Wolfheart

24 Ashenvale at War

As Jarod had begun his day in search of Malfurion, events quickened in Ashenvale. With Elune’s guidance, Tyrande had worked miracles in the form of moon-affected currents to see to it that the ships reached Ashenvale even more quickly than estimated. Shandris had immediately sent heralds to the outposts to alert them of their coming and, in turn, learn where matters stood. As this went on, the newly arrived force wasted no time in moving out and marching. During the march, Tyrande explained to those priestesses who had accompanied her as to what their roles would be and what risks they would have to take.

Thus it was that Haldrissa and her Sentinels had the great pleasure—and relief—of watching the reinforcements arrive the next day, and they instantly began melding with the defenders already at the river. With Denea and the rest of her staff at her side, Haldrissa quickly rode up to meet the arrival of the high priestess and general.

Tyrande Whisperwind was an arresting sight. She did not wear the soft, shimmering robes of the temple now but rather the armor of a warrior of the moon goddess. Her formfitting armor, which covered her from neck to foot, had been crafted with layered plates that allowed her ease of movement. A gossamer cloak the color of moonlight and attached at the shoulders fluttered in the breeze. The high priestess also wore a winged helmet that covered the top half of her head.

“Hail, Commander Haldrissa,” Tyrande said without preamble. “I give thanks to the Mother Moon that we find you holding here.”

“The Horde has made no sign of movement since Silverwing fell. . . .”

Their expressions turned more dour at her answer. Tyrande and Shandris had been informed of the outpost’s destruction the moment that they had arrived, but it was still a bitter pill to swallow. For a long time Silverwing had been admired as an example of night elf determination in the face of extreme adversity.

“The damned orcs will pay,” Shandris remarked with relish. “Whatever tricks they have been using are not going to help them anymore!”

“Let us temper our desire to avenge the brave defenders of Silverwing and elsewhere in Ashenvale with the knowledge that Garrosh Hellscream commands the Horde now, not Thrall,” said Tyrande. “This is a different Horde in many respects, Shandris. We must move with thought and caution.”

“Oh, we will. We will move with the thought of crushing the orcs and the caution of not getting their blood in our eyes when we cut them down.”

The high priestess’s brow arched. Haldrissa said nothing, but Denea and most of the other Sentinels present nodded hearty agreement with the general.

“We need to know all that has transpired,” Tyrande told the commander, “and where you think your weakest points in the line might be.”

Haldrissa wasted no time in explaining all as best she could. A daring Denea tossed in her own suggestions when there seemed a point of hesitation on the senior officer’s part, including the belief that a thrust forward now would enable them to push the Horde back even to Silverwing. Haldrissa did not silence her second, a part of her wondering if Denea had a sharper grasp than her at the moment. Not once did the younger Sentinel pause in uncertainty as she did, and all that Denea suggested sounded reasonable to her.

Shandris and the high priestess took in everything, but voiced no opinion until the pair was done. At that point Tyrande Whisperwind looked to her general. “What say you?”

“It sounds as if the line is well set up. The thrust forward might be wise; one should never keep on the defensive with the Horde. I will have scouts set out immediately while we distribute our own forces along the perimeter Commander Haldrissa has established. The river is a good point of defense in case we have to pull back for one reason or another. We will leave a row of archers to give cover fire in case of that.”

“The goblin mist,” Haldrissa reminded her.

“No mist, natural or otherwise, will obscure our sight this time,” the high priestess promised. “Elune will see to that.”

The commander visibly exhaled. Suddenly, she felt very exhausted.

Tyrande looked upon her with sympathy, focusing for one moment on the eye patch. “You have served me well over the millennia, Haldrissa . . . and sacrificed much too. Now serve me by getting some well-deserved rest.”

“I know how the commander has laid out everything,” Denea offered before Haldrissa could turn down the gracious suggestion. “She can rest easy knowing all will be well.”

“It is settled, then.” The high priestess’s gaze met the commander’s. In those eyes, Haldrissa saw nothing but respect and compassion. Tyrande truly believed Haldrissa needed sleep, and who was she to argue with the co-ruler of all night elves?

“As you wish.”

Tyrande corrected her. “As you must, Haldrissa. We will need your experience badly. You know Ashenvale better than most.”

