“Good. Now, how did the Horde reopen the portal?”
Khadgar demanded, as Turalyon and the others crowded close behind him.
“Ner’zhul,” it replied. “Ner’zhul used the Skull of Gul’dan to force the rift open again.”
“Is such a thing possible?” Turalyon asked.
“Entirely,” Khadgar said. “It’s starting to make sense now. We know Gul’dan created the Dark Portal in the first place, working together with Medivh. It’s likely that his remains would still have a link to it, and therefore could be used to gain greater control over the rift. Just like the Book of Medivh.”
Ner’zhul had needed Gul’dan, or at least his skull, to open the rift again. And without that skull, Khadgar couldn’t shut it either, not completely. Now he understood why the rift had remained before. Without using Gul’dan’s skull, Khadgar would never be able to seal the rift for good. And without the book, he wouldn’t be sure he was using the right spell.
He felt a tap on his shoulder. Glancing up, he saw Turalyon gesturing him to step away. Puzzled, Khadgar complied.
“Good news,” Turalyon said. “Our forces are driving the Horde back toward the Dark Portal. We also had word from Admiral Proudmoore. Other groups of orcs are running, too. Apparently a band of Horde orcs—backed by black dragons, if you can believe it!—stole several boats from Menethil Harbor recently.”
Khadgar sighed, remembering his dream conversation with Antonidas. “I can believe it. I—wait. You said ‘boats’?”
“Aye. They headed southwest, into the Great Sea.”
Khadgar gripped Turalyon’s tunic. “Southwest? Damn it!”
“What is it, Khadgar?”
“They’re not running. The boats—they were heading for the Tomb of Sargeras! Gul’dan tried that once, and it killed him!”
“Why would the orcs do that? Medivh is dead and Sargeras is gone. The tomb’s empty.” His eyes widened slightly. “…Isn’t it?”
It all clicked into place. “Sargeras is gone,” Khadgar said slowly, “but that doesn’t mean the tomb is empty. We know the orcs are seeking artifacts—what if Sargeras left something there? The tomb was shielded so that no creature of Azeroth could enter—but the orcs were never from here! The wardings would mean nothing to them now, just as they meant nothing to Gul’dan when he—that’s it. That’s got to be it!”
Khadgar turned back to the death knight and dropped to his knees beside the creature.
“Why did Ner’zhul send orcs to the Tomb of Sargeras?” he demanded. Gaz Soulripper laughed, foul breath from dead lungs caressing Khadgar’s face. He’d pulled tightly into himself in the few moments of respite and was not about to say anything. Khadgar frowned. He extended his magic once again, this time without any effort at finesse, and the illumination of his spell was like a lance to the creature’s forehead. Soulripper arched in agony, but stayed silent.
“Tell us!”
“We—care nothing for your world!” Soulripper grunted, his hands clenching.
Khadgar made a subtle move with his fingers, and this time Gaz Soulripper cried out. “I need better than that.”
“Ah!” The dead thing bit its lip in pain, teeth sinking easily through rotted flesh. “Our destiny—greater than you can imagine, human!”
Khadgar’s heart sped up. These half-truths, these hints…What was the reality? Sweat dotted his forehead, but not from exertion. He tightened his grip, and the death knight convulsed.
“Khadgar…” said Turalyon, wincing a little.
“I can keep this up all day, Soulripper,” Khadgar said. When there was no response, Khadgar lifted his left hand to join his right.
“An artifact!” the death knight screamed. “From the tomb. The Scepter of Sargeras.”
“That’s better. What about it?”
“W-with that, the Book of Medivh, and the Eye of Dalaran, Ner’zhul can—no!”
Khadgar was surprised at the level of resistance the death knight could put up. He shared Turalyon’s distaste of torture, but they were so close….
“What can he do? Tell us!”
“He—he can open portals from Draenor to other worlds.”
Khadgar immediately ceased tormenting the death knight, who flopped over, groveling in recovery. He sat, stunned for a moment, then looked up at Turalyon. He saw his own horror mirrored in the youth’s face.
