"Where are you going?" Callista asked, tearing her eyes away from the flashes in the haze as Nerothos spread his wings to depart.

He paused on the edge of their crystalline platform, a sinister horned silhouette against the bright crimson of the setting sun, turning to regard her with just a touch of cruel amusement in his gaze. "When we lose this battle, warlock, I recommend you be standing on Draenor."

Then he was gone with one powerful flap of his wings, the backdraft stirring the sand at her feet into little rust-colored whirlwinds.

"That is not where you're going," she remarked to the empty space where he'd stood. She looked back over her shoulder at the others, cold slivers of ice melting beneath her fingernails as she dug them into Tun's barrier.

Tun spoke softly under his breath, eyes narrowed in concentration as his hands moved skillfully through the gestures of a portal spell. He paused just long enough to glance in the direction of Nerothos' departure with disgust. "Does that fiend ever answer a question?"

Callista snorted. "Depends how much he thinks you'll hate the - "

She snapped her mouth shut in amazement as Na'rii's glare hit her like a physical blow. The only thing that kept her from taking a step back was the appalling drop behind her as the troll's face contorted in a murderous snarl, lips pulled back from her teeth and tusks and hot fury in her eyes. Callista's hands shot up instinctively to defend herself before she realized, by the way Na'rii's stare moved to follow Nerothos' flight, that the look wasn't meant for her.

"What in the Nether's wrong with you?" she couldn't stop herself from saying, dropping her hands to her sides as her breathing and heart rate slowed to a manageable level.

"None of ya business, warlock," Na'rii said, and there was a cold bitterness in her tone Callista had never heard before.

Kar'thol must have found it strange too, because his gaze fell from the rumor of the army on the horizon to his friend's face, thick brow lowered in a puzzled frown. He said nothing, however, and when Tun's portal crackled into existence a few seconds later Na'rii had already smoothed her face out into an impassive expression.

Callista shot her a narrow-eyed sidelong look before her face cleared and she shook her head dismissively. Na'rii was, to her, an incomprehensible, feral sort of creature – she didn't understand what might make her look like that anymore than she understood her Zandali prayers to the nature spirits. That sandstorm she'd raised had disturbed Callista more than she cared to admit – powerlessness wasn't a feeling she experienced very often, and she found the sensation intensely unsettling – and she wouldn't be sorry when they parted ways at the end of this little adventure. Until then, she was happy to ignore her.

Callista stepped quickly through Tun's portal, Darmog following so close behind he nearly tread on her heels. They emerged on the sand between the high blackened walls of the rift. She looked back over her shoulder, half sure she would see Legion banners fluttering over charging felguards, but of course there was nothing there. Only the battered remnants of their own forces, pouring steadily through the canyon mouth. The clanking of the fel reavers' iron limbs echoed hollowly off the crystal, and the occasional backfire from a damaged engine sounded enough like rifleshot that Darmog cringed each time.

"We should wait," he muttered, shifting from one leg to the other as he stared nervously at the dust-veined red sand beneath their feet. "What if they're not all dead?"

Callista glanced down despite herself, struck by a sudden image of a clawed hand erupting from the ground and seizing her ankle. She immediately discarded the idea as idiotic (any demon not flayed to the bone by the wind must have been smothered by now), but Darmog's skittishness was catching. "Don't be ridiculous," she said.

"Na'rii!" Tun called suddenly, and Callista jerked her head up at his cry. "Na'rii, wait!"

Na'rii, already halfway up the side of the nearest low dune, didn't even acknowledge he had spoken. Her movements lacked their usual springy grace, steps sharp and mechanical as she crested the dune and continued on without stopping. Kar'thol climbed gamely after her, struggling a little as his feet sank into the sand under his great weight, but he paused and glanced back at Tun's call. Callista thought she could read confusion on his blunt features, but he quickly turned and lumbered after Na'rii.

"Where are you going?" Tun yelled, beginning to sound annoyed. He slipped a little on the loose sand as he tried to catch up.

