Aaron Rosenberg - Beyond the Dark Portal

"Light… I don't even know where to start," Danath said, his voice thick, staring at the bloody, broken body.

"I do … if you will permit me." Danath's head whipped up. Nemuraan had come forward, his staff glowing. "I am a priest of my people. I would do what I can to heal him. But you should know — your friend's spirit clings to life only tenuously. I can try to heal him, or I can case his crossing, if you would rather let him pass.”

"No!" Danath cried. "I've seen too many — please. If you can heal him, please do it."

Danath and Talthressar stepped back as the draenei extended a hand. He placed it on Kurdran's head, mat­ted with dried blood, and lifted his staff with the other hand. Closing his eyes, the Auchenai began to pray.

Danath gasped softly as a pure, gende radiance limned Nemuraan's form. He didn't know the words, but they calmed his heart. The glow brightened at the draenei's hand where it rested on Kurdran's brow. The radiance increased, until it was so bright Danath reluctantly closed his eyes against it.

He'd seen this before. This being from another world, this draenei, so strange in appearance to him — he was wielding the Light, Just as Turalyon did.

A grunt made Danath open his eyes. "Eh? What?" Kurdran muttered, his head tossing from side to side. "Do yer worst, ye green-skinned beasties!" He opened his eyes and stared straight up at the blue figure bend­ing over him. "It's all right." Danath assured him before he could struggle, placing a hand on the dwarf's shoulder. Nemuraan stepped back, the light around him starting to fade, and smiled. "He's… will he be… ?"

"I have done all I could. He is healed, for the most part. But not all scars can be erased, nor things that are broken made as they were before."

"Who's broken?" Kurdran snorted. He sat up slowly, flexing his hands and feet, touching his body. "Heh. Dinna know I had that much blood in me." He peered up at Danath. "Ah, Danath, lad!" he said when he realized who was beside him, his broad face splitting into a wide grin. "It's ye, then, eh? And about bloody time! Not to worry — those beasties got not a word out o' me. Did ye bring my hammer?"

"He should rest," the draenei warned.

"Bah! Rest is fer the dead," Kurdran growled.

"And sometimes not even for them," Talthressar said quietly, glancing at Nemuraan.

"He's a Wildhammer," Danath said to the priest; it was the best explanation he could come up with. "I brought it, Kurdran. Here." The hammer had been on Sky'ree when the gryphon had returned, and Danath had possessed enough foresight to bring it with him into the tunnel. He handed over the weapon, and couldn't help grinning as the dwarf took the ponderous hammer and hefted it, though Kurdran moved more slowly and stiffly than before.

"Good." Kurdran inspected the hammer quickly, then nodded his approval. "Now then, what's the plan, laddie? And who be yer friends?" A nod of his head in­dicated Grizzik and Nemuraan. and Danath didn't miss the revulsion that washed across the Auchenai's face at being considered in the same breath as the arakkoa.

"Nemuraan is an Auchenai, a draenei priest of the dead." Danath explained quickly. "He is one of the last of this place's guardians. You owe your life to him — he healed you."

"Ah," said Kurdran, putting the pieces together. "Thank ye, lad. The Wildhammers dinna ferget such debts." Nemuraan inclined his head graciously.

"And that's Grizzik the arakkoa." Danath continued. "He hates the orcs and guided us into this place from the forest. And the plan?" He raised his sword. "The troops are storming the tunnel. The rest will attack soon and draw the orcs' attention away. And we will find Ner’zhul and bring his head back on a polearm."

"Aye, that's a plan I'm liking. Where be this orc shaman, then?"

They both glanced at Nemuraan, who tilted his head to one side. "The most defensible room is our for­mer prayer center." the Auchenai said after a moment. "That is where he is most likely to be found."

"Lead on, then!" Danath said, and Nemuraan nod­ded, taking them out of that room and down a short corridor to a wide, heavy stone door covered in elabo­rate designs.

"Here," he told them. "Behind this door lies the prayer center." Grief shone from his eyes. "We would come here to pay our respects and commune with our dead."

Rellian tried the handle. "Locked," he said.

"Stand back, lad," Kurdran urged as he raised his hammer. "This may splinter some." He was still un­steady on his feet, and Danath bit back a protest. He wouldn't try to stop Kurdran; the Wildhammer needed to reassure himself he could still fight, Danath held his breath as the dwarf steadied himself, and then hurled the stormhammer at the barrier before them.

The thunderclap that sounded upon impact nearly knocked Danath off his feet. A loud crack and a cloud of dust followed, and as he waved that away Danath saw that the blow had shattered the door. Through it he could see a large round room beyond, and a mass of figures near its center. Several of them glanced up, sur­prise evident in their faces, but two did not — a massive one-eyed orc and an older-looking orc whose face had been painted white to resemble a skull. That had to be Ner’zhul.

Their eyes met for a fraction of a second. Then, be­fore Danath could begin his charge, Ner’zhul said something to the one-eyed orc, turned, and slipped past him. racing through a door at the far end of the room.

"No you don't!" Danath cried, starting after Ner’zhul, but the one-eyed orc strode forward, blocking him. A long scar ran down the side of the large orc's face, and a patch covered that eye, but the other glared at Danath without fear.

"I am Kilrogg Deadeye," the orc announced proudly in heavily accented Common, pounding his chest with one hand even as he raised a massive war axe with the other. "I am chieftain of the Bleeding Hollow clan. Many humans have I slain. You will not be the last. I am charged with stopping you from passing, and so … you shall not."

Danath eyed this new foe carefully. He could see from the streaks of white in his hair and the lines on his face that this Kilrogg was older than he, but his body was still heavily muscled and he moved with the grace of a natural warrior. He seemed to have honor, too. For some reason, Danath was prompted to respond in kind.

"So be it," he replied, raising his sword to salute his opponent. "I am Danath Trollbane, commander of the Alliance army. I have slain many orcs, and you won't be the last. And I will pass!" With that he charged, shield braced before him, sword already moving in a vicious downward stroke.

Kilrogg blocked the blow with his axe, almost wrenching the sword from Danath's grip as the blade caught between the axe blade and handle. Danath did not slow, however, and his shield slammed full force into Kilrogg's chest. The orc staggered back a pace. Danath took advantage of the moment to set free his sword and swing again, this time low and to the side. The edge clipped Kilrogg's torso just above the waist, and the Bleeding Hollow chieftain grunted as the strike drew blood.

The wound did not slow him down, however, and Kilrogg responded with an attack of his own. He slammed his heavy fist against Danath's shield, denting the sturdy metal and making Danath falter on his feet, then brought his axe around and up with an almost lazy arc that drove it beneath the shield's bottom edge. Danath had to jump back to avoid being disembow­eled, and winced as the axe's back edge bashed into the inside of his shield, driving it hard away from him and wrenching his shield arm in the process.

Danath glanced up, and their eyes met. The human saw his own grudging admiration reflected in the orc's single eye as Kilrogg nodded. Each found the other a worthy foe.

The temperature suddenly plummeted, and Danath grinned fiercely. Cries rose from elsewhere in the room, sounds of not only pain but fear; once again Boulestraan's spirit-soldiers, beautiful and terrible, had come to the aid of the Alliance forces. Talthressar and Rellian were firing arrow after arrow, dropping orcs with well-placed shots. Kurdran, meanwhile, was fo­cusing upon the orcs in the front of the room, the Wildhammer single-handedly keeping them at bay with furious swings and throws of his stormhammer, his fighting spirit unbroken although the orcs had done their damnedest to break his body.