Illidan by William King Read Free Book Online Page B

Illidan unawares. She did not need Akama. All she needed was the opportunity to strike at the Betrayer when he least expected it.
    Anyndra gestured with her right hand and raised three fingers. Maiev crept forward on her belly until she reached the lieutenant’s position; then she raised her head over the ridgeline and saw that her second-in-command was correct. Three fel orcs stood there, huge, muscular creatures, with red skin and glowing eyes. Their heavy bodies hunched in the crouched posture all orcs shared. Their stance spoke of fury, every muscle tensed. Each movement was quick, hard, and sullen, as if the fel orcs were looking for an excuse to strike someone.
    Maiev would give them their wish. She meant to be in position overlooking the road to Hellfire Citadel when Illidan rode past.
    She invoked her powers and blinked across the intervening space. Air displaced with a near-silent puff as she reappeared behind the largest of the fel orcs. One stroke took his head. She sprang forward and drove her umbra crescent through the second fel orc’s breast, then rolled onward. The third fel orc struggled to bring his axe to bear. Her foot caught him behind the knee and tumbled him to the ground. Her blade found his jugular.
    Scarcely three heartbeats had passed. Anyndra had just brought her arrow to her ear. Maiev gestured for the remainder of her troops to cross the ground to her new position, and then she dragged the corpses into the shadow of a boulder out of sight of any wind riders passing overhead.
    The smell of big cat in her nostrils told her that Sarius had joined her in concealment. The druid wore the form of a huge panther, oddly marked. He moved across the parched landscape in utter silence, following the curves of the brown earth, out of sight of all but the most vigilant. He growled a greeting and stalked toward the ridge’s edge. Just as quietly, she followed him to the brow of the cliff and gazed out on Hellfire Citadel.
    It had the brutal appearance of all orc fortifications, in this case magnified by the sheer size of the place. The citadel looked as if it had been built to accommodate an army of giants. It loomed over the surrounding lands, each tower the finger of a gigantic hand that reached out to seize the sky. It was rough-hewn but immense, built of red rock and the bones of creatures that must have been as large as mountains. Magic saturated the stones. Even from this distance, she felt its evil. But it was not the keep that held her attention. It was the procession making its way along the road that led to the citadel.
    Tens of thousands of fel orcs marched in tightly packed formation, streaming across the landscape in a column leagues long. Among them marched companies of demons, bearing the banner of Illidan. In the vanguard rode a mass of blood elves, their steeds birdlike. Prince Kael’thas was at their head. His eyes were fixed upon the enormous chariot drawn by a team of twenty clefthoof. The gigantic creatures were muzzled and blinded to prevent them from panicking.
    Looking at the cage mounted on the giant chariot, Maiev understood why. It contained the pit lord Magtheridon. He stood many times the height of an elf and rattled the felsteel bars with arms the size of tree trunks. Even from the clifftop, Maiev felt his power. It smashed into her senses like the stench of ten thousand burning bodies. Chains that could have anchored the biggest warships bound him to the chariot. Maiev could see they were wound by spells strong enough to halt the slow drift of continents.
    Atop the chariot, wings spread, hands on his hips, his stance proclaiming his triumph and his lack of fear, stood Illidan. Such was the difference in size that he should have looked like a squirrel defying a helboar, but he did not. The aura of fel magical power blazing around him made him appear to be more than the equal of the pit lord.
    She was not alone in watching. Along the ridges, clans of fel orcs had gathered, as