Music: RISE OF THE BLACK CURTAIN by Audiomachine   

*Edited excerpt from Azeroth Unfolding*

Not a sound could be heard. No lowly bellows of the lumbering, musky clefthoofs which roamed the plains in small herds. No birdsong or screeching from the rylaks inhabiting the cliff tops. No howling winds sweeping through the canyons and over snow-covered mountains.

Nothing.

Just an eerie silence.

The black nimbus, which had appeared and grown for days off the northern tip of Frostfire, pulsed and writhed like a giant cocoon. It would soon burst forth with 'new life'. But this cocoon did not promise a thing of beauty. Within its centre lay nothing but death and decay; a cancer, the devourer of life. Its baneful, nefarious ubiquity was like a toxic, vile blister. It hung with contemptuous intent above the landscape.

Then, from within the cloud, a low, menacing sound began.

The embryonic thrum began to build and other sounds joined its chorus. The beasts of the plains had finally found their voices as the ominous vibration filled the air.

Panic gripped the creatures of Frostfire. At first, there was a disorganised flurry of wings, a toing and froing of hooved and pad-footed animals. Frightened shouts and screams from within villages and hamlets travelled over the fire and ice landscape.

The cloud began to roil and fold. Eyes looked skyward as the nimbus opened in an unearthly yawn; the sound omitted like that of a colossal door screeching open on rusted hinges. One final pulse, then, it exploded in a back-draft and flash-over of fire. Hurtling forward with incredible velocity, its shadow turned the pristine snow ashen and black.

From within the murk, enormous, shadowy creatures descended. Flashes of electric energy crackled and whirred around their alien forms. Heads, shoulders and arms were emblazoned with esoteric armour, their bulk tapering to ether-like tails which hovered just above the snow. Cruel eyes, brilliant, emotionless specks, surveyed the land before them.

Their mouths opened, omitting ear-shattering ululations reverberating across the sky. Twisters formed, pounding the ground in dull, booming thuds. In their wake, the ice and snow landscape broke apart ; exploding shards and crystallised flakes quickly swallowed by the whirling winds.

In a most disturbing ballet, the creatures swept their arms, directing the vortexes across the land. The ground heaved, shattered and splintered. It was sucked up and disintegrated within the deadly grasp of the twisters. Residue was spat out and sifted again until it was nothing more than dust, ghosting its way upwards to the Great Dark Beyond.

The creatures and peoples of Frostfire fled in a unified stampede towards the east. Orcs and trolls were trampled underfoot by terrified, snarling wolves and bellowing clefthoof. Agonised screams and roars were swallowed, lost amid the sounds of destruction. Birds and rylaks, abandoning their young, took to the wing, leading the way across the ice-covered plains.

Those unable to outrun the encroaching doom were snatched up; converted to blood and pulp, devoured, processed, regurgitated - their remains thrown to the elements, the cosmos, the void.

Fissures, chasms and newborn canyons appeared momentarily before surrendering to the lords of shadow. Little survived their passage; most was erased, as if it had never existed.

Any sources of magic, be they in the form of ley-lines or individuals who practised the arts, were exorcised by the Void Lords themselves. Gorging in this manner enabled them to draw on the raw power, imbuing them with even more destructive force. They followed the fleeing creatures and peoples of Frostfire, their appetite knowing no boundary.

The Void Lords had begun their destructive journey. Armageddon was on the march.