c11.2

The Four Horsemen had an entire section of the Military Quarter for themselves. One might think that this was because they were the most powerful death knights 'alive', and that was certainly part of it, but the real reason was…

"Invaders!" The Horseman identified as Sir Zeliek spoke up as soon as he saw them, his tone a desperate plea. "Turn back while you still can!"

The former paladin was a peculiar anomaly. His faith in life had been so strong that even in death the Holy Light still answered his call. This allowed him to retain much more of his old personality and even control of his mouth, if not his body.

This made him very, very annoying for the other death knights to deal with, as the man continually entreated them to fight against the Scourge's control. That venture didn't have much success, but it certainly infuriated them, which sometimes led to fights, which Sir Zeliek was happy to use as an excuse to deprive the Scourge of bodies.

Or it had, until Kel'Thuzad got annoyed enough to confine the Horsemen to their own private part of the Military Quarter.

It also made him Harry's first target among the four, as it meant that his mind was less bent than the others.

"Come now, Zeliek, we've not even had our fun yet." Lady Blaumeux said wickedly,

"I'd love to have some fun with you." Harry cut in flirtatiously, stepping forward. "Why don't you bring your sexy self over here and give me a kiss?"

"Unbelievable, he's even hitting on the undead." Arko muttered incredulously.

Ah, she didn't realize his plan. If Blaumeux was actually dumb enough to take him up on that offer, then he'd be able to free one of the Horsemen without a fight.

"Ohoho, I do like the bold ones." The female death knight chuckled hollowly behind her horned and veiled helm. "Perhaps once you join us in death, we can… get to know each other."

"Are you threatening me with a good time?" Harry challenged, privately marveling at the absurdity of this situation. Blaumeux must have been a huge flirt in life if she was still keeping it up as a death knight, given that he knew for a fact that sex – being a life-affirming action – would be downright painful for the undead even if it was physically possible.

"What are you doing?!" Jessir hissed at him quietly, but Harry just waved at her to keep quiet.

"This fool is mad, yet still I wish not to kill him." Zeliek spoke up, apparently to himself.

Maybe he wasn't quite as sane as Harry had originally thought…

"I've heard enough a' yer snivelin'!" Thane Korth'azz, the sole dwarf of the foursome yelled in frustration. "Shut your flytrap before I shut it for ye'!"

"Save your anger for these invaders and traitors." Alexandros Mograine finally spoke, his tone completely flat and dead despite the aggressive words. "We will grind their bones to dust."

Harry felt a shiver of nervousness at the rising sense of power he was getting from these four. They were on a whole other level compared to the rank and file death knights at his back. Mograine and the corrupted Ashbringer in his hands felt especially potent.

"Father!" Darion cried out with a sort of anguished determination. "I will free you, I swear it!"

Idiot boy. What was the point of making declarations like that to a man that couldn't even control his own actions?

"The son of our illustrious leader?" Blaumexu purred, which was an especially strange sound with the necromantic rasp behind her voice. "How interesting."

"We ride!" Mograine announced and the Four Horsemen began charging and shit were they fast.

The room that Kel'Thuzad had given them was large enough for them to fight mounted, but it also meant that there was enough space for a good number of the liberated death knights to enter without any fear of getting in each other's way. Only the strongest had come, as there was only so many people that could fight four enemies at once.

Harry quickly dashed to the side, as did the entire frontline. Behind them, several death knights to which he had given net launchers stepped forth and fired their weapons.

The Four Horsemen didn't slow down in the slightest, each using their own particular brand of power to knock the heavy metal-weaved nets away.

"Scatter!" Someone yelled just before the four-person cavalry charge hit.

And boy did it hit. Death knights that only got glancing blows were sent flying as if they'd been hit by a train, the ones that took direct hits were simply trampled. It was like someone had condensed a full platoon of cavalry into a single rider.

Alright, Plan A was a bust. Harry acknowledged. But Plan B is still underway.

It would have been overly optimistic to assume that the nets would work perfectly, so Plan B took failure into account. The liberated death knights may not be as powerful as the Four Horsemen, but they weren't weak. Certainly, they were strong enough and fortified with enough defensive enchantments to absorb the charge without excessive casualties.

Once the Horsemen were committed, Luna cast what could only be called either a reverse blessing or a holy curse on them, a spell that crippled the undead instead of bolstering the living. She had to be careful with the actual blessings due to their party now being largely composed of death knights.

The Horsemen visibly flinched as Elune's purifying divine power pressed down on them, eating away at the putrid necromantic magic animating them. Not enough to instantly destroy them, but enough to weaken them to a significant degree.

Then Jessir and the volunteer night elf Sentinels did their part, firing concussive arrows at the riders in an attempt to knock them off. The Horsemen stubbornly stayed mounted for a time, blocking the arrows either magically or physically, but then one of Jessir's supercharged arrows nailed Blaumeux right in the chest and sent the female death knight flying off her horse.

A group of death knights instantly peeled off and ran after her, a prior conversation with Teleron having revealed that the female Horseman specialized in shadow magic and lifedrain spells. Those would have less purchase against fellow undead.

At the same time, Harry had been conjuring a fireball into his hands and shaping the spell for a specific purpose. It was loosed mere moments after Blaumeux was knocked off her horse, the flaming spell rocketing into Zeliek's chest.

