Dalaran's portal finally opened with a humming shimmer atop Nethergarde Keep's teleportation platform.
Allen stepped out of the light.
He had no time to take in this long-famous fortress. His gaze was already seized by the scene before him.
Nethergarde Keep was shrouded in a tense, frantic bustle.
The wounded were being carried in from the gate in an endless stream. Some lay motionless on stretchers, while others staggered forward under their own strength.
Priests moved through the crowd, the Holy Light flickering in their palms.
Messengers ran up and down the steps, their boots striking the stone like hurried drumbeats.
A quartermaster was screaming himself hoarse over an inventory list, shouting that arrows and magic crystals were both running short and demanding to know when the supplies shipped from Stormwind would arrive.
No one could answer him.
Allen did not need to ask anyone.
In the distant sky, thunder rolled. The roar of fel explosions was the tremor of infernals crashing to the earth. The battle cries of countless people gathered into an echo that shook heaven and earth.
That sound came from the far end of the Blasted Lands, passing over scorched earth, through the walls, and into him like a giant hand closing around his heart.
The orcs had already come.
Vereesa—was she all right?
"Do you have any horses?"
He turned and asked the nearest defender.
The young Stormwind soldier glanced at the robe on Allen's body and shook his head helplessly. "All the horses have already been sent to the battlefield, my lord mage."
Allen had no time to wait. He told Morgan, Stella, and the others to stay safe.
Then he prepared to reach the battlefield first by running and using Dimension Door.
But just then—
"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"
The sentry on the watchtower's voice cracked.
Allen looked up and saw several black shadows diving down from beneath the clouds.
Several black whelps had come to raid Nethergarde Keep from the rear. They opened their mouths, shadowflame gathering deep in their throats, and the few defenders left in Nethergarde Keep braced themselves as if facing a great enemy.
Allen hesitated only for a moment, then still decided to find Vereesa first.
"Morgan, Stella, stay safe! Help them!"
And yet one black whelp, not knowing what was good for it, actually fixed its sights on him.
He had only taken two steps toward the wall when a burst of shadowflame exploded beside him.
He stumbled, then a flash of white light carried him just barely away from the second breath with Dimension Door.
He lifted his head.
The black whelp was sweeping over him, its golden vertical pupils coldly looking down at him, as though staring at an insect about to be crushed.
Allen glared furiously into those cold golden slit-pupils.
The black whelp's body suddenly stiffened.
What was that feeling?
Deep within its bloodline, it sensed a pressure that should not exist in a mortal body, like the gaze of something higher, older, and far more ancient.
It did not understand what it was, but its wings instinctively tucked in for an instant.
Allen suddenly had an idea.
He turned and sprinted toward Nethergarde Keep's watchtower.
The stone steps flew beneath his feet as he rushed up to the highest platform in a few long strides, wind pouring in from every direction.
He locked onto the whelp closest to the watchtower.
White light flashed.
Allen vanished from the top of the watchtower and appeared on the black whelp's back.
The black whelp was just about to roar and thrash when Allen had already wrapped one arm around its fine-scaled neck. With his other hand, he gripped Xal'atath, the blade's tip piercing shallowly into the gaps between the scales on the dragon's head as a surge of violent shadow power poured in.
Shadow Word: Pain!
Those whispers flowed from the blade, burrowing into the whelp's eardrums, into its skull, into the deepest cracks of its consciousness.
You are in pain.
You have been in pain since the moment you were born.
From the instant you broke free from your eggshell, you have been suffering.
Pain is your mother.
Pain is your father.
Pain is the only thing you have ever known.
The black whelp let out a mournful cry, wracked with agony, its mind growing hazy. Another dragon tried to rush in and save it, but Allen pulled Xal'atath free and briefly pointed it toward the newcomer, cold and indifferent like an Old God seated upon ruins, gazing down upon everything beneath its feet that was about to be crushed.
"Die."
The force of Mind Blast struck the whelp squarely in the center of its skull like an invisible warhammer.
Its shriek was short and sharp. Its wing membranes snapped shut as its spinning body plummeted toward Nethergarde Keep's walls.
It crashed into the battlements, sending shattered stone flying. A crack split across the wall before the dragon tumbled over the side and slammed into the inner courtyard, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Allen did not spare the falling black dragon another glance.
He drove Xal'atath back into the head of the dragon beneath him, the blade sinking even deeper than before.
The whelp screeched in agony. Its body jerked violently in midair before it began spiraling uncontrollably.
Allen closed his eyes.
Locate Creature!
The sensation was like casting a line into the ocean.
The range of his perception spread outward from himself in all directions, like silent ripples expanding one after another.
Within the spell's range, there was no Vereesa.
He opened his eyes.
Metamagic: Distant Spell.
The casting range of his next spell expanded dramatically.
He cast out a second line.
The ripples continued spreading outward, crossing more scorched earth, more corpses, and that burning wasteland—
Then the line suddenly tightened.
Something trembled at the edge of his perception, like a plucked string, like one heartbeat answering another.
Her location emerged from the void.
Faint.
Distant.
But unmistakably there.
He looked in that direction.
The distant sky had been stained a sickly green by fel energy. Black smoke and fire intertwined into a haze that would never disperse.
He leaned down, wrenching the black whelp's head around until those pain-clouded golden slit-pupils were staring directly at his face.
His lips brushed against the ear-hole hidden among the fine black scales. His voice was soft, yet carried an irresistible pressure.
"Fly that way!"
Command!
[Saving Throw: Failed]
[Your mind has already been churned into mush by Shadow Word: Pain. Your consciousness is collapsing beneath the agony, your reason crumbling amid the whispers…
So are you deaf? That is the command of your lord and father. Why aren't you obeying it immediately?]
The whelp's wings snapped open as it shot toward that direction, like a black meteor streaking across the dim yellow sky above the Blasted Lands.
On the battlefield, Sabellian's black dragonflight had completely seized control of the skies.
Those massive black beasts rampaged freely through the air, spewing shadowflame from their jaws and carving one scorched trench after another through the lines of the Sons of Lothar.
The dragonhawk riders were barely holding on. Gryphon riders fell one after another, their golden wings ignited by black flames, turning into burning meteors as they plummeted from the sky.
Danath cut down the orc before him with a single slash, then lifted his head toward that sky ruled by black dragons. Blood and sweat covered half his face as his roar exploded from his chest: "Khadgar—think of something—deal with those black dragons—!"
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