Lothar yanked violently on the wire. The golem was hauled backward by the motion just in time to take the Guardian’s attack spell full in its chest. It toppled backward, hurtling downward to smash through the lower-floor window. Half of the clay being remained inside, the other half—with Anduin Lothar clinging to it—dangled out the window. Lothar hung on grimly to the wire, then realized to his horror that the wire was now doing what it had been designed to do. It was cutting, slowly but inexorably, through the clay.
A second later, a huge chunk of the golem’s head was severed, hurtling down past Lothar’s own head to splat onto the earth below. Lothar scrambled to hang on, shoving his feet into the golem’s still-soft earthen back to secure his purchase. Dangling upside down, up to his calves in clay, he registered, barely, that the chanting had stopped.
But even with half its head and one leg sheared off, the golem still moved. It reached out a hand to the ledge, hauling itself and its unwanted rider back inside to the safety of the lower level. It leaned against the wall, and then attempted to reposition itself. It was about to pin Lothar between itself and the curving wall of the tower. For a moment, Lothar thought it would succeed. He unfastened his boots, freed himself, dropped to the floor, and rolled out of the way as the thing slammed itself into the wall.
When it did so a second time, Lothar realized that the creature was as of yet unaware that it no longer hosted a human parasite. He swore as he suddenly noticed that the chanting had resumed. He took advantage of the golem’s distraction to hasten to Khadgar, lifting books and debris off the body. To his relief, Khadgar looked shaken, battered, and bruised, but intact.
“Hey, kid,” he said. “Wake up!” Khadgar did not move. Lothar slapped his face. Khadgar jerked, eyes flying open, and his hand grasped Lothar’s wrist. “You all right?”
Khadgar nodded, blinking dazedly. He looked past Lothar at the golem. “Quick thinking, slicing its head off like that.”
“Yeah,” Lothar deadpanned, having no intention of disabusing the young mage of the notion. “Just how I planned it.” He hauled Khadgar to his feet. “What now?”
“The Guardian has to speak the incantation himself. As long as he’s doing that, we can get in close. Distract him.” Khadgar strode purposefully toward the lumbering clay creation.
“And then?” Lothar asked.
“Get Medivh into the font,” Khadgar replied. He took off after the golem.
“Is that all?” Lothar asked sarcastically, but even as he spoke the words he realized that this was the precise moment when he fully trusted Khadgar, as he began to climb up to the font level where Medivh stood, still chanting the horrible spell that would permit—perhaps was already permitting—thousands of bloodlust-enraged orcs to spill into Azeroth.
He moved slowly, taking his time although everything in him urged him to hurry, hurry. He paused, but the Guardian seemed far too caught up in his incantation to have noticed Lothar closing in on him from behind. Impulsively, Lothar spoke, still carefully closing the distance between them.
“Medivh… if there is something of you still in there, old friend… come back to us.” There was no response. Medivh seemed utterly oblivious to Lothar’s presence. Sorrowfully, Lothar reached with one hand to cover Medivh’s mouth.
Without even pausing in his chant, Medivh shot out his hand, seized Lothar by the throat, and lifted him up. Lothar’s hands went to his neck, trying desperately to pry Medivh’s fel-strong fingers from it. Effortlessly, Medivh moved him until Lothar dangled directly in front of him—and directly above the sickly green font.
The grip on his throat was tight, the fingers digging in, but Lothar could still breathe. Still speak.
Why? Why not just crush his windpipe and be done with it?
“Medivh,” he rasped, his eyes pleading.
Medivh hurled him away. Lothar sailed clear across the font to land hard on the other side of it.
Lothar gasped for air, fishlike, his lungs initially refusing to cooperate. Gritting his teeth against the fresh pain, he clambered to his feet, swaying drunkenly. Below him, Khadgar was attempting to trap the lumbering, half-headed golem. Lothar didn’t know why. He didn’t know much right now, only that he had to—had to—keep trying.
