They were the sleepers taken unaware, but they were far more.
Malfurion had fought demons and he had fought the undead Scourge. The horrific parodies that these sleepers had become made the former gentle-seeming in comparison. The sleepers were creatures drained of soul and so their forms reflected it.
When they moved, it was both fluid and with evident wracking pain that made Malfurion’s own past torture nothing.
Their shriveled flesh draped stretched skulls. Their mouths opened in continual shrieks and stretched wider than physically possible. Their eyes were sunk into their skulls and stared with a loathing at what did not share their suffering.
And still more of them came, more than there could possibly be on a hundred Azeroths. They were every horrible dream each sleeper suffered, and so their numbers were potentially endless.
They grasped with clawlike hands as they moved, reaching
…reaching…
Malfurion knew for what they reached and what they hungered.
His captor had been only too pleased to not only show their suffering, but let him sense just what the Nightmare Lord had let them think was their salvation. To them, the only respite, even for a moment, was to steal and experience what those who had not yet fallen victim to the Nightmare still had…the ability to dream without pain, without fear.
But that was a false desire, something that they could never actually seize. It was merely a ploy to drive them on, to make them so desperate as to seize upon their friends and loved ones, all for the sake of the Nightmare.
And Malfurion knew that, despite how good most of these people were…their nightmare selves would not hesitate in the least to bring about Azeroth’s destruction.
Their numbers continued to swell, continued to spread. The remaining members of Ysera’s dragonflight were as nothing to them. The dragons attacked and attacked, but they might as well have been a few grains of sand seeking to stem a flood.
Malfurion knew why. He also knew that he had been manipulated all along by the Nightmare Lord. In the archdruid’s cleverness, he had simply given the foul shadow what it truly desired. The night elf had served his captor as well as if he had been one of the corrupted…
“We must retreat from this place!” one of the elder green dragons roared to the rest. “We must regroup!”
Regroup? Why? Malfurion silently asked, still horrified at the role that he had played. Of what hope is there?
The Nightmare had never actually wanted him. Oh, its master had, but that had been a personal desire greatly outweighed by the ultimate need.
Malfurion had been the bait. His powers, his bond to Azeroth and the Emerald Dream had been strong enough to instigate the Nightmare’s intentions, but never to truly fulfill them. For that, the shadow had needed the one being most tied to the magical realm.
The Nightmare had wanted the mistress of the Emerald Dream all along.
18
LOST DREAMS
In Stormwind City, in Ironforge, Dalaran, Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, and all other cities, towns, and villages, the mist began to move.
Even in the Undercity, where the undead should not dream, the mist seized the hidden nightmares of its inhabitants. The Forsaken were cursed with suffering their lost lives over again in dreams that offered them escape, but did not deliver that promise.
The Undercity was well-named for many reasons, the least of which was that it was buried under the ruins of what had once been one of the most grand of cities…Lordaeron’s famed Capital City.
However, in the Third War, Prince Arthas — corrupted by the Lich King — seized his father’s capital and slaughtered King Terenas in his own throne room.
But the dread destiny of the Lich King had drawn Arthas to cold Northrend and during that time, the Forsaken — those undead who had broken from the Lich King’s mastery — seized the ruins. Seeing the defensive advantages, they had carved out what would become their capital, stretching its catacombs to new depths and building what to many of the living would have very much seemed a terrible mockery of the undead’s lost existences.
A sinister crest consisting of three crossed arrows — one of them broken — covered by a white, cracked mask could be seen throughout the city. It was the mark of the Forsaken and, especially, their queen. The Undercity was a place of dark, somber colors, stone walkways and steps. However, the undead did not sleep and so neither did the city. The Undercity had inns, forges, and businesses that catered not only to the undead, but visitors from the Horde, with whom the Forsaken had allied itself. There was some illumination in the form of dim lamps and muted torches.
They were not merely there to serve the living, though the undead had no true need of light, but no one wished to admit that it perhaps gave its chief inhabitants a facade of some other existence.
But now…something new and unsettling even to those who had built the Undercity had swept into the Forsaken’s capital.
Something that resembled sleep…
The Forsaken’s leader — the fearsome Banshee Queen, Sylvanas Windrunner — had studied the strange state of those of her followers who now seemed truly dead…and yet not. It was the merest of movements that proved the latter, if nothing else.
The Banshee Queen was beautiful even in undeath. She had been not only a high elf, but also ranger-general of lost Silvermoon.
And even in her current role, Sylvanas was unique, for she was not ghostlike as banshees generally were, but had a solid form. Lithe, elegant, and with skin of pale ivory, she strode among the supine bodies gathered for her by her servants. All were the same. All gave her no answer, and that only served to increase her frustration.
Clad in form-fitting leather armor designed for easy movement and adorned also with a shroudlike hooded cloak bearing deep crimson hints, Sylvanas looked very much the harbinger of doom.
Even the four undead high elf guards in attendance, with their rotted faces, their protruding rib cages, and their hollow eyes could not raise such fear as the banshee did.
“Well, Varimathras?” she demanded of a shadowed presence in the corner of the dank, cobwebbed chamber underneath her citadel. Her voice was seductive in the way that darkness was to some, yet also was akin to a chill wind. “Have you nothing to tell me yet?”
The shadow separated from the wall, to reveal a gargantuan figure, a demon. He wore leather and metal armor of the darkest ebony. Sylvanas’s tone hinted of a tremendous mistrust between them. The demon joined her, striding on two huge, cloven hooves.
His skin was of a bloody purple tone, even to the two vast, webbed wings sprouting from near his shoulders. His head was long and tapered, with a dark mane flowing from the base of an otherwise bald head. Two wicked black horns thrust up from the temples.
Green gemstones marked his armor at the forearms and waist, their color and glow matching his inhuman orbs. Those eyes now met glowing, silver-white ones.
“I have cast spell after spell, burrowed deep into each of these fools…and they all reveal the same thing, Your Majesty…” he replied coolly. The demon cocked his head to the side and with analytical interest watched his mistress’s expression contort.
“We — do — not — dream!” Sylvanas retorted, her voice so shrill now that the demon had to cover his long, pointed ears. Even then, his body was wracked by sharp pain. The cry of a banshee was a terrifying power and Sylvanas was the deadliest, most unique, of banshees.
“That — distraction — is beyond us,” the queen of the undead added in a more calm manner. “They’re not dreaming, Varimathras…”
“Not even — Sharlindra?”