Chapter 1

Six years after the Fall of Silvermoon…

The female figure stood on top of the cliff, gazing down at the activity below her. She was surrounded by all manner of undead beings, some humanoid, others grotesque and deformed, all going about their tasks. Despite the activity, she was distinctly alone. They all gave her a wide birth, her aura of malice and foreboding almost visible in its intensity.

She watched impassively as the death knights below her charged into a line of heavily armoured humans who were part of the Scarlet Crusade. They were a fanatical order dedicated to the Light, and sworn to the destruction of the Scourge. They were so single-minded that even the rest of their race distanced themselves from their blazing red banners and religiously blinded lifestyle. They were now paying for their folly. Her death knights were just as heavily armoured, and armed with specially forged runeblades. Masters of blood, frost, and undeath, they slaughtered the red knights where they stood. Not that they had much say in their actions. An intrinsic part of a death knight's nature was the need to cause pain in others. If they didn't, they would suffer terribly themselves in time. It drove them to great acts of cruelty, which was exactly what the Lich King desired. Those who failed in their task, died. All those who fell, death knight and human alike, would be raised later as mindless ghouls, and thrown back into the fray.

It was a seemingly endless cycle, and one she had watched over a hundred times in the last few months. She wondered if the humans had any idea what their role in all this was, or if they just continued to blindly throw themselves into her clutches, ignorant of the truth. They believed they were holding back the Scourge, preventing her particular tide of undeath from sweeping the plaguelands once again. To her, they were a mere training ground on which to weed out the weak from the strong. They thought themselves a serious threat. She saw them as a child's playground.

If she still breathed, she would have sighed. She was mind-numbingly bored.

Anyone looking up at her from below would have seen a fearsome sight. She was one of the San'layn, the ruling elite of the Darkfallen, a race of vampiric undead elves in service to the Lich King. She had been the first to be created nearly six years ago, and now served as a general within the Scourge. Her bone-white hair whipped about her smooth, necrotic features, her skin having long lost the sheen of life to that of a light grey pallor. She wore dramatic crimson and orange delicate garments that swirled around her and visually signified her as spell caster. They were immodest in how they covered her body, leaving nothing to the imagination, and were completely impractical for the cool weather. If she had been alive that is – the cold would never again be a problem for her. Her wide, high collar brought attention to her face, where she wore a crimson mask patterned with fierce gold fangs over her nose and mouth, a trademark of the San'layn. It was a stark reminder to all what she was, and if anyone was not sure, her massive leathery wings would leave them in no doubt. Only a handful of the most powerful amongst the San'layn had grown them, all females, and they were the envy of the rest of her artificial race. Bat-like and fierce, they made her imposing to look at just by themselves.

Not that anyone really looked at her anymore. All anyone saw when they dared to peer into her glowing black eyes was agonised fury, and the deep, endless hunger that plagued every moment of her existence.

And she was starving.

Others of her kind would have leapt into the humans below and fed until they were sated. But not her. The Lich King had torn her very soul apart, a significant piece of it forever residing in his cursed runeblade, Frostmourne, binding her to his will. He had abused her body in every possible way, tortured her mind until she was sure she had lost it, and bent her will until she lay before him, utterly broken. But, her hunger was her own. It was one of only two things of any consequence that she could still actually feel, and while she did, perhaps … perhaps there was hope she could feel more one day. To sate it, was to stop feeling it. And then all she had left was the bitter rage that consumed her being.

She would have to feed eventually, of course. And soon. Too soon. Until then, while he still allowed her any semblance of free choice, she chose to endure the suffering. It was hardly an act of rebellion. It couldn't even be seen as the ill-conceived act of a stubborn child. It just … was.

She became aware of a figure approaching, one of the recently raised death knight acolytes by the glimpse of his simple robes. She did not turn to greet him. His voice was tinged with the grating sound of death, a trait she shared with him, though it was more pronounced in the death knight.

"Your Highness, Highlord Darion Mograine has returned."

She gave him the smallest of nods to acknowledge his words, and he left her alone, moving quickly out of her peripheral vision.

While she commanded all of the Scourge forces in the region, Mograine was responsible for the death knights. As a powerful death knight himself, he was loyal, methodical, and ruthless. That had made him the perfect candidate to send to reclaim the fallen city of Stratholme for the Scourge. Some Alliance do-gooders had decided to purge the city of her minions and had managed to kill the local death knight ruler, Lord Aurius Rivendare, in the process. Mograine's return meant he had been successful. Any other result was not an option for him.

Now that he was back, there was no need for her to directly oversee his death knights. She turned away from her vantage point and walked towards a teleportation pad. The glowing blue platform gave her direct access to the seat of her domain, the Scourge necropolis known as Acherus. The floating black monstrosity was a formidable fortress, and she had been commanded to bring it to the Eastern Plaguelands several months ago. The Lich King had stepped up the creation of new death knights since he had woken from his slumber, and there was no better source of corpses than the former kingdom of Lordaeron.

