The Last Stand

Just an idea I got while riding through Dalaran. I'd stopped at a shop called One More Glass, and the high elven bartender there seemed to me to be wanting to tell a story while she sold me her drinks. Her eyes, I thought, were just so sad. I know, it was probably just my imagination, but hey, inspiration can come from anywhere!

Also, I don't own Warcraft or any of the NPC's or items mentioned. I merely have given out a story with them included.

This one is pretty emotional-like, I thought, when I was writing it. Some of the elements are from the accounts of street combat in Stalingrad in 1942-43.

I've made my disclaimers, and it's time to start!

Enough! You have been pestering me ever since you came in the bar, stranger! What is it that you seek that I have?

Oh, the dagger that hangs from my belt? You are a most inquisitive one, stranger. Do you have no other task at hand?

Ah well, dear me, you are an adventurer after all. Of course you will have spare time to talk. I...I must warn you, this is not a pleasant tale. If you have the time, really do, I suppose I can tell it to you. Should you leave midway, I shall be forced to kill you, since a tale like this is painful enough to recollect, let alone retell. But I shall tell you. It is a burden, yet it gives me the strength and purpose to carry on. Sit down and take a drink - you prefer Snowplum Brandy? A good choice! Now, where should I begin?

There was once a man (or was it a dwarf, or an elf?) who went out to discover what fear meant. Had he really wanted to know, he should have been at the fall of Quel'Thelas. You don't know what fear is until you've seen an army of undeath marching for you. The very ground burning, rotting and dying under their feet. For every soldier you kill, there are ten more to take his place - risen at the hands of their necromancers. The plagued flesh being hurled at you from (so appropriately titled) Meat Wagons, so seeped in necromantic energy that to merely let it graze you is but a precursor to a painful doom - of undeath - not a few heartbeats later, and strong enough to destroy whole buildings in one swoop.

To think that these...monsters, these abominations...could have been living things once is an insult to life in itself. Yet, this was what we were facing off against when the fallen Human Prince Arthas appeared at our magical Elf-gates. His demand, we thought, was bordering on effrontery - defile our precious Sunwell to resurrect some evil being? Oh no, we wouldn't allow it! We'd give our very lives to ensure it! And he had merely corpses with him - we had our valiant Ranger-General Sylvanas! We had Lord Sunstrider! We wouldn't allow this filthy desecration to pass! We would fight back, and we would win!

But of course, we had no idea of what awaited us. That nether-spawn's smile was inscrutable, and it still chills me when I think of it.

Like a product of the most twisted and delirious nightmare ever possible, the undead poured out. Ghouls, Abominations, and monsters we didn't even know could exist - relentlessly destroying our outposts, our farms - built with such toil and labour, our fields and hearths - our beautiful homes, and turning them into factories of plague and horror. Indeed, the very ground itself seemed to scream in pain - corrupted as it was ever since those foul spawns of the nether set foot upon it.

We fought back - of course we did! I'd even say we fought with honour and valour and great courage - a courage borne of ignorance. It was not long before honour gave way to desperation, courage to fear and valour to horror, when our fallen comrades rose up against us in ghastly parodies of themselves, and attacked us, uttering not the glorious war-cries of Quel'Thelas, but a guttural scream of rage and malevolence - "TREMBLE BEFORE THE SCOURGE!" Over and over again. Their numbers seemed limitless. Ours were not, and our will was slowly failing too.

Sylvanas decided it would be best if we retreated to our main forward base of operations, on the outskirts of Quel'Thelas, in Eversong Woods. She hoped that, given time to regroup, we could still defeat this foul invasion. And if not, at least we would go down with glory. And so we retreated, while harassing them every step of the way, the Ranger-General herself leading the lightning strikes against their realatively unprotected flanks, her arrows true to the last in their aim. If nothing, we could atleast hinder their march, which I noted was corrupting the very soil they stepped on - where they went, the ground below them decayed, leaving a path of undeath - a dead scar. I think now, the Light had already forsaken us all that day. Little did we know that the worst was yet to come.

He followed us in Zeppelins - damn those scheming, profiteering Goblins - and landed with his unholy army just outside Silvermoon. Lady Sylvanas seemed to have known instinctively that it wasn't going to go well, so she instructed my corps to return forthwith to Quel'Thelas and prepare for street-fighting, while she stayed behind to delay and possibly, stop the march of the undead. As we left, I turned around to see her, standing proud and tall with the blazing sun behind her, atop a hill overlooking the Scourge.

