War at Sea

“Do you really think they’re out here, Vynlarion?” Alorinis stared with incredulity at the aged knight, but received a withering glare at the use of his first name. The armoured elf abruptly looked away after an uncomfortably long moment of hunter and knight sizing each other up.

The ship below them creaked and groaned below them and its sails flapped irritably. Overhead, foreboding grey clouds roiled with portents of dangerous storms. For now, however, cold winds and choppy grey seas were their worst fear. Vynlarion stood just back of the wheel at an angle, casting his imperious gaze over the hunter and the surrounding seas at nearby ships, the captain pretending to not be listening to their conversation. Alorinis sat dangerously upon the railing behind him, his posture innocent but his eyes equally alert.

Neither were new to this game. They both knew what awaited them. “Yes,” Vynlarion finally said, “Our intel is the best in the world. These human cretin –“ He raised a hand to silence the hunter’s displeasure with his racist remarks, “These human cretin have no idea what I am saying, ranger. Anyway, they are not privy to our scrying, but the portal is active, Orcs are on the move and they are on the open seas. My family depends on trade with the humans and we cannot have an unknown quantity of dangerous beasts on the open seas, just waiting to steal our goods.”

The ranger chuckled, shaking his head, “You nobles are so ridiculous. We’re sailing into conquered lands and you’re concerned with money?” He let out a bark of a laugh and turned his attention to the captain, speaking the human’s language now: “Hey, captain! Do you think Lord Highcrest here should be worried about his trade goods when your kingdom is crawling with Orcs?”

Vynlarion cast a dark look at the leathery-skinned man whose countenance grew hostile when regarding his undesired VIP. “Do not answer that,” he instructed in common, his accent haughty and formal. It was clear that he struggled with language and so he returned his attention to the other elf nearby: Alorinis. “Must you? This man already despises him, and I him.”

Alorinis cast a wary gaze at the old warship – it had survived the First War, if barely, and looked very much worse for wear. “Why this old ship anyway? The elven navy would have undoubtedly sent at least a few ships for a mission of this importance. More than your province’s goods are on the line with Orcs at sea after all.” Vynlarion merely shrugged, and turned to observe the nearby ships which were equally old and equally vulnerable.

“We could not let King Menethil know what resources we have at our command, lest he and Dalaran come begging for more help. Between Terenas and Antonidas the High Home is being unduly stressed to aid the humans. This is not our war!” The old knight protested angrily, drawing the attention of a few of their fellow elves on the lower decks who traded concerned looks.

Alorinis waved a hand as if to try to calm him, although given they had just met a few days ago his influence was limited. Instead, he tried to reason with the military legend that was the Dragon of Quel’Thalas, such as the man might describe himself: “Yet this is our war, Vynlarion. The Orcs could crush Lordaeron as they did Stormwind. That would put them at our border. And excuse my lack of blind patriotism but we would be up shit creek if they somehow got past the Runestones.”

Vynlarion had no answer, and so he merely stared over the increasingly unsteady seas. His hands instinctively gripped the railing as the ship groaned and went over a tall wave before hammering down into the sea behind it. “Captain!” He called out, “How close are we to our –“ he was cut off by the bone jarring crack of thunder and the blinding light of lightning off the starboard side of the ship. The skies roiled undulated before beginning an abrupt torrent of rain. Vynlarion stepped into the wind, staring over the bow of the ship. His white cloak, laden with chainmail hidden under silk, flapped and billowed in the suddenly strong winds. Exposed was the armour of his office as Lord-Commander of the Knights of the Realm. Intricate golden armour accented with crimson hues shone dully in the grey atmosphere around them. Rain made noisy ‘tings’ off its metal countenance. His broadsword, a magnificent crimson blade, had fallen from its perch against the railing and onto the deck, though did not otherwise move.

Alorinis for his part also stood up, but instead looked over the stern of the ship, his verdant cape covering his black leather armour, obscuring his bow and swords. “Vynlarion,” he shouted over the noisy torrent around them. The knight turned around, and his silver hair, streaked with one band of blond, obscured his face. He brushed it back as he spoke: “By the gods…” His words were in Common.

“Captain! Send the signal! Hostile off our stern!” Alorinis shouted to the captain at the wheel who repeated the instruction and was quickly replaced by a sailor. “Elves!” The ranger shouted over the storm, some nearby hearing him as he hurried to the edge of the quarter deck, “Orcs behind us! To arms! To arms!”

