Cap Three and Hold

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Basin.

My eyes are dazzled by sunlight, I got a nasty crick in my neck, and I’m fair certain my leg is broken. I guess I should be happy it ain’t raining, at least.

I’ve been here for what feels like hours, and I’m about dead of thirst. The sound of the freshet rushing over the rocks into the basin below me is maddeningly appealing, but I can’t get there nohow, so I’ll have to make do with the little sweet mist the wind blows over. Smells better’n anything else out here right now. If I look a little to the right—which is painful, but just possible—I can just make out the bloody pommel of my knife, lying in the grass next to that ugly eyesore of a banner the Horde drove in to taunt me. Can’t reach it, though. The taunt is working.

I grope around a bit with the hand that ain’t pinned under a pile of dead Trolls to find my insignia, but it’s gone. The bastards must have taken it when they blew out of here, howling and grunting in what passes for a language to them Orcish types as they rode away across the old rat-trap bridge toward the lumber mill. Lok’tar ogar my sweet ass. I can hear a couple of our boys shouting something about holding what we got, but it don’t look like we got much from where I’m at. Guess I’ll just have to wait it out and see. Least I still got a bitty flask of liquid courage to keep me warm.

I see from the look on your face, though, that I’m gettin’ ahead of myself. Let me back up a bit.

“Now listen up, you raggedy bunch of good-for-nothing cabbage-eating farmhands!” The Sergeant was in fine form this morning, stalking up and down the ranks and puttin’ a point on her words by thumping each of us on the chest with her big black baton. “The filthy Horde are threatening our supply lines in this valley. The Major put in to Stormwind for some reinforcements.  Some fighters. Some people what gets shit done.” She reached the end of the row and spun around on the toe of her armored boot and glowered at us. “But now I guess there ain’t none of those here, so we gotta make do with you lot.” Someone in the back choked back a laugh, and I had to take a deep breath and lock my jaw to keep from doing the same. She just stalked slowly back down the line.

“Now I need a volunteer,” she snapped. Her arm darted between a skinny pair of unkempt Frost mages in the front row, and hauled the offender—a tall blond-headed Hunter with a big hairy spider for a pet—out front by his ear. “You,” she barked, “you’ll do fine.” I tried to hold back my smirk at his nervous swallow, but she must of seen it, cause she stalked right over to me, stuck her nose in my face, and snarled, “And you, missy, you can help him.” Now it was my turn to gulp, but I stepped forward smartly to forestall the ear treatment.

“You two geniuses are gonna lead a strike force down the north edge of the Basin, and take control of the old Marris Farm from that lying bunch of scheming, thieving, no-good walking corpses,” Sarge announced. “The rest of you lot will divide into two companies to take and hold our strong points.” She held up a gloved hand, counting off on her fingers. “Company A will establish a base camp at the army stables, then seize and secure control of the lumber mill to the south. Company B, meanwhile, will take control of the abandoned gold mine to the east. Understood?”

So, that’s how it all started.

Things went pretty smooth, at first. There was me and this Hunter, whose name was some kind of unpronounceable mouthful in Stranglethorn dialect that sounded like Pony-something. Whatever. We led our crack strike force down the old south wagon-road, to avoid having to tangle with the bridge on the north side of the old farm. It’s like Master Shaw used to say, though, ain’t no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy—and today was no exception. We rode hard in the shelter of the steep cliffs below the old lumber mill on our right, but by the time we had crossed the fences into the outer pastures, there was already a pretty mean bunch of Horde guarding the farmhouse.

I slipped into the shadows, and went for the priest. A lot of folks ignore priests, since they can’t really hurt nobody, but I generally feel like they’re more trouble than we give ’em credit for, what with all the healing and the curing diseases and such like. Pony-whatzit and the Mage brothers charged in close and opened up on a greasy little undead Warlock who was herky-jerking around next to a rain-sodden hayrick. The priest ran to help, but I knew that couldn’t end well, so I gave her a loving little tap on the back of her pretty little Elfish neck, and she folded up like a dishrag. Then I leapt across the shadow realm to the spot behind the Warlock, and gave him both blades in the spine. Between the thudding lances of ice the Mage boys were drumming into him and the blood loss from my little steel darlings, he crumpled up pretty quick like.

