Treacherous as he would doubtless prove, the dreadlord had been reliable in this, at least.
Callista sat leaning against a half-crumbled step of red stone, inspecting the shallow scrapes left by the felhound's claws as it sprang off her chest. She watched as the dreadlord finished demolishing the portal through which they had recently arrived, raking his sharp claws viciously over the runes that powered it until all of them stood dark and inert. She briefly considered summoning her imp, which she had sacrificed to distract their enemies while they fled through the portal, but decided against it. Silence, she thought, was an improvement.
"Where have you led us, demon?" Folgrim asked suspiciously. His face was drawn and pale above his thick brush of red beard, and Callista wondered if his tussle with the felhound hadn't cost him more than he had let on. "This isn't the surface."
"Well-observed, dwarf," the dreadlord replied, voice laced with sarcasm. "This is not the surface. We are beneath the fortress of Hel'nurath, in a quarter abandoned after a quake similar to the one that facilitated your escape."
Callista refastened her robes over her linen undershirt, climbing to her feet and dusting off some of the powdered rock that still clung to her. "These tunnels lead to the surface?"
"Doubtlessly."
"I thought you said you knew the way!" Tun accused.
The dreadlord sneered, and Tun suddenly looked as though he regretted his outburst. "It's been long since last I passed this way. The Burning Legion has been leeching the magical energies of this world for tens of thousands of years, until the very earth has begun to rend itself apart. The passages have changed much in the interim."
Callista tilted her head curiously. "Xoroth is becoming like Draenor?"
"Yes. It is the inevitable fate of all worlds consumed by the Legion." The dreadlord smiled nastily, eyes bright with malice. "One day your own world will suffer the same."
"We'll see about that, you bastard," Folgrim muttered.
"Which way now?" Tun asked, looking doubtfully around the circular room. It looked to have been a busy hub in the past, but was now fallen far into disrepair. Many archways once ringed the blood-colored wall, but the ceiling on the left side of the room had collapsed, obscuring half the passageways with a haphazard pile of cracked stone and bent felsteel. It was dark, too, many of the wall sconces having been knocked out in the cataclysm.
The dreadlord seemed to consider for a moment, great ribbed wings furling against his back. "Follow me," he rumbled finally, making for a half-toppled archway on the right wall.
The others followed in the order which had become customary; Callista first, Folgrim and Tun jogging side by side at her heels. After a few minutes of watching the broken stone of the decaying corridor pass by in silence, Folgrim glanced over at Tun. Noticing the scowl darkening the gnome's face, he spoke to him in the tongue of Ironforge. "Holding up there, laddie?"
Tun, who had lived for a time in the dwarven capital, was fluent in the language. He started a little at being addressed. "What? Oh. Yes, thank you." He continued to bore holes in Callista's back with his glare. "Why does she never listen?" he muttered, as much to himself as to Folgrim.
Folgrim chuckled, chainmail tunic clinking slightly as he jogged. "She's a warlock. If she knew good sense from a boot to the arse she wouldn't be mucking about with demons to begin with."
"A fair point." Tun sighed, rubbing some of the sweat and grime out of his eyes with the sleeve of his robe. "But really…" He eyed the dreadlord with a look of extreme distaste.
Folgrim nodded his head in sympathy, following Tun's gaze. "Aye. I'm no farseer, but even I can tell that creature will bring nothing but ruin. What sort of mischief does one demon lock up another for anyway?"
"I don't know." Tun shivered as the dreadlord twisted his head around to stare at them over one of his great wings, an unsettlingly knowing look on his sharp features. For the first time, it occurred to Tun to wonder if demons could speak Dwarven.
A few paces ahead, Callista was stealing sideways glances at the dreadlord and wondering if she'd really thought her impulsive plan all the way through. Somehow, the dreadlord had looked a lot more manageable inside the cell. Actually, he'd looked fairly sorry, with half his armor missing and the tip of his left horn snapped off.
Out of the cage, appearances had changed. He was obviously a very minor dreadlord, or the Legion would not have allowed Hel'nurath to leave him locked up like that, but even a minor dreadlord was not a creature to be dealt with lightly. Away from the nullifying magics of his prison, he radiated an aura of fel power that fell like a shadow across the mind. Even Callista, who considered herself accustomed to the feel of demonic corruption, found it unnerving.
As though guessing the direction of her thoughts, the dreadlord turned his head to look at her, cold eyes fixing her with an unreadable expression before turning back to the path. Behind her, she could hear Tun and Folgrim talking softly in the dwarven tongue. She hoped they didn't think their choice of language afforded them any privacy. Their words might be meaningless to her, but all dreadlords had instinctive understanding of any spoken tongue.
She toyed briefly with the idea of warning them, then discarded it. If the old texts were true, all Nathrezim were at least minor psionics anyway. The dreadlord could skim the thoughts from the top of their minds as easily as he could listen to them speak. She wondered if she'd notice if the demon tried such a trick on her, and decided she probably wouldn't. She knew what the touch of a demon's mind felt like, but the dreadlord likely had centuries more experience than she did playing such games.
"Your companions are ill-mannered."
Callista looked up warily as the dreadlord addressed her in Eredun. His fangs gleamed slightly in the half-light. She had to tilt her head back a little to meet his eyes, and she was suddenly uncomfortably aware of how the gesture exposed her throat. "Oh?"
"They mean to exclude us from their conversation. Impolite, and ineffective." He paused a beat, gauging her reaction with a sidelong look, the ghost of a sly smile on his angular face. "Care to know what they say?"
