Vol'jin

One minute, Vol'jin was sitting comfortably in the stands as he watched the King and Queen of Stormwind defeat their goblin adversaries, and the next he was lying sprawled on his side in the snow. The last thing he remembered was leaping to safety as a nerubian spiderlord ploughed through the stands, shattering the wood and sending debris flying in all directions. He had tumbled over and over across the icy ground, taking a few painful kicks from fleeing spectators for good measure, before finally coming to rest against the remains of a wooden riser.

At that point, he must have blacked out, for the next thing he recalled was an urgent voice calling his name.

"Warchief! Vol'jin! Ya alright, mon?"

Vol'jin felt a powerful pair of hands slip beneath his shoulders, and caught a glimpse of a familiar flash of crimson mohawk out of the corner of his eye: Zala'din. The younger troll's eyes were wild, and he had been dealt a nasty cut across his face - though whether the injury was the result of a blow from a nerubian or a piece of falling debris, Vol'jin couldn't tell.

"Zal?" he muttered groggily, sagging slightly against his old friend as he struggled to find his feet.

His body ached painfully from his abrupt tumble off the stands, and there was a faint pounding behind his left eye that flared painfully with every small movement.

"I be right here, mon. How's ya head?"

Vol'jin touched a hand to his temple, and his fingers came away sticky with blood. It was far from the worst wound he had ever sustained, though a blow to the head was never a good thing. Still, he was conscious, at least, and not - he hoped - in any immediate danger of dying.

"Alright enough," he said, with a good deal more confidence than he actually felt.

"We gotta get out of here. Get ya ta a healer," Zala'din insisted, tugging on his cloak.

Somewhere nearby, Vol'jin heard an anguished scream that abruptly cut off with an uncomfortably wet crunch. The Horde were dying - his Horde were dying. Running was not an option.

"Nah, mon. We gotta get inta da arena…"

Vol'jin shook his head to clear the daze, and took quick stock of his surroundings. The stands had been just about completely destroyed, and he noted several uncomfortably still bodies laying face down beneath the debris. Most of the nerubians had dispersed into the grounds, seeking out their terrified - and notably unarmed - prey, though there were still a fair few snapping around the large hole in the arena floor from whence the first spiderlord had emerged. As Vol'jin gaze swept across the mountain range to the south, he also thought he saw a bright flash of red against the otherwise pristine snowy hillside, but when he looked again, it was gone.

Must be the blow to the head. I'm seeing things...

"Da arena?!" Zala'din repeated incredulously, pulling Vol'jin's attention back to more immediate concerns. "Dat's where most of 'em came through. We gotta get away..."

"Da arena be de only place we can use magic," Vol'jin reminded him. "If I get dere, I can help."

Shrugging Zala'din's hand from his shoulder, Vol'jin leapt over a piece of splintered wood and moved swiftly towards the arena floor, squeezing his way in through a shattered part of the fence that marked its boundary. Almost immediately, he felt his loa-given powers surge through his bones, and he let out a long sigh of relief. It was remarkable just how bereft he felt without their constant, steady presence in the back of his mind. The loa were not always talkative - in truth, sometimes they failed to speak when Vol'jin needed them the most - but at least they were there; a quiet and enduring reassurance that he was not alone.

Vol'jin also quickly realised that he was not physically alone in the arena, either. Aside from himself, Varian Wrynn and Auriana had remained on the edges of the arena space, having taken shelter behind a large, overturned section of the stands, though their goblin opponents were no longer anywhere to be seen. Varian was still clutching the sword and shield he had used in his earlier duel, though Vol'jin doubted the blunted weapon would do much against the hardened chitin of the nerubians.

The pair of humans had also been joined by Genn Greymane, who had transformed into his towering worgen form in order to fight back the nerubians with his bare claws. From what Vol'jin could see, the two kings were providing a defensive guard for Auriana as she flung razor sharp icicles at the rampaging spiders, interspersed with short-range teleportation spells to move fleeing civilians out of harm's way.

Unfortunately, she had much the same problem as Vol'jin himself. While in the arena, she had the full range of her powers at her disposal, but the moment her target ran outside the boundaries, they became immune to any magical influence. The nerubians were also far from unintelligent, and it seemed they had also realised they were safest if they stayed well out of her range. Still, Auriana was at least doing something, and Vol'jin knew they stood a better chance of repelling the attack if they worked together.

Forcing the pain behind his temple to the back of his mind, Vol'jin sprinted across the open arena floor with Zala'din close at his heels; dodging around a snapping webspinner before sliding into cover beside the Alliance royalty. Both Varian and Greymane turned defensively with weapons and claws raised, only to relax a half-second later when they realised that he was not actually a deadly spider-person come to tear them apart.

"Warchief!" Varian shouted, immediately lowering his sword. "Come to join the fun?"

His dark hair was damp with sweat from his earlier efforts in the arena, but he otherwise looked fresh and almost eager to fight.

"Wouldn't miss it," Vol'jin quipped. "Ya got a plan?"

"This is about as far as we'd got," Varian grumbled, gesturing to their meagre cover and the handful of nerubian corpses at their feet.

"We need proper weapons," Greymane snarled. "I know the Argents have some around here somewhere."

