Obligatory disclaimer: I do not own World of Warcraft, or I would have gotten more of the details right.

It happened on his watch.

It was close to dusk, and he had been crouched at the top of a dune, peering into the distance and trying to stay focused. The lack of sleep, the glare of the setting sun, and the heat coming up off the sand in waves made him squint and blink.

At first he thought he was seeing a mirage, but when he rubbed his eyes furiously, it did not dissipate. There was a faint glimmer on the horizon; an extra sparkle to the sand. He thought he heard a buzzing sound, barely noticeable above the usual shushing of the shifting desert.

Ga'vik was standing to get a better look when he heard the shouts from camp, and a scream that was definitely not Orcish. His heart began to pound, but his hunter's self-discipline kept him still a moment longer. The sparkles had begun to coalesce into a long, shimmering line. It was spreading quickly. Approaching. Ga'vik clicked his teeth and narrowed his eyes.

When Eikahe called for him, his moment of hesitation was over. He whirled toward the camp and broke into a run, skidding and sliding down the dune. He whistled for Lujin as he ran, but she sped straight past him, ghosting over the next dune as his heavier feet sank into it.

He was already drawing his bow as he crested the peak. What he saw made him falter once more. There were no enemies in sight; only his party members and the human. She was clearly naked, huddled under Eikahe in his mighty bear form, surrounded by orcs in various states of undress. Gurk was nearest to the druid, challenging the bear with both axes, while Eikahe snarled and threatened. Three other orcs stood behind Gurk, but the rest seemed as indecisive as Ga'vik. They had their weapons drawn as well, but Umog appeared to be holding them back.

Ga'vik lowered the drawn arrow several inches, raised it, and lowered it again. Questioning your superiors was one thing, but killing them was another. He watched the big orc circling slowly around the bear. He could see that Eikahe had struck already; Gurk's left arm was clawed and bleeding steadily, though his axes never wavered. The bear growled and swatted, but the orc was out of range, and Eikahe was clearly reluctant to move away from Litha.

The other orcs shouted a variety of taunts and encouragements. The smell of blood had them riled up, regardless of how they felt about fighting with allies. One of the other hunters sent his boar around behind the druid, and Ga'vik belatedly spotted Lujin, already launching herself in a black streak from the shadow of his tent.

The troll sucked air through his teeth in a hiss of irritation as his wayward pet hit the boar's flank. The next instant, she was tearing the beast's throat out with her powerful jaws even as her hind claws eviscerated it. The orcs roared in surprise and glee. One of Gurk's toadies took the momentary distraction as an opportunity, and plunged his spear into Eikahe's rump.

"Fuck it," said Ga'vik. He raised his bow and let fly. The spear-plunging orc dropped with a feathered shaft sprouting from his right eye. One of the other orcs pointed at Ga'vik with an indignant yell, and two of them started pelting toward him immediately. An orc hunter lifted his gun, and the sand to Ga'vik's left erupted with a boom. The troll lifted his bow again.

Then, all hell broke loose.

Ga'vik thought, at first, that he had done it – summoned demons, somehow, in his anger and frustration. They coursed down the dune to either side of him, clicking and humming, metallic shells gleaming in the setting sun. Millions of them swarmed over the sand toward camp, into camp, over camp…

Silithids. They moved as a fluid might, cresting over tents and orcs alike. Ga'vik began firing arrow after arrow, then shouldered his bow and drew his knife, wading through the insects to reach Eikahe. The orcs were disappearing – dragged under the glimmering waves, screaming and hacking uselessly with their weapons. Ga'vik could still hear Eikahe growling and roaring, drawing the monsters to him. Lujin was there, too, caterwauling in fury and pain as she struggled to sink her claws into the hard carapaces surrounding her.

