Rebellion 15.1 - A,G,A,G,J,S (Patreon)

Sorry for the delay, this much action – and important action at that – kinda kicked my arse.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hauling her cutlass out of yet another sodden and rotting corpse that had crawled out of the river next to her, Alicia surveyed the battlefield around her. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, only a slow trickle of corpses crawling out of the river, but it was still a mess. And there were new problems massing on the other side.

"Dom! Get the river on those Light damned necros!" She yelled at her tide sage, taking a potshot with her pistol – that missed – at them for good measure. "And get the bloody greenskins to reinforce the west embankments! We need something to put the cannons on before those catapults get in range!" Stupid spiky catapults dried in blood they might be, but still catapults. Without proper artillery of their own to return fire... they were fucked. "Hop to it lads!"

Everything had been going swimmingly, sailing up the river and navigating a few awkward shallows carefully and plotting out a good route up to the big forest, right up until they discovered there were Light damned traitors in the flotilla.

The Evening Song had gone down first, then the North Spirit; Wolfbrother had beached itself, and when it was clear they were taking on too much water she'd ordered the same.

Of the eight ships that had come with her, carrying more than a thousand men and women ready for a fight, she'd come out of it with a few hundred. The rest were drowned in the river, and now attacking her, or butchered by the undead and also attacking her. Not to mention the rest of the corpses the blasted Scourge kept throwing their way.

"I see them, Admiral." Dom answered hurriedly, raising his tentacled-covered staff and waving it around. "Wind and wave, raging river, bring down those that threaten the purity of your course!"

Alicia watched for a moment as a watery tentacle rose from the river, thrashing about furiously before it crashed down upon the necros raising her own men against her and dragging one into the waters. Satisfied that was dealt with she turned to other matters.

"Stop faffing about with the twenty-four pounders!" She snapped at the men handling the retrieval of the guns. "We ain't lugging ammo that heavy up the hill! Get the sixes and the eights!" They weren't trying to blow another ship apart, the dumbarses, they needed something to hit the undead at a good range back in the fort! "We ain't got time for it either!"

She was about to go down and join the lads, take up hauling one of the guns herself if needs be, when a green hand dropped onto her shoulder.

Startled but recognising the danger inherent to the colour of a bleeding orc, Alicia whirled about with her cutlass and barely aborted trying to disembowel the bloke. Be a bloody shame with how useful the guy'd been; probably wouldn't work either, wily fucker that he was.

"The shamans ask what your guns need, human." Eitrigg said, the great big green brute not caring one bit she'd drawn steel on him. "And which ones need moving."

"Those ones–" She gestured at the lighter-bore guns strewn along the beach by the crumbled wreck of her ship.

Striding past her the orc casually slammed his axe into one of the corpses that was giving her men trouble, cleaving through wet flesh in a single blow before picking up one of the guns. "Hmm. Heavy." He grunted, adjusting the weight and slinging it over his shoulder to carry the sodding thing back alone.

"A bit heavy, yes." Alicia snorted. Some people were just absurd in how strong they got, and orcs only more so than her fellow humans.

At least this one, and the rest of those following him, were on her side for the moment. Letting them in when the undead started trying to eat them had been a good move; she didn't want to know what orcish undead were like. If it was anything like an actual orc she'd rather they stuck with fighting human corpses. Those didn't have hide thick enough to stop pistol bullets.

Jogging after the orc she quickly explained what she needed him to translate for the orcish shamans, the raised platforms for the guns that needed to be brought out of the mucky floodplain her ships had made when they sunk and blocked the river.

She'd hoped her witch could manage it at first, before they started tearing her ship apart for wood to make barricades. But Janice was a miserable disappointment; she knew just how much Crowley's witch had managed, and even Alys put up a good showing, so how hard was it to grow a single tree with a flat platform?

Too much, apparently. At least she was good for growing food in this miserable red hellhole of a swamp.

-oOoOo-

"Do not let them claim our new home! It is ours! We fought for it, claimed it, and no allies of those foul centaurs will take it from us!" Grom roared at his clan, leading the charge into the growing green tangle that threatened to stop him from completing his brother's task.

When he had first set eyes upon these crags, the red cliffs and stones, the harsh and burning earth, it had felt so much like home. The wild mountains of Gorgrond, only without the boiling pools and the tangle of the Primals. A perfect place to create a land for their people to call their home.