"And magic," Auriana added, clenching her left fist. "There isn't much I can do to help when I'm confined to this damn arena, and most of the nerubians have already run off into the grounds…"

"How da we get ya magic back, den?" Zala'din asked, ever practical.

Auriana bit her lip thoughtfully, and peered cautiously out from behind the ruined stands towards the Alliance tents.

"Jaina," she concluded firmly. "I need Jaina. She did the majority of the spellwork on the ward, she's the one who knows it best. With her help I might be able to take it down, and at least give us a fighting chance. I know she was here today to oversee the transition to the secondary arena..."

"We'll find her, den," Vol'jin insisted, eager to contribute something, anything, more to help the situation than hiding behind a heap of twisted wood and metal. "Zala'din, ya got my back?"

"Always, Warchief."

"In that case…"

Varian tossed Zala'din his sword with a surprisingly respectful nod, and offered his shield to Vol'jin.

"It's scant protection, but it's better than nothing," he said. "Genn and I will stay here to cover Auriana. She's the only one of us who is having any luck against these fiends, but she needs to remain here."

"We'll be back soon," Vol'jin promised, nodding. "Keep ya heads on."

With shield in hand and Zala'din on his flank, Vol'jin set out for the Alliance side of the arena with all haste. It seemed the most likely that Jaina would be found there. He hadn't seen her in the arena, and while there were no official restrictions preventing her from accessing the Horde side of the grounds, he couldn't think of any reason why she would have.

More than once, Vol'jin wanted to stop, to offer his aid to a fleeing civilian or a terrified child, but he forced himself to keep to the edges of the battle. He was not properly armed, and as much as he wanted to fight, he knew that any attempt to engage the nerubians directly would likely result in his and Zala'din's senseless deaths. Still, each scream of terror tugged at his sense of duty, and with every step, he found it harder and harder to ignore them and press on.

You help them by locating Jaina, he reminded himself sternly.

Somewhat surprisingly, Vol'jin and Zala'din found it a simple enough thing to keep to the shadows and the shelter of various tents - the nerubians did not seem to be targeting anyone or anything in particular, but rather tearing through the camp chasing anyone they could find. There was a cold intelligence behind their assault, but also a recklessness; an erratic edge that Vol'jin had not noticed when he and Auriana had fought the creatures out on the glacier. They seemed… unsettled… somehow, though he hadn't the faintest idea why.

There was little time to properly reflect on the motivations of mad spider people, however, especially when one was trying to avoid being eaten by mad spider people. Fortunately, it did not take them too long to locate Jaina Proudmoore. Even in the chaos of fleeing bodies and rampaging nerubians, her shock of shining white hair was easily identifiable. She was huddled behind an overturned cart with the blue dragon Kalecgos looming protectively over her in his half-elf form. Both mages were speaking rapidly to one another, punctuating their speech with sharp hand gestures, and while Vol'jin could not hear what they were saying from a distance, it was clear that neither of them were especially happy.

Their consternation was understandable. As far as Vol'jin was aware, neither had any martial prowess beyond that granted by their considerable magical abilities, and that left them both incredibly vulnerable. Vol'jin did not know enough about dragon physiology to know whether Kalecgos was capable of shifting into his dragon form with the dampening field still in full effect, but the fact that he had not yet transformed was not a promising sign.

Vol'jin hurried to Jaina's side as fast as he dared, quite literally sliding into cover behind the cart in a spray of snow, while Zala'din hung back to keep a watchful eye on his flank. Both Jaina and Kalecgos started violently at his sudden appearance, much as Varian and Greymane had earlier, though they, too, quickly recognised that he was not an immediate threat.

"Lady Proudmoore," Vol'jin said formally, extending his hand. "I need ya ta come with me."

"Warchief!" Jaina exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

She looked very surprised to see him, and while she did not seem entirely displeased, there was a definite hint of skepticism in her eyes. Kalecgos mirrored her expression almost perfectly, and Vol'jin did not miss the way he placed a bracing hand upon her shoulder. It was not an aggressive gesture, but it spoke volumes nonetheless.

"King Varian be holed up in da arena with King Greymane and Queen Auriana. She sent us ta find ya," he explained quickly.

"Auriana sent you?"

"She needs ya help with da ward," Vol'jin added. "It be chaos out dere."

As if to emphasise his words, someone nearby screamed, and was quickly silenced.

"We'd noticed," Jaina said drily.

"Then ya know how much we need ya."

She considered Vol'jin seriously for a brief moment, her eyes narrowed and her head cocked to one side. While they had not had much to do with one another in the past, Vol'jin held a great deal of respect for the Archmage of the Kirin Tor. Following the trial of Garrosh Hellscream in Pandaria, he had sent her a short letter indicating that he did not blame her for her negative feelings towards the Horde, nor for the events that had seen the Horde removed from Dalaran. He had agonized over sending the letter for a long time, fearing that his words would come across as trite or insincere, but in the end he had decided to send it regardless. He had never received a direct response, though he had always hoped that Jaina had understood his sentiments to be genuine - especially now, when he needed her to trust him.

"Lead on, then, Warchief," she said finally, exchanging a quick glance with Kalecgos.

No matter how Jaina might have felt about the Horde, she was clearly a practical person at heart - and even if she was wary of Vol'jin, she was certainly not willing to let people die for the sake of her own skepticism.

