Another of the Kirin Tor teleported in beside him, an elven woman with long black hair. One slender, pale hand went to Antonidas's chest while the other gestured at the terrifying intruders. Antonidas was dimly aware of other figures materializing in the room. He gasped for breath as his lungs expanded and his heart beat once more, blessed warmth flowing through him even as he saw two death knights begin to writhe in pain. Flame suddenly licked at their limbs, torsos, and heads. Two other death knights suddenly stepped back. Antonidas's eyes widened in shock as he realized that they were attempting to escape. Distorted shadows cast by the flames of their dying brethren suddenly took on a life of their own, wrapping about the death knights and absorbing their flesh until they were nothing but wispy memories.
Although they would not survive — if such a term could be used — the beleaguered death knights would not go into death's final embrace alone. Still weak from the attack and his attempt to combat it, Antonidas could do nothing but watch helplessly as the two death knights turned, their bodies still blazing, and attacked the woman who had saved Antonidas. Sathera's pale face contorted, her head falling back and her black hair cascading around her like a shroud as air was forced from her lungs. Antonidas heard a crack as the increasing force collapsed her chest and crushed her bones.
"Sathera! No!"
Antonidas turned to see Prince Kael'thas, his handsome features contorted with rage at the death of his friend and colleague. The elf raised both hands and drew them apart. Across the room one of the death knights jerked and then shrieked as his body was literally torn limb from limb. The sight shocked Antonidas back to his senses.
"Kael'thas!" he shouted into the tumult as he struggled to his feet. "Kael'thas!" On the second attempt the elf turned and fixed Antonidas with his powerful stare.
'Don't let them teleport!" Antonidas shouted, fending off an attack with one hand by erecting a quick shield upon which the deathbolt shattered. The elven prince shook his head as if to clear it, then nodded. He turned the full fury of his gaze upon the intruders and moved his hands to work the spell.
The leader snarled at Kael'thas. "Death knights, to me!" he shouted, holding the Eye high above him. The few who remained obeyed, forming a tight circle and facing away from the center to protect him and his prize. Even as Kael'thas murmured the incantations and the spell neared completion, the shadows about the intruders writhed once more, this time taking on a purplish cast as the Eye shed its light all around them, and the death knights' forms grew indistinct. They had escaped with barely a heartbeat to spare. Kael'thas swore in his native tongue.
The prey was gone — but they could be followed and trapped at their second location. Antonidas murmured a teleport incantation, adjusting it slightly so that he would rematerialize in the same place as the death knights. In an instant Antonidas found himself standing on a wide balcony. He recognized it as one of the Violet Citadel's upper floors. The death knights were all clustered together off to one side, their leader standing proud and tall among them, the Eye in his mailed hand. Krasus, Kael'thas, and others followed.
This time, Kael'thas and Antonidas were prepared, the spell already in their minds and on their tongues, and they were successful. The death knight leader whirled to give Antonidas a baleful stare, and the archmage permitted himself a slight smile.
"You were swifter in the vault, but we are swifter here. This balcony is warded against your teleportation spells. There is nowhere to run," Antonidas called out, staring right at the death knights' leader. They would now be able to capture or kill the death knights, keeping one alive for information. Then they would know a good deal more about the new Horde's leaders and their plans.
"Perhaps not," the lead death knight said softly, his words carrying nonetheless. "But why should we run when we can fly?"
At his words a wind sprang up behind him, from past the balcony, strong enough to make Antonidas stagger. A whistling noise accompanied it, growing louder and louder, and then a piece of the night sky dropped down alongside the balcony. The darkness slowly divided into several long, sinuous forms that hovered in the air just past the balcony railing, their cruel eyes staring out of their gleaming black faces. Antonidas could already feel the heat beating at him, and his shirt was quickly soaked with sweat.
"Foolish human, did you believe we had come alone?" the death knight leader said, laughing. The largest dragon Antonidas had ever seen swooped in closer to the balcony until its long barbed chin rested over the railing.
