Warcraft: Exile

Chapter 2- Old Rot and New Growth.

Alleria lingered in a haze. She folded her arms around her to keep the cold away but it did not good. She couldn't bring her self to look outward until she tried to walk. Her foot found no resistance, like she was suspended in the air.

Looking below she saw her feet indeed floating above the grass, but her legs and body were nearly transparent. Terrified by what she saw Alleria closed her eyes only to find the lids covered nothing. What had she become?

"By now you're probably coming out of shock and wondering what has happened to you." The words gurgled like a polluted lagoon.

Alleria whipped her head toward the voice, her spectral Hair flying like behind her. The figure wore rusted scale armour and helmet instead of the old telltale robe, but immediately she recognized the aura of Teron Gorefiend, "What have you done to me, Monster?"

Gorefiend cackled, the head of his ensorcelled mace pulsing sickly green light, "I have recruited you. You serve me now, Elf."

How dare he! Alleria grew enraged, but before she could lash out agony overwhelmed her, she could not concentrate on attacking Gorefiend.

"Yes you'll find that attacking me is quite painful; as is disobeying me. Your mind may hate me and my commands but you're incapable of defiance."

"To Hell with you, Death Knight!"

"Death Knight? Yes. that's what my brothers and I were called. But as the Knights these bodies were have decayed beyond recognition and we were born as Orcs, a new title seemed in order. We are the Urughul- the Orcwraiths and we own you, our Lannan-Shee."

Gorefiend and Alleria turned toward the sound of flapping wings. A monster with the frame and fangs of an Orc but covered with black scales and held aloft by membranous wings addressed Gorefiend, "Great Blackguard, the Orcs and Humans have set up camp. They seem worried about each other, I'm not sure if they know we're here at all."

"Then we should disappear before they stumble on us. Tell the others to move out, I don't want the Orcs or the Humans aware of us until we're strong enough to annihilate both."

Alleria hovered in the direction Gorefiend prodded the blasphemy against nature he rode. But while Alleria's ghostly form obediently followed the Blackguard, her thoughts were of rebellion. If the undead wanted secrecy, she had to deny them it. Alleria taxed her mind for a way to warn the humans- or even the Orcs; something told her the Laughing Skull clan would not welcome this necromantic plague.

* * *

Mogor held his palm over the cup while he shook it. Turning the cup over the bones fell and scattered on the dirt. The pattern bore grim news, news he was unsure he should reveal. Sounds of an argument came closer. Mogor rose and looked on the Orc hunters returned from their mission. Several warriors including Assassin Troloak had fallen behind and Mogor ordered the Orcs to find them.

The lead scout kneeled before Mogor, "We found Assassin Troloak and the other stragglers. " Beads of nervous sweat trickled the length of the scout's sloping brow, "They're all dead."

Mogor's expressions did not change, "Killed by humans?"

"Yes, at least that's how it looks. A lot of them had arrows or musket balls in them. Something hit Troloak hard, his back had completely caved in."

The other hunters had fidgeted while the leader made his report, one of them blurted, "Tell him about the Elf bitch!" He quieted down when the scout leader slapped him.

"What Elf bitch?" One pair of Mogor's eyes fixed on the loudmouth, the other on the scout leader.

"We found a body, she was shrivelled up, like she'd been dead for days." The scout leader's hands covered his throat as if he expected it to be torn open, "She'd been cut, but we're sure something else had killed her. But we don't know what."

Mogor's brows furrowed, "Well it seems I have some bad news for you. I've been consulting the bones about your families."

Families?" A condition of siding with the humans against Ner'zhul was that the females and younglings of the Laughing Skull Clan would be given shelter, "The humans turned them away?"

"I don't think they got the chance. The human ships bearing your families never reached port," Mogor's right head turned toward the bones, "I read the ships were burning and sunk by Orc ships coming from the east. If memory serves, the Warsong clan controlled an island to the east."

The hunters lowered their heads, "Gone. The ones we thought would be saved if we helped the humans, all gone."

Mogor rolled an eye at the sentimental thugs, "It gets even better. The humans brought some of their females along; they'll be able to breed. But we, it seems will dwindle down to nothing."

The words stung the Orcs even harder, and their expressions shifted from sorrow to rage. The loudmouthed one clenched his fists and started to yell, "I say we hit the humans! Kill all the men and take the females for ourselves!"

"You idiot," Mogor snarled, "The humans are on their guard now, how many of us would get killed; only for years later the children to backstab the rest as revenge for the rape of their mothers?"

"But we have to do something-"

"What you have to do is shut up and go back to your post. The witch doctors and I will deal with this. puzzle. And make it clear that anyone who attacks the humans against my orders had better hope to die at their hands before they fall into mine." The Orcs scattered and Mogor walked away grumbling.

For all his boasts, Mogor's divining sessions with the witch doctors was unproductive; to the point where Mogor drifted to sleep during meditation. His dreams were strange; he saw a farm were something kept birds similar, at least in appearance, to chickens. He saw them through the eyes of a being native to this world that fed the birds some of its blood and was rewarded when the birds' eggs hatched more of his kind instead of chicks.

Mogor awoke. He knew where to find these birds. He awoke his the witch doctors, "We have somewhere to go."

The farm had fallen to ruin and whomever it belonged to were long gone but the birds had stayed and bred wild. Mogor drew some of his blood and fed three birds it before commanding several Orcs, Trolls and Ogres to do the same. His underlings were sceptical but complied anyway, more to appease Mogor than anything.

It took twenty days for the eggs to hatch. While his warriors were fascinated by their kind hatching from bird eggs, Mogor was angry that only males had hatched and murdered the infants in a tantrum of fury. Now more despondent than ever, Mogor took one of the birds and disembowelled it to read the entrails. He thought to himself how much the large intestine looked like an earthworm.

