Krasus tried to retort, but the combination of his wound and the weakness from the draining were too much. He could only stare at the black dragon...and the infernal artifact.
"Oh, yes," cooed Sinestra. "One other thing you should know. You would have never managed to destroy it, anyway. I have worked hard to make certain that no power born of Azeroth can shatter the Soul this time. Including any black dragon's scale, much less my late lord's...."
"You have—only made matters more terrible—then."
"You are persistent, are you not, Korialstrasz? I shall miss your blind determination, I shall...."
The dark lady laughed once more...and vanished.
"Krasus!" Vereesa called. "Is there nothing that you can do?"
He shook his head. It was all that he could do to keep conscious and soon that would even be beyond his ability. The dragon mage eyed Kalec. The blue's face was very pale and even the red's sharp eyes could barely detect movement of the chest.
"Then... I must hope that—that this will work!"
Krasus heard a scraping sound from the ranger's direction, but could not see what might be the cause. Then, there came a sharp crack—
"Unnh!" The clatter of rock filled his ears. A moment later, the dragon mage heard footsteps.
A figure moved below him. Krasus managed to focus enough to see Vereesa standing there.
She held up a small, odd blade. "I was holding this when the blue cast the spell sealing me to the wall. I was fortunate; he seemed only to want to keep me away, not harm me."
"Kalec—Kalec is no evil force."
The ranger studied his situation as she continued, "I managed to move the dagger about enough to cause a weakness in the rock he created, but it was only a moment ago that I sensed my struggling was finally too much for that weakness."
"Rhonin...Rhonin made that for you."
"Of course." Vereesa frowned. "I do not know how to free you, great one."
"My life...my life does not matter...drag...drag Kalec from this chamber. It is—is my hope that in the chamber of the eggs, he might recover. The eggs must be—must be protected from the draining or they would all be useless to h-her."
Rhonin's mate nodded. "Being dragon eggs, they have magic in them, too, You must be right. Then, when he recovers, Kalec can help you."
Krasus did not argue with her, although he knew very well that his wound was beyond Kalec's ability. Alexstrasza might have had the power to heal her consort, but she was far, far away and even should they have somehow carried the wounded red out of Grim Batol, he would have been long dead before they could get him to her.
But if I can save these two and they can warn others, then my death will have been worth it....
He watched as Vereesa took hold of Kalec and started tugging him in the direction of the other chamber. There was a good chance that, if Sinestra did not come to investigate, what he had said concerning the blue dragon would prove true.
They were soon out of his sight. Krasus continued to force himself to stay conscious. If not for the fact that he was of the redflight, the guardians of life, he might have already welcomed the relief of death. As it was, despite the inevitable, Krasus sought some miracle. Not for himself, but for all the others.
And, most of all, for Rhonln and Iridi, whom surely Deathwing's consort intended to capture next.
Barely had the roar faded away when another chilling sound filled the cavern.
This time, it was laughter.
Rhonin and Iridi turned in the direction from which it had come to see the tall, slim lady in black. The scars on the one side of her face were evident to them even through the veil.
"You're a dragon," Rhonin commented.
Iridi showed no surprise at this: after what had happened to Krasus and Kalec, that this female was more than she appeared made perfect sense.
"Very good, Rhonin Redhair," the dragon in mortal guise purred. "And do you know what dragon?"
The wizard shrugged, his demeanor quite calm considering that he stood amidst a chaotic battle of dwarves, skardyn, dragonspawn, drakonid, and raptors. "You have that admirable disposition and manner of dark dress that means you must belong to Deathwing's flight." He pursed his lips in thought, then nodded. "And since you're not the rabid dog or his two worst pups, I'd hazard by your grand posturing that you must be one of his prime bitches...."
The lady in black scowled, taken aback by the human's daring affront. Iridi gripped the naaru staff tight, awaiting any signal from Rhonin. The draenei instinctively kept herself between Zzeraku and the malevolent figure.
Flee! Zzeraku warned the priestess. Flee! She is monstrous! Forget me!
I won't! Iridi found Zzeraku's concern for her heartening, even under the circumstances.
The disfigured dragon recalled herself. Once more acting as if empress of all she surveyed, she replied, "I am Sinestra, first and greatest of the Earth-Warder's consorts...."
"That would explain your lovely complexion. Mating with Deathwing must have literally set your heart on fire."
"Is it wise to speak to her so?" the draenei whispered.
"He speaks so because he is a fool confident in his master, are you not, Rhonin? You think Korialstrasz—pardon me—Krasus— will save you. But your master is dead, human, his life essence a contribution to the birthing of a new era!"
The priestess caught just a hint of anger at the corner of the wizard's mouth, but Rhonin quickly smothered it. "Oh, yes! The great family plot! Let's rebuild or recreate or create anew a wondrous flight in our image—or something close enough to it— that will—dare I say it?—take over the world!”
"You remind me of my Nefarian...arrogant, blind, and doomed."
Sinestra gestured.
A shockwave rushed over all there, including the black dragon's own minions. Not one creature was left standing, so powerful was the invisible wave.
Not one creature...save Rhonin. His face was pale, yes, and his legs wobbled, but he still stood.
