by Milton Garby
To say nothing of Talgath himself. Sara had to admit, just the thought of him being here made her guts tighten with worry. He was strong. One of the most powerful eredar. She was strong, and she wasn't the only one here, but could they even beat him?
...
... no, that was absurd. Of course they could. They were going to win. This was the battle where everything turned around.
Potions were handed out, and Sara attached a few of them to her waist. Then fish fillets, perfectly cooked and seasoned with northern spices, were distributed to eat, filling Sara's stomach. And lastly, flasks of all kinds were divided among all soldiers. Sara's was a smooth vial filled with orange fluid, surprisingly warm to the touch, like concentrated sun.
"Power up!" someone shouted. She glanced around; flashes of magic radiated around the melee soldiers, the sharp shooters, and made their way down the line of casters towards her. This time, Sara was ready. She steeled herself as a series of nature, holy, and even elemental power surrounded her. After the momentary pain and discomfort, she relished in the power running through her veins.
Orders were being shouted. She didn't need to pay much attention to understand what her purpose here was. Kill everything that tried to get in the city.
Her flask, she'd save until demons showed up. Sara knelt behind the raised metal barrier and ran a hand along its stainless steel surface. It was cold, like snow. Her legs burned, but she didn't need to move around anymore. There were no demons yet, but she was as prepared as possible. All she could do now was take deep, calming breaths to steady her nerves until the enemy arrived.
Sara was ready to defend Stormwind City.
Sara
Some of the books Sara read described the wait before a great battle as being worse than the actual battle. Granted the battles themselves just looked exciting instead of horrible, but she understood the idea.
But even now, crouched behind a metal barrier with hundreds of other ranged defenders by her side, Sara still didn't agree.
Her eyes were trained on the gates, and excited energy bubbled in her chest. It was the same feeling she got when she was a kid, going to the park. It was the same feeling she got when she saw an animal to play with. It was the eagerness, the anticipation, of getting to hurt someone. And nobody was going to look down on her for it.
It took hours for the first appearance. There wasn't any needling attack. Instead, the first things to appear were floating embers of green. Eyes of Kilrogg, scouts.
They were too far for her to shoot them with any degree of accuracy, though apparently that didn't stop some of the marksmen from trying. And to their credit, a few of the dozen eyes burst into cinders. The scouts retreated after they got a good look at their defenses, and then the waiting began again.
BOOM!
Sara blinked at a flash of fire outside the gates. A moment later there was another explosion, and then another.
Apparently someone had planted mines outside the gates. But who was triggering them?
A few explosions later, she saw who. Among the empowerments placed on her was a spell to detect invisibility. The group of a dozen succubi must've thought they were being sooo clever, weaving their way between the metal barricades under cover of magic. At least until they were riddled with spells, arrows, and bullets and dropped dead.
Sara hadn't launched anything at them, but her hands did start to drip with foul magic. Soon, she assured herself, downing the warm, tasteless flask. So very, very soon.
Then from her side there was a cacophony of wood and metal colliding against each other. Streaks of silver and orbs of black sailed over Sara's head, nearly too fast to keep track of, and landed outside the gates. The catapults and ballistae noisily reloaded and, just as noisily, fired again. And again. And again, at an enemy so far away Sara couldn't even see it yet.
But the smoke clouds were a lot closer than they were hours ago.
She tensed, baring her teeth. Come on, she thought. Just come a little closer...
As if summoned by her thoughts, the Burning Legion appeared.
They didn't start off slow. They didn't send in weak groups and ramp it up, letting them get used to the increasing assault. The Legion's full force came down on them seemingly all at once.
Doomguards took to the air and flanked around them, falling by the dozens to arrows and spells. Felguards charged forward with their axes ready, and to Sara's horror she saw shivarra behind each line, waving their six arms to conjure forth frantic defensive spells. Gan'arg hung out in the back, placing down fel cannons to slowly advance the Legion's territory. Wrathguards slammed the ground and sent forth a wave of flame to clear aside barricades. The clouds went from gray to black, and far behind the demon lines Sara saw streaks of toxic green fly into the sky, and the city behind her thundered as the meteors fell.
