Beyond the Dark Portal

by Aaron Rosenberg

  “Gryphons!” Kilrogg shouted, raising his axe above his head. “Take cover!”

  Chaos erupted. Orcs ducked behind tree trunks and slid into the nearby river or hugged its banks. Everyone was stumbling and running and falling, scrabbling in the darkness to avoid the dimly seen figures up above.

  A second lightning bolt streaked through the trees and seared Ner’zhul’s sight, leaving nothing but a blinding white for an instant and flashing afterimages when that had faded. Then a thunderclap shook the forest, rattling the trees and throwing many orc warriors off their feet.

  Clearly one of the Wildhammers’ attacks had been successful.

  The Wildhammers flew down upon their gryphons, hurling their stormhammers left and right. Some attacks missed their target, but those accursed hammers merely rose and returned to their owners, who loosed them again like vengeful spirits. Lightning split the air again and again, and the thunder was an almost constant roar. When they were not throwing their hammers, they were swooping in so close that the gryphons themselves could attack the orcs, slashing throats with claws the size of an orc hand, pecking out eyes and fracturing skulls with a single jab of a deadly beak. Between flashes Ner’zhul saw that some of the orcs had clustered together, assuming safety in numbers but in reality only providing an easier target. He watched a hammer blow scatter a dozen orcs at once. After the thunder and lightning only one of them even stirred, and that feebly.

  “They’re slaughtering us!” he hissed at Gorefiend, who was crouched beside him. “Do something!”

  The death knight glared at him, and a slow, calculating grin spread across his rotting face. “This is but a handful of short human pretenders and overgrown birds. I thought the mighty Ner’zhul would be able to handle such a pathetic attack. But no matter. I can, if you are unable.” He started to rise.

  The impudence! Ner’zhul’s mind shot back to the conversation with Gul’dan’s skull.

  Arrogance! He should not speak so to you.

  No. He should not.

  “You should not speak so to me, Teron Gorefiend,” he said, his voice icy. Gorefiend blinked, surprised at his tone. “Nor will I permit it from you again.”

  Ner’zhul rose, fueled by his anger. He clenched his fists and concentrated on the earth beneath them and the air around them. His shamanistic magic had once made him one with this world, able to tap the elements themselves. But the elements no longer heeded his call—they had not since he had sworn allegiance to Kil’jaeden, as if the elements were disgusted by the demonic energy that now tainted all his race. But no matter. He had learned new skills since.

  Whereas before the forest had been still, save for the cries of attack and the wails of the dying, now a wind erupted out of nowhere. A gryphon that had a moment before been diving smoothly for another pass, beak open in an angry shriek, claws extended, now cawed frantically as it was buffeted about as if by an unseen hand. Its rider struggled to maintain his seat, but failed and fell heavily toward the ground. The unburdened gryphon sought the skies. Ner’zhul gestured with both hands commandingly, and the wind snatched up dry gray sand and proceeded to scour both dwarf and gryphon with it. The Wildhammer cried out, not in victory but in agony as his skin was scoured from his bones. It was a sweet sound to Ner’zhul’s ears. Its mount was no luckier. Feathers flew and droplets of blood were caught up in the whirlwind. Seconds later there was nothing but two piles of glistening flesh on the forest floor.

  But Ner’zhul was nowhere near done.

  A wave of his left hand, and rocks the size of his head dislodged themselves from the earth and shot upward as if hurled by the very ground rippling beneath them. Ner’zhul turned his attention to the rest of the Wildhammers. More rocks erupted from the ground, propelled into the sky, and the gryphons and their riders tried to dodge the suddenly animate stones. The attack against the orcs ended as the Wildhammers found themselves forced to concentrate on evading this new menace.

  Ner’zhul turned to Gorefiend, a slightly superior smile on his lips. The death knight looked surprised, but recovered quickly. “Nicely done,” Gorefiend said. “Now let me see if I can add to the confusion.” Studying the forms darting about overhead, the death knight stood still a moment, eyes narrowed. “There,” he said at last, gesturing toward one dwarf in particular. “I have seen that one before, during the Second War. He is their leader.” Gorefiend stood up and raised his hands high. They began to glow with a pulsing green light, and then that energy shot upward, striking both gryphon and rider.

