"Damn him," Gul'dan muttered. "Why did he always have to be so quick to make decisions? Another day and we would have been here and done before they arrived." He sighed. "Well, there is nothing for it. Tell the warriors to prepare for battle. You will need to fend them off while I enter the temple and find the tomb."

Cho'gall grinned with both his heads. "With pleasure." The massive two—headed ogre was as fanatic as the rest of his clan, and firmly believed in ushering in the end of the world, preferably with violence and bloodshed. All the Twilight's Hammer orcs held the same belief, and would happily fight anyone or anything if doing so would bring the world closer to its ultimate demise. It did not hurt that the demon blood most of them had imbibed back on Draenor had increase their natural bloodlust a hundredfold. "They will not get past us," the ogre promised, drawing the long curve—bladed sword he wore at his side.

Gul'dan nodded. "Good." Then he turned and began picking his way carefully across the island, steam rising from every step he took. Drak'thul and the other necromancers and ogre magi followed quickly behind him.

"Attack!" Rend shouted, his axe clutched in his hands as he ran forward with his warriors. "Kill the traitors!"

"Death to the traitors!" Maim echoed beside him.

"To battle!" Cho'gall bellowed, his scythe—like blade raised so its long sharp blade caught the weak late—afternoon sunlight. "Let this land be awash in their blood," his other head added, "that their deaths may usher in the end times!"

The two forces met with a thunderous impact there on the lava—strewn rocky shore, as orc slammed into orc. Weapons flashed, axes and hammers and swords and spears rising and falling, swinging and stabbing, in a wild display of energy, passion, and violence. Blood sprayed everywhere, filling the thick air with a red mist and turning the nearby waves dark. The ground, still uneven and unsteady, grew slippery, and many warriors lost their balance and met their deaths while struggling to regain their feet.

The battle was fierce. Cho'gall's warriors fought savagely and with no concern for their own safety—their only goal was to inflict as much damage and pain as possible. Doomhammer's soldiers fought for revenge and for justice, avenging Gul'dan's betrayal and the battle it had already cost them. Both sides believed in their goals, and neither was willing to yield.

The one difference between the two sides was numbers. Gul'dan had brought only two clans with him: his own Stormreavers and Cho'gall's Twilight's Hammers. His Stormreavers were the smallest clan and they were all warlocks—every single one of them was with Gul'dan now, leaving only the Twilight's Hammers to block Doomhammer's forces. Rend and Maim Blackhand had brought the bulk of their Black Tooth Grin clan, one of the largest in the Horde. The Twilight's Hammer warriors were outnumbered and they knew it. And as the battle continued, and both sides suffered heavy casualties, that difference began to show.

The fanatic orc warriors refused to surrender, however, and fought to the last orc. They took many of Doomhammer's warriors with them—Cho'gall himself cut one of the strongest Black Tooth Grins's right arm from him as he fell, both of the orc warrior's axes buried in his chest, and another Black Tooth Grin lost an eye to a well—aimed blow from the back spike on a war axe—but in the end the fiery shore was littered with bodies and only the troops the Blackhands had led here still remained.

"Now," Rend said, wiping his axe clean on a fallen orc's chest, blood still dripping from a long gash across his chest, "we go after Gul'dan. The warlock has much to answer for."

Gul'dan was standing at the base of an ancient temple, its outer walls barely visible beneath centuries of moss, fungus, coral, and barnacles. He could still see traces of architecture that matched what he had glimpsed in the Quel'Thalas, both in grandeur and in style. Elves had crafted this structure, and once it had been beautiful and ornate, he was sure. Now, however, its walls were rough and rolling, and the edifice resembled a natural mound of dirt and seaweed and encrustations rather than something that had been built deliberately. But the appearance did not matter to him. What excited him was the pulsing he could feel just behind his eyes, as the power tugged at him so strongly he could almost see its influence quivering the building around it.

"Inside," he told Drak'thul and the others. "We must go inside."

He had debated bringing them beyond the temple's front steps, actually. He knew that the Tomb of Sargeras lay within, and that the Eye of Sargeras housed within it could be tapped for immense, god—like powers. But would he be able to do so alone, or would he be forced to share that potency with the rest of the Shadow Council? What had decided him, finally, was that he did not know what else the ancient temple might contain. Thus Gul'dan had felt it was best to bring his servants and assistants with him into the temple. If necessary he could always kill them when they reached the Tomb itself.

Entering cautiously, Gul'dan created a globe of green light to better see his surroundings. The halls and rooms here were as altered as the building's exterior, the floors coated with sand and grit and seaweed, the walls festooned with more weeds and with shells of various sorts and sizes. Even the doorways had been altered, their outlines smoothed and rounded and distorted by the creatures that had clung to them for all these long years.

"Quickly, you fools," he told his clanmates impatiently, "fan out and search for the primary passageway! We must reach the Chamber of the Eye before the tomb's guardians awaken!"

"Guardians?" one of the warlocks, Urluk Cloud—killer, asked hesitantly. "You said nothing of guardians!"

"Spineless cowards!" Gul'dan railed, slapping the cowering Urluk across the face. "I said move!" His rage mobilized them, at least temporarily overpowering their fear of this strange place and the horrors it might contain, and the warlocks began searching through the building. Finally they found a wide central corridor, and proceeded along it.

As they ventured farther in, however, the depredations lessened. Now Gul'dan could see the fine carvings on the columns and pillars, and the delicate engravings along the walls, as well as the beautiful mosaics that made up the floors and ceilings. Any paint had long since been destroyed by the salt water, of course, but there was still enough decoration to see how beautiful this building had been, a truly elaborate and ornate temple that would have impressed even the most jaded visitors.

Gul'dan had eyes for none of it, however. He was interested in one thing and one thing only, and that was the magic waiting for him in the vault at the very bottom. When he finally reached the vault door he paused, savoring the moment.

"Now, Sargeras," he whispered, "I will claim whatever's left of your power—and bring this wretched world to its knees!"

He could feel the energy already, and it was enough to make his senses dance and his mind quiver in anticipation. The ball of green light, no larger than his hand when he had first conjured it, was now twice the size of his head and made up of roiling green fire so bright he could not bear to look at it directly and so hot he had to keep it to the center of the hall lest it melt its way through a wall. And this was from mere proximity to the source! What would he be capable of once he had actually touched the power, and absorbed it fully into himself?

Wrapped in these thoughts, Gul'dan motioned the others back and they obediently retreated to the far side of the room. Then he reached out and grasped the heavy stone handle of the massive black iron vault door. It was one of the only places in the entire temple that was unadorned, and its stark simplicity gave it a grandeur the statues and carvings had lacked. Clearly, it said, here was a place too important for such fripperies. Eager to see what that place contained, Gul'dan tugged the handle down with all his strength. He felt it stick from centuries of disuse, and also felt a prickle as a spell washed over him. It was not harmful, more a spell trigger than a spell itself, and he could sense the much larger and far more potent spell linked behind it. But the initial spell swept through him and then back out again, and its mate lay untriggered. Just as Sargeras had assured him it would. Aegwynn had warded this vault against intrusion by humans, elves, dwarves, even gnomes—against every race, in short. Every race native to this world. But he was an orc, and Aegwynn had never heard of Draenor. Her spell did not include him, and so he was now able to push the handle the rest of the way, causing a loud click from the door, and then give a mighty yank and swing the door wide open.