World of Warcraft: Dawn of the Aspects: Part IV Read online

  Her eyes disdainful, Talonixa opened her mouth wide.

  Even though Malygos instantly understood what she intended, and moved to evade, the bolt still struck him almost squarely. His entire body shook, and both he and Kalec suffered incredible torment. Blackness nearly overtook them, but Kalec knew it was not the same blackness that meant a return to his own body and the present. With Malygos, he spiraled to his doom, half aware through the entire drop that he could do nothing to stop the end.

  Claws suddenly dug deep into his hind legs. The pain was minor in comparison with the shock from the bolt, but it served to give Kalec and his host something else to focus on. They felt their descent slow, and as it did, consciousness began to take a better hold.

  It was not Nozdormu, as might have been expected, but rather Neltharion. For a change, the charcoal-gray male did not have a cheerful expression. Fury filled Neltharion’s countenance, and for a moment, it unnerved even Malygos and especially Kalec, who caught a brief glimpse of something akin to the future Deathwing.

  “Foul female!” Neltharion roared. “Saw that! She will pay!”

  “No . . .” Malygos croaked. “Must . . . must all be one! Must . . . to survive—”

  Talonixa’s roar cut through Malygos’s words. As Kalec’s host flapped his wings and righted himself, Neltharion finally released his hold. Both gazed upon the re-formed legion, which to Kalec’s observance was a quarter less than it had been. Malygos noted that also. If there was any hope, he had to find a way to make a workable alliance with Talonixa. Only then would the proto-dragons have a chance of—

  Galakrond’s roar thundered across the sky.

  Talonixa answered, her savage cry sounding meager and weak to Kalec and Malygos. She roared again, and this time, the other proto-dragons behind her joined in. To their credit, while they did not shake the heavens as Galakrond had, their united challenge was very impressive.

  The horizon in the direction from which the great roar had come seemed to swell. The swelling grew and then separated from the ground. As it did, the shape of a huge proto-dragon coalesced.

  Galakrond again issued his challenge. The gathered defenders answered in kind.

  “Must not—”

  Before Malygos could finish what he wanted to say, the vision shifted. The shift caught Kalec by surprise, more so because it had clearly been only a matter of moments.

  But those few moments left him now in the middle of the savage struggle against Galakrond.

  The titanic fiend hovered, surrounded by darting proto-dragons that to Kalec’s eye seemed more like mosquitoes in comparison. They veered around, below, and above Galakrond, striking with a barrage of attacks that stunned Kalec with both their intensity and their variety. Acidic burns and scorch marks already dotted the enormous torso, and several of the extra limbs either hung limply or had been ripped apart. Kalec watched through Malygos’s eyes as a brown-and-black female rushed in, seized a flailing hind leg in her jaws, and bit through flesh and bone. She quickly turned off again, taking with her all but a bloody stump.

  Talonixa and her most trusted companions assailed the head, their withering attack forcing Galakrond to keep his gaze downward. The golden female let loose with a powerful bolt that left a blackened mark just above one of the leviathan’s original eyes.

  Kalec watched with awe. Galakrond was at bay. Here was the end to the gargantuan fiend.

  But this place is wrong! Kalec realized. This is not where the bones rest! What could—

  It only occurred to him then that despite his close proximity to the battle, Malygos was not part of it. Neither were Nozdormu and Neltharion. Their hesitation made Kalec turn to Malygos’s thoughts, something he had not done in the face of such a spectacle.

  And there Kalec saw that what he believed to be an imminent victory was anything but. With Malygos’s mind to guide him, Kalec realized that all the wounds, all the damage to body and limbs, none of those slowed Galakrond in the least. As many as they were, the wounds were merely annoyances. Kalec’s initial impression of the defenders as seeming like mosquitoes was still closer to the truth.

  “Well?” Neltharion rumbled, ever the most impatient.

  “The eyes,” Malygos murmured. To Nozdormu, he repeated, “The eyes . . .”

  “The eyes . . .” the brown proto-dragon agreed.

