Tun watched enviously as Callista buried her face in the crook of her arm and dozed off almost immediately. He was exhausted too, but he didn't think he could sleep if he tried. Too much to worry about.

He glanced over at Folgrim. The dwarf was sitting alertly at his side, staring with watchful eyes in the direction of the door. Tun could hear a very slight unevenness in his breathing, the only outward sign his wound was causing him pain. Perhaps it wasn't as bad as all that after all.

"Do you think we'll be attacked?" Tun asked quietly.

"Hard to say, lad." Folgrim's gaze never wavered. It was difficult to tell if he was watching the door, or the dreadlord standing beside it. "That demon may call these tunnels abandoned, but dwarves know the deep places never stay empty for long."

Tun shivered a little, imagining what the demonic equivalent of a trogg might look like. "Yes. My people know something of that as well."

An arrogant laugh sounded from the shadows near the doorway, and the dreadlord's eyes glowed brightly as he turned his head to look at them. The demon must have ears like a saber cat, Tun thought with irritation.

"The Legion scoured this world of life many long millennia ago, mortals. If its servants have deserted this place, then there is nothing left at all."

Folgrim glared at the demon. "We're here," he pointed out gruffly.

The dreadlord stepped forward into the dim reddish glow of the wall sconces. His smile held more menace than most creatures' death threats. "Not for long. The Legion lord who governs this world will not suffer prisoners to escape beneath his very nose. One way or another, we shall be elsewhere very soon." He idly flicked a speck of dust from the tip of one of his claws, continuing in a conversational tone. "You, for instance, will be dead."

"What makes you think you'll fare any better, dreadlord?" Folgrim asked, bristling. "You're a traitor! I'll wager they'd rather nail your head to their ramparts than any of ours."

The dreadlord seemed to find that idea amusing. "If such a thing were permitted, it would have been done long ago."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Tun asked, looking up at the demon with a mixture of disgust and fear. He couldn't remember the creature's name. He knew Callista had gotten it earlier, but Tun had no desire to become familiar with such a fiend.

The dreadlord's gaze seemed to lance right through him, and Tun shrank a little under it. Ugh, he hated demons.

The creature's smile widened at his obvious unease. "Nothing that concerns you."

Tun filed his question away with the rest of the things he intended to ask Callista when he thought he could speak to her without shaking her about the neck.

Satisfied that Folgrim and Tun were now thoroughly unsettled, the dreadlord melted back into the shadows around the door. Tun stared warily after him. He didn't care if the dreadlord knew the way back to Azeroth and to all the fabled treasures of Azshara to boot. It would be better to take their chances alone.

Folgrim seemed to agree, shifting to a more comfortable position with a soft clink of chainmail and muttering something under his breath that was probably a curse.

The dreadlord had seemed adamant about Folgrim not continuing on with them in his current condition. Too bad, Tun thought. He liked the dwarf, and as long as there was hope, there was no way he would just abandon him here. Callista might not be thrilled with the idea – she had a ruthless streak in her Tun sometimes found alarming – but she would never back a demon over him. If the dreadlord didn't like it he could leave, and good riddance.

Readjusting the fabric of his robes around his folded legs, Tun sighed and rested his chin in his hand. Perhaps sleep would come soon.

Callista awoke after what felt like far too short a time to the touch of Tun's hand on her shoulder.

"Your turn," he muttered, before lying down and collapsing almost instantly into slumber.

Callista sat up and rubbed her eyes, blinking in the orangish-red glow of the balelights. Folgrim's shallow breaths seemed unnaturally loud in the grim silence of their hiding place. She reached out with her demon sense but found nothing nearby except Nerothos, whose hulking form was standing near the doorway, motionless as a stone gargoyle.

Tun had conjured some mage bread and a few flasks of water while she slept. Callista ate and drank gratefully before moving to peer out one of the window slits overlooking the corridor. There were no demons about, but she could not account for any other sort of fel creature Hel'nurath may have had in his employ.

"The dwarf will be dead before another day is out." Nerothos' resonant voice came from close behind her, and Callista jerked in surprise, half-turning to look at him. He had spoken in Eredun, but she answered in Common. Whatever he was scheming, she wanted no part of it.

"Likely, unless we find a healer."

"There are no healers on Xoroth that would serve you."

Nerothos' eyes burned in the half-light like twin chips of fel fire, and Callista inwardly shuddered. A distinct sinking feeling began to grow in the region of her gut. She doubted that the dreadlord was after idle conversation. "What's your point, Nerothos?"

The dreadlord moved close, flaring his wings to cast them both into deep shadow. Callista instinctively stepped backward in alarm, but was stopped by the cool stone of the wall against her back. She crossed her arms and made a belated attempt not to look intimidated, meeting his stare levelly.

"You know what must be done," Nerothos said, the uncanny glow of his eyes seeming to brighten.

He could mean one of two things, and, knowing demons, Callista guessed the most unpleasant one first. "Sorry. Cold-blooded murder isn't quite up my alley."

Nerothos smiled, and Callista's sinking feeling intensified.

"Consider it a mercy killing."

Drat.

Why, she wondered, when given the choice between two equally logical possibilities, did demons never fail to pick the one that made her squirm the most? If he had simply suggested they leave Folgrim behind, she could've perhaps allowed herself to be convinced. Their position here was very tenuous, and Callista understood necessity when she saw it. But no, he had to go compounding simple ruthlessness with treachery and murder.

