((This story, although using characters I've ascribed personalities to, is copyright Blizzard Entertainment 2005, please don't sue and all that jazz.
This story is rated PG... er... T(?) for minor swearing and violence and such.))
Swinging Chickens
A World of Warcraft fanfic
By Kristin Renee Taylor
Part Three -
The Scourge never knew what hit it.
The undead legion had set up a camp, roughly three or so hours east of the Swinging Chicken and its sleepy hamlet. Two score undead (that's forty for you more modern people), had pitched tents and burned fires, slowly turning the valley they had occupied into a fortified position. They had chosen their location well: two tall hills to either side of them, and flat plains and grassland for miles around, almost guaranteed that any assaulting army would be spotted quickly. Wood had been dragged in, fashioned into huge stakes that had been driven into the ground. Any hero-wannabes on horseback would have to dismount or risk driving their horses right onto those stakes. Undead soldiers in tattered mail and burning eyes patrolled the hilltops tirelessly, continuously on the lookout for the inevitable Paladin-led invasion force.
They were prepared for an army. They got two angry women with an agenda.
Alennius flashed. The skeletal soldier tumbled to the ground, its head rolling away into the darkness. Liathano turned, catching the blow aimed at her back from the soldier's partner on the flat of her blade. In the riot of sparks that burst out, Anri's form was a faint, lithe blur as the thief slash the second soldier's knee tendons. It toppled to the ground. Liathano beheaded it.
They were at the base of one hill, campside. No one had noticed them. Yet.
Moving together, the two women crouched in the shadow of a tent. Liathano sheathed Alennius, dousing its light.
Anri leaned forward, her lips close to Liathano's ears, mask tickling Lia's cheek. "Remember: five minutes 'til they find their buddies." Her words came out slightly slurred as she softened the esses to prevent them from carrying. "Find the kids. Get 'em out. I'll distract the corpses and meet ya'll at the farmhouse."
Liathano nodded.
Anri melted away into the darkness.
Liathano counted five seconds, then snuck into the camp proper.
Hasty reconnaissance at the top of the hill had shown Liathano that the camp had been pitched with no distinct order. None of the tents had seemed guarded, and remembering a path through the convoluted maze of canvas had been next to impossible.
So she dodged from tent to tent, half-crouched over her injured ribs. She tried her best to avoid patrols and staying in shadows whenever possible. Her route was more or less random, but she headed further in. If you had captured a bunch of children, you'd want them near the center of camp to make escape more difficult, right?
She was fast encroaching on Anri's five minute warning when she ran into trouble. Literally. Moving quickly to avoid a patrol, she ducked into an alley formed by two tents and slammed facefirst into another body.
They rebounded, although Lia kept her balance. The woman (for it was a woman) fell backwards and landed on her butt
Short, with the stocky strength of a woman long used to manual labor, the dark-haired woman stared up at Liathano. A basket of arrows had fallen when she had, and now lay scattered along the ground.
"Mina?" Liathano said softly, surprised.
Galen's wife stared at Liathano in total silence.
Too late, Lia noticed the hole in Mina's chest, where her heart would've been.
Mina screamed.
Lia moved, her sword cleaving Mina's head from her shoulders in a brief flash of argent light. The scream stopped immediately, but the damage had been done. Lia's cover had been blown.
The night lit up with shouts and torches.
Lia hopped the body (-think of it as a body, not the person who'd serve you dinner seven hours ago and asked you if you had wanted seconds and by the way she'd made you a new shirt and patched up your old one and especially don't think about the fact that you'll have to see her kids and explain why mommy's and daddy's blood is on your sword, oh light don't think about that-) and plunged with reckless abandon into a bonfire-lit clearing.
Three undead in moldy chainmail and swords like large saplings were waiting for her. A fourth soldier aimed a crossbow at her face.
She didn't stop, barely slowed even, but threw herself at the soldiers with a scream of primal rage. A bolt whisked past her, drawing a line of pain along her right temple that she didn't feel. Alennius flared, pure argent flame as she brought the sword down on the first soldier, cleaving it in half from head to crotch before the group could even react. She whirled, hacking the head from the shoulders of a second soldier, and her momentum carried her around to parry the third soldier's blow. Steel met steel in a shower of sparks. The force of soldier's blow drove her to one knee, muscles locked and straining against the undead's inhuman strength.
