front leg, Windstorm was yet a tremendous threat. The orcs could not get past his sharp beak. His body blocked them from reaching Aradria.
The night elf used his timely entrance to beat back her other two adversaries. She then took a quick look at the hippogryph, trying to estimate his condition. Windstorm could not fly—that was clear from his one badly drooping wing—but perhaps he could still carry her from the struggle.
First, though, she needed the pouch.
“Windstorm!” As the hippogryph responded, Aradria gestured at the orc with the stolen prize.
The huge beast might not be able to fly, but he could leap very well. Using his talons, he scattered the two orcs near him, then turned and made a tremendous jump over Aradria.
The other orcs backed away at his landing. Windstorm ignored the one without the pouch. The hippogryph snapped at the key warrior, but that orc refused to give up the pouch even in the face of such a threat. At the same time Aradria moved up, hoping to attack the orc while he was distracted by Windstorm.
Windstorm thrust his head forward, his beak opened wide.
A spear caught the hippogryph in the side of the chest. Windstorm let out a startled cry and teetered. In doing so, he collided with his rider, bowling her over.
The world spun as Aradria rolled. A horrific pain shot through her chest. She almost blacked out.
A nerve-wrenching keening cut briefly through the agony. Aradria heard a moist thwacking sound, then Windstorm’s shriek. A moment later the ground shook as something heavy and limp crashed next to her.
The pain consumed her . . . until finally there was nothing left.
One of the orcs with whom Aradria had been battling started to lean over the night elf’s still form. Blood seeped from a deep wound near the courier’s left lung, where one of the curved blades from her glaive had pierced her during her roll.
“Why bother?” another orc questioned. “The wound’s deep. She can’t be alive.”
“If she is,” rumbled a deeper voice, “she deserves a warrior’s death for such determination against impossible odds.”
A shadow passed the second orc, the shadow of a much brawnier warrior than he. One hand—brown rather than green—gripped an axe more suited for two hands in combat. The sharply curved axe head was massive, well worn, and permanently stained with old blood. One of its most distinctive features was the many small holes in the head near the handle.
Other orcs gathered in the area, their numbers totaling just over a dozen. Three bore injuries that indicated a previous encounter with the hippogryph.
The warrior who had retrieved the pouch presented it to the leader.
“I saw no breathing. She is dead. This was what she fought so hard for, great warchief. . . .”
The leader hooked the huge axe on his back, then took the pouch. Because he was a Mag’har orc, his skin was brown, not green. His jaw was broader than that of most orcs, and from it jutted a pair of thick tusks with points as sharp as daggers. Unlike the others in the party, he was bald. He wore shoulder armor fashioned in part from the skull of a huge predator that he himself had slain, and over each shoulder had also been set a massive, curved tusk. The last was in homage to his father, Grom, for they were those of the pit lord Mannoroth, the great demon his sire had slain. By killing Mannoroth, Grom had freed his people from the fiend’s blood-curse, which had made them servants of the monstrous Burning Legion.
Tearing open the small pouch with ease, he read the message. A single, satisfied grunt was his only initial reaction.
“The spirits have guided us. We were where we needed to be to catch this prey.” He crammed the parchment into a pouch at his belt. “Destiny is with us. All falls into place. The night elves react exactly as I said they would.”
“Garrosh Hellscream knows all!” declared the orc who had handed him the pouch. “He guides his enemies to their doom and laughs at their feeble attempts to keep their necks from his mighty axe, Gorehowl!”
“Gorehowl will taste much night elf blood soon. The Horde’s glory is eternal,” Garrosh replied, his tone filled with rising anticipation. “This is our land now. . . . ” He looked around. “So much timber. So much untouched ore. The Alliance was foolish not to use its bounty. We—we will build a city here to rival even Orgrimmar.”
The other