The wall before Callista dissolved into ripples, and she ducked through it into the dim space beyond. She promptly sneezed, causing Darmog to make a frantic shushing motion at her as her voidwalker hauled Nerothos into the room after them.
"There's no one else here," Callista said defensively, rubbing at her nose.
"Bet there will be," Darmog muttered with a resentful look at Nerothos. He began rummaging around the racks of vials stacked on the dusty shelf behind him, causing Callista to sneeze again.
They had entered what Darmog had assured her was a seldom-visited alchemical storeroom, and the thick blanket of grime that lay over everything seemed to bear out this assertion. Tall rows of shelves laden with potions and reagents of every type stretched on as far as Callista's eye could reach in the greyish light.
Their mission here was twofold. Firstly, to hide while they sent out Callista's succubus for word on whether Tun and Na'rii had succeeded, and, secondly, to do something about Nerothos. Darmog, much to Callista and the dreadlord's annoyance, had proved just as useless at deciphering that control device as he'd claimed. After several minutes of fiddling, he'd managed only to break it beyond repair.
A heated argument had followed. Thoroughly exasperated, Callista had snapped at Nerothos that if he said one more word she'd see if burning those runes off wouldn't solve their little problem. According to the dreadlord, that was actually impossible (the original spell had been performed by an Eredar warlock, and Callista was far too much a pathetic mortal to undo the works of one of those), but, once she mentioned it, Darmog admitted that he might know something that would have a similar effect.
Legion alchemists, it seemed, had concocted a powerful magical solvent that they used to remove the warding runes on dangerous artifacts. As far as Darmog knew, no one had ever tried it on one of the Nathrezim, but at this point it could hardly hurt.
Callista motioned to her voidwalker to follow, moving further into the endless rows of rickety shelves that filled the room. Nerothos snarled at her as he was dragged, eyes glowing balefully. Assurance that Callista didn't actually intend to kill him hadn't visibly improved his temper. Hardly surprising; his position was rather humiliating, for a demon.
Callista paused near the center of the room and made a dismissive gesture, banishing the voidwalker.
"I go," it hissed, looking as pleased as it ever did as it melted back into shadow. Callista wasn't sorry to see it leave. The voidwalker was the only one of her minions who seemed to prefer the chaotic wastes of the Nether to the mortal planes she anchored it to, and the cold hunger in its gaze when it looked at her bothered her more than the resentful stares of the others.
She felt Nerothos' eyes on her as she drew the arcane sigils in the air that would summon her succubus. He stretched his wings as much as he was able under the binding spell, glad, no doubt, to be free of the voidwalker. Darmog shuffled and clinked glassware together somewhere to her right.
"What will you do when that creature confirms the inevitable?" Nerothos asked, staring at her with unnerving intensity. The runes on his chest flickered eerily in the dimness.
Callista glanced at him irritably. "They aren't dead." Her words sounded unconvincing, even to herself, and she knew Nerothos knew it.
"Of course not," he purred, not even trying to hide the sardonic note in his voice. "But in the highly improbable event you are mistaken, what do you intend?"
Callista paused in her summoning, a greenish circle of runes rotating lazily near her feet. "In that highly improbable event," she echoed, looking at him venomously, "I suppose I would be open to suggestion."
Nerothos looked satisfied at that, the corners of his mouth turning up in a sinister smile.
The summoning circle vanished as Azlia materialized in its center. She sauntered over to Callista and looked her up and down, taking in the gash in her shoulder, her singed robes, and the gore that streaked her face. "Ooooh, mistress, you look dreadful!" she said with a wicked giggle.
Callista scratched at a flake of dried blood on her cheek. "Never mind that," she said. "I want you to find Tun, make sure he's alright, and come straight back as soon as Vathregyr is dead. Get directions from Darmog."
"Oh, but that doesn't sound very fun at all, mistress," Azlia said, pouting attractively. Her lips curled in a sultry smile, and she sidled closer, drawing the tips of her claws gently along the line of Callista's jaw. "I think I could find much better things for us to do."
