Chapter Ten

Interlude: Bathed by Moonlight

Tyrande was no fool.

Ten thousand years she'd guarded the beloved forests of her home, and roamed far through Kalimdor in search of potential threats. While the druids slept and serviced the green Dragon Aspect, guarding the world of the Emerald dream, their wives, sisters, mothers and daughters guarded the physical world and the Barrow Dens entombing their sleeping bodies.

She had never entered the realm of Ysera the Dreamer and so could not compare her sacrifice to that of her lover or the other druids. But as the world grew from young to old under her watchful eye, only the light of the Moon Goddess unchanging in all that time, she'd roamed from Silithis in the far south to Winterspring in the far north, and everywhere in between.

The other races of Kalimdor knew little of the night elves or their silent vigil over all, but the reverse was not true. In the night Tyrande's keen eyes had watched tauren roam and centaurs maraud, quillboar grow from animal to sentience under the care of the Ancient Spirit, Agamaggan, and goblins encroach and exploit. All as they lived their lives heedless of the eyes upon them.

Stealth and mystery had been her people's greatest cloak, and few were their battles. But battles there had been, and when there were not their vigil didn't slack, nor did their training. No finer warriors existed on Azeroth, and no finer leader and tactician to guide their arrows.

The clumsy subterfuges of these orcs didn't fool her. Thrall had sworn they would withdraw, and withdraw they were. But rather than retreat quickly and completely, to the betterment of all, they tarried and wreaked senseless destruction.

Had she the full might of her people she could've arranged a proper response to these brutish invaders. But her beloved had asked her to take only the fewest warriors she needed to defend their homeland so he could be free to lead the rest in doing what needed to be done. So many had fallen already to Malfurion's reckless haste and shortsightedness, carrion on that bloody battlefield where Hellscream's monsters defiled their valiant remains.

But just because she had only a small force of her finest skirmishers and ambushers, that didn't mean she would allow these orcs to retreat at their own whim. They stayed to hold as much kaldorei strength as possible in Ashenvale, bleeding her people on two fronts when they most needed to be strong. Garrosh thought he could keep her people at bay, weakened and divided, until he saw fit to return and finish the job with the full might of the Horde at his back.

Already she'd made him pay for his bloodthirsty arrogance. By a thousand well-placed arrows her small force had accounted for as many of the enemy as Malfurion's entire lost army.

And this night, if she had her will, the Horde presence in Ashenvale would either be set in full flight or eliminated.

The soft silver light of Elune bathed her, filling her with the rightness of her desires. Many races feared the savagery of the night elves, but they didn't understand that that savagery was directed only at the invader. Her people's wrath turned only on the wanton destroyer, the taker and the hewer. This forest was her home, every tree familiar as an old friend. She had bathed in every pond, rivulet, and lake in these hills and valleys, had trained sisters and gloried in their prowess, buried others and wept for the loss of those who could only be slain by violence, never age or sickness, each one taken like a bit of the light of the world vanishing to make it dimmer and less wondrous.

Finally Elune told her to stand. Her prayers and reflection were complete, her goddess's approval granted. It was time for action.

Tyraned lifted herself from her knees, ignoring the familiar ache, and strode to the center of the clearing with its tiny pool. She knelt to drink deep of its blessed waters, feeling strength flow anew through her body, and then she was up and running swift as silent as a hunting cat through the dense undergrowth surrounding this spot, down the hill to where her people waited.

She had felt the aging process begin anew when the World Tree perished, had mourned the loss of her immortality and the greater portion of her vigor. Last year, for the first time in living memory, she had sickened, only with a minor ailment, but in its own way as terrifying as a mortal wound.

Malfurion had promised her that the World Tree could be reborn again, that he had secured the promise of the Aspects of the four Dragonflights that they would restore their blessings to her people. Soon, now, soon, she would be summoned to preside over the ritual that would bring Nordrassil to new life, and all would be as it was.

