Illidan

4

Slowly Maiev and her Watchers crept over the warm rocks. The blazing sun of Hellfire Peninsula sent long shadows sweeping away from the large boulders. It had been a lengthy ride back from Zangarmarsh, made at great speed, but it would be worth all the saddle sores if she caught Illidan unawares. She did not need Akama. All she needed was the opportunity to strike at the Betrayer when he least expected it.

Anyndra gestured with her right hand and raised three fingers. Maiev crept forward on her belly until she reached the lieutenant’s position; then she raised her head over the ridgeline and saw that her second-in-command was correct. Three fel orcs stood there, huge, muscular creatures, with red skin and glowing eyes. Their heavy bodies hunched in the crouched posture all orcs shared. Their stance spoke of fury, every muscle tensed. Each movement was quick, hard, and sullen, as if the fel orcs were looking for an excuse to strike someone.

Maiev would give them their wish. She meant to be in position overlooking the road to Hellfire Citadel when Illidan rode past.

She invoked her powers and blinked across the intervening space. Air displaced with a near-silent puff as she reappeared behind the largest of the fel orcs. One stroke took his head. She sprang forward and drove her umbra crescent through the second fel orc’s breast, then rolled onward. The third fel orc struggled to bring his axe to bear. Her foot caught him behind the knee and tumbled him to the ground. Her blade found his jugular.

Scarcely three heartbeats had passed. Anyndra had just brought her arrow to her ear. Maiev gestured for the remainder of her troops to cross the ground to her new position, and then she dragged the corpses into the shadow of a boulder out of sight of any wind riders passing overhead.

The smell of big cat in her nostrils told her that Sarius had joined her in concealment. The druid wore the form of a huge panther, oddly marked. He moved across the parched landscape in utter silence, following the curves of the brown earth, out of sight of all but the most vigilant. He growled a greeting and stalked toward the ridge’s edge. Just as quietly, she followed him to the brow of the cliff and gazed out on Hellfire Citadel.

It had the brutal appearance of all orc fortifications, in this case magnified by the sheer size of the place. The citadel looked as if it had been built to accommodate an army of giants. It loomed over the surrounding lands, each tower the finger of a gigantic hand that reached out to seize the sky. It was rough-hewn but immense, built of red rock and the bones of creatures that must have been as large as mountains. Magic saturated the stones. Even from this distance, she felt its evil. But it was not the keep that held her attention. It was the procession making its way along the road that led to the citadel.

Tens of thousands of fel orcs marched in tightly packed formation, streaming across the landscape in a column leagues long. Among them marched companies of demons, bearing the banner of Illidan. In the vanguard rode a mass of blood elves, their steeds birdlike. Prince Kael’thas was at their head. His eyes were fixed upon the enormous chariot drawn by a team of twenty clefthoof. The gigantic creatures were muzzled and blinded to prevent them from panicking.

Looking at the cage mounted on the giant chariot, Maiev understood why. It contained the pit lord Magtheridon. He stood many times the height of an elf and rattled the felsteel bars with arms the size of tree trunks. Even from the clifftop, Maiev felt his power. It smashed into her senses like the stench of ten thousand burning bodies. Chains that could have anchored the biggest warships bound him to the chariot. Maiev could see they were wound by spells strong enough to halt the slow drift of continents.

Atop the chariot, wings spread, hands on his hips, his stance proclaiming his triumph and his lack of fear, stood Illidan. Such was the difference in size that he should have looked like a squirrel defying a helboar, but he did not. The aura of fel magical power blazing around him made him appear to be more than the equal of the pit lord.

She was not alone in watching. Along the ridges, clans of fel orcs had gathered, as well as other observers. All of them were there to witness the former lord of Outland being brought to Hellfire Citadel in chains. Hatred blazed bright within her.

Enjoy your moment of triumph, Betrayer, Maiev thought. It will be your last.

Anyndra dropped into place beside her. The lieutenant’s eyes widened at the sight of the triumphal procession, and her fingers went lax around her bowstring. Sarius growled so softly it might almost have been a whimper. Overhead, fleshrippers circled, mangy wings spread wide, crucified on the hot thermals.

