A/N: I had to split this bad boy in two for the sake of timely posting. Since this chapter is something of a turning point, I thought I'd celebrate by posting a sketch of the Lady King over at my Tumblr (blackunic0rn dot tumblr dot com). Maybe more than a sketch. (Its really too bad there's no way to insert images into fics on . Then when I didn't have chapters ready, I could cheat and post sketches instead!) Anyway.. Kaamos is the Finnish word for 'polar night', that eerie and fantastic phenomenon that occurs at high latitudes where the days get so short, eventually the sun never rises above the horizon. I figure Icecrown Citadel is above Azeroth's Arctic circle, but not perched right at the pole, so instead of the entire winter being dark, they get one day of solid twilight on the solstice...
Chapter 10 – Kaamos (Part 1)
This time, Jaina did not rush off without preparation. She ate dinner alone and went to bed. When the dreams began, she forced herself to wake and lay in the dark, staring at the roof until she drifted off again. She woke twice more, and the second time it was nearly dawn, according to the clock resting on her desk. Outside the window it was still dark. Jaina rose, took breakfast, then returned to her chamber to dress.
She knew she would need to deal with the Vrykul sooner rather than later and Ymirheim was their most prominent village, but it was Kel'Thuzad who was her priority. The betrayer of humanity. She gritted her teeth. How could I not see it? Angrily, she pulled on a thick cotton shirt over her loose tunic, then a padded vest. Atop her breeches she layered quilted pants and tucked the tunic and shirttails into them. How could I not see it? He was too well-educated, he knew too much about the Scourge!
She yanked on her battle mage's garb and fastened a wide, fur-lined belt around her waist, cinching in the robe until the leather creaked. He knew everything I needed to know. He put himself right here, right when I needed answers, and I never suspected it was anything more than the blind loyalty of the Scourge.
"Well, Kel'Thuzad, now I know. And since you made yourself so indispensable to me, I'm coming to find you."
Jaina sifted through the Citadel's archives for a map of Ymirheim. Since the Vrykul had been allies of the previous Lich King, Jaina guessed he might have one somewhere. She was right. She spread the map on the kitchen table and chewed her lip thoughtfully.
Kel'Thuzad wants to make war on the Vrykul with only five other people. How would he do it? Where would he start? He was powerful, but his powers weren't limitless. Six mages against an entire village of ready warriors was terrible odds. Only if you took them head on. Kel'Thuzad is cunning. He might fight dirty, but he doesn't fight stupid. Jaina's eyes traveled over the map, tracking up a street to a solidly constructed keep buttressed by a natural out-cropping of rock. Buildings packed close together, so many places to hide, so many shadows.
Would he watch them before he struck? Probably. If he grew up the way Sylvanas thinks he did, he would have learned to hunt. Not just hunt... she realized, thinking of the shadowy, vigilant Sentinels that called the forests of Ashenvale their home. He learned to hunt in the dark. Patience, stealth, and silence.
Jaina closed her eyes and concentrated, moving her awareness through the Scourge inside the Citadel, and then beyond. She found a gargoyle in the air just east of Ymirheim, and prodded it toward the looming Vrykul town. There was light in some of the windows as she approached. The village spilled down-slope from the keep, connected by a web of narrow streets. Jaina urged the gargoyle to land on the roof of a building.
There were figures on the streets; two women carrying water buckets, a man leading a horse, guards walking in unconcerned pairs. Jaina shifted the gargoyle, its claws scraping on slate shingles. The Vrykul gave no indication that they were under attack, or even nervous. So either Kel'Thuzad isn't here yet, or he hasn't revealed himself. Good. Now I just need to figure out when he will... Then she stiffened. Hunting in the dark! Today is the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year!
Jaina released the gargoyle, and retrieved the Helm from her chamber, tucking it under her arm. She strode towards the western exit, going over her plan one more time. She paused outside and took a deep breath. Sneaking around in shadows wasn't something she was accustomed to, and had never been trained for, but she wasn't afraid to improvise. All she needed to do was find Kel'Thuzad and his minions without being noticed by the Vrykul. The rest would be a simple matter of deceit.
Her portal deposited her in the lee of a crooked two-storey building on the edge of the village. Jaina pressed her back against the wooden wall while she got her bearings, squinting into the thick perpetual twilight. Footsteps squeaked in the snow around the corner of the building. Jaina crouched behind a sagging rain barrel and held her breath.
The man who shambled around the corner was old and bent, his beard yellowed with age. He sniffed, spat, then turned and tottered back the way he'd come. Jaina waited a beat, listening as he retreated into the village. Then she pulled the Helm down over her head.
Ice-fog fell across her vision and the sparkling cold sight of the Scourge illuminated the darkness. Jaina found the gargoyle she had watched through earlier, then another circling above the village, and two plague hounds rummaging a garbage pile. As she stretched her awareness, trying to sense the tiniest flutter of an undead consciousness, she found there were soft shadows, freckles of unawareness, within her field of view. She paused, perplexed, and then suddenly realized what she was seeing: the living Vrykul. They were fragile and whispery, insignificant in the frigid light that bathed her vision.
Jaina guided her mystical sight around Ymirheim, fascinated by these tiny, vaporous lives, by how miniscule and delicate and brief they were. Slowly, she took stock of her unseen enemies. It was more difficult than locating undead; the gargoyles and plague hounds burned like pale torches to her, but the Vrykul were subtle and easily missed. Still, it gave her an advantage and she moved from shadow to shadow, unnoticed.
She worked her way deeper into the village, listening to what snatches of conversation that she could hear, and seeking the blurry patches of darkness that signified living creatures. Close to the keep, Jaina paused. There were people within and guards outside, but far fewer than she would have guessed. And on the roof, under the peak of a crude gable, six pinpricks of black and one of dim light, almost as imperceptible to Jaina's vision as the living. He must have layers upon layers of shields to keep himself hidden so well.
