Azeroth's Skies

by TerrabreakerX

Azjol-Nerub, Part III - The Traitor King

They landed softly on the ground just in time to witness Memoria dragging herself from the swampy lake. She was completely drenched; her armour, hair and every exposed part of her body covered in muck. Her helmet lay discarded by the edge of the water, as if she had thrown it clear before having fully extracted herself.

"Not a word," she said as they approached. "Do you hear me? Not. A. Word."

"You haven't moved on yet?" Rainbow asked. "Thought you'd have already gone to fight him."

The death knight paused before she replied. "I was... planning."

"You sure?" The other woman grinned. "You weren't... catching your breath?"

"I will kill you," she warned. When no further retort came, her attention fell next to Twilight as she picked up her helm and shook it to clear out the water. "I honestly didn't expect you would be able to make it down here. But here you are, so... it's done? The beast is dead?"

"No," Twilight replied, and explained what had transpired above; Fluttershy's success and the alternate route she was taking to their goal.

"The magic of friendship," Memoria said bitterly when the mage was done, the blue glow around her eyes intensifying as she spat the last word. "Of kindness. I shouldn't even be surprised."

If that was an attempt at provocation, Twilight was feeling magnanimous enough to let it pass.

"Let's be about it, then," the death knight went on. "He's here, somewhere. Probably close. And there's only one way ahead." She gestured towards the nerubian gate, a short distance further into the cave.

"We'll press on and scout forward," Twilight agreed. "But if we find him, we should wait for Fluttershy and Hadronox. We'll need all the help we can get."

"You might. I won't." Memoria replied, stalking off towards the gate past Rainbow and Pinkie, and narrowly missed seeing the paladin stick out her tongue.

The three friends followed her, advancing together through the carved gateway. They passed through and were staggered to emerge into a vast pit that rivalled Hadronox's lair in size. Torrential quantities of water cascaded on both sides of the gate from somewhere above, though it couldn't possibly be from the swamp they had seen before, or from the speed that it fell it would have drained long ago. It all flowed into the abyss, its final destination unknown, but they could hear it rushing through the depths nonetheless.

Again, the area was lit - and illumination was provided both by the same green-glowing mushrooms they had already seen, but also by an unearthly light that poured through stained orange glass windows, which had been cut into the rocky cave walls. The combination gave the pit an uncanny, twisted resemblance to a cathedral or similar place of worship.

Perhaps that was what it was, or what it once had been.

A set of steep stone steps led down towards a smaller web bridge. This, in turn, connected onto a central, circular platform, built high above the void, with sculpted bronze spikes protruding up from the very edge ... and this platform was not unoccupied.

Sat atop it was the largest crypt lord they had ever seen. His chitin was a midnight blue in colour; his patches of bare skin a sickly, pale grey. He held a pair of thick, scythe-like grey arms in front of him, and his body was suspended off the ground on four stocky legs.

He was idle, but not unaware. His eyes, hooded though they were beneath the protrusion of shell above his face, had started to track the group the moment that they had entered the pit. And yet he made no effort to stop them as they cautiously approached.

Why would he need to? They were stepping into his parlour, after all.

"Greetings, humans..." he rumbled, his voice easily carrying the distance to them. "I must confess that I am surprised to find your kind here... deep in my inner sanctum."

"...finally," Memoria hissed. She broke into a yard-eating stride, separating herself from the others.

Two undead nerubians approached from the shadows, larger than the specimens that they had encountered before. Not large enough for the death knight to be concerned, mind...

She rushed forward furiously even as the rest of the group began to register the oncoming threat. Her blades pierced their patched leathery armour and chitinous hides with equal ease, and she tossed their broken bodies into the abyss before the unlife had fully faded from their haunted eyes.

It was, not for the first time, almost jarring how easy she made combat look.

"More than that, monster," she panted from anger rather than exertion, glaring at the crypt lord as the rest of the group caught up with her. "It'll take much more than that."

"Which I will gladly provide to one of my wayward kin, should you only take a few more steps..."

