She did not know how long they traveled. Time passed in fitful patches, broken by dark oblivion. One of the felguards had slung her across his shoulders like a large limp sack, and, in the brief moments of lucidity before they drugged her again, his claws dug painfully into her leg and each long step jarred her aching head.
They let her almost wake from time to time, seated on the damp stone floor of the tunnel as she groggily sipped at the water they gave her. She did not know where the others were. When she gained enough consciousness to look up too often from the dirty canteen, the rank-smelling cloth pressed against her nose again and she knew nothing.
Once, she half-roused, head jouncing against the felguard's spiked pauldron, and saw the serene face of a night elf gazing down at her. Confused, temples throbbing with pain, she managed half a slurred syllable before she realized the face belonged to a statue. The stone woman stood on a plinth in the basin of a cracked fountain shaped like the crescent moon. Runes scrawled in low demonic marred the once fine marble, but the elf - Elune? - stared down beatifically at them all anyway.
The Shadow Hold. The thought swam into Callista's head like one of the luminescent fish she'd seen near Booty Bay, bright and connected to nothing, before fading back into the murk.
The next time she clawed her way to consciousness, they'd stopped moving. She lay bonelessly on the cold stone where the felguard had dropped her, biting back a groan at the pulsing ache in her whole body and the sharper pain behind her eyes. If they knew she'd woken, they'd give her the drug again. Twisting Nether. She'd have something's head for this.
"- thought she was telling the truth, why did we take them?" A felguard's harsh demonic cut through the muffled agony in her brain.
"Lord Beltherac needs more mortals." Another voice, an even lower rumble. The doomguard. She silently cursed him. "The woman was lying. Probably. But if she was not...Banehollow has been asking questions. Nerothos has been whispering poison in his ear for too long. If this causes an incident, my master will not be pleased."
"That's your problem," the felguard sneered. "What do we do with them now?"
The doomguard growled softly in disapproval. "Mind your tongue or I'll pull it from your head." He paused a moment as Callista listened intently, trying to keep her breathing slow even as her heart raced.
"Take the eredar apostate and the undamaged human male," he continued finally. "Leave the others in the holding cells. If no one asks, we'll have them all anyway."
The felguard grunted an assent.
Armored boots rang off the stone near her head. Taloned hands slid beneath her shoulders and knees, and she gritted her teeth against the scream of her abused muscles as the demon lifted her again. He didn't carry her far, this time, however. Hinges creaked, and he dropped her to the flagstones after only a few paces. She couldn't suppress a hiss as large fingers dug into her calf, fastening a shackle around her right ankle with a final clink.
The footsteps retreated, a door slammed shut, and she dared, finally, to open her eyes.
She found herself in a narrow cell. Wavering torchlight fell through the barred window in the door, staining the floor in orange stripes. She sat up woozily and fingered the heavy chain that bound her ankle to the wall, giving a half-hearted tug. The bolts were secure, the metal pitted and cold beneath her touch.
"Hello?" she croaked.
No answer.
Without much hope, she shoved back the billowing pain in her head and groped for a spell. Only blankness answered, but a complex rune flared to life on the scarred wood of the door, its violet light dazzling her after so long in the dim underground.
"Nether," she cursed quietly. She dug the heels of her hands into her temples and groaned. Her shoulders and elbows protested even that small movement. Her cheek was swollen and sore where the felguard had struck her, and her head - ugh.
Her knee bumped something as she struggled to sit up further, making a hollow sloshing noise. She suddenly realized she was both hungry and desperately thirsty, and grabbed at the bucket, spilling water over her chin as she drank. A dark hunk of bread lay next to the bucket, and she fell on that next, despite it being stale enough to slice at the roof of her mouth. Afterwards, she leaned back against the clammy wall and drew up her knees, staring blearily at the door.
She ached everywhere, and the deadening pain in her head made it hard to focus on anything but breathing. Her companions...the memory crashed down on her finally with a dull weight of hopelessness. They'd taken Vorthaal somewhere. And someone else. Not Wynda. One of the men. A rogue wisp of thought - not Aren - before she dispersed it angrily. Pointless. There was nothing she could do about that, or anything, until she got out of this cell.
She shuddered and hugged her knees, fighting a cresting wave of nausea churned up by the headache and the cold water in her belly and a smothering tide of despair. At some point in her ordeal they'd stripped her of her weapon and thick outer robes, leaving her clad only in pants and thin linen tunic. They'd even taken her boots and socks, and the stone chilled her bare soles.
How was she going to get out of this?
Her own breaths sounded suddenly harsh and too sharp in her ears. She probed at the door again simply to quell the panic she felt clenching her throat, forcing her attention onto the counterspell's angry heatless flare until her breathing slowed again, gradually.
The doomguard had said something else, too. Nerothos was here. That could...potentially complicate things later, though she wished she'd known it for certain when she'd been spinning lies back in that forest. Banehollow's name had been a surer bet, but she'd only dealt personally with his underlings, and didn't know the dreadlord himself except by reputation. If they did take her out of this cell, it would be to him, and she doubted the encounter would be any more pleasant than whatever that doomguard's master had in store. She didn't think the lord of Jaedenar would look kindly on uppity little mortals attempting to trade on his name. Nerothos, at least, might have heard her out before throwing her to the torturers. Though even that was unsure. It had been more than a year since he'd found her in Booty Bay, and she'd seen nothing of him since.
She sighed and shivered, leaning her throbbing head back against the wall. Despite how little time she'd spent lucid over the last...days?...week?...exhaustion dragged at her with leaden hands.
Closing her eyes, she fell into an uneasy sleep.
She woke some time later. She'd pushed herself away from the wall as she drowsed, curling into a tight ball in the middle of the floor, and now she found that the stone had leeched all the warmth from her skin. She sat up trembling, prickled all over with goosebumps.
