Lost Lion

Disclaimer! I don't own Wow. Blizz does, and your soul too.

Volume 2: Chapter 21

*** Stromgarde Keep – Royal Keep ***

In the end, we were only able to buy an additional three hours. Even though our catapult engineers flung whatever they could, without a spotter on the wall, the chances of us actually hitting anything had significantly dwindled. Still, it gave us time to prepare and to evacuate people, but more importantly, it allowed us to set up a defensive perimeter. Whatever leftover weapons we had from our fallen soldiers were passed out to the elderly and the women. They would not be joining us on the wall for safety reasons, both for their sake and ours.

A soldier had to be able to trust the man next to him, and untrained civilians would simply put the people around them in danger due to their inexperience. In truth, I didn't believe they would be able to do anything against the Horde. Some could possibly get in a lucky shot here and there, but unless there was a last-minute miracle, we were all probably going to die.

Still... It didn't mean we had to make it easy for them.

I watched with trepidation from my position over the gates of the royal keep wall as the mighty gates of Stromgarde Keep groaned under a final assault and fell, revealing a raging inferno. A few minutes later, the flames gradually died down as ice could be seen covering the arches of the downed gates.

We heard them before we saw them; the grunts and roars from beings that thirsted for battle. Then, from the smoke, a tide of green poured forth into Stromgarde Keep. However, they soon found themselves funneled directly on the main road to the royal keep. Orcs in the thousands wedged tightly shoulder to shoulder moved up like a log of green shit toward us. However, it took one orc tripping in his eagerness before screaming out in pain before they finally noticed our present.

'How ya like our gifts, bitches?!' I mentally taunted.

There was no way in hell I was going to let the orcs come at us unimpeded. As best as the people and civilians could do, we had ripped out the wooden boards from the housing area and littered the road with exposed nails. It was a minor inconvenience at best, but it was better than nothing. Roars of outrage could be heard as the orcs doubled their pace to get to us.

"Priests, ready!" I shouted. It was odd seeing orcs this low of a height from me, but sure enough, spears began to be flung our way. "Barrier!"

At my command, several barriers engulfed the soldiers on the wall, stunting the deadly momentum of all the hurled projectiles coming our way. They ended up falling harmlessly onto the rampart of the royal keep or bouncing weakly off a footman. We let them continue their futile ranged attacks for a while even as the first orcs got to the royal keep. They began to hurl insults and challenged us to meet them down on the ground; some even tried to stand atop each other's shoulders to form a human–err orc ladder to reach the top of our wall.

"Milords and Ladies!" I roared. "Return to them their spears!"

With that, I picked up one of the orc's spears and hurled it into the sea of orcs. I couldn't tell if it killed an orc, but I was sure it hit one. The scene was repeated along the wall before the spear throwers realized that our golden domes were nullifying their attacks. Unlike before, I didn't bother to erect a barrier and instead left it to Liadrin. No, my task was different: to conserve my mana for major recovery spells, though I had expended quite a bit in the morning battle.

"Get ready!" I warned. Orcs with ladders made their way through the sea of orcs, with orcs already perched on their upper rungs. I knew this was it. "Soldiers of the Alliance! This will be our finest hour!"

And just like that, the first clump of falling orcs rained down upon us, and our final stand began. Being frugal with my reserves, I opted not to infuse my sword with the Light and instead swung my sword with all my might at the first falling orc. The orc was sent flying back into the sea of orcs before he could even touch the wall. A trail of blood in the air let me know that I had struck a mortal blow, just before the second orc landed, pulling me out of my thoughts.

With my second opponent dispatched, I turned to the next one closest to me and charged him. The orc tried to defend himself with his axe, but I overpowered his flimsy defense and cut through helmet and bone. I wrenched my blade out of the dead orc's flesh and turned to attack the next orc's assault. Though the priests were maintaining the barriers to prevent harmful spells or projectiles aimed at the defenders on the wall, it was not indefinite. Once enough, the priests had to cut off their barrier, and the battle began in earnest.

Thanks to the shorter walls of the royal keep, we were able to stack our defenders tighter. Our soldiers, somewhat rested, were able to put up a stiff resistance to the Horde. The orc spear throwers, seeing the barriers down, threw their projectiles at the defenders. Some were struck by the spears and carried right off the wall by the momentum while others held their ground. As more and more orcs flooded onto the wall, the spears came less and less as the visibility of the soldiers were covered by the spread of orcs.

