There was one hope, one other with the strength…if he believed. “Broll! Look into me! See what must be done!”
“These mean nothing!” Broll bitterly shouted back, indicating his great antlers. “I’m not like you, Shan’do!”
“You are!” Malfurion insisted, the strain in his voice growing.
“Feel your tie to Azeroth! You can stop this! Or will you just let them all die horribly?”
It was a cold question and Malfurion despised himself for having to ask it, but he could no longer hold off. The rest of the night elf race — the rest of Azeroth — had little more time left than the druids did.
Malfurion focused on Fandral. As he stared at his rival, he saw the shadow creature behind and yet also a part of the mad archdruid. It was guiding Fandral’s thoughts for its true master.
Malfurion understood what he had to do, though it risked much.
He threw himself at Fandral, transforming to cat semblance as he did. Fandral reacted as expected, drawing a handful of tiny thorns from a pouch and flinging them toward the giant feline.
Malfurion changed back, casting another spell as he did. For most druids, even those of Malfurion’s skill, the odds of success would have been minimal. However, Malfurion had been the first trained by the demigod Cenarius. He had also learned his craft with the first invasion of the Burning Legion, and honed those skills well over the past ten thousand years.
The hurricane wind caught up the thorns and threw them back at Fandral, who cast a spell of his own. The vines that had held Hamuul and Shandris spat hundreds of drops of sticky sap at the thorns, sealing the deadly missiles inside and causing them to all land short of Malfurion’s nemesis.
“Hardly worthy of—” Fandral started.
Fire that glowed like the stars — Malfurion’s true attack — struck the shadow creature behind Fandral.
The murky figure twisted into itself as the fire engulfed it. It hissed and howled. Bits of burning shadow fluttered off in the wind.
“Valstann!” Fandral desperately clutched at the shadow. He tried in vain to douse the fire, but only succeeded in becoming caught up in it. Even then, the archdruid paid the agony no mind as he grabbed at the fiend he believed his lost child.
A hand spun Fandral around. Before he could react, Malfurion struck him in the jaw. It was the least of attacks that he could have used against the other archdruid and Malfurion’s choice for many reasons.
Fandral tumbled back.
There was little left of the shadow creature. Like Fandral before him, Malfurion reached for what remained. The fire even burned him, but he knew how to lessen the sense of pain from it. It was vital that he make contact with the shadow.
Only fragments remained. Malfurion had tried to temper his attack in order to give him this necessary moment, but still he was nearly too late.
One hand thrust into the shadow. Instantly, a horrific chill enveloped his soul. Malfurion steeled himself and drove his mind into the shadow.
And what he sensed verified the dread that had been building up in him since first he was captured by the Nightmare Lord.
The last of the shadow burned away and with it went the fire.
Malfurion took a breath as he regained his equilibrium. He turned to Fandral, but the other night elf lay sprawled where he had left him, Fandral’s eyes open but not seeing. The second loss of his
“son” had been too much.
Malfurion turned to Broll — and his eyes widened.
Broll Bearmantle stood among the suffering druids, his hands raised above his head and the energies of Azeroth swirling around him. His formerly silver eyes now blazed nearly as gold as Malfurion’s. From his hands, tendrils of energy stretched out to each of the other druids.
Two riddled bodies lay on the ground — the first of Fandral’s victims — but for the other druids, there appeared hope. Hamuul Runetotem stood with Broll, giving what aid he could, but the effort was truly the night elf’s.
You are as you were destined to be, Malfurion thought with relief and pride.
Belatedly, he realized that there was no sign of Shandris.
Knowing her as he did, Malfurion felt certain that she had gone to direct Darnassus’s defenders.
Malfurion transformed. Once again the great cat, he raced from the enclave and into central Darnassus. Around him, he registered the struggle still going on. Even without Fandral, Darnassus was in terrible danger, but Malfurion could only help them by continuing on.
