Talfuric stared at the man, eyes wide with fear. The majority of the magi that had come to collapse the cave were gone. There was only 5 magi including the leader, the General, and himself.
Talfuric went through the odds in his head. They might stand a chance. The magi were some of the most powerful, and there was only one of him. Of course, then there was his dragon. He was confident they could handle it, too.
One of the magi, a gnome mage, stretched out his hand and sent a bolt of crackling purple lightning at the man, who stuck out his hand and deflected it off a shield of red energy.
One of the night elf druids sent a ball of green energy at him, but he deflected it as well.
The dragon reared its head and took a deep breath. The 7 companions ran together behind the leader, who raised a purple shield to protect them. The lava pored around it, not harming any of them.
"Stand aside!" roared the Dragon Rider, "I only want the General!"
"You'll have to go through us to get him!" Talfuric shouted back.
The rider snarled and leapt through the air, landing in front of the group.
In one fluid motion, he drew his long sword which, Talfuric now noticed, was not covered in fire. The rider suddenly tensed, however, and that situation was changed.
The lead mage drew a long sword and swung at his head, only to have it blocked by an unmoving parry.
Flipping his sword around, the strong rider disarmed him, sending the sword flying. He raised a gauntleted fist and knocked him 6 feet across the floor, unconscious.
The night elf raised his hand to strike him down with some spell, but was stopped when the flaming sword tore open his chest from his left shoulder to his right hip.
As the elf fell, dead, Talfuric looked at the wound. He recognized it as very similar to the one the man in the inn had.
The gnome mage now barred his way, his fists glowing with purple energy. As the man raised his sword, the mage summoned a barrier of magic to deflect it.
The sword went right through it as if it wasn't there, and he decapitated the gnome with one fluid motion.
The remaining two spell casters, a human mage and a draeni shaman, stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the General.
The black dragon leaped through the air and killed the man with a swipe from it's massive paw. Talfuric saw it resembled the description of the man who had followed the kidnapper through the night.
The draeni raised his hand to strike it with a bolt of lightning, but was instead thrown across the room by a fireball from the dragon rider. He landed hard, his corpse smoldering.
The General and Talfuric now stood against the unstoppable wave of death they faced. The dragon rider walked a few steps ahead of his steed, slowly approaching them.
As they raised their weapons and prepared for death, two streaks of red shot out from the side of their vision and slammed into the approaching foes.
When the dust settled, it revealed the dragon rider mounted on his dragon, facing two red dragons, each slightly bigger than the black one.
"Fools!" the dragon rider shouted, "You are ruining everything!"
The red behemoths lunged at him, but they had already taken off towards an exit. They ducked below the arch and disappeared. The two reds did not pursue.
They approached Talfuric and the General, transforming into a mix between a high elf and a human.
When they got within a few feet, Talfuric bowed.
They smiled, and the taller of the two, a being with red hair and dark blue eyes said, "No need for that."
Talfuric nodded. "Thank you very much for your assistance. Without you, I fear we would be strewn across the cavern floor," he said.
The other one smiled now. "Of that, I have no doubt," he said, laughing. "Though I'm sure you would have fought very honorably."
"Bah!" the general said, "I could have beaten them single-handedly."
Talfuric frowned at his rudeness, but the dragons did not seem to notice.
"We've been tracking those two for days now. Apparently, they've been causing more than a little trouble around Goldshire," the taller one now said.
"You could say that," Talfuric said.
"When we heard of what had happened here, we set off at once, fearing that they had not been killed in the collapse," the other one said.
"Apparently, we were quite right."
Talfuric nodded, than said, "We lost a good man today. His sacrifice was necessary, but that does not ease the burden on my heart."
They smiled sadly and looked at the rubble.
At that moment, the lead spell caster stumbled towards the companions from a pile of rocks where he had landed.
He had a bruised chin, but didn't look seriously injured, "Everything alright?" he asked them.
Talfuric nodded. "This is… uh…" he said, casting a questioning glance at the two dragons. They smiled but did not give him their names.
"These are the two dragons that saved us from the dragon rider," Talfuric said.
The mage's eyes widened slightly and he nodded.
"Thank you very much for your help," he told them.
They smiled and nodded. "Think nothing of it," they said.
"We must be off now," one of them said. The other nodded. "I trust you can portal these men out of here?" he asked the mage.
After he nodded, they transformed again and ran through the tunnel entrance, going who knows where. Who else but them, of course.
The three men waited in silence for a few moments, and then the mage said, "I'll summon a portal to the command center, then."
Talfuric and the General nodded.
After a few moments of concentration, there was a blinding flash of light and then a shining oval appeared, in it a view of the table inside the command center.
The General stepped through, but Talfuric hesitated. "I never had the privilege of learning your name," he told the mage.
"My name is Arkannon, mage of Dalaran," he said, smiling.
Talfuric nodded.
"I guess the rest of the cultists will have to be hunted down now, won't they?" he asked him.
Arkannon nodded sadly.
"Good," Talfuric said.
Arkannon gave him a surprised look. "You are eager to slaughter men once of the Alliance?" he asked him.
Talfuric shook his head. "No," he said, "I'm ready to kill as many as I can to avenge Charlie Maddock of the clan Maddock, son of the chieftain and the finest warrior I have ever known."
He turned and saluted the caved in cavern, then turned and walked through the shining portal.
Arkannon stood there for a few minutes after the portal to Stormwind had closed.
He summoned a portal to Dalaran and then took one last of look at the cave. "Aye," he said, "for Charlie."