So-called prophets are merely people born with the talent to glimpse timelines; the future they can observe is extremely limited.
Even Velen, who led his people in exile for tens of thousands of years, could only see a short stretch ahead, and with every mortal choice the path would splinter into countless possibilities.
Those gifted with prophecy are easily shackled by the visions they witness.
For example, if they see a loved one die before them within three days, their first instinct is to save that person.
But saving that one life might cause many other loved ones to perish instead—so should they act, or not?
As the saying goes, the less you know, the happier you are.
Prophets who peer into the future often freeze, trapped between timelines. Velen endured repeated agonies—saving A only to lose B through J, or rescuing B and watching C to Z die—before learning to interfere as little as possible.
Compared with Velen's millennia of experience and wisdom, Zul has lived mere decades; he's probably still intoxicated by the thrill of his prophetic gift.
As a Great Guardian personally empowered by Amanthul, Loken was imbued with the Father of All's mastery over time itself.
Though Loken cannot flit between timelines like the Bronze Dragonflight, subtly disrupting Zul's foresight across a small range is child's play.
By putting himself in Zul's place, Andreas easily predicted the prophet's pattern of action.
Before making any move, those with foresight instinctively peek at the future. Zul would surely scan the Emperor Valley for danger before entering.
Once he confirmed a safe stretch of time ahead, he would stride forward—never realizing the future he saw was a counterfeit Loken had fed him.
As the snow-dust from the valley explosions settled, Andreas felt a sudden chill: some lofty presence had descended into Emperor Valley.
Whoosh!
He summoned a gale to sweep away drifting debris, and at once spotted a humanoid loa languidly devouring souls.
Bwonsamdi?
Heh-heh…
The Death Loa gave an insouciant shrug. "Long time no see, Night-elf Demigod. I'm just here to collect my agreed-upon fee—hope I'm not stepping on your plans?"
'Agreed fee?'
Andreas narrowed his eyes, weighed the risk, then waved Loken back. "Fine. The Pandaria situation is clear enough. Tell your 'employer' to pull out of this continent—fast."
Of course, of course."
Bwonsamdi offered a comically clumsy bow. "Thanks to you, I've bagged a fine haul of quality souls. Heh-heh… I'll hurry back and tell Rezan's little friend his scheme has collapsed."
Swish—
With a ripple of shadowed energy Bwonsamdi vanished, leaving behind heaps of soulless Zandalari corpses—including their prophet, Zul.
Loken asked irritably, "Andreas, why stop me? That primitive god just dragged the prophet's soul away—what if—"
"I know."
Andreas smiled soothingly. "Relax. Zandalar isn't our mortal foe; we just want to hurt them. Even if Zul claws his way back to life, losing his original body will cripple his power."
"But—"
Andreas cut him off with a knowing look. "Loken, do you remember Odyn's 'death-goddess' Helya?"
Seeing Loken's brief blank stare followed by a flash of understanding, Andreas gave a cheerful shrug. "Exactly. Bwonsamdi will still be useful; let him live for now. Consider this a favor he owes us."
A Death Loa who knows how to protect himself, Bwonsamdi wouldn't appear before Loken unless he'd already prepared an escape route if talks soured.
Rather than risk making an enemy of Bwonsamdi without certainty of killing him, better to grant a convenient favor; it would make future dealings smoother… With Zul's main Zandalari force buried in Emperor Valley, God-King Rastakhan—on Bwonsamdi's word—ordered an immediate retreat, ferrying the survivors home on the still-intact Golden Fleet.
Pandaria lies near Azeroth's southern pole, far from the arctic continent of Northrend.
Having tasted such disgrace, the Zandalari would never trumpet their defeat; they could only slink home to lick their wounds.
Yet even after recalling their main army, the Zandalari kept aiding the Gurubashi and the Amani.
The Frost Trolls of ZulDrak, worn down by the Zandalari's incessant nagging, finally—driven by sheer desperation—sent an envoy through the sprawling Nerubian tunnels to contact Anub'Rekhan.
The Drakari divulged everything about the Zandalari envoys. Navaz burst from the underground passages Anub'Rekhan had dug, and—exploiting the Zandalari's ignorance of Northrend—wiped out tens of thousands of their "emissaries" in a single strike.