Out into the forest beyond the capital he ran. Immediately, the branches and leaves of the nearby trees sought to bar his path.
Malfurion lithely dodged them when he could, tore through them with his claws and teeth when he could not. His thick fur kept his body from much harm, but still more than a score of bloody slashes marked him before he reached the deep interior of Teldrassil’s crown.
A savage, towering figure emerged from the tree, so much a part of it that even the archdruid barely noticed it in time. The ancient moved to take into account evasion by Malfurion, so Malfurion instead lunged directly toward it.
The corrupted forest guardian tried to recover, but Malfurion dove under the creature’s legs. More swift and agile, the cat eluded the gigantic ancient.
The World Tree’s crown both thickened and darkened. Thorns grew everywhere. No true cat the size of Malfurion could have wended its way as he did; the night elf made use of reflexes honed over century upon century.
But just as he neared where he sensed his goal lay, a small, furred form leapt upon his muzzle and scratched at his eyes. It was only a squirrel, one of the many denizens of the tree, but even it had been corrupted by the taint.
The squirrel was a foe easily discarded by a shake of the head, but that was not the true danger. Malfurion tried to compensate for whatever was to follow. When a smaller branch snagged one paw and nearly made him tumble, the archdruid immediately reverted to his normal form and caught himself before he could be snared by waiting branches from other surrounding trees.
Shadow creatures whose outlines he recognized dropped from the branches above. The fiends piled upon the spot where Malfurion had stood. They tore at both Malfurion’s body and soul —
A savage roar from within sent the shadows sprawling back.
Huge, glowing claws swiped at the creatures, reducing several to shreds. Once more in his feline form, Malfurion utilized its inherent abilities to decimate his murky attackers.
They fell to his claws as grass fell to a reaper. Within seconds, there remained only Malfurion the cat, a victor who unleashed one last powerful roar, then lunged the last few yards toward that which he sought.
It thrust up from the World Tree’s trunk, and though on the one hand it was shaped like one of many massive tree branches spread throughout Teldrassil, its color marked it starkly. It was a color that Malfurion associated with something other than a tree, tainted or not. Indeed, as he shifted back to night elf, he had only to gaze at his hand to see skin of a like hue.
Even without touching it, the archdruid could sense how expertly it had been grafted into what had at the time surely been a much less mature Teldrassil. Malfurion could tell Fandral’s work and knew that the other archdruid must have returned several times to assist his addition in its foul growth. It now stretched more than eight feet in height, its sub-branches all at least three to four feet themselves and covered with scores of the dark, thorned leaves. There was also pale fruit vaguely shaped like skulls.
Malfurion approached the grafting. The fruits glistened and one of them fell near the night elf. It cracked open upon impact with the branch upon which the archdruid stood. A thick, ivory substance poured from it, the stench accompanying the substance like that from a field of rotting corpses.
Malfurion edged away from it, though that also put him a step farther from the grafting. He knew that was what the Nightmare Lord had in mind, but could do nothing else.
Another fruit dropped. As it cracked open, the ivory subs
tance became hundreds of bone-colored millipedes with heads resembling fleshless night elf skulls.
Malfurion Stormrage… they called as they converged on him.
Malfurion Stormrage…time you came to join us…
He recognized those voices. Each was different, yet he knew every single last one of them. There was Lord Ravencrest, who had commanded the night elf forces until assassinated by an agent of Queen Azshara’s Highborne; the high priestess Dejahna — Tyrande’s predecessor; the evil Captain Varo’then — Azshara’s devoted servant — and so many, many others who had haunted both his and surely Tyrande’s thoughts over the millennia.
Malfurion…we have waited so long…come join us in our long rest…
He wavered, standing without doing anything as the monstrous millipedes reached his feet. The first crawled atop his foot, its skeletal jaws opening wideThe archdruid reached down and seized it. He squeezed tight.
