Lost Lion
Volume 1: Chapter 3
***The Redridge Mountains***
I moved as silently as possible through the brushes. In front of me was my closest friend who was just recently promoted to the rank of Sergeant, Aloman Thorne.In my eyes she completely deserved it having worked her ass off these past four years. Currently she had her helmet on and was holding a greatsword with two hands while moving silently through the forest too. The forest in question was Northwest of Stonewatch Keep, where I was currently based. Aloman and I weren't alone however.
Around us were another thirty footmen. Only nine of them had greatswords like Aloman; the other fifteen had a sword and shield combo which left the remaining five as range support. Unlike the others who used crossbows, I had the bow since, for me, loading a bolt was slower than pulling an arrow from my quiver. Besides, the other five weren't actually ranged specialists; they just had decent aiming with the crossbow while I actually had training to use the bow. My primary weapon was actually a two handed sword just like Aloman, but for this mission, I was acting with the ranged crew because, quite frankly, they were pretty lacking overall.
As for the mission, the reason why thirty of us were here was because we received a report from citizens of Lakeshire that gnolls raiding parties had been sighted on the outskirts of the town, just beyond the Stonewatch's normal patrol routes. In the Watch Commander's experience, he said that frequent sightings were often a prelude to an attack. So twol legions of footmen were dispatched from Stonewatch keep, though they were broken up into smaller companies in order to cast a wide net to catch these raiding gnolls. The companies then split further into squads of thirty to tighten said net.
One of the things that always eluded me were the hard numbers of Warcraft, for both WoW and the movie verse. I heard the term legion tossed around a lot and have always assumed that it was the size of a Roman legion, which would have made each legion unit in WoW about six thousand men strong.
Unfortunately, I forgot that Warcraft was created by an American company and the person who wrote it himself was American. Thus, he used the American definition of legion units from the revolutionary war which was anywhere from twenty five hundred to three thousand units strong.
My particular legion was the 32nd legion which had about two thousand six hundred and twenty one soldiers in it. Also right now, we along with four legions, were stationed at Stonewatch keep, the first line of defense for Lakeshire.
So here I was, readying myself to fulfill that duty since it just so happened that the scouts spotted a camp and–as luck would have it–our group was the closest. So we drew the short straw so to speak. Up to now, we had seen seven flares fired into the sky, which meant the other companies had found and cleared seven gnoll camps. We would be the eighth.
"I see them!" Private Jenkins said excitedly as he pointed to a fire where a large group of gnolls were gathered around a campfire.
"Don't you f*cking think about it," I hissed at Private Jenkins. Said Private looked at me startled but tried to protest his innocence. However, I knew better. This man had acted like his game's namesake on so many occasions in the year that I had been stationed here that I was downright sick of it. While he had been repeatedly reprimanded for his zeal, he was also considered too skilled to simply be dismissed.
"Quiet," Aloman whispered harshly as she held up a hand to stop the squad movement.
"Scout Thomas, tell me how many you see?"
The scout of our group took one glance at the camp and then looked at Aloman. "Twenty Four."
We all shared a look with one another. Experience had taught us that when you saw one gnoll out in the open, it was always best to add a few more to that number to account for those lurking about. Seeing twenty four meant there was probably sixty total in the vicinity. Almost two to one odds.
However, we weren't in pretty fancy plate armor for nothing. We all looked to Aloman, me included, as she stared at the camp. It wasn't long before she turned back to us with a strategy.
"Ok, the shield squadron will run at them with linked shields, and the sword squadron will follow right behind. Range units take out any stragglers that try to run," Aloman said, looking at the group. "Understood?"
"Aye!" We all said as loud as whispering people could.
I felt several shield wielding footmen move past me and got into a line at the edge of the forest. The greatsword users were right behind them a second later.
"Ready?" Aloman asked, and we all nodded. I myself had taken three arrows out. One was nocked in my bow, two stabbed into the ground.
