Chapter Ten
The first and only warning the undead gathered to the south of Light's Hope Chapel received of an imminent attack was a blaze of blue-white fire that lit up the heavens. The glowing light shot down like a searing comet from the gray clouds above, heading towards the greatest concentration of zombies and ghouls.
Glancing up with growls and snarls of hate and surprise, the last thing a dozen ghouls saw was a large ethereal hammer, spinning end over end and burning with blue-white energies, come crashing down amidst them like a god's thunderbolt. The hammer exploded on impact with the ground, sending a wave of destruction expanding out in all directions for over ten strides. The brutal energy wall blew ghouls and zombies into meaty gobbets or stripped flesh from bone, reducing the foul monsters into mere clouds of black ashes within an instant.
Only a moment later, the source of the attack could be seen as a score of golden gryphons dove down from the skies above like avenging angels in a wedge formation, screaming challenges at the undead host gathered below. On their backs rode roaring dwarf warriors, each brandishing aloft a massive silver hammer in one hand. The gryphons swept in low, leveling out over the massed Scourge army to rip and slice with their black talons and claws. Their savage blows tore heads from bodies and gouged bloody furrows across arms and shoulders, slashing through rotted flesh and withered muscle.
Tagar Stormrider raised his storm hammer high, blue-white energies coruscating brilliantly across the silver head. He then violently jerked his arm forward with a rough commanding shout as if to throw the mighty weapon. Instead of releasing his grip to launch the storm hammer, the blaze surrounding the weapon flared even brighter and an exact duplicate of the storm hammer, only twice as big, was flung from it like a bolt of lightning. The energy hammer spun through the air before exploding against the ground, leaving a fiery wake as it drove a long path of destruction through the packed ranks of the Scourge. Only moments later did his other windwarriors follow suit, their own storm hammer attacks carving visible trails through the massed undead.
Screeching ghouls tried to leap up to grab at the swift gryphons, but were smashed back by powerful blows from the dwarves or shredded by the vicious beaks and wickedly sharp talons and claws. Even as a large flock of demon-visaged gargoyles arose on wings of jagged stone and dark crystal to grapple with their airborne foes, the gryphons ascended skyward, the dwarves loosing one final volley before gripping the reins of their flying companions tightly as the furiously beating wings drove them up against the cold wind.
Raising his storm hammer again, Tagar did not cast its energies down into the Scourge, but instead he focused on channeling his fury into the powerful weapon. The windwarrior was in his element, flying free with Vree'kar, his long-time gryphon friend and companion, through the wind and the air, rising higher and higher towards the potent storm brewing above. The dwarf's face twisted into a tight grimace, his teeth clenching hard as he concentrated on the rumbling strength of that storm, reaching out to pull that terrible force to him. His arm quivered visibly as he gripped the haft of the storm hammer even more tightly.
Suddenly a massive bolt of lightning lanced down from the heavens with an earsplitting crack, striking Tagar's storm hammer directly from above. Instead of flashing through the dwarf and gryphon to fry them in an instant, the energy was instead absorbed by the storm hammer, the crackling blue-white glow intensifying until it seemed to mock the very brightness of the sun.
Tagar bellowed long and hard in a wordless battle-cry as he brandished the storm hammer, waving it in circles above his head as Vree'kar shrieked defiance at the skies above and the undead below.
The signal had been given.
"Look there!" Falstad bellowed, pointing with an armored hand, though his words were unnecessary. The blazing blue-white light hovering high above in the sky cast aside all of the darkness looming over the land, throwing the sprawling undead army into stark relief.
"The signal!" The High Thane shouted, his deep voice echoing across the wide poisoned plain that lay before Light's Hope Chapel. He raised high a massive double-bladed battle-axe clenched in his right fist, a large circular shield of carved living stone secured to his left forearm.
"Now is the time! With me, Wildhammers! For our Clan and the Alliance!"
"Remember Lordaeron!" Commander Eligor roared, raising his two-handed mace as his war-horse reared high.
"No mercy for the enemies of the Light!"
The combined army exploded forward across the diseased ground in a thunder of trampling hooves, shouting warriors, screaming horses, bleating rams, and deep blaring horns calling out the charge.