Whether intentionally or not, that touched a nerve. She brandished both blades and screamed at him, "WE ARE NOT KIN, YOU—"

Twilight put a warding hand on Memoria's cold armoured shoulder. "You know he's trying to get under your skin," she said. "Don't let him. Don't rise to it. He's waiting there for a reason."

"We should wait for Fluttershy," Rainbow added quietly "If this guy is as serious as you say, we'll need all the help we can get."

"He may be a big bug, but we'll have a bigger bug to go against him!" Pinkie put in.

Maybe their words just weren't the right things to say. Maybe there was never anything that any of them could have said.

Maybe Memoria was always going to make her way onto that platform, consequences be dammed.

Without another word, she pushed through the group and hastened along the web bridge towards the waiting spiderlord.

"I'm guessing we're not letting her go it alone this time?" Rainbie asked sardonically, readying her hammer.

Twilight shook her head, resigned to the inevitable, and the three hurried after Memoria.

It was a good thing they did, too. As Memoria cleared the bridge and her boots crashed onto the stone platform - with the group a few seconds behind - Anub'arak began to move. His legs strained to shift his considerable mass off the ground, as he raised his right arm, recognising that the death knight was heading that way...

He wasn't fast. He didn't need to be. He only need to move enough that Memoria's first aimed slash crashed into solid chitin instead of the more vulnerable flesh on the underside of his body.

Her sword bounced off his natural armour, almost taking her own head off from the recoil - and he caught her hard across her chest in return. She staggered backwards, coughing and wounded, as the others reached the platform behind her - and it was then that he truly sprung his gambit.

Strands of web spewed out from the pillars around the arena, produced by foes unseen - perhaps many hundreds of tiny spiders working together to build what one spider alone could not. These strands quickly formed a thick improvised wall around the entire circumference of the arena. It was immediately clear that there was no getting through - Memoria, the only one of the group with sharp-edged slashing weapons, brought them to bear with no effect. An arcane blast from Twilight did even less.

For now, there was no way back, and - though another web bridge did stretch past the platform deeper into the cave - there was no way forward, either.

They were, in a single word, trapped.

"Ah..." The traitor king sighed. "I do so love a hunt..."

---

"Now that we're stuck in this situation, can we perhaps approach it more tactically, instead of blindly rushing in?" she insisted.

"Shut up, princess - maybe you could try burning the webs?" The remark cut harder with Twilight than the death knight likely realised. "And keep your hands away from me," Memoria turned her head to snap at Pinkie. "You may well be able to reknit my injuries, but I'd rather suffer through them than endure your blasted light and cursed singing. "

"You can't take revenge on anyone if you're lying prone on the floor," Twilight said simply.

The death knight saw the logic there but wasn't happy about it. "Fine!" she snarled. She winced as Pinkie touched her armour, but bore through the additional pain as she was healed. "Have you any ideas—"

"Not dying would be a start!" Rainbow interrupted with a shout, as Anub'arak made his way towards them, ready to take advantage of their disarray. She was still unused to standing at the very van of the party, but had little choice with Memoria on the floor and Applejack far away.

She raised her hammer in a warding stance, allowing the light to flow through her fingertips and into the weapon. It blazed like a beacon in the gloom of the pit, and brought the crypt lord to a cautious halt before he cleared even half of the platform.

"Ah, a paladin," he rumbled. "I knew a paladin once, five years ago... an ex-paladin, at least. I wonder if you will prove to be any different."

"You should know what this light can do to you," Rainbow spat. "You don't want to come any closer."

And he did stop. Didn't put another foot forward. He stood still and watched as Memoria dragged herself to her feet, waving off Pinkie's ministrations.

"If you have made here, you must have vanquished the pest that the living have been using to frustrate our plans," he mused. "Helpful mortals. Our necromancers will add it to our ranks, soon enough."

It was an entirely logical conclusion, and yet also an entirely incorrect one. His eyes tracked across the group, appraising their numbers, their equipment, their strength. "Doubtless not without suffering losses, but it remains an impressive feat. You, too, will serve the Scourge well."

He doesn't know about Hadronox. Twilight realised. Keep him talking. Stall for time.

In his mind, there was no need to rush. He had them cornered. He didn't know who was coming to their rescue.

