Richard Knaak: Wolfheart

The orcs fought savagely . . . even more savagely than Haldrissa had expected. They left themselves open at times, seeming to prefer simply to try to get to an enemy no matter what the risk. While by sheer force they kept the larger contingent of night elves momentarily at bay, the odds were clearly too great against them.

Could it be—? the commander started to realize, only to have to forgo completion of the thought as another mounted orc dove in at her. Haldrissa dropped her bow and brought up her glaive, using the nearest of the curved blades to deflect the axe. Her arm shook as the two weapons rang together.

The wolf dodged to the side of her nightsaber’s claws in order to give its rider a better opening. The commander’s cat twisted to protect Haldrissa, but the orc had already swung.

The foremost blade cracked under the force of the strike. The upper half flew into Haldrissa’s face. She felt stinging pain by her left eye, then her sight there vanished. A wetness spread over her left cheek, and she nearly passed out from shock.

A part of her mind screamed, The orc! Beware the orc!

One hand clutching her ruined eye, Haldrissa tried to focus on her foe. Through her tears, she made out his general shape. He was nearly upon her, even with the nightsaber now doing its best to fend off the wolf.

Haldrissa twisted the glaive in order to bring one of the remaining blades between her and where she thought the axe was. Her head pounded, and the outline of the orc faded.

She knew she was going to die.

But the killing blow never came. Instead, the nightsaber ceased its violent rocking, as if the battle between it and the wolf had come to a sudden conclusion.

“Commander!” someone shouted in her ear. She recognized Denea’s voice.

“The orc—”

“The orc is slain!” A slim hand seized her weapon arm. As Haldrissa blinked away tears from her remaining eye, Denea came into focus. “Be still, Commander! You need aid, quickly!”

“The battle—”

“Is over! The orcs are slain to a warrior, their wolves perishing with them!”

A prisoner would have been good to have, Haldrissa knew, but a capture could not always be accomplished in the midst of frenzied fighting. As another Sentinel came around her blind side and began working on her wound, Haldrissa finally managed to better focus on the situation. One thing immediately came to mind.

“The outpost . . . we must reach the outpost. . . .”

She was forced to wait while they finished with her eye, and even then Xanon suggested that they turn around. Haldrissa began to feel like an old grandparent rather than their commander, and grew angry. The other night elves acquiesced to her orders, and the party finally raced toward the outpost, all expecting the worst.

But as they neared the wooden structure, to their surprise, a pair of sentries stepped out from among the trees. They looked stunned by the party’s appearance, especially that of the commander, who now sported a long cloth over the damaged side of her face.

Before they could speak, Haldrissa quickly asked, “The outpost—all is well?”

They glanced at one another in some confusion, one finally replying, “Yes, Commander! It has been very quiet!”

“Were there other sentries posted in the trees behind us?”

“Two . . .”

There had been no sign of either the pair or the other scout Haldrissa had sent. She had no doubts as to their fate.

“A scouting force,” Denea declared to her. “They managed to maneuver around the outpost without being caught, but the missing sentries must have run across them.” A dark smile crossed her features. “Well, they will not be ferreting out any secrets to pass back to their warchief; we have seen to that and avenged our lost comrades as well!”

Xanon and the others seemed to agree with her, but Haldrissa remained silent. She thought of the fatalistic determination of the orcs as they had thrown themselves against impossible odds. Such an act was not extraordinary where orcs were concerned: they often reveled in showing their willingness to sacrifice themselves.

“But what were they sacrificing themselves for?” she murmured to herself.

“What did you say, Commander?” Denea asked.

The pain from her wound coursed through Haldrissa, forcing her to put a hand to her head. Still, the notion of what had truly happened burned deep. “Send word ahead to the outpost. Have them survey the area carefully—”

“You think there are more orcs?”

“No.” She wished she were wrong. That would help matters. They were too late, though. The attackers had done their part, giving their lives for the Horde. “No . . . by now they have slipped back through. . . .”

There had been forays by orcs in the past, but something about this particular one struck her as sinister. The Horde had never sent a party this deep in this region, and certainly not one of such size.

She would have to send word to the general as soon as possible. For months, Shandris and the high priestess had been awaiting some act by the Horde that hinted of a change in the delicate balance between the two factions. Haldrissa now believed she had witnessed that very act.

But what does this incursion augur? the wounded commander wondered anxiously.

She had no answer. Still, whatever form it would take, the one thing Haldrissa did know was that there would be much, much more blood than had been spilled this day. Much more.

“She is dying . . . my Shalasyr is dying!” the male night elf blurted to the archdruid. Jarod Shadowsong’s face was lined like no night elf’s that Malfurion had ever seen. While some of those lines had probably been the result of Jarod’s life away from his people, others were clearly more recent and likely had to do with the unmoving female so carefully held in his arms.

Jarod’s hair and beard had silvered, a stark change from how Malfurion recalled him. Jarod had been younger than Malfurion when they had first met—more than a thousand years, in fact—but the silvering and the lines made him look that much older than the archdruid. Malfurion wondered what the night elf before him had lived through since their last meeting.

“Jarod . . . ” It felt so strange to Malfurion to say the name, the two not having seen one another in nearly ten thousand years.

“It has been a long time since we last met,” the former commander and still-legendary hero from the War of the Ancients murmured, his eyes hollow. “Forgive me for coming to you like this. . . .”

Malfurion waved aside Jarod’s apology. Looking over Shalasyr, he saw how grave her condition was. “I could try to heal her, but I think it best if we bring her straight to Tyrande so that we have all options available to us! Quickly, now!”

Jarod looked hesitant to surrender any part of his hold on his companion, but at last he let the archdruid aid him. As the throng watched in absolute silence, the pair carried Shalasyr toward the temple.

The two Sentinels at the entrance moved respectfully aside as the archdruid neared. One gaped at the sight of Jarod; even with the cropped beard and long, loose mane—both utterly silvered now—there was something in his weathered face that remained absolutely recognizable to any who had seen him in the past.

“She will save you,” Malfurion heard the onetime captain murmur to the still female. “Tyrande will save you. . . . She will speak with Elune. . . .”

Malfurion hid his frown. Shalasyr felt extremely limp, and from the position by which he held her the archdruid could not tell if she breathed. She was beyond his power at this point, which only left Elune. Yet, how much would even the moon goddess do in such a drastic case?