“Thank you, High Priestess.” From many others, the veteran warrior might have taken the comments as simple assuaging of any hurt feelings on Haldrissa’s part, but from Tyrande the commander knew that they were honest. That made her feel better as she excused herself and headed toward where she had made her camp.

As she retired, she kept her glaive nearby. It was very relieving to have the high priestess and the general in control of things, but Haldrissa had indeed been stationed in Ashenvale much longer than nearly anyone else here. She was more at home in the forests of this land than she would have been back in Darnassus. She felt attuned to Ashenvale, and when it suffered, it was as if a part of her did also.

And as she shut her eye, she could not help feeling that, despite the presence of the high priestess, much more terrible suffering was meant for Haldrissa’s beloved Ashenvale. . . .

Tyrande missed Haldrissa’s presence almost immediately, but gave no hint. Other than Shandris, the rest of the officers were much, much younger than her. Several had grown up only knowing the War of the Ancients as some epic tale of their parents. They could appreciate the obvious repercussions it had created and understood such matters as why most people hated the Highborne, but they still did not understand just how much the high priestess felt as if she were suffering from déjà vu. Here she was again, having to defend a world turned upside down by the evil of a creature who thought itself the ultimate judge. Back then it had been Queen Azshara. Now, it was Deathwing the Destroyer. And because of both of them, the night elves were faced with daunting obstacles to their continued survival.

But although instead of demons she faced the Horde, Tyrande found no solace in that. Blood was blood; death was death.

I am growing old, she mused, then quickly buried the thought. Instead she looked into herself and reached for Elune’s comforting blessing. Although she herself did not notice it, the shaft of soft, pale light that often shone down on her when she looked to the Mother Moon for guidance reappeared. Only when several Sentinels went down on one knee did she realize it.

“Rise, please.” Tyrande did not like her mere presence as Elune’s vessel to cause one disruption after another. While in general she had been successful at lessening the kneeling, moments like this frustrated her. Neither she nor the lunar goddess sought adulation . . . although, admittedly, even she happily revered Elune. Tyrande just did not believe that she also deserved reverence; she was only the Mother Moon’s servant.

Shandris was off organizing the troops with the assistance of the ambitious young Denea and several other officers both from Ashenvale and Darnassus. The Sentinel lines had already been shored up.

One welcome addition to the army gathering in defense of Ashenvale was a ship of mixed forces that had unexpectedly been offered to Tyrande just before departure. With Theramore’s suggestion, members of the escort of each representative had been offered the chance to volunteer to help. So many had joined that the ship had been packed tight. In addition to Jaina Proudmoore’s people, all three dwarven clans—including the Wildhammers and a number of their gryphons—the gnomes, the draenei, and other humans stood ready to fight alongside the night elves.

She peered beyond the river, beyond the forest edge on the other side. In the distance, mist gathered over the area. It had begun coalescing almost exactly the moment that the force under her overall command had arrived, as if the Horde had been awaiting her arrival.

Elune, guide us, she prayed. The high priestess surveyed the warriors making up the front. They all had that earnest, wary look she recalled too well from the many wars in which she had fought.

A warning horn sounded.

Tyrande searched for the source, but instead found Shandris riding toward her, Ash’alah, the high priestess’s own cat, racing alongside.

“Mount!” Shandris called as she pulled up. “Mount quickly!”

“What is it?”

Shandris pointed to the east. As if a silent but raging river, the goblin mist surged forward. Gigantic trees vanished as the thick fog enveloped them. Within the short moment that Tyrande had watched it, the mist had nearly reached the river.

She leapt aboard her nightsaber just as another horn blew from the southeast. It did not surprise either of them to see that the mist now rushed forth there also.

A shout from ahead signaled the mist’s advance there, also. Tyrande marveled at the mechanisms the goblins must have put together to create this fog. As the wind shifted briefly, she also smelled the stench that Ashenvale’s defenders had reported. The fog was more of a huge patch of smoke, as if the forest were on fire somewhere.

“You would do better farther back,” Shandris suggested.

“I did not come here to hide behind everyone else. I am here because I am needed, Shandris . . . especially at this moment.”

Tyrande raised her hands toward the sky. Even though the moon was not evident now, the beam of silver light shone down brighter upon her.

