Well, I'm alive. And I own nothing.

Chasing Through Hell

Torn

The morning dawned grey and dismal and it was only very reluctantly that Maurus extricated himself from Arianna and the lazy warmth of the tent. An hour later he learned that the oppressive weather was an omen for the day.

"Calen's back," Mathias said, making Maurus turn from his half-folded tent and open his mouth to admonish his comrade for his late return. The words shriveled when he caught sight of the him though. Calen usually exuded confidence, his steps sure and his back straight. He always reminded Maurus of some of the older, grumpier tauren he'd known, those old enough to turn up their nose at the greenhorns, but not old enough to be called elders.

Now Calen looked truly and thoroughly shaken. His footfalls were no longer light and sure, but heavy and deliberate, as if he was rooting himself with every step and the set of his shoulders was as rigid as his movements. His face was drawn and an uncharacteristic reluctance appeared in his face when his eyes fell on Wiven and Arianna. The two had not missed Wiven's state either. Maurus could sense their uneasiness as they, without at word, moved to sit in front of Wiven's collapsed tent and gestured for Calen to join them.

Maurus ought to tell them to keep working, but he held his tongue and moved to join them. For a moment, all three elves looked like they might protest, but they relented at his steady look, making room for him to seat himself between Arianna and Wiven.

Calen didn't speak immediately. He sat in silence, looking into his hands as if searching for words there. The hectic feel of the camp breaking up, as well as the tension between the four, made Maurus want to prompt him, but he restrained the impulse. He had the distinct impression that it was an elven matter and he was already intruding enough without bringing his impatience into what was obviously something major.

Instead, it was Arianna who spoke first, not surprising, given the quiet dread in Wiven's eyes. With rare gentleness and apprehension, she asked: "Calen? What have you learned?"

"Shattrath is open to us. The Aldor have opened the city to anyone fighting the Legion," he began slowly, still looking into his hands. Maurus frowned. That should be cause for celebration, not gloom.

"And anyone fighting Illidan and his forces."

Maurus swallowed and glanced at Arianna. He saw the crack briefly appear in her calm, a flash of anguish that vanished as her expression hardened, mind working behind her steely eyes. Opposite her, Wiven's expression of dread deepened and his shoulders slumped.

"The draenei-" Arianna began, but she cut herself off when Calen suddenly raised his blazing eyes to her face.

"I care about the draenei reports as little as you do," Calen said, regaining a bit of his usual grim steadiness. "It's the word of kin I bring. They call themselves the Scryers and have pledged themselves to the same cause as the Aldor."

"What?" Arianna asked. Her brow was furrowed in confusion and worry, a saddening sight after the momentary hope the mention of kin had brought. Maurus put a hand on her shoulder, and squeezed as he saw Calen take a deep breath, his expression becoming desolate.

"They say the Prince has fallen to madness," he said, almost whispering the words. "That Illidan follows the Legion again and that the Prince pledged himself and our people to the Legion."

Arianna stiffened beneath Maurus' hand. Her denial was searing in it's heat, but a moment slow: "Liars and traitors. Do they think we'll fall for that?"

"Voren'thal leads them," Calen said, as if pronouncing a death sentence and Maurus thought he actually saw a glistening in his eyes. "He came to the camp last night, with the Sunstrike. Arcanist Xorith and Thalodien are among their number as well."

The blood drained from Arianna's and Wiven's faces. The names were unfamiliar to Maurus, but the reaction their mention garnered gave him a very good idea of who they were: The pathfinders, those that unerringly found the trail despite darkness and trickery.

"That's... No," Wiven said, almost pleading. He put a hand to his cheek, as if in support and the fingers of his other hand tightened on the wand that rested on his thigh. The azure stone at its tip darkened as his eyes grew brighter.

"I know," Calen said. His ashen, helpless words were half an apology, half an admission of his own incomprehension and pain.

The muscles beneath Maurus' hand tightened and Arianna's shoulder became like obsidian on a summer day. Ash, lying in front of her, had his hackles raised and a low growl was forming in his throat.

"That's it?" she asked finally. Her tone was venomous and haughty, unlike anything Maurus could remember hearing before. "A few words from the old guard and you lose faith?" She rose to her feet and glared at Calen and Wiven. "You're pathetic!"

That put some of the steel back in Calen's expression. "We saw the signs in the Citadel. They've been mounting since then."

"Nothing substantial. The Prince would never betray us!" Arianna retorted. "It could be the Scryers we've seen, working to weaken us. Or our confirmed shapeshifting enemies!"