Ga'vik called for Jozala, his voice cracking in an effort to be heard above the din. He gasped in relief as he saw her familiar red head appear. She was snapping her jaws in every direction as she moved, crunching the silithids as quickly as they could climb on her. She was unsaddled, but Ga'vik grabbed one of the spines at her neck, and hauled himself over her shoulders, kicking hurriedly as strong mandibles nearly removed one of his toes.

Above the fray, he could see the outline of the camp again, and there – Eikahe batting and swatting at the loa-damned bugs. Ga'vik drew his bow again and began picking off the larger ones as he spurred Jozala toward the bear.

The troll noted with horror that as the initial wave flooded past them, much larger silithids were appearing: lumbering scarabs, skulking reavers, and darkening the sky with their numbers, wasps. The wasps darted in and out of the melee, lifting dead and damaged silithids free to carry them loas-knew-where. Ga'vik had heard they would cannibalize their own when resources were scarce, as his own kind used to do. The thought of it made him shudder.

Behind them, at the top of the dune he had crested only minutes ago, Ga'vik spotted something else that made his skin crawl. It was covered in a gleaming, segmented carapace, as the others were, but wore also an intricately woven robe and sat astride a giant, blue reaver. It was surveying the battle dispassionately, seemingly content that everything was well in hand. An imp pranced and skittered at its side, then impulsively cast a fireball into the camp, setting one of the tents alight.

Ga'vik turned away and kicked desperately at Jozala's sides, casting about for Eikahe. He spotted a hulking black shape amidst the swarm and urged the raptor toward it. When he drew closer, the figure straightened and became Eikahe in his tauren form. He was hauling something off the ground with one arm and heaving it onto Ga'vik's lap. It was the naked human. Eikahe's other arm was missing.

Dread welling up in his chest, Ga'vik reached out to grasp the tauren's shoulder, hoping to haul him onto the raptor, as well. Eikahe shrugged him away.

"Go!" the tauren bellowed above the obscene sound of clicking and buzzing. "You can get away – I will hold them!" The tauren spun to avoid the stinger of a silithid creeper, and Ga'vik fired at the monster's head. Its legs scrabbled uselessly at the sand as the arrow pinned it in place. The troll groped for another arrow and scanned to area, looking for help. He could not see any more orcs. As he watched, a wasp shot up in the air, a worg's head clutched in its insectile legs. Another tent exploded in flames.

"GO," Eikahe shouted again, but this time he added, "Lujin!" and suddenly the crazed, yowling cat was hurtling toward them. Ga'vik tried to whistle but the sand in his mouth made it come out as a hiss. The panther landed with teeth and claws imbedded in the base of Jozala's tail, and then they were moving, running, dragging Lujin and silithids alike as the raptor tried to dislodge the source of her pain. Ga'vik released a stream of curses and reached back to try and shove his pet off.

In his fear for Eikahe, he had forgotten about the human draped over his lap, and she slipped, nearly falling into the sea of chattering insects. This seemed to bring her to life, and she flailed and grabbed one of his pauldrons to right herself. Then all three of them were teetering and clutching desperately at the raptor's unsaddled back as the beast shrieked and reared to bite a reaver in two.

When Ga'vik regained his balance, Lujin was pressed against his back, her front claws digging painfully into his shoulders. Litha had both arms around his chest, and he could feel her hot, shuddering breath at the base of his throat. Without dislodging them, he tried to twist his head enough to see Eikahe, but he could only hear him: his thundering roars a counterpoint to the steady whirring of the silithids. The fifth roar ended in a blood-curdling howl, and then there were no more.

After that, Ga'vik let Jozala have her head. The panicked raptor barrelled straight into the oncoming flood of insects and cleared a path for herself with her razor-toothed jaws as she ran. The troll merely clung to her with his knees, stabbing with his skinning knife at any silithids he could reach, still clutching his bow with the other. He was out of arrows.

They swept up and down several more dunes before Ga'vik realized the swarm was thinning. By the next dune, there was only a trickle of insects still coming toward them. They were smaller, as the ones in the first wave had been.

Finally, there was only sand.