William King - Illidan

Berserk fury overcame Maiev. She sprang into the midst of the fel orcs and chopped her way through them, slashing with her blade. She beheaded one, lopped away the arm of another, and opened the guts of a third. A red haze filled the air around her. Even the fel orcs grew afraid of her fury as she built a mountain of corpses around herself. Then one of them, braver than the rest, threw himself back into the fray, and the army descended upon her. She chopped and chopped until her arm grew weary. She bled from a thousand cuts. She knew she was going to die, and if she could not get the Betrayer, she was going to drag as many of his henchmen down with her as she could.

Blinded by weariness and the blood and sweat dripping down her face, she still lashed out. Her limbs felt like jelly. All strength was gone. She found herself standing alone in a circle of the dead. The fel orcs looked upon her with awe. She had killed scores of them, and it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.

Overhead, black lightning flickered, moving from sphere to sphere as more of the souls of the dead and the dying were devoured. Maiev realized to her horror that all she had done was aid Illidan in the casting of his spell. It fed upon the souls of her victims and used the unleashed energy to crack a hole in the fabric of reality. It was growing cold now, and a wind howled in from the edge of infinity. Illidan hovered over the carnage, looking down in triumph, wings spread, an aura of evil power surrounding him. His gaze met Maiev’s. He gestured. Dark energy descended from his fist like the spear of an angry god.

Agony lanced through her. She stumbled and fell.

The fel orcs advanced toward her recumbent body. She struggled to rise but strength failed her. She heard the beat of mighty wings and looked up to see Illidan staring down at her. A smile of hatred and malice twisted his narrow features.

“So, Maiev, now you are my prisoner. I will endeavor to see that your captivity is as enjoyable as mine was.” He turned his head and barked an order to the fel orcs. She pushed against the ground, attempting to rise and strike him. His fist fell like a sledgehammer, battering her to the earth once more.

“I have business elsewhere,” he said. “But something suitable has already been prepared for your future home. It is a cage that will hold even you, Warden.”

Akama watched the portal open from amid the rocks high on the slopes of the Hand of Gul’dan. He had seen many gateways, but nothing like this one. It was not just the scale that was daunting. It was the sheer power. It had devoured the souls of hundreds, sucked in all the magical energy for leagues around. He could feel the unholy strength of it even from his vantage point on the cliffs. What was Illidan up to? He had told his council that this was all a trap for his foe. Knowing the Betrayer’s hatred for Maiev, everyone had taken him at his word. Now it seemed that there were wheels within wheels, machinations within machinations. It looked as if the capture of Maiev had merely been a feint, intended to cover the unfolding of some greater scheme. Akama almost admired Illidan for it. He was capable of using even his own bitter hate as part of his plans.

Anger surged within him. The Betrayer had broken his promise to spare the lives of Akama’s people. Not only that, but he had harvested their souls. He pushed his fury down. He could ill afford such feelings, not after what had been done to his spirit.

Akama wondered whether the unholy spell that had opened the portal could even affect him. As punishment for conspiring with Maiev, Illidan had drawn part of Akama’s essence from his body. In the darkened hall of the refectory, he had subjected Akama’s soul to unspeakable sorcery and turned a portion of it into a shade. His spirit, his most sacred possession, had been turned into a weapon against him, the instrument by which Illidan bound his will and, through him, his people. At his whim, the Betrayer could unleash the shade, and it would devour Akama from within. It would corrupt the rest of Akama’s followers through the spiritual ties that bound them to him. It had not been merely his own life that was at stake, but the lives and souls of all his people.

Akama let out a long breath. The Betrayer had not believed his claim that he had been meeting Maiev merely to lure her into a trap, that he had wanted to present Illidan’s ancient enemy as a gift to him. It was a story Akama had been prepared to give from the moment he made contact with the warden. He had repeated it to himself for so long that he had believed it. He had not convinced the Betrayer. Akama had been forced to deliver Maiev into Illidan’s hands, and for that he was sorry. She had trusted him, and he had placed her into the clutches of her archenemy.

Even now Illidan stood triumphant over his former captor. He did not look as if he intended to kill her. No. He had something else in mind. He had endured much at the hands of Maiev Shadowsong. She had become a focus for his rage and his hatred and his grievances. He would not grant her a quick death.

Illidan’s great spell shrieked to a climax.

Akama felt the pain and the horror of the Broken and draenei souls as the portal spell devoured them. The split in reality gleamed like the surface of a lake on which oil had been thrown. The substance of the portal swirled and parted, and Akama caught glimpses of an alien landscape, of rocks floating in the sky and globules of solidified green energy moving through the air. It felt as if the land he was looking at was unimaginably far away. Judging by the amount of power used to open the portal, it connected to a world more distant than any Gul’dan had ever made contact with.

He tried to work out what Illidan was up to. The army that had ambushed Maiev’s force was drawing up around the gate to stand guard over it. Why? In case something comes through was the obvious answer.

Even as that thought occurred to him, a new force emerged from the portals leading back to the temple. It consisted of scores of tattooed elven fighters. The army Illidan had been training was finally going to see action.

Akama watched in fascination and horror. He sensed the power in the figures down there. They were mighty and they were touched with evil. In the light of the green gate, it was even more obvious, as if something about the portal fed whatever was in them and lent it strength.

As he watched them move en masse under the Betrayer’s gaze, the resemblance between these combatants and their master struck Akama as never before. They were all like Illidan. They might have been his children. They were certainly his creation. He had forged them from flesh into something new. The question was why.

The air around Vandel was rife with energy. It made his skin tingle and his head spin. The enormous portal ahead tempted him like food on a banquet table might tempt a starving elf. He could tell that his companions felt the same way.

The area around the gate looked as if an ancient battle had taken place. Skeletons and desiccated bodies sprawled everywhere, encased in corroded armor, rusty weapons lying near at hand. If he had not known better, he would have thought this the site of some long-ago war.

His spectral sight gave the lie to that. Here and there the wounded and the dying lay groaning. Tendrils of dark energy licked out from the portal and drew the shimmering souls from their bodies. They flew through the air, eyes wide, mouths open in horror, and disintegrated when they reached the hovering spheres. He knew without having to be told that they were being devoured by the magic here, and their energy was being used to power the spell.

He glanced over his shoulder at the portals leading back to the Black Temple. It hardly seemed possible that barely an hour ago, he had risen from his pallet in his cell and prepared for another day of practice. He had known that something was going on. For days soldiers had been marshaled in the drill grounds of the temple, and an army had made ready for war. It had looked like another one of those vast military exercises that had been so common since he had joined the ranks of the Illidari.