Now, with the forest infesting the pools of water beside which he had made their camp, the last aspect to make it too familiar had appeared.

Though as he slowed to snap the shaft of an arrow that had sunk into his arm he had to admit that it was a different sort of forest. One that hid shadowy elves with bows, beasts, and warriors, not honourless monstrosities that would infest and turn a warrior against their own clan. "Lok'tar Ogar!" He roared, a dozen warriors following at his back and engaging the waking forest.

His blood sang as he fell upon one of the warrior women, her purple skin somehow blending in with the greens of the forest yet not enough to fool his eyes. She was fierce, her teeth bared in challenge as she blocked his first strike with her bow, diverting it by mere inches away from her head.

But Gorehowl heard the song of his blood and howled to feel the beating of his foe's heart. To be quenched in their lifeblood. His second blow shattered her bow, cleaving through to cut deep into her flesh.

Arrows peppered his side but he did not feel them, instead turning away from the broken body of his foe to scream his defiance. "Warsong! Kill them all! Burn down their forest! For the Horde!"

Wolves charged through the trees, matching fangs with the elves' oversized cats, nets were flung into the trees to pull down archers who hid there, and even the overgrown trees themselves tasted axes and were felled. No matter how they had ambushed his clan, they were ready for battle.

No matter the savagery, the brilliance of the elven warriors that threw themselves at him like a true orc would, they were not enough.

The cries of the Warsong rang out through the trees, a chorus of battle and fury that spoke of ending lives and finding their purpose. The humans had not been a worthy fight, they had not wished to fight, but Grom had forced it.

Against his brother's wishes. Fallen victim to his blood's roar. But this, this was a fight worth having! To protect their home! To follow his brother's, his Warchief's wishes! There could be little better.

"Come!" He laughed as he laid out the broken body of another woman and her mount, a winged creature entrapped in his wolf rider's nets. "Come and face me! Where are your shamans? Your warlocks? Your genesaurs?! These elves did not grow this forest themselves!"

He had faced no commander, no leader, no true challenge. Blood pounded in his ears, a throbbing call to battle, a song that wouldn't end until he sated it. "Face me!" He screamed his challenge once more.

And out of the trees strode a genesaur, if a genesaur was the cross between a stag and an elf. Great antlers atop the creature's head, the body of a stag towering taller than Grom, and the torso of an elven man rising higher still; whip-like bark-covered fingers gestured and animated the plants into one of the many walking trees that assaulted them.

"My father protected this land from your Legion once long ago." He said grimly. "And we shall prevent you from defiling it further, demon spawn. You should never have approached our forests."

"Forests?!" Grom let out a bellowing laugh as he cut the firewood down to size. "These lands are perfect! We need no forests!"

Snorting the being shook its head. "Know this: You face a Son of Cenarius, and I, Aros, shall stop you from tainting these lands! My father need not deal with rabble like you."

The words of the elven genesaur made no sense, but that didn't matter. He had an enemy to kill!

With a wordless scream, Grom leapt, closing the gap and matching axe to wooden talons and cutting deep. The strength of his foe was shown a moment later as he was thrown aside, the whip-like fingers leaving burning red lines across his torso.

"Coward!" Grom screamed as Arosa animated more firewood to bar his path. "Face me!" His vision blurred red as his foe fled.

An elven cat rider tried to pounce upon him, only to lose her mount as Gorehowl crushed the creature's skull. He would not be denied! His blood would not be denied! Ignoring the attempt of the elf to slow his pace, he chased after the genesaur.

"The forests are my domain." Aros spoke, disappearing from view. "You shall not–"

Grunting victoriously Grom lunged to his left, Gorehowl reaping a blood toll as it cut through a tree and into the leg of the coward that hid from his view. "I have faced greater foes than you!" He laughed.

Even injured Aros snarled and stabbed his hand forward, catching Grom in his chest and his fingers burrowed deep. It had been too long, too many years hunting weak humans and their kin! Too long fleeing from a true fight! A heavy blow crashed down upon the arm, prying it free and leaving a deep gouge.

Blood flowed freely from them both, the scent reminding him of the old times. Of the carnage a true war called for.

Roots broke free of the ground to try and snare his legs but with a surge of energy he jumped clear, Gorehowl held high above his head as he fell. "Die!" He screamed, axe biting deep into the genesaur's arm once more.

Heh. Blocked the blow to the head. But not good enough. The fool had not thought to get away.

