The Battle of Anderhol 2
It takes minutes to close the distance between the market square and Araj's holdfast. The buildings of Anderhol, though crumbling after a decade or more of neglect, are still strong, and though the roofs are often caved in, you and the Blademasters run on the exposed beams, as if flies dancing on the ribs and carcass of a kodo, brought to death on the plans of the Barrens.
As you run you're reminded of your time in that place, of your first deployment, of the first warband, of which only Scorn and Kartha remain. You're reminded of the haze over Dreadmist Peak, just as you run through the necrotic pollution of the Plague Cauldrons all around the region here in Lordaeron.
The Dreadmist had been malevolent, hostile, yet not malignant. It had been an active evil, ready to be called up. The Plaguemist here though was a more insidious sort, slow, cloying, and you were glad of the Bloodstone about your neck which pushed back the dark magic all around you.
You feel the magic stirring within the tower as you leap over the rooftops, you feel Araj's magic like the fermentations and rot of the grave he crawled from, but as well, to your newly experienced senses there's more magic, Arcane especially, for no doubt Araj was a mage before his Lichdom.
Araj had been one of the first Liches, one of the first to be turned and to practice the black arts of Necromancy, perhaps even one of the first to study Gul'dan's crude workings with the other Necrolytes, you knew not. You would face him though, as you faced all foes, with sword in hand and burnished honour burning bright.
The three of you pause on a particular roof opposite the tower. You can see magic in the air, swirling around the tower, and you can even sense something coming up from the earth.
"He draws upon the Earthblood, he'll be weak, if he wishes to maintain the working." remarked Ishi, "How do we approach?"
Sesk pointed to a suspended gallery halfway up the tower, "There, and swiftly."
You'd already crouched to spring, and leap you did, after the Blademasters, covering twenty feet of space with magically enhanced muscles, driving your blade into the stonework of the tower to get a hold, then hauling yourself over the parapet onto the gallery, igniting the Fireblade as you pulled yourself up, the sword melting the stonework and sending droplets of running rock down onto the street.
Sesk and Ishi waited for you above, having made the jump easily themselves, treading on air in a way you could not, you nodded once to them, and Sesk brought his own blade down on a door, cleaving it in half, sword biting into the stonework of the frame before he withdrew it.
Ishi barrelled in, rushing up the stairs, sword blazing. He had an awkward time of it, large as he was he barely fit in the passage, and he was forced to use his fists as much as his sword, hurling gouts of fire and cutting wind at an assortment of random undead that tumbled down the stairs. You had to leap over a few yourself, and it seemed that Araj was directing everything he had toward you, for few of them seemed to have any weapons, they were in truth mere servitors, some even carrying books and scrolls as they jumped heedless of danger toward you.
You were put in mind of Dreadmist again, of how the Kolkar had thrown themselves again and again at your shieldwall, but just like they you raised your blade, your motions constrained but still effective as the sword burned.
Finally you reached the summit, Ishi throwing himself through the door, a flash of fire before him to stun any within. Sesk was next, and you after him, swords blazing.
The Lich's lair is large, the tower seemingly having been built to specifications for a wizard's ritual space, and you see many lines of chalk and other less wholesome substances on the floor as you look about.
The room composes a single large space, a flat floor, with magical paraphernalia scattered about in particular piles or strictures, the meaning of which you know not. Above, there's a large gantry, supporting a series of elevated bookshelves and several ladders about. The room is almost cavernous, and it reeks of magics making your nose burn.
"I had not expected Orcs." remarks a rasping voice, and you spy a slight figure in deep robes, "But no matter, neither you nor the Bronze will disrupt my research. Come then, I slew many of your kind in the Wars!"
Araj, for who else could it be, rises from a chair, shedding his robes in an explosive movement, sending out a blast of frigid air and unleashing his true form, the undead wizard revealing himself and growing to several times his previous size, legs disappearing, his robe turning to elaborate jewelled vestments in a flash of magic, while his fingers lengthen into claws, and his mantle grows a crown of bones and chain, the Lich's coverings swirling around him as he marshals his magic.
"Break!" shouts Sesk, already running left.
You had been taught their tactics though long study over the last months, and as Sesk runs left, Ishi runs right, bouncing off a bookcase, cleaving through a spellform in the air, while in turn you run straight at the Lich, dodging between strange phantasms which rise to defend their master.
