What came before...
[Prompt] Descriptive VisitationVesthi watched from the darkness of the forest. The small troop of Horde foot soldiers paused their advance within a small clearing. They grunted and growled their guttural languages at one another. The very sound of it sickened Vesthi. She needed to understand what they were saying though, and so she silently wove a simple spell and she reached forth with her mystical senses.
“We’ll make camp here.” The larger orc of the bunch barked at the others. “You three, gather wood and start a fire. The rest of you grab your axes and start felling some of these trees. We need to have a perimeter set by the time the supply wagon arrives with reinforcements.” The brute continued hurling insults and kicking his subordinates into action. Orcs who were obviously tired and worn from their marching and fighting. Dismantling their efforts would hardly be a challenge for her. Vesthi mused with a slight and impish grin as she took in their numbers and movement. Tension mounted in her chest. The desire to rush from the shadows and slay the lot of them toyed with her, testing her patience. Vesthi clenched her fists and then relaxed her fingers, remembering her training in Outland.
The Black Temple had been a treacherous place. It’s dark halls and vast courtyards filled with meandering demons of all sizes were prone to claiming the lives of the foolish, while also making the arrogant and vain suffer. Vesthi found herself in conflict with several fellow trainees, in the beginning. Everyone still held onto their old notions of ranking. Hierarchy. Without intending too they’d injected their own form of politics and then jockeyed for superior positions over other trainees. All notions of her old life, her old ways of thinking and living, were erased in the weeks to follow. Vesthi, along with numerous other trainees, quickly learned to abandon those notions of social status. The only thing that made one greater than another was power. Raw power. A cunning and shrewd mind was also invaluable. Knowing when and how to advance upon an enemy. How to turn their superior odds against them. These skills were just as valuable as raw power. Those that failed to learn this tended to disappear. As much as this worked to ban Vesthi and her peers together in the beginning, it also introduced a more insidious game of power and control. A game of sheer will.
Worse yet were the demons. The demons that pledged to fight along Illidan’s side had unrestricted access. They wandered everywhere. Survival meant more than learning to keep your head on a swivel. It meant paying attention to every little detail at all times. Even when sleeping. A slip in one’s defenses, or failure to notice a crucial detail in your environment, could cost you your life. If you were lucky then such failures merely resulted in painful corrections. Cold dispassionate calculation was the lesson from the pain her mistakes brought her.
Veshi watched from shadows. Melded into the darkness and as still as she was the Orcish footman would be forgiven for stepping right past her, gathering tinder from the forest floor. She’d decided to let him pass. He would be her witness to the horror she was set to unleash upon this small encampment of fools. This lone Orc would speak the voiceless words she would leave in blood and death for him. Once the Orc was at a safe enough distance Vesthi bounded with supernatural grace from one shadow to another swiftly nearing the forest clearing.
At the perimeter of that clearing many of the Orcs had put themselves to chopping on trees. Others worked long thick branches and timber into sharpened pikes meant to build up a rudimentary defensive fortification, in predictable Orcish fashion. They were tired. Over confident. It was clear that they had seen some kind of action. Many of their weapons were blooded. Their leather armors spattered, marred, and some even torn or broken in some fashion. Several Orcs wore flesh wounds as marks of honor and valor. Proof that they’d given as well as they’d been given. These details only emboldened Vesthi. They weren’t fleeing to find shelter from a foe. They had bested their enemy and were now setting up a forward post. When she was done here Vesthi would have to see to that supply wagon they were expecting.
The lithe Demon Hunter set her gaze upon the first Orc that worked to fell a thick tree. The rage that Vesthi held within her chest flared to life, calling as it were upon the very fel energies that coursed through her veins and into her claws. It was time for her to leave her message. She flexed her fingers but this time they did not relax. Vesthi stepped forward from the darkness and moved like a wraith.
The lone Orc tripped over his own feet. Back in the forest he stumbled and poured his arm full of branches and twigs over the forest floor. He cursed to himself for being so weary. The small group of Night Elves he and his band had come across fought like possessed wildlings. It was unnatural. Even frightening, though that fear swiftly faded when one of the Orcs of his band cleaved a Night Elf’s head nearly in two. They didn’t seem so scary after that. The Orc rolled his shoulder, grumbling quietly at the pain. Tall and lanky, those tree dwelling purple freaks sure packed more than a punch. He sighed to himself. This ‘gathering firewood’ nonsense was taking far too long, so instead he picked through the lot he’d gathered. He only took up a few of the biggest branches. Satisfied that this would suffice he ambled his way back toward the clearing.
It wasn’t long before he noticed the dull glint of Orcish Iron embedded in a distant tree. Making his way toward it he quickly found the remains of the Orc that swung it heaped upon the ground. He lay at the foot of the tree almost where he was working on the tree. He hadn’t seen his end coming. Alarmed the Orc reached for his own axe at his belt, dropping his gathered wood at his feet. It was then that his ears noticed the eerie silence. The absent sounds of axe heads chopping away at trees. The lack of the crack and groaning of timber as trees fell. There should have been shouting from the camp in the clearing beyond. There was nothing.
Fear and panic washed over him. The Orc raised his axe and quickly made his way toward the camp. The scene he came upon as he entered the clearing was horrendous. Many of his fellow band of Orcs fell where they were working. Some with their axes still in hand, tools and wood still in their grips. Few appeared to have even had the chance to put up a fight. At the center of the clearing where the large fire was to be set instead was the body of their leader. He’d been impaled by several long poles, sharpened for the defense perimeter. The lone Orc stumbled to the side. Panic quickened his breathing. The grip on his axe loosened and fell from his hand. The noise of it hitting the ground startled him and he turned with a jerk. Out of the darkness came a demon, swift and strong like a hot desert wind. The creature swept him off his feet and pinned him against a tree. Its eyes flared with hellish fel green fire. The heat and stench of the pit flowed from its maw as it spoke it’s vile tongue, incomprehensible to his ears. The creature’s voice deep and full of menace.
The demon’s incoherent guttural growls morphed magically into an intelligible language in the Orc’s ear. “Look upon the camp.” It commanded. Wide eyed the Orc struggled with the massive arm and claw at his neck, to no avail. The demon continued. “See it’s devastation. Know that I am coming.” The creature tossed the Orc aside. He tumbled once and scrambled to his feet. The enormity of the demonic fiend loomed before him. “Spread my message.” The demon commanded. It leaned forward. Jagged teeth gleaming into a grin. “Run.”
The Orc turned with a cry and scurried as best he could back the way they had come. They had arrived as many, now they were but one. In the distance he heard the demon’s voice call out to him once more with an unearthly roar. “I am coming!”