He was atop Aros' back now, and leaving Gorehowl embedded in his arm, Grom wrapped his arms around Aros' neck and squeezed. Muscles bulged, straining against one another, and wood burrowed beneath his skin again. Rippling as they sought something vital.

Then with a victorious crack his foe fell limp, legs giving way and the great bulk of Cenarius' Son fell to the floor of the forest he had made.

"None can face the Warsong!" He roared, pulling Gorehowl from the corpse. "This is our home! Horde land! Now and forever more!"

And no elves or their fake genesaurs could take it from them.

-oOoOo-

"The camp will be more greenskins than people at this rate." Tide Sage Dominic bitched at her as Eitrigg welcomed his kin into the fort, another batch of trolls and orcs looking askance at the fact they were to be working with humans.

And elves, and dwarves, even a gnome... there'd been more survivors from the ships than had initially been apparent, washed downstream and into a den of sodding quillboar. At least the sound of cannonfire, once they'd gotten that going, had given them a direction to march in. Having them around helped a lot; a single sorceress rendered the abomination that had given everyone else so much trouble moot.

It was far less menacing as a slightly oversized sheep. Though, despite the jokes, no one was particularly interested in eating mutton that night.

"Even you have to admit we needed them." Alicia countered, waving idly at the killing fields around the fort. "And before you say we don't anymore, they're still pulling their weight."

A line of orcish grunts battled the latest wave of undead before it could reach the walls, their axes biting into rotten flesh while her men used their salvaged stores of powder to take out priority targets. Bloody spiders for the most part, the swarms of insects they controlled could eat through an orc's flesh faster than they could catch up to them.

The orcish shamans had done a hell of a lot too, not just making life less sodden but stopping everything from getting washed away when the dam made up of her sunken ships finally broke. Now they kept the orcs, and her people, from dying of their wounds.

And occasionally turning an orc here or there into a raging bloodthirsty beast that ripped and tore through the undead until they collapsed from exhaustion.

Consensually, of course. Apparently, the orcs enjoyed the experience.

"The Lord Admiral wouldn't approve." Dom bitched again. Lord Admiral this, Lord Admiral that, Lord Stormsong something else entirely.

She wasn't bloody Kul Tiran. "Well, he ain't here." Alicia said firmly. "I am. And frankly, I'm glad they're the ones out there bleeding rather than me. Just because father taught me fencing to deal with pirates, and any idiot that got handsy, doesn't mean I enjoy swordplay." Like most of her men, she preferred a pistol or rifle. Or a proper broadside of cannon if the option was available.

It wasn't. Powder storage had stayed above water, but most of the sodding cannon balls had rolled into the river. They had enough to work with but not enough for a good showing of superior firepower.

"Fer Khaz Modan!" One of her two gryphon riders yelled as he returned, stormhammer crashing down on the undead trickle. "Take tha' ye howlin' shites!"

"At least he's having fun." Alicia muttered, feeling a little envious and impatient. Dougan was meant to have gone off to get reinforcements from the main force but she wasn't seeing any, and now he was circling and blasting the undead and hurling insults.

Shooting her pistol just wasn't satisfying when it wouldn't bring them down. Stupid undead didn't have the grace to die properly.

So she waited, occasionally getting a bit of fun directing the guns onto a target of note – watching an undead catapult blow apart in a single shot was satisfying – for Dougan to finish up and come down and land beside her.

"Report, are we getting help anytime soon?"

"Aye, though nae the ones I asked fer." He grunted and jabbed a thumb at the orcs. "Load o' tha' lot riding like hell our way, Lady Proudmore's with 'em too. Bunch o' knights an' such. Saw 'em on me way back an' told 'em where we were. Be here... sundown, mebe?"

A wave of relief washed over Alicia. "About bloody time. Get yourself and Littlewing fed and watered; the lads figured out how to ferment some of Janice's berries so there's booze too."

"Thank tae Light fer that!" Dougan laughed, moving a lot more eagerly now.

Reinforcements. Orcs and humans, led by Proudmoore to relieve them. Made her wonder which of them made contact and sorted out a way to work together first; Eitrigg was... grumpy but not a bad sort, and if he had to beat up some orcs to keep the rest in line she wouldn't begrudge him that. Not like she didn't have to do it to her sailors every once in a while. People, whether humans or orcs, could be stupid and prideful shits at the best of times.

"Should probably figure out some sort of captain's table to greet them at..." Alicia muttered, the reality of hosting near-royalty with bugger all to work with starting to dawn on her. "Fuck."