Movement from the corner of her eyes.
Lia broke her hold, sliding the undead's greatsword to one side, and rolled away as the fourth undead's mace slammed into the spot where she had been. She gained her feet and lunged forward, driving Alennius into the mace-wielder's chest all the way to the hilt.
It stared down at the sword, then at her, and started laughing. Skeletal fingers closed around her throat like a cold vise. It lifted her easily into the air. Liathano's vision started to go black.
And that's when the world exploded.
An inhuman shriek rent the air. The ground heaved and bucked, throwing the two undead to the dirt. Lia jammed a knife into the soldier's wrist, twisted it, and cut herself free. Pausing only to yank Alennius from the thing's chest, she scrambled away and dove into the nearest tent.
The undead's severed hand was still squeezing her throat. She wrenched it off and flung it away, then knelt on the dirt, sucking in air through teeth clenched in pain. The appendage bounced away, twitching, and came to a rest at the feet of a eight year old girl who shrieked and dove behind another girl.
Alennius' revealed that the tent was full of children, nine all told, of various ages and sexes. The eldest, a young woman barely sixteen, wore a dingy white robe and stood protectively in front of the group, despite being obviously terrified herself.
Lia got awkwardly to her feet. "May?" Her voice rasped.
The shrieker poked her head out from behind the oldest girl. She sniffled. "L-lia?" The warrior lifted her glowing sword slightly, angling it so it illuminated her face better. The girl's eyes went wide. "LIA!" And then she threw herself on Liathano, bawling in terror. The rest of the children's paralysis broke, and they swarmed over her, sobbing and crying.
Lia did her best to calm the group down. They did so reluctantly. She explained the escape plan. "I'll go first. When I give the all clear, follow me. Keep calm, and keep quiet. We'll get out of this fine."
"You're hurt," the oldest girl said. She stepped forward and touched a hand to Lia's shoulder.
Lia touched her face. Her fingers came away sticky with her blood. She forced a cocky grin on her face anyway. "I'm a big warrior. I'll be fine."
The girl gave her an odd look, but nodded and pulled away.
Lia detached herself from the group and went to the entrance of the tent. She drew it back enough to peer outside.
The camp was in chaos. Several tents were on fire, and undead rushed about aimlessly. Shouts filled the air, along with something else Lia couldn't identify. The two soldiers Lia had dispatched still lay where they had fallen; no sign of the other two.
Nobody was paying any attention to the tent.
Liathano stepped outside, Alennius held loosely in one hand. She beckoned. For a long moment, nothing happened, then the eldest girl stepped out, May's little sister Addie clutched in her arms. The other children crept out after her.
Lia pointed south. "Go. I'll cover our backs."
Horses screamed. A wagon slewed out of the darkness drawn by two half-crazed draft horses. It rocked to a stop a short distance away as the driver fought to control the beasts.
"Get in!" The driver shouted, pointing to the back of the wagon. Anri's mask was gone, her face covered with streaks of blood and ash. She was grinning broadly.
Liathano shook her head. "What the hell did you do, Anri?"
"Later!" The thief said. "In! Now!"
Sheathing Alennius, Lia helped the children into the back of the wagon. She was swinging herself in as well, when the horses reared, neighing in terror, and bolted, nearly spilling Liathano back onto the ground. Somehow she clung on, and waded through the wailing children to clamber into the seat next to Anri.
Lia had to shout to be heard. "I thought we were going to meet at the farmhouse."
"Change in plans," Anri shouted back. She hauled on the reigns barely wrestling the horses onto the dirt track that wound between the wooden stakes. She flashed Lia a bright smile. "There was some trouble."
Before Lia could ask what sort of trouble, the night abruptly turned a sickly bright green. Lia spun in her seat to see a huge thing rising from the center of the Scourge camp. Black stone and green fire towered overhead.
The Infernal shrieked again. It sounded hungry.
Beside her, Anri laughed nervously. "See, there was this warlock..."
"Oh, hell," Liathano muttered.