(7-2-2014 Update) Added an interlude


Interlude

War


The last fiend went down to a gout of flame, smoldering and shrieking. An instant later it vanished, retreating across the Twisting Nether to recoup and lick its wounds. Grandmother Shuzlo, imp matron and dweller of the Gardens, wrinkled her face with her deep frown. One shake of her wrist ignited her pipe end. A moment later, she was puffing away more forcefully than usual.

"Where are the de'Rathi?" a hollowed voice wondered. Shuzlo turned her beady eyes to the crouchedthing that lurked beneath the trees – those terrible, shaking trees. The creature's tone was that of mischief or amusement, yet it understood neither of those things. As an Other, it imitated those sounds only in ignorance.

"Gone," Shuzlo told it. A black plume encircled her face from her exhale. Hundreds of imp eyes were around her, looking every way except at the Four.

There was a wailing felbeast that appeared on the garden grounds, only to vanish in the same instant. Then there was silence, which made her brood more finicky than usual. Disconcerted though they were by the presence of Others, Shuzlo knew – as did Margaret – that few were their equal in manipulating the rules of the Nether.

"What qualifies "gone"?" speculated the hoveringthing from behind. Shuzlo didn't bother turning that way to answer:

"Margaret de Rath is lost. Sin de Rath is dead. The de'Rath's are gone. They will not, because they cannot, return here."

"For how long is "gone"?"

What a question that was. Her small shoulders shrugged futilely. "Not today, and not tomorrow."

"Long," echoed an Other.

Shuzlo turned her eyes to it, that which was called Leaf-Hilt. Noeyes stared back. "Longer," she answered.

The Four quivered their notbodies for a span that lasted less than half a second – which Shuzlo knew to be Other communication.

Then Leaf-Hilt chuckled, "We will lose."

And Red-Hand said, "We will fight."

And the Four vanished from the breach point, returning to the corners they held by Otherwill. No mere demon could penetrate that barrier in the Nether, not against these creatures. Yet, they did not face mere demons. Those which knew the Gardens besieged them in the chaos prompted by Azeroth's faltering. Sargeras commanded every loyal demon to ready for invasion, still bitter and furious over his long denial of the planet. Those that were not loyal moved in the shadows of that frenzy, plotting for their own advantages in this opportunity.

The Others were right, however. Unless the Warden of the Gardens made his or her return, they would not be able to hold this territory for long. Through means even Shuzlo didn't understand, Margerat had secured the loyalty of four Others to defend the Gardens. Shuzlo herself had all her skill and power as with that of her hundreds of offspring, but imps were lesser demons fighting lords of the Twisting Nether. That was it. Four Others and a few imps couldn't hold.

During her brooding, Grandmother Shuzlo felt a sudden tugging inside her core. The beckoning of a summon, from that of her dearest friend and mistress Lady Margaret de Rath. Come. Come to Mistress, that tugging beckoned. The hand which held the webs drew them in, seeking to take the imp with it.

Not for the first time, Shuzlo yanked her pipe from her mouth just in time to spew up chunks of bloody vomit. Sons and daughters cried out in fear, but she waved them back, only to hunch forward again, spitting out pieces of her innards and acid. Black teeth bared. She refused the summons.

Margaret de Rath called upon the true name of Shuzlo the imp, and Shuzlo resisted. Three times more, her Name was called, and three times more Shuzlo let herself be torn to bits from it, until she was left terribly alone once more.

Trembling like her newest born infant, Shuzlo picked herself from grassy ground of the Gardens. She willed away the mess she made, returning the scenery to its haunting beauty, then, with fingers still clenched around her pipe, she stuck its stem in her mouth and tried to smoke away the sick.

Quztal, Sin's contracted brother, was there beside her, his fear perpetual since he reported Sin's death. "She tried again?" he asked quietly.

"It is not her," Shuzlo growled around her pipe. "Margaret is lost to darkness. That shade is not her." She coughed, yanking aside her pipe to spit out a bit of lung, then stormed away. Thank the Darkness that Margaret had ended their contract together years ago. Whatever that was out there, whatever called upon her Name now, she wanted no part of it. Sin needed to be warned.

XxX

Haldjon the Blind was a historian.

Behind that wrinkled and worn face was a mind imprinted with ages past, from the dawn of this world to its current dusk. Much of that history he had witnessed himself, an old vrykul even before the Long Slumber that took them from this world all those millennia ago. And in all his years, there was nothing he hated more than their god Loken for creating that massive gap in his archive of the world.

Haldjon the Blind was a seer.

Not a single man or woman on the planet came close to his mastery of runic magicks, not his ability, not his strength, and not his library. Even the theft of his eyes from that human lieutenant in the recent war proved of little concern to his skills; his only dilemma was which route he wanted to take to recover visual perception. It was no surprise that he had always been a highly sought mentor and councilor for the young peoples of the world. It was no surprise they sought him now, as the darkness from the Old World stood up from its forgotten grave like that Scourge trash.