Duke Greythar's eyes flared brighter as he calmly regarded the Argent Dawn and Wildhammer army that surged forth from the withered trees south of Light's Hope Chapel. He saw that the Argent Dawn's remaining soldiers held the center, flanked by the companies of dwarves.
And so it begins...
"Forward!" He snarled aloud as he reached out instinctively with his necromancy to impose his dark will directly on his undead minions. "Forward to their center! Smash through the Argent Dawn and slay them all!"
And at the same time, provide them with the opening they seek...
"The attack's begun, Cyros," Kael said, his voice tight with anticipation as he pointed towards the two armies charging towards each other only a kilometer south of Light's Hope Chapel.
The dwarf paladin panned the long gnome-crafted farseer from side to side, squinting into the tubular brass device with his right eye.
"Yes, our army's drawing the Scourge away from the Chapel. The building's still guarded by many undead, but they're nothing we can't deal with easily enough."
"Then let's move," Cyros commanded grimly. He gestured sharply with his right gauntleted hand as he broke into a jog down the hillside.
In focused and silent determination, the six dwarf paladins and four priests followed the vindicator. The small group moved as quickly as they could, seeking to take advantage of the battle between the Scourge and the Wildhammers and Argent Dawn. Light's Hope Chapel loomed up gloomily in the distance, enshrouded in unnatural darkness and putrid greenish fog that swirled about it in the frigid wind.
Even as Cyros jogged steadily towards the Chapel, all thoughts of stealth and concealment banished from his mind, a chill sense of foreboding seemed to settle over him like a stifling cloak.
The vindicator could clearly sense Duke Greythar within the edifice before him. The death knight had made no attempt to conceal his presence; his fearsome necromantic power was unshackled, blazing out for all to feel. The sheer depths of his foe's black might astounded the draenei paladin, threatening to sap his resolve, to drain his courage down to the very dregs of cowardice and despair. And yet, alongside the Black Duke's terrible energies, Cyros could feel Ashira's monstrous strength as well. The blood elf mage was still alive and right now that was all that mattered.
This was the end she had foretold, what she had tried to warn him about. Cyros could feel it. The vindicator's jaw set in grim resolution as he focused his thoughts. No matter what she had become, no matter how terribly powerful she had seemingly grown, the blood elf was not damned. She could be saved, redeemed. Disregarding everything else, he had to remember that and he had to try.
Even as he jogged towards the distant building, his hooves thumping heavily against the diseased ground beneath, Cyros tore the dark cloth from his warhammer. He tossed it away to flutter through air, rising higher towards the stormy skies above. The purple crystal head of his weapon gleamed brightly now, all former lifelessness banished, the crackling energies contained within now blazing golden. He readjusted his grip on the haft, armored fingers flexing.
Healed, renewed, the vindicator was as strong as he had ever been before and now purpose once again filled his mind and soul, conviction that had been lacking ever since Ashira had been taken.
Cyros had failed her before. It would not happen again.
"I don't suppose-!" Commander Dawnbringer shouted as his two-handed mace smashed a ghoul onto its back. His horse, a trained war-beast, reared up high, screaming a challenge as it lashed out with its hooves at another zombie, crushing its skull.
"-that now would be a good time to voice my-!"
The Commander kicked out with an armored boot, catching a ghoul across the jaw, even as he stabbed his mace down as if it were a lance, hammering it into the chest of another lurching zombie. Eligor bit back a foul curse as he beheld the armor, sword, and shield of a former Argent Dawn footman, his head and torso bisected by a blow of terrible strength.
"-disagreement with being used as bait!"
The slavering Argent Dawn zombie came at him again with an unearthly howl, its sword hacking down at Eligor's right thigh. The Commander blocked the blade awkwardly with the haft of his mace and then slammed the butt-end of his weapon across the zombie's face, knocking it onto its back. A brutal stamp from his war-horse's steel-shod hooves cracked open the undead monster's skull and it immediately ceased writhing.
"You should've said something sooner!" Falstad roared gruffly back, fighting enthusiastically on foot less than ten paces away from the Commander against three weapon-wielding skeletal warriors.
Laughing madly, the High Thane lashed out with his round stone shield, using his tremendous strength to bludgeon aside two of the skeletons. His battle-axe exploded the third into bone fragments as he hacked the weapon down through its torso from left shoulder to right hip.
