And as for Anduin, while whole, he stayed close to his mother, allowing one skeletal hand to wrap around his neck in what looked more possessive than loving. To Varian, it was as if the horrific apparition was telling the king that their son was now hers.

“No …” Varian wanted this to be a nightmare. He wanted to find out that he was among the sleepers. There was little that could shake him, but this was a dark tableau of which he could have never imagined. It had to be a nightmare… it had to be…

But Varian realized that, unlike his son, he was living something real, even if it, too, was in its way a nightmare. The king had been taking the potions before the first of the sleepers; he was certain that they had somehow protected him by granting him no dreams.

Unfortunately, Varian had not made the connection in time to prevent his own son from falling prey.

And now, whatever lurked behind the sleepers, behind their troubled dreams, was encroaching on the capital wielding his own worst fears.

That gave Varian some strength. He turned to the nearest guard — the female with whom he had earlier spoken — and asked, “Do you see anything in the mist?”

Her shaking voice was enough to tell him how terrible the sight was to her. “I see… my father… dead in battle… Tomas… a comrade in arms… I see—”

King Varian looked to the assembled guards. “You see nothing but your imagination! Nothing but your fears! It or they know your fears and are feeding on them! These are nightmares, which mean that they are not what you think …”

They clearly took some heart from the strength of his voice.

Varian hid deep his own anxiety at the thought of Anduin and Tiffin.

If even while aware that they were false visions he was still affected by them, how were the rest of those in the city faring?

From outside the capital’s walls and near the edge of the mist, another horn sounded. One of the patrols on evening duty. Varian had for the moment forgotten about them. They were one of about half a dozen out this night…

“Give the recall!” he ordered the nearest trumpeter. “Give it now! I want them all in!”

The soldier blew the signal. Varian waited.

One patrol to the west responded. Another further south did.

From the northwest came another.

The fourth signal came from those near the mist. Varian breathed a sigh of relief as the horn blared —

And then the sound cut off too soon.

Worse… there was no reply at all from the other two.

“Again!”

The trumpeter blew. The king and the soldiers waited.

Silence.

Varian eyed the moving figures in the mist. Again, it was as if his view magnified to give him a much closer look. He knew that it was not by chance, but rather some work of whatever encroached upon his city. It sought to let him see what was happening, see and fear

…

And what the monarch of Stormwind saw did make him shudder, for it answered more questions. The many Anduins and Tiffins were no longer alone. Their ranks had been joined by shambling figures clad in armor marked by the proud lion on the breastplate.

Yet Varian could also see the prone bodies of those same men on the ground, even their steeds collapsed with them. Indeed, many of the gauntfaced soldiers rode mounts that had eyes without pupils and bodies that were twisted.

“It is the Scourge come to claim us again!” someone shouted.

Without looking at who had been speaking, the king commanded, “Silence! This is magical trickery, nothing more!

Nothing!”

Then… the mist and its army paused just before the walls. The Anduins and the Tiffins looked up, their soulless eyes upon those of Varian. Behind them, the other figures also stared up at the battlements.

Without warning, the Anduins and Tiffins looked over their shoulders at the unholy throng. Varian could not help but follow their gazes.

At first he saw only the soldiers mixed with them. Then other half-seen figures became apparent. Though their forms were indistinct… dreamlike… their faces were horrific parodies of normal folk.

And then… among them he saw a more distinct figure. A woman fair of face and with long, blond hair. If she had not been dressed as a mage, Varian might have ignored her as one more shadow.

It was Lady Jaina Proudmoore.

Her expression was as dire as the rest, a thing caught between horror and death. Varian stepped back, understanding that the situation was even more terrible than he had imagined. As if to verify this, to Jaina’s right another figure formed from the very mist.

The face was unknown to the king, but that did not matter. He spotted another take shape and another.

“Why do they not attack?” asked the guard with whom he had originally spoken. “Why?”

He did not answer, though he knew the reason. They were attacking. Piece by piece. The attrition of which he had earlier thought had a second purpose to it. The enemy was not merely reducing the ranks of the defenders; it was adding to its own. With each new sleeper — especially those like Anduin, caught unexpected by exhaustion — their numbers grew.

King Varian understood that all they had to do for the moment was wait… and victory would be theirs.

Tyrande prayed… and Elune responded to her servant.

As if a full, silvery moon itself suddenly filled the chamber, the light of the goddess magnified a thousand times, bathing all in its glory. Yet for the high priestess, Broll, and Lucan, the illumination comforted. It did not hurt their eyes, but soothed them.

Not so for Eranikus. The green leviathan reared back, his sleek yet massive form colliding with the wall and ceiling behind him. The chamber shook and huge chunks of stone broke from the cave walls. However, the Mother Moon’s light kept any of it from the trio.

The dragon let out a furious hiss. Yet rather than lunge again, Eranikus backed further. As he did, he began to shrink and transform.

“Consider yourselves fortunate!” he roared. “More fortunate than I could ever be…”

Already the dragon had all but reverted to the false elven shape.

Only traces here and there marked him as what he truly was.

Broll was already in action, but this time his attack was not physical. Instead, he cast a spell.

Eranikus let out a tremendous exhalation. The false elf blinked.

He looked upon the high priestess.

“A powerful attempt,” he complimented, “and almost successful… but I can never truly be soothed, even by the calm, loving light of Elune… too much tortures my heart…”

Still, the hooded figure neither renewed his attack nor fled.

Instead, he fell against the wall and shut his eyes. A shudder ran through Eranikus.

“I failed her so much. I failed her and all else…”

Tyrande prayed to Elune to lessen the moonlight, leaving it at a level that still served to allow Lucan to see all.

Eranikus slumped, finally ending up sitting on a part of the wall that thrust out like a chair.

“Great one,” she murmured. “If corrupted you once were, now that is clearly not so. Whatever failures you think you have committed, you now have the chance to right them.”

For her suggestion, Tyrande received another bitter laugh.

“Such naïveté! You have lived how long, night elf? A thousand, five thousand years?”

She stood proud. “I fought the Burning Legion when it first came to Azeroth! I faced Azshara! I was there when the Well of Eternity was destroyed!”

“More than ten thousand years, then,” Eranikus responded, his tone sounding not at all impressed. “A mere speck of time and experience compared to that of one of my kind and certainly one of my age in particular. Still, you have some meager way by which to measure my misery. Can you think of your most terrible failures?”

“I am well aware of them, yes …”