-oOoOo-

No matter how many he killed, no matter how many times they cut the overgrowth of forest that encroached into their home, the elves just kept coming. No longer small skirmishes he could easily overwhelm alone, but full armies backed by walking giant trees rather than the piddly firewood. And, just now, as the attacks slowed, they all knew it wasn't a reprieve.

Something mighty had arrived, a tension in the air that played on his nerves even as the song of his blood roared in his ears. Only the instinct of so many battles restrained him from charging into the trees after his foes.

"Who dares defile this ancient land? Who dared strike down the righteous keepers of the wilds?" A truly towering figure, the father of the weakling elven genesaur Grom had slain marched out of the trees fearlessly. "Who dares the wrath of Cenarius and the night elves?!"

Dozens, hundreds, of elves walked out of the trees behind him. Many of the women-deer that were brothers of the genesaur... and behind them there would be so many more, hidden away and unseen.

Cenarius waved a hand and all the trees his clan had felled, had cut down to drive them back, sprouted anew and rose up. Hundreds upon hundreds of the little pieces of firewood amassing and beginning to march towards them, the elves pulling back their bows.

Grom tightened his grip on Gorehowl. The blood pounded in his ears. It howled. Was this how the Warsong would die? No, no! They would fight until the bitter end!

"No, my warriors, cleanse these–" Cenarius yelled, except...

"Heh, heh, heh..." A deep growling laugh rumbled through the air in the crags above, a green light shining across the tops in the evening light. Lumbering upon green scaled legs, the demon crested the hill. Green fire burning in the place of hair, a vicious maw filled with needle like teeth, fists larger than an orc carring a two-headed spear larger still. Chains rattled as they head armour to its torso and wings flared behind it, silhouetted against a sky that suddenly burned with green fire.

Then, as if that were not enough, orcs with skin blood red and eyes aglow with hatred flanked the demon. The accursed banner of the Burning Blade flying above them.

And all around pale bodies, corpses, emerged from crevices and crags. Too intent they had been on their foes to see the trap, the trap that had not been laid for the Warsong but the army standing before them...

Looking up at the demon, the monster that had shed its blood for his people, for him, to drink, the blood singing in Grom's ears reached a new height. A terrible pounding that demanded that he fight. "MANNOROTH!" He screamed defiantly, furiously, his throat burning with anger.

He had been used. Made to be a pawn in the demon's games.

"Hello again, Grommash. Though you orcs failed the Burning Legion before, you've served us well this day!" He laughed. Laughed at burning all their efforts to shake off their chains to nothing. "And you, Forest Lord, are far from the safety of your trees!" Pointing his glaive at Cenarius, Mannoroth grinned. "Today you die. As you should have so long ago."

"No." Grom shook with fury. "No! No, not this day! Not ever! We ARE FREE!" Turning away from the elves, the demon's foes, Grommash held Gorehowl high. "WARSONG! KILL THE DEMONS!"

Without waiting for an answer, he charged. Today may be the day he died... but it would be a good death.

Worthy of his brother.

He would not be a slave to the demons, to the blood burning in his veins a single moment longer.

-oOoOo-

For days they had ridden as hard as they could, leaving behind all but those essential to their mission to make it in time; orcs eager and angry atop their kodos and wolves, knights riding their horses and led by Uther and his cadre of paladins.

Alicia's beleaguered force would catch up, offering needed fire support, soon... but would it be soon enough?

Even from a distance it was impossible to miss the titanic forces clashing to the north, the very sky changing colour from the explosions of energy being unleashed. It had begun recently; Jaina still had hope they would not be too late, that they would arrive to lend their strength to the battle ahead.

"Halahk!" Uther yelled over the thundering hooves. "Dispatch those demons while we ride ahead!"

Startled by the order, Jaina looked and saw a horde of red-skinned orcs and bounding demonic hounds charging towards them. She had been paying too much attention to what lay ahead and forgotten their surroundings.

"Press on!" She called out, lending her authority to Uther's.

For her own forces it would matter little, but her allies... Thrall and his orcs, were none too fond of the paladin they had travelled with for longer. Nor he them, and, having heard what happened– Jaina cut off her train of thought, it was not the time for her thoughts to wander; feeling the heat rising from her mount's neck she formed a chilling matrix and spread it out, easing the burden for just a little bit longer.