Maiev considered her options. The fel orcs surely did not anticipate an attack. Soon the sun would go down. Illidan had obviously timed his arrival at the gates of Hellfire Citadel for before sundown, but he had been too slow to get there. It was typical of his overconfidence and his sloppiness. She could order her force to fan out near the cage. They could cover her as she rushed the Betrayer. One swift stroke and she could take his head. He would be too filled with bloated pride to notice her approach until her umbra crescent had swept out.

Briefly she reveled in the image of holding his head high and tossing it into the assembled host of fel orcs. Her own death would be swift and certain after that, but it would be worth it to put an end to Illidan’s cursed existence. She could die satisfied, knowing that she had sent her ancient enemy to oblivion before her. Her lips curled into a smile. She could almost feel Illidan’s silky hair beneath her fingers as she raised his head aloft, almost feel the drip-drip-drip of blood from his severed neck.

It was not impossible. She could use her ability to blink through the intervening space and be upon him before that undisciplined mass had time to react. Her spells of distraction and concealment would cloak her approach. There was no one down there who could match her ability at this. Not Kael’thas, not Vashj. Not Illidan himself.

She became aware of Anyndra’s hand on her arm and shrugged it off. “What?”

“Warden Shadowsong, I asked you what the Betrayer could possibly want with a captured pit lord. I thought they called him a demon hunter. Why would he want one alive?”

Slowly, Maiev let her hatred’s fire damp down to a duller blaze. She stepped back from the edge of the precipice she found herself on. She had been on the verge of ordering an attack. The idea of dying in a final blaze of glory, slaying her foe, had almost lured her into an error. What if something had gone wrong? What if the Betrayer had managed to escape, leaving her to face his legions with only this small force?

Nothing would go wrong. She looked down at her hand. It was completely steady. There was not the slightest glimmer of a shake there. She focused on her lieutenant’s question. It was a good one. What did Illidan plan to do with a captured pit lord? A being of Magtheridon’s power could not be bound to service like some lesser demon. Not even Illidan could be insane enough to believe himself that strong.

“What could he want with such a creature?” Anyndra repeated, as if she thought Maiev had not heard. She seemed determined to get an answer. Or perhaps she intended to distract Maiev from her target.

Maiev muttered, “A sacrifice, a warning—who knows what goes through the mind of that maniac?”

“But why would he want to sacrifice Magtheridon? What could he possibly gain from it?”

Maiev shook her head and scowled. “How should I know?”

Her second-in-command met her gaze levelly. “You always told me a hunter must understand her prey.”

Sarius growled on the other side of her. It seemed he, too, was curious. Maiev took another step back from the brink. Her heart was racing. Her breathing was shallow. She risked another glance at Illidan. He stood there so confident that he was invincible. She wanted to wipe that smirk from his face, grind those proud features into the dirt.

Sarius scratched at her right arm with a claw. She realized what the druid was trying to tell her. Illidan’s head had turned to look in their direction. All of his troops’ gazes followed. There was no way they could see her from this distance. No way he could see her.

She rolled away from the scarp edge. Anyndra and Sarius were behind her. Her mouth felt dry. She tensed, expecting to hear the furious roar of legions of fel orcs dispatched in pursuit.

Maiev lay on her back for a moment, looking at the sky. No roar sounded. No alarm was given. Perhaps Illidan had seen them and did not think them enough of a threat to be bothered with. The idea was galling.

She rolled downslope and sprang to her feet, out of the line of sight of the enemy.

The rest of her grim-faced troops crept back from the ridgeline, slowly filtering toward her position. It was bad discipline and bad tactics. Some of them should be keeping watch lest an assailant fall upon them the way she had fallen upon the fel orcs. She wanted to say something, then noticed all eyes were upon her.

Anyndra flexed the fingers of her blade hand, the way she always did when trying to conceal the extremity of her nervousness. Sarius had reverted to his night elf form. His hawklike features were calm, but his mouth was a tight slash at the bottom of his face, and his eyes were narrowed as they focused on her. A frown scarred his otherwise smooth brow.