Keep him talking...

"The nerubians called you the traitor king," she said. "I want to know - why did you agree to join the Lich King? Why did you betray your people?"

"As I once said to a snivelling, nascent necromancer... 'agreed' implies choice. I am not like the other undead abomination in this pit - the one that, by a twist of fate, happens to stand at your side. I cannot choose to do anything other than serve my master. If anything, your death knight is more of a traitor than I am."

Memoria cursed at him from beneath her helm, and threw a howling blast that impacted uselessly against his shell. He laughed, the sound echoing menacingly around the pit.

Twilight was struck by the piteous nature of his existence. He wasn't some mindless ghoul, some rot-ridden hulk. He retained his intelligence into unlife, no different from Memoria. If he was telling the truth, his mind was a prisoner of his body.

He had to be destroyed. There was no reasoning with him... but she couldn't help but feel the slightest bit sorry for him.

She was also almost struck by him. He had seen her distraction, pushed himself forward - and attacked. His lunge was so obvious that the others, even Pinkie, had scattered before him - but Twilight's concentration on their back and forth had left her open.

She desperately blinked to the side as he crashed towards her, barely avoiding his weight, then hurried over to Memoria to put some distance between them.

"Get your head up, Twilight!" Rainbow hollered at her from across the platform, standing together with Pinkie. She'd taken the opportunity to deliver a vengeful smash to the crypt lord's side as she had moved around him, as Memoria had struck on the other with her blades - but both had found their efforts wanting against his armoured shell. "He really means business!"

Anub'arak rotated to face them but did not press the attack. "Would you want to?" Twilight asked, her heart beating hard in her chest. "Choose otherwise?"

Keep him talking...

"I could no more oppose my master's will nor overcome the impulse to destroy you than you could succeed in stopping the tide, mage. What I want is irrelevant - and I long since stopped caring." As he finished speaking, his face contorted into a rictus grin. He let out a chittering knell, his back shell splitting open to reveal a pair of dusty wings.

Before they knew it, they were beset by four dog-sized swarmers - filthy creatures with brown skin and scrabbling legs. The first battered into Rainbow's chest - she yelped in pain, before turning and crushing it in one strike. Two went for Memoria, and she cleaved them in twain, their husks disappearing into the pit. The last came for Twilight, but she saw it and blasted it to violet dust before it could reach her.

And there again, in their distraction, was Anub'arak. He charged towards Pinkie, having by now deduced her essential role in keeping the group fighting fit. Already preoccupied with healing Rainbow, she barely managed a rhyme to shield herself in time, and skipped out of the worst of his attack - but still found herself clipped by his swiping claw.

Winded, but unwounded by the grace of her shield, she staggered over to join her friends as Anub'arak span around once more. "Not gonna be easy keeping this up," she managed, through laboured breaths.

"I would not worry," the traitor king said. "It will be over soon."

Keep him talking...

"This has been an entertaining conversation, I will admit," he continued. "But it is time that I bring it to its conclusion." He reared up—

Keep him—

"But—"

—and dived, burrowing through the platform as easily as if it were water in a swimming pool, not solid rock. The action was over in a couple of heartbeats... and he was gone, the stone falling back on itself to cover his tracks.

This is his domain! Twilight couldn't help but kick herself for being blind to such a scenario, as improbable as she would have considered it to be if she hadn't just seen it with her own two eyes. Of course he would use every aspect of the terrain to his advantage!

Though he had disappeared from their sight, the ground quivered beneath their feet - a reminder of his presence and his menace.

"Oh, this isn't good," Rainbow offered the obvious, scanning the area nervously for any sign that he was about to resurface. "I can't believe he just did that!"

"Crypt lords have always been capable of burrowing through solid rock," Memoria informed her, doing much the same.

"Well, you could have told us!"

"Well, you should have known—"

"Not now!" Twilight shouted, feeling the vibrations beneath their feet intensify, and reflexively summoning an icy barrier to protect herself. "Move!"

They spread apart just in time, as a massive black spike ripped through the earth where they had just been standing. It receded harmlessly, having missed them all, but it was proof that Anub'arak was just as dangerous below ground as he was above it.

