Jayavarna choked on the smoke and haze as she regained consciousness. Short term memory failed her, and she had no idea why she was waking up surrounded by smoke. Her lungs and nostrils burned and she coughed hoarsely as she struggled beneath a few dead bodies and half of a collapsed bookshelf. Smoke filled her field of vision and she struggled to remember what had happened after she and her contingent chased several enemy targets into a building.
The entire town had been covered in spikes. She and the other hopefuls had been warned that the Horde had commandeered the settlement and customized it according to their own sick whims, but she hadn't realized that it would basically look like an Orcish village from back on Draenor. Even the bottom floors of all the buildings had been broken and dug into the ground in Orcish style, as if the floor tiles or boards or whatever had originally been used had been smashed to bits, broken and carried away.
But there was no time to think of that now. The assault had been both a resounded success and a great disaster. After having taken the Horde members by surprise, she and the other hopefuls inflicted incredible losses on the enemy and sent them screaming throughout the dirt roads of the village. Every one of them had become energized by the initial succes of their push, breaking formation and chasing random targets through the streets. The lack of organization had proven to be their undoing; they were quickly rout d by the unprofessional but determined militia the orcs had apparently thrown together, and soon the Alliance members found themselves fending off sneak and hit and run attacks by peons wielding pitchforks, hoes and even broomsticks sharpened into points. The dirt roads were stained red as bodies piled up, and at some point one of her comrades had ignited a fire that quickly spread to every building in the village.
Recollection returned to her...the fire. She and several others had chased the screaming peons into a strange Orcish looking hovel that had apparently been constructed after the conquest of the village. A terrible fight at close quarters ensued, and none of the combatants head realized that the domicile had caught on fire too until pieces of the roof began to collapse on them.
Jayavarna coughed roughly again. Her muscles ached from exhaustion as she pushed herself out from under the half of a bookshelf, but she kept her head low due to all the smoke. From memories she couldn't quite remember consciously, she crawled on her hands and knees up the stairs leading out of the partially underground hovel and into the smoky and polluted but still more tolerable outdoor air.
All around her lied death and destruction. Few buildings were left intact and most of the remains were on fire. The night sky glowed red from the columns of flame, contrasting with the red, green and purple hues dancing on the canopy far off from the walled village in the middle of a wide clearing. Flags and tabards flapped in the wind, mostly charred and dirtied, punctuating the silence that fell over the place save the roar of the flames. Not a soul was to be seen, and as Jayavarna sucked in the fresh air, all she could do was marvel at the folly of a conflict that had left every combatant on both sides dead.
Eventually she found the energy to rise to her feet and pick up a stray hand ax once she'd finished checking for injuries. Hooves clopped lightly across the dirt as she stalked through the village, winding around corners created by half destroyed buildings as she looked for signs of life. Nobody else appeared and she began to wonder if she really was the last woman standing.
Beneath the sound of burning wood, a few faint cries from an adult could be heard. The fine hairs in the back of her head stood up, and she braced herself for the worst even though the person was obviously not an orc. Closer and closer she approached until she traced the sound to another hovel like the ones she'd seen on Draenor. Through the dark she could see the outlines of many dead bodies but not make out the details. Picking up a burning piece of lumber like a torch, Jayavarna descended into the hovel, stepping over corpses in her way down into the earthen structure.
"Luro!" she whimpered as she saw the body of her fellow draenei on the floor.
The once strapping man lied among piles of other corpses from both sides, and she could tell that a horrible fight had taken place like the one she'd been involved in. Although his body wasn't mutilated or maimed, he was full of arrows and stab wounds and was clearly beyond even the skills of a proper healer. There was no peace in his expression, either, and Jayavarna could only feel a sense of loss as she looked over her fallen comrade.
The person who had been crying before sniffled, giving her a small jolt and reminding her that she wasn't quite yet alone. Raising the torch, she saw a figure sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall, his legs splayed out before him as he clutched his abdomen. Blood was every where, fresh and still flowing, and she could tell that whoever it was before her was near death.