But they were holding.
Streams of projectiles shot from the city windows at all angles. Sara's own magic boiled within her, up her arms, and out in the form of jagged purple lightning, second after second. Along her attacks were fireballs, shadow bolts, frost bolts, poison tipped arrows, arcane missiles, the wrath of nature, balls of lava, beams of mind-flaying darkness, and everything in between. The gan'arg at the entrance finished setting up their fel cannons and advanced, only for the cauldrons atop the city gates to plummet. Burning oil, goblin bombs and more burst out from them, forming a crater in the demons' ranks. More importantly, it destroyed the gan'arg and their creations before they could take a single shot.
The demons kept coming.
The metal barricades were slowing them down, but they were easy for the supernaturally strong demons to shove aside. Hunter traps flew out into the middle of their ranks, laying down ice, fire, or even summoning venomous snakes to bite and tear. Concussive spells blasted into their ranks and sent demons flying off the bridge into the water below, which came alive as frenzy fish devoured their prey. The light around Sara's hands grew in intensity, from Old God purple to death green, and every spell felt like razor blades scraping along her bones. But the pain didn't matter, because each psychosis blast was one or even two demons sent back to the nether.
The statues creaked and tumbled in slow motion. The demons didn't look up in comic horror as they were crushed. Instead they dove out of the way, sometimes shoving their companions into the bloody waters below. Shivarra and dreadlords shoved the rubble aside with spell and strength. Magic attacks were returned afterwards. Laughing skulls of darkness, shifting rivers of flame, chaotic green dragon heads and more snaked their way up from the advancing demons towards the windows.
Sara couldn't care less what the Legion threw at them since she was invulnerable. Others had to duck below the barricade, or cleanse undodgeable curses, or put out the fires erupting around them, but she could stay up and keep blasting with impunity, especially as the complex network of beneficial spells restored her mana faster than even she could expend it. But then the first eredar appeared.
The men were shirtless and the women nearly so. Their skin varied in tones of gray and flame, but all of them wore elaborate jewelry, all of their eyes burned, and all of seven of them raised their hands as one and formed a single colossal orb of darkness above them.
"Oh shit," Sara muttered, aiming a malady of the mind at them. The black and green skull flew through the air unopposed and hit an eredar woman right in the head. She grunted, but didn't go running off screaming. That was fine, in a moment it would split to two...
... it only jumped to one of the eredar. That glyph was a dud.
She didn't have more time to ponder it, because then the spell was complete. Even worse, it wasn't offensive.
The black orb ballooned outwards in the form of dense fog, washing over the bridge and spilling over into the water. The felguards vanished. The swarming imps vanished, everything was swallowed up in an impenetrable miasma that extended all the way to the melee soldiers. Clever plan. They all kept firing blindly into the darkness, but Sara knew what was a
bout to happen.
The soldiers did too. They raised their shields and readied their spears, and then the felguards burst from the darkness. Bolts of fire and shadow flew from the fog. The soldiers fought back, stabbing and blocking while covering fire descended upon the demons and healing spells mended their wounds.
"Areas!" someone called. "Close and back up!"
There was a lull in the casting as everyone prepared, including Sara.
Then hell broke loose on the bridge.
Lightning blasted down from the dark clouds. Pillars of flame exploded from beneath and blew away the clouds. Seeds of corruption detonated with blinding darkness. Fire and ice rained from the heavens. Sara's contribution was to create an orb of concentrated death magic and send it to hover halfway across the moat. The shimmering sphere of mist did nothing for a moment, but then it unleashed four beams of emerald lightning at the front of the demons' advance.
The area spells - and her death rays - began to advance backwards, sweeping up the demons as they went. Some got through, leaping over fiery cracks and dodging between hurricane strikes, but they were always swept up by some sharpshooter. Eventually, the call came:
"Stop areas!"
