Richard Knaak - Night of the Dragon

At that moment, they were approached by Grenda and some of her warriors. She saluted the trio with her ax. "I've accounted for everyone." To Rhonin, the female dwarf hesitantly added, "As for the raptors...I don't know about 'em."

Rhonin chuckled. "I'll deal with that situation. With things calming down around Grim Batol, they should be happy to remain around Raptor Ridge and not encroach on Menethil Harbor. Keep apart and things should be calmer."

Grenda snorted. "Don't know how well that'll actually work... and is that damned mount really calm finally? Have we seen the last of its evil?"

"That shall remain to be seen," Krasus interjected. "But for the moment, at least the dreams of Deathwing are at an end. When Sintharia perished, the spells protecting the chamber of the eggs would have failed. The receding flow will have destroyed them."

"Then our mission's done," Grenda decided. With a slight hesitation, she added, "We head back to our people come morning, there to report to the king and to honor our dead... especially Rom."

Krasus frowned. "Tell your king that the red flight will also honor your fallen warriors, uncluding my comrade of old."

She brightened. "That will mean much for his memory...."

The dragon mage turned to Rhonin and Vereesa. "You would be with your children as soon as possible, would you not?"

The wizard and high elf nodded. "We'll rest until morning," Rhonin replied, "then I should be able to bring us back there...and spend a little time before I need to return to Dalaran."

The red-haired spellcaster said nothing more and his expression indicated that Krasus would hear nothing from him as to what was being planned in the shielded city.

"Your lives and your choices are yours," he told the couple, but especially Rhonin. "I am only grateful for your aid here and... and for your continued friendship."

"You will always have that," Vereesa said.

Krasus pulled himself together for one more spell. "And as a friend, allow me this..."

The wizard and the high elf vanished.

"They are home with their children," the dragon mage responded to Grenda's dumbfounded expression. "I may be able to send some of your people in such a manner if given time to recuperate—"

But the dwarves all shook their heads. With an anxious grin, their leader answered, "If it's all the same to you, great one, we of the earth folk prefer solid footin' under us!"

That made him smile. "Of course. The ground is to you as the sky is to me. I understand very much." He stepped back from Grenda. "I leave you, then. May your axes be sharp and your tunnels strong...."

The Bronzebeards went down on one knee as Krasus again changed into his true form. As Korialstrasz, he dipped his head inhomage to the dwarves' own deeds, then leapt into the sky.

Once there, Korialstrasz arced not away from Grim Batol, but toward it. He passed over the damaged mount, marveling that, despite Sintharia's eruption, from beyond its walls Grim Batol looked more or less as it always had.

It perseveres, this place. It always perseveres.

He concentrated as best he could, seeking to assure himself that what he had told the others was true. Korialstrasz surveyed as much of Grim Batol's interior as possible, sensing only emptiness and that same residual evil that had permeated it for centuries.

And of the area where the chamber of the eggs would have been located, the red dragon sensed utter ruination. As he had said, without Sintharia, it had no longer been protected. Perhaps an egg or two had survived the destruction, but even the myatis coating he had seen on them would not be enough. Dargonax was the last of the twilight dragons.

Korialstrasz turned in the direction of home. He, too, missed his family. It was time to return there for awhile before again renewing his eternal vigil over Azeroth....

And behind him, Grim Batol sat as silent and as still...as death.

Yet far, far below the dread mount—deeper than even Sintharia had ever gone—it was not completely still. In the sunless cavern, a huge form finally moved about. The intruders were all gone. It was safe to begin.

Around him were gathered the eggs that Sintharia had thought sealed in her special cavern and that the accursed red dragon believed were now destroyed. There were many places to store them down here, many places to keep them viable until things were ready.

You were a useful puppet for a time, he thought of Sintharia. You were so easily drawn here, to this of all places, and made eager to fulfill a dream you thought your own! Envy and hatred made you my greatest tool, yes...and from your mistakes, I now know better what to do....

Deathwing laughed, the only mourning he would do for his former mate. She had been manipulated well, even in dealing with the damnable Korialstrasz, with whom there would yet be a reckoning.

Dismissing his ancient adversary, the mad Earth-Warder eagerly toyed with one of the eggs. Dargonax had been a flawed but quite interesting creation. Deathwing's consort had chosen an interesting path with her experiments. However, he understood where Sintharia had gone wrong. His twilight dragons—so appropriate a name, he thought and thanked the voices he had heard echo it to him—would be perfect. They would be him.

And since everyone assumed the Earth-Warder dead, Deathwing had all the time in the world in which to "hatch" his grand design... all the time he would need to erase the blunders of his children and his mate and ensure that no one, not even—not even Korialstrasz— would understand what was happening until it was far, far too late.

The day of the dragon is over. Deathwing thought to himself with anticipation for the imminent future. Its night is almost upon Azeroth...and after that night has swept away the old flights... there shall come a new dawn...

The dawn of my new world...