"Roll the wagons in front of the gates!" Mandala called down to Jarvus. The red Worgen druid was already in bear form, galloping towards the supply wagons at the stables. "Anything that will barricade them, hold them off for a little while, anything! If we bottleneck them here we'll have a chance."
Mandala pointed at Anna, who had already transformed into the voluptuous, humanoid mass of silver vines. "Be ready with your heals," Mandala said. "This will be a lot to handle."
"I'll wait until they're inside before I cast Time Warp," Indrid said. Mandala's sister Draenei walked at her side as they descended into Admiral Taylor's garrison. She threw her hands over her head, and Mandala felt a rush of blood surge through her core. An arcane symbol like an intricate eye flashed and vanished in her vision.
"There won't be much need until they're inside anyway," Mandala said. "Thanks for the buff."
"My pleasure," Indrid said.
The subject of their earlier conversation was still fresh in Mandala's mind, but this was hardly the time to debate the pros and cons of her relationship with Pinter. The Shattered Hand Orcs were reeling without their leader Kargath, who Pinter and Jarvus had killed in Highmaul. They were headless, leaderless, but they had the ferocity of a mortally wounded tiger. These Orcs wouldn't go quietly. And Pinter was still in Skyreach. Mandala would survive this with her friends, with her sister, and they would find out what evil force had driven them all apart. And then she and Indrid could discuss whose business it was who Mandala chose to sleep with.
"You're going to let them inside the garrison?" Anna asked, the childish disbelief so aching to Mandala's experienced eyes.
"They'll be inside regardless of what we do," Mandala said. "It's a matter of how many are still alive, both us and them. Be ready with those heals when I tell you."
"Yes, Mandala," Anna said. A cloud of green spores flickered around her as she cast a few buffs to get herself ready.
Jarvus roared as he pushed two wagons back to back up to the garrison gate. They thudded into place just as something enormous and heavy crashed against the wooden framework. The wall shook all along its length, but it held. "I need another one now," Jarvus roared.
"On our way, sir!"
A company of Stormshield soldiers jogged out of the barracks, armed and ready to fight. They were a sight to behold, truly a group of pure servants of the Alliance. The only thing startling about them was that they were ghosts, one and all, like the rest of Admiral Taylor's garrison in Spires of Arak. To see these young men and women still bound to their duty even in death raised Mandala's courage made her stand a little straighter. Even Indrid laughed at the sight.
The soldiers took two more supply wagons from the stables and pushed with all their might. "Come on, you apes!" a burly, translucent sergeant yelled at them as they trudged and plodded their way through the thin mud. "These adventurers want to live forever!"
With a few "heave-ho's" the soldiers pushed the wagons firmly in place next to the ones Jarvus had positioned. Another crash rang out, and the walls shook again.
"That should do it," Indrid said.
"For now," Mandala said. She motioned for the sergeant. "Do you have fire? Anything we can pour onto those monsters?"
"Down the mines, ma'am," the sergeant said. "Opened up the beginning of a nice slagworks that could've lasted a hundred years with a little upkeep."
"It still burns?" Mandala asked.
"Aye, ma'am."
"Take your soldiers," Mandala said. "Start a line from here to the mine. We'll burn these Orcs with buckets of burning earth."
"Aye, ma'am!" the sergeant said, the excitement dancing all over his face. Anna giggled as he ran off barking orders at his ghost soldiers, organizing the assembly line like a regular veteran. Mandala wondered what greatness Admiral Taylor could have accomplished here had he not been the victim of mutiny.
The garrison gate crashed and rumbled again and again. But it held. The angered growls and snarls of Orcs careened through the afternoon. Mandala wondered how many were out there now. One hundred? One thousand? How many Shattered Hand remained, not yet ready to abandon their clan even though their fanatic leader was dead? Every remaining Shattered Hand was probably present, and there was only one way out of this.
Reshad paced back and forth, shaking his bird head side to side in disbelief at the strange turn of events since they lost Pinter in Skyreach not fifteen minutes ago. They had secured the glorious haven of his people. It was his to return! Now they fought for their lives back where they had started this morning, and gods knew what had driven them so far away. "Not what he foresaw," Reshad muttered in his raspy voice. "Not what we intended."
He was useless. It wasn't his fault, but he had no business being in the open with the fighters. Reshad was a statesman, a diplomat, not a warrior. Mandala went to the little bird man and put her arm around his shoulder. "Find shelter, Scrollkeeper," she said. "Find as many as you can and take them with you. Go to the basement of the town hall. Keep them safe and secure."
Reshad looked at her quickly. He cocked his head, and his eyes blinked quickly. He nodded. "Yes," Reshad said. "Better that they are safe."
The bird man waddled off at a brisk pace for his kind, his guards never leaving his sides. Mandala watched as he rounded up the straggler townsfolk and directed them to the open town hall. She wasn't sure if the ghosts in Admiral Taylor's garrison could even be harmed by the Shattered Hand Orcs. But they needed fighters, not people who would get in the way. Better for them all to be out of sight at a time like this.
The sergeant returned with his troops forming a long line stretching back to the mine. Iron buckets of molten rock were already being passed up the line. The soldiers climbed the parapet, and two brave souls stood at the top ready to cast their payload down on the Shattered Hand Orcs below.
"Ready to deliver, ma'am," the sergeant said.
"Let it rain," Mandala said.
A cacophonous chorus of agonized howls erupted outside the garrison gate. The soldiers on the parapet dumped bucket after bucket onto the Orcs, and the steady train never faltered as more molten earth made its way up the line. Empty buckets returned to the source, and the sergeant just barked at his company. Mandala marveled, just as she had been doing since arriving in Admiral Taylor's garrison. True servants of the Alliance. True defenders of Azeroth.
Through it all, though, the crashing at the gate never ceased. The Orcs were determined. Even with their thinning ranks they kept up the effort, and mixed in with the screams of dying and wounded were the unfettered battle cries of berserker Orcs. They would not stop until they were through. And they would be through soon. Mandala had no doubt.
Another crash rocked the gate. The barricade wagons moved in the dirt, just a little. Jarvus and a few free ghost soldiers rushed to add their weight, but another crash hit them. One of the wagons against the gate itself cracked along its middle. "Hold the line," Jarvus roared.
"Hold the line, laddies," the sergeant echoed.
"We'll be fine as long as we keep up that rain of fire," Indrid said.
