Broll, more concerned with their lives — and their spirits, should the Nightmare take them — did not at first understand what she wanted. Then he saw the ax.
The magical ax. Small wonder that Thura wanted it. With the weapon, she could confront the shadows and nightmares.
But the druid doubted that regaining the ax would prove so simple as merely picking it back up.
Thura reached for it…and the ax flared emerald green.
At the same time there was a sound of rage. Broll spun, for the rage came from all around them. At first he feared it some new manifestation of his own, old rage, the raw fury that he had fought and defeated only by great effort during a previous journey into the Emerald Dream. However, almost immediately, the druid knew that the rage had a different, more terrible source. The Nightmare Lord was angry.
He could not understand why. The orc appeared either unable or unwilling to touch the ax now. That surely benefited the unseen evil.
“What’s wrong, Thura?” he muttered. “Is it that you can’t pick it up? You won’t?”
The orc shook her head. She glanced back at the night elf, revealing an expression of deep confusion. “I–I don’t know, druid
…I don’t…know…”
And even as she revealed that, the mist closed about them. Broll sensed the Nightmare Lord’s anger focus upon them. Even though it had clearly been able earlier to strip the ax from Thura, it evidently could not use it. Thus, it had waited for someone it had expected would be able to do so.
“You will wield it yet, orc,” came a voice that made the druid shudder, for he knew who spoke. “And through you, this ax will become our weapon instead…”
A great fist materialized out of the mists, a thing covered in festering bark. Carrion bugs crawled over and into it. It struck Broll hard in the side. He went tumbling from the orc.
Gnarl stepped forth from the hungry fog. The corrupted ancient grinned. His eyes were the madly shifting colors of the Nightmare.
Jagged branch growths jutted all over his body and the wicked leaves that Broll had seen in his early visions — Malfurion’s attempts to reach out — now covered much of the creature.
“I won’t use such a weapon for you!” Thura roared defiantly.
“You will…” he responded, in a voice that was as much the Nightmare Lord’s as it was Gnarl’s.
The ancient reached for her. Thura sought to move, but the ground was again awash in the carrion bugs and the orc lost her footing. As she fell, what first appeared to be black worms burst from the ruined ground. Yet they were not worms but, rather, the shadows of roots.
The roots of a skeletal tree.
But even though shadow, they sought to bind the orc as if strong rope. She struggled.
Broll rose. He had constantly been expecting attack, though not from Gnarl. That had enabled him to be in part ready. Still, the strike had momentarily knocked the air out of him.
He threw himself at the ancient, transforming in his leap to cat shape. Even still, he was a small foe against Gnarl.
The corrupted ancient sought to swat him again, but Broll was more dexterous. He twisted as he approached, sending himself lower than the huge fist. Simultaneously, the druid raked his foe’s nearest leg.
Gnarl bellowed in pain and anger. Forgetting Thura, he turned to where the cat landed.
“The Dream and Azeroth will soon belong to the Nightmare…”
Gnarl/the Nightmare Lord rumbled. “And for you, night elf, there will come a particularly dread, eternal vision…”
Shadow figures began to converge on the cat from all directions. Broll peered past them to Thura. She kept one hand free, a hand that was just within reach of the ax. If she could only take it —
No! Broll would have realized the truth then even if he had not just witnessed one shadow root avoid the lone free hand. The Nightmare wants her to seize it without thinking!
The Nightmare could not for some reason take the weapon itself, nor could any of its corrupted. However, it clearly thought that it could make use of the ax through Thura once she had it.
He tried to warn her, but the shadows became satyrs who swarmed him. Broll was buried under their evil. His last view was of Gnarl turning to watch what Thura would do.
Shan’do! the druid called out in his thoughts. Malfurion!
But there was no answer.
Malfurion heard Broll’s warning and tried to respond, but only a terrible emptiness greeted his attempt. At first, he feared that Broll was dead…or, worse…but then the archdruid understood that the Nightmare Lord was seeking to keep the two from contact. That could only mean that Xavius had divined much of Malfurion’s original intentions, which put what was left of the night elf’s ultimate plan in jeopardy.
But then, Malfurion was not even certain if what remained had ever had any hope. It had relied in part on the assumption that Ysera would be there to coordinate it. As a student of the druidic teachings and a seeker in the Emerald Dream, Malfurion had been like the rest of his brethren in seeing in the Mistress of Dreams the ultimate guiding force when it came to the intertwined natures of the two realms.
Ysera was still unconscious, though, and Malfurion knew that it was not by any fault of her own.
Tyrande and the guardians continued to present an impenetrable defense against the satyrs, whose bodies lay piled three high in some places. Yet both she and the guardians glowed far less now and some of the ethereal priestesses were very transparent.
She was relying on him to save them. They were all relying on him to save them. And though they did not understand it, he was relying on them every bit as much. They were all needed if he was to succeed, if he was to save Azeroth. Malfurion gritted his teeth and reached out to one last hope.
He touched Alexstrasza’s thoughts, but any hope that she might be of aid faded immediately. The dragon was under siege.
Fearsome energies assailed the portal from the other side, and for brief moments a part of it sealed off, only to be opened anew by the straining dragon’s efforts as she fought back the attempt by the Nightmare Lord.
Malfurion wondered why sealing this last portal still mattered so much to Xavius. It seemed a small thing now…
The Life-Binder all but threw her thoughts at the night elf. The attack here has come with more and more fury! The Nightmare Lord needs the portal sealed! It takes all my power to keep it from succeeding! I can do nothing more for you!
He had not yet even asked, but she had known why he had reached out to her. Confronted by yet another setback, Malfurion’s resolve weakened.
The red dragon said something more, but now other voices in his head were demanding to be heard. King Varian and his army were in terrible straits, their physical selves falling more and more prey to the Nightmare’s slaves on Azeroth. Broll’s fate was still a mystery, and Hamuul managed only a brief alert that corrupted servants of nature — ancients, dryads, and more — were pressing the druids and Lucan, who stood willing to fight under the tauren’s guidance.
Xavius — and the true lord of the Nightmare — were poised for triumph.
And a more immediate aspect to that horrific possibility was represented in Tyrande, who, in seeking to protect the one she not only loved but believed was essential to Azeroth’s survival, was now harried as never before. The high priestess dropped to one knee as she fought to keep three satyrs from ripping her to shreds.
As she struggled, first one, then a second of the moonlight guardians faded like so many of Malfurion’s hopes.
With savage abandon, the satyrs surged forth to take both Tyrande and Malfurion.
The catastrophe overwhelming Azeroth and the Emerald Dream was forgotten. Malfurion saw only that Tyrande was doomed unless he did something. Nothing else mattered. In fact, at that moment, he cared not a whit whether Azeroth, whether everything survived, if it meant that she who he loved perished.