Part One: The last Stand

'A demon hunter may win the respect of other warriors, however, and can become a valued asset to any military unit stationed in places where demons roam — though the hunter will still be isolated and distrusted.'

- Alliance Player's Guide, page 189 -

Felwood, Sentinel Encampment

Autumn, 9831

As the satyrs amassed for another charge, Akilina knew they would not be able to hold.

The ground beneath her feet was slippery with the blood of the fallen, the soil so soaked that it refused to swallow a single ounce of it more. She sat huddled up the pitiful remnants of a once magnificent elm, the thick knotted wood now dead and brittle as all life had been scorched from it by the fiendish magic the enemy wielded. The air was permeated with the stench of death, and the moaning of the dying and wounded hung like a demoralizing chorus over the encampment. Akilina checked her quiver, finding that it was not even filled to half of its capacity. What few arrows there were had been pulled from the bodies of their enemies for the sixth or seventh time, and had suffered for it. Soon, they would be useless and their ammunition utterly depleted. It was only a small comfort that it barely mattered at this point.

Trying to shake and blink away the numbness in her head, she hauled herself up, leaning against the scorched tree trunk in order to keep her balance. Beyond the ravaged patch of land that marked where the forces of the kaldorei had clashed with the enemy over the past days, she could see the demonic forces moving and shifting between the trees that they had defiled. There was braying and chittering and all kinds of otherworldly noises as the fiends tried to defy their very nature and create some semblance of order out of the chaos of their idleness. It was difficult to say how long the process would take them this time.

Akilina started moving. She treaded carefully around the gnarled roots of the towering trees, past vibrant bushes and flowers that had been nurtured by the power of the land. All around her, Sentinels had curled up on the ground right next to the wounded, sleeping or at least trying to rest when proper sleep eluded them. Used to fighting under the light of the moon, the demons' charges alternating between day and night had worn out the kaldorei beyond the usual tiredness of battle, and had made it necessary to divide the troops into equal shifts. Half the troops were resting right now, the other half on guard duty, standing ready in case the demons attacked. Akilina knew this better than anybody. She had been the one ordering it. Just as she now ordered for her resting sisters to be woken up. She only wished she could have ordered for someone else to take over.

She was merely a Sentinel, and a rather young one at that by the standards of her people. Under normal circumstances, none of her sisters would have taken orders from her. Unfortunately for all, the circumstances were anything but normal. The process of elimination that had seen her elevated into the position of leadership had started with Lieutenant Skymane on the first day of the battle, and had ended with Priestess Shadesong merely a few hours ago. Now, she was all they had left, in command not because of some specific skill or talent, but simply due to the fact that she had been at the priestess' side when she died, and was known to have been a novice of the Sisterhood, if only briefly. In a situation as desperate and forlorn as the one they were in, it must have appeared like as good a reason as any to settle the question of leadership. Many more seasoned sisters probably didn't object because they themselves cared nothing for bearing the responsibility of the imminent defeat themselves. Others were hoping for a miracle, and deluded themselves into believing that in choosing Akilina they had somehow increased their chances for getting one. Akilina found herself envying them for this mad hope, for she herself had none left. On the off chance that there would be some kind of miracle, she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that she would not be the cause of it.

She moved on, the members of her rag-tag force rising to their feet around her. The expressions of the other Sentinels were grim and weary as they nodded and saluted at her passing form, their faces covered in bruises and discolorations or hidden beneath strips of bandages. Some of the huntresses still bore untended wounds even as they finished patching up their nightsaber companions. There was only one hippogryph remaining, one of its wings rendered useless by two satyr arrows. They didn't even know what its name was. Its rider had broken its neck during the fall, shortly before the rest of the hippogryph riders had been ripped apart by a magical explosion unleashed by one of the very spellcasters they had set out to hunt.

Their furbolg allies had paid a similarly high prize for their loyalty and support. Akilina saw six of the ursine warriors remaining, covered in wounds and growling softly in their native tongue as they grabbed their weapons and readied themselves for the fight. Six out of the dozens of tribal warriors and totemics that the Deadwood tribe had dedicated to seeing the demons and their corruption driven from their ancestral home. They would probably be the first to fall when Akilina and her forces failed.

A raspy growling sound that didn't come from the furbolgs caused her to stop. Following the sound, her gaze was drawn to one of the many gaps in the treeline, out onto the large clearing that was littered with the corpses of vile demons and valiant defenders alike. Since their aerial assault on the enemy spellcasters, they had not seen any more reanimated corpses, and their diligence in getting rid of the bodies of the fallen had waned since then. It took her a moment, but then Akilina beheld the lean figure of a lonely nightsaber whose body still heaved with the faint semblance of life. Seeing the proud beast, forsaken and obviously dying, a fresh wave of heart-wrecking sadness washed over her. Something inside of her just gave way. Without consciously realizing it, she started walking towards it, ignoring the imploring gazes of her fellow Sentinels as she left the shadows of the trees to step onto the battlefield.

