Stormrage

18 LOST DREAMS

In Stormwind City, in Ironforge, Dalaran, Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, and all other cities, towns, and villages, the mist began to move.

Even in the Undercity, where the undead should not dream, the mist seized the hidden nightmares of its inhabitants. The Forsaken were cursed with suffering their lost lives over again in dreams that offered them escape, but did not deliver that promise.

The Undercity was well-named for many reasons, the least of which was that it was buried under the ruins of what had once been one of the most grand of cities…Lordaeron’s famed Capital City.

However, in the Third War, Prince Arthas — corrupted by the Lich King — seized his father’s capital and slaughtered King Terenas in his own throne room.

But the dread destiny of the Lich King had drawn Arthas to cold Northrend and during that time, the Forsaken — those undead who had broken from the Lich King’s mastery — seized the ruins. Seeing the defensive advantages, they had carved out what would become their capital, stretching its catacombs to new depths and building what to many of the living would have very much seemed a terrible mockery of the undead’s lost existences.

A sinister crest consisting of three crossed arrows — one of them broken — covered by a white, cracked mask could be seen throughout the city. It was the mark of the Forsaken and, especially, their queen. The Undercity was a place of dark, somber colors, stone walkways and steps. However, the undead did not sleep and so neither did the city. The Undercity had inns, forges, and businesses that catered not only to the undead, but visitors from the Horde, with whom the Forsaken had allied itself. There was some illumination in the form of dim lamps and muted torches.

They were not merely there to serve the living, though the undead had no true need of light, but no one wished to admit that it perhaps gave its chief inhabitants a facade of some other existence.

But now…something new and unsettling even to those who had built the Undercity had swept into the Forsaken’s capital.

Something that resembled sleep…

The Forsaken’s leader — the fearsome Banshee Queen, Sylvanas Windrunner — had studied the strange state of those of her followers who now seemed truly dead…and yet not. It was the merest of movements that proved the latter, if nothing else.

The Banshee Queen was beautiful even in undeath. She had been not only a high elf, but also ranger-general of lost Silvermoon.

And even in her current role, Sylvanas was unique, for she was not ghostlike as banshees generally were, but had a solid form. Lithe, elegant, and with skin of pale ivory, she strode among the supine bodies gathered for her by her servants. All were the same. All gave her no answer, and that only served to increase her frustration.

Clad in form-fitting leather armor designed for easy movement and adorned also with a shroudlike hooded cloak bearing deep crimson hints, Sylvanas looked very much the harbinger of doom.

Even the four undead high elf guards in attendance, with their rotted faces, their protruding rib cages, and their hollow eyes could not raise such fear as the banshee did.

“Well, Varimathras?” she demanded of a shadowed presence in the corner of the dank, cobwebbed chamber underneath her citadel. Her voice was seductive in the way that darkness was to some, yet also was akin to a chill wind. “Have you nothing to tell me yet?”

The shadow separated from the wall, to reveal a gargantuan figure, a demon. He wore leather and metal armor of the darkest ebony. Sylvanas’s tone hinted of a tremendous mistrust between them. The demon joined her, striding on two huge, cloven hooves.

His skin was of a bloody purple tone, even to the two vast, webbed wings sprouting from near his shoulders. His head was long and tapered, with a dark mane flowing from the base of an otherwise bald head. Two wicked black horns thrust up from the temples.

Green gemstones marked his armor at the forearms and waist, their color and glow matching his inhuman orbs. Those eyes now met glowing, silver-white ones.

“I have cast spell after spell, burrowed deep into each of these fools…and they all reveal the same thing, Your Majesty…” he replied coolly. The demon cocked his head to the side and with analytical interest watched his mistress’s expression contort.

“We — do — not — dream!” Sylvanas retorted, her voice so shrill now that the demon had to cover his long, pointed ears. Even then, his body was wracked by sharp pain. The cry of a banshee was a terrifying power and Sylvanas was the deadliest, most unique, of banshees.

“That — distraction — is beyond us,” the queen of the undead added in a more calm manner. “They’re not dreaming, Varimathras…”

“Not even — Sharlindra?”

Sylvanas could not help but glance to one still form. As opposed to the rest, it had been carefully set upon a stone dais. The body seemed more mirage than solid, more of an illusion fading away. It radiated a white aura with bluish hints. In life, she had been a beloved elven female and her grace was still evident even in undeath. Sylvanas had found the other banshee to be wise and, in contrast to the demon, trusted counsel.

