((Without much ado, I'd like to thank my editor - Iyotanka - for his patience and persistance. This particular FewFic will be completed in 10 chapters and took the entirety of the Cataclysm expansion to finish. All characterizations of in-game characters are purely from my imagination and no offense is intended. If you don't enjoy the way your character is represented, please contact me so I can improve for next time! I definitely welcome all criticisms, questions, comments etc.! Now sit back and enjoy...))

The Last Stand of the Savagedawn Twins

Chapter 1

It was a relatively quiet day in Ashenvale. The last elven attack on Splintertree had ended a few days prior and most of the orcs were preparing for the counter attack on Raynewood Tower. In fact, all of the orcs were preparing for the counter attack - all but two.

Frakmog and Bruklar were not the brightest Grunts in Garrosh's army, but they were of the Warsong clan and as such had been assigned to the Ashenvale offensive. They guarded a bridge. A small bridge over an even smaller river. An easily fordable river. An easily fordable river in the middle of Horde territory. But they were out of the way.

"Frakmog, do you ever wonder why them Undeads can't speak Human anymore?"

"Cuz they ain't got ears anymore, numbskull."

"Well even if they ain't got ears, then how come they know Gutterspeak right away?" Bruklar asked. Frakmog scratched his balding green head, but didn't answer. "And another thing: How come they know Orcish as soon as they wake up?"

"Maybe its –"

Frakmog was interrupted by a far off sound. The two orcs strained to hear it, their axes forgotten in the grass. Slowly the sound grew louder – almost an arrhythmic thumping. Frakmog and Bruklar looked at each other quizzically and then in the direction of the thumping.

A female tauren mounted on a nearly black worg rounded the bend in the road. She was tall and dressed in leather that would have better suited a rogue. Her tabard was an odd green and emblazoned with a kraken – neither orc recognised it. They panicked, grabbed an axe and took up their posts guarding the little bridge.

Fear set in when another tauren appeared behind the first – this one a male. He too rode a black worg and the staff he carried withered and bloomed as if it had never been separated from the original tree. His chest was curiously tabard-free, unlike the troll who rode beside him on a raptor that looked odd in the boreal forest. The two of them were laughing at something the troll was talking about; he gestured emphatically with his hands, using his fingers to mimic horns above his head.

Two elves followed next astride the odd chickens they used to get around. Frakmog and Bruklar relaxed a little. Elves were easily dispatched, especially elves in robes. Again, they were wearing the kraken tabard, which worried the two orcs. Both racked their brains trying to recognise the tabard.

"Excuse me? Hello? I asked if this was the way to Hellscream's Watch?"

Leda sighed, looking down at the catatonic orc grunts from atop her worg. The tauren General rolled her eyes at their effectiveness and steered her mount around the little bridge. The water barely got her hooves wet as they forded the tiny river.

It was Aethalia who said what was on everyone's mind when they arrived at Hellscream's Watch. She scrunched up her little nose and asked loudly, "Is this it?" A couple of scouts turned from their posts to glare at the elf, but the priest didn't seem to notice.

The five members of the 43rd were met by the camp's commanding officer – Captain Goggath. The Captain was a nervous orc who had a perpetual tick just under his left eye. It drove Leda nuts and she found every excuse not to look him in the eye as he showed her around the camp. There were exactly two huts, one forge and about a dozen hammocks. The tour took all of 2 minutes.

"We have about eight or nine units that operate out of Hellscream's Watch. They spend a week in field camps and then a day or two back here at the base. I set up a rotating schedule. The camp isn't, well it isn't big enough for more than two units at a time," the Captain explained. Leda wondered how long he had been in command of the base. She hadn't heard the whole story about why they had been transferred, but she was beginning to get the picture. As a General, she outranked Captain Goggath, who appeared to be rather relieved to be no longer in command.

"Which unit be in da base right now, Captain, mon?" Zeb'rinnu asked as he slipped his bow off his back and pulled the tent he shared with Isfrael out of his pack.