It was the last any of us saw of her as she was alive.

We returned to the city and the inhabitants were roused. It became clear that the city was in mortal peril. All the Arcane Guardains were reactivated and all the non-combatants were ordered - and forced - onto ships and sent to the Isle of Quel'Danas with some of our rangers, with Lord Lor'Themar Theron, the Ranger-General's deputy leading them - something that many had considered unthinkable and impossible was becoming a reality. Silvermoon was, after centuries of peace, in danger of defeat and destruction.

We set to work building what fortifications we could with the city's garrison along us. Every street, every house and every inch of our soil, we vowed, would be fought over with the last drop of elven blood. No sacrifice was too great to throw back the enemy. I feared that it would be inevitable, that vow. As I would learn soon.

Despair is a word so casually bandied about these dire days that few can truly realise it's import. Hence, none can realise the ovewhelming sense of gloom and despair we were plunged into when we saw the Scourge again - now at the very Gates of Silvermoon! Clearly, the Ranger-General had been defeated - we had been spared the most horrific shock for later, after the fall...I think that was when we all realised - it was over. But we would be damned if we gave up without a fight. If they wanted a fight, they would get it!

The Scourge spilled out into the streets, butchering all those who stood in their path. We defeated the first few waves - we had realised by then that taking out the necromancers was a useful way of throwing their army into chaos. It soon descended into street fighting, with the disance lost or gained measured not in feet, but by rooms, houses, buildings and...corpses. Every room was turned into a defensive position - an elf would only leave his or her position once the very ground was on fire and their clothes smouldering. The Arcane Guardians had been stationed around the Sunwell itself - some three hundred of them, all told. This way, we hoped that we could make these hated invaders pay a heavy price for every step they took into our beloved city.

At the crossroads of Dath'Remar Street and Sunstrider Street - the two main avenues of the city, it was decided that we - the last of beloved Sylvanas's Ranger Corps - would hold out against these invaders, wihle the rest of the garrison, in a parlous state as it already was, would retreat ot the coast and escape to the Isle of Quel'Danas. It was a tacit, though unspoken admission - we couldn't win the city back. I think that day was the turning point for a lot of these fighters - Paladins, Mages, Warlocks, Priests, all of them - the first few steps on the road to the decadent, arcane-loving and totalitarian state that exists in Silvermoon today. Tempered by a filthy desecration of all they held sacred, losing so many of their friends and families, losing their homes - it can change people in ways that seem grotesque if not seen from the lens of bitter hate, victimisation and loss.

At this very crossroads, we set up our positions on the higher floors of a mage tower overlooking the streets and the square below us. All told, after the fighting and the retreat, there were just forty of us against light-alone knew how many undead. Most of us were rangers, though a few Paladins, Mages and Priests were also present. Our commanding officer was already dead, so I took command - being the next highest ranked ranger in the detachment. I ordered all entrances to the tower barricaded and blocked up, and all windows and embrasures to be adapted so that we could fire through them.

The mages were kept in reserve, as were the paladins - I had decided they would be brought in only at the most critical moment. The priests were to heal everyone as fast as they could, and hence all our mana potions went straight to them. They had to be strong for the coming onslaught - indeed, we all had to be.

Two groups, each of six rangers, went up to the highest floor and the roof. Their job was to break down the walls and prepare lumps of stone to throw at the undead as they approached, and scavenge the beams for wood for our arrows. A place was reserved on the floor just below them for the wounded and the dying. I looked out of one of the windows, and was stunned by the magnitude of destruction that I saw. Silvermoon was burning, the wretches were setting fire to the city. The majestic towers were being brought down like so many pins on a board-game. I could also hear, even if faintly, the chilling screams and roars and hoarse cries of The Damned - as well as the few unfortunates who had been unlucky enough to be trapped in that ghastly melee - as they destroyed everything. Everyone with me, I could sense, had a sense of defeat in their eyes as they gazed upon the terrible spectacle from our vantage point.

