Like a trail left by a slug, like a furrow left by a plow, the land where the undead feet had trod was blackened and barren. Worse; Sylvanas remembered the burned woods the orcs had left behind, knew that nature would eventually reclaim it. This—it was a horrible dark line of death, as if the unnatural energies that were used to propel the corpses forward were killing the very earth upon which they shambled. Poison, they were poison, it was dark magic of the foulest kind.

And it had to be stopped.

She had paused only an instant, although to her it felt as though she had been frozen in place for a lifetime. “Hold!” she cried, her voice clear and strong and purposeful. “We will make our stand here.”

They were puzzled only briefly, then they understood. Quickly she spoke instructions, and they leaped to obey. Many of them paused, shocked, as they caught their first stunned glimpse of the grievous wound to the land that had so horrified their ranger-general, but they recovered quickly. Time enough to worry about healing the brutalized earth later. For now, they had to stop that dreadful scar from spreading.

The stench preceded the army, but Sylvanas and her rangers now had a grim familiarity with it. It did not unnerve them as it had before. She stood on the bridge, her head held high, her black hood slipping a little to show bright golden hair. The army of the dead slowed and halted, confused by the sight. The ugly wagons, catapults, and trebuchets rumbled to a halt. Arthas’s skeletal horse reared, and he reached down and stroked the bony neck as if it were a living beast. Sylvanas felt a shiver of nausea at the wrongness of the tableau as the thing responded to its master’s touch.

“Goodness,” Arthas said, humor lacing the word with something akin to warmth. “This can’t be one of the oh-so-imposing elfgates I’ve heard so much about.”

Sylvanas forced herself to grin back. “No, not quite. But you’ll still find it a challenge.”

“It is but a simple bridge, my lady. But then again, the elves are very fond of putting paper manes on cats and calling them lions.”

She eyed his army for a moment, her anger penetrating her forced smugness. “You’ve won through this gate, butcher, but you won’t get through the second. The inner gate to Silvermoon can only be opened with a special key, and it shall never be yours!”

She nodded to her companions, and they raced across the bridge to join their fellows on the other side.

Arthas’s humor faded and his pale eyes flashed. His gauntleted hand tightened on the runeblade. Its markings thrummed. “You waste your time, woman. You cannot outrun the inevitable. Though I admit it is amusing to watch you scurry.”

Now Sylvanas did laugh, an angry, satisfied sound that rolled up from some place deep in her soul. “You think I’m running from you? Apparently you’ve never fought elves before.”

Some things, she mused, were deliciously simple. Sylvanas lifted her hand, threw the extremely non-magical, quite practical incendiary device, then turned to run as the bridge exploded. The trees welcomed them, arching above them in hues of gold and silver, hiding them from their enemy. Before she faded from earshot, she heard something that made her grin fiercely.

“The ranger woman is starting to vex me greatly.”

Yes. Vex you. Harry you like a sparrow does the hawk. The Elrendar bisects Eversong Woods, and you will find no crossing for your monstrous engines of war any time soon. She knew it was a delay, nothing more. But if the army was delayed long enough, perhaps she could get a message through.

Worry fluttered at her mind. Arthas had seemed supremely confident that he would be able to defeat the magic that powered the elfgates. He had already shown some knowledge in that he had been able to destroy the first gate. Of course, the first gate was not as magically defended as the second. And, from what she had seen, arrogance seemed to be his normal state, but—was it possible? The nagging uncertainty that had prompted her to add a final warning to Tel’kor’s message to the magi stirred within her again.

Did Arthas know about the key?

The traitor, a wizard by the name of Dar’Khan Drathir, should have made it easy. And to some extent he had, of course. Arthas would otherwise never have known about the Key of the Three Moons—a magical item that had been split into three separate mooncrystals stashed in heavily-guarded, hidden locations throughout Quel’Thalas. Each temple was constructed on an intersection of ley lines, similar to the Sunwell itself, the traitorous elf had told him, gleeful to be betraying his people so. The ley lines were like blood vessels of the earth, carrying magic instead of scarlet fluid. Thus interconnected, the crystals created a field of energy known as Ban’dinoriel—the Gatekeeper. All he needed to do was find these sites at An’telas, An’daroth, and An’owyn, slay the guards, and find the mooncrystals.

But the excessively pretty, surprisingly tough elves presented a challenge. Arthas sat astride Invincible, idly fingering Frostmourne, and reflected on how it was that so fragile-seeming a race could stand up to his army. For army now it truly was—many hundreds of soldiers, all already dead and so more difficult to permanently dispatch.

The ranger-general’s clever little trick of blowing up the bridge had indeed cost Arthas precious time. The river ran through Quel’Thalas until it bumped up against several foothills to the east—foothills that posed the same challenge to the mobility of his engines of war that the water did.

It had taken a while, but eventually they had crossed the river. As he pondered the solution, something had twinged at the back of his mind, a tingling sensation he couldn’t quite figure out. Annoyed, he dismissed the strange sensation and instructed several of his unfailingly loyal soldiers to create their own bridge—a bridge made of rotting flesh. Dozens of them waded into the river and simply lay there, forming layer upon layer of corpses, until there were enough of them that the meat wagons, catapults, and trebuchets could make their lurching way across. Some of the undead, of course, were no longer of use, their bodies too broken or torn to hold cohesion. These Arthas almost gently released from his control, granting them true death. Besides, their bodies would foul the purity of the river. It was an additional weapon.

He, of course, could and did cross easily. Invincible plunged without hesitation into the water, and Arthas was abruptly reminded of the horse’s fatal jump in the middle of winter, slipping on the icy rocks as he leaped, utterly obedient to the will of his master then as now. The memory crashed on him unexpectedly, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe as pain and guilt washed over him.

It was gone as quickly as it had come. Everything was better now. He was no longer an emotionally shattered child, racked by guilt and shame, sobbing in the snow as he lifted his sword to pierce the heart of a loyal friend. No, nor was Invincible a mere living creature, to be harmed by such a thing. They were both more powerful now. Stronger. Invincible would exist forever, serving his master, as he had always done. He would not know thirst, or pain, or hunger, or exhaustion. And he, Arthas, would take what he wished when he wished it. There was no more silent disapproval from his father, no more scolding from the too-pious Uther. No more dubious glances from Jaina, her brow furrowed in that dearly familiar expression of—

Jaina…

Arthas shook his head sharply. Jaina had had her chance to join with him. She had refused. Denied him, although she had sworn she would never do so. He owed her nothing. Only the Lich King commanded him now. The mental shift calmed him, and Arthas smiled and patted the jutting vertebrae of the undead beast, who tossed his bony head in response. Surely, it was the beautiful and willful ranger-general who had unsettled him and made him question, even momentarily, the wisdom of his path. She, too, had had her chance. Arthas had come for a purpose, and that purpose had not been to obliterate Quel’Thalas and its populace. Had they not resisted him, he would have let them be. Her sharp tongue and defiant behavior had brought her people’s doom upon them, not he.