Authors: Richard A. Knaak
The haughty night elf stared down his lengthy, pointed nose. “You have disobeyed a direct order, yes! I shall have you clapped in irons and—”
“And I’ll dissolve them before they lock. Then, I’ll leave the host, as, I suspect, will some of my friends.”
It was simply stated, but all there understood the threat. Stareye stared at the three other nobles who had been with him when Rhonin and Malfurion had come to announce the arrival of allies. They returned his stare blankly. None wanted to take the responsibility of urging the commander to rid his force of its most prominent fighters.
The senior night elf suddenly smiled. Malfurion resisted shuddering at that smile.
“Forgive me, Master Rhonin! I speak in haste, yes, in haste! Certainly I would not wish to offend you and yours…” He reached into the pouch, removed some more of the white powder, and inhaled it in one nostril. “We are all reasonable. We shall deal with this in a reasonable manner, however unjustly it was thrust upon some of us.” He gave a negligent gesture toward the tent’s flap. “By all means, show the—them in.”
Rhonin went to the entrance and called out. Two soldiers stepped through, followed by an officer very familiar to Malfurion. Jarod Shadowsong had been a captain in the Suramar Guard when he had had the misfortune to take as a prisoner Krasus. In the ensuing events, he had become a reluctant part of their band and had even been placed in charge of keeping watch over them by the late Ravencrest. Stareye had left Jarod in such a role even though it had long become clear that no one could keep the band in one place, especially the elder mage.
In Jarod’s wake came Huln, the furbolg, and Dungard. Behind the trio rushed in a full dozen more soldiers, who quickly took up strategic positions in order to protect their commander.
Stareye’s nose wrinkled. He did little to hide his contempt. Huln stood as if a rock. Unng Ak grinned, showing many sharp teeth.
Dungard smoked his pipe.
“I would prefer that you douse that instrument,” the noble commented.
In response, the dwarf took another puff.
“Insolent! You see what beasts and refuse you expect us to ally ourselves with?” Stareye growled, already forgetting his words to Rhonin. “Our people will never stand for it!”
“As commander, you must make them understand,” the wizard calmly returned. “Just as these three and those representing the others had to do so with their own kind.”
“You prissy night elves need some folks who know how to fight,” Dungard abruptly muttered, the pipe still in the corner of his mouth. “Someone to teach you real livin’…”
Unng Ak let out with a loud bark. It took Malfurion a moment to realize that the furbolg had laughed.
“At least we understand the intricacies of civilization,” another noble snapped back. “Such as bathing and grooming.”
“Maybe the demons’ll let you live to be their handmaidens.”
The night elf drew his sword, his companions following suit. Dungard had his ax out so swiftly that the movement was but a blur. Huln gripped his spear and snorted. Unng Ak swung his club once in challenge.
A flash of blue light abruptly burst to life in the center of the tent. Both sides forgot their argument as they attempted to shield their eyes. Malfurion turned away to protect himself, noticing only then that Rhonin was unaffected by it all.
The human stepped between the parties. “Enough of this! The fate of Kalimdor, of your loved ones—” He hesitated a moment, his eyes looking into the distance. “Of your loved ones…depends on overcoming your petty prejudices!”
Rhonin glanced at at Huln and his companions, then at Stareye’s nobles. Neither side seemed inclined to have him repeat his blinding display of power.
He vehemently nodded. “Good, then! Now that we understand, I think it’s time to talk…”
Krasus struck the floor of the icy cavern with a painful thud.
He lay there gasping. The spell to transport him here had been a chancy one, especially considering his condition. The cavern was far, far away from where the elven host lay—almost half a world away. Yet, he had dared risk the spell, knowing not only what it might do to him but also that it might already be too late to do what he desired.
He had dared not tell even Rhonin of his intentions. At the very least, the wizard would have demanded he accompany him, but one of the pair had to maintain control over the situation with the night elves’ potential allies. Krasus had full faith in the human, who had proven himself more adaptable, more trustworthy, than nearly any one else the former had known in his long, so very long life.
His breathing stable, Krasus pushed himself up. In the chill cavern, his breath came out in narrow clouds that drifted slowly up to the high, toothy ceiling. Stalactites vied with jagged ice formations and frost covered the rocky floor.
The mage mentally probed the immediate area, but found no trace of another presence. The news did not encourage him, but neither did it surprise Krasus. He had been there to witness the catastrophe first hand, the vision of Neltharion the Earth Warder—the great black dragon—in his madness turning upon his race still seared into Krasus’s memory. Every one of the four other flights had suffered, but the inhabitants of this cavern had paid for their resistance most of all.
The children of Malygos had been slaughtered to a one, their lord cast far away. All this by the power of the Earth Warder’s treacherous creation, which the dragons themselves had imbued with power.
The Dragon Soul…known better to him as the Demon Soul.
“Malygos…” Krasus called, the name echoing through the glittering chamber. Once, despite its chill, it had been a place of merriment, for the blue flight were creatures of pure magic and reveled in it. How hollow the cavern was now, how dead.
When he had waited long enough for the great Aspect to respond, Krasus strode cautiously over the slippery, uneven ground. He, too, was a dragon, but of the red flight of Alexstrasza, the Mother of Life. There had never existed animosities between the blues and reds, but, nonetheless, he took no chances. Should Malygos dwell somewhere deeper within the cavern system, there was no telling how the ancient guardian would react. The shock of seeing his kind decimated would throw him over the edge into madness from which it would take centuries to recover.