"Besides, the plan's working well enough, isn't it? They're all coming for you!"
"Bah!" Eligor grunted in reply, his breath coming in deep gasps, lungs already burning from the constant fighting. "It's working too-!"
"Commander!" A shouted warning rang out. "Behind you!"
Without hesitating, Eligor tried to jerk his war-horse around to confront the threat, his two-handed mace sweeping out like a club. Just as the flanged head connected with the skull of a skeleton warrior, the heavy halberd the Scourge soldier was wielding slashed down to bite into Dawnbringer's right thigh, hacking through the chainmail between the plates of armor. The Commander shouted in rage and pain, even as his strike ripped the skeleton's head from its shoulders and sent it flying away into the gloom. His horse stumbled forward slightly and Eligor almost dropped his mace as his right hand shifted instinctively down to press hard against the bleeding wound.
Only a moment later, he felt a rush of wind against his back, heard the flap of beating wings, and then black claws like daggers slashed down across his back, drawing streams of sparks as they skidded along Eligor's sturdy plate armor. Something large and heavy plowed bodily into the Commander, knocking him easily from his war-horse.
Dawnbringer landed heavily on his left side, the air driven from his lungs by the force of the unexpected impact. Gasping for breath, Eligor wriggled and thrashed like a landed fish, trying to dislodge this new enemy. Kicking the foe back with a booted foot, he managed to rise up onto one knee, swinging his mace out clumsily to smash the creature across the hips and legs with the weapon. The gray stone and dark crystal sustained the snarling gargoyle's form, however, and the minion of the Scourge pressed forward again, raising both of its clawed hands for another attack.
Before it could strike, the gargoyle's right hand was suddenly enclosed in a huge dark blue and bright gold armored fist that immobilized its arm as easily as it would restrain a child.
"Korfax," Eligor gasped, his teeth gritted in pain as blood continued to stream down from his wounded thigh. He leaned heavily on his mace for support as he rose slowly to his feet, his arms almost numb from the fighting, his right leg burning with pain.
"At your service, Commander," The Champion of the Light rumbled, his voice deep and gravelly, akin to boulders grinding roughly together, as he glared down at the gargoyle he held in his left gauntleted hand. His once gleaming plate armor was now covered in gore and dirt, and the curved blades adorning his shoulders made the Champion appear more like some avenging spirit of wrath come from the underworld, rather than a true hero of the Argent Dawn.
A sheer giant of a man looming at near seven feet in height, his features seemingly carved from weathered granite, Korfax was without question the mightiest and most courageous warrior the Argent Dawn had ever recruited in their war against the Darkness. Though he had declined a command position, the Champion nonetheless drew a strong following wherever he went, an unshakeable living mountain to the ideals and beliefs of the Argent Dawn. In combat, he almost always served as a flesh-and-blood standard, his sheer presence bolstering flagging spirits and rallying weary soldiers to him, even as he laid about him with mighty strokes of his massive battle-axe.
Quickly, but with a twisted grimace of disdain, Korfax hurled the undead creature away, throwing it into a pack of zombies and ghouls, the impact sending all of them sprawling against the ground. He reached out again, grasping Eligor's left arm to steady him, even as he raised the double-bladed axe in his right hand, glancing about in readiness.
The Commander looked about as well.
"How did-" He began to ask Korfax, but stopped short with grim realization.
The Scourge were amongst his soldiers now, had forced their way through the first few orderly ranks. His embattled, but disciplined warriors were falling back on their training, fighting in triads and pairs, all doing their best to protect each other. There were no more war cries now, no more battle chants, the men saving what little breath they could suck into their lungs for the continuous rise and fall of their weapons. Eligor saw the sheer numbers of the Scourge were threatening to drive the Argent Dawn back, his men holding their ground only by the slimmest of margins. And still the undead continued to push relentlessly forward in a clear effort to split his soldiers further and further apart. Soon it would be near impossible to maintain any sort of formation and their resolve would quickly begin to buckle as well.
Storm hammers blazed down from several windwarriors circling overhead, illuminating the conflict with bursts of bright unearthly light even as the weapons drove back the undead with impenetrable walls of energy and fire. The fearless gryphons and their dwarf riders even swooped down low enough to grapple in hand-to-hand combat with the Scourge, but soon it would not be enough to hold back the ever-pressing tide.
