Beyond the Dark Portal

by Aaron Rosenberg

  “Ner’zhul!” Rexxar shouted, leaning down so his face was right by Grom’s. “This must be his fault! Who else could have caused a world to shatter so? He betrayed us all! He said he would save Draenor and instead he destroyed it!”

  “We don’t know that!” Grom insisted. “We knew he was dealing with extremely powerful magic to open portals to other worlds. Perhaps something went wrong.”

  “Or maybe it went perfectly right—for him!” Rexxar countered furiously. “Maybe he was just using us, all of us, our entire world, to further his own ambitions. That’s what Gul’dan did, isn’t it?” Many of the assembled orcs grunted or murmured or snarled agreement—everyone knew of Gul’dan’s betrayal and how it had cost them the Second War. “And who trained Gul’dan?” Rexxar continued. “Who taught him? Ner’zhul! Clearly the fruit did not fall far from the vine!”

  The mutterings were louder and angrier now, and Grom knew he had to stop them before the group of warriors devolved into an angry mob.

  “Do you not see that it doesn’t matter?” he stated, cutting through Rexxar’s anger by projecting calm. “Shall we decide what we do based upon rumor and worry? Shall we pine for what could have been or fret about what might have happened? Is this how the mighty Horde behaves?” He looked from orc to orc, including them all in this conversation, and was pleased to hear the murmurs die down as they waited to hear what else he had to say.

  “We have survived! We are on Azeroth, a world full of life and food and land and battle! We can restore the Horde and sweep across this world once more!”

  Some of the other orcs cheered his statement, and Grom used that energy to fuel his own fervor, whipping Gorehowl around over his head so its shrieking would add a backdrop to his words.

  “Yes, the Alliance is hunting us,” he shouted, “and yes, we are no match for them today. But one day, and that day soon, we will be! Here we can rest, recover, and strategize. Here we will launch attacks, as we have already been doing for the last several turns of their moons. We will grow strong again. We will become the predators once more, and the humans will quake with fear!” He jerked his axe to a stop and held it still above his head, lowering his voice so his words fell softly into the sudden quiet. “And one day we, the Horde, will rise and take our vengeance against the humans with a true and final victory!”

  The warriors cheered and whooped and shouted, raising their own weapons high, and Grom nodded. Pleased. They were all behind him again, all united once more.

  All except one.

  “You have been betrayed repeatedly, each time by another orc claiming leadership, and still you continue down that same path,” Rexxar said softly, though his eyes burned with rage. “You have no reason left to fight! Before, we fought to protect our people by claiming this world for them. But they are gone! We no longer need this world! With the handful left, you could find a place the humans have never gone and claim it without shedding a single drop of blood!”

  “Where would be the glory in that?” one of the other orcs shouted.

  Grom nodded. “What is life without battle?” he demanded of Rexxar. “You are a warrior—you understand that! Fighting keeps us strong, keeps us sharp!”

  “Perhaps,” the half-breed admitted. “But why fight when there is no need? Why fight just for its own sake? That is not fighting to save anyone, or to win anything, or even for glory. It is fighting from sheer bloodlust, from love of violence alone. And I am sick of that. I want no part of it.”

  “Coward!” someone shouted, and Rexxar’s eyes narrowed as he straightened to his full height, the twin axes rising to shoulder level.

  “Step forth and say that,” he challenged, his voice an ominous rumble. “Step away from the rest, where I can see you clearly, and call me a coward to my face! Then see whether I shrink from a fight!”

  No one moved, and after a second Rexxar shook his head, a sneer on his heavy features. “You are the cowards,” he proclaimed, spitting the words down upon them. “You are too afraid to live truly, outside the shadows of lies and promises you have been bought with. You have no courage, and no honor. That is why you cannot be trusted.” The half-orc’s shoulders slumped. “From now on, only the beasts will I trust.”

  Grom felt a mixture of emotions as he watched the towering warrior depart. How dare Rexxar abandon them now, when they most needed to stay together? At the same time, who could blame him? He was not even part of the Horde in the normal sense, for the mok’nathal were ever reluctant to leave the Blade’s Edge Mountains. To the best of Grom’s knowledge, only Rexxar himself had responded to the Horde’s plea, to fight during the First War and then again during the Second. And what had it gained him? He had lost his world, his people, and even his companion the wolf. Was it any wonder the half-orc felt betrayed?

  “No one walks away from the Horde!” someone insisted. “We should drag him back by his ears, or kill him!”

  “He insulted us all!” another pointed out. “He should die for his insolence!”

  “We need his strength,” a third countered. “We cannot afford to lose him!”

  “Enough!” Grom shouted, glaring at them all. The dissenters fell silent. “Let him go,” he ordered. “Rexxar has served the Horde well. Let him have his peace now.”

  “And what about us?” one of the warriors demanded. “What will we do now?”

  “We know what to do,” Grom replied. “This world is our home now. Let us live in it fully.” But even as they nodded and returned to the fire, to speak softly in voices about plans and victory and supplies, Rexxar’s words returned to haunt him, and a part of Grom wondered if they would ever find that which they had lost so long ago: peace.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Turalyon emerged from the rift, blinking. “Is…is this…Draenor?”

