King of the Castle

[Illidan Stormrage]

Illidan clenched his teeth and ordered his eyelids to stay open as he was hauled into Poenari Castle. His head dangled from his neck, bobbing with the movements of his captors, his muscles reduced to firm jelly. Perhaps it was the expenditure of his fel magic, or the stampede of ghosts that overwhelmed his mind, or a mixture of both, but the kaldorei was in no state to resist. Every muscle ached and pulsed, and it felt as if concrete had settled and hardened in his limbs. That same weight pressed on his eyelids, but the night elf struggled, refusing to relinquish his consciousness. Whatever was coming next, he wanted to be awake for it.
 
An anger that subsequently dimmed beneath the folds of his exhaustion bloomed when he thought about how his own lieutenants were being manipulated like puppets. Clawfang, granted, was a creature born of a curse and lacking in specific supernatural power, other than the enhanced lupine qualities given by lycanthropy. Taking control of a werewolf, one that fell further to the side of instinct than intelligence, was not a worthy or fearful ability.
 
However, Regis' possession unnerved Illidan. While he had seen little of the necromancer's true skill in action, his spectral sight afforded him a glimpse of another's potential and he had been impressed at what he had found in Regis. To believe that Regis had succumbed to the wraiths through any means but arrogance was concerning. Maybe their numbers were simply too great for him to handle, or maybe Illidan's first impressions of the dark sorcerer were off the mark.
 
In any case, the night elf knew he was alone. He'd seen firsthand the devastation that the haunted castle had wrought on his forces. Many were unfortunately ill equipped to battle against spirits of air and sound and became easy pickings. Of those who could shred the ghosts' ethereal forms, there were not enough, or not seasoned in such chaotic confrontations. Perhaps some had scattered into the wispy fields before the bailey stood empty, but then Illidan would sooner constrict their hearts within their chests before he would accept cowardice to creep into the soldiers of his armies.
 
Illidan felt his shins slapping the blunt edges of stairs as he and his jailors ascended. Each stair smashed his ailing muscles as if they were bruised all over, but there was nothing the kaldorei could do to stop it. He breathed in sharply as a particularly jagged edge scraped his violet skin and coughed at the thick and stifling air. It wasn't like that at the ground level, was it? The night elf endured needles through his neck as he craned his head. The darkness signified that he had indeed been dragged into Poenari Castle, and the amber light lacing the walls confirmed it. Yet he could see that foul magic permeating the air, itching his lungs, strengthening as they trudged on and up the stairwell.
 
"Shut up back there," Illidan heard from deep within a cave. He caught the sight of that traitor Ronaldo leading the possessed lieutenants, his left arm ending at the elbow. I should have shortened that bastard by a head instead of a forearm.
 
"What ... is this all about ..." Illidan mumbled, unable to finish the question with an upward inflection.
 
"I think it's obvious," Ronaldo growled, waving his stumpy limb. "Luckily for me, it doesn't have to be permanent. But the indignity of the situation calls for revenge." He continued to speak as they climbed higher into the castle, finally reaching the top of the stairwell and passing under a large archway. The vampire didn't favour the night elf with even a contemptible gaze. "Killing you is all well and good, but I get the feeling you're a Prime, and if you are, you'll come back to life after a time and seek me out again. So I am going to imprison you in a place even Count Dracula won't find you, and spend the rest of my existence in this horrid dimension teasing and torturing the vampirism inside you until you finally shatter and become a wild beast. Before that, though, I'm going to ..." He straightened his spine and the next thought struck against the back of his teeth. " ... present you to the power that holds the haunting in check here."
 
That wasn't what you were going to say. Illidan's foggy mind could not muster the strength to follow that train of thought, to realise his true plan. And so he slumped fully, letting Clawfang and Regis carry his entire weight through the dust strewn corridors and crumbling staircases, pouring all of his energy into keeping his blazing eyeballs unsheathed.
 
Time passed, but the exact amount was beyond Illidan. Amber light had grown so strong that he could see it glinting through the cracks in the stone pathway beneath him. Some of its sheen even reflected off his purple skin, and the kaldorei demon hunter knew the source of the spirits' power was exceptionally close.
 
"Is this it?" he heard Ronaldo. "I'm getting tired of traipsing around this filthy castle."
 
Fake Clawfang growled. "How dare you call it filthy, you -"
 
Fake Regis stuffed a hand on the werewolf's furry chest. "Calm down. We will sort this out soon." He looked at the vampire. "Yes. Through this door."
 
Illidan had regained some of his lost strength during the journey, and while his muscles still pulsed with the beat of his heart, he could at least move again if he wasn't restrained. There was no way he would fight his way free, though.
 
