Winterchill
Armies marched as cities burned around her, men in steel surrounded her. The troll woman couldn't help but hide behind a nearby house as she tried to understand the situation. The last thing the shaman had remembered was being dragged away from her kin towards a shimmering mass, and then nothing. Blackness. Green hills and flourishing trees littered the area, and Tiji suspected that it would have been a pleasant place if it weren't also the middle of a war zone. She peeked around the corner, it was apparent that Tiji was in some Alliance war camp, though who they were fighting was still uncertain. The troll sighed, almost certain that it was the Horde the humans were battling. "Hey! You!" called out an armored man atop a great steed. Tiji raised her mace in defiance, "We need you at the front! This is no time to be hiding!" shouted the knight (as surely he must have been a knight) before riding down the hill path.
Slowly becoming aware that it was not these men she was against, the Troll crept out from her hiding place to view the area. Tiji had raided enough Alliance encampments in her time with the Horde armies to recognize the buildings. Several blacksmiths and stables behind the great stone wall only made one thing certain, they were under assault. This was soon confirmed by the sudden rushing of soldiers; more than a dozen footmen came running down the road, rattling in their heavy armor. The group stopped briefly at a nearby tower along the path, saluting to some yet-unseen figure, before continuing on towards the gate. As the shaman continued down the road, the figure came in to view. She was a tall, robed woman clutching a jeweled staff, with a clear aura of magic around her. Tiji had seen this woman before somewhere, but she couldn't quite place it. Every now and then, the sorceress would call out something to the Alliance forces at the gate, telling them to hold the line and not allow the attackers through. Then, she turned and pointed at Tiji.
The blue-skinned beauty felt very out of place amongst the Alliance forces, and though there was certainly none other of the Horde to be seen, it was evident that they were not at an impasse with each other here. "Shaman!" called out the sorceress, "To the front! Another line will soon becoming and the men could certainly use the aid of the elements!" Tiji looked around nervously, not quite sure what to say. "Uh, t'is may sound a bit odd… but I be havin' no idea what you're talking about." The woman quirked an eyebrow at the shaman, "You're right, that is odd. What's going to be even odder is when I have to explain to Thrall that one of his own people is lost on the damn field of battle! The Horde encampment is just up the path, but we need your help here if we're to hold the line long enough!" Not knowing what else to do, Tiji nodded and began down the path to the gate. "I just hope we'll make it that far…" the mage sighed.
It was very unusual for the shaman to be doing what was asked of her, but she tried with all her will to channel the elements to aid these humans. She asked the spirit of water to heal the wounds of the injured, she asked the spirit of earth to help repair the wall, and she asked the spirit of air to bring word of what enemies were to come. Tiji did not, however, call upon the spirit of fire.
The men around her gasped as she approached, they too were not used to working, much less fighting alongside a troll such as herself. Tiji smiled, thinking of how only earlier that day she had fought against one such human, in the sands of Tanaris. The soldiers nodded at her, then went to resume guarding the gate. A piercing scream filled the air, and the answer to Tiji's unspoken question of the identity of their enemy was answered. A gaggle of ghouls howled as they bolted through the gateway, flesh hanging loosely from their bloodied skin. A terrifying sight if she had ever seen one, the troll was momentarily stunned by the sight of the corpse-devouring horrors in front of her. One of the ghouls advanced upon her, its bleeding claws threatening to end her.
A rallying battle cry filled the air, as the cavalry entered the battle, one barreling its horse in to the zombie attacking Tiji, the knight's longsword piercing its mangled body. Severed at the torso, the ghoul stared down in surprise as it was bisected. As it struck the ground, the ghoulish fiend lay motionless; just another terror to be silenced that day. The air around them whistled as arrows flew from several directions, penetrating through the zombies. Looking around her for the source of the missiles, the shaman spotted several figures within the shadows of the surrounding hills and trees. "Night elves…?" she pondered to herself.
Gazing around, Tiji noticed that all races of the Alliance were present, save for the relatively recent addition of the foreign Draenei. The more the troll thought about it, she could not place exactly where they were. It certainly was no where in Azeroth that she recognized, and it was not nearly alien enough to be a part of the Outlands. "It almost looks like Felwood, without the taint…" she though to herself. And then she realized just exactly where, or rather 'when', she was. The shaman swore loudly enough for every scourge in the area to hear it, and profane enough for any soldier in the vicinity to blush. Before she was able to digest this recent discovery, though, a new line of scourge had charged the front lines.
The first wave of attackers now seemed rather tame and pathetic compared to what was now advancing upon the Alliance encampment. Massive emerald-green beings lumbered through the walls, the sight of them was nearly as grotesque as the stench. Having been literally sewn together from several other corpses, these abominations were the driving force of the Scourge attack forces. Many carried makeshift clubs of massive sizes; others just used gargantuan hooks similar to those used by butchers to hang meat. All of them were as deadly as they were hideous, which is to say incredibly so. Spirit of Earth, we have need of you in this conflict more than ever! The shaman whispered to herself, only hoping that the elements could come to her support. It was fortunate that the shaman was one of the favored children of the forces of nature, soon the massive roots that ran below the ground sprung forth to grasp the damned that walked the earth.
The abominations' head twitched, trying to comprehend why its legs weren't working, and trying even harder to understand why it was becoming a pincushion for the many projectiles that were piercing its body. The arrows may as well have been gnats for all the good they did, though, the enormous monstrosity was unwavering in its assault, and it broke through the powerful roots that held it. Tiji always had more tricks, and was charging one of them in her hands right at that very moment. Letting loose that power with all the fury that the troll could muster, a great bolt of lightning flew forth from the shaman and erupted the Abomination's cranium quite explosively.
The cheering from the footmen was short lived, though, as more and more Abominations shambled through the gateway. Archers and riflemen took their positions on the hills, as the knights and foot soldiers rushed in, hoping to survive the coming conflict. Any time a corpse would fall, though, something worse would always take its place. A skeletal crypt fiend here, a banshee or a necromancer there, there were many foes to combat. The men around her surely would have fallen long ago, but Tiji was a vigilant battle-healer, healing them with all the power she had. The blue-skinned beauty smiled a private smile. Though she certainly understood that not all humans or elves or dwarves were her enemy, some were even her friends, she had rarely before seen reason to fight alongside the Alliance as she had that day, and the shaman had sent more than her share of them to the spirit world.
It became unusually silent. For a moment, Tiji had almost thought the assault to be finished, though the warrior in her knew that the scourge would never cease, not so soon. The soldiers around her sheathed their weapons for a moment, as if suspecting the same thing. But it was never, truly over. A terrible voice resounded throughout the camp, a voice that neither human nor elf could make. The howl was shrill, skeletal, and it chilled Tiji to the bone. A massive robed figure floated down the road in the distance, chains stretching across several parts of its corpse-like body. Elongated spider-like claws erupted from the amethyst robes, all of them frostbitten.
The protecting walls immediately in front of Tiji began to crack and crumble as icicles spread across them, and then with a massive shatter they were destroyed, allowing the gargantuan Liches form entry to the encampment. His breath was as frost and his grip was chilling.
"The Legion's final conquest has begun! Once again the subjugation of this world is within our grasp. Let NONE SURVIVE!"