nighthold pt 7: the betrayer falls
pt. 1 pt. 2 pt. 3 pt. 4 pt. 5 pt. 5.5 pt. 6
Two days. The siege of the Nighthold had taken two days, and now on the dawn of the third it would finally end. Naahma’s hooves felt like lead as she advanced on the teleporter; above them she could hear Gul’dan chanting, and it made her stomach churn. For Draenor. For Azeroth. For my home and children, you will die.
The warlock stood within a column of energy on a vast open dais; behind her she was vaguely aware of Percy freezing at the realization of how high up they were, and Reeta whispering a spell that—oh, that would be useful, it felt like an extended-radius gravitational slow. At least they couldn’t die by falling off the platform. Judging by the maddened look in Gul’dan’s eyes, he wanted to cause their demise directly; when he spoke, his voice felt like a saw through Naahma’s mind.
“Ah, yes... the heroes have arrived. So persistent, so confident... but your arrogance will be your undoing. Have you forgotten your humiliation on the Broken Shore? How your precious High King was bent and broken before me, and your mighty Warchief was stuck in the belly like a helpless piglet? Will you beg for your lives as he did, whimpering like some worthless dog? Your pathetic armies will fall to dust. In the end, death will inherit this world... and she will be waiting.” Gul’dan’s gaze slid over the Forsaken, and he smiled. “What a pity.”
“No.” Crusader Bladesworn’s voice was a horrified croak; as he stepped back, what Naahma could see of his eyes were wide pools of glowing yellow, and the wave of protectiveness it spurred in her made her growl.
Gul’dan’s smile grew, revealing even more fangs than Naahma thought possible. “Illidan’s husk will make a fine vessel for my master, and your world will burn—”
“Not if you burn first!” Light lanced down as Tanryn charged forward, rushing Gul’dan’s energy barrier. It didn’t even crack; she rebounded, shaking her head, and turned to the rest of the group. “C’mon, I bet we can…oh.”
Portals shimmered into existence all around the dais; Naahma only took a moment to register what looked like the entire Burning Legion pouring through them before leaping into the fray. The one upside of the Legion’s preference for massed assault was that it meant she couldn’t possibly miss. She felt the teleport they’d ascended by start to reactivate, but only realized that reinforcements were arriving when a burly elf Blinked past her and gutted an inquisitor. Thank the Light.
“Flamedancer, you’re far from your temple!”
Oh, no. She leapt to cave a fel lord’s skull in, twisting in midair to see where the horribly familiar bellow had come from.
There, in the midst of the fray, Tanryn was trying very hard to keep an Eredar focused on her, dodging around him and slamming her mace into his joints. He was older now, scarred and missing his facial tendrils, but Naahma recognized him. He’d almost been a friend, once. She felt the fire within her leap out of her skin in arcs of heat; unthinking, she wove her way across the battlefield towards him, leaving a trail of flame and charred corpses in her wake. Her voice rang out above the din as she lapsed into the dialect of their crèche. “I dance for Azeroth’s glory now!”
He snorted, swatting Tanryn’s blow aside. “Foolish traitor, turning your back on the true rulers of this universe! You fight in vain, knowing that Sargeras will conquer all—”
Naahma swept in around Tanryn’s guard, whipped around the Eredar in a swift circle, and drove her fist into his kidneys. Lava erupted from her bare skin, eating a hole into his flesh; as he turned to strike back, she danced out of his range. The mace he carried could flatten her, and her best defense was simply not to be where it was. “Sargeras led me long enough!”
“You--!” Whatever he was going to say was eclipsed by a roar of pain; Tanryn had shattered one of his knees, and as he dropped she called down a gout of holy fire to finish the job. Naahma spared a moment’s attention to nod gratefully before striking down an imp that had been about to attach itself to her ankle.
“That barrier—”
Another wave of demons charged them, erasing Tanryn’s words. As Naahma moved (stab, kick, fling out an arc of fire, dodge incoming barrage), she called back, “Legion first!”
Her communication stone buzzed to life, and Reeta’s voice snapped through it. “The portals are down, we don’t have to worry about any more of ‘em!”
That still left a lot of demons. Even with the rest of their forces fighting alongside them, a quick glance around the dais showed nearly as many casualties on both sides, and Gul’dan’s felfire rain was much deadlier when you hadn’t grown up with it. Percy was focusing on a spell entirely too close to the oncoming impact; fear gripped Naahma’s heart as she charged across the battlefield to shove her out of the way. “Move!”
Violet eyes went wide with panic. She wasted precious seconds glancing up before she managed to scramble awkwardly to one side. Naahma’s impact knocked her over; she yelped with shock, but fell clear of the blast zone. “Naahma—” A shimmering shield of fire wrapped around her.
It was the last thing Naahma saw before her vision went green. Felfire cascaded over her, and every inch of exposed skin drank it in like rain. She only kept her balance by sheer stubbornness, and took in a shuddering breath to inhale the fumes. This, this was power, pure fel energy coursing through her like her own blood. She could do anything like this; she could destroy the world like this. Kil’jaeden would be pleased.
The fire finished seeping into her bones, and she smiled. He will weep this day. She tapped her communication crystal. “I am doing the fire. Gather up and shield yourselves.”