Small wonder that Deathwing had chosen this moment to send his wretched cultists into Hyjal, or that Ragnaros, the mad and twisted Prince of the Plane of Fire, had picked the roots of Hyjal to make his reentry into Azeroth.

Be strong, beloved, she whispered in her heart. He would do his part, even as she did hers. And now that Ysera had awakened and the Emerald Dream was restored to perfection she could hope to have her husband for longer. To perhaps, even, finally have the children she'd longed for for all these years, sons and daughters both of their duties to their people had denied them the joy of.

The thought sent a flush through her, as if she were a maiden in the spring of her life with all the strength of youth lending wonder to new sensations within and without.

The five hundred Sentinels awaiting her arrival had as much presence in that clearing as five, silent watchers blending into the trees that were a part of them. A blundering orc could've walked right through their midst and noticed not a one of them unless he stumbled over her.

Tyrande made her way to the clearing's center, where a full fifty nightsabers sprawled like darkness given life. Her own, a beautiful frostsaber she called Sev'elha, Snow's Grace, was the only one with a white pelt, striped with black. She'd raised Sev'elha from a cub, and the graceful saber's movements were as much a part of her as her own arms and legs, an extension of her will like her bow and glaives and the holy light of the moon she wielded.

She vaulted onto the familiar saddle, lifting that bow high into the air. In the trees above dozens of beady eyes glittered down at her, druids in storm crow form awaiting her will. Dryads made last checks on their poisoned spears, while her elite huntresses mounted all around her and her archers slipped out of the clearing to make for their prepared positions.

From across the clearing two craggy hillsides shifted and rose, resolving into the shapes of mountain giants from out of the forbidding range warding Hyjal, while from the sky above hippogryph's shrieked, the high, clear voices of their riders calling them back on course. And the final presence, a purple and black form with two heads at the end of long, slender necks, looming high in the clouds, briefly occluded the moon before passing on. A single chimaera who called Ashenvale its home, one of the few of the kaldorei's beloved allies, for whom wyverns were lesser cousins. The only one who had not fled into hiding after the battle at Mount Hyjal, when the demon forces had decimated their number and nearly driven them extinct.

That one was Algaroth, greatsire of a whole dynasty before the demons came. Ever the guardian of Hyjal and the peaceful creatures that dwelled within it, he was swift to loose his wrath on any who harmed the innocent or disrupted the natural balance he safeguarded so vigorously. During the Battle of Hyjal a dreadlord had dared his corrosive breath and come close enough to destroy one of Algaroth's heads, nearly killing the noble creature and crippling his ability to think. No longer fully sentient, the chimaera still held to his lifelong resolve to protect his territory and what remained of his brood.

Tyrande had set one of her bravest hippogryph riders, Elessa, to guiding Algaroth and directing his fearsome breath to the proper targets. While one head could manage less devastation than two, she hoped that the chimaera's presence would turn the tide of battle one more time.

The orcs had forgotten the might of the night elves. After the battle of Hyjal too many of her people's allies had fled or perished. Mountain giants had taken the brunt of the demonic fury, as had the bear druids who so bravely drew the foe's attacks so her sisters could wield their longbows to full effect. Firbolgs had gone feral or been corrupted, dryads had gone into deep seclusion to mourn the death of their sire Cenarius. Many of the ancients had been deliberately corrupted by the foul satyrs, and the remainder had fled to the few uncorrupted parts of the forest and defended them savagely. And only the most persistent and powerful of druids could awaken treants from the forests where demons had trod, spreading their corruption. The treefolk couldn't bear to awaken to such a world, and preferred to dream their long, slow dreams in peace.

But her people's might was only sleeping, not spent. Tonight's attack would show the foul orcs that. They had brought their magnataur and their proto drakes and slain many, but they would find their strength was not so strong now that they'd awakened their enemy once more.

"The moon shines upon us, sisters," she whispered. Her people's preparations were so silent that even that soft exhalation carried to every keen ear. "Elune graces us with her approval this night. She will be with us."

