Illidan

18

Vandel bounded through the gateway, following Illidan. He raced to the brow of the ridge and crouched down, doing his best to keep out of sight. In the distance he sensed demons, thousands upon thousands of them.

Huge islands of rock drifted like clouds across the sky of this alien world. Green light burned from every boulder and blazed from the tiny orbiting sun. Beneath him, the ridge fell away to a cratered plain over which obelisks of reflective obsidian hovered. The portal back to Outland gaped, a hole in the fabric of reality, linking two worlds.

Illidan’s shadow fell upon him. The Betrayer stood on the crest of the hill, claws extended, every muscle in his tattoo-covered body tight with tension. Massive batwings cloaked his shoulders. Bestial horns curved from the sides of his head. A circlet of runecloth hid his eye sockets. A savage smile of anticipation curled his thin lips, revealing his bright fangs. He, too, sensed the approaching demons.

Part of Vandel tittered with mad mirth. He forced the demonic presence down, knowing that he could not hold it there for long. He was going to need its strength to survive the coming battle.

Illidan’s leathery wings creaked as he shifted his weight. His hooves struck sparks against the rocks as he moved.

Nearby, scores of Illidari demon hunters waited in the shadows, hidden by potent magic. Vandel prayed to whatever gods might be listening that those spells were strong enough. Out there in the darkness, enemies of terrible power waited.

Within the next few hours, they would find out whether the gifts the Betrayer had lavished on them were enough to preserve their lives. They would learn whether their months of harsh training and terrible sacrifices had paid off.

And still, something in Vandel yearned to serve the forces of the Dark Titan, Sargeras, and he feared it was not just the part that was transformed by his demon’s touch. A fragment of his elven soul responded to the nihilistic glory of the Burning Legion just as strongly as any infernal would.

Illidan’s nostrils flared as if he scented Vandel’s weakness. A growl sounded deep in his throat.

He will fail, Vandel’s inner demon whispered. He has always failed. He cannot oppose the will of Sargeras. Nothing can.

Vandel took a deep breath and tried to empty his mind. It did not help. It just made him more aware of the magical energy surging around him. He wanted to gather it to him and use it. He wanted to unleash a volcanic tide of destruction upon the distant demonic presences. He wanted to slay them and take their essence into himself. He wanted to feed.

Yes, the demon whispered. That will make you strong enough to challenge even Illidan.

He concentrated on his surroundings in an effort to ignore the mad whispers. This planetoid was carved from pure magical energy congealed into pulsing, chromatic stone. Whenever he touched the surrounding rocks his flesh tingled.

His heart thundered in his chest. He tried to focus his concentration on the approaching enemy. He told himself that he was ready for this.

Illidan studied the distant demons. At the moment, they were merely remote shadows thrown upon his mind by their auras of power. Their numbers dwarfed those of his own force. It did not matter. Magic would decide this battle.

Fel energy swirled around him. He resisted the temptation to reach out and draw upon it. He ran his hand over the wound that Arthas had given him. It tingled as if some small part of the Lich King’s evil blade, Frostmourne, were still lodged in it. He moved his fingers away to avoid being reminded of his previous defeats. Now was not the time to dwell on such things.

Illidan sensed the nervousness of his troops, felt their inner battles. His smile became a snarl. His followers were like hounds sensing prey. He had shaped them to be so. Now was the ultimate test. Now he would find out whether all the centuries of planning had paid off. If this force failed him, he would die, and all his millennia-long designs would come to naught.

That was not going to happen. They were not going to fail at this last hurdle. He had schemed too long to let that happen.

He expanded his awareness. The wave front of his magically extended senses swept over the approaching enemy. Within a heartbeat he had counted their numbers. There were scores of dreadlords, all with their own retinues of hundreds of felhounds and infernals and every other manner of demonic creature.

They are strong. Perhaps too strong.

The thought nagged at him. He shook his horned head. He flexed his wings and caught the updraft of air sweeping the cliffside.

You have miscalculated. And not for the first time.

No. He could not be wrong. He was ready. His force was ready.