“Come on! Kill me. I’ve got nothing left to live for now, anyway,” he shouted once breath had returned to him. Medivh ignored him. He simply stood, implacable, continuing that damnable chanting. “After all, life is just fuel to you, isn’t it?” He was trying to goad the fel-thing into losing its focus, into attacking him. Killing him, if need be, if it would silence the chant. His voice was raw with pain as he thought of his boy, dying so brutally, shredded by the monster’s claws while his father had been forced to watch.
And then he thought of Llane. His friend. His brother, truth be told, by law and in his heart. “But Llane,” Lothar said to Medivh from across the pool of fel, “he believed in you. Don’t kill your king. Don’t kill your friend.”
Medivh paused in his chanting. His eyes changed color, from sickly green to coal black. A cold fear twisted Lothar’s gut. “Whatever is you plan to do, kid,” he called to the unseen Khadgar, “do it now!” Even as he spoke Medivh stepped into the font.
It was exactly what Khadgar had instructed Lothar to attempt to do. Lothar sagged in relief. They’d done it. He’d reached Medivh. The Guardian had stepped into the powerful magical font, and—
—began to grow.
21
Taller, bigger, wider—everything about Medivh grew larger. Muscles layered themselves upon him, taking his fit but ordinary build and transforming it into something that looked more like an orc than a human, and more like a demon than either. His skin took on a green tint, and green mist began to pour from his eyes. With each step, some new horror twisted Lothar’s old friend into a walking nightmare. Twin sets of horns sprouted from Medivh’s forehead. Jagged shards of what looked like obsidian daggers speared upward from his shoulders, for all the world as if the raven feathers that had trimmed Medivh’s cloak had turned to black crystals.
“Now,” Lothar said, horror swallowing the words. The thing that had once been the Guardian of Azeroth continued to advance, continued to grow, to reshape itself, and its terrible gaze was fixed on Lothar.
“Now!” he shouted to Khadgar. “Now, now!”
There was a shimmer of pale blue energy directly above Medivh’s head, and then the massive clay golem, all eighteen feet and countless pounds of it, came crashing down onto the demonic figure in the felpool.
* * *
It was as beautiful as Gul’dan could have imagined. The orcs charged through, from a dead world into verdant one, and the Horde bellowed a welcome. The humans despaired, and died, and Gul’dan was glad. Then his smile faded.
The green glow around the interior of the portal flickered. The image of the rest of the Horde on Draenor, waiting to come join their brethren. Such had happened before, but his great ally had always resumed. So Gul’dan waited.
Silence.
The images continued to fade even more. Still, the chant did not resume. “No,” murmured Gul’dan. “No, no…!”
A final flicker, an image of orcish silhouettes that would remain burned into his mind’s eye, and then they were gone. For a long moment, Gul’dan stared, aghast, and then he cried out till his voice was raw with rage. He whirled on the nearest cage, crammed with shrieking humans, and grasped the bars with his hands. He looked at their ugly, soft faces, then with a mighty wrench, shoved the entire cage off the platform, taking only the faintest pleasure in watching it smash to pieces and pulp far below.
“So be it!” he growled. “Our might alone will take this world!”
* * *
Khadgar hurtled down along with the golem he had teleported, landing in the font and looking tiny beside the two unnaturally sized figures. The boy gasped, and Lothar saw with horror that the fel was beginning to work its dark magic upon Khadgar as well.
Green energy crackled aroun
d Khadgar as he turned to face Lothar. He extended a hand in the commander’s direction, fingers spread wide, and Lothar braced himself for a ball of fel magic to hurtle toward him, to drain him of life and leave only a contorted shell. Instead, the air around Lothar shimmered, then formed a blue-white dome. Through the green mist that surrounded the boy, he smiled, reassuringly. And Lothar realized that far from attacking him, Khadgar had cast a shield spell around him.
The youth moved forward, kneeling beside Medivh’s enormous, horned head. He reached out a trembling hand and clamped it down on the demon’s forehead.
“You’re stronger than he is,” Lothar said, and realized that he believed every word. Khadgar had not faltered, and was not doing so now. “Get rid of it, kid!”