Vynlarion nodded in approval of the man’s sudden spring into action, musing that there might be hope for him yet, despite the rumours being he was actually Vynlarion’s senior by a great deal. “Magisters to port and starboard! Ready your fire magicks! Arcanists: be ready to stop any incoming bombardment! Rangers: ready your arrows to lay down a suppressing fire for our cannons!” He turned to Alorinis: “I hear you are more experienced with naval command. Order the cannons, I will deal with our men. The captain can manage his men.” The ranger nodded and hurried down the steps, taking his bow into his hands.

Vynlarion moved swiftly to his sword, taking the massive blade by the hilt and sheathing it on his back. Ancient enchantments made it almost weightless in such a state and thus manageable at all times, but nevertheless the weight of battle was now on his mind. “Six ships spotted!” An elf shouted, climbing down from the masts. The old knight looked around – only three other ships were nearby, two of which were just transports only lightly armed. This was a scouting party, not a warring convoy.

“We are outnumbered…” Vynlarion muttered to himself, “We will have to be proactive.” He wheeled around on his heel, his boot scraping against the deck. “Helmsmen! Send out the signal: have our ship and the Conqueror come full sail around – port side. Have the two transports keep going. We’ll leave them an opening to get to Kul Tiras.”

The man nodded, and the signal was sent. The ship listed hard to port as the sails turned overhead. Their sister ship was behind them. The Orc ships were now visible: rows of green-skinned, hulking masses of muscle and ferocity shouted violently in a language Vynlarion did not yet understand. The old elf narrowed his azure eyes, silver brows knitting angrily. “Foul beasts… two against six… Have you no honour!?” He looked over to the bow of the ship where Alorinis stood on the bowsprit, an outcropping of wood: “Alorinis!” He boomed over the storm that was now hammering the starboard side of their ship.

The ranger nodded and shouted with a ferocity his casual personality belied: “FIRE!” The thundering boom of eight cannons sounded belowdecks and the cannonballs flew out before Vynlarion. He grinned wickedly as they grew closer to their targets. However his eyes widened as they stopped mere feet from the enemy ships and were incinerated by fel fire.

“Dark magics! Arcanists: dispel them! Farstriders: arcane volley!” The twelve elves he had commanded followed their instructions, while the eight short-ranged fighters stood uneasily, evidently feeling as useless as Vynlarion did.

Cobalt fire rained down on the nearest Orcish ship, and guttural cries of pain responded. “FIRE!” Alorinis bellowed again. Vynlarion hurried to the port side of the ship, gauntleted hands gripping the wooden railing so tightly it splintered under his grip in anticipation. This time the cannonballs met their mark and buried deep into the enemy ship before exploding and letting off a mangled field of debris and Orcish body parts.

However to his surprise the Orcs were faster than their other ship. The Conqueror had come off course and was now drifting into the waves, being rocked back and forth, its cannons subsequently missing their mark and their projectiles simply hitting the sea. “Tell the other ship to –“ Vynlarion could not even finish his sentence as fel magic erupted overhead of the Conqueror  and rained infernals down upon it, obliterating the above deck. The ship was alight with verdant fires and listing dangerously away from the waves and toward their own ship.

“Helmsmen! Course correction: head toward the enemy ships!” Vynlarion called to the man nearby who worriedly obeyed. The mast turned overhead once again and the ship moved closer to the enemy ships. Below, the cannons fired, leaving a smoldering ruin of the first ship. “One down, five to go…” The old lord said aloud.

Alorinis was abruptly by his side, “Vynlarion, we need to board them. We’ll do more damage from there. They’re prepared for a long-range assault, but one on their own ships…?” The two nodded. “Helmsmen, when we disable their cannons, get us close enough to board. I’ll do the rest,” the ranger instructed the man.

Vynlarion pointed to the next ship, which was turning starboard to allow the broadside cannons to fire. “Mages, Farstriders! Do not hold back: unleash hell in the name of Quel’Thalas! FIRE!” He shouted, the wind snapping hair and cloak in the air behind him. Emboldened by either fear for their lives or his words – likely the former – their volley erupted over top of the offending ship. Above their own, evil runes formed in hellish green fire, and Vynlarion unsheathed his sword, unsure of what was coming, but confident it was not good.