Antonidas saw Krasus go pale and caught a single whispered word: "Deathwing."
At the sound of his name, the mighty dragon swiveled his head and fixed Krasus with an intent gaze. The mage did not cringe from that scrutiny, but Antonidas staggered.
Deathwing? Here?
The death knight stepped up onto the railing and then across to Deathwing's back. "I have what I have came for. Let us be off!"
Antonidas recovered enough to hurl a lightning bolt at the fleeing figures, but it bounced off their shields. Teleporting was out of the question — they were moving too quickly and too closely together. Kael'thas and the other magi shook their heads. They were simply not fast enough to strike at the death knights without possibly hitting and angering a dragon that would happily incinerate the entire citadel.
As if to punctuate that threat, two of the dragons flanking Deathwing suddenly flew closer, opening their mouths wide. The magi could barely put up shields in time. Streams of molten red and gold burst from their wide-spread jaws, striking the balcony and igniting curtains and scrolls in the room behind them. Antonidas cursed under his breath as he watched the other death knights climb onto the dragons' backs and then soar up into the sky, disappearing from view. He knew the mighty creatures would tear right through the wards he had enacted — he had never built them to withstand giants.
Antonidas felt a stab of despair. He and the rest of the Kirin Tor were charged with protecting the city and its people, and tonight he had failed them. He had always said that every mage should know his limits, and tonight, Antonidas knew that he had met his. He stared up at the sky, searching for any sign of the invaders, but they were gone. And they had the Eye of Dalaran, one of the city's most powerful artifacts.
I have what I came for, the death knight had said.
Antonidas knew what. The question was, why?
CHAPTER TWELVE
Fenris stared up at the clearly old edifice, confused. He had not been sure what to expect from the Tomb of Sargeras, but it was not this. What he had at first thought were carvings were in fact the shells and bones and spines of various sea creatures, attached to the building's outer walls from years of submersion. It was like seeing the bottom of a deep ocean, only raised up onto land and fashioned into a habitable structure. And the door to this odd building hung wide open. "This is where that artifact awaits?" Fenris asked, frowning. He was having a hard time reconciling this place's lumpy appearance with the earth-shattering item Ner'zhul had said would be here.
The death knight had no such doubts, however. "It is here," Ragnok insisted. "I can sense it, deep inside."
"Then let's go!" Tagar shouted. "Why are we standing around? The sooner we go in the sooner we come back out!'"
Fenris often found himself at odds with the Bonechewer chieftain, but he was right on that count. Fenris was anxious to be done with this job of courier. He signaled to his orcs and they followed Ragnok, Tagar, and Tagar's Bonechewer warriors inside. Everywhere he looked he saw signs that the building had spent hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of years under water. Edges and corners were rounded, both from constant friction with the water and from moss and coral and shells that had attached themselves there. The floor was covered with mold and seaweed. Any decorations along the wall were either destroyed by all those years in the water or covered by just as many years of accumulation. Here and there some water had remained pooled, and was now long since stagnant. No light penetrated here — the stran
ge building had no windows — but that was not a concern. Ragnok raised his hand and a burst of yellowish illumination appeared above him. It cast disturbing shadows about the corridor but at least allowed them to move steadily inward.
As they progressed deeper, Fenris noticed that the walls here were cleaner than they had been nearer the entrance, and not just less grimy but less degraded. The carvings that decorated every surface had not been worn away to the same degree, and he caught glimpses here and there of what this temple must have been at its height. It would have been magnificent, filled with a beauty and an elegance he had never even imagined possible, and Fenris felt rough and bestial treading its halls. He could see that the rest of his clan felt the same way. Tagar and his Bonechewer orcs seemed unaffected by the temple's beauty, but then they seemed to have little appreciation for anything beyond death and destruction. Ragnok appeared utterly focused on the task at hand.