Callista wondered the same thing. Though there was only one direction to go in this canyon that wasn't backward, she didn't know what Na'rii could possibly intend to do once she reached the dimensional gate. Even if it were open, the other side was bound to be guarded by Legion forces. And though a few scruffy mortals in the company of Nerothos and his allies might be unremarkable, alone they would look very unusual. And looking unusual to an edgy group of heavily-armed demons was not a very good way to live to be much older.

"You're not following them?" Darmog asked in horror, apparently having much the same thought. He shuffled a few steps back, glancing longingly at the approaching mass of gan'arg and mo'arg.

Callista made a face and shrugged, hurrying to catch Tun as he floundered his way up the little dune. She knew she'd never be able to convince him to leave the troll, especially if she was acting odd, and she wasn't about to let him chase her around Xoroth alone.

Darmog hesitated, looking unhappily between Callista and Tun and the bulk of their forces at the canyon mouth (still uncomfortably distant) before muttering miserably to himself and scurrying after the two mortals.

Callista paused for him, snagging the shoulder of his coarse-woven robe and hauling him the rest of the way up as the sand gave under his feet. These dunes were new and unstable, sculpted and flung into place by the furious winds of Na'rii's sandstorm, and often slid treacherously beneath their weight.

"Do you think that gate is open?" Callista asked, releasing his robes as his feet regained their purchase.

"Nah," Darmog said, flinching away from her and peering hopefully over his shoulder to see if the little army was gaining on them. "We'd all be bits in the Nether by now if they left that thing open."

Callista shot him a questioning look.

"Never felt the quakes?" Darmog asked. He kicked scornfully at the sand as he climbed, scattering a spray of red grit. "This world is finished. Would've bit it ages ago, worse than Draenor, if they didn't shut 'em all." He paused and looked suspiciously down at the ground as though expecting it to suddenly shatter beneath his feet. "Might anyway," he muttered.

Now that he mentioned it, she remembered Nerothos saying something to that effect not long after they'd first met. It seemed like forever ago. "Good thing you're getting out now," she said, planting her feet and half sliding, half stumbling down the other side of the dune.

"Eh," Darmog replied doubtfully.

Tun had already reached the bottom, and she watched as he ran clumsily to catch up with Na'rii and Kar'thol, boots kicking up little divots of sand. He planted himself in front of them with his arms crossed firmly and Callista picked up her own pace, interested to hear the troll explain herself.

"What are you doing?" Tun asked, breathing hard after his sprint through the sand. The concern in his voice was evident anyway.

"Goin' home," Na'rii said, and though Callista couldn't see her face she could hear the harsh edge to her words.

She jogged around to Tun's side, panting a little herself now, and studied the other woman's expression skeptically. Her jaw was clenched and her eyes focused somewhere beyond Tun's left ear, her normally blue skin tinged purple by the light of the dying sun.

"No, you're not," Callista pointed out. "The gate is closed. No one's going anywhere until those demons catch up."

Na'rii's gaze slid over to her, a frigid glint in her yellow eyes. "Then go back if ya miss them so much."

Callista crossed her arms, scornful of the transparent attempt to rile her. "Believe me, I would," she said, casting a disgruntled look at Tun.

Tun missed it, too busy studying Na'rii's face with his small brow knitted. "Can you at least tell us what's wrong?"

"Nothin' be wrong," Na'rii said in a tone that was just a little too flat to be truthful. "I jus' had enough of this place." She stepped sullenly around Tun, who reached out a hand to stop her but pulled it back hesitantly before reaching her sleeve.

Kar'thol glanced down at Tun's movement, an inscrutable expression in his small eyes. "Bad thing happen here. Not good place for shaman." He started after her then, catching her in his long shadow before his rolling gait carried him to her side.

"You're still not going anywhere," Callista muttered.

She had almost tuned out the mechanical clanking of fel reaver limbs behind her, but suddenly the noise intensified, joined by the low thrum of hundreds of running feet. She looked back to see the first line of mo'arg and gan'arg crash over the ridge of the dune, heads down and sprinting as though all the armies of the Nether were behind them. It was not as metaphoric a statement as she would've liked, and her stomach dropped sickeningly at the reminder of what was chasing them.

"Finally," Darmog groused, dashing gratefully off into the safety of the masses.

