Across the Bone Wastes they marched on foot, and onto the rolling plains of Nagrand. They were greeted to the sight of ribbons of magic weaving across the night sky, obscured by the vast shadow of an alien moon, and by the tumbling chunks of Draenor's shattered form drifting on the winds. Yet more than that, they were soon greeted by a familiar face.
Alongside a small host of outriders from the Wildhammer and Allerian Strongholds, Tatton Irwine, the patrol coordinator and one of the few officers remaining in Shadowmoon Valley, approached them on the road. A nervous Irwine informed the Order and its cohort that Thane Khazgrim, whose soul they had saved mere days ago, had perished, and that Lord Colburr di Athon of the 13th Legion, 1st Cohort had temporarily assumed command.
Furthermore, Lord Athon had named the Order and its following deserters.
Unwilling to face yet another injustice, there was at last a retaliation: Captain Irwine's steed was forced to flee, carrying his rider with him, and the half-dozen outriders that had come to arrest them were wrestled, intimidated and beaten into submission, though no blood was spilt and their minor scrapes and bruises were later healed. The Marshal instructed the dutiful outriders to assist them in defeating the Hand of Kharduum, and for the night they rested in the ruins of a nearby orcish settlement.
Over the coming days, they carefully made their way to the settlement of Halaa, in the eponymous and picturesque Halaani basin. Captain Irwine's whereabouts were unknown, and as it was suspected that he had followed the road to Telaar, they were wary of the fact that the Draenei in Halaa might not appreciate so-called 'deserters' in their midst.
While they discovered from Turekk, a Sha'tari Skyguard commander stationed in Halaa, that Irwine had passed through and warned the Draenei that at least some of the Alliance's officership on the planet demanded the Order be returned to Shadowmoon, they were fortunate that the Sha'tar had no interest in appeasing them at this time. They learned that the demonic portal they sought was in a high, hanging valley upon the western point of Nagrand, and, much to Vindicator Turekk's surprise, offered to enter the portal - into the unknown - to destroy whatever was keeping the portal open...
A Murmur at the Edge of Reality
Whilst the Order were proficient in horse-riding, some of the convicts under their wing were not. None of them, however, were proficient in the riding of nether rays, but the Sha'tari Skyguard provided them with harnesses that would keep them attached to the creatures as they soar across the plains of Nagrand.
Their destination was Twilight Ridge, where ahead of them the Skyguard had landed to do battle against the Hand of Kharduum's forces at the portal - a brilliantly bright rift between two monoliths of blackened stone. The plan was simple and perilous: the Order would enter the portal and vanquish what lay within. They would take the fight to whatever demon world lay beyond, slaughter their way through the fiends, and destroy the locus of power that maintained the connection to Outland.
What they found beyond the portal was surprising, confusing, to even Turekk, when the vindicator later learned of what had transpired.
There was locus of power, no hordes of demonic beasts. There was not even a world - at least, not anymore. A lone Eredar, gazing upon a calamity of unimaginable scale: entire continents tumbling in a dark abyss at the edge of the sensible universe, where the raw power of the Void sparked and crackled through the wavering veil of reality.
This was the fate of Kharduum, the very homeworld of the demons that they faced. Through some incomprehensible cataclysm, the demons' own world had been torn asunder, and the chaotic, dissonant echoes of its demise still rang from every shattered stone, every crumbling mountain. In the distance, the signature of Kharduum's destruction still roared and whispered, at times deafening to the mortals as they brought an end to the Eredar, Zaruuyan.
Yet the world's destruction was not yet final, and even as they battled the Eredar the sound of calamity and discord tore away at the outcrop upon which they battled. In the nick of time, they vanquished the demonic portal master and fled to Outland once more, taking with them a most unholy tome, whose oozing cover was that of hardened blood, and whose contents detailed abominations that no mortal mind should ever perceive...