Which might have been why it was Tagar who suddenly stopped and pointed at a spot on the wall near where it met the floor. "Look there!" the Bonechewer chieftain said. Fenris followed his gesture and saw a smear of something dark across the carvings. It looked like—"Blood," Tagar confirmed. He knelt by the smear, sniffed at it, and then touched his tongue to it. "Orc blood," he clarified, rising to his feet again. "Several years old."
"Likely the blood of Gul'dan or his warlocks," Ragnok said. "We're getting close!"
It was not a pleasant thought, even if it did mean that the end of their quest was at hand. "Be on guard," Fenris said to his orcs, and they nodded somberly.
"Are you scared, Fenris?" Tagar mocked, stepping up and shoving his face close to Fenris's. "Afraid of what we might find?"
"Of course I am, you idiot!" Fenris snapped, his tusks scraping the younger chieftain's cheeks. "Gul'dan was a traitor and a fool, but he was still the most powerful warlock the Horde has ever seen! And something in here killed him and all his followers. You'd have to be insane or stupid not to be afraid!"
"Well, I'm not afraid!" Tagar replied, drawing smiles and laughs from several of Fenris's warriors. Fenris himself just shook his head and wondered yet again why he'd been sent with such an idiot. But that's why, he answered himself. Because someone has to be smart enough to know what to do and when — and someone else has to be foolish enough to go on anyway, even when it's near-suicide.
"Fine," Fenris said, allowing himself a small grin. "You go first, then."
Tagar smiled and whooped, his war cry echoing down the hall. He strode forward, leading the way without a moment's concern. The others followed.
The condition of the walls and floor continued to improve as they descended farther into the temple. Its glory was breathtaking. At one intersection of corridors Ragnok stopped, apparently confused. He turned first one way, and then the other. Fenris frowned.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I—" The death knight hesitated again, then nodded to himself and strode firmly down one of the halls. Fenris shook his head, but followed.
The hallway ended in a wide room. The walls here were blank, surprisingly enough — clean and smooth and bare — and the sudden contrast made the room seem stark and dignified. At the far end a massive vault door of plain black iron filled most of the wall.
"This is it," Ragnok breathed. He swung the door open.
And froze in utter terror.
Beyond the door lay an almost impenetrable darkness, as if night had been condensed and hidden here where the light would never find it.
Standing in that darkness, just past the doorway, was a creature from a nightmare.
It towered over them, standing so tall it was forced to hunch within the room beyond. Its skin was scaled and covered in bumps that seemed to ripple, as if somehow its surface were fluid like water. Spikes jutted from the shoulders, the forearms, the chest, and various other places. The overlong arms ended in huge hands with long claws. The face was too narrow at the bottom and too wide at the top, with slanting eyes that glowed a smoky, roiling yellow and a tiny mouth somehow filled with an insane number of razor-sharp teeth. A long tail whipped about behind it.
In one of its clawed hands it held a long rod, almost a spear, with a wooden haft and worked silver ends. The top was a mass of spikes clustered around a large gem that glowed with a brilliant white light of its own, and it was that radiance that held the darkness in the tomb partially at bay. Small flickers of lightning burst from the gem as well, only to fade into the darkness again.
The Scepter of Sargeras — the artifact Ner'zhul had sent them to retrieve.
All they had to do was take it from what Fenris was absolutely sure was a demon.
"You will not pass," the creature hissed, its voice rolling over them in oily waves. "This tomb has already been defiled by mortals once! It shall not happen again!"
"We don't want to pass," Fenris replied, biting back the fear and bile that leaped up his throat. "We just want that scepter you're waving about."
The demon laughed, a low chuckle like bone grating on bone, and stepped forward, its long clawed feet digging deep furrows into the marble floor. "Then you may try to take it from me," it offered. “And after you fail, I will shred your bodies and sup upon your souls."