"Although, I'm not sure I'll be of as much use as Auriana might hope…"

Vol'jin wasn't entirely sure what she meant, but he did not intend to give her a chance to change her mind. He gestured to Zala'din, and the younger troll immediately turned and led the way back towards the arena, dashing from tent to tent in an effort to avoid the furious nerubians. Jaina, Kalecgos and Vol'jin hurried along a few feet behind, each keeping a watchful eye out for any attacks. They were all keenly aware of the fact that they were scantly armed, and they moved through the camp as quickly and silently as they were able so as not to draw any undue attention.

Unfortunately, they were not quite sneaky enough.

They had nearly made it back to the relative safety of the arena when their little group drew the ire of a bulky nerubian warrior, who let out a loud trumpet of anger and charged straight for Vol'jin. It was surprisingly fast for such an ungainly-looking creature, and Vol'jin only managed to raise his shield at the very last second - just in time to prevent the nerubian from taking off his head, though not fast enough to keep his feet. He landed hard on his back for the second time that day, and was forced to curl his body beneath the surface area of the shield to protect himself from the nerubian's gnashing pincers.

The weight of the spider warrior was enough to create a sizeable divot in the ground beneath Vol'jin, and he choked as chunks of snow and dirt sprayed across his face. Up close, the nerubian's breath was fetid and faintly sweet, and its loathsome mouth parts horribly hairy. It was far bigger than the creature that had pinned Auriana down in the cave, and even Vol'jin's considerable strength was not enough to dislodge it - especially when he was as awkwardly trapped beneath the thing as he was.

Despite the protection of the shield, the pressure on Vol'jin's chest steadily grew until he was certain that his ribcage would shatter, when all of a sudden he was released as the nerubian staggered sideways. More than a little confused, he peeked put from behind the cover of his shield, and was surprised to see Jaina Proudmoore stumbling around off the nerubian's right flank. Judging from their relative positions and the way Jaina was holding her shoulder, he gathered that she had flat out rammed the creature order to knock it off balance. She was far smaller than the nerubian, of course, but the unexpected force of her impact was more than enough to buy Vol'jin some breathing room.

He pushed up with his shield, slamming it as hard as he could into the nerubian's face, and rolled to the side to free himself. At the same time, Zala'din lunged forward, taking advantage of the nerubian's distraction to drive his sword into a gap in the creative's natural armour. It was a well-aimed strike, but with his blade blunted as it was, he was unable to penetrate the spider's thick chitin far enough to actually kill it - until Kalecgos stepped in to assist.

The dragon placed one hand on Zala'din's back to brace him, and the second on the pommel of his sword. He grunted as he threw his entire weight behind the blow, and together he and Zala'din forcibly drove the weapon deep into the nerubian's body. It screamed an agonised protest as its gelatinous, pale blue lifeblood spilled out upon the snow, but the damage was already done. It toppled to one side, legs twitching, and with a last dramatic shudder, finally lay still.

"Well struck," Jaina observed, gingerly rubbing her shoulder as she stared down at the dead spider warrior. "Warchief - are you alright?"

Vol'jin closed his eyes for half a moment to gather himself, before he quickly clambered back to his feet. He was lucky to be alive, but he could not afford to dwell on his good fortune for any longer than a second.

"Only tanks ta you, mon," he replied, grinning. "Didn't tink ya had a mind for dat kinda combat."

"I have my moments."

Jaina did not return his smile, but there was a faint gleam of amused self-satisfaction in her eyes as she turned away to check on Kalecgos.

"I'm glad we all be getting' along, but we need ta keep movin'," Zala'din interjected. "Dis sword be useless, and I'm not sure we could fight off another one of dem tings…"

"Yeah, I'd rather not get dat intimate wit a spider a second time," Vol'jin agreed, brushing a clod of snow and dirt off his tunic. "Let's go."

Rather fortuitously, their little scuffle with the nerubian had brought them within striking distance of the arena, and it was a simple matter to run the last hundred feet back towards the protection of the collapsed stands where Varian, Auriana and Genn Greymane remained hidden.

"Jaina!" Varian cried, grabbing her arm and ushering her into the relative safety of the shelter behind him. "We were getting worried. Are you alright?"

Jaina flashed her old friend a quick, reassuring smile, though her gaze did not lose its

determined edge.

"We're fine. We were outside the stands when the creatures emerged, so we avoided the initial stampede…" she explained, irritably pushing a stray lock of hair back from her face. "Varian, there are nerubians everywhere, what is going on?"

With the addition of Jaina and Kalecgos things were getting a touch crowded behind the ruined stands, though it seemed to be as safe a place as any to formulate a nerubians were now wisely giving Auriana a wide berth, and the topography of the stands meant that any adversary who approached them would have to do so head on.

"I wish I knew…" Varian muttered. "Perhaps they're avenging the nerubians that Auriana and Vol'jin killed on their escape from underground."

"Oh, sure, blame the bombing victims," Auriana retorted smartly, with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. "Perhaps it was all the shouting and cheering, or the enormous dampening field we set up on top of their city…"

As she spoke, she skillfully picked off a newly emerged webcaster with a blade of razor sharp frost; impaling it through the thorax with an icicle as thick around as Vol'jin's arm. As impressive her magic was, however, it was merely one nerubian amongst hundreds. She could not fight them all back alone, and certainly not when she was restricted to fighting in a limited area only a hundred feet wide.

