Turning, he headed with all haste for it.

A powerful figure seized him from behind. He smelled a body more unwashed than his. Lucan caught sight of the hands gripping the ax handle that squeezed the air from his chest — thereby also keeping him from shouting for help — and noted foremost that they were thick and green.

“Orc—” he gasped, the word barely even a whisper. Lucan tried again, but this time did not have any air. He began to grow dizzy and his vision grew cloudy.

It also grew… green.

As that happened, the pressure on his chest vanished.

However, a powerful force shoved him to the ground. Lucan fell on his face, the ground feeling much softer, more pleasant, than he knew it should have.

“Yes…” rumbled a voice that, though deep, was also female. “I am close… the place of emerald shadows…”

“Em — emerald?” Lucan managed. He looked up, and to his horror saw that the voice had spoken the truth. He was in the other realm…only this time he had not merely passed through.

Before the cartographer could register more, he was dragged up to a standing position, then spun halfway around.

It was an orc and it was female, although with a face that Lucan hoped for her sake was attractive to her kind. The mouth was very broad and the nose short and squat. The eyes so balefully fixed on him were the only features he could call attractive. In fact, they would have been striking on a human female.

The head of an ax jutted up under his chin. The orc growled, “Take me to him!”

“To — to who?”

“The honorless one! The base slayer! The evil threatening all! The night elf who calls himself Malfurion Stormrage!”

Lucan tried to pull his chin up, but the ax followed. Through clenched teeth, he answered, “I don’t know — know where to find him!”

This did not sit at all well with his captor. Lucan wondered why he did not slip back into Azeroth as he always had in the past. He concentrated…but nothing happened except that the orc pressed the ax head deeper into his chin.

“You know! The vision told me only last night! I saw you there, when he slew great and loyal Brox—”

“I’ve no — no idea what you’re—” He stopped when a stinging sensation under his chin informed him that the ax head had drawn blood.

“It was different again! Each time it tells me what to do! I am close, human! I will avenge my blood kin… and you will help, or you will share the night elf’s fate!”

Lucan knew that she meant it. He carefully murmured, “Yes…I’ll lead you there.”

The ax head lowered. The orc leaned close, her breath almost as strong as the scent of her body. She looked through him, her mind elsewhere. “My vengeance is destined… I dreamed that you would come out and where that place would be and it happened! Malfurion will die…”

She spun him back around again so that he could lead her. Only then did Lucan for the first time see the place through which he had previously only stumbled half-dead or rushed through.

The landscape nearest them was of an idyllic nature, an untouched place of natural beauty. Long, flowing grass spread over fields dotted with sloping hills and lush trees. It was clearly a place untouched by civilization. There were signs of wildlife, especially birds in the distance. It was truly like something out of a dream, he thought.

Then the cartographer noticed that there were no birds in the immediate area. All of them were far away. Seeing nothing in the direction he faced, he peered over his shoulder.

Lucan gaped. Even though the sight was still some great distance from their location, it so shook the human that he instantly tried desperately to return to the mortal plane to escape what he saw…but to no avail.

As if she did not see what no living creature could miss — and what no living creature should desire to face — the orc used the ax handle to brusquely shove Lucan forward…toward the Nightmare.

Eranikus shivered. “The way was opened!” He peered around.

“Where is the human?”

All argument was forgotten as the trio sought Lucan. Broll picked up the trail first. “He went this way!”

Tyrande followed the druid, but Eranikus whirled the opposite direction. Neither night elf had time to concern themselves with the dragon, who seemed steadfast in his refusal to help them.

Broll broke out into the open moments later. The mist was thicker and much too reminiscent of Auberdine.

“Do you see him?” the high priestess asked.

“No, but in this muck, he might be only a few yards away.”

Tyrande held one palm before her and began praying under her breath. The mist began to move back, as if pushed by some unseen hand.

But in the area revealed, there was no immediate sign of the cartographer. The druid again studied the ground, quickly finding Lucan’s barely visible tracks.

“He went along this way, but it looks like he was pacing a lot. He—” Broll paused, then all but pressed his face against the hard ground as he took in other details. “There’s another set of prints… and by their shape, I’d guess an orc.”

“An orc? Here?”

A heavy flapping of wings caused both night elves to look up and behind themselves. Overhead, the immense form of the green dragon appeared in all his terrible majesty. He was huge in comparison to most dragons either had seen, other than the Great Aspects. Yet Eranikus was also sleeker, longer, than many. He hovered, his huge, webbed wings spreading far to each side. Two long horns darted back from the top of his head. His narrow jaws opened, revealing an unnerving array of sharp teeth as long as Broll’s arm. Under his chin, a slight tuft of hair gave Ysera’s consort a more scholarly look.

More astounding, Eranikus shimmered slightly, as if not completely attuned to the mortal plane. It added an ethereal quality to the leviathan and marked the ties he still had with the Emerald Dream despite his previous troubles.

Eranikus surveyed the region.

“There is no sign of the little human, anywhere, though admittedly I am near blind, using my eyes like some mortal creature!” the dragon finally hissed. Unsaid by him was the fact that, under the circumstances, he dared not view the world through dreamsight. That risked too much contact with the Emerald Dream

…and so, the Nightmare. “And the way has closed again!”

“He was taken,” Broll explained, “by an orc, it seems.”

The behemoth bared his sharp teeth. “He must have tried to escape using his unique circumstances.”

“If he did…then he took the orc with him,” Tyrande pointed out.

Still hovering, Eranikus cocked his head. “I have smelled orc here, but it was a small scent, meaning perhaps one, and no orc would be foolish enough to seek me…” He hissed again. “Unlike night elves!”

Broll did not like the sound of the first part. “Why would an orc stay here for days? What could they want from this place?”

“It could be coincidence,” replied the high priestess, “but I rather think someone wanted the orc here from the start. The orc’s presence, coupled with Lucan’s own and his past association with Eranikus, make it too difficult to believe that any of it is due to chance…”

A sinister rumbling escaped the green dragon. He glared at the night elves. “I will join with you long enough to bring you to Ashenvale and make certain that your path is clear! No more than that!”

While both were grateful, Broll had to ask, “But why change your mind? Why draw so near to what you dread so much?”

Eranikus stared into empty air as he contemplated something.

Finally, “Because I do not like the notion that perhaps something has been working all this time…just so this orc can reach the Nightmare!”

The druid was incredulous. “But for what reason?”

The great dragon looked troubled, so troubled that the night elves’ unease grew by volumes. “Well we might ask, little druid