But Khadgar wasn’t getting rid of it. He was harvesting it. The fel whipped around Khadgar and Medivh, a storm of livid, sickly green. He was siphoning it from Medivh, pinned under the broken golem and bellowing as he tossed his horned head. He was pulling it from the font, draining it dry. All of it was funneling directly into Khadgar. Green energy roiled off Medivh in waves. Lothar realized that Khadgar, that wet-eared boy, was using himself as a living conduit to expel the fel taint from Medivh.
And it was working.
As Lothar stared, riveted, both horrified and hopeful, Medivh’s demonic form began to shrink, slowly returning to its original size and shape. The tossing head lost its horns, and Medivh’s long hair once again flowed from his scalp. Khadgar released him and turned his attention to the font itself, plunging his hands in it, his face, drawn and tight, screwed up in concentration.
Lothar felt the very walls of Karazhan itself groaning from the strain.
The boy’s tight face had gone slack. The green eyes widened, as if seeing something that was not there. His mouth opened in a silent O of awe at whatever it was the fel was showing him.
No. Not Khadgar. Not the boy who had broken into the barracks in search of answers, who had issued the first warning of the very substance that was now threatening to destroy him. Lothar had seen what the fel could do. The thought of that happening to Khadgar, and the horrors that the mage could inflict on the world—
Khadgar closed his eyes. And when he opened them again, Lothar saw that they glowed not green… but blue. “From light comes darkness,” Khadgar said, his voice raspy, “and from darkness… light…!”
Khadgar flung his arms out and arched his back. He screamed, a raw, ragged, yet determined sound, and blasted the fel out of him, out of the font, out of Karazhan. The very air itself was rent with a horrible boom as a wave of chartreuse energy surged from the boy, washing over Lothar’s magical shield like water over a glass container.
Khadgar stood, weaving, then collapsed, coughing and retching.
The Guardian’s font was empty.
The shield around Lothar disappeared, and he raced over to Khadgar. He was propped up on his hands, his head bowed, still hacking as small bits of fel wafted up around him and then vanished
Would Lothar have to deal with Khadgar, or had the boy won his own battle? “Show me your eyes,” Lothar whispered intensetly.
Khadgar took in a great gulp of air and turned his face up. His eyes were clear and brown. Lothar slapped him heartily on the back. Lothar sagged in relief, and for a moment the two simply grinned at one another, marveling that they were still here. Still alive.
A familiar cawing sound came from outside. Lothar looked at Khadgar quizzically. “I sent her here, when I came to get you,” Khadgar said, still panting. “I thought we might need her.”
“You were right,” Lothar said, sobering. They might have stopped Medivh, but they were far from done. “I have to go.”
Medivh. Lothar glanced at his old friend. He was pale, and still. But he was Medivh, again. Khadgar had given him that.
“I’m proud of you,” Lothar said to the young mage. Words he should have said to Callan. It was too late for Medivh, too late for his son. But not too late for Khadgar—or for him. The boy lit up, and Lothar touseled his hair. He rose, barefoot; his boots were still embedded in the golem. He raced across the sharp shards of stone heedlessly, seizing his sword and heading for one of the open windows. The gryphon saw him, and flew beneath him as, not breaking stride, he leaped with full trust atop her furred and feathered back, and went to the aid of his king.
* * *
Khadgar sat for a moment, collecting himself. He deeply regretted that he had been forced to kill the Guardian. It had not, ever, been what he had wanted. But he was glad he had stopped Medivh from opening the portal. Slowly, he got to his feet, hoping Lothar would be in time to make a difference. He shook his head, trying to focus on what he could do from here to help.
The font would be of no use. It was empty—of both true magic, and fel. He—
Khadgar blinked. A soft voice, murmuring an incantation. Medivh was alive—and still trying to open a portal to let the orcs—
No. No, Khadgar had been listening to that incantation repeating itself for what felt like forever. He had memorized the words, and these were slightly different. And there was one word that made his heart leap.
* * *
Llane had nothing to lose, and all to gain, and he made the most of it. Thanking Magni’s ingenuity and generosity, he rode among the men, cheering them on as they used the boomsticks against orcs seemingly as large as trees to, quite literally, stop them dead in their tracks. The numbers against them were vast, but with these weapons, these “mechanical marvels,” the odds were becoming less uneven with every cracking, echoing sound.
