Anduin still lay half in the chair. The captain of the guard, a gruff veteran with a cropped brown beard, looked as if he wanted to adjust the prince to a more comfortable position but was afraid to touch the royal heir.
Varian saw only his son, and so with nothing else on his mind but that, he barged past the captain and reached down to Anduin.
He saw the youth’s chest rise and fall. The king’s hopes rose…
until he heard Anduin let out a whimper.
His son had joined the sleepers.
“No …” the lord of Stormwind whispered. He shook Anduin, but the boy would not wake. “No …”
Finally rising, Varian growled, “Carry him to bed. Gently. I’ll be there before long.”
Two of the guards did as he commanded. To the captain, the king added, “Summon the alchemists! I want to see them all immediately—”
A horn sounded. As one, those assembled looked up. Varian knew by the signal from where the call originated: the battlements from which he had just departed.
“Take care of Anduin!” he reminded the guards. “And summon the alchemists, Captain!”
Not bothering to wait for any response, the king raced back to where he had just been walking. On the battlements, a handful of soldiers stared off into the direction of the mist. When one happened to look back and see the king, he immediately warned the rest. The sentries stood at attention.
“Never mind that!” Varian stepped past them to look beyond Stormwind City’s edge. “What do you—”
He froze. Now there were definitely distinct figures moving within the mist. Hundreds of them… no… there had to be thousands…
“Get every available fighter to the—” Again Varian stopped, but this time for another reason. Even though the mist and those within were still far away, for some reason the king was certain that he recognized all of them. In one way, that was not so astounding, for they were the same two people over and over and over.
They were Anduin… and his mother.
But this was not the beloved Tiffin of Varian’s memory. Each of the doppelgängers staggered toward the city on legs that were halfbone, half-greenish, rotting flesh. Tiffin’s once-beautiful face was ravaged by worms and other carrion insects. Spiders crawled in her ragged hair and the gown in which she had been buried was soiled by dirt and torn. The monstrous scene repeated on and on.
And as for Anduin, while whole, he stayed close to his mother, allowing one skeletal hand to wrap around his neck in what looked more possessive than loving. To Varian, it was as if the horrific apparition was telling the king that their son was now hers.
“No …” Varian wanted this to be a nightmare. He wanted to find out that he was among the sleepers. There was little that could shake him, but this was a dark tableau of which he could have never imagined. It had to be a nightmare… it had to be…
But Varian realized that, unlike his son, he was living something real, even if it, too, was in its way a nightmare. The king had been taking the potions before the first of the sleepers; he was certain that they had somehow protected him by granting him no dreams.
Unfortunately, Varian had not made the connection in time to prevent his own son from falling prey.
And now, whatever lurked behind the sleepers, behind their troubled dreams, was encroaching on the capital wielding his own worst fears.
That gave Varian some strength. He turned to the nearest guard — the female with whom he had earlier spoken — and asked, “Do you see anything in the mist?”
Her shaking voice was enough to tell him how terrible the sight was to her. “I see… my father… dead in battle… Tomas… a comrade in arms… I see—”
King Varian looked to the assembled guards. “You see nothing but your imagination! Nothing but your fears! It or they know your fears and are feeding on them! These are nightmares, which mean that they are not what you think …”
They clearly took some heart from the strength of his voice.
Varian hid deep his own anxiety at the thought of Anduin and Tiffin.
If even while aware that they were false visions he was still affected by them, how were the rest of those in the city faring?
From outside the capital’s walls and near the edge of the mist, another horn sounded. One of the patrols on evening duty. Varian had for the moment forgotten about them. They were one of about half a dozen out this night…
“Give the recall!” he ordered the nearest trumpeter. “Give it now! I want them all in!”
The soldier blew the signal. Varian waited.
One patrol to the west responded. Another further south did.
From the northwest came another.
The fourth signal came from those near the mist. Varian breathed a sigh of relief as the horn blared —
And then the sound cut off too soon.
Worse… there was no reply at all from the other two.
“Again!”
The trumpeter blew. The king and the soldiers waited.
Silence.
Varian eyed the moving figures in the mist. Again, it was as if his view magnified to give him a much closer look. He knew that it was not by chance, but rather some work of whatever encroached upon his city. It sought to let him see what was happening, see and fear
…
And what the monarch of Stormwind saw did make him shudder, for it answered more questions. The many Anduins and Tiffins were no longer alone. Their ranks had been joined by shambling figures clad in armor marked by the proud lion on the breastplate.
Yet Varian could also see the prone bodies of those same men on the ground, even their steeds collapsed with them. Indeed, many of the gauntfaced soldiers rode mounts that had eyes without pupils and bodies that were twisted.
“It is the Scourge come to claim us again!” someone shouted.
Without looking at who had been speaking, the king commanded, “Silence! This is magical trickery, nothing more!
Nothing!”
Then… the mist and its army paused just before the walls. The Anduins and the Tiffins looked up, their soulless eyes upon those of Varian. Behind them, the other figures also stared up at the battlements.
Without warning, the Anduins and Tiffins looked over their shoulders at the unholy throng. Varian could not help but follow their gazes.
At first he saw only the soldiers mixed with them. Then other half-seen figures became apparent. Though their forms were indistinct… dreamlike… their faces were horrific parodies of normal folk.
And then… among them he saw a more distinct figure. A woman fair of face and with long, blond hair. If she had not been dressed as a mage, Varian might have ignored her as one more shadow.
It was Lady Jaina Proudmoore.
Her expression was as dire as the rest, a thing caught between horror and death. Varian stepped back, understanding that the situation was even more terrible than he had imagined. As if to verify this, to Jaina’s right another figure formed from the very mist.
The face was unknown to the king, but that did not matter. He spotted another take shape and another.
“Why do they not attack?” asked the guard with whom he had originally spoken. “Why?”
He did not answer, though he knew the reason. They were attacking. Piece by piece. The attrition of which he had earlier thought had a second purpose to it. The enemy was not merely reducing the ranks of the defenders; it was adding to its own. With each new sleeper — especially those like Anduin, caught unexpected by exhaustion — their numbers grew.
King Varian understood that all they had to do for the moment was wait… and victory would be theirs.
Tyrande prayed… and Elune responded to her servant.
As if a full, silvery moon itself suddenly filled the chamber, the light of the goddess magnified a thousand times, bathing all in its glory. Yet for the high priestess, Broll, and Lucan, the illumination comforted. It did not hurt their eyes, but soothed them.