"By the Light," Eligor whispered as his wide eyes panned over the desperate struggle, before quickly raising his voice to a commanding roar, almost cracking from the strain. "Stand your ground, men! Hold them! Form circles!"
"Form circles!" Korfax bellowed, echoing Eligor's command, even as he hewed the head of a ghoul from its body. A follow-up kick from an armored boot doubled up a rotting high elf zombie to receive a similar fate.
The Commander was grateful for the iron lungs of the Champion as Korfax's deep voice rose above the cacophony of noise, from the clashing of weapons to the hoarse screams of wounded men to the gruff battle-cries of the dwarves and the screeching of ghouls and gargoyles.
Nearby Argent Dawn soldiers quickly took up the call, shouting aloud in ragged voices to, "Form circles!" even as they battled frantically to reach one another.
At first singly, then in pairs, and then in even greater numbers, the fighters began gathering together in dense phalanx formations, forming circular shield walls that only parted for the briefest of moments to admit more stumbling Argent Dawn into their ranks, some of them dragging the wounded with them. The weary bloodied men stood shoulder-to-shoulder in two separate rings of steely death that faced outward, bristling with swords and spears.
Those few who still had longbows and quivers of arrows were placed at the center to loose shots over the packed soldiers into the oncoming Scourge. The remaining Argent Dawn priests that had survived the initial assault on Light's Hope chanted steadily amidst the defensive formations, almost fainting with the effort of healing those most grievously hurt.
"Falstad!" Eligor cried, turning back to where he had last seen the High Thane, even as Korfax dragged the staggering Commander determinedly towards the nearest shield-circle. "We can't hold them for much longer! Hit them now!"
"Aye!" The High Thane roared back.
Falstad was fighting with ten of his personal guard against a swarm of ghouls and descending gargoyles as he personally led the left company of Wildhammers at the forefront of the battle. The bellowing warrior-king smote a gargoyle such a blow that cracks splintered throughout its form, before it broke apart into crumbling pieces. Deep horns resounded from the High Thane's company, echoing mournfully across the battlefield.
The right flank of Falstad's company that bordered the Argent Dawn's forces seemed to bulge outward as the ranks of heavily armored dwarves parted to allow a roaring force of twenty-five handpicked warriors mounted on bleating war-rams to charge through, crashing into the Scourge's own right flank. At the same moment, another similar force was launched from the left flank of the dwarf company to the Argent Dawn's right. The two groups slashed into the Scourge like a scythe through a field of wheat, the dwarves cutting their enemies down with brutal ease even as their war-rams crushed and tore the diseased and decomposing corpses beneath pounding hooves.
Though the Scourge possessed unrelenting savagery and an unwavering tenacity that stretched far beyond any mere mortal opponent's resolve, they were nonetheless slow to react to a changing battlefield and took the twin flank charges with hideous casualties in the first few seconds alone. The attacks bore deep into the undead's packed numbers and even as they did, both Wildhammer companies maneuvered inward, moving slowly, but with dogged determination, pushing their enemies back as they swung around like doors. The jaws of the trap closed on the Scourge army, crushing the hideous monsters against the anvil of the Argent Dawn's shield walls.
"Commander!" Korfax shouted, despite fighting side-by-side with Eligor. He gestured with his gore-stained battle-axe towards Light's Hope in the distance. "Look there!"
Dawnbringer looked to where the Champion was pointing. He squinted his eyes for a better view, wiping away some of the sweat and blood from his face with the back of a gauntlet. He could barely make out the blue-white crackling energies of storm hammers whirling through the sky and the flying winged forms of several gryphons against the dark gray backdrop of the clouds overhead.
Even as he watched, the gryphons seemed to spread out into an angular attack formation, all of them giving each other plenty of room to maneuver as they dove towards the ground below. In the next moment, their windwarriors loosed their storm hammers at unseen targets, the weapons flashing down. Distant explosions reached Eligor's ears and realization abruptly dawned on the Commander.
"They've found him..." He said grimly, not caring if anyone could not hear him over the struggle.
"They've found Greythar."
Even as his warhammer smashed through the leering face of a skeleton warrior, Cyros could not help but wince as blue-white trails of fiery destruction slashed across the ground to either side of him. He was forced to fling up an armored hand to shield his vision.
