Illidan

2

Maiev Shadowsong studied the parched land, shielding her eyes from the blaze of the huge Outland sun with one gauntleted hand. Her gaze shifted from the dusty road to the hillside. She caught the scuttling movement of one of their alien pursuers as it ducked out of sight behind a boulder on the slope above them.

“I see our insectoid friends are still following us,” Anyndra said.

Maiev glanced at her second-in-command. Like all night elves, Anyndra was tall and slender. The sweat-stained tabard of a Watcher clung to her. A red scarf held her green hair from her eyes. Anyndra would not have been Maiev’s first choice as a lieutenant, but she had to work with what she had. The thirty troops strung out along the road behind her were the only survivors of the ambush that had ripped Illidan from her grasp mere weeks before. Lady Vashj and Prince Kael’thas would answer for the deaths they had caused freeing the Betrayer.

“The ravagers will not give up,” Maiev said. “They are hungry.”

“I have heard they take captives to feed to their hatchlings,” Anyndra said. It did not surprise Maiev. Outland was a hideous place inhabited by monstrous creatures. Even her spell-woven armor could not entirely neutralize the heat. She wished she could wipe away the perspiration trickling down her brow, but her full-face helm prevented that. Instead she squinted at the ridge again. There were more of the scuttlers up there, a lot of them. Their movements reminded her of gigantic spiders.

In the distance she heard the blaring foghorn roar of a fel reaver, one of the titanic war machines that thundered across these parched wastes with earth-shaking strides. Two days ago the Watchers had barely managed to escape one. It had threatened to reduce them to a bloody pulp beneath its enormous demon-metal feet.

Maiev’s nightsaber let out a fierce roar as if responding to the challenge. The other riding cats echoed the sound. Upslope, a ravager scuttled into view to investigate the source of the noise.

“I could put an arrow through that ravager’s eye,” said Anyndra, producing an arrow with her distinctive green-and-red fletching. She was proud of her skill with a bow and liked to display it every chance she got.

Maiev gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Why bother? There are thousands more of the creatures.” She nudged her nightsaber into its long, loping stride. “Let them follow us if they wish. If they attack, we will teach them the folly of their ways. Otherwise, do not waste precious arrows.”

The troops fell into line behind her, surveying their surroundings warily. Maiev knew she was going to have to keep a close watch on them. Back on Azeroth, she would never have doubted their commitment to the hunt, but here things were different. A few of her soldiers had had a wild look in their eyes ever since they had passed through the magical portal in pursuit of Illidan.

She took in another breath of the dry air. She had been places on Azeroth that were just as parched, but something about Hellfire Peninsula made her feel thirstier than she had been even in the desert of Tanaris. At least there, she had known the ocean was near. So far they had found no evidence that this place had a sea. As far as she could tell, Outland floated in a great void. Water was scarce.

“He will not escape us, Warden,” said Anyndra.

Maiev shook her head, clearing it of her musings. She refocused on her lieutenant and the task at hand. “Of course he will not. I have not crossed the gap between worlds to let the Betrayer elude justice.”

“He has powerful allies here.” Anyndra’s voice was soft and held a hint of doubt. The other members of the company had fallen silent. They were listening to hear what Maiev had to say.

“No matter how powerful his allies are, he will not get away,” Maiev said. She decided to address her troops’ unspoken questions head-on. “We captured Illidan once. We will capture him again.”

Anyndra’s face froze into a mask. She glanced toward the ridge as if seeking to hide from her leader any doubts she might feel. The scuttling ravagers still kept pace with them. Maiev looked to the right. Scores of the insect-like beasts carpeted the other slope, flanking the road. If there were more ravagers ahead, Maiev and her people were riding into a trap. It would not be the first one they had fallen into here.

“He was not with Kael’thas or Lady Vashj when we first captured him,” Anyndra said. Clearly the way the two powerful sorcerers had rescued Illidan and slaughtered her fellow Watchers was on her mind.

Maiev said, “Prince Kael’thas is a treacherous renegade. Lady Vashj is a twisted abomination. If they get in our way, we will kill them.”