All this Krasus knew because he had lived those future centuries. He had struggled through the betrayal of Neltharion, who would later be called—more appropriately—Deathwing. He had watched as the dragons had fallen into ruin, their numbers dwindling and those of his own kind, including his queen, forced to be the beasts of the orcs for decades.
The dragon mage again probed with his higher senses, reaching deeper and deeper into the caverns. Everywhere he sought, Krasus found only emptiness, an emptiness too reminiscent of a vast tomb. No significant aura of life greeted his search and he began to despair that his sudden urge to come here had been all for naught.
Then…very, very deep in the bowels of Malygos’s sanctum, he noted a vague life force. It was so faint that Krasus almost dismissed it as a figment of his own desire, but then he sensed another, similar presence near it.
The cowled figure wended his way through the treacherous, dark passages. Several times Krasus had to steady himself as the path turned precarious. This was a realm used by creatures a hundredfold larger than he presently was and their massive paws easily spread across cracks and ravines he had to climb through.
Had it been his choice, Krasus would have transformed, but, in this time period, that option was not available. He and a younger version of himself existed here simultaneously. It had enabled the pair to accomplish great things together against the Burning Legion, but demanded also limitations. Neither could transform from the shapes they wore and, until recently, both had been vastly weaker when away from the other. While that latter problem had been solved—for the most part—Krasus was condemned to remain in his mortal body.
A shriek overhead made him press against the wall. A huge, leathery form fluttered past, a wolf-sized bat with a feline face, thick fur, and incisors as long as a finger. The creature spun around for a second dive at the mage, but Krasus already had one hand up.
A ball of flame met the beast in mid-air. The bat flew directly into it.
The fiery sphere swelled, then quickly imploded.
Cinders—the only remnants of the creature—briefly showered Krasus. That he had not sensed the bat perplexed him. He caught a few of the ashes and probed them with his senses. They revealed that the beast had been a construct, not a true living thing. A sentinel, then, of the Master of Magic.
Wiping away the last of the bat, Krasus continued his daunting trek. It had cost him heavily to transport himself by spell to such a faraway place, but for this task, no effort was too great.
Then, to his surprise, he was suddenly greeted by a warmth from ahead. It grew as he continued on, but not to the levels that the dragon mage would have expected. A deeper frown cut into his narrow features as he neared what looked to be a second major cavern. By his calculations, the level of heat should have been several times what it was.
A faint, blue radiance from the cavern illuminated the last bit of passage. Krasus blinked once in order to adjust his eyes, then entered.
The eggs sat nestled everywhere. Hundreds of blue-white eggs of varying size, from as small as his fist to almost as large as him. He let out an involuntary gasp, having not expected such a bounty.
But no sooner had Krasus’s hopes risen, then they crashed hard. A more detailed examination revealed the awful truth. Savage cracks lined many, but they were signs of decay, not birth. Krasus placed a gloved hand atop one larger egg and sensed no movement inside.
He went along from clutch to clutch, and as he did, the dragon grew more bitter. History appeared destined to repeat itself regardless of his decision to so flagrantly defy it. The future of the blue dragon flight lay spread before him, but it was a future as devoid of hope as originally. In the time line of which Krasus was familiar, Malygos had been unable to rouse himself from the catatonic state Neltharion had left him until after the magic maintaining the egg chamber—magic bound to the great Aspect—had long failed. Unprotected from the cold, the eggs had perished, and, with them, all hope. In the far future, Alexstrasza had offered to aid Malygos in slowly recreating his flight, but even at the time of Krasus’s departure into the past, that plan had barely even begun.
Now, despite everything he had initially preached to Rhonin, Krasus had been attempting perhaps the most precarious change yet to the future of his world. He had hoped to salvage the clutches and bring them to a place of safety, but the constant battle against the demons and the need to force allies onto the foolishly-reluctant night elves had delayed him too much.
Or had it? Krasus paused hopefully over a half-developed egg. Life still yet grew within it. A bit sluggishly, but well enough so that the mage felt certain that new warmth would keep it going.
He checked another and found it, too, a viable candidate. Eagerly, Krasus moved on, but the next several eggs revealed no aura. Gritting his teeth, the robed figure rushed to the next clutch.
He discovered four more salvageable eggs. With one finger, he marked each of those and the ones discovered earlier with a soft, golden glow before continuing his survey.
By the end, there were far fewer eggs than Krasus had hoped to find, but more than he deserved. The dragon mage eyed the ones marked, their glow letting them stand out wherever they were in the vast chamber. He knew with absolute certainty that there were no more. Now, though, what mattered was keeping the select few from perishing as the rest had.
The other dragons, even his beloved Alexstrasza, were invisible to his senses. He could only conclude that they had secluded themselves somewhere in an attempt to recover from Demon Soul’s horrific power. His own memories of this period were scattered, the result of his journey and his injuries. Eventually, the other flights would return to the battle, but, by that time, it would be too late for Malygos’s kind. Even his younger self was not available to him. Korialstrasz, badly beaten in his heroic struggle to distract Neltharion, had gone to find out what had happened to the other leviathans.
And so it was left to Krasus to decide what to do. Even before he had left for Malygos’s lair, he had tried to think of a place he considered secure enough for dragon eggs. Nothing satisfied him. Even the grove of the demigod, Cenarius, had proven unworthy in his eyes. True, the antlered deity was the trusted mentor of Malfurion Stormrage and might very well be the offspring of the dragon, Ysera, but Krasus knew that Cenarius had far too many matters with which to deal already.
“So be it, then,” the cowled spellcaster murmured.