Maiev studied the rest of her troops. A few were pale, and she guessed the sweat on their brows was not just from the heat. Others glanced around like mice expecting an owl to drop out of a moonlit sky.

They were frightened.

It was near unbelievable. They were Watchers, chosen for their courage and their steadiness in the face of danger. They had followed her through countless perils without flinching. Now they seemed ready to break and run.

The night elves formed up in a half circle, looking up at her. One of them said, “We cannot win here.”

Maiev wrestled with her anger. She wanted to shout at them, to upbraid them for their folly and cowardice, but she could not. Enemies might hear her voice. A disturbance could call the attention of that mighty army thundering along the road below them.

Slowly, she allowed the idea to seep into her mind that they might be right. She closed her eyes and offered up a prayer to Elune. When she opened them again, she realized that she was not looking at a force of Watchers. The proud, disciplined troops who had ridden out of the vaults of the Barrow Deeps were gone. In their place was a small group of dusty elves, strangers in a savage land, lost, far from home, and confronted by a foe with limitless fighters at his disposal. Illidan had already overcome the mightiest demon in Outland and turned his legions into loyal followers. Perhaps her people were right to doubt that they could overcome him.

They stared at her, waiting to hear what she had to say. Even now, they retained the habit of looking to her for leadership. She could not let them down. She took a deep breath and said, “No. We cannot win here.”

Some looked pleased at her admission. A few looked astonished, as if they could not quite believe the words had come from her mouth. Maiev understood how they felt, but she kept speaking, her voice emerging in a rusty rasp. “We cannot win here. Now. That does not mean the Betrayer is safe from us forever.”

Several of them nodded as if she was saying what they had expected her to say, as if she was giving voice to their consciences. “He cannot escape us. He cannot simply walk away from his transgressions. We are the avenging hand of the kaldorei. We will be his undoing. We had him in our grasp once and he escaped, aided by his treacherous allies. But the Betrayer will not escape us again. Right is on our side. Justice is on our side. The spirits of our dead cry out for vengeance. They insist that we make him pay for his crimes.

“We have come too far, sacrificed too much, to waste our chance. If we are to return to Darnassus with our heads held high, we must go back with the Betrayer or his corpse. If we do not, our people will think of us only as those who betrayed their trust. You have seen what is happening here. You know that the Betrayer is amassing an army. We must make sure that all of Azeroth knows, too, and understands that we did our duty.”

One elf swallowed and wiped her eyes. They looked watery with unshed tears. Maiev shifted her hands slowly, her movements as controlled as a dancer’s. Her fists clenched. “There is a time for everything, and Illidan’s time is coming. You followed me here knowing that, and I swear to you that your faith was justified. I will not allow Illidan to escape the consequences of his deeds.”

She paused to give her words emphasis. “I will do so even if I must go on alone.”

She let her words sink in. “All of you swore an oath to follow me. Each of you knows the value of your word. The question you must ask yourself is whether you will remain true to your oaths, or whether you will be like him. Are you as faithless as the Betrayer, or are you true daughters and sons of Elune? In your heart of hearts, only you can answer that. I want you each to look within yourself and find the answer to that question. I want no one with me who will flinch when the moment of truth comes. Only you can decide whether you wish to stand beside me when I bring due punishment down upon the head of Illidan the Betrayer.”

Some of the elves would not meet her eyes. A few looked away, but most of them, she was proud to see, stared up at her with renewed determination written on their faces. Their belief fed her own, and she felt her usual certainty return.

“I am with you,” said Anyndra. She knelt and offered her blade.

“And I,” said Sarius. He did the same. One by one, the rest of the Watchers pledged renewed loyalty, even those few who were visibly reluctant. They bowed because their friends and comrades were doing so and because they did not wish to be left alone in this alien place. Maiev nodded in satisfaction. She had won one small victory this day, at least.

“What now, Warden Shadowsong?” Anyndra asked.

Maiev responded, “We must find allies. This is a land where they are essential. We must seek out someone braver than Akama and see if they will aid us.”