"They are our oldest veterans," Calen said, a dark note of warning in his tone. "They have fought for us since before we were born! And even if a demon wasn't detected by our best, no-one can impersonate a comrade you've fought beside for a century."

Arianna hesitated for a moment and Maurus saw the flicker of uncertainty again, before fury hardened her face. "It's a lie," she spat and spun on her heel.

"Arianna!" Maurus called, as she strode away from them. He might as well not have spoken. She didn't slow, stalking out toward the soggy, makeshift road that cut through the camp, so instead, he leaped to his hooves, took a couple of long strides and grabbed her arm. "Arianna, wait!"

She whirled on him, eyes burning and Ash let out a low growl. "Let go! I will not let these lies to go unchallenged."

The fury in her face and the pain lurking beneath made it feel like something was tearing in his chest, but Maurus held on. "Stop," he said, doing his best to keep his voice calm. "Think. This is not the time."

Arianna's expression darkened as she tried, unsuccessfully, to pull her arm from his grip. "This is exactly the time," she hissed. "This must be stamped out now, before it grows out of control. How can they even form the thought?"

Maurus had a clear answer to that, but saw little reason to voice it. Instead, he said: "That is not your responsibility. How would you even convince them?"

"I am not the only faithful one," Arianna said. "We'll remind them why they should believe."

Again, Maurus held back his first retort, a declaration of how unlikely that would be. Calen had never struck him as someone easily swayed, nor someone disloyal and apart from the oddity of him going with Maurus' group instead of sticking to his own, he didn't seem to be that out of the ordinary for blood elves. "Muster is in an hour," he said instead. "You can't leave now."

Arianna heaved in a breath and he could feel the muscles tense in her arm as her hand curled into a fist. Every spine on Ash's back was raised and Maurus hadn't felt so threatened by the felhound since Ashenvale.

"Their need is greater-" Arianna began, but Maurus interrupted her.

"You can't leave," he insisted quietly. "You've declared for us. You could hardly even make it back and forth in that time."

She pulled against him again and a flash of regret appeared on her face before the anger reappeared. "My people-"

"Won't benefit," Maurus interrupted again, feeling his heart twinge at his own bluntness. Arianna's eyes narrowed, but he barreled on: "The word of a warlock will hardly lend weight in a matter of the Legion." He swallowed quickly, his stomach roiling, and added: "And you'll be a deserter. You know how the Horde deals with them."

Arianna stared at him. Her body was rigid like stone, her teeth grit and looking into her eyes was like looking into the center of a bonfire. As he stood there, Maurus became aware of how hard his heart was beating and how tightly he was grasping Arianna's arm, though he didn't dare loosen his grip.

"You can't help," he said quietly. It was almost a plea.

There was a quiver in Arianna's face, just for a moment. Then her expression went flat, something impenetrable falling into place behind her eyes. Without prompting, Maurus let go of her and without a glance at the road outside their circle of tents, she walked past him to her where her half-packed belongings were.

Only then did he become aware of the looks he was getting. Many of his comrades were already done with their packing, leaving them plenty of spare attention for what had just transpired. Shayla was giving him a look that might be even more disapproving than usual, and Drunnya looked uncomfortable. The rest showed primarily simple interest, but he could see a hard lines and suspicion here and there.

His head was full of frustration, anger, regret and not a little hurt and he did not at all feel composed. It was at a time like this that he understood why a lot of the factions of the Horde were so insular. It made cohesion and trust so much easier to maintain within the unit.

He closed his fingers into fists and breathed deeply, the air seeming to displace at least some of the roiling chaos in him.

"Gather round," he called, stepping back toward the central clearing in the camp. Any of his comrades who hadn't been looking at him now turned their attention to him.

"Gather round," he repeated, a little louder. "There's news and you'll hear them from me!"

They departed the main camp under a grey weight that matched the weather, a trio of battalions trudging out into the marsh. Widget, who was eager to test her new gunpowder mix, and Mathias, who was thrilled that they were moving towards Ven'Zarul, were the only ones who seemed unaffected by the news. The elves were practically silent for days and the distrust of Shayla and those of like mind had grown in response to the news and the desertion of a large contingent of dragonhawk riders. The deserters had not endeared the blood elves to anyone and while Maurus could count himself lucky that his soldiers remained relatively discreet and civil, plenty of the soldiers around them openly declared their dislike through hard stares and the odd insult. It was mostly the trolls, giving voice to a hatred of elves that Maurus had thought belonged more to some of the other tribes but seeing as much of the 27th was made up of trolls, he was honestly worried.

