He stumbled back, seeking some delay while he planned for this unforeseen abomination. A pair of the scaly dwarves immediately attacked, but although he could not fight them directly, at least now the dragon mage knew how to handle the vermin.
He opened his mouth, the lips and jaws stretching farther than mortally possible. From his gullet, a burst of flames struck the ground in front of the dwarves.
The ground exploded, flames, rock, and earth rising up, then showering down on the creatures.
A lash struck him hard on the arm. Krasus winced, but the pain was minor. He turned to confront the drakonid.
"So, your master lives, does he?" Krasus demanded of the fiend.
The drakonid only laughed. He looked not at Krasus, but behind him.
The dragon mage reacted instinctively, but his reflexes were too slow. He had kept an eye on the mageslayer.... only what he thought was the mageslayer was now only an afterimage, a residueof where it had formerly been.
And now it stood right behind him.
Again, it screamed in his head that this was not the way a mageslayer behaved. Someone had gone to great lengths to make it far more insidious.
He could not transform, but he could still cast. Taking a cue from his success with the dwarven creatures, Krasus focused not on the mageslayer itself, but the elemental's surroundings.
Yet, before his magic could affect the ground and the air, Krasus felt the forces he wielded twist from his control, instead pouring into the mageslayer—and right back at their caster.
So close and against such an unexpected extension of the monster's ability to absorb spells, Krasus had no chance to shield himself against his own magic. He was struck so hard he flew into the air and battered against the rocks. As he landed, the ground exploded, another aspect of the attack with which he had intended to at least distract the nearby elemental.
Again, Krasus was tossed about. Under normal circumstances, nothing that he faced would have done him much harm.... But there was nothing normal where Grim Batol was ever concerned.
He landed on his back, stunned beyond his belief. He had been careless, very careless. Worse, he had been guided like a bull to the slaughter.
The drakonid looked over him. The black fiend held out a clawed hand to show Krasus something held within.
Though his vision was blurred, the dragon mage recognized it immediately. It was a tiny, golden shard... but not the same shard that he himself had earlier wielded.
The drakonid grinned wider. His long red tongue darted in and out as he cheerfully said, "The mistress has been expecting you for a long, longtime..."
ELEVEN
Iridi opened her eyes wide. She rose to a sitting position, crying.
"No! Don't send me away!"
Only after she finished screaming did she notice that she was no longer with Krasus or the young blue. Instead, the priestess lay in a torchlit tunnel surrounded by dwarves.
No... dwarves and a more familiar form.
Certain that she was a prisoner, the draenei summoned the staff. Yet, even as she raised it, the elven figure seized her wrist.
Iridi leapt to her feet... or tried to. The top of her head struck the low ceiling. Stunned, she fell back.
The silver-haired figure grabbed the staff, only to watch in amazement as it vanished in her grip. "What sort of magic is this?"
"One that you'll not add to your arsenal, blood elf—"
"Use your eyes and call me not by so accursed a name as that, draenei!" the other female snapped. "I am of the high elf people...."
The differences finally registered with Iridi. She had met others of that race and berated herself for not having immediately noticed the difference. The eyes alone should have told her otherwise, for there was no evil green glow here.
"A high elf... forgive me for my outburst. My teachers would be dismayed."
"You are a priestess, then."
"I try to pass for one, you mean," the draenei replied with some regret for her deficiencies.
The high elf shrugged off such a remark. "I am Vereesa. The dwarf to your side is Rom, leader of these fighters."
"My lady," the squat, older dwarf grunted.
Iridi eyed him longer than should have been necessary, but only because she began to notice that Rom was not as old as he looked.
Then, realizing how impolite she was now being to him, the draenei looked away.
"And your name?" Vereesa prompted.
"Iridi."
"Why are you near Grim Batol, Iridi?"
"I came in search of—" The priestess stopped, recalling the last thing that had happened before she blacked out. "Krasus! No! They need my help! Where are—"
The high elf seized her before she could continue. "What did you say? What name did you just call?"