Callista lifted one corner of her mouth, unimpressed. The blood pact she shared with Azlia made her immune to the succubus' seductive magic unless she willed it otherwise. And, despite Azlia's high opinion of her own persuasive skills, this was extraordinarily unlikely. Callista, unfortunately for her, just wasn't interested in other women. Or demons. Or being a total idiot. "Go now, Azlia."
"It is imperative we learn the outcome of this skirmish immediately, Sayaad," Nerothos sneered. Harmless as he was, he still looked quite imposing as he glowered down at the succubus with his great wings half lifted.
Azlia's amber-colored eyes narrowed disdainfully as her gaze lit on him. "You again?" Her expression changed to one of malicious glee as she noticed the runes graven into his broad chest. "Ooooh, mistress, you never told me we were getting a pet!" she said, clapping her hands together with a cruel giggle. "Does it fetch?"
"An excellent question," Nerothos said, looking at Azlia as though she were an insect too insignificant to be worth swatting. "Perhaps you should throw, and I should see how many fragments of your soul I can incinerate before your corpse stops twitching."
Callista was torn between amusement and annoyance at this exchange. Azlia was usually quite obedient, but Nerothos seemed to have a most unwholesome effect on her. Callista could relate, but it was still no excuse. "Azlia!" she snapped, jabbing a finger in Darmog's direction. She backed the command with power this time, sending it surging through the bond they shared.
Azlia flinched, shooting Callista a wounded look before turning gracefully on her heel and heading in search of Darmog. Any sympathy Callista may have felt for her minion, however, was forestalled by the glitter of malice in the demoness' beautiful eyes.
"Where are you, gan'arg?" Azlia sang as she sashayed between the dust-coated shelves.
"That creature would be far more alluring with her tongue cut out," Nerothos remarked, staring after her with cool contempt.
Callista picked a stoppered bottle off one of the shelves and inspected it, swirling the contents idly. "If I had a copper for everyone who's told me that, I'd be richer than Steamwheedle." She recognized the bottle's gently glowing fog as purified essence of air. Alchemy was something of a family trade, and, though Callista hadn't inherited her father's knack for the art (proper alchemy required a meticulousness and patience that the warlock had never mastered), she did know a few useful tricks.
She spied an empty flask on an adjoining shelf, blowing the dust from it before unstoppering the essence and carefully tipping it in. She followed it up with a vial of larval acid and a pinch of arcane powder, hesitating a moment before crumbling some dried netherbloom in her fingers and tossing that in too.
Nerothos' eyes followed her haphazard-looking experimentation with distrust. "That is exceedingly foolish," he said, as she poured yet another reagent into her flask.
"I know what I'm doing." She held the flask gingerly by its neck while flames leapt from her other palm to lick at the bottom of it. The glass quickly became too hot to touch, and she set it down with a hiss, shaking her singed fingers in the air to cool them.
Nerothos narrowed his eyes. "Unlikely."
Callista dropped a small fel crystal into the concoction and watched with a satisfied air as it smoked and spat. She shot him a look of wicked mischief and clicked her tongue disapprovingly, rather enjoying the fact that she was clearly irritating him, and he couldn't do anything about it. "I don't know what you're worried about, demon. I've never killed myself with alchemy even once."
Nerothos curled his lip scornfully. "The more I see of your methods, the more remarkable that becomes."
Callista snorted at that, but supposed his caution wasn't entirely baseless. There were reagents in this room that were more than powerful enough to kill or injure them both quite badly if mishandled, but she was knowledgeable enough to identify those and avoid them. Probably.
Darmog ducked into view around a rickety shelf, cupping a wide-mouthed jar in both mottled hands. "Here," he said gruffly, thrusting it at Callista. "Don't touch the solvent. I never saw the last mortal we tried it on, but you could hear the screaming from Argus."
"Warning taken," Callista said, wrinkling her nose as she carefully accepted the jar. It was surprisingly cold to the touch, filled three-quarters with a clear liquid that cast a hard white glow on her fingers.