Three separate domes of Light sprang up around the dais; as she watched, more appeared. It seemed that the other healers in the army had gotten the message as well, and the Legion’s forces instinctively recoiled from the Light searing them. As soon as they were gathered in tight enough groups, she took a deep breath, shifted her weight, and started to dance.
It wasn’t a real dance, of course; for such a small area, it was closer to the first few steps of a larger figure. With the first step, felfire sparked over her skin, a crackling outline over her horns. With the second, she flung her arms wide and slammed her tail down onto the stone; several spines snapped off painlessly, and she whirled to fling them into the joints of an advancing demon. With the third, the first bolts of felfire started to rain down. Demons screamed in pain, taken by surprise, and the army swept in for a counterattack.
Slowly but surely, the tide of the battle began to turn. Naahma had almost been drawn into a state of tunnel vision when Gul’dan’s horrible grating voice rang out. “Must I do everything myself?”
And then the infernals started raining down, and she was utterly unprepared for one to land in front of her and knock her into a support column. At first there was only the impact, and then there was agony. Bone cracked as her horn took the brunt of the blow, and she felt it splinter. Moving was an impossibility; for long, terrible moments, all she could do was lay there, try to breathe through the pain, and watch as Gul’dan turned his full attention back to the ritual. In another moment he’d shield himself again, and their opportunity to strike would be lost.
“Pitiful. Is this all the opposition you can muster?”
No. No, I have to—we have to fight… But there was blood on her face and she couldn’t get her hooves under her; the pain radiating through her skull brought a wave of dizziness when she tried to move, and so she had to settle for pulling herself into a seated position and flinging fire at anything that got too close. She could still hear Gul’dan chanting above the melee, and it made her snarl. “Someone shut him up!” Belatedly, she realized she’d spoken in Eredun.
“On it!” A blond blur in a purple tabard sprinted past her, gutted a doomguard, nearly decapitated a felguard, and dropped to one knee to dodge an Eredar’s strike; she had just enough time to register that Leo had thrown something with sharp edges before the felblood was moving again.
Gul’dan roared in pain. She lifted her head, gaze glued to the spreading patch of fel-tainted blood dripping from his shoulder. She’d poisoned Leo’s daggers herself, and it seemed the formula she’d devised really did work on everything; the orc’s arm hung useless, and he wobbled on his feet.
As she looked around, she realized there were far fewer infernals—and far less rubble—than she’d thought. The reason soon became clear; one took a single lumbering step towards her and immediately vanished, pulled back through the Twisting Nether by a trembling Persicaria. When she saw Naahma sitting upright, she called out, “Are you okay?”
“I will live!” Oh, yelling hurt. She leaned back against the column, blinking, and risked adding, “Focus on Gul’dan!”
“I’m trying…what’s Khadgar doing?”
Percy sounded confused, and so Naahma squinted at the center of the dais. A human in robes and a gathering of winged and horned Illidari were clustered around a crystal and doing something; there was a figure inside it, and its giant wings were rustling. A demon? Or…
In front of Gul’dan, a portal was opening; the netherwind blowing from it brought a scent of sulfur and an unimaginably powerful presence. As she watched, the edges wavered and crinkled, starting to fold in on themselves. The first hint of torsion in the matrix set off a chain reaction; Gul’dan cried out in horror as the portal faded out of existence.
And then the crystal shattered, and something—tall, hooved, horned, winged—stepped out and lunged for him. Gul’dan screamed, but the sound was short-lived; fel energy rippled through him from his assailant’s hands, consuming him from the inside out. As the thing turned away from the warlock’s ashes, Naahms saw that he was smirking. “You have seen what I’ve seen. You know what we face. Now…follow me into the abyss.”
One of the Illidari stepped forward; Naahma counted four arms before she realized demon and then shivarra. “We await your orders, my lord.”
So, this was Illidan, then. She’d honestly been expecting something more elven, but she’d seen more severe fel mutations—and she couldn’t be anything but thankful that his first act had been to see that Gul’dan was well and truly obliterated. Alurenor…Draenor, you are avenged. This world will not be another Argus today.
There was a furious screech from Reeta and a flood of enraged-sounding Thalassian; Naahma blinked at the sight of her crackling with arcane lightning while her husband and Thammuz pulled her back. Evidently there was some history there. Carefully, each movement aching, she risked trying to pull herself into a more or less vertical position. Blood coursed down the side of her face, and she grimaced. “You alright?”
“Just stay right there, um—miss.” With blood dripping into her eye and the pain in her head, she hadn’t registered the advance of a shal’dorei in the white robes of a priest; his hand on her arm was gentle, but the look in his eyes was not. “You can talk to your friends after I’ve checked your wound.”
A single drop of her blood landed on his sleeve. It was bright, glowing green, and she felt her stomach drop. I’m an Eredar. He’ll raise the alarm; the entire army will know, I’ll meet the same fate as Gul’dan, there won’t even be ashes for my children to weep over.
But there was only cool silvery light washing over her broken horn. After a long while, when she could think again, she lifted her head and looked out over Suramar. The skies above the city were clearing, and the sun was rising.