  They had escaped Draenor’s destruction by stepping through into another world, one they could barely make sense of. Khadgar and the other magi had shielded them from the tremors passing through the rift, and once it had quieted they had returned, hoping to search for any of their comrades that might have survived. But as his eyes registered what they saw, Turalyon jerked to a halt, staring. Only Alleria’s tug on his hand reminded him to move out of the way so the rest could emerge as well.

  “It is. What’s left of it, anyway,” Khadgar said. Turalyon recognized the rubble of the fallen Dark Portal behind them, with Honor Hold and Hellfire Citadel in the distance. The cracked red earth was the same as well. But the sky—!

  It rippled with color now, and ribbons of light shot through it like multihued lightning bolts that traveled across instead of ever touching the earth. The sun had vanished and the sky was a dark red, but he could see the moon hovering high above, looking far larger than it ever had before. A second sphere, this one rosy, was low on the horizon, and a third, smaller and a bright blue, floated just above that one. Wisps like tendrils of cloud drifted here and there.

  And while the earth was the same in color and consistency, not far away Turalyon saw a small wedge of cracked ground—only it was perhaps a hundred feet up! It bobbed slightly, buffeted by the fierce winds that raged all around them, but otherwise stayed in place. Other fragments floated here and there as well.

  “The damage has sundered reality as we know it,” Khadgar continued. “Gravity, space, perhaps even time itself no longer function properly here.”

  Khadgar’s words were swallowed by a tearing sound beneath them. Turalyon grabbed his arm with one hand and Alleria’s with the other, instinctively tugging them both back toward what had been the rest of the land.

  “Fall back!” Turalyon shouted, though he wasn’t sure the men could hear him over the rending of the earth or the howling of the winds overhead. “Back away from the rift!” They could see him, however, and he gestured to the west, toward Honor Hold. They ran then, all order forgotten in their panic.

  And not a moment too soon. As Turalyon pulled Khadgar and Alleria along, the ground beneath their feet began to crumble.
They hurled themselves toward the ground beyond, barely reaching it before the ledge behind them collapsed, chunks of rock and earth falling away. Before, the Dark Portal had been partially encircled by mountains to the east, and beyond that had been the sea. Now most of the mountains had vanished, and, shockingly, so had the waves. Only empty space waited to swallow the falling debris, as the world’s remains now hung in a great yawning darkness shot through with ripples and flashes of light here and there.

  “Sir,” one of the men piped up. “Wasn’t…wasn’t that where the rift was?”

  “Yes,” Turalyon said. “It was.” The rift through which they had first fled Draenor and then returned to it had indeed been on that ledge, and had collapsed when the earth beneath it had shattered, leaving behind only the remnants of the Dark Portal.

  There was silence, and Turalyon sensed their growing despair. “Look there,” he told them, spotting a familiar cluster of buildings a short distance away. “Honor Hold still stands. We built it to serve as our stronghold here on Draenor, and so it will be.”

  He turned to look at them—dusty, bloody, exhausted. “We knew when we came through we might not be returning. Light, we expected to die—but we didn’t. The portal’s closed. We did what we came here to do. What we do now—that’s up to us. There are others still out there—we need to find them, bring them back. We’ll explore. Make new allies. Keep fighting the Horde, whatever’s left of it here, so they don’t ever try to do something like this again. The Light is still with us. We still have a job to do. This world will be what we choose to make of it.”

  Alleria stepped beside him, her eyes shining. He squeezed her hand tightly. Turalyon glanced over at Khadgar, who nodded, his young eyes crinkling in an approving smile. The paladin again looked toward his men. They were still worried. Still unsure. But the despair and panic were gone.

  This world will be what we choose to make of it.

  “Come on,” Turalyon said, and pointed to Honor Hold. “Let’s go home.”

  EPILOGUE

  “Ner’zhul!”

  The orc shaman and Horde warchief cried out at the sound of his name, his eyes flicking open. At once the strange swirling nothingness all around him assaulted his senses, and he squeezed his eyes shut, hoping to force away the welter of sensation that threatened to drive him mad. Then, through the thrums and howls and cracklings, he heard it again.

  “Ner’zhul!”

  Blinking, he glanced around him. A short ways away—or so it seemed, though an instant later he would have sworn it was miles distant—Ner’zhul saw a dark form. It was shaped like an orc, and a longer look confirmed it, revealing green skin and tusks and long braids. Definitely an orc, and one Ner’zhul recognized as one of his own Shadowmoon warriors. The warrior did not move, however—Ner’zhul thought he saw the other orc’s chest rising and falling, but in this place he could not be sure of anything.

  Other shapes littered the strange maelstrom of light and shadow. All those who had followed him through the rift appeared to be here with him.

  The question was, where was here? Why hadn’t the rift led them to another world? For whatever this place might be, Ner’zhul was sure it was not a normal world. What had happened? Why was he awake and aware, while all the others were trapped in a deep sleep?