Jaina squinted up at the shape of the roof, gauging the distance and teleported.
She appeared directly behind Kel'Thuzad, though several feet above the roof and landed with an audible thud. The lich and his Thuzadin whirled. Two of them were holding an aged Vrykul man who struggled weakly.
"My King!" hissed Kel'Thuzad in surprise. "How did you-"
"Sylvanas helped," said Jaina. "I would like you to come with me." She glanced at the five Cultists, momentarily paralyzed by her appearance. "All of you."
"Of course, my Lady. But first, there's... something wrong here," said Kel'Thuzad.
"Wrong?" said Jaina warily, eying the Cult of the Damned members, who were gawking at her in return.
"The Vrykul sent their very best to Ymirheim to be close to their death god. There were hundreds of warriors stationed here, training. Now, the only Vrykul we've seen so far are too old, too young, or too injured to fight. There's something wrong."
Jaina hesitated and flicked her attention back to the village. Several stories below them, a lone Vrykul exited the keep. She took a step toward the edge and peered down. The woman below was thin, wrapped in layers of shawls, her gnarled hand clutching the head of a wooden cane. Jaina turned back to Kel'Thuzad.
"All of them?" He's a liar! He's stalling, just ignore him! But Jaina was nothing if not logical. Kel'Thuzad was right; there was something wrong with the population of Ymirheim.
"We arrived last night and began reconnaissance. There are too few Vrykul and none of them are warriors. This one," he gestured to the trembling man held between the two largest Cultists, "has told us only that we are 'too late'."
"An' yer stupid!" piped up the prisoner. One of the Thuzadin back-handed him without changing expression. Kel'Thuzad ignored him but Jaina flinched involuntarily.
"Too late for what? For you to ambush them, Kel'Thuzad? How would they find out? The Cultists you sent to me said you only decided to attack the Vrykul after you fled from me." She paused and looked up at the lich. "No. Too late to catch them at whatever they're up to now, more than likely. They declared war on the Scourge and attacked the Wolvar to antagonize me, or shame me. Right now, I'll bet they're off doing something similar to some other innocent village." Jaina felt a brief thrill of anger. I have him right here, within my grasp! I should just bind him and teleport him to the deepest dungeon I can find!
"Then the question is: where are they?" mused Kel'Thuzad. "There were less than a hundred warriors in the Wolvar village, but Jaina, there were close to twelve hundred-"
"Twelve hundred?"
"Yes. Twelve hundred warriors, or more, lived and trained in Ymirheim. If they took all of them, whoever they've chosen to attack doesn't stand a chance." The prisoner groaned theatrically and rolled his rheumy eyes. Jaina stalked up to him. The Cultists rammed the man onto his knees so that Jaina could look down on him. She flinched inwardly; he was an elderly man and she felt sympathy for the abuse he had obviously suffered at their hands. But he's also an enemy, and he can tell me what's going on here.
"Why did the Vrykul leave Ymirheim? Where did they go?"
"Yer not tha sharpest knife in tha drawer, are ya?" Jaina grabbed the hand that whipped towards the prisoner, halting it mid-smack, and glared at the Thuzadin attempting to deliver it.
"Where?" she repeated quietly, staring unblinking into the man's cloudy grey eyes.
"I'm not afraid of no foolish sorceress."
"Where are they?" she asked. "Who would they need such a large force to attack?"
"I'm not scared of you!"
Jaina leaned down, bare centimeters from the man's face. "You keep saying that, but I think you're trying to convince yourself." She raised her hand before him, and frost began to coalesce in tiny, delicate spars around her fingertips. He squirmed slightly, no doubt anticipating pain. "Oh, I don't need you to tell me where they're attacking."
She straightened up, letting her vision expand, and began seeking undead roaming near the settlements of those she had contacted diplomatically. Jaina was vaguely aware of the old man's garbled rasp of shock as her sight focused first in one distant location, then another, and the murmurs of the Thuzadin.
"No sign of them yet..." she muttered, and looked back at Kel'Thuzad, the peculiar double-vision not as disconcerting as it had been mere days ago. "Is there any way they could have known you were coming to attack them?"
"No," replied the lich, "We made no communications. I used a portal to send most of the Cult to you, and then we came here."
"They must have been gone before you arrived. But where?" pondered Jaina, skipping from ghoul to ghoul across the rugged slopes of Grizzly Hills, "The Ashen Verdict, the adventurers that stormed the Citadel, none of them went through Ymirheim. The Vrykul could have left days after the Lich King fell, or just hours ago." Jaina shook her head, vision wobbling. "But I don't recall any reports of such a large group travelling together..."
Kel'Thuzad turned to the old man. "When did they leave?" he asked. The Vrykul bared his teeth defiantly.
"It'd be best if you answered him," suggested one of the Cultists ominously. "Our Lady dislikes violence but Master Kel'Thuzad is not quite so... forgiving of people's manners." Jaina looked sharply at the Thuzadin.
"When did they leave?" said Kel'Thuzad with feigned patience.
The old man clenched his jaw, stubbornly silent.
"You can tell me now, while you're still alive, or I'll make you talk once you're dead," Kel'Thuzad threatened.
"Yeah, you do that, ya skinny bastard," grunted the Vrykul.
"Very well. It's easier to question a corpse." Jaina saw Kel'Thuzad's hands flex, long bony fingers spreading and she had a sudden flash of the lich using those dagger-like hands as weapons. Jaina thrust one arm between Kel'Thuzad and his potential victim.
