if the horn stirred the post for the wrong reasons, at least she saw that it served its other purpose. The lead scout glanced over her shoulder, saw Denea gesturing, and had the party turn about.
“Praise Elune . . . ” Haldrissa moved forward to meet the descending hippogryphs. She had a few instructions to pass on to the scouts before hurrying to write out the new messages to Darnassus.
A cry above made her stumble. Near her, Denea let loose with an oath.
One of the scouts dropped limply from her mount, plunging to the ground as the other night elves stared in horror.
The fletchings of two arrows thrust up over her back as she landed. Haldrissa had fought too many battles not to recognize the Horde markings.
The sky was suddenly filled with arrows. At first the commander thought that the archers had miscalculated the distance, for the bolts flew too high to properly descend upon the Sentinels below.
Only when one of the other scouts and her mount were struck several times did Haldrissa see the terrible logic: it was not the encampment that was the immediate target; it was the scouts.
The Horde was already prepared for her plan.
As the arrows brought down the second scout, other shouts arose ahead. Haldrissa saw several warriors pointing to the east.
Smoke rose from two other locations. She did not have to guess its origins. Two of the outposts lay in those directions.
“Sentinels, form ranks!” Denea cried out. “Prepare for imminent attack!”
As Sentinels—including blue-armored huntresses with shields and glaives—raced to obey, Haldrissa stirred in frustration. Those were orders she should have given. She eyed the forest beyond, wondering how the Horde had gotten so near in such numbers. They had clearly made several forays into the area to have such an excellent understanding of their surroundings.
But she also knew the terrain well. “Denea! Twenty to the southeast edge of the post! They will have to come from there! I want a mounted force of huntresses with shields and lances readied!” With the Horde presence in Ashenvale having grown over the past months, General Shandris had decided to include lancers—a seldom-utilized aspect of the night elf armies since the end of the War of the Ancients—in the Sentinels’ arsenal of weapons. “Get the other—”
A hippogryph’s squawk cut her off. Another of the winged creatures dropped. Her rider, a shaft through her arm, managed to jump off before the creature hit.
The last of the scouts managed to land. However, even the ground proved no sanctuary. More arrows flew, these designed to target those within the encampment and, Haldrissa saw, especially the area where the hippogryphs were kept. Worse, the landing scouts had given the archers a fairly good notion of just where that was.
Someone among the attackers had planned very, very well.
“Get the hippogryphs to cover!” Haldrissa ordered. She drew her glaive. There was still no sign of the invaders themselves, but that would surely change in moments. Haldrissa had to use what little time remained to her advantage.
Her gaze fell upon Kara’din, who ran from wounded fighter to wounded fighter, using his druidic powers to heal them as best he could. The commander chose to leave Kara’din to his own devices for the moment as additional concerns occurred to her.
“Archers, form ranks!” She saw that some had already begun to, but as a whole they were not moving as quickly as Haldrissa would have hoped. “Northeast, east, southeast! Twenty paces from the gate!”
Of necessity, the main post was surrounded by high wooden walls. When it was being built, the trees sacrificed had been honored as if they were fellow warriors. Haldrissa now prayed that the trees had retained their great prowess even in death. She suspected that the Sentinels would need it.
Guards on the wall crouched low as they surveyed the forest beyond. Thus far, they had given no sign of sighting the enemy, although a few moved about as if momentarily believing that they had.
The deadly whistle of another rain of arrows filled Haldrissa’s ears. Denea shouted a warning to the gathering huntresses to quickly raise their shields.
Arrows clattered against the shields. Unfortunately, some of the huntresses did not move fast enough. Screams rose as at least three of them fell with shafts sticking in them and others struggled with wounds. Haldrissa looked for her own archers and was grateful to see them ready to return fire.
Arrows nocked, the archers awaited the word. The commander gave it to them without hesitation.
Now the whistling became a