Plan after plan to flaunt the might of the Zandalari Empire had faltered; the Night Elves hadn't even committed a regular army to face them. God-King Rastakhan sank into gloom, his soaring ambitions dealt a grievous blow.
Meanwhile the Gurubashi Trolls clashed fiercely with the Kingdom of Stormwind in Duskwood, and—bolstered by Zandalari support—the temporarily united Jungle Trolls held the upper hand.
Yet they faced only a single kingdom. Sensing danger, the Alliance nations began dispatching reinforcements southward.
In the Eastern Plaguelands, over two hundred thousand Rotting Moss Zombies spearheaded an Amani–Zandalari assault on the Argent Dawn and the Scarlet Crusade.
Naturally, King Kael'thas' behind-the-scenes diplomacy played its part; the Sun King was now trying to sway the Forsaken, though those free undead—wishing little contact with the living—had yet to answer.
News of Pandaria's war would not reach Loken quickly, yet to forestall any mishap Loken and Andreas accelerated their war preparations.
Three Night-elf sky-fleets set out: the Second Fleet stayed to guard The Jade Forest of Pandaria, while the First and Third sped to Uldum in southern Kalimdor and The Barrens in central Eastern Kingdoms respectively.
In the seventh month of the 25th year since the Dark Portal reopened, Celeste was on the verge of giving birth; Andreas forwent the front line and directed operations from Astranaar.
Under his orders the three airborne fleets took on their "passengers," lifted off from their embarkation points, and set a unified course for the continent of Northrend at full speed.
As the three airborne fleets ferried their passengers north, Jarod had already led three hundred thousand Night Elf regulars to rendezvous with Navaz's Northrend army at Suramar.
Though not a full muster, only the war against the Burning Legion had ever seen the Night Elves field such numbers; usually they relied on Hordes of arcane golems to spare mortal troops.
Counting Navaz's northern host, the Night Elf force massed around Suramar now topped five hundred thousand—arcane golems not included.
A mobilization on this scale naturally set every other power in Northrend on edge.
The Dragonflights had received advance word from Andreas, yet their own charter barred them from entering the brewing civil war among the Titan Keepers.
The original injunction came from High Keeper Odyn, supreme commander of the Titan Keepers; though technically equal to Loken, he outranked him in martial matters.
Even if Loken invoked his authority to order the dragons into battle, the Aspects could not break Odyn's geas to enter the Storm Peaks.
That was why Andreas approached the Ulduar campaign with such caution.
Deprived of draconic air support, the Night Elves would have to rely on their own sky-armies to counter Loken's Proto-Dragon Riders.
Go'el learned of the Night Elf buildup the moment his spymaster Jorin brought the report.
Relations had been tolerable during the Mount Hyjal campaign, so the Horde's Warchief swallowed his pride and dispatched envoys to Suramar to inquire what was afoot.
The former Warchief Orgrim doomhammer had just died of age and old wounds; with the orcs in mourning, Go'el merely wanted to avoid being caught in the cross-fire.
Maiev, commanding at the front, brushed aside the orcs' veiled questions and bluntly told the Horde this Night Elf operation was none of their concern.
While the orcs grudgingly accepted the reassurance, the Drakari Trolls—still reeling from the destruction of Zandalar's army—stood on high alert.
Half a million Night Elves could flatten ZulDrak; the current Drakari chieftain hastily sent envoys to swear his people had no part in Zandalar's schemes, begging for leniency.
When the report reached Andreas he laughed wryly; centuries of living next door had stripped the once-arrogant Frost Trolls of every shred of courage.
For the Night Elves that was welcome news—one less foe to watch.
The Bearmen of Grizzly Hills had been quiet of late; with the imminent return of Ursoc and Ursol, the scattered Clans showed signs of reuniting.
Under the two bear-gods' guidance the Bearmen's restless mood eased; border disputes with Zandalar cooled as they turned inward to recover their strength.
Only the Dragonriding Vrykul of Howling Fjord stirred; King Ymiron had lived in dread these past years.
He had briefly allied with the Lich King, and though that pact ended when the King fled to sea, the aging Ymiron feared the Night Elves would learn of it and exact vengeance.