"And perhaps we would be better served by trying to find a way out of this mess, instead of assigning blame," Greymane growled, his muzzle curling in wry irritation.

"Quite right," Varian agreed. "Jaina - do we have access to the anti-magic wards from here?"

"Well, the core of the spellwork is still located in the main arena, but there's a control point over there," she explained, pointing to a shining silver object secured to the southern arena fence about fifty feet away. "Why?"

Vol'jin hadn't paid any particular attention to the mechanics of the dampening field during the Tournament, trusting that that people far smarter he were maintaining its complex magic, but he was a good deal more interested now that the thing might very well be the difference between life and death.

"So we can turn it off, obviously…" Varian said drily.

He stood up to his full height, clearly intending to break cover and run for the ward, but a firm hand on his forearm from Jaina held him back.

"Varian, I've told you before, you cannot simply deactivate the ward. Certainly not with a sword," she insisted, her gaze flicking briefly to his enormous weapon. "It's not like flipping a switch, it takes time to safely siphon off that much magical energy and power down the field. Even powering down the section of the ward to allow for magic to be used in the arena takes us an hour. If we do it too quickly, the whole thing will explode."

Jaina spoke rapidly, clearly conscious of the precariousness of their situation, though like most mages Vol'jin had met, she did not spare the detail.

"Be that as it may, the fact remains that we need that ward down soon, or a lot of people are going to die," Varian growled.

Vol'jin did not begrudge his frustration. While it was hardly the Kirin Tor's fault for failing to anticipate a full-scale nerubian invasion when they had crafted their magics, the field's limitations were damnably frustrating in the case of an emergency. Much like Varian, Vol'jin chafed to see his people fleeing for their lives when there was nothing he could do to help, and he fervently hoped that the Lady Proudmoore had something else up her magical sleeves that might turn the tide.

"Jaina…" Auriana said slowly, "This kind of magic is hardly my field of expertise, but if we were able to siphon the ward's energy into a sufficiently large mana capacitor, we could deactivate the field almost instantaneously… right?"

She turned her gaze away from the arena floor for a brief moment, and eyes narrowed into a thoughtful squint.

"Well… yes..." Jaina confirmed, her expression uncannily similar to Auriana's, "But there's about fifty thousand leyvolts running through that field. There are several capacitors of that size in Dalaran, but we don't have any here."

Vol'jin exchanged a brief look with Zala'din, who mouthed the word 'mages', and shrugged. He had no idea what a leyvolt was, but from the context he guessed it was some sort of unit of magical measurement.

"Ah… yes we do," Auriana countered. "By my count, we have three."

Vol'jin was now thoroughly lost, though strangely enough, it appeared he was not the only one. Both Jaina and Kalecgos were staring at Auriana like she was speaking another language - which, for all Vol'jin understood, she may as well have been.

"Pardon?" Kalecgos asked, blinking.

"You, me, and Jaina," Auriana said, pointing to each mage in turn.

"You… you mean to use one of us as a… a biological capacitor?" the dragon surmised, his vivid blue eyebrows shooting up into his hairline.

Auriana shrugged.

"Why not? Jaina's mana potential would have to be at least in the vicinity of seventy thousand leyvolts, if not more. Mine would be comparable, if not higher, and you… well, you were the Aspect of Magic. Surely yours would be higher."

Kalecgos opened and closed his mouth several times, as if he were trying to come up with a reasonable objection but couldn't quite think of one.

"I… I honestly hadn't considered that possibility," he admitted, rubbing a hand across his chin.

"Would anyone care to translate for those of us who aren't magically inclined?" Varian interjected, looking just as confused as Vol'jin felt. "What's a 'mana potential'?"

"It's a measure of the maximum amount of magical energy a mage is capable of channeling - though I ought to stress, it is a very theoretical maximum," Jaina elaborated. Her lips curled into a small frown, and she sighed. "Auriana is proposing that we siphon the excess magic from the ward into one of us… a living container, of sorts…"

"Is that possible?" Greymane snarled, the words thick and guttural through his worgen's teeth.

Kalecgos took a brief moment to mull the problem over. Despite the chaos raging all around him, he somehow managed to maintain an air of otherworldly calm that Vol'jin found impressive and infuriating all at once.

"Difficult to say," he mused. "While, in theory, it would be a straightforward matter of transferring energy from one 'container' to another, it's difficult to predict the effects on the living host."

"Creatures of flesh and bone were never meant to channel that much magic, certainly not all at once," Jaina added. "It would be incredibly dangerous."

Auriana let out a soft snort of frustration as the two other mages debated, and she cast a quick glance back over her shoulder towards the Alliance side of the camp.

"But is it possible?" she pressed.

"I'd have to make some calculations. If the transfer of energy takes too long, we risk the ward exploding anyway," Kalecgos mused. "On the other hand, if the Scavellian Threshold is exceeded too quickly, damage to the host body may be irreversible…"

"Kalec, while I appreciate your concerns, there's no time for calculations. Is it possible, yes or no?" Auriana repeated, gesturing pointedly to the nerubians swarming about the grounds.

