If Callista had been asked to picture a single creature to end a world, she might have imagined the pitlord Gorgannoth. Four times her height and twice again as long, his fat reptilian tail gouged a sinuous trench in the sand as he approached the collapsed barricade, moving with something strangely near grace for a monster of such hideous size. Gnarled tusks, each nearly as long as Callista was tall, curled from the corners of his mouth, and each of his hands grasped the hasp of a twin-bladed spear etched with foul runes.
She stumbled against the parapet, leaning on it with her good hand and clenching until her knuckles turned white, staring at the pitlord and trying to will herself not to be afraid. It didn't work. A mane of green fire leapt from Gorgannoth's head and back, the same fire that burned in his eyes and left his nostrils in little spurts with each breath, giving the impression that his scar-pitted hide was merely a thin shroud over a raging furnace. Nether, had she really just bargained to try to kill this creature?
"Nerothos!" Gorgannoth bellowed, and when he opened his mouth she could see rows of needle-like teeth silhouetted against the flame in his gullet. "I know you're there, dreadlord. Come and face me!"
"What are we going to do?" Tun muttered, his frightened pallor throwing the livid bruise on his cheekbone into stark prominence.
Na'rii laughed humorlessly. "We fight, mon." She had always had a fatalistic streak – any worshipper of the balance of things soon came to accept death's place in the pattern – and since the whisper of the elements in her mind had stilled she'd wondered if, perhaps, an honorable death wasn't the best for which she could hope. "Maybe we die, if that be the will of the spirits."
Callista wrinkled her nose at that, though her eyes never left the pitlord, his thick tail lashing like an enormous, malformed cat's as he waited for Nerothos' response. They might very well die here, but she doubted Na'rii's spirits would have anything to do with it. "Oh, don't be dramatic," she said, purely for the sake of disagreement.
One of Na'rii's long ears twitched scornfully as she looked at her. "Ya didn' wanna die, maybe ya shoulda kept that dreadlord over here."
The fact that Callista had just been having a similar thought only made her deny it more vehemently. "Like he would've risked his skin for us!"
Grown tired of waiting, Gorgannoth slammed his tail against the abandoned barricade, scattering the crystals of its construction like a child kicking over a tower of blocks. The noise echoed along the sheer canyon walls like a gunshot. "Very well, dreadlord," he snarled, jaws working in an odd sideways grinding motion as he spoke. "Hide behind your foolish little pawns. I will come and get you!"
He reared up and kicked at the half-toppled wall with his massive front legs, lashing out at it with both spears to tear a hole in their fortifications large enough for his bloated, lizard-like body to pass through.
"Callista!" Tun hissed, twisting his fingers into the sleeve of her uninjured arm and yanking to get her attention. "I thought you told that fiend you had a plan!"
That had, in fact, been exactly what she'd told Nerothos. At the time it had even been true, but that had been before she had actually seen the pitlord. He lumbered towards them with the dreadful inevitability of a tidal wave, a walking mountain of muscle and felfire and pointed crooked teeth who crushed what was left of the barricade beneath his massive belly as he rolled carelessly over it. Panicked chatter in demonic rose around them as gan'arg dashed along the battlements behind them, though whether they were actually doing anything constructive or simply trying to find the best places to cower was lost on Callista. She swallowed uncertainly before turning to look at Tun. "I need you to – "
A sharp crack split the air, followed closely by Gorgannoth's enraged roar as a fountain of sand and ghastly purple flame erupted from the ground beneath his feet. The force of the explosion flung him backwards head over spike-studded tail, stubby wings flapping almost comically in an attempt to right himself in the air, but he landed in an undignified heap on his back anyway, hard enough that the tremors chattered Callista's teeth together as she flinched.
Kar'thol snickered, thwacking his spiky-headed mace against the ground in amusement. "Ha ha. Pit-thing thinks tiny wings can fly!"
Callista was vaguely heartened by this evidence that Gorgannoth was not, in fact, invincible, but she wasn't foolish enough to believe that the explosion had done him serious harm. Nauseous prickles of fear surged through her as she finished her answer to Tun, her gaze riveted to the pitlord's gigantic thrashing form. "Do you think you could hold that creature still?"
Tun whipped his head around to look at her incredulously. "Do you think I could…what?" Certainly, his magic was capable of such a thing on smaller demons, but on a pitlord? He tightened his fist around her sleeve, beginning to feel queasily afraid. Did she really think he could hold that creature until the portal opened? "Light, Callista!"