"What in the Light?" Tun yelped, ducking instinctively as the crowd swirled around them. The charging demons and machines thrashed up a thick grey cloud of dust, and he pressed closer to Callista to avoid being stepped on in the turmoil.

Callista murmured something with her hand clenched around a soul shard, flinching as a fel reaver rattled her teeth with its steps, and a moment later her felsteed reared into existence in a blazing tower of felfire. Its flaming hooves flailed wildly until she seized hold of its reins and yanked sharply, snapping a command.

The beast fell obediently back onto all fours, though the whole of its sleek black body quivered and its eyes continued to roll crazily.

She braced a foot in a stirrup, swinging herself up into the saddle and choking a little in the flying sand as demons raced around her. "Get on!" she said, as the felsteed sank awkwardly to its knees.

Tun eyed the horse mistrustfully, but a careless gan'arg barreling into his back quickly convinced him that the felsteed was the least unattractive choice. The force of the impact sent him sprawling against its hindquarters and he scrambled clumsily into the saddle behind Callista, digging his fingers tightly into her robes as he felt the felsteed's powerful muscles bunch beneath his calves. "This creature is mad, Callista!" he yelled over the clash of metal and drumming of feet.

"You would be too if you'd drunk as much demon blood as he has," she called back, sounding amused.

The felsteed surged powerfully to its hooves and Tun screwed his eyes shut as it lanced forward through the crowd, as much from nerves as to keep the grit in the air from stinging his eyes. "They turn decent creatures into twisted monsters, and for some reason you still meddle with the fiends," he grumbled, speaking mostly to keep his mind from the queasy lurch of the felsteed's gait.

"Oh, don't worry so much," Callista said. He felt the muscles in her back shift as she readjusted her grip on the reins. "That sort of thing almost never happens to humans. We don't live long enough."

Tun realized he'd been gripping her robes so tightly his knuckles were going numb and loosened his hold incrementally. He opened one eye, just to see, but quickly snapped it shut again after glimpsing the sickening blur of sand and fiery hooves below them. What she had said was true – it had long been known among scholars that certain races, humans and his own people among them, were more resistant to magical corruption than others – but no one seemed to agree on why, and, though it made it less likely for a member of those races to become twisted by his own powers, it certainly wasn't impossible. "I'm supposed to be reassured by the fact you'll probably die before you turn yourself into some kind of abomination?"

"Very probably, the way things have been going lately."

Tun made a face. "Ugh," he said eloquently.

He wasn't sure how long they rode, but by the time the felsteed slowed to a trot his face was windburned and his fingers and legs were stiff from clinging. He let go of Callista's robes to stretch his cramped hands, opening his eyes and keeping them open this time.

Night had fallen on the canyon. Far up between the glittering walls he could see a star-encrusted ribbon of sky, and somewhere there must have been a moon, because the crystal around them bent and gathered its light into a pale silvery-pink glow that seemed to come from everywhere at once.

"Where are we?" he asked, peering around warily to try to get his bearings. The canyon ahead opened up into a wide space and demons dashed pell-mell around the felsteed's burning hooves, chattering unintelligibly.

"Near the portal," Callista said. She half-turned and jerked her head towards the back of the open space, reining in the felsteed. "Look."

A tall dark gate loomed at its center, dwarfing the group of demons gathered about its base. Nerothos was there, of course, eyes piercing the gloom like green pinpricks, and Tun also recognized the big mo'arg with the bladed drill-arm. A few other demons, mostly mo'arg, accompanied them.

Tun shifted awkwardly, trying to find a more comfortable position on the saddle. "How long do you think that will – "

A deafening explosion rocked the canyon, echoing crazily off the faceted walls and making his ears ring. The felsteed reared in panic, screaming and thrashing its hooves, and Tun barely escaped being thrown, grabbing desperately at Callista's robes as she yanked at the bit.

The felsteed stilled, though he could still feel its flanks shivering under the strain of the magic that bound it.

Tun snapped his head around wildly, looking for the legions of felguards that that sound had surely heralded, but all he saw was the familiar rushing mass of mo'arg and gan'arg. His alarm faded as he realized that none of the panicky demons appeared frightened. "What was that?" he asked.