"Krasus! We were attacked by—by scaled, dwarven-looking beasts—"
"The skardyn!" Rom growled. "The ones we heard! They were after you and your friend, eh?"
"Never mind that!" Vereesa interjected. "You said 'Krasus'! Tall, pale, of some unidentifiable elven look and with eyes that speak of an age far greater than his appearance even justifles?"
Iridi nodded. Rom's brow wrinkled deep. "The name. I'd forgotten it. It cannot be..."
The ranger leaned close to the draenei. "And from your own eyes, I can tell that you also understand what he truly is...."
"Yes." The priestess said nothing else, her gaze shifting surreptitiously from Vereesa to the dwarves and back again.
The high elf evidently read her thoughts. In a low voice, she said, "Rom, I've already said far too much. Can the three of us speak alone for a moment?"
"Off with the lot of ye," Rom ordered the others. "You, too, Grenda. You've all got duties, haven't ye?"
Vereesa waited until the last of the fighters had gone, then quietly said to Iridi, "It is best that you keep your voice very loweven now. Sound travels well in tunnels such as these, and dwarves are very nosy."
The last was said with a ghost of humor. Rom chuckled at her remark, but did not deny it.
"So, is it true, my lady?" he finally asked. "Is this Krasus the one and the same my old memory's stirred up? That would be too fantastic!"
"'Fantastic' is the appropriate word for him, Rom. I do not recall how much you knew, but you knew quite a lot."
"Krasus of the Kirin Tor," he returned. "And, aye, I know him for what else he is... the red dragon."
"The others...would any of them know?"
"No and we'll be keepin' it that way. You've my promise on that."
Vereesa frowned. "You sound and look different, Rom. There are changes I do not understand "
"If you mean my speakin', for a time after I was asked to be liaison to your folk and some of the humans. Tried to learn their manner better. Been away from that for awhile, so now my words slip back and forth. Sometimes, I wished I'd stayed with that task, maddening as it was." He gestured at his face. "And if ye—if you mean my appearance, I'll blame Grim Batol on it. I've been poisoned by it from too much time spent furrowing around the damned mount. I've not pointed this out to the others, but a good number of those who fought to free it from the orcs have passed over earlier than they should've. They all aged quicker. Guess I was just a more stubborn cuss, but it's eating at me, the evil."
"You should not have come back."
"I couldn't let anyone else come in my place...." He waved an angry hand. "But that's neither here nor there! If Krasus—Korialstr —Krasus is around, then we'll finally be able to put an end to whatever's stirred up Grim Batol again!"
Iridi had stayed silent, but more because her head had begun pounding. Now, though, she used her studies to focus that pain away... and finally say what she should have said earlier.
"Krasus and Kalec are in danger! There were the skardyn and dragon men—"
"Aye, Rask the drakonid and some dragonspawn, to be sure..."
"But there was also something Krasus called a mageslayer...."
V
ereesa did not seem concerned. "A mageslayer should be little trouble for him—"
The priestess recalled Krasus's concern. "There was something different.... And Krasus suffered from some other injury or ailment that seemed magical in nature." Now she had their full attention again. "He also seemed to suspect what power was behind it all. He seemed very familiar with it, from the way he acted."
"Gimmel's blood..." Rom blurted. His gaze met Vereesa's. "Ye don't suppose..." he added, momentarily slipping back to his older ways of speech again.
"It cannot be!" she replied with equal dismay. "Although, perhaps... no!"
"What?" the draenei demanded. "Of what or whom do you speak?"
The dwarf used his stump to rub his cheek. "That's right, ye— you aren't from here...or anywhere on Azeroth. You might not know the black beast."
"The black beast? The dragon men were black of scale...."
"Aye, for they were created to serve one master and their presence only fuels the possibility that he's alive and behind this."