"Not for long!" she corrected hastily, eyes finally darting to his face. The skin around them was tight with fear, but her expression softened a little when she looked at him. She shook his hand loose gently and dug in her pocket until she came up with a glowing green stone between her fingers. "A ton of burning rock…a direct strike might hurt it. But I'd never hit it if it's moving."
Tun hesitated, then took a deep breath and nodded. It was still a foolish, desperate plan, but a few moments he might be able to buy her, enough for her to conjure her spell. Light help them if either of them missed.
Gorgannoth flipped himself back onto his clawed feet with a thunderous bellow of rage, the sound reverberating back and forth across the walls of the canyon until it sounded like an army of pitlords. He seemed completely unharmed by the explosion, the only evidence of its occurrence a few black singe marks on his copper breastplate and the shreds of purple smoke that hovered over the battlefield. "Gan'arg worms!" he roared, crushing stones and corpses indiscriminately beneath his feet as he charged forward.
"Do it now!" Callista yelled, completely unnecessarily.
Tun squeezed his eyes shut, already halfway through his spell, muttering under his breath as the electric scent of the arcane filled his nostrils and drove out the reek of blood and alchemical smoke. The chill of the magic that jolted through him was reassuring, cooling his near panic as it froze an icy path through his veins, and he reached for more and more. He marshaled it into the frame of his spell, rigid and precise as crystal, designed by mortal archmages wiser than he would ever be – when he could hold it no longer he let it go with a flick of a thought, and knew even before he opened his eyes that it had succeeded.
Gorgannoth roared in frustrated malice. A thick sheath of glittering ice cemented his right hind leg firmly to the sand and he strained against the trap, knotted muscles bulging futilely beneath his scar-crossed hide. He twisted around to see what had caught him, but, rather than being enraged, his huge face twisted in a vicious leer at the sight. "Mortal mages," he said, savoring the words as though he could already taste their blood trickling down his blades. He lifted one of his rune-etched spears and brought it down on the ice in a shattering blow, furious puffs of green flame venting from his slitted nostrils as chips of ice flew.
Tun shifted uneasily from foot to foot, a cold blue glow suffusing his fingers as he alternately watched Gorgannoth's assault on his trap and Callista murmuring in the demon tongue with more fervor than he'd ever heard. A twitch at the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he looked to see Na'rii drawing her blade grimly from its sheath. A rush of anger towards her elemental spirits filled him. Light, they'd just left, she couldn't use her magic anymore, did she really mean to fight that behemoth with that? Impossible. She and Kar'thol had to run, get away, if Callista's plan didn't work it was going to come straight for them, and he doubted swords would do more than scratch that abomination's hide. "Get out of here!" he yelled, half-pleading.
"Not a chance, mon," Na'rii said, and there was a resigned serenity on her face that frightened him. It occurred to him with a stab of horror that she might mean for it to kill her.
"Don't be an idiot!" he said, stamping his foot passionately against the ground. "There's nothing you can do!" He looked around wildly for support until his gaze lit on Kar'thol, whose mace was dangling absently from one meaty hand as he watched Gorgannoth's thrashing with fascination. "Kar'thol, take her and go!" he tried desperately.
The ogre's lip curled defiantly as his bead-like eyes focused on Tun's increasingly frantic gesticulations. "Kar'thol not scared of pit-thing!"
"That isn't the point!" he cried, tossing his spell-rimmed hands up in frustration.
Oblivious to the commotion behind her, Callista's focus had narrowed to the unholy burn of the stone in her hand and the rasp of her own breathing. She was dimly aware of the spidery blue cracks splintering through Tun's ice, the maddened demonfire in Gorgannoth's eyes, but mostly what she was aware of was power. She clenched her will around the raw, unformed magic of the Nether (it twisted and seared through her veins like white flame, at once euphoric and terrifying, and she could see how the elves had grown to need this) until it broke to her spell and gouged a fissure in the sky.
A meteor tore a green streak through the ragged gash, and she watched with violent pleasure as it plummeted down with a deadly screech towards Gorgannoth's broad and undefended back. Her aim was good; the meteor's light skittered in a thousand broken shards from the crystal walls as it threaded the canyon, and for a moment the night shone bright as green-tinted day before the infernal plunged into Gorgannoth's back with a meaty crack and extinguished itself.
The thunderous bellow that followed ought to have petrified her with terror, but the savage exultation that blazed up in her consumed all else. The force of an elekk-sized boulder alight with felfire hurtling onto his spine drove the pitlord Gorgannoth to his knees, green glowing blood bubbling up from the smoking wound and running in streams down his flanks. White spars of broken rib protruded from the wound's edges, and as she watched a sickly light flickered and pulsed from its center.
