Chapter 85: Falling |
Wen Laisa quickly pulled on her clothes, the leather straps of her armor flashing through her fingers. She rushed to the window, dawn already paling the sky.
When Wen Laisa arrived at the camp, a group of wounded soldiers had just been carried back.
Their armor was smeared with black-and-red blood, some groaned on stretchers, some lay silent with closed eyes, some no longer needed treatment.
Five leaders stood at the camp gate, faces grave.
A wounded soldier was propped up by two comrades, staggering to stand before them. They were part of the garrison stationed at the Dark Portal.
Half his face was crusted with blood, his left arm hung in a blood-soaked sling.
“Bad news…” His voice was hoarse, like he had used up the last of his strength, “The Dark Portal…has opened again.”
Everyone startled.
Even without obtaining those three artifacts, the Orcs had once again opened the Dark Portal.
Those who had lost homes, comrades, everything during the Second War showed fear and pain in their eyes.
Were they going to fight those terrible Orcs again?
Turalyon reacted immediately.
He ripped the long sword from his waist, the blade cutting a sharp arc through the dawn light.
His voice thundered over the camp:
“All of you—”
He raised his sword high, that wind-scarred face burning with something fierce and hot.
“Isn’t this exactly why we came!”
His gaze swept over the wounded soldiers, over the frightened young faces, over the pale comrades.
“We came to stop those bastards! Our legions are assembled, the Sons of Lothar are ready—the fact that they’ve opened the Dark Portal now is exactly what we want!”
He paused, his voice rising a few degrees:
“They ran straight into the tips of our spears!”
Soldiers on the walls began to lift their heads.
“Men and women!” Turalyon turned, sword pointing to the west where the sky was stained with dark smoke.
“Warriors!” His voice echoed between the ramparts, striking back from every shield.
“All forces assemble—advance!”
He led the charge, armor flashing like a streak of light in the dawn.
“Drive them back! Push them back into the Dark Portal—!”
The horn rent the dawn.
The gates of the Watchtower thundered open, iron hooves smashing the cracked earth of the Blasted Lands.
Human soldiers formed dense phalanxes, spears like forests, shield walls like mountains, each step sending sand and stone flying.
Paladins spurred their mounts forward, silver tabards snapping in the wind, Turalyon at the forefront, the Light burning on his blade like a white sun.
Mages of the Kirin Tor raised their staves in unison, arcs of arcane light gathering at the tips into a blue river of stars that lit the wasteland as bright as day.
Wildhammer dwarves’ gryphon riders dove from the skies, gryphons’ golden wings slicing the gray haze, casting rushing shadows; the dwarves gripped their axes, war cries mingling with the gryphons’ screams.
High Elf rangers spread silently like silver streams seeping into the cracks of the scorched earth.
Dragonhawk riders circled higher, those great beasts’ long golden wings edged with dawn.
Wen Laisa rode one of the dragonhawks, her silver hair whipped by the high-altitude wind, her gaze piercing the clouds to fall upon the green rift tearing the land in the distance.
The Dark Portal burned at the end of the Blasted Lands.
That enormous green fissure gaped like a wound split open on the earth, fel fire spurting from its frame, dyeing the sky a sickly emerald.
Orcs surged out from the gate like a tidal wave. Those green-skinned warriors swung blood-smeared axes, pouring through the rift like an unceasing flood.
Orcs dragged hooked chains attached to colossal war drums, the drums thudding like thunder, making the ground itself tremble.
Two torrents collided on the Blasted Lands’ plain.
The instant the human phalanx’s front rank met the Orc vanguard, the sounds of metal tearing flesh, bone cracking, and dying men’s final roars blended into a soundwave that shot into the sky.
Spears drove into Orc chests, axes cleaved human shields, the Light and fel magic collided in the air, erupting into blinding explosions again and again.
Arcane Missiles poured from the mages’ staff tips like a meteor shower, answered by shadow bolts from Orc warlocks.
The ground was instantly soaked with blood; it was impossible to tell human from Orc.
Wildhammer gryphon riders dove from the clouds, axes carving bloody paths over Orc heads.
Without the Dragonmaw clan—the Orcs who had not yet allied with Kalimdor’s wyverns—Orcs had almost no air superiority.
Wen Laisa nocked an arrow, it tore through the air and detonated into a roaring sea of bodies among the Orcs.
The dragonhawk beneath her twisted, banked, and dove with nimble grace.
Suddenly, Wen Laisa sensed sharply that not far away, within the Orc ranks on the plain, a large group was erupting with extremely powerful shadow energy.
The feeling was familiar to her, infused even with a berserk fel.
She spurred the dragonhawk toward them.
Her body had never felt so light.
She was no longer the same as before.
She was no longer a child, no longer the “little moon” sheltered behind her sister.
She could stand shoulder to shoulder with her sister in battle. She could fight to protect this world.
She raised her longbow, about to draw, when darkness suddenly fell overhead.
The shadow came too fast; she only had time to look up and see a patch of black blotting out the sky.
She yanked the dragonhawk’s reins, veering sharply aside, but a green hellfire meteor still scraped the dragonhawk’s wing, fel flames scorching half its feathers.
The dragonhawk, like a kite with a snapped string, spun and plummeted.
The meteor slammed into the ranks of the Sons of Lothar.
A towering wave of green inferno instantly swallowed the nearby soldiers.
Dozens were reduced to ash before they could even scream.
Flames burst from the ground, hurling rock and flesh into the air.
Then, on that charred earth, a massive figure rose up.
Its body was forged from molten green fel, flames coursing through every crack like blood through veins.
A Doomfire— it raised an arm and smashed it into the ground, the earth shuddering, more men pulverized into bloody pulp.
More meteors cleaved the sky.
One, two, ten— they trailed green tails as they fell, striking into the Sons of Lothar’s lines, into the ranks of the mages, into the very center of the paladin formations as they were rallying to charge.