The cell didn't look any more promising than it had before her nap. Constructed entirely of grey lichen-splotched stone, featureless except for the door and the thick iron rings embedded into the wall, one of which held the chain binding her ankle.
She chafed her arms, wincing. The pulsing ache in her head had finally faded, but the rest of her body remained a stiff mass of pain. She slid the bucket closer and drank deeply from it before setting it empty on the ground.
At least her captors seemed marginally interested in keeping her alive, though she doubted she'd enjoy the reasons for that. So far as Burning Legion prisons went, this was not the worst she could have landed in. Her spirits had risen as the drugged fog in her head cleared, and she actually laughed dryly to herself. At least she was still on Azeroth. Though Tun wasn't in the cell with her this time. She missed him, selfishly. This was what happened when your friends started settling down. They couldn't go out as much anymore, and before you knew it you were left buying your own rounds at taverns and fumbling your way out of the dungeons of irate demonlords all alone…
She fought down another inappropriate laugh. Wallowing wouldn't help. She had to get out of here.
That ward on the door was the key. She stood, carefully, and though her bruised joints sent tearing shocks of pain through her at every motion it still felt good to be on her feet again. Her chain dragged at her ankle and jangled against the stone as she padded as close to the door as it allowed, but it was still too far away to touch. Pity.
She extended a hand toward it anyway, focusing her will. No ward was unbreakable, though often knowing the solution did one little good from the inside. Still, it would be a start.
The rune sputtered and spat purple light as she pressed at it with her magic. She felt the heavy thrum of power behind it, but it wasn't a very sophisticated mark. Cruder than the similar spells she used to imprison her captured demons, but recently refreshed and very strong. Almost certainly not permanent; they probably changed the wards on the holding cells to suit each crop of prisoners.
Frustrated, she struck at it, and though her spell dissipated impotently, the ward itself leaked power, like a wet sponge hit with a stick. That annoyed her more. Shoddy work. She could imagine the creature who'd done it, too. Some dried up old Shadow Council orc who still imagined himself the heir of Gul'dan, despite the fact his demon masters had set him to housekeeping in their dungeons. Embarrassing, that it was still enough to trap her here.
She scowled and paced across the narrow cell, ignoring the tug and scrape of her chain against the stone. It was obvious that this cell wasn't meant to hold anyone of any power for any length of time. Given a week or two, she thought she could erode the ward enough to escape, not that she expected to have that long. Even so, she had to try. Her chances would only grow worse wherever they took her next.
Days passed, though she couldn't have said how many by the changeless torchlight that flickered through the bars. When she'd spent so long worrying at the ward that the back of her eyes burned, she slept. Periodically, the clank of armored boots on stone would alert her that her jailor was coming back, and then she'd stop and curl against the back wall of her cell, watching the accusatory violet glow of the rune fade through half-closed eyes.
It was always the same felguard who came; a scarred, taciturn creature carrying a dented bludgeon in one hand. He'd open the door, slide a chunk of hard bread and a pail of water across the floor at her (indifferent as to whether or not he spilled most of it) and leave.
She was making progress, though not fast enough. She'd slept three times since they'd tossed her in here half-drugged, and with each attempt her spell fizzled out against the ward a little less cleanly. Never enough to do actual damage, though. Reaching for her magic was like grabbing again and again at a greased ring; never quite getting purchase, but each time coming so close that she sometimes slammed her shackled ankle against the floor in frustration.
This time, she'd been trying for what must have been hours. Her head buzzed and swam, and she squeezed her fingertips against her temples in something dangerously close to despair. It was taking too long. She was intimately familiar with the ward by now, knew every channel and line of its construction; she could have made and unmade it a dozen times if she were free, and her continued impotence despite her understanding was maddening.
She grimaced and continued to pick at it anyway, probing with iron patience for a flaw she knew didn't exist. Sleep tugged at her eyelids, but she resisted it stubbornly, knowing it would only bring greater desperation upon waking.
She was so absorbed in the pattern that she didn't notice the felguard's approach until the door yanked open.
She hissed, startled, and scooted back on her hands toward the far wall of the cell.
The felguard saw the light bleeding from the ward on the door, growled in outraged surprise, and lunged at her.
She flinched back, and even as she scrambled to the side, trying to dodge the blow he aimed at her, she felt it. A weakening in the ward, just enough that she -
"Ah!" she cried out as the truncheon came down on her shoulder with a meaty snap. A brief moment of ominous numbness; then the pain rolled over her in a grey wave, pressing a mangled gasp from her lungs.
The flickering ward-light winked out.
"Try that again, human, and next time I'll crack your skull."
His words seemed to come from a long way away, echoing down a jagged corridor of pain.
She closed her eyes to slits, gritting her teeth between hitched breaths. Beneath her lashes, she saw the rune on the door let out a single spiteful spark, and she clamped down hard with the frayed vestiges of her will.
The felguard aimed a kick at her and connected solidly with her hamstring. More pain. This time a dull throbbing explosion rather than a cutting sharpness, and she didn't try not to cringe or to swallow her groan.
He regarded her suspiciously for a moment, letting out a low threatening huff.
When she gave no resistance, he jostled her hard with the iron sole of his boot, then stalked from the cell and slammed the door.
Nether, this was worse than the drug. She lay on her back, breathing in choked gasps, feeling water seep into the fabric of her tunic from the bucket he'd overturned. She tried to lift her right arm, but the barbed fissures of agony that burst from her shoulder stopped her. The leg he'd kicked pulsed with her heartbeat, a deep bruised ache.
Beneath the pain, however, nestled a hard kernel of satisfaction. The door ward snapped back into violet brilliance at her attention, but uncertainly. It had dimmed in places, some of its luminous filigree fading back into lifeless wood.
She curled a lip in scorn mixed with pain. That rune truly had been a makeshift effort. Spell efficacy diminished quickly with distance, and when the felguard opened the door, the extra space had weakened it just enough for her to slip her will into its workings, like jamming a fingernail beneath a splinter to pry it up.