The wooden door before them creaked open and the dull light of the Pale Moors greeted them. A small balcony looked out over the castle's bailey and the great misty fields beyond it. Clouds rolled ceaselessly onwards, uncaring of the dozens of dead bodies littering the ground beneath them.
 
A robed figure leaned against the balcony wall, a wooden staff clutched in his stained fingers, the staff's top imbedded with a spherical amber pearl emitting a faint glow. All of the amber strands of light flowed freely from the orb like streams of yellow water. The cowl twitched at the sound of the door and a gravelly voice extended towards them. "You have finally made it."
 
Not-Clawfang glared at Ronaldo. "Wait here." The vampire's mouth parted for a moment but closed again as Illidan was dragged forward and dumped at the mysterious figure's feet. The possessed lieutenants took a step back as their leader turned to address the night elf. Illidan struggled to his feet, unwilling to die on his knees, but made sure to do it slowly and painstakingly so as to avoid a hastening of his death. Even once standing, he swayed on unsteady legs, hunched over, grabbing the balcony wall to stay upright.
 
The cloaked figure was a few feet shorter than Illidan, but what respect his stature did not impart, the indescribable power the night elf sensed within him did. He wrapped hands - human hands - around the staff to support his frame; judging by the way his billowy robe flowed over him, the skeleton beneath lacked much substance. The darkness of the cowl hid his identity from the night elf, or would have if not for his magically imbued sight.
 
"You can see my face, can't you?" the figure croaked. "Those eyes, even hidden from the world by a strip of fabric, can see clearer than an eagle's."
 
Illidan forced an awkward nod. He could indeed make out the human's face; middle-aged, short black hair, but his body had been ravaged by whatever destructive magic he dabbled in. His skin was pockmarked and saggy, more white hair than black poked out of his skull, and deep bags underscored dreary and clouded eyes.
 
"Why am I here?" Illidan said. Despite his unfavourable position, he would rather die quickly than be subjected to an insane sorcerer's ramblings before it. "Your ghosts decimated my army, possessed my two officers, and turned my prisoner into a traitor. Why not just blast my head off and be done with it?"
 
"I want some answers," the sorcerer said. "I want to know why a force of Dracula's soldiers would suddenly invade an empty castle, when it has been left to sit destitute for years. I want to know why their commander had seemingly not thought through the attack and had not considered that a great bulk of his army could not rend spirit at all."
 
Illidan had no qualms with speaking the truth. "Count Dracula is my king, and I want to serve as a lord beneath his kingdom. But what is a lord without a domain to call his own? Thus I learned of this abandoned castle, and -"
 
"It is not abandoned!" the sorcerer yelled, his voice strained and carried out into the bailey.
 
" ... I see that now." Illidan did well to only crinkle his nose at the rude interruption.
 
The cowled magician ran his eyes over Illidan, and the amber pearl of his staff shone brightly for just a moment, and he smiled. "Yes. A devoted follower of Count Dracula. Just overzealous in his ambitions."
 
Illidan said nothing.
 
"What are you planning to do with him?" Ronaldo said, standing in the arch of the doorway. "When are you going to kill him?"
 
The sorcerer abruptly dropped to his hands and knees, his staff clattering on the stone floor, and wept. Illidan screwed up his face as his captor cried uncontrollably, his stick-thin frame declared through the robe that shaped about it. What on Azeroth was he crying for?
 
Johnny-Clawfang sniffed. "Please old friend, don't cry."
 
For the first time, Illidan saw expression on Regis' face, though he knew it belonged to the ghost living within him. "It's OK Corny, really."
 
The sorcerer, named Corny apparently, took in heaving breaths and pushed himself to his knees. Illidan started as he took his focus from the sorcerer noticed the balcony completely ringed by spirits. While most lacked the pliable skin needed to express sadness, the ghosts that could did.
 
This was getting absurd. Why hadn't Corny done anything yet? Why was he so unstable, roaring at Illidan one moment and collapsing in tears the next? Think, Illidan. There's more here than meets the eye.
 
Corny sniffed as he stood, supporting his pitiable weight on his staff. "I'm sorry, everyone. It's just ... we lost a lot of good souls today."
 
He identified with these ghoulish abominations? What in the Twisting Nether was going on here? The night elf suppressed his disgust and confusion, realising a way out could be presenting itself if he only said the right things.
 
"I'm ..." Illidan sighed, forcing himself onward, " ... sorry, Corny, is it?"
 
"Cornelius," the sorcerer corrected through sniffs. He used the baggy sleeve of his robe to wipe the tears streaked down his cheeks, knocking back the cowl that shadowed his face. "Cornelius White."
 
