“Ideas?” hissed Lothar. Khadgar licked his lips, then leaped to his feet, shouting an incantation. Blue orbs of cracking fire exploded from his fingertips in the direction of the chanting. Chunks of stone were blasted from the pillars, toppling down in a dusty pile. But Medivh was nowhere to be seen.
“Very impressive,” and the voice seemed to come from everywhere. “Now try shutting him up.”
A green glow came from directly above them. The chanting had resumed, but the voice was no longer coming from the Guardian. It issued from the featureless clay face that now sported eyes of emerald fire, and a green slash of a mouth.
“Well,” Lothar quipped, “That went well.”
Not content with simply being a vessel for Medivh’s unholy chanting, the golem began to move, shrugging its gargantuan shoulders as if waking up. Pieces of scaffolding and various tools toppled to the floor. “Do something!” Lothar shouted. Khadgar gave him look that said plainly, what do you expect me to do? “Fine,” Lothar muttered, “I’ll handle him, you take care of Medivh.”
Khadgar swallowed, nodded, and started to scramble up the golem’s scaffolding. The golem straightened, infused with strength, shattering the remnants of his scaffolding like a prisoner casting off shackles. Khadgar leaped upward to the circular platform just in time.
“Hey!” Lothar called, trying to draw its attention. “Over here! Clay face!” He hurled a carving tool at its lumpy brown head. Faster than Lothar had anticipated from something so gargantuan, it turned its head and fixed its sickly green gaze on him. Then it lunged, lurching forward like a great ape.
Its left fist slammed down. Lothar leaped away, tumbling to the floor, as the creature struck where he had been seconds earlier. It followed up with a second swipe, dragging its right fist through the sickly green magic of the font. The hand emerged, dripping, glowing, and no longer clay, but solid black stone. This time, when the golem punched down, the stone fist smashed right through the floor, and Lothar tumbled down to the next story below.
Khadgar, meanwhile, fired a bolt at Medivh, but the Guardian deflected it, warping it so that it plunged into the pool of fel.
He began to bombard the younger mage with missiles, fireballs, and bolts. Khadgar somehow managed to block them, trying to get them to ricochet back to Medivh. But instead of returning to their sender, the magical attacks were caught by the power of the fel and began to whirl around the tainted font in a blur. Seemingly without effort, Medivh stepped up his offense.
Khadgar summoned all his magical energy, gathered up the whirling wisps orbiting the pool, and hurled the accumulation at Medivh. At the last second, the Guardian dove for cover as everything around him shattered.
All was quiet. Had Khadgar managed to—
Slowly, carefully, Khadgar moved toward where Medivh had hidden.
There was nothing there. The Guardian was gone.
20
With a bellow, Durotan closed the distance between himself and Gul’dan, swift as one of Draka’s arrows, landing a clean punch across Gul’dan’s jaw with all his strength behind it. Taken utterly by surprise, the warlock stumbled and fell. But before Durotan could press his advantage, he was on his feet, seizing the Frostwolf by his throat and lifting him up. Gul’dan began to squeeze.
Durotan’s vision swam, but he kept fighting. He would keep fighting until he was dead. He didn’t need to live through this. All he needed to do was what he had promised Orgrim he would—show the Horde the true face of the thing that led them. He shoved ineffectually at Gul’dan’s twisted, green face, then his questing hands clutched two of the warlock’s hideous horns. Even as Gul’dan’s fingers tightened around Durotan’s throat, the Frostwolf pulled the spikes with all his strength until one snapped off in his hand. He used the sharp end as a dagger, stabbing Gul’dan with his own unnatural horn.
Gul’dan roared, in pain, not anger, this time. He hurled Durotan several yards. Durotan hit the earth hard, gasping. Snarling, Gul’dan charged his enemy. He was huge, his body bristling with unnatural spikes and horns, his muscles stronger than Durotan’s. He pummeled his enemy with punches, each landing hard. Durotan rallied. He deflected the warlock’s next powerful swing with a kick, and dodged. Again Gul’dan struck, and again Durotan evaded it, landing a punch of his own.
But this time, Gul’dan caught his opponent’s arm and pulled him in. His splayed his hand and pressed it to Durotan’s chest. Green light sparked around his fingers as Gul’dan looked about furtively.
Suddenly, Durotan’s legs quivered, threatening to buckle. Weakness seeped through him as he saw a thin, white trail pass from his body into Gul’dan’s hand. Before his shocked eyes, the warlock’s body grew even larger, the muscles swelling. Chuckling, Gul’dan seized Durotan’s arm and wrenched it out of its socket. There was white-hot pain, and then a snapping sound, and then Durotan’s arm dangled, useless.
He dropped to his knees. Gul’dan pulled back, leering triumphantly, then lifted his gargantuan green fist for the death blow.
Durotan shouted and abruptly lunged upward. His head slammed into Gul’dan’s chest, sending the other staggering backward a few steps. He did not give the warlock a chance to recover. He clenched his good fist and landed blow after blow. Each time his fist struck unnatural flesh, he held the face of a Frostwolf in his mind, fueling it with passion and righteousness. Kurvorsh. Shaska. Kagra. Zakra. Nizka.
Draka.
Go’el.
A sound penetrated his ears that was not the singing of his blood in his own veins, or the cries of the watching crowd. The voice was human, and yet not, and it was chanting. Hope surged inside Durotan. Gul’dan needed to be at the portal, draining innocent human lives to open the Great Gate and bring in the rest of the Horde. Instead, he was here—fighting Durotan.
But Gul’dan heard it, too, and slammed his clenched fist into Durotan’s wounded arm. The Frostwolf bellowed in agony, but held onto consciousness by sheer will as he staggered back and fell to his hands and knees.
Gul’dan cursed, not pressing the attack. “I have no time for this,” he muttered. “Blackhand!”
The warchief looked over at Durotan appraisingly, taking note of the useless, dangling arm, the blood on his face and body, his shuddering breaths. Then his gaze traveled to Orgrim, and the banner Durotan had so defiantly sunk into the earth. Finally, he looked at Gul’dan.
And grinned.
“This is the mak’gora,” Blackhand said. “We will respect our traditions. Keep fighting!”
Gul’dan gave his warchief a furious look, and a fresh sense of hope flooded Durotan. If the warchief was beginning to see how vile, how dishonorable Gul’dan was, then surely the others would as well. The warlock charged now, with not a sneering arrogance, but an urgency and desperation. It made his blows harder when they landed, but it also made him careless. Again, and yet again, Durotan was able to evade a blow that could break his skull and deliver a powerful attack of his own, even with but one good hand. But when they connected, Gul’dan’s blows were vicious. More than once, Durotan felt a rib snap beneath the warlock’s clenched fist, but he refused to cease.
Keep going. For your clan. For the orcs who yet live. For their children.
A blow to the gut that had him doubled over and barely able to stumble out of the way. A sliding punch that cost him his sight in one eye. He endured it all.
He kept fighting. And he felt the tide start to turn.
What had once been jeers had turned to first silence, then murmurs of admiration. Gul’dan’s head whipped up and he stared at the orcs. “His” Horde.