The green dragon snorted. “A pale though acceptable description of it, little druid! There is no more perfect place in all creation!” He suddenly moaned. “The Eye taken! Where then is my queen if not captured?!?”
Now Alexstrasza shook her head sadly at his continued rage.
“No. Ysera avoided capture. She is fighting. She, her remaining consorts, and a handful of others fight not only to save themselves, but to seek the truth at the Nightmare’s dark core. She has no intention of letting either her domain or Azeroth fall to this monstrous thing!”
“She is mad! If she falls prey to it, all is ended! The Nightmare felt so powerful, I believed her already taken, but if she seeks its truths and its power, it will make of her something worse than Lethon or Emeriss and, through her, alter both planes into a horror far worse than anything we have thus far experienced!”
“She does what she must do,” Alexstrasza calmly replied. “And I seek to help her as I can. I add my strength to hers from afar, watch over all tentative advances by the Nightmare into this world, seek those who can help…and watch for the corrupted, the unwaking.”
The male dragon finally looked down. In a tone of self-loathing, he muttered, “You do all that for her while she risks herself so and I
…I sit in a cave, hiding from the doom of the world! Hiding from the defense of my love and my queen! I know your Korialstrasz of old just as I know you, Life-Binder! I am not worthy to be in your presence or that of my Ysera…” Alexstrasza almost spoke, but Eranikus shook his head. “But if there is hope of becoming worthy of her, there is but one path for me!”
The great green dragon spun to face the portal. Its energies pulsated softly, innocently.
Eranikus moved toward it. “I no longer sense the Nightmare near. The accursed corruption has shifted again. It is safe for the moment to enter…but beyond that…” He looked to the night elves.
“Your part ends here.”
“No, we go with you,” Tyrande countered. “I do not think our coming together was all chance. Someone seeks to bring together those who best can serve Azeroth and its survival. Nothing happens without reason…”
“Of course, someone does!” Ysera’s consort abruptly responded, expression shifting to desperate hope. “It must be my queen! Even with so much no doubt assailing her, she works and plots for our salvation! I should have seen it—”
“Not Ysera. Not my sister,” Alexstrasza sagely interjected. She eyed Tyrande and Broll. “I think another seeks to guide you…and I think it is Malfurion Stormrage himself.”
It comes together, Malfurion dared hope, the archdruid doing all he could to shield those thoughts from his captor. They may suspect
…but that is good so long as he doesn’t…
The dread shadows suddenly stretched over the tree of pain that was the night elf. The insidious presence of the Nightmare Lord surrounded Malfurion and filled his mind and soul.
Have you come to love the agony? Is it so much a part of you that you cannot tell it from yourself?
Malfurion did not respond. There was no point in responding.
Doing so only served his captor.
Keeping counsel with your own thoughts, Malfurion Stormrage? The skeletal tendrils of the shadow tree wrapped around the imprisoned archdruid. Shall we discuss those thoughts
…those dreams…those hopes?
Despite himself, the night elf could not help but be jarred by the last. Did the foul thing know?
Let us share some considerations…let us share some ambitions…
The archdruid buried his thoughts as deep as possible. His plan was near to fruition. There was a chance…
The Nightmare Lord laughed in his head. And, most of all, Malfurion Stormrage, let us talk of foolish dreams of rescue…
13
AT THE EDGE OF NIGHTMARE
The druids were exhausted. They had spent themselves so much that several would not likely be of help for any further casting for days. Their combined might had fed and fed Teldrassil, but with no visible success…at least so far as Hamuul could tell.
As for the tauren himself, he had become a pariah to most of the others, although officially there had been no censure, no condemnation by Archdruid Fandral concerning whatever Broll had done. Fandral had not even informed Hamuul just what the missing druid had done. He had merely eyed the tauren disapprovingly, doing so long enough that the others understood that Hamuul had lost favor.
Naralex and a few others defied the shunning, but Hamuul did his best to steer clear of them out of concern that they, too, would suffer. The aged tauren was willing to shoulder his responsibility in enabling Broll to go unnoticed long enough. He trusted his friend.
Fandral had a right to be angered, though.
The lead archdruid had insisted on keeping them at Teldrassil’s base, far from Darnassus. Only he had thus far returned to the city.
Each time he returned, Fandral pressed the druids in some new fashion. He assured them that they were making progress, that the World Tree was healing.
Hamuul had to assume that he was not an adept-enough archdruid to sense what Fandral did.
The tauren sat cross-legged a bit distant from the rest. The druids were meditating, trying to regain their strength for Fandral’s next spell. Hamuul had never felt so drained in all his life, not even during the weeklong hunt that had been part of his rite of passage from child to adult. That had required fasting during the entire trial.
I am getting old…was his first thought. Yet none of the night elves appeared any stronger than him. Thus far it seemed that the lead archdruid’s plans had done little more than bring every member to the brink of ruin.
Thinking again of Fandral, Hamuul looked for him. However, the other was nowhere to be found. The tauren could only suppose that Fandral had perhaps again returned to the Cenarion Enclave to consult some ancient text. Hamuul hoped that it would provide them with more tangible results than they had achieved thus far.
Finding himself unable to meditate, the tauren rose. Seeing that none of the others paid him any mind, he strode toward the World Tree.
Even though Hamuul had not been one of those in favor of a second such giant, he could not only appreciate the majesty of it, but also Teldrassil’s effect on the world. As a tauren, Hamuul very much believed in the balance between nature and the lives of the various races of Azeroth. That had been why he had sought out Malfurion Stormrage in the first place and asked to be instructed in the druidic arts. And even though Hamuul had only been a druid for a few years, he believed that he had proven himself well.
Otherwise, he would not have risen to become one of the few archdruids and the only one of his kind.
The tauren wished there was more he could do beyond what he had done for Broll. He still felt that Broll’s choice was somehow the right one, despite how it crossed Fandral’s good purposes.
Standing just before Teldrassil, he looked up into the clouds where Darnassus lay. If the portal had been very near, Hamuul might have been tempted to just walk through it. As it was, his only other choice was to fly…
With a grunt, he leaned with one hand against Teldrassil. There was more he needed to do. If BrollSomeone was whispering.
Hamuul stepped from the tree and looked for the speaker.
However, the whispering immediately ceased.
His thick brow wrinkling in thought, the archdruid neared the trunk once more.