Warraven's breath steamed in the air, a fine cloud of vapor drifting lazily before her eyes. The dew had not even burnt off the sparse grass and yet the defenders stood side by side, their slow breathing making little clouds all along the line. The tauren looked to either side of her, where her brothers and sisters waited for the impending battle. They all wore the same tabard, rough black cloth with a single leaf in the center, dyed blue like the deep ocean, tendrils of frost secretly creeping off the edges and weaving into the warp and weft of the fabric. Entangled. Kin not by ancestry but by the blood of battle.
The nerubians crept out of their tunnels, a few here and there that cautiously approached. The sentries of Warsong Hold had noticed them in the night, the sinkholes appearing one by one, like festering wound all around the keep. Those sleeping inside the safety of the walls were woken, anyone of leadership capacity directed to where Hellscream was already outlining the plan of defense. The Horde would not be caught off-guard by this attack. They would meet it blade to match blade. And so Rokkh was directed as to where he would hold and before the sun was up he woke the members of Entangled and quietly told them to bring their weapons.
The shaman breathed deep, feeling the stir of the spirits around her, the totems she had planted in the ground acting like beacons to direct and guide them. She stood side by side with another shaman, orc, who stared impassively out at the spider-like abominations. To her other side was Molinu. The orc hunter's emotions were unreadable from the goggles that covered his eyes. He held his gun casually in one hand, the other fiddling with a strap on his armor here and there. The great tiger Firestripe sat next to him.
She turned her head to regard the casters behind their front line.
"Ready, elf?" she asked.
There were three of the Sin'dorei but the one she addressed knew who her words were directed towards. The priest merely narrowed his eyes. From Eonthane, that was the best acknowledgement she was going to get. She smiled and slipped her twin maces from her belt, the worn leather comfortable in her hands. A thong trigger looped about her wrists to ensure she wouldn't lose the weapon entirely if it was torn from her grasp at any point.
"Stand ready," their leader rumbled. Rokkh stood at the forefront of them all, sword and shield drawn. He had slipped into his stance at some point, hooves dug into the cold earth and his legs braced against the growing assault that even now slithered through the twisting maze of the quarry. Entangled guarded the south. They could not fall.
For a moment the two sides were still and there was silence. Then, at some unheard command, the creatures surged forwards in a teeming mass that made the very earth seem alive.
"Charge!" Rokkh bellowed, brandishing his sword, "Meet them and give them no ground!"
The hand-to-hand combatants among Entangled surged forwards to the designated choke point. The ramp narrowed about halfway to the keep and it was there they would make their stand, where the hordes of skittering creatures would be forced to thin their attack. It was there they would pile the bodies of their foes.
"Warraven, your shield!"
"Right!"
She dropped one of her maces back onto her belt, stripping the ties of the harness that carried the massive metal sheet on her back. It fell easily onto her arm and she slammed it against Rokkh's, the edges overlapping so that his strength would become hers as well. They both braced themselves and Warraven felt the arm of another body press against the small of her back. A gun slipped between the two tauren and fired, nearly deafening her in one ear. But the lead nerubian fell, its remaining legs flailing madly. The teeming mass simply swarmed over it, the hellish clicking and hissing like the buzz of a nest of bees.
They met the shield wall like the surge of the tide and Warraven grunted, feeling her hooves slide backwards as nerubian after nerubian piled into her shield, pressing to break through. Molinu refrained from firing and put his strength into holding her steady until she regained her footing and held them back, immovable as stone. Her grip was so tight it hurt and she struggled to keep the shield steady at the furious beat of claws.
"I wasn't trained for this," Warraven grunted.
Rokkh just chuckled. "You're doing fine!" he replied, stabbing out with a quick snap of his sword-arm, "Just don't forget to fight back! Shield wall comes first, killing comes second."
Warraven ducked to the side, letting the claw of one of the spidery beasts graze past her and hook on the edge of the shield. It pulled, trying to rip the thing out of her grasp and she snarled and slammed her mace down onto the body. Its carapace cracked and vile fluid splashed onto her mace and shield.
An explosion landed in the middle of the teeming mass and fire licked those caught in it. Their shrieks as they burned were no less hideous than the renewed hissing of the attack. More latched their claws onto her shield and Molinu's gun was a constant roar in her ears.
Something slashed into her leg, slipping under the protection of her shield. It ripped through the mail and Warraven cried out as the claws dug deep into her skin. She felt the muscle give and her leg buckled, sending her to one knee. Rokkh was quick to react, stabbing the thing in the neck and shifting his stance so that the shields remained locked.
"Hold the line," he growled, "Once these bastards are thinned out some we'll let you loose."
"And then there will be fire and blood," another voice said from behind her. Xuru, her fellow shaman. He reached over her head and brought the fury of the skies to bear, lightning leaping from body to body. The stench was overwhelming. She struggled to rise.
The nerubians had retreated a pace or so, leaving the stretch of ramp between the two forces littered with their dead, the bodies sliding and falling off to either side under their own weight. Warraven panted, the shield heavy as muscles she was not used to using burned to support its weight.
It didn't seem right. Still, it was a reprieve and she wasn't in a state of mind to question it. From behind her came a quick, muttered prayer said with no reverence. Cold washed through her veins and the wound in her leg grew numb. She stood. It was a quick fix but it would keep her on her feet. She gave Eonthane a slight nod that he did not acknowledge.