“Other…worlds?” Turalyon said, his voice faint with shock. “Azeroth and Draenor…aren’t the only ones?” He stared down at the death knight, his mouth working for a moment before anything came out. “Worlds…more than ours. Worlds without end, innocents without number falling before them…Light save us.”
Khadgar nodded. “I know it’s difficult to grasp. The Horde we’ve faced was half-crazed with desperation and hunger. Their world is dying, and they needed to take ours. Now they’re going to open portals to countless other worlds as well. This same scenario will be repeated again…and again and again.”
Turalyon barely heard his friend’s words. They seemed to fade away, smothered by the thudding of his own heart in his ears. The hideous visage of the death knight, too, was fading, drowning in a slow but steady glow of white light that seemed to be coming from inside the paladin’s own head.
He burned to protect his people—the Alliance—all life on this world from the havoc that the ever-hungering orcs had chosen to wreak. That seemed daunting enough, but now—worlds! Just how many were they talking about, anyway—one? Two? Two million? Hysteria bubbled up inside him as he sat in the white, empty space and danced on the verge of madness as he tried to comprehend the incomprehensible. The innocent were his charge. He had to protect them. But how could he possibly do so? So many who—
The pounding of his heart suddenly paused.
And in that place of pure, brilliant light, he saw a figure that was light—the Light—itself. It hovered and glowed, gleaming as if its form was hard and crystalline but also soft, unspeakably soft, as soft as a tear, as soft as forgiveness, as soft as Alleria’s pale skin. Golden strands draped the being, and Turalyon could not tell at first if they were leading from or to the creature—and then he understood, it was both. All that was, was this being, and this being, was everything. Awe flooded him and he drank in the sight of this beautiful, luminous being, feeling it fill him with hope and calm as if he were an empty vessel.
Do not despair, came a voice like bells, like chimes, like the sigh of the ocean. The Light is with you. We are with you. No matter how vast the darkness, Light will scatter it. No matter what world, no matter what creature, the Light is there, in that place, in that soul. Know this, and go forward with a joyful heart, Turalyon.
As if it sang in response, Turalyon’s heart began to beat once more. He realized it had never stopped; that the long, frozen, rapt moment had been less than the blink of an eye.
Khadgar gave Turalyon the space to let it sink in. Finally, Turalyon lifted his head. His eyes were focused, clear, and his face was resolute.
“We have to stop them,” Turalyon stated firmly. “We can’t let other, innocent worlds have this…this…unleashed on them. It ends here. On Azeroth. No one else should have to suffer as we have. The Light shines on other worlds than ours, and it needs our help. It will have it.”
Khadgar heard some resentful murmurings from some of Turalyon’s men. Turalyon heard it too, for he stood, frowning.
“If you have something to say, say it clearly,” he ordered. The soldiers who’d been talking exchanged glances, then one stepped up.
“Sir…why don’t we just let them go? If they have fresh worlds to take, maybe they’ll just go away and leave us alone.”
“Even if it were that simple, we can’t let that happen. Don’t you understand?” Turalyon said. “We have to stop them. We can’t save our world at the expense of countless innocent lives!”
“Besides,” came Alleria’s clear voice as she strode up to them, dusty and sweaty and spattered with blood too dark to be her own, “what
is to stop them from returning once they have gotten fat off plunder? With her sharp sense of hearing, of course, she’d heard everything. Khadgar thought her a trifle paler than usual, but she was almost eerily composed. Would you like to battle a Horde twice the size of the one we faced during the Second War, completely united, and with the ability to open portals to Azeroth from anywhere?”
Khadgar saw the disappointment in Turalyon’s eyes. The paladin had hoped the men would understand his point. And more, he’d hoped Alleria would. But it seemed that Alleria was still consumed with hatred for the orcs. She did not really care about other worlds. She wanted to hunt the orcs down and kill them herself; she had no wish to let others share that particular cruel delight. She turned to Turalyon, and color rose briefly in her face, then subsided.
“Sir, while we were fighting, I saw something I think you should be aware of. We noticed a group of…”
Khadgar was barely listening to her musical voice. Something else was nagging at his thoughts…something was not right. He gasped as understanding burst upon him.
