Title is Dawn of the Ashbringer
The wings never moved. The swollen murderous claws glistened black above the ashes: it was a monstrosity incarnate. Gliding slow as death it grinned, and one thousand huge teeth bloomed like fire from darkness.
Eyes the size of a child's head. Red as a sea of blood, unblinking. Unblinking. In those eyes you saw everything - life, death, nothingness. Eyes like a red moon ripe before the harvest.
Few words could the describe the demon. For what is more facile than Death? Death consumes, death devours. It delights in the souls of children. A million souls, maybe more. From beyond time and beyond the stars the demon came, for it was ageless.
Souls. It hungered for them. This planet would provide untold numbers.
Ten feet of pure evil fell upon the ground and instantly within a radius all forest life died. The powerful legs flexed as the soil burned beneath them. The shadowy wings folded above the hulking mass of terror. Hell itself had come to Azeroth.
Kor'vazz was it's name, though it's true name was unknown to mortal ears. The language of the Legion was esoteric as it was obscure. "Souls," it grinned again.
"Kor'vazz." Came the reply. Before the demon stood a Lieutenant of the Burning Legion. Though smaller in stature than the giant, Gor'tal still had considerable mass. A knot of twisted gore protruded from his spine; he gripped a gnarled codex tightly.
"They flee before us, Kor'vazz. Like rats, like rats from a burning wood. Can you believe - and the children...the...the children..."
The air deadened as if molded into lead. The leafy scrub around the demons prostrated into a trance. The larger of the two elevated his massive head as if to act upon a sudden urgency. The reply was like a writhing serpent springing out of his throat. Spliced. Disturbing. "And of the children?"
Gor'tal shook his head. A smile played upon his green flesh as a strange rattle filled the edges of the wind. The Lieutenant stiffened as his chuckle, his rasp echoed into the vale.
"They are...pure, your grace."
With the measured tick of a killer cobra the eyes of Kor'vazz went blank. The silence of the trees was so suffocating that the leaves themselves stood hairlike in a vise grip. Those eyes. They penetrated you, punctured your soul. Eyes the size of a child's head. Eyes like nothing you've ever seen.
The suppression of sound amongst the demons climaxed. Nothing moved, nothing stirred. The shadow of death had been cast. The scorched trees, the dead fauna. The bubbling earth. And yet, something somehow arose out of the deafness, slowly, then as evenly as an arrow loosed into oblivion. In a great avalanche of necrosis the head tilted upwards. A bird fell dead at his feet.The pale skin across his face split into a vulture-like smile. Kor'vazz gurgled. Licked his lips.
"Bring me."
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A child of Elven origin. Luminous and slender, her violet skin was ripe with youth. She cried with burning lungs as the demons took her from her home. Her parents were dead. A pile of ashes remained.
Gor'tal hunched his spine, flaying the air with an arm. He cackled. Blood and viscera sprayed from the mound of gore on his back, slashing the ground with a tepid hiss.
"The purity," he croaked, "is beyond any planet we have encountered, your grace. These beings are ripe with magic!" With reverence he opened his bound pages to the parchment near the end. His long fingers danced like a huge spider weaving a web. "Argus be damned!"
Kor'vazz stood motionless, a horrific bird of prey. His back was turned and the earth cauterized around his hooves. The great wings were folded; the giant claws lifeless, still as a river swollen with corpses.
"Bring the child to me." His deep voice hummed strangely, ponderously. A black cloth concealed the terrible eyes from view.
The lesser scouting demons, smaller in stature than both Kor'vazz and Gor'tal, cackled in a hellish display of malevolence. The biggest of them started forward with the girl. With heaving cries she stumbled, dress torn and ankles bloodied. In an iron grip the demon burned the skin from her wrists.
"Slowly. Carefully."
The girl was stopped before the beast. In all of creation none so terrible as he existed. The portents of hell itself had brought him upon this planet. And so the predator turned to the prey.
Beyond language Kor'thazz withdrew a small object, a gilded crystal marked with symbols. In his swollen hands he held it to his head. The demon turned around.
I read your thoughts. The demon spoke telepathically.
Under the veil Kor'thazz sensed the soul of the child. It was bright, yellow and orblike. A fey whisper on the winds. A pure soul.
Where are your parents? Kor'thazz inquired in her mind.
The girl shrieked louder and the demon holding her worked his mouth. A nightmare of teeth and tongue escaped for an instant as he grinned.
Blood began to run from her eyes. The very presence of the demon Lord started to burn the insides of the elf. With heaving sobs she clutched her stomach with a free hand. Yet with a resilience that surprised even Kor'thazz she stared at his veil, her reddened eyes mad with agony, broken from sorrow.
With Elune, her mind screamed. They are with Elune now.
An eternity of seconds passed.
Under the veil his eyes opened, and he removed the cloth from his face.
No, child. They are with me now.
Upon seeing the Demon her eyes froze. In a mist of red they exploded, and her screams rang out louder and louder until her lungs burst.
He had transformed. In his eyes were the faces of her parents, ghost-like and wavering. Help, they cried. Help us. The red orbs burned through the child as she violently jerked her head back and forth. The only sound was a rasping howl.
Join them, Kor'thazz whispered.
He opened his mouth.
The voices of a thousand, a million children rang out from the depths. Save us, they screamed. Save us.
Forever they cried, forever lost within the terror. And then the darkness consumed her.