Haldjon the Blind... was a liar.

"Lineup the ramparts! Remember why we have preserved our strongholds from the wee years of our planet! With the gods at our backs, we filled these walls with vrykul steel and vrykul muscle and broke the backs of the primordial forces that sought to overcome us! This stone could not fall then, and it will not fall now! Utgarde Keep stands for this very purpose!"

May the deceiver Loken rot unsung forever for his decisions, but more than ever, Haldjon felt certain that the god's blood flowed through his very veins. The trickster nature of magic and deception was not of Thorim and the All-Father. It was not a vrykul way. To his kin, Haldjon was a paragon of honor and tradition preserved. The poor fools.

"The darkness comes again!" cried a brother. Hearty voices returned it with fearsome bellows, and the sound of tramping boots and ringing steel rose through the halls of Haldjon's ancestors.

Utgarde Keep had been built several millennia after the false gods were lowed, by one of the first vrykul kings. Haldjon knew the name and date in his meticulously stored history. He knew the years it had taken to build it, the cost of the resources. He knew that earthen brothers had done the most of the labor, in thanks for their warrior cousins, back when they saw eye to eye – figuratively, of course. He had no idea if this massive rock would hold or not against this adversary, but he'd damned well like to see the enemy try to take it.

There was the cacophony of their harpoons at work, hurling vrykul spears into the encroaching swarms with devastating success. Yet there were so many of the enemy, too many for that to be enough. A guardsman roared, "INCOMING!"

"Jarl Haldjon, we must get you inside," urged one of his many escorts. Yellow teeth bared in his scowl.

Two steps forward he took, to the very edge of the rampart, and a staff of World Tree wood raised before him. Ysera likely wouldn't even remember gifting it to him, all these years later. A sparkling and transparent sheet appeared before the defenders of the keep, but they shot through it, undeterred. The flying enemy was also undeterred, but their angle of approach shifted subtly. They weren't coming for the vrykul anymore.

When the black wave slammed against the upper recesses of the keep, it was against the stone flats. Dozens, then hundreds of black, mantis-like creatures willfully flew into the broad stone and crushed themselves in a splatter of inky blood. The acid in it did not touch the stones. Those behind the first continued the path, right into those before, again and again, flying into useless deaths and sending countless crumpled bodies to the distant ground below.

It was some time before the enemy realized it had been tricked – thinking that their place of assault was the nearest rampart, when really Haldjon's wide illusion showed them a keep shifted twenty spans aside. Before the creatures could orientate themselves, the gold amulet on Haldjon's chest melted into a silver medallion, a medium for the new spell on his lips. A psychic wave penetrated their heads ruthlessly, into all of them. The shifting swarm turned upon itself abruptly, no longer searching for the real keep.

They'd see legions of proto-drakes and their riders plunging into their depths and attacking. They'd see mantid dying by the thousands to those drakes. And the voice of the dark god inside their head would confirm that those drakes were real. Haldjon had a wicked smile as waves of the creatures smashed into each other, gladly dying at the chance of taking out those devastating drakes. They didn't realize they only killed themselves.

"Marvelous as ever, Jarl Haldjon," a cool, wispy voice acknowledged from behind. Haldjon didn't need to face her to know it belonged to Luthelda, his belated wife. Ex-wife? Not with all his knowledge did he know what to call the woman that turned herself into a Scourge val'kyr before his wakening from the Long Slumber. They did still fuck like he was 2000 again. Regularly.

Mingrid and Hrothki, two of his living wives, would be nearby as well, but his attention was still set upon the adversary. Though his spell was finished, the amulet glowed brighter still. The false god was reaching for his mind with sickly fingers, turned aside by the titan relic. He heaved out a breath and raised his staff once more. Too many hosts of the Beast were present. He needed to fix that.

"With me!" he hollered. The harpoons were set, other vrykul runecasters breathed shapes in the air and set their hands upon their proto-drakes. Small race mages and archers readied themselves. "Till Valhal come! Slaughter them!"

Ten thousand lightless fiends died before them. It broke the assault, sent the survivors scampering off like strickened mutts, and Utgarde Keep remained standing once more. Haldjon spat at their backs.

Chiefly responsible for that destruction were the other runecasters. He had taught them an ancient rune that gave men the fire of dragons, allowed them to channel it and power it with their own magic. It worked against the aqir countless years ago, and it worked against their adversary now.

Turning from the broken and dying landscape before him finally, Haldron faced his assembly. Vrykul, val'kyr, small races – everyone stood together, as they had in the wars of the Old World. He growled, "Send the nymphs. We must grow, cultivate, and butcher what we can until the next incursion."