That statement was met with a few sighs, almost of relief. Perhaps, after all these brave souls had suffered, they'd begun to wonder if their goddess still watched over them.

"We are blessed to worship the only true god ever discovered on this world or any other," she continued. "And doubly blessed that she loves us as her own children. Doubt not that she wept with us through every loss, that her eye burned bright with righteous fury when she witnessed the devastation of Silverwing Grove. Of Raynewood Retreat. Of all the beloved places her light fell upon, and all the beloved kaldorei slain by this enemy."

"Her gentle soul is roused to anger, and she wishes peace upon the lands of her people, a true peace so that nature may once again heal the scars left by demons and those that serve them."

Tyrande looked about once more, eyes glowing fervently. "Tonight, sisters, we will have that peace. Andu-falah-dor!"

"Let balance be restored!" her people cried back, raising their weapons in salute.

Then, silent once more, they streamed from the clearing like a twinkle of moonlight upon the leaf. Tyrande guided Sev'elha by hidden paths, her huntresses melting through the forest behind her. Overhead the druids of the talon made not a sound, while her hippogryph riders trailed the ground force with the softest flutter of wings. And the slow, heavy wingbeats of Algaroth could've been the heartbeat of the world itself.

Back in the clearing the mountain giants waited. They would approach as quickly and quietly as they were able, so that when the time came they could make their crashing charge through the trees to wreak their own allotted devastation on the enemy that had drawn them from their high homes.

It took a surprisingly short time to reach the Horde encampment, so well concealed had they been, and so stealthily had they snuck up on their enemy. Her sisters had already eliminated six patrols, and taken the outermost ring of sentries without raising the alarm.

Trusting to the others to complete the preparations, Tyrande led her huntresses up a low rise, steep on the side they approached from and on the far side a gentle grassy slope that led down into the camp. A perfect place to mount a charge, or hold one off.

From that vantage she could look over the campsite and see every part of the battlefield. Just as importantly, the aura of Elune's grace which shone down upon her, and from her flowed to bathe everything within her line of sight, would illuminate the entire battle. That sacred light would allow her keen-eyed sisters to make out the tremor of an orc's heartbeat from hundreds of yards away, while the enemy would see only blinding darkness, even the light of the moons withheld from them.

Trueshot aura, the other Alliance races called it, thinking her presence inspired her sisters to greater accuracy. True in a technical sense, but utterly wrong as well. All she offered was what they needed: light. The rest their own skill and experience provided.

Most of the inner rings of orcish and shu'halo sentries died without even knowing their enemy was there. None raised the alarm. And with no more noise than a twang of hundreds of bowstrings snapping in unison and the hiss of hundreds of arrows in flight the attack commenced. Death rained down upon that sleeping camp, piercing tents with carefully calculated guesses for where the sleepers inside would be, and orcs, taurens, trolls, blood elves and goblins began dying before they even awoke.

But mostly orcs. The true heart of Horde aggression, and the backbone of this defiling force.

Now cries were raised from within the camps, Horde defenders pouring out of their sense. Many, learning hard lessons from earlier attacks, slept in their armor and emerged alert with weapons in hand. But their alertness served them little, for all they saw were the black silhouettes of the tents around them, and for those with truly keen eyes the dark outline of undergrowth and trees at the borders of their camp.

Tyrande couldn't even imagine what it would be like to know that an arrow was aimed for her heart and she could see nothing. As much as this enemy stirred her righteous fury, even so she couldn't help but grudgingly admire the sheer courage it took for those warriors below to charge for the trees, trusting in their allies to rush beside them. Trusting in their leaders to lead the way to the enemy they couldn't see.

But that admiration couldn't stay her hand. Again and again the arrows flew, most still in disciplined volleys but some individuals breaking the pattern to target close individuals. In the center of the camp wyverns and bats took off with harsh shrieks, ridden by reckless trolls and orcs, and her sisters concentrated their fire on these agile and perilous targets.