And they stopped. Just as well, Sara's death rays ran out of magic just then and she resumed launching maladies and psychosis rays at the desperately advancing demons.
Then the fel cannons, built up at the gate under cover of darkness, fired.
Sara didn't think much of fel cannons. Dozens of them hadn't stopped their charge in Hilsbrad. The ones in Grim Batol couldn't land a scratch on her. Her experience with them just painted them as utterly unimpressive. It was an assumption she was quickly disabused of.
Thunder crashed in her ears as the fel fireballs flew through the window. Greasy flame with toxic smoke spread like wildfire across a small patch of floor and quickly stopped. Mages and shamans broke away from their onslaught to try and put it out, but water could only do so much for demonfire. Even behind her shield Sara's nose was treated to the smell of rotten eggs. Half of the metal barriers, unhinged by the shock waves, fell into the waters below, taking with them anyone unfortunate enough to be holding on at the time.
Then the second volley came.
"Oh come on!" she shouted as the others around her fell, and redoubled her efforts. She summoned another death orb and this time she made sure to aim it at the cannons and their builders. But it was too late. The ranged attackers around her had mostly fallen to the cannons' inexplicable power, and now the demons' armies were free to engage the front lines.
Then a brick fell on her shield.
Sara glanced up and nearly shouted in disbelief. A doomguard. On the ceiling. Using his barbed sword to break the ceiling. Then she jerked herself backwards because the spreading felfire had eaten away the wooden floor beneath her feet, leaving only stone. Then she changed her aim and blasted the intrusive demon to kingdom come. The few ranged allies still in sight of her noticed, and then they were screaming because the felflames spread to them. Then they jumped out into the water. Then the frenzy fish ate them.
Three more bricks fell, and a doomguard landed in the room dramatically. His wings flared out and blew away the green fire. He looked down for a moment, bracing himself, then looked up at Sara and snarled at her with his ugly demon face. Since he was so close, she had excellent aim. Her psychosis ray got him right in the head, and not only did he burst into a puff of purple smoke, but when he reformed in the nether his grip on sanity would be just a bit more unsteady.
The next doomguard fell, and then the next and the next and the next. Sara couldn't help the armies down below anymore because the ceiling was gone, flying demons were coming with impunity, and Sara couldn't do anything but fend them off, or adjust her footing as the fel cannons continued to blast the land she stood on. Finally, when her foot slipped too close to the edge, she gave up. There was nothing to be accomplished here. Sara crossed both arms near her chest, gathered her power, then threw her arms back and unleashes a shadow nova. The darkness ate up the felflames and destroyed the demons, but more were going to come. But they wouldn't find her.
She was going to the front lines.
The stairs were gone, replaced by a slope of charred bricks that she slid down. Deafening thuds shook the world around her, threatening to send Sara to the ground with each barrage, but she got to ground level in no time. She circled around to the front lines just in time to get the privilege of watching them crumble.
Bodies littered the ground, bleeding and dead. Some were burned. Some just had the life stricken from them by shadow magic. But all of the spear-and-shield wielders, all the shooters, all their healers, and presumably all the operators of the heavy weapons up top, were dead. She was practically walking across a floor of corpses, and got to stare straight down the barrel of the Legion.
Just like in Grim Batol.
And hey! If everyone was dead? She wouldn't need to worry about friendly fire anymore.
Sara roared and sent a cresting wave of darkness over the demons, blasting them back and buying herself some breathing room. She sent a malady in to ricochet among their ranks. They were so tightly grouped she'd be amazed if it ever stopped bouncing. Then she held up her left hand and began unleashing her magic.
