Sylvanas Windrunner, former ranger-general of Quel’Thalas, banshee, and Dark Lady of the Forsaken, strode from the royal quarters with the same quick, lithe stride she had had in life. She preferred her corporeal form for ordinary, everyday activities. Her leather boots made no sound on the stone floor of the Undercity, but all heads turned to watch their lady. She was unique and unmistakable.
Once, her hair had been golden, her eyes blue, her skin the color of a fresh peach. Once, she had been alive. Now her hair, often covered by a blue-black cowl, was black as midnight with white streaks and her formerly peach-hued skin a faint, pearly blue-gray. She’d chosen to don the armor she had worn in life, well-tooled leather that revealed most of her slender but muscular torso. Her ears twitched at the murmurings; she did not often venture forth from her chambers. She was ruler of this city, and the world came to her.
Beside her hurried Master Apothecary Faranell, head of the Royal Apothecary Society, who was talking animatedly and simpering. “I am most grateful you agreed to come, my lady,” he said, trying to bow and walk and speak at the same time. “You did say you wished to be informed when the experiments were successful, and you wanted to see them yourself once we—”
“I am well aware of my own orders, Doctor,” Sylvanas snapped as they began to descend a winding corridor into the bowels of the Undercity.
“Of course, of course. Here we are.” They emerged into a room that to one with weaker sensibilities would seem like a house of horrors. On a large table, a stooped undead was busily sewing together pieces of different corpses, humming a little under his breath. Sylvanas smiled slightly.
“It is good to see someone who enjoys his work so,” she replied a trifle archly. The apprentice started slightly, and then bowed deeply.
There was a low buzz of some kind of energy crackling. Other alchemists bustled about, mixing potions, weighing ingredients, jotting notes. The smell was a combination of putrefaction, chemicals, and, incongruously, the clean sweet smell of certain herbs. Sylvanas was startled by her reaction. The scent of the herbs made her oddly…homesick. Fortunately, the softer emotion did not last long. Such emotions never did.
“Show me,” she demanded. Faranell bowed and ushered her through the main area, past pieces of bodies hanging on hooks, into a side room.
The faint sound of sobbing reached her ears. As she entered, Sylvanas saw several cages on the floor or swinging slowly from chains, all of them filled with test subjects. Some were human. Some were Forsaken. All were dull-eyed with fear that had pierced so deep and had gone on so long that they were almost numb.
They would not be so for much longer.
“As you can imagine, my lady,” Faranell was saying, “it is difficult to transport Scourge as test subjects. Of course for experimental purposes, Forsaken are identical to Scourge. But I am delighted to report that our tests in the field have been well documented and quite successful.”
Excitement began to stir in Sylvanas, and she graced the apothecary with a rare and still beautiful smile. “That pleases me greatly,” she said. The undead doctor fairly quivered in delight. He beckoned to his assistant Keever, a Forsaken whose brain had obviously been damaged by his first death and who muttered to himself in the third person as he removed two test subjects. One was a human woman, who was apparently not so lost in fear and despair as not to start weeping silently when Keever dragged her from her cage. The Forsaken male, however, was utterly impassive and stood quietly. Sylvanas eyed him.
“Criminal?”
“Of course, my lady.” She wondered if it were true. But in the end, it didn’t matter. He would serve the Forsaken, even so. The human girl was on her knees. Keever stooped down, yanked her head up by her hair, and when she opened her mouth to cry out in pain, he poured a cup of something down her throat and covered her mouth, forcing her to swallow.
Sylvanas watched while she struggled. Beside her, the Forsaken male accepted the cup that Faranell offered without protest, draining it dry.
It happened quickly. The human girl soon stopped struggling, her body tensing, and then going into paroxysms. Keever let her go, watching almost curiously as blood began to stream from her mouth, nose, eyes, and ears. Sylvanas turned her gaze to the Forsaken. He still regarded her steadily, silently. She began to frown.
“Perhaps this is not as effective as your—”
The Forsaken shuddered. He struggled to stand erect for a moment longer, but his rapidly weakening body betrayed him and he stumbled, falling hard. Everyone stepped back. Sylvanas watched raptly, her lips parted in excitement.
“The same strain?” she asked Faranell. The human female whimpered once and then was still, her eyes open. The alchemist nodded happily.
“Indeed it is,” he said. “As you can imagine, we are quite—”
The undead spasmed, his skin breaking open in spots and weeping black ichor, and then he, too, was still.
“—pleased with the results.”
“Indeed,” Sylvanas said. She was hard put to conceal her own elation; “pleased” was a pale word indeed. “A plague that kills both humans and Scourge. And, obviously, affects my own people as well, as they, too, are undead.”
She gave him a look from glowing silver eyes. “We must take care that this never falls into the wrong hands. The results could be…devastating.”
He gulped. “Indeed, my lady, indeed they could.”
She forced a neutral expression as she returned to the royal quarters. Her mind was racing with a thousand things, but foremost among them, burning as brightly and wildly as the wicker man she lit every Hallow’s End, was a single thought:
At last, Arthas, you will pay for what you have done. The humans who spawned such as you shall be slaughtered. Your Scourge shall be stopped in their tracks. You will no longer be able to hide behind your armies of mindless undead puppets. And we will grace you with the same mercy and compassion you showed us.
Despite her great control, she found herself smiling.
It was, Arthas mused as he rode upon the back of the skeletal, faithful Invincible toward Andorhal, a truly great irony that he who had slain the necromancer Kel’Thuzad was now charged with resurrecting him.
Frostmourne whispered to him, although he did not need the voice of the sword—the voice of the Lich King, as he desired to be known—to reassure him. There was no going back. Nor did he wish to.
After the fall of Capital City, Arthas had retreated into a dark version of a paladin’s pilgrimage. He had ridden the length and breadth of his land, bringing his new subjects to town after town and unleashing them upon the populace. He thought the Scourge, which Kel’Thuzad had called them, a fitting name. The instrument of self-flagellation of the same name, sometimes used by some of the more fringe elements of the priesthood, was meant to cleanse impurities. His Scourge would cleanse the land of the living. He stood straddling the worlds; he was alive after a fashion, but the Lich King’s soft whispers were calling him death knight, and the leeching of color from his hair and skin and eyes seemed to indicate that it was more than a title. He did not know; he did not care. He was the Lich King’s favored, and the Scourge was his to command, and in a strange, twisted way, he found that he cared for them.
Arthas now served the Lich King through one of his sergeants, a dreadlord, almost identical in form to Mal’Ganis. This, too, was irony; this, too, did not distress him.
“Like Mal’Ganis, I am a dreadlord. But I am not your enemy,” Tichondrius had reassured him. The lips twisted in a smile that was more of a sneer. “In truth, I’ve come to congratulate you. By killing your own father and delivering this land to the Scourge, you have passed your first test. The Lich King is pleased with your…enthusiasm.”
Arthas felt buffeted by twin emotions—pain and exultation.
“Yes,” he said, keeping his voice steady in front of the demon, “I’ve damned everyone and everything I’ve ever loved in his name, and I still feel no remorse. No pity. No shame.”
And in his heart of hearts, there came another whisper, but not from Frostmourne: Liar.
He forced the sentiment down. That voice would be silenced, somehow. He could not afford to permit the softness to grow. It was like gangrene; it would eat him, if he let it.
Tichondrius seemed not to notice. He pointed to Frostmourne. “The runeblade you carry was forged by my kind, long ago. The Lich King has empowered it to steal souls. Yours was the first one it claimed.”
Emotions warred within Arthas. He stared at the blade. Tichondrius’s word choice had not escaped him. Stolen. Had the Lich King asked for his soul in exchange for saving his people, Arthas would have given it. But the Lich King had asked no such thing; he had simply taken it. And now it was there, locked inside the glowing weapon, so close to Arthas that the prince—the king—could almost, but not quite, touch it. And had Arthas even gotten what he had set out to get? Had his people been saved?
Did it matter?
Tichondrius watched him closely. “Then I’ll make do without one,” Arthas said lightly. “What is the Lich King’s will?”
It had been, it turned out, to rally what was left of the Cult of the Damned in order to have aid for a greater undertaking—the recovery of Kel’Thuzad’s remains.
They lay, he had been told, in Andorhal, where Arthas himself had left them, a puddle of reeking, decaying flesh. Andorhal, where the shipments of plagued grain had come from. He recalled his fury as he had attacked the necromancer, but felt it no longer. A smile curved his pale lips. Irony.
The buildings that had once been a conflagration were now charred timbers. No one save the undead should be here now…and yet…Arthas frowned, drawing rein. Invincible halted, as obedient in death as he had been in life. Arthas could glimpse figures moving about. What little light there was on this dim day glinted off—
“Armor,” he said. There were armored men stationed about the perimeter of the cemetery and one near a small tomb. He squinted, and then his eyes widened. Not just living beings, not just warriors, but paladins. And he knew why they were here. Kel’Thuzad, it seemed, drew the interest of many.
But he had dissolved the order. There shouldn’t be any paladins, let alone gathered here. Frostmourne whispered; it was hungry. Arthas drew the mighty runeblade, lifted it so the little army of acolytes who accompanied him could see and be inspired by it, and charged. Invincible sprang forward, and Arthas saw the shock on the faces of the cemetery’s guardians as he bore down on them. They fought valiantly, but in the end, it was futile; and they knew it, he could see it in their eyes.
He had just tugged Frostmourne free, feeling the sword’s joy in taking another soul, when a voice cried, “Arthas!”
It was a voice Arthas had heard before, but he couldn’t quite place it. He turned toward the speaker.
The man was tall and imposing. He had removed his helm, and it was the thick beard that jogged Arthas’s memory. “Gavinrad,” he said, surprised. “It has been a long time.”
“Not long enough. Where is the hammer we gifted you with?” Gavinrad said, almost spitting the words. “The weapon of a paladin. A weapon of honor.”
Arthas remembered. It had been this man who had placed the hammer at his feet. How clean, how pure, how simple it had all seemed then.
“I have a better weapon now,” Arthas said. He lifted Frostmourne. It seemed to pulse eagerly in his hand. A whim struck him, and he obeyed it. “Stand aside, brother,” he said, an odd gentleness tingeing his voice. “I’ve come to collect some old bones. For the sake of that day, and for the order to which we both belonged, you will not come to harm if you let me pass.”
Gavinrad’s bushy brows drew together and he spat in Arthas’s direction. “I can’t believe that we ever called you brother! Why Uther ever vouched for you is beyond me. Your betrayal has broken Uther’s heart, boy. He would have given his life for yours in a second, and this is how you repay his loyalty? I knew it was a mistake to accept a spoiled prince into our order! You’ve made a mockery of the Silver Hand!”
Fury rose in Arthas, so swift and so intense he almost choked on it. How dare he! Arthas was a death knight, the hand of the Lich King. Life, death, and unlife—all fell within his purview. And Gavinrad spat upon his offer of safety. Arthas gritted his teeth.
“No, my brother,” he growled softly. “When I slay your body and raise it as my servant, and make you dance to my tune, that, Gavinrad, will be a mockery of the Silver Hand.”
Grinning, he beckoned tauntingly. The undead and the cultists who had accompanied him waited silently. Gavinrad did not rush in, but gathered himself, praying to the Light that would not save him. Arthas let him complete his prayer, let his weapon glow, as Arthas’s own hammer had once done. With Frostmourne gripped tightly in his hand and the Lich King’s powers surging through his dead-not-dead body, he knew that Gavinrad did not stand a chance.
Nor did he. The paladin fought with everything he had, but it was not enough. Arthas toyed with him a little, easing the sting that Gavinrad’s words had caused, but soon tired of the game and dispatched his erstwhile brother in arms with a single mighty sword blow. He felt Frostmourne take in and obliterate yet another soul, and shivered slightly as Gavinrad’s lifeless body fell to the earth. Despite what he had promised his now-vanquished foe, Arthas let him stay dead.
With a curt gesture he ordered his servants to begin retrieving the corpse. He had left Kel’Thuzad to rot where he had fallen, but someone, doubtless the necromancer’s devout followers, had cared enough to put the body in a small crypt. The acolytes of the Cult of the Damned now rushed forward, finding the tomb and with effort pushing aside the lid. Inside was a coffin, which was quickly lifted out. Arthas nudged it with his foot, grinning a little.
“Come along now, necromancer,” he said teasingly as the casket was borne into the back of a vehicle referred to as a “meat wagon.” “The powers that you once served have need of you again.”
“Told you my death would mean little.”
Arthas started. He had become somewhat accustomed to hearing voices; the Lich King, through Frostmourne, whispered to him almost constantly now. But this was something different. He recognized the voice; he had heard it before, but arrogant and taunting, not confidential and conspiratorial.
Kel’Thuzad.
“What the…am I hearing ghosts now?”
Not only hearing them. Seeing them. Or one specific ghost, at least. Kel’Thuzad’s shape slowly formed before his eyes, translucent and hovering, the eyes dark holes. But it was unmistakably him, and the spectral lips curved in a knowing smile.
“I was right about you, Prince Arthas.”
“It took you long enough.” The bass, angry rumble of Tichondrius seemed to come out of nowhere, and the specter—if it had indeed actually been there—disappeared. Arthas was shaken. Had he imagined it? Was he starting to lose his sanity along with his soul?
Tichondrius had not noticed anything and continued, removing the casket and peering disgustedly inside at the nearly-liquefied corpse of Kel’Thuzad. Arthas found the stench more tolerable than he had expected, though it was still horrific. It seemed like a lifetime ago he had struck at the necromancer with his hammer and watched the too-rapid decomposition of the newly dead man. “These remains are badly decomposed. They will never survive the trip to Quel’Thalas.”
Arthas seized on the distraction. “Quel’Thalas?” The golden land of the elves…
“Yes. Only the energies of the high elves’ Sunwell can bring Kel’Thuzad back to life.” The dreadlord’s frown deepened. “And with each moment, he decays further. You must steal a very special urn from the paladin’s keeping. They are bearing it here now. Place the necromancer’s remains within it, and he will be well protected for the journey.”
The dreadlord was smirking. There was more to this than at first was apparent. Arthas opened his mouth to inquire, then closed it. Tichondrius would not tell him anyway. He shrugged, mounted Invincible, and rode where he was told.
Behind him, he heard the demon’s dark laughter.
Tichondrius had been right. Moving slowly along the road, on foot, was a small funeral procession. A military funeral, or one for an important dignitary; Arthas recognized the trappings of such things. Several men in armor marched single file; one man in the center carried something in powerful arms. The faint sun glinted on his armor and upon the item he bore—the urn of which Tichondrius had spoken. And suddenly Arthas understood why Tichondrius had been amused.
The paladin’s carriage was distinctive, his armor unique, and Arthas gripped Frostmourne with hands that had suddenly become slightly unsteady. He forced the myriad, confusing, unsettling sensations down, and ordered his men to approach.
The funeral party was not large, though it was filled with fighters of distinction, and it was an easy matter to completely surround them. They drew their weapons, but did not attack, turning instead for instructions to the man who bore the urn. Uther—for it could be no one else, seemed completely in control as he regarded his former student. His face was impassive, but more lined than Arthas remembered. His eyes, however, burned with righteous fury.
“The dog returns to his vomit,” Uther said, the words cracking like a whip. “I’d prayed you’d stay away.”
Arthas twitched slightly. His voice was rough as he replied, “I’m a bad copper—I just keep turning up. I see you still call yourself a paladin, even though I dissolved your order.”
Uther actually laughed, though it was bitter laughter. “As if you could dissolve it yourself. I answer to the Light, boy. So did you, once.”
The Light. He still remembered it. His heart lurched in his chest and for a moment, just a moment, he lowered the sword. Then the whispers came, reminding him of the power he now bore, emphasizing that walking the path of the Light had not gotten him what he craved. Arthas gripped Frostmourne firmly once more.
“I did many things, once,” he retorted. “No longer.”
“Your father ruled this land for fifty years, and you’ve ground it to dust in a matter of days. But undoing and destruction is easy, isn’t it?”
“Very dramatic, Uther. Pleasant as this is, I’ve no time to reminisce. I’ve come for the urn. Give it to me, and I’ll make sure you die quickly.” No sparing this one. Not even if he begged. Especially not if he begged. There was too much history between them. Too much—feeling.
Now Uther showed emotion other than anger. He stared at Arthas, aghast. “This urn holds your father’s ashes, Arthas! What, were you hoping to piss on them one last time before you left his kingdom to rot?”
A sudden jolt went through Arthas.
Father—
“I didn’t know what it held,” he murmured, as much to himself as to Uther. So this was the second reason the dreadlord had smirked as he had given Arthas his instructions. He, at least, had known what the urn contained. Test after test. Could Arthas fight his mentor…could he blaspheme his father’s ashes. Arthas was growing sick of it. He harnessed that anger as he spoke, dismounting and drawing Frostmourne.
“Nor does it matter. I’ll take what I came for one way or another.”
Frostmourne was almost humming now, in his mind and in his hand, eager for the battle. Arthas settled into attack position. Uther regarded him for a moment, then slowly lifted his own glowing weapon.
“I didn’t want to believe it,” he said, his voice gruff, and Arthas realized with horror that tears stood in Uther’s eyes. “When you were younger and selfish, I called it a child’s failing. When you pushed on stubbornly, I dismissed it as a youth’s need to move out from under his father’s shadow. And Stratholme—aye, Light forgive me, even that—I prayed you would find your own path to see the error of your judgment. I could not stand against my liege’s son.”
Arthas forced a smile as the two began to circle each other. “But now you do.”
“It was my last promise to your father. To my friend. I would see his remains treated with reverence, even after his own son brutally slaughtered him, unaware and unarmed.”
“You’ll die for that promise.”
“Possibly.” It didn’t seem to bother Uther much. “I’d rather die honoring that promise than live at your mercy. I’m glad he’s dead. I’m glad he doesn’t have to see what you’ve become.”
The remark…hurt. Arthas hadn’t expected it to. He paused, emotions warring within him, and Uther, ever the better in their bouts, used that brief hesitation to charge forward. “For the Light!” he cried, pulling the hammer back and swinging it at Arthas with all his strength. The gleaming weapon arced at Arthas so swiftly he could hear the sound of its movement.
He leaped aside, barely in time, and felt the air brush his face as the weapon rushed past. Uther’s expression was calm and focused…and deadly. It was his duty as he saw it to slay the betraying son, and stop the spread of evil.
Just as Arthas knew it was his duty to slay the man who had once mentored him. He needed to kill his past…all of his past. Or else it would forever reach out with the deceptively sweet hope of compassion and forgiveness. With an incoherent cry, Arthas brought Frostmourne down.
Uther’s hammer blocked it. The two men strained, their faces within inches of each other, the muscles in their arms shaking with effort, until with a grunt Uther shoved Arthas backward. The younger man stumbled. Uther pressed the attack. His face was calm, but his eyes were fierce and resolute, and he seemed to fight as if his victory was inevitable. The utter confidence shook Arthas. His own blows were powerful, but erratic. He’d never been able to best Uther before—
“It ends here, boy!” Uther cried, his voice ringing. Suddenly to Arthas’s horror the paladin was limned in a glowing, brilliant light. Not just his hammer, but his entire body, as if he himself was the true weapon of the Light that would strike Arthas down. “For the Light’s justice!”
The hammer descended. All the air in Arthas’s body was knocked out of him with a rush as the blow landed straight and true across his midsection. Only his armor saved him, and even that crumpled beneath the glowing hammer wielded by the holy, radiant paladin. Arthas went sprawling, Frostmourne flying from his grip, agony shooting through him as he struggled to breathe, struggled to rise. The Light—he had turned his back on it, had betrayed it. And now it was exacting retribution through Uther the Lightbringer, its greatest champion, infusing his old teacher with the purity of its brilliance and purpose.
The glow enveloping Uther increased, and Arthas grimaced in agony as the Light seared his eyes as well as his soul. He’d been wrong to forsake it, horribly wrong, and now its mercy and love had been transformed into this radiant, implacable being. He stared upward into the white light that was Uther’s eyes, tears filling his own as he awaited the killing blow.
Had he grasped the sword without realizing it, or had it leaped into his hands of its own volition? In the swirling mental chaos that was that moment, Arthas could not tell. All he knew was that suddenly, his hands were closing on Frostmourne’s hilt, and its voice was in his mind.
Every Light has its shadow—every day has its night—and even the brightest candle can be snuffed out.