The millipede wailed like a dying night elf. Its ghastly outer shell peeled away to reveal a beautiful rose sprouting upward.
The others in the swarm also began to wail. Each suffered as the one in Malfurion’s hand did.
“Let this be their legacy,” he intoned to the grafting as roses sprouted everywhere. “Let this honor those who stood in defense of Azeroth…not traded their world for ultimate power…”
Teldrassil’s crown shook as if a massive wind blew through it.
The shaking leaves of the hundreds of smaller trees atop it created what to Malfurion’s ears was an angry, bitter roar.
He used that moment of the Nightmare Lord’s anger to shift form again, but this time into a huge bear, a dire bear. With its tremendous strength, Malfurion seized the grafting and tore it from Teldrassil. He dug into the very trunk, ripping even the “roots” out.
The World Tree trembled. Huge trees astride it broke free.
Malfurion the bear pressed against the trunk as the upheaval grew.
He could only hope that those in Darnassus were protecting themselves.
The shaking subsided. The druid immediately sought out with his mind the extent of the damage and was shocked. Despite the brevity of the tremor, the intensity had been enough to leave the forests of Teldrassil in ruins. Entire mighty oaks had snapped in two. Much of the crown was a tangle of dangerous refuse.
Darnassus must be abandoned, the archdruid determined.
Until the extent of the damage to the World Tree itself was known, everyone was at risk.
Even as Malfurion thought that, a great mass of ruined trees suddenly proved too much for those supporting their weight. With a sound like reverberating thunder, the holding branches cracked and tons of wood and dirt dropped with a resounding crash. There, their momentum wreaked havoc on other gigantic trees and the stunning sight repeated.
Then, even despite the World Tree’s woes, the archdruid looked to the lone branch that he had ripped free. It had paled much and now something dripped from it. It was a thick substance with the consistency of tree sap, but was hardly the color. In fact, Malfurion’s ursine senses picked up a scent to it, one that stirred an incredible fury within him.
It was the source of the taint that had spread through Teldrassil.
Malfurion let out a bestial growl. He knew what it was…and thus, how it had come to be.
It was blood. Thick though it was, it was fresh and looked otherwise exactly like that which flowed through his or any other night elf’s body.
Blood…from a tree.
The druid reverted to his true shape as the realization struck him. There was only one such tree. Millennia ago, Malfurion had caused that tree to come into being. He had done so to put an end to an evil and bring from it some good…but evidently had merely set into motion a more terrible darkness.
The branch was from the tree that cast the shadow of the Nightmare Lord.
A tree that had once been the dread counselor to foul Queen Azshara.
The name was as poison on Malfurion’s lips. “Xavius…”
23
TELDRASSIL REDEEMED
Xavius. How well Malfurion still recalled the queen’s malicious confidante. It had been Lord Xavius who had fueled the spellwork by Azshara’s Highborne sorcerers that had opened the path for the Burning Legion. Rather than be repelled by what he discovered, Xavius had ever been there to assist his insidious queen as she welcomed the demons through.
Twice, Malfurion had thought him no more. That first time had been during a desperate struggle atop the very tower where the portal for the demons had been opened. Malfurion, his druidic powers strong, had raised a storm that had first set Xavius aflame by lightning, then melted him by rain, and finally unleashed a roar of thunder that had literally shattered the villain. Malfurion could still recall Xavius’s contorted face — especially the sinister, magically crafted eyes of black with the streak of ruby running across each.
The archdruid especially remembered the counselor’s last, nervewracking shriek.
And then, Xavius had ceased to exist.
But he and the defenders had all underestimated the power of the evil titan Sargeras. After snaring what little remained of Xavius’s disembodied spirit and torturing it long for the counselor’s failures, Sargeras had remolded it into something more terrible.
Xavius had been reborn as a satyr — the first of the goatlike monsters now so long the enemies of the night elves — and his malevolence had only grown with his new, hideous aspect.