"If you think...me the same impetuous upstart...who came here to deal with your mate," he rasped. "You're...you're only half-right."
His gaze shifted to the cerulean cube. It suddenly glowed.
But Sinestra only chuckled. "Very good! You know Balacgos's Bane...your master taught you well!"
Sweat dripped down Rhonin's forehead. Through gritted teeth, he answered, "He's not... my master... he's my... friend."
The cube flared bright...and then melted in on itself, leaving a blue puddle from which sinister vapors of a like color arose.
Sinestra's eyes narrowed to slits. This time, Rhonin could not keep from being thrown to the ground.
"A powerful, valiant attempt...but only an attempt." She pointed at the melted Bane... and it formed again. "The secret of it is mine, as are so many other secrets."
The raptor leader had by this time managed to reach its feet. With a hiss, it leapt with claws bared and maw wide open at Sinestra.
With a contemptuous glance, the black lady pointed at the raptor.
The ground rose up beneath the leaping reptile, catching it. Molten earth engulfed the raptor leader. The reptile's scaled hide blistered horribly, then burned away, quickly followed by the muscles and sinew beneath. The raptor had no time to shriek. By the time the creature collapsed on the chamber floor, it did so as a loose pile of still-smoldering, scorched bones.
"The right temperament," Sinestra clinically commented. "But lacking in so much else." She returned her attention to Rhonin and Iridi.
But the priestess was no longer there. For the first time, Sinestra showed some puzzlement. Her ire immediately focused on Rhonin, who was struggling to rise. "Where is the draenei? Where is she?" The wizard managed a grin. "I don't know...."
Zendarin fell back, gasping. He was finished at last, finished with the final step toward his never having to hunger again. It had cost him much of the staff's power, but for that he would have that which would gain him more than he could desire in a hundred lif
etimes.
He leaned over the pit. "You understand me, don't you?" "Yes..." came the rumbling voice. The blood elf smiled. "It is time." "Yes..." A dark form began to rise toward Zendarin. "It is time..."
"You will obey my will in all things," the blood elf went on. "You will—"
A monstrous sound arose from the pit. It was not a simple roar, as had erupted more than once during Zendarin's efforts, but ratherlaughter... laughter that reminded him too much of the dark lady's.
"I do not obey you...." Dargonax replied with mockery also akin to hers. "You are little more than the dirt beneath my feet...."
The blood elf could not believe his ears. Enraged, he shouted, "You've no choice but to obey me! I have made absolute certainty of that—"
The murky shape stretched above the pit, expanding, growing, until it filled all of Zendarin's view. The head of a huge, amethyst dragon coalesced.
"You have made certain of nothing, but that you are a fool...." Dargonax declared.
Zendarin threw his will into the stolen staff, hoping it had enough power left.
Jaws open, Dargonax lunged.
The blood elf vanished.
The gargantuan dragon immediately halted his lunge. He did not look angered or disappointed, but instead, amused.
Dargonax suddenly looked up at the ceiling. His long, pointed ears twitched as if he listened.
"Yes...I come, my mother...I come..."
And once more, the behemoth laughed.
His arm was broken—he thanked the small favor that it was the one minus a hand—and he had somehow gotten far more lost than any dwarf ever should have underground in any cavern. Rom could swear that the tunnels shifted of their own whim and always to keep him from the ones leading back up. He wanted to go back up because, in one passage, he had heard the cries of some of his people. They were dying, Rom believed, and all he could do was keep walking in circles.
But he had to keep trying.
He stumbled into another passage that looked exactly like the passage before and the one before that and so on and so on. The veteran fighter swore under his breath, even his mounting frustration not enough to make him alert any possible foes to his nearby presence.
Was that a mistake, though? Perhaps if he shouted his head off, he would finally get some action.
Rom snorted. He would also end up perishing without doing his comrades any bit of good.
When the other dwarves had been attacked, Rom had not abandoned them, as they likely thought. Rather, he had been twice struck hard, the first enough to shatter the bone in his arm and the second knocking off his helmet and battering his head. He had then stumbled, dazed, into one of the crevices that had opened up. There, Rom had lain as one of the dead for hours.
By sheer luck, the other end of that crevice had proven to have an opening into the mount. Upon awakening, he had taken no joy in discovering that his long-desired dream to infiltrate Grim Batol had come to pass. In his eyes, he had failed the others. Rom could only pray that Grenda—capable and probably more level-headed than he —would keep the rest alive, with or without him. As for Rom, he had retrieved his helmet—which had fallen in with him—and simply marched off to see where fate would lead him.
But now he cursed fate for keeping him from his comrades.
A grunting sound made him still. Rom prayed that the echoes of the tunnels were not turning him around again. If they were not, then the source of that grunt was only a few short yards away.
He picked up his pace... and immediately back-pedaled as the voices of several skardyn heading his way warned him that he was about to run Into far more than that for which he had bargained. Rom rushed back to the nearest side passage and threw himself in just as he heard the foul creatures enter the one he had abandoned.
The skardyn came rushing past, the scaly fiends crawling along the floor, the walls, the celling. Rom pressed himself against the rock, certain that he should have headed deeper into his own tunnel but aware that any movement now would only attract their attention.