"Unholy Twisting Nether," she murmured in fascination as her infernal rose from the wound with an irate roar. The fiery golem stood hip deep in blood and shattered flesh, and as she watched it flailed a burning fist into the gash.
"Oh, Light," Tun said, grimacing with disgust. The foul odor of searing meat stung his nose, but despite his revulsion he didn't avert his eyes or allow the tiny ice shards darting about his fingertips to dissipate.
It was well he didn't. Any creature less hardy than a pitlord would've perished the moment the burning boulder crushed its back, but Gorgannoth merely peeled back his lips from his rows of fangs in a hideous sneer and twisted to bring his spears to bear on his tormentor. Despite the bloody burble that marred each of his breaths, his first blow severed one of the infernal's arms cleanly into a pile of dead stones. "Vanguard, to me!" he roared.
Callista looked on in amazement that was rapidly turning to fear, chilling the burn of fel magic in her veins to a desperate emptiness that made her shudder. Though Gorgannoth's tail and hind legs writhed and twitched spasmodically (the initial infernal strike had almost certainly snapped his spine), the felfire that blazed from his mane and the merciless lights of his eyes, rather than dimming with pain, grew in intensity until it burned ghostly afterimages in her vision when she blinked. Bile rose in her throat as she watched Gorgannoth take another crushing swing at her infernal. The pitlord wasn't dying – he was furious.
The infernal ducked the blow, using the crater it had ripped in Gorgannoth's own flesh as cover, and bellowed its mindless challenge as it pounded its remaining fist into the bleeding sides of the wound. It couldn't, however, escape the axes of the felguards that bounded nimbly up their master's heaving flanks to his aid. A flurry of blows rained down on the infernal, metal blades striking sparks from its stones until it collapsed into lifeless rock under the assault.
Gorgannoth turned his huge torso imperiously to face the defenders on the barricade and Callista fought the urge to cower, hand scrabbling hopelessly in her pocket for another infernal stone she knew she wouldn't find. Muscles strained beneath his blood-streaked skin, and with an almighty roar he heaved himself to his feet, belly and useless back legs dragging in the sand as the felguards leapt from his back to land in predatory crouches.
His fiery gaze swept the wall, searching, breath coming in enraged heaves as he leveled the tip of a rune-etched spear at the barricade like an executioner's blade. "Slay them all, but leave the mortals to me!" he snarled. The burning pits of his eyes continued to rove, and all Callista could think to do was stand very, very still (Light, don't let it find me), as he contorted the tooth-crammed gash of his mouth into something like a smile. There was no mirth in the expression at all, only malice and a dreadful, consuming hunger. "Whatever the dreadlord offered you, little fools, I promise it wasn't enough."
He lifted a clawed foot, and his whole titanic bulk lurched forward as he took a single ponderous step towards the barricade, his crushed and bleeding hindquarters still twitching grotesquely as they dragged behind.
"What are you waiting for!" Tun demanded, voice strained with fear. His face was pale beneath its steaks of grime, eyes wide and very blue, and she wondered if she looked as frightened as he did. "Summon another one!"
The air shook with the bestial roars of felguards and the clash of iron boots on crystal as the demons resumed their frenzied assault on the ramparts. Screams pierced Callista's ears like darts from the left and right, but she and the others stood in a surreal pool of calm amidst the pandemonium, by the pitlord's decree the only creatures on the wall-top not yet consumed by killing or dying. Gorgannoth's hideously grinning mouth, the hateful fires of his eyes, the blood-curtained spires of his own ribs that tore his skin but somehow caused him no harm eclipsed the whole of her world, and she could see nothing else. Her mind raced round like a trammeled animal, clawing desperately for an escape, any escape, but even her bad ideas failed her and there was nothing.
She smiled wanly, and when she managed the words she barely recognized the croak of her own voice. "There are no more."
"Holy merciful Light," Tun said, a dreadful quiet in his tone.
She didn't turn to look at him again; she couldn't. Callista had always accounted herself brave, but as she watched what approached them through the poisonous shreds of alchemical smoke her hands shook, and if she hadn't been so terrified of drawing that…thing's attention, she might've fled the bloodstained barricade like a frightened child. Instead she threw up her hands and laughed; a desperate, hopeless sound. Nether, what was she doing here? Gorgannoth's leering face loomed ever larger in inexorable heaves and jerks as he dragged his shattered body across the sand, the light of his fiery mane and those terrible eyes glittering off his steel of his blades. She couldn't fight that thing, couldn't even try – it was huge, ancient, a murderer of worlds since before Callista's people had learned to strike flint against flint, the dread of its presence threatened to flatten her to the ground – no wonder Nerothos had laughed at her oath. She would die here and he knew it, one more frail, deluded mortal who thought she could twist the Legion to her own ends and bought her arrogance with her blood. It was a foolish, tired tale, played out since ever there had been demons, but she never thought hers would end like that –
Stinging pain burst across her mouth, and that and the taste of blood jolted her. "What in the Nether was that for?!" she demanded, whirling on Na'rii with a snarl.
