Illidan (24 page)

Kruul flexed his wings and there came a sound like thunder. Those nearest the demon were thrown back. Their movements were slowed. For combatants who relied so much on mobility, this made them vulnerable. Kruul's monstrous blade swept out and chopped an attacker in half. The demon hunter's blood vanished as if the runes on the blade had absorbed it, and Kruul grew visibly stronger.

The demon inside Vandel stirred at the sight of all this death. It longed to feed as Kruul fed. Vandel channeled all his rage into another fel bolt and lashed out at Kruul. The magical energies splintered on whatever aura protected the demon lord. Kruul raised his blade, pointed it at Illidan, and sent another titanic bolt of shadowy energy blazing up at his opponent. Illidan deflected it with a counterspell.

A low growl from behind told Vandel that the core hound had returned to seek prey. He flipped himself around to face it. Half of one of its heads had been torn away. Molten ichor spilled from several wounds in its side.

Still the creature's unnatural vitality kept it moving. It bounded toward him, mouths gaping, flames leaking around its teeth. He leapt to meet it. His blades snapped home, piercing each eye of one head, and then he jumped away to the creature's blind side, scampering quickly to keep out of its line of sight. The creature turned. Its nostrils dilated as it sniffed the air, attempting to find him.

Enraged, Kruul smashed through the demon hunters. They did their best to leap clear, but his blade slew two more. Their strikes seemed to have no more effect on him than gnat bites.

The core hound put its noses to the ground and kept sniffing. It began to move in Vandel's direction. He sent a bolt of fel energy lashing at it, and kept the beam playing on the creature, draining its life away. From the air above came a titanic surge of power as Illidan finally unleashed the spell he had been weaving. The enormous bolt of hellfire smashed into Kruul and sent him sprawling.

“No! That is not possible.” The highlord's booming voice echoed across the battlefield. There was pain in it, and a massive gap in his armored chest piece where the bolt had struck home. Venomous smoke emerged from the gap, and wounded flesh pulsed within.

Kruul raised himself up and sprang toward the blazing portal. It closed behind him. Vandel stabbed the demon hound through the chest and left his blade buried in its heart. The infernal bodyguards collapsed into piles of rocks.

T
HE
I
LLIDARI GATHERED THEIR
wounded and their dead and prepared to depart the battlefield.

Illidan studied the remains of the carnage. Kruul had been strong, no doubt of that, and he had been cunning. This trap had been set with care, and only the fact that Kruul had misjudged Illidan's strength had let him escape its jaws.

It was only a matter of time before a new invasion of Azeroth began. Perhaps that was to the good. It would distract the Legion while Illidan finalized his own designs. It troubled him that Kruul had mentioned his plan to seek out Argus. He should not have boasted about that before he was ready to strike. That had been a mistake. He had let the thrill of triumph overcome his reason when he had done that.

Additionally, he felt there was more going on here than met the eye. He was missing something, and the feeling of it gnawed at him.

It was time to go back to the Black Temple and complete the preparations as fast as he could. The hour was getting late, and he could not afford to have anything go wrong now.

B
ehind the bushes of the pleasure garden, Vandel hunched out of sight of the blood elves. They laughed and swigged ethermead from crystal beakers. One youth had a courtesan under each arm and kissed each in turn. Another flexed a small whip in imitation of the succubi in the Den of Mortal Delights below. A tall, beautiful sin'dorei girl played a seven-stringed lute and improvised verses about a fel orc chieftain and a doomguard that were not flattering to either of her subjects.

The Grand Promenade seemed a world away from the endless warfare taking place beyond the Black Temple. It was one reason why Vandel had taken to sneaking in here of an evening. The precincts of the inner temple were a complete contrast with the stern, martial aspect of the rest of the great fortress, created for Illidan's blood elf followers for their own relaxation. The promenade had remained a refuge and a reward for those blood elves who had stayed loyal to Illidan even after Kael'thas's disappearance.

The party of revelers sprawled on the manicured lawn. Silk-clad girls held tiny tidbits of devilfish at a finger's length above the lips of the males.

The demon hunters had never been forbidden from entering the Black Temple. They had never been invited, either. They kept apart from the rest of the Illidari forces, as much from their blood elf kin as from the orcs and the Broken and the demons. No one visited them in the ruins of Karabor who could help it, and they mingled with none.

There were times when Vandel wanted to be apart even from his fellow demon hunters. He liked to hone his skills by slipping past the temple sentinels and entering the unholy precincts of the place itself.

