A/N: this is a sort of tribute to Delaryn Summermoon, whose brief story felt so tragic. My initial muse was, unintentionally, my fellow FF writer and deviant Aranya Ver'Sarn, whose profile (same name) can be found here. Check out her short story "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE" over on Deviant Art to see what initially spurred me to start writing this.
Red and black banners waved on the hill, surrounded by hundreds - maybe even thousands - of troops. Spiked pauldrons and horned helmets marked the sea of winded soldiers, punctuated by the tips of spears and axes that waved back and forth to the rhythm of the war drums. The damp branches of pine trees dripped with the tears of the grey clouds, causing the fires of their torches to steam in a promise of what was to come should they succeed.
In the last foothills of Darkshore, the mass of grunts, raiders, and other warriors all stood at attention. Tired from the march across a quarter of the continent, their weary eyes looked to the top of the final hill before Darkshore's descent to the coast. Among the throngs of hundreds of shock troopers, two pairs of points ears bobbed in a crowd of strangers. One of them in particular grew impatient.
A pair of infantry, both with shaved heads, shifted their weight, though the smaller of the two grumbled about the wait. "They must be alerted to our position by now," a medium blue skinned woman whispered to her companion. The barbed javelins she carried in a case on her back were stained with blood that had long since dried out, adding to her anxiety.
The only familiar face to her was a similarly colored man resting his palms on a dark iron club. He looked down to her even when she didn't return his gaze, studying the anxiety in her angular face.
"Saurfang wouldn't steer us wrong," he said in a voice far too soft in comparison to his tank-like visage. His sharp-featured friend, however, wasn't entirely listening.
"We can't wait here forever. If we get told to call of the charge, there's gonna be-"
"Fon, not here," the man holding a massive club pleaded quietly.
A few of the other soldiers began to look around, clambering over each other to see the hill. Ukasha, a silent Grimtotem man well known to them both had unfortunately stood at an angle that blocked many of those behind him. The impatient javelineer started to push her fellow tribesman urgently. "Rush, see what it is, you fool. Don't miss whatever's happening!"
Silently forgiving her for her abrasive nature, he stretched up straight to peek over the hump on the back of Ukasha's neck. Atop the hill, the leader of their assault hurried to the top, dealing swift orders to his officers as the grunts in the front row of the infantry block knelt and saluted.
Rush slouched again as Fon tried to stand on her toes. "The High Overlord be here. He looks like he be in a rush." He paused for a second when she rolled her big eyes at him. "I swear that wasn't a pun."
"Whatever. I really be hoping-"
Saurfang's voice boomed over the hill, drowning them both out and even getting a rise out of Ukasha, who never seemed to react to anything. Every single one of the thousand-odd troops became mute at that moment, standing at attention to the call of a voice which reached all the way to the last row.
"The time for talk has passed; the time to act overtakes us," Saurfang said thunderously. What seemed to be his normal speaking voice carried over the crowd without effort. "Our orders have arrived: we are to take Lor'Danil and secure its port." Cheers began to spread prematurely among the eager and anxious, but Saurfang slowly lifted a single palm. The movement didn't quite match the persona of an old soldier of many battles, but the desired effect took place. Like the volume control on a goblin music machine, the noise of the crowd decreased lower the higher the old soldier raised his hand, and by the time silence had dominated the hill again, he was already speaking.
"Do not harm the civilians; anyone not in a uniform or carrying a weapon is to be left alone." As if impressing upon them all how strongly he felt, Saurfang paused for a few seconds despite the urgent look on his face before continuing. "Do not allow the combatants to survive if they refuse to lay down their arms...but if they do, then remember the value of prisoners."
Armor clinking as he raised his axe, the old soldier led every single fighter lined up to mimic him. "Today, we take Lor'Danil for the Horde!"
Old Saurfang's voice carried over the heads of the crowd, causing many to visibly jump. The volume finally increased in his voice, practically booming over them all and being met with battle cries in kind. Weapons rattled and drums were beaten, pounding out of sync with the boots on the ground, but nobody noticed. As soon as Saurfang pointed over the last of the hills, the mass of infantry charged, led by a handful of mounted raiders bearing battle standards.