There was a keen spark in her eyes that Vol'jin had seen before - usually before she decided to do something impossibly risky. Kalecgos also appeared to have read a similar intent in her expression, and his reluctance to answer the question was plain for all to see. He considered Auriana seriously for what seemed like an age, before he finally conceded with a cautious nod.

"Yes. It is… possible."

"See?" she said brightly. "That's all I need."

Before anyone could utter a single word in protest, Auriana's slender form shimmered and she blinked away; reappearing about forty feet away near the control point. She raced the remaining few feet towards the ward, moving faster than Vol'jin would have believed possible, then sent a streak of magic into the heart of the mechanism with a decisive flick of her wrist. He could not have named the spell she used, but whatever it was seemed to have the desired effect. Even at this distance, he could see at least two dozen runic shapes crystallize in the air as the ward opened to the call of her power; pulsing and shimmering like tiny stars.

"Auri, no!" Jaina shouted, half-heartedly reaching out a hand towards the younger mage, but there was nothing she could do.

Auriana's entire body tensed as if she were preparing to absorb a physical blow, and without so much as a second of hesitation, she plunged her hands directly into the heart of the runic construct.

For a brief moment, Vol'jin felt oddly breathless, then a second later, the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood to attention as a wave of electricity charged the air. Beside him, both Jaina and Kalecgos instinctively flinched away, covering their heads and bracing themselves for an explosion that fortunately never came. At the same time, Auriana's eyes and hands - already aglow with the strength of her magic - truly came alive; shining with an arcane power so blindingly white that it hurt his eyes to look directly at her.

Beyond that, however, there was… nothing. Auriana had not killed them all, thankfully, but it didn't seem her efforts had had any immediate effect beyond the admittedly impressive light show. A minute passed, then two, and Vol'jin actually began to believe that her reckless action had been in vain, when from across the grounds, he heard a sudden cacophony of gleeful shouts as various magic users felt their powers come flooding back, and he saw bright flashes of flame and lightning light the dull grey sky as the heroes of the Horde and the Alliance finally turned on their arachnid foes.

Jaina, however, was not nearly as pleased.

"Are you insane?! You could have killed yourself, not to mention the rest of us!" she exclaimed, as Auriana blinked back across the arena towards their motley little group.

"Could have. Didn't."

She broke into a wide, feral grin, and Vol'jin was uncomfortably reminded of the flash of teeth on a hunting raptor right before it went in for the kill. There was something very unsettling about the expression, and not simply because she was rarely one to smile. There was a terrifying energy about her, one that had not been there only minutes ago, and one that Vol'jin found decidedly concerning. Out of all of them, he probably knew Auriana the least, but even he could tell that she was somehow… off.

"Uh… Auri… are you alright?" Varian asked, his voice deepening in concern as he extended a tentative hand towards his wife.

She shook him off, and her strange smile widened even further. Her slender shoulders were visibly shaking, and she bounced up and down on her heels as if she couldn't possibly stand still.

"I'm fine. Fine, fine, fine! Good," Auriana said, speaking so quickly that Vol'jin could barely follow her words. "Everything's good. Damn good. Great, even. Tastes a bit…"

She smacked her lips.

"Purple."

"Uh… why she be soundin' so... um… drunk…?" Zala'din murmured, looking between Vol'jin and Varian with a concerned frown.

"That is not an entirely inaccurate assessment," Kalecgos sighed. "She is currently channeling far more magical energy than she really should. She's strong - stronger than just about any mortal I have ever met - but that does not mean she is immune to the effects of that much magic."

He reached out and took Auriana's face in his hands, and held her head steady so that she was forced to look him in the eye. In any other context, the gesture would have appeared almost tender, but there was no mistaking the deep concern in Kalecgos's eyes.

"Auriana, focus. I need you to listen very carefully."

He spoke very slowly and clearly, over-annunciating every word as if he were speaking to a child… or a drunk, as Zala'din had not so delicately pointed out.

"If you don't discharge the excess energy in your body, you are going to die, do you understand me?"

"Wait… what do you mean, die?!" Varian repeated, his eyes widening in alarm.

"Oh, don't be so overdramatic, Kalec," Auriana sighed, pushing herself free of the blue dragon's gentle grasp. "The two of you, honestly… if I died as many times as people told me I was going to die, I'd be… well, I'd be... really, really dead..."

"Auriana, please. You need to discharge the excess magic in your body," Kalecgos repeated. "Do you understand me?"

"Discharge energy, yeah, yeah, I hear you," she said dismissively. "Discharge… energy…"

Auriana's entire body went abruptly still as her gaze found one of the enormous spiderlords ramming the sharp, curving horn on its head into a tent on the edge of the area. She reached out both hands, as if cupping a bowl at arm's length, and a ball of pure white light unlike any other magic Vol'jin had ever seen coalesced between her fingers. She took a deep breath, and then unleashed her power in a single beam of pure white light that shot a clear eighty feet across the arena and slammed into the nerubians rear. One second, the hulking creature was there, trumpeting its defiance to the wide open sky, and the next it was simply gone, with only a few flakes of charred remains twisting in the air to mark its passing.

"Oh, I could get used to this."

