Richard Knaak - Night of the Dragon

Iwill not be undone by this! the dragon swore. He imagined another countenance, that of his beloved queen and mate, Alexstrasza. Yet, her image was faded, and growing more so, a dangerous sign.

But that only served to make him more determined. Summoning his strength, Korialstrasz cast a desperate spell.

Light erupted around him, searing away the darkness of the depths.

In it, the dragon beheld the source of his troubles.. . naga.

He knew their origins, knew them because he was, to his mind at least, in part to blame for their creation. Once, they had been of the night elf race, the Highborne who had served the mad queen, Azshara. When the source of their great power, the fearsome Well of Eternity, had imploded due to the efforts of a few staunch defenders but especially the young druid, Malfurion Stormrage, it had sucked the great capital of the night elves to the bottom of a newly-created sea. With the city had gone Azshara and her fanatic followers, supposedly to their doom.

It would not be until millennia later that Korialstrasz and the world would discover that a mysterious force had transformed those trapped beneath the waves into something worse.

The incredible explosion of light had caught the naga completely unaware. Several swirled about in utter confusion, stunned by the spell's intensity. As naga, they no longer much resembled elves of any sort. The females upon whom Korialstrasz now set his baleful gaze had some vague similarities remaining, mostly in their slimmer, upper torsos and their faces, which retained the long, narrow design of night elves. They were even beautiful, if in a monstrous way. Yet, no elven race sported four wicked arms that ended in long, taloned fingers, nor did any have the wide, veined fins of gold that blossomed sharply from the head all the way down to the naga's tall.

And tails were all there were below the waist, for long gone were the sleek legs. The lower halves were those of massive serpents, segmented and scaled. They twisted back and forth constantly, giving the naga swiftness and incredible maneuverability in the water.

The males had degenerated even more than the females, their heads low and reptilian, with teeth that jutted out from both the top and bottom of the long maw like a crocodile. Their eyes were deep set and narrow, and their crests and fins, which jutted as sharply as spears in places, were of a darker gold and brown shade. Their torsos were less in contrast to their serpentine lower bodies, being also scaled and segmented. Even their arms, massive compared to most creatures their size, were covered so.

There had developed, over the generations, many tribes of naga, but these aqua and black scaled fiends with their golden fins were of a type of which Korialstrasz knew nothing, save that they were clearly both powerful and of evil mind. That was all he needed to know. Naga in general had no love for those who lived above the surface, but these had gone well out of their way to set a tremendous trap.

For what reason it might be, Korialstrasz had no time to consider. The light began to fade, and the naga regrouped.

But now that he could see them, it was a simple matter for the dragon to strike with both his paws and his tall, bowling over the sinister creatures. Several went sinking into the blackness below, but some desperately sought to rework the spell that had nearly done In the behemoth.

Korialstrasz's body flared a bright red. The water around him suddenly boiled. In his mind, he heard the naga shriek as the heat struck. Two males in the forefront were caught full on, their bodies swelling monstrously as they burned red.

A buzzing filled the dragon's head. He looked below to his right, where a female with all four arms raised toward him glowed with magic of her own.

It was a simple matter for him to increase the heat that his body radiated. The female naga fled just before she, too, would have been boiled. The buzzing ceased.

But Korialstrasz's lungs suddenly ached, and he felt the impulse to breathe. He needed air and he needed it without delay. With desperate strokes, the red dragon pushed himself upward.

The surface seemed so far away that the fear that he was still swimming down instead of up crossed his air-starved mind, but he had no choice but to continue the direction he had chosen.

The strain on his lungs grew horrific. If he could just take a single breath...

His head shoved above the water. However, even as Korialstrasz filled his starving lungs, he continued to push himself above the sea. Magic and wings greater in span than some other dragons were in length threw him well into the sky.

A sky that, though still overshadowed, no longer stormed.

Despite the naga threat yet high, Korialstrasz was forced to hover for several seconds as he worked to regain not only his breath but his senses. The clouds remained thick, but the sea itself had grown calm, even deathly silent.

A mass of squirming tentacles broke the surface, snaring the dragon by the tall and hind legs and seeking the wings.

Letting out a roar, Korialstrasz immediately focused on the spot from which the tentacles had sprouted and exhaled sharply. The torrent of flame he unleashed was not as strong as he hoped, but it did make the monster beneath unbind one of his legs.

But the rest of the tentacles still tugging at the red giant threatened to pull him under. Korialstrasz beat his wings. He was no ordinary dragon, even if he was not an Aspect. The naga's pet would soon discover that.

And so, incredibly, rather than the sea creature dragging Korialstrasz down, he slowly but inexorably pulled the tentacled monster from the depths. First there came a sharp beak, a savage mouth able to bite into pieces the largest warships. Then came a long, tubular head with two unblinking black saucers for malevolent orbs.

A kraken.

How the small band of naga had gotten such a creature into the bay, he did not know. Still, what mattered most was that the monstrous beast weighed heavy on Korialstrasz. The dragon lost momentum. The sea grew near again.

There was no choice. Near to collapse though he was, Korialstrasz exhaled one last time with all the force left to him.

Unhindered by the sea, his powerful blast broiled the kraken. The sea monster let out a chilling shriek as it released its grip and plunged back into the water. The wave it created rose as high as Korialstrasz's tall before subsiding.

The huge red did not rejoice. Indeed, it was all he could do to keep conscious. Despite his horrific weakness, though, Korialstrasz quickly shoved himself in the direction of his goal. Even as short as the distance remaining was, he did not know if he could reach landfall before his remaining strength failed him. Yet, all he could do was try.

All he could do was hope....

The waters remained still as the gigantic red dragon dwindled in the distance, remained still until a single naga head emerged to watch the vanishing leviathan.

The female naga's slanted eyes stared unblinking until Korialstrasz was no more than a distant dot just above the horizon. At that point, a second head, that of a fearsome male, thrust up. The scales on the right side of the male's head were torn near the jaw, the result of the most peripheral of wounds caused by the dragon's sweeping tail. Ignoring his wound, the male peered intently in the direction the female had.

"The deed is done..." she murmured in a grating voice. "We will be spared...."

Nodding, the male grinned. The female followed suit, revealing her teeth to be no less sharp, no less savage, than her companion's.

The two naga submerged.

The foreboding landscape rising before her on the horizon was called Khaz Modan. The hooded draenei had no reference as to the name's origins, but the mere sound of it made her steel herself. She knew that orcs inhabited this region, but so, too, did dwarves. Both were races of which she knew. And for her sake, if it came to a confrontation, the mage hoped that it would be with one of the underdwellers, not the green-skinned warriors. The dwarves, at least, were allies.