Chapter 3 - Mallet's Story.
"I was fifteen when I joined the army. I was twenty three when King Llane was assassinated and Stormwind fell to the orcs. It was a… difficult time. We fled the city taking to the sea and fleeing north on any vessel that could carry us. It was women and children mostly. There was a lot of fighting. Rich folk trying to bring everything they ever owned. Most of the civilians had never even seen an orc before. But that just made the stories worse. Tales of butchery and ravaging. Ridiculous claims about orcs raping human women, and begetting demonic offspring. It wasn't true of course, but that didn't matter. The people were scared. The army had failed them. The king was dead. There was almost no hope at all.
"Those of us who made it to Lorderon were a broken people. I can't imagine what we would have done without Lothar. He literally saved us all. He went to King Terenas Menethil of Lordaeron and, in the face of total defeat, he snatched victory. I wasn't there at the time. I had lost too many friends, too much family. But my brother was still alive. He was just a boy, too young to fight. I had to continue on, for his sake.
"It was in that drunken, depressed state, in a tavern in Brill, that he found me. Uther. Uther the Lightbringer. He was seeking those of us who had survived Stormwind's fall, who still had the will to fight. He had found a way to infuse warriors with the power of the Light. The bishop was helping him. How that man survived the destruction of the abbey at Northshire I'll never know. But he did, and he and Uther were founding a new brotherhood: The Order of the Silver Hand. They asked me if I wanted in. I took one look at my brother, and the life the orcs had taken from us, and I said yes.
"The Light changed everything. We could revive our exhausted brethren on the battlefields. We could finally stand up against the warlocks and their demons. But there were only a handful of us, and the Horde was unstoppable. We lost town after town. Driven out of Khaz Modan, up out of Arathi, and into Hillsbrad. It was then that we discovered the king of Altrec had made a deal with the Warchief. He did it so that his country would be spared. Thousands had died and those men… they had sided with the Horde. I remember the soldiers were so angry. We marched on Altrec and burned the city to the ground. It was unforgivable what we did. But it was a different time. The people today, they wouldn't understand.
"The war was as good as over by then. Several of my superior officers had died, and I was promoted due mostly to the fact that I had lived as long as I had, and seen as much as I had seen. The Horde turned east then, and attacked the Hinterlands. Suddenly the Wildhammer dwarves saw what was coming and joined us. Their griffins and enchanted Stormhammers changed the way battles were fought. The air was filled with death. Then a miracle happened
"The orcish warlocks were gone. Almost overnight. We heard rumors of a power struggle within the Horde. That the leader of the warlocks had taken their dark wizards and run off. All I remember is that this was when the tables turned. We pushed the orcs out of Lorderon, back south past Dun Algaz, through Kaz Modan, and into the Searing Cauldron.
"It was there, at the foot of Blackrock Mountain, that it ended. I lead a mixed company of footmen and archers, tasked with defending the right flank. The enemy assaulted us with a force of ogres, catapults, and a couple of dragons. The elves we had with us were exhausted, as were my men. But we held for nearly an hour before I saw him. Ogrim Doomhammer, the Warchief of the Horde. You have no idea of how many times I fantasized about killing him. We all did. But when I saw him, and his honor guard, they were in retreat. And Lothar was hot on his heels. When they engaged, it was as if the whole war had just been a prelude to that battle.
"I wish I could have seen it, but just then a two-headed ogre decided it would be a good idea to end my life. It was my horse that saved me. The ogre and I fought for several minutes. He would have won too, but some of my men peppered it with arrows, and distracted him enough for me to crush one of his skulls. He went down pretty quickly after that.
"By then it was too late. I looked up from my kill to see Ogrim standing over Lothar's body. His death sent the men into a frenzy. There was screaming among the lines, and the infantry surged forward. The ogres near me were overwhelmed and in seconds my men and I were behind enemy lines and among their artillery. Orcish catapults are true engines of death, but rather frail when you get close to them. Once the artillery was destroyed, we closed in and surrounded the orcs. I was expecting them to fight to the death, but for some reason, Doomhammer surrendered.
"I don't know why Uther spared his life, but I was angry as hell when I found out. As long as he wore the armor, he was Warchief, and the rest of the chieftains did what he said. It took nearly a month for our army to reach the Blasted Lands, where it all started. Our mages closed the Dark Portal, and the rest, as they say, is history.
"King Terenas ordered all of the orcs rounded up and thrown into camps. This was close to thirty years ago. The first one finished was at Lordamere, not far from Durnholde. Lord Blackmoore presided over it, and it wasn't long before he started dipping his hand into the coffers. The money was taxed from the common people, and was supposed to pay for the orc's food and soldiers' wages. Instead it went to Blackmoore's family coffers. But that was not my concern. The war was over, and the threat of the horde ended. Soon after they were put in the camps, the orcs became docile, like cattle. Now it was they who were the broken people. The fighting spirit that had been so terrifying on the battlefield was stripped from them. They became a broken people. In the beginning we were afraid of them escaping, but after a while we understood that there was nothing to fear from these orcs. Some of them died from not eating, when the food was right in front of them. They simply wasted away. Even Ogrim, the great Warchief, was not immune to the malady. We let him keep his armor on, so that the men could see the fearsome lord of the clans walking among his people. I watched him, day after day, as he shuffled aimlessly around the camp. I hated him. I hated all the orcs. But Uther stopped me from doing what I should have. The Kirin Tor told Uther that the demon energy had left the orcs and that every day they lived was torture to them. He said that death would be a release for Ogrim, and that he should be forced to spend every day watching the remains of the almighty horde as they couldn't even find the strength to clean the filth from their own bodies. That, Uther said, was true justice. That was what Ogrim deserved. And as I watched the Warchief, I looked into his eyes and understood that Uther was right.
"Until the day of the raid. The day the blademaster came…"