Here in the Southlands, they were holding. Ten-thousand vrykul – a combination of Dragonflayer, Winterskorn, and other smaller clans – along with three-hundred val'kyr, five-hundred various dwarfkin, and two-thousand assorted small ones. Haldjon the Blind led them, he inspired them through tricks and lies, and they were holding. The war for Azeroth's survival began with them.

By Amul'Thul's beard, without the gods' return, he did not think they would win.

XxX

"I swear to you, Forsaken, if you close this line, the darkness will take you as surely as it took your Banshee Queen," seethed a male elven voice. The receptive dark ranger offered no response, but glowing crimson eyes sought those of her nearby sisters. Embroided black cloaks and uniforms were tarnished by rain, mud, and torn chunks. Around them was wheezing and rasping, the sounds of the deathly persistence amongst a thousand undead refugees.

The red eyes flicked back to the shimmering pool, where the image of a high elf impatiently waited. The scrying line remained open.

Realizing it, the man gave a curt nod, continuing, "Once more I'll tell you, Azeroth is nearly lost. Not just the Forsaken, not just the Horde. If you have breath, if your dead heart still has that faint pulse, then you have upon your breast a mark for purging. For one moment, I ask you to quell your animosity for the living, heed my call now, and join us – you and everyone of you – join us in Outland. Do so and I promise you, dark ranger, that you will find blood and vengeance. The land will choke on its rivers and rains of crimson and ash, the creatures that stole from us will give their final screams and cries before merciless silence, and we all will make them suffer for what was taken from us. This I promise you, Forsaken. On my blood and my magic, I swear these things to you."

Those smoldering eyes only watched him impassively – received his words impassively, waited afterwards impassively. When she decided to reply, it was no less impartial, floating a question in a quiet hiss, "So you think you finally know loss, high elf? You consider us on equal ground?"

The fire and fury that came to that image was palpable. "You damned conceited spitemare! If dark ranger sight ends at the cracked tips of your porcelain noses, then I hope that fiend makes your end as cruel as it raped our kingdoms and our people. I hope our counter-stroke will pass these woods and I will find the meticulously broken remains of your body so I can spit in your black blood!"

The rips in her white lips split wider with the slow smile that formed in his rant. With a gloved hand over her knee, the dark ranger bent over the pool to bring her face as close to his image as she could. She whispered, "The rage that burns in you in this moment is but a tenth of the hate that consumes each and every one of us. Perhaps, then, you can finally comprehend the existence of the Forsaken... Bring your mages, elf. We will join your army."

She straightened, retreated back a step, and added in the end: "And you will be held to that promise of yours, Magister Thalymor Silverleaf. In Outland, I will find you, and you will fight in our regiment."

"I have my duties," his voice growled at her back.

The dark ranger flicked her hand at the pool. "Duties with us now. You are sworn. Test my resolve at your own peril."

The high elf glowered at her back for a lingering span, then his image turned to the side. "Mages, out. Get those shields up. Magisters, find your marks! We've got a whole host to bring in and little time to do it!" he barked. "We fight with the Forsaken."

Lady Cylia felt the subtle stirring of arcane currents in their region. Responding promptly, she waved a hand signal at her sisters, then cried out, "Ready yourselves in haste! Make for the portals!" The telltale groan was their response, but those shambling bodies moved at once to form lines nearby.

When the shimmering window opened in their decrepit glade, three dark rangers leapt through first, ensuring the way was clear. Cylia herself, with three others, drew their bows and readied their arrows as two elf men stepped out through the portal. The duo acknowledged them with curt nods – Thalymor wasn't among them, Cylia noticed. She whistled, signaling the men to proceed through.

Two minutes into the proceeds, Cylia finally hoped they could manage the escape without issue. The tail end of their men was in sight, yet then the portal master that stood across from her gasped out, forsaking his staff to clutch his head and heart with painful twists. The man's partner responded to it, calling warning into the portal. Then, everything seemed to happen at once.

A massive explosion of mana erupted in the functioning portal master's hands, accompanied by a worthy shout of defiance. The portal image wavered, threatening to snip closed on those still crossing, yet a dozen men also burst out from the safe side, clearly waiting for such a signal. And a second portal opened, depositing three truly massive shades in the same instant.

"MARCH!" Lady Malvora hurried. She and the rest unleashed their arrows at the shades, knowing that not even their shadow-imbued missiles would stymie this enemy. They needed to delay as best they could, however.

Calling unholy light into her right fist, Cylia ripped up three skeletal warriors from the gravedirt of their glade, then threw aside her bow to leap at the three shades. Powerful spell bolts shook the air as they flew past her, accompanying her slight body in its flight at the enemy. Two ranger daggers met distorted black flesh first, then rent open that body as her momentum carried her down.