Na'rii's three-fingered hand was still raised as though to slap her again, and beneath her look of narrow-eyed annoyance Callista thought she could read satisfaction. "A lot of things, mon. And I be tellin' ya all about them later if ya move ya skinny pink ass!"
Hellish chaos still reigned over the canyon, felguards hacking at mo'arg and gan'arg and vials bursting like grenades into corrosive smoke, but somehow it all looked subtly different, the light that illuminated it tingeing everything a ghostly violet – Callista's heart leapt into her throat as she snapped her head around violently to look at the portal. Its heavy obsidian stonework no longer framed a waning glow; instead it blazed with a deep purple light that was nearly shadow, the bright pinpricks of strange suns winking in its depths.
She was suddenly, joyfully, sorry for all the terrible things she'd ever called Nerothos.
Almost.
"Come on!" Tun yelled, beckoning wildly from a few steps ahead.
She glanced back one last time at Gorgannoth's misshapen snarl, crowded fangs gnashing together in impotent fury…then she sprinted to join her friend, letting out a feral shout of glee as she ran.
Kar'thol barreled through the crush of demons in front of them, blunt teeth bared as he batted the smaller creatures aside through sheer force of momentum. The steps that led down from the barricade to the red sand were widely-spaced, and the crowd only became more frantic and densely-packed the closer they approached.
Tun looked uneasily back over his shoulder, pinned in on all sides by a shrieking, clawing mob. Even brutal cuffs across the head and shoulders by the steel arms of their mo'arg commanders couldn't make the gan'arg hold their ground when an avenue of escape existed; a battle that heretofore had been evenly matched was rapidly disintegrating into a massacre. Over the heads of the sea of terrified grey-robed demons that pressed at his back, he could see felguards' heavy axes swinging in glittering arcs, more blood sluicing down the blades each time they reappeared, cutting through the fleeing gan'arg as easily as a farmer scything through grain.
"Move!" he cried, pressing frantically at the back of Kar'thol's legs – rising above all he could see Gorgannoth's nightmarish form, towering over them like a lumbering fortress of muscle and fire and wickedly-curved tusk, murderous rage in the burning holes of his eyes and the furious sideways grinding of his jaw. Light, they were hardly moving at all! He could count the nicks in the blood-tarnished axe-head of the nearest felguard, they would never make it –
His foot came down on nothing and he pitched forward suddenly, half-running half-falling down the stairs that yawned open at his feet. He tumbled down the last few, skinning his palms bloody on the sand-strewn crystal but not caring, elation leaping up in him as he saw the beautiful star-strewn void of the portal across open sand.
A green curtain of felfire boiled from the ground before him and he flinched back in alarm, raising his raw hands in a spell gesture but dropping them again as Callista's felsteed reared from the flames, eyes rolling in panic and burning hooves flailing.
"Get on, get on, get on!" Callista yelled, yanking herself awkwardly into the saddle and forcing the felsteed to its knees as gan'arg sprinted past in droves.
For once Tun didn't hesitate, throwing himself across her mount's sleek black hindquarters and scrambling up behind her, locking his fingers tightly in her robes. He could see the felguards' spike-tipped helmets hovering over the crystal-pointed parapet, hear the truncated shrieks of their victims, and, for once, the powerful lurch of the felsteed's muscles between his calves was reassuring instead of frightening. The rampaging demons might run him down on foot, but few things on two legs would catch a felsteed.
Callista wheeled her mount around, gritting her teeth as she fought the demon's instinctive desire to run, even more compelling than usual because it resonated so strongly with her own. She wanted nothing better than to spur her heels into its ribs, flee through the portal in a streak of unnatural flame and not stop running until they hit Shattrath City – but instead she hesitated.
Na'rii and Kar'thol had slowed to see what they'd do, the troll's breath coming in deep pants through her teeth as she bared them at their enemies at the top of the ramparts. Her expression turned haughty and bitter as her tawny yellow eyes met Callista's (expecting the warlock to flee with a shrug and a sneer, no doubt), then twisted in surprise as the warlock thrust her unbloodied hand abruptly towards her.
"Well?" Callista snapped.