In truth Ymiron worried needlessly; Andreas had long since heard of the Vrykul's dalliance with undeath, but saw no reason to march against them for it.
With the Lich King now a sea-borne Sea-Lich, Andreas reckoned the Dragonriding Vrykul—no friends of Loken—would stay out of the Keepers' civil war.
As the three sky-fleets crossed into Northrend, Loken, enthroned in the Temple of Wisdom, felt his unease sharpen into dread.
Under mounting pressure he had deepened his bond with Yogg-Saron; unbeknownst to him, the Beast with a Thousand Maws was itself panicking.
"N'Zoth! What is happening? Why are the Night Elves massing in Northrend?"
"Heh—ask me, ask the wind."
"Cut the riddles! Where are your Naga? Your Nightmare? We both know what Xal'atath in their hands means; if I fall, you fall next!"
"Hmph! Spare me the threats. You think the Night Elves aren't watching me just as closely?"
Even with a host sent north, Kalimdor still holds strong garrisons and a sky-fleet patrols its skies.
The Emerald Dream remains full of druids and Green Dragons; I won't waste Xal'atath's strength on a fool's gamble."
"What of Deathwing?" Yogg-Saron roared. "Isn't he your ace? Loose him upon Azeroth!"
"No." N'Zoth's voice rang like iron. "Deathwing's resurrection is incomplete; his mind is bestial. Release him now and he walks straight into a trap."
"I will send what aid I can—but…"
N'Zoth's voice faded along the Old Gods' web: "Prepare for the worst. The half-god who rules the Night Elves never moves without a plan."
"If he commits his full strength, it means… heh. May you outlive the storm."
"N'Zoth!"
Yet N'Zoth needed no reminder; Yogg-Saron's own terror screamed how grave the danger was.
Pestered by Loken more than fifty times a day, the frantic Old God threw caution aside and rushed the corruption of the remaining Keepers.
Where once he had sought perfect puppets with minds intact, crisis now left no time for finesse.
By brute will she seized full control of Mimiron, Freya and Hodir; deeper refinement would have to wait until the storm passed.
Day after day the craven Loken out-babbled even an Old God, begging for succor.
Driven to fury, Yogg-Saron summoned its last Kthir general from afar to hold the gates of Ulduar and, incidentally, to quiet Loken's panic.
At last the dread of Loken and Yogg-Saron proved prophetic.
Scout-riders reported that all three sky-fleets had entered the Storm Peaks together, Night Elf ground armies advancing in concert.
When the fleets' special troop-ships opened their bays and rained their "cargo" onto the Snowblind Plains south of the Peaks, Loken's heart froze.
"Earthen, Mogu, Quilen, Tol'vir—and…"
The sight of three colossal titans striding side by side drove Loken limp upon the Throne of Wisdom.
"Thorim and Hodir—and… Lai?! He vanished ages ago!"
Several millennia had passed since Thorim fled the Storm Peaks with his Frost Vrykul kin; Hodir and Khazgorite had not set foot in these nostalgic snow-capped mountains for more than ten thousand years.
Although the three long-separated Keepers had re-established contact in recent years, no one could recall how long it had been since they last stood together.
Loken let out a soft sigh, adopting the air of the eldest, and reached out to pat Hodir and Thorim on the shoulder.
"I'm sorry. For certain special reasons I abandoned my duties for tens of thousands of years. I didn't even know Loken had caused such havoc, and it cost Tyr his life—all because of my negligence."
Loken knew what the fall of the Titans meant to Titan-Forged; he wished he could keep that truth to himself, so he deliberately spoke in vague terms about why he had vanished.
Thorim gave a bitter smile. "How can you blame yourself? In the end, Loken's fall had everything to do with Sif and me. If I'd paid more attention to Loken's state of mind back then, perhaps the tragedy could have been averted."
Hodir ran a hand over Loken's flesh-and-blood skin and asked in disbelief, "Loken, is this… the flesh curse?"
Loken nodded. "It's a long story; we'll talk later."
He looked up at Ulduar, towering far away on the northern peak of the Storm Peaks, then set aside reminiscence and said solemnly, "Our top priority is to retake Ulduar, restart the Forge of Wills, and stop Yogg-Saron's escape."