Slowly, over the course of the hour, our soldiers were forced to give ground.

"Barrier!" Sylvanas called out. Liadrin and her priests immediately covered the walls in golden bubbles once again.

I had left Sylvanas in charge of making the call when to use that spell. She had better vision than me and could see when our forces' lines started to buckle. The 'Barrier' would greatly weaken the attacking orcs' striking power, giving our soldiers a chance to counterattack and push them back off.

Just as we were about gaining positive grounds, a powerful explosion of arcane energy struck the gate beneath me, shaking the stone wall under my feet. The miniature shockwave caused most of those in my section to lose their footing, orcs and humans alike. I was able to right myself first and execute a defenseless orc who had just steadied himself before slamming my sword into the neck of another. My eyes looked out to the sea of orcs just in time to see another powerful explosion of arcane energy strike my gate.

This time, I was able to trace the attack back to its origin.

It was an ogre, an honest-to-God ogre mage with only one head. The ogres, once masters of Draenor, had gone into decline by the time of the Draenei genocide. There shouldn't have been any empowered ogre mage left by the time of the First War. At least, not until Gul'dan made some with the elf stone in Quel'thalas, but even then, those guys had two heads. In fact, the only ogre mage with one head that I knew of that was active around this time was…oh, I forgot about him.

Dentarg, the ogre apprentice of Ner'zhul, gave me a look, not filled with cruelty but with determination as he hurled spell after spell of arcane explosion at the gate.

"Syl—!" I stopped as I saw the possible future Banshee Queen fighting off two orcs on the far side of the west wall. More importantly, her quiver was completely empty. "Shit…"

Anything else I wanted to say was cut off when I felt another energy gathering alongside the arcane. Turning back to Dentarg, I saw the ogre had a powerful orb of arcane energy in one hand, and an orb of green fel in the other. Wasn't he supposed to be a pure mage unlike Cho'gall who's two heads allowed him to use both arcane and fel? Dentarg was somehow able to channel the arcane energies of the magi and the fel magic of the warlocks.

Immediately, I extended my hand and fired a stream of enhanced penance orbs at the ogre, but I was too late. The ogre endured my two orbs before he let loose his dual-cast spell. The arcane and fel swirled around each other, never touching, before rocketing into the gate. To my horror, the blast blew it wide open in a large explosion of blue and green. I saw the ogre collapse to one knee as the green tide flooded in through the shattered gate.

"Defenders, to the gate!" Knight Commander Archers shouted in desperation. The two thousand militiamen swarmed the broken entrance to bottle the orcs up and prevent them from flooding the keep.

"Falconcrest! I'll leave the command of this section to you!" I ordered the surprised Alterac noble.

Before he could protest, I empowered myself with Power Word: Shield and jumped down on our side of the gate. I landed right on top of an orc and stabbed my sword through his upper spine, paralyzing him instantly. Stepping off the soon-to-be corpse, I turned around to confront the orcs charging through the entrance, I raised my hand and fired off a penance barrage.

Seven human-sized orbs fired in waves of seven volleys at the packed orcs, mowing down the front. Dozens died from my attack before I fired off another seven volleys and then once more to blunt the orc's momentum. The militiamen remained out of my line of fire as they readied for the inevitable assault. It wasn't until my seventh volley that a sharp, piercing cry cut through the battlefield.

"Muaaarrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

There, leaping over the orcs and my penance volleys, was an orc silhouette, but soon enough, I could make him out—or to be more precise, his weapon.

'That's Gorehowl,' I realized before my eyes widened at what that meant. Only one orc owned such an axe!

"Aegis!" I shouted even as I raised my shield to defend myself. Just in time too as the orc's greataxe struck my shield. "Ugh!"

Grom Hellscream was always described as a short orc, but that was for an orc's standard height. In reality, he was just human-sized in terms of height. He had the standard long hair ponytail with these rings and piercings on him and was muscular as hell, more so than most of the taller blademasters I had fought. He also, to quote a metaphor from my first life, hit like a goddamn truck! This was the orc that killed the Pit-Lord Mannoroth after Thrall's super shaman strikes did jack shit to the demon. I looked down at my feet and saw that I had slid a couple of steps back from the strength of the strike alone.