Na'rii snorted a short disbelieving laugh then paused, long beaded braids clacking together as she shook her head. Her gaze flicked meaningfully over to Kar'thol, who stood watching them all impassively as gan'arg tore blindly around his bulk, kicking up sand that pinged softly against the spiked metal of his mace. "Sorry, mon, not this time," she said.
The ogre's heavy brow rose in surprise, short-tusked jaw falling open slightly as he looked at her, then his whole face contorted with emotion as he petted Na'rii's head clumsily with a huge hand. "Kar'thol be fine!" he almost wailed. "Na'rii should go!"
A felguard vaulted the high parapet to land with feline grace on the sand, bellowing a challenge as it bounded immediately into a sprint.
Alright. Touching as all this was, Callista felt it had gone far enough. "Plaguing hells!" she cried in vexation, bouncing a little in her saddle. She yanked her hand back, turning it directly into the motion of an incantation. "Would you quit being so disgustingly noble and run!"
She clenched her hand violently into a fist and the felguard stumbled in its charge, clawing at its face as blood oozed from its eyes and nose.
Na'rii and Kar'thol looked at each other. Then the troll's face broke into a tusky grin and they leapt forward as one, dashing around (or, in Kar'thol's case, simply plowing through), any gan'arg unfortunate enough to be overtaken.
Callista urged her felsteed into a gallop, feeling its sinewy muscles roll beneath her as they dashed past their two companions in a rush of flame, turning in a tight arc so she could watch the first wave of felguards burst from the abandoned barricade and hurl themselves forward in pursuit.
"You did the right thing, you know," Tun said, tightening his grip on Callista's robes and squinting his eyes against the grit-laden wind in his face.
Callista squirmed a little in her seat, nose wrinkling. She'd never liked emotional scenes, and being reminded of them was nearly as bad. "You can't prove that," she muttered somewhat nonsensically.
Tun snorted.
She was spared any further embarrassment by the resounding crack that ricocheted from the sheer canyon walls as the abandoned barricade buckled ominously at its center, loose chunks of crystal tumbling to the sand.
Gorgonnoth slammed his crippled weight again into the barricade, jagged crystals drawing a metallic screech from the copper-colored steel of his breastplate as he crashed through the wall like a living battering ram, crushing some of his own troops indifferently underfoot as they tumbled from the top of the ramparts.
Callista twisted in her saddle to watch over Tun's green-haired head as she spurred her felsteed back towards the dimensional gate, keeping a healthy distance and several panicked clumps of gan'arg between themselves and the first rank of felguards charging in pursuit. She was well aware that the injured pitlord had no hope of catching them, even had they been on foot, but a deep, instinctual fear clawed at the edges of her mind anyway. Gorgonnoth was like no creature she had ever encountered, more akin to some ravening entropic force – a twisted elemental lord or a mad immortal golem – than a sentient being, his deadly malice tempered neither by the weakness of her own minions nor the complicating intelligence of the Nathrezim. Unlike Nerothos, he would never forestall their deaths in service to some greater goal – the only reason Gorgonnoth would bow to was that of irresistible force.
Fortunate for them he'd been too stupid to prevent their flight to Draenor.
Fear heightened her exhilaration as the felsteed coiled its muscles and leaped gracefully over a blasted hunk of crystal, tearing through the fleeing mass of gan'arg like a hot wind. Snarls and the ring of steel on steel split the air as the armored ranks of felguards overtook the straggling demons, but the sounds of carnage fell ever farther behind and she laughed wildly with the relief of survival. The portal was too close, the felsteed too swift, nothing could catch them now –
Tun's grip on her robes suddenly became painful, his fingers gouging sharply into her sides. "Void terror, Callista!" he shouted over the wind that screamed past their ears.
Her heart plummeted sickeningly as she whipped her head around at his cry. Four of the monstrous three-headed demons had leapt the shattered remnants of their barricade and now galloped across the sand, their loping strides hardly slowed as one powerful set of jaws or another dipped to savage an unlucky gan'arg. Four runed leashes dangled from one of Gorgannoth's claws - not so stupid, after all. He paused his advance, cruel delight twisting his massive face as he watched his hounds hunt, drool spilling from their teeth as they bayed to one another across the canyon.
"Hold on!" Callista shouted as she kicked her boots into their mount's ribs. The felsteed's ears flattened against its head as she gave it leave to run, and the flames at its hooves seemed to brighten as it surged forward in bestial terror.
One of the void terrors spotted them, two of its heads snapping at each other in excitement as it bounded to intercept, huge paws eating up the distance. The felsteed screamed in fear, lowering its head and plunging madly towards the black void of the portal faster than Callista had ever felt it move, forcing panicked gan'arg to leap aside or be trampled. Her gaze darted wildly between the portal and the void terror, trying to gauge the distance. The monstrous demon was gaining, but too slowly, they just might make it –
"We have to go back!" Tun yelled, leaning his weight against her back as he made a grab for the reins.
