"Clang!"
Galen's Trollbane clashed with the centaur chieftain's battleaxe, producing a deafening sound.
The centaur chieftain's face lit up!
He had blocked it!
His elation was premature. Galen's strike, his most powerful since reaching the peak of the ninth rank, had indeed been blocked. But the chieftain seemed to have overlooked the weapon he was facing.
His battleaxe was no Gorehowl, nor Frostmourne. Even an Arcanite Reaper would have fared better!
Trollbane, upon contact, shattered the battleaxe. The force of the blow continued, cleaving the centaur chieftain from head to groin, his expression frozen in terror!
The surrounding centaur guards were stunned. Their leader was dead!
The paladins had broken through the frontline of two thousand centaurs, leaving the other two thousand in their dust!
The centaurs' encirclement had failed. Galen felt a surge of exhilaration as the path ahead cleared, free of the centaurs' grotesque visages.
"The sky's the limit for birds, the sea for fish! You should have stayed in the sea!" Galen roared.
The paladins, fueled by the momentum of their Holy Charge, continued their advance.
As Galen wondered about his reinforcements, he saw Aragorn leading the Stone Guard soldiers, rushing down the slope from the valley entrance!
The signal flare had worked; Galen's reinforcements had arrived.
Galen decisively turned his horse, preparing to rejoin the battle. "My brothers have arrived. You wanted to use your numbers to surround me?
Come on, then! Try again!"
"Charge!"
Galen led the paladins back towards the centaurs, who were regrouping, urged on by their chieftain, and attempting to pursue Galen.
The centaur chieftain was baffled to see Galen and his knights returning. They had already broken through; why were they coming back? Did they look down on the centaur warriors?
"Face them! Kill them!"
The centaurs' faces brightened. They had believed victory was at hand and had cursed the chieftain cleaved in half by Galen as a useless fool. With ten times their numbers, he had still let the prey escape. He deserved his fate, and they would absorb his warriors.
Galen's return filled the current chieftain with confidence. "With four thousand warriors, surely we can defeat these two hundred-plus men?"
Reality, however, would not conform to his wishes. Galen and his knights plunged into the centaur formation. The force of the heavily armored knights sent the front ranks reeling, tearing another wide gap in their lines, like an unstoppable flood.
Just as the front-line centaurs tried to turn and pursue Galen, Aragorn arrived with the Silver Guard!
"Two hundred meters ahead, suppressive fire! Shoot!"
The roar of gunfire erupted, and smoke filled the narrow pass. The closest centaur warriors were sent flying, a large number falling.
"First and second squads, follow me! Third and fourth squads, support the riflemen and take the high ground! Eliminate those centaur spellcasters first!"
Aragorn led the infantry forward!
In the narrow mountain pass, the centaurs lost their greatest advantage: mobility. In close combat, they were inferior to even the quillboar, and their equipment was also poor, mostly plundered from the tauren.
As for the tauren's ability to forge equipment… Galen decided to refrain from comment, as it could cause a diplomatic incident.
With Aragorn's Concentration Aura bolstering their defenses, the infantry engaged the centaurs in melee. The centaurs suffered heavy losses, casualties skyrocketing.
Their clubs, battleaxes, and spears were too crude to effectively damage the well-equipped infantry. In some cases, spears shattered upon impact!
The centaur chieftain, who had been so elated moments before, felt a chill wash over him. Galen had broken through their lines, and the centaurs were losing ground against the infantry. The heavy casualties threw his force into chaos!
Some centaurs continued to fight the infantry, while others tried to flee the carnage. Their formation crumbled, their morale shattered.
The chieftain, shouting and gesturing wildly, was unable to rally his troops.
Meanwhile, the Silver Guard, having seized the high ground, forced the centaur skirmishers and seers to retreat, leaving behind a trail of corpses.
The centaurs' defeat was inevitable. The chieftain led his guards in a retreat. With their leader fleeing, the remaining centaur warriors lost all will to fight and scattered.
"Pursue! Annihilate these centaur scum!"
Galen was determined to prevent their escape. "If you dare to ambush me, you must pay the price!"
However, Galen underestimated the centaurs' speed. The four-legged creatures were surprisingly fast, and the paladins couldn't catch them.
"Are they wearing five-speed shoes on all four hooves?" Galen wondered. "They're running like the wind!"
Just as Galen was about to give up the chase, the fleeing centaurs were thrown into disarray. The centaur chieftain flew towards Galen, landing heavily in the path of the fleeing horde. The centaurs trampled him in their panic, and he was clearly dead.
Galen saw a group of fully armed tauren warriors blocking the centaurs' escape route. Their banner identified them as Grimtotem warriors.
"Only Magatha, that detestable old cow, would do this," Galen realized.
"Hmph!," Galen thought. "I'll remember this debt and make the Grimtotem pay!"
(spoiler alert : bro forgets about this altogether lmao)
Galen left the Stonetalon Mountains and returned to the camp in the Barrens, leaving Aragorn to clean up the battlefield and contact the tauren to determine the location of Magatha's checkpoint.
Galen believed this ambush should be included in the Crusader's textbook. Fewer than three hundred men ambushed by five thousand centaurs not only suffered no casualties but also broke through the enemy lines twice, killed a chieftain, and inflicted heavy losses.
"A glorious victory!"