The elven attack sounded all at once: explosive arrows sunk deep into exposed barrels of explosive powders, fire magic burned mercilessly through the wooden hull of the enemy ship and arcane magic decimated the aft of the ship, leaving it rudderless and sinking.

However, they had not been fast enough. A portal opened up on the sinking ship and connected to the one overhead of the main deck. Orc warriors simply ran through their own portal, weapons first, and landed on countless humans and elves on Vynlarion and Alorinis’s ship.

Two landed near Vynlarion, one bifurcating the helmsmen, leaving the wheel to spin wildly and live the ship to the mercy of the seas. “To arms! To arms!” He cried aloud, rushing toward the two Orcs, clad in primitive chainmail and leather. They were as tall as he was and much broader, holding battle axes. It did not matter. His broadsword cut through the air with such speed the air screeched behind it.

One head simply tumbled to the ground. The other Orc roared a battlecry and closed the distance. Axe met sword and the two vied for supremacy. The foul breath of the fanged being curled Vynlarion’s nose and only drove him to want to kill the Horde warrior even more. He lurched backward intentionally, a hand coming off his sword, only to remove a dagger from his belt and bury it in the Orc’s eye.

The large green individual reeled back, wrenching the dagger from its face and staggering around on the unsteady decking. Vynlarion took the opportunity and set his huge sword out to his side, the point aimed at the beast’s midsection. He closed the distance between the two of them and impaled the Orc, the hilt of the large blade eventually pressed against the Orc’s stomach. He slumped forward, lifeless before being kicked off the sword.

Vynlarion looked over the deck of the ship, finding that, although he was quick with his weapon, the ranger he had travelled with was much, much faster. Alorinis jumped from bannister to mast and back down again, arrows flying. He dodged a multitude of attacks and peppered multiple opponents with an innumerable amount of minor injuries before they simply succumbed to them all.

The knight turned his attention to the bow of the ship, and his stomach dropped. “Brace for impact!” He shouted. Mere feet away was an Orcish warship, engaged in firing cannons at their own ship which was headed for a broadside collision. Vynlarion for his part lunged toward the wheel of the ship, holding tightly.

In a cacophony of splintering wood, bending metal and loss of numerous lives human, elf, and orc, their own ship came to a thundering halt as it embedded itself in the side of the Orcish attack ship. Those remaining on board the enemy ship were thrown off their starboard side and into the grey, frothing ocean that hungry swallowed them.

Vynlarion knew what he had to do.

He heaved his armoured body over the side of the quarter deck and onto the main deck below, slicing through three orcs that faced away from him. “All of you, come with me!” Alorinis had evidently caught wise of his plan and was already on the enemy ship, perched on its sail rigging, bow firing endless arrows into the skulls of the few unsuspecting orcs left.

What few could followed the knight as he thundered over the decking and onto ruined bowsprit which had been jammed into the side of the Orcish ship. He spared a look over his shoulder, counting only five who were with him. Only a handful remained on board and were either about to be killed, or were dying on the decking. They called out as he and his fleeing entourage sped by, but he did not allow any mercy for their comrades. This was war.

Finally they made it onto the enemy ship which had been largely cleared by Alorinis. “Mages!” The ranger called out, pointing at their ship, the Defiant.

“Right!” One called out, and raised her hands into the sky and was quickly joined by her colleagues. They summoned fiery magic into the sky, creating a ball of swirling crimsons and oranges on the stern of the Defiant where Vynlarion had once stood. The captain lay against the ruined mainmast, and weakly nodded at him.

Vynlarion lowered his sword and passed it into his left hand, saluting the captain who would go down with his ship. The orcish attack vessel they now commanded slowly pulled away, having been much less badly damaged given its metallic construction, and it was then that Vynlarion made the call: “Do it!”

The three magisters extended their hands outward, and in a shared effort, mana screamed through the air around them, preceding the enormous explosion that obliterated half of the Defiant in one ruinous explosion. The captain was gone in a moment and the rest of his ship sunk into the violent seas.

The other four Orcish ships were still faring well. “How in the hells are we going to get out?!” A human deckhand shouted. He had been one of those who had gone with them, and Vynlarion cursed silently at him not having been something more useful in a situation such as this. Even still, he was unsure. Naval warfare was not his speciality. They could not afford to board every ship.

“Vynlarion!” Alorinis hurried to his side, gesturing at the barrels of explosive power at the other side of the Orcish ship. “Toss those into the sea!” The old knight cocked an eyebrow, but did as he was asked and hurried to them. Alorinis continued dispensing orders, and magister runes marked the six barrels that sat in a messy pile.