The vindicator seemed to be running through some insane gauntlet as storm hammers rained down almost continuously from the heavens like showers of otherworldly comets. The rippling shockwaves from the magical weapons threatened to send him tumbling to his knees with every step he took. Even as he glanced to his left, he saw a group of charging ghouls suddenly explode into blackened meaty chunks as two flung storm hammers carved their way through them. The windwarriors overhead were doing their best to prevent the oncoming Scourge from engaging the running group of paladins and priests, but with every passing second the undead drew ever closer, as did the explosions and concussions of the storm hammers.
Cyros paused for a moment, his breath coming hard and fast, chest heaving. He staggered as a new volley of storm hammers exploded in a rippling pattern across the ground to his right, falling to one knee. Before he could push himself back up to his hooves, a large armored hand seized his right arm, yanking him up easily.
"Keep moving, Cyros!" Kael Stonecrusher roared, his voice echoing hollowly from his war-helm. He gestured sharply with the massive glowing mace clenched tightly in his right fist, the ball-head studded with thick sharp spikes. "We have to keep pushing forward!"
Before the draenei could reply, the dwarf paladin glanced behind him to check on his fellow paladins and priests. In the next moment, he suddenly shoved Cyros back down onto the ground as he shouted, "Get down!"
The vindicator could not see what was happening behind them, but he managed to glance up just as two windwarriors passed directly overheard. The Wildhammer dwarves flew so low their gryphons' talons and claws came within less than two strides from Cyros' face. He instinctively flinched back, the beating wings buffeting him with heavy blasts of air, and squeezed his glowing eyes shut as the dwarves flung their brilliant weapons to explode a charging group of ghouls only a short distance before Cyros and Kael. The shrieking war-cries of the gryphons rang in his ears, even as they rose skyward once more.
As Kael hauled him bodily up again, the vindicator glanced around to see that the Scourge were at last upon them in force, the first of the ghouls leaping forward to grapple with the courageous dwarf paladins that strode to meet them. The ground shaking beneath his hooves and a wordless shout of surprise and fear from the priestess Alaeria were the only warnings he received as a new horror came upon them.
Cyros spun around, raising his warhammer high, only to pause in momentary shock, confronted by a revolting wall of diseased flesh and bloated muscle that loomed over him.
The enormous abomination glared down at him, its right oversized eye a dark mass of burst blood vessels surrounding the yellow pupil and black iris. The other eye had been squeezed shut long ago by disgusting folds of fatty sagging skin. All across its pustulant form, dark fluids oozed and dribbled from between the crude leather stitching, the mass of entrails at its stomach dragging obscenely against the ground. A swollen phlegmy bellow of rage seemed to bubble up from its rotted lungs, black filth spraying from its mouth as it swung high the huge rusty cleaver it clutched in its right monstrous fist.
Cyros ducked low as the weapon slashed down, before lunging forward to swing his warhammer around. The crystal head smashed into the abomination's right knee, but disgustingly, the warhammer merely sank into the slimy pestilent flesh, impacting with nothing remotely solid. Cursing, the vindicator sprang back, his weapon tearing free in a welter of green pus and dark congealed blood as the abomination swung a lazy backhand at him. The monster's fingers still clipped his chest though and sent him sprawling in the dirt. Alaeria came to his aid in the next moment, smiting the moaning Scourge creature with a blast of holy flame and sending it reeling back, its thick voice roaring incoherently.
Even as he rose to his hooves with a gasp of thanks, Cyros was aware that all around him the paladins and priests were heavily engaged against all manner of Scourge monstrosities that beset them from all sides. Even as he watched, skeletal limbs and malformed bodies clawed their way up from the very earth itself to clutch at the struggling dwarves. Glancing to his right, he saw a shriveled and wizened figure cloaked in black cackling madly from nearby, even as it raised the staff of twisted wood it held in its right hand, summoning forth more undead to battle against the living.
"Kael!" The draenei bellowed, pointing with a gauntleted hand at the necromancer. "There! Slay him or we'll be overwhelmed!"
He barely managed to swing his warhammer up in time in the next instant to parry aside a heavy blow from the abomination's left cleaver, the impact sending him staggering back, arms nearly numbed.