The Captain pointed at the half dozen occupied hammocks, "The Taurajo Braves; I think they're the 118th, but I'm sure you just know them as ... that."

"I be hearin' o' dem, mon. Dey seek da vengeance for those dey lost at da Camp Taurajo massacre. Angry, angry bunch o' taurens."

"They've been assigned to guerrilla tactics. The eight of them made enough chaos and destruction to distract all of Astranaar. Without them we wouldn't be about to take Maestra's Post to the north. I have uh, maps over –"

"That's not necessary Captain," Leda interrupted. "We'll set up here. I will meet you at sunrise to discuss tactics." As she had effectively dismissed him, Goggath left with a sloppy salute.

Three red tents were quickly set up in the middle of the camp which Zeb had deemed the safest spot to pitch them. The hunter had, as usual, been scouting tent locations likely before they had even dismounted. Normally they would politely be pitching their tents near the outskirts of the camp so as not to interfere with the already established rhythm and flow of the military camp. But this camp wasn't normal. Three sides were riddled with paths leading down to the warzone and the fourth was the cliff-side and easily within arrow flight of the night elves. No one commented on their choice of location and the Few were left alone until well after sundown.

The ancient trees blocked most of the moonlight and the camp was merely four or five little fires in the blackness. The 43rd sat around their own little campfire in an arrangement that was as natural and familiar as the tides.

In front of the tent she shared with Leda, Aethalia sat perched gracefully on an upturned log. Her long platinum blonde hair was nearly auburn in the flickering of the fire. The flames cast shadows across her undeniably beautiful and perfect features. The tall, lithe priestess usually had to spurn the advances of at least five or six suitors in each settlement they had been stationed at. Tonight she still wore her pristine 'travelling' robe and Leda had yet to spot a snag in the delicate lavender embersilk.

Zeb'rinnu had strung up a hammock between two tents made from several of his nets and was gently swinging back and forth. His skin was a pale shade of green common to forest or jungle trolls and on top of his head, holding back his emerald green hair, sat a pair of green engineer goggles, whirling away. The hammock was too short to accommodate his tall lanky form and one long leg dangled down, nearly touching the ground. Like most hunters, Zeb travelled with a companion. Unlike most hunters, his was an overgrown spider he had named Aracnotron. Leda suspected that Aracnotron was chosen to tag along half because he was so well behaved and half because he freaked Aethalia out.

In the middle of the little semi-circle, Isfrael was entertaining them all by manipulating the fire into shapes and forms to illustrate the story he told. Tonight was the tale of the White Stag and Moon upon Iyotanka's request and the fire-stag leapt through the fire-stars. The mage was the newest member of the small division, but had quickly ingratiated himself into the group. Leda didn't know much about his past, but after Seishougen left on a mission for the Kirin Tor they had needed a mage. Isfrael had requested the transfer to their unit and everyone was happy with the result. Like most Sin'dorei, Leda considered Isfrael to be remarkably beautiful. His pale skin was flawless, his nose was aristocratic and straight, his dark hair fell perfectly across his shoulders and his perpetual smirk spoke of mischief and confidence.

Leda's twin brother Iyotanka had managed to convince a rather large tree root to revoke the earth in which it slept and serve as his chair. The tauren was tall and broad like most of his race and his fur was white with dusty grey spots. Iyo preferred robes and like most druids, carried a long wooden staff which grew leaves and flowers as the seasons changed. Leda and Iyo were near inseparable and she had spent most of her life at his side. From her place near the fire, Leda could see him watching not the fire images Isfrael was conjuring, but the movements of the elf's hands committing them to memory for further study. In his lap, the large tauren was cradling a tiny wild moonkin who had, at the start of the story, appeared to have been listening. Now, toward the end, little Apa'ro was drifting off toward sleep. Leda smiled as the baby moonkin yawned and then covered his beak with his little wing.