"Soldiers of Stormwind, for the King!" Aloman scream was all that was needed as the soldiers roared loudly and rushed past the forest line toward the very surprised gnoll camp.
"Humans!" one of the gnolls shouted before they made their iconic hyena-like howls.
To their credit, they took up their crude-looking weapons and charged at the line of footmen.
Like so many times I had witnessed before during my tour of duty, the enemies crashed into the sturdy line of the shield bearing footman and was stopped right at the spot. Swords rose up and chopped down in unison eliciting cries of fright and pain from the enemies.
"Bad humans! Bad!" One of the hyena-like creatures 'yipped' as it raised a horn to its lip and blew on it.
As if in reply, gnolls began appearing from the nearby areas, just as we suspected.
"Archers!" Aloman shouted.
That was my cue. I took aim at the first gnoll and like with firearms on Earth, you always aimed at the center mass. I let loose my first arrow and already had a second one ready to go just as the first punched through one of the gnoll coming in from the right side.
Twang!
I let the second arrow fly, stabbing into a gnoll that was about to throw a javelin toward me or into our lines; I wasn't too sure which.
"Shield-bearers, form flanks!" Aloman commanded and like clockwork, the line of 15 shieldmen split in two, forming two wings while the two-handers took the center.
If the gnolls thought they had it easy when shield bearers stopped their attack, they were wrong. Powerful heavy blows from large two handed swords chopped down onto the enemy forces, sometimes even cutting through their weapons or just smashing the gnolls flat into the ground.
Meanwhile, I kept on picking off the reinforcing gnolls on the left flank while the other three crossbowmen were responsible for the right. I slowly made my way to the footmen's line to hit the incoming enemies easier.
Not every gnoll I shot was instantly killed by my arrows. The gnolls could endure the pain quite well unless I lucked out and hit a vital spot, but I didn't have time to aim like that in a rush.
The good news was that the gnolls didn't seem to have any more reinforcements, and I could feel the gnolls' forces in the front by Aloman's group starting to buckle. How could I feel it? I have no idea but after being in enough skirmishes over these past years, I chalked it up to a soldier's sense.
"Kill armor human! Kill!"
I saw the biggest gnoll of the group, armed with a huge war axe, charge at Aloman. It must have known that she was the leader of our group. I let my current arrow fly directly into the face of the closest gnolls before I switched and targeted the gnoll leader.
What was hammered into our heads was that gnolls tended to lose their morale when their leader perishes. So it was also recommended to kill said leader whenever we were able to identify them which usually meant the biggest one there was. I saw two crossbow bolts miss the huge gnoll, one way off while the other clipping the little bits of armor it had on.
It was my arrow that actually struck its chest, though it didn't seem to phase the monster. The second bolt that struck its stomach did even less. After that, it engaged in close combat with Aloman, making it too difficult for me to fire without accidentally hitting her.
I turned back to what I could affect, which was the flank battle. The shield bearers were holding strong. A lot of the gnolls' attack was blunted by the footmen's shields, and they certainly weren't strong enough to punch through the plated armor that our soldiers were wearing, making their attacks either rebound or skid off.
The battle went on for several minutes until suddenly, the once ravenous gnolls were no longer as ferocious but instead seemed uncertain.
"Leader dead!" one gnoll cried out which was all that was needed to cause a chaotic retreat to ensue.
"3rd Company!" Aloman roared. I turned to see her armor splattered with blood with her holding up the severed head of the gnoll leader in her left hand raised high. In her other hand, she pointed her sword at the fleeing gnoll.
"Run them down!"
Formation was forgotten as our line broke into run after the fleeing gnolls to kill as many as we could. By the time we were done, I could confidently say that half of the gnolls we had killed were in direct combat while the other half was sliced down while they fled the battlefield.
It never ceased to amaze me how fast our regular soldiers were when their morale was high, even after a fight. To be able to chase down gnolls while wearing heavy plate armor? It should have been ridiculous, but to be honest, even the plate armor I had on me felt like soft cloth instead. It didn't weigh me down at all nor did I lose any agility, and I wasn't even using holy magic to supplement my strength.