"Just dab it on. There's a sponge in the lid."
"If this is a deception, gan'arg, what remains of your life will be as brief as it will be agonizing," Nerothos promised, baring his fangs a little and skewering Darmog with his gaze.
Darmog shrank and muttered something incomprehensible, shuffling back behind Callista.
"Let's just get this over with," Callista said, tipping the closed jar so the solvent ran up and into the sponge.
Nerothos didn't protest, so she stepped over to him and unscrewed the metal lid with the tips of her fingers. She tapped it gently against the rim of the jar, knocking a few stray drops of liquid back into the container, and glanced up to inspect the runes on the demon's chest. She'd actually wanted a good look at those for a while now; any magic powerful enough to incapacitate a dreadlord was something worth a little investigation.
"Now, warlock," Nerothos suggested, staring down at her with his fel-colored eyes narrowed in disapproval.
Satisfied she'd committed the sequence to memory, Callista shook her head skeptically. "I wonder how long it will take me to regret this," she grumbled, pressing the sponge against the first of the runes.
The rune, which had initially been shining a blood-like red, began to sputter and sizzle, turning a charred black wherever the solvent touched it.
Nerothos twitched a claw at the sensation. The dreadlord himself was hardly less tied to magic than the sigils that bound him, and his skin blistered and seared on contact with the liquid, blackening and flaking away.
"Ew," Callista commented, capping the jar and tilting it to re-moisten the sponge. "Your chest looks like the back of a plagued tar creeper."
"Your observations are riveting," Nerothos sneered, wings stiffening in discomfort as she applied the solvent once more to his skin.
"I know," she replied, pretending to have missed his heavy sarcasm. "My instructors always told me my – "
A loud crash, the sound of splintering wood and shattering glass, cut into her remark.
"Wonderful," she muttered as Nerothos growled. It seemed that their pursuit had run them down once again. Well, so much for trying to be nice. "Sorry, demon," she said, not entirely insincerely, as she splashed a large capful of liquid across the remaining runes.
Nerothos hissed as a large patch of his chest blackened and bubbled.
Callista soaked the sponge again, spattering a few drops on her fingers in her haste, and swore at the burning sensation. Her skin, however, didn't blister the way Nerothos' had; humans could wield magic, but they weren't creatures of it the way demons were.
She raised the sponge for another swipe at the remaining bits of runes, green pinpricks growing in her pupils as she searched out their enemies, but the motion was arrested by Nerothos' hand on her wrist.
She startled, almost dropping the lid.
"How many?" Nerothos asked in a low voice, flexing his wings to their full span before folding them neatly again. He dug his claws into her wrist, just to watch her wince, and looked maliciously amused when she did.
"Four," she hissed with a scowl, shaking her hand free of him to replace the cap on the solvent and stow the jar in her robes. Nerothos hadn't been loose for more than twenty seconds, and already he was irritating her. "Looks like Darmog gets to live a long and healthy life after all," she added dryly, inspecting the newly mobile dreadlord with an ambivalent expression.
"They're coming this way," the gan'arg muttered. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, casting his pale-eyed gaze around for an escape that didn't seem to be materializing.
Darmog was right. Callista could hear the heavy tramp of armored boots and the occasional tinkle of breaking glass as a swinging claw or axe handle knocked a vial from a shelf.
"This pursuit has become most tedious," Nerothos said, narrowing his eyes contemptuously in the direction of the sounds.
"For once I agree," Callista said. Her eyes flicked to the side, and she saw that the fel crystal had completely dissolved in the flask she'd filled earlier, dispersed in the few inches of yellow-green liquid that sat in the bottom of it. She snatched it off the shelf and stoppered it with a stray bit of cork.
"Follow," Nerothos commanded, setting a fast pace away from the noise. Callista and Darmog fell into step behind him, moving as stealthily as they could in the cluttered storeroom. With Nerothos' runes removed, their enemies could no longer track them through magical means; if they were quiet and swift, they might succeed in avoiding another battle.
