Your first battlefield was not as you expected.
The fires had shown you death and destruction and you'd felt claws rend at your flesh before you'd pulled back, rocking away from the fire just as you had when your father had perceived your observation. This time you didn't feel you'd been discovered in the same way… instead you felt like you'd been thrust through the fire into a battle roaring around you. Each time you looked into the fire on the march toward Darkstorm you felt the same, air and fire whirling around you confusingly, unable to perceive anything that could help you.
As you came closer a few Warsong wolf riders from Razor Hill Vark had persuaded to accompany you rode out in front of your column, only to swiftly return and add to your confusion.
"There are corpses and blood further up." one says, "Some dead by the Fel, some by beasts. My brothers go on to find the enemy encampment."
You nod, "Show me." then turn to the others, "Vark, lead them on."
The big orc nods and shouts to the others as they pick up the pace. The wolf rider kicks his heels and his mount surges onward, easily picking its way up the side of the canyon to a low rise. You follow, scrambling over rocks along with Kartha, her axes returned to the loops in her belt as she climbs beside you.
The scene above is as the rider described and a single body greets you as you crest a line of boulders. It's an orc, not particularly well-armed, his axe still in his hand but without even basic armour. His throat is gone, right down to the spine, a ragged wound explaining the large pool of drying blood over the red dirt of the canyon.
Kartha approaches as you look around, turning the body over and revealing a similarly abused back and shoulders. Kartha examines the injuries closely, spreading her hand over one, then taking out her dagger and comparing it.
"What is it?" you ask.
"Claws." she answers simply, "As the rider says a beast did this, I could guess a raptor, leaping from above."
"No." the Warsong rider says simply, "Raptors have one large claw, these were made with several, I've seen their like among the Kaldorei druids, or our own shaman's weapons."
Could a Night Elf druid be here in the pass? You weren't that far away from Ashenvale and you supposed it was possible, yet to what purpose? Alternatively as the rider said the shaman of the Orcs used artificial claws, a sort of gauntlet, as one of their weapons, notably those among the Frostwolf at least, but again that didn't seem probable.
You descend, listening to the rider describe other corpses he and his fellows had found, these ones dead by magic. The rider claimed it was the Fel but you knew most orcs descried all unknown magic as the Fel where others would differentiate between Arcane, Fel or Shamanistic magic.
"What chances?" Sorek asks as you return to the column, making your way back through the assembled orcs and trolls. Where Vark had brought a few of his clan who'd been unoccupied in Razor Hill, you'd managed to persuade Sorek and several of the other aspirants training under Akinos to accompany you to the battle. They looked to Sorek for orders rather than you, but Sorek in turn understood that you were the one to have received orders from Nazgrel and in turn deferred to you. Apart from that you'd brought warriors from your own clan, as well as a contingent of Trolls from Razor Hill.
You explain the situation quickly to the others, "Can any other force have gotten here before us?"
As with much of northern Durotar the land was split by hills, canyons and valleys. Darkstorm was hold up by a river, camped on the slope of on steep ascent, but the canyons were narrow enough that you couldn't have imagined anyone else could have gotten past you or concealed their tracks.
"From the other side perhaps." Sorek remarks, "But as you've said, to what end? The only ones that know Darkstorm is there are us and we're the ones going now."
The group reaches no firm conclusion and you order an advance again, the column scrambling up the slopes, Darkstorm's encampment before you, poorly fortified with barricades of stone and wood. You hadn't expected much, Darkstorm was a bandit after all, but what you saw was pathetic indeed and you didn't see much need to plan, you could see more bodies and clearly there'd been some sort of attack.
"Kartha, take the trolls up and come down on them from above." you order, "Wolf riders make you way around and take them from the back, we'll come from the front here."
It was a simple enough plan and you saw the trolls and wolves climbing up around the enemy, though even when Kartha signalled she was in position and you heard the horn call of the Warsong you still hadn't seen any presence of the enemy, not even a head popping over the crude parapets.
"Is it a trap?" Vark asks, his great axe in hand. "You said the Spirits showed you battle?"
"Not with so many of their dead." you reply, "Though it's strange I'll admit." You could admit you were no general but you had at least some skill in tactics and this situation didn't seem to be explainable by any stratagem you knew of and so with a single signal you ordered the attack.
Your Burning Blade warriors went in first, shields and spears ready, Akinos' trainees behind them with Sorek in command. You stayed at the back at first, watching the trolls coming down from further up the slope, but soon you went forward as well.
Finally you see the enemy as a body topples backward off a rock with a troll's axe embedded in its skull. That seems to signal the start of the real battle as your orcs let forth warcries, the wolves howling on the other side of the encampment as you sprint forward surrounded by your warriors, the weight of the charge smashing through the crude barricades, the trolls leaping down from their perches, axes in hand.
