The battle had only lasted a few seconds, and already more than two dozen were dead or dying.
“Ambush! Attack!” cried Malkorok. He suited action to word, charging at a huge brown bear with painted markings ripping into an undead warlock who was frantically trying to drain the druid’s life to power his own magical abilities. The twin axes whirred, biting through the bear’s protective throat ruff at such an angle that the blades met and the druid’s head was nearly severed.
The cries of pain and rage and bloodlust were augmented by other sounds—the singing of arrows being loosed and the echoing boom of gunfire. The hunters—who were directing the spiders and scorpids, the wolves and the crocolisks and the raptors—were now entering the fight themselves. Malkorok swore beneath his breath as he leaped over the fallen bodies of a goblin and a hyena locked in a fatal embrace, the goblin’s blade in the creature’s eye and the beast’s jaws about the green throat. His eyes were on the cluster of several Horde fighting a single opponent. As Malkorok approached, shouting his battle cry, the crowd about the Alliance warrior parted for a moment. A strong night elf female was at the center. She wielded an almost blindingly radiant sword and moved so swiftly she was a blur. A long blue braid whipped around, looking almost like an azure serpent. Two slender bodies were already at her feet, and a third blood elf clutched his side and crumpled to join them.
For just an instant, she paused and her eyes locked with Malkorok’s. She saw his gray skin and grinned as, with a shout, he sprang toward her.
There was plenty of warning. This was no surprise attack. So when the runner arrived, breathless, with a solid estimate of the numbers about to descend upon first Sentry Point and then the north gate of Theramore, Captain Wymor merely nodded.
“Take your positions,” he said. Then he added, “I am proud that I am fighting with you, on this day that will be long remembered.” The guards, some of them seeming so young to him, saluted. Few of them had ever engaged in anything other than a brief skirmish with a Horde member before. Most of their fighting was with the Grimtotem or the swamp beasts. Now they could hear the drums in the distance and prepared themselves for true battle.
General Marcus Jonathan personally had come out to Sentry Point to discuss tactics. The term “Sentry Point” itself implied that it was a lookout, not a bastion of defense for Theramore. Yet it was destined to become one if Garrosh’s forces decided to approach from the north.
“And they will,” Jonathan had said. “They will attack from the north, the west, and the harbor. You cannot outfight them. You must outsmart them.”
The runner was given a gulp of water, a moment to catch her breath, then remounted her horse and galloped for Theramore. The rest of the guards under Wymor took their positions and waited.
They did not have to wait long. The lone sentry up at the top of the tower gestured, raising his right arm and bringing it down sharply. The gnome standing next to Wymor, by the name of Adolphus Blastwidget, held a small device in his hands. At the signal from the tower, Blastwidget grinned and pressed a button. The sound of drumbeats was suddenly overwhelmed by a colossal boom. Black smoke curled upward, and the Alliance soldiers cheered. When the noise died down, the drums had fallen silent.
The bombs that had been carefully planted had no doubt eliminated many of the enemy, but the threat remained.
“Draw weapons,” Wymor said. In the eerie silence, the scrape of swords being drawn sounded overly loud. The soldiers stood, taut and ready. The minutes ticked by. All that could be heard were the ceaseless hum of insects, the cry of seabirds, the wash of waves on the shore nearby, and the creaking of their own armor as they shifted uneasily.
And then came the cries of battle, chilling the blood and lifting the hair of the guards. The drums started again, closer this time, their rhythm faster, more urgent. From out of the shadows of the murky swamp, dozens, perhaps hundreds, charged, all of them screaming, all of them carrying weapons that looked as if they weighed more than an armored human.
“Run, Adolphus!” shouted Wymor to the gnome, who was standing transfixed with horror. Blastwidget started, stared wildly up at Wymor, and then took off as fast as his legs could carry him toward Theramore. He still clutched the detonator. Wymor lifted his sword and stood ready.
An orc, bristling with armor and swinging a great axe that seemed to howl with its own lust for blood, led the wave of orc, troll, tauren, Forsaken, blood elf, and goblin. He charged straight for Wymor. His shoulder armor appeared to be made of giant tusks, and between the shoulders and the gloves covering his hands was an expanse of brown, tattooed skin.
Wymor’s golden beard parted in a smile.
Garrosh Hellscream.
The blade of Wymor’s sword met the shaft of Gorehowl with a clash. Garrosh, vastly stronger than the human, shoved, and Wymor staggered back. He got his blade up just in time to parry a swift downstroke from the axe and darted beneath the warchief’s bulk, pulling the sword with him. Garrosh grunted in surprised pain as the sword sliced across his inner arm.
“My first blood in this battle,” the orc said in Common. “Well done, human. You will die with honor.”
Wymor retreated several steps, brandishing the sword. “You won’t,” he said, taunting the orc. Garrosh growled beneath his breath and charged.
Exactly as Wymor wanted him to.
“Now, Blastwidget!” shouted Wymor. He heard a roaring sound, felt himself being hurled into the air, and then knew no more.
17
The elf was good—Malkorok had to give her that. That she had survived battles before was evident by the single great scar that marred her face. Seeing that their leader wanted her for his own kill, the other Horde members had scattered to take on other foes. Ancestors knew there were plenty of them.
The blue-haired night elf was uncannily fast, even though the sword she wielded had to be slowing her down. Malkorok was swift for an orc, and his weapons were much lighter, but even so the two small axes seemed only to bite thin air. Blue-Hair was there one minute, then gone the next, darting in under his defenses. More than once, it was only his heavy armor that saved him as the blade clanged against his midsection. If the glowing sword tip found the unprotected junction between torso and arm—
He brought one axe down while whirling the other over his head. She dove aside, but not before the blade bit into her thigh. She grunted.
“Ha!” snorted Malkorok. “If you can bleed, you can die.”
Impossibly, she sprang toward him, her mouth open in a snarl that would have done a worgen credit. He lifted the axes and crossed them in front of himself defensively. To his shock, Blue-Hair ignored her wound and climbed up the axes, moving as easily as if he had linked his hands together to provide a foothold. The point of her blade drove down toward his neck.
He twisted away at the last second, nearly falling, swinging his left axe around. Now she was behind him, and Malkorok turned, ready to begin the fight again.
A horn sounded. It was not one of the Horde’s—this was light and musical and sweet. An elven horn. Instantly those Alliance members who had been fighting the Horde began to run for the still-opened gate. Blue-Hair grinned fiercely at Malkorok, and when he swung again at the place she had been, she was not there.