Kurdran

At this moment, a maelstrom of suspicions, a thousand frantic possibilities, swirled through Kurdran's mind.

For a heartbeat, Kurdran almost believed this was a plot thicker than a dwarven ale.

Timing so perfect it smelled fishier than a murloc's armpit!

Aerie Peak Mountain was under siege, and here you came, Duke, without so much as a raven's feather of a distress call from me! This Duke, he moved faster than a goblin peddler hawking 'genuine' artifacts at a battlefield clearance sale.

The next second, Kurdran let out a grimace that could curdle milk.

The entire Lordaeron continent was in a state of utter pandemonium, and the Wildhammer dwarves weren't exactly living under a rock. They weren't some hermit crabs tucked away in a shell, oblivious to the world. Even the shifty merchants who regularly braved the treacherous paths to Aerie Mountain had regaled the Wildhammer dwarves with tales of a continent engulfed in a roaring inferno of war.

From the shadowy depths of Silverpine Forest in the west, through the blood-soaked Hillsbrad Foothills in the center, and all the way to the scorched earth of the Arathi Highlands in the east, the Wildhammer dwarves' stubbornly optimistic, beard-stroking denial had made them subconsciously shove the grim tidings into the deepest, darkest corner of their minds, right next to the empty ale barrels.

In fact, just two weeks prior, he'd received a scroll of doom from Magni Bronzebeard himself, detailing demands that would make a trogg blush and a genocide so brutal it'd curdle a ghoul's guts. All those who dared to resist were promptly put down like rabid wolves. Even if they surrendered, dwarf slaves deemed too noisy, too scrawny, or just looked at them funny, were executed. If an orc overseer stubbed his toe, he'd still execute them. These barbaric greenskins treated life cheaper than a goblin's promise. Hell, they treated their own lives cheaper than a goblin's promise.

Now, that rosy glow of denial had been kicked to the curb. On one hand, there was a horde of green-skinned hooligans kicking down your garden gate with the subtlety of a rampaging Kodo, and on the other, a treaty that felt suspiciously like signing over the deed to your soul?

Duke, ever the smooth talker, caught Kurdran's momentary fluster. "No, no, no, great King of the Wildhammer. We aren't riding in alone. At the urgent request of Magni Bronzebeard, one of the Alliance's shining beacons, a staggering 50,000 elite Alliance soldiers have already been deployed on the border of the Hinterlands. Just say the word, and the warriors of the Alliance will surely send these invaders packing for the Wildhammer clan. And don't worry," Duke added with a disarming smile, "there are no strings attached. None at all."

Wildhammer dwarves were a stubborn bunch, with hearts of gold and tempers of molten iron. You couldn't strong-arm them into anything; threats and inducements would only earn you a musket ball to the kneecap. They'd rather fight the orcs to the death than beg for mercy. Duke's strategy, a masterful blend of sweet-talking and a gentle nudge off a cliff, at least left the Wildhammers feeling like they hadn't been completely railroaded.

"Well," Kurdran rumbled, his voice a gravelly compromise, "in the name of the King of the Wildhammer Dwarves, I accept the Alliance's kindness. As long as it is proven that what my relative said is true, the Wildhammer Dwarves will join your Alliance."

Duke's smile widened, and he sent a magical message with a wink and a mental nudge: "Ilucia, tell General Seamus to advance as quickly as possible. Time's a-wasting!"

The elite troops of Stormwind, already primed for a forced march, ditched everything but their weapons and the grim determination etched on their faces. They marched with grim purpose into the Hinterlands, a silver tide ready to meet the green.

In the sky above, Duke, holding Sylvanas's slender waist with a casual grip that suggested he did this every Tuesday, ordered the Queen to rain arrows upon the Horde scrambling wildly on the ground. At the same time, Duke used some arcane, almost cheating, method, a 'system AI scan,' to mark the trolls hiding in the woods, quickly dispatching them with bursts of raw magic.

Yet, there were still too many tribes. A green tide that seemed to stretch to the horizon, a chaotic, roaring wave, like a tavern brawl gone terribly, terribly wrong, but with axes, swarmed towards Aerie Peak Mountain with no semblance of formation.

Half a day later, from the vantage point of the sky, it was a brutal spectacle: the green tide of the Horde and the silver steel torrent of mankind were colliding violently, a grinding, bloody maelstrom.