A normal fireball would have exploded and damaged everything around it, this one had more physicality to it and struck like a warhammer. Instead of expending its power in all directions, it acted more like a rocket booster and launched the Light-using Horseman off his mount.

As previously strategized, Arko, Grunn'Holde and a couple of Sentinels broke off and went after him. Even if Zeliek could still use the Holy Light, a discussion with Sylvanas on the matter revealed that any undead doing so suffered terribly for it. There were a few stubborn priests among the Forsaken that refused to abandon the Light even though it rejected their existence and simply endured the pain of using it. Fighting against Arko, Zeliek would be at twice the disadvantage.

There was no need to knock Than Korth'azz off his mount – the death knights around him simply hacked it down.

That left only Mograine, the most powerful and most troublesome of the Four Horsemen. The former bane of the undead was swinging the corrupted Ashbringer in wide arcs, leaving behind trails of burning necromantic energy. Luna had to constantly counter the putrid magic radiating from both sword and Horseman to keep him from slaughtering everyone around him. Darion was likewise having trouble containing his undead father's rampage.

Back when Alexandros Mograine had still lived and the Ashbringer had still been pure, legions of undead had been turned to ash by the two of them. It didn't appear to have as much power in its corrupted form, but it was still a fearsome weapon.

Harry personally thought that the craftsmanship was shoddy. He had no doubt that the actual smithing was excellent, as it had been forged by Magni Bronzebeard, but the dwarven king was no wizard or enchanter. The mere fact that the sword could be corrupted – and so easily at that – was inexcusable as far as he was concerned. No weapon that he made would have been that wishy-washy in its alignment. If someone wanted to corrupt Arko's Holy Moonlight Greatsword, for example, they would have to put in so much effort and be so much more likely to simply destroy it in the attempt as to render it not worth the bother.

But this was no time to be critiquing other people's work, there were undead to be freed.

Harry decided to leave Mograine to the others since they seemed to have him contained for now. Taking his draconic poleaxe out of hammerspace, the wizard charged at Sir Zeliek.

The Light-using death knight was being kept in a stalemate by Arko and Grunn'Holde at melee while the trio of Sentinels backing them up continually harassed him with disabling arrows.

"Why do you hesitate?" Zeliek cried out in frustration, apparently having figured out that they weren't trying to kill him. "Cut me down!"

Harry got his attention with an excessively loud battlecry, swinging his poleaxe in a massive overhead swing. Zeliek was too surrounded to dodge and had to block, bringing up his sword and calling upon the Light to bolster his defense.

One weapon impacted the other with terrible force, but Harry immediately let go of the poleaxe and lunged forward with his hand. Zeliek stumbled forward at the sudden lack of pressure, and Harry's gauntleted palm grabbed his face before he could recover.

A now-practiced flex of divine authority and the Horseman was freed of the Lich King's domination.

"Go help them contain Mograine, I'll be there in a minute!" Harry barked orders are the disoriented man and rushed off to his next target.

While disoriented by his sudden freedom, Zeliek was still a combat veteran and knew how to prioritize, so it only took him a few seconds to get his wits about him.

"Lead the way, ladies." He said with about as much happiness as any undead was capable of feeling.

While that was happening, Harry was charging towards Lady Blaumeux. She was more of a caster than a melee fighter, having apparently been a priestess of Light in life. In death, she had turned to the Shadow and specialized in area control by casting Void zones on the ground. This was forcing the death knights fighting her to keep repositioning.

He yelled another battlecry to call attention to himself and the death knights responded by pressing in closer. Up to now, they had played it safe and not truly engaged the significantly more powerful undead, but as soon as the signal was given they put on the pressure, forcing Blaumeux to expend time and effort to keep them from surrounding her.

That was all the opening Harry needed. A quick Grease spell under her feet – an old favorite that never stopped being useful – and Blaumeux suddenly found her footing to be rather more slippery than it had been a second ago. A caster on her level would probably figure out a way to counter it quickly enough, but that momentary stumble defeated her.

Harry swung his poleaxe diagonally and then abandoned it as soon as Blaumeux awkwardly raised her sword to block, lunging forward to grab her veiled face.

"What?" The female Horseman asked in confusion as the urge to do the will of Kel'Thuzad and the Lich King suddenly vanished.

"I set you free." Harry explained succintly. "If you want to help, go delay Mograine, but no killing!"

And then he was off, rushing towards Thane Korth'azz.

Blaumeux stayed on the floor for a moment, just blinking away the confusion. The sudden lack of compulsion to obey was much more disorienting for her than it had been for Zeliek, who had managed to retain more of his mind.

She took off her helm and considered the odd wizard's order, marveling at how she felt neither the urge to obey nor resist. There was no longer a foreign will subverting her own.

The confusion faded as the new reality of the situation became clear. She was free, and the wizard intended to free her fellow Horsemen as well. Even if they were all serving against their will, they had still been comrades, so the choice of what to do next was obvious.

Blaumeux took a firm grip on her sword and started running towards where Mograine was fighting. The Four Horsemen always ride together and this would be no different.

Thane Korth'azz had by this point noticed what was going on. It wasn't even that hard to figure out. Their former subordinates had rebelled and sided with the invaders, they were fighting to delay and obstruct rather than to kill and now two of the Horsemen had turned as soon as that armored wizard touched them.

