The Demon Soul (38 page)

As he committed his latest atrocities, Neltharion changed further. A rip appeared in his torso, scales torn apart as if made of paper. Yet, blood did not flow from the wound, but rather pure fire. Another tear formed on his chest, and a third on the opposite side of the first.

As if the unleashing of a plague, horrific rips materialized all over Neltharion. The high scales on his back tore into pieces. Even to see all this caused Korialstrasz pain, but the huge black seemed not to notice. If anything, Neltharion appeared to revel in what was happening to him. His eyes burned bright with power reflecting that of the disk, and he continued to laugh as he unleashed devastation.

Steeling himself, Korialstrasz tried one more time to stop the hideous leviathan. He soared toward Neltharion, already preparing for his own death. Korialstrasz silently apologized to an absent Krasus, who would surely die the moment that he did.

Although caught up in his murderous work, Neltharion still managed to notice his adversary’s return. With as close to a sneer as his reptilian visage could produce, the black dragon pointed the Demon Soul at Korialstrasz.

Its power hammered the red, thrusting him down toward the ground. Korialstrasz tried to slow his descent, but the disk’s power proved relentless.

With an ear-shattering thud, he crashed. Even then, Neltharion would not let up; he was determined to crush the other giant into the earth.

Then a crackling field of blue energy surrounded Neltharion, causing him to hiss and draw the Soul back to his chest. The black behemoth roared angrily as he sought the source of his captivity.

Through watery orbs, Korialstrasz saw a wave of motion heading toward Neltharion.

The other dragons were free. Between his battle with Alexstrasza’s consort and the havoc he had unleashed on the night elves and demons, Neltharion had not focused enough attention on the spell holding the rest as slaves. Now that mistake gave Kalimdor hope.

One group quickly detached itself from the rest. A flight of blue furies circled wildly around the caged Aspect, at their head one who had, until the betrayal, championed the Earth Warder’s cause more than any other.

“Neltharion!” roared Malygos. “Friend Neltharion! Look what you become! The thing that you’ve created will destroy you! Give it to me so that I can put an end to its corruption!”

“No!” Neltharion shouted back. “You want it! You all want it! You know how powerful it can make you! It can create a god!”

“Neltharion—”

But Malygos got no farther. The black dragon hissed and his body grew more fiery. The golden aura spread from both him and the disk, burning away the cage the blue had cast.

“You leave us no choice, old friend!” Malygos hissed as he dove for the other Aspect. Around them, the other blues positioned themselves to strike Neltharion from all sides with their power. Of all flights, the blues knew the intricacies of magic as none of the others. Here at last, a weak Korialstrasz thought, Neltharion would fall to defeat.

Like a pack of wolves closing in on the kill, the blue dragons swarmed around their foe. An aura of deep cobalt surrounded Malygos.

“That obscenity should never have become reality,” the spellweaver informed his counterpart. “And as I’ve become instrumental in encouraging its creation, ’tis only fair, old friend, that I erase it!”

What seemed an arc of pure white flew at the disk. As it neared, it revealed that Malygos had spoken the literal truth when he had said he intended to “erase” the Demon Soul. Wherever it touched, an emptiness existed. No mist. No sky. A pure white emptiness remained. The effect on the heavens proved momentary, of course, but for the sinister disk the fate would certainly be permanent.

Or rather…should have been permanent. Neither the watching Korialstrasz nor any of the others would ever know whether Malygos’s spell would have destroyed the Soul. Before it could touch the disk, Neltharion spat. His spit became a black, blazing sphere that met the arc but seconds before the latter would have touched his creation. A blinding series of sparks marked their collision…and then there was nothing.

With a savage cry, Malygos signaled for his flight to attack.

But Neltharion acted more quickly. Even before the white arc vanished, he held forth the Demon Soul. Instead of the golden light that had decimated so much of the land below, a gray one shot forth in every direction.

Malygos created a shield of smoke, but plain smoke it might as well have been. The gray light caught him, threw him back hard. He sailed over the hills, over the horizon, roaring in agony all the way.

For his consorts and followers, however, the fate that Neltharion had in mind was much more horrific.

As one, the dragons shriveled. They deflated like draining water sacks. Their cries were terrible to behold. Though they struggled, none could escape the grasping gray illumination.

The other dragons sought to come to their rescue, but it was already too late. Reduced to dry husks, their magic and their life force drained by the Demon Soul, the dying blue dragons faded at last to dust that scattered in the wind.

“No…” gasped Korialstrasz, trying to rise up. His head spun and he collapsed again, shattering what was left of the hillside he had landed upon. “No…”

“Fools!” rumbled the Earth Warder without the least bit of regret for what he had just done. “You have been warned time and time again! I am supreme! All that is belongs to me! All that lives, lives because I allow it!”

And with but a glance their direction, the fiery behemoth sent a hurricane wind that tossed about the other dragons as if they were nothing. Even Alexstrasza and Ysera could not stand against it, the two other Aspects blown back as easily as the rest. Along with the others, they tumbled far, far out of sight, all the while spinning haplessly. Not one dragon out of hundreds escaped Neltharion’s spell.

His body swollen out of all proportion, blazing rips covering his torso, the monstrous dragon turned to again survey the night elves and their foes. “And you! You have not learned yet! You will! You will!”

