Beach Landing

Every Alliance warship roared like a hungry dragon, spitting dazzling yellow flames from its muzzles. With each colossal solid shell launched, a choking cloud of acrid smoke belched forth, followed by a deafening CRUMP! that rattled teeth and bones, sending the gun barrels recoiling with a violent shudder. Iron cannonballs, black as a winter night, screamed across hundreds of meters of open air, slamming into the orc transport ships with the fury of a thousand thunderclaps. The relentless BOOM! CRACK! SPLINTER! of tearing wood and exploding hulls utterly swallowed the roaring sea breeze, turning it into a mere whisper.

Each iron sphere, a dark streak against the sky, became the Grim Reaper's personal calling card. It was like a twisted game of chance, with Lady Luck spinning a roulette wheel where one slot meant a watery grave and the other... well, the other also meant a watery grave, just with a slightly different trajectory. Whether it was a near-miss that sent a geyser of spray sky-high, or a direct hit that sent you straight to the bottom, it had become less about naval strategy and more about cosmic dice rolls. In a morbid way, getting flattened by a cannonball was a stroke of good fortune. At least you wouldn't have to endure the soul-crushing, endless torment of waiting for the next one.

Shells whizzed overhead, then slammed into the water nearby, sending colossal plumes of spray erupting like angry sea monsters. Missed? Again?! The agonizing THWUMP! of a near-miss barely faded before a fresh, terrifying volley of roars thundered from the distant Alliance lines. Had they prayed to their ancestors? And after chugging down that mystery blood that turned their skin green, would their ancestors even recognize them, let alone bless them? It was a question that hung heavy in the salty air. At some point, these seemingly endless, iron-fisted greetings from the Alliance became the orcs' own personal hell.

If this were their maiden voyage across the treacherous waves, perhaps the orcs would have simply been bewildered, paddling onward like dim-witted ducks. But with the lingering stench of their first disastrous landing failure hanging in the air, the surviving orcs inevitably went into a full-blown panic, their green faces turning a sickly shade of grey. For a rowing boat, the cardinal sin was uneven force application. The immediate consequence? Their flimsy vessels began to spin like a cat chasing its tail, or a dizzy drunkard trying to walk a straight line on the open sea.

The orc fleet was a hot mess, a chaotic scramble of flailing limbs and spinning boats. It wasn't for lack of trying; some brave (or foolish) orc commanders attempted to rally their small craft for a head-on charge against the Alliance. But after the Kul Tiras fleet had taken a punch to the gut last time, what now blocked the orc transport ships wasn't a careless, flimsy single column, but a staggered, iron-clad double column, like a brick wall built by a very angry dwarf. And as if that wasn't enough to make a warchief weep, the utterly ruthless Admiral Daelin had gone and tweaked the ship structure of most of his fleet, like a mad tinkerer perfecting his death contraptions.

Originally, the Kul Tiras fleet's cannons were spread out evenly on both port and starboard, perfect for polite, fleet-to-fleet artillery duels. But now, with the prospect of the most brutal, no-holds-barred blocking battle looming, Daelin had gone full throttle, cramming almost every single cannon onto the starboard side. The port side? It was basically just relying on a whole lot of heavy rocks and prayers to keep the ship from tipping over like a drunken sailor. In other words, unless the Alliance fleet could pull off a tactical miracle and seize the coveted T-position, that sparsely armed port side was about as useful as a chocolate teapot in a furnace, destined to be blown to smithereens the moment it sniffed an enemy.

Daelin, a man who played chess with cannonballs, was bold as brass but cautious as a cat on a hot tin roof. On one hand, he figured the Bloodsail Fleet, those turncoat scallywags who'd jumped ship to the orcs, wouldn't amount to a hill of beans in a real fight. On the other, he had more faith in his own command skills than a goblin has in his gold. And boy, did he bet right. Even a run-of-the-mill destroyer could now unleash over thirty guns from a single side. That amount of firepower was enough to make a seasoned demon hunter wet his pants – utterly, gloriously insane.

