Chapter III

Sylvanas realized, after the first moment of agonized startlement, that her cape was on fire. She beat it out, grinding her teeth. Her body was scorching at every point the shrapnel had transfixed her. No human can describe the sensation. A human would be dead. She could feel the needles of iron in her heart and her lung. Slivers hissed in icy flesh all down her left side. With her right eye, she saw the steam rise. It was probably just as well that she could not see the condition of the left one.

The heat of the blast seemed to have cauterized her left arm, at least, along with all the exposed skin on that side. Her hand had not let go of her bow. She was not sure she could make the fingers uncurl if she tried.

Undead do not know the merciful delay of pain that is shock, and though loss of blood weakens them, it cannot cloud their senses. Sylvanas knew with perfect clarity what was about to happen.

Her unlife was about to come to an end. She raged silently, cursing her own folly and the miserable chance that had led the knights to her. She had run out of mana, and even if she managed to kill the remaining men with her bow, she had seen at least a dozen dwarves on the balconies. It would only take a few more mortar blasts to reduce her to doll rags, and that would be the end of it.

Besides, she would not do well at hand-to-hand with the muscle in her left arm and leg full of shrapnel. Lord Dirath would suffer no such inconvenience.

The knights seemed to be holding back, no doubt waiting to see if she would get up from behind the throne or not.

Mortar shots come in twos. Where was the second one?

A dwarfish voice screamed, the echo unbelievably loud in the cavernous room. Sylvanas heard a loud crunch, then another. She risked a look, the remains of her neck muscles shrieking, and saw the two broken bodies lying on the buckled tile a few yards away. The mortar team?

A strange sound came from the edges of the room, a chitter like the rattle of bones. Sylvanas thought she had seen cloaked figures in the archways, but she dared not put her head up again.

And there was another sound.

"What's that?" asked a human voice, and then Sylvanas recognized the low, metallic vibration for what it was. It was followed by a sudden roar, and she threw herself to the floor as flames towered up toward the ceiling from the other side of the throne.

A few seconds later, the conflagration died down, leaving behind a ringing silence. Slowly and painfully, Sylvanas drew an arrow and nocked it. It took all the effort of her considerable will to shove herself to her feet and turn to face the room.

The throne and the dais were scorched black in a perfect circle, steaming with the remains of ice and snow. Scattered masses of char lay among the twisted remains of three suits of armor. With her whole eye she saw the three men she had accounted for. Flesh already began to melt from the bones of the two her arrows had struck. A disemboweled corpse toward the back of the room must be the man she'd told to attack Lord Dirath.

Seven men and two horses. But there was no accounting for the ten shriveled bodies that lay outside the radius of the fire, flesh of man and horse alike browned and stretched like mummies. Four dwarves lay draped over the balconies, seemingly already decaying. The stone around them crackled, crumbling as if it had aged a thousand years in a second.

Lord Dirath himself stood near the body of the disemboweled man, his head bowed. His hand still clutched his sword, but it hung down at his side. A faint green smoke curled about his head and shoulders.

"Varimathras," Sylvanas said. "Where are you?"

Leathery wings rustled. The Dreadlord coasted down from a balcony, seemingly weightless despite his massive arms and shoulders. He landed gracefully a few yards from the throne, split-toed feet just touching the ground.

"I am here, my Queen," Varimathras said.

Six cloaked figures came forward from the edges of the room. Their feet clicked on the stone like dice in a box. Each one walked with a staff, and one had a globe of green glass atop it. Two others had broken remains of globes as well. The rest seemed to have improvised with anything clear they could find, bits of clear stone and glass wired to the tops of the staves. All six staves smoked with black energy, and Sylvanas caught the verdigris smell of mana on the chilly air.

The ragged cloaks did not hide everything. Red eyes glowed from beneath the hoods, and ancient mail could be seen beneath the tatters of black fabric.

The hands that held the staves were fleshless, nothing but naked bone.

Sylvanas reached up to push back the remains of her hood as she looked at them, unobtrusively drawing an arrow from her quiver. A cold suspicion began to coalesce in her mind.

"Milady, you are wounded!"

She was certain the concern in his voice was entirely sarcastic, but it was well done, nonetheless. His pale, ascetic faced looked even more pinched than usual.

"Varimathras, what are these?"

Her voice came out a little slurred, probably the result of the shard she felt buried in her left cheek. It was already cooling rapidly toward the temperature of her body.

"They have traveled a long way, Milady," the Dreadlord said quietly, his resonant voice falling thickly on the silence. "I met them on the outskirts of the ruins after I followed you up."

"I might have known," Sylvanas said slowly. "How did you get through the water?"

"I boiled it off," Varimathras said. He flapped his wings slightly, causing his feet to leave the ground for a second. Fangs showed between his white lips as he spoke. "It took considerable mana, but not much time. Do not worry, I will certainly see it put back. The escape route was an excellent idea, but its execution requires a little more preparation."

"You should have plenty of time for that," Sylvanas said. "I confess I am impressed with your initiative." He must have been planning this for ages, waiting for his opportunity, she thought. Not a single one of my spies caught him out, so he must not have told anyone in the Undercity. He's just been biding his time, and then these humans came along and made everything easy.