"Narggh!" Grom screamed as I felt him wrench his axe from my shield.

My instinct screamed at me that a fast attack was coming from the left. I readjusted my shield to the left just as his greataxe struck me from that side. Even though I had blocked it with my shield, I felt my Aegis flare and weaken greatly as I was lifted a bit off my feet. Any other humans would have been sent flying, but I was able to maintain my balance and moved only a few feet again.

"Raggh!" The orc swung his axe again.

"Aegis!" I uttered once more to reapply the holy word before actually meeting the legendary orc's attack head-on.

Once again, I was lifted off my feet from the strength of his attack but not sent flying. I even saw Grom's eyes widen in surprise at me being able to tank his attack head-on. Oddly enough, instead of acting all righteously offended as many orcs before had done, he smiled gleefully and charged me. A charge that was met once more by my shield.

The orcs began to flood in from behind Grom now that I was no longer actively stopping them. Surprisingly enough, they gave me and their chieftain wide berth and instead went after my militiamen. I didn't dare take my eyes off the Warsong leader; he was much too dangerous for me to not give him my undivided attention.

"Aegis!" I rebuffed the holy word spell once more and charged at Grom. I needed to get a feel for the orc's speed, and the chieftain happily obliged as another truck-like strike sent me reeling once more.

Grom raised an eyebrow as he saw a golden glow flare. I saw his eyes go out of focus for a moment before it sharpened onto me.

"Draenei." the legendary orc said as if he understood something. After that, his grin turned savage as he hefted his axe and belted out a loud laughter in the middle of a war zone. God damn crazy orcs I swear. Once he recovered his expression twisted into one of pure gleeful savagery and roared out one word before he charged me.

"Draenei!"

The scene of me charging at one another repeated itself over the next several exchanges. We would clash and then Grom would push me back with his greater strength. Perhaps it was a Warsong thing but no orc tried to butted into our fight. Every single orc that passed through the gate went straight for the defenders. I could feel the pressure of the orcs bearing down, threatening to drown us all. Finally, after the seventh clashed, I charged in once more, and once again, Grom swung his axe.

"Aegis!" I shouted and saw the Warsong chieftain muscle tense up because he had learned to associate that word with a holy magical shield. Only this time, it really wasn't. It was a misdirection since I actually opted to do something else.

It was a spell called Power Infusion, and its purpose was, in the game, to give a twenty to twenty-five percent increase in speed for a short duration. In real life, I had no idea, but I was willing to bet that it was still a significant speed increase. During my exchange with Grom, we both got a feel for each other's speed. Every time I charged, he intercepted me and fought me off. Now, however, with Power Infusion coursing through me, it completely threw off the timing.

The end result was my metal shield slamming into his face and dazing him. I did not let up as my sword thrust at his stomach, but credit to the legendary warrior, his dazed state did not last long and was able to twist his body at the last moment. Still, my attack wasn't a total failure as his stomach was still grazed by my sword. Not daring to let up, I slammed the head of my shield into his face and was rewarded with blood flowing from his mouth. I stabbed at him again, but he quickly backpedaled out of my range.

That was fine too.

Lifting my hand, I called upon the Light and fired seven concentrated penance orbs at Grom. They struck him fully and even caused smoke to radiate from his skin. However, he was Grom Hellscream, legendary orc warrior, and Thrall's brother in all but blood. Instead of staggering like most orcs, he was able to regain his footing and charged at me. This time, it was I who was caught on the back foot as Grom attacked me with unrelenting fury.

Then, to further my shock, he began to spin with such momentum that I could feel the wind buffeting me. The move, I knew, was called 'Bladestorm,' and it was not magical in nature at all. Unfortunately, his savage attack forced me back into the militia line. The men, despite Power Word: Shield being cast on them by me at the last minute, were still cut to ribbons before the legendary orc's assault.

Thankfully, Grom's strength and endurance were not infinite, and shortly after, the vicious attack from the orc ended. In quick succession, I reapplied my Aegis and enhanced my straining muscles with the Light. Without wasting another moment, I charged with my sword, forcing him to parry or deflect before I bashed him backward with my shield. Once more, he was merely staggered before I followed up with more Penance volleys at point-blank range. He was pushed back, but his stance was firm; he wasn't going to collapse or fall back.