The farmers and soldiers remaining in the camp were building the camp. As evening approached, Galen returned to the completed main tent, preparing to plan the fortress's construction.
The next day, he would build a city wall at the valley entrance near the Stonetalon Mountains, stationing a battalion as a vanguard. Then, he would construct the main fortress on the Barrens plain.
Before dinner, Aragorn returned and informed Galen that the Grimtotem were located in the Stonetalon Mountains, in a wide valley called Greatwood Vale, with a camp named Apalachee, only ten kilometers away.
Their chieftain, Magatha, was not at the camp; she was leading a portion of her people to build a checkpoint south of Galen, along a mountain trail called Hunter's Path.
"For now, we'll ignore her," Galen decided. "As long as she doesn't show any signs of rebellion, I can't attack her. Establishing the fortress to block the centaurs and prevent them from disrupting the unification of the Northern Barrens is the priority."
The next morning, the Silver Legion began large-scale construction. Galen deployed a section of city wall at the mouth of the valley, atop the Stonetalon Mountains slope, about a thousand meters long, to guard the pass. Soldiers on the wall would have a clear view of any approaching enemies and could attack from a superior position.
Sentry posts were built every ten meters behind the city wall, to be upgraded into arrow towers, gun emplacements, and arcane towers, complementing the wall's defense and providing long-range attacks.
The main fortress was built on the Barrens side of the valley. Galen divided it into three sections: a military district on the east side, a farm district on the north side, and a residential area on the south side.
The military district would house a town hall and four barracks, along with two gryphon aviaries, allowing for rapid deployment to the city wall in case of attack. The farm district would provide food for the fortress, and the residential area would house relocated people and some of Kalimdor's native inhabitants.
With the plans finalized, the Silver Legion soldiers began quarrying giant stones. Musketeers used high-yield gunpowder from the workshops to blast the mountains, and the infantry transported the stones to the construction site to build the fortress walls.
The fortress was named Fort Glory.
When the project was halfway completed, the Heart of Origin notified Galen that Gandalf had sent an urgent message from the intelligence division in the Eastern Kingdoms.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In the northern mountains of the Swamp of Sorrows, two intelligence agents, clad in black leather armor and gray vests, lurked in the dense forest. A mechanical lamb paced nearby.
Mechanical animals could transform into various small creatures, making them ideal for scouting enemy movements.
However, the agents had deployed the mechanical lamb not for reconnaissance but for communication.
The lamb stopped, and a magic circle appeared on its body. A white light flashed, and Galen and Gandalf appeared.
Galen recognized the location. "Isn't this the forest where I sensed an ambush?"
"Duke! Master Gandalf!" the agents saluted.
"What major discovery?" Galen asked. The intelligence division typically communicated through internal channels. The use of the mechanical animal indicated a significant development.
Gandalf, monitoring the mechanical animals on the Heart of Origin's strategic map, had summoned Galen.
Galen wasn't concerned about a potential ambush, as he and Gandalf could easily escape any trap.
"Two weeks ago, we discovered two orcs traveling south from the Alterac Mountains. Our seventh squad tracked them to the Swamp of Sorrows!"
"Half an hour ago, the orcs stopped here. Then, Orgrim Doomhammer, the Blackrock orc's second-in-command, arrived and met with them!"
Galen realized a major event in Warcraft history was about to unfold!
After being exiled, the Frostwolf Clan's chieftain, Durotan, and his wife were traveling south to warn Orgrim about Gul'dan's treachery. Gul'dan learned of their journey and sent assassins from the Shadow Council to kill them. Their son, Go'el (Thrall), was found by Aedelas Blackmoore.
"I am about to witness this. Should I intervene? Would that attract the attention of the Bronze Dragonflight?"
"Where are they?"
"In the valley to the east! Agent 703 is observing from a distance!"
"Well done. Lead the way!" Galen praised. Durotan and Orgrim were legendary figures, and Thrall's mother, Draka, was also formidable. The intelligence agents could not risk getting too close.
Orcs, having lived in the dangerous Draenor, were skilled hunters and highly vigilant.
In a valley east of the Swamp of Sorrows, Orgrim and a bodyguard met with Durotan and his wife. Orgrim and Durotan had forged a strong friendship in Draenor, and it had been over a year since the Frostwolf Clan's exile.
"Orgrim, we were right not to drink Gul'dan's 'gift'! It is evil!" Durotan said angrily. He vividly remembered Gul'dan gathering the orcish warriors and coercing them to drink the demon blood.
"I've noticed, Durotan. After drinking that stuff, our kin's skin changed color, and they became aggressive and warlike!"
Orgrim, a wise orc, had, like Durotan, refused the demon blood. He and Durotan's wife remained brown-skinned.
"The draenei are not the monsters Gul'dan claims. I believe my eyes. We are the sinners; we killed them!" Durotan said with regret. "That power corrupted the land. Our home is dying because of the fel energy. It drains the life force, which is why Draenor is withering!"
"But I have no proof, Durotan. Chieftain Blackhand won't believe us!"
"I have proof!" Durotan said confidently. "Draka, my dear, bring Go'el here!"
"Oh, may the ancestors protect us, Draka has given birth! Let me see my little nephew!"
Draka slowly walked over and unwrapped the swaddling clothes.
"Oh! No! Damn Gul'dan!"
Go'el was green.
(T/N : Whos the father Draka why is he green xd)