The undead dwarf knew that he was too badly outnumbered to get out of this, but that didn't mean he was going to make it easy for them.

"Come and face me, ye wee ninny." Korth'azz bellowed, conjuring up mini meteors with reckless abandon. Before, he had paced himself, but now he no longer bothered. "I'll make all of ye extra crispy!"

"Who are you calling 'wee', midget?" Harry yelled back, countering the flaming assault. Korth'azz was a peculiarity of a paladin, having an affinity for fire that would have been better suited for a mage. That had apparently transitioned into undeath just fine. "I've got two and a half feet on you."

"Elves have tiny peckers, everyone knows that." The dwarf sneered back.

"Can we please just kill him?" Teleron requested in a growl, being one of the death knights assigned to contain the fiery dwarf Horseman. "The world doesn't need another vulgar dwarf in it."

"No." Harry's helmet hid his amused grin. If anything, the dwarf's crass insult just made him more determined to save him. "Advance!"

The death knights obeyed, casting spells of protection and obstruction on Korth'azz while Harry advanced with his poleaxe ready to parry the dwarf's skull-topped mace/scepter.

Korth'azz roared in frustrated fury at being unable to properly kill anyone. The freed death knights had been playing the fight defensively the whole time; stalling, refusing to engage properly. It was enough to drive a dwarf mad!

He called up all the power he could muster for one final spell, perfectly willing to blow himself up as well if it would take some of his attackers along.

But then Harry was in his face, hooking the blade of his poleaxe around the shaft of his mace/scepter thing and yanking himself forward, hand outstretched to palm the dwarf's hairy face.

It only took a moment of contact for the wizard to expel the Lich King's will from the Horseman's soul, but the volatile spell was already too far along to be stopped. Korth'azz had known what was coming so he was less confused as his desire to kill the invaders abruptly shifted into gratitude for his freedom. It was just enough time to make a last second alteration to his suicidal spell. A fiery explosion scattered everyone away with singed armor, while the dwarf himself collapsed onto the ground.

"Are you still un-alive over there, midget?" Harry called out unsympathetically as he picked himself up. His spellforged armor, the lingering effects of once having been a god of fire and his elementium bones left him virtually unscathed by the half-aborted suicide spell.

"… ye've still got a small pecker." Korth'azz groused painfully. "Ye did alright, though, I'll give ye that."

"He's fine." Harry declared. "Let's go get Mograine while the good dwarf recovers his delicate constitution."

"My delicate constitution?!" Korth'azz squawked in outrage, already pushing himself up on his feet despite his charred body. "Get back here and I'll show ye who has the delicate constitution!"

But Harry was already moving towards Mograine.

The leader of the Four Horsemen was being pressed from all sides. Luna was continually renewing the holy curse that crippled his necromantic powers, the man's son was engaging him in melee from one side while Arko took the other, death knights used their own magics to slow him down, Jessir and the Sentinels were blasting him with concussive arrows to knock him off balance, and now at the last his former comrades Sir Zeliek and Lady Blaumeux had joined the fray as well.

Even still Mograine remained dangerous, because despite everything being thrown at him, they weren't trying to kill him or even seriously injure him. The Horseman had no such need to hold back and every swing of the corrupted Ashbringer was made with lethal intent.

Darion was still trying to talk his father into surrendering.

"Father, lay down your sword, please!" The younger Mograine pleaded. "Can you not see that you are defeated?"

"Listen to your son, Highlord." Zeliek backed him up. "Freedom is near."

"You waste your breath, boys." Blaumeux was audibly rolling her eyes. "The Lich King's voice is the only one he heeds."

Harry sympathized with her exasperation. If it was that easy to get people out of the Lich King's thrall, more people would be doing it.

"I will present your mangled corpses to the master." Mograine growled out. "You will serve him for eternity!"

"See?" Blaumeux said smugly. "Just hold him down so that our strapping savior can snap him out of it."

Seeing Harry approaching, Arko shifted tactics and locked her Holy Moonlight Greatsword against the corrupted Ashbringer, drawing on Elune to bolster her strength. The magically sensitive among them could almost hear the tormented metaphysical screech as the opposing powers clashed.

Zeliek and Darion were quick to pile on top of the last Horseman, grabbing onto his arms to restrain him. Blaumeux elected to help by barraging her former leader with draining Shadow magic, siphoning away his strength.

Mograine struggled and roared defiantly, but Harry was already there, slapping a hand over his head. And thus it was over, the fight abruptly leaving the man as the Lich King's weighty presence vanished from his soul.

The corrupted Ashbringer clattered to the ground as the newly freed death knight blinked up at his son.

"…Darion?" He asked, almost disbelievingly.

"Father!" The younger Mograine replied joyously.

"Well, that was exciting." Blaumeux commented, stepping away from the sort-of family reunion and approaching Harry. "I never did get to introduce myself, did I? Colette Blaumeux, formerly of the Silver Hand. How do you do?"

She took off her helmet, revealing a woman of late middle age, her dark hair streaked with grey, though it was hard to tell properly beneath the pallor of undeath and the somewhat… flexible relationship with aging people had on Azeroth.