"No, no, no," she said quickly, "Let me find... find... oh gods." Jaina clasped a hand over her mouth, shock breaking her psychic connection with the gargoyle she was linked to, swooping south down the glacier. An afterimage burned in her mind's eye, a band of wriggling black against the darkness of midday, spanning the horizon, rippling like a heat mirage.
It was the silhouette of helmets, and spears, and the dismembered components of catapults and siege ladders being marched toward a familiar, jagged shadow rearing high above the ice. "They're at the Citadel. They're at the Citadel!"
"What?"
"They're attacking the Citadel!" Jaina clumsily snatched up her connection to the gargoyle again, and watched the first wave of foot soldiers break into a jog, then a sprint towards the edifice, howling a war cry. The gargoyle shrieked a warning that was quickly picked up by one of the sentries on the ramparts, and as a cold wooden shaft sunk into the doomed gargoyle, warning hand-bells began to ring all over Icecrown Citadel.
In the brief seconds it took for her words to register with the others, while the old Vrykul man laughed madly, Jaina's mind immediately leapt to cold, hard numbers: if Kel'Thuzad said there were twelve hundred warriors at Ymirheim, then the forces at the Citadel were out-numbered roughly three-to-one. Those aren't such terrible odds, especially if... Jaina cringed at the thought but it still came. Especially if the Scourge necromancers reanimate fallen Vrykul.
"What is your will, Master?" asked one of the Thuzadin in a rush. Jaina glanced from one Cultist to the next. I came here to mete out justice by taking them prisoner. I don't need their help to win this battle.
"Defend the Citadel," she announced quickly and gestured a portal into existence. "Go!" The Thuzadin bowed as one and hurried through the portal. Jaina looked up at Kel'Thuzad. "That means you too."
The lich shook his head, the metalwork on his head-dress reflecting the glow of the shimmering magic. "Oh no. That trick was old when I was young. Portal to a magically sealed room? Really, Jaina?"
Jaina pursed her lips in annoyance and closed the portal. "Fine. Let's go. But you will be taken prisoner, Kel'Thuzad, when this is over."
"We will see," he said and disappeared through his own magical gate. Jaina followed him.
They appeared high on the battlements of the Citadel, looking down at a pitched skirmish already in progress on the ice. The foot soldiers had made it to the base of the stairs before they were countered by the squad of Scourge inside the Citadel's entrance. The Vrykul were pushing their advantage with assistance from sorcerers standing back from the action. None of the siege ladders were deployed and the catapults were still out of range.
The Scourge scrambled to assemble ranks of archers on the ramparts below, and Jaina squinted. The Tauren ambassador from the Taunka was bellowing orders at the archers and wasn't taking 'no' for an answer. Jaina almost chuckled. Then her gaze flicked northward, and she gulped.
"That's more than twelve hundred," said Kel'Thuzad, quietly voicing Jaina's fear.
"Yeah," she confirmed in a small voice, and found herself remembering the heat and sound and desperation of Mount Hyjal. They hadn't known if they could win, but they had tried, as she would try now. "If we can hold them off for long enough, maybe they'll-"
"They won't give up. No one commits this quantity of troops to battle if they doubt the outcome. They're hoping to overwhelm us," said Kel'Thuzad. It was jarring to hear him speak so soberly, almost fearful.
Jaina set her jaw. "Tirion... he was camped near the gate. If he escaped, perhaps he can summon aid." She started for the closest doorway at a jog. Aid from where? I have no allies. What if Tirion didn't escape? What if he- Stop it, Jaina! She shoved her tremulous thoughts away and clattered down the stairs, calling archers to her as she ran. Kel'Thuzad kept pace with no visible effort.
"I must confess, Jaina, I don't know how much use I can be to you right now."
Jaina skidded through the arch, shooing the archers out onto the ramparts, and headed for the transporter that would take her to the Frozen Throne. "What do you mean?"
"I just resurrected twelve people with meticulous, individualized spellwork."
"You're tired?"
"A bit."
They flickered through the transporter and Jaina strode towards the Throne, where the rest of the Lich King's armour still rested in a heap. "Great. Fine. All right. Take down the barrier around your mind and let me at least use your point of view. It'll be useful to coordinate movements." Kel'Thuzad hesitated, watching her buckle on greaves that seemed too large until they were strapped to her shins. He waited another heartbeat, and then Jaina was aware of tiny bursts of energy released as complex spells were hastily broken, and Kel'Thuzad's presence became a searing tower of light beside her. She half-expected to squint when she looked at him. If that's how he appears to me, what must I look like to the rest of the Scourge?
Like a fallen star, said the lich's hollow mental voice.
"You command the forces on the eastern rampart; I'll take the west," she said, ignoring the comparison, as she crammed her hands into cold metal gauntlets. Kel'Thuzad teleported to his position as archers scrambled to join him. They strung their bows as the second wave of Vrykul foot soldiers reached the base of the stairs, pushing the Scourge back as the first group advanced.
"Aim! Release!" he ordered, and the volley fell into the attacking mass. There were shrieks and thumps, but the Vrykul closed ranks and pressed forwards.
On the opposite side of the building, Jaina's thin voice echoed Kel'Thuzad's command. Holes appeared in the Vrykul horde but they were quickly filled. One of the Scourge patrol squads came around the western side of the building, guided by Jaina's command, and fell on the Vrykul's flank.
"Aim for that catapult!" roared the lich, attention leaping away to one of the machines being loaded at the very limit of its range. Others were joining it, grinding along amidst an approaching swarm of warriors carried by armoured war mammoths. Scourge arrows sang out, peppering the Vrykul with deadly shrapnel, but none of them reached the catapult. The throwing arm released and Kel'Thuzad watched a rough chunk of stone pound into the foundation below him.