Araj's skeletal visage shows no sign of surprise, but he's forced to throw up a shield of rime and frost, floating backwards toward the wall.
You follow, slashing at where his feet should be in another leap, only to miss and find yourself falling toward the floor. You twist in the air, catching a piece of decorative ironwork and spinning.
Araj is darting across the chamber, constantly slinging spells at the Blademasters as they follow him. Shadowy figures are manifesting all around the room and whenever they appear they rush up at the Blademasters, tugging at their clothes or latching onto the warriors. Several look to you, but a single swipe of your sword sees to them.
You cannot match the acrobatics of the Blademasts without a masterful control of the Elements, but you can still aid them.
You look to the gantry above. Sometimes Araj reaches the heights of it, other times he floats below or to the side. You run, leap, and catch the ironwork again, then pull your way up with a cry, shoving your sword into the wall as you had to gain the tower in the first place. Again, you make it burn as you push off, leaping from your hanging up to a tall bookcase, and then again to the gantry, swinging up, sword ready.
More phantasms come forth, they claw at you and you feel not a physical injury, but a chill across your soul as one catches you. Your sword sweeps again and you run, banishing them.
Araj is near. He floats in the centre of the chamber, the two Blademasters before him, each batting aside spells as the Lich casts them.
You must strike.
You sword falls, the Bloodstone at your neck blazes with light as you pierce the Lich's personal wardings, and the Fireblade sinks through his shields, carving its way through Araj's body, shearing off one arm entirely as he dodges, screaming a shrill cry as he darts to the left, colliding with one of his phantasms as he does so.
"Good work, now, finish it!" Ishi shouts, and gathers fire to his hand.
Sesk takes up the task, blasting forward with a roar, Fel-fire upon his sword. With one blow he strikes aside a spell, and with another, sweeps his sword though Araj's core. The Lich doesn't even have time to scream, he merely explodes in a burst or energy.
The effect is immediate, the ritual centre cracks, the cracks glow blue and white, and magic issues forth, the backlash building.
"Out, get the boy!" Ishi runs at the wall, a blast of wind flying from his hand, shattering the stone and jumping out, the air supporting him.
You look to Sesk but the Blademaster is already running at you. You push off in the direction of the hole in the wall, trusting to your bodyguard, who's hand you feel around your arm. You look back, but the tower is already collapsing behind you, shrouded in a piercing light, and at once it explodes, you feel a wave of energy pass through you, over you as Sesk tries to shield you both in your fall.
The cobbles are hard beneath you, but Sesk's magic is true, and you land, mostly unharmed.
The city is anything but.
Your leap and the Spirit of Air carried you far away from the tower, halfway down the street at least, and while there are undead around you they're listless.
"It worked." you breathe, and Sesk growls in agreement next to you, picking himself up, calling on the Elements to heal him as he examines a nasty looking wound from one of Araj's spells.
"The Spirits are disturbed." Ishi mutters, "Do you not feel it?"
In truth, you don't. Your sensitivity toward the Elements has been dulled since you arrived in Lordaeron, since Dreadmist really. But you certainly feel something. Araj's working was broken as you had intended, and you even thought you could see more of the blue sky above you, instead of the yellowish smog which had held over the city before.
"Back to the Cathedral." you say, "We must see to the others."
But Sesk only nods over your shoulder, and you turn to see a dark figure on a horse.
Ishi immediately raises his sword, but Dreadmist looms before you and you lay a hand on his shoulder. The tattooed orc looks at you questioningly, but upon seeing your face he demurs, lowering his weapon and waiting.
You move forward, as does the rider.
He is a Death Knight, that much is clear. A dead human raised to undeath and in service of the Lich King, and his appearance shows it. His charger's barding is black and silver, richly decorated with amethysts and skulls both, while his deathly warhorse bears the same marks of shadowy mutation that Araj did, with horns and bony growths erupting from it's skeleton.
The undead himself wears sinister black plate, gems clear across it glowing with power, while in his hand he bears a shortsword.
"I had thought to aid the Summoner. No matter, I shall not disgrace myself with flight." the rider mused, and then without further discussion he put his spurs to the horse and rush on.
You met him, and where he made to run you down you strike out, your sword sweeping the head from the knight's horse, sending him heavily to the ground. You're on him immediately, cutting down, but the knight puts up a hand wreathed in shadow like a buckler, lashing out with his sword.