Loken turned his right hand palm-up in the air and said, "Brothers, I ask your aid in restoring the glory of the Titan city to Od-Ulduar after all these years of misrule."
Without hesitation Thorim and Hodir slammed their hands down on his.
"No problem!"
"Let's move!"
…Although Loken had prepared for defeat, he had no intention of surrendering before the very end.
He poured every scrap of ore he had stockpiled over the years into the crafters engine, then returned to Ulduar and pushed the Forge of Wills to full power.
With a single command, rank-one-hundred Iron Vrykul and Iron Dwarves spewed from the crafters engine, piling up on the mountain-plain before Ulduar's gates.
Meanwhile, the first wave of the Iron Army had already set out from the village of Shiverhearth and begun clashing with the Night Elves' vanguard on Snowblind Plain.
Jarod calmly deployed the arcane golems. On a boundless plain there was little room for targeted tactics; it came down to raw strength on both sides.
Shiverhearth had once been territory of Thorim's Frost Vrykul; after Brunhilde led her people east to resettle in the Eastern Kingdoms, Loken had recycled the empty villages into forward outposts for his Iron Army.
The Night Elf ground troops that arrived first engaged the Iron Army head-on. These Titan-Forged fought far better than any Mortal race the Night Elves had faced.
Their metallic skin gave tremendous resistance to physical blows, while bodies forged of saronite strengthened their spell-resistance.
The Night Elves had never before encountered foes so strong in both defenses; even Burning Legion demons usually excelled in only one area.
Thanks to that stout defense, Iron Dwarves and Iron Vrykul could commit more resources to attack.
Were it not for the front-line tank golems holding the charge, letting those iron brutes smash into Night Elf lines would have caused chaos.
Although Jarod and Andreas had analyzed the Iron Army's strengths and weaknesses beforehand, real combat always differs from theory.
At first the Night Elf soldiers struggled, relying on sturdy arcane golems and air-burst support to blunt the assault; their counter-damage was clearly insufficient.
Just then, the Construct Legion led by the three Titan Keepers crashed into the battle, easing the Night Elves' awkward adjustment period.
"Aim for the chest core."
As the Keeper shaped by Khazgorite, Hodir possessed keen insight into structure; at a glance he saw through these iron constructs' weakness.
"Loken played a petty trick. The intel you had was wrong: the weak spot is no longer the head; he shifted it to the chest."
Jarod understood at once and passed the new order down through the chain of command.
The Night Elves' earlier data on iron-construct weaknesses had also come from Hodir; they hadn't expected Loken to relocate the core.
But petty tricks are just that. Once Hodir exposed it, the number of iron constructs shattered by Night Elf fire soared.
The core is the greatest weakness of any Titan-Forged and the energy source that keeps those intelligent constructs moving.
Not only the iron types possess one—Mogu and Earthen do as well, differing only in location… With the Keepers' constructs joining the fray, the battlefield shifted. Loken's vanguard was soon driven back under the combined assault.
In the air, Proto-Dragon Riders tangled with flying warships and Night Elf air force, unable to aid the ground. When the ground troops retreated, Loken, to preserve strength, ordered the dragon riders to pull back as well.
The Storm Peaks cover a vast area; many Keepers once held domains and temples within these snowy mountains.
But after Mimiron and Freya were lured into Ulduar, and Tyr, Thorim, and Hodir left one after another, most of those domains were abandoned.
The three Keepers—Loken, Thorim, and Hodir—focused their assault on the crafters engine and Ulduar itself. Camps far from the mountain-plain were left to the Night Elves, while the central, toughest defenses were breached by the Keepers personally leading their forces.
In the final stage of pregnancy, Celeste couldn't bear to be alone. A first-time mother, she grew ever more anxious as the birth approached.
Shandris had been through it before and understood Celeste's mood swings. She and Andreas had deliberately stayed behind to look after the restless Celeste.
Andreas remembered a folk saying from his past life: pregnancy brain lasts three years.
There's no scientific basis, but long folk observation lends it some truth.
Case in point… "Andreas, do you want our baby to be a boy or a girl?"
"…Huh?"