"Again!" The Citadel trembled with a second impact, closer to Jaina's side and Kel'Thuzad clicked his teeth in aggravation. The battle was joined now, two groups of Scourge soldiers closing from both east and west, patrols and interior defensive squads, locking the Vrykul vanguard between them. Kel'Thuzad began to pace behind the archers, pausing to fire frostbolts with deadly accuracy into the churning mix of warriors.
Suddenly the Citadel shuddered and Kel'Thuzad heard the eerie groan of breaking rock. He looked up in time to watch one of the bridges that connected the Citadel to the Cathedral of Darkness collapse and rain debris onto the glacier. Something dark spiraled away into the sky.
They just bombed us.
I saw, thank you, she replied tersely, inside his head. For a brief second, he glimpsed the world as she saw it, bright and shifting, alive with power. The next moment, a pillar of flame canonned straight up into the sky, over-taking the drake and consuming it.
Another catapult shot crashed into the Citadel, this one putting a sizeable crater in the wall beside the entrance and the Scourge force defending it. Two more followed it; one missed and plowed a trough in the ice to the west, while the other caromed off the rampart below Kel'Thuzad, crushing Scourge and Vrykul alike when it came to a rest.
We need to take out those catapults!
I have an idea.
Kel'Thuzad continued to pace behind his archers, taking shots when he was sure they would connect. This was only the beginning and he couldn't afford to waste what strength he still had. A moment later, he saw three mounted figures tear away from the western wall, horses in full gallop as they fought to flank the burgeoning ranks of Vrykul and reach the catapult line.
Who is that?
Darion Mograine's assassins, believe it or not. Apparently the only fate worse than being the Lich King's pawn is going back to Mograine with the news that they failed to carry out his orders.
I knew that boy had potential.
The trio shot past the flailing weapons of the Vrykul and closed in on one of the catapults. Its attendants tried in vain to defend the machine but the tall, slim figure of Kagra moved like a snake, sliding between their blows, leaving them open to her blades and Xochi's axe that followed behind.
At the base of the Citadel, the Vrykul were drawing together, raising their round shields under the hail of arrows. They left behind a carpet of bodies prickled with black-fletched shafts and Scourge too damaged to drag themselves after the enemy.
"Advance!" bellowed Kel'Thuzad, and the rows of soldiers waiting at the top of the stairs descended with a blood-curdling chorus. He followed, directing the archers to new positions along the lower rampart.
A sudden glow lit the battlefield and Kel'Thuzad watched the figures of the Acherus Death Knights scamper away from a burning catapult, streams of Vrykul in furious pursuit. They were quickly surrounded, then their attackers staggered back, screaming as their blood boiled and froze in turns. The knights zeroed in on another machine.
They're actually quite good, he observed to Jaina.
Yes, she replied but her voice was distracted, taut and strained. She wasn't injured; he would know instantly if she was, so the lich turned his attention back to the melee, conjuring a small blizzard to impede the Vrykul foot soldiers. Orders were shouted, and ranks formed, the troops parting to make a corridor for the cavalry.
Now the Citadel faced a solid wall of armoured mammoths and their riders. Behind them was the catapult line, two burning, four still rolling forward. And behind the catapults was another throng of mixed forces, too distant and indistinct to count in the unending dusk, but closing in, archers leading the way.
There! Jaina showed Kel'Thuzad a fur-clad man mounted on an ice mammoth, brief and electric like an image glimpsed in a flash of lightning. He's directing the attack! We need to reach him and-
Leave him to me, my King, replied Kel'Thuzad and swept into the fray, long hands curling into deadly claws. The Scourge rallied around him. He blasted a path before him, making no pretense about his goal, summoning every last shred of strength he had to cow the Vrykul, and it worked. The ice glowed red where he gestured and any living creature too slow to flee collapsed without a struggle. He had no shortage of targets and cast multiple shots at once, felling Vrykul in threes and fours. The man on the ice mammoth was pointing at him, shouting angrily.
Somewhere behind him, there was a ponderous crack and a groan, a sound that he felt more than heard, and then a great, thundering crash, followed by screams and cheers. He glanced back and saw the drake riders had succeeded in destroying one of the jagged towers flanking the entrance of the Citadel. Debris fell across the rampart he had just vacated, crushing archers and giving the Vrykul a visible measure of achievement.
Kel'Thuzad did not fear death, for death wasn't entirely real to him. He disliked pain and failure, and the temporary inaction aggravated him, but the thought of being torn apart by the Vrykul didn't phase him. The thought of those barbarians reaching his King, or dropping a boulder on her, however, enraged him. Forsaking his own safety, Kel'Thuzad forgot his weakness, ignored the odds, and raised his bony hands to the sky.
"Living souls who've breathed your last, broken corpses laid to rest! Rise again to aid your King!" His voice cut through the sounds of battle, carried by an enchantment that flew heedless of solid objects and plunged into still-warm Vrykul bodies, into the shattered Scourge, into the hasty, shallow graves of adventurers that had died to bring his old master to bay.
"Claw your way through ice and grime!" screamed Kel'Thuzad, and felt an arrow clatter off his sternum, "Rise and fight! Protect your lord! Come to me, to Kel'Thuzad! Come to me! I bid you rise, warriors! Rise and fight for the Scourge! Rise! Rise!" Corpses twitched and jerked and swung around to cleave recent allies. The Vrykul reacted with turmoil and terror and the lich laughed as he sent fresh troops to Jaina's side.
Something huge and dark suddenly filled his vision. Talons the length of his forearm opened before him and Kel'Thuzad had the briefest of moments to react as the plagued drake stooped to impale him. He let it. The beast's enormous hallux slammed through his chest, snapping off his false ribs with the impact, hurling the lich backwards and pinning him down against the glacier. The nearby Vrykul broke into hoarse cheers, until Kel'Thuzad's floating chains contracted, twisted, and began to race in a complex, deadly path, shearing through the drake's soft flesh, through armour and bone and its rider.