He laughed again, his free forepaw clutching at one of the tears in his hide. For the first time he seemed to notice the terrible changes wrought upon his form, and his expression shifted momentarily to one of awe. Then, to the onlookers below, Neltharion shouted, “We will see who is worthy of my world! I leave you to your little war…you may fight to see who will be permitted to live and worship me!”

And with one last insane laugh, the black behemoth turned and flew away.

Korialstrasz gave thanks that the Earth Warder had not been able to continue on his mad path of destruction, but knew that the reprieve was only temporary. While he had gloried in the transformation wrought by the disk, Neltharion had finally realized that something had to be done about the forces ripping his body asunder. The weakened red had every confidence that the black would soon enough find a solution…and then Neltharion would no doubt return to claim his “world.”

Again Korialstrasz tried to rise, but his body still would not obey him. He gazed up hopefully at the murky heavens, but of his people, of his Alexstrasza, the injured red saw no sign. A fear coursed through him, the fear that they had suffered a fate akin to that of Malygos’s flight. Imagining his queen limp and lifeless atop some harsh mountain, a sizzling tear slipped from his eye. Yet, try as he might, even such images failed to enable Korialstrasz to rise.

Rest…I must rest…I will find Krasus, then…he will know what to do…

The red giant let his head fall back. All he needed was a few minutes. Then he could take to the air again.

But it was at that moment that a new and harsh sound assailed his sharp hearing. It took Korialstrasz only a second to recognize it.

The sound of battle.

The demons were attacking again.

A nightmare. Krasus found himself in the midst of a terrible nightmare. He and Malfurion had reached a point that, while it had not given them a view of the battle, it had at least allowed the pair to witness what took place up in the sky.

And so Krasus had watched as his kind fell to one insane creature.

He had seen his younger self bravely—if foolishly—attempting to confront an Aspect. The struggle had gone as the mage had expected, even though his memories of the time were all but gone. A chill had coursed through him when Korialstrasz had finally fallen, but although Krasus felt his pain, he also felt that the red lived…a minor victory at this point.

But worse to him, worse even than the knowledge that so many night elves had perished at Neltharion’s hand, was what had happened to the other dragons. With Malygos’s flight virtually decimated, now the spellweaver would begin to slip into his own madness as his kind became all but extinct. Gone would be the merry giant, and in his place would loom the ominous, reclusive beast.

And beyond that, the attack that had sent all the others tumbling far over the horizon rattled Krasus to his core. He kept telling himself that Alexstrasza would be all right, that most of the dragons would survive the epic winds that threw them half a world away. History told him so, but his heart kept insisting otherwise.

He tore ahead of Malfurion, trying in desperation to transform. He was older, wiser, and more skilled than his younger self; Krasus could have taken on Neltharion with better hope of success. The dragon mage struggled to change, to become what he should be…

In the end, however, he only succeeded in first stumbling, then falling. Krasus dropped face first into the earth, where he lay for a moment, all of his failures rising up to overwhelm him.

“Master Krasus?” Malfurion lifted him up.

Ashamed of his display, the mage buried his emotions under the mask he generally wore. “I am fine, druid.”

The young night elf nodded. “I understand some of what you’re going through.”

Krasus almost snapped that the druid could not possibly understand, but realized almost immediately how harsh and stupid such a caustic remark would have been. Of course Malfurion understood; at this very moment, his people, possibly those he cared for, were dying.

Suddenly, his companion looked up. “Praise Cenarius! We’re in luck!”

Luck? Following his gaze, Krasus spied a welcome sight. Tyrande rode toward them, two other sisters accompanying her. She also led along a pair of extra mounts, obviously for the two spellcasters.

Pulling up, she leapt from the night saber and hugged Malfurion without any sense of shame. The other sisters politely looked down; Krasus noted that they seemed very respectful of Tyrande despite clearly being elder.

“Thank the Mother Moon!” she gasped. “With all that happened and Korialstrasz appearing like that, I feared that you—”

“As did I, you,” the druid replied.

Krasus felt a slight ache in his heart that had nothing to do with either his or Korialstrasz’s condition. In the place of the two night elves, he imagined himself and another.

But that would never come to pass unless they stopped both the Burning Legion and Neltharion.

“We must move on,” he told them. “We must stop the demons if we have even a hope of stopping the Earth Warder.”

With some reluctance, Malfurion and Tyrande separated. When everyone had mounted, the band turned back, heading toward the site of the struggle.

They heard the cries and shouts long before they saw the first bloodshed. The battle had shifted position entirely, even surprising Tyrande and the sisters, who had just left it.

“It should not be this close!” blurted one of the latter. “The lines are collapsing completely!”

The other nodded, then turned to Tyrande. “Mistress, we need to find another path. The one we took is overrun.”

Both Krasus and Malfurion noted the term used, but neither understood what it meant. Tyrande added to the mystery by accepting the suggestion in a manner befitting one in command: “Lead on where you think best.”

They rode on, seeking another way to the host. A path opened up before them, but it brought the group precariously near the fighting. Still, it seemed their only route left unless they wanted to ride completely behind Ravencrest’s army, which would add wasted hours to their trek.

As the party rode, Krasus eyed the battle nearby. The demons fought as if they still intended to take the world for their lord when they were, in fact, as likely to be wiped out by Neltharion as the night elves. Archimonde could only be assuming that he would somehow gain the upper hand quickly and then take on the black dragon. How he hoped to accomplish that, Krasus could not determine, but he put nothing past the demon commander. The future was no longer assured; anything could happen.