A skardyn paused near the opening, smelling the air. It leaned in, seeking anything in the darkness—
A black fist seized the suddenly-squealing skardyn and threw it in the direction the rest were heading. The drakonid cracked his whip as he drove the rest on.
The dwarf recognized Rask.
"Move..." the black beast hissed. "The lady commands...."
Rask and the skardyn moved on. Rom hesitated just long enough to ensure that they would not be able to see him, then followed after.
At last, he thought, he was getting somewhere. But exactly where, he would have to wait to find out.
And, by then, Rom suspected it would be too late to turn back.
TWENTY-ONE
Iridi had not abandoned her companions, at least, not according to Rhonin's back-up plan. The draenei felt otherwise, though, and prayed that she would soon be able to return to help the wizard and the others.
And, by helping them, she had to either finish freeing Zzeraku— whom she especially felt ashamed of leaving behind—or, miracle of miracles, find Krasus and Kalec.
If they still lived.
The trouble was, the priestess had no time to do any of what she desired. She could sense Sinestra's monstrous creation converging even now on the cavern and, through the staff, that it was more powerful than ever. Indeed, some of that power came from a most disturbing force...the energies of the other staff. Iridi wondered if the murderous thief realized just what he had done.
As for the draenei, it had not been by her own staff's power that she had vanished, but rather a one-time spell that Rhonin had given to her just for this emergency. All she had had to do was think of the need to escape and then stare in the direction she wanted. Rhonin had purposely created the spell so that she and only she would know her destination.
However, she had not gone where she had expected. While the wizard himself could take her from one point to another, the spell he had given her had for some reason not been as efficient. Now Iridi stood In the midst of some tunnel somewhere within Grim Batol with no notion as to her location or how she might manage to help anyone.
Then, a noise that she by no stretch of the imagination would have desired to hear filled the tunnel. By now, she recognized the savage growls and hisses of the skardyn and, if she estimated correctly, there were more than a score heading her way.
And barely had the priestess thought that than the skardyn poured toward her from a side passage. They clearly had not been hunting for her, but, the moment that her presence became clear, the monstrous dwarves let out hisses and howls of anticipation. They raced toward her, teeth bared.
Iridi turned the staff, using the lower end to catch the first skardyn in the throat. As that one fell, a second seized the staff by the long handle and clung to it. The weight forced the draenei's arm down.
Another skardyn leaped at her as she was pulled down. The priestess stretched out her foot, letting the creature's own momentum be the force that knocked it out when its head struck. Iridi then swung the staff around, using the skardyn clinging to it as a weight against its comrades. She bowled over three, then let go of the naaru gift.
It vanished, sending the skardyn who had held onto it rolling down the corridor. However, the scaly dwarf did not go far, for almost immediately it collided with an immense, black form.
"Draenei..." he rasped. "Keep her alive...barely..."
The remaining skardyn closed on her. Iridi raised her hand to summon the staff—
With startling reflexes, the drakonid lashed her wrist. Iridi's hand jerked and the staff, just materializing, faded to so much mist.
Rask pulled and the draenei fell forward. As she did, she managed to summon again the staff, but by then the skardyn were almost upon her.
Then, a battle cry filled the passage. From behind the drakonid lunged a single dwarven warrior who appeared to have only one good arm... and one hand at that.
Iridi could not believe h
er eyes. "Rom?"
The dwarven commander swung hard at the drakonid, who ducked at the last moment. The flat of the ax head caught Rask on the side of the skull and while from most warriors that blow would not have been enough to even bother the drakonid, from the powerful dwarf it managed to stun his much larger foe.
But Rom did not follow up, instead, racing toward the draenei. Iridi, meanwhile, had taken advantage of the dwarf's appearance to regain her footing. She kicked at one startled skardyn, then tripped another with the staff.
However, in the low, narrow tunnel, the naaru gift proved as much impediment as help. It was too long to properly maneuver with so many skardyn around. Iridi finally dismissed it, instead relying on the battle arts taught by her order to all its members.
The momentum of a skardyn enabled her to send the creature into one of its comrades. The priestess leaped over another foe, then kicked back with one leg as she landed, sending the skardyn into a wall.
Rom, meanwhile, simply cut his way through the bestial figures like a farmer scything grain. Three skardyn fell before he reached Iridi, with two more propped against the walls, clutching their wounds.
That way!" he growled, indicating the opposite direction from which he had materialized. "Where does it go?"
"Somewhere! 'Tis all I know or care! Going back's not an option, my lady!"
He spoke truly. Rask had recovered and the black drakonid even now shoved his way past skardyn, the whip once more ready. For the first time, Iridi also paid attention to the heavy ax the senior guard had strapped to his back. Rask could not use it well enough in this tunnel, which was why he needed the whip. However, she did not think it wise for her or Rom to be near when the ax would prove more an option. The drakonid looked capable of chopping either adversary in half with but a single swing.
Rom pushed her ahead of him, although whether that was a safer position was debatable. Iridi said nothing, more than willing to defend them from any who attacked from the front.
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