She stepped lightly onto the pad, and drew her wings into her body out of habit. The necropolis was spacious in places, but after spending most of the past few years in the wide open spaces of Northrend, she still felt cramped inside even the largest constructs.

With a nod to a nearby attendant, Blood Princess Alyna Darkfury teleported home.

She found Mograine stood on a large open-air staging platform that was used to launch aerial attacks. Great stone gargoyles were busy flying in bodies of various races, and there was a growing pile of them on the floor. In life, Mograine had been a large muscular human. His heavy black plate armour was tooled with skulls, bones, and a delicate lattice work that reminded Alyna of a spider's web. It also glowed cerulean blue in places, adding to his aura of menace. She rarely saw him without his helm on, and the two great horns on it reached up to the sky. The legendary sword "Ashbringer" was slung across his back, its essence corrupted by its wielder's state of undeath.

She approached silently, and if he hadn't been watching for her she knew she could have caught him unawares. He hated it when she did that. Consequently, she did it on every possible occasion.

"Is it done?" She spoke to him in Common, the language of the humans. Most of the early sentient Scourge had been formerly human, like their master, so it had become an unofficial unifying language.

"Yes, your Highness." His voice was strong, and the vibration of death echoed through the air.

"And Rivendare?"

"He has been raised again by the necromancers. I left him some Ash'ari crystals to fortify the area." She could see his sneer through the gap in his helm. "They should keep him relatively unharmed."

She raised a long white elven eyebrow at the 'relatively'.

He smiled sadistically. "I took Ramstein with me, and left it there."

She almost smiled. Ramstein was a hideous stitched-together monster of an abomination responsible for the deaths of thousands. What it lacked in intellect, it made up for in brutality. Rivendare had his work cut out for him staying on its good side. If it had a good side.

She allowed some of her amusement to sound in her voice. "He should be grateful he gets a second chance. I could have had him raised as a broken cadaver."

"I made sure he is well aware of the debt he owes you, your Highness."

He sounded sincere enough, so she looked past him to the now complete pile of corpses in various states of decomposition. She knew the stench emanating from them was strong. While her sense of pain was greatly diminished, as was most of her taste, she now had exceptional sight, hearing and smell. She could definitely smell them, but whatever part of her brain that would have interpreted it as stomach-churning in life, now understood it as she had a very stale room in death. It had taken her years to get used to the sights, but she was now assessing the bodies with a detached gaze.

"I see you found some new recruits."

He practically beamed at the pile. "I did! Some appear to have even been Alliance and Horde soldiers in life. Assuming their minds are not completely destroyed as they are raised, they will prove very useful indeed."

She nodded. "When you're done sorting this, come find me. We need to talk."

"About?" His tone wasn't challenging, but curious. She allowed it, but only with him. They had a good working relationship, and he had been instrumental in preparing the death knights for the primary reason they had come to the plaguelands. They were not friends – such a concept did not exist here – but they were as close to it as any two Scourge could be.

She threw him a verbal bone. "Light's Hope Chapel."

She could feel his frown at her back as she walked away.

A few days later…

Alyna stood over the bowl of cold water, stripped naked of her robes. A light blue scar stretched across her abdomen where Arthas had pierced her with Frostmourne to finally take her life. She leant against the marble counter and shuddered at the memory. On his way back to Lordaeron from Kalimdor, he had stopped by where she was being held on Naxxramas. The necropolis was the largest of them all, and where she had been taken to. At the time it had been in the mountainous peaks of Icecrown, in Northrend. The Lich King had been ready for her to die, and he ran her through slowly with his damned runeblade. She had been reborn in a ritual that still made her quake, having witnessed it herself several times after as others followed her path. The pain of her soul being ripped from her warm afterlife, and then torn apart, had been indescribable. It had shortly been followed by the agony of her body reshaping itself, though even that had paled in comparison to being risen from the dead.

She smashed her fist into the marble, cracking it, and a few bones in her fingers. She growled at the barely noticeable throb before she willed her energy into her digits. She then willed her rage to recede as she watched her hand heal. A faint glint of metal flashed from her third finger, and she looked numbly at her wedding ring.

Sylvanas.

She forced the thought away. It only made her angry, and the last time she had lost her temper had not been pretty. The tantrums made her look weak, and she couldn't afford that. She closed her eyes and leant over the bowl, finally dipping her hands into the water to begin washing the blood and gore off her body. She had nearly left it too long this time before sating her hunger. She had eventually gone to the human village to feed and had, very briefly, lost control and gone into a blood craze. She seethed quietly at her stupidity as she continued to wash her body, not feeling the coldness of the water.