The proud animal lay sprawled out within a circle of fallen enemies, its fur stained with blood both red and green in color, while other parts of its body had been severely burned by fiendish flames. Four deep cuts, probably inflicted by the claw of a satyr, gaped in its side. There was blood everywhere, gathering in pools beneath it and trickling into the hollows of the uneven ground. The head of the beast's rider rested in one of these, partly submerged in puddle of red. Pinned beneath the massive body of his mount, it looked as if she might have drowned rather to meet her end at the hands of her enemies. Akilina prayed that it wasn't so.

She dropped to her knees in front of the giant cat's massive head. Big and sad yet beautiful eyes stared pleadingly at her through half-closed lids. Akilina felt tears streaming down her face, and she was not ashamed of them. They were not only for the proud animal that was beyond saving, but for all the losses and hardship of the last weeks, for all the sisters and friends that would never share a laugh or stride through the forests of Ashenvale again, for all the people she had not been able to save.

She nodded grief-stricken at the beast, understanding that there was only one service she could offer to the noble soul in front of her. Her hand reached for her knife, while the other started to pet the great cat on its head. The nightsaber let out a soft, pain-filled growl, but somehow managed to muster the strength to nestle against Akilina's hand, exposing its throat in the process. Akilina closed her eyes, muttered another payer, and then plunged the dagger through the creature's neck. The nightsaber's head grew limp beneath her touch and it died quietly. Akilina stayed until she was sure it was gone.

She had always been softer than most of her people. Too soft in fact, at least that was what Priestess Phaerdris had insisted on. Akilina had joined the temple with the conviction to tend and nurture, to carry the love of Mother Moon into the hearts of others. But in the eyes of the senior priestess, Akilina had not possessed the will to do what was required from a priestess on the field of battle. At another temple, Akilina maybe would have been allowed to become a servant of Elune despite these shortcomings, but not under Phaerdris Startear, who embodied the martial aspect of the Sisterhood maybe more than even High Priestess Tyrande herself. So Akilina had been asked to leave the temple, because she was deemed too soft. Naturally, she had complied. One did not refuse the wishes of the temple. Certainly not as a young acolyte. Now, several decades later, she was a soldier on a battlefield as bloody and horrific as she could imagine. The irony of that fact did not escape her.

It felt like she was sleepwalking when she made her way back behind the lines. She could still feel the eyes of the others resting upon her. Almost buckling under the weight, she had barely taken up position behind the scorched elm again when a cold, chiding voice rose to her right.

"A touching gesture, sister," it said. "Touching, but ultimately misguided."

Akilina resisted the urge to sigh and roll her eyes. Either would have costed too much energy to be spent on something as trifling and fleeting as annoyance. If she had ascended to lead their forces in their last stand by divine providence or a cruel twist of fate, Ursalani Duskdeer had taken the mantel of her first lieutenant with a naturalness that tolerated no opposition. Stern and utterly unshakeable, the senior Sentinel was about as flexible in her beliefs as a finely crafted bow, able to give and bent just far enough as to turn her into a deadly weapon into the arsenal of the Sisterhood. As a superior, it had made her demanding and judgmental, but now that the positions were reversed, Ursalani had taken to reprimand and question every decision with the bickering thoroughness of a disappointed mother trying to groom her charge for greatness.

Akilina didn't see the point. She harbored no illusions about making it through the day, and it was hard to imagine it being any different for Ursalani. Maybe, after living for many long centuries, the notion of finally having run out of time was too elusive to grasp, even for warriors who should have known better.

"It saddens me to think that you don't approve, sister," Akilina said. "I was providing a service to one who just lost his life serving our people. Don't try to tell me that it was wrong."

Ursalani shook her head in a condescending way. "I did not say wrong. I said misguided. The beast might thank you, but your sisters are going to suffer for it. You just showed heart; weakness, just when the women around you look to you for strength and guidance."

The glow of Akilina's eyes flared with anger, and she wasted precious strength as her first clenched around the wood of her bow. She glanced aside, and caught glimpses of her other sisters looking at her with expressionless, weary faces. Did they really seem any more downtrodden than they had a couple of minutes ago? Akilina didn't think so, and yet she found herself inclined to beat herself up about it all the same. That was what the seed of doubt could do to a soldier's mind.