Then fire roared through the night, hurting her eyes so much she physically recoiled. The flames were harsh and unforgiving compared to the gentle light of Elune which had bathed the area. And around her she could hear her sisters on their nightsabers hissing in pain, the nightsabers yowling with surprise.

Then her eyes were closed, and she melted back into the trees along with the others. The fires came from mages and shamans, pushing back the darkness with magical light and heat. They expended large amounts of their power on a gift Elune granted her children freely. But it wouldn't be enough.

And as she'd hoped, raucous shrieks filled the air, and she saw stormcrows on the branches surrounding the clearing shifting into their druid form. The beloved husbands and fathers of the night elves raised their arms, calling the gales they rode to bend to their will, and cyclones whirled through the night to catch the flames and snuff them out.

In the trees she could hear the clash of weapons, the grunts and snarls of the enemy hunting her sisters. She heard a single cry in Darnassian, swiftly raised in agony and as quickly silenced, and at that she raised her bow overhead and the moon's radiance doubled in intensity.

As silent as the forest on a windless night her people withdrew. But not far.

There were many advantages on the battlefield. Strength, endurance, courage, discipline. Magical might, swift mounts or agility. But of those advantages four proudly rose as queens to shame the others: stealth, mobility, range, and knowledge of the terrain.

All four served a vital purpose, and that was keeping the enemy from being able to harm you. Stealth because an enemy that couldn't find you couldn't even approach you, range to keep you from the melee weapons and inferior bows and guns of the enemy, mobility to keep you ever ahead of their blundering steps, and knowledge of the terrain so you always knew exactly where to go.

Her people had all of these things. No enemy could touch them, for they cloaked themselves in the night and danced elusively out of reach, the very forest serving to shield and shelter them. And their prized weapon, the longbow, allowed them to devastate their enemy even as they remained safe from harm. No armor could withstand the devastating broadheads Sentinels employed, and even an enemy hardened with bloodlust who laughed at minor wounds fell when pierced through the heart.

Wherever the Horde forces pushed hardest her people fell back, while others surrounding them continued the relentless barrage of arrows. And above it all her hippogryph riders rained death upon their enemies, safe from the feebly flung spears and axes rising from below.

Had things continued like this, Tyrande could've hoped to utterly destroy the enemy with no warriors but her archers, and perhaps a charge of the nightsabers at the last to mop up. And indeed she'd won many such victories in the past, without a single of her sisters suffering a wound. Few creatures could face total slaughter against an enemy they couldn't reach without breaking and fleeing in panic.

But not orcs. They were immune to terror, she'd learned. Faced with death they might attempt a tactical retreat, and if no other option presented itself they might attempt to negotiate for a mutual withdrawal. But if they determined retreat or negotiation futile they would fight to the last, and even as their companions were butchered around them they would fight on, bellowing their defiance until they stood alone in a field of corpses, trying to take some of the enemy with them as their final lifeblood leaked out of them.

It was hard not to envy such courage, when years of training and discipline were required to keep her own people from succumbing to terror when defeat loomed. But if such immunity to terror could be bought only if it was accompanied by the bloodlust and reckless fury of that savage race, she would refuse it without hesitation.

Too high a price.

Bellows from below were imposing some order on the confused enemy, and from the trees some of the orcs and other Horde warriors were returning to regroup, finally remembering the crude wooden burrows they'd constructed around the camp. Within those burrows they'd be safe from the arrows, at least until they were destroyed or burned.

But before any such thing could happen warhorns sounded, and from the center of the enemy camp a dozen magnataur trotted into view, wielding massive axes and hammers in either hand and thundering directly towards Tyrande's position with a weight to make the ground shake. Sev'elha gave a piteous whine, and from behind she could her soft murmurs as her huntresses quieted their nightsabers.