But Sharlindra had been the first to fall. More unsettling, when Sylvanas, upon being brought to the body, had leaned close, she had realized that Sharlindra was murmuring something.

She still was. They all were. All evidence suggested that they were, as the demon had early on suggested, dreaming.

“This is a trick!” Yet Sylvanas knew from her own bitter experience that such was not possible. “This is a trick, just like the mists hovering above the Undercity…” She turned from Sharlindra, turned from Varimathras. Her eyes blazed as she considered just who it was who would use such tactics.

Only one name came to mind and as she spoke it — even in a whisper — Sylvanas’s anger fueled her power and caused the very stone to shake. “Arthas…I would say this is the Lich King’s doing

…but that is no longer poss—”

With a gasp, Sharlindra suddenly opened her eyes. She stared up, seeing something that Sylvanas could not.

The stricken banshee smiled. She reached up a slim, ethereal hand. “Life…I live again…”

Her eyes closed. Her hand dropped. Again she murmured, though the words were not intelligible.

Sylvanas’s eyes burned with more rage. She leaned over the still form. “What twisted jest is this? She has impossible dreams of the even more impossible! She dreams of living? Madness!”

“Not so mad,” Varimathras remarked from behind her. “A simple spell, really.”

Sylvanas swung around, gaping at the demon’s unbelievable statement. Varimathras knew better than to mock her. He had learned quickly that his kind were not the only experts of torture.

“You tread a dangerous line…”

But the winged fiend only shrugged. “I only speak the truth.

Resurrection is a fairly easy casting for any dreadlord.”

“It’s impossible, you mean! I warned you—” Sylvanas’s rage surged. She focused on Varimathras.

Still unperturbed, he gestured. “Let me show you.”

An invisible force akin to all of the Undercity collapsing upon her sent Sylvanas to the floor. She instinctively went from solid to incorporeal, but nothing seemed to happen, for she still felt the harsh collision. Sylvanas briefly lost focus, but the cool, moist stone against her cheek stirred her back to full consciousness.

And then she realized that she should not have been able to feel those sensations to such depth. In fact, she had not felt this way sinceThe incessant smell of rot and decay filled her nostrils as it never had since the city’s founding. It was so intense that she coughed, an act that forced her to take a deep breath to calm herself.

Only…she did not need to breathe, either. She was dead.

Wasn’t she?

Sylvanas eyed her hand. The whiteness had given way to a very pale pink.

“No—” She gasped at the sound of her own voice…of her voice before her transformation into a banshee.

Varimathras loomed over her. The demon presented her with a large looking glass with gold scrollwork on the frame and handle.

“You see? I didn’t lie…this time.”

Sylvanas stared at herself, at her former, living, breathing self.

She touched her cheeks, her chin, her nose…

“I’m alive…”

“Yes, you are.” Varimathras snapped his taloned fingers.

The four undead high elves moved in and seized Sylvanas.

Their stench was terrible. Small black creatures crawled into and out of areas where the flesh had given way to bone. Sylvanas wanted to throw up and the very fact that she wanted to stunned her more.

She fought to pull herself together. She had been a commander of the high elves and she was now queen of the Forsaken. Glaring at the guards, Sylvanas ordered, “Release me!”

But they only clutched her tighter. Sylvanas peered into the monstrous eye sockets of one — and saw such hatred of her that she stood speechless.

“They might be a bit jealous,” Varimathras remarked, growing more shadowy again. “Really, they shouldn’t be. You won’t stay that way long.”

The high elf was caught between fear and regret. “It doesn’t last?”

“It would last, if we gave you the chance.”

The speaker was not the demon, but rather someone who had entered without Sylvanas’s knowledge. Yet though she could not see him from her angle, Sylvanas knew the voice so well…and shuddered because of it.

Varimathras had the guards turn her to face the newcomer.

To face a figure clad in black, icy armor.

To face the Lich King.

She fought to free herself, but the guards held her with the proverbial death grips. Worse, they dragged her toward the Lich King.

But this is impossible, Sylvanas remembered. He is defeated!

He is —

Arthas cupped her chin. His human traits could just be seen through the openings of the helmet. Frosty breath escaped him as he spoke.

“So becoming as a high elf…and so more becoming as a banshee…”

She was placed on a stone platform, then chained. Varimathras joined the Lich King, who again cupped the captive’s chin.