And so can the brightest life.
He let out a gulping inhalation, sucking breath into his lungs, and for just a second, Arthas saw the Light enveloping Uther dim. Then Uther lifted the hammer again, ready to deal the killing blow.
But Arthas was not there.
If Uther was a bear, enormous and powerful, Arthas was a tiger, strong and coiled and swift. The hammer, strong and Light-blessed though it and its weilder might be, was not a fast weapon, nor was Uther’s style of fighting. Frostmourne, however, though it was an enormous two handed runeblade, seemed to almost be able to fight on its own.
He moved forward again, no hesitancy this time, and began to fight in earnest. He gave no quarter as he attacked Uther the Lightbringer; offered no moment’s breathing space for the paladin to draw back the weapon to deliver a crushing blow. Uther’s eyes widened with shock, then narrowed in determination. But the Light that had once surged so brightly from his powerful frame was diminishing with each passing second.
Diminishing before the power granted to him by the Lich King.
Again and again Frostmourne landed—here on the hammer’s glowing head, here on the shaft, here on Uther’s shoulder, in that narrow space between gorget and shoulder pauldrons, biting deep—
Uther grunted and staggered back. Blood poured from the wound. Frostmourne craved more, and Arthas wanted to give it more.
Snarling like a beast, his white hair flying, he pressed the attack. The hammer, great and glowing, fell from Uther’s nerveless fingers as Frostmourne nearly severed the arm. A blow dented Uther’s breastplate; a second in the same spot cleaved it and tore at the flesh beneath. Uther’s tabard, the blue and gold of the Alliance he had once fought for, fluttered to the snow-covered earth in pieces as Uther the Lightbringer fell heavily to his knees. He looked up. His breathing came with difficulty. Blood trickled from his mouth, seeping into his beard, but there was no hint of surrender on his face.
“I dearly hope that there’s a special place in hell waiting for you, Arthas.” He coughed, the blood bubbling up.
“We may never know, Uther,” Arthas said coldly, lifting Frostmourne for the final blow. The sword nearly sang in anticipation. “I intend to live forever.”
He brought the runeblade straight down, through Uther’s throat, silencing the defiant words, piercing the great heart. Uther died almost immediately. Arthas tugged the blade free and stepped back, shaking. Surely, it was only from the release of tension and exultation.
He knelt and picked up the urn. He held it for a long moment, then slowly broke the seal and tipped the jar over, pouring out its contents. The ashes of King Terenas fell like gray rain, like plagued flour, drifting down onto the snow. Abruptly, the wind shifted. The gray powder that was all that was left of a king suddenly took flight, as if animated, whirling to shower the death knight. Startled, Arthas took a step backward. His hands automatically came up to shield his face, and he dropped the urn, which landed with a dull thunk on the ground. He shut his eyes and turned away, but not quickly enough, and began to cough violently, the ashes acrid and choking. Abruptly, panic seized him. His gauntleted hands came up to swipe at his face, trying to wipe off the fine powder that clogged his throat and nose and stung his eyes. He spat, and for a moment his stomach roiled.
Arthas took a deep breath and forced calm upon himself. A moment later, he rose, composed once again. If he felt anything at all, he had locked it so deep he did not know it. Stone-faced, he returned to the wagon that bore the reeking, nearly liquid remains of Kel’Thuzad and shoved it at one of the Scourge.
“Put the necromancer in here,” he ordered.
He mounted Invincible.
Quel’Thalas was not far.
During the six days it took to reach the high elven lands, Arthas spoke with the shade of Kel’Thuzad and gathered many, many more to his side.
From Andorhal eastward he went, the meat wagons grinding along in his wake, past the little hamlets of Felstone Field, Dalson’s Orchard, and Gahrron’s Quickening, across the Thondroril River into the eastern part of Lordaeron. Risen plague victims were everywhere, and a simple mental command brought them to heel like faithful hounds. Care of them was easy—they fed on the dead. It was very…tidy.
These Arthas was expecting to come to his side; the plague victims, the abominations sewn together of many parts, the ghosts of the fallen. But a new ally joined him—one that startled, appalled, and then delighted him.
His army was halfway to Quel’Thalas when he first saw them. Far in the distance, it first appeared as if the earth itself was moving. No, that wasn’t right. These were beasts, of a sort. Cattle or sheep, that had broken out of their pens when their owners turned into the walking dead? Bears or wolves, foraging and feasting on corpses? And then Arthas gasped and grasped Frostmourne tightly, his eyes wide with shock and disbelief.
They did not move like four-legged creatures. They scuttled, scurried, moving over the hills and grasses like—
“Spiders,” he murmured.
Now they poured down the slopes, purple and black and dangerous-looking, multiple legs scurrying quickly to bear them to Arthas. They were coming for him—they—
“These are the new warriors the Lich King sends to his favored one,” came Kel’Thuzad’s voice. The ghost apparently could be heard and seen only by Arthas, and he had been doing a great deal of talking in the last few days. He had recently focused on sowing the seeds of suspicion in the death knight’s mind. Not of himself—of Tichondrius and the other demons. “The dreadlords cannot be trusted,” he had said. “They are the Lich King’s jailors. I will tell you all…when I walk this world again.”
They had had enough time; Arthas wondered if Kel’Thuzad was dangling the information in front of him like bait, to ensure that Arthas completed the task.
Now Arthas asked, “He sent these…to me? What are they?”
“They once were nerubians,” Kel’Thuzad said. “Descendants of an ancient and proud race called the aqir. In life, they were fiercly intelligent, their will dedicated to wiping out any who were not like themselves.”
Arthas eyed the arachnid creatures with a shiver of disgust. “Lovely. And now?”
“Now, these are those who fell battling the one we serve. He has raised them and their lord, Anub’arak, into undeath, and now they come to aid you, Prince Arthas. To serve his glory and yours.”
“Undead spiders,” Arthas mused. They were huge, hideous, deadly. They came chittering and scuttling, merging into step with the corpses, specters, and abominations. “To fight the elves of Quel’Thalas.”
This Lich King, whomever he was, had a flair for the dramatic.
Arthas’s coming, of course, was witnessed. The elves bred notoriously fine scouts. Chances were by the time Arthas himself noticed them, word had already gone ahead. It didn’t matter. The force he had assembled had grown to a truly impressive size, and he had no doubt, despite Kel’Thuzad’s fretful warnings, that he would be able to gain entry into the wondrous, eternal land, move through it swiftly, and reach the Sunwell.
They had captured a prisoner, a young priest who in an act of defiance had inadvertently revealed some important information. Arthas would use the information wisely and well. Too, there was another, one who, unlike the priest, would willingly betray his people and their land for the power that Arthas and the Lich King had promised him.
It surprised the death knight how readily this elven mage had turned. Surprised, and unsettled him. Arthas had once been loved by his people, as his father before him had been. He had enjoyed basking in the warm approval from those who served under him. He had taken time to learn their names, to listen to stories of their families. He had wanted them to love him. And they had, following him loyally, as Captain Falric had done.
But Arthas had to assume that the elven leaders, too, loved their people. Assumed, as Arthas assumed, that they would stay loyal. And yet this mage had betrayed his people for nothing more than the mere promise of power, the simple, glittering allure of it.
Mortals could be corrupted. Mortals could be swayed, or bought.
He looked over his current army and smiled. Yes…this was better. There was no question of loyalty when those he led could do nothing but obey.
“It is true,” the scout gasped. “All of it.”
Sylvanas Windrunner, Ranger-General of Silvermoon, knew this elf well. Kelmarin’s information was always accurate and detailed. She listened, wanting to disbelieve, knowing she did not dare.
They had all heard the rumors, of course. That some sort of plague had begun to creep across the human lands. But the quel’dorei had thought themselves safe here in their homeland. It had withstood attacks from dragons, orcs, and trolls over the centuries. Surely, what was occurring in the human lands would not touch them.
Except it had.
“You are sure it is Arthas Menethil? The prince?”
Kelmarin nodded, still catching his breath. “Aye, my lady. I heard him called so by those who served him. I do not think the rumors painting him as the slayer of his father and the instigator of the troubles in Lordaeron are exaggerations, from what I have seen.”
Sylvanas listened, her blue eyes widening, as the scout spun a tale that sounded too fantastical to be believed. Risen corpses, both fresh and desiccated. Enormous, mindless patchwork creations of various body parts; strange beasts who could fly and looked like stone creations come to life; giant spiderlike beings that reminded her of tales of the thought-vanished aqir. And the smell—Kelmarin, who was not given to exaggeration, spoke in halting tones about the reek that preceded the army. The forests, the first bastion of defense of the land, were falling beneath the strange engines of war he had brought with him. Sylvanas thought back to the red dragons, which had set the woods aflame not so very long ago. Silvermoon had endured, of course, but the woodlands had suffered terribly. As they were suffering now….
“My lady,” Kelmarin finished, lifting his head and giving her a stricken gaze. “If he breaks through—I do not think we have the numbers to defeat him.”
The bitter statement gave her the anger she needed. “We are quel’dorei,” she snapped, straightening. “Our land is impregnable. He will not enter. Do not fear. He must first know how to break the enchantments that protect Quel’Thalas. Then he must be able to do so. Better and wiser foes than he have tried to take our realm ere now. Have faith, my friend. In the Sunwell’s strength…and in the strength and will of our people.”
As Kelmarin was led off to where he could drink and eat and recover before returning to his post, Sylvanas turned to her rangers. “I would see this human prince for myself. Summon the first battle units. If Kelmarin is correct…we should prepare for a preemptive strike.”
Sylvanas lay atop the great gate that, along with the jagged ring of mountains, helped protect her land. She wore full but comfortable leather armor, and her bow was slung across her back. She and Sheldaris and Vor’athil, the other two scouts who had gone on ahead and had waited for her to come with the bulk of the rangers, stared, aghast. As Kelmarin had warned, they had smelled the reek of the decaying army long before they had seen them.
Prince Arthas rode atop a skeletal horse with fiery eyes, a huge sword that she recognized at once as a runeblade strapped to his back. Humans in dark clothing scurried to obey his commands. So did the dead. Sylvanas choked back bile as her gaze roved over the collection of various rotting corpses, and she was silently thankful that the wind had shifted and was now blowing the stench away from her.
She signaled her plan, long fingers moving quickly, and the scouts nodded. They slipped back, silent as shadows, and Sylvanas turned her eyes toward Arthas. He did not seem to have noticed anything. He looked human, still, though pale, and his hair was white instead of golden, as she recalled it had been described to her. How then, could he stand this? Being surrounded by the dead—the horrible stench, the grotesque images…
She shuddered and instructed herself to focus. The undead who obeyed him simply stood, awaiting orders. The humans—necromancers, Sylvanas thought, a wave of loathing rushing through her—were too busy creating new monstrosities to post lookouts. They could not conceive of defeat.
Their arrogance would be their undoing.
She waited, watching, until her archers were in position. Forewarned by Kelmarin, she had summoned fully two thirds of her rangers. She believed firmly that Arthas could not breech the magical elfgates that protected Quel’Thalas. There was too much he could not possibly know about them to do so. Still…she had also not believed things that her eyes now told her was truth. Better to wipe out the threat here and now.
She glanced at Sheldaris and Vor’athil. They caught her gaze and nodded. They were ready. Sylvanas yearned to simply strike, to take the enemy unawares, but honor forbade it. There would be no tales sung of how Ranger-General Sylvanas Windrunner defended her homeland by underhanded means.
“For Quel’Thalas,” she whispered underneath her breath, and then stood.
“You are not welcome here!” she cried, her voice clear and musical and strong. Arthas turned his skeletal steed—Sylvanas spared a moment to pity the poor beast—and faced her, peering at her intently. The necromancers fell silent, turning to their lord, awaiting instructions.
“I am Sylvanas Windrunner, Ranger-General of Silvermoon. I advise you to turn back now.”
Arthas’s lips—gray, she noticed, gray in a white face, although she knew somehow he yet lived—curled back in a smile. He was amused.
“It is you who should turn back, Sylvanas,” he said, deliberately omitting her title. His voice would have been a pleasant baritone had it not been underscored by…something. Something that made even her fierce heart stop for a moment as she heard it. She forced herself not to shiver. “Death itself has come to your land.”
Her blue eyes narrowed. “Do your worst,” she challenged. “The elfgate to the inner kingdom is protected by our most powerful enchantments. You shall not pass.”
She nocked her bow—the signal for the attack. An instant later, the air was filled with the sudden hum of dozens of arrows in flight. Sylvanas had taken aim for the human—or once-human—prince, and her aim was as true as ever. The arrow sang as it sped toward Arthas’s unprotected head. But an instant before it struck, she saw a flash of blue-white.
Sylvanas stared. More swiftly than she could fathom, Arthas had brought up his sword, the runes in it emitting that cold blue-white glow, and sliced the arrow in two. He grinned at her and winked.
“To battle, my troops—slay them all, that they may serve me and my lord!” Arthas cried. His voice echoed with that strange thrum of power. She growled deep in her throat and took aim again. But he was in motion now, the dead horse bearing him with unnatural swiftness, and she realized that his horrific troops were on the offensive now.
She thought of a swarm of insects as they converged, perfect in their mindless unity, upon her rangers. The archers had their instructions—cut down the living first, and then dispatch the dead with arrows set aflame. The first volley of arrows dropped nearly every single one of the cultists. The second saw dozens of blazing arrows embedded in the walking corpses. But even as they stumbled about, some of them almost tinder-dry, others moist and rotting, the sheer number of them began to turn the tide.
They somehow managed to scramble up the nearly-vertical walls of earth and stone where her rangers were positioned. Some of them, mercifully, were too decayed to get far, their rotting limbs ripping from their bodies and causing them to fall. But the fall did not halt them. They pressed onward, upward, toward her rangers who now had to wield swords instead of arrows. They were trained warriors, of course, and could fight in close quarters. Fight against foes who could be slowed by the loss of blood, or limbs. But against these—
Dead hands, more like claws than fingers, reached out to Sheldaris. Grim faced, the red-haired ranger fought fiercely, her lips moving in cries of defiance that Sylvanas could not hear. But they were closing in on her, ringing her, and Sylvanas felt a deep pain as she watched Sheldaris fall beneath them.
She drew and fired, drew and fired, almost quicker than thought, focusing on her duty. Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of the grotesque winged creatures, its skin gray and appearing as hard as stone, swoop down within ten feet of her. Its batlike face snarled in glee as it reached down and, as easily as she might pluck ripe fruit from the tree, snatched Vor’athil and bore him aloft. Its fingers dug deeply into the scout’s shoulders, and blood spattered on Sylvanas as the thing swooped upward with its prize.
Vor’athil struggled in the creature’s grasp, his fingers finding and freeing a dagger. Sylvanas turned her aim from the groaning undead below her to the monstrosity above. She fired, right at the creature’s neck.
The arrow glanced off harmlessly. The creature tossed its head and snarled, tiring of toying with Vor’athil. It lifted one hand and raked its claws across the scout’s throat, then dropped him carelessly and circled back for more.
Grieving silently, Sylvanas watched her friend fall lifeless to the earth, his body striking the pile of dead cultists her rangers had slain moments earlier.
And then she gasped.
The cultists were moving.
Arrows protruding from their bodies, sometimes over a dozen brightly fletched missiles in a single corpse, and yet they stirred.
“No,” she whispered, sickened. Her horrified gaze went to Arthas.
The prince was looking straight at her, grinning that damnable grin. One powerful, gauntleted hand grasped the runeblade. The other was lifted in a beckoning gesture, and as she watched, yet another slain human stirred and shambled to its feet, pulling out the arrow from its eye as if it were plucking a burr from its clothing. Her attack had cost Arthas nothing. Any who fell would be raised by his dark magic. He saw the realization and the anger in her eyes, and the grin turned into a laugh.
“I did try to tell you,” he cried, his voice rising above the din of battle. “And still you provide me with new recruits….”
He gestured again, and another body twitched as it was hauled upward and forced to stand on its feet. A body that had been slender but muscular, with long black hair swept back in a ponytail, with tanned skin and pointed ears. Blood still ran in red rivulets from the four scores in its throat, and the head bobbed erratically, as if the neck had been too badly damaged to support it much longer. Dead eyes that had once been blue as summer skies sought out Sylvanas. And then, slowly at first, it began to move toward her.
Vor’athil.
At that moment she felt the gate beneath her shudder, ever so slightly. So distracted had she been by the slaughter and reanimation of things that ought to stay dead that she had not noticed his siege engines maneuvering into position. The ogre-sized things that appeared to be comprised of various different corpses were battering away at the gate as well. So were the enormous, spiderlike creatures.
Then something hit the wall with a soft, plopping sound. Wetness spattered Sylvanas. For a fraction of a second, her mind refused to accept what she had just witnessed, and then clarity broke upon her.
Arthas was not only raising the corpses of the fallen elves. He was hurling their bodies—or pieces of them—back at Sylvanas as ammunition.
Sylvanas swallowed hard, then issued the order that a few moments ago she never would have dreamed she would utter.
“Shindu fallah na! Fall back to the second gate! Fall back!”
Those who were left—ai, piteous few there were still, at least still alive and fighting under her command—obeyed at once, gathering up the wounded and slinging them over their shoulders, their faces pale and sweat-streaked and reflecting the same forcibly contained terror that raced through her. They fled. There was no other word for it. This was no orderly, synchronized, martial retreat, but an all-out flight. Sylvanas ran with the rest of them, bearing the wounded as best she could, and her mind was racing.
Behind her she heard the once-inconceivable sound of the gate cracking and the roar of the undead as they howled their triumph. Her own heart seemed to crack in agony.
He had done it—but how? How?
His voice, strong, resonant, with that undercurrent of something dark and terrible, rose over the noise. “The elfgate has fallen! Onward, my warriors! Onward to victory!”
Somehow, to Sylvanas, the worst, most awful thing about that gleeful, gloating cry was the…affection…that laced through it.
She seized the sleeve of a young man racing beside her. “Tel’kor,” Sylvanas cried. “Make for the Sunwell Plateau. Tell them what we have seen here. Tell them—to be prepared.”
Tel’kor was young enough to let disappointment flicker over his handsome features at the thought of not standing to fight, but he nodded his golden head in comprehension. Sylvanas hesitated.
“My lady?”
“Tell them—we may have been betrayed.”
Tel’kor blanched at that, but nodded. Like an arrow shot from a bow, he raced away. He was a good archer, but Sylvanas did not suffer any illusion that one more bow would make a difference in the battle that was to come. But if the magi who controlled and directed the Sunwell’s energies knew what they faced—that might.
They were racing northward now, and as her troops crossed a bridge she suddenly stopped in mid-run, whirled on her heel, and looked back.
Sylvanas gasped. That Arthas and his dark army were coming, she expected to see. That would have been a horrific enough sight; the undead, the abominations, the flying batlike things, the grotesque spidery beings—hundreds, bearing down with implacable determination. What she did not expect to see was what they left in their wake.
Like a trail left by a slug, like a furrow left by a plow, the land where the undead feet had trod was blackened and barren. Worse; Sylvanas remembered the burned woods the orcs had left behind, knew that nature would eventually reclaim it. This—it was a horrible dark line of death, as if the unnatural energies that were used to propel the corpses forward were killing the very earth upon which they shambled. Poison, they were poison, it was dark magic of the foulest kind.
And it had to be stopped.
She had paused only an instant, although to her it felt as though she had been frozen in place for a lifetime. “Hold!” she cried, her voice clear and strong and purposeful. “We will make our stand here.”
They were puzzled only briefly, then they understood. Quickly she spoke instructions, and they leaped to obey. Many of them paused, shocked, as they caught their first stunned glimpse of the grievous wound to the land that had so horrified their ranger-general, but they recovered quickly. Time enough to worry about healing the brutalized earth later. For now, they had to stop that dreadful scar from spreading.
The stench preceded the army, but Sylvanas and her rangers now had a grim familiarity with it. It did not unnerve them as it had before. She stood on the bridge, her head held high, her black hood slipping a little to show bright golden hair. The army of the dead slowed and halted, confused by the sight. The ugly wagons, catapults, and trebuchets rumbled to a halt. Arthas’s skeletal horse reared, and he reached down and stroked the bony neck as if it were a living beast. Sylvanas felt a shiver of nausea at the wrongness of the tableau as the thing responded to its master’s touch.
