The Battle for Bough Shadow
5/30 Night
Tyrande was glad to have the additional support. Even with the ceasefire with the Horde, the Sentinel army was stretched grievously thin. In terms of numbers, Jaina and her personal guards was a fairly small force, but the archmage was individually quite powerful. The force of dragons, mostly mounted by high elves, was a welcome addition as well. Emeriss and the mysterious Esmerelda were primarily awake to guard their sleeping kin, but they had the forces to spare for a threat like this.
The Warsong Outriders offered to make the initial charge. The orcs’ bloodthirst was as strong as their sense of honor, and frequently had Tyrande wondering whether she should hate or respect them. Thrall was not so bad, but even he insisted that his people “needed” to chop down the sacred woods to build their eyesore of a city.
As sometimes happened, she idly considered the tactical ramifications of ignoring her morals. If she allowed the orcs to charge blindly in and trade their lives away without support, she could probably sweep in afterwards and win the day against a far more token force of the Nightmare. It would cost some of her sentinels’ lives, but how many of her soldiers would die to the Outriders before the Horde could be forced to leave?
Of course she would do no such thing. Elune would not approve, Jaina would not approve, Emeriss would likely not approve, the Earthen Ring and Cenarian Circle would not approve, and even Shandris would disapprove on tactical grounds. The Night elves were no longer an island. They could not treat their allies, even temporary allies who would be enemies again tomorrow, with such callousness.
Tyrande didn’t really want them dead. She wanted them gone. Perhaps to start logging in Feralas. Treachery wouldn’t really accomplish that, and it sickened her how many reasons she needed to think of before she could dismiss the idea. Things were so much simpler before joining the Alliance. Kill enemies, support allies, scare the undecided into compliance. Well, she should be thankful things were different. The orcs were bad, but at least she had some allies against the Nightmare.
••••••••••
Gargok got as grand a slaughter as as he could possibly have wanted. Blood and thunder, for the Horde. Even the old moralists, still shaken from the days of the Old Horde, were thrilled to have such an objectively evil enemy to strike down. The lashers and corrupted beasts were a simple kind of enemy, attacking in waves, all but demanding death.
His people needed Ashenvale; it was as simple as that. Stonetalon was already exhausted and needed time to heal. The nearest other source of good quality lumber, Feralas, would be an unspeakable logistical nightmare. Bringing the wood back would require either traveling through Quillboar territory after transporting it up a sheer cliff face, hauling it the long way through a demon and Centaur infested wasteland, or a grueling journey through the desert just to pay massive tariffs to the goblins. Unacceptable; his people couldn’t afford that.
As such, he could hardly allow the elves to defend his territory alone as if they still had a claim to it. By all means, they could assist against a common enemy if they wished, he would even agree to a truce if they were prepared to honor it as well. The Warchief genuinely wanted peace with these warrior women, and Gargok knew them to be both mighty allies and honorable foes.
He’d been warned that the enemy had great corrupted trees serving as guardians. That made him smile, actually. Ancients made for good lumber, and if they were corrupted the elves could hardly object. As he drew back to assess his troops, he noted that the enemy was uncowed by orc ferocity. The outriders were certainly outnumbered, as expected. That is why they had agreed to allow the night elves to accompany them, in addition to gratitude for the warning.
As a storm of arrows skewered the giant dragon men that Gargok assumed were the enemy’s first rank of elite troops, the orc sighed. The elves were marvelous warriors in every way that the orcs weren’t, and vice versa. They complimented each other so well it was astounding. In the war against the demons, they had stood side by side and defended Azeroth from its greatest foe. It was a shame they could not do so more often, really. If only the elves could be reasonable.
With the Sentinels revealed to the enemy and their ambush successful, their high shaman began calling down the wrath of the moon spirit, and the human mage Jaina called ice to bury the enemy as well. The enemy’s true dragons and their guardian trees still remained, and Gargok’s men were still in good shape. He checked with the shaman, the healers whose strain would be most vital to manage, and received confirmation that they could continue to press the attack. Taking a swig of water, Gargok put his helmet back on and led the next charge himself.
••••••••••
Tyrande had to admit that the orcs made for an excellent front line. Her archers were able to aim their shots carefully, as the enemy was screened off on the ground by orcs and above by the dragons. The last battle had become brutal precisely because they had lacked a disciplined wall of warriors to intercept threats.
She received a message from the rear; further reinforcements from the Cenarion Circle had arrived. Good. The battle was going well, but the enemy used these corrupted plants and animals as chaff. The real challenge was still to come. She focused on the attack, trusting Shandris to deploy the Druids appropriately.