They came to us soon enough. The fighting was savage, but we had the high ground, so we were able to hold them off for then. We fought with everything we had, within thirty minutes, the ground floor of the tower was strewn with corpses, on the landings, on the staircases - some our own, most of them the enemy. The frontline was but a corridor between rooms - the thin ceilings between the floors. Help came from the fireplaces, through holes in the ceilings, through the chimneys. It was a ceaseless struggle from beginning to end, hand to hand, blades against claws. I myself had to rely more on my swords and less on my bow to see me through. Faces black with sweat and dirt, we grappled with the enemy with all we had - in the middle of explosions, clouds of dust and smoke, heaps of rubble, pools of blood, fragments of furniture and corpses. Ask any man what just a few minues of such a struggle means in such a fight. And imagine Silvermoon - days, nights and hours of endless struggles like this during that invasion...can you even imagine it?

They retreated at night, presumably to bolster their forces, leaving us to count what we had left. It was terrible. After eight continuous hours of fighting, out of forty, only twenty-five were left alive. Out of these, only seventeen were in any condition to keep fighting. There was little or no water, and only a few pounds of burnt grain by way of provisions. Perhaps, if we held them off long enough, we might have time to die of starvation and fatigue, I remember thinking glumly.

I went to the roof, where the two squads were still holding out. Their faces were a mess - blackened with soot from the city's fires and mixing with the sweat and blood from their wounds, thin and haggard and tired. But in their eyes, there was no fear, their longbows held firmly in their hands. Indeed, there was no time, or energy, left for fear in anyone. Their priest had been wounded mortally. I remember that poor man, with his blood flowing from a deep gash in his chest. He was out of potions and he was trying to bandage the wound of a ranger who was struck in the leg by an arrow before he died, but he didn't succeed...I quietly took his body down, laid it reverently in a corner and covered it with a cloth.

I headed to a balcony on the same floor and looked out toward the Sunwell - it was still glowing, but I could hear the clash of arms as the Guardians fiercely defended it, along the screams of rage of the undead and their hateful leader. I pondered as to how, if at all possible, to draw away at least some of the forces attacking the Sunwell to our position. We decided to raise a blue flag over the tower, so that the Scourge would know we hadn't given up. But we had no blue cloth. Understanding what we meant to do, one of the more badly wounded rangers gave his cloak - which was a deep electric blue - and painted on it, in red, the everlasting phoenix of the High Elves in his own blood.

It was still sometime before dawn, but we saw a troop of Scourge arriving at our position. One of their necromancers screamed at us, "High Elves! Surrender! You'll die just the same! Prepare for the wondrous gift of unlife and the benefits it can bring you, if only you surrender!" We all smirked, were they actually resorting to propaganda now? At the precise moment he finished, a blue flag went up the spire of the tower's roof.

One of the paladins yelled back, "Bark, you filth! We still have a long time to live! Prepare to face judgement from the holy light!"

We hurled almost everything at them, hurling stones, arrows, a few well placed frostbolts and firebolts, even a few shadow bolts from the priest, who were angered at the necromancer. However, we heard the groan of a Meat Wagon's wheels, so I sent one of my rangers to set it on fire. Unfortunately she was captured by the necromancer's troops. I don't know what she told them, but the next thing I knew, those idiots (how smart are those ghouls anyhow?) were walking up the garden path, not literally, but where the mages and most of our rangers had the clearest firing position on them. Worse yet for them, it was precisely in the path of the Paladins who were holed up with us.

This time, they reckoned we had run out of arrows, or mana potions, for they impudently stepped out in plain view, the necromancer at the front, yelling at us, and some of the more intelligent ones throwing insults. They came down the street in a column, as arrogantly as a concieted cock upon the wall.

I ordered all rangers and mages to unleash all their fury on them. And by the light, we did. We emptied our force into the dirty yelling mob of corpsewalkers. Their bodies littered the ground, filling the street upto the waist. The Paladins also rushed out in fury, stomping away what was left of them, including the unfortunate necromancer, who I saw being smashed to a pulpy mess by the hammers of those Paladins. The few who escaped did so in utter panic. We grimly smiled, all of us. But those heathens had their own malicious ways of revenge, as we would know soon.

An hour later, another necromancer came, leading our captured ranger right in front of him onto a pile of rubble, so we could all see her clearly. To our utter horror and disgust, he killed her right in front of us and immediately reanimated her in a ghastly parody of herself as a banshee, who promptly began firing arrows and shadow bolts at us. She died of course, but I could see the tears in the eyes of the rangers firing at her. Indeed, my own face felt damp, more so than usual because of the soot and dirt.