“Goodness,” Arthas said, humor lacing the word with something akin to warmth. “This can’t be one of the oh-so-imposing elfgates I’ve heard so much about.”
Sylvanas forced herself to grin back. “No, not quite. But you’ll still find it a challenge.”
“It is but a simple bridge, my lady. But then again, the elves are very fond of putting paper manes on cats and calling them lions.”
She eyed his army for a moment, her anger penetrating her forced smugness. “You’ve won through this gate, butcher, but you won’t get through the second. The inner gate to Silvermoon can only be opened with a special key, and it shall never be yours!”
She nodded to her companions, and they raced across the bridge to join their fellows on the other side.
Arthas’s humor faded and his pale eyes flashed. His gauntleted hand tightened on the runeblade. Its markings thrummed. “You waste your time, woman. You cannot outrun the inevitable. Though I admit it is amusing to watch you scurry.”
Now Sylvanas did laugh, an angry, satisfied sound that rolled up from some place deep in her soul. “You think I’m running from you? Apparently you’ve never fought elves before.”
Some things, she mused, were deliciously simple. Sylvanas lifted her hand, threw the extremely non-magical, quite practical incendiary device, then turned to run as the bridge exploded. The trees welcomed them, arching above them in hues of gold and silver, hiding them from their enemy. Before she faded from earshot, she heard something that made her grin fiercely.
“The ranger woman is starting to vex me greatly.”
Yes. Vex you. Harry you like a sparrow does the hawk. The Elrendar bisects Eversong Woods, and you will find no crossing for your monstrous engines of war any time soon. She knew it was a delay, nothing more. But if the army was delayed long enough, perhaps she could get a message through.
Worry fluttered at her mind. Arthas had seemed supremely confident that he would be able to defeat the magic that powered the elfgates. He had already shown some knowledge in that he had been able to destroy the first gate. Of course, the first gate was not as magically defended as the second. And, from what she had seen, arrogance seemed to be his normal state, but—was it possible? The nagging uncertainty that had prompted her to add a final warning to Tel’kor’s message to the magi stirred within her again.
Did Arthas know about the key?
The traitor, a wizard by the name of Dar’Khan Drathir, should have made it easy. And to some extent he had, of course. Arthas would otherwise never have known about the Key of the Three Moons—a magical item that had been split into three separate mooncrystals stashed in heavily-guarded, hidden locations throughout Quel’Thalas. Each temple was constructed on an intersection of ley lines, similar to the Sunwell itself, the traitorous elf had told him, gleeful to be betraying his people so. The ley lines were like blood vessels of the earth, carrying magic instead of scarlet fluid. Thus interconnected, the crystals created a field of energy known as Ban’dinoriel—the Gatekeeper. All he needed to do was find these sites at An’telas, An’daroth, and An’owyn, slay the guards, and find the mooncrystals.
But the excessively pretty, surprisingly tough elves presented a challenge. Arthas sat astride Invincible, idly fingering Frostmourne, and reflected on how it was that so fragile-seeming a race could stand up to his army. For army now it truly was—many hundreds of soldiers, all already dead and so more difficult to permanently dispatch.
The ranger-general’s clever little trick of blowing up the bridge had indeed cost Arthas precious time. The river ran through Quel’Thalas until it bumped up against several foothills to the east—foothills that posed the same challenge to the mobility of his engines of war that the water did.
It had taken a while, but eventually they had crossed the river. As he pondered the solution, something had twinged at the back of his mind, a tingling sensation he couldn’t quite figure out. Annoyed, he dismissed the strange sensation and instructed several of his unfailingly loyal soldiers to create their own bridge—a bridge made of rotting flesh. Dozens of them waded into the river and simply lay there, forming layer upon layer of corpses, until there were enough of them that the meat wagons, catapults, and trebuchets could make their lurching way across. Some of the undead, of course, were no longer of use, their bodies too broken or torn to hold cohesion. These Arthas almost gently released from his control, granting them true death. Besides, their bodies would foul the purity of the river. It was an additional weapon.
He, of course, could and did cross easily. Invincible plunged without hesitation into the water, and Arthas was abruptly reminded of the horse’s fatal jump in the middle of winter, slipping on the icy rocks as he leaped, utterly obedient to the will of his master then as now. The memory crashed on him unexpectedly, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe as pain and guilt washed over him.
It was gone as quickly as it had come. Everything was better now. He was no longer an emotionally shattered child, racked by guilt and shame, sobbing in the snow as he lifted his sword to pierce the heart of a loyal friend. No, nor was Invincible a mere living creature, to be harmed by such a thing. They were both more powerful now. Stronger. Invincible would exist forever, serving his master, as he had always done. He would not know thirst, or pain, or hunger, or exhaustion. And he, Arthas, would take what he wished when he wished it. There was no more silent disapproval from his father, no more scolding from the too-pious Uther. No more dubious glances from Jaina, her brow furrowed in that dearly familiar expression of—
Jaina…
Arthas shook his head sharply. Jaina had had her chance to join with him. She had refused. Denied him, although she had sworn she would never do so. He owed her nothing. Only the Lich King commanded him now. The mental shift calmed him, and Arthas smiled and patted the jutting vertebrae of the undead beast, who tossed his bony head in response. Surely, it was the beautiful and willful ranger-general who had unsettled him and made him question, even momentarily, the wisdom of his path. She, too, had had her chance. Arthas had come for a purpose, and that purpose had not been to obliterate Quel’Thalas and its populace. Had they not resisted him, he would have let them be. Her sharp tongue and defiant behavior had brought her people’s doom upon them, not he.
The water seeped in through the joins of his armor and the breeches, shirt, and gambeson he wore beneath the metal plate grew wet and cold. Arthas did not feel it. A moment later Invincible surged forward, clambering out onto the opposite bank. The last of the meat wagons rumbled onto the bank as well, and what corpses were sufficiently intact slogged onto land. The rest lay where they had fallen, the once-crystal clear water flowing over and around them.
“Onward,” the death knight said.
The rangers had retreated to Fairbreeze Village. Once the shock had passed, the citizens did everything they could, from tending the wounded to offering what weapons and skills they had. Sylvanas ordered those who could not fight to head to Silvermoon as quickly as possible.
“Take nothing,” she said as a woman nodded and hurried to ascend the ramp to an upper area.
“But our rooms upstairs have—”
Sylvanas whirled, her eyes flaring. “Do you not yet understand? The dead are marching upon us! They do not tire, they do not slow, and they take our fallen and add them to their ranks! We have delayed them, little more. Take your family and go!”
The woman seemed taken aback by the ranger-general’s response, but obeyed, wasting only a few moments rounding up her family before hastening down the road to the capital.
Arthas would not be stopped for long. Sylvanas cast a sweeping, appraising glance over the wounded. None of them could stay here. They, too, would need to be evacuated to Silvermoon. As for those who were still hale, few though they were, she would need to ask yet more from them. Perhaps everything they had. They, like she, had sworn to defend their people. Now was the day of reckoning.
There was a spire close by, between the Elrendar and Silvermoon. Somehow, she felt certain Arthas would find a way to cross and continue his march. Continue to wound the land with the purplish-black scar. The spire would be a good place to mount a defense. The ramps were narrow, preventing the crush of undead that had been so disastrous previously, and there were several stories to the building, all open to the air. She and her archers could do a great deal of damage before they were—
Sylvanas Windrunner, Ranger-General of Silvermoon, took a calming breath, dashed water on her heated face, drank a deep draft of the soothing liquid, and rose to prepare the uninjured and walking wounded for what would no doubt be their final battle.
They were almost too late.
Even as the rangers marched on the spire that would be their bastion, the air, once so sweet and fresh, was tainted with the sickly odor of putrefaction. Overhead, mounted archers hovered on their dragonhawks. The great creatures, golden and scarlet, stretched their serpentine heads against the reins unhappily. They, too, scented death, and it disturbed them. Never had the beautiful beasts been pressed into such a ghastly service. One of the riders signaled Sylvanas, and she signaled back.
“The undead have been sighted,” she told her troops calmly. They nodded. “Positions. Hurry.”
Like a well-oiled gnomish machine, they obeyed. The dragonhawk riders surged south, toward the approaching enemy. A unit of archers and hand-to-hand fighters hurried forward as well, the first line of defense. Her finest archers raced up the curving ramps of the spire. The rest spread out at the base of the structure.
They did not have long to wait.
If she had harbored any faint hope that somehow the numbers of the enemy might have suffered from the delay, it was dashed like fine crystal falling to a stone floor. She could glimpse the hideous vanguard now: rotting undead, followed by skeletons and the huge abominations whose three arms each carried massive weapons. Above them flew the stonelike creatures wheeling like buzzards.
They are breaking through….
How strange the mind was, Sylvanas thought with a trace of macabre humor. Now, as the hour of her death doubtless approached, an ancient song played in her head; one she and her siblings had loved to sing, when the world was right and they were all together, Alleria, Vereesa, and their youngest brother, Lirath, at twilight when soft lavender shadows spread their gentle cloaks and the sweet scent of the ocean and flowers wafted across the land.
Anar’alah, anar’alah belore, quel’dorei, shindu fallah na…. By the light, by the light of the sun, high elves, our enemies are breaking through….
Without her realizing it at first, her hand fluttered upward to close on the necklace she wore about her slender throat. It had been a gift, from her oldest sister, Alleria; delivered not by Alleria herself, but in her stead by one of her lieutenants, Verana. Alleria was gone, vanished through the Dark Portal in an attempt to stop the Horde from visiting their atrocities again on Azeroth and on other worlds as well.
She had never returned. She had melted down a necklace given to her by their parents, and made individual necklaces out of the three stones for each of the Windrunner sisters. Sylvanas’s was a sapphire. She knew the inscription by heart: To Sylvanas. Love always, Alleria.
She waited, grasping the necklace, feeling the connection with her dead sister it always provided, then slowly forced her hand away. Sylvanas took a deep breath and shouted, “Attack! For Quel’Thalas!”
There would be no stopping them. In truth, she did not expect to stop them. From the expressions on the grim, bloodied faces around her, Sylvanas realized her rangers knew this as well as she. Sweat dewed her face. Her muscles screamed with exhaustion, and still Sylvanas Windrunner fought. She fired, nocking and releasing and nocking again so swiftly that her hands were almost a blur. When the swarm of corpses and monsters came too close for arrows, she flung her bow away and seized her short sword and dagger. She whirled and turned and stabbed, crying out incoherently as she battled.
Another one fell, its head toppling from its shoulders to be trampled, bursting open like a melon beneath the feet of one of its own. Two more monstrocities surged forward to take its place. Still Sylvanas fought like one of the savage lynxes of Eversong Woods, channeling her pain and outrage into violence. She would take as many with her as she could before she fell.
They are breaking through….
They pressed in, close, the reek of decay almost overwhelming her. Too many of them now. Sylvanas did not slow. She would fight until they had utterly destroyed her, until—
The press of corpses suddenly was gone. They stepped back and stood still. Gasping for breath, Sylvanas looked down the hill.
He was there, waiting on his undead steed. The wind played with his long white hair as he regarded her intently. She straightened, wiping blood and sweat from her face. A paladin, he had been once. Her sister had loved one such as him. Suddenly Sylvanas was fiercely glad that Alleria was dead, could not see this, could not see what a former champion of the Light was doing to everything the Windrunners loved and cherished.
Arthas lifted the glowing runeblade in a formal gesture. “I salute your bravery, elf, but the chase is over.” Oddly, he sounded like he meant the compliment.
Sylvanas swallowed; her mouth was dry as bone. She tightened her grip on her weapons. “Then I’ll make my stand here, butcher. Anar’alah belore.”
His gray lips twitched. “As you will, Ranger-General.”
He did not even bother to dismount. Instead the skeletal steed whinnied and galloped straight toward her. Arthas gripped the reins with his left hand, his right drawing back the massive sword. Sylvanas sobbed, once. No cry of fear or regret came from those lips. Only a short, harsh sob of impotent anger, of hatred, of righteous fury that she was not able to stop them, not even when she had given all she could, not even with her life’s blood.
Alleria, sister, I come.
She met the deadly blade head-on, striking it with her own weapons, which shattered upon impact. And then the runeblade had pierced her. Cold, so cold it was, slicing through her as if it was made of ice itself.
Arthas leaned in to her, his gaze locked with hers. Sylvanas coughed, fine droplets of blood spattering his bone-pale face. Was it her imagination, or was there a hint of regret on his still-fine features?
He tugged back his weapon and she fell, blood gushing out of her. Sylvanas shivered on the cold stone floor, the movement causing agony to rip through her. One hand fluttered, foolishly, to the gaping wound in her abdomen, as if her hands could close on it and stop the flood.
“Finish it,” she whispered. “I deserve…a clean death.”
His voice floated to her from somewhere as her eyes closed. “After all you’ve put me through, woman, the last thing I’ll give you is the peace of death.”
Fear spiked in her for a heartbeat, then faded as everything else was beginning to. He would raise her, as one of those grotesque shambling things?
“No,” she murmured, her voice sounding as if it came from a long way off. “You wouldn’t…dare….”
And then it went away. It all went away. The coldness, the stench, the searing pain. It was soft and warm and dark and calm and comforting, and Sylvanas permitted herself to sink into the welcoming darkness. At last she could rest, could lay down the arms she had borne for so long in service to her people.
And then—
Agony shot through her, agony such as she had never known, and Sylvanas suddenly knew that no physical pain she had ever endured could hold a pale candle to this torment. This was an agony of the spirit, of her soul leaving her lifeless form and being trapped. Of a…ripping, tearing, yanking back from that warm sanctuary of silence and stillness. The violence of the act added to the exquisite torment, and Sylvanas felt a scream welling up, forcing its way from deep inside, past lips that somehow she knew were no longer physical, a deep keening wail of a suffering that was not hers alone, that froze blood and stopped hearts.
The blackness faded from her vision, but colors did not return. She did not need reds or blues or yellows to see him, though, her tormentor; he was white and gray and black even in a world with color. The runeblade that had taken her life, had taken and consumed her soul, glittered and gleamed, and Arthas’s free hand was lifted in a beckoning gesture as he ripped her from the soothing embrace of death.
“Banshee,” he told her. “Thus I have made you. You can give voice to your pain, Sylvanas. I will give you that much. It is more than the others get. And in so doing, you shall cause pain to others. So now you, troublesome ranger, shall serve.”
Terrified beyond reason, Sylvanas hovered over her bloodied, broken corpse, gazing into her own staring eyes, then back at Arthas.
“No,” she said, her voice hollow and eerie, yet still recognizably hers. “I will never serve you, butcher.”
He gestured. It was the merest thing, a twitch of a gauntleted finger. Her back arched in agony and another scream was torn from her, and she realized with a racking, raging sense of grief that she was utterly powerless before him. She was his tool, as the rotting corpses and the pale, reeking abominations were his tools.
“Your rangers serve as well,” he said. “They are now in my army.” He hesitated, and there was genuine regret in his voice when he said, “It did not have to be this way. Know that your fate, theirs, and that of your people, rests upon your choices. But I must press on to the Sunwell. And you will assist me.”
The hate grew inside Sylvanas like a living thing in her incorporeal body. She floated beside him, his shiny new toy, her body gathered up and flung on one of the meat wagons to who knew what sick end Arthas could devise. As if there was a thread that bound her to him, she never was more than a few feet away from the death knight.
And she was beginning to hear the whispers.
At first, Sylvanas wondered if she was insane in this new, abhorrent incarnation. But it soon became apparent that even the refuge of the mad was denied her. The voice in her mind was unintelligible at first, and in her wretched state she did not wish to hear. But soon she understood to whom it belonged.
Arthas kept giving her sidelong glances as he continued his inexorable march to Silvermoon and beyond, watching her closely. At one point, as this army of which she was a captive part surged forward, destroying the land as it passed, she heard it very clearly.
For my glory, you will serve, Sylvanas. For the dead, you will toil. For obedience, you will hunger. Arthas is the first and most beloved of my death knights; he will command you forever, and you will find it joyous.
Arthas saw her shiver, and he smiled.
If she had thought she despised him when she first beheld him outside the gates of Quel’Thalas, when the wondrous land within was still clean and pure and had not known the killing touch; if she had thought she hated him as his minions slew her people and raised them to become lifeless puppets, and when he impaled her in a single, savage blow with the monstrous runeblade—it was as nothing to what she felt now. A candle to a sun, a whisper to a banshee’s scream.
Never, she told the voice in her head. He directs my actions, but Arthas cannot break my will.
The only answer was hollow, cold laughter.
On they pushed, past Fairbreeze Village and the East Sanctum. At the gates of Silvermoon itself they halted. Arthas’s voice should not have carried as it did, but Sylvanas knew that it was heard in every corner of the city as he stood in front of the gates.
“Citizens of Silvermoon! I have given you ample opportunities to surrender, but you have stubbornly refused. Know that today, your entire race and your ancient heritage will end! Death itself has come to claim the high home of the elves!”
She, Ranger-General Sylvanas Windrunner, was paraded in front of her people as an example of what would happen to them if they did not surrender. They did not, and she loved them fiercely for it even as she was pressed into service by her dark master.
And so it fell, the shining, beautiful city of magic, its glories shattered and reduced to rubble as the army of undead—the Scourge, she heard Arthas call them, twisted affection in his voice—pressed on. As he had before, Arthas raised the fallen to serve, and if Sylvanas had still possessed a heart, it would have broken at the sight of so many friends and loved ones shambling beside her, mindlessly obedient. On through the city they marched, cleaving it in twain with the vile purple-black scar, its citizens lurching to their feet with wounds that had smashed skulls, or trailing viscera behind them as they shambled forward.
She had hoped the channel between Silvermoon and Quel’Danas would prove an impassable barrier, and for a moment that hope seemed realized. Arthas drew rein, staring at the blue water glinting in the sun, and frowned. For a moment he sat atop his unnatural steed, his white brows knitted together. “You cannot fill this channel with corpses, Arthas,” Sylvanas had gloated. “Not even the whole city would be enough. You are stopped here, and your failure is sweet.” And then the being who had once been human, who had once by all accounts been a good man, turned and grinned at her blistering words of defiance, sending her into a paroxysm of agony and wrenching another soul-splitting scream from her incorporeal lips.
He had found a solution.
He cast Frostmourne toward the shore, watching it almost rapturously as it flipped end over end to land with its tip impaled in the sand.
“Frostmourne speaks….”
Sylvanas heard it, too, the voice of the Lich King emanating from the unholy weapon as before her shocked gaze the water lapping at its rune-inscribed blade began to turn to ice. Ice that his weapons, and his warriors, could cross.
He took her life, he took her beloved Quel’Thalas and Silvermoon, then he took her king before the final violation.
They had resisted, on Quel’Danas, resisted with all they had in them. When Anasterian appeared before Arthas, his fiery magics wreaked havoc on the death knight’s icy bridge, but Arthas recovered. He frowned, his eyes flashing, drew Frostmourne, and bore down upon the elven king.
Even as she hoped desperately that Anasterian would defeat Arthas, Sylvanas knew he would not. Three millennia rested upon those shoulders; the white hue of hair that fell almost to his feet was due to age, not dark magics. He had been a powerful fighter once, and was still a powerful mage, but to her new, spectral sight, there was a frailty about him she had not seen when she breathed. Still, he stood, his ancient weapon, Felo’melorn, “Flamestrike,” in one hand, a staff with a powerful, glittering crystal in the other.
Arthas struck, but Anasterian was no longer standing in front of the charging steed. Somehow, faster than Sylvanas could see, he was kneeling, swinging Felo’melorn in a clean horizontal strike across the horse’s forelegs, severing both of them. The horse shrieked and fell, its rider with it.
“Invincible!” Arthas cried, seeming stricken as the undead horse rolled and tried to get to its feet while missing its two forelegs. It seemed an odd battle cry to Sylvanas, considering Anasterian had just gained an advantage. But the face Arthas turned toward the elven king was full of naked rage and pain. He looked almost human now; a human male seeing something he loved in torment. He scrambled to his feet, glancing back distractedly at the horse, and for a wild moment Sylvanas thought maybe, just maybe—
The ancient elven weapon was no match for the runeblade, as Sylvanas knew it would not, could not be. It snapped as the blades clashed, the severed piece whirling away crazily as Anasterian fell, his soul ripped from him and consumed by the glowing Frostmourne, as had been so many others.
