Grim Views

The call came as a sudden pounding of a drum, first one, then two, then five then ten, echoing like thunder down the valleys of Orgrimmar. The city was under attack, and it was no single rogue grabbing the attention of the guards. The party of trolls looked at each other with grim purpose, Leyu'jin being the first to hop onto the back of his mount, summoned with a piercing whistle that turned into a shriek as the drake fell out of the sky besides his master. The troll warrior hurtled upwards then over the gates that criss-crossed the city, followed in ones and twos by the others as they headed towards the Valley of the Brave, and the throne room where Vol'jin, Warchief of the Horde, now resided.

As Leyu'jin landed, chaos broke out around him. It was indeed an Alliance raiding party, fully equipped with the most powerfully enchanted armor and weaponry, heading to assassinate the Warchief himself. Already their ranks streamed into the Warchief's fortress, casting aside like broken toys the Kor'kron guards who attempted to bar their way. As the last of them passed through the doorway, the troll warrior let out a curse that melded into a roar of battle as he charged, catching a lesser-geared shaman as she attempted to make it into the relative safety of the hold. Already others in the city were beginning to respond; no one could attack the Horde's capital and avoid the Horde's vengeance for long! Joining forces with a nearby mage, Leyu hamstrung the shaman as bolts of frost pierced through enchanted mail. Several brutal hacks of the axe finally broke the magical protection keeping the shaman from serious wounds, and another bolt of frost to the head felled the weakling draenei, freezing its mangled face to the great pillar lying just beyond the first doorway.

Rushing into the throne room, Leyu yelled into his hearthstone before his axe blurred in front of his face, just deflecting an expertly thrown bolt of crackling shadow from impacting directly on his chest. “ALL GRIM, DA ALLIANCE BE ATTACKIN' DA WARCHIEF! EVERY AVAILABLE BODY, GIT 'ERE IMMEDIATE-LIKE!” Snarling, he thrust his hearthstone back into a small pouch at his waist and grasped his lethal blade with both hands, ready for a fight. A volley of gunshots rang out and pelted and slashed his thick breastplate, and then a paladin's hammer struck him right in the ribs. A little more of a fight than he'd been expecting, frankly. That hurt. A LOT. Roaring through the pain, the warrior deflected the paladin's next strike, and slammed his axe down on the human's shoulder, a resounding clang, loud as a church bell, ringing out as the paladin's armor blunted most of the blow's force. Dis hooman be tough, the troll thought wryly, dodging another of the paladin's strikes. A simmering projectile of darkness took Leyu'jin's wits from him as a warlock came to the aid of his comrade, and the warrior's eyes opened just in time to see the next swing coming straight towards his face.

BAM. Lights exploded before Leyu's eyes as the attack struck home, the lethal assault only mitigated by the powerful enchantments imbued within the troll's helm. Groggy and seriously wounded, the troll warrior depended on all his years of battle experience to parry the next strike, then his face eased as restorative magicks coursed through him. “I gotcha, Leyu'jin,” Rujaa's coarse voice rang out, and nothing had sounded sweeter to the warrior's ears. It had all happened in a few seconds. Another draenei shaman keeled over as Lilliana Bloodshine and Ulrezaj focused their shadow magicks as one, Lilly grinning from ear to ear as the demon-goat fell to the ground. A gnome priest staggered backwards as an arrow from Xaraphyne took it through the shoulder, the hunter's face a mask of concentration as she stood on one of the throne room's ledges. In this fight, threatening the very seat of power of their people, Grim and she stood together.

The battle wasn't over, though, not by a long shot. The dwarven hunter who had first come to the aid of the human paladin, and the damned shadow priestess who had first tried to attack Leyu joined their fire against a Horde death knight, who barely had time to put up an anti-magic shield before the volley of death crashed into him. The dwarf's bullets, not impeded by the undead's runic protection, riddled him with pits and holes. The death knight staggered, then recovered as Feorn's healing rays crackled through him.

The Alliance were outnumbered but were well trained, to say the least. The human paladin who had been Leyu'jin's nemesis for the entire encounter threw up a blessing of protection on the gnome priest, then cursed in his strange foreign tongue as the troll warrior's blade bit deeply into his chest armor. Leyu'jin smiled viciously as his blade of living steel caught in the human's armor, and he barreled into the paladin, knocking him to the ground, forcing the axe deeper into his opponent's chest. The paladin's neck muscles strained with effort as he kicked upwards, first once, then twice, finally dislodging the troll as the grateful priestess healed his wounds, free temporarily from Xaraphyne's deadly volleys. But the priestess's woes were not delayed for long, as the paladin's blessing dissipated and a double fusillade of gunfire and arrow ripped the little gnome to shreds. She fell, reaching her little hand out in desperation attempting to cast one last heal before falling silent. Standing in the keep's second doorway, the Forsaken, Quezt, emotionlessly swung her rifle to settle on her next target.

Without healing support, the paladin could not last long against Leyu'jin's furious assault. Each axe blow parried was followed by two more which slashed at the paladin's neck and chest, until finally with one mighty roar Leyu brought his axe down in an overhand strike which the paladin only managed to stop with his hammer held high above his head, taking him to one knee. But the wily troll had been expecting that, and his foot lashed out, taking the human straight on the breastplate and knocking him to the ground. Whirling his axe with a victorious grin flashing across his weathered features, Leyu'jin's blade fell like an executioner's guillotine. The human's head separated from its shoulders and rolled across the throne room's floor.

The raiding party was down to its last few survivors, who fought bravely but futilely against the Horde onslaught. A gnome warlock sacrificed his pet to gain a few more seconds of existence before succumbing to Ulrezaj's shadow weaving. Grinning wickedly, the Sandfury Soul Eater chose his next prey, the dwarf hunter who had remained alive up until now. A troll rogue's blades aided the warlock in sending the dwarf to his makers. Lilliana, her face a picture of delight, had not been idle herself, delicately playing with her human warrior toy, first making him dance in pain with shadowy tendrils, then making him run through the room with psychic nightmares. The warrior bellowed, his rage breaking the fear's effects on his mind, only for one last blast of shadow energy to impact against his back, dropping him to the floor. As the last Alliance fell, the sounds of battle faded to nothing.

((nice))