Kel'Thuzad rose, battered and slathered in gore, but victorious.
Luckily, he saw the incoming catapult shot and dodged. The projectile thundered into the combatants behind him, smashing friend and foe alike. He straightened up and scanned the geography of the battle between handfuls of frostbolts.
They flanked us, Jaina announced flatly. Kel'Thuzad was close enough to the Vrykul commander now that he gave up trying to plow through his defenders. Instead, the lich whipped his circling chains out at the man, snatched him from the mammoth and turned him loose on his own forces. Momentarily safe, Kel'Thuzad took stock. In the time it had taken him to reach the commander, the second army was upon them. Where the line of catapults had been there was only the chaos of armed combat now, rimed in black smoke and licks of flame. The Scourge forces were being divided as the mammoth cavalry pushed down the center, straight for-
"Jaina!" She had come down off the rampart, surrounded by Scourge defenders. They were trying to poke a hole in the squad of Vrykul that had come up from the south behind the Citadel. Kel'Thuzad swore, snatched a halberd from the hands of an unwary Vrykul and laid about himself with the blade, magic all but drained.
The Lich King stood on the ice in the center of a ring of Scourge, both hands aglow with spellpower, black armour glinting on her shoulders and hands. She was fighting like a mage: feet planted, weaponless, she let the wall of undead defenders take the physical brunt of her enemy's wrath as she delivered handfuls of fatal energy.
You summoned merciless winter once! Do it again!
Jaina tried to push Kel'Thuzad's voice out of her head. Sweat trickled down her temples into her hair. It was all she could do to aim, much less predict what form her magic would take. She envisioned a frostbolt and she got an explosive sphere of ice. She tried to call up a fireball and instead unleashed a gout of flame that incinerated an entire drake. And everything she made hurt. The magic was almost beyond her control, as though it were something living trapped within her. She was just a shell, a vehicle for death itself.
But it was all she had and she needed to use it. Her breath came fast and shallow, and her ribs ached. Intensely uncomfortable, Jaina forced her straining muscles to relax, shoulders slumping, and tried to let the raging power inside her take a form that wouldn't tear her apart with its release. It was brutally difficult. Each time her control faltered, her diaphragm spasmed and she found herself gasping for breath, fighting her own body. It cost her focus and spells fell apart before she could complete them.
Her frustration mounted as the battle closed in around her. Jaina took a deep breath and let the alien power build within her. She fought to shape it, to channel it into a form she could recognize, and found three churning spheres of ice circling her and her defenders. Where they touched the Vrykul, their flesh flash-froze and broke. One of the battle-maidens raised an axe and hacked into a sphere. The magic exploded wildly, shards of glowing ice tearing through the squad of Vrykul.
"Nice show, Lady King!" Jaina whirled and found the Troll Death Knight, Xochi, grinning down at her. "Dat was pretty cool! You gonna do it again?" he asked hopefully as the Vrykul regrouped. Jaina glimpsed Kagra, weaving and slicing against the Vrykul alongside Starkweather.
"Yes," she said, setting her jaw and drew again on the same power. Her blood seemed searing hot as the cold of the spell built within her. The globes of ice appeared close, spiraling away from her, and Jaina brushed her hand against one. She yelped and drew back. The fingers of her gloves were disintegrated and her fingertips white with the beginning of frostbite. "Ow," she said reproachfully.
Of course it hurts; you're living! She shook her head at Kel'Thuzad's words, but his logic was undeniable. Wiser now, Jaina chose a suitably distant target and summoned the spell again. It made her nauseous, blurred her vision, and she had to bend down and take several deep breaths afterward.
As she straightened up, something slammed into her. She rolled onto her back, fists crackling with impending destruction, only to find it had been Xochi. He had shoved her out of the path of a very large warhammer, swung by a towering Vrykul warrior, and taken the blow meant for her. Xochi's right arm hung uselessly, dislocated at the shoulder and probably broken. As Jaina scrambled up, darts of arcane power leaping from her fingertips, the Vrykul warrior completed a second swing and this time his hammer connected with the back of Xochi's head. He went flying. Jaina screamed, horrified, and saw Kagra dive to his side.
Frantically, Jaina seized her power and cast, pushing the Vrykul back with a series of five sparkling ice globes, giving the Death Knight room to see to her friend. She ducked as the spheres detonated and squeezed her eyes shut against the brilliant light.
There came a metallic ticking sound in the eerie silence that followed. Then came a crunch, then a whine, and as Jaina looked up, the remaining Vrykul scattered. Jaina froze. They had been standing shoulder to shoulder, she thought as an intimidation tactic, but instead it had been to hide what came behind.
The machine was compact and boxy, with a short throwing arm like a small catapult, broad metal wheels studded with foot-long spikes, and a harrow bolted to the front sharpened to a razor edge. Jaina had seen these things before; it was a siege machine, used by the Alliance in their never-ending attempt to secure Wintergrasp fortress and the resources of the area from the Horde.
And it had three friends.
The machines belched black fumes from their smokestacks and rolled towards her. She threw ice spheres in their path and watched in dawning fear as the machines rolled into them, barely shuddering at the explosions.
Get out of there! Kel'Thuzad was struggling to reach her, to fire on the machines, but he too was surrounded and pinned down with little help. Levitate, fly! Fall back! Jaina focused on the foremost machine and blasted it with frostbolts, retreating. Splinters erupted where the shots struck wood, but the vehicle showed no other damage.
"Where the hell did they get those?" hollered Kagra. Jaina glanced over. The Orc was carrying Xochi's body in her arms.
"Fall back!" Jaina shouted, waving an arm. "Fall back!"