The charge of the magnataur was accompanied by the rise of six proto drakes, the primitive dragons rising to the sky with the heavy beat of their oddly curved wings, and breathing frost and flame into the night in the direction of her circling hippogryph riders. Around the drakes a full two dozen wyvern and bat riders rose, those who'd seen their fellows shot down and had wisely decided to remain aground until a more cohesive strategy could be drawn up.

Perhaps just as terrible, the flames raised by shaman and mage burst up again all around the clearing, sometimes accompanied by a cry of pain as one of her sisters was caught in a burning tree. The druids were extinguishing the flames with cyclones as quickly as they were able, but soon Tyrande saw that the Horde casters had grown crafty, directing their flames wherever the arrows had come from thickest. Not only did this burn her Sentinels, but it also forced the druids to be more wary in putting out the flames for fear of hurting their own companions with their fierce winds.

In the lurid glow arrows flew from all directions to meet both magnataur and fliers, but with less effect than hoped for. The bats and wyverns were wary now, dodging constantly, and the bright light was making it harder for her sisters to see. The proto drakes were larger and less maneuverable, but a drake was not so easily brought down, not even by the longbow of the kaldorei.

As for the magnataur, Tyrande and her sisters had yet to discover where on those massive bodies to strike a vital wound. With such thick fur and hides and a generous layer of blubber beneath, they could be as filled with arrows as a pincushion and still continue forward. The head and neck were obvious targets, but the orcs had gifted the brutes with greathelms and chokers that protected those areas. The metal of that armor was heavier than any even an orc could bear, and a Sentinel's arrow glanced away ninety-nine shots out of a hundred.

They'd slain a handful of the brutes, of course, but always the orcs went out of their way to destroy the bodies to prevent them from learning anything of their vitals.

Time for this battle to take a new turn, as she'd expected it must. Tyrande fitted an arrow to her bow, setting it aflame with her familiar holy fire, and loosed it at the closest of the magnataur, who was also the largest. It was a long shot, even for one of their bows, but it struck true.

Only moments after it embedded itself in the chest of the great brute, the flames nearest the fur guttering out at the creature's musk but the fire higher up the shaft still flickering, a bellow from above was accompanied by a hissing sound. The magnataur had tugged the arrow free and tossed it aside, laughing and clashing its weapons at her as it shouted taunts in its barbaric northern tongue, but its laughter cut off as Algaroth's corrosive breath enveloped it. Not a short burst, but a sustained blast that splashed the viscous mist over a handful of the other nearby magnataur.

The creature who'd taken the brunt of the blast kept charging, but its steps faltered as it clawed at its eyes, bellowing in fear and agony. Even the breath of a chimaera wasn't proof against the creature's stinking fur, and Algaroth cut off his attack while he circled to strafe again. But in the lull the creature yanked the heavy helm off its head, mauling its face with its free hand.

Tyrande's second arrow took it in the left eye, between two of its thick fingers.

"Prepare yourselves, sisters!" she shouted as the other magnataur continued their charge. Algaroth may have time for another burst, but that would leave at least nine of the creatures to deal with. Behind her the nightsabers began growling in anticipation, and she heard the nearly imperceptible whisper of glaives being drawn free, one in the main hand to throw, the other held in the off hand to replace the first for two quick volleys before the huntress must pause for a heartbeat to reach for another glaive.

She loosed another flaming arrow at one of the magnataur near the back, whose position put it in the center of a clump of the creatures. When Algaroth's breath came again the brutes immediately scattered, slowing their charge and leaving their hapless companion to face the acid alone. Elessa's direction was true, and the chimaera's breath struck the creature full in the upper torso and head. Although it had seen its fellow perish to an arrow, facing such agony drove even those with iron will mad. The magnataur yanked its helmet free even while shielding its face with its other arm.

Tyrande's arrow took it below the chin, just above the top of its choker. It went down gurgling and thrashing.

And then the magnataur were upon them.