When Wiven rose to the taunts of some trolls, Maurus was pleasantly surprised that he didn't have to step in. Some of his orcs and trolls reacted before he ever had to, cowing the provoking trolls with hard stares, drawn weapons and, in Drunnya's and Shayla's case, palms full of lightning.

It was a good thing too that his comrades had stepped in, because his interference might not have ended at threats. Arianna's seething misery had torn at Maurus' insides from the day they marched and her withdrawal from him was doubly painful after they had become so close. In addition to those pains were the ever present anxiety, which their screen of scouts did little to soothe, the constant skirmishes and the sheer effort it was to march in the marsh.

The realization of how on edge he was pushed him past caution and he stopped letting Arianna avoid him entirely. To his immense relief, she responded favorably to his insistence and by the time they reached Zabra'jin, a nascent fortress that two vanguard troll regiments had begun work on, neither Maurus nor Arianna was quite as miserable as when they set out.

They were still very grateful for the break though. Arianna was still tense, lashing out at any negative mention of Prince Kael'thas and Maurus was drained by the week of skirmishes and animosity from his allies. The chaotic days spent there, in a place with well-established supply lines to fertile Nagrand, did a lot to raise the spirits of the battalion. In addition, the encounter with the strange, brown-skinned Mag'har, and the far strangers sporelings, did wonders, finally turning some attention away from the blood elves while Arianna's meeting with Croaker, Carver and Speaker seemed to focus her and relieve a little of her tension.

The following hard march strained both minds and bodies and Maurus didn't want to think about how low morale would have been without the respite. Even Mathias' mood began to sour, though that was mostly because they were no longer following Ven'Zarul's trail west, but instead going north along one of the most solid paths in the marsh.

The Legion had consolidated part of their forces in northern Zangarmarsh, keeping control of the roads into the Blade's Edge Mountains. Supported by at least two of their infernal forge camps in the foothills, they were in a good position to retake the marsh if the Horde and Alliance moved south in force without dislodging the demons along with the naga.

So while work continued on driving the naga out of their lakebed strongholds to the east, the 27th separated from three other battalions, sweeping like a great wing in an arc to outflank the demons' main position.

That had been the plan at least. It turned out quite different.

Maurus gave a wordless shout in response to his opponents guttural roar, smashing the crude axe away with a sweep of his own. The blow drew an almost childish grunt of dismay from the ogre, his belly rolling in a wave of fat and thick, blue skin. Blood already streamed from the ogre from a multitude of wounds, but there was simply so much mass, most of it extraneous, that none of the wounds were close to incapacitating.

"I hate ogres," Mathias hissed beside Maurus, dodging a club made from an uprooted mushroom. The words were barely audible over the almost solid wall of shouts and roars of the ogres, which almost drowned out the din of steel and spell. Mathias stabbed his sword forward, making the ogre draw back with a yowl of pain and trip over one of the many mushroom stumps that jutted from the ground.

A flurry of lightning, flame and shadow flew over Calen's head on Maurus' other side, sending one ogre to the ground in spasms and driving back a trio of others who had been approaching like a slow avalanche of fat and muscle over fleshy mounds of their dead fellows.

"Don't we all?" He snarled back at Mathias as the ogre he'd staggered came barreling back toward him. At that moment, he truly did. He'd met ogres in Dustwallow Marsh and truthfully never understood why they had always been so feared. He had attributed it to the small size of most participants of the Second War, but now he understood. The ogres fought with no skill, no finesse, no tactics and hardly wore any armor, but their brute strength made them dangerous and their toughness and stupidity made them capable fighting a battle of endurance that shifted ever more in their favor as their smaller opponents tired.

The Ango'rosh had done just that. Despite the fact that the scouts had spotted the ogres well before the battle began, both the attempt to avoid the ogres and the attempt to smash through them and continue on had failed, leaving the 27th stuck against the wall of flesh. The ogres delayed the 27th more than they hurt it, but several Legion forces were confirmed to be in the area, so that delay could be catastrophic, both for the other battalions and for the 27th,

Maurus turned his shoulder, catching a numbing orb of darkness on his pauldron and shouted a furious challenge at the two-headed brute skulking around behind the other ogres. The taunt had no effect. The ogre warlock simply roared a laugh, making his mantle of bone and hide shake, before pointing his bone staff at one of the front ogres. A stream of dark red hit the ogre and the ululating cry and the bloody spittle flying from the ogre's mouth made a chill run down Maurus' spine. The skin went taught around the ogre's muscles as it charged forward, even more heedless of danger than before, hefting its mushroom club in both hands.