"Pain!" I spoke the Shadow Word.

Dark fire danced across the orc's skin, and he let out a grunt of pain, but he refused to let it affect him as my Power Infusion wore off. Pain, that what greeted me as my muscle cried out from being used in a way it was not supposed to be. Now I know the real world drawback to those speed buffs. The worst part was that it was muscle ache, not a wound and so healing it does nothing.

Unfortunately that wasn't the only drawback as that speed buff also enhanced by reflex and perception. Now that it had worn off, I was forced to rely exclusively on my instincts. Quickly, I raised the shield to cover my head just before Grom's greataxe could split it in half. I was forced to use two hands to hold the shield strap as the legendary orc wailed on me for a few strikes. Then, without warning, the next strike that I was anticipating didn't happen.

Shit!

"Aegis!" I roared.

Holy Word: Aegis was reapplied just in time before Grom's attack struck. My metal shield was hit with such force that the straps holding it snapped, and it was flung away from me. From the corner of my eye, I saw my father's gift fly off into the distance, but I had to ignore it as the bloodthirsty orc came at me once again. I could try to endure his attack and be defensive or gamble and try to fight back. Of course, I was more inclined toward the latter; many of the greatest strategists from my old world always touted that the best defense was a good offense.

Gripping the arcanite champion with both hands, I charged at the Warsong chieftain whose eyes widened a fraction in surprise. I tried to evade his first strike with a sidestep but was clipped. I felt my 'Aegis' become drained, but in return, I was able to give the orc a shallow cut on his upper arm. The two of us wasted no time in reorienting from the first exchange before leaping at each other once again. My sword collided with Grom's, but even with my enhanced Light strength, I came out the loser on that end. It took all I had to not have the arcanite champion ripped out of my hand as I staggered back.

"Aegis!" I shouted just in time as Grom's axe struck true, breaking the buffed shield and sending me slamming to the ground.

'Get up! Get up!' I mentally screamed. "Ugh!"

I rolled to my right quickly and felt the orc's greataxe come down on where I had fallen, missing me by less than a second. Quickly, I got to my feet as I had been trained to do and took up a defensive stance with my sword in front of me. It was just in time too as I saw the sharp side of the axe speeding toward me at eye level. I bent my knee to dodge the strike by a hair's breadth as I felt the 'Gorehowl's' barb spikes raked through my hair. Following my instinct, I counterattacked with an upward horizontal slash, and scored yet another shallow cut to his chest.

The legendary Warsong Chieftain merely looked at the cut before he touched it and smiled at me. Knowing that I was going to strain my muscles, I reused Power Infusion on myself and charged at the orc. I did a sweeping strike to his side, which he deflected with his greataxe, but I fought dirty and kicked him in the shin as a secondary follow-up.

The orc staggered lightly from the strike as I brought my sword down in an overpowered strike, forcing him to block me with his axe. Grom grunted as he was forced to absorb the force of my blow before I kicked him right in the gut, making him stagger back. I continued my ferocious attack until I felt the speed buff fade away and—just like that— pain was my world again as the world sped up once more.

My attacks weren't cutting it, I needed something different, something deadlier. I decided to switch tracks and call upon the void.

I had used the Void sparingly since Garona's assault, but each time I did, I got a better feel for it. If the Light came to me with happiness and pep, the Void came to me like a seductress whose presence enticed me to use more of it. I felt the area darken from the surge of Void energy that suddenly appeared in the area. It mixed with the Light's presence in the area and touched everyone, both Horde and Alliance. Thankfully, the priests didn't realize the origin, judging by how they kept looking around.

"Pain! Insanity! Death!" I cast three powerful Shadow Words in quick succession. The first shadow word struck at the body, the second attacked the mind, and finally, the third attacked the soul. Seeing the orc staggered, I called upon the Void to build up one of the strongest Void-based attacks, the Void Torrent.

Three streams of dark beams erupted from my hand and struck the legendary orc dead-on. The legendary leader writhed under the attack as dark shadowy fire danced upon his skin, turning it blacker by the second. I pushed more of the Void energy through me and into the attack, and I quickly saw his knees shake as if holding a great weight. The thing with Void magic was that it kind of hurts yourself when you use it. I recognized it for what it was though, the real-world application of a channeled cast time and its cooldown period.