  The gryphon squawked in obvious pain and plummeted, its wings furled tightly around it. At the same time, its rider convulsed as well and toppled out of his saddle. The gryphon managed to shake off its injuries and spread its wings just in time, turning a dead fall into a choppy glide and then beating hard to rise back up above the lower branches and into the shadows. Its rider was not so fortunate. The dwarf slammed into the ground and lay unmoving. Gorefiend was already sprinting toward the body, as was Kilrogg, and Ner’zhul joined them.

  This was the first dwarf Ner’zhul had ever seen up close, and he studied the strange little figure intently, taking in the stout muscular build, the craggy features, the long braided beard and hair, and the tattoos that covered most of the dwarf’s flesh. The Wildhammer was bleeding from several gashes, but his chest still rose and fell regularly.

  “Excellent,” Kilrogg commented, pulling a leather strip from his belt pouch and tying the dwarf’s hands together behind his back, then doing the same to his feet. “Now we have a captive.” He lifted the bound dwarf to his feet, and bellowed, “Begone, winged pests, or we will slaughter and devour your leader while you watch!”

  The Wildhammers apparently decided they had had enough. The gryphons cawed and clacked their beaks, then wheeled and flew up beyond the trees, disappearing from view. Only Kilrogg’s captive remained behind.

  But that couldn’t last. “We need to assess our losses,” Kilrogg pointed out after the Wildhammers had gone. “And we should post scouts to check on the rest of the Alliance army.”

  Ner’zhul nodded. “Take care of it,” he said absently. He would die before admitting it, but he found himself surprised by his own power. It had come so easily, and was so strong. And produced such impressive results. It felt…good.

  “We lost a full quarter of our forces,” Kilrogg reported some time later, stepping back up beside Ner’zhul where the shaman waited against one of the larger trees. “Those dwarves know how to attack quickly and effectively, and they used the trees to good advantage.” Ner’zhul could hear the grudging respect in the aging chieftain’s tone. Kilrogg was too good a strategist not to appreciate sound tactics, even if they were from the other side.

  Then Gorefiend joined them. “The rest of their army is still racing toward us,” he confirmed. “Clearly they sent the dwarves on ahead to wound us and slow us down.” The death knight bared his teeth at their captive, who lay on the ground near Ner’zhul’s feet. He had groaned several times but had not yet regained consciousness.

  “How far behind us are they?” Ner’zhul demanded.

  “Still a day, perhaps two. And in our current state we cannot stand against them.”

  Ner’zhul nodded. “Then only one course of action remains,” he stated. “We must go to Auchindoun.”

  Kilrogg started, his eyes bulging, though he must have known this was coming. “N-no!” he stuttered. “We cannot! Not there!”

  “Do not be such a whelp,” Gorefiend sneered at him. “We are out of options! That is the only way we can hope to survive the Alliance army and reach the Black Temple!”

  But the one-eyed orc shook his head hard. “There must be another way!” He grabbed Ner’zhul’s arm with one hand and Kilrogg’s with the other. “There must be! We cannot go to Auch—to there! It will be the end of us!”

  “It will not,” Ner’zhul replied coldly, pulling his arm free and staring at the orc. “Auchindoun is an unpleasant ruin, and a reminder of an ugly time in our past
. Nothing more.”

  It was more, of course. Much more. Auchindoun had been well over a hundred summers old when Ner’zhul himself had been only a baby. It had belonged to the draenei then as always, hidden away deep within Terokkar Forest. The old shaman had told them that it was a sacred place where the draenei buried their dead and then returned to commune with their spirits, just as the orc shaman communed with their own ancestors. As youths Ner’zhul and his clanmates had crept through the forest to study the strange place, staring at its towering, chiseled stone dome. They had challenged each other to enter, to race through the tall doorway carved into the arching stone block that marked the dome’s front, touch something within, and then return. None of them had dared attempt it. Ner’zhul had gone farther than most, creeping up to the entryway and running his hands along the rough stone that formed its massive doorway, but he could not bring himself to go farther. According to his clan’s shaman, no one ever had. “The draenei dead protect their own,” he had said.