Harry had seen an old sorceress in Stormwind once. She'd had silver hair, but the body of a twenty-year-old and nary a wrinkle on her face. And it wasn't just an unusual hair color either, given that she had been escorting a grandchild around the city. The average woman didn't have it quite so extreme, but Azeroth's heavy magical density was clearly at play.

He took off his own helmet, smirking as her eyebrows shot up in surprise at seeing that he wasn't a night elf despite his size and the look of his armor.

"Charmed, I'm sure." He said with a smile, taking her hand. She had angled it palm down as if to have him press a kiss to her fingers, but like hell was he doing that to a walking corpse. Just touching her sent a reflexive shiver of revulsion shooting up his spine. To say nothing of the how long it had been since that armor had been cleaned. "My name is Harry, and I have a proposition for you, if you wish to hear it."

"Oh?" She purred, abandoning the fake pout she had been giving him for refusing to kiss her hand. "Do tell, Harry."

"Help me kick the bone marrow out of Kel'Thuzad's arse, then we can go over to my place and I bring you back to life."

All four of the Horsemen stiffened in shock and surprise, in much the same way that every death knight to whom he'd made this offer so far did.

"You can restore us to life?" Zeliek asked, desperation leaking into his tone.

"I can." Harry nodded firmly. "The method has already been tested and I will begin restoring the Forsaken as soon as Sylvanas Windrunner deems the Plaguelands secure enough to afford the disruption to her military disposition."

Alexandros Mograine now stepped forward to speak for the Horsemen, and the other three automatically fell in line behind him.

"We accept your terms."

XXXXX

They didn't all finish their respective quarters at the same time.

Sylvanas and her Forsaken were the first, followed some time afterwards by Eligor Dawnbringer. Jaina was a relatively close third. Harry, having objectives besides just 'get in there and wreck shit' took much longer.

That left three groups of people standing around awkwardly, at semi-attention in case something attacked them. Well, Eligor was awkward. Jaina was still brooding over the horrors she'd seen and Sylvanas was half-expecting some kind of betrayal.

"What's with this atmosphere?" Harry joked as he walked out of the Military Quarter with a small army of death knights at his back. "I've met death knights less gloomy."

"I see your plan worked." Sylvanas commented, looking over at the gathered host, especially the Four Horsemen. A part of her mind began automatically plotting ways to bring them into the Forsaken before recalling that the Forsaken might not exist for much longer.

"Yes, we made so many new friends!" Luna beamed happily.

A small chuckle of amusement was heard from Lady Blaumeux.

"Did anyone have any noteworthy trouble?" Harry asked.

"No." "Not really." Came from Sylvanas and Jaina, both of them keeping it short for vastly different reasons.

"Your suggestion to 'kill it with fire' worked beautifully." Eligor said wryly, nodding towards group of dwarves holding their loaned flamethrowers possesively.

"Would ye mind if we kept these, laddy?" One of them asked hopefully, a pyromaniac gleam in his eye. "They'd be mighty handy for clearing out the Plaguelands."

"You can have fun with them until they run out of fuel, then I'll need them back." He decreed "We'll be teleporting most of you back to Light's Hope Chapel anyway while the strongest of us move up to take out Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad."

"Could you free Sapphiron like you did these death knights?" Jaina asked. "I can't say I'm eager to fight a reanimated ancient blue dragon and he deserves his freedom as much as anyone."

"Maybe." Harry admitted. "But from what I hear there's not much left of him except bones. That's not enough for my restoration cocktail to work even if he wasn't too big for it, and I don't think I can make a fresh dragon body to transfer his soul into."

Azeroth's dragons were more than just flesh, after all. He couldn't replicate the blessing of the Titans even if he successfully adapted a method meant for mammals for giant lizards.

"No, I think we're going to have to just kill him." He continued. "Blue dragons are known to be cranky bastards at the best of times and I doubt several years of undeath have improved Sapphiron's disposition."

"I see." Jaina frowned slightly, but accepted the explanation.

"Don't die." Teleron said to Harry seriously a few minutes later, as they prepared to teleport away all the extras. "It would be terribly ironic if you ended up being enslaved by Kel'Thuzad after freeing us from him."

"Yeah, that's not happening." Harry snorted in amusement.

"That is exactly the fate that awaits us if we fail." Zeliek warned. "The archlich will not hesitate to reanimate any of us once again if we are slain."

"That is the fate that awaits you." Harry corrected. "I used to be a god of freedom and as such, my own freedom is inviolable. No binding either physical or magical can hold me."

Gods and their domains were peculiar things, twisting reality around them. No matter how secure any binding was supposed to be, a way to escape would always present itself shortly.

"So if he tried to raise you…?"

"Yes, I would just turn on him immediately, kill him and bring myself back to life." Harry inhaled deeply through his nose, a sound of pure satisfaction. "Ah, a battle I can't lose, my favorite sort."

"You shouldn't have told us this, fool." Sylvanas sneered. "Now that we know it, we will tell Kel'Thuzad and warn him away from raising you as soon as he has us in his grip if we fall."

"My girls already knew, so your argument is invalid." He shrugged. "Besides, we aren't letting that bootlicker beat us. It would be embarrassing."

XXXXX

Most of their group had been sent away, as there was little they could do against the likes of Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad aside from become casualties.

That left only the Four Horsemen, Jaina, Sylvanas, Eligor Dawnbringer, Darion Mograine, Grunn'Holde and Harry's battle harem.