The beleaguered party seemed to collectively understand the strange Farstrider’s commands. Vynlarion strapped his sword to his back and heaved the heavy barrels off the side of the ship. They landed in the water with a crash and bobbed madly before suddenly becoming still. The mages now had control of them and were moving them toward the enclosing orcish vessels.

With his task done, Vynlarion moved to the stern of the ship and took the wheel, pulling hard to the right and moving the ship so that no broadside could be struck. He steered the ship against the tall waves, its bow crashing downward every minute with such a thunderous boom he suspected it might simply shatter and sink. The heavy metal armour on his hull made it heavy to maneuver and for a moment the nobleman wondered if they would make it in such a heavy, stubborn craft.

He looked over the bow of the ship and saw the barrels had made it to their destinations: a seam between the bow and side plates on the ship. One could see weathered wood there on every ship: a weakspot. Alorinis cocked an arrow and let it loose. It flew through the air, spinning toward its target below the nearest ship. As he did, the magister responsible for the barrel severed their connection.

An explosion blew the ship upward out of the water, severing the pronounced bow from the rest of the ship in a messy break. The process was repeated for two of the remaining ships, leaving only one left. The three mages panted, sweating profusely while the deckhand and farstrider that had accompanied him hurriedly controlled the sails as best they could. “Alorinis, you know what must be done. We’ll need to get right in,” Vynlarion called out to him, and received a nod. “Gentleman!” he shouted again, now to the two impromptu sail-hands, “Full sail!” They abruptly let go of the rope they held and the sails billowed upward, bowing out before the ship.

The rain slammed into the back of his head, the wind throwing his silver hair before him, and forcing his chainmail cloak into his back. The ship rocketed forward on the sudden gust of wind, crashing into the waves with such ferocity one magister who had unwisely taken refuge against the side of the maindeck was tossed into the air and landed with his back on the railing with a sickening ‘snap’ before falling limply into the water.

The oricsh ship they intended to escape seemed completely unaware, its cannons spinning around on the maindeck, but their projectiles meeting mostly air, but making moderate damage to the hold of their commandeered ship. “Keep going!” Vynlarion shouted furiously at the ship below, which continued to thunder over the violent waves.

As they went by the other ship, Alorinis sprinted across the deck and with all his might heaved another barrel off the port side of the ship. It trailed in the water, being forced toward the enemy ship by the mad waves. He jumped up onto the slippery railing and let loose an arrow coated in the blood of an enemy and yet somehow alight with fire.

It met its mark.

The enemy ship blew into the air, its keel clearly visible as it listed dangerously onto its side in the air before being caught broadside by a wave and subsequently rolled beyond the point of no return.

“Reduce sail!” Vynlarion called out, the ship’s armour cracking off as its structural integrity was being too badly threatened by the inclement weather. He let out a breath he did not realise he was holding and looked around, counting only the human deckhand, two magisters, and one farstrider. “Alorinis?” He looked around, confused.

It then dawned on him. The ship now bounced over the waves, but was in less danger of being ripped apart. “Farstrider! Take the helm!” The man stumbled toward him on the wet decking and took the wheel, leaving Vynlarion free to hurry to the portside of the ship.

He looked over the edge at the battered, dented and in places shattered broadside of the ship, evidently taking on water given the damage he saw. Hanging from one of the loose ropes that had once connected a landing rowboat was Alorinis, who smirked up at the old knight: “I thought I’d just hang around for a little.”

Vynlarion groaned at the bad joke and reached down, hauling the ranger up and aiding him in getting onto the ship. “Unwise move – your bravado almost cost you your life,” he chastised the younger looking man, who only shrugged, as if to say ‘but it didn’t.’ The nobleman shook his head and instead changed the topic as they looked over the horizon over the bow of the ship, finding the rocky coast of Dun Morogh to the left of the ship.

“I believe it is safe to say that the rumours were true… The Horde has returned.” Vynlarion spoke ominously. The rain had begun to let up and the waves subside as they moved closer to shore, leaving a new eerie silence between the few survivors. Alorinis’s quiet footfalls sounded as he moved up next to the aged knight, nodding in agreement before himself speaking.

“Azeroth will endure… as it always had. We remaining few have proved the valour of this world’s peoples.”