Callista turned the felsteed in answer, allowing him a view back the way they'd come. A pile of enormous crystal spikes protruded crookedly from the red sand where they'd fallen, swarmed around by demons and fel reavers. As he watched, they looped a sturdy chain around one of the spikes and dragged it to the side, arranging it with some others in what looked like the beginnings of a wall.

"They're building fortifications," she said grimly. "I guess we'll be here a while."

Tun wrinkled his nose as another blast shattered the dark air. "We should find Na'rii and Kar'thol."

"I suppose," Callista said. She looked less than enthusiastic, but she dug her knee into the felsteed's side anyway, urging it around.

The felsteed snorted ill-temperedly and shook its mane as it wheeled. Tun winced as the bright flames brushed Callista's hands, though she didn't seem to be burned. He wondered for a moment if the fire was an illusion or only harmless to the fiend's master, and filed the question away to ask at a more appropriate time.

He cast his gaze around for Na'rii and Kar'thol as the felsteed minced its way through the crowd. Demons chattered in little clumps or scurried through the sand carrying boxes of explosives and rolls of fuse wire. The diffuse moonlight that soaked through the crystal cast no shadows, giving everything an unreal quality.

"Over there," he said, prodding at Callista's elbow. The canyon had opened up into an enormous shimmering dome, and Na'rii and Kar'thol sat against the side near the point where it widened.

Callista obligingly spurred the felsteed towards the wall, and Kar'thol straightened a little at their approach, ignoring scornfully the gan'arg that skittered back at his movement. Na'rii simply sat with her knees pulled up and her arms crossed, staring out into space with hooded eyes.

The troll hadn't been right since the sandstorm, and Tun wished she would say what the matter was. Had she seen something in it? He wasn't very knowledgeable about shamanic power, but he knew it was very different from the kind of magic that he and Callista dealt in. The arcane was dumb energy, bound to the will of anyone with the training to command it, but Na'rii's spirits, from what he understood, had intelligences and agendas of their own. Sometimes the powers they granted had consequences unforeseen by the wielders, and sometimes they showed visions.

"How long 'til demons fix gate?" Kar'thol asked, eyeing the felsteed with suspicion. The beast's nostrils flared as it caught his scent and it bared its flat teeth viciously.

"We're not sure," Tun said with a shrug. He swung one leg over the saddle to slide awkwardly off the felsteed's back, careful to avoid the flames of its hooves and irately swishing tail.

Kar'thol grunted, unsurprised, cocking an ear at the dull roars that punctuated the conversation. "Battle start yet?"

"I don't think so." Tun looked at Na'rii, but she seemed wholly uninterested in the conversation, gaze far away. "They're blasting the walls to build defenses."

Kar'thol nodded his squarish head sagely. "Demons build good. Not fight so good."

"Hopefully they'll fight good enough," Tun muttered, glancing back at the gathering around the inert portal.

Callista followed his gaze, digging her knee into the felsteed's side to turn it and ignoring its annoyed toss of its head. "I'm going to go find out what's happening. I'll be back soon."

Tun pulled up one side of his mouth in a worried frown, but didn't protest. "Be careful," he said, looking meaningfully in the direction of the approaching army. It wouldn't do to be separated when the opposing hordes of demons fell upon each other, not if it was anything like the brutal chaos of their last battle.

Callista gave him a reassuring grin and a half-wave before spurring her mount into a gallop, vanishing in a cloud of dust and streak of flame in the dark.

He sank down into the sand at Na'rii's side once she'd gone, leaning his back against the cool face of the crystal. "Are you alright?"

"Ya, mon," she said, voice only sounding a little forced this time. She appeared to be gazing at the back of one of her forearms, though, testament to her people's remarkable healing ability, the gash she'd made during her communion with the spirits had already closed without a scar. "I be fine."

She might almost have been convincing, if she'd bothered to turn to meet his eyes.

"I don't believe you," Tun said reproachfully. Na'rii's behavior reminded him, strangely, of Callista's when she was upset. They had a similar tendency to stonewall, though Callista was more prone to snarling at anyone who tried to help her. He almost preferred the snappishness. At least you could argue with that.