When she had done what she could, Alyna stretched her mind to touch three other minds she sensed nearby. Almost gently, she called for them, and her vassals came to her aid. As the Lich King did to her, she had done to them through her vampiric curse. Because of her, they had no free will, and they served her absolutely through her direct connection to them. They were not his to command. They were hers, and only hers. If she hadn't brought them into her service, then they would be Scourge anyway. She would keep them for a while, and then let them go to their true deaths. The only true benefit they had was that they would remain dead, protected from the magic of necromancy by her curse.

She lowered her wings for them, and they dutifully scrubbed them clean of the guts she had managed to splatter them with. When they were done, she had them dress her in fresh garments. She dismissed them, and watched them leave. She envied them. One day soon, when she released them, their souls would know peace. That was something forever beyond her.

She pulled her mask up over her lower face and left her quarters for a walk around her necropolis.

As she strolled through her domain, she felt his presence immediately as it crashed over her, causing her to pause in her stride. The Lich King had arrived via a death gate portal from Northrend. Those around her had also paused in their movements as they felt his arrival before going about their tasks again.

Come to me.

His words appeared in her mind, drowning out any other thought. During his five years of physical slumber, he had communicated with them all telepathically and could do so no matter where they were in the world. It was a habit he maintained with them even when they faced him. His body had been encased in ice as he slept on his Frozen Throne, but everything else about him had been very active indeed, including his considerable magical power. An involuntary shiver passed through her body at the atrocities he had still managed to inflict on her soul even after he was wrapped in ice. She had tried to resist his control, and he had punished her for it, even toyed with her for his amusement. He had won, in the end. He always did. She knew that now.

He sent her a mental image of the staging platform she found Mograine at a few days ago, and she went to him. When she found him, his back was to her as he surveyed the valley below. His dark armour seemed to absorb all light that fell on it, and his very presence caused the air to be heavy, pressing down on her shoulders ominously. His spiked helm hid most of his features, but his piercing blues eyes were unmissable: Arthas, the fallen prince, now Lich King.

The creature that had originally been the Lich King had begun to weaken over five years ago. He had summoned his greatest champion to his side, and Arthas had come to him like an obedient dog. He had arrived in Icecrown just in time to defend the Lich King from an army of elves. Afterwards, he had done what Alyna still thought had been unthinkable – he had ascended the Frozen Throne, and merged with the being atop it to become the new, far deadlier, Lich King.

She moved to stand beside him and very slightly behind, in deference to his authority. His voice appeared unbidden in her mind. She was his; he needed no permission.

You have served me well, Alyna.

She inclined her head briefly to acknowledge his words. Some may have thanked him verbally, but they both knew his gratitude did not please her. She served because she had to, and she did so to the best of her ability because he had eventually removed even that choice from her.

He reached his gauntleted hand out to indicate the Scarlet Enclave, and then clenched it with enough emotion to make his fist shake. It is time.

She followed his gaze. She knew exactly what he meant, having been told of his plan before she left Northrend. The members of the Scarlet Crusade looked insignificant from this height, busily going about their mortal chores. Insignificant, but numerous.

"It will take time, my Lord."

He drew Frostmourne from his back and held it straight out before him. She could feel the power radiating from it as a light blue ribbon of necromantic magic crawled up the length of the runeblade from its point to the hilt. Demonic runes etched into the blade flared to life at his silent command.

She dimly heard a terrifying roar some way above her head, and looked up to see the source. It remained high in the sky to avoid detection by the humans, but her enhanced sight told her all she needed to know. He had summoned a formidable frost wyrm, a giant undead dragon pieced together from the bones of numerous carcasses and then reanimated. A single breath of frost from its lethal jaws could kill dozens. It made the slaughter of thousands a matter of hours instead of days.

The wyrm flew off to hide in the mountains to the north, and the Lich King lowered Frostmourne.

Begin the assault on the Scarlet Enclave. Burn the mark of the Scourge into these lands. Reap death and destruction in my name! He paused. Once enough damage has been done, they will bring their armies to face you, and they will make their final stand. For them, there is no escape ... no choice. And for this reason they will fight with a ferocity that you have yet to witness.

He turned to face her, and she felt the intensity of his glowing blue stare pour through her own eyes to wrap his hatred around what was left of her tortured soul.

You will deliver these armies to me and I will raise them for the assault on Light's Hope Chapel. No longer will this affront to your master be allowed to exist!

Alyna bowed her head, partly to acknowledge his orders, but also to break the eye contact that so unsettled her.

Do not fail me, Alyna.

"I will serve, my Lord."

His low, evil chuckle would have made her blood freeze, if she'd had any.

Yes, you will.