"Yes. Help me understand what's happening here. In any other situation, I would be dead by now." A flash of an ancient memory reared up in his mind; a room of perpetual darkness, with only the whispers of demons to break the silence. "Or sentenced and left forgotten to rot in a jail cell."
 
"Illidan," Cornelius said, though the night elf was astonishingly sure he hadn't imparted his name, "there is much you don't understand. Perhaps it is not a clear method of doing so, but there are few options." He gestured to the night elf's possessed officers. "Did Johnny Boy and Kat speak to you before the battle began?"
 
The demon hunter furrowed his brow. Don't react, think about what he's asking. "Yes. They asked me if ... I saw. If I ..." As Illidan dwelled on the words, and his thoughts moved from a jumbled mess and into clear lines, the words of the spirit took on a meaning, one that he had failed to see in the heat of the moment. "He asked if I understood."
 
Cornelius smiled with thin, dried lips. "Yes? If you understood what?"
 
Illidan channelled his empathy. He knew all of the ghosts that entered him had shown the night elf their dying moments, and the situations surrounding them. He tried to think of them as his own people, as though the kaldorei had been in a similar predicament. And then it struck him. His people had been in the same hopeless struggle before. Ten thousand years ago, with the first arrival of the Burning Legion, the night elves fought and clawed for survival against odds they didn't fully understand. Some were betrayed by the officers and leaders appointed to their roles specifically to keep the populace safe, and these humans had also been abandoned by their rulers. Illidan's choice to undermine the Burning Legion from within had been born from the inept leadership and wasteful decisions made by the kaldorei commanders.
 
The connection made Illidan feel ... oddly conflicted. Humans had never amounted to much in his world. Could his race and these spirits have endured the same ghastly catastrophe? Could there be a common understanding?
 
"Your people-"
 
"My friends," Cornelius White interjected.
 
Illidan fought the rising disquiet in his stomach. "Yes, your friends. They died protecting their friends and family, yet they battled against impossible odds. Your kings and your leaders scuttled away at the first sign of trouble, consigning these spirits to their fates long before demon claws rent their flesh. They were ... betrayed."
 
The haggard sorcerer grinned, revealing plaque encrusted teeth. "Yes! So you do understand, Illidan."
 
"What does any of this have to do with Illidan?" Ronaldo shouted.
 
Kat-Regis fired a furious gaze at the vampire. "Shut up!"
 
"But there's something you still don't get, isn't there?" Cornelius asked, ignorant of Ronaldo's outburst.
 
"I have lost people I cared about in war before." A half-truth; Illidan despaired that his race had dwindled against the onslaught of the Burning Legion, but the only loss he ever truly mourned was that of Tyrande. "And while I possess the talent, I have never resurrected their ghosts and moped about with them."
 
Cornelius frowned, his skin sagging so much it looked as if it would bunch together and melt off his skull. "Moping? Who said anything about moping?" He waved a bony hand at the ghosts that encircled them. "This is a tribute to all of the men and women who fell to Diablo's forces! They continue to exist because of me!"
 
It was a risk, but Illidan's gut told him to take it. "And to do what? Remind you of their loss? Lock them in perpetual misery, tethering them to a place that saw their final, bloody moments? What kind of existence is that?"
 
Cornelius bared teeth, and the amber pearl atop his staff shone. For a moment, Illidan thought he'd pushed the necromancer too far. Then his head drooped into his chest, and the pearl returned to its normal glow. "You ... you speak truth."
 
"Why, then?" Illidan said. "Why do this?"
 
The dark sorcerer sighed. "Illidan ... before Poenari Castle fell before Diablo and its belongings ravaged, I was a mage stationed here. I knew many of the soldiers here; in the early days, it was quiet, and there was plenty of time for socialising. In the beginning, it all seemed easy. We would protect Darkshire from the raids that happened periodically, and then we'd switch out with a new contingent."
 
"Only ... before that could happen, the raids occurred more frequently, more viciously. I fought, blasting apart demons with fire, healing wounds with my magic ... but our efforts were useless by the end." Anger suffused Cornelius' voice. "And as soon as the going got tough, King Aragorn and his precious advisors abandoned the castle without even declaring it to us. They just ... left."
 
White took a moment to collect himself, dabbing at his worn eyes with his sleeve. "They didn't send a single reinforcement after that. We were left here to slow the advancement of Diablo, to buy time for the elite minds of Camelot to think up of a solution. And all of these brave men and women died for no reason. Their spilt blood didn't give Camelot time to implement a plan to stop the demons, it didn't gain a single ounce of gratitude from the filthy maggots of Darkshire who still cling to their pathetic little town. Their sacrifices were never honoured or even remembered."
 