"To where?" snapped Kagra.
"Behind me!" replied Jaina. Her hair was stuck to her face with sweat and she was dizzy, but she had never felt so powerful. Her abilities were limitless, godlike. Why not use them entirely? Out of options, Jaina grasped her strange alien magic with both hands, drawing up something dark and foul that reeked of agonizing death. One of the siege machines fired and Jaina's control faltered as she side-stepped. The spell fell apart, sparks of black light falling from her hands, useless.
There was a second shot that plowed into her defenders, and a third, and a fourth. Jaina threw walls of ice up to stop them striking her forces, but the short lever arms gave the shots incredible velocity and the lead balls shattered every wall she summoned. She couldn't fight these things on foot. She needed something just as big and armoured, and she had nothing.
A terrible fear welled up in Jaina. What if she died here? She had almost come to terms with her position, she'd been making plans for a future kingdom! She wanted to protect the varied northern races, learn about them and from them, to make Northrend a place of value and learning rather than strife and conflict. Damn you, she thought, I will not let you kill me! I don't care what I have to do, but I will not die!
The wall she summoned now came from the glacier itself, ancient ice shifting and rising, thick as the siege machines themselves. It dulled the sound of lead balls to the patter of raindrops and Jaina sat down cross-legged on the ice.
"What the hell are you doing?" yelled Kagra from behind her. "That'll hold them for minutes at best! We need a strong offensive!"
"No," said Jaina calmly, "what we need are more allies, to flank them as they did us. Our numbers are too few and we are too unprepared. I am not experienced enough to out-manouver them, but we can beat them with numbers." Then she closed her eyes and concentrated.
All across the world there were agents of the Scourge, orphaned and hiding. Jaina put the dark, clawing thing inside her to work reaching out to them, her will flying across land and oceans with the speed of desperate self-preservation.
Come home, she said simply, Come back to me. She knew the message was received, that its effect was inexorable. But it was useless if they couldn't arrive in time and so Jaina threw her Dalaran-taught magic out along the spine of the Lich King's will, to every Scourge-haunted corner of Azeroth. If she stopped to think about what she was trying to do, it would collapse under the weight of her disbelief. She struggled to maintain the hundreds of shimmering portals that opened abruptly, breath tearing at her throat, stomach cramping violently, in pain from the roots of her hair to the soles of her feet.
Blood dripped down her cheek. It startled her out of the spell and Jaina raised a shaking hand to find a dribble of sticky warmth oozing from her ear.
Jaina, stop! You'll kill yourself!
I'm the Lich King, she replied, dazed, staring at her red-stained fingertips. Then the ice wall before her exploded and she shrieked, scrambling back as one of the siege machines plowed through the opening.
JAINA!
Idon'twannadie!
There was a rumble, than an immense crack! and it felt as though someone had yanked the world out from under Jaina. She hit the ice hard on her back, smarting from the fall and squirmed over onto her hands and knees as the ground continued to shudder and jostle. Above her- mere feet from her- the siege machine rocked from side to side with the force of the tremor.
Then the glacier collapsed several meters behind the siege machines. A sinkhole formed, slushed ice sliding into the opening, and in the strange inky twilight, something deadly and familiar clambered from the pit.
"Anu'Shukhet?" whispered Jaina, breathless with amazement and joy. "Anu'Shukhet!" She had wished for something just as big and armoured as the siege machines, hadn't she? The Spiderlord turned, head up, and though she couldn't have seen Jaina from where she stood, Anu'Shukhet had certainly heard her.
She rushed the machine that had broken through Jaina's wall, hitting the vehicle with her shoulder and the full force of her charge. Wood creaked and snapped, and the Spiderlord's chitin armour screeched against iron plates. The siege machine went up on two wheels, and then over on its side. Anu'Shukhet followed it, sank both claws into the wooden undercarriage and bulled forward, tearing the axles free of their cradles, kicking and slashing, throwing shrapnel in all directions.
The second machine launched a shot at her almost point blank. Jaina saw the lead ball, saw the throwing arm release, saw the ball begin to move, and somehow she moved faster. The ball was knocked wildly off-course by a flying shard of ice. Anu'Shukhet whirled on her would-be attacker, roaring in fury, and ripped the harrow clean off the front of the machine.
"When I grow up," said Kagra, standing beside Jaina, eyes comically wide, "I wanna be that." Then she gave voice to a blood-curdling warcry, snatched up her weapons, and sprinted for the defunct siege machines. Starkweather limped up beside her.
"So you guys decided to stay and keep an eye on me, I see," said Jaina, watching Anu'Shukhet climb on top of the third siege machine. Its pilots hastily abandoned ship, for all the good it did them. Anu'Shukhet had brought friends, too.
"Well, it was that or report to Highlord Mograine that he severely under-estimated you. The Highlord doesn't take well to constructive criticism," explained the Death Knight. "We were right about the necromancer though," he added and gave a significant nod in the direction of Kel'Thuzad. She sighed.
"Yes, you were." She tried to peer behind Starkweather. "Is Xochi...?"
"He's dead. Truly dead."
"I'm sorry," she said. Starkweather patted her shoulder.
"He's at rest, Lady King. And we've a battle still to fight."
He trotted after Kagra, and Jaina called the remains of her defense squad to her. They pressed towards Kel'Thuzad's position.
The lich was in trouble. He was mostly directing the soldiers he had reanimated while his magic slowly regenerated. Normally that process would take days, but they were days Kel'Thuzad didn't have. Whenever he felt he had enough strength to make even a single frostbolt, he used it. His only other remaining weapons were the halberd he had seized, and his chains.
Jaina fought her way to him, frowning the entire time, but when she reached him and her defenders joined his, the lich sagged against his halberd, edges of his kilt settling in tattered folds against the ice. Jaina felt a twinge of relief, which she hastily crushed.