Auriana threw back her head and laughed, a deeply resonant and unsettling sound that once again set the hairs on the back of Vol'jin's neck on edge. Ostensibly, she was about as happy as a person could be, but there was a sinister note to her giddiness that he didn't like one bit.

"Auri…"

Varian reached out a futile hand towards his wife as she blinked away, but there was no chance of any of them keeping up with her now that she was unleashed. She ran a few steps forward and then blinked again, disappearing into the Alliance side of the encampment with an eager war whoop that echoed off the surrounding cliffs. Bright beams of white light marked her rapid, chaotic path through the camp, and Vol'jin could only hope that each visible burst of power marked the death of a nerubian.

"Dammit," Varian swore.

"If it's of any comfort, I doubt there's a creature on Azeroth who could properly challenge her with that much magical energy at her disposal," Kalecgos said quietly.

"It isn't, but… thank you."

Varian's lips drew into a thin line, and he rubbed a weary hand over his eyes in a rarely seen moment of vulnerability. If he had been Thrall, or Baine, Vol'jin may have sought to provide some small support with a bracing clap on his shoulder, but in Varian's case, he feared such a gesture would be overfamiliar, and so he stayed his hand.

"We need to take advantage of the nerubian's distraction. Auriana is buying us time - we should not squander it," Greymane pointed out, though his tone was not unkind.

Varian clearly wanted to chase after his wife, but he was far too good of a king to allow himself to be swayed by personal desire. He was also smart enough to recognise that there was little he could do to protect her when she was blinking all over the place like a raptor hatchling who had mistakenly consumed a vial of bad mojo, and that his talents were far better served protecting his people.

"Agreed," he said firmly, shaking his head in an effort to refocus. "We have magic back on our side, but we still need weapons. We should also open portals back to Stormwind and Orgrimmar so that we might evacuate civilians. There's no guarantee we can beat back an attack force this large, even if we were fully armed."

"If I may, High King, I don't tink dat be such a good idea," Vol'jin interjected. "Dis may make me sound paranoid, but we can't rule out da possibility dat dis was an intentional act of sabotage, just like da bomb."

He had no idea how someone could have coordinated a full-scale nerubian invasion, but he wasn't willing to rule out the possibility just yet.

"If people flee ta da big cities at random, whoever is responsible will have ample chance to escape. It will also make it harder ta tally da wounded and da dead wit everyone scattered."

"Hmph," Varian grunted. "That's a good point…"

"What about… what about Dalaran, then?" Jaina suggested slowly, after a moment's silence. "It's isolated, self-contained, and the Kirin Tor Guardians can detain people until we have a chance to resolve this mess. We have adequate medical facilities for the injured, as well."

"Dalaran? Are you sure?" Varian asked, with a sideways glance at Vol'jin. "I know you haven't permitted the Horde to enter the city since…"

He trailed off, his unspoken words hanging heavy in the chill air, and his brow furrowed into a deep frown. Greymane let out a soft growl, and Jaina went so still as to appear carved from stone. It was clear from the stricken expression on her face that she had considered the momentous implications of her offer, and would have preferred to keep such concerns to herself - had Varian's well-meaning indelicacy not forced her hand.

Vol'jin would not have been offended had she refused. The Kirin Tor and the Silver Covenant had not been blameless in their handling of the Purge of Dalaran, though Vol'jin was not so arrogant as to believe he would have been above making a similar choice had he been in charge of the city at the time. He did not begrudge Jaina her anger, no matter how much he may have disagreed with her eventual actions, and he appreciated how much of a personal sacrifice it was for her to offer the city as sanctuary to the Horde.

"I'm sure," Jaina murmured, after an uncomfortable pause. "Saving lives and preventing further losses is more important than politics."

She straightened her shoulders, and turned her gaze upon Vol'jin.

"Dalaran would seem to fit your criteria, Warchief, and I offer it freely, although I ought to point out that Kalec and I are not the only mages here… with their magic returned, any one of them could open their own portals as they pleased."

"Dat's a problem, ta be sure," Vol'jin admitted, "But containing who we can is better than nothing. If nothin' else, it will make it easier ta narrow down who might be missing."

"In that case, I think we ought to set up base here," Varian said firmly. "The arena has clear sight lines and enough room for us to accommodate hundreds of people. It's also a clear landmark that everyone ought to be familiar with - they'll know which direction to run."

The King of Stormwind's voice was deep and compelling, and Vol'jin subconsciously stood up straighter as he listened. The ability to command attention seemed to come to Varian as easily as breathing, though Vol'jin wondered whether he truly understood the effect he had on others. It was not a talent Vol'jin had ever possessed. He had his own strengths as a leader, he knew, but he'd never had the arresting natural charisma of a Warchief like Thrall, or even Garrosh Hellscream.

"Jaina and Kalec - please remain in the arena and get a portal open to Dalaran. As large a one as you can manage, so we don't create a bottleneck. There's going to be a lot of scared people coming this way," Varian continued briskly. "Genn and I will make our way to the Alliance side of the camp and retrieve as many weapons as we can, while we funnel people back to the portal. Warchief, Zala'din, I trust you can cover the Horde side of things?"

"We'll send dem back here, don'tcha worry," Vol'jin agreed. "Come on, Zal."