"And so I, being the last of the survivors here, hiding for weeks from the demons that scoured the castle for resources and fresh meat, decided that this injustice would not stand. I turned to the dark art of necromancy, the magic that we had always been taught was forbidden, and brought these noble souls back from the cold nothingness of death. I stay to preserve their legacy, so that those who wronged us will remember the wrath of the spurned."
 
The ghosts gave a collective cheer, in tones of humans, instead of the eerie groans and howls they emitted during the battle. Cornelius had been completely consumed by his sadness and anger, and the wraiths either believed the same as him, or his own emotions were affecting the products of his spells. As Illidan listened to their righteous fury, his blind gaze stretched out over the horizon, an idea hatched in his mind. There was a way he could clear the castle, satisfy Cornelius and his spectres and impress Count Dracula all at the same time.
 
"And yet, they don't remember you." All eyes fell on Illidan. Cornelius studied the night elf with a dagger stare, poised as if waiting to hear the next words before deciding his course of action. "All of you. I agree; your losses were appalling, and for naught. You deserve retribution for the betrayal hoisted on you all. But creeping around long-forgotten ruins will not grant you the satisfaction that you seek - nay, that you are owed."
 
"Then how shall we extract our vengeance?" White asked.
 
Time to close the trap. "They will never come to you. But you can go to them!"
 
"To Camelot?" Cornelius said. "Illidan, necromancy has brought these men and women back from the brink, but it has wasted me. I cannot travel, and I will be an easy target."
 
Illidan shook his head. "No, Camelot is not realistic right now." Illidan had no idea if he spoke the truth; he didn't know a thing about the land, but that hardly mattered. "I say this; appoint me as your commander, and I will take these spirits and attack Darkshire!"
 
Confusion reigned as the ghosts mumbled amongst themselves. Ronaldo grimaced but didn't say anything. Cornelius frowned and looked pointedly at the kaldorei. "Attack Darkshire?"
 
"Yes!" Illidan said. "Didn't you just say that your comrades-in-arms - your friends, died defending that place? Is it not the fault of Darkshire that they are dead, and that they haunt their final resting place? Is it not true that they never sent reinforcements to aid you?"
 
White's eyes darted about. "Well, that is technically true ... but they are our people. How could we turn on them?"
 
"Your people?" Illidan repeated. He found a great well of inspiration for his next rebuttal, having lived it himself. "How can you call them your people when they let you die?! Perhaps you share the same blood, the same heritage, but that is where it ends! If they were truly your people, this never would have happened! The people of Darkshire are directly responsible for your ends, and yet you defend them?"
 
"While your compassion is honourable, it is misplaced. Demons may have slaughtered you, but they never would have done so if your people truly cared for you! There is blood on the hands of Darkshire's populace; your blood. Why should they live? What right do they have to support the notion that their lives are worth more than yours?!"
 
The spirits of the dead murmured in soft agreement. Illidan could see his words grinding through the necromancer's mind. Years of inward-facing rage and despair were working to the demon hunter's advantage. "Yes ... yes. You're right. First we'll kill all those traitors in Darkshire, and then onto the Kingdom of Camelot!"
 
The spirits shouted for joy in unison.
 
"And yet," Cornelius interrupted the celebration, "why should you lead them to their vengeance? We annihilated your forces. You could lead these people to a similar demise."
 
Illidan shook his head. "Nonsense. I have learned from my experience. Your brave soldiers have taught me the value of caution, and the need for information before committing to battle. Besides, they're a human settlement. While they will have some supernatural defences, the majority of their number will be men wielding sharp blocks of steel. Just as your friends stomped my army, they will also stomp Darkshire's defences for the same reasons."
 
A wry smile crawled onto Cornelius' mouth, and Illidan knew he had him. "And of me? I must maintain their spirits or else they will fail."
 
"You will accompany us to Darkshire, where you will select as many of your friends to defend you as you wish." Perhaps this would turn out to be a lie, but Illidan promised it anyway. "And if things become too heated, I will personally see to your protection."
 
Ronaldo burst past Johnny-Clawfang and Kat-Regis. "You can't be seriously considering what he's saying, can you? He'll betray you the first chance he gets!"
 
Illidan glared at the vampire, cracking his knuckles. "Thus far, the only evidence of betrayal has been by you, vampire. You turned on your commander, believing I would be killed while you would be spared. I only offer these people the revenge they so richly deserve, and you would rob them of that?"
 
Cornelius stepped forward awkwardly, nodding. "He speaks truth. Betrayers have no place here." He pointed the amber pearl of his staff at Ronaldo, and it blazed with light. Ronaldo stood in blank horror as his body burned with the same hue, disintegrating into blackened pieces that slung into the air on the wind.
 
The necromancer grinned at the night elf. "Let's begin our preparations then, shall we?"