The enemy was almost upon them. The demonic army flowed across the alien landscape, an unstoppable tide intent on swamping the ridge on which Illidan waited. The huge dreadlords stalked amid their companies of lesser demons. Their enormous batwings fluttered even though there was no wind. Their horned heads turned as they surveyed their surroundings for foes. The glowing runes on their armor marked their status as much as the size of their retinues did.

Evilly beautiful succubi cracked whips and flexed tails and danced lasciviously. Scuttling felhounds sniffed the air as if they sought prey, sensor stalks twitching, shark teeth gleaming. Armored felguard brandished huge axes as they awaited orders from their commanders. Towering, six-armed shivarra shimmered on the edge of Illidan’s perception, near invisible even to his keen senses.

These were soldiers of the Burning Legion, the force that had devoured worlds beyond number. They were intent on reducing the entire cosmos to smoldering ashes in the name of their master, Sargeras.

Illidan stood apparently alone. His force remained concealed. It would be revealed when he was ready and not before. The gate he had opened on the surface of this barren world drew his enemies. They had come to punish whoever dared transgress upon their realm. It was not often anyone carried the fight within the borders of the Burning Legion. In all his long lifetime, Illidan could not think of more than a handful of such events.

The army came to a halt on the plain below. The greatest of the dreadlords raised a clenched fist, then pointed at Illidan and laughed. His evil mirth echoed across the landscape and was echoed from the throats of hundreds of other dreadlords. Their mockery was obvious. Some of them might have thought the joke was upon them. They had mobilized an army to confront this single figure.

Illidan crossed his arms over his chest and flexed his wings to their greatest extent. He glared down upon his enemies, mirroring their contempt. The mirth of the dreadlords guttered in their throats. It ceased to resound among the rocks. Quiet fell upon the ranks of the huge army. Only the sputtering of the molten skins of the infernals broke the silence. The leader of the dreadlords swept down his raised fist. A gigantic meteor dropped from the sky. A thunderclap boomed. The sound echoed over the site of the coming battle and made the air vibrate.

Vandel was glad TO be in the cover of the rocks. So far none of the demons had noticed him. He felt their malice rolling toward him, a fog of unleashed hatred and evil that somehow congealed out of the magic in the air.

Join them, the demon voice whispered inside him. Join them and you will be rewarded as no soul in the history of the cosmos has been rewarded.

He felt the temptation. The demon was telling the truth as it understood it. He touched the hilts of his rune-encrusted blades. It would be the simplest of actions to plunge them into Illidan’s back. Was he not the Betrayer? Had ever an elf in history been more deserving of death?

Slay him, his demon whispered. Slay Illidan and achieve eternal glory. Slay the Betrayer and become a dark god.

The sound of the thunderclap faded as the army of the nathrezim advanced. The great meteor hit the ground, shaking the earth, disgorging a gigantic blazing infernal. It pulled itself out of the impact crater and lumbered forward along with the rest of the dreadlords’ army.

Vandel felt the temptation rise within him. If he slaughtered Illidan, he would be welcomed by his demonic kindred. He could put his mortality behind him forever, live untroubled by fear and regret. He could bury all traces of guilt about failing his family, all remorse, any semblance of kinship with these weak, frail creatures of flesh and blood.

He could transcend what he was, join the Burning Legion, and become a conqueror, cleansing the universe of the foul disease of life. He could help bring creation crashing down so that a new universe could be born, one shaped in his image, by his desires.

For a moment, he wavered. He listened to the voice of his inner demon and realized that it was his own. His soul had been tainted when he devoured the felhound. It had absorbed the demon’s evil and been twisted. There was really no other demon than himself.

To give in to the voice of temptation would be to forswear his quest for vengeance and break faith with his dead wife and child.

He did not want to kill Illidan. He wanted to kill the things that had made Illidan into what he was. He understood now as he never had before what the Betrayer stood for, because of what he stood against. For all his gigantic flaws, Illidan was the only being who really grasped what they fought, and he was prepared to do whatever it took to end the threat. He might well be mad. His schemes might well be doomed to failure. But he was better than the alternative.

The demons of the Legion advanced toward the ridge. It was time to do battle with the real enemy.

