Shoot

The next instant, a verdant blur materialized behind Duke, who was still mounted, swaying gently in his saddle. Sylvanas.

It looked, for all the world, like they were sharing a horse, pressed impossibly close. But in reality, Sylvanas was as light as a whisper, her weight so negligible that the warhorse didn't even twitch a muscle. She simply hovered, a phantom presence.

Her hands, slender and strong, settled with a feather-light touch on Duke's shoulders. Then, from behind his right side, a breath, carrying the intoxicating scent of ancient forests and wild magic, ghosted past his ear, sending a shiver of delightful unease down his spine.

And then, Duke's right cheek registered a sensation so utterly bizarre, so unexpectedly there, that his mind momentarily short-circuited.

It was the undeniable press of soft, red lips.

This was no innocent peck on the cheek, like the one Alleria had bestowed upon him last time, treating him like a small, adorable child. This was a kiss that danced on the razor's edge between intimacy and a veiled threat, a 'smooch' that felt suspiciously like a 'chomp.' It was a reward, yes, but with a definite, chilling undertone of a promise kept... or else.

"Consider that your advance payment, my sister's favorite boy," Sylvanas's voice, a silken whisper carried on the wind, followed a lightning-fast kiss that felt like a hummingbird's wing. "But if you dare to welch on your word, I'll take a chunk out of that very spot. And I don't mean a love bite."

Duke touched his right cheek, a bewildered expression plastered across his face. He didn't know whether to burst out laughing or start screaming.

Was that a warning shot across the bow? Or a peculiar declaration of affection?

Regardless, Duke had been thoroughly played. Again.

Sylvanas's lithe, green-clad form flickered, a dazzling emerald streak, and then she was gone, vanished into thin air as if she'd been a figment of his imagination. Her graceful exit was as breathtaking as her sudden appearance.

Over by the guards, Gavinrad let out a chuckle that was far too loud and entirely too unhelpful.

"Hey! You're a terrible bodyguard!" Duke grumbled, rubbing his cheek.

"My lord," Gavinrad replied, a mischievous glint in his eye, "just give the order. Define Lady Alleria or Lady Sylvanas as an enemy, and I'll smash that beautiful face with my hammer without a moment's hesitation."

The unspoken challenge hung in the air: Go on, Duke. I dare you.

Duke wouldn't even think of it, not even if he'd lost his marbles and started barking at the moon. That was Queen Sylvanas! If he could somehow rewrite history, save her from her tragic fate, and prevent her from becoming the cold, vengeful Banshee Queen, transforming her back into a warm, living Sylvanas... that would be a triumph for the ages.

A sudden surge of confidence washed over him, fueled by the thought of King Llane, still alive and kicking, defying his own grim destiny.

But then, a melancholic thought crept in: could such a Sylvanas still be called Queen Sylvanas? The very idea felt... off.

At that moment, Gavinrad muttered under his breath, "Fortunately, my lord, you didn't try to charm the fourth sister as well. Otherwise, you'd be public enemy number one, and we'd all be toast."

"What was that?" Duke, still lost in thought, hadn't quite caught it.

"Oh, nothing at all, my lord. Just... talking to myself."

Sure enough, the Horde's "test" arrived the very next day, right on schedule.

It was a twilight raid, a shadowy assault launched as the sun dipped below the horizon. Nearly thirty transport ships burst from the churning sea, like monstrous, dark insects scuttling across the waves.

The Horde, notoriously short on proper warships, had found a cunning, if utterly barbaric, workaround to their lack of naval supremacy: sheer, unadulterated speed!

These weren't the latest iron-plated behemoths. No, these were an earlier, purely wooden batch, stripped down for maximum velocity. They were light. They were insanely fast.

The ships rode ridiculously low in the water, devoid of masts or towering superstructures. No decks were visible from the outside; the exposed hull was almost entirely encased in a defensive shell. Orc laborers had crudely bolted massive, scavenged shells and hides to the top, creating a makeshift, but surprisingly effective, armored carapace.

So, what propelled these orcish speed demons?