Callista didn't bother pointing out the demon's hypocrisy in using Eredun, craning her head around to catch a baleful glare from Tun. She squashed down a small pang of guilt at the expression on his face, and responded dryly in the same tongue. "No, thank you, I think I've got all the translation I want."
The dreadlord turned the corners of his thin mouth up in amusement, but the sentiment failed to reach his eyes. Somehow, the effect was even more unsettling than his usual cruel expression.
"What are you called?" Callista asked cautiously, in Common this time, just to break the stillness.
The dreadlord kept his burning eyes on her silently for long enough she wondered if he intended to answer. "I am Nerothos," he said finally.
Callista dipped her head slightly in acknowledgement. "Callista Dunhaven."
"Charmed," the demon replied, with the faintest undertone of mockery.
Callista snorted quietly, and turned her attention to a row of heavy prison doors, some still set with brightly glowing sigils. She wondered how many creatures had slowly starved to death after the quake isolated their cells, and decided it was probably a kinder fate than what the demons had in store for them anyway. Did the Legion still employ necromantic magic to raise corpses? Or had the Scourge debacle cured them of that? This dilapidated prison looked like an undead haunt if ever she'd seen one.
Her morbid line of thought was broken by a heavy thud, followed by Tun's cry of alarm.
Callista whirled, readying a curse as her eyes darted around the poorly-lit corridor. The flickering light of the sparse wall sconces created great dark shadows that twisted and leapt confusingly. Tun was kneeling next to Folgrim, who was collapsed on the uneven stone floor, eyelids fluttering as he struggled to retain consciousness. "What happened?!" she demanded of the gnome.
"Never mind, lass, never mind," Folgrim said unconvincingly. He hauled himself to his feet, leaning heavily on Tun's shoulder. Tun's forehead creased with worry as he staggered a little under Folgrim's greater mass, reaching an arm out to steady him.
"He's bleeding internally," Nerothos stated coldly.
"You don't know that!" Tun protested.
Even in the reddish light of the dungeon, Folgrim's face looked white under its tan. Sweat was beading on his face and arms despite the underground chill. Callista had seen enough wounds to recognize shock when she saw it.
"The felhound…" she trailed off.
"It's no matter, I can carry on," the dwarf said stubbornly.
"No," Nerothos said cruelly. "You can't." He turned his malice-filled gaze on Tun, who was bent a little under Folgrim's weight. "Leave him. There is nothing you can do."
"We can't abandon him here!" Tun's arcane-blue eyes flashed dangerously, and he looked at Callista for support.
Nerothos narrowed his eyes at Tun's rebellion, great dark wings and mismatched horns casting menacing shadows across the mage's face. "Do not presume to contradict me, little gnome. I was putting whole worlds to the flame before your forbearers crawled from the Old Gods' slime."
"Alright!" Callista broke in, more sharply than she intended. "It's past time we called a halt anyway. None of us can go much farther without rest."
It was a gamble – the dreadlord could decide to go on alone, and then they would likely wander aimless in this labyrinth until they died of accident or old age. On the other hand, dreadlords disliked fighting their own battles. Callista was sure this one only stuck around in case he needed bodies to throw in front of a raging void terror.
Nerothos looked at Callista appraisingly, in a way she didn't like at all. She narrowed her eyes in response.
"Very well," he said finally.
Tun looked relieved, but the dreadlord's sudden cooperation made Callista more nervous than an outright threat of violence would have.
They set up camp in the ruins of what looked to have been a guardroom. The door was thick, but not warded, and window slits looked out onto the corridor. Folgrim unlooped his arm from Tun's shoulders as the gnome guided him to a sitting position on the floor. "Might as well have a look at the damage," he said practically, loosening his belt to untuck his mail tunic and a thin leather undershirt.
The skin beneath was livid and bruised, almost black with blood trapped just beneath the surface. Tun blanched at the sight of it, and Callista frowned.
"Much as I hate to give him the satisfaction, the demon is right," Folgrim said grimly, wincing a little as he prodded at the edges of the wound.
"Naturally," Nerothos said, crossing his arms and smirking down at the injured dwarf with callous disdain.
Folgrim looked up at the dreadlord, violent dislike written all over his kindly features. "Go and boil your ugly head."
Nerothos laughed maliciously at that, a sadistic light in his pupiless eyes.
Tun ignored this exchange, forcing himself not to look away from the ghastly wound. "What can we do?" he asked.
Folgrim chuckled humorlessly. "There's nothing you can do, lad, unless you can conjure up priestesses the way you conjure up those ice balls."
Tun tried to smile, but didn't quite succeed, joking back weakly. "If I could conjure pretty women like water, I'd be Archmage of Stormwind by now."
Folgrim grinned crookedly. "Och, who wanted pretty? I'd settle for an ogress with a flask of healing draught." He gingerly tucked his mail shirt back into his belt, hiding the ugly wound from view. "I'll take first watch if you like, you two get some sleep."
Nerothos had already stalked over to the doorway, indistinguishable from the shadow of one of the toppled ceiling beams but for the cold gleam of his eyes. By unspoken consensus, the three mortals had decided that he was not a trustworthy sentinel.
Tun shot the dreadlord a suspicious glance before settling down cross-legged next to Folgrim. "Actually, I think I'll join you for a while," he said.
Callista just nodded. "Alright. Someone wake me when it's my turn."
She had not lied about needing sleep. She threw herself to the floor a prudent distance from where Nerothos stood guard at the doorway, and pillowed her head on her arms. Unpleasant thoughts whirling in her head, she fell asleep to the murmur of Folgrim and Tun's whispered conversation, and dreamed uneasily.