The explosion rocked the entire valley.
Grom swore, ducking and covering his head, feeling stings along his back and shoulders where he had been peppered with small fragments of shattered rock. He looked up, rage burning inside him, and strode with dreadful purpose to the warlock. Kra'kul looked as shocked as Grom felt and cowered as Grom's fist descended.
"Traitor! You would kill us!"
"No! No, I swear, I was told it was a shield, a shield to protect us! I didn't know!"
Red swam before Grom's eyes as he lifted the cringing warlock with one hand and shook him. How he wanted to crush the orc's windpipe, to rip his head off and throw it as the elderly human had thrown the device that Grom had been told would protect them but instead had nearly killed them.
'Who told you this? Where is he, that I may tear his heart out!" Roughly he shook the warlock, curbing his bloodlust with great effort.
"I don't know — Malkor was sent to do it — he told me it was a shield—"
Cursing, Grom hurled the worthless wretch away and turned back to the fight.
Grom had been told the device was a shield, so that at the last moment, the Warsong clan could safely escape. He had been lied to. Someone in a position of power — Gorefiend? Ner'zhul?—had intended that the warriors left behind would not escape with their lives.
Grom vowed to survive this battle, unlikely as it seemed, so that someone would pay.
The explosion had rattled his people. The Alliance had recovered more quickly than the orcs, and Grom saw; furious and helpless, that they were being herded like beasts to the southwest. Yet he could do nothing about it. One group came from one side, a second blocked off the exit from another, forcing the orcs back and into a narrow valley mouth, away from the portal. Away from home.
"So be it," he growled. The Alliance might have this victory, but it would cost them dearly. He threw his head back, opened his jaw wide, and let forth a scream that froze two Alliance warriors in mid-swing. "Fight, my Warsong, fight like the orcs you are! Let your blood sing with battle lust! Tear them to pieces! For the Horde!"
* * *
"Someone has to stay here and watch this crew," Turalyon said, reining in beside Alleria and Khadgar and waiting for Kurdran to circle low enough to hear the conversation. "I'll station some men at the mouth of this valley to keep them from escaping again. Everyone else—"
He fell silent. Khadgar didn't envy him. No one really wanted to go through the Dark Portal — although he had to admit, a small part of him, the part that had led to him become a mage in the first place, was very curious about what lay beyond it.
"Well,” Turalyon said. "We know what we need to do. Each of you, tell your units one more time that this is a volunteer expedition. I'll not force any soldier to cross worlds if he does not wish to."
Danath nodded and wheeled his mount away, bellowing orders. Alleria turned back to her rangers, and spoke softly to them in their musical language. Khadgar gave Turalyon a reassuring smile, but the paladin didn't return it. Quietly he said to Khadgar, "Alleria was almost killed today. I was barely able to save her."
"Turalyon," Khadgar said, equally quietly, "she's a trained warrior. She can outfight both of us, probably. You know that."
"That's not what I'm worried about. I know she can handle herself, normally. But… she gets careless. She gets—" His voice faltered, and Khadgar had to look away from the pain on the youth's face.
“She puts killing orcs before her own safety," Khadgar said. "She takes undue risks.” Turalyon nodded miserably. "Well, now we take the fight to them, Turalyon. It could be good for her. For both of you."
Turalyon flushed slightly, but didn't answer. His eyes were on his troops now, and he guided his horse so that he was among them.
"Sons of Lothar!" he cried. "We have faced battle before. We have faced loss, and defeat, and known victory. Now we face the unknown." He caught Khadgar's eye and smiled slightly. "We take the fight to them. And we stop them — so they never trouble us, or other innocent worlds, ever again. For the Alliance! For the Light!"
He lifted his hammer and a cheer rose up as the hammer began to glow with a sharp, clear white radiance. Khadgar nodded to himself. This was what both he and Anduin Lothar had sensed in Turalyon when they had first met him. It seemed a lifetime ago, now. Both the Alliance commander and the mage had known even then that this priest-turned-holy warrior would rise to the challenge. Would blend his almost innocent and inherent decency with a fierce determination to protect his people. Would stand now, at the head of an army, rallying them to cross into a completely new world. Khadgar wondered if his friend saw, really saw, how much he inspired his soldiers. And how he inspired one in particular, who was looking at him now with an all-too-rare unguarded expression on her beautiful, elven face.
Turalyon turned his horse and spurred it up the stone ramp toward the Dark Portal itself. His steed shied, resisting, but Turalyon held the reins firm and forced it on. The swirling light beckoned, and he passed through it, its greenish glow overpowering his own white light for an instant before he vanished completely between the columns. Alleria and Khadgar were right behind him. The mage wrestled with his horse and felt a curious sensation as man and beast entered the rift, a ripple of cold and a tugging feeling, as if a strong current pulled at him. A chill swept over him, and for an instant he saw blackness and stars and swirls and flashes of strange colors all mingled together. Then he was emerging, and the hot air warmed skin that had grown inexplicably cold during the brief crossing.
Bright … it was so very bright. He automatically lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the glare. And hot, too, a dry, savage heat that struck Khadgar as being almost physical. He blinked, letting his eyes adjust — and gasped.
He stood on stone, dwarfed by a version of the portal that was as huge and elaborate as the one they'd just crossed through was perfunctory and hastily assembled. Statues of hooded men towered on either side, and the stairs led down to a second courtyard flanked by enormous, sullenly burning braziers. Two pillars topped with fire stood on either side of a strangely made road and…
The cracked, red, barren plain that stretched before them was somewhat familiar, evocative of the Blasted Lands. Even as he stared, in the distance the desiccated earth cracked open. Fire leaped upward as if a dragon were hatching, breaking through the earth as if from its shell. But Khadgar's eyes were fixed on the sky. It was red, the deep red of fresh blood, and high above shone an angry crimson sun, its heat beating down upon them. And, Light help him, the sky, too, was familiar.
"No," he said in a broken voice. "No," he whispered again. "Not here! Not like this!"
"What is it?" Alleria asked him. He ignored her. It was all as it was in the vision — the sky, the land — "Khadgar! What's wrong?"
He started, as if waking up, but the horrible scene before him did not dissipate. He shook his head and forced a wan smile. "Nothing," he lied. Then, realizing how transparent that falsehood was, he corrected himself. "I have had… visions of this place before. I hadn't expected — I didn't think I would have to face them so soon. I — it overwhelmed me for a second. My apologies."
Alleria frowned up at him, concerned, but saw that he was not going to explain further. "It is—" She closed her mouth, unable to find the words. She put a hand to her heart as if it physically hurt, and for a moment Khadgar roused from his own despair to pity her. She was an elf, a child of forests and trees and growing, healthy lands. She looked stunned, sickened — almost as sick as Khadgar felt. Out of nowhere, a wind kicked up. With no plants to anchor the soil, the greedy blast seized the dead, dusty soil and scoured them with it. They all coughed, and reached for something, anything, to cover mouths and noses and eyes.