Suddenly two flopping arms, extruding obscenely from near the monster's midriff, lashed out with a long length of thick rusty chain with a hook, sending the crude weapon hurtling out at the vindicator. The chain wrapped around Cyros' legs and then the two arms yanked with surprising strength, tripping up the vindicator onto his back and dragging him closer. Even as the abomination gurgled in triumph, raising an enormous foot to crush the draenei paladin, Kael Stonecrusher hurled a blistering exorcism into its face, his holy wrath burning the creature's flesh right down to the yellowed bones beneath. In the next moment, Cyros tore his legs free from the chains using brute strength alone, smashing at the rusted links of metal with his warhammer, before scrambling back as the abomination howled in fury.
Adrenaline stormed through Cyros' body, providing him with an unnatural clarity of all that was happening around him. In his peripheral vision, the vindicator saw Kael crush his way through several ghouls, rampaging through them like a juggernaut, loosing holy bolts and powerful strikes from both mace and shield to win his way through the necromancer's undead bodyguard. Skeleton warriors advanced to meet him and bar his path towards their master, but the dwarf would not be denied.
Even as the skeletons surrounded him, raining down blow after blow with their rusty weapons onto his armor and raised shield, Kael swung his mace back and then threw it. The glowing weapon flashed across the distance separating the dwarf paladin from his target, humming viciously through the air. Too late, the necromancer raised his spindly arms in a vain attempt to cast a protective spell, but the speed of the weapon carried it into his face with unerring accuracy. The impact lifted him off his feet and sent him flying to sprawl on the ground six strides away, unmoving.
In an instant, the skeletons surrounding Kael seemed to shudder, their movements slowing into laughable sluggishness, before they disintegrated into piles of bones, armor, and weapons, the necromantic power holding their forms together unraveling. Shuffling zombies moaned and groaned as they collapsed stiffly to the ground, their mockery of life ending abruptly.
The abomination roared again in fury, drawing Cyros' attention back to it once more as it pounded forward to crush him. The lower half of its face had been burned down to blackened bones, its jaws now resembling a horrible and twisted smile. It raised the cleaver in its right hand, swinging down at Cyros with terrible force. Snarling, the vindicator sprang forward to meet its advance, his warhammer sweeping out to smash aside the descending wrist, crushing the joint utterly and sending the cleaver hurtling out into the darkness.
As he leapt up at the monster's grotesque face, teeth bared, warhammer raised, two blazing storm hammers burned their way past Cyros' right side, smashing into the abomination's chest and left shoulder in near-simultaneous impacts. Raising its swollen voice in a bellow of rage, the abomination began to fall backwards as it was knocked off balance.
"In the name of the Light!" Cyros shouted, swinging his warhammer downward at the abomination's head.
The weapon exploded the monster's skull in a shower of rotten brains, dark blood, and shards of bone. The savage, albeit crude intelligence faded from the monster's single glaring eye as it landed hard against the ground, causing it to shudder and heave.
The draenei paladin landed heavily on both hooves, his powerful legs flexing beneath him to absorb the weight of his fully armored body. He stabbed the sharply pointed other end of his warhammer through the throat of a lunging, hissing ghoul in the next moment, before jerking it out swiftly and clubbing the foul creature to the ground.
"How about you leave some for me next time, Cyros," Kael called out as he and his remaining paladins and priests caught up to the vindicator, the death of the necromancer causing a momentary lull in the desperate fighting that the dwarves were swift to exploit.
The paladin leader was covered in dark gore, his armor plate torn and dented, but the grim smile on his lips showed the draenei that defeat and despair were the furthest things on the dwarf's mind at the moment.
Kael gestured behind him and for a second, his deep voice was heavy with regret.
"We lost both Daken and Rosa back there. They were cut off from the rest of us and surrounded. Last anyone saw was the two of them fighting together against close to two-score ghouls and gargoyles."
Cyros nodded slowly and it was only then, as he glanced around, that he realized their running battle across the poisoned plain around Light's Hope Chapel had carried them almost to the very threshold of the dark structure. The aura of power surrounding the building throbbed deep and angry, almost overwhelming in its pulse.
"They died as they lived, Kael: noble and honorable servants of the Holy Light."