She didn't get much time to ponder the issue. Beyond the clearing, the braying and snarling had constantly swelled, turning into a cacophony of bestial sounds, beating drums and screeching horns. The satyrs and their minions were taunting one another, sniggering and jeering in a fury-drunken revelry that rose and rose — then suddenly stopped. The last voices died away, the drums stopped, and a deadly, eerie quiet took hold of the forest. Akilina was sure she would have been able to hear even a leaf falling to the ground at this point.

Then — with a massive, earth-shattering roar — the demonic horde charged.

They poured forth from the forest like an avalanche, a writhing swarm of horns and claws that swallowed the ground beneath it. The felhounds came first, a giant pack of them, all red corded muscle, bleached bone plates and slimy black strands. On all fours, the beasts quickly separated from the main group, rushing at their prey with all the impressive speed their otherwordly bodies were able to muster.

Next came the true victims of the war. Dark gnarled wood, oozing with sickly ichor shifted and moved as dozens of corrupted treants shambled into view. Their faces were warped and splintered into serrated teeth and malicious faces, and the creatures wailed with the sounds of snapping branches and aching wood, shedding rotting foliage with each stride. Seeing these avatars of the forest tormented like this had an impact that could be felt throughout the kaldorei's lines, a tangible sense of failure and shame that ate away at their spirits.

The rest of the demons came after the treants, hiding behind their thick bark and keeping to their shadows. They were mostly satyrs; leonine, demonic perversions of the kaldorei. Only a few imps, voidwalkers and other fel-creatures were strewn in among their ranks.

Whoever had come up with the plan utilize the treants as cover had more sense than the average satyr. The wooden creatures were forming an almost impenetrable line between the satyrs and their enemy, shielding them not only from a potential counter-charge but also the ranged attacks for which the Sentinels were renowned. It was only partly true for the archers, who were more than capable of sending volleys flying in deadly arcs over the corrupted treemen, but for the huntresses and other glaive wielders, the treants posed quite a barrier that would shield their corrupters from harm.

Few of the satyrs saw it that way, though. With their frail leashes of discipline torn and unraveled, most of the former Highborne behaved like rabid beasts. Instead of hunkering down behind the creatures they had driven mad, they acted as if the treants were some kind of fence unjustly interposed between them and their prey. They railed against it like unruly livestock, throwing themselves against it, trying to move around or seeking to climb and jump over the slower moving treants. The result was quite a bizarre and disturbing sight.

Opposite of them, the Sentinels immediately jumped to attention. Archers and glaive-wielders lined up between battered trees, determined not to let the enemy pass, no matter what it would cost them. Akilina could see it written all over their faces, the spark of grim determination still visible within their otherwise dulled eyes. Their bodies were moving without any passion or vigor at this point. They had no energy left to give, and so their bodies drew solely upon decades and decades of experience to keep going. It was a sight that filled Akilina with pride.

The furious charge of the Legion was met with hails of arrows, produced with a speed and frequency that searched its equal in the known world. The remaining huntresses rode out in a tight column, shields and weapons held close to their chests, urging their mounts onwards. They moved in close, cutting from one side of the field to the other, tossing their glaives into the approaching mass of felhounds and tearing bloody swaths into the legion's ranks. They worked in perfect unison with the archers, leaving wide enough gabs in their formation to allow their sisters to sustain the hail of arrows despite their own attacks. The effect was devastating, and the demonic vanguard suffered heavy losses, with wounded demons stumbling and falling only to be trampled to death by their comrades without any mercy or second thought. It was not enough to break the charge. The huntresses were forced to turn around and hurry back, urging their mounts to great speed in order to escape the felhounds that were rushing after them.

Unfortunately for them, the other demons were not idle either. The air crackled with dark energy as a satyr in tattered rich clothing pushed himself to the front. The hellcaller raised his claw, and an inferno of greenish flames erupted from it. Akilina was forced to watch as the felfire arced through the air and engulfed the huntresses, swallowing the entire unit. Many emerged from the blaze a second later, their hair, clothing and the fur of their mounts singed, but otherwise relatively unharmed. Others were not so lucky, and as the fire died away, several huntresses reappeared only as charred smoking corpses on the ground. The survivors turned their mounts around one last time, grim curses on their lips as they threw their spinning blades at the enemy in an act of defiance. Then they continued their retreat.

Akilina sighed. It would have been a wiser course of action for all of them.

Suddenly, there was a blinding flash, catching Akilina completely off guard. She tried to squeeze her eyes shot, but it was too late. Her vision went white, and she stood powerless, unable to do anything but listen to the alarmed cries of her sisters. Her heart sank. What new foulness had the demons unleashed now?