Tyrande focused her mind entirely on her prayer. She asked much of Elune but believed that the deity expected what she intended and would grant it.

Shandris gasped, then recovered. Other Sentinels looked her way, but the general angrily waved them back to their watch.

A beam of moonlight shone down upon Tyrande. The high priestess glowed brighter than the day. The glow grew, first spreading before her, then expanding to her left and right.

The light of Elune draped across the Alliance lines, confronting the encroaching goblin mist wherever it was. The foul-smelling fog moved above the river first, reaching the midway point. But then the moonlight met it.

Tyrande stared straight ahead. As the power of Elune neared the mist, she felt the other priestesses who had come with the expedition finally join her efforts. Strengthened by their prayers, Tyrande’s plan thrust ahead.

As she had done against the evil of the Nightmare Lord, the high priestess let the light of the Mother Moon burn away the goblins’ creation. Compared to the Nightmare’s monstrous fog and its frightening shadows, the Horde’s mist proved a weak foe. The moonlight ate away at it with no difficulty and within seconds had already cleansed the air above the river.

The defenders cheered. Those cheers grew even stronger as Elune revealed anew the forest beyond. The goblin mist faded as if nothing.

That did not mean that its creators did not try to fight back. Ahead of the light, the fog abruptly thickened. Yet, even then it proved no match for the Mother Moon’s gentle illumination. The light pushed on, moving even after there was no visible sign of the mist left to the Sentinels and their allies.

Although she could not see what happened so far away, Tyrande sensed a sudden ceasing of the goblins’ fog. Why waste such effort when it was to no avail? She should have felt confidence with this first, very obvious victory, but the high priestess could not shake the feeling that there was something amiss.

Next to her, Shandris screamed something unintelligible. The next moment the world around Tyrande exploded. What sounded like a roar accompanied the eruption, and her first thought was, Deathwing! Deathwing comes to fight for the Horde!

Even as she tumbled, a part of her knew that the thought was a foolish one. The huge dragon would not have bothered with such a petty spectacle. Deathwing, who abhorred all “lesser” life, would have preferred razing the entire area, combatants and all.

Her concentration broken, the prayer ended, and with it the light. She felt pain in her left arm and leg. When Tyrande tried to see what was happening, at first all she saw was more fog.

No . . . not fog. Dust. The air was filled with dust and even large fragments of rock and earth that rained down on not just her, but everyone else in the area. Tyrande made out at least three Sentinels nearby who lay either dead or unconscious.

A large, moist nose sniffed her. Tyrande’s nightsaber licked her leg, where for the first time the high priestess saw that a shard of rock stuck out near the thigh. Wincing, she seized the shard and tugged it free, then quickly prayed over the wound. The gap healed, leaving only bloodstains to mark it.

Touching her arm, Tyrande only found some blood. No longer concerned for herself, she looked for Shandris.

The first sign of the other night elf was one that made Tyrande shiver with anguish. Shandris’s nightsaber lay sprawled, its skull crushed in by a very large piece of rock.

“Shandris!” All else forgotten, Tyrande stepped past her mount and climbed over the dead cat. “Shandris!”

There were two individuals in her life who meant more to her than anything. Malfurion and the orphan who had become her daughter. Tyrande had never let Shandris know just how much she worried about the younger night elf’s duties as head of their forces. So many of the high priestess’s personal prayers had concerned Shandris’s continued safety.

And now . . .

There was no sign of Shandris on the other side. Tyrande looked farther on, fearing that her daughter had been thrown far away. Tyrande spotted another body—a Sentinel, surely dead, from the awkward angle in which she lay—but it was not Shandris. Even though she felt some shame in doing so, the high priestess gave thanks to Elune for even this momentary respite.

Then a groan from the direction of the dead nightsaber made her turn. Tyrande rushed to the area by the tail, a place to which she had paid little mind. There, a good portion of the cat was buried under the rubble of whatever had struck.

Shandris’s arm, the covering dust making it blend into the ground around it, lay just under one of the feline’s hind legs. It moved as Tyrande neared, and again she gave thanks to Elune for this personal blessing.