With feather lightness, her sole barely touched the ground, then she flipped up to narrowly escape the vicious counter-attack. A tentacle had impaled where she was, yet it yanked up to grasp at where she dodged. Cylia was captured by the leg, lost control of her jump, then accepted a glittering sword in her gut. Her mind rang something fierce upon colliding into the forest floor; in the following moments, she could not tell if her inability to move was because she was stunned or because she was skewered to the ground.

Looking up, Cylia could see that only one shade stood as her opponent, while the others engaged the high elves or another unseen defender. There were no eyes on this foe to leer down at her; she knew that from their first engagement. Spitting blood, she faced death with only a blazing hatred, helplessly pinned under its speckled, black sword. The weapon slid from her body, letting her see the brightness of its gems, joyous in the sword's feast of her blood.

That hideous yet confusingly unfocused image expressed unconcealed relish in her extermination, drooling mouth open to show black fangs and a flicking black tongue. A silver splinter jolted from its neck, protruding a good foot from its flesh. A second accompanied it in a flash, in a right angle. The shade remained perfectly still at the changes.

The distant screaming finally began to register in Cylia's ears. A pale face appeared over the shoulder of the brute, then flitted away at the responding tentacle. She realized those were daggers in its neck, and they performed a scissoring cut to sever that head from its body, sending a worrying trembling through the fiend's body.

An acid-bomb was soon to follow. Teeth bared, Cylia conjured a wave of shadow before her, hoping to extinguish the worst of the acid when it came but it was with little hope. Something flashed in her peripheral. She noticed, open mouthed, the bludgeoning spell headed for her crumpled body, just when it collided furiously against her side and sent her sailing into the air, to rest violently against an unyielding Tirisfal tree. The explosion went unheard in her ringing ears.

When she could register sight again, Cylia found herself being moved against her will. The anger against her holder came naturally though futilely. She noticed she was draped against a man's back, chin on his shoulder, feet dragging, arms trapped in a vice grip against his front. The jostling suggested her carrier was running.

There was a flash around them. Her dazed eyes closed. They opened again to a stone ceiling, decorated as elvish architecture. She was on her back. She looked down to see half a dozen people bent over her torso. Then she saw what they were fixated upon: on her stomach was a blackened, corroded hole that made obvious that her innards were missing. That sword which pierced her had taken more than just blood, it seemed.

Her deadened senses felt no pain at it.

"How can such a wound be cured?" someone was asking. And the answer, "It cannot. We cannot undo that magic. Not yet."

"Thalymor," Cylia hissed. The faces lifted from her stomach to her eyes. She stared at only one of them, he whom she had seen in the scry. "Vengeance."

The severe man still had that fire in his eyes. She found it slightly alluring. "You'll have it," he vowed.

Like a poison in her veins, she could feel strength slipping outside her grasp. It was familiar, the sensations of approaching death's door. The last time, she had felt woefully alone and afraid, bitter and strickened. Now there was only fury and frustration.

Her hand caught his in a tight fist, carrying the last of her vitality. "Rivers of blood," she insisted, lamenting only how weak her voice sounded. "Clouds of ash."

"They will know your fury, dark ranger," he promised. By the Dark Lady, she could see it in his very eyes how he meant those words.

It relieved her bitter heart. "Then leave me be. More important things require your attention."

Though her grip relaxed, Thalymor's remained firm. His other hand enveloped hers. "You won't die alone."

A weak snort. "Your commander sent you on purpose." After succumbing to a light coughing fit, Cylia insisted, "Lady Malvora. Pledge to her. Tell her-" More coughing.

Her condition only worsened, keeping her mute, so Cylia shook off his hands to fight for breath. Finally, that bastard man seemed to realized she didn't want eyes on her for this; he collected the medics and called them away. Still with those intense eyes, he promised, "I will find Lady Malvora. Find peace, forsaken one." He left her vision.

What a joke. When the fit left her, Cylia was paralyzed by her weakness, her breathing audible and raspy. It was cold and quiet and solitary, which was just as well, but it left her to her final remaining thoughts. Well, if that magister was good for his word, she might find some peace after all. She let her darkening mind spin images of their counter-assault. Shades dying in droves, the world quaking with their wrath. It was nice, those thoughts.

Lady Cylia died with a toothy grin.

And so went another gathering of Azeroth's remaining forces. Magister Thalymor Silverleaf returned to put the dark ranger to rest, calling forth her sisters for the burial, then he left to report to the commander. Another thousand Azerothian survivors joined their ranks. Every day, their ranks grew.

Soon, an army drafted from two worlds would burst from the Dark Portal like a terrible flood, a tidal wave of steel over a million strong. The Army of Light would reclaim their world from a plague as sinister as the Burning Legion itself. Soon, the war would truly begin.