"Do you really call yourselves a battle harem?" Blaumeux asked amusedly as they made their way up to the middle strata of the necropolis.

"No." Arko and Jessir chorused.

"Yes." Harry and Luna chorused at the same time.

"Please disregard what Harry and Luna say, Lady Blaumeux." Jaina advised/begged the former High Priestess of the Silver hand. "They're both incorrigible perverts."

"Hehe, Jaina is complimenting us." Luna wiggled in place happily. "I knew we would win her over eventually."

"Since when is being called a pervert a compliment?!" The much younger woman squawked.

"When you take pride in it." Harry explained sagely. "You can't even begin to imagine how much time I spent mastering sexual techniques both magical and mundane. Skills and spells to turn any woman into a shuddering pile of orgasmic bliss. Toys with enchantments so powerful and intricate they put all but the most powerful weapons and armor to shame. Potions and tinctures enhance both pleasure and production. Fleshcrafting to turn our bodies into temples of sensation. Tantric rituals powered by sexual energy-"

"Alright, I get it!" Jaina interrupted, blushing furiously. "Please, just… stop talking."

"It seems you are even bolder than I gave you credit for, Harry." The female death knight smirked. "I look forward to… getting to know you better."

"Would you like to see my sex dungeon after I bring you back to life?" He offered immediately.

"Sex dungeon?" Jaina mouthed to herself quietly, looking towards the two night elves in the hope that they would say he was joking.

Alas, Arko and Jessir could only shrug with vague embarrassment.

"Enough, we are almost at Sapphiron's lair." Alexandros Mograine interrupted the banter.

XXXXX

Sapphiron sensed them before they ever set foot into his lair. He was the guardian of Kel'Thuzad's inner sanctum and none may pass without his knowledge.

He awoke from the torpor in which he spent most of his time, a miniature blue sun composed from the magics of death and ice igniring behind his ribs, then spreading across the rest of his skeletal body.

"Keep it on the ground!" The heavily armored apparent leader roared.

Jaina's suggestion that Harry free Sapphiron was doomed to failure from the beginning. When Arthas had killed and raised the ancient blue dragon, he had not allowed him to retain his capacity to think, only obey.

That also meant that Sapphiron understood what was being said, but not why. So instead of attacking the backline of casters with its frost breath, it went for the charging melee fighters with its claws.

Before they could get into range, Sapphiron felt pain, of a sort. The armored female with the moon-themed staff was projecting a gentle silver light from it. What was left of the ancient blue dragon that he used to be recognized Elune's power and it burned. The touch of the Moon Goddess was gentle, relentless as it worked to destroy the necromancy that animated him.

He immediately turned his attention to the priestess, who was by far the greatest threat to him.

Arrows both holy and necromantic struck him in the face, mini meteors rained across his back, ice began accumulating on his tattered wings, pits of Shadow magic opened under his hind legs and started siphoning away his strength and a massive fireball with a core of molten magma exploded on his back, but still the priestess was the greatest threat.

Unable to reach her with the pests mangling his feet, Sapphiron took a deep breath and prepared to blast the priestess with his frigid breath.

"Luna, look out!" The frost archmage shouted, blinked next to the priestess and quickly conjured a shield of ice for both of them.

Sapphiron didn't care, the priestess had to die. He loosed his breath at the curving ice wall… to no effect. The frost wyrm lacked the tactical acumen to grasp why attacking ice with more ice was ineffectual.

But at least the burning light of Elune had also been blocked and he turned his attention to the next most dire threat; the female with the huge greatsword that radiated the same power as the priestess.

Sapphiron swiped his claws at her and she met it with a mighty swing of her own.

It shouldn't have been a contest. The frost wyrm was massive and each of his claws had more weight to them than all of her did. By all rights, the clash should have ended with the night elf's broken body flying across the lair.

But Arko was drawing heavily on Elune and would not be so easily smashed aside. The Holy Moonlight Greatsword crashed against Sapphiron's claws, purifying divine power clashing against necromancy as much as the moonsteel clashed against bone.

Arko stumbled from the backlash, but Sapphiron came off far worse. His entire foot shattered, the blow disrupting the magic holding it together in a single powerful burst instead of the steady decay inflicted on him by the priestess.

Had the frost wyrm the capacity, this was the point at which he would begin panicking. Sapphiron was down a foot and could no longer attack physically without faceplanting into the ground. Plus, the multitude of attacks was rapidly wearing him down. Dragons were powerful, but far from invincible, and these mortals were powerful in their own right.

He tried to lift off, flexing his wings to break off the ice that Jaina had clad them in, taking yet more damage to his legs in the process. Of course, the wings were too tattered to actually physically support him, but he still had to flap them for the magic to work.

Then the priestess stepped out from behind the ice wall and once again began bathing him in Elune's light.

XXXXX

Harry was quite pleased with how this was going. Sapphiron was as dumb as a sack of bricks, only reacting and never thinking. Clearly, the Scourge was using him as a blunt tool rather than allowing him any room to think the way they had done for the death knights. Perhaps they feared that the dragon may be able to break free?

