series of corridors enabled the orcs to deal more readily with the burdensome task of raising and training
dragons for the glory of the Horde. Dragons filled up a lot of space and so needed separate facilities,
each of which had to be dug out.
Of course, there were fewer dragons these days, a point Zuluhed and others had made with Nekros
quite often lately. They needed dragons if their desperate campaign had any hope of succeeding.
“And how'm I supposed to make her breed faster?” Nekros grunted to himself.
A pair of younger, massive warriors strode by. Nearly seven feet tall, each as wide as two of their
human adversaries, the tusked fighters dipped their heads briefly in recognition of his rank. Huge
battle-axes hung from harnesses on their backs. Both were dragon-riders, new ones. Riders had a death
ratio about twice that of their mounts, generally due to an unfortunate loss of grip. There had been times
when Nekros had wondered whether the clan would run out of able warriors before it ran out of
dragons, but he never broached the subject with Zuluhed.
Hobbling along, the aging orc soon began to hear the telltale signs of the Dragonqueen's presence. He
noted labored breathing that echoed through the immediate area as if some steam vent from the depths of
the earth had worked its way up. Nekros knew what that labored breathing meant. He had arrived just in
time.
No guards stood at the carved-out entrance to the dragon's great chamber, but still Nekros paused.
Attempts had been made in the past to free or slay the gargantuan red dragon within, but all those
attempts had ended in grisly death. Not from the dragon, of course, for she would have embraced such
assassins with relief, but rather from an unexpected aspect of the talisman Nekros held.
The orc squinted at what seemed nothing but an open passage. “Come!”
Instantly, the very air around the entrance flared. Tiny balls of flame burst into being, then immediately
merged. A humanoid form began to fill, then overflow, the entrance.
Something vaguely resembling a burning skull formed where the head should have been. Armor that
appeared to be flaming bone shaped itself into the body of a monstrous warrior that dwarfed even the
enormous orcs. Nekros felt no heat from the hellish flames, but he knew that if the creature before him
touched the orc even lightly, pain such as even a seasoned fighter could not imagine would rake him.
Among the other orcs it had been whispered that Nekros Skullcrusher had summoned one of the
demons of lore. He did not discourage that rumor, although Zuluhed knew better. The monstrous
creature guarding the dragon had no sense of independent thought. In attempting to harness the abilities
of the mysterious artifact, Nekros had unleashed something else. Zuluhed called it a golem of
fire—perhaps of the essence of demon power, but certainly not one of the supposedly mythical beings.
Whatever its origins or its previous use, the golem served as the perfect sentry. Even the fiercest
warriors steered clear of it. Only Nekros could command it. Zuluhed had tried, but the artifact from
which the golem had emerged seemed now tied to the one-legged orc.
“I enter,” he told the fiery creature.
The golem stiffened . . . then shattered in a wild shower of dying sparks. Despite having witnessed this
departure time and time again, Nekros still backed up some, not daring to move forward until the last of
the sparks had faded away.
The moment the orc stepped inside, a voice remarked, “I . . . knew . . . you would be . . . here soon. . .
.”
The disdain with which the shackled dragon spoke affected her jailer not in the least. He had heard far
worse from her over the years. Clutching the artifact, he made his way toward her head, which, by
necessity, had been clamped down. They had lost one handler to her mighty jaws; they would not lose
another.
By rights the iron chains and clamps should not have been sufficient to hold such a magnificent leviathan,
but they had been enhanced by the power of the disk. Struggle all she might, Alexstrasza would never be
able to free herself. That, of course, did not mean that she did not try.
“Do you need anything?” Nekros did not ask out of any concern for her. He only wanted to keep her
alive for the Horde's desires.
Once the crimson dragon's scales had gleamed like metal. She still filled the vast cavern tail to head, yet
these days her rib bones showed slightly underneath the skin and her words came out more beleaguered.
Despite her dire condition, though, the hatred in those vast, golden eyes had not faded, and the orc knew
that if the Dragonqueen everdidescape, he would be the first one down her gullet or fried to a crisp. Of
course, since the odds of that were so very minor, even one-legged Nekros did not worry.
“Death would be nice. . . .”