Maiev was not entirely sure how she would make good on that threat. She pushed that thought aside as a distraction. The blood elf prince and the naga matron were not important. Illidan was. She had not spent ten thousand years of her life making sure his evil was contained just so he could take the opportunity to work his wickedness now.

“You think this Broken sage will be able to help us against them? This Akama?” Anyndra asked.

“I do not know, Anyndra,” she said. “He may be of use to us. He may not. In the long run, it does not matter. We will triumph. We always have. We always will.”

Anyndra looked away. Maiev let the silence hold and gave her attention to their surroundings once more. The landscape of Outland had been torn apart by magic. It was a terrible warning of what dealing with those forces could unleash. She had seen its like before.

Although it had happened more than ten thousand years ago, Maiev remembered it as if it were yesterday. No, as if it had happened only hours ago…the day when she had first seen the Burning Legion. Her memories of that terrible time were as fresh as they had been when newly minted.

No one had understood what they faced back then, not really. They had thought the Legion was merely a temporary threat spawned by uncontrolled magic. They had thought Illidan was merely a misguided sorcerer. At least the others had. She had always known different.

The ozone scent in the Outland air brought back the memory of her first encounter with an infernal. She recalled the stench of the near-mindless thing as vividly as the night blossoms blooming amid the pavilions of Darnassus. It had seemed too big and too filled with magic to be opposed. The leaves shriveled as it passed, turned autumn-sere by the backwash of its blazing body. She called on the power of Elune, and the moon goddess destroyed the demon, shattering it into scorching fragments, leaving Maiev free to heal the seared flesh of its victims.

That had been only one of a thousand skirmishes. She had witnessed horrors during the War of the Ancients. Forests had burned and nations had died. It had taught her that there could be no compromise with those who sought power through the use of perverted magic. They needed to be stamped out, crushed, slain before they could unleash destruction upon the innocent, before they could corrupt all that was natural and good.

Maiev had seen that from the very beginning. It was a pity that others had not shared her clarity of vision. If only they had heeded her back then, there would be no need for this hunt now. If they had slain Illidan when his wickedness had first been revealed, countless innocent lives would have been saved.

Instead they had followed the counsel of Illidan’s twin, Malfurion, and Tyrande Whisperwind. Time and again the pair had spared his life, even after his wickedness was plain for all to see. At the end of the War of the Ancients, when Maiev was set to end the Betrayer’s life, had they not granted him mercy and argued for his imprisonment rather than his death?

Since then, Tyrande had gone even further, slaying the Watchers guarding Illidan’s prison. She claimed she had freed him in order to gain his aid in the fight against the Burning Legion. At first it seemed that she had been right. Illidan had aided them, but then his true nature had revealed itself. He had absorbed the power of the Skull of Gul’dan and transformed himself into a demon, his body mutated to mirror the inner monstrousness of his soul. Even then, his brother had only banished him from the forests rather than striking him dead.

Maiev snorted. Illidan was but a tool of the Burning Legion. He always had been and always would be. Because of those fools, Maiev had spent ten thousand years guarding the wretched sorcerer.

And for what?

Maiev ground her teeth in fury. Tyrande should have spent the long centuries imprisoned beside Illidan. She had proved that when, with a folly exceeded only by her arrogance, she had freed him. She had made a mockery of all the oaths that Maiev had sworn. She had turned ten thousand years of vigilance into a cruel joke. Even if she was now the ruler of the night elves, she had no right to do that.

A sound from the right drew Maiev’s attention. The ravagers were edging closer. They held their bodies low as they moved along on all fours, taking advantage of the undulations of the land to keep out of the line of fire from ranged weapons and magic. Perhaps they were more intelligent than Maiev had thought.

Given their numbers, it would not really matter. If they got close enough, they would pull down what remained of her force. She did not have enough troops left to be able to afford the loss of one. She raised her hand and gave the signal to ride at double time. With impeccable discipline, the Watchers’ pace increased. Their great cat mounts stretched their long limbs and raced forward.

Anyndra rode up alongside Maiev, a questioning look on her face. She was wondering if Maiev would give the order to turn and fight. Now was not the time to senselessly throw away lives, not when the trail of the Betrayer lay before them and they had the scent of their prey in their nostrils.