Andreas was in his study listening to Leticia's front-line report. Normally Celeste knew not to disturb him during work, but seeing her hesitating in the doorway left him dumbfounded.
'What is this, a death-trap question?'
Signaling with his eyes for Leticia, who was stifling a giggle, to leave first, Andreas beckoned to Celeste with some reluctance.
Settling the noticeably heavier Celeste on his lap, Andreas wrapped his arms around her and asked as gently as possible, "Why the sudden question?"
Celeste irritably raked at the golden hair coiled behind her head. "Lately I've felt anxious inside, worried the baby's sex might upset you."
Andreas smiled and shook his head. "Boy or girl is fine—either way, it's still our child, isn't it?"
In Andreas' previous life, some old-timers clung to feudal ideas, insisting on sons to carry the family line and despising wives who failed to bear boys.
But Azeroth has never known such customs, and Andreas himself places no weight on the matter.
Before Andreas crossed over, gender dynamics in his generation had already begun to reverse.
Certain parents savvy at 'stock trading' dubbed money-losing sons 'Construction Bank' and high-value daughters 'China Merchants Bank'—the implication obvious.
With more men than women, every family's daughter became a treasured little princess; parents taught their girls to 'invest' early, angling for a rich husband and ignoring so-called 'don't mock the poor youth' losers.
A restless society: everyone wanted shortcuts to success; if you could vault to the top in one leap, you grabbed it.
Some parents ignored their daughters' wishes, breaking up perfectly peaceful couples with 'it's for your own good,' pushing them toward richer husbands.
Ahem—getting off track.
Andreas' past life hadn't been super-wealthy, but his family had solid savings.
He personally never faced such crap, yet when friends met and got drunk, they inevitably poured out their sorrows.
After ten millennia in Azeroth, even if Andreas once favored boys or girls, the local customs long since wore those notions away.
Thanks to personality differences, Shandris never asked such questions when pregnant; Aurora, raised with measured but not stifling care, has grown capable of standing on her own.
Compared with the self-reliant Shandris, Celeste has a gentler disposition.
Though her mother died in the War of the Ancients, Dath'Remar did the work of two, and with help from Celeste's elder brother DathNath, he raised his precious daughter.
Pampered as a little princess, Celeste lagged far behind Shandris in mental resilience.
Though she occasionally shows her black-belly side, most of the time she appears rather muddle-headed—naturally, that was Celeste's younger self.
As years passed, Celeste steadily matured under time's tempering, her black-belly streak much subdued.
Her inner scatterbrain never fully vanished, yet with family running cover, she rarely makes a fool of herself now.
Depending on personality and constitution, a pregnant woman can grow hypersensitive, fret over everything, even slide into mild depression.
The softer Celeste showed such tendencies; uneasy at leaving her alone, Andreas and Shandris stayed in the rear, overseeing the big picture while caring for the expectant mother given to wild thoughts.
After finally dispelling Celeste's sudden worries, Andreas summoned a maid to escort her back upstairs to rest.
Shandris passed Celeste in the corridor just then; seeing the tear-tracks still on Celeste's cheeks, she quickly guessed what had happened.
Leaning against the half-open study door with an amused smile, Shandris knocked; when Andreas looked up, she teased, "Again?"
"Mm."
Andreas rubbed his temples with a wry chuckle. "Looking back, your pregnancy was so calm and easy."
"Hmph."
Shandris gave a light snort, chin lifting proudly. "People differ, and so do life's twists; varied post-natal behavior is normal. Don't you dare show impatience—offer more tolerance and patience."
"Of course. I understand."
Scrubbing his face, Andreas composed himself and asked gravely, "You're not here just to check on Celeste, are you? Something at the front?"
"Mm—some small surprises."
...The surprises Shandris spoke of weren't negative.
After Loken, Hodir, and Thorim seized the village of Shiverheald, they pushed into the sub-mountain plain and fought Loken's Iron Army for control of the crafters engine.
Loken's troops were outnumbered by Loken's long-prepared stone host, yet the engine was spasming out reinforcements; who knew how much saronite the jittery Keeper had stockpiled.
To secure the Keepers' rear, Night Elf fleets aboard high-speed destroyers patrolled the Storm Peaks' main battlefield, striking Loken's outlying strongholds.
