Chapter 3: The war continues

From behind the war band a Stone guard Sargent stood at attention and began to speak.

"Skirmishers, be prepared! Now that the forest trolls have joined the horde, their axe throwers will fight alongside you, and their priest will heal your wounds after battle. Now, advance to southshore, we are near and we must choke their defenses before we burn it to the ground!"

Cheers erupted from the crowd as the Sergeant finished his speech. We lined up and marched west from the beach. After marching for some time the Sergeant yelled again.

"Up ahead! Alliance skirmishers! Beware, not all of them are human!"

I saw exactly what the sergeant spoke of. The non-humans looked like humans, they were even a similar color, but they were more slender. They possessed odd ears and wielded longbows.

A scout yelled "We're taking casualties! The range on these weapons is too great for us to handle for long!"

The Sergeant surveyed the situation before issuing his orders. "Charge my fellow orcs! We must annihilate them quickly!"

We charged the Alliance with all we had. When we reached throwing distance we threw our javelins we did manage to wound some of them. The price was heavy, we had many losses. As a volley of arrows fell upon us, I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder and realized I had been struck with an arrow. I witnessed Diabeto in front of me trying his best to catch a falling arrow on his tongue.

"Look Karmog, Diabeto can have fun with arrows too! Diabeto help you pull your arrow out later Karmog!"

"I think I'll pass Diabeto, if it's pulled out I'll just bleed more than- OOOOOWWWWWW." Diabeto, without warning managed to pull the arrow out of my arm. One of the forest troll priest made his way over.

"Hey mon, I don't have the energy to be wastin it on your idiots. Now stop tryin to get hurt or I'll let you die next time." He said, while healing my wound.

Now refreshed and focused, we reached melee range with the Alliance. I threw my axe at one of the pointy eared creatures hitting him in the chest.

"Skirmishers of the blackrock clan, stand your ground! The troll reinforcements will take the rest." Announced the stoneguard.

I sat down and watched as our new allies swooped in with precision to finish the battle for us. After the battle was over Diabeto and I reminisced about our childhood living in the swamp of sorrows. We recalled the times we hunting boars in the burning steppes as young orclings. We also took time to remember all the little things we took for granted.

"Hey Karmog you remember when Diabeto thought he was a toaster!"

"Who could forget? You tried to warm bread by sitting on it. You ruined my lunch for a week."

"Lunch not ruined! Lunch made better. Lunch made flatter!" Diabeto responded happily, as if he really did do me a favor.

I saw the priest that healed me during the battle. I asked him about the strange creatures fighting alongside the humans.

"Hey mon, they be the High elves. Dey say dat dey've been round for hundres of years mon. Careful if that be true, they had lot o time to practice their aim mon." He replied.

"They also run faster as ghost Karmog!" Diabeto yelled randomly.

"What are you talking about Diabeto? Did you eat a rock again? I do hate those elf creatures though. They're dangerous, the whole lot of them."

The rest of the night was uneventful and sleep was amazing. The next morning we awoke to the smell of a raging fire. There was a large, thick cloud of smoke coming from the direction of southshore.

"Wake up skirmishers!" The stoneguard yelled. "The battle is won! Your warchief's forces have successfully destroyed southshore! The puny Alliance forces in hillsbrad have fled to the west. Now, you will travel east to defeat the humans of stromgarde. Prepare yourselves to move out."

With the victory speech finished, I helped Diabeto pack his things as I finished packing my own. We quickly finished and began marching towards the Arathi highlands. We came upon a tall wall that was defended by the Alliance.

Diabeto yelled to the men on the wall. "Diabeto like Wall. Maybe Diabeto build wall around swamp of sorrows and make you pay for it!"

"Move out, skirmishers." Yelled the stone guard Sargent. "Create a diversion, while the ogres bring up the bettering rams!"

We followed a different Sergeant as he led us directly to the wall. We took aim and threw our javelins at the defenders perched on the wall. I witnessed a dwarf point his gun sights directly on Diabeto! Thinking quickly, I threw my javelin with precise aim. It hit the dwarf, saving Diabetos life.

"No fair Karmog! Diabeto had that one right where he wanted it!" Diabeto yelled in frustration. Maybe I should have let the dwarf take his shot.

After we exhausted our ammunition, our band fell back behind the 2nd rank of skirmishers. We observed the rest of the battle from the sidelines. Hundreds of orcs and trolls were below the wall throwing javelins and axes at the defenders. The defenders upon the wall, while slightly outnumbered managed to return fire killing many orcs in the process.

After what felt like an eternity, the bands of ogres returned with the battering rams. They made their way to the wall and knocked holes right through it as if it were butter. Orc grunts ran through the fresh holes and up the stairs the alliance used to scale the wall. The defenders stood no chance against the mighty orc onslaught.

"The horde is victorious! Blood and thunder!" Yelled the stoneguard. A horde banner was raised over the Alliance's former wall and our forces marched to the other side.

After crossing the wall, we sat up our camp and foraged for food. The stoneguard was in a good mood and dismissed many of the warriors for the evening, Diabeto and myself included.

"Karmog, Diabeto is hungry. See these flowers Karmog? Diabeto is gonna try them out!

Diabeto picked a hand full of flowers and promptly ate them.

"Flowers not to bad Karmog, you should try them. Diabeto feels like he can shoot fire from his hand! Diabeto also sees purple dots in the sky now!?" Of all the flowers he just had to pick poison flowers.

"No Diabeto, I've not yet felt the need to reduce myself to eating flowers. You can have them all, but if you want the sky to look normal you should probably stop."

I ate my bread rations as Diabeto continued to eat the flowers. After Diabeto had finished a feast of flowers he began to speak once again.

"Uuuugh Diabeto not feel good."

"That's what happens when you eat poison flowers Diabeto."

Suddenly Diabeto burped and fire emerged from his mouth. He was half correct earlier; he did find a way to conjure fire with the flowers.

"Alright Diabeto lets go explain to the sergeant what happened. See if a troll can heal you up and maybe figure out how to someday weaponize those flowers."

We found sergeant Grumar back at camp. Diabeto told him that he ate flowers all evening the sergeant laughed at him. He dismissed us and allowed Diabeto to visit the field hospital were he was healed by the same troll priest as before.

"Hey idiot mon. Stop trying to die. We weren't even in combat dis time mon. You never gonna make it if camp almost kills you mon!."