With mixed feelings, Varian realized he was looking forward to the coming battle. The trial had been more of an ordeal than he had expected, and he welcomed the chance to do something physical, useful, and unequivocally right.
He paid little attention as spectators came tumbling out of the arena and the monks sorted them into two groups—those that could fight, and those that needed to be kept out of the fighting. The monks swiftly began to usher the noncombatants down the steps from the flagstone courtyard, toward the grassy training area and then over the bridge. Most of them seemed terrified. He couldn’t blame them, if what—who—he suspected was coming was indeed on its way. It had to be the Dragonmaw. Who else would storm the temple on the final day of Garrosh Hellscream’s trial?
It would be a long, harrowing race to safety—if there could truly be any. The temple was largely undefended from the air. It was a place to train to fight, where strength was appreciated—but it was strength of the body and the will, not magic or engines of war. This, he thought, was Pandaria’s greatest weakness, and in a way, what made it so special.
He was willing to die to protect it.
Those who had brought flying beasts took to the skies, ferrying hunters, magi, shaman, and others. Varian didn’t know if these spellcasters would even be able to attack. He had no sensitivity to magic, and thus couldn’t himself tell if the dampening field had been removed. The sound of wings came nearer. Varian tensed. If the hunters were good at their job, they’d kill some right away, or at least knock off a few of the Dragonmaw. Once riderless, the proto-drakes would flee if they could.
He stood beside the brazier in the courtyard, adjusted his grip on the two-handed sword, and shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. Battle lust was rising in him, and he invited it. Beside him were several pandaren monks, whose names he didn’t know. They appeared tranquil, but Varian knew that they were ready for the fight.
Their enemies were small dots at first, drawing closer and closer. Varian squinted. “The silhouettes,” he said to the pandaren. “It’s hard to tell from this distance, but . . . they look wrong.”
“What do you mean?” one asked.
“The Dragonmaw orcs ride proto-drakes, not dragons, not anymore. And these . . .” The words died in his throat.
“Are dragons,” the pandaren finished. “Therefore, they do still ride dragons.”
A terrible suspicion began to grow in Varian. No more black dragons, surely. And the twilight dragonflight was gone as well . . . “Inside—what happened?”
“I was given no clear explanation, but I was told something went wrong with the Vision of Time.”
Varian swore. “The infinite dragonflight,” he said. “My pandaren friends . . . we are in trouble.”
At that moment, the leader’s dragon dove, breathing a black cloud of swirling sand. The field was down! A brutal grin twisted Varian’s lips. “Things just got more even,” Varian said.
“Even? They have dragons!” protested the pandaren.
“And we have warlocks!” A cheer went up as several people from all different races began casting summoning spells. Felhounds—ugly, red, spined creatures from the depths of the Twisting Nether—shimmered into being. Nearby, a human warlock, a woman whose young face belied her white hair, bent to absently stroke the beast, calling it a “good puppy.” These particular demons fed on magic, Varian recalled. He found himself grinning, and the lovely young woman who dealt so affectionately with demons gave him a wink.
Magi began hurtling fireballs, ice shards, and missiles of arcane energy. The Dragonmaw leader threw something down several yards away. A small globe of violet-white light encircled the area, with the incongruous beauty of an opalescent bubble. Varian knew what it must be, and the appalling proof became evident a moment later. Three corpses lay sprawled on the flagstones, their bodies turned purple with the arcane energy of the mana grenade. Others recognized it too, and panic again began to ripple through the crowd.
Righteous fury rose in Varian. “Bring them down!” he shouted to the spellcasters. “Get them on the ground where the rest of us can have a piece of them!”
His words heartened the spellcasters, who began their attacks anew. One or two of the orcs tumbled from their mounts, hurtling to crash into the waters below if they were lucky, to break on the stone if not. One Forsaken mage sent a solid, powerful fireball to burn clear through an infinite dragon’s membranous wing. The dragon cried out in pain, flapping erratically and finally crashing to the ground in front of the main temple steps, where those without magic fell upon it mercilessly.
But other dragons came. Over a dozen flew in a V-formation over the temple and its environs. Powerful wing beats knocked dozens off their feet. Varian, rushing toward a downed and injured orc, moved as if he were trying to run through mud. He heard the sharp sting of arrows and hissed as one of them found its target, piercing his shoulder. He wore no armor. No one did. They had been attending a trial, not preparing for a battle. He was lucky; a nearby orc shaman collapsed, a black-fletched arrow in his throat.
Arrows weren’t the only things that the Dragonmaw used as missiles. Two more mana grenades struck, sending up their unholy globes of instant arcane death, and now their own magi were raining down fire and ice.
The dragons banked and turned upward, veering off from their strafing run, and now a goblin zeppelin chugged into position. For a brief, awful instant, Varian thought that somehow the Dragonmaw had cobbled together another true mana bomb like the one that had obliterated Theramore, but the zeppelin appeared to be carrying no payload. Then why—
Dozens of figures leaped off the flying vessel, their parachutes blossoming behind them. The hunters and the spellcasters needed no urging from him to attack the incoming enemy. Many would be dead by the time they hit the ground. But not all.
The arrow had lodged where his left arm joined his shoulder, and the pain was white hot. Varian left the arrow in rather than risk pulling it out, ignoring the wound’s shriek of protest as he lifted his two-handed sword and started charging the parachutists, incredulity and dark pleasure filling him as he realized that the Dragonmaw had hired not only mercenaries as cannon fodder, but pirates at that.
“You’re making this fun, Dragonmaw!” he shouted defiantly, and charged the first pirate. Still struggling out of the parachute, he was an easy kill, but others had gotten free and now converged on Varian. The king’s blood was hot, and he swung the great broadsword as if it were a child’s toy, decapitating the troll who came at him with a cutlass and following through to cleave the black-haired human woman almost in two. The mammoth tauren, no less fierce for the fact that he had one eye, was more of a challenge. Varian harnessed his momentum and twisted his torso, bringing the blade upward and slicing off the tauren’s right arm.
But the left had a weapon too, and this one bit deep into Varian’s side. Dizziness filled him and he stumbled back, abruptly unable to lift the sword to defend himself. But the blow never came. Something even bigger than the tauren, gray-skinned and wearing red and yellow armor, rushed forward. With a single slice, the tauren’s horned head was cleanly separated from his body. The felguard fixed Varian with tiny, glowing eyes and rumbled, “Your fate will be the same.”
Varian couldn’t summon the energy for a witty retort. He blinked, trying to focus. His legs gave way and he fell to his knees, wondering if perhaps the felguard had been right.
Gentle hands touched him. There was an abrupt sear of agony as the arrow was tugged from his shoulder, replaced immediately by warmth and a sense of well-being. He gave a grateful look to the night elf priestess, a slip of a thing with long, dark purple hair and lavender skin. She ducked her head shyly and turned, lifting her hands in supplication to pray for the white-haired warlock whose felguard had saved his life.