Some twenty thousand iron constructs had lain in wait at Brunnhildar Village, east of Shiverheald; before they could stab the main force in the back, aerial scouts spotted them and shelled the settlement flat.
Farther east, the ancient Winter's Grasp valley and Dun Niffelem are the Ice Keeper Hodir's domain, home to many Frost Giants untainted by Yogg-Saron.
After Loken personally parleyed with these giants, they finally learned what had befallen their long-missing Keeper.
Meanwhile, the air squad attacking Valkyrian unexpectedly found a clan of strange dwarves in a valley west of Nifflevar.
These dwarves' bodies were made of ice; Hodir, fighting on the front lines, was astonished to hear it.
As far as he knew, no frost branch existed among the Earthen, and Navaz's scouts reported the Ice Dwarves clearly hostile to Loken, locked in constant battle with Valkyrion's Iron Vrykul.
Though few in number, if they could be persuaded to join the anti-Loken coalition, these local 'snakes' might yield vital intelligence.
"Ice Dwarves?"
Andreas rubbed his chin in realization; Shandris would never have reminded him.
In the original timeline, these Ice Dwarves sheltered Muradin after frostmourne's backlash left him amnesic, aiding the Northrend campaign.
In this timeline Muradin never marched with Arthas, so none of that ever happened.
After brief thought Andreas told Shandris, "Inform Maiev: recruit the Ice Dwarves at any cost—better a friend than a foe."
He rose and traced a finger along the huge strategic map on the study wall, moving north from the Valkyrion marker.
"With their help crushing this front, we might open a second battlefield on the Snowdrift Plains, splitting Loken's attention and easing pressure on Loken's force."
Aside from the impossibly rugged eastern Storm Peaks, there's another way into Ulduar besides crossing the mountain-plain where the crafters engine sits.
Andreas pointed to the Snowblow Fields that lead straight to Loken's Temple of Wisdom; break the garrisons along the road and the warlord, faced with a threat to his own seat, can't keep flinging every trooper at the crafters engine—fighting on two fronts will stretch Loken's attention even thinner.
Events unfolded exactly as Andreas had foreseen: once Maiev offered an olive branch, Hodir stepped back from the front and personally appeared to win over the Ice Dwarves.
After Hodir's parley, Andreas at the rear soon received full dossiers on these Ice Dwarves.
Ice Dwarves are simply one branch of the Earthen—those left behind when Tyr evacuated the Storm Peaks. Millennia of adaptation to the environment slowly shaped them into what they are today.
Hodir the Forge-King is the creator of all Earthen, and a residual kinship still lingers in frost-dwarf blood.
Through talks with the Ice Dwarves, Maiev's party gleaned useful intelligence.
Valkyrian blocks the only road from Frosthold to the Snowblow Fields; a normal advance would have to smash straight through the Iron constructs' line, alerting Loken and prompting him to shift troops in advance.
The Ice Dwarves have a way to avoid that, giving the Night-Elven army a good chance to raid the Temple of Wisdom undetected.
Like the Earthen, Ice Dwarves excel at tunnelling; west of the Roshildal Path before Frosthold lies a narrow passage that runs straight into Valkyrian's guts.
This tiny tunnel is the Ice Dwarves' lifeline—thanks to this secret the Iron constructs never found, they've survived Loken's purges again and again.
The main battlefield on the Valley Plain is white-hot; Loken is driving the Forge of Wills for all it's worth, and the crafters engine is churning out Iron Vrykul and Iron Dwarves at a pace never seen before.
Thunderheads summoned by Loken and Thorim blot out the sky above the mountain-plain; the engine's airspace is pitch-black, gold and silver lightning ripping across it, the valley floor pock-marked by relentless bolts.
Conductive Iron armies suffer horrendous losses under the two lightning-wielders; each time the stone host is about to break through, Loken's reinforcements pop out of the crafters engine at the critical second.
This tug-of-war on the Valley Plain is a tightrope for Loken—once reinforcements lag, the crafters engine falls into enemy hands and his death warrant is signed.
Loken and Thorim together pin Loken's attention to Ulduar's main gate; unless another front turns critical, the warlord has no leisure to look elsewhere.
