The Demon Soul (25 page)

Night had fallen, but that by itself did not make the going so slow. Simple darkness alone had no effect on any of the party and, in fact, would have aided their search. However, a thick, foul mist with a dank, greenish tinge covered everything. The mist seemed to spread wherever the demons went, and left open the threat that monstrous warriors could be lurking only yards away unnoticed.

Slowly the group, numbering a dozen, crossed the ruined land. Withered and blackened trees cast eerie shapes in the mist. No amount of squinting could much penetrate the haze.

It was perhaps fortunate in one way. So near Suramar, the scouting party crossed through an area where once there had been a settlement. Now and then, the remnants of a treehouse could be spotted sprawled on its side, the entire structure ripped out at the roots, then chopped to pieces. All knew that the inhabitants themselves had likely suffered a similar fate.

“Barbaric…” muttered Jarod.

Brox grunted. The night elves had been very quickly forced to harden themselves to the butchery, but they could scarcely learn to accept it the way the orc could. Brox had grown up around brutality. First the end of the war against the Alliance, then the violent march to the reservations, and lastly the struggle against the Burning Legion and the Scourge. He mourned the dead, yes, but there was little he saw that twisted his gut anymore. In the end, death was death.

To the orc’s right, Rhonin quietly cursed. The spellcaster clamped his hand tight, then thrust his palm into a pouch attached to his belt. He had tried using a scrying stone to survey the area for any hint of demons, but the mist apparently befouled the sensitive magics involved.

Brox had his own method for seeking out the enemy. Every few yards, he lifted his nose up and sniffed. The smells that mostly assailed his nostrils were pungent and spoke quite succinctly of death. So far, the only demons he noted were foul corpses covered in the ichor that had once flowed through their veins.

There were, of course, many other bodies. The mangled remains of night elves littered the settlement—some of them soldiers from the retreat, others hapless civilians who had moved too slow. No victim had been left whole; arms, legs, even heads had been lopped off. Several corpses appeared to have been cut up afterward, which strengthened the expressions of disgust and bitterness worn by the soldiers in the party.

“Stay spread out, but within sight,” Jarod commanded, tightening the reins of his own night saber. “And keep your beasts under control.”

The last order he had repeated more than once already. The huge panthers seemed particularly distressed about their situation, as if they knew something that their riders did not. It made the scouting party even more tense.

A nightmarish shadow rose up before them…the outer edge of Suramar. The Burning Legion had not had sufficient time to ravage the entire city, and so part of its skeleton still stood as a grim reminder of all that had been lost…and all that still could be.

“By the Mother Moon…” whispered one soldier.

Brox glanced at Jarod. The captain stared at his home with eyes that barely blinked. His hands crumpled the reins. The vein in his neck throbbed.

“Hard to have no home,” the orc commented to him, thinking of his own life.

“I have a home,” Jarod growled. “Suramar is still my home.”

The orc said nothing more, understanding the night elf ’s pain.

Through the fallen gates they entered the city. Utter silence surrounded them. Even their breathing seemed far too raucous a noise for this still place.

Once inside, they paused. Jarod looked to the wizard for a suggestion as to their next move. Ahead of them the path split in three directions. Safety demanded that they all stay together, but the time limit set to them made inspecting Suramar that way impossible.

Rhonin frowned, finally saying, “No one goes wandering off in this. There’s a magic in the mist. I don’t care if we can’t search everything, captain.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” Jarod returned with some relief. “I never thought to be so distrusting of a place in which I grew up.”

“This is no longer Suramar, Shadowsong. You must remember that. Whatever the Burning Legion touches, it taints. Even if the city is empty of demons, it could be very, very dangerous.”

Brox nodded. He recalled all too well the things that had come out at him from the mist during his people’s fight against the demons. What the night elves had battled so far proved pale by comparison.

Just enough of the city remained intact to give the ruins a semblance of their former self. Now and then, a building would materialize that had not been touched. Jarod had soldiers check these structures out, thinking that anyone who had survived the carnage might have taken refuge inside.

Not once did they find a living soul, though.

In spite of their intention to stay together, the devastation eventually demanded otherwise of them. The path became too confused and debris-filled to allow the scouting party to ride together without vastly slowing the search down. With great reluctance, Jarod had three soldiers on each end head off toward side streets.

“Go around the wreckage and meet up with us as soon as your route allows,” he told the six. As the two groups rode off, the captain quickly added, “And keep together!”

With Shadowsong and his remaining three fighters creating an escort for Rhonin—and Brox by association—the main group moved on. The night sabers had to pick their way up and over the rubble. Three huge tree homes had been torn down and in the process collided with one another over the path. One leaned atop the other two, the former residence dangling menacingly over the orc and his companions.

Brox’s night saber hissed as it stepped on something. Rhonin leaned over, then informed the orc, “The owner never left.”

They found more corpses as the cats reached the highest point. Again they were residents of the city, but these had evidently tried to flee when they were caught by the Burning Legion. Other than the grotesque wounds left by their slayers, the victims were oddly untouched. Neither decay nor carrion eaters had disturbed them.

“They had to have perished in the initial destruction,” the wizard noted. “You’d think they’d look even worse.”

“ ’Tis a foul enough sight for me already,” Jarod Shadowsong gasped.