Clenching her teeth, she tried one last time to shift her injured arm. A fierce grinding stopped her, pain like sharp claws dragging down the soft marrow of her collarbone. Broken, she was almost sure. She gulped down deep wavering breaths until the worst of the ache subsided.
That was alright. She didn't try to move again, resting her cheek against the grainy stone of the floor.
She still had that soul shard she'd swallowed. The next time that felguard returned, the encounter would be much more interesting.
Reinvigorated by the thought, she dismantled the warding rune before she slept with savage relish.
He barely struggled, in the end.
Ears pricked for his heavy footsteps in the hallway, she seized the demon before he even opened the door of her cell. Wholly unprepared for the assault, she'd stunned him, and by the time he'd thought to fumble for the key to her cell he was hers.
It had all been easier than she expected, though the sensation of the soul shard unbinding in her stomach made her violently nauseated. She knelt on the floor and vomited what little food was in her belly into the corner, panting. The convulsion jarred her broken collarbone, bringing tears to her eyes.
The felguard stood stiffly in the open doorway of her cell, a huge spiked silhouette against the torch-glare. "Weak," he sneered.
She ignored him, grimacing at the pain and the sour taste of bile, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Crying and heaving up her guts half-dressed in a corner wasn't the best first impression she'd ever made, but, fortunately, demonic enslavement didn't really hinge on respect. "Unchain me."
He did, glowering, with the graceless jerky motion of a creature whose limbs didn't answer to his own will. "You will beg for a clean death."
She eyed him distastefully, standing and leaning one hand against the clammy stone for balance. Her leg and shoulder still sent shocks of pain through her at every shift, and her cheek was raw and swollen where the other creature had struck her. She could siphon power to heal herself, but drawing magic directly from demons, even enslaved ones, was always a little risky. Just ask any of the poor foolish Sin'dorei.
Worth it anyway, she decided.
A shadowy rope of power snapped from her hand to the center of his chest, and a sickly warmth bloomed under her skin. The warmth grew to a burn, euphoric and searing all at once, and she cut off the spell with a strained gasp.
The felguard bared his fangs at her, stumbling against the doorjamb, but she paid him no mind. Instead, she pulled down the neckline of her tunic far enough to see her collarbone. The former purple swelling had flattened and faded to the yellow ghost of a bruise. She released the fabric, satisfied.
Her head buzzed with the sudden dose of fel magic as she turned, again, to the felguard. She wasn't sure she cared for the feeling. It reminded her of being a little too drunk; both states made her head swim and her teeth numb, and later she'd have a punishing headache.
The felguard glared at her, murder in his piggish little eyes, but she didn't miss the subtle hunch in his broad shoulders when she looked at him. Being used as a living mana crystal hurt. Possibly as much as having your shoulder shattered by a metal truncheon, or at least it appealed to her sense of parity to think so.
"There were others with me when I was brought in," she said. "Two humans and a dwarf. Take me to them."
He growled, but after all, he had no choice.
This was a dream, though once it had happened in truth.
"The boy cannot pass," Captain Behrend said. His voice was steady, but there was something listless in the man's face. His usually jovially plump features seemed to sag, eyes watery and bloodshot with smoke.
The boy, no more than ten, sobbed brokenly, clutching the red welt on his wrist where the Light had burned him. Behind him, the line of Stratholme citizens, many still in their nightclothes, shifted uneasily.
"He can't be sick!" his mother, a thin woman in a patched skirt, protested. "We ain't had enough coin for new grain in days."
The boy's cry stuttered into a hoarse cough, and the murmurs of the people behind him took on an angry frightened note.
"I am sorry," Captian Behrend said. "None of the ill may pass. You can cross the cordon alone, or you can both stay here. Step aside, please, ma'am, while you decide." He looked past her to the waiting line of refugees and motioned to the man in front, eyes nearly as dead as those of the monstrosities that stalked them. "Please come forward!"
The woman's face twisted savagely as she balled her hands into fists. "You're killing us! He's just a child! You want to murder us, at least do it yourself, cowards!"
She took a step forward, raising a hand as though to strike the captain, and Aren half-drew his sword, making sure she saw the gleam of the metal in the fireglare.
Despite her words, she hesitated, then. Putting a protective arm around her son's shoulders, she turned away sharply. Even after everything he'd seen this night, the naked despair on her face smote Aren's heart.
"I am sorry," Captain Behrend said again.
"Shadow take you!" the woman said, and spat.
Aren sheathed his blade again, standing shoulder to shoulder with his fellow guardsmen in the cordon that blocked the only gate through their makeshift barricade. A pair of exhausted priests stood before him, checking the townspeople for the plague's corruption before letting the healthy through into the protected square beyond.
Despite the late hour, they bore no torches. The glare of the great burning was bright enough to see by, a lurid, flickering glow. The air reeked of smoke, but beneath it Aren thought he could smell something rotten. Or maybe that was only a fearful imagining.
He gripped the hilt of his sword tighter, squeezing a creak from the hardened leather of his gloves. He couldn't stop his eyes from roving across the crowd, searching desperately for faces he knew. His parents, aunts, cousins. He hadn't seen any of them in days, not since the first rumors of the killing sickness and the undeath that followed. His mouth tasted like ash, and he knew, if he were fortunate, that they were only dead.
The city had fallen. Captain Behrend hadn't said the words, but Aren knew it to be true. The garrison had lost control of everything from the cathedral to the market district to the eastern slums, and any coordinated action seemed to dissolve in a toxic swirl of rumor. Some said it was only the shambling plague victims that stalked the city. Others spoke of a great winged demon with burning eyes. Sir Uther the Lightbringer was here; Sir Uther had fled the carnage and left them all to the Light's judgment. Some said the spreading fire was an accident. Others said the city was to be razed at the behest of Prince Arthas himself. They said the prince hunted the great demon; they said he served it. They said he'd killed Sir Uther and Lady Jaina. They said he'd gone mad.