Still, I forced myself to endure the pain to finish off the Warsong Chieftain. It was the best chance I had of sending a decapitating strike to the Horde and buying the Alliance more time, even if we all die here today. Knowing that, I pushed my all into the Void attack, but to my horror, Grom let out a scream that had earned him his namesake and looked at me with red glowy eyes. His shakes had somehow disappeared and even with my powerful attack, he was able to charge forward, closing the gap between us within moments.

My instinct screamed that he was going for an overhead strike, and I was able to bring my sword up at the last moment to block it. The force of the attack shook my body violently enough to make me feel like vomiting.

"Urk!" I suddenly spat blood out from my mouth as I looked down in confusion and saw Gorehowl, the legendary greataxe of Grom Hellscream, embedded in my chest. How did that happen? Didn't I block it? Grom gave me no time to think as he used his other hand to push the axe in deeper. "Kauaahk!"

My left hand went up to the axe in a futile gesture to stop the orc from sinking 'Gorehowl' any deeper as my right hand dropped limply down to my side. That was when I noticed that my arcanite champion was much shorter and realized it broke. A quick scan located the top half of it embedded into the ground between us. After so many exchanges with Grom, my sword had been unable to block his last attack.

'I...I got Lothar'd?' I oddly thought as I realized what happened.

"My Lord!" I heard Falconcrest's cry of terror.

"Callan!" Liadrin howled as if physically wounded.

I felt Grom grab a handful of my hair and pull me up so that I could look at him. The Warsong chieftain appeared to be panting before he gave me a tight nod. "You fought well, pinkskin. I will grant you the highest honor, an honorable death."

With that, he let my head go and put a hand behind my back as he pulled me into the axe to finish me off.

'Honor my ass!' I mentally spat. I didn't want to die, I really didn't, and if that pesky axe wasn't in the way, I would be able to self-heal since I had enough reserves for it. But I couldn't, and all my allies sounded quite far away. 'Serves me right for relying back on the Void...'

To my surprise, the lingering Void presence that answered me earlier felt mournful.

"K-urk..." I gurgled as blood filled my lungs and overflowed from my mouth.

"Shhhhh," Grom said softly as more of Gorehowl sunk into me.

Well, if I couldn't beat them— hurt em.

With the last of my energy, I called upon the Light to flow into me. That Light momentarily filled me with strength and attempted to mend my body. Unfortunately, Grom's axe was in the way and prevented the mending process. Knowing that, I diverted all of that divine energy into my sword before lifting my head to look up at Grom under my own power.

"Hey." Before he could even wonder what happened, I stabbed my broken sword into his gut and unleashed the Light right into his body. "Fuck you."

"You—ARRRRRRRRRRRRGHHH!" Grom started to howl in pain as a spidery Light pattern started to spread through his body. Wherever the tendrils of Light went, smoke could be seen flowing out. The burning smell of cooked flesh followed as Grom continued to howl in pain.

Just as the tendrils of Light was threatening to engulf his face, he reared back and headbutted me with such force that I was flung off his axe, flopping onto the ground. I looked up through pained, blurry vision and saw where those Light tendrils had left him permanently scarred with their mark.

Good.

"NARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Grom's piercing scream cried out in triumph. With that done, he looked down at me and pulled the broken sword out of his stomach. "Die, honorless dog!"

With that, Grom's axe swung down and...missed?

My vision, which had been blurry, suddenly became clear, and I felt as if I was floating. The heaviness of my body was gone, even the rapid heartbeat that was normal had stopped. I saw Grom's expression changed from alarmed to uneasy as he actually took a step back from me. That was when I noticed that the constant sound of battle was no longer there. After a quick look at my surroundings from my elevated position, I noticed all eyes were on me.

Why were all eyes on me? Could they suddenly see...wait.

I immediately looked down to the ground where my corpse should have been and found the spot empty.

'No way!' I thought, but as I looked down at my hands, I noticed for the first time that my skin was now a golden color. That was not all, my armor was gone, replaced with a flimsy pure white cloth that was barely able to cover up my modesty. I suddenly felt like something was off with my body as I flexed my fingers, wiggled my toes, and flapped my wings.