The triumphant howl of the spirits was Na'rii's first sign that something had gone amiss.
She narrowed her eyes as the infernal's fist came down like a meteor strike, and sprang to one side a hairsbreadth from being smashed, craning her neck for a view around the fiery monstrosity. What she saw made her breath catch in her throat.
A forest of icy spikes protruded from the cavern floor, the demon Vathregyr impaled on the tallest of them, unmoving.
Exultance welled up in her, and she threw her head back in a feral laugh as she called upon the elements, power surging through her veins like white lightning. The Legion had tortured this world for millennia; now its spirits had seized upon her as a conduit for their vengeance, the first free shaman to walk on Xoroth for years upon uncounted years.
The infernal took a bounding leap towards her, the heat of the foul fire that drove it crackling the hairs on Na'rii's arms but reaching no further. It landed with a searing roar, only to find the ground beneath its feet bubbled and split, molten rock exploding from the chasm to immolate and consume, liquefying the cursed stone of the its frame. The infernal toppled suddenly, flame put out, lifeless boulders once more.
It was only then that Na'rii noticed Tun's monster pounding at the crumbled wall in mindless fury, and her exultant laughter died in her throat. She cast her gaze franticly around the cavern, searching for the small, brightly-robed form of her friend, but he was nowhere.
She wouldn't believe it was true.
She broke into a sprint, allowing the wrath of the spirits to meld with her own as lightning roared from her fingertips, flaying the air 'til the reek of ozone rose from it. The infernal, however, collapsed before her magic even touched it, the power that animated it exhausted.
Na'rii slid as she dashed onto the ice, catching herself on one of the frozen spires before barreling onwards. She skidded to a halt at the edge of the fallen stones, grief smiting her as her gaze dwelt on the destruction. The infernal had smashed a swath of the wall twice as tall as she was, crushing anything that lay beneath the rubble. Some of the boulders that lay haphazardly on the ground were large enough to break even the thick bones of an ogre. A little thing like Tun would have had no chance.
The thought tore at her more than she would have expected. Her people and his had never been friends, but he was a goodhearted creature, had shown more bravery than many she knew who accounted themselves warriors.
Caught in her mourning, she didn't notice the door to the cavern crack open or the wicked giggle that wafted through it.
Na'rii bowed her head sadly and raised her hands, asking the spirits for one last favor. She could at least ensure that the gnome's body was laid to rest by clean fire, nothing left for use in some demon's foul experiment.
The rocks shuddered and sifted away until she spied a bright blue flash of robes amidst the rubble. She brushed the last bits of stone and dust away with her hands, revealing a sleeve and a limp-fingered hand. It was twisted at an odd angle, the arm it belonged to broken below the elbow.
She lowered her head, reaching out to gently touch her fingers to the wound.
Suddenly she froze, pointed ears pricked, fingertips still grazing the fabric. She thought she had heard someone groan.
She prodded the wound lightly with a finger, breath held. This time the sound was unmistakable.
Na'rii threw back her head and laughed, digging joyfully into the side of the debris pile, flinging bits of rock in all directions. Soon she had excavated Tun's shoulder and head, his usually bright green hair matted with dust. He looked pale and bruised, but he squinted up at her blearily. "I was hoping you weren't a demon," he said, trying to wave his unburied arm vaguely. His hand flopped uselessly and he yelped as his face contorted in pain.
"Don' be doin' that, mon, ya busted it!" Na'rii scolded, heaving away one of the stones near his ribs. The reason for Tun's good fortune was becoming clear; he'd managed to wedge himself into a narrow crevice that had sheltered him from the worst of the rock fall.
"Is it dead?" he mumbled, still a little dazed from the blow to the head he'd taken.
Na'rii chuckled. "Ya, mon. Ya stuck 'im like a spider kabob. Even a demon won' be walkin' that one off." She surveyed him critically, still buried up to his waist in rubble. "I'm gonna try to be easy, but this still might hurt ya."