Funny, that was just what Callista hadn't been thinking. "Are you crazy?!" she shouted back. Tun had managed to snag the felsteed's bridle in his hand and began yanking to goad it to turn, but she ignored him, knowing the demon was too terrified to even feel it. "They're too fast, they'll tear us apart!"
"We can't just leave them!" Tun cried, dropping the reins in disgust and clutching her back as he turned to search for Na'rii and Kar'thol. Even in the dark, it didn't take long to spot them among the crowd of much shorter gan'arg, heads down and sprinting flat out perilously close to the advancing line of felguards, and his resolve hardened at the sight. Na'rii hadn't abandoned him when that Tothrezim had trapped him beneath a fall of rocks, and he wasn't about to flee when he might still do something to aid her. Blue light blazed from his fingertips, and a moment later the void terror chasing them stumbled with a confused howl, claws scrabbling uselessly on the ice that glazed the sand beneath its paws. "Go now, Callista!"
For a moment, she hesitated. The portal was so close she could feel the electric wash of its power against her face, they would be safe there, Nether, what if Nerothos shut it before they got through?
…Tun would never forgive her if she fled Xoroth without their companions.
"Oh, Nether, I like you so much!" she muttered through her teeth, wheeling the felsteed around against its protesting whinny.
The void terror that had slipped on Tun's ice still struggled to regain its feet, its aggrieved whines drawing the attention of one of its pack mates, who loped over to investigate. All of its eyes locked immediately on the felsteed, all three of its jaws falling open into vicious snarls at the offending mortals. Twisting Nether, this was suicide.
The demon sank into a lithe crouch, letting out an eerie three-toned howl in preparation to spring, when the first flaming boulder splintered against the side of the canyon. A jagged hunk of rock ricocheted into one of its legs, crushing it, and the void terror whirled away from the mortals to snap and snarl at the air in consternation.
A wave of heat broke against Callista's face, and suddenly the night was slashed by dozens of streaks of flame that exploded to earth in showers of sand and molten glass, slaying felguards despite their armored hands raised uselessly to shield themselves and driving the void terrors into a bewildered frenzy.
Nerothos. It had to be, wonderful demon, had she called him useless? She laughed crazily in relief, vaguely aware of Na'rii and Kar'thol breaking free of their overwhelmed pursuit and dashing for the portal as the felsteed charged single-mindedly away from the rain of fire, bearing them both towards safety.
The sulfurous smell of burning rock stung her nose as the meteors slammed into the sand behind them, lighting the canyon with a cruel orange glow as the starry black rectangle of the portal loomed ever larger in her view. The felsteed reared and plunged through the increasingly tight crowd of fleeing gan'arg, crazed with terror of the other demons and the strange magic-smell of Nerothos' spell, and it was a good thing Callista and the demon were in perfect accord on which way to run, because she wasn't sure even the force of their pact would be strong enough to turn the felsteed back towards the firestorm now. The dreadlord's control over his spell was impressive – the hail of flaming rock stopped at the edge of the felguards' advance, incinerating only the very hindmost of the gan'arg along with their enemies – but they still needed to be wary of the meteors that careened off the canyon walls during their descent, fouling their trajectory.
Tun locked his arms tightly around Callista's waist as the felsteed wove crazily through the mob, too elated by the thought of escape to be frightened by the motion. He could see Na'rii and Kar'thol being swept along behind them by the crush of demons in the narrow canyon, backlit by the angry glow of Nerothos' rain of meteors, but lost sight of them as the walls dropped away into the curving arch of the crystal dome and the felsteed picked up speed as the crowd thinned. Flame and froth vented from its nostrils as it snorted, and Tun thought nervously that the beast looked even madder than usual. Perhaps Callista was driving it too hard. "We should wait for the others to catch up!" he suggested, shouting to be heard over the whipping wind of their passage and the smack of the meteors shattering against the canyon walls.
Callista twisted her head over her shoulder to call a reply, a strangely terse look on her face, but her words were drowned in the pandemonium.
"What?" Tun tried, screaming as loud as he could to be heard.
She didn't turn around again, and Tun suddenly noticed with a stab of alarm the forceful way she was yanking at the felsteed's bit. The demonic mount was bound to her will, she shouldn't need physical commands to control it…
…unless she wasn't controlling it.