Na'rii's only reply to his comment was an accepting grunt.

Tun sighed.

Callista rode across the dim floor of the dome towards the Draenor gate, the felsteed's hooves kicking up showers of heated grit behind them. They hadn't gotten very far, however, before she noticed that Nerothos was no longer among the demons conferring around the towering portal.

She steered her mount back towards the canyon entrance, enjoying the sensation of effortless speed after so many hours slogging through sand. The wind that whipped against her face carried the sound of muffled explosions, and as they entered the canyon it took real effort to keep the felsteed from shying away from the gan'arg underfoot and the acrid chemical scent in the air.

She sat up a little higher on the saddle, slowing the creature to a walk as she peered around the half-built fortifications. The ethereal pinkish glow of the crystal contrasted eerily with the warlike activity it illuminated. Ugly gouges had been blasted into the walls several yards above Callista's head, and fel reavers hauled on ropes flung over makeshift pulleys, lifting their few surviving cannons onto the rough-hewn ledges. Gan'arg, under the hawk-like eyes of their mo'arg supervisors, ferried the debris away for use in the barricades beginning to rise from the sandy floor. Callista counted three, staggered one behind the other so that attackers would have to navigate a sort of maze to reach the dimensional gate. It all looked very solidly constructed, but she wondered how much good it would do against a force the size of the one she'd glimpsed on the horizon.

Something startled the felsteed and it laid its ears flat against its skull, making a furious, disturbingly un-horse-like hissing noise.

Callista yanked threateningly on the bit, sensing its desire to start stomping gan'arg flat. Tun was right – the thing really was mad. Most felsteeds were, though. The orcs of the old Horde had corrupted them years ago in imitation of the dreadsteeds of the Nathrezim, but they would have been better off, in her opinion, sticking to genocidal rampages and leaving the horse-breeding to the experts.

She finally caught sight of Nerothos and turned her ill-tempered steed in his direction, coughing and covering her mouth and nose with a hand as they passed through a cloud of crystalline dust pulverized by the explosions.

The dreadlord perched on the top of a completed portion of barricade at the outermost edge of their defenses. The force of his gaze, however, was turned not on the distance but on the demons bustling below, reminding her of nothing so much as a sinister warden gazing down into a prison yard. He must have seen her, but he didn't come down, of course, forcing her to dismount.

She left her felsteed at the bottom of the pile of crystal shards (much to the displeasure of the leery-looking gan'arg it was gnashing its teeth at) and hoisted herself up carefully onto the crude set of stairs fashioned into the side of the barricade. The crystal was uneven and slick and she put a hand gingerly against the side for balance, wary of slicing her palm on a sharp edge.

Upon mounting the last step, she found that the crystal at the top of the barricade had been smashed flat except for a jagged-tipped parapet at either edge. Nerothos' eyes glowed eerily in the low light as he turned his head to regard her. "Finding the troll's theatrics tiresome, warlock?"

Something about his expression told her that he knew more about that than he should. Fragments of crystal crunched underfoot as she approached. "I don't know what you did to her, but I feel comfortable concluding that you're a fiend."

Nerothos smiled. "As though you care." He turned back to the construction occurring below them, claws resting lightly on the spiked top of the parapet. "I did nothing, at any rate. Your friend, I suspect, has merely discovered the folly of begging for power instead of seizing it."

His talent for ferreting out even her small deceptions was really very annoying. It gave her a new and not entirely welcome appreciation for exactly how many lies she told in a given day and how much more smoothly her life ran when people believed them. Or at least pretended to. She looked out over the edge at his side, mirroring his smile. "Given the choice, I'd rather beg the spirits for favors than some fel-addled Eredar."

Nerothos laughed softly. "The Eredar may rule, but at whose sufferance?"

She looked at him, but his sardonic smile was uninformative, as always. If he expected her to think that the entire Legion hierarchy was really part of some intricate dreadlord plot, well…she might almost believe it, actually. But she hadn't come up here to argue politics, interesting as the idea was. "How long until your friends open that portal?" she asked, changing the subject.