The well-trained elite soldiers of Stormwind advanced with the inexorable grind of a dwarven siege engine under the stoic command of General Seamus. They formed a solid shield wall, bristling with protruding spears. Only those tribesmen who had been peppered by a storm of javelins thrown from behind the shield wall were lucky enough to even reach this terrible, unyielding barrier.

Any effort to sweep away the spears was like trying to sweep back the tide with a broom. Behind the two rows of sword and shield soldiers were three rows of spearmen, who repeatedly thrust and retracted their spears, ensuring that any orc had to face more than six spears at the same time – a geometry problem even the smartest shaman couldn't solve.

The orcs slammed into the shield wall with the force of a battering ram, and some parts of the wall buckled, the defenders momentarily unable to fully withstand the sheer impact. But the subsequent rain of javelins gave the sword and shield soldiers a precious breath to repair their formation. They quickly stepped over their fallen comrades, trampling over them if necessary, and filled the gaps in the formation with practiced efficiency.

The trolls on the opposite side, not to be outdone, also hurled their own spears. These primitive and rough spears with stone heads, while looking like glorified toothpicks, still managed to sting like a nest of angry wasps, causing a lot of trouble for the humans. After all, their penetrating power couldn't punch through steel like a hot knife through butter.

When Seamus, with a grim set to his jaw, ordered the sword and shield soldiers in the front to be increased to three rows, the formation finally became an immovable object. Waves of orcs struck against the shield wall, each wave of green fury splintered against it, leaving more orcish bodies in its wake than dents in the human lines.

When the third wave of tribes arrived, the FFF regiment's flamethrower squad, a truly fiery bunch, arrived and gave those tribes a lesson in thermodynamics they wouldn't soon forget, or rather, wouldn't live to remember.

General Seamus had originally prepared for a fierce, grinding battle. But after the initial wave of fierce attacks by the Horde, he was shocked – no, flabbergasted – to find that those who rushed out of the woods waving weapons were actually a ragtag bunch of tribal laborers, looking more like they'd been roused from a nap than a war council.

While these laborers had plenty of spunk, bless their little green hearts, their combat power couldn't hold a candle to a proper grunt, let alone the Blackrock Clan's finest. The overall reduction in height, strength, and speed made this battle less like a clash of titans and more like a particularly rowdy bar brawl between two rival human villages.

When the sun finally dipped below the horizon, the battlefield at the foot of Aerie Peak Mountain was a grim tapestry woven from 40,000 orcish corpses.

"A glorious victory!"

On the battlefield, the dwarven warriors fighting on the front line cheered enthusiastically, their voices echoing across the carnage. Their new allies, the human warriors, mostly just managed a polite, almost bored, nod, showing little excitement.

"Why, is it now fashionable among humans not to celebrate even victory?" a bewildered dwarf warrior grumbled to a human.

"Believe me, my stout friend," an elite warrior of the Griffin Legion replied with a dry chuckle, "every human warrior wearing this Griffin emblem has killed enough orcs to fill a small stadium. We've definitely seen many more orcs than you. But the orc laborers who came here today? They barely registered on our 'excitement-o-meter!'"

Two hours later, in the throne room of Aerie Peak Mountain, Kurdran Wildhammer received Duke and his party. He had always thought that most human superiors were stuffy old geezers with more wrinkles than a dried prune. Apparently, his preconceived notion was as wrong as a goblin's promise.

Except for a human general who was in his forties or fifties, everyone present looked far too young to be leading armies. Edmund Duke, a young man wearing a striking blue and white wizard robe, with a chin as smooth as a polished gem and a pair of deep black eyes that held the depth of a forgotten mine shaft, was their commander-in-chief.

Then there was a guy shimmering with a golden glow that could blind a lesser mortal, who casually introduced himself as a 'Paladin.' The last one was an elf lass who looked like she'd chew barbed wire for breakfast and spit out nails. While Kurdran definitely didn't think she was the type to bake cookies, her sheer, unadulterated ferocity still earned her a nod of respect from the old dwarf.

Kurdran rarely encountered such a collection of unique individuals. He was especially happy to see the dozens of barrels of fine, aged dwarven wine that Duke later sent as a 'thank you.' Now, he was positively thrilled to get to know these people.

Dwarves, after all, only consider men who can drink as true brothers. Kurdran secretly made up his mind: no matter if Duke looked like he'd snap in a strong breeze, anyone who could hold their liquor was a brother in arms, blood or no blood!