By the time the lone gryphon rider returned, Anduin Lothar had already known something was wrong.

The squad he'd sent to Karazhan to assist Khadgar in removing what the mage had called 'spiders, lots of spiders' – of the giant variety – had been due back hours ago. Now it was approaching nightfall and there was still no sign of them. He'd left orders to be notified immediately upon their return; so once word finally arrived that the single remaining squad member had come back, injured but desperate to speak to him, he could only assume the worst.

"Sir," the normally stoic soldier said, hastily saluting the new regent even with the thick bandage on her hand. "It was an ambush. The orcs were waiting for us. They must have had an idea we were coming, they probably had something to do with the spiders, and they…" She swallowed hard. "They took him."

"They took him?" he repeated, the feeling of trepidation he'd had for the past several hours morphing into one of alarm, but he forced his voice to remain steady.

The soldier nodded bleakly. "They took Khadgar."