“Thrall is no assassin skulking in the fog nor is he an honorless warrior!” she retorted. “You can’t speak of him—”
Before it could get worse, Broll interjected, “Lo’Gosh! There’s no time for this eternal arguing! She is with us! I vouch for her with my life! My life!”
“You place little value on your existence, then, Broll—”
“Stop it! There are more important matters! Tell me truthfully; how long do you think the capital has left?”
“I’d have said we were lost already, but though their progress is undeniable, they move slowly. Still, our weapons are for the most part useless against them and all but a few areas have grown silent. By tomorrow — assuming that there is even a tomorrow — there may be nothing holding out but part of the keep. If you’ve anything in mind at all that might save us, I’ll lend what help I can.
You know that.”
“I’m grateful to hear that. I hope you’ll still feel so after I’ve told you what we hope to do.” The druid quickly explained his notions.
Varian’s brow wrinkled deeply as he tried to comprehend everything.
“I’ll take your word for it, Broll,” the monarch finally said. “The question remains, what to do about it?”
“My shan’do is the key…somehow. I believe he’s the key.” Broll indicated Lucan. “Your man’s got a distinctive talent…but it has a tendency to send us on a different path. We need to reach Darnassus fast…faster than even I can travel on my own…”
“There are still some flying mounts left to us here in the keep,”
Varian suggested. “A couple that might be useful—”
Tyrande suddenly stepped up. “King Varian. If you can answer a question, it occurs to me suddenly that there might be another manner by which one of us could reach Darnassus much more quickly. Even more quickly than the swiftest mount you have.”
“If I can answer in any way that aids our plight, by all means ask…”
“Do you know where our ambassador is now?”
Varian scowled. “Caught in her sleep like so many others…in her chambers, if I recall the report.”
“We need someone to take us to her,” the high priestess insisted.
“I can’t leave command.” The king looked from Tyrande to Broll.
Finally, “Major Mattingly!”
A gray-haired veteran soldier in bright gold-and-red armor with a royal blue surcoat bearing the proud Stormwind lion head rushed up. His face was lined by long experience and he wore a short beard. In his right hand he wielded a longsword.
“The druid!” the major rasped when he saw Broll. “I know you…”
“And I you,” Broll returned. “You serve under General Marcus Jonathan—” The night elf broke off, recalling what the soldier who had brought them here had said. The Valley of Heroes, where the general and Mattingly would have been stationed, had already fallen.
The major’s eyes verified Broll’s concern. “The general sent for reinforcements when first the mists began to take our men. He sent me to procure them. Before I could return, the mist covered the valley…”
“Damned fool here almost rode into it even then,” Varian added without any anger. “But Mattingly knew we needed every man and ordered his just-gathered force back here…” To the major, the lord of Stormwind said, “You know where the night elf ambassador lived — lives. I need someone trusting but wary enough to get them there
…though I’ve not been told exactly why.”
Tyrande did not hesitate. “She has a hearthstone.”
Varian’s eyes were not the only ones to widen. Broll also knew of what the high priestess spoke, though even he himself had only twice seen one of the artifacts. A hearthstone was a palm-sized crystal, oval in shape, that was bound by arcane magic to not only its bearer, but a particular place. Most often, they were tied to great locations such as, apparently in this case, Darnassus. Distance did not matter.
“I’d thought them only legend,” Varian remarked warily. “Things heard only in stories concerning magi…or elves.”
“Or elves,” the high priestess repeated with a brief, dour smile.
“Interesting that your ambassador should have one.”
“But good for us now, perhaps.” Tyrande calmly responded.
Nodding, the king said no more. He looked to the major, who saluted. Mattingly signaled the others to follow him.
Varian made no attempt to stop the orc from following the night elves and neither Broll nor Tyrande dared leave her with the humans. Thura likewise appeared to have no inclination to stay.
But one member of their party proved a surprise. Rather than remaining with his king and countrymen, Lucan Foxblood also followed.
“You’re home,” Broll muttered. “Stay here!”
“I might be needed,” Lucan argued, his eyes filled with a determination that would not be denied. “My abilities may be unpredictable and dangerous, but they may be of some use…in case of a need to escape…”
The druid said nothing more. They were already at the keep gates.
A shouted command from the major opened the way, though the sentries were quick to shut the entrance right behind them. As they exited the keep, Tyrande remarked on what all of them immediately noticed.
“The mist is thick here, but those poor souls are nowhere to be seen…”
“Why should they be here?” Broll grimly returned. “This part of Stormwind’s already under their master’s reign!”
Indeed, there came not a sound from anywhere nearby, though in the distance they could hear the shouts, screams, and explosions that marked the dwindling defense. The eerie silence was a stark reminder of what much of Azeroth was like at this point.
“She must hold on,” the druid rumbled, referring to Ysera. “She must…”
“And we must pray that Malfurion is all right and can help us,”
Tyrande added. She did not say what was clear in her tone, that she was also simply fearful for him for his own sake and for the love she bore for him.
