Lethon came between the giant and the druid. He swirled before Broll, the dragon’s chuckle sending involuntary chills down the great bear’s spine. Broll roared at the dragon as he tried to find some way past. Farther back, Tyrande struggled as the shadows renewed their attack on her position.
“You waste your breath…no one can escape…no one can flee
…you will belong to us…”
Gnarl was half into the mist. Even still, more and more hands clutched at his arms, grappled with his legs, and clawed at his torso. Others pulled back the brave guardian’s head and even sought to smother his voice.
But Gnarl managed one shout. “Escape through the portal!
Escape through the—”
The hands — shaped like those of night elves, humans, orcs, tauren, and other creatures of Azeroth — now all but covered the ancient. There were so many that Gnarl himself could barely move.
One foot was dragged into the mist. A shoulder joined it, then the entire arm. Gnarl’s head vanished into the impenetrable fog.
The ancient shuddered. He seemed to go limp.
The hands pulled the rest of him within.
Tyrande had been seeking a path on the other side of Lethon, but not until Gnarl had vanished did it suddenly open. So desperate to reach their ally, the high priestess took a few steps forward before realizing that not only was it too late for Gnarl, but that Lethon had let her commit herself in order to make her the next victim.
The first hands reached out, as hungry as ever. Forced to save herself from Gnarl’s fate, the high priestess turned from Lethon to battle the hands with both Elune’s light and the glaive.
A titanic bellow shook the three combatants. A glistening form appeared among them. Eranikus.
The emerald dragon’s closed eyes fixed on Lethon.
The corrupted leviathan suddenly roared. He twisted and cried out, “The trees…they close in on me!”
As he said this, Broll and the others saw what appeared to be soft, misty trees truly gathering around the corrupted dragon. To the druid, they seemed harmless, healing…but to Lethon it appeared as if their mere touch was poison.
But then Lethon shook his head. The trees of mist dissipated.
Lethon’s expression toward Eranikus was murderous. “I am beyond such petty dream attacks! Indeed, you dream too much, dear Eranikus…you dream too much and understand too little of what I have become through the growing power of the Nightmare…” The seared areas healed. Lethon leaned forward and though he did not stand as great as Eranikus, he was fearsome. “But you will understand again, when you are one of us once more…”
Lethon’s eyes widened…and as they did, they changed, revealing that what the party had seen earlier had been illusion.
Now came the dread reality.
They were pits, pits so dark that they seemed to want to swallow those upon which they were focused. There was in them the same hunger, the same horror, that the hands had exhibited. Yet in the dragon, it became a different evil, a personal one.
“I am only corruption now, Eranikus! It has consumed me and I savor that consumption…”
“Then…there is no reason for you to continue to be…”
Ysera’s mate glared at Lethon.
Broll noticed that the corrupted dragon did not cringe or fight.
Instead, Lethon waited…with anticipation.
“Eranikus!” the druid shouted. “Beware! There is another!”
Lethon’s head turned and the hollow eyes sought to tear out Broll’s very soul. The druid let out a gasp but fought the dread feeling.
The mist nearest Eranikus coalesced into a horrific form that was the Nightmare embodied. It was one of Eranikus’s kind, but only just. The great majesty that was a green dragon had been replaced by a thing so diseased that its flesh rotted. It was female, but only barely recognizable as so now. There were tatters in the violet membranes of the wings, and a stench of decay washed over the night elves.
Tyrande shuddered, reliving the initial war against the Burning Legion, when the land was covered in the innocent dead. Broll let out a rumble of pain as he watched Anessa perish again, along with so many others in the far more recent battle against the demons at Mt. Hyjal.
The new terror had sinister black orbs whose centers were a chilling bone white. She seized upon a startled Eranikus, sinking skeletal claws into his forelegs.
“Have you forgotten dear Emeriss?” the macabre dragon asked in a voice that literally chilled. “We yearn to have you back with us, Eranikus…”
“No! I will not let the Nightmare take me again!” He turned his stare upon her.
She spat. A putrid green substance covered Eranikus’s eyes.
He roared and tried to wipe the foul stuff away, but she held him tight. Worse, Lethon now joined her in the attack.
“We have missed you so much…” Emeriss cooed. “Do not fight our embrace…accept the inevitable…”
“No! Never! I cannot! I will not!” Yet, despite his protestations, Eranikus could not prevent the pair from beginning to drag him toward the mists. There, the hands reappeared, grasping at the air in anticipation of the struggling leviathan.
Neither Broll nor Tyrande could do anything; they were barely able to hold their own as the shadow satyrs renewed their eager assault.
Crimson fire from behind Ysera’s consort bathed Emeriss and Lethon. Startled and enraged, they released their hold and retreated to the mists. Eranikus immediately fled the portal, in his anxiety utterly forgetting his two companions.
But other aid came to them. Two great hands made of soft, red energy swept away the dark throngs, then gently lifted the druid and the high priestess as if they were toys. The hands withdrew, pulling them to safety beyond the portal.
The dark emerald forces immediately after returned to their normal state.
Eranikus lay sprawled far to the side, Ysera’s mate panting. His gaze was turned from where the night elves and their savior stood.
Their savior…yet another dragon.
A red dragon.
A very, very large red dragon, one who dwarfed even Eranikus.
Two massive horns thrust back from a proud, reptilian head.
Most of the behemoth’s body was of a stunning crimson, but the chest had a great patch of silver to it, as did the paws. Small webbed patches extended from each side of the head.
Yet what set the dragon apart from any of the others — aside from the immense size — were the eyes. They were not the glittering orbs of Eranikus’s flight, but rather a smoldering golden light that, despite the night elves’ previous predicament, brought calm and hope.
When the dragon spoke, her voice was commanding but soothing. “They have fled. They did not expect me. Sad to say, I did not expect them, either, or else I would have been ready to aid you from the beginning.”
“You…are an Aspect…” Tyrande solemnly declared. “You are—”
The gargantuan dragon bowed her head. “I am…Alexstrasza.
And I know you, Tyrande Whisperwind, from both that long-ago struggle now called the War of the Ancients and the blessing of Nordrassil soon after it.”
“Alexstrasza…” The high priestess stirred at the thought of another name related to the Aspect, that of a second valued ally.
“Krasus! Is he here also? Does he still live? He would have some answers for us—”
The dragon shook her head. Her gaze grew troubled. “There are many sleepers, Tyrande Whisperwind… and he is among them.”
The female night elf frowned. “I am sorry for you.”
The Aspect cocked her head, startled. “You are sorry for me?”