Anduin Lothar stood atop the jagged ridge, a lonely sentinel on this damned stone raft adrift in a green ocean of madness.
He surveyed the bunkers—hastily cobbled together forts made of desperation and whatever bricks hadn't been stolen by rats or incompetent masons. They clung to the mountain like scabs. Lothar didn't trust them. Not really. Maybe they'd stop a stiff breeze. Maybe.
"We've secured a month's rations, 150,000 arrows, a thousand spare suits of armor..." the logistics officer droned on, as if they were reading from a grocery list instead of preparing for a meat grinder.
Lothar grunted. "Hope the orcs are allergic to bureaucracy."
If only the gods would turn off the celestial faucet and give them dry roads. But no—Mother Nature was in her feral toddler phase, and the rain kept hammering like it was trying to beat Elwynn Forest into submission.
April 3 arrived, dragging doom behind it like a corpse on a chain.
The nobles had arrived in force, puffed up like peacocks wearing polished steel and half-baked bravery. There were dukes, marquises, earls—and more lesser lords than a tax ledger. Some came for honor. Some were dragged here by family pride. And others just wanted to look heroic while doing absolutely nothing useful.
At first, it was faint—the sounds of the enemy. Distant drums and snarls, like a war god clearing its throat in the morning fog. Then, the green tide crested the opposing peak.
It was not an army. It was an avalanche.
The orcs roared with a hatred that shook the mountains. Their war drums thundered with the beat of apocalypse. The sound didn't just travel—it invaded, like a fever through the ears. Nobles flinched. Some vomited. One fainted outright, the poor bastard.
A rolling tsunami of muscle, steel, and unfiltered rage spilled over the mountain. Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? Who could count when the green ocean filled every damn corner of the horizon?
The nobles gawked. Their stiff upper lips quivered. The sea of orcs overflowed their understanding of war. The flags they bore—hideous patchworks of skulls, fangs, blood, and artistic incompetence—flapped like an insult to heraldry.
Lothar, through his spyglass, tried to track the banners. He got to the third one before realizing it looked like a goat being murdered by a squiggle. He gave up.
Down below, the valley was within arrow range. That was the plan, at least. Arrows darkened the sky, a deadly hailstorm loosed by the bunkers.
They hit. Oh yes, they hit.
And it didn't matter.
An orc took twenty arrows—shoulder, chest, one in the face—and didn't even flinch. He yanked them out like thorns and hurled them aside with a snarl. His face was a horror story: one eye gone, his skin torn like cheap cloth, blood pouring in gallons.
Then he picked up a war hammer the size of a cow and smashed the bunker wall like it owed him money.
He dragged a screaming soldier out, ripped him in half, and laughed as the poor wretch's upper half tried to crawl away.
The nobles screamed. Some wept. Others tried to pretend it didn't happen. Lothar just stared.
Every defense they had built crumbled like pastry under a giant's foot.
Falling rocks? One orc uppercutted a boulder into powder.
A soldier stood stunned. In that blink, the orc climbed the slope like a demonic goat, grabbed the man's head, yanked him over the wall, and tossed him off the cliff.
Another orc cleaved the airborne soldier in half as he fell.
The orcs laughed. Monsters laughed.
Lothar's hands shook. His voice was a whisper, but it echoed like a thunderclap in the bunker:
It was the only choice. Stay, and every man would be mulch.
But retreat? Retreat was no joke. If it turned into a rout, only a tenth might make it back to Stormwind. Maybe.
All eyes turned to Lothar. The nobles didn't speak, but their eyes screamed: Fix it.
He clenched his jaw until it cracked.
"The ones left behind are the Griffin Legion."
A silence fell like a guillotine.
Blue banners with golden edges. A golden griffin with swords in its claws. The pride of Stormwind. The oldest, toughest bastards in the realm.
Born from the original guard of the first king. Veterans of troll wars. Heroes who cleared Elwynn when it was still a jungle of monsters.
And now, they would die. Not for glory. Not even for victory. But to buy time for the others to run.
Lothar felt it in his bones. No one would survive. No tales would be sung. The Griffin Legion would vanish in a red canyon, their bones buried under the weight of orcish hate.
Because no matter how brave, how skilled, how disciplined—they were human. And the monsters coming for them weren't.
They were fury. They were war incarnate.
And they would not stop.