Nerothos stretched his wings contemplatively, stirring the cool night air into a breeze that sent a shiver through her. "Long enough. We will need to hold this position under siege for several hours."

That was not what she wanted to hear. She glanced instinctively back over her shoulder down the moonlit canyon. "And how long before this siege begins?"

"An hour. Perhaps two, if we are lucky." He paused, studying her a moment, the corners of his mouth turning up in an unsettling smile. "I wonder – where will you go when this is finished?"

Callista tensed, having no desire to discuss the touchy subject of their parting. Aware of his eyes on her, she forced herself to relax again, testing the glittering edge of the crystal parapet idly with her finger. "Straight into a barrel of dwarvish whiskey, and I'm not coming out for days."

"You will find those in very short supply in the Blade's Edge Mountains."

From the corner of her eye she could see that he was still watching her closely, and it was difficult not to bristle under his stare. "Well, that's disappointing," she said lightly. She flicked the crystal with her fingernail, causing it to ring softly.

"Yes," he said. He moved nearer, but she continued to ignore him until his clawed hand settled heavily on the ramparts a hairsbreadth from her fingers, dragging her gaze unwillingly up the line of his arm to his face. Even narrowed, the fel glow of his eyes was brighter than the filtered moonlight, shadows sharpening his features. "I suggest you consider your alternatives carefully."

Callista studied the red jewel that glowed on the front of his bracer, feigning an unconcern that she hoped looked more genuine than it felt, before turning to meet his gaze. "Oh, don't worry, I'll choose very carefully." He was so close that she could count the scratches on the black metal of his breastplate, but she couldn't easily back away without hitting her back against the spiky parapet. As if she would anyway. "Between those options worth considering."

Nerothos spread his wings as though he'd sensed her brief thought of escape, effectively trapping her between his arm and one of his wings' leathery membranes and looking viciously amused at her unease. His voice was smooth as brushed velvet, but there was a warning edge to it. "When one's choices are as limited as yours, warlock, I think you'll find that none are wholly without merit."

She wasn't completely afraid of him, but the way he had her cornered, the palpable aura of fel magic that always clung to him, set her teeth on edge. Her eyes flicked to where her hand still rested near his on the ledge. "That entirely depends."

Green flame boiled suddenly from beneath her palm, striking shadows from every surface and making them leap. She'd meant to make Nerothos flinch, but instead she was the one who startled as claws bit into the back of her flame-engulfed hand.

"What in the Nether are you doing?" she asked incredulously, smelling the reek of burned flesh and whipping her head around to see if his hand was really in the felfire.

She ascertained that it was, though she was somewhat alarmed to see that the flames weren't hurting him nearly as badly as they should have been. Though his skin blackened and flaked, the fire that licked around his fingers seemed to penetrate no deeper than that.

"Illustrating a point," he purred, eyes bright with satisfaction at her discomfort. He kept her hand trapped firmly beneath his, gouging his claws in deeper even as her fire faded. His seared flesh began to knit itself together almost immediately, and after a few seconds it was as though he had never been burnt.

"What, that I should stab you next time?" Callista snapped, resisting the temptation to wrench away from his grasp. His skin was warmer than hers, half from physical heat and half from the dangerous prickle of fel power, and she found that the sensation unsettled her nearly as much as his unnatural regenerative ability. His talons, however, had dug in so hard that a bead of blood was forming around each tip, and she couldn't extricate herself without scratching herself further.

He shifted his grip in response, pressing the pads of his fingers to the gashes he'd made hard enough that she hissed. "You are welcome to try," he said with a sardonic smile, pulling his fingertips deliberately across the back of her hand and drawing damp lines of blood across her skin.

He paused the motion suddenly, all amusement fleeing his face as his fel-lit eyes narrowed. "Should there be a contest of strength between myself and your mortal allies, they would find themselves to be desperately outmatched." He sank his claws into the back of her hand for emphasis, stopping barely short of drawing more blood. "As would you.

"I recommend you discourage such a confrontation accordingly."

