The first flaming hawk proved no trouble as I struck it so hard that I almost cleaved it's head in two, it fell down whatever abyss this flying plateau found itself in. Lana'thel struck an approaching one down on her own with a blast of her magic, it crashed onto the edge of the platform and fell into the depths as well. I unleashed a blast of frost magic on the last hawk of this wave extinguishing its flames to a greater degree than I had expected. The creature let out a screech as its bony remains fell on the lower plateau.
Following the terrible screech at least ten more of them appeared above the crater.
"Well I daresay we made an entrance." I grinned.
"Oh, you think so?" Lana'thel grinned back.
"Let's get rid of them quickly and start our ground assault."
Lana nodded.
We flew back to the others with the hawks in tow, not losing sight of their aggressors. Perhaps they should have taken a look down, where the siege engine started firing rapidly. The hawks were struck down in mid air by well aimed rockets. I had to blast one away as it fell down for it would have crashed into our allies otherwise. Other than that things went smoothly.
Once the air threat was dealt with, Lana'thel and I took a small break while the ground forces made their move. Aelana kept me company and it seemed Shaestra accompanied Lana.
Aelana was way too worried about me which was kind of sweet.
"I am fine, trust me. Please save your worries for our other forces."
A loud hiss got our sudden attention. A few soldiers were battling a scorpion that was very, very oversized. It seemed its hiss also attracted many slightly smaller scorpions.
"Seems there is no rest for us yet. Aelana, could you please get a few potions or antidotes ready? Anything that helps against scorpion poison. As I walked to the fighting a few rockets flew over our heads and impacted upon a few approaching flame dogs, utterly obliterating them.
I looked behind me to see the goblin not standing too far away.
"Sorry for that lads, we had to empty the clip, got a new supply of rockets here."
When I got to the scorpions I noticed there were several large tortoises all the way to the right near a lava pool. They hadn't noticed us yet which would be a critical advantage.
"Hey, foreman!" I shouted back. "Get our purple elves to fire upon those," I pointed in the direction of the tortoises. "And tell them they'd better make sure their glaives pierce those damn shells".
"Why don't you do that? I'm pretty damn sure your common is better than mine".
The deadly glare I gave him made him change his mind in an instant.
"Alright, I'm on it".
I fought, hard. More and more creatures came pouring our way. Flame dogs, scorpions, a few snake like people and after we thought we had seen it all, a massive, fiery core hound showed up. In the heat of battle I pulled it away from everyone else and made sure at least half an ammo clip of rockets hit the creature. It seemed to do the trick albeit a bit of a waste of ammo in my opinion.
As it fell, the sound of a horn pierced the air which caused some of our troops to panic for a short while.
The heat of battle and the experience gained seemed to improve the aim of our ranged forces over time, allowing us to have some of the vanguard rest for a while. Five more glaive thowers entered the portal above coupled with a group of sentinels and druids. I later found out they came from Ashenvale which meant that we should have reinforcements from the barrens soon. Lana'thel and I had to transport a few warriors to the healers every now and then, we did so swiftly which allowed us to minimise our lossses. I did what I could to keep them alive in worst case scenarios before taking them to the other healers but found it draining my power quickly, so as time passed on I took a more supportive role and refrained from fighting. Not that I was needed that badly though, it seemed we hit a breakpoint where we were able to keep them at range and kill them off before anything could reach us. I found a glimpse of rejoice but was shaken when that horn from before sounded again, much closer this time.
Everyone held their ground this time around, but not too much later the source of the sound showed itself. A half male, half serpent like the ones we saw before showed itself, this one however, was much larger, and far more intimidating than the others. He wasn't alone either. On either side, he was accompanied by a large smoldering skeletal dog. This was going to be nasty.
"You sssssmell them too, Riplimb? Yessssss, you will feast sssoon enough," his echoing voice reached all the way to us.
All kinds of things and scenarios raced through my head. How strong is this guy? Will Aelana and the others be safe? The waves of forces had stopped as he slowly approached us. We would have to come up with a plan, fast. I looked at the two commanders behind me.
"Any plans?" I asked them
"Shoot it to shreds?" The orc replied.
While it did sound like a reasonable idea I disagreed with it and shook my head.
"This guy seems to possess some intelligence, if we draw too much attention with our artillery we risk two things. First, he might choose to focus everything on it to destroy it, or he might see that he cannot win against it, retreat and send all possible forces to rush for our ace. I fear we will lose too much in both scenarios."
I translated what I said to common so the Alliance commander would understand. He nodded in agreement.
"Then what would you suggest?" the orc asked.
"Ok, it's a long shot but it just might work. You know how he called one of his abominations Riplimb? The fact that he named it must mean he has some emotional bond with it, you know what happens if we kill it?"