"Widget!" He barked, managing to make his voice sound urgent rather than frightened. He thought he heard a shrill response and then there was a slap of sound against his side that made him glad Widget was on foot today.

Maurus thanked the spirits for Widget's aim as the frenzied ogre's right eye, and most of the area around it, exploded bloodily. It staggered forward a few more steps, still howling madly, before a bolt of lighting hit the gory ruin of its face and made it collapse only five steps before it would have reached the already struggling Drim and Crava.

A couple of dozen feet further left of Crava the fighting was particularly fierce, the very edges of the ogre and the Horde formations struggling to lap round their opponents' flank. A massive white bear Maurus recognized fought with a group of troll warriors, only holding the line because a barrage of glittering cold magic rained almost continuously over them, while the large arrows of the tauren Kiluq harried the ogre casters.

His focus narrowed again as he took a step forward, flanked by Mathias and Calen and feeling the gathering energy behind him as the casters reacted to the front rank's movements. He heard Drunnya chant, loud and clear and prepared himself for the rush of the bloodlust, silently imploring the spirits to help him keep his wits while under the spell.

Instead of feeling the hot singing of his blood, he felt the bottom fall out of his belly as a clear horn sounded several times from the south-west, out in the fog past the edge of the battle. He knew the signal. All of the simple signals had been drilled into every soldier by now.

Enemy forces were rapidly approaching.

"Drunnya! Shayla!" Maurus barked, lashing out with the knob of his axe, knocking a thick tooth from an ogre. Drunnya reacted almost immediately, taking up her chant again as Maurus shouted: "Shake them!"

He had hardly finished the sentence before the bloodlust descended on him, making his pulse throb in his veins, his muscles swell with power and burning the doubt and pain from him. The cry he and his comrades let out was wordless and savage and the ogres seemed surprised by the intensity, if not exactly cowed.

The flurry of rapid blows and magic that hit the ogres did drive them back however. A flash of golden light stunned one of them and though Calen's hammer blow failed to kill the it, Maurus rectified that. The blood-red arc of his axe swept from the belly of one ogre and into the neck of Calen's opponent, and blood fountained out with a force that made another ogre flinch.

Mathias was snarling, and somewhere behind the bloody haze, it occurred to Maurus that it reminded him of the moment in Hellfire Citadel, but the thought vanished as he turned his axe on another ogre.

Maurus' heart seemed to beat harder with every burst of blood. He sliced clean through a mushroom club and cut a chunk of flesh from one ogre while Mathias' blade cut bloody strips from another's belly. Calen spat something Maurus was sure was a curse as another of his blows seemed to bounce of a belly, then reversed the swing and made the ogre howl when he smashed his hammer into its kneecap. Lightning, flame and shadow pelted the ogre line, blackening skin by heat or gangrenous corruption and weakening both their bodies and their attacks. One ogre died soundlessly when Wiven's fire struck it directly in the face, charring flesh from bone and burning it's throat so it couldn't even scream.

A glance around him made Maurus realize that they'd driven a wedge into the ogres' formation, but that they had lost their momentum. The ogres were recovering from the shock and the shouts of the casters further back were goading the brutes into a frenzy. Further to his sides, he saw that Drim and Crava were now almost on the edge of the Horde line, the trolls, bear and tauren that had been there before having drawn back to better face the side. The ogres were unable to take advantage, because a group of troll raptor riders had appeared out of the mist in perfect time to threaten their flank, the sound of their arrival somehow going unnoticed by Maurus until now.

He forced his thoughts to work through the blood haze and shouted the order to draw back. It took a moment for his comrades to react, the idea of retreat alien to their blood-addled minds, but they managed to withdraw before the ogres could take advantage of Maurus' unit's overreach.

With the short retreat, the pounding frenzy lifted from Maurus, the aches and his growing dread seeping back into his mind and limbs. It was a momentary effort to adjust, his limbs growing heavier and clumsier, but with gritted teeth he sent his axe into an overeager ogre's belly, biting deep into flesh made putrid by magic and torn by Mathias' blade.