The Scourge didn't directly attack us after that. An avalanche of decaying flesh fell on the tower. They were storming at us with every possible weapon they had, we thought. The bombardment was so intense that we couldn't liftout heads.

Yet again we heard the ominous groan of the Meat Wagons as they rolled towards us. From behind a neighbouring city block, they rolled into position. This clearly was the end. Everyone said goodbye to each other, saying a prayer for each other so that they could be spared the fate of a terrible undeath. One of the rangers went up to a wall and scratched in Thalassian and in Common these words, which I shall never forget - "Silvermoon's bravest children and Sylvanas's best corps fought and died for their homeland here."

We continued fighting, for as long as we could. Suddenly, a wall gave way and some of it fell on me, knocking me out. After that, all was dark for a long time, it seemed to me.

Some time later, I came to. My vision was hazy for a while, slowly clearing. As I looked around, I saw that I was still in the same tower, with rubble and dust everywhere. I saw that most of our fighters were dead. There were, in all after the battle, just five of us left - a priest, a paladin, a mage and two rangers, myself included - though I wouldn't know of this for an hour or so. My vision cleared enough for me to stand up, somewhat shakily, and stare out of the window. To wards where the Sunwell's glow was normally present.

It was no longer there. We had fallen - heroically fighting, defending, delaying - but in the end, we had fallen. When the others awoke, they too saw. Where the comforting glow of the Sunwell had been, there was just - emptiness. It was like a void, and indeed, the whole city was silent, with the smoke rising into the sky, an occasional sigh as a building collapsed somewhere. But for the most part, there was just the silence of defeat and destruction, loss and despair everywhere, of the awful desecration that had just taken place.

We all stood for, I don't know how long, in silence, stunned with shock and disbelief. It was the Paladin who reacted first, arching his head up, his tears flowing freely from his eyes and his face a terrible grimace of despair and defeat, finally sinking to his knees and burying his face in his hands. After a while I could hear the faint sobs of the others, mixed in with the Paladin's own. Me? I was probably in the same state, for I remember my vision being blurred repeatedly, as if being blinded by water.

It wasn't over for us though, not for some time anyhow. Even after Arthas left, the remnants of his forces remained until a few months later. Silvermoon was no longer a city. By day, an enormous cloud of burning, blinding smoke and decaying flesh - a vast furnace lit by the reflection of the flames. By night, a scorching, howling, bleeding night, the animals in the city - those still left alive and uncorrupted - desperately plunged into the lakes and rivers of Eversong, or the Sea, and swam desperately to gain a safe haven somewhere else. The nights were terror to them. Animals fled that hell, the hardest stones couldn't bear it for long - only elves and undead and humans could endure.

The rest of my story is familiar to you. After the fall, some of us went on a long march down south, seeking a refuge. We were among them, the ones who had fought that day in that tower. We arrived in Stormwind as refugees, where we settled down, to try and rebuild our lives. We eventually migrated to New Dalaran, after it was rebuilt, so that we could be in a world where there are others similar to us. We remained the High Elves we once were, unlike our brethren who have become so decadent that it pains me to think that we were once the same people.

You see me today as an Drink Vendor in Dalaran. A comedown, it may seem to you, from a ranger to a vendor. But the fight that lies ahead is not a fight I have the strength to partake of - though the desire for vengeance burns bright. I have but one favour to ask of you, stranger. Defeat the infernal being who resides today in the dread citadel of Icecrown, and come back to me to tell me of his fall. Give this poor fool who has told you the story of the fall of her home some satisfaction, some peace at last, as an act of kindness. Though, you have been most kind already by listening to my prattle.

Meh, what is this...see, even I have started to cry. But thank you, stranger, for listening to me. There, I've wiped away the mess. It was a soft spot, so I hope you understand...you do? That's nice to know. Thank you, kind one.

Never forget who I was, and the legacy of my kind. Now, what drink do I get for you today?

Written in memory of all the brave men and women who died defending their lands during the Scourge of Lordaeron, the Culling of Stratholme and the Fall of Quel'Thelas and Dalaran.

And out of respect for all those who still diligently stand in the face of doom, protecting all of Azeroth from the horrors of the Scourge and the Burning Legion.

Your sacrifices shall not be forgotten...Strength and Honour, brave warriors, for you are the lifeblood of this planet and all those who dwell upon it.