Korialstrasz did not breathe fire or use magic. The violators of the sanctuary were scattered among the precious eggs. Instead he dove with massive claws outstretched, plucking up and crushing the cultists as quickly and efficiently as Thrall might crush a bug. There was no screaming in terror from them; Thrall watched, angry and sickened, as they smiled while they embraced death.
The threat seemingly ended, Korialstrasz landed next to a cluster of eggs, lowering his scarlet scaly head and nuzzling them with the utmost gentleness.
One of them cracked open. An ugly ochre mist wafted up from the egg, and Krasus’s eyes widened as he recoiled from the small, deformed shape of a chromatic dragon.
“No!” screamed Alexstrasza. Thrall felt for her. It had been painful enough for the Life-Binder to watch Kirygosa’s torment. To know that the same horrible fate had been visited upon her own children—
Horrified, Korialstrasz reached out with a tentative claw to touch the tiny creature. There was a soft sound, and more and more of the eggs began to crack open. All of them hatched squeaking, malformed chromatic dragons.
And then Krasus gasped as he looked down at himself. The very tip of his foreclaw was starting to turn black. Slowly but inexorably, the contagion spread, climbing from his claws up his foreleg.
A low laughter, weak but triumphant, drew the red dragon’s attention.
“And so, all of da chil’ren become da chil’ren of da mad one, da great Deat’wing,” murmured one of the cultists. He was a troll, his skin dark blue. Korialstrasz had crushed his ribs, and blood trickled from his mouth around his tusks, but he yet lived. “All of your p-people… will belong to him. …”
Krasus stared at his infected limb. He closed the paw tightly, into a fist, and brought it to his chest for a moment. Closing his eyes, he lowered his head.
“No,” he said quietly. “I will not permit that to happen. I will destroy myself and… and my children, rather than see them so perverted.”
The cultist laughed again, weakly. He began to cough, spitting up frothy blood tinged pink with air. “We s-still win,” he rasped.
Krasus stared at him, then suddenly remembered the precise words he had spoken. “What did you mean when you said, ‘all of the children’?” The cultist was silent, leering at him as he labored for breath. “How many were infected? Tell me!”
“All of dem!” the troll crowed triumphantly. His eyes gleamed and his smile was enormous. “All da eggs! All da sanctums! You be too late! Dey all be hatching now. You cannot stop it.”
Krasus was very still. He narrowed his eyes and cocked his head, thinking.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “Yes, I can.”
“All of the eggs,” whispered Alexstrasza. “All… of us…”
“It was a terrible choice,” Thrall said quietly. “He knew that it was likely that no one would ever know what had really happened. That without knowing the truth, others would deem him a traitor. That perhaps even you would believe it.”
He heard her gasp and whimper, and squeezed her hand.
“He saved us. … He never betrayed us; he saved us…!”
They stood in silence, eyes closed, as Korialstrasz gathered up all his energy and magic, folding in on himself. He took a deep, steadying breath, and whispered a single word:
“Beloved.”
And then it went dark.
Thrall opened his eyes. Alexstrasza’s were open as well. She stared out into nothing, all the blood drained from her face, her hand clamping down on Thrall’s so hard it hurt.
“He… he used his life energy to link the portals,” Alexstrasza whispered. “To destroy all the contaminated eggs before anyone else became infected. I couldn’t understand why there was so much verdancy that remained. … Now I know. Somehow, I understand. He brought death with life… to preserve other lives.”
“The Spirit of Life is telling you things it cannot show,” Thrall said quietly. “This was why I had to come. Korialstrasz was not a traitor. He was a hero. And he died well and willingly, saving not just his own flight but all the flights, with you in his heart.”
“He was the best of us,” she whispered. “He never failed me, nor anyone else. I—I have failed, and faltered, but not him. Not my Korialstrasz.” She lifted her face to Thrall’s. “I am glad I know how brave he was. I am so proud of him. But now… knowing that, how can I possibly endure without him? Can you, so short-lived, possibly understand what it is I have lost?”