No matter, it was time to finish this. The frost wyrm could still do some harm from the air, but Luna's consistent efforts to purify it had already considerably weakened it. All it would take was the finishing blow

"Get out from under it!" He yelled, causing the melee combatant to scatter. Then he began taking out bladed discs from his hammerspace and tossing them at the undead dragon one by one. Each was a miniature Light bomb, too weak to take Sapphiron down if he was at full strength, but plenty strong enough to finish the job.

A series of golden explosions bloomed across the frost wyrm's ribcage, making the already struggling creature fall out of the air as the steadily weakening necromantic binding failed. Once the dust settled, the melee fighters once more closed in and began hacking at it. With as many powerful people as they had, it didn't take long before Sapphiron was re-killed.

"… That was easier than I expected." Jessir commented, still holding an arrow nocked just in case it would get up again.

"That's what you get when you rush shit." Harry grunted in professional disdain. "Proper necromancy takes time and careful preparation. This thing was clearly raised on a whim. Still powerful, but not nearly as powerful as it could have been."

Lady Blaumeux chuckled in amusement. "You reminded me of Uther just now, scolding the paladin trainees about how to properly hold their weapons."

"I was reminded of Antonidas when he would lecture me about making sure my spells were properly formed." Jaina snorted in agreement.

"Ye can flirt later." Korth'azz intruded rudely. "We've still got a lich to kill."

"The midget is right." Harry agreed, much to the dwarf's indignant fury. "Let me just rig our frost wyrm friend to blow first so they can't reanimate him again."

"Good idea." Sylvanas agreed, not wanting to deal with Sapphiron again. The Scourge was extremely annoying to fight because they could keep on raising even their own dead if they weren't too badly damaged.

Half the reason that the war for the Plaguelands had dragged on so much was because the dead just kept getting back up. The land itself was so tainted that necromancers hardly had a need to do anything at all. Granted, this had also resulted in swelling the numbers of the Forsaken, but it benefitted the Scourge far more.

Harry climbed into the frost wyrm's carcass, looking for a likely place to put one of his last larger bombs. This one wasn't solely of Light, but a combination of Light and Void for extra oomph. Fortunately, it took extreme amounts of both in a tight environment to create fel, so there was no danger in making a bad situation worse.

"What does it look like in there?" Luna asked curiously.

"Boney." Harry answered. There really was no other answer – it was just an empty ribcage.

He had just about decided on an optimal spot to stick the bomb when something besides lingering necromantic magic invaded his senses. It felt… pure, but not in the way that holy magic felt pure. No, this was a more neutral kind of pure, the distinct feeling of raw arcane power that blue dragons gave off.

… Had the Scourge actually not noticed that Sapphiron still had some artifact of his flight on him all this time? His respect for Kel'Thuzad and Arthas dropped sharply.

Harry chased the elusive feeling, eventually crawling into the empty skull.

"What are you doing?" Came the bewildered question from Arko, no doubt finding it strange to see his armored backside sticking out of Sapphiron's eye socket.

"Aha!" Harry announced triumphantly and wiggled out of the cranial cavity, a gem the size of his head held in his head. A gem shaped into the likeness of a blue dragon's eye.

"That's an artifact of the Blue Dragonflight!" Jaina recognized it immediately, even if she didn't know what exactly it was.

"Finders keepers." Harry claimed it before anyone could get any ideas. He might not know exactly what it was, but he knew that it was more than just a pretty rock.

"Harry, we should return that to the blues. They won't be happy with you keeping one of their artifacts." Jaina warned.

"Well, then they should have guarded them better."

"Don't bother, he's always been a hoarder." Luna said when Jaina looked like she was about to make another protest. "He kept our school headmaster's severed hand for centuries."

"What?!"

XXXXX

Kel'Thuzad spent most of his time in his inner sanctum at the top of Naxxramas. From this lofty perch he conducted the war against the living and the rebellious Forsaken, communed with the still-dormant Lich King, piloted Naxxramas, and pursued his personal quest to reassemble Atiesh, the Greatstaff of the Guardian.

Here, he was almost completely cut off from the rest of the necropolis, all the better to not be bothered by his minions. Rarely indeed were any of them allowed up here. The last time it had been over complaints about Sir Zeliek's incessant whining.

Truly, figuring out why it was impossible to shut that paladin up had consumed entirely too much of his time.

It was because of this preference for solitude, that Kel'Thuzad was caught very much by surprise when he sensed a mixed party of living and undead approaching his sanctum. That meant that they had already overcome Sapphiron, so they must be mighty indeed.

His nature making him immune to panic, it took Kel'Thuzad only seconds to deduce what had happened. He had thought that the recent aggression from Sylvanas was unusual, leaving too many of her troops vulnerable. And the paladins of Light's Hope Chapel were usually much more defensively minded. Diversions to draw out his armies.

Still, he had left behind enough that no force small enough to infiltrate Naxxramas by stealth should have been capable of winning. And how was it that the alarm wards before Sapphiron's lair had not triggered? That could only have happened if one of his lieutenants had betrayed him, which should be impossible. The Forsaken were a fluke, come about due to the powerful spell Illidan Stormrage had hurled at the Frozen Throne. No such disruption had occurred to loosen the Lich King's grip on the Scourge.

Well, there was no use in contemplating it now when he would find out the truth in short order. In what little time he had before the interlopers arrived, he prepared himself for battle.

Soon they came, thirteen of them, some familiar and some not, but all mighty. The presence of the Four Horsemen, what he considered to be his masterpiece creation, explained where the betrayal had come from, but not how.