The army of the nathrezim moved upslope. A mortal force would have been slowed by the effort, but they seemed tireless. Felhounds loped ahead, infernals lumbered in their wake, scores of gigantic winged dreadlords bellowed orders to their followers.

Now. The thunderous voice spoke within Vandel’s head, and it was Illidan’s. As one the demon hunters emerged from their cover and raced down toward their prey.

For a moment, the Legion’s army slowed, as if unable to comprehend the fact that it was being attacked by this much smaller force of smaller beings. One or two of the dreadlords laughed again.

With a roar like the ocean throwing itself against rocks, the two armies collided. The demons wanted to reach the portal and close it. The demon hunters wanted only to slay and slay and slay.

A felhound leapt at Vandel. Sharklike teeth gaped. He invoked his power and sent a bolt of greenish-yellow energy into its maw. The demon’s head exploded. Chunks of flesh fell to the ground, charred and smoking. Resisting the temptation to feast, Vandel launched himself forward, daggers clearing their sheaths. He rolled between two monstrous mo’arg servitors, hamstrung them before they could bring their weapons to bear, flipped to his feet, and smashed his dagger through the eye socket of first one, then the other.

A moment later, he confronted a dreadlord. The creature loomed over him, twice his height, broader than an ogre and even stronger. The dreadlord brought a massive spiked mace smashing into the ground as Vandel jumped aside. Rock splintered. Clouds of green dust rose glittering into the air.

Vandel picked himself up. His foe buffeted him with a batlike wing. The force of the blow made his head ring, sent him hurtling back toward a massive boulder. He flipped himself over so that his feet made contact with the rock first, and then he sprang forward, bouncing away from the impact and rolling to a stand.

The dreadlord turned with surprising quickness for a creature of his enormous bulk and lumbered toward him. Vandel raised his hand and sent a fel bolt slashing toward the demon. A wing curled around his opponent’s body. The bolt ripped through the appendage, leaving it hanging like a tattered cloak from the dreadlord’s side. The monster did not even seem to have slowed.

From the periphery of his vision, Vandel saw Cyana dispatch another mo’arg servitor, then leap over the corpse to engage a felguard. A blaze of light from his right warned him, and he sprang into the air just as an imp’s firebolt passed beneath him. He twisted to avoid descending into the jet of flame and found himself looking up at the massive polished hoof of the wounded dreadlord.

It stamped down, missing him. He lashed out with his dagger, catching his opponent behind the knee and drawing forth what might have been a grunt of pain or contempt. The creature smashed down with his mace and caught Vandel on the shoulder.

When he had been mortal, the blow would have killed him, smashing broken ribs through heart and lung. He rolled with the impact, riding the force of the strike. As he did so, he repaid the imp who had blasted him, hitting the demon with a fel bolt that turned the cackling little monster into a pool of bubbling slime.

Vandel sprang upward, embedding his left-hand dagger in the dreadlord’s breastplate, using it to pull himself up until he could drive his other weapon through the demon’s eye. The creature clutched at the socket, attempting to swat him, but Vandel had already drawn the blade clear and driven it through the other eye.

He dropped to the ground and unleashed a flurry of blows on the blinded monster. Doubtless the demon could, given time, sense Vandel the way he sensed him, using magic, but for those few crucial instants the creature might as well have been blind. Vandel took advantage to stab his blades again and again into the dreadlord. The magic on the daggers cut his flesh, leaving rotting wounds that would not heal.

Blades grated on bone, sawed through tendon, parted muscle with the sound of a butcher’s cleaver going into a steer’s carcass.

The demon gave up trying to strike him and tried to lumber away, flapping his huge wings. Because of the earlier damage, he could only remain on the ground while Vandel carved him to pieces.

Cruelty drove Vandel’s hand. Every blow that went home gave him sick satisfaction, and he knew the thing within him was feeding on the dreadlord’s death. At that moment he no longer cared. The demon’s desires were aligned with his own. It did not matter if he made it stronger. Right now he could use its strength, and right now, he knew that it took just as much satisfaction from the killing as he did.

When finally he had reduced the dreadlord to a pile of skinned flesh, it occurred to him that he had wasted valuable time. There was more prey to be had, and he needed to claim his share.