Tyrande gave a piercing whistle and spurred Sev'elha forward, directly towards the oncoming force. Over her head dozens of glaives whispered, slamming into the creatures and bouncing aside to strike other targets before cutting into the ground to serve as caltrops. Some of the magnataur showed red fur where the weapons had struck, and one stumbled over a glaive and bellowed in rage. But the attack seemed pathetic. Her archers in the trees had time for one last volley, pincushioning the brutes, and then they and Tyrande and her riders merged too close to safely loose arrows.

Sev'elha dodged around the side of the pack, and Tyrande was forced to lean out of the saddle to avoid a hammer that likely weighed as much as she did. Behind her the other huntresses flowed around the magnataur, coolly dodging their attacks even as they hacked and sliced with their glaives, holding the three-pointed weapons in the center and putting every point to best effect. Tyrande didn't harbor much hope that those attacks were any more effective than the arrows or thrown glaives.

Behind her she heard a horrible thud and a strangled cry, and her heart lurched for whichever of her sisters hadn't been fast enough. A nightsaber yowled in sudden pain and fury before being silenced with another final-sounding thud, and Tyrande gritted her teeth. She had no time to worry about others when the magnataur were aiming for her own head.

Another few frantic moments of dodging and swerving and Sev'elha carried her past the last of the brutes. Tyrande caught sight of a force of at least a hundred Horde, orcs and tauren mostly, following the trail the magnataur had left at a sprint and closing fast. Arrows were arcing down towards them, but not as many as she would've hoped for.

The battle in the sky wasn't going well.

But she had no time to worry about that either at the moment. Tyrande wheeled Sev'elha away from the approaching warriors and circled behind the magnataur, searching for a target of opportunity for her bow. None presented itself. The magnataur and her huntresses had nearly passed one another up, both sides mostly untouched from the encounter save for a single trampled night elf and nightsaber.

The magnataur were starting to slow, preparing to wheel and resume the charge, when a deafening crash from ahead resolved suddenly into one of the trees flying forward to slam into a magnataur. The creature was so huge the tree cracked in two over its torso, but the blow knocked it a dozen feet backwards.

Then the two mountain giants Tyrande's whistle had alerted crashed into view, one tossing aside its tree club to bend down and swat at another of the charging magnataur with its closed fist. That magnataur, too, went down, its massive helmet comically sailing away at the force of the blow.

The brute was lucky its head hadn't still been inside. After running arrogantly through the comparatively vulnerable huntresses and slaying one of her sisters, overmatching them like a beetle trampling ants, the magnataur abruptly found themselves facing an enemy that dwarfed them.

But they, like their orc masters, weren't ones to back down from a challenge. The remaining brutes raised a cry and swerved in their charge to circle the giants, the ones in front lowering shoulders to slam into the granite bodies of their opponents while the ones behind and to the sides rushed in to rain heavy blows on those sturdy bodies. Another magnataur in front went down, stunned by a giant fist, but the two the giants had already felled were back on their feet.

And, amazingly, when one of the giants lifted a massive foot to crush the magnataur in front of it, the brute gleefully tossed aside its weapons to catch the craggy appendage. For a moment it seemed it must be crushed, and it staggered drunkenly with a deafening bellow. Then it stabilized, still clutching that foot, and the giant lurched sideways and groaned in surprise. The other magnataur swarmed it, one throwing itself under the giant's other leg, and with a ponderous crash the creature that dwarfed most hills went down.

The magnataur that had caught its foot leapt up atop the supine giant, bellowing in victory, only to have its bellow turn to one of agony as corrosive mist splashed around its head and shoulders. The mist pooled harmlessly on the giant, doing no damage to the creature of stone, and Tyrande knew from experience that a mountain giant completely drenched in a chimaera's acid could wade through an enemy spreading that corrosive substance to all it touched. The two worked well together for that reason.

It was perhaps too much to hope that even two mountain giants and a one-headed chimaera could take down all the magnataur, but Tyrande had no choice but to leave them to it as she wheeled around, leading her huntresses towards the charging group of orcs and tauren. These ones were heavily armored and bearing heavy tower shields, elite veterans, and under the barrage of arrows they'd slowed only enough to raise a shield wall before continuing their charge.