"Aye," Kael agreed, but his voice was harsh and even in the dim light, the storm swirling overhead with rumbling thunder and flashing lightning, Cyros could tell the paladin's muscles were bunched and tense beneath his armor.
"When our end arrives, we must face it with honor. Still," The dwarf continued, glancing around, his tone momentarily dark and brooding. "Falling against the Scourge on some dark and nameless battlefield, surrounded and alone... That is no end for worthy warriors of the Light."
"They will always be remembered, Kael," Cyros said firmly. "And if we triumph here today, their deaths will not have been in vain. If," He repeated meaningfully. "We succeed." He gestured at Light's Hope looming up before them. "Greythar stands before us, within the Chapel. Follow me!"
The vindicator pushed his tired body into a swift jog and heard the rapid thumps of booted feet behind him as the dwarves moved to follow. As he gazed at the ominous darkness between the open doors of Light's Hope, he found he could not tear his eyes away. The blackness seemed to draw him in, swelling in his vision like a nightmare incarnate until he found himself gasping for air as if drowning.
The familiar whispering, resonating voice spoke suddenly, as if in his very mind, sinister and malevolent.
Welcome at last, vindicator...
Only you are permitted to enter...
"Cyros!" Kael shouted from behind the running draenei paladin.
The vindicator stopped at once, skidding to a halt as he whirled around in alarm to behold the dwarf paladins and priests surrounded by dozens of ghouls and zombies, gargoyles circling overhead with harsh shrieks and roars. Even as he watched, still more ghouls tore themselves free from the ground itself. These were not bodies only now raised from the earth to fight, but minions of the Scourge summoned by the dread will of their master to enforce his command.
The draenei began to start back, raising his warhammer, but the hard roar of the paladin leader stopped him in his tracks.
"No!" Kael shouted. "You must go on, Cyros!"
Even at this distance, the vindicator could see the resolute and defiant stance of the dwarf paladin as he raised both mace and shield.
"I think we all knew this is how it would end! Destroy him, vindicator! Don't let this sacrifice-!"
All other words were lost as the snarling ghouls and moaning zombies advanced forward relentlessly to bury the paladins and priests of Ironforge under an unholy tide of tearing fangs and slashing claws.
For a moment, Cyros could only watch in numb silence the final stand of Kael and his fellow dwarves. He barely noticed overhead Wildhammer windwarriors diving down into the fray, lashing out with their storm hammers even as their gryphons tore into the gargoyles, dragging the monsters bodily down into the swirling, hellish combat below.
After a long agonizing moment that tore at his soul, the vindicator at last turned away, his cheeks flushed with shame, but his eyes hard and cold with grim resolve.
The fierce battle raging behind the vindicator seemed to recede, fading away into the dim recesses of Cyros' mind as he faced Light's Hope Chapel. All the draenei paladin could hear now was the steady beating of his twin hearts, the low pounding of the blood pulsing through his veins, the calming breaths he pulled into his lungs. And all he could see before him was Light's Hope, rising up, still cloaked in unnatural darkness. The vindicator felt the deep throbbing of Duke Greythar's power emanating from within the interior, flowing out from the cracked and splintered doors that were flung wide, gaping open like the misshapen and toothless maw of some hideous beast.
For a moment that seemed to stretch on into eternity, Cyros stood unmoving before the building, gazing unblinking into the shadows that awaited him. A calm and focus such as he had never experienced before at last descended on the vindicator. He found himself inadvertently whispering aloud prayers and canticles he had been taught long ago, when he had first joined the holy order that was now known as the Hand of Argus.
The vindicator bowed his head and closed his eyes in preparation, armored hands flexing around the adamantite haft of his warhammer, lips still forming the familiar words, his deep voice chanting ceaselessly. For an instant, a blue-white rune-symbol glowed to life above his head, before bursting apart into flaring energies that swept down, infusing Cyros from hooves to head. The golden glow crackling within the crystal head of his weapon blazed brighter and when the vindicator looked up once more, his luminous blue-white eyes burned even more intensely. The draenei's entire body seemed to bulk larger, swelled with power.
The Holy Light infused him and the blessing of the Naaru was upon him.
He was ready.
Without any further hesitation, Cyros stepped across the threshold of Light's Hope Chapel, disappearing into the darkness within.