The ogre howled in pain, and Maurus saw stars when its wild swing caught the side of his helmet. Snorting out bloody spray through the slits in his helmet, he struck again and the ogre collapsed with a groan. Another ogre stepped forward, but before either it or Maurus could do anything, Ash came scrambling over the gutted ogre and launched himself at the new opponent. The ogre stumbled back again as Ash climbed up its body, gouging holes in its flabby belly as he moved.

Under the pressure from the raptor riders, the rest of the ogres were pushed closer together and Maurus' unit was suddenly freed from the worst of the melee.

It was just in time for Maurus to look left again and see the enemies appear out of the fog, confirming his worst fears. His stomach tied itself into a cold knot while his heart beat more heavily.

Blue- and orange-skinned forms, half-clad in sharp-edged armor came running forward, two-handed axes and swords clenched in their fists. Brown and orange imps darted around the felguards' feet, avoiding the heavy footfalls and the snapping jaws of crimson felhounds while cackling and juggling balls of flame. Finally, spread out along their smaller allies, were the pit fiends, their massive forms as imposing as ever, all of them hefting weapons that were almost the size of some of Maurus' comrades and definitely larger than Widget.

"Brace," Maurus shouted, and his comrades shifted slightly, so that they faced the demons more than they faced the ogres.

The demon's charge didn't go unopposed. Frost and lightning staggered the demons and roots rose from the damp earth to bind them, breaking not only the targets' stride but also those behind them. A barrage of steel, fire, light and shadow hit them next, sending some falling to the ground, dead, stunned or wracked by agony.

The demons responded with bolts of fire and darkness. Maurus turned his back half-way to the incoming fire and felt the heat flow into the metal of his armor and shield. He grit his teeth against the pain as the metal turned so hot that his fur curled and silently thanked Arianna for the work she'd begun on his armor. He grit his teeth harder as he smelled burned flesh and hair and heard the unmistakable pained screams of those who didn't have such ample protection. He just had to hope that the shroud of cold and the healers would be enough.

He turned back around, already swinging his axe and snorted in satisfaction when Arianna's magic struck with perfect timing. The felguard in front of him turned insubstantial just as it reached him, and his swing continued straight into the neck of the felguard beside it, killing it before it had a chance to realize its side was unprotected.

However, didn't do much but buy him time to react to the two felhounds snapping at his legs and the fiend that came leaping through the banished felguard, both cleavers raised above its head.

His heart in his throat, Maurus stepped aside, pushing into Mathias, and swung his axe as hard as he could at one cleaver. With a loud clang, he managed to redirect the fiend's blow and by a stroke of fortune the cleaver smashed down into the felhound that tried to use Maurus' sidestep to get at Arianna while the fiend's other cleaver sunk into the earth.

Calen thrust out a hand and the fiend roared in sudden agony as golden light burned out from its mouth, its eyes and from the rents that opened in its skin. As it did, Maurus stomped a hoof down on the other felhound, which was already writhing in the blackening grip of Arianna's magic, and raised his axe to attack the pit fiend.

Arianna added her magic to Calen's and the twin assault of holy and fel power wounded the demon so deeply that Maurus' attack was all that was needed to finish it off. It toppled, blackened and bloody, crushing a slow imp and despite the felguard that immediately stepped forward, Maurus had just enough time to see that their line was holding.

Then he saw the next wave approaching and heard piercing, shrieking roars that clawed their way into his ears and filled his belly with cold fear. More fiends were approaching, but more worrying were the hulking stone forms striding along between them, bathing their surroundings in flickering, fel green.

"Infernals," Maurus barked and with a curse, he dropped his axe and drew his mace and shield, inwardly praying he would find it again. Out the corner of his eye he noticed Mathias' posture change, making him look more focused.

He felt something like an intake of breath around him as his casters gathered power. Glancing to the side, he saw an expression of intense focus on Arianna's face and saw the fire gather around Shayla's fingers.

He blocked a blow from the felguard in front of him, trying and failing to break its grip on its weapon. Behind it, he saw burst of blinding light and he felt like cheering as he saw the golden hammer blow fade from an approaching fiend. It staggered forward, stunned by Calen's magic and then ropes of fel fire snaked around its chest. All unsteadiness vanished from the demon and it hurled itself backward, wings giving it extra momentum. It smashed into the infernals, slowing them almost to a halt and the impact of a fire elemental and an earth elemental to each infernal drove them back into the demons around them.

Two little black spheres sailed past Maurus and struck the infernals and moments later, scorching, black stone exploded out among the demons. Further along the Horde line, much the same happened as ice, elementals and Widget's bombs were thrown at the infernals. Howls and screams rose from the demons as the bulk of infernals and elementals staggered the charge, the infernals turning from advantage to hindrance in an instant.

