Night of the Dragon

Batol?'

'Me, the best I can guess is that she might be from Dalaran, but that's just 'cause I know she's got magic. As for what she has in mind, if it involves the dread mount, then it's nothln' good, as the roars will attest.'

He had already told her about the cries, even the ones that had saved them from the blood elf's trap. Vereesa showed some interest, but only wherever Zendarin was concerned.

'I cannot just leave him be!' she blurted again. 'I will not!'

Rom groaned at her obsessiveness, even though he shared that trait far too much.

One of the sentries slipped in among the others.

'Rask's out on the hunt for somethin'!' the excited guard called.

'What'd you hear?' Rom demanded.

'Him shoutin' at a pack of skardyn combin' a trail like a bunch of wolves! There're at least two or three dragonspawn with 'im!'

The dwarven commander rubbed his bearded chin. 'Rask don't go out unless that lady's got somethin' special in mind. He's her top lizard, the only one who don't have to listen to your cousin, If he don't feel like it...'

'Would he know where Zendarin would be located?'

Rom swore. 'My lady! Goin' after Rask right now would be as foolish as goin' after your cousin!'

'Then what is your point in being here, Rom? Those that most might shed light on what you claim your mission seem too much a threat to fight!'

She bit her lip the moment she finished, obviously apologetic for her outburst and the condemnation in it. Silence filled the tunnels.

Tapping his pipe against the nearest wall—and only realizing then that he had never gotten around to filling, much less smoking, it—Rom muttered, 'You've not said anything that I've not said to myself. I've been hesitant, yes, because of some of the debacles of earlier, but the time out when we ran across you, I was plannin' to go into Grim Batol myself and there's no lie.'

Grenda all but jumped up and down in fury. 'I knew it! I knew there was something in your mind—'

'Quiet there! Keep screaming like that and you'll bring the skardyn all the way here!'

'Who would this Rask be hunting?' Vereesa demanded. 'Who else is out there?'

'Didn't think there was anyone else but us until you showed up —and that was you who saved me earlier with that blazing bolt, wasn't it?'

The ranger nodded, only half listening. 'Rhonin? Could it be Rhonin? He may be danger!'

Rom did not like where this was going. 'The wizard? He wouldn't be here and, besides, he's a powerful one that lad is!'

'Perhaps...perhaps not.' She turned toward the entrance. 'He has been straining himself to assist me while still guiding Dalaran's affairs. He never thought to be in command of the latter, but they turned to him in desperation. Weariness is his greatest enemy...and you yourself said that this mageslayer is also not like those he has fought in the past.'

With some reluctance, the dwarf agreed. 'It's a strong one....'

'I must go.' She pushed through the other dwarves who, uncertain as to what Rom desired, did nothing.

He let out an epithet. Stuffing away the unused pipe, he checked his ax. 'Don't just stand there,' Rom growled at the warriors nearest Vereesa. 'You think she's going out alone?'

The other dwarves let out a lusty cry and followed Vereesa up. Rom grimaced, feeling too tired to fight, but also too tired not to. He did not quite understand the feeling and gave up trying to think it through. What mattered was that they were already heading outagain, and it was up to him to see that the others did not get killed.

And that now included the ranger.

The guard who had earlier given warning of Rask's hunt was already shoving the stone out of place. He climbed up, Vereesa not far behind.

There came an oath from above. The other fighters hesitated, all eyes on the entrance.

Rom pushed his way to the front. 'What is it? Dragonspawn? The blood elf?'

They made way for him. Despite one hand, Rom easily scrambled up.

He gaped. This is definitely getting too complicated for an old dwarf...

A body lay sprawled only yards from the tunnels. Yet, it was not any dragonspawn, drakonid, nor even blood elf. In fact, Rom was not quite certain what it was, wrapped so well in a wide cloak.

Vereesa knelt beside the prone figure. With much caution—for here of all places a still form could easily be a trap—the ranger turned the body over.

It was female... and not in the least what anyone would have expected. Even the high elf, who was surely more familiar with other races than the Bronzebeards, was obviously startled by what they had found.

But at least she could give it the name that, for the moment, escaped Rom's mind.

'A draenei?'

Krasus saw no sign of Kalec, the younger dragon's impetuousness very likely doing him in. Still, Krasus could not fault his counterpart, for he was not faring much better.

The mageslayer materialized, utilizing a blink ability of which the dragon mage was very familiar. What he was not in the least familiar with were both its durability—his magic should have overwhelmed the elemental—but also how that magic was also thrown back at him with an intensity no mageslayer had.

He now knew what it was that he had confronted much earlier when sending his mind into Grim Batol. At the time, Krasus had had some suspicions, but he had been unable to completely accept the truth.

Now, the truth was closing in on him.

The mageslayer was a translucent, purple-blue shade with vague hints of spikes or something else sharp jutting from where its shoulders would be and a fearsome, almost avian head. Two blazing white orbs were the only things truly distinct. At times, it seemed to have arms, but other times nothing.

But whatever its true form, it was no mageslayer as Krasus had ever come across in the annals of Azeroth. There was powerful magic in its alteration, very powerful.

As powerful, say, as that of a black dragon?

Could this be... could this be Deathwing's doing? Krasus wondered. After all, there were both drakonid and dragonspawn of the black flight involved in this infernal attack.

He stumbled back, seeking some delay while he planned for this unforeseen abomination. A pair of the scaly dwarves immediately attacked, but although he could not fight them directly, at least now the dragon mage knew how to handle the vermin.

He opened his mouth, the lips and jaws stretching farther than mortally possible. From his gullet, a burst of flames struck the ground in front of the dwarves.

The ground exploded, flames, rock, and earth rising up, then showering down on the creatures.

A lash struck him hard on the arm. Krasus winced, but the pain was minor. He turned to confront the drakonid.

'So, your master lives, does he?' Krasus demanded of the fiend.

The drakonid only laughed. He looked not at Krasus, but behind him.

The dragon mage reacted instinctively, but his reflexes were too slow. He had kept an eye on the mageslayer.... only what he thought was the mageslayer was now only an afterimage, a residueof where it had formerly been.

And now it stood right behind him.

Again, it screamed in his head that this was not the way a mageslayer behaved. Someone had gone to great lengths to make it far more insidious.

He could not transform, but he could still cast. Taking a cue from his success with the dwarven creatures, Krasus focused not on the mageslayer itself, but the elemental's surroundings.

Yet, before his magic could affect the ground and the air, Krasus felt the forces he wielded twist from his control, instead pouring into the mageslayer—and right back at their caster.

So close and against such an unexpected extension of the monster's ability to absorb spells, Krasus had no