"It looks like we're-"
She didn't get a chance to finish the thought. Something in the middle of the battlefield exploded with a deafening boom, throwing up a fountain of ice and bodies, leaving a crater almost a meter deep. Before the fine red mist had settled, another explosion rocked the glacier. This time, Jaina saw the drake and its rider rising swiftly away from the carnage.
"Bombing us again," she said and took aim. The frostbolt ripped out of her hands, too fast to track with human eyes. It blew the drake apart mid-wingbeat. Jaina cleared her throat, tasting blood, and gagged. It turned into a wracking cough that drove her to her knees and left her breathless with Kel'Thuzad leaning over her, radiating concern.
"My King..."
"I'm- I'm a-all right," she stammered weakly, staring at the puddle of bloody glop in the palm of her glove.
"No, you aren't. What happened?"
She showed him the blood. "Casting hurts. Using m-my powers hurts." The lich laid one hand on her back. Jaina flinched, then relaxed, resigned. "What are you doing?"
"If we are ever allowed to continue your lessons, I will tell you that necromancy shares some skills with healing magic. Of course, it's used differently, but a necromancer can sense injury or disease."
"And?" she said, breath whistling each time she drew it.
"The Lich King's powers are killing you."
"But I am-"
"Yes. However, these spells are inherently detrimental to living flesh, any living flesh, and using them in such volume without preparation is damaging your body. Your cells are dying. Your lungs are filling with fluid. Your heartbeat is erratic. It's reversible," he added hastily, as Jaina felt herself begin to hyperventilate. "And I think in time, with training and slow, careful progression, you won't suffer any adverse effects while casting. Its a matter of you becoming accustomed to the magic and working out ways to employ it without injury. But right now, you need a healer."
"We're in the middle of a battle, of a war! I can't just stop using magic! People will die if I don't help! What if I only use the spells I learned in Dalaran?" Even before he answered, Jaina knew it was impossible.
"You are the Lich King. Every part of your magic is affected by what you are. You can't separate your magic into what is and isn't the Lich King anymore."
Jaina said nothing for a long moment, biting her lip angrily and staring into the melee. The Scourge were still out-numbered and on the defensive, without air support or safe fallback positions. She had no idea how many of the Scourge she had called and opened portals for were actually able to reach Northrend. She hadn't the concentration to stretch out her awareness and learn.
And then she had an idea.
"Kel'Thuzad," she said slowly, "tell me about the nature of this bond between yourself and the Lich King."
The lich fidgeted, twisting uncomfortably in mid-air. "What do you wish to know?"
"We can communicate telepathically, at some distance. That doesn't hurt and its part of the Lich King's powers, is it not?"
"It is, as I understand it."
"And one mage can support another during spell-casting by feeding them energy. Could we do that using the bond? Could I cast through you, safely?"
There was another distant explosion, followed by a wave of shouting and screaming. Kel'Thuzad edged away from her. "I don't know. It seems plausible."
"Then let's try." She pulled off her gloves and held out both hands. "If it hurts me, we'll know it doesn't work." Reluctantly, Kel'Thuzad put his hands in hers. The moment they touched, there was a dull hum in both their minds, and a feeling of clutter. For a moment, Jaina could hear the lich's doubts, and flutters of stray subconscious thought. Kel'Thuzad was overwhelmed by the physical sensation of pain, rolling through Jaina in waves that she ignored but were so profound to him that he tried to pull away.
But then Jaina began to cast and everything else fell away. It was like completing an electrical circuit. All of the Lich King's power, all of the knowledge, flowed from Jaina, tempered and shaped expertly by Kel'Thuzad's expansive necromantic wisdom, safely channeled through his magically-constructed, undead body.
Blackness spiraled outwards from where they stood, a sucking, oily whirlpool of death. Kel'Thuzad yanked Jaina off her feet instantly, up into the air, and they hovered inches above the mess. There was no pain, no nausea. The creeping rot melted the ice into slush, and where it came into contact with the living Vrykul, it disintegrated their leather boots and ate its way up their bodies, liquifying flesh and bone. When they tried to run, their footsteps left bloody puddles and the death oozed outwards from their prints. It left the undead alone. Jaina and Kel'Thuzad levitated as the black muck killed every living thing within a ten meter radius.
It stopped spreading eventually and sank into the ice, leaving piles of bones behind.
"No, we can't do that again," she said quickly, "we have living allies. Anu'Shukhet and her warriors came to our aid. I won't kill them accidentally."
"Yes, my King," murmured the lich. Jaina questioned his emotional state for a brief second and received a flash of wonder, and absolution. She withdrew her curiosity. It seemed invasive, definitely rude, no matter who he was.
"Focus on-"
One moment she was locked in a strangely peaceful duality with the lich, hovering above the glacier. The next, the world had become a chaos of light and sound and heat, and she was flat on her back with something hard beneath her, digging into her spine. She was in a crater, had been thrown there or slid there when the bombs landed one after the other, half-covered with the twisted wreck of a siege machine. Blinded by the brilliance of the explosion, Jaina blinked and fumbled about herself, trying to sit up. She found she couldn't. There was something heavy on her abdomen pinning her down. It hurt when she strained forward.
"Maybe can... push it off..." she mumbled to herself, dazed, her ears ringing and her head pounding. She reached forward, shoving at the object holding her fast. Light flared up, fire from another explosion, and Jaina saw what she was pushing against.
It was a splinter of wood as big around as her bicep and longer than she was tall. It was pierced through her stomach and into the ice behind. Jaina stared in disbelief, mind racing in circles as she watched her lavendar battle dress quickly turn burgundy.