The charge kept coming however and though they had blunted the impact, the demons still pressed hard into the Horde line, pushing them back against the unyielding ogres. As quickly as that, the Horde was on the defensive, and Maurus cursed as he found himself forced to spend all of his efforts on shielding his fellows from the blows of the stronger demons rather than lending his strength to the attacks. The same went for his comrades. Other than Mathias, who was fighting with a dangerous aggression, the others were fighting cautiously, only lashing out when they were absolutely sure they were covered by the soldiers around them. Calen in particular had almost completely given up attacking and focused more on holding the line and letting his holy light bolster those around him, only reaching out to stun the occasional demon. Only the casters behind him kept up the barrage of deadly magic and even they were struggling now, because the enemy felhounds were fully or partly devouring many of the spells.

More booming horns sounded and Maurus felt like something had taken hold of his innards and twisted. There were two signals in quick succession. The first was far off in the distance, barely audible over the cacophony, but he recognized it as the order for a general retreat. The second was closer, from the center of the 27th, and meant the same.

A tangible wave of fear rolled through the beleaguered formation and the demons picked up on it and pushed harder. Maurus bashed his shield into the chest of a felguard, throwing it bodily back, and shouted the order to withdraw. Mathias sent him a furious look, but this time, he thankfully did as asked immediately, despite his emotions.

Slowly, they drew back, each step a major effort, because the demons did not let up for a single instant and any weakness in the line could be fatal. That they were retreating over wet ground littered with the stumps of felled mushrooms made it even more of a challenge and several times, someone tripped. A little less than half of the time, that was instantly fatal. Maurus' chest burned with anger, fear and sorrow for Tokan and Rilli, and he roared in sympathy for Mo'raka's screaming anguish.

He felt the collapse before he saw it. He had the sense that he caught the edges of a wave of terror and as the pressure of bodies around him lightened, a terrifying feeling in itself, he looked left and felt cold slither up his spine. The Horde line was crumbling, a hundred Horde warriors eschewing all order and drawing back in blind panic or dropping their stance to simply stare vacantly ahead.

The enemies that pressed into the dent in the line weren't the same as the ones Maurus fought. Spread among and behind the regular front line demons were a huge number of succubi and almost as many robed fel orcs, warlocks by their garb and the tell-tale green of their fear-working. Towering over the others were several four-armed demonic females, wearing ornate armor and headdresses that seemed priest-like somehow and between them was an unfamiliar dreadlord, one with intact wings wings and horns completely unlike Ven'Zarul's.

Maurus wrenched his gaze away before the demons truly tore into the Horde. His heart was beating heavily and rapidly in his chest and his thoughts were racing just as fast, but the only clear thought in his jumbled mind was that things were looking bleaker by the moment. The formation was splintering, the trolls to his left pulling back from the demon's wedge.

"Lok'tar ogar," boomed out over the battlefield, but there was a desperate quality to the answering shouts and Maurus felt the fear begin to wear away his rage, not able to quash the thought that victory and death were both vastly preferable to being taken alive.

"Hold," Maurus screamed, as the pressure mounted. More and more, he was forced to stop attacks cold rather than redirect them and it was taking its toll on his body. The aches he'd incurred fighting against the ogres were nothing compared to the numbing, throbbing pain that the demon's heavy blades inflicted on him and the demons' magic sapped his strength and heated his armor to scorch him in places.

Around him, his comrades did him proud. Mathias had almost eschewed all sense of self-preservation, seemingly taking it upon himself to do the damage that Maurus couldn't, and he was taking almost as much of a beating as Maurus for it. Calen was a golden flame in the fog, the holy light sheathing his body and flowing out in waves, burning enemies and restoring allies. Further out, from Crava on his left to Tu'jan on his right, everyone was fighting with a berserk ferocity and the incantations behind him was a constant, wild chant, punctuated by the spells and the rapport of Widget's musket.

He could hear the stubborn resistance from all over the battlefield and the defiance was loudest from further to Maurus' left, where the shouts and spells of Jarasuwa and his fellows thundered and drew continuous screams from the demons.

Yet the demons had the advantage and another wave of terror rolled through him as he realized he could hear the sound of demons from somewhere behind him, distant but unmistakable. The Horde formation was splintering, leaving Horde groups as islands in a sea of demons and ogres.