If I had to make a guess, I would say that the average human here, while looking like earthlings, were definitely stronger by a large margin. Not only that, but greater stamina, denser bones, and tougher muscles as well. I was pretty sure on earth, if someone were to use a sledge hammer to hit a man holding a shield, their arm would be in a lot of pain, if not outright shattered. Yet the average soldier here could take those sledge hammer hits like they weren't a big deal. With a shield, of course.
"You alright, Sarge?" I came up to my company leader and gave a quick salute. Her armor was bloodied, but it didn't look too damaged besides the little nicks here and there.
"The battle's over. You can drop the formalities, Callan," Aloman's familiar husky voice came out as she took off her helmet revealing her tightly braided brown hair.
"The burial details?"
"Nate's taking care of it," I pointed to a footman shield bearer who seemed to be directing a couple of the footmen to pull the gnolls' bodies into a pile. Naturally, anything of value on them was already looted.
"You feeling alright? You took on a pretty big bastard by yourself."
We both looked over to the headless gnoll that was much larger than her. Even after all this time, I still wasn't used to killing sentient beings. In combat, I could justify it, but seeing my work in the aftermath still made me feel a little queasy. Just how many had I killed over the years? Yet, it was either killed or be killed. The dead civilians of the Kingdom made me more than aware of that. From time to time, entire families would be wiped, eaten by trolls, gnolls, or even murlocs. Top of the food chain, right? f*ck that. Nobody was ever spared, not even the children.
I really don't know how other SI's do it.Some of the SI's from the story I read could just kill people as easily as breathing and then sleep well at night. Some of them didn't even have the gamer mind ability which dulled their feelings, allowing them to kill without remorse.
My hands must have been shaking since Aloman grabbed my arm and gave me a look. Unlike mine, her hand was steady. She was good at killing and didn't seem to view these gnolls like I did. I know that probably made me look soft in her eyes, but like a real friend, all she did was support me and made sure that I didn't show any weakness in public.
As a form of thanks, I looked at her with a grin. Raising my hand, I wiggled my fingers like some of the Conjurers in our legion, to which she simply shook her head.
"I'm fine," Aloman said before she looked around. "Nothing I can't sleep off, no need to use your abilities."
The last part she whispered.
Aloman discovered my abilities early on after I healed her while we were on a scouting mission near the Westfall borders. She had taken a troll's spear through the leg, and I had healed her before we got back. She had quizzed me then on why I wasn't a cleric to which I told her a lie by saying I wanted to follow in my father's footsteps. She probably wouldn't be able to understand my completely and utterly rational fear of bronze dragons. That wasn't even mentioning Medivh who was probably quite close, now that I thought about it.
So being the great friend that she was, Aloman promised to keep it a secret. Thankfully, unlike most priests, my healing wasn't as flashy. It could be, of course, but for minor single target wounds? Not even worth the special effect apparently.
The crazy thing was that I didn't think I would have been able to hide my abilities for so long. As much as I wanted to avoid the attention of a certain dragon flight and immortal demons, I wasn't going to stand by like the young Superman who watched his father die to protect his secret in the 'Man of Steel' movie. Yet, lucky for me, since my enlistment, I was never in a company that required such healing. They only ever took minor injuries that were easily treated by nominal first aid.
"It's done." Aloman's voice took me out of my thoughts. I looked over to see that all the gnolls were gathered in a pile so large that it had to be fifty to sixty gnolls in total. One of the soldiers, who we nicknamed 'Priest', said a quick prayer for the gnolls' souls before another soldier poured some oil on the pile. Priest made the spark that engulfed the bodies in flames.
I then took out the flare arrow assigned to us and fired it into the sky. Reaching the apex of the arc, it exploded and released bright blue fireworks. I turned to Aloman who nodded her head. With the signal sent, we prepared to continue our hunt. At least, that was until three more bright red fireworks were seen.