With the panthers moving as gingerly as possible, they finally began descending to the original path. As he held on tight, Brox again raised his nose to the air and sniffed.

For a brief moment, the orc thought he sensed something, but the scent was faint and old. He looked around and discovered the body of a felbeast that some soldier had speared. Brox grunted in satisfaction and resumed clinging on for dear life.

Finally, the six reached level ground. Jarod pointed ahead, saying, “I recall an avenue just out of sight. We should be able to join up with the others, Master Rhonin.”

“I’ll be glad of that.”

Only a short distance later, the captain’s chosen avenue materialized. The party paused when it reached the intersection and Jarod looked around.

“We must’ve gotten ahead of them,” he noted.

Brox straightened. Rhonin shifted uneasily in the saddle, his fingers flexing in what the orc knew was a preamble to spellcasting.

“Aah!” Jarod looked relieved. “Here comes one party now!”

From the orc’s left rode three of the soldiers. They looked very pleased to see their comrades again. Even the cats moved with much eagerness.

“What did you find?” Shadowsong asked the new arrivals.

“Nothing, captain,” responded the most senior in rank. “More ruins, more corpses. As many of our people as those monsters.”

“Damn…”

“Are several of those you knew not among the refugees with us, Shadowsong?” asked Rhonin.

“Far too many. And the more we find here, the less chance that I’ve just missed them in the crowds.”

It was an old tale to Brox. How many of those with whom he had grown up had died in one battle or another? Small wonder that he had once regretted outlasting his comrades in the war; by then, the orc had already survived most of his blood brothers. He realized that part of his desire to die had also been due to loneliness.

Jarod eyed the opposite direction. “The others should be here at any moment.”

But that moment and a hundred others came and went, and still the missing soldiers did not reappear. The riders grew tense. Their darkening mood spread to the night sabers, who hissed and spat more and more as the minutes passed.

Brox could finally wait no longer. Even as Captain Shadowsong began to raise his hand in order to suggest that they move out and look for the vanished soldiers, the orc rode past him, toward where last the trio should have been.

He steered his mount down the other pathway, searching warily for any sign. Far behind him, Rhonin and the night elves hurried to catch up.

Rubble filled the street. Torn cloth and old bloodstains added the only color to the scene. The orc readied his ax and forced his mount to continue on.

Then a peculiarity about his present surroundings struck Brox. He twisted in the saddle, carefully looking around for one hint that his suspicions were correct.

But nowhere did he see any sign of even a single body. No night elves, no demons. Even the likely corpses of the three missing soldiers and their mounts could not be found.

What had happened to them? Brox wondered. How had this street remained unsullied by the deaths of innocents?

The slight sliding of rocks caused the green-skinned warrior to jerk to his right. A figure slowly coalesced in the mist—a soldier, but on foot, with his weapon drawn.

“Where’s your mount?” the orc rumbled.

The soldier trod awkwardly toward him. There were splotches on his armor, and his mouth hung open.

As his face came into better view, Brox saw with consternation that part of it had been ripped open. One eye was completely gone, and the jagged gap descended all the way to the center of the throat…or what remained of it.

And as he neared the orc, the macabre figure raised his weapon. Behind him, Brox suddenly noted other shapes following the soldier.

Although no coward, the green-skinned fighter pulled hard on the reins, turning the night saber about. As it moved, the cat swung one clawed paw at the oncoming soldier, batting him away like a toy.

The others rode up just as he started back. Jarod glanced beyond him, to where the soldier had fallen. “What did you do to him? You made your beast strike him dead—”

“Already dead before! Hurry! More coming!”

The night elf started to argue, but Rhonin put a hand across his chest. “Look into the mist, Shadowsong! Look!”

Jarod did—and shook his head in horror. The soldier arose, his face and chest now even more terrible to behold. Still wobbling, he gripped his sword and headed toward the party. Behind him, the first of the other shapes grew distinct—night elves, but in even more monstrous shape than the soldier. Several were ripped open from head to toe and others missed limbs. All wore the same empty expressions, and moved with the same deathly determination.

“Ride!” the captain shouted. “Back through the city gates! Follow me!”

With Jarod and the wizard in the lead, the party pulled away just before the first of the ghoulish figures could reach them. They sped up the way that they had just come, but when they reached the intersection, Jarod had everyone turn in the opposite direction.

“Why this way?” shouted Rhonin.

“A shorter and smoother path to our goal…I hope!”

But as they rode, other figures began to emerge from the ruins. Brox growled as what had once been an elder female in the blood-encrusted remains of a once-glittering silver, turquoise, and red gown snatched almost hungrily at his leg. He kicked her back, and for good measure severed her head with one mighty swing of the enchanted ax. Even after that, her body grabbed wildly for anything it could reach, but, fortunately, by then the orc had ridden away.

Rhonin suddenly pulled up short. “Watch out!”

His warning came too late for one of the soldiers nearest him. A mass of clawing, tearing hands pulled the night elf off his mount. He slashed one with his sword, but he might as well have been stabbing the air for all the good it did.

Jarod started to come to his aid, but before he could reach his comrade, the hapless victim vanished beneath the shambling corpses. His scream cut off almost immediately.

“It’s too late for him!” the wizard insisted despite Jarod’s clear intention of still trying to retrieve the soldier. “The rest of you, keep riding! I’ve some notion what to do here!”