“This time…I’ll make you right,” Arthas promised. His cold breath coursed over Sylvanas’s face, but it was not the breath that chilled her so.

Arthas planned to make her a banshee again…

Sylvanas still recalled the horrible agonies her last lingering life force had suffered before her dread transformation. She knew that she would go through a terror a thousand times greater now.

“No!” she cried out, trying to use her powers. Unfortunately, those powers would not belong to her until the monstrous spell was completed.

Arthas raised his long, sleek sword, Frostmourne. Its evil was as great as his. He held the point over her and as he did, he and the weapon filled her frightened view.

“Yes, this time you’ll be a properly obedient servant, my dear Sylvanas…even if we have to raise you again and again and again to get it right…”

Sylvanas shrieked…

“She will not wake,” Sharlindra murmured, feeling in her a level of fear not experienced since just before her death. She eyed the other Forsaken around her and saw that they, too, were going through the same thing. “She mentions the traitor Varimathras, slain by her, and the Lich King, finally defeated! What sort of dream does she go through — and why does she dream?”

Nearly half of Sylvanas’s subjects were in a state like that of their queen. All but a few of the representatives of the other Horde races staying in the Undercity were likewise, though in their case that made more sense.

And worse, so much worse…the Forsaken were under attack.

Under attack by shadows of their own former loved ones, who had become something even more hideous than that which the once-living denizens of the Undercity now were. The Forsaken knew that they were not real, yet neither were they figments. What stalked the undead, what unnerved them as only their original demises had, were creatures somewhere in between. They ravaged the Undercity in a manner that served to bring home to the stunned Forsaken what it must have been like when the undead, as part of the Scourge, had overcome the once vibrant realm.

A shriek shook Sharlindra anew. This time it had not come from Sylvanas. This time it had come from directly above. She knew it for the cry of one of the other banshees, but it was no warning nor any weapon of battle.

It was a cry of fear…the fear of the unliving.

Sharlindra looked at those gathered with her. Frightening as they were to outsiders, the Forsaken now had a pathos about them that had nothing to do with their existence. Rather, those undead she studied looked uncertain, off balance.

More shrieks erupted from the upper recesses of the Undercity.

The banshee looked to her queen, but there was no hope of guidance from Sylvanas.

“The mist…” warned a rasping voice. The speaker barely wore any remnants of flesh and only the magical properties of his undead state enabled him to speak, for his jaw hung loose on one side. “This mist…” he repeated.

Sharlindra looked to the steps leading down to their location. The dark green mist was seeping down the stone steps, as if a living creature slowly approaching its prey.

The Forsaken pressed away from it. As they did, though, in the mist there began to form figures.

The banshee stepped back. She knew some of them. By their reactions, others, too, recognized their kin and friends — the living who were more tortured than they.

The banshee let out a shriek that began as a desperate attack and ended in despair…

The Nightmare enveloped the Undercity.

In Stormwind City, King Varian watched as the mist and its ghoulish force surged toward the keep. From various parts of the rest of the capital, he heard screams.

We’re being assaulted…and we can’t fight them…Arrows had been tried. Arrows with oil-soaked, fiery tips. They had been no more effective than the swords, lances, and other weapons. What magi and other spellcasters were still conscious in the city were doing their best, but their effectiveness was limited.

The brave defenders of the keep awaited their monarch’s orders.

Varian saw his son and dead wife, both still multiplied a hundred times over, cross through the gate as if it were air. Nothing impeded these living nightmares.

And knowing that, Varian found himself with no orders that he could give…even as his citadel, his kingdom, began to fall before him.

Throughout nearly all the known lands of Azeroth, the Nightmare surged forth. As it did, the mists faded enough for the waking to see what had become of its victims…and what would be their own fate. Despite that, though, despite whether it was the orcs in Orgrimmar, the dwarves in Ironforge, or any other race in any other realm, those left to defend against its terror did not for the most part surrender. They knew that they had no choice but to keep fighting…no matter how little hope they had left.

But there was one realm oddly free of the mists. That was Teldrassil and, thus, Darnassus, too. That did not mean that Shandris Feathermoon did not know much of what happened on the mainland and beyond. The general was well-informed through her network.

A network, though, that was quickly collapsing.

Shandris lowered the last missive received from an agent near Orgrimmar. It echoed those from Stormwind City, tauren Thunder Bluff, and other locations where Shandris had spread her web.

The mysterious mist was moving. Worse to her, though, was the fact that she also had no information as to her mistress’s location.