When Harper looked up, she recognized him, even when his face was streaked by tears. A grievous wound marked his stomach, and judging by the profuse amounts of blood in his hands, she could tell that he'd been stabbed deeply and was probably also beyond healing. That didn't make acceptance of his end any easier, however.
"We've been had," the human lamented while staring down at his legs. His voice was weak, pained and fading fast, and understanding him when he spoke in his language - which wasn't her language - proved difficult.
"Oh, Harper...wait, there must be a first aid kit somewhere." She set the hand ax down and began to search for bandages or ointment, holding her torch over every inch of the dilapidated building. A sense of purpose overtook her as she ignored all the death around her.
Harper would have none of it, however. "Jaya...this was never an Alliance outpost," he whimpered to himself, closing his eyes and letting the back of his head hit the wall hard.
"Not anymore," she replied absentmindedly as she focused in her most immediate task. A cupboard that had been smashed and knocked from the wall onto the floor appeared promising, and she tried to pry in open one handed as they spoke. "Light help us all...they completely wiped out the settlement's previous inhabitants."
But the human only shook his head. "Jaya...it was never an Alliance town. Look around you. Look at this architecture. Look at the flags. This is a Horde town. It wasn't stolen or anything."
"Just a minute." Forcing herself to ignore him out of desperation and denial, she found a means to wedge the torch between two dead bodies that would keep it upright and illuminate the entire room without the need for her to hold it
"Jaya, open your eyes!" Harper groaned, clearly losing his patience despite the fact that blood even began to fall from his mouth as he spoke. "They tricked us, Jaya. These people weren't soldiers; they were just farmers fighting for their lives. We murdered them."
Flipping over the corpse of an orc in civilian clothing, she tried her best not to listen to him as she made space around the collapsed cabinet. "I think I found some disinfectant," she remarked while trying to steady her hands and calm her voice. After a few moments, she managed to pry the cabinet open while leaning over the dead bodies wedged against it, revealing half a roll of stained, soiled bandages. "Aha! Harper, I found some!" she exclaimed, forcing herself to ignore the scene all around her. "Harper?"
He was already dead. The blood loss had been too much, and his last few frustrated words had obviously taxed him beyond what he was capable of bearing. Crouching in front of him, Jayavarna felt his pulse just to be sure that she'd lost him; she truly was the only person left alive. After saying a few prayers that the Light forgive both of her comrades, she exited the hovel, finding herself surrounded by searing smoke and roaring fires again.
The corpses refused to grant her any respite. One by one, she scanned them from her vantage point in the center of the burning village and realized that none of them wore the official Horde tabards for soldiers. While there were a few weapons lying around, she couldn't see any professional fighters other than her now deceased allies; virtually every single member of the Horde was a peon or some other non combat personnel.
Was it really that unclear? The question battered her mind, beating her over the head again and again, refusing to go away. When the assault had first started, arrows flew into the first row of the Alliance ranks; all of them assumed there were professional archers inside. The peons had attacked them when they entered, but all towns had organized militias, and militia members were valid targets...right?
So when she didn't stop to think that not a single combatant she faced wore a red and black tabard, she couldn't be faulted...right? It was the heat of battle, and the response of the locals gave the impression that they had prepared for a fight.
Right?
For the longest time, she waited in the center of that village, hoping some form of inspiration would come to her as she grasped at straws for what to do in such a situation. But no inspiration came; she was just as lost as she'd been a few minutes before. Lost, and pained in the knowledge that she'd taken part in the massacre of civilians.
Unable to assume the worst about Captain Gwynneth, Jayavarna left the burning village, bounding to the north in the direction from whence they came. The guild couldn't have intentionally targeted civilians; it simply seemed impossible. There were answers, and when she had them, her mind could relax in the knowledge of whatever justification there was, Jayavarna repeated to herself as she clopped down the dirt road leading back toward a real civilization.