He had climbed the great chains in the Sanctuary of Shadows and gazed in wonder on the huge statues that dominated the place. The satyr guardians had flinched away from him as if they sensed he hungered for their flesh.

He had scuttled through the gloomy orc-haunted precincts of Gorefiend's Vigil and eluded the gaze of even the most alert of the Shadowmoon clan. He had inspected their magical forges, and witnessed their spellcasters animating the bones of the dead. He had looked down upon the vast training area where demons marshaled and the Dragonmaw orcs trained their dragons amid the hulls of gigantic war machines. He had clambered across the battlements and looked out across the plains toward Warden's Cage, where Maiev Shadowsong was imprisoned. But the Grand Promenade was the place he liked the best.

The fountains tinkled. It was the sound of running water that first attracted him, and the scent of plants, some of them familiar from the forests of Ashenvale. It reminded him of home, of the night elf he had once been. It was a sweet torment. It brought back memories of his family. There were times when that calmed him. He could pick a blossom and sniff it and remember the times when he had brought back bouquets for his wife when she had been pregnant with Khariel.

At other times it stirred up the demon within him and fed its vengeful fury. Tonight it made him envy the sinful laughter of the blood elves at play.

He reached out from the undergrowth and plucked a bottle of ethermead from the hamper. The revelers were too involved with one another to notice him. He uncorked it and took a sip. It tingled on his tongue, and for a moment he felt relaxed.

Briefly he wondered whether the demon had encouraged him to do it. Tonight he did not care. Tonight he wanted to remember other things than the battles of the past few weeks, the rumors that the Burning Legion was mustering for a new offensive.

His nostrils caught the musky aroma of succubus blown from the terraces below by the hot night wind. His mouth watered. The hunger to kill banked up within him. These demons might be bound. They might be sworn to serve Illidan. They might be allies but still they felt like enemies. They felt like prey.

Trudging along the path near the revelers came Akama. The Broken moved through the garden from the direction of the council chamber, heading back down into the depths of the temple. Doubtless he had come from some late-night meeting with Illidan himself. His head was down. His gaze focused on nothing. A great weight pressed down on his shoulders.

A blood elf raised his head and shouted, “Come, old Broken, join us for a drink!”

One of the girls tittered. “Oh, Luzen. He is so ugly.”

“Anyone is ugly compared with you, Alesha. Hey, old Broken. Stop your hobbling for a minute and drink with us! Damn you, Alesha! Where is that bottle of ethermead? Did you gulp it down while I was not looking?”

Vandel raised it in mocking toast to the blood elf. He was so deep in shadow that no one could see him.

Akama hobbled on.

“Hey, old monster, are you too good to be seen drinking with us?” There was anger in Luzen's voice now. He sounded as if he was ready for violence.

Akama stopped. His head turned, and he gazed upon the blood elves. He did not say anything. All present could feel the power in him. He ceased to be an old, worn-out Broken and grew into something vast and powerful and terrible. Not something to be mocked by sin'dorei aesthetes.

Menace filled the night, and the blood elves froze like rabbits seeing the shadow of an owl. For a moment, all was still, and a premonition of violence hung in the air. Then Akama shrugged and smiled and made a gesture of benediction like a senile old priest blessing a group of children. He hobbled away.

The blood elves were silent for a long time after that. Vandel stole away, wondering about Akama and his secret sorrows.

A
KAMA TOOK THE WALKWAY
into the Sanctuary of Shadows and fought down the urge to lengthen his stride as he passed the refectory. As always, when he passed that dreadful place, he was filled with a sense of horror. He did not want to look upon the thing he knew was in there, bound by Ashtongue channelers. It was part of him. It was all the darkness from his soul and a great portion of his pride, ambition, and will. It was being fed evil magical energies, and if allowed to go free, it would devour him utterly and walk the world in his body.

The thing in the refectory would eat him from the inside and use his voice to turn his followers over to the darkness. Already many of them were a long way down that road. They owed more loyalty to Illidan than they did to the ideals of their own people.

Well were they named, the Broken. The demons had shattered their spirit almost beyond repair. They had become so used to drifting that they would follow any strong voice, and there was none stronger than the Betrayer.

Some of Akama's people responded to their master as slaves responded to the lash. They obeyed quickly, unquestioningly, with total obedience. They had lost all ability to think for themselves and would perform any dark deed required of them, passing the blame and the responsibility on to the one who gave the orders.