Tyrande had been heading toward Ashenvale…and then had seemingly disappeared.

She is not dead! the younger night elf insisted to herself.

Discarding the parchment, Shandris abandoned her quarters.

She could have taken up residence in the high priestess’s abode, as Tyrande insisted whenever departing for matters of state, but Shandris preferred her spartan quarters. There were no decorations honoring nature, only weapons and trophies of war.

Defending her mistress and her people had become Shandris’s entire existence. Indeed, she had tried more than once during her mistress’s absence to locate some trace of Tyrande through the visions of other priestesses.

That had failed. Instead, Elune had granted each of those priestesses another vision, one that confused the general.

It was a vision of Teldrassil being eaten from within. A horrid, festering decay would spread not from the roots but rather the crown. It would quickly devour the World Tree inside out. The vision had always been short, only three or four breaths in span. Shandris had gone over it thoroughly with each priestess and still did not understand it.

The vision had so troubled her today that Shandris could no longer sit still. Hoping to clear her thoughts, she had personally begun patrolling the length and breadth of the capital, wending her way from the fortified bastion of the Warrior’s Terrace down into the commercial sections of the Tradesmen’s Terrace, on through the mystic Temple of the Moon and across the lush, sculptured islets of the garden. There she had made a detour to the industrious Craftsmen’s Terrace before returning to her quarters in the Warrior’s.

That left only the Cenarion Enclave. Shandris did not fear stepping into the druids’ stronghold. Nor did she respect Fandral so much that she would have stayed clear because of him; her first loyalty was to Tyrande. Even now, the general would have normally bypassed the enclave, but Shandris had learned long ago that to find answers it was often better to not seek the obvious source.

The dread vision still in mind, she suddenly realized that there was one among the druids who might be of use to her. Someone who might be able to explain the vision without turning to Fandral.

Never one to ask of her Sentinels what she herself would not do, Shandris quietly departed the Warrior’s Terrace. As she passed the more dour wooden structures, the constant sound of military training sang in her ears. To Shandris, such was more sweet than the music of her people. Not since her parents had been lost in the War of the Ancients had the general truly ever enjoyed music anymore…save for the songs and chants used by the priestesses during battle when calling upon Elune’s power. Those had purpose,

after all.

She started to turn…only to see a furtive figure crossing from the Temple Gardens to the north. The cloak marked him as a druid, but otherwise she could not individually identify him.

Shandris started on…then turned. She could not say why, but she decided to follow the druid.

The figure quickly vanished into the thick grove that was part of the enclave. Shandris easily followed. The Sentinel commander moved like a shadow among the tall trees. Many reminded her of miniature versions of Teldrassil, which in turn brought back thoughts of the priestesses’ vision.

The druid came into sight again. There was something odd about his — she assumed the figure a male — gait and the fact that he kept the obscuring cloak around him. It was almost as if he did not like being in the enclave.

Then the druid came to a halt. The hooded form looked left and right, as if deciding where to go.

The figure made his choice. Shandris smiled, having guessed.

She followed —

Or rather, she tried to follow. Her foot caught on a root that the night elf was certain she had avoided. As Shandris moved aside, the root seemed to stretch from the ground, again catching her foot.

The Sentinel lithely twisted to avoid the root — and a branch caught her face. The force of it caused Shandris to fall back against the nearest tree.

The tree’s roots bound her ankles. Shandris reached for the dagger she always carried, intending to quickly cut her way loose and move on.

Another branch struck her hard on the head. Stunned, Shandris momentarily went limp.

In that moment, the craggy bark opened. Even through her daze, Shandris sensed herself being drawn into the tree trunk.

She struggled to regain her concentration, but again she was battered on the side of the head. The interior of the vast oak surrounded her. Through blurred vision, the general watched the bark seal itself again.

A darkness even her vision could not penetrate surrounded her.

Worse, a pressure was building in her chest. Shandris vaguely realized that the space she was in was too tight. She could not breathe —

The night elf passed out, aware in the last moment that death was coming.

Then the bark gave way again. The pressure eased. Fresh air stirred Shandris, though not enough to keep her from falling forward.

She landed in the arms of a powerful figure. Shandris struggled to recover, certain that her captor had come for her.

A musky scent assailed the night elf, shaking her into consciousness. She peered up at who held her.

It was a tauren.

Hamuul Runetotem gazed down at her with narrowed eyes. “So… it is you…”