He grunted, turning away from this useless conversation. At one point during her lengthy incarceration,
she had tried to starve herself, but the simple tactic of taking her next clutch of eggs and breaking one of
them before her horrified eyes had been enough to end that threat. Despite knowing that each hatchling
would be trained to terrorize the Horde's enemies and likely die because of that, Alexstrasza clearly held
out hope that someday they would be free. Shattering the egg had been like shattering a part of that
hope. One less dragon with the potential to be his own master.
As he always did, Nekros inspected her latest clutch. Five eggs this time. A fair number, but most were
a bit smaller than usual. That bothered him. His chieftain had already remarked on the runts produced in
the last batch, although even a runt of a dragon stood several times higher than an orc.
Dropping the disk into a secure pouch at his waist, Nekros bent to lift up one of the eggs. The loss of his
leg had not yet weakened his arms, and so the massive orc had little trouble hefting the object in question.
A good weight, he noted. If the other eggs were this heavy, then at least they would produce healthy
young. Best to get them down to the incubator chamber as soon as possible. The volcanic heat there
would keep them at just the right temperature for hatching.
As Nekros lowered the egg, the dragon muttered, “This is all useless, mortal. Your little war is all but
over.”
“You may be right,” he grunted, no doubt surprising her with his candor. The grizzled orc turned back to
his gargantuan captive. “But we'll fight to the end, lizard.”
“Then you shall do so without us. My last consort is dying, you know that. Without him, there will be no
more eggs.” Her voice, already low, became barely audible. The Dragonqueen exhaled with effort, as if
the conversation had taxed her already weakening strength too much. He squinted at her, studying those reptilian orbs. Nekros knew that Alexstrasza's last consort was
indeed dying. They'd started out with three, but one had perished trying to escape over the sea and
another had died of injuries when the rogue dragon Deathwing had caught him by surprise. The third, the
eldest of the lot, had remained by his queen's side, but he had been centuries older than even Alexstrasza,
and now those centuries, coupled with past near-mortal injuries, had taken their toll.
“We'll find another, then.”
She managed to snort. Her words barely came out as a whisper. “And how . . . would you go about
doing that?”
“We'll find one . . .” He had no other answer for her, but Nekros would be damned if he would give the
lizard that satisfaction. Frustration and anger long held in began to boil over. He hobbled toward her.
“And as for you, lizard—”
Nekros had dared come within a few yards of the Dragonqueen's head, aware that, thanks to the
enchanted bonds, she would be unable to flame or eat him. Thus it was to his tremendous dismay that
suddenly Alexstrasza's head, brace and all, suddenly twisted toward him, filling his gaze. The dragon's
maw opened wide, and the orc had the distinctive displeasure of gazing deep into the gullet of the
creature who was about to make a snack of him.
Or would have, if not for Nekros's quick reaction. Clutching the pouch in which he carried theDemon
Soul,the warlock muttered a single word, thought a single command.
A pained roar shook the chamber, sending chunks of rock falling from the ceiling. The crimson
behemoth pulled back her head as best she could. The brace around her throat glowed with such power
that the orc had to shield his eyes.
Near him, the fiery servant of the disk materialized in a flash, dark eye sockets looking to Nekros for
command. The warlock, however, had no need for the creature, the artifact itself having dealt with the
nearly disastrous situation.
“Leave,” he commanded the fire golem. As the creature departed in an explosive display, the crippled
orc dared walk before the dragon. A scowl spread across his ugly features, and the frustration of
knowing that he served a cause lost urged Nekros to greater anger at the leviathan's latest attempt on his
life.
“Still full of tricks, eh, lizard?” He glared at the brace, which Alexstrasza had clearly worked long to
loosen from the wall. The enchantment affecting her bonds did not extend to the stone upon which they
were fastened, Nekros realized. That mistake had nearly cost him.
But failing to achieve his death would now cost her. Nekros fixed his heavily browed gaze on the now
truly injured dragon.
“A daring trick . . .” he snarled. “A daring trick, but a foolish one.” He held up the golden disk for her
widening eyes to see. “Zuluhed commanded I keep you as healthy as possible, but my chieftain also
commanded me to punish whenever I thought necessary.” Nekros tightened his grip on the artifact, which
now glowed bright. “Now is—”
“Excuse this pitiful one's interruption, o gracious master,” came a jarring voice from within the cavern.
“but word's come you must hear, oh, you must!”
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