The felsteed reared suddenly, eyes rolling back to show the whites and hooves lashing the air, and only a lucky grab at the back of Callista's robes saved him from tumbling from the saddle and being trampled as the felsteed screamed in terror.
Callista threw herself over her mount's flame-maned neck, clapping her hands over the creature's eyes in an effort to calm it and gritting her teeth as she wrenched at the magic that bound it. It was no use – even blind it could still smell the strange demons and hear the terrible sounds of slaughter at its back, and the soul-splitting agony of disobeying Callista's orders only spurred its fear. Linked as they were, its panic was catching, and Callista struggled to keep her own composure as she fought to bludgeon the felsteed into obedience. Unholy Twisting Nether, the creature was unhinged, they had to get off before it bolted into some pit –
The felsteed stamped down hard with both of its front hooves, the impact almost jolting her from the saddle, and she swung a leg over before the maddened fiend could rear up again, grabbing Tun's arm and pulling him with her as she slithered and fell from the saddle, landing hard on the sand. Pain lanced through her injured wrist, but she half-crawled, half-stumbled out of the way of the gan'arg as the felsteed vanished in a tower of flame behind her, Tun's fingers latching onto her upper arm and pulling as they staggered to the side of the portal and collapsed there.
"I hate felsteeds," Tun muttered, wiping sand and sweat from his eyes with his torn and bloodstained sleeve.
"Sorry," Callista said, panting as she cradled her injured wrist against her stomach and leaned back on her other hand. She really was sorry, too, as well as more than a little chagrined; it had been a very long time since she'd lost total control of any demon, let alone one of her own pact-bound minions, and in addition to being alarmingly dangerous it was flat out embarrassing. If anyone from the Slaughtered Lamb found out she'd never hear the end of it.
The harsh green light of spell-glare caught her eye, and she looked to the side to see a bright filigree of demonic runes tracing a wide circle from Nerothos' hooves. She squirmed inwardly as her gaze traveled up the blood-smeared black metal of his breastplate to the lights of his eyes. Then again, maybe she'd never hear the end of it anyway.
"Shut up," she suggested preemptively.
"I was merely about to recommend you aid Charin's forces in securing the Draenor-side," he said, turning his attention back to his spellwork with a disdainful flick of his wings. More runes orbited his upraised hand in a sinister constellation as he called down his firestorm with an effortlessness she refused to believe wasn't feigned. "Perhaps their ponies will be less fearsome."
Callista cocked her head, scooping up a handful of sand and letting it sift through her fingers thoughtfully. "If the pitlord catches you and starts tearing off your limbs, do you think he'll let me watch?"
"No," Nerothos said smugly.
"Pity," Callista said, more nastily than she meant. Sharpening her claws on Nerothos had, by now, become something of a habit. She'd found there to be a certain amount of enjoyment in not needing to curb her tongue for fear of offense.
A particularly fierce flash of orange light lit the canyon, causing her to squint, and a moment later the rolling boom of an explosion slammed into her ears. One of Nerothos' meteors hitting a buried mine, perhaps. The air smelled of blood and corrosive potions, and, close as they were, every time a gan'arg vanished through the star-encrusted gateway she could feel it as a little frisson of power against her skin. The sensation was not unpleasant, blurring somehow with the burn of fel magic in her veins and distracting her from the painful throb of her injured wrist, scabbed over by now with dried blood and sand. Her head buzzed with a combination of exhaustion and residual power, and, watching the blazing drops of flame streak across the sky before setting the crystal canyon aglow like a huge prismatic lamp, she thought it to be almost beautiful.
"After tens of thousands of years, the only amusement that never dulls is watching the world burn," Nerothos mused, tilting his horned head at the blasted and burning sand with a cruel smile.
Callista sniffed at that, flexing the fingers of her wounded hand gingerly. She liked her share of mischief, and she'd be lying if she said there wasn't a certain reckless pleasure in exercising her powers without the restraint she practiced on Azeroth (at least for a little while), but she still had a healthy disgust for such unfettered nihilism. "Clearly you've been going to the wrong parties." She followed his gaze, nose wrinkling scornfully as she watched the dark, armor-clad figures weave among the meteor strikes as relentlessly and futilely as insects darting through a bonfire. Flame and demons and blasted land – it looked identical to the nastier parts of Draenor to her, to the pieces of her own world scarred by the war. "All your pyres look the same to me anyway."
"On the contrary," Nerothos said. There was a hint of satire beneath the velvet of his voice, even now, and Callista wondered idly what it would sound like if he were ever truly sincere. "I prefer to think of them as crucibles. The weak and the flawed are consumed, while the strong are tempered, earning power beyond measure amongst our crusade. A pity your worlds seem so largely composed of kindling."