Callista narrowed her own eyes in answer, hackles raised by his threat and the sharp throb of her torn skin. She yanked her hand away, lacerating it on his talons but not particularly caring, then leaned it back on his where it rested on the parapet, driving his palm painfully (she hoped) onto the razor-tipped crystals. "If the idea bothers you so much, then I recommend you discourage it yourself."

Nerothos smiled, teeth sharp and white in the low light. He flipped his hand over (she felt the slick warmth of blood between their palms, his or hers she couldn't tell), curling his claws almost delicately into the soft flesh of her wrist. "I can assure you, the idea bothers me not at all."

Callista kicked a foot through a stirrup and yanked herself up into the felsteed's saddle, still agitated and more than a little irked from her confrontation with Nerothos. Blood trickled down her hand from four parallel scratches; she flicked it off with a sharp motion. The wounds were long but not deep, more an annoyance than anything else, especially since the worst of them had been her own fault. Wrenching away like that had been stupid. She wasn't sure she regretted it, though. She'd rather tear up her own hand than let Nerothos keep doing it in that infuriatingly casual fashion.

She wondered, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, how they were ever going to slip away from a creature who was so clearly on to them.

The felsteed snorted, blowing small licks of flame from its nostrils, and she squeezed its ribs with her knees to urge it forward. The physical commands weren't really necessary, bound to her will as the creature was, but she liked to stay in practice for those times when she was forced to ride a real horse. Besides, mentally she was exhausted. She'd been coasting on adrenaline and fel magic for some time now, but both were beginning to wear off, leaving a dull heavy tiredness that was quickly eclipsing even her ire at the dreadlord. She'd go tell Tun and the others what she'd learned, and then she'd see if she could catch some sleep in the scant time before the battle broke over them.

She was riding over the beams laid across the ditch between the first and second barricades, felsteed's hooves striking sparks from the metal, when a high voice pierced the din of construction around her.

"Callista! Over here!"

She reined her mount to a halt in the middle of the makeshift bridge (much to the irritation of a mo'arg waiting to cross behind her) and swiveled her head looking for the source. Spotting Tun waving from the top of an overturned cart, she wheeled the felsteed carefully (the mad thing would probably be pleased if they both toppled over into the hole) and backtracked in his direction.

"What took you so long?" he asked as she swung out of the saddle.

"Oh, you know. The demon wanted to have a chat." Scenting blood, the felsteed immediately made a lunge for her scratched hand, arrested mid-bite as Callista sent a stinging surge of power through their bond.

Tun eyed the felsteed warily as it pawed the sand and snorted in frustrated malice. He'd noticed the cuts on Callista's hand and assumed the thing had gotten a lucky chomp in. "About what?"

Callista rubbed the back of her hand vigorously against her robes, trying to smear away the blood. "He thinks we're up to something. Which we are, not that it's any of his business. More importantly, he says that army will be here soon, and that portal will not be open."

Tun sighed. "We assumed as much. Na'rii thinks we should stay up there." He jerked his head towards the top of the middle barricade.

Callista followed his gaze to see the troll already perched at the top, staring over the glittering parapet with a sour expression. She shrugged, not experienced enough in warfare to hold a strong opinion on the matter. "If you trust her."

"Wall good place."

She looked up in mild surprise as Kar'thol lumbered over to join the conversation, having satisfied his curiosity as to what a pack of gan'arg was planting at the bottom of the ditch (sharpened metal stakes). He really was an enormous creature, larger even than Nerothos, and the stunted demons dashing around his feet only emphasized his mass.

"Let demons die on front line. Fight here, kill leftovers." He tipped his thick chin, indicating the line of defenders that would stand between them and the advancing army. "Maybe kill already wounded."

This was easily the longest series of words she had ever heard the ogre speak, and she looked a little askance at him.

Kar'thol caught her expression and grunted scornfully. "Kar'thol not speak good human, not dumb."

Callista stared blankly at him for a moment, then broke into a laugh. "My apologies," she said, and though her lip quirked, Tun thought she might not be entirely insincere. He'd noticed that she often developed an odd sort of fondness, or at least respect, for people who didn't let her get away with things. It explained a lot about their own friendship, at least.