Tun nodded his head, then made a face. It felt like his brain was knocking against the inside of his skull.
Na'rii slid her arms around him, doing her best to avoid his broken bone, and yanked hard. He came loose with a small avalanche of stone, and she laid him gently on the floor of the cavern. "Doin' alright?"
"Better than I deserve," Tun said, wrinkling his nose and raising his aching head to watch her. He shifted his legs experimentally and found that they didn't hurt.
Na'rii looked him over with a clinical eye. The skin above the break in his forearm was turning an ominous shade of purple, he was scraped in a dozen places, and there was a swelling beneath one eye that would probably become a nasty bruise, but overall he was in shockingly good condition. It seemed that gnomes, even the chubby, academic-minded ones, were hardier than they looked.
She knelt at his side and hovered her fingers over his broken arm. Even without touching it, she could tell that the pieces of bone were out of alignment. "Sorry, mon, but this really will hurt ya." Before he could protest, she seized his forearm on either side of the break and pulled, feeling the bone fragments snap into place.
Tun yelled, sweat beading on his white face. The pain ebbed, however, as Na'rii began bathing the wound in light, a soothing glow that knitted bone and softened the livid bruise beneath the skin. When she was satisfied that his arm had mended, she laid a light-drenched hand on his head, lessening the ache there. Then she sprang to her feet and offered Tun her hand, pulling him up and offering the spirits a silent prayer of thanks.
"Thank you," he said, flexing his elbow gratefully.
"Any time, mon," Na'rii said with a gentle grin. "I owe ya more than that." She jerked her head towards the spear of ice jammed through Vathregyr's massive chest.
Tun gazed at his own handiwork with disgust. The force of the ice erupting through the demon's breastbone had lifted his body several feet off the ground, and black blood pooled at the bottom of the frozen spire. "Let's get out of here," he said.
Before they could move, the heavy iron door to the cavern was wrenched open, and Tazlik's misshapen head poked through. Behind his green-tinted goggles, the mo'arg's eyes widened incredulously. "You have succeeded," he said suspiciously.
"Ya, mon," Na'rii replied, stalking over to narrow her eyes at the demon. "Now ya best be keepin' to the bargain."
Tazlik peered down at her disdainfully, moving further into the cavern. "I would advise you to watch your tongue, you insipid mortal, now that your usefulness to my Lady has expired."
A gan'arg slunk in behind him, looking around with its round, pale eyes even wider and rounder than usual.
"Don't just gawk, you idiotic creature!" Tazlik snapped at it. "Go inform the High Mekgineer what has transpired!" He sped it on its way with a kick, which the gan'arg dodged with a practiced air. "As for you, mortals," he said, turning back to Na'rii and Tun, "remain here until you are summoned. The Lady must learn of this at once!" He turned to leave, but was stopped by Na'rii's fingers digging into the pasty flesh of his arm.
"I don' think so, mon. Where ya be keepin' my friend?!" her yellow eyes narrowed dangerously, and lightning sparked in her free hand.
"I am sure I have no idea what you are raving about, you blue-skinned cretin. Now unhand me!" Tazlik wrenched his arm away haughtily, but when he spun to make good his escape he found the doorway already sealed off by a pristine wall of enchanted ice. "You…!" he sputtered, mechanical hand whirring as it opened and closed rapidly in his indignation.
"I think you should answer her question," Tun said, crossing his arms resolutely. After his ordeal with the Tothrezim, a blustering minion like Tazlik held no terror for him. "Until then, we can all wait."
Na'rii chuckled darkly at the trapped look on Tazlik's face as his gaze darted about for an exit. "Now, mon," she said, grinning savagely around her tusks, "where ya be keepin' the ogres?"
Callista jogged directly behind Nerothos as they wended their way through the narrow aisles between shelves, a choice she was quickly coming to regret. The dust of what looked like centuries lay on everything here, and Nerothos, being the largest, stirred up more of it than anyone. It made Callista's eyes water and her nose itch. She rubbed vigorously at the offending organs, but that only seemed to make the discomfort worse. Ugh, Nether. She wouldn't sneeze. That would be idiotic. She bound demons to her will, she wasn't about to let a little dust have its way with her. She would think about something else, and it would go away.
