Richard A. Knaak - Stormrage

And Xavius had been able to do all this in great part because of what he had been made into by Malfurion.

Both he and Tyrande struggled to keep her from not only being dragged under, but from the pair also being assailed by more roots.

Malfurion managed to deflect them, but knew that the Nightmare Lord was inexorably pulling the high priestess deeper.

The archdruid thrust deeper with his mind, seeking the life that had to be somewhere. He refused to believe that Xavius had made a wasteland of this entire region, especially having done so slowly and in secret.

But what Malfurion found instead was something even more shocking than what Xavius had done to their surroundings. It was an evil so intense, so monstrous, that it nearly caused him to lose his grip on Tyrande. Only his love for her kept the archdruid from failing. Yet another piece of the puzzle fell into place. Now it was clear how Xavius’s location had come to change.

Something welled up inside Malfurion. He sought again for Azeroth’s life forces and finally found them. The archdruid drew upon them.

Thunder roiled. The ground shook anew.

Lightning suddenly flashed farther ahead, in the direction the Nightmare Lord truly lay.

The roots released Tyrande. However, the ground began to seal shut. Malfurion barely tugged her free before her legs would have been crushed by the fissure’s sealing.

The pair half-dragged one another from the region of the tremor.

The ground shook and high hills were created by colliding ground and rock.

“What is happening?” Tyrande shouted.

“There are two forces battering against one another! One comes from the Nightmare!”

“And the other?”

He did not answer her, though he knew the truth. Somehow, Malfurion had stirred up Azeroth as he never had before. It was fighting back against the evil that was Xavius.

No…the archdruid frowned. That was more than Xavius.

They ran until they could run no more. Behind them, great upheavals of land continued. Now it was not merely the mists that obscured much of what lay ahead, but immense clouds of dust and vapor.

And still it went on.

But though Malfurion had raised up a force that astounded even him, he felt no sense of hope. In delving deep near the fissures, Malfurion had gone farther than he had thought. He had not only touched near Azeroth’s core, but also touched the place from which Xavius truly drew his sinister power. A place beyond both the mortal world and the Emerald Dream, but infesting both of them.

And in that foul place, he sensed something incredibly ancient — and somehow familiar — to him. The hardened archdruid shuddered.

There was another, darker force behind the Nightmare Lord…

Humans, elves of different natures, orcs, dwarves, trolls, tauren, gnomes, draenei, undead, and more continued to struggle against a tide that proved relentless. Warriors, druids, magi, priests — they and those of other callings added each of those skills that made their particular path a worthy addition to the defenders’ force.

Varian’s dreamform army continued to sacrifice itself at the forefront, striking down the endless enemy and perishing not only by the satyrs’ claws but also the increasing deaths of their physical hosts. Hamuul, who monitored all this, pondered hard on why the dreamforms did not live on despite the deaths of their physical bodies — as happened with druids — and could only assume that the Nightmare’s terrible magic flowed from those killing blows back in Azeroth into the dreamforms by the inherent link between the two parts of each victim.

The druids fed their spells into the onslaught. Here, seeds exploded into cleansing silver fire. There, other druids in bear, cat, or other fearsome shapes used their magic-enhanced claws, teeth, and even roars to wreak what havoc they could on the servants of the darkness.

But still the tide slowed, stalled…and began to shift.

And then both those who remained on Azeroth or fought in the other realm discovered the next wave of evil.

From the mists in either plane marched armies composed of shadow-possessed drakonid, lesser drakes…and other corrupted dragons.

Then…then came something that no druid, not even Malfurion could have expected.

The barrier between the Emerald Dream/Nightmare and Azeroth began to break down…and the two slowly started to meld into one.

The seemingly impossible melding caught Eranikus by surprise. He briefly lost control, then battled to both regain it and keep Thura and Lucan with him.

But as the dragon struggled, Lucan heard a voice calling out. It was not necessarily to him, but to anyone who would listen. There was something familiar about it, something that reminded him of those lost days when his slumber and his dreams had been gentle. He was drawn to it…

And, without thinking, he slipped from Eranikus’s back. Yet he did not fall. Instead, Lucan dropped only a foot or two in the air, then felt as if something invisible tugged him along. Eranikus and Thura vanishedAnd a moment later, the cartographer reappeared in an area most definitely part of the Nightmare. The shrieks and gibbering assailed his ears. Horrific shapes moved in the mists around him…yet they no longer disturbed Lucan so much. He picked himself up off the vermin-infested ground — ground that should have been hundreds of feet below the dragon and his riders and yet now was not.

Then…Lucan realized that there was something just ahead of him in the mists, something that, even though it lay in the midst of the Nightmare, still inexplicably filled him with some hope.

Daring the dangers of the Nightmare, he ran toward the sight. As he neared, he marveled at his find. The structures — an arrangement of vast domes — had not been built by men. They were too perfect. While he could not be certain from his angle, the “smaller” domes seemed to flank or surround an even greater one that, despite the foulness of the Nightmare, retained a wondrous golden color that strangely comforted him.

The cartographer was drawn to the golden dome. Despite his previous weariness, he picked up his pace.

Lucan became so focused on the golden dome that he now barely even noticed the Nightmare. He only knew that he had to reach the structure.

How long it took him to reach it, the cartographer could not say nor did he care. A few minutes, hours…time meant nothing. All that mattered was that at last he came to the entrance…only to find it sealed by a darkness that he recognized as from the Nightmare.

The foul discovery brought him back to his true circumstances and almost made Lucan turn and run away again…but then he sensed that what had drawn him to this ethereal place was inside .

And it needed him…

The beating of wings from another direction made him suddenly dart around to the side of the structure. No sooner had he done so than a massive shape loomed overhead.

Though Lucan would have thought it impossible for him to identify any dragon by face, he was certain that it was the one called Lethon. The dark-scaled leviathan, his ghostly form shimmering with the same sickly green glow of the Nightmare, peered around as if suspicious.

The black, bottomless pits that were Lethon’s eyes turned in Lucan’s direction. The gaze stopped just short of where the human hid.

Lethon snorted, then departed the area.

The dragon vanished in the distance. Letting out a sigh, the harried cartographer leaned against the wall.

The wall shimmered.

He fell through.

Yet it was not into a room that he ended up, but rather a swirling mass of constantly bombarding magical forces that left him spinning out of control as he flew through it. Worse, Lucan felt his strength also beginning to fail him. He knew that soon he would not even have enough to stay conscious.