The answer: pure, unadulterated, back-breaking, hand-powered slurry drainage! No fancy additives, no preservatives, no high-end sailing technology whatsoever. They didn't even have rudders; direction was changed entirely by brute-force paddling.

From a bird's-eye view, the entire fleet resembled nothing so much as a swarm of giant cockroaches, skittering across the water's surface.

The orcs' approach was a masterclass in brutal simplicity. What if a rogue wave capsized a boat? What if the vessel spun out of control in a storm?

Let it sink!

"Only the strong survive!" was the orcish mantra, and those too weak or unlucky to make it ashore were simply... discarded.

When twenty-seven of the thirty transport ships managed to slip past the patrol fleet and bore down on the coast, a violent commotion erupted on Tol Barad. It wasn't until these vessels, completely disregarding any notion of salvage or return, crashed onto the beach with the force of the incoming tide that the first, utterly meaningless cannon roar finally echoed from Tol Barad Island. A bit late to the party, wouldn't you say?

The sky rapidly bled from bruised purple to inky black.

From a distance, most of the ships had already beached themselves. Countless black figures, a chaotic, swirling mass, poured onto the rocky shore. There was no semblance of formation, no orderly lines. They simply charged, a scattered, green tide, hurtling towards the hills.

Even from their vantage point on the bluff, Alleria could clearly discern these creatures: red eyes gleaming in the gloom, green skin, towering, unarmored bodies, each wielding a weapon that could only be described as "big." Axes, hammers, crude machetes, and spears—many without a hint of metallic sheen—were clutched in their meaty fists as they sprinted towards the elf lines.

And there were so many of them. It was mind-boggling to imagine how over fifty orcs had been crammed into those seemingly tiny transport ships, which appeared barely large enough for twenty.

Twenty-two ships, over a thousand screaming, suicidal orcs. A full-blown night assault!

For a regular human army, this would have been a gut-wrenching, soul-crushing pressure.

For the High Elf Rangers? It was just another Tuesday.

There was no need to even gauge the wind direction. Windrunners, after all, were practically born children of the wind. Alleria, with an almost casual grace, raised her emerald green longbow. Three green-fletched arrows nocked themselves onto the string, nestled between her slender fingers. Without missing a beat, she rattled off a series of precise parameters: "Wind direction southwest, force two, elevation angle three!"

Beside Alleria, Lirath Windrunner, usually the quieter of the two, let out a surprisingly loud, almost primal shout.

"Wind direction southwest, force two, elevation angle three!"

Behind the two Windrunner sisters, five hundred elite rangers, a silent, deadly force, raised their longbows in unison.

If this were a human archer unit, perhaps a single sharpshooter would lead the volley, and the rest would simply aim in that general direction, hoping to hit something. Human archers excelled at covering fire, relying on sheer numbers and arrow density to saturate an area.

But High Elf Rangers? Sorry, folks! Every single one of them was a bona fide sniper!

Alleria stood, her agile figure a silhouette against the darkening sky, the breeze ruffling her golden hair and whipping her green cloak around her. She looked every inch the heroic, legendary archer.

"Three shots, rapid fire!" Alleria's voice, a soft command, cut through the rising din of the charging Horde.

The bowstrings of those elite rangers, each holding two or three arrows simultaneously, finally sang. More than twelve hundred arrows streaked into the heavens, a deadly, emerald rain.

Also fired at that precise moment were the specially arranged weapons Duke had prepared.

The catapults launched arrows without arrowheads or fletching. Duke wanted this overwhelming, almost theatrical display of firepower, purely for the benefit of any orcs still lurking in observation ships. He wanted them to see a storm of arrows, a terrifying spectacle.

What was truly, unequivocally deadly, however, were Alleria's rangers.

The "law" that bows and arrows struggled to deliver fatal blows to strong orcs—a law verified countless times in skirmishes—clearly applied only to human troops.

For the High Elves, born with an innate gift for sharpshooting, blessed with dark vision and eyes that could pierce the gloom, the orcs' exposed throats and heads were simply oversized, neon-lit targets.

In the second round of three consecutive shots, the orcs assaulting the beach were, quite literally, wiped clean off the map.