  Then the war had come. The orcs had banded together, setting aside their clan rivalries. As a single mass they had attacked the peaceful draenei and slaughtered them. Ner’zhul tried not to remember the part he had played in that destruction, or the fiery creature who had given the order to destroy those quiet, unthreatening neighbors. And when Ner’zhul had refused to subject his people to such an outsider’s control, when he had resisted that stranger’s grandiose plans, he had been replaced. His own apprentice, Gul’dan, had willingly given himself to the stranger, binding himself to the creature’s will and gaining immense power in return. Gul’dan had fed the Horde’s bloodlust, transforming the orcs into the savages they were today. Then they had crushed the draenei and their entire culture. Only a few had escaped, and those had fled into Auchindoun, hoping the orcs would not pursue them there.

  They had been mistaken. Gul’dan’s lust for power knew no limits, and his new master had promised him untold might if he wiped the draenei from the face of the world. So Gul’dan had sent agents, a group of warlocks from his Shadow Council, which controlled the Horde warchief Blackhand from behind the scenes. They had marched into Auchindoun, confident in their victory and already imagining the power they would wield from the artifacts rumored to be buried there.

  But something had gone wrong. They had found an artifact, to be sure, only to discover that it contained a strange entity—a being they had freed, though whether deliberately or through careless arrogance no one could now be sure. Because the creature’s exultant escape had shattered Auchindoun itself, the great stone dome crumbling, the massive temple within it torn to pieces, and the countless underground tunnels that housed the draenei dead exploding outward into countless fragments. The impact had destroyed the forest for over a league in every direction, and littered the now-barren ground with bones from the draenei who had once lain at rest within Auchindoun’s catacombs. Only a few of the Shadow Council members had survived and escaped, fleeing back to Gul’dan to report the grave-city gone but any draenei within assuredly killed as well. No one had ever returned there, and to this day orcs avoided the Bone Wastes, as the area around Auchindoun had been named.

  Until now.

  “We have no choice,” Ner’zhul reiterated, fixing first Kilrogg and then Gorefiend with his gaze. “We must go there. Some of the tunnels must survive, at least for a short length, and within them we may be able to defend ourselves. Without such protection the Alliance forces will kill us all, and our race will die with us.”

  Kilrogg sputtered something unintelligible. Gorefiend stared at him contemptuously, red eyes narrowing. “Ner’zhul is right. We’ve no other choice. But we must proceed with caution. I’ve no wish to waken something we can’t defeat.”

  “It is settled, then,” Ner’zhul said. “Is it not, Kilrogg? I should hate to leave you behind.”

  The old chieftain swallowed hard and lowered his head. “Ner’zhul, you know I am afraid of nothing that lives. Nothing that I can fight and tear to pieces. But that place…” He sighed deeply. “The Bleeding Hollow clan will go where Ner’zhul leads.”

  “Good. Between us we will be more than a match for anything that waits within those walls. Now gather our warriors, and your death knights,” he told his two lieutenants. “We must reach the Bone Wastes as soon as possible.”

  Kilrogg nodded and walked away. Gorefiend glared after him, then saluted Ner’zhul and followed, his fellow death knights clustering around him before he had gone far. Ner’zhul turned away as well, his hands clutching the bag at his side and feeling the rough shapes of the artifacts it contained. Despite his strong words, he wondered what they would find in Auchindoun. Did the draenei dead still linger there? Would they hold him responsible for the actions of his former pupil, or would they see that Gul’dan had betrayed Ner’zhul as well? Would the strange ruins prove a much-needed shelter from the Alliance army, or would taking his orcs there only expose them to even greater danger? He did not know. But he could not think what else to do, and so they would find out. Ner’zhul just hoped he was not making a grave error.

  The Horde warriors came to a stop, staring. The trees ended just behind them, and before them stretched the gray soil and littered fragments of the Bone Wastes. Auchindoun rose in its midst, squat and ugly, the remains of its shattered dome jutting upward like broken teeth, the ruined temple nestled within it like a battered head half-buried in the dull ground.