Leda herself laid on her side next the fire. The minute she had finished setting up the tent she shared with her brother, Leda had shifted into a bear. The roar of pain that usually accompanied her transformation carried across the little camp, startling several birds into flight in the nearby trees. If anyone realized what the roar signified, they didn't say anything. While Iyo was most comfortable as a tauren, Leda felt more at home as a bear. As a tauren, she tripped over her hooves and nearly hit her head on doorways. As a bear, she was free to do bear-things – run and hop around the forest, chase squirrels and rats for fun, sleep near the fire... As a bear, she stood nearly 6 feet tall on all fours and almost 9 feet tall on two. Her fur was a light brown and along one side adorned with several tattoos: a symbol of the Horde, a raven totem pole, a crescent moon and most recently, an octopus. As a tauren she was tall, like her brother and her fur was nearly white, but dappled with the same light brown colour of her bear form. A large diagonal scar bisects her left eye, although by some form of magic or medicine, the eye is still intact. Her other nasty scar – a two foot long gash between her neck and shoulder – is rarely visible beneath her pauldrons.

Isfrael's story was over and the forms of Malorne and little Cenarius faded back into normal flames. Leda was impressed that the elf knew the entire story and wondered vaguely where he had learnt it. Beside her, Iyo's root-chair drifted back into the earth as the druid stood up. He bid everyone goodnight and ducked inside his tent. A moment later the tent began to glow a slightly purple tinge – Iyo was reading by moonlight trapped in a potions bottle.

The fire was mesmerizing and when two tauren approached their campsite, Leda didn't know if it was minutes or hours after Iyo's departure. The male with dark brown fur stepped forward into the firelight.

"What can we be helpin' ya wit, mon?" Zeb grinned sleepily, dragging his eyes from the hypnotizing flames.

"Legionnaire Kirge Sternhorn, here to speak with General Savagedawn."

"She be right dere," the troll gestured at the bear lazily, who looked to be half asleep herself although her ears perked up when she heard her name, "you can be talkin' to her, but I ain't be sure she be talkin' back." Zeb chuckled at his own joke, knowing full well that Leda was unable to respond as a bear.

For reasons unknown to Leda, the transformation wasn't as painful at night, but it was still painful. She bit her tongue to prevent the small whimper in her throat from escaping. A once sleepy, lazy looking bear was now an alert General. Respectfully, the newcomers bowed slightly at the waist, as was tauren custom. Leda politely returned the bow, but noticed that neither saluted, as was Horde custom.

"Legionnaire Sternhorn," he rumbled, reaching his hand out in a show of what was, among tauren, a sign of equality. Not wanting to start a duel at such a late hour, Leda clasped her hand around his forearm as he did hers.

"General Savagedawn," she returned, quick to snatch her hand back from his grasp.

"I lead the 118th - the Braves. This is my second in command, Mahani." The female tauren he brought with him respectfully bowed her head. "We're a guerilla unit and our targets are determined after much planning on myself and Mahani's part." Leda noticed that Goggath wasn't mentioned. The purpose of the Legionnaire's visit was becoming clearer and clearer. Iyo might be good at tactics and languages, but Leda was getting a crash course in Horde politics. "Is that satisfactory?"

Leda tried to appear calm, but of its own accord, her jaw clenched and her teeth gritted against one another. How dare he assume she was as weak as Goggath? And in front of everyone! Her own regiment! "You are expected to take orders from your commanding officer, Legionnaire, just as everyone else in this camp is obligated to."

"Captain Gog-"

"Captain Goggath is no longer your commanding officer. When you next return for your scheduled week in camp, you will report directly to me. I am your commanding officer, Legionnaire." Sternhorn's glare could have melted the Ice Stone, but Leda returned it with a glare of her own. The two tauren faced off for far too long before Mahani intervened.

"Sternhorn, we need to get a move on. It will take us all night to reach the Spire," the female reminded him, gently tugging on his arm.

"Go on, Mahani, I'm right behind you," Kirge saluted the General, chest puffed out, hooves snapped together and then stomped off to where the rest of the 118th were waiting.

They left the camp immediately.