with the nets of fishermen and carrying on them the smell of the ocean tinged with rot. The third, older in appearance, wearing longer robes and holding a staff showed himself after, less physically intimidating but no less powerful. It was three to their seven, but their size alone could well make up for the difference in numbers.

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“Calm,” Waldhardt said. “Form up, two rows, one on each flank. Follow my lead.” He turned to see Calder with his shield down, mouth open in stunned silence. “Private,” he urged. “Private!”

The Kvaldir charged, unearthly howls of the damned in harmony with the wind. A wide swing of the right flanking monster’s trident slammed into the shields of the recruits, sending them back. They would have held had Calder been in the line with them, but as always, his timing was wrong. A bolt of shadow magic fired just overhead as Waldhardt charged the weakened right flank in support. He slammed his shield into the vykrul’s side, sending him reeling, allowing for Calder to find his wits and the line to form again.

Just as that side was sorted, one of the bolts from the spellcaster found its mark. Private Asa, admirably keeping the left flank together, took a blast of flame square to the shoulder. She screamed, desperately trying to pat out the flames only to find they were magical, allowing her no reprieve from the agony. Waldhardt breathed in that old familiar smell of burning flesh and a tangible sense of panic in the air rushing back to him. Memories. Pain.

Anger.

Calm, calm, he urged himself. “Hold shields! Tighten up!” he called, only to see a private’s grip loosen and be sent flying backwards on the next swing of the Kvaldir’s trident. “Calm, calm,” he said, this time aloud and to himself. He rushed in to support, cursing the vykrul, desperate to pull its attention away from the recruit on the left flank who was sorely pressed and now facing it alone. Another bolt of flame came in. It caught him along the side, but just grazing. Still, it burned deeply, pervasive across his whole body. He struck true on his next swing, skewering the vykrul just as the monster brought his arm back to thrust forward.

Another bolt of flame. It caught private Libold in the chest. He went down howling in pain, alive though he likely wished he wasn’t. The screams, the calls for mercy that weren’t coming, it all sounded so familiar. The draenic shaman that taught him about the coast died of the same magic, made the same sound…

Calm. Calm.

The right flank was fighting valiantly, but another recruit was knocked to his knees and barely avoided the following killing blow. They fell backwards, barely able to dodge the incoming bolts from the sorcerer while blocking the thrusting trident. They could die here if they didn’t hold to their training. So new, so young. They could die and it would be under his watch.

Calm. Calm. Calm.

No more.

Corbin Waldhardt had more devotion in his heart to just the Alliance. He was a proud Gilnean, but cursed just the same. The rage that would build in him would bubble and churn, almost as if it were a living, breathing entity, demanding its release into the world. He would hold it, contain it as long as he could, but to see this, to witness the suffering of those under his command, was not acceptable. The anger within won out. Woe to those that were in his way then.

His body began to transform, twist, shift, grow. A layer of fur sprouted across his form, his hands turning into vicious claws, and his old wounds and breaking body giving way to a power he hadn’t felt in years. His other form, the worgen within, once more came forth upon the battlefield.

Letting loose a guttural howl, he charged the vykrul harassing the right flank, slamming his shield hard into his chest with a force he had not held since his youth. He swung wildly, viciously, recklessly, sheer power and rage overwhelming his foe. He tore into the monster, ensuring the cries of pain would come only from his enemy from this point forward. Blood splattered upon him and matted his fur, that old familiar feeling, never entirely sure what was his and what was the enemy’s.

Bolts of magic targeted him now, but his form was lithe, fast, and graceful in all the ways his human form had lost to age. He closed the distance more quickly than the vykrul sorcerer could ever have imagined, slaughtering him in a spray of blood to accompany the mist they came in on.

It felt as if it was over so quickly. The three vykrul lay dead. His allies were injured, some badly, but the fires were all but gone and their wounds would be healed by the priests that took residence in the keep. It was a crucible for the new recruits, but in the end they’ll come out stronger. They’re alive, and hopefully will remain so long enough to become rigid old trainers themselves someday.

He turned back. The two wounded by the fires were having their wounds wrapped by an unhurt pair. The one tossed backwards by the swipe of the vykrul was on his feet, although still shaken. The last, Calder, was just staring at him, dumbstruck. “Shaggier than I’d have thought,” he half-whispered, noting the worgen’s fur did not carry the same meticulous appearance the human commander had.

Waldhardt realised then it was the first time the recruits would have seen his worgen form - perhaps even the first time they’ve seen a worgen at all, considering most of them were recruited from quiet, faraway Alliance towns. “Hard to stay trimmed up,” he said, his voice sounding more like a growl than he intended. “Wrap the wounds as best you can, get everyone back to the keep as soon as possible,” he said to the others. “Well done today, recruits. You’ve fought your first battle and came out battered, but breathing. The wounds will heal, but they’ll stay with you forever now. Memories that sing through the ages to you, reliving your accomplishments. Your heroism. Your valour.”

“Sir,” private Matilde said while wrapping the wounds of a fellow recruit carefully. “I… I don’t know how to ask this, but… didn’t you say to stay calm? Through the whole battle, that being the most important thing? With all due respect, sir, I do not believe that…” she motioned to the Kvaldir sorcerer’s body, completely ravaged by their commander’s onslaught. She then looked to the second vykrul to fall, its massive form skewered and broken. “I don’t think...”

“No. No, I don’t think it was. But take it from a Gilnean - there comes a time when calm and preparation can only take you so far. Rigid discipline keeps you safe, keeps your thinking sound. But when the planning fails, you’re outnumbered, it seems there’s no way out, you’ve got to look deep inside yourself. Find the beast within. And set it loose.”