They were almost there. The sounds of battle, screams in a language close to Thalassian mixing with those in Orcish as blades clashed and titanic blows fell, barely beyond the next rise.

"Insolent pests!" A rumbling roar broke through the air. "You are mine!"

"NEVER!"

"Grom!" Thrall gasped, his piercing blue gaze turning to her. "He did not fall. He would not." He denied before raising his hammer and looking ahead once more. "Lok'tar Ogar my warriors! We find victory this day or glory in death! We prove ourselves worthy of this world! For the Horde!"

"For the HORDE!" Came a thousand answering warcries, picked up and carried down the ranks of his army.

Grim-faced humans kept on, unhappy with their alliance, yet determined nonetheless. But she could not let Thrall upstage her at this juncture.

"We fought against the Scourge as they claimed our homelands, we fought against their masters as they sought to claim our world! We crossed the ocean to defy them once more! Let us show them that this day is but the beginning of our resistance against them!" Her staff may not have the symbolism of Thrall's hammer, but she held it up nonetheless, and directed a ray of freezing cold to bring down a demonic flyer that threatened their advance. "For Kul Tiras! For the Alliance! For Azeroth!"

"For Lordaeron!"

"For the Violet Eye!"

"For Quel'Thalas!"

As so many answered her, Jaina had to hope they were ready. This was not how things were meant to have gone, events had changed and they were far from where the demons had first appeared in Gwen's notes.

-oOoOo-

They had been lured into a trap. Tricked. Led to believe that the green-skinned ones were the ones to threaten their lands, that had summoned demons, ravaged the eastern forests, and raised their dead in a mockery of all that was sacred and natural.

"Koria, check your fire!" Shandris ordered her fellow sentinel.  "Focus on the infernals, do not let them burn the forests!"

Keeping to her own orders she landed a silver-tipped arrow into the eye of the raging beast of Fel-fire and stone before leaping away from its slow retaliatory blow.

"Nura, Alleia, Jora, Metis! Be ready!" She yelled as she drew the infernal after her, arrow after arrow landing in the scant vulnerable positions on the demon's stony form, Shandris backed into a tree.

For six heartbeats, as it loomed over her, she waited.

Patiently.

"Now!" She yelled, evading its next blow at the last moment, and a quartet of nymphs leapt over the demon. Their spears, blessed with Nature's abhorrence of magic, tearing away at the Fel that animated it. "Bring it down!" Weakened by their strikes, the stone buckled and broke under her arrows, and soon fell.

Its fires quenched themselves and Shandris turned to her next quarry. Though they may all fall here today, should they save Lord Cenarius from the trap the Burning Legion had laid for them it would be a victory. Within the sacred forests of Ashenvale, with the might of Kalimdor at his beck and call, there was little the demons could threaten him with. But here, so many miles from their homeland, all he had was what he and his sons had grown.

Not that he was to be underestimated, no Wild God should ever be underestimated. Even as he kept his distance from the pit lord Cenarius turned the tide of a hundred individual battles; roots ensnared red-skins to be peppered by arrows, demons found themselves struck by the wrath of nature itself and torn asunder, and the trees rose time and again to enter battle.

"To me, sisters!" Shandris called to rally her embattled sentinels. "We must distract–"

"MANNOROTH!" Came the green-skinned leader's roar, all but deafening her with its fury as the warrior broke through to strike the demon directly. All else he said was nothing to her ears... yet he certainly knew the demon's name.

Infuriated by the defiant blow the pit lord paused. "I will crush you and feed your bones to your children, pitiful creature!" He growled, and with an almost negligent swipe of his glaive the green-skin was knocked aside. "I am the rage in your heart. I am the fury of your thoughts. I alone empowered you to bring chaos to this world, and you continue to defy me! You. Are. Mine!"

Shandris nocked an arrow, taking the time to aim before loosing; striking true it pierced into the lid of the pit lord's burning Fel-flame eyes, but he was not deterred.

A shame; the green-skin had proved a useful distraction. But she could not afford to save him as Mannoroth raised a foot, intent on crushing him beneath his cloven hooves at last. Intent on aiding those she could, Shandris turned away–

"No." Light flashed, like the blazing sun, and someone stood between the pit lord's foot and his victim. A barrier of Light shone brightly as it held back the blow. "So long as he defies you, he is his own!"

Within a moment, a second arrow was nocked and flew, her aim true once more and pinning the pit lord's left eye closed. The opportunity the newcomer's arrival had bought her left her grateful for their presence, though also frustrated with the presence of yet more strangers in the lands of the kaldorei.

