Satisfying Needs

Gortak looked out over the rolling green fields of Shadowmoon Valley, his spyglass held to his eye as he scanned the distant terrain. Standing atop the barricade that his twenty or so Iron Horde orcs had created around their damaged supply wagon, he was essentially Warchief of his own little fortress. Thus far the Draenei had left him and his orcs alone, more concerned with the aftermath at Karabor than with a small group of soldiers who seemed content to eat the supplies they'd been traveling with while waiting for back-up or orders.

As he moved the spyglass across the horizon, he finally spotted the sight that one of the scouts had reported; a lone figure rode towards the encampment. He adjusted some lenses on the spyglass and the image became clearer. A blonde haired human galloped towards them at high speed, her black horse seemingly having blue flames licking around its hooves. He could make out few details about the woman beyond the fact that she appeared to be wearing a black dress and had glowing blue eyes.

Gortak grunted and shook his head; clearly the woman was either insane or a spellcaster, given that she was riding alone and unarmored towards a hostile position. That she knew they were there was beyond a doubt; her course lead directly towards the gap in the makeshift barricade that the orcs had made. He lowered his spyglass and folded it up, gesturing to the orcs behind him, "Snipe her."

One of his top scouts grinned and pulled out his long-barelled rifle. Leaning on the edge of the earthen and wood barricade, he sighted down the scope, adjusting a knob on the side of the lens as he took aim. A moment later his rifle emitted a loud crack and recoiled as it discharged. In the distance, the blonde woman shuddered once as she was struck with the projectile, and the orcs cheered.

Until they realized she was still riding towards them.

Gortak frowned and brought his spyglass up again. She did indeed ride towards them, a gaping hole in the front of her dress showing she had been struck. He'd studied the races of the so called 'Alliance' carefully, and he knew he was dealing with a human. As far as he was aware, a bullet would definitely resolve any problems with unarmed civilians or captured prisoners, so why was she still riding? Annoyed, he held his fist up and gave a signal. In the camp behind him, five more orcs with rifles took up positions, and they began to fire on the woman as Gortak watched.

Her body shuddered. Dirt exploded from the ground around her steed. Gunpowder filled the air around them. And yet despite all of this, she continued to ride towards them, getting ever closer. Gortak lowered his spyglass, now easily able to see the bloody woman as she galloped towards the encampment. Concerned now, he signaled again, his men opening up in a full barrage, "Shoot her horse out from under her!"

Dozens and then hundreds of rounds cracked out from the orc position. The ground around the woman exploded as shots slammed into it or ricocheted off the armored horse. The steed gave a rather disturbing howl, but continued to gallop towards them even as black looking gore exploded from it. Gortak cursed and turned towards one of his orcs, yanking the rifle from his hands, "Give me that! It looks like if I want something done right I have to do it myself!"

With that he stood atop the barricade, holding the gun at his hip and pumping round after round into the steed that was only a few dozen yards away now. The beast shuddered as its flesh exploded, giving off another howl before one of its legs snapped and it collapsed into a heap, its rider falling off to land motionless beside it only a few feet from the barricade. With a satisfied grunt, Gortak tossed his rifle back to the orc behind him, "That's how it's done."

The orcs on the barricade cheered, and Gortak gestured down to the corpse, "Check it."

One of the orcs nodded and scurried down the side of the earthen barricade, rifle in hand. He reached the corpse of the woman, his rifle reaching out to prod her. After a moment he looked back at Gortak and nodded, and the orc turned away, "Clean the mess up."

Even as he uttered the command, an unearthly wail came from the ground below the barricade. He turned in shock as he saw the blonde woman rise up, a glowing sword in her hand plunging through the back of his soldier and out his gut. The horrific wound would take hours to kill him, and the orc screamed as the blade was twisted. Gortak opened his mouth to shout a command but before he could, pandemonium broke out.

The blonde woman flicked her sword, the dying orc falling from the blade. She pointed up at the barricade, tendrils of black magic lashing out of her hand and wrapping around another orc. He was yanked down to her and impaled on her sword as she howled again, this time killing her target. The corpse fell to the ground and then began to twitch even as the blonde woman began to climb the barricade, rising up behind her with the same blue glow in its eyes, drawing a weapon on his companions.

"Kill her! Kill her quickly!" Gortak shouted, drawing his own ax. The blonde woman wailed again, even as several orcs pumped rounds into her from their rifles. The bullets passed through her body and she continued on, as if she didn't need to breathe and her organs were unimportant. She impaled a third orc before whirling and lopping an arm off of a fourth.