Aren shuddered and coughed in the thickening smoke, ignoring the nervous sidelong glance from the guard beside him. He'd been in the city garrison for five years, but had never had more to deal with than petty thieves and the occasional belligerent drunk. He'd never wanted to fight monsters. He wasn't sure he was made for this.
The crowd before him heaved suddenly, screams cresting like a wave.
"One at a time!" Captain Behrend roared. Then, to Aren's men: "Shields up!"
Aren locked shields with the men on either side of him, bracing himself as the front of the mob crashed against them. The shrieks intensified as the guardsmen shoved forward, steel slamming into soft yielding bodies. He faced a sea of scrabbling limbs and white panicked eyes as the people closest to the guard tried to stumble back but were prevented by the weight of their fellows.
Then, all at once, the frantic screams coalesced into a single cry - "Prince Arthas!" - and the weight on his shield became almost unbearable. Aren grit his teeth and pushed back harder, fighting his own answering terror.
A hand suddenly clapped down hard on the boiled leather of his pauldron, startling him. Captain Behrend. "No more time!" He shouted close to Aren's ear to be heard over the din. "Take Second Company and go. Get the healthy out, you know the way!"
Aren gave a curt nod, stomach dropping queasily. It wasn't supposed to come to this. They were all supposed to go together. He did know the way, a secret hole in the city walls, smugglers used it in happier times to avoid the tariffs at the gate…
Beneath his fear and horror, a selfish shiver of relief. Maybe he would survive this madness.
But without his men, First Company could not hold.
He could hear, distantly, the relentless ring of heavily-shod hoofs on cobblestones. Human cries. The hard clang of sword on sword, shockingly loud -
He woke with a gasp, shivering on the cold stone floor of his cell. Not real, not anymore, nothing but dream and memory...but waking didn't bring its usual solace.
His head ached, throat dry and parched. Water. They sometimes left him water. He groped for the bucket but couldn't find it. One of his eyes had swollen shut, and the world spun hazily even as he lay on the floor. He reached for the Light reflexively, as he always did, but nothing answered. Demons. They had taken them all. Callista and Ander and Vorthaal and Wynda and Nathanial...but not Luciel. Luciel was dead. His fault. Perhaps she was lucky. The Light could not reach them here. He was -
Another loud crash, metal screeched against metal, an angry snarl. Stratholme, still? He thought he'd woken. Was this another of the Legion's torments? That nightmares caught him even in the waking world?
He smelled burning flesh now, heard a wet choking gurgle.
Torchlight flooded his cell, blinding after so long in the shadows, and he squinted his good eye almost closed. A heavy metal boot crossed behind the spots in his vision. Felguard, one of his jailors. Once he might have thought of trying to escape, but now he simply closed his eyes. Hopefully the creature would only set down the water and leave without punishing him further.
"Aren. Can you hear me?" A steady voice. Concerned. Callista? No, it couldn't be. She was dead. He'd damned her like all the rest.
A hand touched his forehead, cool against his feverish skin. "Aren. We have to go."
"Merciful Light, lad, you look a sight."
...Wynda?
It wasn't possible. He opened his eye again, steeling himself for disappointment.
Callista crouched near his head, one hand reaching to press the backs of her fingers against his temple. Dried blood streaked her face and matted the hair that had escaped from its knot. More of it spotted the front of her tunic in a rusty constellation, though she did not appear to be wounded. She smiled wanly at his regard.
"I - you're alive," he rasped.
"It's going to be alright," she said with uncharacteristic gentleness. "Come on. We need to get out of here."
Something moved behind her and his eye rolled drunkenly to focus on it. Familiar shapes against the open door of his cell. Wynda and Ander.
Stunned, he licked his parched lips and struggled to raise himself up onto one hand. "How?" he managed.
"Time for tales later, lad," Wynda said. She didn't look quite as unscathed as Callista; her swordhand hung against her chest in a makeshift sling, and bruises mottled the freckled skin of her face red and purple. "Come along now."
Callista helped him lurch carefully to his feet. He put an arm around her waist, half for balance and half for the warm comforting feel of her body against his side, and pressed his face briefly into her hair. She smelled of sweat and earth and the singed-air tang of residual magic that always seemed to cling to her. For a moment he allowed himself to imagine that this, too, was a dream; the scarred stone walls of the cell would fade like the fires of poor dead Stratholme and he would wake, tangled in the inn's coarse sheets, the heat of her breath tickling his chest...
Then her arm tightened around him before she gently pushed him away. "Let's go. We don't have much time."
The fantasy shattered. He started and took a halting step forward, ashamed of his own indulgence.
A deep voice rumbled something derisive in demonic. He stiffened at the sound, fists clenching, but Callista nudged him forward out of the cell. "Don't mind Hathrak. He's having a bad day."
Despite the reassuring touch of her hand on his back, he tensed again at the sight of the felguard standing rigidly against the damp-streaked wall of the corridor. The monster towered over Wynda and Ander even without the spikes bristling from his armor. His cuirass only covered half his muscular chest, revealing leathery skin the color of old blood, and his lips peeled back from his fangs in a rictus of hatred at Aren's regard. An almost identical creature lay crumpled at his feet, dead.
"I'll kill your lover first, witch," he snarled in roughly-accented Common. "Should I tell you how I'll do it?"
"Keep it to yourself, you great bollix," Wynda suggested.
Aren's vision blurred, head spinning, and he braced himself against the wall as he eyed Callista uncertainly. What kind of ally was this? If this was another of her pet fiends, it didn't seem as tame as the hound.
Callista flicked the felguard a cool glance but ignored his railing, leaning against the doorway of the cell to brush a sharp pebble from the sole of her foot. "Take us to our clothes."
The felguard growled dangerously, but after a brief pause he thrust himself away from the wall and stalked off down the corridor, an oddly spasmodic motion.