The orc thought for a moment before answering. "He will be mad".
"Exactly, and if we kill both?"
"He will be really angry".
"Precisely, I think if we can provoke him enough to go into a blind rage we can finish him off with our artillery."
"That actually makes a lot of sense, so how do you want to do it?"
"I say we make two teams of the most experienced and best armoured soldiers to deal with those two 'dogs', I am sure Lana'thel can draw the attention of one of them, I will take care of mister snakehead himself, we just need someone to take care of the other minion."
"Ill take care of it."
"Are you sure?"
"Lok'tar Ogar, I was born for this, of course I am ready. I will ready my troops and get ready to move."
While the orc went to his troops in a hurry, I instructed the elven commander to bring the glaive throwers in position and to get a squad of elven rangers protected by a squad of sentinals to the front to join us.
I flew to Aelana who seemed to have finished with the most urgent cases.
"What's happening? She asked worriedly".
"No time to explain, I need a druid, a shaman, and a priest to help us take that monster down."
"You mean, a druid, a shaman and me right?" she smiled."
"Indirectly, yes," I smiled back.
A lone troll shaman raised his hand, "I be glad ta help ya, mon."
A night elf druid also made her presence known, "I'd gladly help you with that."
Before I had the chance to ask her how she came to speak Orcish so well she already answered the question. "Ashenvale".
It makes sense, Garrosh had sent lots of warriors into Ashenvale hoping to claim it for the Horde, the night elves there had to deal with them on a daily basis.
"Ok let's move quickly."
As we reached the front lines the three groups of warriors were already moving out to meet the ever approaching half snake who was getting dangerously close.
"We need to hurry, move!" I shouted.
As we approached our enemy I quickly instructed Aelana, the troll, the night elf druid, Shaestra and Lana'thel.
"Aelana, you, the other healers, and Shaestra stay with the sentinals to heal and deal damage, they will protect you from harm. Lana, we need you to draw the attention of one of the skeleton dogs and dodge its blows until it dies, once it does you can either help me or the commander who will be taking the other dog."
We moved quickly and met him in the field the two orc squads immediately charged on his minions while I taunted the owner.
"Bring it snake face!"
That seemed to get his attention.
"Brave, but at the end of the day you will end up as dog food."
Due to his immense size and his even bigger weapon I didn't manage to get much damage done. I didnt have much trouble blocking his attacks, although my wings had to restabilise me due to the excessive force in his blows. I wouldn't be able to kill him on my own unless I were to repeat what I did at Zul'Aman, that was out of the question this time as we weren't even close to our goal here yet.
After a few minutes of fighting, the first of his two companions fell into a smoldering heap. This seemed to trigger my opponent.
"Riplimb, no! Why would you kill such a noble animal!?"
He started attacking me faster and his blows gained even more force. Fortunately, I could count on Aelana to assist me by shielding me.
Not too much later the second animal fell thanks to the joint forces attacking it. I got the response that I needed but wasn't sure whether I liked it.
"RAGEFACE, NO, YOU MURDERERS! YOU WILL PAY FOR THAT!"
He started hacking at me like a madman, I had serious trouble parrying and holding my balance against such force. I yelled at the warriors to stay at a distance as I channeled my energy into my sword, doubling the blade's length as a sword made out of light. It allowed me some more breathing room (which is odd since I don't breathe) but we had to finish this fast.
"Now!" I yelled at the commander.
He turned around and showed me why Orcish warcries induce fear in their enemies on the battlefield. His voice thundered across the plateau.
"ARTILLERY, FIRE!"
I could hear the elven commander who stood near the glaive throwers repeat his order in Darnassian as loud as he could, though nowhere as awe-inspiring as the Orc's.
A volley of rockets hit the adversary followed by a volley of glaives most of which deflected from his hard scales but a few embedded themselves in his flesh, he didn't care or seemed to feel the pain as he was too transfixed with annihilating me. The next volley seemed to do significant more damage as he began to bleed from more places. I was lucky that one of the glaives was blocked by Aelana's barrier or it would have struck me. It seemed she and the other healers were giving it their all to keep me save. The third and fourth volley of rockets and glaive disfigured and mutilated him badly and ultimately he succumbed.
"Firelord, it hurts!" he managed to squeek as he crumpled to the ground.
I landed and fell to the floor too, exhausted. Aelana and the others already ran to me.
She sat down and took hold of me from behind. I wanted to adjust my wings but couldn't move them one bit.
"Well that's one," I mannaged to say sheepishly.
I looked around. The area was clear enemies.
"We should all rest a bit before we move on," I said.
The commander nodded, fully agreeing as he lowered himself to sit down too.
"More victories await, but for now, we rest."
Glad he wasn't as dumb as a peon.