And then she was too close to fire rifles at.

Orcs charged in, and the woman went berserk. Her blade met an ax in the air and then came low to remove a leg from one of the orcs. Another was smashed in the face with the hilt and then beheaded, even as the woman ignored a sword cut to her side. Her eerie wailing continued, even as she slaughtered, the violence something that would have made any of Gortak's best soldiers proud.

He charged her, only to have her whirl and badly gash his arm, forcing him to fall back. Orcs died around him, the fact seemingly impossible considering that he was fighting only a single human woman. Several that died rose, that glow in their eyes as they attacked the woman's enemies. Those she didn't kill she maimed, their screams rising up above the sounds of battle and seeming to energize the woman, encouraging her to move quicker and strike more and more deadly blows.

Gortak fell back towards the command tent he had set up, blood gushing from his wounded arm. His honor guard rushed to him and he waved them on, stumbling into his command center and desperately seeking out something to stem the flow of blood from his limb. Howls rose up from outside the tent, and Gortak knew the woman had met his honor guards in combat. The sound of steel clashing on steel echoed out, a fierce battle errupting outside of the canvas tent even as Gortak found a tourniquet and wrapped it around his upper arm to stop himself from bleeding to death.

Silence fell outside of the tent, the only sounds the moans of the mortally wounded. A shadow passed across the entrance to the tent, blocking the light there before a glowing blue blade parted the tent flaps and allowed the blonde woman to enter. Gortak growled and lunged at her with his ax, the weak attack easily deflected. The woman responded by lashing out and lopping off Gortak's unwounded arm, the limb falling to the floor as blood gushed from him. In shock, he slid to the floor, the woman standing over him.

"H-how...how c-could a human survive t-this...?" he muttered in broken Common. He had studied the enemy well, and wanted his question answered before he died.

As she stood over the orc, Beckyann Eastberg sighed. A minor wound on her face glowed with green magics, the flesh there knitting together as necromancy closed the damage. Behind her, the howls of the dying were like a sweet beverage to her and she inhaled them deeply, shuddering with obscene joy at their suffering. She looked down at the mortally wounded creature and grinned, "You have made the same mistake that I myself have made; you assume I am a human. In point of fact, I am something far worse now. It is a lesson we both should remember."

She smiled, bending down to plunge her weapon into the orc's gut, sighing again as he howled, her need to feed finally sated with the agony and suffering of the dying Iron Horde orcs. She twisted the blade, severing the creature's spine and finally killing him, turning to leave the tent.

As she moved, her boot connected with the orc's dismembered limb. She glanced down, pausing as she saw a tattoo on his arm. She studied it, noting how it depicted a bond of love between the now-deceased orc and his mate. Deep inside, something stirred within Beckyann and she found herself considering the orc's life, his hopes and dreams and fears. His loves.

A shuddering wail came up from deep within Beckyann's chest as she allowed the emotions to crash over her again, remembering her own love and the reason why she had come to this state to begin with. Wracking sobs escaped her, and she sunk down to the floor, sitting in a pool of gore as she cried bitterly, the moans of the dying outside mixing with her heartache.

She cried for a good hour, letting all of the sorrow at what she'd done to Frederick, to herself, escape her. In the encampment beyond the remaining orcs slowly perished, their death-agony feeding her even as she slowly freed her soul of the weight of her guilt. After a time, the black tears stopped running from her eyes, and she found herself idly picking dried and congealed blood from the edge of her runeblade, her heart somewhat lighter for letting all of it out.

Finally, when she felt she'd let enough of it go, she rose from the sticky mess within the tent, sheathing her gore-crusted blade and walking from the dark confines of that place into the killing field beyond. As she studied the corpses of her enemies, she realized at last that the answer was not so simple, not so black and white. What she had said to the orc was true; she was not a human any longer. But it was also wrong, because somewhere deep within her, she still craved to be who and what she once was. It was a war that would never end in her thoughts, and allowing it to drown her in sorrow and freeze her into immobility would serve no one and nothing any good.

At last seeing a glimmer of light beyond the depression that had gripped her for so long, Beckyann walked confidently out of the camp, heading towards the nearest Alliance garrison. She was a filthy mess, and she'd be damned if she let anyone see her this way until she got cleaned up.