He sprawled on the ice, limp, blood pooling beneath him, white hair spread out like a shroud, while Arthas rushed to the undead horse and mended its severed legs, patting the bones while it pranced and nuzzled at him. And Sylvanas, although she knew it would harm those she still loved, could not carry the weight of the pain and anguish and sheer burning hatred of Arthas and all he had done. Her head fell back, her arms spreading as her mouth opened, and a cry, beautiful and terrible at once, was torn from an insubstantial throat.
She had cried out before, as he had tortured her. But that was only her own pain, her own despair. This was so much more. Torment, agony, yes, but more than that, a hatred so profound as to be almost pure. She heard other cries of pain mingling with hers, saw elves dropping to their knees clutching ears that began to bleed. Their voices and their spells were stopped, changed from words of magic to incoherent cries of raw grief and startled pain. Some of them fell, their armor shattering and breaking off of them in jagged shards; their very bones breaking beneath their flesh.
Even Arthas stared at her for a moment, his white brows drawn together in an appraising gesture. She wanted to stop. She wanted to silence herself, muffle this cry of destruction that only served he whom she hated so passionately. At last it wore down beneath her pain, and Sylvanas, banshee, fell sickly silent.
“What a fine weapon you are indeed,” Arthas murmured. “And mayhap you will be a double-edged sword. I will be watching you.”
The horrible army pressed on. Arthas reached the plateau. He reached it, and slew those who guarded the Sunwell, and forced her to participate in the slaughter. And then he visited the ultimate horror upon her people, marching up to the glorious pool of radiance that had sustained the quel’dorei for millennia. Beside it, waiting for him, stood a figure Sylvanas recognized—Dar’Khan Drathir.
So it had been he who had betrayed Quel’Thalas. He who, even more than Arthas, had the blood of thousands upon his well-manicured hands. Fury raged through her. She watched the glow she knew to be golden play upon Arthas’s features, softening them and lending them an artificial warmth. Then he upended the contents of an exquisitely crafted urn into the waters, and the radiance changed. It began to pulse and swirl, and inside the swirling center of the damaged magical glow—
—a shadow—
Even after all she had witnessed this dark day, even after what she had become, Sylvanas was stunned at what emerged from the befouled Sunwell, rising and lifting its arms to the skies. A skeleton, horned and grinning, its eye sockets burning with fire. Chains snaked around it and purple vestments fluttered with its movements.
“I am reborn, as promised! The Lich King has granted me eternal life!”
It had all been for this? To raise this single entity? All the slaughter, the torment, the terror; the unspeakably precious and vital Sunwell corrupted, a way of life that had lasted for thousands of years shattered—for this?
She stared sickly at the cackling lich, and the only thing that gave her even a hint of surcease from the agony was watching Dar’Khan, who had attempted to betray his master as he had betrayed his people, dying, as she had done, from Frostmourne’s keen edge.
The cold wind tousled Arthas’s white hair, caressed his face, and he smiled. It was good, to be again in the colder part of this world. The elven land, with its eternal early summer, heavy with the scents of blossoms and growth, had made him uneasy. It reminded him too much of the gardens of Dalaran, where he had spent so much time with Jaina; of the snapdragons of the Balnir farm. Better the wind, to scour him clean, and the coldness, to quell those memories. They no longer served him, but weakened him, and there was no room for weakness in the heart of Arthas Menethil.
He was, as ever, atop his loyal horse, Invincible. He had had a bad moment in Quel’Thalas, when that bastard king Anasterian had cowardly attacked an innocent steed rather than its rider, severing its legs in the same way that in life had caused Invincible’s death. The incident had catapulted Arthas back in time to those horrible moments, shaking him to the core and in the case of the battle with Anasterian, unleashing an icy rage that in the end had served him well. Before and behind him, his army marched through the snowy pass, untiring, unaffected by the cold. Somewhere in among their ghastly number floated a banshee. Arthas would let Sylvanas be, for the moment. He was more interested in Kel’Thuzad, who glided beside him almost serenely, if such a word could ever be applied to a lich. He was the one who had directed the Scourge to this remote, frozen place, and Arthas had until now not questioned. But the trek was getting boring, and he was curious. The prince felt a smile curve his lips.
“So,” he quipped, “you’re not upset about me killing you that one time?”
“Don’t be foolish,” the undead necromancer replied. “The Lich King told me how our encounter would end.”
That surprised Arthas. “The Lich King knew that I would kill you?” He frowned, glancing down at the blade that stretched across his lap. It was silent now, dormant. No whispers came from it, nor did the runes pulse with power.
“Of course,” Kel’Thuzad responded, a hint of superiority in his sepulchral voice. “He chose you to be his champion long before the Scourge even began.”
Arthas’s unease deepened. No one had asked him, or even told him about his destiny. But would he have embraced it, had he known? No, he decided. He did not like being manipulated, but he knew that he had had to be tempered if he was to be a formidable weapon. He had to go step by step to his fate, otherwise he would have rejected it. He would then still be with Jaina and Uther and his father would—
“If he’s so all knowing, then how can the dreadlords control him like they do?”
“They are agents of the one who created our master: the fiery lords of the Burning Legion.”
The words sent a shiver through Arthas. Burning Legion. Two words only, but the power they promised was heady, somehow. In his lap, Frostmourne flickered.
“It is a vast demonic army that has consumed countless worlds beyond our own.” Kel’Thuzad’s voice was almost hypnotic, and Arthas shut his eyes for a moment. Behind the closed lids, scenes played out in his mind as the lich spoke. He saw a red sky arcing over a red world. Over a ridge poured a wave of creatures. They ran like hounds, but no natural beasts were they—they had fearsome jaws crammed with teeth, and strange tentacles sprouting from their shoulders. Stones crashed to the earth, leaving trails of green fire, to come to life as animated rock that marched on their foes.
“Now, it comes to set this world to the flame. Our master was created to pave the way for its arrival. The dreadlords were sent to make sure he succeeded.”
The scene in Arthas’s mind shifted. He was looking at an ornate carved gateway. He knew it to be the Dark Portal, although he had never seen it with his own eyes. It radiated green fire, and a host of demons were clustered around it. Arthas shook his head and the vision evaporated.
“So the plague in Lordaeron, the citadels in Northrend, the slaughtering of the elves…it was all just to prepare for some huge demonic invasion?”
“Yes. In time, you will find that our entire history has been shaped by the coming conflict.”
Arthas pondered this. Frostmourne was definitely awakening, and he removed the gauntlet from his right hand to caress it. Cold, bone cold it was, so cold that even his death knight’s hand, which had been tempered for such a task, ached as he touched it. He felt the whispers again, and smiled.
“There is more, lich, is there not?” he asked, turning to regard Kel’Thuzad. “You have said that the dreadlords imprison our master. Tell me now.”
Not possessing flesh any longer, Kel’Thuzad had no facial expressions with which to betray his emotions. But Arthas knew by the slight hunching of the undead’s form that he was uncomfortable. Nonetheless, he spoke.
“The first phase of the Lich King’s plan was to engineer the Scourge, which would eradicate any group that might resist the Legion’s arrival.”
Arthas nodded. “Like the forces of Lordaeron…and the high elves.” He felt a vague knot in the pit of his stomach, but dismissed it.
“Exactly. The second phase is to actually summon the demon lord who will spark the invasion.” The lich lifted a bony finger and pointed in the direction in which they traveled. “There is a nearby encampment of orcs who maintain a functional demon gate. I must use the gate to commune with the demon lord and receive his instructions.”
Arthas sat quietly atop Invincible for a moment. His mind went back to when he had fought orcs alongside Uther the Lightbringer at Strahnbrad. He recalled the orcs had performed human sacrifices to their demon lords. He and Uther had both been disgusted and appalled. Arthas himself had been so infuriated that Uther had had to lecture him on not fighting with rage in his heart. “If we allow our passions to turn to bloodlust, then we will become as vile as the orcs,” Uther had chided.
Well, Uther was dead, and while Arthas was still killing orcs, he was now working with demons. A muscle twitched near his eye.
“What are we waiting for?” he snapped, and urged Invincible into a gallop.
The orcs fought bravely, but in the end, it was futile, as all attempts to halt the Scourge would be futile. Arthas galloped forward, Invincible leaping nimbly over fallen orc bodies. He regarded the gate for a long moment. Three stone slabs, strangely elegant for so brutal a race. Erected nearby, though, were huge animal bones that glowed a dull red hue. In the confines outlined by the slabs of stone, green energy swirled sluggishly. A passage to another world. Jaina would be intrigued—but too horrified to pursue her curiosity. That was what made her weak.
It…was what made her Jaina….
“The brutes have been slain,” Arthas spat. “The demon gate is yours, lich.”
The skeletal form shivered with delight, floating forward and lifting his arms imploringly. Steps led up to the archway; Arthas noticed that the lich did not ascend any of them. He stood at the bottom, out of respect—or out of a more pragmatic desire to avoid harm. Arthas hung back, watching intently from atop Invincible.
“I call upon thee, Archimonde! Your humble servant seeks an audience!”
The green mist continued to swirl. Then, Arthas realized he could make out a shape—features—that were both like and unlike the dreadlords he was more familiar with.
The being had what Arthas guessed to be blue-gray skin, though with the green light tingeing him, it was difficult to be certain. There was no question, however, that the demon’s body was powerful, with a mighty barrel chest, large, strong arms, and a lower body that seemed to be shaped like that of a goat—Archimonde’s legs curved back, ending in a pair of cloven hooves instead of feet. A tail twitched, perhaps belying Archimonde’s calm, in-control demeanor. Arms, shoulders, and legs were encased in golden, gleaming armor adorned with shapes of skulls and spikes. Twin tentacles, long and thin, dangled from his chin. But the most arresting feature of his elongated face were his eyes, which glowed a sickly green color that was brighter and more compelling than the green mist that whirled about him. Even though Archimonde was not yet here, not yet physically in this world, Arthas was not unmoved by the demon’s presence.
“You called my name, puny lich, and I have come,” said the demon, his voice resonant and seeming to vibrate along Arthas’s very bones. “You are Kel’Thuzad, are you not?”
Kel’Thuzad bowed his horned head. He was all but groveling, Arthas noted. “Yes, great one. I am the summoner. I beg of you, tell me how I may expedite your passage into this world. I exist only to serve.”
“There is a special tome you must find,” the demon lord intoned. His gaze flickered to Arthas, examined him for a moment, then dismissed him. Arthas found himself growing annoyed. “The only remaining spellbook of Medivh, the Last Guardian. Only his lost incantations are powerful enough to bring me into your world. Seek out the mortal city of Dalaran. It is there that the tome is kept. At twilight, three days from now, you will begin the summoning.”
The image disappeared. Arthas stared at where it had been for a long moment.
Dalaran. The greatest concentration of magic, other than Quel’Thalas, in Azeroth.
Dalaran. Where Jaina Proudmoore had trained. Where Jaina still would probably be. A flicker of pain blinked through him for an instant.
“Dalaran is defended by the most powerful magi in Azeroth,” he said slowly to Kel’Thuzad. “There is no way to hide our approach. They will be prepared for us.”
“As Quel’Thalas was?” Kel’Thuzad laughed, a hollow sound. “Think how easily this army crushed them. They will do the same there. Besides, remember—I was a member of the Kirin Tor, and close to Archmage Antonidas. Dalaran was my home, when I was nothing more than mortal flesh. I know its secrets, its protective spells, ways to slip inside they never thought to properly guard. It is sweet, to be able to visit terror upon those who would have seen me abandon my path and my destiny. Do not fear, death knight. We cannot fail. No one, no thing, can stop the Scourge.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Arthas caught movement. He turned and beheld the floating spirit that had once been Sylvanas Windrunner. She had obviously been listening to the entire conversation and seen his reaction to his new orders.
“This talk of Dalaran moves you,” she said archly.
“Silence, ghost,” he muttered, despite himself remembering the first time he had entered the gates of Dalaran as escort to Jaina. The innocence of that time was almost impossible for him to conceive of anymore.
“Someone there you care for, perhaps? Pleasant memories?”
The damned banshee would not let up. He surrendered to his anger, lifted a hand, and she writhed in pain for a moment before he released her.
“You will say no more of this,” he warned. “Let us be about our task.”
Sylvanas was silent. But on her pale, ghostly face was a savage smirk of satisfaction.
“I can help.” Jaina’s voice was calm, calmer than she actually expected it to sound. She stood with her master, Antonidas, in his familiar, loved, wonderfully disorganized study, gazing at him intently. “I’ve learned so much.”
The archmage stood gazing out the window, his hands clasped loosely behind his back, as if he were doing nothing more serious than looking down at students at practice.
“No,” he said quietly. “You have other duties.” He turned to regard her then, and her heart sank at the expression on his face. “Duties I…and Terenas, Light rest his soul…both shirked. Because of his refusal to listen to that strange prophet, he ended up murdered by his son, and his kingdom lies in ruins, inhabited only by the dead.”
Even now, Jaina cringed at the statement. Arthas…
It was still so hard to believe. She had loved him so much…loved him still. Her constant prayer, silent and known only to her, was that he was under some sort of influence he could not resist. Because if he had done all this of his own will—
“I, too, was asked, and I, too, had the arrogance to assume I knew best. And so, my dear, here we are. We all must live—or die—with our decisions.” Antonidas smiled sadly. Her eyes stung with tears she blinked back and refused to shed.
“Let me stay. I can—”
“Keep safe those you have promised to take care of, Jaina Proudmoore,” Antonidas said, a hint of sternness creeping into his voice and mien. “One more or one less here…will make no difference. Others look to you now.”
“Antonidas…” Her voice broke on the word. She rushed toward him, flinging her arms around him. She had never dared embrace him before; he had always intimidated her far too much. But now, he looked…old. Old, and frail, and worst of all, resigned.
“Child,” he said affectionately, patting her back, then chuckled. “No, you are a child no longer. You are a woman and a leader. Still…you had best go.”
From outside a voice rang out, strong and clear and familiar. Jaina felt as though she had been struck. She gasped in sickened recognition, pulling back from her mentor’s embrace.
“Wizards of the Kirin Tor! I am Arthas, first of the Lich King’s death knights! I demand that you open your gates and surrender to the might of the Scourge!”
Death knight? Jaina turned her shocked gaze to Antonidas, who gave her a sad smile. “I would have spared you the knowing…at least for now.”
She reeled with the knowledge. Arthas…here…
The archmage strode to the balcony. A slight flutter of age-gnarled hands, and his own voice was as magnified as Arthas’s had been.
“Greetings, Prince Arthas,” Antonidas called down. “How fares your noble father?”
“Lord Antonidas,” Arthas replied. Where was he? Right outside? Would she see him if she stepped beside Antonidas on the balcony? “There’s no need to be snide.” Jaina turned her head away and wiped at her eyes. She struggled to speak, but the words seemed to stick in her throat.
“We’ve prepared for your coming, Arthas,” Antonidas continued calmly. “My brethren and I have erected auras that will destroy any undead that pass through them.”
“Your petty magics will not stop me, Antonidas. Perhaps you’ve heard what happened in Quel’Thalas? They thought themselves invulnerable as well.”
Quel’Thalas.
Jaina thought she might be sick. She had been here in Dalaran when word had come, from a handful of survivors who had managed to escape, about what had happened to Quel’Thalas. So too had been the quel’dorei prince. She had never seen Kael’thas so—so angry, so shattered, so raw. She had gone to him, words of compassion and comfort on her lips, but he whirled and gazed at her with such a look of fury that she instinctively drew back.
“Say nothing,” Kael had snarled. His fists clenched; she could see, to her shock, that he was barely restraining himself from physically harming her. “Foolish girl. This is the monster you would take to your bed?”
Jaina blinked, stunned at the crudeness of the words coming from one so cultured. “I—”
But he was not interested in hearing anything she had to say. “Arthas is a butcher! He has slaughtered thousands of innocent people! There is so much blood on his hands that a whole ocean could never wash them clean. And you loved him? Chose him over me?”
His voice, normally so mellifluous and controlled, cracked on the last word. Jaina felt quick tears come to her eyes as she suddenly understood. He was attacking her because he could not attack his real enemy. He felt helpless, impotent, and was striking out at the nearest target—at her, Jaina Proudmoore, whose love he had wanted and failed to win.
“Oh…Kael’thas,” she said softly, “he has done…terrible things,” she began. “What your people have suffered—”
“You know nothing of suffering!” he cried. “You are a child, with a child’s mind and a child’s heart. A heart that you would give to that—that—he slaughtered them, Jaina. And then he raised their corpses!”
Jaina stared at him mutely, his words having no sting now that she knew the reason for them. “He murdered my father, Jaina, just as he murdered his own. I—I should have been there.”
“To die with him? With the rest of your people? What good would throwing your life away do for—”
No sooner had the words left her lips than she realized that it was the wrong thing to say. Kael’thas tensed and cut her off sharply.
“I could have stopped him. I should have.” He straightened, and coldness suddenly chased away the fire in him. He bowed low, exaggeratedly. “I will be departing Dalaran as soon as possible. There is nothing for me here.” Jaina winced at the emptiness, the resignation in his voice. “I was a fool of the greatest order to ever think any of you humans could aid me. I will leave this place of doddering old magi and ambitious young ones. None of you can help. My people need me to lead now that my father—”
He fell silent and swallowed hard. “I must go to them. To what pathetically few remain. To those who have endured, rebirthed by the blood of those who now serve your beloved.”
He had stalked off then, fury etched in every line of his tall, elegant body, and Jaina had felt her own heart ache with his pain.
And now, he was here; Arthas was here, at the head of the army of the undead, a death knight himself. Antonidas’s voice startled her out of her reverie and she blinked, trying to return to the present moment.
“Pull your troops back, or we will be forced to unleash our full powers against you! Make your choice, death knight.” Antonidas stepped back from the balcony and turned to regard Jaina. “Jaina,” he said in his normal voice, “we will be erecting teleportation-blocking barriers momentarily. You must go before you are trapped here.”
“Maybe I can reason with him…maybe I can…” She fell silent, hearing the unrealistic wanting in her own voice. She hadn’t even been able to stop him from murdering innocents in Stratholme, or going to Northrend when she was certain it was a trap. He’d not listened to her then. If Arthas was indeed under some dark influence, how could she dissuade him now?
She took a deep breath and stepped back, and Antonidas nodded softly. There was so much she wanted to say to this man, her mentor, her guide. But all she could do was give him a shaky smile, now, as he fought what they both knew would likely be his last battle. She found she couldn’t even say good-bye to him.
“I’ll take care of our people,” she said thickly, cast the teleportation spell, and disappeared.
The first part of the battle was over, and Arthas had gotten what he had come for. Arthas had obtained the requested spellbook of Medivh. It was large and curiously heavy for its size, bound in red leather with gold binding. Across its front was an exquisitely tooled black raven, its wings outspread. The book still had Antonidas’s blood on it. He wondered if that would make it more potent.
Invincible shifted beneath him, stamping a hoof and shaking his neck as if he still had flesh that could be irritated by flies. They were on a hilltop overlooking Dalaran, whose towers still caught the light and gleamed in hues of gold and white and purple while its streets ran with blood. Many of the magi who had fought him hours before stood beside him now. Most of them were too badly damaged to be of use other than as fodder to throw at attackers, but some…some could still be used, the skills they had in life harnessed to serve the Lich King in death.
Kel’Thuzad was like a child on Winter Veil morning. He was perusing the pages of Medivh’s spellbook, thoroughly engrossed with this new toy. It irritated Arthas.
“The circle of power has been prepared per your instructions, lich. Are you ready to begin the summoning?”
“Nearly,” the undead thing replied. Skeletal fingers turned a page of the book. “There is much to absorb. Medivh’s knowledge of demons alone is staggering. I suspect that he was far more powerful than anyone ever realized.”
A blackish-green swirl had begun manifesting as Kel’Thuzad spoke, and Tichondrius appeared as he finished. Arthas’s irritation deepened as the dreadlord spoke with his usual arrogance. “Not powerful enough to escape death, that is for certain. Suffice to say, the work he began, we will finish…today. Let the summoning commence!”
And that quickly, he was gone. Kel’Thuzad floated into the circle. The space was marked out by four small obelisks. In their center, a glowing circle with arcane markings had been etched. Kel’Thuzad bore the book with him, and once he fluttered into position, the lines of the circle flared to glowing purple life. At the same moment, there was a spitting, crackling sound and eight pillars of flame sprang up about him. Kel’Thuzad turned to gaze back at Arthas with glowing eyes.