Aren moved to follow, but stumbled, head still swimming. "What is he?" he rasped.
Callista slipped an arm around him again, supporting his shambling walk down the corridor.
"Bound, for now," she said. Her voice was calm, but he could feel the tension coiled in her fingers. "It's alright. I'll need to get rid of him soon, though."
What did that mean? He needed to think, get things under control, but the dizziness rolled over him like breakers. Standing in strong surf, waves crashing against his knees. He would not be pulled under. Where were they?
He looked blearily around, focus snagged by Wynda and Ander as they limped in front of him. Ander leaned heavily on the dwarf's good shoulder, favoring one leg, the bottom third of his trousers torn and caked with blood. Fortunately, the floor was smooth and even, oddly so - the walls were natural stone, not cut blocks like his cell. Hard granite, glittering with mica, furred with black tufts of dead moss. Lit by torches set in sconces chased with leaping stags. This did not look like the lair of demons.
"Where are we?" he croaked.
"Jaedenar," Callista said. Her confidence, for once, did not allay his worry. "The seat of the Burning Legion in Felwood. Druids used to enter the Dream here, before the demons killed them all and took the tunnels." She glanced at him, bitterly amused. "Much as I hate to say I told you so..."
His heart sank, and he shut his good eye briefly as they stumped along. "I see." He paused, afraid of the answer to his next question. "Where - what about Nathanial? And Vorthaal?"
He felt more than heard her sigh as she looked away, no longer amused.
"We don't know, lad," Wynda said quietly.
"They took them somewhere else," Callista said. "Even that one couldn't tell me." She nodded her chin at the felguard's spiny sullen back.
By the Lightbringer. He looked at Ander's hunched form as he clung to Wynda's shoulder, unreadably silent. "We will find them, Ander," he said hoarsely. "The Argent Dawn doesn't leave its people behind."
"I'd be careful making promises here, if I were you," Callista said softly.
Ander bristled, jerking his head around to look at them. His hair fell in lank tangles around a face raw with grief. "I don't want to hear it."
The felguard actually laughed. "I'm sure you'll join your friend soon, little fool." He stopped in front of an arched oak door cleverly set into the unworked stone of the tunnel and unlocked it, shoving it open contemptuously.
Callista, who until now had ignored the felguard's outbursts with deliberate thoroughness, finally narrowed her eyes at him. "I wonder," she said, in a dryly conversational tone that was somehow more alarming than open hostility, "if instead of killing you when this is over, I shouldn't just lock you in a cell for your captain to find."
The felguard snarled, whirling in the doorway to face her. "You swore you'd grant me death."
Aren flinched at the demon's sudden aggression, but Callista's arm around his waist remained still and hard as stone. "Oh, dear," she said, a chill he hadn't imagined her capable of creeping into her voice. "Are we all keeping our promises, now?" Amusement, equally cold, in the grey knife of her gaze. "What do you imagine we both are?"
Aren shuddered against her and hoped she didn't notice, glad that look had never been leveled at him.
The felguard sneered, but the defiance in it wilted quickly. He dropped his eyes before she did, turning away through the open door with a noncommittal grunt.
Feeling dizzy and more than a little cowed himself, Aren let Callista lead him into the room, piling into the cluttered space behind Wynda and Ander and pulling the door shut behind them.
Darkness blinded even his good eye.
Callista conjured a fist-sized ball of flame that rose up and hovered near the ceiling, making the shadows leap like hounds before subsiding behind the shelves that lined every wall. Goods lay piled on the stone floor in between, a chaotic abundance of cloaks and boots and bloody Sentinel armor, strips of dried meat tumbled up with swords and canteens and stained bedrolls in no particular order. Everything the Legion had taken from its prisoners and judged to be of little value.
Wynda eased Ander down next to a colorful heap of clothing. "Best start digging," she said, immediately taking her own advice.
Aren separated from Callista, grabbing the edge of a rickety shelf for support. He recognized one of their canteens among the litter of knives and flint, tent canvas and torn rucksacks, and snatched it up hopefully. Water still sloshed inside. He tipped a little into his palm, just to be sure, then tilted the opening to his mouth, grateful for the coolness on his parched throat.
The felguard glowered in the farthest corner from Callista, looming out of the shadows like a gargoyle in some defiled temple. "I did as you ordered, human. Now let me die, before they find you."
"Coward," Ander muttered.
The felguard snarled. "My punishment would be even worse than yours, weakling. Remember this moment when they're feeding you your own entrails."
Callista crinkled her nose at the imagery, but didn't immediately retort. Instead, she picked a scabbarded sword from one of the dusty piles, half drawing it to check the ruby gleam of its edge in the firelight. "You want death? Fine." She handed the weapon to him hilt-first. "Take it, then."
Aren almost stopped her - the Argent Dawn did not simply execute its prisoners - but the words died on his tongue in a roil of confusion. The Argent Dawn also had no truck with demons. Was this how mercy looked now? It was like he'd woken in that cell to find some bottom had fallen out of the world, and he couldn't still his tumble long enough to find which way the light came in.
In the end, he did nothing, because she was full of certainty and he had only doubt.
The felguard bared fangs in a frigid smile. "Your end will be messiest of all, witch." He unsheathed the blade and tossed the scabbard away carelessly. Without hesitation, he flipped the sword around and pressed the point just below his ruddy-skinned breastbone, driving it up and inwards with savage strength. He sank to his knees and then slumped forward, black blood welling around the hilt. It trickled from his fingers to the floor in dark runnels, reflecting the wavering fireglare as he shuddered out a few labored gasps and then lay still.
Wynda turned away in disgust. "Foul barbarian."
Callista watched until his last rattling breath before returning her attention to a striped wool sock she'd plucked from the mess. The abstracted indifference on her face chilled him, and Aren shivered. It's only a demon, he reminded himself. Light knows, it deserved no better. Suddenly unsteady, he let go of the shelf and sat, heavily, on the ground. Shadows licked at the corners of his vision, and he rested his cheek against the splintery wood.