The spherical solid shells, spinning through the air like miniature, iron-fisted judgments from the heavens, slammed into the smaller orc transport ships with the force of a pissed-off gronn. These were the ships trying to play 'ant-attachment tactics,' attempting to swarm the Alliance vessels with the agility of a pregnant kodo. KABOOM! Thanks to the orcs' frantic rush to get these new ships afloat, most of the materials used were about as sturdy as a goblin's promise – they'd cut corners so aggressively, they'd practically sawed the whole thing in half. Originally, orc vessels were built like brick outhouses, big and beefy. But now, thanks to material shortages and their desperate chase for sheer numbers, they'd lost even their basic structural integrity. They were floating death traps.

By all rights, it should have been impossible for a seemingly massive transport ship to be blasted clean through from deck to keel by a single cannonball. Common sense screamed bloody murder. But the gruesome facts were staring them in the face. The rough, thin deck was effortlessly ripped to shreds, catapulted skyward in a grotesque confetti of splintered wood chips and orcish flesh and blood, raining down like a particularly nasty storm. No need for gunpowder explosions, no need for the fancy spiral drilling force from rifling. Just the sheer, unadulterated, bone-shattering kinetic energy of a solid iron ball was enough to send a transport ship, capable of carrying dozens, even hundreds, of orcs, straight to the bottom of the ocean, no questions asked.

This plague of penny-pinching also spread its rotten tendrils to the orcs' supposedly 'giant armored transport ships.' Originally, with their 'heavy' armor, cannon shells would barely scratch them, often just bouncing off like rubber balls. But after the armor was thinned to the consistency of a cheap tin can, that cast iron plate – which was never proper armor to begin with – became the orcs' own worst enemy, a self-inflicted wound. When bombarded, that relatively brittle cast iron instantly exploded into thumb-sized, razor-sharp fragments. These, supercharged by the concussive force, burst into the cabins like a deadly hailstorm. The orc warriors, crammed in tighter than goblins in a gold vault, became the ultimate victims, turning into human (or rather, orc) pin cushions.

Under this relentless shrapnel assault, a horror beyond the limits of their physical endurance, orcs fell like wheat before a scythe. Hordes of them were cut down, but even more suffered grievous wounds, rendering them useless for battle, bleeding out on the splintered decks. On a land battlefield, those violent, brave orcs would often choose to go down swinging, taking an enemy with them. But out here on the unforgiving sea, besides their own dying brethren, there was nothing but stray cannonballs, leaving gaping, bowl-sized holes in their flimsy cabins – a grim, silent testament to their watery doom.

Perched on Daelin's flagship, soaking in the grim reports trickling in from various mages, Duke's face remained as stormy as the churning sea itself. "Alright, Admiral, I've got a little something for you: the good, the bad, and the ugly."

Admiral Daelin, ever the pragmatist, curled a wry lip. "Alright, Duke, lay it on me. Us old sea dogs always prefer to get the bad news out of the way first, like ripping off a bandage."

"Well, the bad news is this: you're between a rock and a hard place. You've got to decide, right here, right now, how to divvy up your fleet. Because if more than eight thousand of those orcish death traps land on the Southshore coast, King Terenas and Genn Greymane will be on your doorstep faster than a goblin can count his gold, ready to kick up a storm."

"And the 'good' news, pray tell?" Daelin prompted, a hint of gallows humor in his voice.

"At this rate, Admiral, we've got a fighting chance to send more than half of those green-skinned barbarians straight to the bottom of the sea, where they can finally learn to swim with the fishes – permanently."

Daelin let out a low whistle, a sound that usually preceded mischief. "Alright, Duke, here's the deal: I'll leave the Second Fleet and the Stormwind Fleet under your command at Southshore. I'll personally take care of those sneaky devils trying to slip through the strait. And as for the rest? I'll lead them to the opposite coast of Southshore myself. Consider it a personal invitation to a party they won't forget."