“Your ambassador keeps a dwelling in the Trade District,” the major informed them, “though I’ve never understood why she would prefer that to the Park, where your people tend to congregate.”
When the high priestess did not explain, Mattingly tugged on his beard and changed the subject. “Best we avoid Cathedral Square.
They’re still defending it and we might get caught up in a spell. Also, we’ve got to avoid the canals…the mists are particularly strong in them…they caught a lot of people unaware down there when they first flowed into the city.”
Lucan grimaced. “But that means we’ll have to pass through the Old Town district.”
This brought a harsh laugh from Mattingly. “At this point that won’t make too much of a difference to most of the rest of the capital, Foxblood!”
They ran along a stone street upon whose northern side was marked an entrance to the Dwarven District. From there flowed more sounds of desperate struggle. The dwarves, at least, were still fighting.
With continued vigilance, the major led them across a walkway and into the Old Town. There, despite their guide’s comment, the others could see that Lucan had been rightly concerned about entering. The Old Town district was a part of Stormwind City that had not been so hard hit by the orcs and thus had never needed true rebuilding. However, that also meant that less attention had been paid to its upkeep since then, and so while preserved, it was not nearly as pristine as the rest of the capital. True, the Hall of Champions could be found here, as well as the army’s barracks, but so could beggars, thieves, and the poor. The streets were far dirtier than what the party had traveled thus far and there was an odor of decay that had nothing to do with the Nightmare save that it enhanced it yet more.
“Bodies…” Mattingly warned.
Three ragged humans lay sprawled to the side. The first had one hand curled into a fist. His mouth gaped. The other two looked as if they had been trying to help one anoth
er walk, for each had an arm around the other. The major left the others long enough to prod them.
“The first one’s dead — of fright, it looks like to me — but the other two are sleeping like the rest,” he reported. “We move on.”
It was soon evident that, if not for their guide, there would have been a good chance that Broll and the others would have become lost. Even Lucan, a mapmaker, did not seem to know this part of Stormwind City well. In addition to the mists, the streets had a way of meandering to them that fueled the party’s already great anxiety.
They came across more bodies, but Major Mattingly this time did not pause to examine them. It was clear that all were victims, whether still alive or dead being pointless.
With much relief, Broll saw that they were approaching the canal entrance to the Trade District. The mists were as thick there as in the Old Town, but there was no sign of the attack going on around the keep or the cathedral. Still, no one assumed that they would remain untouched by the Nightmare.
“We make a left once we get out of the passage,” the officer informed them.
Leaning close to Tyrande, Broll murmured, “Why is the ambassador living in this part of the capital rather than the Park?”
In a barely audible whisper, the high priestess replied, “Because there are those I need her to meet in secret who would be too obvious in the Park.” As Broll’s gaze narrowed, Tyrande added, “There is no threat to Varian or Stormwind; the ambassador’s duties are steered toward just the opposite, Broll. Now ask me no more.”
He did as she bade, aware that, as leader of her people, Tyrande was forced into political actions of which perhaps even her trusted Shandris was unaware. It would not be simply for the sake of the night elf race, though that was paramount, but for the overall benefit of all the Alliance.
The Trade District bore the semblance of a much better kept, even more eclectic quarter. Broll would have been happy to walk its cobblestone streets had it been as it normally was. The bustling activity, the various races and callings…they reminded him of the richness that had been Azeroth.
But now the Trade District was too much a twin to the Old Town.
The mist hung over the shops, inns, and other buildings as if over a vast and intricate necropolis. Worse, bodies lay sprawled in greater numbers, as if many of the inhabitants had simply collapsed in midstep.
“They dead or sleeping?” Thura suddenly asked. The orc had kept silent throughout the journey. Her tone indicated an uncertainty she had likely been trying to hide. These were not dangers for which a warrior trained.
“No time to check or to care,” Mattingly replied. He pointed to a shadowed structure to the right. “That’s the building there.”
They reached the building — an inn — without any menace arising.
Broll and Tyrande exchanged concerned glances; their fortune had thus far been too good.
“Best if some of us guard the way down here,” the major suggested, eyeing the still street. The sounds of struggle were muted, as if Stormwind City’s last defenses were failing.
“I will find the room,” Tyrande decided.
“And I’ll come with you,” Broll insisted. “My shan’do would never forgive me for letting you go alone…and neither would I.”
Thura grunted. “I stay here, where an ax has room to cleave.”
“I’ll stay, too.” Lucan eyed the major and the orc and took up a place between them. Mattingly handed him a long dagger.
“We’ll hurry,” the high priestess promised. In truth, there was little the three could do to defend the vicinity; they served best as watchers.
The interior of the inn was marked by the body of a stout human who was likely a patron of the establishment. He sat in a chair, arms dangling at his side. His expression was contorted into such a look of horror that the night elves could not help but stop in their tracks.
Broll leaned close. The human was murmuring something. His brow tightened.
“We must go on.” Tyrande strode up a set of wooden stairs two steps at a time.