Once again, the two trolls made their way into the hectic battle raging on the Horde side of the encampment, though this time, they made no attempt to sneak past the nerubians or hide. With the power of the loa on his side, Vol'jin was able to join the fight directly; weaving curses of shadow and flame faster than conscious thought. He hadn't been in a full-scale battle since the Siege of Orgrimmar, but his skills had been hard-won through years of experience, and he soon fell into a smooth, practiced rhythm as he fought fiercely to protect the lives of his people.

Word of the escape plan spread quickly through the Horde side of the camp, and Vol'jin was more than a little relieved to see dozens of civilians run past him as he held the vanguard. Despite his skill, however, there were far more nerubians than he had anticipated, and he was soon sweating with the effort of keeping them at bay. Every time one fell, it seemed that two more arrived to take their place, and he began to wonder whether he would have to fight off every last nerubian in Northrend before they were done. Something had driven the creatures into an absolute frenzy, and there was nothing save for death that would stop them.

For his part, Zala'din had stayed at Vol'jin's side only briefly; soon racing off to seek the stash of real weapons stored within the Argent Crusader's tents. He had been reluctant to leave, but as a warrior with no magical skills to speak of, he was at a substantial disadvantage with only a single blunted sword to his name. He had promised to return quickly, and yet Vol'jin saw no sign of the younger troll amongst the chaos as he fought to hold the nerubians back. He could only hope that Zala'din was still alive, but when there was an endless tide of nerubians ravaging his Horde, he could ill afford to abandon his current position to check. Zala'din was more than capable, and as frustrating as it may have been for Vol'jin, there were certainly other people who needed him more.

Not necessarily by choice, Vol'jin then eventually found himself fighting alongside Sylvanas Windrunner, with her faithful bodyguard Nathanos Blightcaller shadowing their every move. Sylvanas had managed to obtain a shortbow from somewhere, and was firing into the nerubian swarm with a smooth and steady cadence. For all the emotion she showed, one would never have guessed her to have been in the middle of a pitched battle; each shot as cool and as accurate as if she were training at the practice range. Vol'jin did not always see eye to eye with the Banshee Queen, but he could freely admit that there were few people in the world who could match her skill with a bow… and right now, that was all that mattered.

Vol'jin and Sylvanas fought back-to-back for what felt like an age. They neither spoke nor paused for breath; they simply fought, killed, and moved on the next foe. The nerubians did their best to push them back, but together they managed to successfully hold the line about fifty feet outside the outdoor arena. Or rather, they did, until the moment their vigorous defense attracted the attention of one particularly vicious spider lord.

Some of the larger nerubians had an unfortunate habit of tunneling beneath the earth, only to erupt from beneath the surface a few moments later in an effort to toss unsuspecting bodies in the air - or worse, impale someone on their massive, curving horns. They tunneled deep enough that they were almost impossible to track beneath the surface, and one had to simply pray that they would not suddenly find themselves airborne. As he fought, Vol'jin felt rather than saw one such creature dive beneath the earth, seemingly with the intention of assaulting his and Sylvanas's position. His muscles immediately tensed as he braced himself for the inevitable impact, and he frantically scanned the ground for the slightest clue as to the nerubian's trajectory.

Sylvanas, too, had seen the spider lord dive. She immediately ceased firing and gambled her safety on an acrobatic leap to the left, but even her exceptional reflexes were not enough. The nerubian barrelled towards her with disturbing speed; the wake of its tunnel visible only seconds before it abruptly charged for Sylvanas and burst free from the earth in a violent spray of rock and snow. Her right foot slipped as the ground beneath her roiled and heaved, and she tumbled to her knees in a rare moment of gracelessness. Her bow spilled from her hands, and she was forced to scramble backwards as the spider lord raised its razor sharp forelegs with the clear intention of impaling her through the middle.

Sylvanas scrabbled for her bow, but the nerubian was far too big and far too close. Vol'jin stretched a futile hand towards her, knowing that neither he nor Nathanos Blightcaller could close the distance between them in time… when there came a sudden flash of white light, and an enormous pillar of solid ice erupted from the ground between the nerubian and its prey. Instead of hitting Sylvanas, the nerubian's raised leg slammed down into the ice and sent a shower of crystalline shards flying into the air. The spider lord screeched in agony as its pincer bent back at an horribly unnatural angle, only to crumple a second later as an enormous ice lance pierced through one of its largest eyes and embedded deeply in its brain.

Sylvanas wasted no time in taking advantage of the nerubian's death to gather her bow and leap back to her feet, before casting a wary glance around for her saviour. Her eyes widened in a rarely seen expression of surprise as the Queen of Stormwind appeared out of nowhere from behind the still-twitching corpse of the nerubian, only to narrow into a more familiar expression of haughty contempt a second later. Auriana's hair had come loose from its once orderly braids, and there was a streak of drying blood across her cheek. Still, she looked just as giddy as she had when Vol'jin had last seen her, and as odd as it may have seemed, she was clearly loving every minute of the nerubian invasion. Strangely, she also seemed to have appeared from the Horde side of the encampment, though Vol'jin supposed that she had little concern for faction divides when she was so obviously caught up in the thrill of battle and the frenetic energy of her magic.

"Why?" Sylvanas hissed; the single word somehow colder than all the ice and snow around them.