  Kalec thought that they meant to attack Galakrond’s two mammoth eyes, but the tension he felt overtaking Malygos warned him that the three were concerned with something far more dire. Kalec focused carefully on what Malygos observed, understanding only now that he might visually see the same things as his host, but he did not always comprehend matters as Malygos did.

  His host and the others were concentrating not on Galakrond’s original eyes but on all those additional ones the trio could see from their vantage point. Those eyes, Kalec realized, moved as if mad at first glance. They looked up, rolled around, gazed down. . . .

  If not for what Malygos had already deciphered, it would have taken Kalec longer to understand that these other orbs moved with purpose. Each eye was fixed on one thing and one thing alone.

  Each eye was focused on a particular proto-dragon. Galakrond was not at bay. He was merely waiting.

  TWO

  DOOM

  Jaina sensed someone seeking her the moment she returned to her sanctum. Unfortunately, that someone was none other than Archmage Modera. Modera was one of those Jaina most respected and admired among the magi. She had become a member of the Council of Six long before Jaina—during the Second War, in fact—and many were the times the younger archmage had turned to Modera for guidance in one subject or another.

  Instead, Jaina now concentrated on cloaking herself with a spell she hoped would keep her from even Modera’s notice.

  “Archmage?” the other woman called from outside. That Modera had come in person meant that she had already attempted to locate Jaina by magical means and had not been pleased by her failure. Jaina had not given any official notice of her need to depart the city, and as leader, she should have at least informed the rest of the Council of Six. Modera was rightly interested in finding her, but even that did not dissuade Jaina from keeping herself hidden . . . if possible.

  “Archmage?” Modera repeated more firmly. “Forgive me. Are you within?”

  It could not be as simple as the elder woman giving up when she did not receive an answer, Jaina noted, for only a breath later, she felt the casting of a subtle spell outside the door. Jaina, planted against one wall just beyond the entrance, watched as a transparent form materialized near her.

  “Jaina?” The figure coalesced into the image of Modera. Although much older chronologically than Dalaran’s leader, she still appeared as a handsome woman with snowy white hair bound in a braid. The image peered around, obviously seeking the sanctum’s owner. “Forgive this intrusion. I really must speak with you.”

  It said something about the urgency of whatever situation concerned Modera that she would enter Jaina’s chambers uninvited, even through illusion. Jaina found no fault with the action, although she did vow that if things normalized, she would strengthen her wards. Clearly, Modera was more powerful than even Jaina had taken her for.

  The other archmage frowned. She already faced slightly toward where Jaina stood but suddenly looked directly at the blond woman.

  Just as Jaina was certain that Modera had sensed her, the elder spellcaster turned her head to the opposing wall, eyeing it much the way she had done where Dalaran’s leader hid.

  “Where is she?” Modera murmured, looking more pensive. “Where could she have gone at a time like this?”

  Her last question almost made Jaina reveal herself, but then Kalec’s exhausted face formed again in her thoughts. Jaina’s resolve strengthened, even though a part of her knew that she was choosing emotion over sense.

  Modera’s ghostly image looked over her shoulder, as if listening to some other specter yet unseen. “Very well,” the older archmage muttered to th
e air. “I will see you shortly. We will have to consider a different course of action.”

  Turning back to the seemingly empty chamber, Modera raised one hand and began writing in the air. Runes flared before her.

  Please see me the moment you return. . . . It is urgent. . . .

  Modera left the words floating in the chamber. She looked around one last time—her eyes only briefly passing over Jaina—then simply dissipated.

  Jaina waited a moment longer, until all trace of Modera’s presence had faded into the distance. The younger archmage exhaled as she reappeared. She stared at the floating message, swearing to find out what Modera wanted as soon as she had assured herself of Kalec’s survival.

  Returning to her collection, Jaina sought out the tome she needed. That proved more troublesome than the spellcaster had thought; the volume Jaina expected to hold the answers was apparently the wrong one, even though she was certain of her memory. The archmage set the book aside, then thumbed through another that she recalled had some associated information.