"Let me look at your head, lad," Wynda said.
He winced as she rested her fingertips on the swelling around his eye, clucking her tongue in concern. This close, he could see the network of broken veins in the bruises on her face, a lacy stain of spilled blood beneath the skin - then the wholesome warmth of the Light eclipsed his vision, clean and gentling, and when the brightness faded, he found that his injured eye had cleared.
"That should help," she said, "though I daresay you still have a touch of that concussion."
"Thank you." He looked at her arm, looped with a dirty strip of cloth against her chest. "What did you want to do about that?"
She shielded it defensively with her other hand. "Nothing, 'til we have time to look at it properly. Not worth the risk."
Aren nodded. Field healing was fine for simple injuries, but could permanently reduce function if the wound was complex enough, especially to a delicate joint like the wrist. Neither he nor Wynda were that skilled at mending. "Alright." He stood without grasping at anything this time. Though he still felt a little unbalanced, the worst of the dizziness was gone. "How can we find the others and get out of here?"
Callista shook her head. She'd pulled a pair of mismatched socks on over her bare feet, and now she knelt near a pile of boots, sorting the promising ones into a smaller heap at her side. "We need to get out first. Then we can try to go after the others."
"No," Ander said harshly. He flinched as Wynda rolled up the bloody hem of his pants, exposing a long clumsily-bandaged gash along his calf. "I'm not leaving Nate to some-"
"You have no choice," Callista cut in ruthlessly. "You don't even know where we are. How do you expect to find anyone else?"
Ander's fists clenched into tight balls in his lap. "That doesn't matter. He gave himself up because of me! How can you expect me to just - "
"Easy, lad," Wynda said, laying a hand gently on his knee. "No one's suggesting we abandon Nathanial. Or Vorthaal. But we need to be sensible, or we won't help anyone."
Aren sighed, squeezing the cold metal of the canteen until his knuckles paled. He knew as well as anyone how it felt to leave someone behind. Guilt and grief and useless anger, the cruel hope of not knowing, and beneath it all that shameful gratitude - thank you, Light, it wasn't me...
He breathed deeply, stoppering the flood of memories before they could rise and drown him. His duty, now, was to the people he knew were still alive. "They're both right, Ander. We're lost and wounded. And soon those guards you killed will be missed. We need to get out of here, if we can. But we will come back for your brother. I swear it."
Callista's mouth twitched skeptically, but she didn't admonish him for the oath this time.
He looked at her. "What did that demon tell you? Can you find the way out?"
She shrugged, laying aside a battered leather sandal. The floating fire cast dark shadows beneath her eyes and mouth, deepening her already weary expression. "Yes and no. These caves are vast. Hathrak knew one way out, but it passed through a number of checkpoints, locked doors. They'd never let us through, not looking like this. We'd need a distraction. Or a scout to find a different way."
Aren grimaced, staring at the dented canteen still in his hand without really seeing it. He'd go himself, if he could, but a paladin didn't make a very convincing servant of the Burning Legion. "What if you cleaned yourself up? Do you think you could talk yourself out, find a way around?"
Callista shook her head. Even now, he found her beautiful - the flickering shadows played up the fine bones in her face, and whatever had caused the blood on her tunic hadn't seemed to shake her self-possession. "Out? Maybe. In again to find you? Never." She paused. "I was thinking of sending my succubus. Azlia can go unseen when she wants, and a demon would be less conspicuous anyway."
"Another blasted fiend," Wynda grumbled. She'd finished with Ander's leg and was now rummaging through a shelf stacked with weaponry. "Couldn't be any more rotten than the last one, I suppose."
"Fine," Aren said. It wasn't much of a plan, but they had little information to work with right now. "Let's say your demon is able to find a way out. What happens then? The forest above us must be guarded, it's how they caught us the first time."
Callista hesitated for a moment amid the jumble of shoes, seeming to weigh her words. "If we can get to the surface, we should be able to blend in. Mortal warlocks are common in Jaedenar proper. Paladins are not, but if you can avoid using the Light, you could pass as mercenaries."
He almost asked her how she was so sure, but something trapped the words in his throat. He remembered other strange pauses, even stranger certainties. The way she'd laughed at him, once, when he'd doubted the Legion presence in Felwood.
He stamped the suspicion out angrily, appalled at himself. She was a warlock, she was supposed to know things, it was why they'd - he'd - dragged her into this in the first place. And if she hadn't always been perfectly honest with him...well. That was a conversation for a different time.
Callista watched him with her brow arched questioningly; he'd been silent for too long.
"Alright," he said. "Summon your demon."
Not so very far away, the dreadlord Nerothos was having an exceptionally trying afternoon.
"You do understand why you're here," he said. He kept his voice silkily even, but a duller creature than the one in front of him would have sensed the menace in it anyway.
Xavilis' jaw tightened beneath its absurd red brush of beard. This obnoxious upstart claimed to be old enough to remember the Sundering, but his Eredun still carried a Darnassian lilt. "You overreach yourself, dreadlord. These woods were ours long before your little cabal fled - excuse me - withdrew from that disastrous attempt on Hyjal. Any trade we seize along the Azshara road belongs to Satyrnaar."
Refusing to be baited, Nerothos laid a palm flat on the table that stood between them, leaning over it slightly. He did hate satyrs. Most demons weak-blooded enough to remember their mortal origins at least kept quiet about it, but Xavius' wretched spawn actually put on airs over their past lives. As if even the natives of this pathetic world recalled the Highborne any longer. Prince, this one styled himself. Of what, Nerothos often wondered. A few dirty moonwells hardly comprised a kingdom.
"Yes. You have been here a long while," he agreed. "And you've made such astonishing progress. I can see why you'd resent our interference."
Xavilis' narrow goatish face twisted into a scowl.