You leap back, then forward, spinning over the knight to catch him on the back.
Incredibly, your sword doesn't strike him down, instead the same shadowy energy protects him, and your sword skates off him without damage.
No matter, no defence is absolute.
You grit your teeth, striking again, through the shadow, bolts of the black magic brushed away by the power of the Bloodstone.
You cross blades, yours with greater reach, while the knight relies on his armour and magic to bear the blows you set against him and close in, thrusting his sword at you while you dodge.
The combat lulls, and the knight speaks, "Your name, orc? You fight well, and I would know my opponent."
"Grok'mash of the Burning Blade."
"Well met then." the knight salutes you with his sword, and you see that rather than a shortsword it's actually a longer blade which seems to have been broken in the past, "I am Marduk."
And once again, the knight moves forward.
You are the more skilled and the faster, yet Marduk is resilient in a way you've not experienced yet. Truly, you reflect as you fight, you were too reliant on your blade's abilities in the past.
But you have the advantage, you can dodge his blows, and you sense that Marduk weakens as you fight. His shadow shield is used less and less, he husbands it, bearing it around his hand again, countering your sword with an open palm, on one occasion even trying to grasp the burning blade to reach in and strike you while your weapon is disabled.
Shame and memory fill you as you duel.
If you had the skill you do now, the strength of the Mightstone, might you have defeated Jubei'thos atop Dreadmist? Might Akinos still be alive? Your teacher had shielded you, sending you away with his last spell before Jubei'thos took his head… Would he have had to if you fought as you do now? Though you aren't on the level of Sesk and Ishi, you can at least match them in a way you could never match Akinos.
Marduk is tiring, he puts more and more of his deathly energy into his defences. He slows, his fighting grows more conservative, more hesitant to exploit opportunities.
And you grow stronger.
Life seems to fill you, a greater confidence, a desire to win. You would avenge yourself upon the Death Knight, for though he bears little relation to Jubei'thos, you imagine the old orc beneath his helm, that laughing evil, the way the host body seemed to disintegrate as you'd fought.
The wound in your stomach burns as you fight, the memory of the shadowblade piercing your belly, the memory of the exhaustion of the peak, the memory of the deaths of your Clan's elders and of your warband. It pushes you forward, gives strength to your arms and gives a fire to your sight.
And in a sudden strike you dispel the last of Marduk's energies, sweeping your sword through his neck.
The Death Knight's helm falls clanging to the floor, the last of his unlife fading away.
What remains is only the clear up, and you pass back along the streets to the Cathedral in a half-daze. Losses are tallied, but the defences held, and you supervise the burning of an enormous pile of corpses in the market square.
The Scarlet Crusade arrive soon after the victory. Taelen Fordring, the son of Tirion, leads them out of Hearthglen to the north. They smash the cauldrons in the farms outside the city, then take over the garrison of the Cathedral, their priests relieving an exhausted and drawn Whitemane. The paladin thanks you graciously, but your exhaustion is clear, and you sleep for a day or more after the battle is over.
In the morning though Sesk and Ishi await you, the later bearing a burden.
"Your father bade us give this you when it was time, and now is right." Sesk says, and he unwraps the package, revealing rich red cloth and a shock of flame-orange.
He bears a harness of leather and wood, and with ceremony he sets it on you, speaking a benediction of Draenor, fastening the banner pole to your back with the harness and belt.
You steps out to the camp, your warband saluting as you stand beside the other Blademasters, each of your banners flying in the wind.
The firepit in the centre of the camp blazes and you feel the Spirits gather. You see your father's eyes, his gaze, fel-tainted but proud. You see him through the conflagration, you hear his voice from across the world.
"Rise, Blademaster!"
First half of Arc 2 concluded.
Minor losses taken in Battle of Anderhol, value of Warband to war proven to the Scarlet Crusade.
Expert Weapon Competency > Master Weapon Competency: You've reached a masterful competency with weapons, greater than that of all but the mightiest champions.
Advanced Tactics > Expert Tactics: You have fought in numerous skirmishes, and commanded two large battles, triumphing over twenty times your numbers on both occasions and using multiple groups and skill sets to reach a victory.
Slaying +50% to next level.
Leadership > Advanced Leadership
Advanced Physical Conditioning > Expert Physical Conditioning
Shaman abilities unlocked.
Also I tuned into the next WoW expansion reveal stream which is an utter trainwreck lol.