“Those who yet live within Dalaran will be able to sense the power of this spell,” Kel’Thuzad warned. “I must not be interrupted or we will fail.”
“I’ll keep your bones safe, lich,” Arthas assured him.
As Kel’Thuzad had promised, it had been comparatively easy to enter Dalaran, slay those who had erected specific spells against them, and take what they had come for. Arthas had even been able to kill Archmage Antonidas, the man he had once thought so very powerful.
If Jaina had been there, he felt certain that she would have confronted him. Appealed to what they had once had, as she had done before. She would have had no better luck now than she had then, except—
He was glad he did not have to fight her.
Arthas’s attention suddenly snapped back to the present. The gates were opening, and Arthas’s gray lips curved in a grin. Previously, the Scourge had had the element of surprise on their side. Yes, many powerful magi lived in Dalaran at all times. But there was no trained militia, nor were all the magi of the Kirin Tor in Dalaran. But they had had several hours, and they had not been idle.
They had teleported in an army.
Good. A solid fight was just what he needed to drive distracting thoughts of Jaina Proudmoore and the youth he had once been to the back of his mind.
He lifted Frostmourne, feeling it tingle in his hand, hearing the soft voice of the Lich King caress his thoughts.
“Frostmourne hungers,” he told his troops, pointing the sword at the armor-clad defenders of the great mage city. “Let us sate its appetite.”
The Scourge army roared, Sylvanas’s anguished wail rising above the cacophony, causing Arthas to grin even more. Even in death, even though she obeyed his commands, she defied him, and he relished forcing her to attack those she would have preferred to defend. Invincible gathered himself beneath his rider and surged forward at a full gallop, whinnying.
Some of his ghastly troops stayed behind to defend Kel’Thuzad, but most of them accompanied their leader. Arthas recognized the livery of many of those whom the Kirin Tor had teleported in to defend the city. Friends they had once been, but that was all in the past, as irrelevant to him as yesterday’s weather. It was getting easier now, to feel nothing but satisfaction as Frostmourne, glowing and all but singing as it feasted upon souls, rose and fell, cutting through plate as easily as flesh.
After the first wave of soldiers fell, raised to serve in the Scourge or abandoned where they had fallen as of no use, a second one came. This one had magi with them, clad in the purple robes of Dalaran with an embroidered symbol of the great Eye upon them. But Arthas, too, had additional aid.
The demons, it would seem, wished to protect their own.
Giant stones screamed down from the sky, their tails streaks of fel green fire. The earth shook where they struck, and from the craters caused by their impact climbed what looked like stone golems, held together and directed by the sickly green energy.
Arthas glanced over his shoulder. Kel’Thuzad hovered, his arms spread, his horned head thrown back. Energy crackled and coursed from him, and a green orb began to form. Then, abruptly, the lich lowered his arms and stepped out of the circle.
“Come forth, Lord Archimonde!” Kel’Thuzad cried. “Enter this world and let us bask in your power!”
The green orb pulsed, expanding, growing taller and glowing yet more brightly. Suddenly a pillar of fire shot skyward, and several answering lightning bolts crackled down outside the circle. And then, where there had been nothing, a figure stood—tall, powerful, graceful in its own dark and dangerous way. Arthas returned his attention to the battlefield. A retreat sounded—clearly the magi, at least, had seen what was transpiring, and their troops wheeled their mounts and galloped back toward the safety—temporary though Arthas suspected it to be—of Dalaran. Even as they fled, a deep, resonant voice cut through the sound of battle.
“Tremble, mortals, and despair! Doom has come to this world!”
Arthas held up his hand, and with that simplest of gestures the swarm of Scourge halted and retreated as well. As he galloped back to Kel’Thuzad, eyeing the giant demon lord all the while, Tichondrius teleported in. As usual, after all the danger had passed.
The dreadlord made a deep obeisance. Arthas drew rein some distance away, preferring to observe.
“Lord Archimonde, all the preparations have been made.”
“Very well, Tichondrius,” replied Archimonde, giving the lesser demon a dismissive nod. “Since the Lich King is of no further use to me, you dreadlords will now command the Scourge.”
Arthas was suddenly very grateful for all those hours spent in disciplined meditation. It was only that that kept his shock and fury from showing. Even so, Invincible felt the change in him and pranced nervously. He yanked on the reins and the undead beast stilled. The Lich King was of no further use? Why? Who exactly was he, and what had happened to him? What would happen to Arthas?
“Soon, I will order the invasion to begin. But first, I will make an example of these paltry wizards…by crushing their city into the ashes of history.”
He strode off, his body erect and proud and commanding, his hooves landing firmly with each step, his armor gleaming in the rose and gold and lavender of the encroaching twilight. Beside him, still making obeisance, strode Tichondrius. Arthas waited until they were some distance away before he finally whirled on Kel’Thuzad and burst out, “This has got to be a joke! What happens to us now?”
“Be patient, young death knight. The Lich King foresaw this as well. You may yet have a part to play in his grand design.”
May? Arthas whirled on the necromancer, his nostrils flaring, but he tamped back his anger. If anyone—either of the demons or the Lich King himself—thought for one moment that Arthas was a tool to simply be used and then discarded, he would soon show them the error of their thinking. He had done too much—lost too much, cut out too much of himself for this to be cast aside.
It couldn’t all be for nothing.
It would not all be for nothing.
The earth rumbled. Invincible shifted uneasily, lifting his hooves as if to minimize contact with the earth. Arthas glanced up quickly at the mage city. The towers were lovely at this time of day, proud and glorious and glittering in the deepening twilight hues. But as he watched, he heard a deep cracking noise. The apex of the tallest, most beautiful tower in the city suddenly fell, slowly and inexorably, tumbling downward as if the length of the tower had been clenched by a giant, unseen hand.
The rest of the city fell quickly, shattering and crumbling, the sound of destruction loud and thrumming in Arthas’s ears. He winced at the volume, but did not tear his eyes away.
He had instigated the fall of Silvermoon. Had directed his Scourge against it. But this—there was casualness about it, an ease…Silvermoon had been a hard-won prize. Archimonde appeared to be able to shatter the greatest of human cities without even being present.
Arthas thought about Archimonde and Tichondrius. He scratched his chin thoughtfully.
In his lap, Frostmourne glowed.
Kel’Thuzad, Arthas mused as he waited atop the verdant hill for the one he had been assured would come, was a useful lich to have around.
He was utterly loyal to the Lich King, even to the point of convincingly playing the lapdog to Archimonde and Tichondrius while in their presence, if that was what was required to secretly serve. Arthas had opted for silence; he did not trust himself to lie as convincingly as Kel’Thuzad. The two demons had deemed them nonessential. They would soon see how wrong they were. Carelessly they had left the Book of Medivh in the lich’s bony hands. In that mind, too, were spells and magic so powerful that Arthas knew he would never be able to fully grasp their scope.
“The third part of the plan,” Kel’Thuzad had said once the demons were gone, as idly as if he were conversing about the weather, “was the true heart of the Legion’s plot.”
Arthas remembered what Kel’Thuzad had told him earlier. First had been the creation of the Scourge, then the summoning of Archimonde. He listened now with intense interest as Kel’Thuzad continued. “The Legion is after nothing less than the taking of all magic and the devouring of all life upon this world. And to that end, they plan to consume the concentrated, powerful energies contained within the elves’ Well of Eternity. In order to accomplish this, they must destroy the single thing that contains within it the truest, purest essence of life energy on Azeroth. The Well of Eternity lies across the ocean, on the continent of Kalimdor. And the thing that would thwart the Legion is called Nordrassil…the World Tree. It grants the kaldorei immortality, and they are bound to it.”
“Kaldorei?” Arthas was confused. “I know of quel’dorei. Are they another race of elves?”
“The original race,” Kel’Thuzad corrected. He waved a hand dismissively. “But those details are of no consequence. What matters is that we must stop the Legion from achieving this goal. And there is one among the kaldorei who would aid us.”
And so it was that using his magics, Kel’Thuzad had teleported Arthas to this distant continent and this hill that afforded an expansive view. The forests here were lush, healthy, but Arthas could already see what the Legion had wrought in the distance. Where the land, trees, beasts were not dead, they had been corrupted. Devour all life, indeed.
A figure crested another hill below him, and Arthas smiled to himself. This was the one whose arrival he had been awaiting.
They were certainly different, these “night elves.” This one’s skin was pale lavender, etched with swirling tattoos and scars cut into the skin in ritualistic patterns. A black cloth was tied around his eyes, but he appeared to have no difficulty in navigating the terrain. He carried a weapon that resembled nothing Arthas had ever seen. Instead of a traditional sword, which would be grasped by a hilt with a blade extending from it, this weapon had two jagged blades that glowed the sick green hue of something tainted with demonic energies.
So, this one had trafficked with demons before.
Arthas waited a while, observing. The night elf—Illidan Stormrage, Kel’Thuzad had said his name was—raged to himself. Apparently the list of wrongs piled against him was a lengthy one, and he ached for vengeance and power as much as Kel’Thuzad had said he would.
Arthas smiled.
“I am free after ten thousand years, yet still my own brother thinks I am a villain!” Illidan ranted. “I’ll show him my true power. I’ll show him the demons have no hold over me!”
“Are you certain of that, demon hunter?” Arthas said, his voice carrying. The night elf whirled, brandishing his weapon. “Are you certain your will is your own?”
The elf might have been blind in the traditional sense, but Arthas felt seen regardless. Illidan sniffed and growled. “You reek of death, human. You’ll regret approaching me.”
Arthas grinned. He was itching for a good one-on-one fight. “Come then,” he invited. “You’ll find that we’re evenly matched.” Invincible reared and galloped down the hill, as eager for action as his master was. Illidan growled and ran to meet him.
It was almost like a dance, Arthas mused as the two warriors faced each other. Illidan was strong and graceful, his skills demonically enhanced. But Arthas, too, was no mere soldier, nor was Frostmourne an ordinary blade. The fight was fierce and swift; Arthas had been right. They were indeed evenly matched. After too short a time, both combatants fell back, breathing heavily.
“We could go on fighting like this forever,” Illidan said. “What is it you truly want?”
Arthas lowered Frostmourne. “From your muttering earlier, I hear that you and your allies are beset by the undead. The dreadlord who commands this undead army is called Tichondrius. He controls a powerful warlock artifact called the Skull of Gul’dan. It is responsible for corrupting these forests.”
Illidan cocked his head. “And you wish for me to steal it? Why?”
Arthas’s white brows lifted. This one was indeed quick. He deserved a semi-truthful answer, Arthas decided. “Let’s just say that I have no love for Tichondrius, and the lord I serve would…benefit from the Legion’s downfall.”
“Why should I believe anything you say, little human?”
Arthas shrugged. “A fair question. Let me answer. My master sees all, demon hunter. He knows that you’ve sought power your whole life. Now it lies within your grasp!” His gauntleted hand clenched into a fist in front of Illidan’s blindfolded face and, as he expected, the night elf’s head turned toward the gesture. “Seize it, and your enemies will be undone.”
Illidan lifted his head slowly and turned his face to Arthas. He was unsettling, this blind man who could so obviously see. The elf stepped back, nodding thoughtfully. Without another word Arthas turned Invincible’s head around and galloped off.
Kel’Thuzad would summon him back shortly. All had gone according to the Lich King’s plan. He only hoped that Illidan had been as fully obedient as he had seemed. If not…there could be complications.
She was nothing of the living. Nor did she have the power to resist the commands of the one who had brought her screaming into this new existence.
But Sylvanas Windrunner had will. Somehow, Arthas had not broken that. He had done so with others; why was she, seemingly, the only one who had not caved utterly to him? Was it her own strength, or was it because he enjoyed tormenting her? The banshee that she was now would likely never know. But if her will was her own because Arthas found it amusing, she would have the last laugh.
So she had vowed to herself, and Sylvanas always kept her promises.
Time had passed in the world of the living since Arthas Menethil and the Scourge had swept through her beloved homeland. And much had occurred.
Her so-called “master” had objected to being used as a pawn. Together with that arrogant, floating sack of bones, Kel’Thuzad—the one responsible for corrupting the glorious Sunwell—Arthas had conspired against both the dreadlord Tichondrius and the demon lord Archimonde, whom Kel’Thuzad himself had helped usher into Azeroth. Sylvanas had paid keen attention; anything Arthas had to reveal about the way he thought and the way he battled was useful to her.
He had not attempted to slay Tichondrius himself, as he had Mal’Ganis. Oh no, the wily once-human prince had tricked another into doing his dirty work for him. Illidan, the luckless being had been named. Arthas had been able to smell Illidan’s hunger for power and used that against him, goading him into stealing the Skull of Gul’dan, a legendary orcish warlock. To do so, Illidan would have to kill Tichondrius. Arthas would be rid of the demon lord, and Illidan would be rewarded with an artifact to sate his lust for power. Presumably all had gone according to plan. Arthas—and therefore Sylvanas—had heard nothing of Illidan since.
As for Archimonde…so mighty that he had been able to destroy Dalaran, the great mage city, with a single spell, he had fallen to the power of the life he had come here to consume. Sylvanas now hated the living with the same passion the Legion had had, and thus it was with mixed feelings that she learned of his fall. The night elves had sacrificed their immortality to defeat him. The pure, focused power of nature had destroyed the demon from inside, and then the World Tree had surrendered its vast power in a cataclysm that sent out a massive shock wave. And when Archimonde had fallen, his skeleton all that was left, so too had the Legion’s attempt to gain a foothold in this world been defeated.
Sylvanas returned her attention from her reverie to the present, as the name of the late unlamented demon lord caught her ear.
“It’s been months since we last heard from Lord Archimonde,” their leader, Detheroc, said. He stamped his hoof impatiently. “I grow tired of watching over these rotting undead! What are we still doing here?”
They were in what had once been the gardens of the palace, where Arthas had strode so long and so short a time ago to murder his own father and unleash doom on his own people. The gardens, too, were rotting as well as their populace.
“We were charged with overseeing this land, Detheroc,” chided the one named Balnazzar. “It is our duty to remain here and ensure that the Scourge is ready for action.”
“True,” rumbled the third, Varimathras. “Although we should have received some kind of orders by now.”
Sylvanas could hardly believe what she had just heard. She turned to Kel’Thuzad. She despised him as much as she despised the death knight he appeared to serve so willingly, but she hid her dislike well. “The Legion was defeated months ago,” she said quietly. “How could they not know?”
“Impossible to say,” the lich replied. “But the longer they remain in command, the more they run the Scourge into the ground. If something is not—”
He was interrupted by a sound Sylvanas had never expected to hear in this place—the distinctive sound of a gate being battered and broken. Both undead turned at the noise, and the demons growled angrily, instantly alert, black webbed wings flexing.
Sylvanas’s glowing, spectral eyes widened slightly as none other than Arthas himself emerged through the gate. His familiar undead steed all but pranced beneath him. He wore no helm, letting his white hair fall freely about his pale face, and he wore that self-satisfied smirk that Sylvanas so despised. Her insubstantial hands attempted to clench into fists, but such was his control over her that all her fingers could manage was a brief twitch.
Arthas’s voice was resonant and cheerful. “Greetings, dreadlords,” he said. They stared at him, visibly bridling at his insolence. “I should thank you for looking after my kingdom during my absence. However, I won’t be requiring your services any longer.”
For a second, they simply gaped at him. Finally, Balnazzar recovered enough to retort, “This land is ours. The Scourge belongs to the Legion!”
Ah, thought Sylvanas, here it comes.
Arthas’s smirk widened. His voice was positively gleeful. “Not anymore, demon. Your masters have been defeated. The Legion is undone. Your deaths will complete the circle.”
Still grinning, he lifted Frostmourne. The runes along its blade danced and glowed. He tightened the reins and the skeletal horse bore down on the cluster of three demons.
“This isn’t over, human!” Detheroc cried defiantly. The dreadlords were faster than Arthas’s skeletal horse—Frostmourne sang only of frustration as it sliced through empty air. The demons had created a portal and vanished to safety. Arthas scowled, but his good humor returned quickly. Sylvanas realized it was because he had them on the run and their deaths would likely be only a matter of time.
He looked up and caught Sylvanas’s eye, beckoning her to him. She was forced to obey. Kel’Thuzad needed no coercion, floating happily to his master’s side like an obedient cur.
“We knew you would return to us, Prince Arthas!” the lich enthused.
Arthas barely spared his loyal servant a glance. His gaze was fixed on Sylvanas. “My heart is moved,” he said sarcastically. “Did you, too, know I would return, little banshee?”
“I did,” Sylvanas said coldly. It was true; he had to, or else she would never have her chance for revenge. He twitched a finger, demanding more from her, and she gasped as pain shuddered through her. “Prince Arthas,” she added.
“Ah, but you will now address me as king. This is, after all, my land. I was born to rule and I shall. Once the—”
He broke off, inhaling sharply. His eyes widened and then his face contorted in pain. He hunched over the bony neck of his horse, his gauntleted hands clenching hard on the reins. A sharp cry of agony was wrenched from him.
Sylvanas watched, experiencing the most pleasure she had known since that dreadful day when Quel’Thalas had fallen. She drank in his pain like nectar. She had no idea why he was suffering so, but she savored every second of it.
Grunting, he lifted his head. His eyes stared at something she couldn’t see, and he extended an imploring hand toward it. “The pain…is unbearable,” Arthas growled through gritted teeth. “What is happening to me?” He appeared to listen, as if an unheard voice was replying.
“King Arthas!” Kel’Thuzad cried. “Do you need assistance?”
Arthas didn’t reply at once. He gasped for breath, then slowly sat up, visibly composing himself. “No…no, the pain has passed but…my powers…are diminished.” His voice was full of puzzlement. Had Sylvanas still possessed a beating heart, it would have leaped at the words. “Something is terribly wrong here. I—”
The pain took him again. His body spasmed, his head falling back as his mouth opened in a soundless cry of pain, the veins on his neck standing out like cords. Kel’Thuzad fluttered around his adored master like a fussy nursemaid. Sylvanas simply watched coldly until the spasm had passed. Slowly, carefully, he slid off Invincible. His booted feet hit the flagstones, slipped out from under him and he fell, hard. The lich reached out a skeletal hand to help the prince—no, self-styled king—to his feet.
“My old quarters,” gasped Arthas. “I need rest—and then I have a long journey to prepare for.”
Sylvanas watched him go, staggering weakly in the direction of the rooms he had grown up in. She let her lips curve into a smile….
…and the spectral fingers on her hands twitched for a moment, then curled up into angry fists.
It was oddly peaceful in Silverpine. Soft mists swirled gently near the moist, pine-needle-covered earth. Sylvanas knew that if she had possessed physical feet, she would have felt it soft and springy beneath them; would have inhaled a rich evergreen scent from the moist air. But she felt nothing, smelled nothing. She floated, insubstantial, toward the meeting site. And such was her eagerness for the meeting that at this moment she did not regret her lack of senses.
Arthas had enjoyed turning beautiful, proud, strong-willed quel’dorei women into banshees, after his “success” with her. He had given them to she who had been their ranger-general in life, to control and command, tossing her a bone like she was a faithful hound. He would shortly see how faithful a pet she was. After overhearing the dreadlords’ conversation earlier, she had sent one of her banshees after them to speak with them and gather information.
The demons had accepted her emissary with pleasure, and had asked for her mistress to join them tonight to discuss something of “mutual benefit regarding the Banshee Queen’s current status.”
In the depths of the forest, she could see a faint green glow, and floated toward it. Sure enough, they awaited her as they had said they would—three great demons turning to her, their wings flapping and betraying their agitation.
Balnazzar spoke first. “Lady Sylvanas, we are pleased that you came.”
“How could I not?” she responded. “For some reason I no longer hear the Lich King’s voice in my head. My will is my own once again.” It was indeed; and it was purely by that will that she kept the elation from her voice. She did not wish them to know more than she chose. “You dreadlords seem to know why.”
They exchanged glances, their faces curving into smiles. “We’ve discovered that the Lich King is losing his power,” Varimathras said, hellish glee in his voice. “As it wanes, so too does his ability to command undead such as you.”
That was good news indeed, if it were actually true. But it was not specific enough for Sylvanas. “And what of King Arthas?” she pressed, unable to keep a sneer out of her voice as she used the death knight’s title. “What about his powers?”
