“Fight On the Flag, Damn You!”

or, A Ha’penny Tour of Low-Level Battlegrounds, Episode 1.

They sent us in to demoralize the Horde, ten rag-tag conscripts fresh off the press gang’s wagon. Our goal, they told us, was to force our way inside the Warsong Lumber Mill, tear down that ugly old rag of cloth they nailed up in lieu of a real flag, and bring it back so we could burn it. I thought the whole idea was a bit silly, but that long-eared slavedriver in charge of our unit insists it will work. I guess that’s why they pay her the big doubloons.

We gathered up in the atrium of Silverwing Hold, a dog-eared old pile of Elvish rock that smells of moss and damp earth and springtime rain, at least it does when it’s not filled up with unwashed ’cruits or the bodies of dead Orcs. After a couple of minutes, I decided we could of just skipped the whole flag business and just let the Horde listen to the inane blather that passes for conversation among us greenhorns. The way some of those hunters talk, they could scorch the fur right off a Tauren. Remembering our tour of the Stormwind Stockades, however, I decided to keep my revolutionary strategic notions to myself.

At the appointed time, and us all fortified with a stiff mug of Cap’n Rumsey’s finest Black Label fighting rum, they blew the horns until we were deaf, near enough, and we careened out through the gatehouse and into the battered gulch that divides the Hold from the Orcs’ lumber mill. We ran together in silence for a while, having little to say and our ears still ringing, but it soon became clear that while our general goal was fairly clear, the specifics of how we were supposed to accomplish it were a bit more fuzzy.

Spotting a knot of Horde fighters across the field, two hunters and a rogue peeled off from the group and charged toward them. I considered helping them out, but decided that killing those poor bastards wasn’t gonna get us any closer to bringing home their flag, and being as I could have about killed for a hot bath, I wasn’t eager to prolong the mission. I slipped into the shadows and skirted the looming stump of an old tree, and crept up the hill toward the lumber mill’s sluice tunnel. Maybe I heard the sounds of a hunter being torn limb-from-limb by a feral Druid, and maybe I didn’t. I try not to dwell on these things when I’m on a job.

Finding the tunnel’s entrance unguarded, I slipped inside. I looked around, but it seemed like I was pretty much on my own. I took a couple of deep breaths to steady my heart, and crept up the tunnel as swiftly as I could without making any undue noise. Master Shaw himself would have been proud.

At length, I came to the end of the tunnel where it opened up into a broad storage yard, open to the sky. The floor was done up in some pretty fine flagstones, better work than I’d expect from your Orc type of builder, but I guess Thrall couldn’t ha’ been the only one of them with brains, or they’d of died out ages ago. The framing weren’t much to write home about, but it was serviceable, and plenty of handholds for climbing. I scooted around in the shadows, and found there were no guards. And there, hanging on a rough-cut wooden staff against the back wall, was the flag.

Ordinarily I’d leave this kind of work to someone more suitable. Specifically, a big male somebody with a bunch of heavy armor and a shield. I’m no helpless girly-girl, and I can hold my own in a brawl or a drinkin’ bout, but my forte is sapping from the shadows, not holding off a half-a-dozen angry bullfaces with murder in their eyes. Still, needs must, as mum used to say, so I scooped it up and lit out down the tunnel again.

No sooner had I done this when there was a heart-stopping cacophony of horns. My heart about jumped out of my chest, and I burst into a dead run as fast as my legs would go. The flag was bigger than it looked, and weighed more too; no way was I going to be able to hide with that thing on my back. Still, I burst out from the end of the tunnel into open air, so far unmolested. There was a battle royale going on about halfway up the gulch, but it didn’t seem to have much to do with me, so I skirted west along the lumber mill’s outbuildings, and jogged up the hill toward the Hold. Another day, another gold. I could practically feel the hot, soapy water in my hair already.

Well, at about this point, some bright bulb among the Horde’s defenders must have seen that flag. No wonder, the thing’s bright bloody red. With a loud bellow, a Tauren holy warrior half the size of a freight barge and three times as angry came barging across the veldt toward me, with a scattering of hunters, feral cats, and who knows what-all else in tow. My fellow conscripts were in varying degrees of torn up and shot full of arrows, but even they couldn’t resist a fair crack at a giant cow with a glowing yellow aura. I got a little flak about the head and shoulders from the hunters, but I’m quick on my feet and I always carry a stash of finest-kind healing potion packed amid my bosom when I’m on a job, so I made it to the relative safety of the Silverwing Hold postern before the rest could finish the job.

Around this time, the trumpets sounded from the Hold, and my eyes widened as a Goblin in light leather came sprinting hell-bent-for-leather down the tunnel towards me, and you could see he’d stolen the Silverwing Hold flag! Well, I may not know military strategy, but I sure know what to do about Goblins. I yanked out my knives and dove in front of him, gouging a pretty fair mark across his forehead and leaving him stunned. I slipped behind him, gave him the old main gauche behind the ear, and eviscerated him in one clean motion. It’s not pretty, but you do what you gotta do. I yanked the flag off his corpse, and dragged the whole lot back up into the atrium.

I guess I have to give credit to old Long-Ears Farsong, because this apparently really got the Horde wound up. Not two minutes later, the whole bally bunch of them came pounding ass-over-teakettle into the Silverwing atrium, ripped down both flags from their place of honor, and tore out of there like a winter hurricane. I was cleaning the Goblin blood off my knives when it happened, and I was laid out so fast I didn’t even see it coming.

Well, long story short, it wasn’t too long ’fore the Horde had put their flag back up in the Warsong Lumber Mill, and ours with it. Our crew had made some desultory attempts to stop them, but it takes more than a couple of arrows to stop a full-blown holy cow in a rage. So there we were, back where we started, and I had to go cry to the spirit healer to knit me back up. No bath, no pay, and the battle goes on.

Now, it was at about this point that the liquor started to kick in, and some of the conscript boys started in arguing with each other about whose fault it was we lost the flag. Me, I’d call a mad cow like that a force of nature, but some folks are never content. A certain species of rather bitter, filthy, and ungrammatical dialectic followed, the upshot of which was to impugn each others’ fighting abilities, judgement, parentage, and maternal profession. Much as I like a good to-do, I stayed out of that one. After all, we still had a mission to complete, and like it or not, arguing weren’t going to get us any closer to it.

Still, they went on in this vein for some time. They chased each other around the Gulch, calling out insults and complaining about the general unfairness of the Universe. Say what you like about the Horde, they didn’t pass up this opportunity to give a little payback. I spent the rest of the battle fruitlessly trying to get back into a now well-defended lumber mill, while the rest of the recruits got some stretcher time being carted back to the spirit healer. That spirit healer really earned his keep that afternoon, I tell you. Poor guy must have been pretty worn out from our shenanigans.

In the end, Long-Ears called in a retreat, which is a polite word for “rout”, and we dragged our filthy and broken selves back behind the gates. No flag, mission incomplete. I’ll tell you this for nothing: I may not have thought the whole flag-stealing idea was very good in the first place, but if that’s what they’re paying for, that’s what they get. Ain’t nothing much that’s more demoralizing than suffering defeat at the hands of a jeering Horde for no better reason than we couldn’t stop effing at each other like a bunch of spoiled brats.

I tell you, though, next time I see him, I’m gonna cut that damned cow into rump roast, mark my words.