Thrall thought of Aggra. “I may have only a short life span, but yes. I know of love. And I know how I would feel if I had lost my beloved as you have lost yours.”
“Then how could you continue on without this love? What is there to go on for?”
He stared at her, his mind suddenly blank. All the images, the ideas, the pat words and clichés that rose to his lips, seemed so empty and devoid of meaning. What reason, indeed, would there be for a sole survivor to continue, when one had had such a love?
And then he thought of it.
He continued to hold the Life-Binder’s hand in his right one. With the left, he reached into his pouch and brought forth a small, seemingly humble object.
It was the acorn that the ancient had gifted him with. Desharin’s words came back to him: Take good care of it. That acorn holds all the knowledge of its parent tree, and all the knowledge of that parent’s parent tree… and on and on, back toward the beginning of all things. You are to plant it where it seems right for it to grow.
Krasus had known it was not for him, though he had longed for it. Thrall wondered if the red dragon had guessed that, perhaps, such a thing was meant for his mate. Thrall hoped so.
The orc turned over Alexstrasza’s hand, placed the acorn in her palm, and gently closed her fingers over it.
“I told you of Dreamer’s Rest, in Feralas,” Thrall said softly. “Of the ancients who were in peril there. What I did not tell you was how truly magnificent they are. I did not tell you of their… presence. The simple power of age and wisdom pouring from them. How small and awestruck I felt surrounded by them.”
“I… have known ancients,” Alexstrasza said, her voice small. She kept her fist tightly closed over the acorn for an instant, then opened it.
It shifted in her hand, so subtly that Thrall thought it was simply rolling over the hills and valleys of her palm. Then a small crack appeared at its light brown base. The crack spread, and then a tiny green shoot, only a fraction of an inch long, extended from the tip.
Alexstrasza let out a sobbing gasp. Her other hand flew to her heart, pressing down hard on a slender chest that suddenly heaved once, twice, three times with racking, gulping sobs. She kept pressing on her heart as though it hurt her. For an instant Thrall was worried that all this was too much—that it was killing her.
And then he understood. The heart of the Life-Binder had been closed—closed against the pain that caring brought. Against the torment of losing someone dearly loved. Against the agony of compassion.
And now, like the shell of the acorn, like ice during the spring thaw, her heart was cracking open.
“I am who I am,” she whispered, still staring at the germinating acorn. “Whether in joy or in pain. I am who I am.”
Another sob racked her, and then another. Tears welled in her eyes as she grieved for her lost love, finally weeping the healing tears that had been locked inside her shuttered heart. Thrall put an arm around her shoulders, and she turned into his broad chest; she, who had once been tortured and enslaved by orcs to serve them, wept freely against him.
Her tears seemed endless, as the tears of the Life-Binder ought to be. It was more than the loss of Krasus, Thrall suspected. He sensed she wept for all the things that had fallen; for the innocent, and the guilty; for Malygos and Deathwing and for all they had harmed; for the corrupted children, who had never had a chance to truly live; for the dead and the living; for all those who had suffered and tasted the salty tang of their pain on their cheeks.
They came freely
now, her weeping as natural and pure as breathing. Tears rolled down her face and dropped onto the acorn she held, onto the soil beneath where they sat.
And as the first one splashed gently down, a flower began to push its way through the crust of the soil.
Thrall looked about, disbelieving. Before his eyes, ten thousand times more swiftly than it should have happened, he saw plants appear: flowers of all shades, small shoots that stretched into saplings, thick, soft green grass. He could even hear the sound of growing things, a vibrant and joyful striving and crackling.
He recalled that the druids had been working hard to bring back life to this place. Their efforts were successful from time to time, but always temporarily. He knew deep in his bones, though, that the new, lush life he beheld would not fade with time. Not when it was born of the Life-Binder’s tears of reawakening compassion and love.