Balnazzar waved a black-clawed hand dismissively. “He will cease to annoy us, like a summerfly whose time has come and gone. Though his runeblade, Frostmourne, carries powerful enchantments, Arthas’s own powers will fade in time. It is inevitable.”
Sylvanas was not so certain. She, too, had once underestimated Arthas, and along with the cold hatred in her heart, she also bore guilt for her part in his blood-soaked victory. “You seek to overthrow him, and want my help to do it,” she said bluntly.
Detheroc, the one who appeared to be in charge, had stood quietly by while his brothers spoke to Sylvanas. They had been angry and impassioned, but his expression had remained neutral. Now, at last he spoke, in cold tones of utter loathing.
“The Legion may be defeated, but we are the nathrezim. We’ll not let some upstart human get the best of us.” He paused, looking at them each in turn. “Arthas must fall!”
The glowing green gaze settled upon Sylvanas. “As you have been watching us, little ghost, so have we been observing as well. It is obvious that the lich, Kel’Thuzad, is far too loyal to betray his master. There appears to be…affection between the two.” His gray lips curved in a dangerous smile. “But you, on the other hand…”
“Hate him.” She did not think she could hide that truth even if she wanted to, so fiercely did it burn inside her. “We are united in that much, dreadlord. I have my own reasons for seeking vengeance. Arthas murdered my people and turned me into this…monstrosity.” She paused for a moment, the loathing—of both Arthas and what he had done to her—so intense it took away her ability to speak. They waited, patiently, smugly.
They thought they could use her. They would be wrong.
“I may take part in your bloody coup, but I will do so in my own way.” She wanted them as allies, but they needed to know that she would be no toy. “I will not exchange one master for another. If you wish my aid, then you must accept that.”
Detheroc smiled. “We will slay the death knight together, then.”
Sylvanas nodded, and a slow smile crept across her ghostly face.
Your days have numbers, King Arthas Menethil. And I…I am the hourglass.
Arthas rubbed his temple, going over and over the visions he had seen. Always before, communication from the Lich King had come only from Frostmourne. But the instant the crippling pain had struck him, Arthas had actually seen the being he served for the first time.
The Lich King was alone, in the middle of a vast cavern, as imprisoned in the unnatural ice as Frostmourne had been. But this had been no sleek covering of his form. The encasing ice had been fractured, as if someone had broken off a piece and left the jagged remains behind. Obscured by the ice as he was, the Lich King was imperfectly glimpsed, but his voice sliced in the death knight’s mind as he cried out in torment:
“Danger draws near the Frozen Throne! Power is fading…. Time is running out…. You must return to Northrend immediately!” And then, piercing Arthas like a lance in the gut: “Obey!”
Each time it happened, Arthas felt dazed and sick. The power that had pumped through him like adrenaline when he was merely human was receding, taking with it more than it had originally given. He was weak and vulnerable…something he had never once imagined he would be when he first grasped Frostmourne and turned away from everything he thought he believed in. His face was greasy with sweat as he laboriously mounted Invincible and rode to meet Kel’Thuzad.
The lich was waiting for him, hovering, his fluttering robes and general demeanor somehow radiating concern.
“So the seizures have been getting worse?” he asked.
Arthas hesitated. Should he take the lich into his confidence? Would Kel’Thuzad attempt to wrest power from him? No, he decided. The former necromancer had never led him astray. Always, his loyalty was to the Lich King and Arthas himself.
The king nodded. He felt like his head would come off with the gesture. “Yes. With my powers drained, I can barely command my own warriors. The Lich King warned me that if I didn’t reach Northrend soon, all could be lost. We must depart quickly.”
If it was possible for blazing, empty eye sockets to exude worry, then Kel’Thuzad’s did so now. “Of course, Your Majesty. You have not and will not be forsaken. We will depart as soon as you believe you are—”
“There’s been a change of plans, King Arthas. You’re not going anywhere.”
It was evidence of his weakening powers that he had not even sensed them. Arthas stared, utterly taken by surprise as the three dreadlords surrounded him.
“Assassins!” cried Kel’Thuzad. “It’s a trap! Defend your king from those—”
But the sound of a gate slamming shut drowned out the lich’s call to action. Arthas drew Frostmourne. For the first time since he had touched, had bonded with the sword, it felt heavy and almost lifeless in his hands. The runes along its blade barely gleamed at all, and it felt more like a lump of metal than the well-balanced, beautiful weapon it had always been.
The undead rushed at him, and for a wild moment Arthas was catapulted back in time to his first encounter with the walking dead. He was again standing outside the little farmhouse, assaulted by the stench of decay and almost numbed with horror as things that should have been dead attacked him. He had long since moved past any horror or repugnance at their existence; indeed, he had come to think of them with affection. They were his subjects; he had cleansed them of life, to serve the great glory of the Lich King. It was not that they moved, or fought; it was that they fought him. They were utterly under the control of dreadlords. Grimly, using all the strength he yet possessed, he fought them back, a strange, sickening sensation filling him. He had never expected they would turn on him.
Over the sounds of the conflict, Balnazzar’s voice reached Arthas, the tone gloating. “You should never have returned, human. Weakened as you are, we have assumed control over the majority of your warriors. It seems your reign was short-lived, King Arthas.”
Arthas gritted his teeth and from somewhere deep inside him dredged up more energy, more will to fight. He would not die here.
But there were so many of them—so many that he had once nearly effortlessly directed and commanded, now turning implacably against him. He knew they were mindless, that they would obey whoever was the strongest. And yet somehow…it hurt. He’d made them….
He was growing increasingly weak, and at one point was even unable to block a blow directly to his midsection. The dull sword clanged against his armor, and he suffered no major wound, but that the ghoul had gotten past his defenses alarmed him.
“There are too many of them, my king!” Kel’Thuzad’s sepulchral voice said, the tenor of loyalty in it bringing unexpected tears to Arthas’s eyes. “Flee—escape from the city! I’ll find my way out and meet you in the wilderness. It is your only chance, my liege!”
He knew the lich was right. With a cry, Arthas clumsily dismounted. A wave of his hand and Invincible became insubstantial, a ghost horse instead of a skeletal one, and disappeared. Arthas would summon him again when he was safely away. He charged, gripping the enfeebled Frostmourne in both hands and swinging, no longer trying to kill or even wound his opponents—they were indeed too many—but simply to clear a path.
The gates were closed, but this palace was where he had grown to manhood, and he knew it intimately. Knew every gate, wall, and hidden passageway, and instead of heading for the gates, which he would be unable to raise by himself, he went deeper into the palace. The undead followed. Arthas raced through the back corridors that had once been the private quarters of the royal family, which he had once traversed with Jaina’s hand clasped tightly in his. He stumbled and his mind reeled.
How had he come to this moment—fleeing through an empty palace from his own creations, his subjects, whom he had vowed to protect. But no—he’d slain them. Betrayed his subjects for the power the Lich King offered. The power that was now bleeding from him as if from a wound that could not be closed.
Father…Jaina…
He closed his mind against the memories. Distractions would not serve him. Only speed and cunning would.
The narrow passageways limited the number of undead able to follow, and he was able to close and bolt the doors against them, delaying them. Finally he reached his quarters and the secret exit built into the wall. He, his parents, and Calia each had one…known only to them, Uther, and the bishop. All were gone now, save he, and Arthas pushed aside the hanging tapestry to reveal the small door hidden behind it, closing and bolting it behind him.
He ran, stumbling in his weakness, down the tight, twining staircase that would lead to his freedom. The door was both physically and magically disguised to look exactly like the main walls of the palace from the outside. Arthas, gasping, fumbled with the bolt and half fell out into the dim light of Tirisfal Glades. The sound of battle reached his ears and he looked up, catching his breath. He blinked, confused. The undead…were fighting one another.
Of course—some of them were still under his command. Were still his subjects—
His tools. His weapons. Not his subjects.
He watched for a moment, leaning against the cold stone. An abomination under the control of his enemy lopped off a long-eared head and sent it flying. A shiver of disgust went through him at the sight of both sets of undead. Decomposing, maggot-ridden, shambling things. No matter who controlled them, they were foul. A glimmer caught his eye; a forlorn little ghost, hovering timidly, who had once been an adolescent girl. Once been alive. He’d killed her, too, directly or indirectly. His subject. She seemed still connected to that world of the living. Seemed to remember what being human had once meant. He could use that; use her. He extended his hand to this floating, spectral thing he had made out of his lust for power.
“I have need of your abilities, little shade,” he said, pitching his voice to sound as kindly as possible. “Will you help me?”
Her face lit up and she floated to his side. “I live only to serve you, King Arthas,” she said, her voice still sweet despite its hollow echo. He forced himself to return her smile. It was easier, when they were simply rotting flesh. But this had its advantages, too.
Through sheer will, he summoned more and more of them, exerting himself so hard his breath came in gasps. They came. They would serve whoever was strongest. With a roar, Arthas descended upon those who would dare stand in the way of the destiny he had bought so dearly. But even as more came to his side, so did more come to attack him. Weak, so weak he was, with only these lumps of meat to protect him. He was shaking and gasping, heaving Frostmourne about with arms that grew increasingly weary. The earth trembled and Arthas whirled to behold no fewer than three abominations lumbering toward him.
Grimly, he lifted Frostmourne. He, Arthas Menethil, King of Lordaeron, would not go down without a fight.
Suddenly there was a flurry of motion, accompanied by anguished cries. Like the ghosts of birds, the blurs dipped and dove, harrying the monstrosities who paused in their pursuit of Arthas to bat and roar at the spectral figures, who suddenly seemed to dive right inside the creatures.
The slimy, white, maggoty things froze, and then abruptly turned their attention to the shambling ghouls that were attacking Arthas. A grin spread across the death knight’s pale face. The banshees. He had thought Sylvanas too lost in her hatred to come to his aid, or worse, like so many of his warriors, turned to become a pawn of his enemies. But it would seem that the former ranger-general’s irritation with him was spent.
With the aid of the banshee-possessed abominations, the tide quickly turned, and a few moments later Arthas stood, weaving with a sudden weakness over a pile of corpses that were truly dead. The abominations turned on one another and hacked themselves to grisly bits. Arthas wondered if even their creators could have sewn back what was left of them. As they fell to the earth, the spirits that had possessed them darted free.
“You have my thanks, my ladies. I am glad to see that you and your mistress remain among my allies.”
They hovered, their voices soft and haunting. “Indeed, great king. She sent us to find you. We’ve come to escort you across the river. Once we cross it we’ll take refuge in the wilderness.”
The wilderness—the same phrase Kel’Thuzad had used. Arthas relaxed even further. Clearly, his right and left hand were in agreement. He lifted a hand and concentrated. “Invincible, to me!” he called. A moment later a small patch of mist appeared, swirling and taking on the shape of a skeletal horse. A heartbeat later, Invincible was there in reality. Arthas was pleased to notice that the act took little effort; Invincible loved him. This was the one thing he had done completely right. The one dead thing that would never, ever turn against him, any more than the great animal would have done in its life. Carefully, he mounted, doing his best to hide his weakness from the banshees and the other undead.
“Lead me to your mistress and Kel’Thuzad, and I shall follow,” he said.
They did, floating away from the palace and deep into the heart of Tirisfal Glades. Arthas noticed with a sudden unease that the path they were taking led uncomfortably near the Balnir farm. Fortunately, the banshees veered off, heading into a hillier area and through there to a wide-open field.
“This is the place, sisters. We’ll rest here, great king.”
There was no sign of Sylvanas, nor of Kel’Thuzad. Arthas drew rein on Invincible, looking around. He felt a sudden prickling of apprehension. “Why here?” he demanded. “Where is your mistress?”
The pain descended again and he cried out, clutching his chest. Invincible pranced beneath him, anxious, and Arthas clung on for dear life. The gray-green glade went away, replaced by the blues and whites of the oddly broken Frozen Throne. The Lich King’s voice stabbed in his head and Arthas bit back a whimper.
“You have been deceived! Come to my side at once! Obey!”
“What is…happening here?” Arthas managed through gritted teeth. He blinked, forcing his vision to clear, and lifted his head, grunting with the effort.
She stepped out from behind the trees, carrying a bow. For a wild second, he thought he was back in Quel’Thalas, facing the living elf. But her hair was no longer golden, but black as midnight with streaks of white. Her skin was pale with a bluish tinge to it, and her eyes glowed silver. It was Sylvanas, and yet it was not. For this Sylvanas was neither alive, nor incorporeal. Somehow, she had gotten her body back from where he had ordered it left—safely locked in an iron coffin to be used as additional torment against her. But she had turned the tables on him.
As he struggled to make sense of what was happening through the pain, Sylvanas lifted her sleek black bow, drew, and took aim. Her lips curved in a smile.
“You walked right into this one, Arthas.”
She released the arrow.
It impaled his left shoulder, piercing through his armor as if it were as flimsy as parchment, adding a fresh type of agony. He was confused for an instant—Sylvanas was a master archer. She couldn’t possibly miss a fatal shot at this distance. Why the shoulder? His right hand went up automatically, but he found he couldn’t even curl his fingers around the shaft. They were becoming numb—as were his feet, his legs…
He flung himself onto Invincible’s neck, draping and doing what he could to cling to his mount with limbs that were rapidly becoming useless. He could barely turn his head to stare at her and rasp out the words, “Traitor! What have you done to me?”
She was smiling. She was happy. Slowly, languorously, she strode toward him. She was wearing the same outfit she had when he had killed her, revealing a great deal of her pale blue-white skin. Oddly, though, her body bore no scars from the innumerable wounds she had received on that day.
“It’s a special poisoned arrow I made just for you,” she said as she approached him. She shifted the bow to her back and drew a dagger, fingering it. “The paralysis you’re experiencing now is but a fraction of the agony you’ve caused me.”
Arthas swallowed. His mouth was dry as sand. “Finish me, then.”
She threw back her head and laughed, hollow and ghostly. “A quick death…like the one you gave me?” Her mirth faded as quickly as it had come, and her eyes flashed red. She continued her approach until she was only an arm’s length away. Invincible pranced uncertainly at her proximity, and Arthas’s heart lurched as he almost slipped off.
“Oh no. You have taught me well, Arthas Menethil. You taught me about the folly of showing mercy to my enemies, and the delight of exacting torment from them. And so, my tutor, I’ll show you how well I learned those lessons. You’re going to suffer as I did. Thanks to my arrow, you can’t even run.”
Arthas’s eyes seemed to be the only thing that could move, and he watched helplessly as she lifted the dagger. “Give my regards to hell, you son of a bitch.”
No. Not this way—not paralyzed and helpless…Jaina…
Sylvanas suddenly staggered back, the pale hand that clutched the dagger twisting and opening. The look on her face was utter astonishment. A heartbeat later, the little shade that had come to Arthas’s aid earlier materialized, smiling happily at the thought that she had helped to save her king. Happy to serve.
“Back, you mindless ones! You shall not fall today, my king!”
Kel’Thuzad! He had come as he had promised, finding Arthas all the way out here where the traitorous banshee had lured him. And he had not come alone. Well over a dozen undead were with him, and they now launched themselves at Sylvanas and her banshees. Hope rose inside him, but he was still paralyzed, still unable to move. He watched as the fight raged around him, and in a few moments it was obvious that Sylvanas would need to retreat.
She shot him a look, and again her eyes flashed red. “This isn’t over, Arthas! I’ll never stop hunting you.”
Arthas was looking directly at her as she seemed to melt into the shadows. The last parts of her to vanish were her crimson eyes. With their mistress gone, the other banshees under Sylvanas’s command disappeared as well. Kel’Thuzad hastened to Arthas’s side.
“Did she harm you, my liege?”
Arthas could only stare at him, the paralysis so far gone he could not even move his lips. Bony hands folded with surprising delicacy around the arrow and tugged. Arthas bit back a cry of pain as the arrow came free. His red blood was mixed with a gooey black substance, which Kel’Thuzad examined carefully.
“The effects of her arrow will wear off in time. It seems the poison was meant only to immobilize you.”
Of course, Arthas thought; otherwise she would not have needed the dagger. Relief shuddered through him, leaving him even more exhausted. He had come very close—too close—to his death. If not for the loyalty of the lich, the elf would have had him. He tried again to speak and managed, “I—you saved me.”
Kel’Thuzad inclined his horned head. “I am grateful I could be of assistance, my king. But you must hasten from this place, to Northrend. All the preparations for your journey have been made. What is it you would have of me?”
Kel’Thuzad had been right. Even now, Arthas was beginning to feel some semblance of life returning to his limbs, though not enough that he could move under his own power.
“I need to find the Lich King as soon as possible. Much longer and…I don’t know what the future holds, or if I’ll even return, but I want you to watch over this land. See to it that my legacy endures.”
He trusted the lich, not out of affection or loyalty, but simply as a cold, hard fact. Kel’Thuzad was an undead thing, bound to the master they both served. Arthas’s eyes flitted to the little ghost, hovering, smiling, a few feet away, and to the slack-faced, rotting corpses who would walk off a cliff if he told them to.
Just dead meat and sundered spirits. Not subjects. And they never had been. No matter what the little shade’s smile said.
“You honor me, my liege. I shall do as you ask, King Arthas. I shall.”
She had a body now, what her own had once been, though changed, as she had been changed. Sylvanas walked with the same easy stride she had had in life, wore the same armor. But it was not the same. She was forever, irrevocably altered.
“You seem troubled, mistress.”
Sylvanas started from her reverie and turned to the banshee, one of the many who floated beside her. She could float with them, but she preferred the heaviness, the solidity, of the corporeal form she had stolen back for herself.
“Aren’t you, sister?” she answered curtly. “Only days ago we were the Lich King’s slaves. We existed only to slaughter in his name. And now we are…free.”
“I don’t understand, mistress.” The banshee’s voice was hollow and confused. “Our wills are our own now. Is that not what you fought for? I thought you’d be overjoyed.”
Sylvanas laughed, aware that it was perilously close to hysteria. “What joy is there in this curse? We are still undead, sister—still monstrosities.” She extended a hand, examined the blue-gray flesh, noticed the cold that clung to her like a second skin. “What are we if not slaves to this torment?”
He had taken so much. Even if she extended his death over a period of days…weeks…she would never be able to make Arthas suffer sufficiently. His death would not bring back the dead, cleanse the Sunwell, nor restore her to her living, peach-and-gold self. But it would feel…very good.
He had eluded her at their confrontation several days past. His lackey, the lich, had come at precisely the wrong moment. Arthas had gone far beyond her grasp now, trying to heal himself. She had learned that he’d left Kel’Thuzad in control of these plagued lands. But that was all right. She was dead. She had all the time in the world to plot an exquisite revenge.
A movement caught her eye and she got gracefully to her feet, drawing the bow and nocking it in one single, swift movement. The swirling portal opened and Varimathras stood there, grinning patronizingly down at her.
“Greetings, Lady Sylvanas.” The demon actually bowed. Sylvanas raised an eyebrow. She did not for a minute think he meant it. “My brothers and I appreciate the role you played in overthrowing Arthas.”
The role she played. Like this was some sort of theatrical game.
“Overthrow? I suppose one could call it that. He has scurried away, that much is sure.”
The mighty being shrugged, his wings spreading slightly with the gesture. “Either way, he no longer troubles us. I’ve come to offer you a formal invitation to join our new order.”
A “new order.” Not very new at all, she mused; same subjugation, different master. She could not have been less interested.
“Varimathras,” she said coldly. She did not bow in return. “My only interest was in seeing Arthas dead. Since I failed in my first attempt at this goal, I now wish to concentrate my efforts on succeeding the next time. I have no time for your petty politics or power mongering.”
The demon bridled. “Careful, milady. It would be unwise to incur our wrath. We are the future of these…Plaguelands. You can either join us and rule, or be cast aside.”
“You? The future? Kel’Thuzad did not go with his precious Arthas. He was left here for a reason. But perhaps a lich reborn by the very essence of the mighty Sunwell is nothing to beings as powerful as you.” Her voice dripped scorn, and the dreadlord frowned terribly.
“I’ve lived as a slave long enough, dreadlord.” Funny, how one used the word “lived,” even though one was dead. Old habits died hard, it would seem. “I have fought tooth and nail to become more than what that bastard made me. I have my own will now, and I choose my own path. The Legion is defeated. You are the last pathetic remnants. You are a dying breed. I won’t relinquish my freedom by shackling myself to you fools.”
“So be it,” Varimathras hissed. He was furious. “Our reply will come soon.”