"Shit..." she breathed, "Help... I need a healer...!" Her voice was little more than a whisper. "Help!"
JAINA!
Kel'Thuzad... I'm stuck. There's a- She stared at the piece of lumber jammed through her body. His reaction reverberated through the bond and she knew he saw what she saw. I need a healer, she stated, matter-of-factly. Then she passed out.
A peculiar sensation jolted her awake. Later, when she described it, she would call it pain. Right then, it wasn't so much pain as it was an uncomfortable pressure, a sense of displacement around the intrusion in her body.
She whimpered, eyes sliding shut on the edge of a swoon. Something tapped her cheek and she blinked rapidly, startled, grimacing at the horrible sensation below her ribs. Then her eyes focused. "No!" she choked, "No, please, don't-!"
"Don't what?" rasped Kel'Thuzad, inches from her face. "Am I hurting you, Master?" Jaina tried to pull away and realized he had one hand pressed hard against her stomach, the other behind her neck. She froze.
"P-p-please don't kill me," she whispered, shivering uncontrollably.
"I'm trying to help you," he said. Jaina struggled weakly. It was useless; Kel'Thuzad's grip on her was like iron, but she continued to squirm stubbornly. "Jaina, stop. You'll make it worse and neither of us can heal. Stop. I'm not going to kill you. Now just... hold on, and try to stay awake." She realized the hand crushing against her stomach was holding a wad of cloth, once violet, now black with blood in the perpetual twilight. Jaina stared, aghast at the sheer, sticky crimson volume that soaked the cloth, and the snow, and the lich's bony hands.
"I'm dying," she breathed, chilled by the reality of the moment. "You wanted this, didn't you? Came with me so you could- could be here and become the Lich King when I died?"
"Dammit, Jaina, no. Shut up and conserve your energy." Kel'Thuzad yanked at the fabric, pulling a clean handful over her belly, and she saw it was his kilt.
"I don't understand," she said, "Why are you doing this?"
"You do understand," he said gently, "You saw everything through the bond, if you looked." Jaina grimaced as a wave of queasiness washed through her and her vision darkened. Kel'Thuzad wanted knowledge, and she had given it to him when they cast together, more freely than his previous master, and less painfully. "Jaina, stay awake."
"Okay," she murmured, eyelids sliding shut. "My mouth is cold..." Kel'Thuzad slapped her and she yelped.
"Stay awake! I don't want to be the Lich King, and I don't want to work for some ravening idiot! Or worse yet, another paladin!"
"Ow," she said, reproachful and disoriented, and rolled her eyes to look up at Kel'Thuzad. He was mostly expressionless but Jaina blinked and she could sense desperate concern there. Then he turned and she found herself staring up through his lower jaw.
"HEALER!" bellowed the lich, and turned back to her. "Hold on, Jaina. Stay awake."
"I'm trying," she said and gulped a quantity of blood. "Uck. Kel'Thuzad?" she queried softly. He fumbled beside himself and pulled up another panel of his kilt, hurriedly pressing it around the wooden stake. Jaina whimpered as his knuckles ground into her ribs. "Kel'Thuzad?"
"What is it?"
"The stuff I saw... through the bond... I don't remember seeing it but I know I did..."
"Keep talking. HEALER!"
"I always wondered why you had a High Elven name, even back when you were still human..."
"Well, now you know."
"Sylvanas was... right. And you kept it." She could hear her voice growing weaker. "For all the terrible things you... you helped Arthas to do, you did... some good things... too. You're... really only about seventy percent evil." It was almost too much effort to keep breathing and darkness was folding in around her. "Oh, Light... oh..."
"Jaina?"
"...it hurts. I'm cold."
"HEALER! Damn you Imuruk! I know you're here! Where are you when I really need you? Jaina, Master, keep breathing, keep your eyes open." It was taking all her will to move air into her lungs. Her vision had faded to a pinpoint. She was limp in Kel'Thuzad's arms, her limbs cold and too heavy to lift.
"I don't want to die," Jaina breathed, and began to cry. "It's so stupid," she sobbed, "we- together- we just obliterated like, a hundred people, but neither of us, for all that power, we can't... save me."
"Don't give up, Master, please." He pulled her close and Jaina didn't recoil. He was just as cold as she, and there was comfort in the contact despite his skeletal embrace. She had the strength to smile.
"Thank you, Kel'Thuzad," she said, so quietly he barely heard her, "I can't... keep... my eyes..."
"No! No, no, Jaina, no- Jaina! Jaina! HEALER, dammit, I need a healer! NOW! HEALER!"
There was a distant scratching sound on the ice at the edge of the crater and a spindly shadow appeared on the lip. "Oh! Kel'thu- er, Kazimir- whoa! Spell wore off-"
"Imuruk, shut up and help the Lady King!" The shaman scrambled over the rubble and stared. The lich was sitting awkwardly in the dirty snow, a bloom of gory scarlet spreading out beneath him, and clutched to his chest was the Lich King. His kilt was saturated with blood, tangled and waded over Jaina's body, and then he saw the broken spar sticking out of her stomach.
"Oh dear me!"
"Yes, exactly, now get to work! She's barely breathing!"
"Of course, of course." Imuruk crouched beside them and laid all four hands on Jaina's body. "She's... she's badly hurt."
"Just heal her!"
"I will. I am." Imuruk shifted to cradle the Lich King, Kel'Thuzad relinquishing his hold on her.
The moment he did, a bolt of pure golden light shot out of the darkness and smashed into the lich, throwing him up the incline on the other side of the crater. He landed in a heap and leaped into the air, hissing furiously.
"You will not hurt her!" he snarled, dredging up the minute shreds of magic he had left.
"No," replied a familiar voice, and Tirion Fordring stepped into the light of a burning catapult, "But I will hurt you."