Alexstrasza stirred against him, pulling back gently. He lifted his arm from around her shoulders. She took a deep, shuddering breath, and moved, slightly unsteady, to kneel on the earth. Thrall did not assist her; he sensed she did not want him to. Gently, Alexstrasza scraped at the newly verdant soil, pressed the acorn deep, then covered it reverently. She rose and turned to face him.
“I am… chastened,” she said quietly. Her voice was still thick with hurt, but there was a calmness to it that had not been there before. “You have reminded me of things that, in my pain, I had forgotten. Things… he would not wish me to forget, ever.” She smiled, and though it was a sad and haunted smile, it was sincere and sweet. Her eyes were red with weeping, but there was a clarity in their focus, and Thrall knew she was all right.
And indeed, when she stepped back and lifted her arms to the sky, her beautiful face was set in an expression of righteous fury. There was more grieving to be done for all that had been lost, and he knew she would do so.
But not now. Now the Life-Binder was using her pain to fuel action, not tears. And Thrall almost felt a twinge of pity for those who would feel the heat of her fury.
Almost.
As he had witnessed her doing once before, Thrall again watched as she leaped upward, transforming from slender elf-like maiden to the most powerful of the Aspects—arguably the most powerful being in the world. This time, though, he knew he had nothing to fear from her in this shape.
She looked down at him, her eyes kind, and then the Life-Binder lowered herself so that the orc could climb atop her broad back.
“We will go to join my brothers and sisters, if you wish to come with me,” she said quietly.
“I am glad to be of service,” Thrall said, yet again humbled and awed by the sheer magnificence of the crimson dragon before him. He carefully and respectfully climbed atop her, settling himself at the base of her neck. “With their defeat, I believe the blues will have retreated to the Nexus.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “We will either find them there, or else Kalec will have joined the other flights and be assembling near Wyrmrest.”
“The twilight dragons will see them,” Thrall said, thinking aloud.
“Yes,” agreed Alexstrasza, gathering herself and leaping into the air. “They will. What of it?”
“The element of surprise will be gone,” Thrall replied.
“We no longer need it,” Alexstrasza said. Her voice was strong and calm, and Thrall found himself relaxing as she spoke. “Our success or failure depends upon something much more important than military strategies or advantages.”
She craned her neck to look at him as her wings powerfully and rhythmically beat the air. “It is time for the dragonflights of Azeroth to put aside their quarrels and unite. Or else, I fear we are all lost.”
NINETEEN
Alexstrasza had been right. Sure enough, when she and Thrall were a few miles from Wyrmrest Temple, they saw blue and green dragons in the air and on the ground. She was spotted, of course. Several flew out to her and darted about almost giddily.
“Life-Binder!” Narygos cried happily. “Dark is the hour and dark are our hearts, but to see you brings a lightness to both. Thrall—thank you for what you have done.”
“Friend Narygos,” said Alexstrasza warmly, “I see my sister, Ysera, and the new Aspect, Kalecgos, and their flights. My own reds will come as soon as they know I am here.”
“Then I shall seek them out at once, Life-Binder,” said one of the greens. Thrall wondered how it was that the green knew where the reds were. Perhaps Ysera knew and had told him. There was so very much about dragons he had yet to grasp.
“Have we heard nothing from Nozdormu, then?” Alexstrasza queried.
Narygos and the others dropped back, above and below her, escorting and guarding her as they flew toward the gathering place.
“Not yet,” Narygos said, with a quick glance at Thrall. “We have heard no word from him. Have you?”
“I have not been contacted,” Thrall replied. “I can only assume that he is still investigating and learning.”
“Knowledge is power,” a large green agreed, “but it will do us no good if he learns something useful and Chromatus has slain us all.”