No sooner had she knelt to see what she could do than several other Sentinels rushed up to help. They had evidently seen what had happened but could not get to the two any sooner. With careful swiftness they hefted the dead nightsaber off of the general.

Tyrande put a hand to Shandris’s back and prayed. She did not know what injuries Shandris had suffered and did not care. She only hoped that Elune would heal whatever had happened to her daughter.

Shandris groaned again, but this time with more life. She glowed with the light of Elune as Tyrande finished her prayer. Only when the high priestess pulled her hand away did the glow fade. To Tyrande’s relief, Shandris’s breathing was strong and regular.

As the high priestess pulled back, it was as if the world had suddenly returned in all its chaotic fury. There were shouts coming from everywhere and the familiar hiss of arrows on their way to deliver death. She hoped the last sound had come from the bows of the Sentinels and not the Horde, but knew that it was likely a combination of both. Sentinels rushed past her, some mounted, and all of them with anxious looks on their faces.

A roar that reminded her of Deathwing thundered across the area. Belatedly, Tyrande recognized that it was not one roar but a multitude of voices shouting in unison.

She looked toward the river . . . and saw that beyond it, the forest was filled with orcs, tauren with massive totems, trolls—including more than one witch doctor—and more. The floodgates had opened and through them rushed the Horde.

“They . . . they were seeking you,” Shandris gasped as a pair of the Sentinels helped her rise. “They knew you were here and they used the damned mist to make you act!”

Tyrande peered at the area around them. Virtually all of the huge boulders that had dropped among them had been concentrated on the center, where, indeed, she had been situated. The high priestess suspected that she could thank luck as much as her patron for the fact that she had survived.

Actually, she could thank one more. “You threw yourself at me.”

“With all due respect, you are more important to our people than I am,” Shandris responded, straightening. “I did not know that I would land just where my mount would fall after the next strike!”

The horns sounded again. Another flight of arrows from the Alliance side flew over the river. The Horde forces held up their shields, creating a wall. Most of the arrows either bounced off the shields or stuck in them, but several still caught their intended targets. A number of warriors fell or pulled back with bolts sticking out of them.

“They have not managed to ford the river yet,” Tyrande noticed.

“It is deep and the current is strong, but that should still not be such a problem for them. They are testing us out; I know it!”

Denea rode up. “General, they did much the same when they attacked our main outpost! The commander thought that they were counting our archers!”

“Likely enough! It will do them no good. We have got far more than we are using. The others will be a nice surprise when they think they have got our numbers down!”

As the Alliance archers continued to fire—and the orcs on occasion fired back—more mounted Sentinels readied along various points of the line. Tyrande and Shandris had come to Ashenvale with a battle plan already in mind that did not need to wait for whatever the Horde intended to throw at them.

Four contingents of huntresses armed with lances now kept their mounts ready for the signal. With them stood double their number of Sentinels on foot, both those with glaives and others with swords. Accompanying them were dwarves of the Dark Iron and Bronzebeard clans, while farther back, Wildhammer dwarves waited for word to urge their gryphons skyward. Humans, draenei, and gnomes—the last armed with some especially vicious devices—intermingled with the first two dwarven clans. A few magi, mostly from Theramore, were also in attendance, their focus on their dark counterparts.

Tyrande’s priestesses had separated into two groups. One went about healing the wounded, while the second watched Tyrande expectantly. They were to assist in her own attack.

Another unit consisting of defenders from Ashenvale formed a new center. Denea had volunteered to take command of them in place of Haldrissa, and Shandris had agreed to that. The general gave the younger Sentinel some last-minute instructions, then sent her off to her soldiers.

Shandris turned to Tyrande. “Are you ready? Can you take over?”

The devastation around the high priestess still fresh in her mind—and especially the deaths of those who had paid for being in the vicinity of her—Tyrande flatly replied, “Be ready.”

With a crooked grin, Shandris secured another mount from one of the other Sentinels, then rode off. Tyrande of necessity led her own cat farther to the rear. Although she ached to join Shandris in battle, for this, she had to be in a safer position. Only when her task was accomplished could she enter the fray herself.

The apparent impasse held. Making certain that the assigned priestesses were ready, Tyrande waited for the right moment.

A horn blew from where Shandris commanded.

The Alliance archers ceased firing.