A shieldwall could be effective for defense, but the arrows of her archers could punch through even those great shields and do some damage, and shields could only be in so many places at once. She just had to keep her huntresses moving around to encircle them, trusting their sisters to continue raining volleys down, until some gap opened up in the shieldwall that she could exploit.

She still had a weapon she hadn't yet unsheathed.

Behind this vanguard the rest of the camp was mobilizing, thousands of orcs strong even after the losses they'd incurred. In the sky her hippogryph riders were sorely pressed by the proto drakes and Horde flyers. Her sisters were cunning enough to drop low to the trees, luring pursuers into a volley of arrows, but the orc and troll riders were returning the favor every time a hippogryph got close to the Horde camp, as lightning bolts and fireballs flew up to swat them out of the sky.

This Horde commander was no novice to battle. Caught by surprise in the middle of the night, scouts cut down without a chance to give warning and hundreds slain before his troops could even get out of their tents, and he was still turning the battle to his favor.

Of course, his forces did outnumber hers eight to one.

Tyrande whistled sharply and loosed an arrow into the sky. It hit no enemy, but the message was still received. Her archers began focusing on the battle in the sky, shooting at the enemy on the ground only when there was no better target to be had.

If need be she could withdraw her troops and attack in a different place and from a different angle. But only if her sisters won the sky. The troll bat riders had bottles of incendiary flames they could fling, keeping her retreating forces well lit and providing the proto drakes and wyvern riders with plentiful targets. To say nothing of the ground forces that would march themselves into the ground if need be to keep her off-balance and fleeing.

They had to win the sky.

Tyrande nocked another arrow and loosed in a fluid motion, the shaft driving through the tower shield one of the front tauren held right where his forearm would be strapped to the wood, up near the elbow. Her target raised a bellow above the din of battle, his shield dropping down slightly from the surprise and pain, and she smiled in satisfaction as one of her sister's glaives cut through the gap and bounced about inside. Their heavy armor may have stopped most of the damage those three wicked points could inflict, but there would be more where that came from.

She let Sev'elha have her head as she focused on drawing and loosing, moving perpendicular to the Horde vanguard even as they approached. Back in the camp the Horde commander had drawn his forces into ranks and was spurring them in the direction of her huntresses, likely intent on overwhelming the enemy he could see rather than facing the daunting prospect of sending his warriors into the woods to be shot down.

Good.

She kept going, continuing the pretense of encircling the vanguard even as it became clear that the main force would arrive before she could manage it. Any of her huntresses caught between the vanguard and the main force would be trampled underfoot as surely as if beneath a dozen magnataur.

The vanguard slowed to a halt, reinforcing their shieldwall as it became obvious the enemy was going to do their job for them. Tyrande's huntresses bunched around her, holding their glaives steady as they inserted themselves directly between vanguard and main force. The worst possible place to be.

For the enemy.

From the midst of the main force she heard a harsh orc bellowing in sudden excitement and triumph. She knew enough of the foul language to recognize the meaning of those guttural grunts. "Dezur uk suzh'algez priestuz izh galuz! Kigaz uk suzh'algez!" The kaldorei Priestess of the Moon is in their midst. Cripple the kaldorei!

The moon shone gently overhead, soft as a mother's kiss upon her brow. Tyrande looked up at its comforting light, feeling Elune's warmth fill her even as she directed all her faith into her plea.

The stars were Elune's handmaidens. At the behest of the one who spoke the will of Elune upon Azeroth, the High Priestess herself, they fell down to smite her enemies.

Softly, at first, one or two pure white pinpoints like descending fireflies, swiftly growing larger and larger until they struck like arcane explosions, sending any caught within their radius flying away like broken dolls. Then ten, then a dozen. Finally a hundred, falling all around them.