Callista curled her lip at that in mixed amusement and contempt. It was a rather eloquent delivery of the Legion party line, a pack of shameless lies believed only by the most fanatical of demons and the most ambitious of mortals. 'Power beyond measure,' indeed. Even (especially) Azlia knew better than that. "Careful, demon, they might mistake you for a Shivarra, and you'd look terrible in those hats."
"My sartorial peril is limited, I assure you," Nerothos said. Green spell-light glinted from the points of his teeth. "Our true zealots preach only by example, and it is hardly to their credit. Your mortal weakness for pretty tales is so remarkably convenient."
Callista shot him a scornful look, but was interrupted in her search for a suitably contemptuous retort by Tun jumping to his feet and showering her in dislodged sand.
"I see them. Come on!" he called, gesturing impatiently at her with one hand and waving the other at the stream of dark figures heading into the portal. "Na'rii, Kar'thol, over here!"
Callista brushed the sand from her face with her sleeve, straining her eyes against the flickering meteor-glare until she made out Kar'thol, a tall rounded silhouette several times the size of a gan'arg that plowed heedlessly through the smaller bodies. She snorted and scrambled to her feet quickly so as not to lose Tun, who had taken several impatient steps towards the crowd when he found his voice didn't carry over the noise.
Turning back over her shoulder, she paused, eyes glittering in the half-light as she looked at Nerothos. They had, she thought, done rather well together. But the desperation that sealed their alliance on Xoroth would no longer bind on Outland. Agents of the Burning Legion had no uses for mortals that didn't involve death or servitude, and, warlock though she was, even she would have no ties with its members that didn't end involve her holding the end of a very short leash. "The pitlord is crippled, and you swore," she reminded him darkly, all amusement gone from her voice.
"Yes," Nerothos said. Glowing runes eddied around his hooves, bright in the shadows from his lazily spread wings, and she didn't like the ironic edge to his smile. "And when the time for settlement comes, warlock, I trust you'll remember that so did you."
She narrowed her eyes, but refused to humor him by asking what he meant.
"Let's go now, Callista!" Tun urged, shooting the dreadlord a disgusted look and her a pointed one before plunging into the mob churning around the portal.
She held Nerothos' gaze deliberately for a moment longer (he simply curled his bloodless lips into a sardonic smile) before darting after Tun. She was immediately almost bowled over by a mo'arg with both arms replaced by giant mechanical pincers. It bared flat broken teeth at her and she swore in return, bracing herself as she waded through the crowd, squinting in the wavering fire-glare of Nerothos' meteors as she searched for Tun. The gan'arg, though neither very large nor very heavy, seemed to be at precisely the right height for crashing into the back of her legs and threatening to send her sprawling to the sand to be trampled. Even more alarming, when she looked back over the heads of the little demons she could see the hulking burning-eyed shapes of felguards who had escaped Nerothos' fiery boulders advancing on the portal. It was time to get out of here.
She caught up with Tun by nearly tripping over him, grabbing his shoulder to steady herself and making him jump with surprise. Electric waves of power crackled and ebbed over her skin, close to being swept into the pulsing starscape of the gateway as they were, and they struggled to hold their ground against the frightened demons bolting heedlessly past. Tun craned his head from side to side, standing on his toes to try to see over the gan'args' heads and reorient himself with respect to Na'rii and Karthol.
Callista flinched and cursed viciously as a gan'arg clipped her knee with a sharp elbow. In her opinion, this had gotten ridiculous. The other two were well ahead of the pursuing forces and nearly to the gateway, they would be fine – not that Tun was likely to see it that way.
Something plowed into the back of her knees, hard, and she tumbled to the sand, wincing as she landed on her wounded wrist and a heavy weight crashed onto her back, screeching in demonic. The gan'arg leapt off of her as though scalded, stomping on her ribs in the process, and she pulled herself painfully into a sitting position. Alright. Enough was enough. Callista was done with this wretched pit, and to hell with everything else. She swiveled her head around, waiting for a mo'arg to shove its way past her and Tun and making sure he was looking somewhere else before edging close.
Callista stuck out her foot.
She could barely hear Tun's surprised yelp over the tumult as he pitched forward headfirst into the galaxy-strewn blackness of the dimensional gate, disappearing with a rippling flash of power. He'd probably punch her on the other side, and, all things considered, she thought she might let him. Stumbling to her feet, she cast one last sidelong look at the ruined world of Xoroth – grasping flames twisted and flashed from every surface of the crystalline canyon, dazzling her eyes, and she hoped she'd never see Azeroth blaze like that – before ducking through on his heels.