"Close ranks. Hold!" he barked desperately. His limbs shook with effort, pain and the urge to run as he smashed his mace into the skull of a felhound and deflected a felguard's blade. Mathias opened the same felguard's belly with a rapid strike and two succubi behind it burned from the inside out, one lit by a golden light, the other by green-tinged flame. Fire and lighting took down more demons, but they kept coming.

Suddenly, Crava and several others cried out in pain and a hellish buzzing warned Maurus just before thousands of small bodies began pattering against his armor, seeking seams and openings to get at his flesh and eyes. They didn't get much of a chance though, because with a hiss from Ash the locusts vanished in a cloud of green sparks .

"He's here," Mathias growled, and as if Maurus needed any more confirmation, he saw the gutted felguard's wound close as it stabbed its blade into Calen's shoulder. He fell back, his golden aura winking out like a candle, though not before his hammer smashed into the face of the felguard.

Maurus took a step forward, nudging Calen behind him, eyes darting around for any sight of Ven'Zarul. An ethereal moan slithered forward and an overwhelming drowsiness suddenly flowed into Maurus, making his eyelids feel like they were made of lead and the ground look like the softest downy bed imaginable. He vaguely registered Calen, Crava and maybe several others fall limply to the ground beside him and the sight made him try to blink the sleep from his mind.

"Maurus!" Shouted a voice, striking through the din like a bell, edged with desperation. The voice struck a cord and with effort, Maurus was able to find the buried rage and push away the magic.

As his mind began to clear, he saw his unit falling apart. Crava and the others who'd guarded their left were on the ground, limp and the trolls who had been beside Crava were in disarray. Demons were taking full advantage of the opening, cleaving between the trolls and Maurus' unit, isolating Maurus and his comrades even more.

Before he could get his bearings though, a hard weight crashed into his side with enough force that he felt the plate deform and bruise his side. He clipped Mathias with his arm as he stumbled back and knocked over several casters as he tried and failed to regain his balance. He barely avoided crushing them as he fell, twisting around and catching himself before he would have landed on Arianna.

For an instant, his wide, surprised eyes stared into hers and this close she was unable to conceal fear that matched his. Then his side exploded with pain as a hoof as unyielding as steel dented his armor again and knocked him over onto his back.

With stars dancing in his vision, he saw Mathias get flung aside and his heart was in his throat when a felhound leaped at the prone Arianna. Wiven, Widget and several others screamed in panic or defiance as the demons crashed into the ruins of his unit, forcing those still standing violently to the ground.

A steel boot stomped down on his wrist and Maurus gasped as something cracked and his mace tumbled from limp fingers. Another kick knocked his shield arm away from his chest and then it too was pinned to the ground by a felguard. He pushed against his captors, gritting his teeth against the pain, but he stopped when an ink-black hoof, more than twice the size of his own, stomped down onto his chest, denting his breastplate and driving the breath from his lungs.

Maurus looked up from the hoof and his heart beat so hard he was afraid it would burst, each beat making his bruises throb with fresh pain. His nightmares did not do the dreadlord justice. Even maimed, lopsided by the lack of a wing and a horn, the dreadlord radiated power and menace, maybe more so, because some of his self-assured arrogance had vanished and something more primal had taken its place. His jet-black armor was spattered with gore and blood dripped from his long claws and the tip of his still intact wing as he leaned down over Maurus, .

It was Ven'zarul's face that frightened him the most. His eyes were pits of bright, fel flame and his gaze felt like a physically scorching pressure against Maurus' eyes. His needlepoint teeth were revealed in a terrible mockery of a smile, one that was a single instant away from turning into a snarl.

He reached down and deftly unstrapped Maurus' helmet before throwing it away with a negligent flick of his hand. Maurus bit at his fingers, but Ven'Zarul simply wrapped fingers like a steel vise around his muzzle, holding it shut with little effort, his claws opening stinging cuts in Maurus' flesh.

The was a raspy growl and a sharp impact and Maurus' eyes darted left and right. Past the elaborately armored felguard standing on his arm, he saw Mathias reeling from the blow of a felguard before another closed its large hands around his wrists. Beside Mathias, Drim and Tu'jan were facedown in the bloody mud beside a dozen others.

On Maurus' other side, Arianna, Wiven, Ka'ror and several other casters were also pressed down into the dirt by felguards and felhounds, with imps capering around them. Arianna was almost within arm's reach. She'd lost her helmet and despite the felhound jaws around her throat, her face blazed with fear and fury, rather than despair. That expression was on most of the faces he could see, even on Widget's half-buried face, and Maurus felt a swell of fierce pride briefly eat away at the crawling fear in his chest.