“I’m an idiot!” Khadgar cried, cutting Alleria off in mid-sentence. “They’re not losing!” he shouted. “They’re retreating! They’ve found all the artifacts they needed and they’re returning home to Draenor! The entire invasion was just a feint to distract us, and now they’re done!”
Gaz Soulripper glanced up at him, shock and fear in his glowing eyes. The death knight surged to his feet, snapping the stout ropes that bound his hands and feet and chest. Terror lent him magical strength as well—from somewhere deep inside, Gaz shunted aside Khadgar’s mental lance and raised fresh shields that blocked the archmage’s reflexive attempt to regain control.
“You will not interfere!” Gaz roared, leaping atop Khadgar and wrapping mailed hands around the archmage’s throat. “You will not thwart our destiny!”
The death knight began to squeeze, and Khadgar gasped for air, struggling to push the creature away even as his vision swam. Blackness crept in along the edges of his sight, framing wild colors flashing before him. He couldn’t push the hands away, he couldn’t think to summon a spell.
And suddenly, through the insanely swirling palette of colors came a flash of pure white. Even as it seared Khadgar’s eyes, it wrapped him in reassuring warmth and a sensation of peace sharply at odds with the pain of hands crushing his windpipe and cutting off blood. Briefly he wondered if he was already dead but hadn’t gotten around to noticing it yet.
The light swelled, then faded. The dead hands around Khadgar’s throat tightened convulsively before the pressure suddenly disappeared. Khadgar swayed, blinking, dazzled from the white light, coughing and gasping at the same time, his lungs struggling to bring air back into his body.
“You all right?” It was Turalyon, his hands, still glowing softly, helping Khadgar to rise. Glancing down, Khadgar noticed that his violet robe was now dusty gray—all that was left of Gaz Soulripper. He looked at Turalyon, stunned again by the young general’s power. Turalyon read his glance and smiled sheepishly. Khadgar clasped his friend’s arm. “Thank you.”
“It was the Light, not I,” Turalyon said with his characteristic modesty.
“Well, your damned Light killed him too fast,” Alleria growled. Even Khadgar blinked at the venom in her voice. “We could have asked him about the carts I saw.”
“Carts?” Khadgar asked. “Explain.”
She turned to him, clearly more comfortable speaking with the mage than with Turalyon. “I saw some of the orcs going through the portal. Black dragons accompanied them. There were carts, several of them, all covered. They were taking things back to their world.”
“They came to get artifacts, not souvenirs,” grunted Khadgar. “What would they need carts for?”
Alleria shrugged. “I know not, but I thought you should know.”
“Another puzzle piece. Just when I thought we’d figured it out.” Khadgar brushed disgustedly at his robe, then looked up at them. “We’ve got quite the task ahead of us. We need to send an expedition into Draenor. We have to find and kill Ner’zhul before he can open any more portals, retrieve those artifacts—especially the Book of Medivh—and Gul’dan’s skull, and destroy the Dark Portal for good.”
Turalyon nodded, summoning a scout with a quick gesture, every inch the military commander. “Send word to the Alliance kings,” he said quickly. “The Horde is—”
His words were cut off as a shadow passed over the sun. Shielding his eyes from the glare, he glanced up, then began to laugh as the shadow broke apart into several winged forms that circled down toward them. These were not arrow-straight like dragons; they were broader, stouter, and softer, covered in tawny fur and feathers of gold and white.
“What took you?” Turalyon called back, laughing with Khadgar as Kurdran Wildhammer, leader of the Wildhammer dwarves, shook his head and managed to look embarrassed from atop his gryphon.
“Bad winds,” the dwarf admitted, bringing Sky’ree in for a landing. The great beast landed gracefully and cawed, flapping its wings one final time before its rider dismounted. Despite the direness of the situation, Khadgar found himself smiling. It was good to see hale, gruff Kurdran.
“Your arrival is most timely,” the archmage said, stepping forward to shake the dwarf’s hand and permitting his own to be enthusiastically pumped up and down. “We’ve a message to be delivered, and quickly.”