Callista sneezed.
The sound seemed impossibly loud in the dim silence of the storeroom. It was quickly answered by a bestial roar and the sound of toppling shelves as the felguards made a beeline for their targets.
Nerothos whirled on her with a rumbling growl. "Mortals," he snarled with killing scorn.
Callista had instinctively backed away at his growl, nearly tripping over Darmog, but her indignation quickly overcame her alarm. "Oh, don't even!" she retorted as she righted herself, sneezing again. "They were following you!"
"That hardly absolves you of this idiocy," Nerothos said. He blinked out of view, invisible once more, and the last Callista saw of him was his sneer.
She scowled at the place where he'd vanished. Did Nerothos ever actually fight? She began to wonder if the fearsomeness of dreadlords hadn't been greatly exaggerated in his case.
"Actually," she snapped back, shifting the flask in her hand as the sound of charging felguards grew louder, "as this is all your fault, I think that's exactly what it – "
The nearest shelf exploded outward in a flurry of wooden shards and flung vials.
Callista hurled her own flask at the ground and it burst with a glitter of glass, releasing a thick cloud of mustard-colored smoke. The first felguard that tried to plunge through it immediately began to choke, coughing up a foul-smelling bile mixed with blood.
Callista took the opportunity to distance herself from the other three, who, slightly wiser than their companion, had begun smashing the shelves on either side of the toxic cloud in order to get around.
"Where's the dreadlord?" one of them snarled.
"Nether if I know," another spat. "This thing is worthless!" Something metallic shattered. "I never trusted those gan'arg rats!"
Callista slunk around to the edge of a shelf and pressed her back to it, raising her arms high to begin a spell. She felt a jolt of tearing pain from her injured shoulder and paused her casting with a hiss.
An enraged roar sounded at her back and she jumped away, flinching in anticipation of an axe head ripping through the flimsy barrier that separated her from the demons, but no blow came. The roar cut off abruptly, and a loud crack split the silence.
Callista narrowed her eyes, suspicious, and darted back to the edge of the shelf to peer around. What she saw made her blink.
Nerothos stood in a messy pile of splintered wood and spilled reagents, the bodies of three felguards lying at his hooves. The head of one was nearly wrenched off, its neck had been snapped with such violence. The second corpse was even stranger, gnawed down to armor and bone from the waist up, only a few ragged shreds of flesh still clinging to the skeleton. A thick cloud of what looked like fluttering scraps of shadow hovered over the head and chest of the third; when the swarm lifted, Callista saw that this corpse was also half stripped, its ugly skull grinning up at her.
She raised a brow, mildly impressed. Not that she'd admit it. She'd barely been able to handle two felguards earlier, and one of those had been distracted and had still nearly killed her. Nerothos had just dispatched three, in an eyeblink, without suffering even a scratch.
"You were saying, warlock?" Nerothos purred, noticing her stare. He looked as arrogantly satisfied as she'd ever seen him, the bat-like swarm of shadows wheeling in crooked circles over his head.
"Never mind," she said warily, eyes flicking to the mangled bodies. She could still hear the felguard her potion had maimed thrashing around somewhere out of view.
"I thought so," he said with a sinister smile. He motioned lazily with a claw, and the swarm plunged down between the shelves.
The thrashing intensified and then stopped.
Callista cast a cautious gaze in that direction. Nerothos didn't actually need her anymore now that they'd disposed of those runes, and she preferred that his weapons stay where she could see them.
A whistling screech hurtled at her from behind and she reflexively cringed, shrinking as the dreadlord's ravenous scraps of darkness streaked close above her. They returned to Nerothos and vanished in little bursts of shadow as he watched her fear with evident enjoyment.