Her huntresses battled fiercely to keep the enemy at bay long enough for Tyrande's ultimate attack to build to its full effect. Meanwhile around her the eager cries of Horde warriors gave way to bellows of fear and pain, in a transition as slow as a Winterspring glacier advancing across a valley. And finally the eager voice that had been crying for her death for an eternity gave a strangled order to withdraw.

Not terror or panic, simple pragmatism. Her position was unassailable as long as she kept up this holy barrage, and her power wasn't limitless. Best to withdraw until this rain of falling stars was done with.

Indeed, now at long last she could feel the last of her strength being strained by the might of her spell, Elune's aid similarly strained as the goddess sought to impose her will over such a vast distance for such a vast working. And for such lengthy amount of time.

Tyrande closed her eyes, and just that simply the spell began to fade, a few last stars plunging down to strike at her fleeing foes. She swayed in her saddle, only now aware of Itelya holding her right leg and arm. Pain came to her as if from a great distance, and she looked down blankly to see her sister beating furiously at lurid green flames that licked at her arm and shoulder.

Felfire. A warlock's cursed attack. So the orcs had returned to fully embrace the demonic heritage they claimed to have abandoned. Was she surprised?

"We must withdraw," she murmured, words faint and garbled by a tongue that felt thick as a hippogryph's tail. Prayers and incantations were at her fingertip to cleanse the fire from her and her huntress and encourage the damaged flesh to begin its healing, but they stayed just out of reach. She swayed again, suddenly weary as no kaldorei should be while the moon shone down upon her. "We must withdraw," she said again, louder. "Before they regroup and return."

Itelya shook her head. "The orcs won the sky," she said. "But their commander has decided to withdraw his own forces rather than press the attack."

"For now," Tyrande mumbled. How did one heal dispel magical effects, again? She'd been doing it for nearly as long as she'd been alive. "We must be ready for when they return."

Her huntress was already shaking her head before Tyrande had finished the command. "I do not think they'll return, High Priestess," she said. She stepped aside slightly, motioning to the ranks of huntresses to part, and Tyrande was left with a view forward, to where the fighting had been thickest, and a hint at what her faith had wrought.

Orcs, tauren, and a lesser number of trolls, blood elves, and goblins lay heaped in piles or spread like a blanket over the ground. As if a field of living beings had been reaped like wheat and now waited to be gathered up into bundles to be threshed.

Hundreds of bodies, perhaps thousands, and wherever the ground was clear it was molten, glassed by the force of the falling stars. It took her longer to realize that only a dozen of her huntresses remained, all of them bloody and not a single one uninjured. To protect her.

She nearly tumbled off Sev'elha's back, and Itelya caught her and pulled her to the ground. "Magnataur?" she asked weakly.

"It's been nearly two hours, priestess. I've never seen you work Elune's will for so long. The giants felled the final magnataur over an hour ago." Her voice saddened. "But the drakes drove Algaroth to the ground and ended him, Elune bless his noble spirit."

"Hippogryph riders?"

"Took heavy losses, Beloved of Elune." Itelya began gently stroking her cheek. "But many dropped below the level of the treetops and our sisters covered their escape. Rest now, High Priestess. Rest well, while the moon yet shines on you. Day will come soon."

Tyrande tried to push her sister aside, annoyed. "If they aren't following us we must follow them. We cannot relent until they are gone from Ashenvale, or all will have been for naught."

Another of her huntresses dropped down beside them, cradling Tyrande's head in her lap. "We will, Mistress. When night falls again they will once again know the sting of our arrows. Until then sleep."

She struggled, against her weariness and the firm but gentle grasp of her sisters. So many must be wounded after such a battle, and she had her own wounds to think of. Experience had taught her that the longer she let such wounds go untreated, the more dire they could become. No one of her sisters would die on her account, and she would not let her skin be permanently disfigured. She would not see the ardor in Malfurion's eyes fade.

Both struggles proved more than she had strength for, and with her goddess's light bathing her brow she settled into deep, dreamless sleep.