The orcs forming the first ranks roared, then charged toward the river. Tauren and trolls followed them, while in the back, the undead warlocks of the Forsaken and witch doctors from the trolls began casting spells that Tyrande hoped her own side would be able to counter with minimal losses. Arrows flew toward the Alliance’s own front ranks, where huntresses, lances ready, were forced to crouch behind shields and barriers.

In concert with the other priestesses, Tyrande prayed to Elune.

Moonlight touched her and her followers. It then reached forth beyond the defenders’ lines, stretching across the river. However, where before it had simply glowed everywhere in order to dissolve the false mist, now its light focused as if through a diamond.

And even moonlight in the eyes can blind.

The front ranks of the Horde were caught in their tracks. The hulking warriors stumbled. Whether orc, tauren, or some other powerful fighter, there was nothing they could do. The light caught them by surprise. It dazzled their gazes. Several orcs ran into one another, their positions made worse by the fact that they were half in the water.

Now, Shandris! Tyrande silently called. Now!

The blare of a new horn heartened her, as did the battle cry of the rushing Sentinels and the deadly hiss of the protecting archers. Into the river raced the lancers, their nightsabers undaunted by the water or the enemy ahead. Shandris had utilized the knowledge of Ashenvale’s defenders to know where the shallowest areas were, aiding the momentum of the charge.

From the other side, there came the bleat of a horn. Still blinded, the Horde fighters shuffled back as best they could.

They will be slaughtered, Tyrande thought with some guilt. She knew that she did the right thing, but still she also prayed that perhaps the enemy would see fit to either keep running or wisely surrender.

The first of the lancers reached the other side, the crumbling lines of the orcs and their allies only a few yards ahead now. The expert aim of Sentinel archers downed several brutish warriors who refused to retreat with the rest. Orcs, by far the bulk of Garrosh’s expedition, lay strewn everywhere, their fearsome tusked faces often still seeming angry in death. Some had more than half a dozen bolts sticking out of their thick hides and even more stuck in their armor and shields. The orcs had done their best to protect themselves, but against so many arrows, even the best of armor proved inadequate.

Yet, even despite the deadly downpour, several orcs—arrows deep in legs, arms, and torso—survived to keep some order as they dragged more severely wounded comrades back from danger. Two grabbed banners from fallen comrades, waving the Horde flags in defiance as the Sentinels moved in after them.

Despite the surviving orcs’ bravado, it appeared that the destruction of Silverwing would soon be avenged. However, of even greater import was the growing hope that the liberation of all Ashenvale seemed possible . . . if Garrosh’s ambition could be crushed here and now.

Again, the enemy horn sounded . . . yet, this time in a more fearsome, defiant manner. Tyrande had to assume that Garrosh intended a stand on safer ground. The only trouble was, the moonlight followed the Horde, continuing to blind them even as the lancers drew within striking range. The warlocks and other casters could not even give proper cover, as they were also unable to face the moonlight. That, in turn, gave more advantage to the Alliance spellcasters, who worked in earnest to put an end to the Horde’s magical threat. Fearsome blasts bombarded the warlocks nearest to the front.

The Horde horn blared once more, its signal not at all seeming to call for retreat. Rather, it encouraged attack in its tone, promised victory.

But instead of turning to face their foes again, the orcs and other fighters remaining from the front lines did a strange thing. They scattered to the trees as if trying to get out of the way. How they hoped to escape the nightsabers by fleeing, she could not say. Night elves were more forest creatures than orcs, tauren, or even trolls. Their cats were just as wily and quick in such areas, and the riders knew well how to handle their lances even among the trees.

Shandris must have suspected something, for a horn sounded on the Alliance side, one that signaled for a regrouping rather than a continued hunt through forest. With so many of the enemy now turned from the direction of the battle, the high priestess finally chose to cease the prayer.

Even as the moonlight faded, she urged her mount forward. If there was danger to her people—and to her Shandris—Tyrande needed to be nearby.

The first wave of foot soldiers had made it to the other side behind the lancers. Some threw their glaives at retreating targets, but most already began regrouping. Watching them, Tyrande breathed with relief. Garrosh would find the advance line able to hold against his warriors.

A monstrous roar rumbled through the region.