There were so many demons of all types, nearly tripping over themselves to get at her, that Sara couldn't possibly miss. Psychosis spells to deal with the felguards, wrathguards, and shivarra, and thanks to her glyph the dark lightning splintered off to strike two or three more enemies. Shadow novas to dispatch the swarms of imps, or just whenever the Legion got too close. Death rays blasted at the army from overhead, scything across their ranks. Some doomguards and terrorguards were still trying to fly past her, but brain links to distant enemies would tear their minds apart before they could do anything about it. Axes thunked off her barrier. Curses slid off it. Firebolts pelted against it like rain. Sara blasted and blasted, but there were always more. So many more.
Time to break out the new stuff, she thought. Extending her left hand, she sent a wave of raw magic forward, clearing out a section of the bridge. It'd take a while for the demons to approach again, which gave her plenty of time to set up the newest spell in her arsenal. Magic condensed and formed into a matrix, and then she shot the small orb at the bridge. It impacted and rose atop a river of everflowing shadows, taking the form of a cackling, maniacal lunatic skull.
It did nothing to Sara, but the demons' reactions were immediate. The approaching line of wrathguards roared and swung their axes blindly, sending waves of fire towards her and the skull, but her shield was impenetrable and the skull was little more than a construct of magic and madness. The demons looking anywhere near the lunatic skull screamed and frothed at the mouth and, eventually, went still and blew away into the wind.
The advancing waves pushed Sara back, and she bumped into a wall.
More, she thought. I need more!
The effect'd be stronger if it was centered on herself. She clenched her fists and summoned the same corrosive, sanity-eating effect on herself. Rows upon rows of demons screamed and turned to vapor or, in the case of the more sturdy shivarra and terrorguards, they turned on their fellow demons and sliced them apart with their many blades before being felled.
After a few seconds, Sara couldn't sustain the effect anymore and returned to her standard rotation of spells, pushing more and more magic through her veins to force the Legion back, so much magic that the corners of her vision were tinted with orange light.
She stepped forward.
Another lunatic skull appeared across from the first, adding to its effect.
Sara's breaths came in heaving pants. Every drop of her mana was precious, but there were so many demons that even conserving as much as she could, tailoring her spells to be no stronger than they needed to be, she found herself running out alarmingly fast. And then the dreadlords and eredar made their reappearance.
It was one each. The dreadlord's armo
r and wings were putrid green, and the eredar man's skin was the color of ash. The dreadlord waved a hand and a blast of carrion magic washed over her shield. The eredar, ignoring the lesser demons teeming around him, held out a hand for the nathrezim to stop. Then with a flash of arcane light, the eredar dispelled her shield.
Sara's eyes went wide in horror and she jerked herself to the side. Not a moment too soon, as an observer's red eye beam sliced through the location her head had been just a moment ago. Something thin and gray, moving too fast for her eyes to track, darted to her in an instant. Pain blossomed along her right leg, and even as she resummoned her shield she looked down and wrenched the arrow out of her thigh.
Then she snarled and conjured a death orb. "Come on!" she growled, directing all four of its rays at the eredar. His fire spell was interrupted catastrophically, sending those around him flying off into the infested waters. A third lunatic skull, a few directed blasts of psychosis and one or two lucky bounces from mind maladies dealt with the dreadlord.
Sara sent another blast of shadow magic forward and limped with it to gain ground. At the same time her right hand fished out a health potion and raised it to her lips. It tasted no better than a mana potion, but she chugged it and felt the bloody hole in her leg seal up. Then, as an afterthought, another mana potion to keep her going.
A squadron of felhounds approached, their bestial forms tapping across the ground, snarling and biting. The closest one extended its antennae at her... and her shield vanished again. The demon burped.
Oh come on! She unstrapped her staff from her back and, as the closest felhound leaped at her, swung the head at it with all her might. Sara wasn't particularly strong, but training in Ironforge had granted her some muscle. The felhound yelped and flew off the bridge. Sara's muscles ached under the force, but she swung again, and then again, all while frantically dodging and resummoning her shield as fast as the felhounds ate it. She was forced back to the entrance to Stormwind, but finally the felhounds were dealt with. Then she resumed her normal spells and pushed forward.