  Ner’zhul stared as well. He couldn’t help it. The last he had seen of this place, the draenei’s holy resting place, it had been ominous and intact. Now, with great gaping rents in the temple walls, with entire sections open to the sky, with the forest that had cradled it blasted away and bones covering the ground, he could barely reconcile it with the dreadful majesty of the monument that had so terrified him in his youth.

  The ground seemed to shake all around him, and at first Ner’zhul thought it was merely the rush of blood pounding through his veins, his heart racing from the sight of the ancient grave-city. Then he realized the vibrations were coming from somewhere outside himself, and glanced around. His orcs stood still or quietly shuffling, some looking around as if searching for the same thing he was. Then he looked behind them, through the trees, and saw shapes flickering there.

  “The Alliance is right behind us!” he shouted, his voice carrying easily here where the trees did not impede it. “We must take shelter! Into Auchindoun! Hurry!”

  “Move it, you worthless cretins!” Kilrogg added, slamming his axe against a nearby tree so hard the entire trunk shuddered. The sound and the motion seemed to wake the warriors from their shocked trance, and they broke into a run, all heading for the draenei building’s ruined doorway.

  Passing through that massive, lopsided portal, Ner’zhul felt a shiver of fear race through him. Were there still spirits guarding this mass tomb, as he had felt there were when he had first approached it so long ago? Or had they fled with the building’s ruination?

  There was no time to ponder such things. He hastened deep into the demolished temple and down through a gaping hole into what remained of the labyrinth below, Kilrogg and Gorefiend beside him and several of Kilrogg’s most trusted warriors before and behind them. Underground, Auchindoun was more elaborate than without, its carvings more intricate.

  Some things, it seemed, had survived, at least to some degree. An elegant arch, now shattered, rose above the base of the stairs they had used, and above that Ner’zhul saw strangely graceful shapes that seemed less faithful than representative. Thick pillars had once supported a high roof directly beneath the temple floor, and portions of them remained, their rough unadorned surfaces a strong contrast to the decorated walls around them. Niches had been carved into those walls, row upon row of them, and hints of white and yellow within told him what he would find there. Bones. No doubt all the walls had contained such draenei remains, and it was their contents that were now strewn across the Bone Wastes, the draenei ancestors exposed to the elements where once they had rest
ed in peaceful shade beneath heavy stone. The floor here was stone as well, small tiles intricately worked into a cunning pattern, and broad stairways connected different levels.

  Glancing down Ner’zhul saw at least six floors below them, their centers ripped away by that fateful explosion, the remnants now exposed to open air. Then the others pulled him into a wide tunnel that ran off to one side from this central space.

  “The walls here are still sound,” Kilrogg was saying, glancing about and nodding in approval. Ner’zhul was pleased. Kilrogg had worried him earlier, with his almost crippling fear. But now that he had made up his mind, Kilrogg was committed and calm.

  “A few collapses, but most of the ceiling remains and the floor is still passable. We can group our warriors a bit farther back, where there seems to be less damage.” He gestured toward the tunnel’s back end, which stretched on into shadow. Ner’zhul saw that he was right—there was less rubble there and the ceiling seemed unbroken. “We can set up a strong defensive post here. The Alliance will have a hard time digging us out once we’re set in.”

  “Some of the lower tunnels may still be intact,” Gorefiend pointed out. “We should check those carefully before venturing forth. If nothing…else is there, they might provide an even better stronghold.”

  Kilrogg nodded and detailed some of his warriors to search the rest of this tunnel and several to search the tunnels nearby, though he warned them not to stray too far. The others he ordered to carry rubble to the tunnel mouth and to build a low wall across it as best they could. Then he, Gorefiend, and Ner’zhul settled in to wait and to discuss battle strategies.

  A few hours later one of Kilrogg’s scouts returned. The warrior’s eyes were wide, but a faint smile played across his lips. “There is something you need to see!”

  “What is it?” Ner’zhul asked, rising to his feet and dusting his hands against his thighs. He and Gorefiend had been working on a contingency plan that might ultimately save them all, but it was not yet finished.