Akama looked upon the satyrs and the other demons profaning what had once been the most sacred spot of his people. It made him want to weep, just as the sight of those arrogant blood elves lolling around in what had once been the beautiful temple garden made him want to howl in fury.

What had happened to the Temple of Karabor was symbolic of what had happened to the draenei. Every evil thing that had ever happened to them had taken root here. And over the whole dark cavalcade, Illidan presided.

The triumphant demons strutting through the sanctuary mocked his passage. They knew what had been done to him. They looked at him and they saw only a decrepit Broken bound by the same monstrous will that had bound them.

They saw what he wanted them to see.

They could not look into the secret chambers of his mind, where his thoughts were still his own. He kept them shielded even in his sleep. Not even Illidan could look within those warded areas.

At least that was what he told himself. There were times when he wondered whether the spell that bound him also deceived him. Perhaps it allowed him these illusions of freedom, all the better to lull him into submission. Perhaps Akama was more like his people than he knew. Perhaps he was, after all, the perfect broken leader for a perfectly broken people.

No. The day was coming when he would move against Illidan, as sure as the sun rose over Outland. He had to believe that. He would use the secret network of agents he had built up under Illidan's very nose. He would find new allies and use them to oppose Illidan's will. The Betrayer would regret that he had been too wrapped up in his mad schemes to pay attention to his lowly Broken servant. Akama ground his teeth together. He would make Illidan pay for what he had done to the souls of the Broken at the Hand of Gul'dan. The lord of Outland would have cause to lament that he had spared the life of Maiev Shadowsong.

Akama paused and unclenched his fists. He let his mouth fall open. He made sure that once again he looked the part of the chastened, humble Broken.

The hollowness within his soul mocked him. Perhaps he was being allowed to do all these things. Perhaps he was just a lure to draw out those whom Illidan could not trust. Perhaps he was bait in a trap for Illidan's enemies as he had been for Maiev.

He took a deep breath through his flat nostrils, and exhaled, as he had been taught to do back when he had been a novice in the Temple of Karabor. He remembered when this place had been a haven of peace and purity, a sanctuary for the sick and the weak. The thought calmed him for a moment, but then he caught sight of his own distorted shadow cast against the wall. He was just as twisted now as the temple, and he wondered if either of them would ever find their way back to what they had once been.

Curse you, Illidan. Curse you and all your schemes. What are you up to now?

H
IGH
N
ETHERMANCER
Z
EREVOR HELD
the Seal of Argus. He turned it over and over in his hands. The blood elf's silver crown glinted as he tilted his head to one side. An expression of interest appeared in eyes resembling pools of fel green light. “I understand why you sought this so long, Lord. It should allow you to find what you are seeking. It is a compass for locating Argus.”

Illidan snapped his wings open, then settled them back around his shoulders. He allowed a note of irony to show in his voice. “Really? You are certain?”

Zerevor flinched at the mockery. “As certain as anyone can ever be when dealing with the magic of the Burning Legion.”

Lady Malande's laughter tinkled around the council chamber. “And, as ever, you try to cover yourself in case of error, Zerevor.”

Gathios the Shatterer, resplendent in his gleaming paladin armor, opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, then shut it again. He rarely spoke when matters were not concerned with warfare. Instead he exchanged a knowing glance with Veras Darkshadow. The lean assassin smiled in acknowledgment. Had they been plotting against their companions again?

Impatience curled Illidan's fist. “Let him finish, Malande.”

The lovely priestess shot him a hurt look. Her beauty had driven many an elf to distraction. She seemed to regard his own indifference as a challenge.

A cold smile flickered across Zerevor's face. “It could be used to steer us through the Burning Legion's network of portals and gateways. It could guide us all the way back to Kil'jaeden and legendary Argus.”

“I know this,” Illidan said. “I have always known this. Why do you bring it up now? What is your point?”

The high nethermancer looked over at the schemata spread on the trestle table. They represented Illidan's masterwork, but clearly something about them had Zerevor worried. “We could use their own gateways to reach Argus. There is no need for this new portal of yours, Lord. It is a work of genius, but why reinvent the wheel? With but the simplest modification, you could use your spell to tap into the Legion's system of portals.”

“Because if we use the Legion's network, we will need to pass through multiple portals, giving the demons an opportunity to block us every step of the way. This gateway will take us to Argus in one jump. It will let us attack by surprise. It will ensure our lines of communication are short and can be easily maintained.”