"Incoming!" Rainbow cried out, pointing up the way they had come in, where she had spotted two undead nerubians making their way towards the platform. They were smaller than those that had tried to hassle Memoria on the steps before the web bridge, but their fangs and claw-like fingertips glistened green with poison.

Another large spike burst from the ground close to Memoria - and then a few seconds later, again near Rainbow, forcing the paladin into the middle of the arena. Perhaps it was easier for the crypt lord to track their plate-armoured movements while he was submerged, compared with the lighter footsteps of Twilight and Pinkie.

"I'll take care of the new pair!" Twilight shouted. Satisfied that she had at least a few seconds to resolve the threat without interruption, she raised her staff and pulled from the elemental plane of frost. It wasn't as cold here as it was outside - perhaps the pit had once been used for incubation, judging from the ruined, decaying eggs that littered it - but she still had little difficulty drawing out the necessary power.

It coalesced as a ball of frost at the tip of her staff, and she hurled it high above the web wall to land on the bridge ahead of the nerubians - it burst on impact, coating the bridge in a thin sheet of ice. The nerubians rushed forwards onto it mindlessly; their limbs failed to find purchase on its slippery surface, and they plunged into the abyss to their doom.

That went well, Twilight thought. Maybe there's a way I can use frost magic to get us out of this problem, too.

"Twilight...!"

If I freeze the ground, maybe I can stop him in his tracks when he next tries to come up. If Memoria helps me, then we—

All it took was a moment of distraction.

"Twilight, MOVE!"

She registered Rainbow's warning far too late.

Her barrier saved her. If not for its icy magic, the spike would have ripped her asunder. Instead, it merely hurled her into the air, and she experienced the brief sensation of flight for the second time that hour, dimly aware of her friends screaming, before she crashed back down to earth and blacked out.

"...you kick your back left in, you pull your back left out, you reach your back left in, just be brave and have no doubt..."

The next thing she knew was the warmth of Pinkie's magic, diminishing the pain and restoring her fading strength. She heard her friend's sweet words and forced her eyes open, fingers scraping bloody on the stone as she tried - and failed - to push herself up.

"Glad you could join us," Memoria said sarcastically. She and Rainbow loomed into Twilight's view. "Try moving faster next time."

"I... ugh..." Everything ached, but her head and back throbbed most of all, the pain persisting through Pinkie's valiant efforts. The mage struggled to her feet at last - just in time to see Anub'arak rise up through the ground. He erupted from the stone like a whale breaching the surface of the ocean, the effect rippling across the platform in an act of great upheaval.

"As I said... it is over," he boomed, spreading his diaphanous wings and losing flecks of dust and stone from his body. "You cannot defeat me. Your weapons cannot pierce my defences. You are lost."

He could have continued striking from below, while they were vulnerable. Had he surfaced just to... gloat?

To Twilight, the whole cavern seemed to tremble as he spoke. It had to be her vision - she clutched her head, trying to throw off the lingering malaise of her injuries, desperate to be able to concentrate, to think, to do anything or say anything to buy them a little more time as he edged closer to finish them...

"Abandon all hope, and accept the inevitable. Die, and accept your fate as pawns of my master."

The cavern seemed to tremble again. No, it did tremble. It wasn't just in her head. Their foe reacted to it the second time around, halting and directing his gaze upwards in confusion.

"...what?"

A realisation came to the mage, as Pinkie's quiet song continued, as she felt the pain fleeing and the strength flowing back into her body. A realisation which, contrary to Anub'arak's insistence, gave her all the hope in the world.

They had stalled long enough.

---

Hadronox burst through the ceiling, heaving humongous chunks of rock out of the way with his many powerful legs, sending them crashing into the abyss. He entered the cavern head first, squeezing and pulling the rest of his body through the relatively small opening he had created.

"By the frozen throne," the traitor king murmured, appearing genuinely thrown by this unlikely turn of events.

The massive spider clambered down the wall of the cave, the tips of its legs adhering to it like a magnet on a metal sheet. Fluttershy held on - no, she was stuck to the top side of his abdomen, secured by spider thread or some other artifice. Her hands were free to hold her bow, and, gripping it tightly, she loosed an arrow.