Those like him, who chose more traditional weapons, rode around those orcs who were injured but still a threat, spearing broad green chests, stabbing exposed throats, slicing off limbs with weapons that had been sharpened to perfect keenness. They were cutting a swathe through the tide of orcs, bearing straight for the portal and the human prisoners who were waiting for rescue—or a fate Llane would not wish upon anyone. Not even the orcs themselves.
When he could spare a glance, Llane had watched the image of the army in the portal’s interior grow clear, and fade, and clear to terrible purpose. He recalled his argument with Lothar, about how there were so many of the orcs. How he had argued for containment. Foolish, now. He had been so busy trying to stem a river, he had not fully appreciated that there was an ocean’s tidal wave behind him.
He brought his charger forward toward a savage orc female who was locked in combat with one of his men. Llane bore down on the enemy with three feet of steel, slicing a long, bloody slash through the leather armor she wore. She threw him a furious glance. Her teeth snapped ferally and she launched herself at him, hands extended, and grabbed his leg to pull him off his mount. Then her head toppled from her shoulders, and Llane met the eyes of the man who had saved him. He nodded, then turned to find another opponent.
Sucking in air, Llane looked again at the gate, and his eyes widened.
There was no more sign of the Horde gathered on the other side, shouldering for which one would pass through first to Azeroth. There was only a view of the Black Morass. Then, even as he felt gratitude bubbling up inside him, the center of the portal began to move. Except this time, the light limning it was not sickly green, but a fresh, clean blue, and Llane was not looking at Draenor.
He was looking at Stormwind.
A shout of laughter, genuine and joyful, burst from him. His old friend had not forsaken them! “Thank you, Guardian!”
Llane looked around and spied Karos, his armor spattered with dark brown blood. “Karos!” he shouted, and when the soldier acknowledged him, Llane looked for Varis, crying out his name as well.
Varis had lost his helm at some point in the battle. His brown face brightened as he turned and saw the glimmering image of the Stormwind Cathedral which had replaced the grim ugliness of Draenor.
“Forward!” he shouted, and his troops rushed to obey, revitalized by the sight.
Llane looked around for Garona. She had just dragged
a broadsword through the thick green torso of an orc. He had lost track of how many he had watched her kill. “Garona!” he shouted. “Ride with me!”
Without hesitating, she raced toward him and sprang up behind him on the horse. They set off at a mad gallop for the portal, now a symbol of hope rather than despair. They fought their way through, but it was easier than they had expected. The orcs had been shocked when the portal had been redirected, and the soldiers had rallied. Llane and Garona passed dozens of cages, some of which were already being hacked open.
“Varis! Set the men in a perimeter. Garona, Karos, take as many as we can spare to free the prisoners. Send them through! We will hold the line as long as we can!”
* * *
Khadgar’s eyes widened. He stumbled over to where the Guardian lay, his body trapped and partially crushed beneath the massive weight of his clay man. His eyes glowed blue, the color of mage’s magic, not warlock’s. And as Khadgar watched, a radiant, sky-blue tear trickled down Medivh’s face.
When Khadgar spoke, his own voice was thick. “You’re redirecting the portal to Stormwind!” Medivh blinked. The blank eyes refocused, retrained themselves on Khadgar’s face. He reached up a hand feebly to Khadgar, then let it fall.
“It’s the loneliness that makes us weak, Khadgar,” he said in a voice tinged with regret. As Alodi had told Khadgar, the boy recalled. Something so simple, so human, had destroyed a Guardian, and nearly the whole world along with him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I wanted to save us all. I always did.”
His eyes unfocused, and he was still.
22
The ocean of orcs was closing in, but Llane still felt confident. While he could have wished that the Guardian had redirected the portal sooner, he was nonetheless profoundly grateful. He and the remnants of the three legions had fought their way to the gate. While Llane, Garona, Varis and a line of Stormwind’s finest knights continued to stave off the waves of the enemy as best they could, Karos and others had freed the human prisoners and were protecting them as they fled through the gates to safety.
Warcraft Official Movie Novelization Page 19