Needle sat nearby, astride the torso of a fallen felguard, casually punching his foot-long needles again and again into the demon’s open chest plate as if he were trying to stitch it together. Elarisiel chased a felhound around a rock before putting it out of its misery.

Over by a huge boulder, a group of dreadlords made a last stand. They looked more bemused than afraid, as if they could not quite grasp what was happening around them. It was clear that the battle had not gone as they had expected.

The demon hunters had gone through their army like a sharp scythe through wheat. Everywhere the corpses of demons sprawled. There were several elf bodies, too, but far fewer than Vandel would have expected, given the sizes of the respective forces.

Illidan landed atop the rock behind the remaining dreadlords. Vandel wondered whether the lord of Outland intended to take a hand in their destruction, but he simply stood there, watching.

The demon hunters slowly rose from what they were doing and stared at their overlord and then at the dreadlords. The demons braced themselves as a tide of fighters surged forward and engulfed them.

Illidan watched his forces drag down the last of the nathrezim. His doubts had disappeared. The demon hunters had exceeded his expectations. Of course, they had possessed the advantage of surprise. The dreadlords had not expected to encounter such savage power so close to their home, and overconfidently had marched to meet them. Things would not always be so easy.

Nonetheless, nothing could damp the sweet feeling of triumph. Every dreadlord who fell here would be one who no longer troubled the universe. In this place, at this time, they would die permanently. How long had it taken Illidan to realize that secret? How many times had he fruitlessly thought he had slain his enemies? His visions had shown him the answer. During his millennia-long imprisonment, he could do nothing with them, but now things had changed.

He would make the lords of the Burning Legion suffer as they had made others suffer. He counted his own dead. Less than a score. At this point each was a loss he could barely afford, but soon there would be more demon hunters. The Legion had sown dragon’s teeth among his people. There was no shortage of those who sought vengeance against the demons. But that was a problem for another day. Now he had to get what he had come here for.

Time was of the essence. The force they had encountered was the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction of what the Burning Legion could deploy. As soon as they realized what had happened, the masters of the city would summon aid. He needed to be gone from here before that occurred. No matter how powerful his individual fighters were, they could still be overcome by enough enemies.

He gave the signal to advance.

The demon hunters moved quickly through the nathrezim city. Great obsidian towers reflected the green light of fel magic all around them. Streets of shining black shimmered in their glow. More and more demons surrounded them, stragglers or those left behind by the army to hold important posts. The Illidari overwhelmed any they encountered, like hounds pulling down a rabbit. Not even the mightiest dreadlord was a match for so many.

Illidan resisted the urge to join in the fray. Opening the portal had drained a good deal of his power; he was husbanding what was left in case any unexpected threat emerged.

Ahead of him loomed the tallest tower, the great archive of the dreadlords. Within this building lay all the countless secrets the nathrezim had obtained during their service to Sargeras.

Hulking felguard flanked an entrance that shimmered and vanished, closing off the tower to intruders. Tattooed fighters dragged the demons down, then stood before where the doorway once was, baffled. What had been an empty archway mere heartbeats before was now a wall of stone.

“Blast it,” Illidan ordered. There was no doubt an easier way of opening the doorway, but he did not have time to uncover the magical key. The demon hunters raised their hands and sent fel flame licking toward the barrier. Hundreds of bolts smashed, scoured, and scratched the stone, but still it withstood the assault.

“Concentrate on one area!” Illidan shouted, and all the bolts converged at the center of the stone, drilling through it until finally the rock splintered and collapsed into a heap of rubble.

Illidan sprang over it and glimpsed a long ramp leading down into the depths below the tower. So far all was as he recalled from his memories of Gul’dan’s visions. He smiled to himself as a score of Illidari sprang over the stones and fanned out into the interior of the building, scouting the way ahead.

“Down,” Illidan ordered them, and they took the ramp leading down. Strange lights moved in the floor, as if triggered by their steps. The air pulsed with sorcery, currents of energy woven into potent spells by the magic of the nathrezim. Power shimmered in the air and thrummed beneath his hooves. Complex engines of magic all around drew on the energy that permeated everything on this strange world.

He was close now. So close.