The ground before her collapsed without warning. She cried out and scrambled backwards, watching with horror as chunks of earth fell out at the edges of her perch. The rest of Entangled reacted with similar horror and surprise, startled shouts ringing out, desperate hands grasping for those on the front line. Then the collapse stopped and for a moment there was nothing but a cloud of dust. Warraven coughed and fought to keep it out of her throat, dropping her shield in exhaustion and slipping her second mace out and readying it. Her eyes watered as she tried to make anything out.
"They're still coming," Molinu said, one hand absently adjusting his goggles. He raised his gun and fired, dropping it to reload and bringing it up for another shot in a fluid motion.
"Rokkh," Warraven gasped, "He was right next to me."
The orc just shrugged. Warraven spat out an oath to the spirits and crawled to the edge. The dirt had piled up below into a soft mound. She saw a tauren struggle to his feet as the nerubians slid past him, leaping onto the wall and climbing the steep incline to the rest of the defenders. Rokkh shook his head and started laying about him, the sword throwing ichor each time it moved.
"We've got incoming!" Molinu roared.
They surged over the edge and Warraven met them with a howl, her twin maces spinning about in a frantic dance, wild movements like a tree tossed about in a storm. This was more like it. Not that desperate fight to simply hold ground – this was the thrum of battle in her ears, the abandon to earth and sky and fire. Beside her Xuru also wove his weapons, eyes glazed as the two shamans fell into the beauty of movement, the purity of life and death and the primal struggle.
From behind her came one of the druids, a black-furred female. Wildhoof leapt past the shaman, her form shifting to the body of a cat. Her warcry was like a promise.
"Wild hunt! Wild KILL!"
Firestripe was not far behind her. A nerubian exploded as it leapt at Warraven, the bullet shattering its skull, and the big cat caught it on the way down, shaking its already-dead body for good measure before dropping the carcass. The tiger's mouth hung open and vile blood dripped from the fangs, as if the animal couldn't bear to taste the things it was killing.
A clear spot appeared around her. She backed up a space, panting, looking about to see how the rest of Entangled held up. They'd been joined by others not wearing their tabard, a welcome addition. Eonthane stepped forwards, staying just behind her but close enough to speak.
"In case you haven't noticed," he said, his voice calm in the midst of the melee, "I've been nearly exhausting myself keeping those, like yourself, alive. If you could be stabbed less I would greatly appreciate it."
Warraven glanced down. There were shattered pieces of her armor she had not even noticed.
"Where's Rokkh?" she asked.
"Piling up the corpses. He'll be one of them as well if you don't clear a path."
"What?"
The blood elf scratched at the ground with the end of his staff, shoving back a strand of hair that had clung to his brow. There was a fine sheen of sweat across his porcelain features.
"I cannot reach him. He takes wounds that are not infused with the holy magic to seal them away again. Clear a path. My magic can only do so much."
"This isn't like you," Warraven growled, "Keep behind me, priest."
"Of course. I am only here to do the one thing I can do… and this I request only because I know it will infuriate that thick-headed tauren to know I went to the effort of saving his miserable life."
Warraven barely heard him. She called to Xuru who was standing between the nerubians and their casters. Pointed so his attention fell to where Rokkh stood alone down below them. He nodded his understanding.
"We'll hold them here," Molinu said, gesturing at Wildhoof to back up and regroup. The druid cackled madly and leapt among the ranks of the enemy, knocking a few off and back into the pit.
"Sister," Xuru said, "Do you hear the wolves?"
"I do," Warraven replied, "They wish to hunt."
The two shamans surged forwards, the spirits around them coalescing into a pack. Their howls mingled with her own as she joined them in their ghostly forms and the blur of savage ferocity charged forwards, spilling through the lines of the nerubians and down into the quarry bottom. They branched out, Xuru sweeping left and Warraven sweeping right. She came out of the wolf form with both her maces, sending one of the creatures flying. Another leapt at her and landed on her arm, struggling to land its claws in her throat before one of the wolves pulled it down and tore it apart. Bolts of fire and arcane energy rained about them as the mages and warlocks did their part to the clear the area. And behind her, a frail priest landed in the loose dirt and fell to his knees before gaining his footing. Eonthane stood, brought his hands together, smiling thinly. Light swirled around Rokkh and buried itself into him, causing the worst of his injuries to glow with the holy magic. He barely noticed, only trudged forwards a few paces. They were driving them back.
More people dropped into the pit behind Eonthane. There were less and less of the waves of attackers. The Horde dispersed into small clumps, steadily advancing on the sinkholes. Warraven dimly heard Molinu yelling something about explosives before one of the sinkholes sent a plume of fire up into the air and then disintegrated into itself. The cries of victory rang from elsewhere around the keep and Warraven drew her lips back in a fierce grin. The day was won.
Entangled picked carefully through the remains. There was no telling how many nerubians had been killed but they did need to know how many of their own had been lost. Eonthane had vanished shortly after the field was cleared of foes, but not before he was sure Rokkh had gotten a look at who it was that had healed him. Molinu was crouched over one of the larger creatures. Warraven walked over to him just as he wrenched one of the limbs free and brandished it in the air with a triumphant cry.
"I'm keeping this as a trophy!" he said proudly.
"No tasty," Wildhoof muttered as she walked past.
"I'm not going to eat it!" the orc replied.
Warraven chuckled. Hopefully the keep would be safe from attack for days to come. Hopefully they'd made enough of a dent to matter. She glanced at the sky and saw that the ravens and other birds of carrion were already starting to circle. The shaman turned her gaze back to the piles of the dead and started picking her way through them. There were wounded to tend to before she could rest.