Kar'thol gave a rough nod in acceptance before turning and placing his flat feet carefully on the crude steps that led to the top of the barricade. They had been built to mo'arg proportions, not ogre, and he had to turn awkwardly sideways and suck in his rounded belly to squeeze his way up.

Tun hopped off the bottom of the cart, pausing until Kar'thol hefted his bulk fully to the top of the ramparts before moving to follow. The ogre seemed relatively surefooted, but he was more than large enough to crush the gnome's small bones should he slip.

"Come on," he said, shuffling up onto the first step before turning to Callista. "We should eat something before they get here."

Callista snorted. "You make it sound like we're hosting a dinner party."

"Don't even say it. I think that would make us the dinner."

She cocked her head in amusement. "Demons don't eat people." Well, okay, a felhound might, and she could see one of the other sorts taking a bite out of a fallen enemy for shock value, but most demons, she was sure, would consider pausing to chew on corpses a waste of time better spent creating more carnage.

Tun rolled his eyes affectionately. "Get rid of that diabolical excuse for a horse and let's go."

"If you insist," she said, flicking her hand in a complicated gesture. The felsteed vanished with a rush of flame and a brief shock of fel magic that made Tun's nose wrinkle, and she laughed at his expression. "Don't even! It's still better than those mechanical squawkers your people ride."

Tun, taller than her for once by dint of standing several steps higher, took the rare opportunity to look down his round nose at her. "The Mechanostrider 2.0 is a highly-reliable technological masterwork." He shot the air recently vacated by the felsteed a disapproving look. "And more importantly, you can ride one around Stormwind without decent people pelting you with rotten fruit."

Callista braced both of her hands against the steep sides of the staircase as she ascended behind him. "I'm not sure I'd call anyone wandering the streets with pockets full of compost 'decent people.' 'Deranged peasants,' maybe..."

"That doesn't change the fact that everyone hates felsteeds, Callista."

"So what? Felsteeds hate everyone!"

Stuck on a demon-blasted world, on the eve of a battle that neither of them was likely to survive, it was a nonsensical and inane thing to pick an argument over. It reminded Tun (pleasantly and painfully at once) of home, studying in the Great Library with a heaping plate of pastries and a hot mug of tea, keeping half an eye on Callista as she teased the visiting clerics and tried to filch forbidden manuscripts from beneath the arcane guardians' enchanted gazes.

Shaking his head, he reached the top of the stairs and stomped the sand from his boots onto the crushed crystal of the rampart-top. "And when the felsteeds learn how to toss moldy cabbage at passersby, maybe someone will care."

Callista pulled herself up behind him, craning her neck in pretend search. "Where's the demon? I'll tell him to get the Shadow Council right on that."

"I'm sure his enthusiasm will be overwhelming."

"We can only hope," she said solemnly. She yawned hugely, and Tun suddenly noticed the tired pallor to her face. How long had it been since they'd really slept? He fought the urge to imitate her, feeling the exhausted heaviness in his own limbs now that they'd finally paused. He'd managed to doze for a few minutes at a time back in the cavern, but that had been hours ago.

Callista slid into a sitting position against the lumpy wall of the parapet, yawning again before closing her eyes. "Wake me if we're going to die," she said.

Tun sank down at her side, drawing his feet up and hopefully out of the way of any demons scurrying along the rampart. What in the Light were they going to do if that army besieged them before that gate opened? These little gan'arg weren't soldiers, and neither were they. Except for Na'rii and Kar'thol, he supposed, and perhaps That Demon, if the wretched fiend hadn't simply used his invisibility trick to slip away from all the Legion's battles. A sudden sickening wave of hopelessness swamped him, and he started to sigh but it turned into a yawn instead. Maybe Callista's idea of a nap wasn't such a bad one. He was sure he'd be able to muster more optimism when he was less tired.

A quick glance assured him that Na'rii was still scanning the canyon with watchful eyes, pointed ears pricked and alert, and, reassured, he allowed his eyelids to drift heavily shut. He squirmed against the jagged gravel of the floor, searching for a softer spot, but only for a moment.

He didn't move again until the gan'arg landed in his lap.