Duke mulled it over, realizing Daelin was still holding a grudge against those double-crossing Bloodsail Pirates. This was the only way to ensure they got what was coming to them, a bitter pill for the admiral to swallow, but one he'd clearly relish. "Give me your solemn word, Admiral." Duke pressed, his gaze unwavering.

"Don't you worry your pretty little head, Duke," Daelin replied, a glint in his eye that promised anything but fairness. "I'll treat them as fairly as a goblin treats his gold, even if they were coerced into turning my beloved Third Fleet into driftwood."

Duke held Daelin's gaze for a long, silent moment, searching for any hint of a lie. Finally, with a sigh that carried the weight of a thousand battles, he nodded. On the battlefield, opportunities vanish faster than a gnome's patience. There was no time to second-guess, no time to get cold feet.

The grim reality of the situation echoed in the command center of Southshore. Lothar, his jaw set like granite, turned to Llane. "Admiral Llane," he began, his voice tight, "can I trust you to hold the fort, to command the best-defended line Southshore has to offer?"

Llane met his childhood friend's gaze, a flicker of memory passing through his eyes – a year of Lothar fighting tooth and nail. Llane clapped Lothar on the shoulder, a reassuring thump. "Listen, old friend," he said, a wry smile playing on his lips, "I wasn't born yesterday. If a defense as solid as this gets breached, you can bet your bottom dollar I'll go down with the ship."

"No, no, that's not what I meant, Llane! I don't want you to die, I just—"

Llane cut him off with a light punch to the chest. "Go, Commander Lothar," he urged, his voice firm. "The Alliance needs you more than a goblin needs gold, and you've got a job to do."

Without another moment's hesitation, Lothar bellowed to Turalyon, "Mount up! Our destination: the South Coast! We've got a date with destiny, and a whole lot of green skins to send packing!" With almost every horse and rider at his command, Lothar had to reach Shadowfang Keep before the Horde could even think about setting foot on shore. It was a race against time, and the stakes couldn't be higher. The most brutal, blood-soaked beach landing battle in the history of Azeroth was about to begin, and it promised to be a real barn burner.

A considerable number of male Nagas, those slithering scouts of the deep, had also been deployed beneath Palatine Bay, tasked with the unenviable job of counting the sheer number of orc warships. It was like counting grains of sand on a beach, but with more teeth. The numbers that slithered back were enough to make a seasoned accountant faint – utterly staggering. Over twenty-five thousand transport ships, big and small, cluttered the horizon, a green armada stretching as far as the eye could see. At least half of them were empty vessels, mere window dressing, used as a distraction. Apart from a skeleton crew of no more than ten orc laborers, they were as empty as a goblin's heart.

Even so, to steer over ten thousand empty ships, you'd still need at least a hundred thousand poor, unfortunate souls, working their fingers to the bone. Only a tribe that valued life as cheap as dirt, treating their own kind like disposable pawns, could resort to such a monstrous, inhumane fighting method. It was a strategy born of pure, unadulterated barbarity.

Just as Duke was stepping onto Daelin's warship, joining the Kul Tiras First Fleet to plunge headfirst into the blocking battle, a bombshell dropped. The transport ships that had spewed out of Palatine Gulf hadn't all made a beeline for Southshore. Oh no. They'd split into three distinct, menacing prongs on the open sea. Roughly forty percent veered hard to the west, aiming to hit the Southshore coast like a tidal wave. Another forty percent kept their course, heading straight for Southshore itself, a direct assault. And the remaining twenty percent? They plunged, with grim determination, into the long, narrow strait separating the northern and southern continents, a move as bold as it was terrifying.

Duke felt a cold dread wash over him, a chill that had nothing to do with the sea spray. His worst nightmare had come to pass, unfolding before his very eyes: the orcs had split the baby, dividing their forces, and now the Alliance was caught in a tactical vise.