"Well, isn't this nostalgic." He rasped with faint amusement. These were not good odds for him, but he had no fear. "I know most of you, but some are unfamiliar. Would someone care to do the introductions?"

The only ones he didn't know were the four in matching suits of arcanite plate. Well, he also didn't know the orc female, but she was irrelevant. This motley group was clearly formed around those four.

"Spare us the false courtesies, lich." Sylvanas spat with admirable malice. "You die here today, and your master will follow soon after."

"Don't get your hopes up, Sylvanas." The only male in the mystery group interjected wrily. Kel'Thuzad couldn't quite figure out what he was sensing from this one. Judging by the look of the armor and his size, he could be a night elf, but something was telling him that it was not so. "Unless he is exceptionally stupid, then his phylactery isn't anywhere close."

"You speak on the matter with both authority and familiarity." Kel'Thuzad noted. "Perhaps a fellow practitioner of the necromantic arts?"

It could potentially explain the freedom of the Horsemen. A skilled enough necromancer could theoretically loosen the Lich King's grip on them. Odd for such a one to be wearing full plate, but you get all kinds.

"I am a practitioner of all the magical arts." He replied easily.

"A man after my own heart." The lich recalled his own mortal years, and the narrow-mindedness of the Kirin Tor.

"Don't listen to him, Harry." Jaina Proudmoore interrupted, glaring at him. "For all the airs he puts on, he's just another fool enslaved to the powers he dabbled with."

"Jaina, please." The now named Harry scolded almost gently. "As if I'd listen to someone who thinks himself a master with such a crude approach to necromancy."

"Then I suppose there is nothing more to say." Kel'Thuzad was unperturbed by the rejection, having known that there was little chance of turning anyone on such short notice. He did wonder why his approach to necromancy was considered crude, though.

"Aye, was about bloody time, too." Thane Korth'azz spoke up irritably. "I've had enough of yer nattering already."

"For all those you have slain and damned, you fall today, lich." Sir Zeliek the Obnoxiously Self-righteous declared.

"For vengeance." Alexandros Mograine added simply, his deep growl conveying more than the words.

"For justice." The man's son corrected.

"And truth." Eligor Dawnbringer reaffirmed.

If the action was not of so little dignity as to be beneath him – and if he still had them - Kel'Thuzad might have rolled his eyes.

Paladins…

"I never did get to properly thank you for raising me into undeath." Lady Blaumex said suggestively.

Kel'Thuzad had no idea what had happened to that one. He had briefly met Colette Blaumex back when both had been mere mortal humans, and she had been a reserved lady of refined temperament.

"I've put you down once, and I'll be happy to do it again." Jaina Proudmoore spoke up now, aggressively griping her staff.

"And as I told you then, I shall tell you now." Kel'Thuzad ignored her minor editing of history – it had been Arthas who had struck the killing blow. "My death will mean little in the long run."

That seemed to be the last straw for Sylvanas, as the Banshee Queen loosed an arrow at him instead of replying verbally.

The battle was on.

XXXXX

As soon as the first arrow was loosed, things got really exciting.

Kel'Thuzad used Void magic to create a shadowy fissure between himself and their group, effectively cutting the room in half.

That kind of pissed Harry off, as it ruined his Plan A. Behind Kel'Thuzad was an ornate plinth, above which floated exactly forty wood splinters, a carved wood raven and a red ribbon woven with bone charms and glass-like baubles.

The remaining pieces of Atiesh, the Greatstaff of the Guardian, missing only the base that he had hidden in his hammerspace. He could feel it pulling him in that direction, wanting to be made whole again. Normally, when a magical item is broken, its enchantment also breaks, but Atiesh was ancient, so old that it remembered itself well. Even the smallest splinter knew exactly where it belonged and would return to its place as soon as it was able.

And now he couldn't get to it for as long as this shadow fissure was in the way. Certainly, he wasn't dumb enough to try running through it.

"Minions, servants, soldiers of the cold dark… Obey the call of Kel'Thuzad." The melodramatic asshole intoned while they began trying to dispel the shadow fissure.

A horde of mindless specters phased through the walls and rushed at them and Luna had to shift her attention to keeping them at bay.

Kel'Thuzad began hurling his own frost magic at them and Jaina was put on the defensive.

Sir Zeliek, Darion, Eligor and Lady Blaumeux went to work on the fissure, while Alexandros, Grunn'Holde, Korth'azz and Jessir went to town on the specters. The female orc warrior was still using his draconic poleaxe and was able to do some harm to the ghostly undead, but not nearly as much as the two death knights or Jessir.

Sylvanas was clearly too furious to care about the specters and launched arrow after arrow at the lich himself.

Harry decided to do the same thing. After all, the lich couldn't attack if he was too busy defending. His fire spells lost quite a bit of juice when they passed over the fissure, unfortunately, but they still weren't to be ignored.

"Enough of this, return to service." Kel'Thuzad intoned, lashing out with a spell to shackle all undead to his will.

"Denied." Harry retorted, easily unraveling the binding magic before it could even take hold. This may be Kel'Thuzad's place of power, but the lingering portfolio of his divine domain gave him an unsurpassable advantage against magics of that ilk.