  But yet again, her memory contradicted what she discovered in the book. She set the second volume down, then eyed the two tomes lying side by side.

  Holding a hand over each book, Jaina concentrated. A white glow surrounded both hands and spread to the two volumes.

  The glow was met by a lavender haze surrounding each book. Jaina gasped; she could not say how she knew, but she could tell that what enveloped the tomes was some very old, very subtle spell. It was meant to keep something hidden, presumably the very information the archmage sought. However, Jaina also sensed a fraying in the spell, as if after so much time, the original intent of the casting had begun to be lost.

  The original intent was lost. . . . Jaina could not help but think that this was also the key to what was happening to Kalec. The artifact had been created with some purpose in mind, but she wondered if the exact focus of that purpose had faded with the fraying.

  It also interested her that these books, clearly written long after the artifact’s creation, should react to her so precisely. Somehow the ancient magic had detected her intentions, which meant spellwork of the highest skill.

  But who would have not only the ability but also the cunning to track down these tomes . . . and over such a span of time? Jaina knew that there were, of course, mundane possibilities—such as the high elves—but for some reason, this spellwork did not feel like their work. In fact, it had a feel to it much older than even that venerable race.

  Her brow wrinkled. She withdrew her hands from the two volumes. Their glow instantly vanished. The archmage eyed her collection, then hesitantly cast a more generalized version of her spell over the rows of tomes and scrolls.

  Not entirely to her surprise, every piece in her collection glowed lavender.

  Jaina immediately delved deeper into the spellwork. As she had begun to suspect, the casting included what she thought of as an infection subspell. If there was an object of similar tendencies nearby—in this case, a book of magic next to another book of magic—the original spell would spread to that other object. To do it so thoroughly, so successfully, was yet again a sign of how adept the caster had been.

  Dismissing her own work, Jaina carefully thumbed through one of the two books. With her expert memory, the archmage verified that everything she expected to find remained where it should have been. As best as she could establish, the spell had changed nothing else. Only what Jaina sought appeared to be affected.

  The archmage was not daunted. She had confronted complicated and confounding puzzles of a magical nature before and solved them. She would let no spell defeat her.

  More to the point, Kalec was at stake. To Jaina, nothing else mattered.

  • • •

  Galakrond remained under heavy assault. A female of Malygos’s family exhaled on one of the extra hind limbs, then tore off the frozen appendage before it could warm up again. Another female of a silver hue unleashed a shower of what appeared to Kalec to be steaming liquid metal. The blue column seared Galakrond’s thick hide, leaving a festering streak twice as wide as the proto-dragon who had breathed it. Two males a deep green in color used their larger-than-average hind paws to rake the base of the leviathan’s neck.

  “It is nothing. . . .” Malygos growled. “It is all nothing. . . .”

  “The eyes,” Neltharion suggested. “Strike when they follow away. Blind Galakrond eye after eye—”

  Nozdormu snorted. “If this many eyes,” he responded, holding up one of his tiny forepaws, “we attack for more days than we have.”

  The brown male had a very good, if demoralizing, point. With so many extra eyes, even if the trio managed to persuade the other attacking proto-dragons to follow through on such a plan, the time needed was surely far more than Galakrond intended to give them.

  “Must warn Talonixa.” Even as Malygos said it, his certainty concerning the futility of trying once more to make the imposing female see sense touched Kalec. Yet Malygos saw no other chance but to try—

  Next to him, Nozdormu let loose with a low warning hiss.

  The many, many eyes had suddenly narrowed.

  Despite being aware of what that might presage, Malygos nevertheless started for Talonixa. He did not get far.

  Galakrond unleashed a roar that silenced all other proto-dragons and made the sky shake. Several attackers near the gargantuan fiend tumbled uncontrollably from his vicinity.

  Galakrond exhaled, and the air everywhere filled with a foul mist that reminded the oncoming Malygos much too much of that “breathed” by the not-living. Kalec’s host recoiled as the mist rushed toward him. His wings beat hard as he fought to reverse direction before it was too late.