“Hush, Rothos,” Alexstrasza said sternly. “It is not the orc’s fault if the Timeless One is not present. We … all do what we must.” The last phrase was said in a sweet, sad voice, and Thrall knew she was thinking of Korialstrasz. He had done what he had to do, at a terrible cost.
Rothos looked apologetically at Thrall. “I am sorry, my friend, but you have seen what we fight. I would have Nozdormu and his bronzes with us when we try again.”
“No offense taken, and I agree,” Thrall said sincerely.
They had almost reached the site. “Please—go ahead and gather everyone,” Alexstrasza asked of Rothos. “I have … some information they must know.”
“Information about Chromatus?” Rothos asked hopefully.
Alexstrasza shook her head. “No. But I hope it will give them courage, and fresh hope, and those are weapons indeed.”
A few moments later they landed. Thrumming, musical dragon cheers filled the bitterly cold air. Thrall was smiling as he slipped off of Alexstrasza’s back into calf-deep snow.
“Thrall!”
He turned to see Kalecgos beaming down at him. The Great Aspect reached out a paw and very gently gathered Thrall in it. Thrall felt not a twinge of worry, only pleasure at seeing his friend again.
“I must stop underestimating you,” Kalec said, bringing the orc closer to his face. “You have done as you said you would. You brought us back our Life-Binder—in all senses of the word,” he added, looking over to where Alexstrasza nuzzled maternally at both greens and blues who rushed up to her. “I know not what magic you used, but I am grateful for it.”
“Only the magic of the heart,” Thrall said. “She will tell you what I learned, and shared with her. We will all know.”
Ysera craned her head at the sound of Thrall’s voice and moved toward them. She dipped her head on its long, sinuous neck in a gesture of respect.
“You were part of my dreaming, and one of the best parts,” she told him. “You have done so much to help us. I grieve for Desharin, but I am glad you escaped.”
“Know that if I could have saved him, I would have.”
She nodded. “The Hour of Twilight awaits us,” she said. She lifted her head and looked around, her rainbow-hued eyes bright with pleasure. “I see green and blue dragons gathered together. It is well, son of Durotan. It is well. But, ah, our red brothers and sisters have come to join us!”
Thrall turned to follow her gaze, and a short moment later could both see and hear the approaching leviathans. Dozens of them, there must have been, bearing down upon this gathering place. Thrall gazed in wonder, then looked about. Three Dragon Aspects and their flights were assembled now. He recalled the fight against the twilight dragons, and began to feel hope rising inside him. Surely there were three times the number of dragons gathered here now as had been at that fight, and with the Life-Binder leading them …
“My brothers and sisters,” she said, “we stand on the brink of a dreadful battle, against a foe whose power is terrifying. But there is something you must know before we begin our planning. Something that will, I hope, give you yet more reason to fight for yourselves, your flight, and the whelps not yet hatched.”
This was received in silence. Some of them shifted uneasily. It was as if they had suddenly remembered that Alexstrasza’s mate had been the one to destroy so many eggs.
Kalecgos gently lifted Thrall up toward his shoulder. The orc made the now-familiar leap, landing securely atop the blue Dragon Aspect as Kalec rose and flew to stand beside Alexstrasza. He offered wordless solidarity as she began to tell the other dragons about the vision Thrall had shared with her. Ysera glided to land at Alexstrasza’s left side, supporting her sister.
Some, probably those who knew Korialstrasz best, seemed to be more than willing to believe Alexstrasza, their own scaly faces and lambent eyes showing deep sympathy. Others, while not outright protesting—Thrall suspected that they were too glad to have the Life-Binder returned to them to challenge her story—seemed to be dubious or plainly skeptical.
Thrall was pleased, but not surprised, to see that Kalecgos was among those who believed at once. He felt for the blue, however, when Alexstrasza described what had been done to Kirygosa. Many of the blues muttered angrily, but Kalec simply looked away, pain on his face. When Alexstrasza had finished, it was Kalec who broke the silence.
Thrall Twilight of the Aspects Page 22