There was no point in hiding his contempt, so Nerothos continued anyway. "You've captured...what? Fifteen, twenty Kaldorei outposts? In ten thousand years? Truly a singular addition to the Legion's triumphs. Mercifully."
Xavilis bristled, bringing a hairy fist down on the table hard enough that the wood jumped. "Enough! How many victories have you won, skulking in this cave? The Shadow Council promised us weapons, powerful artifacts. Where are these things? It's no wonder my people grow restless."
Grow insolent and disobedient was more likely. It had been too long since the Burning Legion had any real presence in this forest. These satyrs had been brought into the fold ten thousand years ago and then almost immediately isolated when Zin-Azshari foundered. They'd clearly forgotten what little they'd learned about their place in the greater order. Banehollow had been too busy of late to remind them properly, but Nerothos, fortunately, found himself with ample free time. "Then perhaps they need a stronger hand to steer them."
Xavilis' lip peeled back from his fangs, voice so rough with anger that its cultured lilt was almost erased. "You go too far. Banehollow - "
"Lord Banehollow is as eager as you are to receive better armaments. And where do these things come from, do you imagine?"
"I didn't meet you here to be - "
"They come from our workshops, naturally," Nerothos continued, cutting him off with a cold smile. "Workshops that require raw materials. Iron, starwood, prismatic shards. Things we can only acquire through trade with the few allies we possess in this miserable little backwater. So, do explain to me why your sect has been slaughtering the agents of the one goblin cartel that acknowledges our contracts."
Xavilis scowled, rolling his large shoulders recalcitrantly. "None of those caravans were travelling to Jaedenar. We checked."
Nerothos clicked his tongue in faux sympathy. "Did you, now." He sensed no lie; he was sure one of the satyr's brethren had accidentally torn open a bill of lading while he was picking through the corpses. That was hardly the point.
Xavilis' eyes narrowed and he drew a deep huffing breath, about to launch into another diatribe.
Nerothos continued before he could start. "Need I explain to you how trade works, Xavilis?" He spread his wings contemptuously, casting a wide shadow across the satyr. "The Sweetwater mogul is incensed. If their operations are unprofitable, his Cartel will liquidate their Ashenvale branch, inconveniencing me greatly. Kill whoever else you like, enslave as many Kaldorei as you can drag back to your hovels, but you will leave the Sweetwater caravans alone."
Xavilis growled. "Weakness. We never needed these mortals before. They're good only for carrion. Lord Beltherac -"
"Beltherac does not rule in Jaedenar." Nerothos tilted his head, the menace in his tone rising as he subtly curled his wings, eclipsing even more of the torchlight. "And I'm not interested in your false expediency."
To his credit, Xavilis only faltered briefly, a flutter of dropped gaze before his hackles rose again. "Jaedenar is no longer the only Legion power in this forest. Remember it when you speak to me, dreadlord."
"And Satyrnaar is a very small name on the Shadow Council's very long list of available assets. Best give me fewer reasons to remember that, when I speak to you."
Xavilis sneered, but made no retort.
"Good afternoon, Prince," Nerothos said with cold cordiality.
Accepting his dismissal with poor grace, the satyr grunted a farewell as he stalked from the room and slammed the door behind him.
Nerothos folded his wings abruptly, unable to suppress his irritation now that he was unwatched. This was not the first reprimand Xavilis had earned, but the creature appeared to be becoming less, rather than more, tractable with time. Beltherac's doing, no doubt. That was troublesome. The other dreadlord had never been affiliated with the Shadow Council before, and Nerothos was more than idly curious to know what he was doing here now. Cultivating an oblivious sect of religious heretics was a useful enough pastime, but Jaedenar's doorstep was an odd place to do it in. Even with Stormwind's latest crackdown on fel magic. No, this was something more personal.
The heavy oak door had barely swung shut when it flew open again, interrupting his musing. Gurzon Shadowmaul, a grizzled old orc with one arm missing at the elbow, slouched to a halt in front of him. "Lord Nerothos."
"What is it now?" Nerothos asked. Gurzon should have had better things to do than skulk outside waiting for Xavilis to leave - this did not bode well.
The orc thumbed the seamed burn scar that covered half of his jaw, an unconscious nervous gesture. "The deathknight. He's here. He...uh. He brought back one of your spies."
Nerothos narrowed his eyes, ignoring Gurzon's answering flinch. He wasn't in the habit of shooting his own messengers, though not all of his servants seemed to have grasped the fact yet. "Show me," he said.
"Of course. He's in the great hall." He turned and scuttled back out through the doorway, moving rapidly despite his age and old injuries.
Nerothos followed Gurzon's thin crooked back out into the corridor. These barrow dens had belonged to the Kaldorei once; the pillars that braced the ceiling were skillfully carved to look like trees, and the lanterns set among the stone boughs shed dappled light like sunlight through leaves. Not all the stonework had survived the Shadow Council's conquest, however. The broken lanterns had been replaced with felfire torches, and their hungry, flickering glare gave the impression that the great stone forest burned. Not at all inappropriate, really.
The hallway curved right, then opened out into the massive cavern of the inner hold. Nerothos did not care for the curious, almost eager, glances the guards flung sidelong at him as he passed.
A small knot of people stood near the dais where Banehollow usually held court. Banehollow himself was there, of course; along with his attendant, Fel'dan, and the bony form of the dead human. The motley collection of mortal warlocks, satyrs, and succubi that always populated the hold had arrayed themselves around them at a prudent distance while pretending, with varying degrees of conviction, to be doing something other than eavesdropping. The soft murmur of conversation faltered as Nerothos approached, then rose again as they resumed their ineffectual play of indifference.
"Nerothos," Banehollow said, spreading and folding his wings in a clipped, irritated movement. "I am told this belongs to you."
