Ignoring the vermin, Broll raced to the nearest, Tyrande at his side. Eranikus remained where he was, the green dragon clearly shaken by the harm he had done.

“The sleepers…” Broll realized. “These are the sleepers…”

“I may have slain all of them in Azeroth as if I had stood over the bed of each and scorched them with fire!” Ysera’s consort growled. “Unable to escape their dreaming, they would have suffered as they have here!”

“You don’t know that,” argued the druid. “You don’t—”

The brittle bones of the night elf over which he had been kneeling shifted.

A blackened, fleshless hand gripped his wrist and a skull with two ruined eyes bent up toward him.

The ruined corpse shrieked its agony again. It reached with more ravaged fingers.

Broll tugged as hard as he could. “I can’t free myself!”

Tyrande readied the glaive, then hesitated. Instead, she prayed.

The shrieking subsided. The skeleton faded away.

But other victims renewed their mournful cries. Tyrande continued her prayer, using one hand to spread the power of her patron across the visible landscape.

The ravaged bodies disappeared. Only when the last had gone did the high priestess cease her efforts. By then, she was shaking.

Broll and Eranikus were not much better. “They were suffering!”

the druid spat. “They were really suffering!”

“I did not know!” the dragon retorted defensively. “I would do no harm to the innocent! It is the Nightmare,” Eranikus reminded them.

“It knows what hurts you the most, what you fear the most…and it feeds off that…”

Tyrande took some hope from that. “Then, is this all illusion that we face?”

“No…the greatest nightmare that the Nightmare offers is its growing reality.”

That settled it for Broll. “We must find Malfurion and quickly…”

He looked into the mist, for the first time realizing the enormity of what he suggested. “But…which direction?”

“I will find where he is,” the high priestess declared with utter conviction. She looked haunted. “No one, not even you as a fellow druid, know him as I do, Broll.”

He did not deny that fact. “But I have a thought as to how to search, also. I—”

The landscape abruptly shifted. The night elves were tossed to the infested ground. Eranikus chose to rise up over the trouble.

However, even there he was buffeted.

At last things calmed. Tyrande pushed herself up, quickly wiping off those millipedes and other carrion creatures that still stuck to her. Broll murmured a spell, but the vermin would not listen to him.

They were not like the fauna of Azeroth. Like the high priestess, he resigned himself to brushing them away.

Eranikus alighted. The high priestess eyed him reprovingly.

Surprisingly, the green dragon looked away in guilt.

“What happened now?” Broll asked Eranikus. They were now in a hillier region, with ominous, shadowed paths that disappeared into the infernal mists.

“This is the Nightmare; ask me not the reason for anything that occurs here save that it is not something we should want!”

Tyrande peered ahead. “There is a castle or some structure ahead. On that third hill.”

Both the green dragon and Broll shook their heads, the druid saying, “There’re no buildings anywhere save the Eye.”

“Then whatever I see must be part of the Nightmare.” Before she could add more, there was yet again movement in the mist.

The high priestess did not waste time, illuminating the vicinity with the Mother Moon’s light.

But what she revealed was not what any of them expected.

It was Lucan Foxblood.

“You!” Broll rumbled. He seized the human before anything could separate them. Lucan stared at him with eyes as wide and as hollow as death, but was clearly no phantasm.

“You’re real…” he whispered. A faint, somewhat mad grin flickered across his drawn face. “It’s you…” He looked to Tyrande and his grin grew a little calmer. “And you…” Then he saw what loomed behind the night elves and his growing relief vanished.

“We are all your friends,” Tyrande reassured him.

Lucan settled down. “Real…all of you…” His eyes darted to the side. “I tried to leave, but something held me here…I tried to leave, but something wanted her to keep on…”

The druid seized hold of the last part. “‘Her’? The orc, you mean? A female?”

“Yes…yes…”

“You know as well as I do that there is little difference between a female and a male orc when it comes to battle,” Tyrande pointed out to Broll. “One should never underestimate either.”

“I wasn’t thinking that. Just wondering who she might be and why she happened to be here.”

“Her name is Thura,” Lucan offered almost tonelessly. “She came to kill him. She came to kill your Malfurion Stormrage.”

The pronouncement made even the dragon gape. Tyrande seized Lucan by the throat, but Broll managed to calm her.

“Hear him out, my lady! He’s not to blame!”

“He said that she wants to slay Malfurion! He brought her here to do it—” But Tyrande finally caught herself. “Against his will, though…I know that…Lucan…I am sorry…”

Lucan gave her a nervous smile. It was clear that he liked the high priestess.

Broll brought him back to the subject. “The orc! She came to kill Malfurion…why? How would she know how to find him? Did she say?”

“The visions…she babbled something about visions…she said that…that they led her to me…that they showed her the path to him piece by piece…the visions were helping her avenge her kin and save Azeroth, too, she said…”

“An orc blood oath,” Tyrande muttered. “I know them well. She will not stop until she either is slain or succeeds.” The high priestess shook her head. “The second part…it must be madness…”

“Whatever the case, something wants her to succeed,” the druid added. To Lucan, he asked, “But the first thing…she thinks Malfurion slew one of hers? What of it? Orcs understand death in battle.”

The human concentrated. “She said — she said that he was a

‘base murderer.’ That he betrayed his friend and killed him when his back was turned in trust…I think.”

It was more than Tyrande could stand. She brandished the glaive, which made Lucan step back in concern. “Lies! All of it! A threat to Azeroth? Ha! Truly madness as I said! And even the declaration of betrayal — Malfurion would never do such a thing! As proof of that, he has rarely even had the opportunity, for the number of orcs he could claim as comrade could be counted on one hand!”

“It was only one time she mentioned! She said a name! Bruxigan

…Broxigan—”

“Broxigar?” The high priestess staggered back. She dropped the glaive. Tears welled up in her eyes. “Brox!” Tyrande shouted to the others. “An orc who lived before his time! As a novice, I befriended him when he was captured by my people! He fought the Burning Legion and Azshara’s servants alongside us”—she swallowed—“and he died holding the way, so Krasus has affirmed, against the demons’ dread lord himself, Sargeras!”

The druid’s gaze sharpened. “It must be him who she speaks about.”

“But he was Malfurion’s friend!” the distraught high priestess went on. “They never fought with one another, and Malfurion honored him with me when it was all over! You must remember, Broll! Our people raised up a statue to him, the only orc ever to be given homage by us!”

“I recall it…now.” Broll frowned. “Then if it’s him she speaks about, she’s been tricked…and the Nightmare sounds like the cause…”

“For what reason, though?”

“Isn’t it obvious, my lady? Because he’s a threat to the power behind it even now. It gives us some hope at least, then. It means he must have some ability to fight for himself.”

Tyrande seized on that hope. Eyes drying, she said, “Then we must hurry to him! Lucan, when you escaped, did you pay attention to which direction she went? I know the mist is everywhere, but there is that…castle…” The high priestess pointed at the distant shape. “Do you know in relation to that?”