Night of the Dragon

'What do you mean?' the priestess asked as she ran her hands a few inches above his body in hopes of sensing the source of his agony.

To her surprise, he uttered a harsh laugh. 'Who—who else would they expect to come in search of the truth? The blues...yes...because they are the guardians of magic! But—but more so, they would expect me!'

Iridi could make sense of neither his words nor his pain. She thought that she sensed something near his midsection, but it was too vague a sensation, as if either very small or very well masked.

'Never mind me! Do not let—do not let Kalec go to them! I still have the means to turn their plans against them! I need only a moment more!'

She looked up. It was already too late to summon the blue dragon back. Iridi told Krasus that.

'Young fool...' The dragon mage let out another gasp, then seemed to recover somewhat. 'I was merely caught by surprise. If he only could have waited...'

As he spoke, Krasus held up one gloved hand. In it, Iridi beheld a tiny golden shard. It was both beautiful and yet somehow awful to behold.

'Of all places,' Krasus continued. 'Grim Batol is the only one in which I would dream of using even this, for surely it must still have a tie to the evil within the dread mount.' He straightened. 'I regret only that Kalec might again suffer when he should not.'

His entire frame shook. His eyes rolled up into his lids. Iridi at first thought that he was having some convulsion, but then the draenei realized that he was casting a spell of potent and very dangerous power.

'In addition to the orcs, there were, in the past, other dragons here,' intoned the lanky spellcaster. 'And among them was the darkest of the dark. I call upon that vile memory to strengthen this spell now—'

But whatever Krasus intended never had the chance to come to fruition. Instead, the golden fragment turned a sudden black.

Krasus hissed in pain and, despite his best efforts, finally had to let the shard drop. As it struck the ground, the shard resumed its original coloring and glow.

The priestess immediately reached for it, but her companion shouted, 'No!'

Her fingers did not even touch the fragment, but suddenly the draenei experienced a jarring shift in perspective. She saw the shadows of dragons—hundreds of dragons—surrounding her like ghosts. No...not ghosts...but memories...

Then, the image past, and she was again back with Krasus... only they were no longer alone.

From all over the landscape, squat, bestial creatures that looked almost like dwarves but were scaled like reptiles and often ran on all fours attacked. As some neared, they straightened and removed from their backs wicked pikes or whips.

Krasus gestured toward the nearest.

On the creature's forehead, a disconcerting rune flashed in and out of existence.

'That symbol should be known by no one here!' the dragon mage blurted. 'No one save—'

He got no further, for a lash wrapped around the hand that had gestured. The dwarven nightmare wielding it tugged hard, only to grunt in surprise as Krasus readily kept his ground.

'I am not so easy a target as that even now,' he hissed at his attacker. With incredible strength, he used but the one hand to pull his unsuspecting foe forward...and into another just lunging.

Iridi, meanwhile, kicked out at another creature seeking to grab her from the side. As that one tumbled back, she struck another at the neck with the base of her hand.

A pike shot past her head, missing by inches. As its wlelder pulled back for a second attempt, she followed Krasus's example and grabbed part of the long pole. Utilizing the beast's own mass against it, the priestess threw him up and over her.

However, the winding lash of a whip tugged the pike away before Iridi could make use of it. Undaunted, she summoned her staff, praying only that whoever had the other would not choose now to try again to summon it to them.

To her side, Krasus fought with all the hand skill of one of her calling, but the very fact that he had to do so was of great concern to the priestess. Here was a dragon of clearly tremendous might, yet he could neither become himself nor use his inherent magic.

That made her wonder what she could do. If these creatures were immune to spells due to the rune, then the staff would only be as good as her ability to use it as a physical weapon.

But still Iridi pointed it at the next one to charge her. She concentrated....

The scaly dwarf froze in mid-lunge, his horrific mouth still open in preparation for a bite into her flesh.

Startled by her success, the draenei almost ignored an even more monstrous foe approaching. It resembled in basic shape one of her own kind or even a human or elf, but looked as if one of its parents had been of Krasus's or Kalec's race, although as black as midnight.

Him!' It hissed. 'The mistress wants him! The others are to slay!'

Iridi focused the staff on the drakonid. A tremendous bellow rocked the sky above. She looked up to see Kalec, a strange gray aura around him, plummeting.

Krasus pulled her back. 'Go, draenei! I will fend them off—' Then, he stiffened. The blood seemed to drain from his already-pale countenance. He struggled to keep upright.

'No mageslayer has such power!' he snapped. 'No—'

The same gray aura overlook him. He let out a groan. Yet, as he teetered, the dragon mage thrust a hand toward the priestess. “I said leave!'

The world around Iridi vanished.

It was difficult to contain the high elf in the tunnels, and not because of any claustrophobia on her account. Rather, Vereesa chafed at not being able to rush out and claim the life of her treacherous cousin.

'He must step out on occasion!' she insisted not for the first time. 'I need but one well-placed arrow to finish what must be finished!'

'And 'tis more likely that he'll finish you before you notch that arrow!' Rom argued. 'He's like no blood elf I've seen! He's hungerin' for magic, aye, but he's got plenty already to toss at you or anyone else! He's got that staff I told you about, plus a pet mageslayer!'

'I am no wizard like my husband; that would hardly affect me!'

'You've not seen this mageslayer! Somethin's been done to it, and I lay that blame on the dark lady!'

Her eyes narrowed. 'You have spoken of this person before! What is she? Another blood elf? A human sorcerer?'

The veteran warrior pulled out his pipe, more to calm his nerves than to smoke any of the foul stuff he had on hand. 'Don't know much about her, but I've hazarded a guess or two. She's real pale and what features she has look maybe human, maybe elf, maybe a mix.'

'A blending of those races is rare, as I can attest from my sons. What do you mean... 'what features she has'?'

Rom recalled the last time that he had seen the lady in black. It had been from a fortunately long distance. 'She wears a veil, but it don't hide the fact that one side of her face—by the beard of my grandfather, most of the whole damned side of her body—was at some point burnt real bad!'

'She's a Forsaken!' one of the other dwarves interjected.

'She's no Forsaken,' countered their leader. 'There's life in her, even though it looks to be in the form of madness and evil!'

Rhonin's mate mulled this over. 'Does she have a name?'

'None that any of us has heard. They all treat her like she's a queen—and a nasty one, at that. There's fear in the skardyn—'

'Skardyn?'

'Once dwarves of the Dark Iron clan, so it looks to be. More beast than thinking creature. They've become scaled like the dragonspawn and will oft run on all fours.'

'Their bite's poisonous,' Grenda offered.

'Not poisonous, but it'll make you sick because of the filth they eat. Don't care whether it's rotting or raw, the skardyn.'

Vereesa nodded. From her expression, Rom could guess that she was comparing the skardyn to some of the changes in her own race. Finally, she said, 'Who do you think this sorceress is? What is she doing in Grim