Then the screams started.
••••••••••
Fandral gave the order to attack. His men, loyal warriors Valstann had led him to, morphed into satyrs before his eyes. The corruption had him, it could make him see terrible things. He knew that he was doing the right thing. That he needed to protect the dream portal by any means necessary, and that he couldn’t tell anyone. He couldn’t explain that all of the leaders of the Kaldorei were compromised. Most of all, he needed to make them kill him.
He wondered what Tyrande saw. What she was being forced to think. What she couldn’t do. If Fandral hadn’t had Valstann to guide him, he would have been helpless too. He didn’t particularly like the high priestess of Elune, but he would do everything in his power to free her from her torment. Once the slaughter began, Fandral took cat form and made a beeline for Tyrande.
She was aware of his seeming treachery, of course, and she was ready to fight. The huntress against the predator. He closed the distance with a great leap, moving too fast for most archers to have a prayer of hitting him. Tyrande wasn’t most archers, but he still managed to twist away from the few close calls. Unfortunately she also managed to avoid his first few claw swipes. Damned woman made everything difficult. He was trying to free her.
He had the advantage in this fight as long as he could get in close and stay there; her allies would be distracted by his own, hopefully for long enough. Tyrande was far from helpless in close quarters, but he was rapidly able to take her down, desperately trying to rip her throat out as she held him at arms length with Elune-granted strength.
••••••••••
Xylinnia had been trained for this. Things were going horribly, so it was her duty to contact Lord Erius and let him know. He would respond with whatever aid he could spare. Unfortunately, she was known to the nightmare. Even as she pulled out her necklace, five satyrs descended upon her with purpose. One knocked the air out of her with a swift kick while the other four held off her squad mates.
Above her, the dragons and their riders were being swarmed with corrupted birds and winged serpents, but not dragons. It was an explosive strike, meant to spend the replaceable minions that the nightmare had without undue risk to his real troops.She tried to use her training, tried to slip away, tried anything she could think of. The hulking demon tracked her doggedly, and when he got hold of her, she loosed an arrow into his chest. The satyr winced, but not enough to let her go. Instead, he tore her skin with his saw toothed blade. In moments, Xylinnia was a bloody mess. As life faded from her eyes, she looked to the skies and saw a sight she never thought she would be so happy to see.
Two dozen harpies, mostly undead harpies no less, swooped down from the sky squawking out their war cries. The satyrs were justifiably caught off guard as everywhere that an amulet was, a team of 5 harpies moved to defend them. Xylinnia’s body was retrieved, Shandris was given the opportunity to drink a badly needed potion, Sagorne was given space to cast, and Ysiel took to the skies alongside them as a stormcrow. Jaina hadn’t needed the assistance; she had received a token attack, but no more than any of the normal officers. She’d joined too late to be noticed.
Tyrande was barely holding Fandral off when he was suddenly struck with a blast of fire from behind. Sister Riven and the Bloodfeather Ripper moved in to slash at the great panther’s back. He was forced to turn around and ward them off, and that was enough for Tyrande to stab him in the back. She prayed over the poor man, realizing that the corruption must be lashing out. She didn’t have the time to waste seeing to him right now, trusting that a few of the druids she knew personally would be able to keep him safe and secure. He thrashed madly, taking his favored forms of the panther and the Scorpion to try to twist out of his restraints, but with three Druids and one of Lady Proudmoore’s aides countering everything he attempted, they were able to sedate him until suddenly he fell to the ground like a puppet with his strings cut. His guards looked to the sky and saw Emeriss looking down for just a moment, somehow responsible for this fortuitous slumber.
Unfortunately his brutal sneak attack had the sentinels in disarray. The satyr, as demons loyal to Sargeras, had no problem with sacrificing their lives here in Azeroth to weaken the defenses of the planet through civil war. Shandris was badly injured, and would probably take days to recover. Tyrande herself was badly mauled, though she was fixing that even as she assessed the situation; minimal injuries, nothing too deep or complex for simple healing. The Warsong Outriders were suddenly isolated, getting pounded from all sides by the full weight of the enemy. Tyrande looked around at the Silverwing Sentinels and quickly determined that they absolutely needed to get out of there. They had far too many injured, and many dead to retrieve on the way out. That woman, Sally, turned the retrieval of the bodies from an honorable gesture to a vital life saving measure.
She sounded the call to retreat, with a follow up to assist the outriders first. She would need them again for the next assault. Perhaps Thrall could be persuaded to put in an appearance.