The lich made a noise of frustration at being so casually foiled and resorted to a corrupt form of frost magic. He targeted the paladins and death knights that were on the verge of tearing down the shadow fissure protecting him, imprisoning them in blocks of ice.

Unlike Jaina's though, these were also sucking the life out of their victims.

"Sorry about this!" Luna said with a wince and let loose with a great blast of purifying moonlight to force the specters away. The death knights and Sylvanas also grunted in pain as they were hit by it.

The priestess of Elune followed it up with spells of Light and healing on the ice-blocked group of four, knowing that Sir Zeliek and Lady Blaumeux would suffer for it. Using holy spells to heal undead was possible, but deeply unpleasant for the recipient.

Meanwhile, Harry and Jaina worked to free them. It didn't take long, given his natural edge against any spell that restrained and her mastery of frost magic.

Just in time, too, as the specters recovered and resumed their assault, only to once more crash into Luna's barrier.

Kel'Thuzad retaliated with a flurry of frost bolts, but quickly had to return to the defense. As powerful as the lich might be, especially here in his inner sanctum, he was being overwhelmed.

The shadow fissure finally dispersed and the melee fighters stampeded towards the floating lich, forcing him to actually move lest he be pummeled into the ground by the vengeful death knights and paladins. And the one extra orc warrior that was there just for the lulz or something.

Harry saw the opportunity and jumped for it, bringing the base of Atiesh out of his hammerspace just as he reached the plinth where the rest of the staff's pieces floated.

Drawn together as if by magnetism, the pieces settled into place. Harry decided to help it along with a simple repairing spell. With the staff so eager to be whole again, even that small nudge was enough and the pieces fused back together as if they had never been broken.

The staff pulsed with power as it was reassembled, radiating as much satisfaction as an object could. Harry took firm hold of it, throwing the full weight of his will against it. Atiesh writhed against him, tasting his magic to see if he was worthy of wielding it or if he would be destroyed.

The staff settled into quiescence and the sense of danger passed. As it was with many objects of power, Atiesh had a rudimentary sentience and would not suffer an unworthy wieldier. The staff tolerated only sufficiently powerful and strong-willed casters.

Harry's lips twitched into a grin as he realized that Atiesh was a bit of a snob, not allowing the common riffraff to touch it.

The fight hadn't stopped entirely just because he'd pulled this move, but Jaina was certainly staring at him in shock and Kel'Thuzad was barely avoiding the swords chasing after him. If his naked skull was capable of it, Harry suspected he would look every bit as shocked as Jaina. Undeath may prevent panic, but it didn't prevent surprise.

"Thank you for all your hard work assembling my staff for me." He said with relish, stabbing the raven headpiece in the lich's direction. "Now fuck off back to Northrend."

A beam of condensed, white-hot fire lanced out from the staff and struck Kel'Thuzad directly in the chest. The lich had been caught by surprise and was busy fending off a multitude of swords. His defenses were down and the powerful fire spell burned right through him.

Harry exulted in how easy that had been to cast, even in a frost mage's inner sanctum. While it wasn't impossible for him to use that same spell without a catalyst, it would have been much more difficult and draining. Atiesh resonated with him beautifully.

"I see, so this is what you meant, when you said that the lich had something that belongs to you." Sylvanas noted shrewdly once Kel'Thuzad's death moan faded out.

"That's right." He said smugly as he swaggered back towards the group, giving a nod to the only orc among them. "Grunn'Holde, you can keep that poleaxe, I won't be needing it anymore."

It would deprive him of a melee weapon, but he already had some ideas for that.

"Thank you, I will use it with honor." She said after a momentary blink of surprise, straightening her back proudly.

He had noticed that she had become rather fond of the loaned weapon and was in a good enough mood to make a gift of it. She did help him get his hands on Atiesh after all, at least a little bit.

"Congratulations, Harry!" Luna beamed at him happily. The specters had quickly dispersed once Kel'Thuzad was 'killed', so there was nothing left to do.

"Will you stop fondling the base of that staff now that it's complete?" Jessir asked teasingly, getting a giggled snort out of Arko.

Jaina had been quiet for a while, but now just adopted a look of exasperation.

"I can't tell if you're doing everything possible to annoy the Kirin Tor on purpose or by accident." She said.

"It's not my fault if the Kirin Tor is easily annoyed." Harry shrugged. That's just what happens when an organization starts thinking that they know best.

"Today was a great victory, but there is still work to be done." Eligor Dawnbringer spoke up. "The undead we lured out of Naxxramas are still below. If the death knights you freed are willing to join us, we can catch them in a pincer move and destroy them."

"The death knights among them may still heed me if I command them." Alexandros spoke up. "We should try to free them."

"It's worth a try." Harry agreed. Turning the enemy's resources into your resources was just common sense. "Let me just plant the last of my bombs and then we can go."

XXXXX

OMAKE – No more than mid-tier necromancy.

Kel'Thuzad knew that he was beaten. The invaders had him cornered, his magics overcome and now that peculiar armored archmage had Atiesh in his hands.

But even if there could be no victory here, he would not go without a final taunt. "Do you truly believe your victory here will matter? I will rise again, wielding powers beyond your imagining.

"It doesn't matter what kind of power you obtain." The mage, Harry, said solemnly. "Because you do not surpass Nagash."

Who in the Twisting Nether was Nagash?!