  A column of light rolled past, and for an instant Ner’zhul saw echoing glimmers around each of the other orcs—and around himself. His eyes widened, then clamped shut as they overloaded from the sights assaulting them. But he knew what he had seen. They were trapped indeed—something was binding them to this place!

  “Ner’zhul!” His name wafted across the strangeness yet again, but this time Ner’zhul felt something tug upon his chest and his limbs. The other orcs receded rapidly, or perhaps he was the one moving while they remained locked in place—it was impossible to tell here. But within minutes Ner’zhul was alone, the rest of his orcs only distant shadows.

  And then a larger, darker shadow fell across him, and he looked up—

  —into the face of wrath itself.

  Before Ner’zhul hung a massive being arrayed in heavy armor of etched blood-red metal. The figure’s face resembled that of a draenei, intelligent-looking and clever, but with bright red skin and a demonic cast. The creature had short, curving horns rising from his high temples, and two strange protrusions like tentacles extending below his mouth and well past the short beard covering his chin. Several earrings gleamed, and the creature’s eyes glowed a deep yellow.

  And Ner’zhul knew him at once.

  “Great One!” Ner’zhul gasped, doing his best to bow though his limbs were still bound somehow.

  “Ah, Ner’zhul, my unfaithful little servant,” replied Kil’jaeden, demon lord of the Burning Legion. “Did you think I had forgotten about you?”

  “No, Great One, of course not.” In truth Ner’zhul had hoped so, and after the first few years had begun to think it true. Now his heart sank as the demon lord continued speaking.

  “Oh, I have been watching you closely all this time, Ner’zhul,” Kil’jaeden assured him. “You cost me a great deal, you know.” The demon lord laughed, a chilling, grating sound. “And now you shall pay for such failure!”

  “I—,” Ner’zhul began, but his brain could barely formulate words.

  “You could not leave well enough alone,” Kil’jaeden finished for him. “I knew that eventually you would try yet again to cast magics you were not ready to handle and did not understand. I waited, knowing that some day your own arrogance would bring you to me.” He spread his gauntleted hands wide. “And here we are!” His eyes narrowed to mere slits. “You have dreamed of death. You thought to escape it. Now, my little puppet, death will be all you ever know.”

  Brief glimpses seared Ner’zhul’s brain: Agony as pieces of flesh were torn from his still-living body; the dead surrounding him, closing in on him, their blood on his hands, his own blood coating them, a morbid union of death, life, and excruciating torment.

  “No!” Ner’zhul shouted, thrashing about, trying everything to free himself from his invisible bonds. “My people still need me!”

  Laughter shook the demon’s powerful form, a horrible, eerie sound that made Ner’zhul’s heart spasm.

  “I know full well they mean nothing to you. So do not worry,” the demon lord whispered, stabbing the tip of one long finger into Ner’zhul’s cheek. The motion burned, sending spikes of heat and pain through Ner’zhul’s flesh. “There is no saving them. Do you not yet understand? Little puppet, you cannot even save yourself.”

  Then he twisted that finger, the rest of his splayed hand latching onto Ner’zhul’s face, and the orc shaman let his head fall back, a horrible scream wrenching its way out past his trembling lips.

  He knew it was but the first of many.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  AARON ROSENBERG is originally from New Jersey and New York. He returned to New York City in 1996 after stints in New Orleans and Kansas. He has taught college-level English and worked in corporate graphics and book publishing.

  Aaron has written novels for Star Trek, StarCraft, Warcraft, Warhammer, and Exalted. He also writes roleplaying games and has worked on the Star Trek, Warcraft, and Warhammer games. He writes educational books as well.

  Aaron lives in New York City with his family. For more information about his writing you can visit him online at www.rosenbergbooks.com.

  Award-winning author CHRISTIE GOLDEN has written thirty-two novels and several short stories in the fields of science fiction, fantasy and horror.

  Golden launched the TSR Ravenloft line in 1991 with her first novel, the highly successful Vampire of the Mists, which introduced elven vampire Jander Sunstar. To the best of her knowledge, she is the creator of the elven vampire archetype in fantasy fiction. Vampire of the Mists was reprinted in trade paperback as The Ravenloft Covenant: Vampire of the Mists in September 2006, fifteen years to the month after its original publication.

  She is the author of seve
ral original fantasy novels, including On Fire’s Wings; In Stone’s Clasp; and Under Sea’s Shadow (currently available only as an e-book) the first three in her multi-book fantasy series The Final Dance from LUNA Books. In Stone’s Clasp won the Colorado Author’s League Award for Best Genre Novel of 2005, the second of Golden’s novels to win the award.

  Among Golden’s other projects are over a dozen Star Trek novels, including the bestsellers Homecoming and The Farther Shore, and the well-received StarCraft: Dark Templar trilogy—Firstborn, Shadow Hunters, and the upcoming Twilight. An avid player of Blizzard’s MMORPG World of Warcraft, Golden has written several novels in that world (Lord of the Clans, Rise of the Horde) with more in the works.

  Golden lives in Colorado with her husband and two cats.