He teleported out, his face twisted in a scowl.
Her needling had gotten to him, and he fairly quivered with outrage. She noted this dispassionately. He was easy to anger; he was the one they had sent to her, thinking her no great threat.
She would need more than a handful of banshees to fight Arthas. She would need an army, a city of the dead…she would need Lordaeron. The Forsaken, she would call these lost souls who, like her, did not breathe but who yet had their own will. And even more immediately, she would need more than her spectral sisters to fight the three demonic brothers. Or maybe there would be only two she needed to fight.
Sylvanas Windrunner thought again of Varimathras, how easy he was to manipulate.
Perhaps this one could be useful….
Yes. She and the Forsaken would find their own path in this world…and would slaughter anyone who stood in their way.
Northrend. There was an odd sense of coming home. As the shore came into view, Arthas remembered the first time he had arrived here, his heart full of pain at Jaina and Uther’s betrayal, aching at the necessity of what he had been forced to do at Stratholme. So much had happened that it felt like a lifetime ago. He had come then with vengeance in his heart, to kill the demon lord responsible for turning his people into the walking dead. Now, he ruled those walking dead and was allies with Kel’Thuzad.
Strange, the twists and turns of fate.
He did not feel the cold, as he had then. Nor did the men who had followed him so loyally; death dulled sensations for such things. Only the human necromancers bundled up against the icy wind that sighed and moaned and the snow that began to drift lazily downward as they made anchor and debarked.
Arthas moved stiffly from the rowboat onto the shore. He might not feel the cold of this place, but his powers, and his physical self, were weak. As soon as his feet touched the earth, Arthas felt him—the Lich King. Not in his mind, not speaking to him through Frostmourne, although the runeblade’s feeble glow strengthened slightly. No, Arthas sensed him here, his master, as he had not before. And there was a prickling sensation of increased threat.
He turned back to the rest of those who were following him ashore—ghouls, specters, shades, abominations, necromancers. “We must make haste,” he cried. “Something out there is threatening the Lich King. We must reach Icecrown quickly.”
“My lord!” one of the necromancers cried, and pointed. Arthas whirled, drawing Frostmourne.
Through the veil of the falling snow he could see golden-red shapes hovering in the air. They drew closer, and his eyes narrowed in surprise and anger as he recognized the creatures and realized who their masters must be.
Dragonhawks. He was astonished. He had all but exterminated the high elves. How could it be that any of them survived sufficiently to regroup, let alone determine where he had gone and confront him here? A slow smile spread across his handsome features, and he felt the sneaking sensation of admiration.
The dragonhawks came closer. He lifted Frostmourne in salute.
“I have to admit,” he shouted, “I am surprised to see quel’dorei here. I would have thought the cold too unpleasant for so delicate a people.”
“Prince Arthas!” The voice came from one of the riders, its beast hovering above Arthas. His voice rang clear and bright and strong. “You still do not see quel’dorei here. We are the sin’dorei—the blood elves! We have sworn to avenge the ghosts of Quel’Thalas. This dead land…will be cleansed! The disgusting things you have created will rest properly at last. And you, butcher, will finally receive your just punishment.”
He was amused for a moment. Their numbers were not insignificant. Arthas realized that he was most likely looking at the last few of an all but extinct race. And they’d come just for him? Then his smugness faded into irritation. Despite his wearied state, anger filled his voice as he cried, “Northrend belongs to the Scourge, elf, and you will soon join them! You made a terrible mistake by coming here!”
More dragonhawks appeared, along with rangers on foot. Arrows flew through the skies, seemingly as numerous as snowflakes, peppering the undead as they charged. Most of them, however, did not fall; the sting of arrows, as long as it did not pierce a vital spot, troubled them not at all.
Not bothering to even mount Invincible, Arthas charged in. Frostmourne hungered; it seemed to gather energy and strength, as did Arthas himself, with each of the bright, shining souls it consumed. In the midst of the clamor of battle, he heard a voice that was deep and cold as Northrend itself call out from a hill above them.
“Onward for the Scourge! Slay them in Ner’zhul’s name!”
Despite all he had seen, despite all he had done, Arthas felt a deep chill sweep over him at the sound of that bone-cold voice. He risked a quick glance upward and his eyes widened at what he beheld.
Nerubians! Of course—this was their homeland. His heart lifted as they poured forth. He could make out their shapes through the snow, the familiar, unsettling, scuttling speed with which the spidery beings descended on their prey. Arthas had to give these so-called sin’dorei credit—they fought valiantly—but they were hopelessly outnumbered, and soon Arthas was standing in a sea of red-and gold-clad bodies. He raised his hand, and one by one, the dead elves twitched and lurched to their feet, staring at him glassy-eyed.
“More soldiers for the one we serve,” Arthas said. He looked again, and his eyes fell upon the nerubians’ leader.
He was larger than those he commanded, towering over them as he moved easily down the snowy landscape toward Arthas. He moved among them like the king he was, with deliberateness and precision. Arthas tried to find something familiar in something so incredibly alien to him; to the human’s eyes, Anub’arak looked like a cross between a beetle and the other, more spidery-appearing nerubians he commanded. Arthas found that he had taken an unintentional step backward and forced himself to stay where he was as the creature approached.
It kept coming until it was right in front of him, then loomed over him, gazing down with multiple eyes, a thing of utter horror. His ally.
Arthas found his voice and forced it to be calm. “Thanks for the assistance, mighty one.”
The creature inclined its head, mandibles clacking gently as it spoke in that deep, sepulchral tone that still made Arthas uneasy. “The Lich King sent me to aid you, death knight. I am Anub’arak, ancient king of Azjol-Nerub. Where is the other?” It reared up on its hind legs, looking about.
“Other?”
“Kel’Thuzad,” Anub’arak rumbled again in that hissing, sighing, reverberating voice. He lowered himself down and fixed Arthas with his multiple-eyed gaze. “I know him. I greeted him when he first came to serve the Lich King, as I greet you now.”
Arthas wondered briefly if Kel’Thuzad had felt as unsettled as he upon first encountering this undead, insectoid king of an ancient race. Surely he had been, he told himself. Surely anyone would be.
“Your people were a welcome addition to our ranks the first time we attacked these elves,” he said, glancing again at the fallen sin’dorei. He was very glad Anub’arak’s “people” were on his side. “And I welcome your aid again now. But we have little time for pleasantries. Since the Lich King sent you, you must be aware that he is in danger. We must reach Icecrown immediately.”
“It is so,” rumbled Anub’arak. He bobbed his fearsome head and shifted, extending two of his forelegs. “I will gather the rest of my people, and we will march together to protect our lord.”
The massive creature moved off imperiously, summoning his obedient subjects who scurried to him eagerly. Arthas suppressed a shudder and nudged one of the bodies of the fallen elves. It had been ripped limb from limb, too badly damaged to be of use. “These elves are pathetic. It’s no wonder we destroyed their homeland so easily.”
“Pity I wasn’t there to stop you. It’s been a long time, Arthas.”
The voice was musical, smooth, cultured…and laced with hatred. Arthas turned, recognizing it, startled and pleased to find its owner here. The twists and turns of fate indeed.
“Prince Kael’thas,” he said, grinning. The elf stood a few yards away, the shimmer of his teleportation spell still fading. Seemingly ageless, he looked exactly the same as Arthas remembered. No, not exactly. The blue eyes gleamed with suppressed anger. Not the hot rage he had seen upon the visage the last time they had encountered each other, but a cold, deep-seated fury. He no longer wore the purple and blue robes of the Kirin Tor, but the traditional crimson hues of his people.
“Arthas Menethil.” The elf did not use a title. He obviously meant it as a slight, but it bothered Arthas not at all. He knew well enough what he was, and soon, this too-pretty princeling would know it also. “I would spit at the thought of your name in my mouth, but you aren’t even worth that.”
“Ah, Kael,” Arthas said, grinning. “Even your insults are unnecessarily complicated. Glad to see you haven’t changed—as ineffectual as ever. That raises a question. Why weren’t you at Quel’Thalas anyway? Content to let other people die for you while you sat snug and secure in your Violet Citadel? I don’t think you’ll be doing that anymore.”
Kael’thas gritted his teeth, his eyes narrowing. “That much I will give you. I should have been there. I was instead trying to help the humans fight the Scourge—the Scourge you unleashed on your own people. You may not care for your subjects—but I care for mine. I have lost far, far too much in dealing with humans. I stand only for the elves now. For the sin’dorei—the children of the blood. You will pay, Arthas. You will pay dearly for what you have done!”
“You know, I’m almost enjoying this banter. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? I haven’t seen you since…” He let the sentence trail away, watching as a muscle twitched near the elf prince’s eye. Yes, Kael’thas remembered. Remembered stumbling across Jaina and Arthas locked in a deep kiss. The memory briefly unsettled Arthas as well, and the pleasure he took in inflicting the torment upon Kael’thas soured ever so slightly. “I must say though, I’m rather disappointed in these elves you lead. I’d hoped for a better fight. Maybe I killed all the ones with spirit in Quel’Thalas.”
Kael didn’t rise to the bait. “What you faced here was merely a scouting force. Don’t worry, Arthas, you’ll have a good challenge shortly. I assure you that defeating Lord Illidan’s army will be far more difficult.” The prince’s full lips twisted in amusement as Arthas started at the name.
“Illidan? He’s behind this invasion?” Dammit. It would have been better if he had killed Tichondrius himself, rather than involving the kaldorei. He’d known Illidan was power hungry. He just hadn’t realized that the night elf would evolve into so great a threat.
“He is. Our forces are vast, Arthas.” The silky, rich voice was laced now with delight. The bastard was really enjoying this. “Even now, they march upon Icecrown Glacier. You’ll never make it in time to save your precious Lich King. Consider this payment for Quel’Thalas…and other insults.”
“Other insults?” Arthas grinned. “Perhaps you’d like the details of these other insults. Shall I tell you what it was like to hold her in my arms, to taste her, to hear her call out my—”
The pain was worse than it had ever been before.
Arthas crumpled to his knees. His vision went red. Again he saw the Lich King—Ner’zhul, he recalled Anub’arak had named him—trapped in the icy prison.
“Make haste!” the Lich King cried. “My enemies draw near! Our time is almost spent!”
“Are you well, death knight?”
Arthas blinked and found himself staring up into the face, if it could be called that, of Anub’arak. A long arachnid leg was extended toward him, offering him assistance. He hesitated, but was too weak to rise unaided. Steeling himself, he gripped it and rose. It was like a stick in his hand, dried and almost—mummified to the touch. He let go as soon as he could stand by himself.
“My powers are weakening, but I’ll be all right.” He took a steadying breath and glanced around. “Where is Kael’thas?”
“Gone.” The voice was cold as stone and laced with displeasure. “He used his magic to teleport away before we could rend him to pieces.”
The cowardly mage trick of teleportation again. If only Arthas’s necromancers were capable of such, the Lich King would not be in the danger he was in. Arthas recalled the other corpses and knew that such would indeed have been Kael’thas’s fate. “I hate to say it,” he said, “but the damned elf was right.” He turned to his intimidating ally. “Anub’arak—I had another vision—the Lich King is in immediate peril. They’re closing in on him—Illidan and Kael’thas. We’ll never reach the glacier in time!”
I’ve failed….
Anub’arak did not seem at all perturbed. “Overland, perhaps not,” agreed the mammoth creature. “It is a long and arduous voyage. But…there is another route we might take, death knight. The ancient, shattered kingdom of Azjol-Nerub lies deep below us. It was where I once ruled for many years. I know its corridors and hidden places well. Though it has fallen on dark times, it could provide us a direct shortcut to the glacier.”
Arthas looked up. As the raven flew, it was not that long a journey. But across the ice and the mountains that reared up before them…
“You’re certain we can reach the glacier through these tunnels?” he asked.
“Nothing is certain, death knight.” For a moment, it sounded like the nerubian was smirking. “The ruins will be perilous. But it’s worth the risk.”
Fallen on dark times. A curious phrase for an ancient, dead, spider-lord to use. Arthas wondered what that meant.
He supposed he was about to find out.
Anub’arak and his subjects set a brisk pace, heading due north. Arthas and his Scourge followers fell into step, and soon the ocean was left behind. The sun moved quickly across the dim sky, low on the horizon. The long night was coming. As they marched, Arthas sent some of his warriors to gather what tree limbs and sticks they could; they would burn through many a torch passing through this dangerous subterranean kingdom.
After several hours of excruciatingly slow progress—the undead could not truly feel the cold, but the wind and snow slowed them—Arthas knew that despite Anub’arak’s nearly wry words, one thing actually was certain. He never would have made it in time to save the Lich King—and thus himself—by heading overland. In the end, it was self-preservation that drove him so hard. The Lich King had found him, had made him into what he now was. Had granted him great power. Arthas knew and appreciated it, but his debt to the Lich King was nothing of loyalty. If this great being was slain, there was no doubt but that Arthas would be the next to die—and, as he had told Uther, he intended to live forever.
At last, they reached the gates. So covered with ice and snow were they that Arthas did not immediately recognize them as such, but Anub’arak halted, reared up, and spread wide two of his eight legs, indicating what lay ahead of them.
Curved stone, looking like sickles—or insect legs, Arthas thought—jutted upward, their tips bending toward one another to form a sort of symbolic tunnel. Ahead, he could make out the gates themselves. A giant spider was etched upon them. Arthas’s lip curled in disgust, but then he thought of the statues dotting Stormwind. Was this really so different? The entrance “tunnel” and the gates led into the heart of what seemed to be an iceberg. For a moment, just a moment, Arthas glanced at the silent, enormous figure of Anub’arak, thought about spiders and flies, and wondered if he was doing the right thing.
“Behold the entrance to a once-powerful and ancient place,” Anub’arak said. “I was lord here, and my word was obeyed without question. I was mighty and powerful, and I bowed to no one. But things change. I serve the Lich King now, and my place is defending him.”
Arthas thought briefly of his outrage at the plague, of his burning need for vengeance…of the look in his father’s eyes as Frostmourne drank his soul.
“Things do change,” he said quietly. “But there’s no time to reminisce.” He turned to his strange new ally and smiled coldly. “Let us descend.”
Arthas did not know how long they spent beneath the frozen surface of Northrend, in the ancient and deadly nerubian kingdom. He only knew two things as he trudged out into the light, blinking like a bat forced out into the sun. One was that he hoped he was in time to defend the Lich King. The other was that he was grateful, bone-deep, to be out of that place.
It had been clear that the nerubian kingdom had once been beautiful. Arthas was not sure what he had expected, but it had not been the haunting, vivid colors of blue and purple, nor the intricate geometric shapes that denoted different rooms and corridors. These still retained their beauty, but were like a preserved rose; something that while still lovely, was nonetheless dead. A strange smell wafted through the place as they walked. Arthas could not place it, nor even categorize it. It was acrid and stale at once, but not unpleasant, not to one used to the company of the decaying dead.
It was likely in the end a shorter route, as Anub’arak had promised, but every step had been bought with blood. Soon after they had entered, they had come under attack.
They scuttled out from the darkness, a dozen or more spider-beings chittering angrily as they descended. Anub’arak and his soldiers met them head-on. Arthas had hesitated for a fraction of a second, then joined in, ordering his troops to do the same. The vast caverns were filled with the shrieking and chittering of the nerubians, the guttural groans of the undead, and the agonized cries of the living necromancers as the nerubians attacked with gobbets of poison. Thick, sticky webbing trapped several of the fiercer corpses, holding them helpless until snapping mandibles lopped off heads or stiletto-sharp legs impaled and eviscerated them.
Anub’arak was a nightmare incarnate. He uttered a dreadful, hollow sound in his guttural native language, and fell upon his former subjects with devastating consequences. His legs, each working separately, grabbed and impaled his hapless victims. Vicious pincers sheared off limbs. And the whole time, the stale air was filled with cries that made Arthas, inured to such things as he was, shiver and swallow hard.
The skirmish was violent and costly, but the nerubians eventually retreated to the shadows that had birthed them. Several of their number were left behind, eight legs squirming violently before the hapless arachnids curled up on themselves and died.
“What the hell was that all about?” Arthas had asked, panting and whirling on Anub’arak. “These nerubians are your kin. Why are they hostile to us?”
“Many of us who fell during the War of the Spider were brought back to serve the Lich King,” Anub’arak had replied. “These warriors, however,” and he waved a foreleg at one of the bodies, “never died. Foolishly, they still fight to liberate Nerub from the Scourge.”
Arthas glanced down at the dead nerubian. “Foolishly indeed,” he murmured, and lifted a hand. “In death, they only serve that which they struggled against in life.”
And so it was that when he finally emerged into the dim light of the overhead world, gulping in the cold, clean air, his army had swollen with new recruits, freshly dead and utterly his to command.
Arthas drew Invincible to a halt. He was trembling, badly, and wanted to simply sit and breathe fresh air for a few moments. The air quickly soured with the rotting stench of his own army. Anub’arak passed him, pausing to gaze at him implacably for a moment.
“No time to rest, death knight. The Lich King has need of us. We must serve.”
Arthas shot the crypt lord a quick glance. Something in the tone of the being’s voice spoke of the vaguest stirring of—was it resentment? Did Anub’arak serve only because he had to? Would he turn on the Lich King if he was able to do so—and more to the point, would he turn on Arthas?
The Lich King’s powers were weakening—and so were Arthas’s powers right along with him. If they got weak enough…
The death knight watched the retreating figure of the crypt lord, took a deep breath, and followed.
How long the trek through thick snow and scouring winds was, Arthas didn’t know. At one point he nearly lost consciousness while riding, so weak was he. He came to with a start, terrified at the lapse, forcing himself to hang on. He could not falter, not now.
They crested a hill, and Arthas at last saw the glacier in the middle of the valley—and the army that awaited him. His spirits lifted at the sight of so many assembled to fight for him and the Lich King. Anub’arak had left many of his warriors behind, and they were there, stoic and ready. Farther down, though, closer to the glacier, he saw other figures milling about. He was too far away to distinguish them, but he knew whom they must be. His gaze traveled upward, and his breath caught.
The Lich King was there, deep inside the glacier. Trapped in his prison, Arthas had seen him so in the visions. He listened with half an ear as one of the nerubians hastened up to Anub’arak and Arthas to brief them on the situation.
“You’ve arrived just in time. Illidan’s forces have taken up positions at the base of the glacier and—”
Arthas cried out as the worst pain he had yet tasted buffeted him. Again, his world turned the color of blood as agony racked his body. So close to the Lich King now, the torment he shared with that great entity was magnified a hundredfold.
“Arthas, my champion. You have come at last.”
“Master,” Arthas whispered, his eyes squeezed shut and his fingers pressed in to his temples. “Yes, I have come. I am here.”
“There is a fracture in my prison, the Frozen Throne, and my energies are seeping from it,” the Lich King continued. “That is why your powers have diminished.”
“But how?” Had someone attacked him? Arthas saw no immediate foes in his vision, surely he was not too late—
“The runeblade, Frostmourne, was once locked inside the throne as well. I thrust it from the ice so that it would find its way to you…and then lead you to me.”
“And so it has,” Arthas breathed. The Lich King was immobilized, trapped inside the ice. It must have been through sheer will that he had been able to force the great sword through the ice and send it to Arthas. Now he recalled the ice that had held Frostmourne—how it had looked jagged, as if it had been broken off of a larger piece. Such vast power…and all bent toward bringing Arthas to this place. Step by step, Arthas had been led here. Directed. Controlled…
“You must make haste, my champion. My creator, the demon lord Kil’jaeden, sent his agents here to destroy me. If they should reach the Frozen Throne before you, all will be lost. The Scourge will be undone. Now hurry! I will grant you all the power I can spare.”
Coldness suddenly began to seep through Arthas, numbing the angry, raw pain, calming his thoughts. The energy was so vast, so heady…it was more powerful even than what Arthas had known before. This, then, was why he had come. To drink deep of this icy draft, to take the cold strength of the Lich King into himself. He opened his eyes, and his vision was clear. Frostmourne’s runes blazed to new life, a chill mist seeping up from it. Grinning fiercely, Arthas gripped the blade and lifted it high. When he spoke, his voice was clear and resonant and carried in the crisp, frigid air.