"A black dragon?" The priestess had never seen or heard of one in the short time that she had been on Azeroth, but it made sense that they would exist. "Is he so deadly?"
"Not just deadly," Vereesa all but hissed. "But death itself."
"Aye," concluded Rom, looking off into his darkest memories. "Aye... it may be Deathwing's alive and returned to Grim Batol...."
Nightmares assailed Krasus, most of them tied to memories better left lost. He relived again the captivity of his beloved queen and mate, and how the young she bore afterward were forced into servitude by the orcs. Krasus saw red dragons perish in battle, used like hounds by their slavers.
Other images mixed in. There was a darkly handsome noble. Demons of the Burning Legion. A gathering of the great Aspects...
Some of the memories had not taken place at Grim Batol, but all were tied to it in one way or another. Krasus tried to awaken, but could not. He felt too weak. The nightmares—the memories—had their way with him without regard to his suffering.
Then, the foul visions faded, only to be replaced by a sense that he was not alone... wherever it was his body lay.
"You don't seem like much," remarked a snide voice that finally stirred Krasus toward waking. "And I can't fathom just what branch of our kind you pretend to belong to...."
A jolt ran through the dragon mage. He let out a howl and his eyes snapped open. Unfortunately, through them Krasus at first saw little but his own tears.
He tried to move his arms and legs and found them bound. Mere chains should not have held him, but an incredible weakness also filled the captive.
"Aah, you're awake." The figure looming over him was a blood elf with a sadistic grin. "Much better. I tried to be very gentle. After all, we should be friends...."
Krasus's gaze shifted to the staff the blood elf held. It was virtually identical to Iridi's, and at first he feared that she had also been captured. However, then he recalled what he had done, sending her to the one place in the vicinity of Grim Batol where she might be at least for a moment safe.
But the same could not be said for either him or Kalec.
The young blue, also chained, lay next to him. Kalec was still unconscious. He looked like the warrior, not the dragon, and Krasus had hope that perhaps their captors did not yet recognize what they were.
Unfortunately, the blood elf quickly crushed that slim hope. "So you are a dragon...both of you, I mean...fascinating. This puts a different slant on things."
Krasus had no time for minions. "Where is he? Where is your Infernal master?"
"'Master'? I, Zendarin, have no master...." The blood elf shifted the staff toward Krasus's chest. "...And you'd be wise to speak with more respect to one who offers you hope...."
The dragon mage looked at him with new interest, but then the blood elf glanced behind him.
"That damned timing of hers..." he muttered. The blood elf raised the stolen staff...and turned to shadow.
Krasus's higher senses still allowed him to see a trace of the blood elf, but he gave no sign as the murky figure disappeared from the chamber. Alone save for Kalec, Krasus surveyed his surroundings in the hope of finding some quick escape.
He found only what he suspected the reason for his weakness. A single golden shard hung high above, well out of physical reach. The spell that kept it there was a clever one, for Krasus knew well what forces were required to maintain the levitation of that particular piece.
Other than the shard, the chamber was unremarkable. It said something for the confidence of his true captor—the blood elf had already verified indirectly that he was not the one in control here— and also of that mysterious figure's identity.
Yet, something he had said also confused Krasus. Just prior to his flight, the blood elf had mentioned "her," not him.
Her...
"Onyxla..." the dragon mage breathed. Yes, he knew his captor now. Somehow, the prime daughter of Deathwing had survived. Everything made perfect sense now, save how she had managed that last feat.
Of course, she was her father's child. Not only had she taken up his cause by raising new eggs in her lair, located in the southern parts of the Dustwallow Marsh, but she resurrected his role as a member of the Prestor line, taking on the guise of Lady Katrana Prestor in Stormwind In order to try to keep the Alliance's leadership fragmented.
However, she had eventually overstepped herself, her plot against King Varian Wrynn turning back on her. In the end, he and a brave band had tracked her back to the marsh and, though it cost many lives, slew her... or so everyone had thought.