"You failed ten thousand years ago, and you shall fail again!" Cenarius yelled, seeing the same opportunity as she had.

Great roots erupted from the dry red soil and wrapped themselves around the demon. They would not hold, yet...

The green-skin was quick to move, reclaiming his axe, and alongside another – and a torrent of frost that fell from the skies, Arcane magic that set Shandris' gritting – he cut into the pit lord's flesh, green blood flowing freely.

"Pests! Vermin!" Mannoroth kicked the Light wielder, sending him skidding across the ground, and struggled against the roots. "No matter how many you bring, the result is the same. The Legion comes for this world and you will all burn!"

"Thrall, give us a storm! Put out those fires!" The mage yelled from her position atop the cliffs, behind an army of more like the Light wielder who used weapons that spat metal.

"I'm–" Thrall, a green-skin, answered as he crashed his hammer into Mannoroth's armour and rang it like a bell, "a little busy!"

"And the ancients are fighting hard for all of us even if they are on fire!" The mage yelled again, once more summoning the Arcane into a spell and giving its destructive power entrance into the world. "Make it rain and put them out!"

Uncaring for why the spirits of nature had chosen to translate their words, Shandris moved to aid them. Sprinting she raced up the roots Cenarius had called, narrowly avoiding a swipe of Mannoroth's glaive, to shoot point blank into his neck from behind. "Sisters! We can win this day! Aid the strangers and fight alongside them!"

Even if they were mages. Even if they were invaders. Even if they had been enemies.

They were allies now, together in battle against the Burning Legion. They would fight together, as so many had ten thousand years ago under Lord Ravencrest and Shadowsong, or they would all perish.

Rain began to fall as Thrall heeded the mage's words. The tide of battle was turning and–

With a great lurch, Mannoroth broke through the roots and threw Shandris from his back. She rolled along the ground, holding her bow close and nocking an arrow as she came to a stop, shooting it to land next to the one she had already paced in his neck.

"I am Mannoroth the Destructor. The Flayer. The King of the Pit Lords!" He roared, one hand raised and wreathed in Fel fires. "General of the Burning Legion! And you are nothing!"

Across the canyon, fire erupted from every red-skinned orc. Burning with green flames they screamed in agony and hatred, a cry of suffering that would not cease, even in death.

A single heartbeat later, each and every one, even their bodies as they lay strewn around the field, detonated.

The explosions of Fel magic sent Shandris flying, knocked through the air and tumbling uncontrollably. When she landed, her bow snapped along with her arm. "No!" She hissed in pain, clutching at the broken limb. She still needed to fight, it wasn't over!

Mannoroth used the chaos of his spell, the sacrifice of so many of his soldiers, to charge directly for Cenarius. "I won't fail Archimonde! Not again!" He bellowed, crashing through a line of treants like a raging bull and bringing his glaive down upon the unprepared Lord of the Forest.

Only to be tackled at the last moment, the Light wielder returning with force and knocking the blow aside. Where before it threatened Cenarius' head and heart, it turned instead to his lower body, cutting deep with Fel poison.

"That. Is enough." The Light wielder said with a dead calm. "You have lost, Demon. No matter how far you stoop to new lows."

With conviction that only one immersed in the Light could muster, he brought his hammer down with his one arm into the plate on Mannoroth's chest. The Light that infused the blow sank deep into the Fel-forged metal, warping, twisting, and at last shattering it.

A single heartbeat later Cenarius' arm pierced through the vulnerable lower torso of the pit-lord and into his innards. "Thank you, mortal." The Wild God said. "It is done."

"No! Noo–!"

Face twisting into a rictus of agony, the flames atop the pit lord's head dimmed and faded away as his flesh began to run like wax. Poison, the most fatal of all Nature's weapons, unleashed by one who had no equal in wielding its powers.

"We have struck our first blow against the Burning Legion! We have averted the death of the Forest Lord!" The mage atop the cliff yelled triumphantly. "But this is but the beginning, only together can we stop the invasion of our world! Avenge those we have lost! Today we have proven that we can, and that we will, be victorious!"

As the demon's knees gave out, leaving the immense corpse to topple to the side, a chorus of cheers erupted from one and all.

Shandris, half blind with pain, let out a short laugh. Jarod would be proud of what happened here today – it had been so long since her people had worked with others...