Beyond the doorway lay a darkness that even Gul'dan's light could not penetrate. A darkness so cold it froze his fingers numb in an instant and turned his breath to ice. And slowly that darkness took form, coalescing into discreet shapes, scuttling, crawling, writhing shapes with eyes that glowed darker than the rest, so dark it hurt to look upon them. And then these dark shapes smiled as they approached the vault door and exited their eternal prison. Advancing upon the stunned Gul'dan and his warlocks.

Demons. But like none he had seen before. Gul'dan thought he had faced terrible creatures in the past, but these made all others seem mere shadows, harmless and easily dispelled.

No! Gul'dan screamed in his mind, unable to make his mouth work to form the word out loud. This is not how it is supposed to happen! Sargeras promised! He tried to summon his magic, to raise his hands, to run—to do anything. But the mere sight of the beings before him had paralyzed him, body and soul, and he who had thought himself master could do nothing but stare and shudder as they crept toward him, their shadowy claws reaching out to caress his face.

That first touch was enough to break his paralysis, and Gul'dan found himself running, falling in his haste to be away from this nightmarish place. Drak'thul and the others had been standing right behind him. Now they were nowhere to be seen; they must have already fled. Screams echoed up from the vault as Gul'dan, too, raced through corridor after corridor. His face burned where the claws had touched him, and it was only after he raised one hand to his cheek that he realized he had been cut there, and deeply.

"Damn you, Sargeras!" he cursed as he stumbled past columns and pillars, through rooms and alcoves. "I won't be beaten like this! I am Gul'dan! I am darkness incarnate! It cannot end…like this."

He paused to catch his breath and to listen behind him. Nothing. The screams had stopped. Blasted, feebleminded weaklings, he thought, picturing the Stormreavers who had followed him down there. "They're all likely dead by now!" His cheek was throbbing now, and he pressed his hand against it, trying to staunch the blood that was leaking from the wound. He was beginning to feel dizzy and his limbs felt weak. "Still, I must press on," he told himself grimly. "My power alone should be enough to—"

Gul'dan stopped speaking to listen carefully. What was that sound? It was faint, and repetitious, and made his skin crawl, but it carried both cruelty and—amusement?

"That laughter…Is that you, Sargeras?" he demanded. "You seek to mock me? We'll see who laughs last, demon, when I claim your burning Eye for my own!"

He turned a corner and found himself in a wide room, its walls surprisingly blank. Inspired by something he could not name, Gul'dan crossed to the nearest wall and began writing upon it, scrawling his description of the vault and its guardians with his own blood. Several times he faltered, his hand too heavy to lift.

"Ambushed…by the guardians," he wrote heavily. "I am…dying." He knew it was true, and struggled to finish writing his tale before death claimed him. But behind him he could already hear the same dry, hungry scrabbling he had heard inside the vault. They were coming for him.

"If my servants had not abandoned me," he wrote, his eyes barely able to focus now, his throat too tight to form words. But he realized now that it was not their fault. It was his own. All this time he had thought he was in control, when in truth he had been little more than a dupe, a pawn, a slave. His very existence had been a sham, a mere joke. And soon it would be over.

I've been a fool, he thought. He stopped writing and turned to run, knowing already that it was too late.

And then the claws bit in deep, and Gul'dan found his voice long enough to scream.

Rend put out an arm and stopped Maim from going any farther. "No," he said softly. Blood still seeped from beneath the rough binding he had fashioned from a fallen warrior's belt.

"We need to go after Gul'dan," Maim insisted, though he swayed from his own wounds and the rough bandages wrapped around one leg and shoulder were already soaked through with blood.

"There is no need," his brother assured him. "Those…creatures have finished the task for us." Something strange had emerged from the building before them, something with too many limbs and too many joints and altogether too many teeth. It had been followed by others and they had attacked the orcs without pause, tearing into them like hunger—crazed animals setting upon fresh prey. Several orcs had been frozen with fear at the sight of the terrible creatures, but others had fought back and they had finally destroyed the last one, though it had taken enough wounds to slay a dozen orcs before it had finally stopped thrashing and biting.

And the creatures had come from within that building. Though only a warrior, Rend had a tenuous feel for magic. And he could sense the magic within the strange old structure before them. It was powerful, immensely so, and evil beyond imagining. And it was filled with hatred, intense and directed toward anything living. Those creatures had only been the barest hint of its strength.

Then something knocked them off their feet, a deafening noise from the building's entrance and a deep rumble like laughter from somewhere far below. Air rushed from the structure, fetid and foul, and something else with it, something that made Rend's hackles rise. He did not see anything, but he was sure he had felt evil itself flowing from that strange place, exploding outward and then unraveling in the warm sunlight. The rumble continued, however, and now the ground was shaking. Cracks began to appear in the rocks beneath their feet. The whole island was coming apart.

"Gul'dan is no longer a threat," Rend said as he clambered back to his feet, and somehow he knew it was true. Whatever Gul'dan had hoped to find here, he had found only his own death. Rend only hoped it had been slow and painful. He was almost certain that had been the case.

"What do we do now, then?" Maim asked as they turned away, leaving the temple behind them.

"We return to Doomhammer," Rend told him. "We still have a war to fight, and now at least we will not need to worry about traitors sapping our strength from within. Let him find fault with that, if he dares." Together the brothers made their way back toward the shore, and the boats waiting there.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"Are we ready?"

"Ready, sir."

Daelin Proudmoore nodded but did not look away from the view past the starboard rail. "Good. Sound for positions. We attack as soon as they fall within range."

"Yes, sir." The quartermaster saluted and moved to the large brass bell that hung near the pilot's wheel and sounded it, ringing it twice in quick succession. Immediately Proudmoore heard the sounds of running feet and sliding ropes and falling bodies as the men on his flagship rushed to their assigned stations. He smiled. He liked order and precision, and his crew knew it. He had hand—picked each and every one of them, and he'd never sailed with a finer group of men. Not that he would ever say that out loud, but they knew it.

Proudmoore returned his attention to the sea beyond his ship, studying the waves and the sky. Raising his brass spyglass again he peered out through it, searching for the small dark shapes he had spotted once already. There. They were noticeably larger now, and he could count more of them distinctly, rather than seeing the spiked shape he had observed before. He was sure the lookout had an even better view of them up in the crow's nest, and guessed that in another ten minutes the shapes would resolve themselves into the unmistakable form of ships.