CHAPTER 9
Sylvanas snapped her head upward, her elven ears hearing a slight roar far off from the distance. Peering around skyward, she saw a blue frost of ice. She snapped her head back down to earth in realization, recognizing the blast as a breath of a frost wyrm. She immediately called on her forces. "Ghouls, abominations, and necromancers! Form into an army on the front lines! My banshee sisters and crypt fiends! Follow me to the rear of the melee force as support for them. Air units, fly off to the side; attack the side of the enemy when they approach!" She commanded, and grabbing her quiver of arrows and trusty bow, led her support units.
Kel'Thuzad stared intently at the opposing army getting formed. When they marched forward, the lich ordered without taking his eyes off the army, "Meat wagons, drop a bundle of corpses. Necromancers, raise and transform them into the undead." The wagons unloaded their rotting, bloody corpses, which enticed the hunger of ghouls. The pink hunk abominations turned around to glance at the corpses, also eager to kill and grab a corpse for their own. The necromancers raised their staves, muttered ancient words of necromantic magic, and turned the corpses into skeletons. The dead instantly lost all their flesh, and the remaining bones were turned pure white. They formed perfectly somehow into a formation, soon making a handful of white, not grey, skeletons. These kinds, stronger than the old version, were enhanced by the power of the Book of the Dead. The bones now stronger and comparable to the hardness of diamonds, they wield assassin blades that are able to slice through steel with ease. "Beautiful…" Kel'Thuzad whispered as the necromancers pointed their staves toward the incoming army, and the skeletons zombie-like marched to meet them.
Sylvanas' snarling ghouls met them first, brandishing their sharp claws, tearing through the skeletons with no avail or use. The abominations struck down their bloody cleavers, managing to smash a couple of boney arms and legs and destroying the necromantic magic binding the skeletons together.
Another load was dropped off, and a second army of skeletons joined the first. Sylvanas instantly appeared out of nowhere to the left of Kel'Thuzad's army, and raised her bow in the air, muttering some words in an elvish tongue. Kel'Thuzad caught a glimpse at her conducting the spell, and immediately said, "My casters! Move back!" but it was too late. The necromancers lost their control over the skeletons and gripped their throats, choking, unable to cast spells as well due to the Silence spell by the banshee. An air fleet behind the banshee materialized and starting launching their barrage. Ice breaths from the frost wyrms froze their targets and slowed all others due to the numbing coldness. Destroyers swooped down onto the skeleton army battling the abomination and ghouls, devouring the magical essence in them. The walking bones suddenly collapsed down to the ground as each destroyer got close to them.
Kel'Thuzad pulled back his army a bit, awaiting Anub'Arak's reinforcements. "Hold on, my forces! We must hold on until Anub'Arak comes!" he ordered. To bide some time, he unleashed his ultimate spell, Death and Decay. He raised his hands up, murmured an ancient incantation, and his palms glowed with an eerie, shining light. Thanks to the knowledge gained from the tome of the dead, he could now direct and control his destructive spell. He concentrated, focusing all his mana and energy, and aimed right at Sylvanas' forces. Purple, brown, and green clouds quickly enveloped the radius of the ranger's army, and the effect was instantaneous and deadly. Her ghouls liquefied into a mass of swamp green and brown, collapsing into a heap of smelly mold. The wounds and cuts on abominations turned from blood red to brown, as the abominations rotted from the inside out. Numerous parts transformed into sludge that infected the whole body. The monsters roaring in agony; they soon fell back with a huge splat! and existed not as abominations anymore, but as a pile of sludge.
"Oh, no…" muttered Sylvanas, seeing the clouds annihilate her forces, and called back her air units, while she herself started climbing a mountain of rocks and rubble. Concentrating on the still-muttering lich, she Silenced him, ending the spell. Kel'Thuzad suddenly buckled down from the sudden disable, but quickly got back up. A horn sounded at that instant, turning Sylvanas's head. Both she and the lich looked toward where the horn was sounding from, and watched as Anub'Arak arrived, his forces somewhat a bit diminished. He screamed, "For the Scourge!" and ordered his forces to attack. Sylvanas' air forces were webbed by the arachnid Nerubian fiends, allowing Kel'Thuzad's ground forces to attack.
Sylvanas, getting desperate, ordered more forces to be made and attack, while she herself took out a bright green flaming stone. She tossed the stone toward the center of the fight of the ghouls and abominations against her wyrms, whereupon the stone transformed into an infernal, and crashed down onto the melee like a bomb. The creature stunned the undead with the force of the impact, and then began pounding with his chaos-flamed fist. The necromancers then began aiding the abominations against the powerful demon, raising skeletons from fallen corpses of ghouls and increasing the fervor of the corpse hulks' attacks.
Sylvanas, meanwhile, had secretly hocked an arrow to her bow and aimed right as Anub'Arak's head, the only place other than his underside not protected by his carapace. As she took aim, Kel'Thuzad noticed her attempt at assassination and quickly drew a short, purple dagger. He whispered a few words, and then disappeared in a flash of blue light. He instantly reappeared on the same platform as the dark ranger, having used the magical Blink Dagger, and drew out another item, a short wand with a stubby head, decorated with red and blue cloth. He pointed the Wand of the Wind at the banshee, said, "You shall not kill one of us that easily!" and chanted the activation words. The wand spewed out a spinning column of wind; a horizontal cyclone. Sylvanas shrieked as she was blown back to ground level. Anub'Arak heard the shriek, watched as Sylvanas was blown back, and hustled toward there. The banshee quickly got up, not wanting to be in a position of weakness as Kel'Thuzad and Anub'Arak approached.
Anub'Arak started, "Have you a grave yet? Because you shall die right here, right now…" and the two Scourge heroes attacked.