Chapter 24

The storm buckled and bent around Ero'then but it did not claim him. He would not let it. Karielle and her mages fought with the demons for control of the barrier. All he had to do was grapple with the storm. It was more easily conquered than demonic spellcraft.

Without the mages, the battle below progressed badly for the defenders. They were scared. They might have been blood elves but they were not all soldiers. They did not understand what it was like to give a life for a tactically important position. The fel guards came in tireless, lumbering waves, breaking apart the first row of barriers, slaughtering the first rank of defenders. The demons fell in droves too, though, as a sea of blood elven arrows held them back as effectively as the blockades. Demon blood mixed with elven.

Ero'then turned his gaze away, chastising himself. Their sacrifices would mean nought if he wasn't ready.

He too had met the dreadlord, though he had used the efforts of Karielle and her unwitting blood elves to shield his own scrying. It had taken longer for the dreadlord to discover him and send him away. Ero'then did not protest, encouraging it to think him weak. He had been able to find their commander.

At first he thought it was the minor eredar lord, but he saw that that sorcerer was engaged in the battle of wills over the arcane barrier with Karielle and her magi. No, the battle itself was being commanded by a doomguard. He had expected as much. His cursory look convinced him the doomguard was nothing special.

He activated his waiting spell, dropping it like a bomb on the location of the doomguard he had ascertained before the dreadlord had sent him reeling.

The portal shrieked to life and opened up in front of him. The demonic base camp was before him and it was swarming with demons. He saw that they were even starting to build cannons on high ground where they had a good view of the manaforge. Ero'then ignored them, seized the doomguard and yanked him through the portal.

Surprise was all that made it work. The doomguard tumbled, five times his size, onto the roof of the manaforge. He slammed shut the portal and attacked the demon lord with his full fury, ripping it apart.

It roared, scrambled aside and swung a huge, barbed blade that would have made short work of a forest. Ero'then used the storm to throw himself away, out of range, and continued blasting the demon, alternating cold and fire spells. He focused his attention on its throat, digging deep.

As before, the surprise and shock of the attack left the doomguard vulnerable, and Ero'then was able to rip enough of its physical body apart that it fell. Having hardly been able to get to its knees, the doomguard collapsed, roaring out in indignation at its defeat. Hatred filled its black eyes, even in death.

Ero'then fell down panting. He was darkly depleted and he felt physically sick at the sudden and extreme exertion. Still, he forced himself to scry. And this time, when the dreadlord confronted him, itself making a bit of a panicked sweep to find out what had happened to its commander, Ero'then did not back down.

Karielle was right that not many knew how dreadlords operated their magic. But Ero'then had been a student of the natures of demonkind for a long time. Dreadlords were sorcerers, yes, but they were far stronger as psychic manipulators and mind-shapers than users of the arcane. They were master deceivers and plot-makers. While the types of felguards and succubi were well-known by users of the arcane, the existence of the boogeyman-esque dreadlords was a subject of debate on Azeroth. They were rarely seen and never caught. They walked unsuspecting worlds, sowing terror and confusion. They spurned open confrontation in favor of long-cons and schemes that brought civilizations to their knees.

So when the dreadlord discovered Ero'then, and he discovered that he was a kaldorei using magic, and that he had butchered the doomguard in under a minute, the dreadlord did not decide to butt heads, even though it would have found Ero'then greatly weakened and vulnerable. The battle was not the safe little punishment of mortals that it had thought it was.

The dark presence of the dreadlord vanished from the battlefield. Somewhere, the kaldorei felt the eredar lord exclaim its protest. Ero'then fell on his back, wheezing. He felt like he was going to throw up. He let his body recover.

That would get them some attention.