The King of Wisdom had long since learnt that Night Elves were nearing Valkyrian, but as the keystone of Ulduar's western line the fortress is tough and won't fall in a hurry.
After rendezvousing with the Ice Dwarves Hodir did not return to the front; shrinking himself, he personally led an elite Night-Elven strike-team with the dwarves through the mountain path into Valkyrian's rear.
While the Iron host stared ahead, a violent quake collapsed several sections of Valkyrian's floor and ripped holes in its tidy defence.
Jarod spear-headed the main assault from the front, drawing the attention of the rattled Iron formations.
With sky and ground in chaos, Anub'Rekhan and his Nerubians tunnelled frantically, using soil loosened by Hodir's power to carve a burrow.
When Anub'Rekhan burst roaring from the ground, Maiev's infiltration squad charged out of the side path and linked up with him in perfect timing.
Caught from behind while busy on the fore, the Vrykul of Valkyrian had no time to re-deploy; pinched on two sides, their line unravelled in moments.
An airborne flotilla that had slipped behind them severed the link between Valkyrian and the Temple of Wisdom, killing every courier; the fortress fell before Loken even knew.
"Excellent."
Andreas ordered Leticia, "Inform Jarod west of the Storm Peaks and Navaz at Dun Niffelem in the east—advance on both wings and shatter Loken's defence in one stroke!"
Frost Giants and the Northrend Army of the Night Elves suddenly joined the Valley Plain battle, and the barely-held balance began to tip.
Just as Loken focused every nerve on the crafters engine zone, a Night-Elven host burst out of the Snowblow Fields and slammed into his rear.
Still inside Ulduar working the Forge of Wills, Loken could only watch as his lightly-held Temple of Wisdom crumbled at the first touch.
Distracted by the Western Eruption, the flow of reinforcements from the crafters engine faltered for a heartbeat.
Loken and Thorim seized that heartbeat; with Frost Giants and Night Elves they smashed Loken's last line, and the crafters engine was theirs.
After Yogg-Saron took Ulduar, Loken had every approach torn down for safety, leaving only one bridge from the Temple of Wisdom to the Hall of Stone.
The stratagem was useless against Night Elves with air-transport; once the engine fell, Loken and company soon mopped up the Valley Plain and cut off Loken's troop production at the root.
While Jarod and Maiev on the western front cracked the Halls of Stone and Lightning, Loken and Thorim rode a transport over the chasm and stepped into Ulduar's antechamber.
The war was all but decided; the traitor Loken's death was only a matter of time. The real worry was Yogg-Saron still sealed inside Ulduar… While Loken's troops cleared the outer rings, Andreas, Shandris and Leticia dropped everything and stood anxiously outside Celeste's birthing room.
"Ahh!"
The scream from within made Andreas' cheek twitch; he turned to Shandris, who looked equally worried.
"Why wasn't it this bad when you had Aurora?"
Shandris rolled her eyes. "Try giving birth yourself if you think it's easy. I just have a higher pain threshold than Celeste."
Before becoming a Priestess of the Moon, Shandris had been a first-rate hunter; her physique was far tougher than the mage Celeste.
The alternating cries from the room set Andreas on edge; memories of cheesy melodramas made him fear the midwife would burst out asking whether to save the mother or the child.
He leapt up, sat down, paced the doorway—his jitters infected Leticia, and the unmarried Leticia suddenly found childbirth terrifying.
Shandris forcibly parked her husband on a chair. "Calm down! I'll go in. Trust Celeste—she'll be fine."
"Mm…"
Seeing him jiggling his leg and gnawing his nails, Shandris swatted his hand away from his mouth.
"Leticia, keep an eye on him."
A thoroughly rattled Leticia nodded solemnly. "Got it."
Once Shandris stepped inside, Celeste's cries grew even louder.
When Andreas could bear it no longer and reached for the door, a baby's wail finally rang out amid soft cheers.
The city's best midwife pushed the door open beaming. "Congratulations, Lord Speaker—mother and son are safe!"
"Hah…"
Andreas sagged onto the bench in relief; wiping cold sweat from his brow, he finally registered her words.
"Mother and… son?"
"Yes—Lady Celeste has given birth to a baby boy!"