“I saw another vision of the Lich King. He has restored my powers! I know now what I must do.” He pointed with Frostmourne at the doll-sized figures in the distance. “Illidan has mocked the Scourge long enough. He is attempting to gain entry to the Lich King’s throne chamber. He will fail. It’s time we put the fear of death back in him. Time to end the game…once and for all.”
With a fierce challenging cry, he swung Frostmourne over his head. It sang out, hungry for more souls. “For the Lich King!” Arthas cried, and charged down to meet his enemies.
He felt like a god as he swung Frostmourne with almost careless ease. Each soul it took only strengthened him. Let the arrows of the blood elves shower upon them like the snow. They fell like wheat before the scythe. At one point, Arthas glanced over the battlefield. Where was the one he had to slay? He saw no sign of Illidan yet. Was it possible he had already gained entrance into the—
“Arthas! Arthas, turn and fight me, damn you!”
The voice was clear and pure and full of hatred, and Arthas turned.
The elven prince was but a few yards away, his red and gold bright as blood against the unforgiving whiteness of the snow upon which they fought. He was tall and proud, his staff planted in the snow before him, his eyes fixed on Arthas. Magic crackled around him.
“You will go no farther, butcher.”
A muscle twitched near Arthas’s eye. So Sylvanas had called him, too. He made a slight tsking sound, and grinned at the elf who had once seemed so very powerful and learned to a young human prince. His mind went back to the moment when Kael had surprised Arthas and Jaina in a kiss. The boy that Arthas had been then had known himself outmatched by the older, much more powerful mage.
Arthas was no longer a boy.
“After you disappeared in so cowardly a fashion at our last confrontation, I admit, I’m surprised to see you show your face again, Kael. Don’t be upset that I stole Jaina from you. You should let that go and move on. After all, there’s so much left in this world for you to enjoy. Oh wait…no there isn’t.”
“Damn you to hell, Arthas Menethil,” Kael’thas snarled, trembling with outrage. “You’ve taken everything I ever cared for. Vengeance is all I have left.”
He wasted no more time in venting his anger, but instead lifted the staff. The crystal affixed to its tip glowed brightly, and a ball of fire crackled in his free hand. A heartbeat later it had soared toward Arthas. Shards of ice rained down upon the death knight. Kael’thas was a master mage, and much faster than anyone Arthas had ever encountered. He barely got Frostmourne up in time to deflect the surging fiery globe. The frost shards, however, were ease itself. He swung the great runeblade over his head, and it called to its blade the shards of ice like iron shavings to a magnet. Grinning, Arthas whirled the sword over his head, directing the pieces of ice back to their sender. He’d been taken by surprise by Kael’thas’s speed, but he would not make that mistake again.
“You might want to think twice about attacking me with ice, Kael,” he said, laughing. He needed to goad the mage into acting rashly. Control was key to the manipulation of magic, and if Kael lost his temper, he would undoubtedly lose the fight.
Kael narrowed his eyes. “Thanks for the advice,” he growled. Arthas tightened up on the reins, preparing to ride down his adversary, but at that instant the snow beneath him glowed bright orange for a moment and then became water. Invincible suddenly dropped two feet and his hooves slipped on the slick ground. Arthas leaped off and sent the beast cantering away, gripping Frostmourne with renewed determination in his right hand. He extended his left. A dark ball of swirling green energy formed in his flattened palm and sped toward Kael like an arrow shot from a bow. The mage moved to counter, but the attack was too swift. His face went a shade paler and he stumbled back, his hand going to his heart. Arthas grinned as some of the mage’s life energy flooded him.
“I took your woman,” he said, continuing to try to anger the mage, although he knew, and probably Kael knew, that Jaina had never belonged to the elf. “I held her in my arms at night. She tasted sweet when I kissed her, Kael. She—”
“Loathes you now,” Kael’thas replied. “You sicken and disgust her, Arthas. Anything she felt for you has since turned to hatred.”
Arthas’s chest contracted oddly. He realized he had not thought about how Jaina regarded him now. He had always done his best to thrust all thoughts of her away when they drifted into his mind. Was it true? Did Jaina really—
An enormous crackling ball of fire exploded against his chest, and Arthas cried out as he was forced backward by the blow. Flame licked at him for precious seconds before he recovered his wits sufficiently to counter the spell. The armor had largely protected him, although its heat against his skin was agonizing, but he was aghast that he had been so taken by surprise. A second ball of fire came, but this time he was ready, meeting the fiery blast with his own deadly ice.
“I destroyed your homeland…fouled your precious Sunwell. And I killed your father. Frostmourne sucked the soul right out of him, Kael. It’s gone forever.”
“You’re good at killing noble elderly men,” sneered Kael’thas. The jab was unexpectedly painful. “At least you faced my father on the battlefield. What of your own, Arthas Menethil? How brave of you to cut down a defenseless parent opening his arms to embrace his—”
Arthas charged, closing the distance between them in a few strides, and brought Frostmourne down. Kael’thas parried with his staff. For a second, the stave held, then it broke beneath Frostmourne’s onslaught. But the delay had bought Kael sufficient time to unsheathe a glittering, gleaming weapon, a runeblade that seemed to glow red in contrast to Frostmourne’s cold, icy blue. The blades clashed. Both men pressed down, straining with effort, each one’s blade holding off the other as the seconds ticked by. Kael’thas grinned as their eyes met.
“You recognize this blade, do you not?”
Arthas did. He knew the sword’s name and its lineage—Flamestrike, Felo’melorn, once wielded by Kael’thas’s ancestor, Dath’Remar Sunstrider, the founder of the dynasty. The sword was almost unspeakably old. It had seen the War of the Ancients, the birth of the Highborne. Arthas returned the smirk. Flamestrike would have another significant event to bear witness to; it would now see the end of the last Sunstrider.
“Oh, I do. I saw it snap in two beneath Frostmourne, an instant before I slew your father.”
Arthas was physically stronger, and the energy of the Lich King surged through him. With a ragged grunt, he shoved Kael’thas backward, thinking to knock him off balance. The mage recovered quickly and almost danced into another position, brandishing Felo’melorn, his eyes never leaving Arthas.
“And so I found it, and I had it reforged.”
“Broken swords are weak where they are mended, elf.” Arthas began to circle, watching for the instant where Kael would be vulnerable.
Kael’thas laughed. “Human swords, perhaps. Not elven. Not when they are reforged with magic, and hatred, and a burning need for revenge. No, Arthas. Felo’melorn is stronger than ever—as am I. As are the sin’dorei. We are the stronger for having been broken—stronger and filled with purpose. And that purpose is to see you fall!”
The attack came suddenly. One moment Kael was standing, ranting, and the next Arthas was fighting for his very life. Frostmourne clanged against Flamestrike, and damned if the elf wasn’t right—the blade held. Arthas darted back, feinted, and then brought Frostmourne across in a mighty sweep. Kael lunged out of its path and whirled to counterattack with a violence and intensity that surprised Arthas. He was forced back, one step, then two, and then suddenly he slipped and fell. Snarling, Kael lunged in, thinking to deal the deathblow. But Arthas remembered training with Muradin, long ago, and the dwarf’s favorite trick suddenly filled his mind. He pulled his legs in tightly and kicked Kael’thas with all his strength. The mage let out a grunt and was hurtled backward into the snow. Gasping, the death knight flipped to his feet, hefted Frostmourne with both hands and plunged it down.
Somehow Flamestrike was there. The blades again strained against each other. Kael’thas’s eyes burned with hatred.
But Arthas was the stronger in armed combat; stronger, with the stronger sword, despite Kael’s gloating about how Felo’melorn was reforged. Slowly, inexorably, as Arthas knew must happen, Frostmourne descended toward Kael’thas’s bare throat.
“…she hates you,” Kael whispered.
Arthas cried out, fury blurring his vision for a moment, and shoved down with all his strength.
Into the snow and frozen earth.
Kael’thas was gone.
“Coward!” Arthas cried, although he knew the prince would not hear him. The bastard had again teleported away at the last second. Fury raged in him, threatening to cloud his judgment, and he pushed it aside. He’d been foolish to let Kael’thas rile him so.
Curse you, Jaina. Even now, you haunt me.
“Invincible, to me!” he cried, and realized his voice was shaking. Kael’thas was not dead, but he was out of the way, and that was all that mattered. He wheeled the head of his skeletal horse around, and charged again toward the fray and the throne chamber of his master.
He moved through the milling crowd of enemies as if they were so many insects. As they fell, he reanimated them and sent them against their fellows. The tide of the undead was unstoppable and implacable. The snow around the base of the spire was churned up and drenched with blood. Arthas looked about him, at the last few knots of fighting going on. Blood elves—but no sign of their master.
Where was Illidan?
A flurry of quick motion caught his eye and he turned. He growled beneath his breath. Another dreadlord. This one’s back was toward him, black wings outstretched, cloven hooves melting into the snow.
Arthas lifted Frostmourne. “I’ve defeated your kind before, dreadlord,” he snarled. “Turn and face me, if you dare, or flee into the Nether like the coward you demons are.”
The figure turned, slowly. Massive horns crowned its head. Its lips curved back in a smile. And over its eyes was a ragged black blindfold. Two green, glowing spots appeared where eyes should have been.
“Hello, Arthas.”
Deep and sinister, the voice had changed, but not as much as the kaldorei’s body. It was still the same pale lavender hue, etched with the same tattoos and scarifications. But the legs, the wings, the horns…Arthas immediately understood what must have happened. So that was why Illidan had become so powerful.
“You look different, Illidan. I guess the Skull of Gul’dan didn’t agree with you.”
Illidan threw back his horned head. Dark, rich laughter rumbled from him. “On the contrary, I have never felt better. In a way, I suppose I should thank you for my present state, Arthas.”
“Show your appreciation by stepping out of the way, then.” Arthas’s voice was suddenly cold, and there was no trace of humor in it. “The Frozen Throne is mine, demon. Step aside. Leave this world and never return. If you do, I’ll be waiting.”
“We both have our masters, boy. Mine demands the destruction of the Frozen Throne. It would seem we are at odds,” Illidan replied, and lifted the weapon Arthas had fought once before. His powerful hands with their sharp black nails closed on the weapon’s center and he whirled it with grace and a deceptive casualness. Arthas knew a ripple of uncertainty at the display. He had just finished a fight with Kael’thas, and while he would have been the victor had not the elf, coward that he was, teleported out at the last instant, he had been taxed by the battle. There was no hint of weariness in Illidan’s bearing.
Illidan’s smile grew as he noticed his enemy’s discomfiture. He allowed himself a moment more of uncannily masterful handling of the unusual, demonic weapon, then struck a position, settling in, preparing for combat. “It must be done!”
“Your troops are either in pieces or part of my army.” Arthas drew Frostmourne. Its runes glowed brightly, and mist curled up from its hilt. Behind the blindfold, Illidan’s eyes—much brighter and more intensely green than he remembered—narrowed at the sight of the runeblade. If the demonically-changed kaldorei had a powerful weapon, so too did Arthas. “You’ll end up one or the other.”
“Doubtful,” Illidan sneered. “I am stronger than you know, and my master created yours! Come, pawn. I’ll dispatch the servant before I dispatch your pathetic—”
Arthas charged. Frostmourne glowed and hummed in his hands, as eager for Illidan’s death as he was. The elf did not seem at all startled by the sudden rush, and with the utmost ease lifted his double-bladed weapon to parry. Frostmourne had broken ancient and powerful swords before, but this time, it simply clanged and grated against the glowing green metal.
Illidan gave him a smirk as he held his ground. Arthas again felt unease flicker through him. Illidan was indeed changed by absorbing the power of the Skull of Gul’dan; for one thing, he was physically much stronger than he had been. Illidan chuckled, a deep and ugly sound, then shoved forcefully. It was Arthas who was forced to fall back, dropping to one knee to defend himself as the demon bore down on him.
“It is sweet to turn the tables thus,” Illidan growled. “I might just kill you quickly, death knight, if you give me a good fight.”
Arthas didn’t waste breath on insults. He gritted his teeth and concentrated on battling back the blows that were being rained upon him. The weapon was a swirl of glowing green. He could feel the power of demonic energy radiating from it, just as he knew that Illidan could sense Frostmourne’s grim darkness.
Suddenly Illidan was not there and Arthas lurched forward, his momentum taking him off balance. He heard a flapping sound and whirled to see Illidan overhead, his great, leathery wings creating a strong wind as he hovered out of reach.
They eyed each other, Arthas catching his breath. He could see Illidan was not unaffected by the battle either. Sweat gleamed on the massive, lavender-hued torso. Arthas settled himself, Frostmourne at the ready for when Illidan would swoop in for a renewed assault.
Then Illidan did something utterly unexpected. He laughed, shifted the weapon in his hands—and in a flurry of motion seemingly snapped it in two. Each powerful hand now held a single blade.
“Behold the Twin Blades of Azzinoth,” Illidan gloated. He flew up higher, whirling the blades in his left and right hands, and Arthas realized that he favored neither one. “Two magnificent warglaives. They can be wielded as a single devastating weapon…or, as you see, as two. It was the favored weapon of a doomguard—a powerful demon captain whom I slew. Ten thousand years ago. How long have you fought with your pretty blade, human? How well do you know it?”
The words were intended to unsettle the death knight. Instead, they invigorated him. Illidan might have had this admittedly powerful weapon for longer—but Frostmourne was bound to Arthas, and he to it. It was not a sword as much as an extension of himself. He had known it when he first had the vision of it, when he had just arrived in Northrend. He had been certain of the connection when he laid eyes upon it, waiting for him. And now he felt it surge in his hand, confirming their unity.
The demon blades gleamed. Illidan dropped down on Arthas like a stone. Arthas cried out and countered, more certain of this blow than of any he had dealt with the runeblade before, swinging Frostmourne up underneath the descending demon. And as he knew must happen, he felt the sword bite deep into flesh. He pulled, drawing the gash across Illidan’s torso, and felt a deep satisfaction as the former kaldorei screamed in agony.
And yet the bastard would not fall. Illidan’s wings beat erratically, still somehow keeping him aloft, and then before Arthas’s shocked gaze his body seemed to shift and darken…almost as if it was made of writhing black, purple, and green smoke.
“This is what you have given me,” Illidan cried. His voice, bass to begin with, had somehow grown even deeper. Arthas felt it shiver along his bones. The demon’s eyes glowed fiercely in the swirling darkness that was his face. “This gift—this power. And it will destroy you!”
A scream was torn from Arthas’s throat, and he fell again to his knees. Blazing green fire chased itself along his armor, seared his flesh, even dulled Frostmourne’s blue glow for a moment. Over the raw cry of his own torment he heard Illidan laughing. Again the fel fire cascaded over him and Arthas fell forward, gasping. But as the fire faded and he saw Illidan swooping in for the kill, he felt the ancient runeblade he still managed to grasp urge him to rally.
Frostmourne was his, and he its, and so united, they were invincible.
Just as Illidan lifted his blades for the kill, Arthas raised Frostmourne, thrusting upward with all his strength. He felt the blade connect, pierce flesh, strike deep.
Illidan fell hard to the ground. Blood gushed from his bare torso, melting the snow around it with a slow hissing sound. His chest rose and fell in gasps. His vaunted twin blades were of no use now. One had been knocked from his grasp, the other lay in a hand that could not even curl around its hilt. Arthas got to his feet, his body still tingling with the remnants of the fel fire Illidan had hurled at him. He stared at him for a long moment, branding the sight into his mind. He thought about dealing the killing blow, but decided to let the merciless cold of the place do it for him. A greater need burned in him now, and he turned, lifting his eyes to the spire that towered above him.
He swallowed hard and simply stood for a moment, knowing, without knowing how he knew it, that something was about to fundamentally change. Then he took a deep breath and entered the cavern.
Arthas moved almost as if in a daze, down the lengths of twining tunnels that led ever deeper into the bowels of the earth. His feet seemed guided, and while there was no noise, certainly no one to challenge his right to be here, he felt, rather than heard, a deep thrum of power. He continued to descend, feeling that call of power drawing him ever closer to his destiny.
Up ahead was a cold, blue-white light. Arthas moved toward it, almost breaking into a run, and the tunnel opened up into what Arthas could only think of as a throne chamber. For just ahead was a structure that made Arthas’s breath catch in his throat.
The Lich King’s prison sat atop of this twining tower, this spire of blue-green, shimmering ice-that-was-not-ice that rose up as if to pierce the very roof of the cavern. A narrow walkway wound, serpentine, about the spire, leading him upward. Still filled with the energy granted to him by the Lich King, Arthas did not tire, but unwelcome memories seemed to dart at him like flies as he ascended, putting one booted foot in front of the other. Words, phrases, images came back to him.
“Remember, Arthas. We are paladins. Vengeance cannot be a part of what we must do. If we allow our passions to turn to bloodlust, then we will become as vile as the orcs.”
Jaina…oh, Jaina…“No one can seem to deny you anything, least of all me.”
“Don’t deny me, Jaina. Don’t ever deny me. Please.”
“I never would, Arthas. Never.”
He kept going, relentlessly moving upward.
“We know so little—we can’t just slaughter them like animals out of our own fear!”
“This is bad business, lad. Leave it be. Let it stay here, lost and forgotten…. We’ll find another way tae save yer people. Let’s leave now, go back, and find that way.”
One foot followed the other. Upward, ever upward. An image of black wings brushed his memory.
“I will leave you one final prediction. Just remember, the harder you strive to slay your enemies, the faster you’ll deliver your people into their hands.”
Even as these memories tugged at him, clutched at his heart, there was one image, one voice, that was stronger and more compelling than all the others, whispering, encouraging him: “Closer you draw, my champion. My moment of freedom comes…and with it, your ascension to true power.”
Upward he climbed, his gaze ever on the peak. On the huge chunk of deep blue ice that imprisoned the one who had first set Arthas’s feet on this path. Closer it drew, until Arthas came to a halt a few feet away. For a long moment, he regarded the figure trapped within, imperfectly glimpsed. Mist rolled off the huge chunk of ice, further obscuring the image.
Frostmourne glowed in his hand. From deep inside, Arthas saw the barest hint of an answering flare of two points of glowing blue light.
“RETURN THE BLADE,” came the deep, rasping voice in Arthas’s mind, almost unbearably loud. “COMPLETE THE CIRCLE. RELEASE ME FROM THIS PRISON!”
Arthas took a step forward, then another, lifting Frostmourne as he moved until he was running. This was the moment it had all been leading to, and without realizing it, a roar built in his throat and tore free as he swung the blade down with all of his strength.
A massive cracking resounded through the chamber as Frostmourne slammed down. The ice shattered, huge chunks flying in every direction. Arthas lifted his arms to shield himself, but the shards flew past him harmlessly. Pieces fell from the imprisoned body, and the Lich King cried out, lifting his armored arms to the sky. More groaning, cracking sounds came from the cavern and from the being himself, so loud that Arthas winced and covered his ears. It was as if the very world was tearing itself apart. Suddenly the armored figure that was the Lich King seemed to shatter as his prison did, falling apart before Arthas’s stunned gaze.
There was nothing—no one—inside.
Only the armor, icy black, clattering to lie in pieces. The helm, empty of its owner’s head, slid to a halt to lie at Arthas’s feet. He stared down at it for a long moment, a deep shiver passing through him.
All this time…he had been chasing a ghost. Had the Lich King ever really been here? If not—who had thrust Frostmourne from the ice? Who had demanded to be freed? Was he, Arthas Menethil, supposed to have been the one encased in the Frozen Throne all along?
Had this ghost he’d been chasing…been himself?
Questions that would likely never have answers. But one thing was clear to him. As Frostmourne had been for him, so was the armor. Gauntleted fingers closed over the spiked helm and he lifted it slowly, reverently, and then, closing his eyes, he lowered it onto his white head.
He was suddenly galvanized, his body tensing as he felt the essence of the Lich King enter him. It pierced his heart, stopped his breath, shivered along his veins, icy, powerful, crashing through him like a tidal wave. His eyes were closed, but he saw, he saw so much—all that Ner’zhul, the orc shaman, had known, all he had seen, had done. For a moment, Arthas feared he would be overwhelmed by it all, that in the end, the Lich King had tricked him into coming here so that he could place his essence in a fresh new body. He braced himself for a battle for control, with his body as the prize.
But there was no struggle. Only a blending, a melding. All around him, the cavern continued to collapse. Arthas was only barely aware of it. His eyes darted rapidly back and forth beneath his closed lids.
His lips moved. He spoke.
They…spoke.
“Now…we are one.”