That’s kind of where things started to go wrong. With a roar, a Troll feral Druid pounced on one of the mages and gave him a right symphony of teeth and claws; and I heard the distinctive snick of bright steel rogue-knives snapping the hind cables on the other. Pony-breath sic’d his ugly-ass tarantula on the Druid, tangling him up in a sticky ichorous web, and I threw a desperate handful of sand in the rogue’s face to blind him. Around about this point, though, my lovely little priesty friend was shaking off the effects of my love tap. Mum always said the better part of valor is stealth, so quick like a bunny I dove for a corner and vanished from sight.

What followed was a messy engagement whose details are best forgotten. The elder frosty-boy went down from a nasty bleeding bite wound, and the younger had to encase himself in a block of ice to get the rogue off him. I clinched up with the priest again, and I might of booted her in the face a couple times, meaning nothin’ personal by it, mind. It took a while, but Pony-face and I managed to pack the Druid and the priest in earth, finally, and the rogue ran off. Messy, but effective. We scoured the area for more stealthy defenders and found none, so we drove in an Alliance banner and sat down to bandage our wounds.

Turns out the Horde must have got a spirit healer in, because before we knew it that bony Warlock was back, twice as ugly as before (if that’s even possible), and with a couple of Light-wielding cows for backup. I prob’ly don’t need to tell you how much trouble those damned Paladins can be. We held ’em off for a while, but we were already pretty beat up, so they wound up cleaning our clocks. Next thing I knew Sarge was throwing cold water on our faces back at Trollbane Hall and telling us to quit malingering. Thank heavens for the spirit healer, that’s all I can say.

While we was out of action, the other two Companies had made a pretty good showing. Sarge said we had good control at the lumber mill, and things were settling down at the gold-mine. So, our group might of screwed the pooch, but at least we made a good diversion. As soon as we were on our feet again, she sent our unit out to try capturing the broken-down blacksmithy up the knoll.

Company A had left a skeleton crew to watch over the stables, but they didn’t want to come help us. They said we’d got enough territory for now, and we should just sit tight. If you ask me, I think they’re just lazy, though. Any fool knows you can’t just sit around and wait while your enemy is on the move. Didn’t these people get no schooling? At SI:7 we called it “Shaw’s Law”—and he never missed a chance to drill it into us. “In a fight between a flying arrow and a sitting duck, the arrow always wins,” he’d say. And sure, we rolled our eyes a lot, but the old bastard was right. You’ve gotta keep moving, or you’re dead. Anyone still alive ought to know that.

Pony-garble got into a red-faced hot shouting match with the corporal in charge of supply, who tried to have him arrested for insubordination. I stood around on the edge, fingering my knives and being edgy; I ain’t a fan of time-wasting even when we got it to spare, and that ain’t how it is on the battlefield. While they was bickering, some runners came in with news from Company B, and they got into it too.

Well, you can prob’ly guess what happened next. Up over the rat-trap, without so much as a how-de-do, came a ravening company of Horde hardies, riding on an assortment of howling wolves, thundering kodo-beasts, and screaming raptors. Just about every Horde soldier in the area must of been there, and they wasn’t come round for tea. They blew right past our scouts at the Mill without pausin’ for breath, and tore into us like divine retribution.

We fought, and we done pretty good all things considered, but there ain’t so much five can do against a dozen or more, especially when one of them’s an angry priest with a full head of power and my own little bootmarks on her cheek. We gave as good as we got, but they had more to give. I went down trying to rip open a Druid who’d got a powerful taste for robe-wearing Allies; the last thing I remember clearly was that priest standin’ over me, blowin’ me a little kiss, then she raised up her hands in a swirl of darkness, and everything went black.

So now my eyes are dazzled by sunlight, I got a nasty crick in my neck, and I’m fair certain my leg is broken. I guess I should be happy it ain’t raining, at least. There ain’t much hope we still got control of the Basin at this point, despite what the recruiting broadsheets in Stormwind might of said. Right now, though, I don’t much care. I just hope they realize I’m a friendly before they burn the bodies.

Here’s to that.