'Wait...wings?' I thought incredulously as I turned my head around, but sure enough, there were honest-to-god angel wings on me. 'No freaking way!'

I always thought that 'Spirit of Redemption' was a game mechanic since allowing a priest's body to turn into a healing spirit for a few seconds after they die seemed kind of broken, yet...I couldn't be anything but a Spirit of Redemption right now. Wait! How long did I spend thinking about this? I only had a limited amount of time in this form after all!

"Fuck you, orcs!" I spat, only to find there were no vocal cords in my spirit form. Well, darn it.

'Whatever!' I thought as I called upon the Light.

By myself, the Light felt like a large lake that was growing. With the priests working together with me, I compared it to a tsunami. Now, the Light felt like a category 5 hurricane that was trashing chaotically and without direction all around me. Yet, I was not affected because I was standing in the metaphysical eye of the Light energy, and I knew that I could reach out and pull it from the metaphysical plane into the physical.

I tried first to cast 'Ultimate Penitence' or even 'Halo,' but it felt like the Light was ignoring me. Then I remembered the drawback to this form, that I could only cast pure healing spells. I knew that the orcs would recover and renew their attack soon since my new form could only keep them distracted for only so long. From the center of the Light vortex, I drew the power into me and shaped it to the strongest healing spell I know.

'Salvation!' I cried out soundlessly and from my two hands, a pillar of light shot out to the sky before covering the entire Royal Keep in a powerful golden dome.

It wasn't a barrier; it was better as those who were on the verge of dying slowly got up and the ones who were wounded had their wounds healed before the orcs' eyes. One of the orcs had been smart enough to slash his axe at a recovering soldier and buried it at least six inches deep into his shoulders. Yet, because of 'Salvation,' the soldiers did not feel the pain and launched an attack of his own, killing the orc. To the attacking orc's further surprise, the injured soldier then pulled out the axe and watched as his flesh mended itself within moments.

"It's Lord Callan!" Liadrin broke the silenced awe. Her tone was what I could only identify as extremely zealous. "He's still with us!

"High Priestess Liadrin is right!" Sylvanas roared. "Destroy the Horde! For Callan! FOR THE ALLIANCEEEEE!

The Alliance soldiers, as if spurred on by Sylvanas battle cry, charged at the orcs. They fought with reckless abandon and ignored any and all attacks against them. The soldiers felt no pain, and all injuries were ignored. They cut and stabbed at the orcs and then pulled out their attacker weapons from their flesh as if they were immortal gods. Even my normal 'Salvation' cast did not have this much power; it merely mended all the flesh and refilled the soldiers' stamina before I was tapped out.

However, with an unlimited Light source to tap into, I could channel the spell indefinitely.

To his credit, Grom, upon witnessing what was happening, leaped at me and swung his axe, only for it to pass through my translucent form. I looked down at him. While still carrying the pillar of Light in my hand, I extended my middle fingers at him. The legendary orc growled and huffed at the insult before he took another futile swing at me.

Suddenly, from the Light, I was given a warning. It was not something spoken to me; instead, it was more like a feeling. My time as a Spirit of Redemption was going to end soon which meant that my soldiers would then be at the mercy of the Horde. The Light sensed my worries and tried to comfort me, but all I could do was eke out the last bit of healing that I could.

Meanwhile, Grom, seeing his forces being actually pushed back, was about to take another swing at me when a horrendous tearing sound boomed like thunder. That was just the start as an oppressive power of some kind surged onto the metaphysical plain and pushed the Light away. It was as if a wide low pressure front had come in and pushed everything away from it. Another thundering tearing sound could be heard before everyone who was fighting stopped to stare at something behind me.

Curious, I turned around, and my nonexistent jaw dropped as I witnessed a rift of some kind stretching out in front of the royal hall. The rift stretched at least a hundred yards across and a hundred yards from top to bottom. Chaotic purple energies could be seen swirling around until suddenly, they began to form into a picture of some kind. As the image got sharper, I could make out stone white walls and...no freaking way!

As if to prove me wrong, the image of Stormwind Keep came into high-definition focus, and a boom was heard as if it was being anchored into place. Then, without fanfare, from this...portal(?), a very familiar-looking human emerged from it.