  But the mist still caught Malygos. The proto-dragon and his unseen companion awaited the agony that would surely accompany the rotting of Malygos’s living flesh.

  Instead, a powerful lethargy overtook the icy-blue male. It touched so deep that even Kalec’s thoughts were muddied. To Kalec, it was as if his very life was slowly seeping from him, and he vaguely noticed that Malygos felt the same.

  Yet some part of the young proto-dragon continued to urge his wings to flap. Malygos exited the mist. The moment he did, both his mind and Kalec’s began to clear, and strength started to return. The feeling of utter listlessness dwindled.

  Slow death . . . Malygos pondered as he tried to comprehend in simpler terms what Kalec recognized in more sophisticated ones. He breathes slow death. . . .

  His thoughts finally clear enough, Malygos surveyed the horror unfolding before him. A great portion of Talonixa’s grand charge had been caught within the massive cloud exhaled by Galakrond. The behemoth’s countless eyes had been watching for one thing: the very moment when most of Galakrond’s foes would be within range of this new and horrific breath weapon.

  Some of the stricken proto-dragons tried to turn and flee, while others simply fought to stay aloft. A few could not summon the will to keep their wings flapping and plunged to their doom.

  But even in the midst of the cloying mist, some proto-dragons still managed more control. Chief among them was Talonixa, who appeared to Malygos to be suffering a different malady: the utter madness Kalec and his host had noted earlier. Talonixa roared over and over, perhaps in part, both Malygos and Kalec believed, to keep herself from falling prey to the mist. She moved not away from Galakrond but closer to him, challenging him as if the two were the same size and strength.

  Galakrond laughed, the sound deafening. With a single beat of his wings, he cut the distance between them.

  Talonixa opened her mouth wide, but this time, not a roar but a bolt of lightning issued forth. It struck Galakrond directly on the snout . . . and had as much effect of slowing or injuring him as a pebble might have.

  Now it was the misshapen proto-dragon who opened his maw wide, a maw so great that the mighty Talonixa was but a fly in comparison. The jaws closed upon the female, even as she spun about in a futile attempt to escape.

&nbs
p; The huge, sharp teeth caught Talonixa between them. Galakrond made no attempt to correct his bite. Rather, he shook his head back and forth, violently shaking his prey. Talonixa snapped in vain at the teeth and managed one more bolt, but to no avail. Her head quickly dropped, and her wings ceased beating. She still lived, but barely.

  There was no help from those she had once led. The other proto-dragons could hardly keep in the air or protect themselves, much less come to her aid. Even had they wanted to, Kalec and his host knew that it was already too late. Blood spilled over Talonixa, and her breathing came in gasps.

  Galakrond ceased shaking her. With barely any effort, he clamped down and bit Talonixa in half.

  The still-twitching upper torso slowly tumbled out of sight, a shower of blood and other life fluids in its wake. With mock disdain, Galakrond unclenched his jaws just enough to let the rest of Talonixa fall free. He laughed then and, with a powerful beat of his wings, moved among the lethargic proto-dragons.

  Mouth opening much wider, Galakrond began to feed.

  His first victims scarcely seemed to notice their demise, so quickly did the horrific leviathan swallow them up. Five vanished in the space of a single breath. Galakrond barely paused, turning to take in three more a moment later.

  “What can we do?” Neltharion growled in frustration. He looked nearly ready to try to defy the mist, despite the obvious result of doing so.

  Malygos could not blame him for his rising exasperation. Wholesale death played out before them, and none of the three could offer any way to put an end to it—not, at least, without likely committing suicide in the process. Yet Kalec, feeling his host’s raging emotions and thoughts, knew that Malygos would have willingly sacrificed himself if it meant stopping the slaughter.

  Then Malygos noticed something about the mist. He started forward. “Come!”

  It said much to Kalec that the other two males obeyed. Malygos headed toward the mist, then abruptly rose. A faint, cloying scent infiltrated his nostrils, immediately causing a slight slowing of his thoughts.