His eyes snapped back to Ven'Zarul when the dreadlord increased the pressure on his chest. Hate and a barely restrained rage dripped from every syllable when he quietly said: "You took something of mine. You mutilated me."

That his words were so easily audible abruptly made Maurus aware that the sounds of battle had shrunk to a fraction of their former volume. Instead, there were shouts and pained screams, the mutter of demons and ogres and the clink of armor and chains and Maurus felt like all warmth was bleeding out from him into the mud.

Ven'Zarul's eyes wandered lazily away from Maurus and his hand forced Maurus down so he was looking at Arianna. "And she is wearing it."

He spoke an order in Eredun and the felhunter moved its body off Arianna's while keeping its jaws around her throat. Ven'Zarul shifted his stance as well, leaning on the hoof he'd planted between Maurus and Arianna. The lessening in pressure was a relief but Maurus hardly felt it, far more occupied with the dread twisting his stomach.

Arianna's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open, but before she could speak, Ven'Zarul said addressed the entire group: "Speak a single syllable of a spell and we begin removing tongues."

Arianna's lips thinned to a hard line and her eyes blazed with hate. Maurus struggled again, but Ven'Zarul's grip tightened on his muzzle, drawing more blood and he stilled again.

"I have such plans for you insolent vermin," Ven'Zarul hissed. "But there is a time and place and we can't have people tracking you."

Bile and hot, white fury clawed its way up Maurus' throat when the dreadlord slipped his blood-stained claws beneath Arianna's robe and dragged his hand up, slicing the garment apart. Arianna visible forced herself not to squirm as the claws bared and cut her, but Maurus could see the disgust and humiliation in her eyes, behind the rage, and his own fury grew in response.

With a hard tug, Ven'Zarul pulled the ruined robe off Arianna, rolling her onto her side. As Arianna rolled back round, covering her barely clothed body but giving Ven'Zarul a look that should have burned him to ash. Ignoring her entirely, Ven'Zarul tossed the robe to an imp, speaking another string of Eredun. While the imp eagerly summoned fire that slowly blackened the robe, two other imps scurried forward over to Arianna. Maurus seethed as they tugged the bracelets and necklace off Arianna and ran off snickering.

Maurus gasped with pain again when Ven'Zarul put his weight back on him, but the terror had changed. He could still feel it, but it had transformed mostly into pure incandescent rage and he pushed against his captors. He didn't care about the pain or the fact that he couldn't possibly move Ven'Zarul with the little purchase he had. Those concerns seemed immaterial and as he tensed, he abruptly felt extremely aware of the soft earth beneath his body and the air around him, both pressing oddly against him.

The odd thought was thrown from his mind when Ven'Zarul wrenched his head around so he was looking over at the now unconscious and badly battered Mathias and his other comrades. There was a chilling clink of metal as some of imps came scampering forward, carrying armfuls of chains and worry battled with rage at the sight of several of his comrades with arms already chained behind their backs.

"A little indulgence won't do any harm though," Ven'Zarul said darkly. "A little taste, and practice for that troll."

Maurus heard a wordless gasp from Arianna just before fingers closed around his left horn and everything fled from his mind when Ven'Zarul pulled. Pain radiated out from where his horn connected to his skull, quickly becoming something unlike anything he'd felt before. His vision blurred with tears and lights, his head and stomach swam with nausea and a raw scream emerged from his throat. He felt a terrible creaking, cracking and pulling and then there was a jolt of blinding, silver pain that made it impossible to breathe as the horn broke from his head, tearing a swathe skin and fur with it.

His head throbbed with burning, crushing pain, he couldn't see and his breathing came in desperate gasps. What little he could feel of his body was the heaving nausea and whirling dizziness the pain brought. He hardly felt Ven'Zarul let go or step away, hardly felt the ground beneath him. The pain pounded its way out from the wet wound in his head and his consciousness was steadily slipping away, dripping out of his head along with his blood.

Only dimly did he notice someone pushing him to his unsteady hooves, encasing his hands in cold metal and shoving him into a dazed walk.

Please tell me if this was bad. Specifically if it was confusing, cheap, forced or if the battle was too long. I can't tell, but I'm very much in doubt. I hope the violence was effective and that it didn't come off as just cheap shock.

Any other input is, of course, always very welcome as well. Let me know what you think.

Cheers.