Mogor froze. Once on Draenor, he'd had to visit one of his clan's farms, and how the orcs fed their fowl worms and insects as well as grain. An irrelevant recollection to someone else, it made Mogor wonder if he would have to feed the birds something besides blood. Then he thought of the dead Elf bitch. Calling for the hunters who had found them, "This dead she-elf, you found any other human bodies near?"

"No sir. We found signs some had been dragged or carried away, but they left her behind, like they were afraid of it."

"You'll lead me to this body. For your sake I hope the scavengers are just as afraid as the humans."

Sneaking through the grass; as well as can be expected of a massive two- headed brute to sneak anywhere, the hunters led Mogor to the hill on which the she-elf had been found. Despite having brought six wolfriders and eight axe-throwing armed trolls; Mogor was reluctant to rush headfirst, at least when he had another option. Casting the appropriate spell, a disembodied eye materialized and hovered to the top of the hill.

The elf was there, with no sign of further decay, and while Mogor noticed the fallen Orcs and Ogres had been picked clean, she was untouched.

Abruptly the eye saw far off movement. Mogor sent the eye to investigate, flying under the grass to avoid being noticed. He saw Human foot troops, dwarf gunners and an elf guiding them. He also saw the humans carried large amounts of dead wood and two of them held torches.

Whether they had put it off because of fear or because the need to fortify was urgent, Mogor knew they had come to burn the she-elf's body and he would not have that. Terminating his spy spell, Mogor looked at his hunters and thought quickly. Upon casting a bloodlust spell rage enveloped the Orc hunters and sent them charging the humans. They had no chance, but at least they would buy Mogor some time. His Trolls and Raiders hiding behind nearby bush Mogor crawled to the top of the hill. * * *

Dhaine felt queasy about approaching the massacre site. Of all of Alleria's company of rangers he was the only one left, and only because he snuck past the Orcs to get help. Prince Wrynn and Kurdan had tried to assure him he did the right thing, that if he'd stayed he and the archmage would have been killed too. They were probably right.

When Dhaine turned toward the humans to tell them the body was at the top of the hill; he saw four Orcs charging their way. "We're under attack!" the ranger shouting as he launched an arrow toward the lead Orc. It tore through the Orc's chest and out the back but the brute kept coming. The dwarves' shots were hasty; most of them missed but one dropped the wounded Orc and eviscerated it. Another rifle shot hit an Orc's shoulder; blasting off his arm, he didn't seem to notice. Dhaine's second arrow hit the amputee in the throat, the force of the shot dropped the Orc on his back, it lay still.

As Dhaine shot the one-armed Orc, the farthest attacker wounded the Elf with a spear. The strength of the throw took the spear through Dhaine's forearm; it stabbed the Elf again below the shoulder, pinning his arm in place. With the dwarves still fumbling with their rifles, the footmen dropped the wood they were carrying and ran to the fore, hacking down the two remaining Orcs before the beasts could reach the gunners.

"Why would they come here?" Dhaine dropped his bow, "There's nothing around here but Alleria's body."

"They're probably here to steal it; who knows for what," the footman captain pointed his sword toward the hill, "Move out, we'll take the body back to base and burn it there." The footmen broke into a run.

"Wait," Dhaine started to pursue but a dwarf gunner held him back.

"You ain't going anywhere with that spear in you," The dwarf reached for a healing kit, "Don't worry, my gunners will look after them."

* * *

Mogor hid low in the grass against the slope. He couldn't see the humans from his angle, but their voices carried clearly. Mogor tensed, waiting, waiting.

The explosion killed their captain along with several others, and sent the rest of the footmen flying. The humans in their rush to reach Alleria's body stumbled onto a magic rune trap Mogor cast for them. The Ogre Mage rose as the wolfriders came out of hiding and tore onto the shell-shocked footmen. Dazed and hurt the humans could offer no resistance. Mogor stuffed Alleria's body in a sack he slung over his shoulder, "We got what we came for. Raiders fall back!"

The wolfriders turned and followed Mogor's thundering steps. The Troll hatchet carriers stayed to guard their leader's retreat; in the distance Mogor could hear shouting, the boom of rifles and the thump of thrown axes hitting flesh. Five of the Trolls would later return to camp.

That night the strange birds eat the she-elf's remains, and the birds that partook in the dubious feast were fed Orc, Troll and Ogre blood.

One Orc looked to Mogor, "They won't be born part Elf, will they?"

"No," Mogor snarled to shut him up. The fact was they might be part Elf, and then the Elf's remains might not do anything at all, but it was a chance that needed to be taken if the Orcs and Mogor himself were to pass their seed on and be remembered. The only alternative was to die out and vanish from history.

All that can be done now, Mogor knew, is to wait and see what happens.

Twenty more days passed. Mogor was studying a map his spies had made about the makeshift village the humans were building. The scouts had to be content with watching from afar, little snuck past the guards and the humans had also cleared long grass and bush that might give enemies any cover. He took a writing bone and began to mark key locations on the map when the tent curtain was thrown open, the sun and yelling made him spill the vial of blood ink all over the map.

"Damn you stupid-" Mogor paused, the Orc in the door way was holding twin Orc infants.

"They hatched," The Orc exulted, "Trolls, Orcs and Ogres, all female. And the warlocks insist none of them have any Elf blood in their veins."

Mogor forgot the map and grinned, it had worked! It would take at least fourteen or fifteen years before the females could mate but it was a step in the right direction, "What are we going to do about feeding them?"

"The trolls found some herd creatures suckling their young. The other Ogres are helping them round up a few right now."

Morgor laughed. The Laughing Skull Clan had cheated Oblivion again.