The inner gates were only a few more strides away. The Sunward’s flowing red hair served as a guide for him to follow. He was right behind her.
But something gripped him. All around him. Squeezing, constricting, leather and bones creaked in protest. He was pulled back. The Sunward grew further away and the small Deathstalker was lifted off the ground.
He looked down in shock; his arm was pinned to his side, gripped by fat, scaly fingers. A visage of gnarled teeth drew near, fel smoke coiled around its fangs, and a gurgling, horrible laugh boiled from its throat. It was surprised.
Of all the things to pluck from the armies of Silvermoon, the Pit Lord had in its grasp a lasting reminder of the Legion’s Scourge.
Jonathan struggled and fought. His dagger plunged into the demon’s swollen fingers over and over again, but it only incited more amusement from the beast. There was no escaping its grasp.
Its cavernous jaws closed in on the boy and crunched down on his armor. His leather crisped from fel fire. His legs and torso were crushed beneath its teeth. Bones cracked until they shattered from the pressure.
But the Pit Lord’s prey kept fighting, frantically stabbing and scarring its jaws, its face, until his knife found purchase in something precious; the demon’s eye. The Pit Lord ripped its head back with a bloody, guttural scream! Fel ooze gushed from its wound and Jon’s armor and bones were viciously torn apart from the sudden, pained recoil.
The creature retaliated, cruelly crunching Jon’s severed legs in his teeth and spat them upon the courtyard of the Dawnspire. And as for what was left of Jon, the Pit Lord crushed the puny Forsaken in its claws and launched him over its shoulder like waste.
Refuse. Useless…
The Legion hordes trampled over Jon’s remains and all he could do was watch. Packs of felstalkers pounded their paws near his face as they passed by. Felguard and Praetorian marched over his corpse. Demons flooded the fields, eager to cross over the Dawnspire’s crumbled outer walls.
It was then he realized how far the Pit Lord had thrown him. He wasn’t even in the courtyards anymore. He was outside, completely at the Legion’s mercy. He was completely still. Just another body on the battlefield.
He recalled this happening once before, but that was different. He was waiting for his prey to step over him then, unwitting, and unaware that the corpses that littered the fields would be the worgens’ doom. This time he was helpless.
More demons flooded over the gates. How could they ever achieve victory?
As the endless stampede rumbled by, a shadow stopped to loom over the boy. Jon’s eyes briefly flickered to see a crown of blackened antlers. Its vaporous form approached, its many eyes blinking and staring, peering into him.
Blinding light shined in its wake, and the Dawnspire beyond threatened to erupt. The horrid Light spread and so too did the black stag’s shadow, engulfing him…protecting him…
Tyleril Silversword 