Azlia suddenly popped into visibility at her elbow, causing Callista to jump a little. She shot Nerothos an irritated glare, then turned her attention to her minion.
"I'm back mistress," Azlia announced, tossing her hair so it glimmered in the low light. She laid her silky head on Callista's shoulder and stroked the inside of her arm with slender fingers, smirking seductively. "Did you miss me?"
Callista patiently extricated herself, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. Azlia had been laying it on thick lately, even for her. "Is he alright?" she demanded.
Azlia looked momentarily put out, but her expression quickly shifted, almond-shaped eyes glittering with the pleasure of delivering bad news. "Who, Vathregyr?" she asked with a cruel giggle. "Oh, no, mistress, he's quite dead."
Nerothos growled softly in surprise from the position he'd taken at the warlock's side.
Callista's heart leapt. If Vathregyr was dead, then that meant…"And Tun? He's alright?"
"You mean that gnome, mistress?" Azlia asked, furrowing her milky brow in pretend thought. "No no, he's dead too," she sang. She watched with callous delight as the blood drained from Callista's face.
"What?!" she asked harshly. Even as she said it, her denial began to falter. She sensed no deception in Azlia; what the succubus had told her was the truth. No no no no no! She pressed her knuckles to the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes. "How?" she asked, regretting the question even as it passed her lips.
"Crushed," Azlia said gaily. "Some of the rocks were as big as fel cannons!" she elaborated with a malicious giggle.
Callista squeezed her eyes further shut as she bowed her head, clenching her fist so tightly her nails cut into her palm. Grief and guilt warred in her against a hot blind rage. If only she'd been there, it would have been different. She'd killed dozens of demons, could've looked after him, was far better qualified to deal with a creature like Vathregyr than that fool of a troll. But no. She thought she'd been so clever, that she'd arranged it all so neatly. She'd run off to save a dreadlord (a dreadlord!), and now her best friend was dead.
Nerothos' resonant voice broke into her thoughts. "We seem to have been presented an opportunity."
"Oh? How nice for you," Callista hissed, not bothering to open her eyes or remove her hand from her face. "I don't care."
"You should." He didn't elaborate, studying her face intently while he waited for a response.
"No you shouldn't, mistress," Azlia interrupted with a haughty toss of her horned head. "You oughtn't to listen to dreadlords, they're wretched creatures. I should know."
This was probably the best advice the succubus had ever given, but Callista had already had more than her fill of her. Only the numb shock she'd felt as Azlia's words had crashed over her had stopped her from killing the messenger on the spot, and that was quickly wearing off. "Azlia," she said in a voice that was hard and jagged as glass, "go find Darmog."
Azlia thrust out a hip, preparing to object, then caught sight of the expression on her mistress' face and changed her mind abruptly. She sniffed in an affronted fashion but vanished with uncharacteristic haste.
Callista's hand uncurled, pressing her palm to her forehead, but otherwise she remained petrified with grief. She knew she should move, do something, think of anything else, that she was standing in the middle of a Legion capital with Nerothos staring at her in the most disconcerting way, but her thoughts could only ram mindlessly against the same unyielding wall, over and over like trapped beasts. Tun was dead.
She felt a stir of air against her face, and the prickle of demonic magic as Nerothos moved closer. She opened her eyes long enough to look hatefully at him. "Whatever you want, go to hell."
Nerothos stretched his wings lazily, unperturbed. "By mortal reckoning, we are already there." He cocked his head, regarding her with an unreadable expression. "You are bleeding."
Her attempt at spellcasting had knocked loose a bit of the scab over the wound on her shoulder, and she could feel a warm wetness soaking into the torn edge of her robes. A little blood, however, hardly rated Callista's notice. She narrowed her eyes viciously but otherwise ignored his words, caught up in the bitter ache of reconstructing her world without Tun in it.
Nerothos seemed to find this reaction unsatisfactory. "Pathetic," he said. Without changing his expression he lunged, clamping his hand down on her injured shoulder and grinding the heel of his palm into the wound.