His claws looked very sharp, and she wished Tun would wake up.

"I agree that he's a liability," Callista said, "but I think killing him is a little excessive." She had been told once that her ethical sense was as reliable as a half-cracked Goblin sapper charge. Even so, she was fairly sure on this count.

"Your friend will not leave this place whilst the dwarf is living, and we can't afford delay." Nerothos twitched his wings impatiently, the movement stirring the heavy air against Callista's face. "These passages are vast – but so are Hel'nurath's forces. Should they catch us, they will not be merciful."

He was right, of course, in the cruelly efficient way demons usually were. "I know," she said, voice carefully neutral.

"No," he snarled, "I don't think you do." Callista startled a little at his sudden change in tone, and her eyes flicked to the oddly-curved scars that marked his torso. It took a weapon or curse of substantial power to suppress a demon's regenerative ability to the point that wounds would scar. She could guess more than idly how Nerothos had come by his.

"Kill him yourself then. You don't need me for this." She switched finally to Eredun, and Nerothos showed his fangs in a sinister half-smile at this sign of conspiracy. The sour taste of guilt was in her mouth even as she spoke. Her answer was a coward's way out, and she knew it.

"You are out of soul shards," he pointed out tangentially.

Unholy plaguing hells. She scowled at the demon, silently cursing her decision to ever let him out of that cell. When she spoke, she bit her words off coldly. "Yes. I will have to make do without them."

Nerothos seemed amused by her sudden flare of anger. "Come now, you are being willfully obtuse." He paused, but Callista made no response except to fix him with a look that implied she would very much enjoy reducing him to a charred smear, but didn't dare try. He spoke again, his voice quiet this time, almost gentle. "He will certainly die whether or not you intervene. It's only a matter of whether his death is agonizingly slow, or swift and painless. If you do it now, your friend need never even know."

Callista had never felt more cornered in her entire life, but she steeled herself to disagree anyway. "Why not just leave him here?"

"Unnecessarily complicated," Nerothos said with a dismissive wave of a hand. He took another step closer, and Callista's fingers twitched in the beginnings of a defensive spell before she recovered herself. Any nearer, and she'd actually be able to feel his breath on her face. She wished irrationally for the wall at her back to vaporize, so she could put a respectable distance between herself and the demon. The whole of Xoroth might make a good start.

"The gnome would never agree," Nerothos continued. "Not without a great deal of wasted time. He would have fought me before, if you hadn't intervened." He smiled coldly, fangs glinting in the dark. "He wouldn't have won.

"I think it best for all concerned if he isn't given the opportunity to repeat his folly." The demon's voice was a menacing purr. "Don't you concur?"

Callista narrowed her eyes, trying and failing to think of a way to extricate herself from this mess. It was true – Tun would never abandon a helpless friend, not if there were any other way at all. He was terrified of Nerothos, but he was no coward. He would take a stand if he felt honor-bound to do so.

She shook her head, more as a reflex than a response to the dreadlord's question. Nerothos regarded her patiently, carefully watching the faint play of emotion across her face.

She had no choice, she realized with a sickening feeling. She felt sorry for Folgrim, but he was merely an ally of circumstance, and Tun was her friend. If he did the stupid, noble thing – which he almost certainly would, it was one of the things she liked about him – there was nothing she could do to help him. If by some miracle the dreadlord didn't kill them outright, they would likely still be grievously wounded in a struggle, easy prey for any lesser horrors wandering these tunnels. And even if they escaped unharmed, they were utterly directionless. The odds of them stumbling onto a dimensional gate home without guidance were hopelessly slim.

"I don't like it," Callista said finally, resentment in her gaze. She wasn't stupid; there was more to this than the threat of a weak traveling companion slowing their flight. The demon was manipulating her. To what end she had no idea, but she was sure it was something nasty.

Nerothos' thin smile held satisfaction at her surrender, but no warmth. In the unsteady red glow of the wall sconces he looked truly like a fiend, eyes shining dangerously and fitful shadows wavering across his face and chest. "I suspect you would like death a great deal less."

Callista raised an eyebrow. "Is that meant to be a threat?"

"No. Merely an observation."

She gave a short humorless laugh at that, and the demon stepped aside to let her pass. She paced over to where Tun and Folgrim slept obliviously. Best to get this over with quickly, before she lost her stomach for it.

She looked down at Folgrim with more than a slight twinge of guilt. His face was deathly pale, and his chest barely stirred. His state appeared closer to a coma than actual sleep, and Callista tried to tell herself he would probably never wake again, even if she were to walk away and tell Nerothos where he could stuff his poisonous schemes.

She didn't walk away.

Instead she muttered an incantation, and watched as the familiar purple glow gathered around her hands. Slowly the light coalesced into a crystal like a large, dark amethyst, while Folgrim's breaths became weaker and farther between. Finally they ceased altogether.

She stowed the soul shard in an inside pocket of her robes, and moved back to the window to keep watch. Nerothos had resumed his post by the door, and she shot him a glance of purest loathing before turning her attention to the corridor. She'd only done what was necessary, but somehow that didn't stop her from being disgusted with herself.

A/N: And so the plot gets going for real! Thanks to everyone who reviewed!