"Dad?!" I mouthed soundlessly.

My father, Anduin Lothar, with Ashkandi in hand, looked at me with a curious expression without a hint of familiarity before he shook his head and pointed in the direction of the orcs. Did he not recognize me?

At his motion, a flood of Stormwind soldiers, which I was only now noticing were bunched up on the other side, rushed out from the portal to reinforce the defenders of the keep.

"Soldiers of Stormwind!" Lothar roared as he charged at the Horde. "Show them our claws!"

"For Stormwind!"

To my continued shock, the very first wave of Stormwind soldiers fired off volleys of Penance at the orcs, forcing them to separate from the defenders. There were close to a hundred of them casting, while others were throwing up barriers and healing the wounded. I watched as banners from the 8th Legion, 9th Legion and Royal Legion flooded in and engaged a very surprised Warsong clan.

My attention was then taken off them when I spied Medivh's momma crossing over. She looked taken aback by the Light show before she found its source: me. She cocked her head and raised a single perfectly immaculately styled eyebrow, before teleporting herself to the highest point of the royal hall. Then, doing some hand-motioning thing with her hand, her eyes glowed blue with arcane power as lightning erupted from her hands.

It was raining lightning, just like the first day of the siege, only different. Instead of striking the orcs like I thought it would, it seemed to act more like a wall. A wall that was separating the defending forces from the rest of the Horde. Some of the orcs caught inside the net turned to touch the lightning curtain and were instantly zapped for their trouble. It took me a moment, but I swore I had seen this spell used somewhere before…

"Can you feel the Light's presence, brothers and sisters! It is with us even here!" a female voice ordered. "Get the peasants and brave defenders of Lordaeron through the portal, now!".

Wait a minute...that voice. 'Mara?!'

"Where is Callan?!" An almost maddening cry erupted from my father's throat. "Where is my son!"

"That orc slew him, my lord!" I heard Falconcrest shout to my father.

Tearing my gaze away from what Aegwynn was doing, I looked down to see my father approaching Grom Hellscream with murder in his eyes. The Warsong chieftain saw the challenge and let out a powerful cry before he rushed to meet my father in combat. On any other day, I would have said a fight between my father and Grom Hellscream could go either way.

However, I had not only weakened the famed orc leader but hurt him pretty badly too. Meanwhile, my father looked fresh and at a hundred percent. Grom swung Gorehowl, and my father parried the strike with Ashkandi running his runeblade along the axe handle before pushing off it. With nothing to defend the legendary orc leader, Ashkandi flew to his neck and cleanly passed through it. Grom looked at my father in surprise and kept that expression even as his head tumbled from his body.

Holy crap! Grom actually died! My father was really racking up that orc leader's kill count!

I was about to cheer him on when suddenly I felt the Light reluctantly leave me, only for the pain to come back with a vengeance. The next thing I knew, I was falling back to the ground again while staring at my surprised father.

"Callan!" Lothar's eyes widened in horror as he rushed to me. He caught me just in time and gently cradled me in his arms. His eyes, which had been so fierce earlier, became soft and wet at the sight of me. I truly felt warmed by his concern and tried to reassure him by attempting to pat him on his breastplate, but my body didn't seem to want to move.

"H-hey, da—"

I stopped as my vision swam, and the father figure of this life blurred into nothingness. I guess Arthas was right; there was only darkness—

Oooh.

Light.

TBC…

AN: Well...That happened :D

First and Foremast thanks to Icura for editing this fic :) Those who saw the sneak peak can probably tells its much better, and then I gave it another pass over.

Second of all thanks to all the my patrons for your continue support. I say it over and over because I really am grateful and it really means that much to me, so once again, thank you!

Now as for this chapter, I will tell you all my thoughts process. Stromgarde was also where I wanted Callan to make his stand... and his fall. The entire Siege itself was something I had planned out for the readers. First day, First Week, First Month, Last Day, Last Hour. I am sure I didn't do it well enough as some people would stretch it out more but, I think that story beat fit. There was also quite a few homage in here if you can spot em :P I won't say too much more and look forward to the reader discussion, if any :) Enjoy!

As always please consider supporting us on patron, at "icuraandVahn"

Finally, as always C+C welcomed, discussion eternally appreciated!