Hot pain streaked through her, jolting her from apathy to rage and forcing from her an angry hiss. Her fingers clenched, bursting with green flame, and she seized Nerothos' wrist with a fire-limned hand before she could even think, filling the air with the reek of seared flesh.
Nerothos snarled and wrapped his other hand around her throat, raking her skin with his claws and half choking her.
Callista released his arm hastily as his claws gouged her neck, extinguishing her flames and snarling back at him, breathing heavily. "Let me go!"
Nerothos' grip on her shoulder and throat relaxed incrementally. "Behave with some semblance of reason, and I'll consider it," he sneered.
Callista eyed him with unconcealed hatred. She was hurting and guilty and grief-stricken, didn't know if she'd rather find a dark place to curl into or tear Xoroth apart stone by stone until everyone in it was dead or she was, but she did know that the last thing she wanted to do was deal with Nerothos.
The dreadlord stared impassively back at her, the charred flesh where Darmog's solvent had burned him a stark contrast to the pale skin of his chest. His hand around her neck no longer hurt, but her wound still stung where he pressed against it and he showed no sign of freeing her.
"What do you want?" she asked harshly, in the interest of escaping as quickly as possible.
"What you want," Nerothos said, eyes burning with the same preternatural light as her felfire. "To leave this detestable world, intact."
"Then leave," Callista snapped, jerking her shoulder in an attempt to dislodge his clawed hand. All she succeeded in doing was causing herself a dull throb of pain. "You said you knew how."
"I intend to." He shifted his grip on her neck and shoulder, yanking her closer and ignoring her venomous glare. "But before I do, your companions' misguided little assault may yet allow me to fulfill my purpose here, and for that I may require assistance. Assistance you will provide."
"Will I?" Callista asked with a dangerous snarl, digging her nails into the hand around her throat. A small part of her knew that she was being irrational, but that part was foundering in grief and fury, unable to steer her actions. "Your leverage is no good anymore if everyone who cares what I did is dead." Her face twisted bitterly on the last word.
Nerothos' eyes narrowed slightly in contempt for this argument. "Unless I am much mistaken, that little unpleasantness with the dwarf hasn't motivated you for some time."
Callista scowled vilely, pressing her nails harder into his hand, but had no ready retort. He was right; if she'd still cared much about that she'd have killed the dreadlord when he was helpless and resolved the matter then.
"What other choice do you have?" Nerothos asked, voice a low purr. He stroked her neck with his thumb, causing her to stiffen. "As you are so acutely aware, all of your friends are dead. I am the only ally you possess on the whole of this miserable world, the only creature for an immeasurable distance who wouldn't see you destroyed. Without my aid you will die, alone and in indescribable agony."
Callista shivered a little, then hated herself for it. "Of course, you have only my best interests at heart," she said with vicious sarcasm, knowing he was right but loathing the feeling of being herded into a decision.
"Don't play the fool, warlock, or one day you will become one permanently," Nerothos said, unimpressed. "Our interests are aligned in this."
Callista glared nastily at him, resisting the temptation to ask if he spoke from experience, but there was no longer much conviction in her bile. The initial cutting pain of her grief had already begun to change, subsiding into a dull ache and a slow fury at herself and at everything. Tun was the only other person on Xoroth whose fate had mattered to her at all. Now that he was dead, there was nothing to do but look after herself. "Alright, demon," she said in a voice that was cold, and more than a little brittle, "You have my loyalty. For now. Take us back to Azeroth."
Nerothos released her, finally, but didn't step away, eyes bright with malicious satisfaction. "Even to Jaedenar?"
She looked at him bitterly, in no mood to be toyed with. "I've already been there, it's a filthy Night Elf hole full of idiots and demons, and those groups are by no means exclusive. But at the moment, I'd settle."
Nerothos laughed, a cold sound, and curled his wings around, half enclosing her. Callista tensed distrustfully, unsure if the gesture was meant to be comforting or intimidating and finding neither option appealing.
"How unexpectedly agreeable of you," he said.