"I'll crack your bones with my teeth and drink out the marrow!" Tagar bellowed back at the demon — this was the kind of language he understood. Then he charged, his axe held high.
And, though he cursed Tagar for a fool and himself for a worse one, Fenris raised his own weapon and leaped into the fray beside his fellow chieftain. The other thirty or so Thunderlord and Bonechewer warriors were right behind them.
Even so, it was a difficult battle. The demon was strong, stronger than any one of them by far, and faster as well. Its long claws cleft skin and bone and muscle with ease, tearing through the orcs as if they were dried leaves. The scepter it held was heavy enough to crush an orcs skull without taking a dent. Even the demon's tail was a weapon. Tagar shrieked in outrage as the creature struck one of the Bonechewers with it. The long barb at the end went easily through the hapless orc’s chest and emerged, dripping blood, from his back.
But the worst, the most frightening attack it possessed, was its bite — that unbelievable mouth stretched wider than should have physically been possible, exposing row upon row of teeth. Fenris watched the demon bite off half a warrior's head, and even through his own battle rage he felt sick.
It was that battle rage that saved them. Under normal circumstances Fenris disapproved of the bloodlust, but now it was a boon. Without it, many of the orcs — including himself — would have run away in abject terror. But with their heads pounding and their vision blurring and their blood humming, they attacked and continued to attack. Yes, the demon was faster, but with so many warriors attacking on each new assault, a few hits got through. The demon was stronger, but severing its limbs still crippled it.
At the last, with the demon's tail and one arm and part of a leg gone, and the other arm so shattered it writhed like a snake, Fenris and Tagar struck as one, their axes slicing into its thick neck. The blows came from opposite sides, delivered with all the force their respective masters could muster, and both chieftains took thin cuts along their fingers where the other's blade had nicked. But the demon toppled to the ground, his neck cut clean through from both sides, the head landing at Ragnok's feet.
Fenris bent down and picked up the scepter. It was lighter than he had expected, but he could feel a faint thrum of power through it.
"We have what we were sent for," he said, turning back. "Let's go."
"What?" Surprisingly, it was Ragnok who protested. "But this is the Tomb of Sargeras! And you just killed its guardian!"
"That was one guardian," Fenris replied. "There will be others, you mark my words." He held the scepter up so it caught the light. "Fortunately, we don't have to go any deeper into this pit."
"You don't understand," Ragnok continued. He stepped up closer to Fenris. "We got th
e scepter; we should get the Eye of Sargeras as well. Do you remember when I was confused earlier? It was because I was sensing both artifacts! It took me a moment to realize what was going on. But I know exactly where the Eye of Sargeras is now — down that other corridor. That was the artifact Gul'dan sought, and now it's within our grasp!"
Ragnok's glowing eyes narrowed in fury. "Pitiful things. I could destroy you with a mere thought! You will come with me to retrieve the Eye or—"
"Or what?" Fenris spat. "Go ahead. Kill us where we stand, and go back alone for the Eye. Either way, we will be dead." He was mostly sure that the death knight was bluffing, but he stood by his decision. Ragnok might kill them in a fit of anger. But whatever was sure to be guarding the Eye would most definitely kill them.
Ragnok lilted his hands and tor a moment Fenris's heart stopped. But then the death knight sagged; he had been bluffing after all.
"You are fools," Ragnok growled, but his voice was laced with defeat.
"Maybe," Fenris agreed, "But we are fools who will live to see another day." Without another word he turned. His clan followed him, as did Tagar and his orcs. It was only with the smallest satisfaction that a few moments later, he noticed that Ragnok had again joined them.
"Do you have it?"
Fenris dismounted, sliding off the dragon's back and planting both feet solidly on the cracked ground, then met Gorefiend's stare as the death knight hurried toward them. The dragons had been waiting for the orcs when their boats had reached land again, and had quickly carried them back into the Blasted Lands to rejoin Gorefiend and the others.
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