I screamed as my heart broke open and all the tears it held ran down my face. I tried to run to Thom but someone grabbed and held me and I fought them with a blind furious rage.

"You can't save him," Shanker said, his lips at my ear as he lifted me in the air. "Save those you can, healer." Arms that had known the implacable stillness of the grave held me tightly and no matter how I twisted and turned I could not escape. I flailed my arms, trying to grab some part of him. My hands wanted – needed – to rip him to pieces, to make him let me go.

"Save your fool paladin, woman!" Shanker yelled as he shook me, his fingers digging into my flesh. "Do I have to beat you?"

"I failed him," I cried, nothing more than a limp rag in his grasp. "My fault; my fault."

"Regrets will buy you nothing," Shanker said his tone firm and, for him, gentle. "Others need you. Move – now!"

I could not look up into his face as he released me, I was so ashamed. He set his hand on my shoulder and gave it a push, sending me off towards the fighters. I took my position among the other healers and the mages; not at the very front where I wanted to be, where Thom's body lay. The monstrous troll the death knights commanded barreled into first one, knocking it down and Niall finished it off with two handed overhead blow to its head. His exultation in the kill flowed through the Light and I could feel how it gave strength to our fighters.

Their cheers were swallowed up by a scourge touched roar and it seemed as if the world stopped for a moment and held its breath. An even larger blighted troll than the first two had come through the portal, followed by Drakuru with a controlling scepter in his hands. His minion raised its arms above its head and brought them down on the top of the necropolis, the punishing blow sending vibrations through the metal that knocked us all off our feet.

"For Lordaeron!" Stoutmantle shouted as he got to his feet. He pointed his sword at the monster and its horrific master, his voice rallying his men who added their own to his.

The death knights sent in their monstrous brute and it knuckle-galloped across the platform towards the other, the momentum of their crash sending both to knock down the troll overlord. Soldiers ran forward to attack while Drakuru and his minion were weakened but the overlord quickly recovered and snatched two men up in one hand, smashing them against the necropolis' top plating before throwing them over the side.

In answer the mages sent freezing spells at Drakuru while the death knights called upon the Shadow to corrupt the footing under the huge troll with death and decay. Each time that the mages froze the scourged overlord, the barrier lasted only a short while before he broke free and reached for more soldiers to crush in his hands as if they were insects.

Our enslaved blighted troll was weakening as it fought and the death knights' efforts to gain control of the newcomer were rebuffed time after time. We were losing too many fighters; as each died so did one more mote of the Light and I could feel a great darkness oozing into the empty places. Soon Drakuru would be sweeping the top of necropolis free of us and this brave assault would be yet another loss in the fight against the scourge.

I closed my eyes and prayed, my sorrow growing at the loss of each life, each point of Light, I reached out to heal. A shiver ran through me, this the last hour of my life, but the sensation had a curious undertone that was also familiar. Then I heard the sound of gigantic wings plowing the air. Long ago they had been our protectors; long ago my race had been blessed by these, the mightiest of all the world's creatures.

"Dragons," I shouted as the shivers became tremors of joy. "Dragons on the wing!"

The light brightened as if the sun was finally free to shine and then a huge shadow passed over us, followed by another. The air roared as it was inhaled by massive lungs. Two red dragons hovered in mid air above Drakuru, the backwash from their tremendous wings sweeping our soldiers away from the overlord as if they were bits of dust. Both of the leviathans opened their mouths and exhaled a nearly deafening blast of fire at the scourged troll.

Drakuru threw up his arms to shield himself, but it was in vain. His skin blackened and smoked in the intense heat until his body crumbled into a charred ruin on the flame seared metal. The dragons went on to blast the top of the necropolis until it was clean of the scourge. They landed and then skewed into their humanoid shapes, taking on the images of the high elven with pinkish skins and long yellow hair.

No one moved for several moments, then Stoutmantle strode head high towards the dragons and after a breath or two the rest of us followed at a discrete distance. I pushed through the crowd, my inner senses following a thread of Light that had Niall's marker and I found him at Guivre's side where she sat with her brother's body in her arms.

She looked up at me, tears running down her blood splashed face. "He calls – called – me Taterpie because I loved mam's sweet potato pie so much," she said between sobs. "I always told him somebody would get mad at him for all his teasing. I warned him!" Her face crumpled and she bowed her head over his chest. "I warned him … so … many times."

Niall picked her up and she did not resist him as he cradled her in his arms as if she was a child. I kneeled and smoothed Thom's hair for the last time before signaling to the bearers to take the body away.

"I saved him for this," I said, my eyes on the grieving young woman. "For so little …"

"My esteemed guests," I heard Stoutmantle say from behind me. I stood and turned to watch as he bowed to the dragons. "What news?"

He was not surprised to see them! I looked at Niall but he shrugged in answer, then turned away to set Guivre on her feet but I didn't feel he did that to hide his face.

"We are happy to say that the Argent Crusade and the Ebon Knights were able to bring down Thrym and Highlord Fordragon successfully kept The Lich King distracted while you attacked Voltarus." The two dragons traded glances before turning back to Captain Stoutmantle. "However, the Highlord was lost to us. We have not been able to find his body."

Stoutmantle's head went up and his shoulders back. His hands were clenched into white knuckled fists at his sides. "We are cursed to lose our greatest warriors; our most noble heroes," he whispered. One of the dragons slowly closed his eyes and bowed his head.

Tears welled in my eyes for him, for Tater, for all the world's lost children.

Thanking the dragons for their help, Stoutmantle then began giving orders to tend to the wounded and to start a pile to burn the troll bodies. Niall's warm hand curled around my wrist and I smiled down at him, then I followed the captain as he strode off to care for his people.