A massive rock appeared in the sky, then dropped down hard on a band of lancers just about to join their compatriots. The hapless riders never even realized their doom. The rock crushed some, and the fragments from its shattering slew the others.

More rocks came flying through the air. Ashenvale’s defenders had warned about hidden catapults, but Tyrande had never witnessed anything like this. There was something different. She was reminded of her own near death and how that assault, too, had seemed not quite what it appeared.

The first rock had done the most harm. Now warned, the Alliance army better avoided the areas where the missiles dropped.

Trees began shaking farther into the forest ahead. Another roar thundered across the landscape . . . and this time was answered by several more, all from the same direction.

What seemed initially a series of rhythmic explosions accented the roars. Tyrande frowned. Not explosions. It was as if they were hoofbeats—but for such, the animals would have to be gigantic. . . .

The tree line flew away, entire oaks tossed as if nothing. A humongous shape, with some resemblance in outline to a centaur but much bulkier, burst out among the stunned defenders.

“Elune, preserve us!” the high priestess blurted.

The giant creature seized a lancer and mount with one hand and tossed both casually over his shoulder. Night elf and cat went screaming to their deaths. The behemoth stomped at the closest Sentinels on foot, crushing one beneath his sturdy, elephantine feet.

Indeed, the lower half of the body had much similarity to such a creature—or rather, to its larger, more deadly cousin from Northrend, the mammoth. Yet, where the head and shoulders should have begun, the upper torso of another fantastic creature roughly akin to a human began. The towering monster, two long tusks arching down from the sides of his mouth, eagerly searched the ground before him for more victims.

And as the one behemoth stomped among the scattering defenders, another broke through the forest elsewhere, sending trees down on the fighters and seizing other victims in his thick, four-fingered hands. As the second monster crushed the life out of his prey, the rest of the trees exploded and identical fiends fell upon the would-be victors. The battle had turned into a catastrophe of proportions as terrible as the legendary creatures loose among the tiny night elves.

They have set magnataur upon us! the high priestess marveled grimly. They have dared set magnataur loose in Ashenvale!

The danger to the Horde itself surely should have been obvious to Garrosh, but he had taken the risk and thus far had chosen well. To bring the savage giants of the wastes of Northrend to Ashenvale had surely been a mighty test in itself. Tyrande could not imagine how even the Horde could have managed to bring them without some sacrifice already on its part.

With heavy thumps, the magnataur wreaked havoc merely by moving. Tyrande counted eight in all—every one of them bulls—and though a small number, it was astonishing to see them together. So violent were magnataur that males such as these lived isolated from one another, or else they constantly came to blows.

The beasts crushed and tossed about their victims as if the mighty Alliance army was little more than ants. A nightsaber lacking its rider attempted to bite at the heavy, cylindrical leg of one of the magnataur. For its bravery, the cat was taken up in one hand, then torn apart with both. The magnataur then threw the mangled pieces into the river, which already ran red with blood.

Somewhere out there, Tyrande knew Shandris was trying her best to save her troops. The high priestess yearned to continue her own charge, but knew that she had to try to stop the magnataur first.

Reining her cat to a halt, she called upon Elune’s aid in that regard. As it always did, the light of the Mother Moon shone down upon her. Tyrande prayed for guidance—

Yet another huge boulder soared above her. Too late, Tyrande realized that the magnataur were the “catapults,” and for them Garrosh evidently had one particular target in mind. The glow of Elune had actually pointed her out to them. The magnataur, for all their savagery, were intelligent enough to understand what was needed. Garrosh wanted the glowing target destroyed. If it was another priestess, that would be one fewer to aid Tyrande.

And if they slew the high priestess . . . they knew that they would deal the night elves and the Alliance a devastating blow.

The shadow of the boulder passed in front of her. The high priestess pulled hard, turning her mount away from the oncoming crash and the deadly spray that would follow.

As she did, though, a sharp pain caught her near the shoulder blade. Another did near the lower part of her back.

Two arrows had struck the high priestess.

Tyrande knew that she had been tricked. Whether by the magnataur or one or two daring archers, Garrosh wanted the night elf ruler dead. In this case, the boulder had been the decoy the archers had needed.

And as the monsters from Northrend tore through her people, Tyrande dropped limply to the ground.