Malfurion had nearly lost Tyrande to Xavius and his fellow corrupted Highborne. In the end, unable to risk Xavius escaping death again, Malfurion had called upon Azeroth’s power to transform the satyr. Despite Xavius’s struggling, the young druid had turned his foe into a harmless tree.
Or so he had believed for the past ten millennia. The evil had been festering upon Azeroth all that time and Malfurion had never known.
All this Malfurion reflected upon with anger at himself as, once more in cat form, the branch clamped in his teeth, he rushed back to Darnassus. He blamed himself for what was happening now, yet he also pondered how Xavius had survived so long to become the Nightmare Lord.
But that thought was shoved aside as he entered the capital and transformed. Darnassus was in ruins and much of that was due to the collapse of other limbs from the vast tree. Victims of the Nightmare’s servants also lay everywhere. The Sisters of Elune and the Sentinels were seeking to help those they could.
He spotted Shandris Feathermoon giving commands to both groups. The general looked weary, but in her element.
Unfortunately, she did not realize the danger still surrounding their people.
“Shandris!” At his voice, she whirled.
“Malfurion…” the general said, saluting him respectfully and looking much relieved. “Praise be that you’re all right.” She noticed the unsettling branch that he now hefted in both hands and her brow furrowed. “By the Mother Moon! What foulness has afflicted that?”
“This is the taint that spread through Teldrassil,” the archdruid hurriedly answered. “But we must not concern ourselves with that at the moment! Darnassus must be cleared! The World Tree has suffered greatly; the ruined trees you see around you are only a fraction! For everyone’s safety, they must leave!”
As if to emphasize this, another thundering crack echoed through Darnassus. The city shook. Teldrassil would stand, but the same could not necessarily be said for the capital.
“I’ll see that it’s done!” Shandris promised.
“I will see to the druids,” Malfurion told her as they separated.
“We may be able to do something to stave it off…but I cannot promise it…”
“Understood!”
An agonized cry erupted from elsewhere, a voice full of loss. It did not come from any of the victims to which Malfurion looked, but rather from an unexpected direction.
He turned toward the enclave to find the other druids already streaming from there. Broll had the lead, with Hamuul close behind.
&
nbsp; The source of the never-ending cry was Fandral. Eyes unseeing, the archdruid shouted his son’s name over and over. He pleaded for Valstann to come back to him.
Two other druids guided him by hand as he stumbled along, calling to his son. Behind them, other druids guarded a small band
…those who had chosen Fandral’s madness over all else. It was already obvious to Malfurion what would have to be done with them.
The Moonglade had places that could hold the sick or corrupted of mind. For those who had followed Fandral, there was hope that they could be redeemed.
But as he studied Valstann’s father, Malfurion wondered if Fandral would ever be cured. Between the Nightmare and his personal loss, the mad archdruid looked as if he had lost himself forever.
Malfurion met with Broll, giving him the same warning that he had Shandris. Broll nodded his understanding, but his eyes kept shifting to the macabre branch. Malfurion finally informed him of what he had divined.
“Xavius…” Broll did not know the name, but had felt the immense anger and dread in his shan’do’s voice when Malfurion had spoken it.
“The druids must help the people leave, then be prepared to hear from me. It will not be very long, so they must hurry!”
“What do you hope to do?”
Malfurion seized a smaller branch thrusting out near the top. He snapped it off. The same thick, foul liquid slowly dripped from it.
“What I must. What we must.”
That said, Malfurion quickly called for a torch. Secreting the smaller branch upon his person, the archdruid set the larger branch afire. In just the blink of an eye, it burnt to ash, which he let the wind carry away.
“Be ready,” he asked Broll.
“Of course, Shan’do! I—”
But Malfurion had already transformed and taken to the sky.
Tyrande knew who spoke even though she had been unconscious during their previous encounter. She knew because Malfurion had later told her the terrifying facts…and what he had done to her captor.
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