Depending on where the bomb would be deployed.
He turned to those who were awaiting his response. “Yes, please tell Lady Jaina that I’ve detected a sort of dampening field in operation. That’s why the portals aren’t working. Tell her to meet me in the top rooms of her tower. And tell her to hurry.”
They left to deliver his message. Rhonin didn’t hesitate. He ran for the appointed meeting place, his mind racing. The tower had been warded with all kinds of protective magics. It was a solid fortress against such attacks. It could work—but so many things had to go exactly right.
Well. Rhonin would just have to make sure they did, wouldn’t he?
Mana bomb!
Kalec’s mind reeled as he recognized the sphere that looked so deceptively lovely. So this was what the Horde thieves had planned! He had never conceived that one this large could be built. Theramore would be practically obliterated.
Unless it was detonated in the air…
It was a suicide venture. For a brief moment, Kalec felt a sharp, keen pain that he would never again see his fellow blues, especially dear Kirygosa; that he would never again see Jaina Proudmoore. But it was for Jaina and her people that he was doing this. If her life could be bought with his, it was an easy choice. He had been forced to watch Anveena sacrifice herself; he could not bear to see anyone else he loved die if he could help it.
He was a dragon, but the goblin aircraft would be armed, both magically and physically. He would have to attack not merely ferociously but cleverly. He hovered for a few precious moments, trying to make an assessment of what he would be fighting. The moments were abruptly cut short when three cannons opened fire on him.
Jaina was confused and more than a little irritated that Rhonin insisted she come to him. The wounded who needed to be portaled to care were here, not inside the tower! Nonetheless she and her assistants hurried as she was bidden. Rhonin was waiting for them at the top of the tower. He threw open one of the stained-glass windows and pointed skyward. Jaina gasped.
“Is it the Focusing Iris?”
“Yes,” said Rhonin. “It’s powering the biggest mana bomb that’s ever been made. And putting out a dampening field so that no one can get away.” He whirled on her. “I can divert it. But first, help me—I can hold back the dampening field long enough to get these people to safety.”
Jaina glanced at her stalwart companions. “Of course!”
Rhonin muttered an incantation, his fingers fluttering as he concentrated, then nodded to Jaina. She began to cast the portal-opening spell, but didn’t understand what she saw. She intended to send the injured directly to Stormwind, but instead caught a glimpse not of that great stone city but an island, little more than a rock, one of many that dotted the Great Sea. She turned to Rhonin, confused.
“Why are you redirecting my portal?”
“Takes… less energy,” grunted Rhonin. Sweat was dotting his brow, matting wisps of red hair to his forehead.
The reasoning made no sense. She opened her mouth, and he snapped, “Don’t argue. Just—go through, all of you!”
Jaina’s companions obeyed, racing into the swirling portal. Jaina hung back. Something wasn’t right. Why was he—
And then she understood. “You can’t defuse it! You’re planning on dying here!”
“Shut. Up. Just go through! I have to pull it here, right here, to save Vereesa and Shandris and as… as many as I can. The walls of this tower are steeped in magic. I should be able to localize the detonation. Don’t be a foolish little girl, Jaina. Go!”
She stared at him, horrified. “No! I can’t let you do this! You have a family. You’re the leader of the Kirin Tor!”
His eyes, closed in concentration, snapped open and his gaze was both furious and pleading. His body trembled with the strain of holding open the portal and blocking the dampening field.
“And you’re the future of it!”
“No! I’m not! Theramore is my city. I need to stay and defend it!”
“Jaina, if you don’t go soon, we will both die, and my efforts to drag the cursed bomb here instead of letting it strike the heart of the city will be for nothing. Is that what you want? Is it?”
Of course not. But she couldn’t stand by and let him sacrifice himself for her. “I won’t abandon you!” Jaina cried, turning to look up at the bomb. “Maybe together we can divert it!” She was shouting to be heard over the noise of the sky galleon. It was coming closer now, and she saw, dipping and diving about it, several small flying figures.
And one large one.
Kalec!
Kalec folded his wings and dropped like a stone, the cannonballs narrowly missing him. He beat his wings powerfully, coming up beneath the galleon, his eyes glued to the mana bomb. He opened his jaws, intending to freeze the thing and then shatter it. The resulting explosion would destroy him, of course, and the goblins ferrying the bomb as well. But the residue that would fall upon Theramore would be only mildly damaging. The city—and Jaina—would survive.
A sudden sharp pain pierced him. He faltered, whirling to challenge his opponent—a Forsaken mounted atop a huge bat. The Forsaken’s polearm had struck Kalec where his forearm joined his body—one of the few places without protective scales—and had gone deep. Kalec’s abrupt movement ripped the polearm out of the Forsaken’s bony hand, and the blue dragon’s retaliatory and instinctive tail swipe knocked both bat and rider from the sky.
The galleon had dropped now, and the cannons were aimed upward at him. Kalec tried to dodge out of the way but came under the sudden attack of dozens of wind riders. A huge boom echoed, and this time, Kalec wasn’t able to dodge the cannonballs.
Jaina cried out as she saw Kalecgos start to fall. At that precise moment, the sky galleon released its cargo.
She would never remember exactly what happened next. She felt herself being both pushed and pulled toward the still-whirling portal entrance. She shouted in protest, trying to tug herself free, and craned her neck to look back just in time to see hell.
The world went absolutely white. The tower shattered. Rhonin’s body, standing tall, arms outstretched as he glared defiantly at his fate, turned suddenly purple. He was frozen in time for a fraction of a heartbeat; then he exploded in a cloud of lavender ash. As the portal whirled closed and Jaina was dragged farther and farther away, she saw a violet ocean of arcane energy wash over Theramore. Cries of utter, absolute, depthless terror assaulted her ears, and then she knew no more.
19
Baine was a warrior. His eyes had seen almost more than he could bear of the horrors of war. He had beheld towns and forts and even his own city of Thunder Bluff ablaze. He had witnessed battles of magic as well as those of blade and fire and fist, and knew that spells killed as surely and as brutally as steel. His voice had shouted orders to attack, and his two hands had taken lives.
But this…
The night sky was not a black background lit with the dull orange-red of flames consuming buildings and flesh, although some buildings had indeed caught fire earlier in the battle. Instead, there was a violet glow, almost pretty, like moonlight on snow, emanating from the city. And above that deceptively pleasant radiance, the sky was putting on a show. Bright spikes of lightning slashed through the blackness in all colors of the rainbow. Here and there, the jagged illumination lingered, moving and turning only to wink out and reappear elsewhere. They were close enough to hear booming and cracking sounds as the very fabric of the world was again and again rent asunder and knitted together. As the colorful lights paraded themselves in the sky, Baine thought incongruously of a phenomenon known as the northern lights he had seen in Northrend. Cairne had spoken of being filled with awe at the sight, and as Baine beheld the glow, awe mixed with stunned, sick revulsion filled him.