Broll eyed the man a moment more, for some reason finding this victim of particular interest. Then, still dissatisfied, the druid followed after Tyrande.
He reached the upper floor to find several doors already flung open. Far ahead, Tyrande shoved aside the one at the end.
“This is it…” the high priestess said.
But as Broll joined her, he saw nothing but a nearly empty chamber with several flowering plants — still fresh and well-cared for — and a bed that was covered with a woven green blanket.
“She’s gone…” the druid muttered. “They said she was asleep, like the others.”
Tyrande wordlessly stalked into the chamber, seeking the wooden wardrobe at the far end. She flung open one of the two doors, the creaking sound echoing ominously.
The high priestess prayed. The light of Elune came down and spread over the interior…but then focused most on one empty corner. Tyrande reached to that area.
She clutched something unseen. As the high priestess raised it up, the light restored the object to visibility.
It was the hearthstone.
“It looks old,” Broll commented.
“Brought by a survivor from Zin-Azshari,” Tyrande said with some distaste. “I would have had it destroyed merely because of its original ties to that accursed place, but creating a new hearthstone is even more monumental than changing an old one’s spell patterns…”
Long, oval and crystalline, it was covered with soft blue runes that glowed. Those runes were particular to the location to which it was tied and the one to whom the hearthstone had been given.
With it, they could travel instantaneously from any distance to the hearthstone’s origin point…in this case, Darnassus.
“Why did the ambassador have this?” the druid asked.
“To escape from here, if necessary.”
“Hmmph. Worked well for her, didn’t it?”
The high priestess said nothing, instead intent on the artifact.
Originally, it had been crafted by arcane means, but the Mother Moon had provided her with the power to alter it once already. She clutched the stone in both hands and began a prayer, hoping that the deity would grant her the ability to do it a second time.
“There’s something wrong here,” Broll whispered, looking around. “Something very wrong—”
Tyrande paid no attention. “The hearthstone is resisting. The ambassador is still alive, wherever she is…”
From the wardrobe there came a terrible howl.
Tyrande turned, but not in time to keep from being seized by a gaunt form that had somehow been hidden where even the light of Elune could not penetrate. It brought the high priestess to the floor.
The hearthstone went rolling free.
The maniacal creature lunged toward Broll. She was clad in the ruins of the robes of a high-ranking night elf, but it was a pendant tangled in her robes that definitively marked her as the missing ambassador.
“You’ll not take my children, demons!” she screamed. “You’ll not take them!”
Her eyes seized Broll’s attention, for they could not be seen.
The ambassador’s lids were squeezed tightly shut.
“She’s dreaming!” he warned.
And as the druid shouted, from without came a warning call from the major. There also came other screams that to the night elves were far too reminiscent of their attacker.
Tyrande prayed. Silver light from above bathed the other frenzied female before her. The ambassador seemed to calm —
But then a shadow passed over her face. Her mouth twisted and she began to scream anew.
On each side of her peeled away shadow creatures such as had attacked the high priestess in her tent. They lunged at Tyrande and would have seized her if not for the moonlight still near her.
The light shifted as if of its own accord, coming between Elune’s servant and her new attackers. The two shadows recoiled.
Struggling away from the ambassador, Tyrande called, “Broll!
The hearthstone! Take it up!”
He did as bade, but when he prepared to toss it to her, she shook her head. “You can use it now! It should be able to send you to Darnassus!”
“You want me to abandon you?”
“No! I want you to help us all by finding Malfurion! Go! I command it!”
She had never commanded the druid and he knew that she did not like ruling in such an imperious manner. Broll understood the necessity of what she wanted, though it pained him to leave her and the others in such straits.
“I’ll find him! We’ll stop this!”
He held the hearthstone and concentrated. The stone began to glow.
The shadow creatures focused on him. The line between nightmare and reality was slipping more and more and the druid had no doubt that these fiends were now capable of true and deadly violence. Broll knew that he had to keep his focus on the hearthstone and the location to which it was tied.
Silver light swallowed up the nearest of his attackers. The shadow let out a pained hiss and twisted into itself before fading.
The second turned to Tyrande, who struggled with the unfortunate ambassador. Broll almost pursued the creature, but Tyrande glared at the druid.
The hearthstone flared.
Broll vanished from the room —
— And materialized in Darnassus.
A Darnassus in the midst of a horror all its own. Broll was tossed up and down. He lost his grip on the hearthstone, which tumbled out of sight.
At first the druid thought that Darnassus was suffering an earthquake, but that was very unlikely here atop Teldrassil. Then his heightened senses revealed the terrible truth; it was Teldrassil itself that attacked the night elves. Branches assailed every structure. The huge ones upon which the city had been built were shaking, the cause of the quake. Everywhere, black, thorned leaves stormed down on the citizenry, piercing their flesh or leaving long, vicious cuts. Several bodies lay sprawled over the once beautiful terrain.
Yet the inhabitants of the capital were not without their defenders. The Sisters of Elune stood at the forefront, protecting as best they could those around them. Their light hindered, if not held back, the evil.
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