It wasn't accurate. It couldn't be. She'd never used her bow while hanging off the back of a spider before. But, plinking as it did off the platform below, it helped to keep the traitor king's attention, all right.

"So, this is the great beast responsible for obstructing my armies," he said, looking up at Hadronox, appraising him. "And you have managed to control him. He will truly make a fine specimen for my master in death."

Above, the spider hissed and spat poison, blanketing Anub'arak in its sickly green embrace. The others had only seen it work on Hadronox's web or Memoria's armour before, not on flesh, but it scarred the nerubian wherever it touched him, and caused him to howl out in pain. Tiny, parasitic beetles fell from his body and melted, their corpses littering the ground.

Hadronox wasn't done yet. He wasn't about to sit still on the wall while Anub'arak recovered. He kept going, disappearing into the darkness, his legs clicking loudly as he moved.

Fluttershy wasn't done yet either. As Hadronox passed the platform, she severed whatever was securing her; leapt from his back and landed gracefully atop the stone, only a short distance from the rest of the group.

"Crafty vermin... but that creature's intervention will not save you! You will join me as a slave to the Lich King before this day is done!" His words were brutal and unnerving but his movements were now restrained. He hesitated on the opposite edge of the platform, looking around for where Hadronox might next emerge. Where before he had paused to take their measure, and because he had them trapped and outmatched... now he was caught off-guard, and hampered by his freshly-suffered injuries.

As Fluttershy reached them, Twilight took her hands. "Are you okay?" she asked. They had precious few seconds while the crypt lord was distracted, but she just had to know that her friend was all right.

"I'm fine," Fluttershy said, her face aglow despite the stress of the conflict they had been drawn into. "I'll explain everything later, but Hadronox was just... brilliant."

"Y'know, that spider might actually be growing on me." Rainbow looked towards Memoria, rolling her shoulders, testing her swing. "Ready to tag-team this thing?"

"Gladly," the death knight replied.

They hefted their weapons, blazing separately with holy radiance and frozen might, and set to work.

"Little pests!" Anub'arak roared, hammering toward them with his thick, plated arm scythes.

Rainbow surged to the left, following through with an upward swing. Memoria jinked to the right, thrusting forth both swords to carve into his acid-marked shell.

He missed them both, pounding hard into the platform instead, while their weapons found their marks in his sides. Damaged by the poison, his chitin crumpled beneath their strikes, inflicting serious damage. He screeched in pain and recoiled backwards, retreating from his attackers as they pressed their advantage.

"He's going to burrow again!" Twilight realised. "Watch out below us!"

But as he reared up, preparing to dive—

—Fluttershy hurled a trap across the platform, and it exploded into a sheet of ice.

The effect was spectacular. He was caught mid-descent, half of his body already underground, the other half frozen in place. He tried to struggle against his icy bonds but had nowhere to move to gain purchase.

This is our chance!

Twilight had been regulating the power of her arcane blasts in the cavern, as she had so often done since arriving in Azeroth and having learned the skill. Sometimes she had done so because their foe was sentient, sapient, and living - like those of the blue dragonflight. Sometimes it had been necessary because of their environment: as in this very fight, because she had no idea how stable the platform below their feet was - especially with Anub'arak burrowing into it - and she had no intention of sending them all plummeting to their doom.

But with him bound like this, if there would ever be a moment to cut loose... it was now.

She sent a barrage hurtling toward him. It soared as a violet, three-tailed streak across the cavern, bleeding off power like a comet with trails of burning rock. It struck him hard in the abdomen and exploded with a resounding boom - a sound drowned out as he roared, shuddering in pain.

The shockwave hurled them all back, far enough to put each perilously close to the edge of the platform and the yawning, open drop beyond, but Twilight had timed it well enough that their danger had been minimal.

"Hit him now! Now!" she shouted, desperate that they all capitalise on the opportunity. And so they did, pummelling away with force of arms and magical might. Pinkie took the chance to mend their wounds, while their foe sat there, taking the punishment; furious, but trapped...