"I guess our job is done," I concluded. So there were only eight camps in total. If there were sixty to a hundred gnolls in each camp, that made the gnoll's raiding force come out to roughly eight hundred or more.
There would have been a lot of civilian casualties if it had been left unchecked.
"Alright, let's go back and report," Aloman said as she put her helmet back on and assigned three people to carry the gnoll's gears that we looted.
"Company, march!"
Instead of going through the forest, this time, we found a dirt path and made our way back to Stonewatch Keep. The soldiers were eager to see if we would get paid for any of our haul from the quartermasters.
"I can't wait to see Stacey again," someone said.
"You can't see her if I see her first!" someone else rebutted.
"You disgusting pigs," a female voice rebuked the two. "Besides, we are still on rotation for another two weeks, she's probably entertaining the entire 27th by now."
"Hey, us men like what we want. You don't see us nagging you for your mooning over those pretty boy nobles, do you?"
"S-shut up!"
I chuckled along with the rest of the group at the company's banter. It was nice; I had never really felt such camaraderie before joining the military. Of course, the Stacey they were referring to was a...working lady of the night. I was surprised when I found out there was a brothel in Lakeshire, but not as much as I was surprised by Lakeshire itself.
It was nothing like the game's depiction. It was a massive sprawling town, a mining town where the Kingdom got a lot of its ores from. The First War must have razed the original Lakeshire town and what we saw in WoW was a budding new town with the name of Lakeshire.
As we were making our way down onto the main path, I paused mid-step, startling the footman that was walking behind me which happened to be Nate.
"Callan?" Nate asked in concern as the whole company stopped as well.
There was something in the air, a sudden calmness to it. even the birds of the forest stopped chirping. Now that the sound of marching boots had ended, I realized that even the wind had also stopped blowing. Strangest of them all, the Light felt like it was.. agitated?
"Callan?" Aloman made her way from the front to me before I realized it. "Something wrong?"
"You guys don't feel that?" I asked, looking at them.
"Feel what?" Aloman asked.
"I just feel hungry..." one of the footmen answered.
I felt goosebumps on my skin, and it was like a tingly crawling feeling going up the back of my head. However, seeing the others' concerned expressions, I slowly shook my head.
"Sorry, guys." I gave a thumbs up. "Let's go back. Don't want to get in trouble with the Commander since certain peoples' ladies or lords are waiting for their sweethearts after all."
I heard laughter at my joke, taking their focus away from me. So we continued to march, but I mused on my odd feeling. Something was going on; I could feel it deep in my gut. I briefly suspected that event but...I was currently nineteen and that event in the movie happened when Callan was twenty-two so I dismissed that possibility.
Still.. I wondered what it could be. However, any more thoughts on it were put to the back of my head when I saw the impressive walls of Stonewatch Keep in the distance with the soldiers giving a loud cheer at the sight.
"Hey, Callan, you gonna drink with us tonight?" one of the soldiers asked.
"Sure why not?" I shrugged, deciding to forget about the feelings for now. It was time to just hang out with my company and worry about everything else tomorrow.
TBC
A/N: Once more thanks to Icura for help with editing! A big thanks to those who read and enjoy the story. I appreciate all the comments. Now I know what is something that is consistent in WoW is numbers, army numbers and sizes. The only hard number we know before was that 50k Alliance died in the war against the Lich King. Humans make up the majority of that so with that in mind I nailed down a reasonable number.
As for the legions number. I took the legion number from the warcraft movie. During the war room strat meeting with Lothar, Llane and Medivh. He assigned 10 Legion to Elwyn protection, 5 to Deadwind pass, 10 to Redridge and 3 legion as a rapid response team. It was also stated that up to date they have lost 18 legions. So given that the minimum number that makes up a legion is 2500. The Kingdom of Stormwind had 46 legions which equaled 115k troops. If I change it to the max of 3000 then they had 136k troops. Which is not that bad in terms of fantasy races. In Game of Thrones, the Reach fielded 100k soldiers all by themselves. But that is my take on it.
Thanks again!