The two shaven adventurers marched in the middle of the infantry block, their nerves buzzing with excitement from their compatriots around them. The curved rooftops of the city poked over the horizon, warning of the coming clash. Horde skirmishers swept the edge of the woods and beyond, screening the infantry from enemy archers and shooters, adding to the eerie calm as the hundreds of troops broke the tree line.
"Too quiet equals an ambush with these wood elfies," Fon'kei whispered just as most of the infantry blocks had left forest cover.
Cruel in its sense of humor, the universe played a particularly mean practical joke just as she spoke. The first arrows dinged off of a grunt's armor in the same microsecond, causing the back rows of troops to come to a half within the forest. The young man from their tribe raised his head to sound the alarm, only to be felled by arrows to the head in mid sentence.
"Sneak attack!" an orc grunt net to him cried in his stead.
A wave of treants rose from the ground at the very front of the infantry rows, beyond the tree line. Boxed in, the front hundred or so soldiers attacked their woody foes, unmindful of the conflict behind them. Row after row of infantry toward the back spun around to find animal-form druids and hidden archers besieging them, and Ral'rush saw at least one row of a Horde infantry square fall to the ambush.
People began to push and shove to escape the forest, angering Fon'kei as she pushed back. "Cowards!" she yelled at both sides as she forced her way in the opposite direction of the more startled grunts. The front lines facing down the treants were entirely out of her field of vision.
Ral'rush followed her, struggling to keep up. When surrounded by so many allies, he couldn't hope to charge into the enemy and shock them, and all he could do was step over bodies and hedges as he followed her back into the woods. A handful of brave souls noticed and turned around, joining them without even needing an order from a ranking officer. The handful transformed into a dozen, and then a few, swelling into a few ranks of fighters passing by their injured or less foolhardy brethren. Arrows pelted the ground in front of them, but Fon merely ran even faster when seeing them, unintentionally and unknowingly leading a counter charge.
The first rustle of leaves above her alerted to the presence of an archer nearly on top of her, and Fon shuffled out of the way of another shot. Arching her back, she swung a javelin in a quarter circle, catching her attacker by surprise. At the same moment that her projectile brought the archer to the ground, a sentinel leapt from the bushes at her only to be stopped in mid swing by a random goblin running at full speed with a spear.
There was no time to think, no time to plan, no time to weigh odds. Unlike the orderly clashing of ranks against the treants, the fight at the tree line was intense, chaotic, and vicious. Dirt and tree branches were kicked up in the air as blood sprayed and members on both sides fell. Fon expended all of her javelins, was pushed into retrieving them, and eventually degenerated to stealing the glaives from dead elves and throwing those too. The decisive end came when Rush and a bear druid ran at each other head on, the loud crack of his club against the bear-elf's skull ringing in everyone's ears.
The sound sent the Horde fighters into a frenzy, charging straight into the enemy ranks and firing everything they had at the canopy until daylight broke through due to all the destroyed tree branches. The remaining elves fled, pursued into the forest by thirty or so goblins wielding spears and hollering as if they were high on drugs. A preliminary cheer broke out as the injured among the night elves were executed, but Fon was already running to the front lines.
"Slow down!" Rush called after her, painfully tearing his eyes away from the spoils of war as he tried to catch up with her.
Across multiple ranks of clambering troops, she dashed, grunting in disappointment when she found nothing but splinters in place of the treants. As opposed to the rear of the infantry block where dozens had died, the front lines were relatively successful, and she counted only two dead and a handful of injuries.
Even Saurfang had jumped in with his soldiers on the front lines, and he appeared mildly irritated at the temporary setback. "Report anyone celebrating prematurely and give me their names," the old soldier told one of his officers. He turned to the ranks of infantry and stared at them hard while wiping the tree sap off of his blade. "This isn't even the beginning. Press on!"