...then, at last, he managed to break free - through something akin to force of will, or perhaps just sheer outrage, he found the correct movement of his body to push his way loose. But the movement only carried him upwards, not down below the safety of the ground. Twilight aimed another arcane blast, and it careened forward into his newly exposed underbelly, rewarding her with another shriek in return.

"I will not be defeated by vermin as pathetic as you!"

The platform - no, the whole cavern, shook like it had just been hit by an earthquake. Just as it had, a minute before...

"Don't forget: it isn't just us," Twilight said, and couldn't help but smirk as she realised the source of the apparent tremor. "We have a new friend."

Two enormous legs, spindly but strong, reached over the lip of the platform and battered Anub'arak, catching him on the right side of his body where he had already been injured. Ichor spewed out as old wounds burst open and the fallen spiderlord howled out in agony.

The group hurriedly retreated to the other side of the platform as Hadronox's head erupted from the darkness. Giving his prey no time to recover, he pushed the front half of his body up over the edge and smashed down upon the traitor king with his full weight.

Anub'arak withstood that assault - barely. He struggled more than ever before to pull himself up, as Hadronox receded back over the lip of the platform... but the others weren't about to let the opportunity their new ally had created pass.

"Now!" Twilight cried.

"You got this!" cried Pinkie, her words marked by an explosion of light and confetti that filled them all with renewed strength. "Light 'im up, ladies!"

Twilight poured everything she had left into one last arcane blast, and launched it at Anub'arak. Fluttershy hurled another trap that landed below his torso - this one, unlike the last, primed with an explosive charge. Rainbow blazed with incandescent power as she tossed a hammer of pure wrath. Memoria brought the fury of the frozen storm down upon his head.

Their onslaught combined into an explosion that consumed their foe and dazzled them. The shockwave it created rang out with a cacophonous bang throughout the cavern, adding to their daze, but the results of their effort soon became apparent as the effects dissipated, and all returned to silence.

Anub'arak was defeated. Broken. He collapsed to the platform, twitching hideously; his carapace rent and scarred, with one leg almost completely torn off by the force of the group's attacks. He shuddered and groaned, trying to speak.

Twilight looked around at her exhausted friends, drinking for a moment in the joy of their survival, and the fact that the battle was won. She cautiously drew closer to the nerubian lord - trying to put the sound of Memoria celebrating triumphantly out of her mind - in order to hear his last words.

"Never thought... I would... be free of him..." Anub'arak hissed, with...

Relief?

Gratitude?

She could think of nothing to say to the great spiderlord in return, no words of comfort nor condemnation. He wasn't human like Vancleef, or a friend like Bandor. He wasn't someone who'd helped her, who she could thank, and she didn't know enough about him to truly feel for him. She could feel sorry for what had happened to him, but it was a detached feeling. Impersonal.

He looked up at her with fading green eyes, every thought behind his inhuman gaze utterly incomprehensible to her. It was like watching a puppet fall limp from severed strings, and perhaps there was some sadness, some tragedy, in that alone.

She stood witness, silently, as one of the Lich King's greatest lieutenants returned to the grave.

Author's Note:

Thanks to those who've commented for the kind welcome back - hopefully I'll update again soon. :)

Comments

[The Chronicler]

It's okay, Twilight. You'll see him at the tournament later, probably :)

I wonder... Will they be teaming up with any Horde adventurers at some point? It's kind of my headcanon that the 10-man raids were all joint operations between elite strike teams of both the Horde and Alliance.

[random reader]

Well, there's one major boss down! I wonder what the Nerubians will do once they reclaim their homes.

[White Flame]

So I've made this comment before I have actually read this chapter. I was very surprised to see this get updated after so long, especially two chapters in a row. I, at the time of writing this am on a 24 hour shift setting behind a desk. So discoving this update was a welcome site. Granted I have not actually read this story since 2021, and have decided to restart from the begining. I do very much look forward to reading this again, and seeing what is in store for this story.

[Reese]

Took me a bit to get to the chapters, but glad to have them. Welcome back, and thanks for writing!

And good luck, aye. :)