"You could not leave well enough alone," Kil'jaeden finished for him. "I knew that eventually you would try yet again to cast magics you were not ready to handle and did not understand. I waited, knowing that some day your own arrogance would bring you to me." He spread his gauntleted hands wide. “And here we are!" His eyes narrowed to mere slits. "You have dreamed of death. You thought to escape it. Now, my little puppet, death will be all you ever know."

Brief glimpses scared Ner’zhul's brain: Agony as pieces of flesh were torn from his still-living body; the dead surrounding him, closing in on him, their blood on his hands, his own blood coating them, a morbid union of death, life, and excruciating torment.

"No!" Ner’zhul shouted, thrashing about, trying everything to free himself from his invisible bonds. "My people still need me!"

Laughter shook the demon's powerful form, a horri­ble, eerie sound that made Ner’zhul's heart spasm.

"I know full well they mean nothing to you. So do not worry," the demon lord whispered, stabbing the tip of one long finger into Ner’zhul's check. The motion burned, sending spikes of heat and pain through Ner’zhul's flesh. "There is no saving them. Do you not yet understand? Little puppet, you cannot even save yourself."

Then he twisted that finger, the rest of his splayed hand latching onto Ner’zhul's face, and the orc shaman let his head fall back, a horrible scream wrenching its way out past his trembling lips.

He knew it was but the first of many.