Maiev thought about Illidan—he was no longer an elf. She shuddered when she recalled what he had become. Horned and hoofed and batwinged, as much a demon as the eredar he had worshipped and then betrayed.

If he really had betrayed them…

That was the eternal problem with trying to comprehend the mind of Illidan. No sane individual could. Who knew what that maniac truly thought? His mind was so twisted by the dark forces of the magic he lusted after that his reasoning was impossible to follow. And that was a problem, for a hunter needed to understand her prey. It was the one sure way of trapping it.

It troubled Maiev sometimes. She had heard the whispers. She knew what was said behind her back. There were those who claimed that she had become as warped as the foe she had spent so long guarding. She laughed at the bitter humor of it.

Weaklings! All of them. They were not prepared to deal with the evil that had taken root so deeply among them. They feared those who had the strength to do what needed to be done. They made compromises with the demons that would destroy them, and fooled themselves into believing it was wisdom. Well, she knew better. She would never compromise. She would not rest until Illidan was dead or once again bound within his prison. She knew her duty. She would keep her oaths. She did not care what others thought of her. She would not be distracted from her quest.

“Warden Shadowsong!” Anyndra’s voice broke into her reverie.

“What is it?”

Her second-in-command flinched at the coldness in Maiev’s tone. “There!”

Maiev’s gaze followed Anyndra’s pointing finger. A host of ravagers lined the hillsides above them. The Watchers rode over the rise and looked down the long valley through which the road wound. Ahead of them, more of the four-legged monsters blocked their path. Maiev had not noticed the trap quickly enough, lost in her musings on Illidan. She cursed the Betrayer once again.

“Prepare for battle!” Maiev shouted.

Maiev and her Watchers drew themselves up in line abreast. The warden studied her people, noting whose glances darted around in panic and who stared at the enemy with cold, killing calm. It made her proud that far more eyes held the latter emotion. The night elves were surrounded and outnumbered. Even facing hundreds of the alien monsters, they were not afraid.

Some of them produced their bows and glaives. Responding to the mood of their riders, the nightsabers roared defiance. The druid Sarius dismounted and transformed into a monstrous bear, his fur branded with mystical markings. Maiev considered her options.

To stand and fight was to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of the ravagers. Something had clearly stirred up the creatures.

She glanced behind her, at the way she had come. The long, dusty road lay empty. They could retreat with little resistance, but that would set them back to where they had started. She needed to thrust ahead, down into the land the natives called Zangarmarsh, if she was to make contact with Akama.

She had to admit she was curious. The Broken’s message hinted that he knew something of Illidan’s plans, and all she had managed to find out about Akama from the draenei at the Temple of Telhamat was that he was a leader in a faction known as the Ashtongue tribe. He had access to troops, and he knew this land. He was the only one who had seen fit to contact her. How had his agents known where to find her? Why did he choose to reach out to her? Was it a trap?

Ahead of her the sky darkened, as if low hills or perhaps huge trees glowered on the horizon. The air carried a strange tang. The wind bore hints of rot and putrefaction and something else she could not quite place. There was just the faintest trace of moisture on the breeze blowing toward them.

Zangarmarsh was a monstrous place, a boggy fenland filled with alien horrors. Maiev took a deep breath and stared down at her foes. There were many of the beasts, but they lacked discipline. There were weak points in their massed ranks. If she concentrated all her forces, they could puncture the enemy line and ride like the wind down the road. She doubted the scuttling monsters would follow into the swamplands. These dry hills appeared to be their home.

“Form up in a flying wedge behind me. We will cut down these animals and smash our way clear.”

The Watchers nodded their understanding. Anyndra raised her horn and sounded one long, silvery note. The night elves charged downslope.

A smile twisted Maiev’s lips as she drew her umbra crescent. Just for a moment, she could lose herself in the fury of combat and let her mind rest. Her nightsaber roared. The elves crashed into the ravagers in an avalanche of fur, claw, muscle, and blade.

She slashed the nearest scuttler with her weapon, wishing it were Illidan. What is the Betrayer up to now? she wondered.