There was little question as to what "this" was. The crumpled body of a human male lay quivering on the dirty floor of the cavern. Still alive, regrettably, though probably not for long. His eyes were missing and his breaths came in short wet rasps from the bloody hole of his mouth. No tongue. Few teeth, either, though that may have been a prior quality. The man - Rodger something-or-other, mortal names were rarely worth remembering for precisely this reason - hadn't been one of his race's more impressive specimens.
Nerothos sneered, annoyed, and turned to the tattered corpse standing next to his former agent. The deathknight's hands rested on the pommel of a slender rune-marked blade, yellowed bone breaking through his leathery skin at the knuckles. The mouldering sigil of the Silver Hand was still legible on his tabard. "Well, go on," Nerothos said. "You've already wasted enough of our time."
The corpse drew a dry hissing breath, preparing to speak. His voice was a bloodless rasp, utterly without inflection. "No message."
Of course not. Beltherac had never been much of a conversationalist, even when they'd both been very nearly young, and a few millennia of imprisonment seemed to have improved neither his wit nor his temper.
"Then get out," Nerothos said blandly. He had a sudden fantasy of wrenching the soul from that rotting husk and immolating it, but dismissed it quickly. That would only amuse Beltherac, who was too skilled a necromancer not to have ways of resurrecting his favorite toy.
The deathknight turned silently, sheathing his blade at his side as he went. Frost webbed the stone where the point had touched. The mutilated human twitched, brushing the frozen ground with the stump of a hand, and let out a gurgling whimper. His writhing disturbed the mouth of the stained sack tied around his neck, which fell open slightly, revealing the flayed tip of a finger. With the nail missing. How thorough.
Banehollow gave a low rumble of disapproval. "I grow tired of your idiotic feud."
Nerothos switched his attention from the dying human to his irritated colleague. That was rich, coming from him. "And how much Xorothian stardust have you peddled this week?"
Banehollow scowled. He took a deliberate step nearer, but since the two nathrezim were almost of a height, his attempt at looming had little effect. "That isn't remotely the same. You're wasting our resources and my time pestering our allies. There are few enough of us left on this rock as it is. What advantage do you gain by pursuing this now?"
Nerothos had worked closely with Banehollow on many campaigns over the last few thousand years, but this matter was even more ancient than that alliance. He saw no reason to explain himself now. Better to simply placate the other dreadlord until he had more to show than vague suspicions. "I assure you, you won't hear of this again," he said.
Banehollow pierced him with a sour skeptical look. "Because there will be nothing to hear about, of course," he said, not bothering to disguise his sarcasm. He turned away anyway, his attendant, Fel'dan, close at his hooves.
Nerothos was certain he hadn't heard the last of this. Still, it was good enough, for now.
The mewling coming from that half-dead mortal was becoming irksome. Nerothos curled a lip back from his fangs and flung an order at Gurzon, who he could hear shuffling uncertainly a few steps behind him. "Dispose of this fool."
Without waiting to see the result, he whirled and stalked out of the cavern. Embarrassing. This wasn't the first of his informants Beltherac had dispatched, but never before had he dared to do it so openly. At first the attrition had bothered him little - his rival was no fool, and most of those spies had been barely competent to begin with - but the losses were beginning to be damaging. That misadventure on Xoroth had kept him away longer than he had expected, and his position here had suffered as a result. His reservoir of even marginally loyal agents was growing very shallow indeed. And he wasn't likely to be overwhelmed with volunteers after that little display.
Brooding, he spared little attention for where he was going, but headed generally downwards, towards his quarters. Xavilis would be insufferable once he heard of this. Perhaps it was time he -
An odd rattling sound caught his ear.
He paused, looking for the source. After a moment it came again - a soft furtive clatter. He narrowed his eyes when he saw one of the iron-jacketed doors that studded the corridor jiggle slightly. This area was restricted to the highest echelons of the Shadow Council. Someone had clearly made a grave error.
Feeling a preemptive glow of satisfaction at the idea of venting his ire on whoever was on the other side, Nerothos quietly laid a clawed hand on the door. Releasing the ward that bound it shut, he wrenched it open violently.
A sayaad tumbled after it in a flurry of hooves and wings, uttering a high yelp of alarm.
Snarling, Nerothos seized her by the neck and slammed her against one of the tree-like pillars that supported the ceiling, holding her under one of the lamps. Her short claws scrabbled at his hand, hooves banging uselessly against his armored legs, until his grip on her throat tightened ominously and she stilled.
Nerothos smiled icily. "Whatever fool called you here - "
He broke off suddenly, realizing as her face tilted up towards the light that he recognized this creature. He snarled again, in surprise this time, and loosened his grip incrementally, letting her slide down the pillar until her hooves touched the floor. "You."
She gasped for air as the panic faded from her delicate face. It was replaced by alarmed realization, consternation, and an intense spasm of dislike in approximately that order. She lashed her tail balefully between the pillar and his leg, but otherwise remained silent.
Nerothos gave her a rough shake, feeling the frustration he'd hoped to release flaring again with his bewilderment. Why was Callista's insolent minion slinking around the Shadow Hold? He knew everything that moved within Jaedenar, and he'd been unaware that the warlock was even in the city.
No part of this pleased him.
Tightening his hand, he dug his claws in hard enough to raise dark beads of blood on the sayaad's neck, voice a dangerous purr. "Where is your mistress?"
Azlia - for he was certain, now, that that was the succubus' name - merely licked her full lips and then curled them in an impudent smile. "Like I told you the last time, dreadlord, nowhere that's any business of yours."
Nerothos gazed down at her contemptuously. The warlock allowed this creature far too long a leash, because, he suspected, she found her antics amusing. Nerothos did not. One day, he would run out of reasons not to snap her slim white neck. But for now…
"I promise you, sayaad, this is not at all like the last time."
A/N: Woo, two updates in one year! Thanks as always to anyone who's read/reviewed/faved/followed. Hopefully I can get the next chapter out in a similar timespan. Perversely, I find it easiest to write scenes when the people in them don't all like each other very much, and, uh, yeah...poor paladins.