“Aye? As long as ye promise me an’ me boys we’ll get a crack at those greenskins, we’ll take a message for ye.” He waved at some of the other Wildhammers, who hastened forward and stood at attention.
“We’ll need to dispatch several messages to the various leaders,” Turalyon said, the grin fading. Khadgar wondered if Turalyon really knew just how no-nonsense he could look when he had to. “Tell them this: The orcs are retreating to Draenor, but they have found a means to open new portals to other worlds.”
The dwarves’ eyes widened, but they didn’t interrupt. “They are taking with them cartloads of something they obviously value, we do not yet know what,” Turalyon continued. “We intend to pursue them through the Dark Portal, and stop them from opening those portals. By any and all means necessary.”
“Are ye sure, lad?” asked Kurdran quietly. Turalyon nodded. Everyone stood silently for a moment, knowing that Turalyon spoke what had to be done, but even so rendered mute at the reality.
“Now hurry,” Turalyon said. “Make that gryphon earn her dinner.” The scouts nodded, saluted, mounted their gryphons, and took to the skies. Turalyon turned to his friends.
“And now,” he said somberly, “we prepare to leave our world behind.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The rest of that day and evening was crammed with chaotic planning. Who should go? Who should stay behind? What provisions should they take? How long should they wait? Debates went from discussion to argument to even shouting, and at one point Turalyon thought Alleria and Kurdran might come to blows over how best to utilize the gryphons.
Finally a plan was drafted that all could be satisfied with. Some, including Alleria, wanted to head out right then. “My rangers can see as well or better than the orcs at night,” she pointed out, “and even you humans have the moonlight.”
“No,” Turalyon had said, putting his foot down. “We don’t all have your vision, Alleria. And we’re exhausted. The orcs would definitely have the advantage at night. You’ll notice they’re not attacking right now.”
Her eyes had narrowed. “No, they’re probably resting up so they can be fresh in the morning to have at us then.”
Turalyon let her words hang there for a moment. Once she realized she’d made his arguments for him, she scowled, but stayed silent.
“Turalyon’s right,” Khadgar said. “We’re exhausted. Dead on our feet. The purpose here isn’t to kill as many orcs as possible and go down shouting battle cries, it’s to get to the other side with as many as we can so we can stop something bigger than the handful that’s at the gates ri
ght now.”
Turalyon suspected the comment wasn’t particularly directed at Alleria, but it struck home nonetheless. She’d turned first red, then white as a sheet, and stalked from the room. Turalyon automatically moved to follow, but Khadgar’s hand closed on his arm.
“Let her go,” he said quietly. “Talking to her now will just make things worse. She’s as exhausted as the rest of us right now and isn’t thinking clearly at the best of times. Let her come to you.”
Let her come to you. Turalyon wondered, as always, how much the young-old mage knew, and if the phrase had been calculated or casual.
“Verana, a moment,” said Alleria as she and her second-in-command left the meeting room for their assigned barracks. She indicated that the other elf follow her outside onto the walkway, underneath the moon and the stars. Wordlessly, Verana obeyed. There had never been any question but that Alleria would be among those going through the portal at dawn tomorrow. Verana and a few others would remain behind, to aid the Sons of Lothar in case something went wrong. Verana turned inquiringly to her commander.
“I have a special task for you. One that goes beyond your military duties,” Alleria began. “It is not maudlin to think that I might not return. That none of us might. We do not know what we face on the other side.”
Verana looked troubled; they had been friends for decades. But she nodded. “Of course.”
“If I do not come back…do not come home…bear a message for me to my family. Tell them I took the fight to the orcs’ own world, to avenge Quel’Thalas and to keep our people safe from future attacks.” She thought of Turalyon’s impassioned, implacable words—that they could not release the horror that was the Horde on other, innocent people. A lump suddenly swelled in her throat. “Tell them,” she continued, her voice rough, “tell them I went to try to save other worlds as well. Others who will, I pray, never know the pain of what we underwent. Tell them I chose to do this of my own free will, and that whatever happens to me…my heart is with them.”
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