Again you don't see the enemy, instead almost tripping over a few more poorly dressed orcs who've been slain by your own warriors as you penetrate deeper toward Darkstorm, finally coming upon a knot of the renegades in the rough centre of the camp. They are completely surrounded, about thirty or forty of them and in the centre a large ogre, the goblin Darkstorm clinging to its shoulder, shouting orders and gesticulating with one green glowing hand.
You and your warriors spread out, the wolf riders prowling on one side, Kartha and the trolls on another, your own party on the third, there will be no escape.
"Darkstorm!" you call during the deadly lull before you charge in, "The Burning Blade comes for you!"
The goblin's eyes narrow and he swipes his mutant hand viciously though the air, "I serve the Burning Blade fool!"
"You serve evil and the Legion." you reply, not bothering to credit his statement with consideration, "But the rest of you may live!" you address his warriors, "Abandon him now and join us!"
It takes only a moment before several do, darting out of the knot toward one of the gaps in your lines but Darkstorm lets out a howl of frustration and green fire erupts from his hand, engulfing three deserters.
You're already running, your plans in motion as you feel Vark's hand on your back, thrusting you forward into a mighty leap covering half the distance between you and the enemy, two more steps taking you to their lines, Vark smashing aside any before him while Baneshadow's sword rises and falls, cleaving a way.
Lightning strikes out from a troll shaman and a volley of axes follow, wolves howl but orcs howl louder.
"For the Horde!"
You're surrounded, slashing left and right, but so too are your enemies surrounded by your own warriors. Vark's lost his axe and ducks low over the ogre's meaty fists, driving his shoulder into its gut and bearing it over, Darkstorm screaming as he hurls himself off his toppling mount.
You're on the goblin as soon as he lands, the rage in your sword burning into light as red wars against emerald, Baneshadow's blade cutting through Darkstorm's flaming claw, the limb spiralling away across the battlefield, Darkstorm meeting your eyes for a single moment before your blade takes his head.
You rise from Darkstorm's handless, headless corpse to see the others of his band throwing down their weapons and surrendering, the fight still going being the brawl between Vark and the ogre. Supposedly Vark's father hated the ogres, likely because of the enslavement of the Mok'Nathal by the Bladespire ogres and you wonder whether this hatred extends to Vark as you watch him easily take the ogre apart, straddling its body as he smashes his fists into its face, the ogre's mewling cries drowned out by the sucking sound of its skull being slowly pulped.
And with that the battle seems to be over. Your first battle, your first command. Or so you thought as you see heads turn upward as shadows drop from above!
"Harpies!" the call goes up and a storm of feathered wings descends, you grappling with one blue-skinned foe, its face a perverse, dark mirror of the female form, thinner, beady eyes narrowed, spiked tongue in snarling mouth as you strike out with your sword, the harpy's claws swiping across your chest solving the mystery of the fallen orcs you'd encountered previously.
But while the creatures might have picked off a few of Darkstorm's bandits your warriors were different, going back to back and cutting at the harpies wings as they attack until a shrill cry goes up and the harpies push off the ground, flapping away to their nests among the canyon heights.
After that there's little else to be done. You search the camp for anything of use but find little, take an accounting of your remaining forces and find that only a single warrior of yours has been killed, and speak briefly with those of Darkstorm's band who'd surrendered. There's just over a dozen of them and they're a surly bunch but you suppose they've just been defeated so that's not surprising.
"Kill them all." Kartha advises as you take council with the others. "They're murderers and thieves, otherwise we'll have to watch them all the way back."
"No." you immediately discount the suggestion, "I offered them mercy and I must give it, honour demands it."
Kartha grimaces, "Then at least bind them." she offers, "We can take them back like that, it should prevent any treachery."
Sorek speaks, "If you bind them you'll never have their loyalty, if that's what you're looking for."
You consider it but decide to order watches instead, it would take longer to get back but it seems best to you and you set off back to Orgrimmar. You are victorious, though you consider that perhaps the victory is more up to Darkstorm's issues with desertion and the harpies that had been attacking him than any great successes of your own.
Mission completed!
Minor losses to your forces.
Horde and Burning Blade force victorious over Darkstorm's bandits.
Minor Fel artefacts gained.
17 deserters gained.
I had to deal with Darkstorm getting a critical fail for his forces' strength in this chapter which was a bit weird. Rolls are meant to simulate agency and this might have simulated 'you get there any everyone is dead' which would have made for a rather dull chapter. Anyway you were successful and are now heading back to Orgrimmar. Next turn out tomorrow.