"I think the phrase you're looking for is 'thank you'," Auriana said drily, nudging the dead spider lord with a tiny, booted foot.

The corner of her lips curled upwards in a knowing smirk, and her dark eyes glinted with the satisfaction of getting one up over Sylvanas. Under normal circumstances, Vol'jin doubted Auriana would have engaged in such a decidedly risky endeavour, but in her current state she was far beyond even the pretense of diplomacy.

"Isn't that the point of this little event?" she added lightly, gesturing back towards the arena. "To foster cooperation?"

"I suppose it is," Sylvanas muttered, pursing her lips.

She paused, and considered Auriana with an icy look that made even Vol'jin want to squirm.

"Thank you."

The words left her throat with great effort, as if she had genuinely forgotten how to express sincere gratitude, but her stiffness only served to widen Auriana's grin.

"See? Was that so hard? You really ought to lighten up, you know."

Vol'jin almost choked. He doubted anyone in the history of Azeroth had dared to tell Sylvanas Windrunner to 'lighten up', and he doubted he would ever see such a thing again. One surely had to be insane to say such a thing to the Banshee Queen's face… or, apparently, intoxicated on more arcane power than a single mortal had any right to channel.

"If it bothers you that much, you can owe me one!" Auriana called over her shoulder, as she blinked away again, vanishing once more towards the Alliance camp just as quickly and haphazardly as she had first appeared.

Sylvanas's fingers visibly twitched upon the grip of her bow, almost as if she were seriously considering putting an arrow in the mage queen's retreating back. The air around her grew heavy with anticipation, when she suddenly seemed to become aware of someone watching her, and her eerie, blood red gaze found Vol'jin. She gave an odd sort of nod in his direction, before she gestured brusquely towards Nathanos and darted swiftly back into the fray.

Vol'jin shook his head, marvelling at the strangeness of the interaction between the two queens. The brief moment of respite, odd as it was, had given him a chance to catch his breath, and as he finally took the chance to look around, it now appeared that the tide had finally begun to turn in the favour of the beleaguered Horde and Alliance. The spider lord's terrifying underground charge had caused Vol'jin to lose track of his positioning, and he was now closer to the outdoor arena than he had thought. A few stray civilians were still crowding around the portal to Dalaran, but it seemed that the grounds were now mostly empty of people save for the dedicated few who had taken up arms against the swarm. On the other side of the arena, Vol'jin could see Varian grappling with a nerubian warrior, though judging from the impressive pile of spider corpses at his feet and the shining silver blade in his hand, the King of Stormwind was more holding his own.

Relieved by the Horde and Alliance's hard-won change in fortune, Vol'jin began to turn back towards the Horde camp in the hope of perhaps finding Zala'din, when he was once again struck by the uncanny feeling that he was being watched… only this time, he decided to heed his instincts. Once was an anomaly, twice was a coincidence, but three times? Three times, and he would have been a fool not to pay attention.

Ducking behind the closest nearby tent for cover, Vol'jin's gaze swept purposefully across the southern ridge, looking for the slightest movement or clue that might explain the odd feeling that had plagued him ever since the first nerubian had erupted from the arena. At first, it appeared there was nothing there but rock and snow, and Vol'jin was ready to dismiss the whole thing as his own paranoia… when he caught sight of the distinct red and black of a Horde banner rising above a rocky outcrop about three hundred feet away.

Vol'jin blinked, certain that he was seeing things, but when he opened his eyes the banner was still there; blood red against the shining snow. Even stranger, it appeared that the banner was being held by a group of four crouching orcs, though Vol'jin could not imagine why anyone fleeing the nerubian attack would bother to take a banner with them. He also couldn't fathom why the orcs would have run past the portal in the arena in order to scale the cliffs, though he supposed that it wouldn't be the first time in history someone had made a poor decision in a moment of fear.

Vol'jin shrugged inwardly to himself, ready to dismiss the presence of the orcs as another random oddity in an already strange Tournament, when somewhere deep in the back of his mind, a chorus of loa suddenly screamed a warning... and far too late, he realised that something was very, very wrong.

One of the orcish figures on the hillside abruptly rose to his full height from behind the cover of the rocky outcrop, and even at this distance Vol'jin could see that he was now clutching a longbow. One of the orc's companions joined him a half second later, and then the third and fourth, and time slowed to a crawl as the entire group of them smoothly nocked their arrows and took aim at the arena floor.

Vol'jin cried out a futile warning and instinctively ducked as the orcs loosed, but the arrows were not meant for him. Nor, it seemed, were they meant for Jaina or Kalecgos, still diligently holding the portal as the last group of civilians made their escape. Instead, the arrows whistled through the air in a high arc towards the Alliance edge of the arena - and directly towards Varian Wrynn.

A spray of crimson blood stained the snow as the first arrow took the High King in the thigh. He staggered backwards, his expression caught somewhere between shock and outrage as he raised his sword across his body in defense, but there was little he could do to prevent the second arrow from imbedding itself in his calf, or the third in his shoulder. It was a credit to his legendary strength that managed to remain standing with such severe wounds, though his defiance would prove to be short-lived as the fourth and final arrow found its target in his chest, and he crumpled to the ground like a puppet that had had its strings brutally cut.

And then Vol'jin heard the scream.