It was very possible that she had been cunning enough to fool Varian. Onyxia and her brother had been among the most clever of dragons, even if that genius had been misdirected. Nefarian had even managed to take his father's and sister's work to some fruition, creating the chromatic dragons. True, his efforts had ended once he, too, had been supposedly slain by brave fighters, but if Onyxla had learned from him, it would explain much of what was going on in Grim Batol now.
A grunting sound caught his attention. One of the dwarven abominations scurried inside as if to see if the prisoners were still there. Krasus was repulsed by the creature. Seen up close, it was even more a twisted mix of dwarf and dragon, making even the drakonid and dragonspawn handsome by comparison.
The thing rushed up next to Kalec, looking him over in a hungry manner. Krasus had no doubt that it was capable of eating a living being alive and doing so with relish. He summoned what strength he had and stared at it until it looked his way.
The rune burnt into its forehead flared bright. With a chomping of teeth, the creature fled from the chamber.
Krasus had not expected his weak spell to work, but he had wanted to at least frighten away the thing by attempting something. That plan had worked, but it now left him weaker than ever.
And more at the mercy of the damned shard.
Then, he sensed another presence approaching. There was no mistaking what it was, not this close...
Into the chamber she strode, a queen before slaves. Through a gauzy veil, she peered down at Krasus with mild amusement in her expression, but great satisfaction in her burning gaze.
"I trust you are well?" she purred. Her attention went to Kalec. "And who is this handsome young blue? Such an added pleasure to receive both of you”.
Krasus frowned. This was not Onyxia. He could sense that well enough. Yet, everything she radiated bespoke the dread black flightand Onyxia had been one of the few known females left.
She turned her face to the side, the better to display the ravaged part of her face. Krasus, aware how the injuries were a reflection of what she would also look like as a dragon, imagined the latter vision.
And only then did he recognize his captor.
"You are dead...." More dead than even Onyxia or her accursed brother Nefarian. More dead, certainly, than he had believed even Deathwing.
The lady in black gave a throaty chuckle. She drew back the ve
il —which was, in truth, as much illusion as the rest of her current appearance—so that her burnt countenance was utterly visible.
"Have I not changed, then?" she mocked. "A female likes to think she's kept her beauty even after so long...."
"You could never change...your evil, that is... Sintharia."
"Sintharia... long has it been since any called me by that name. I've come to prefer the one I've used in this form... Sinestra... as it has nothing to do with my darling, unlamented mate...." The female dragon leaned over him. "How long has it been, my dear Korialstrasz? Five hundred years? A thousand? How long since we last enjoyed one another's company?"
He did not hide his enmity. "Five hundred or five thousand years would not be enough time to pass before I would willingly look into your face, Sintharia! The marks of your loving Neltharion have never healed, have they? They still burn, do they not, from your last mating?"
Sintharia was more than merely a black dragon; she had been Deathwing's prime consort, the mother of the most foul of his line. Onyxia and Nefarian had not gained all their menace from the mad Earth-Warder alone; Sintharia had been very much her mate's partner in much of his plotting.
But she was also supposed to be dead. Krasus recalled that time as well. It had been closer to a thousand years than five hundred, a time period when the question of Deathwing's demise had also been an important one. Sintharia had been very much alive, though, and - she had strived then to spread a contagious spell among the magi of Dalaran that had effectively caused the powers of those infected to cease working. Krasus had been intimately involved in putting an end to that plot and, in the process, it had appeared as if Sintharia had perished when her own magic had been turned on her.
But, as ever, the dragon mage thought bitterly, the line of Neltharion proves more cunning than death....
The female dragon's macabre appearance was not due to that incident nor any other plot in which Sintharia had participated. As Krasus had indicated, her horrific burns were the result of nothing less than her mating with the altered Earth-Warder. As the dark magics and darker madness of Neltharion had taken over him, he had physically changed. His body had burned continuously, burned so hot that even his own kind could not bear his nearness, much less his grip.
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