Written In Blood - The Tales of Thrakha Ironsong

These events took place between the emergence of the Sha within the Jade Forest and the events of the Jade Fist campaign.

The Marauders, stationed in the Jade Forest, fought a bitter struggle against Alliance forces.  And with all-out war, they were forced to confront the darkest aspects of their own natures and of their own profession.



I am made for war.

The truth of it was simple. Well over seven foot tall, built for speed and savage strength - even without the constant banked fires of tainted heritage burning deep at the back of her mind, Thrakha Ironsong was clearly born and bred to be fit to fight.

Her long, cruelly sharp blade and heavy, baroque armour, crafted by her own hand. In more peaceful times, the Ironsongs had been crafters, and yet even then their skill was in hammering stubborn, formless iron into the deadly, purposeful implements of battle.

Now she did the same for people. Heating them with stirring words and ideals, hammering them with discipline and orders. A killer and a maker of killers.

Was that her purpose after all? Purpose, motive, had become so clouded lately. Hellscream's war had made things simple for those who didn't have to think about the rights and wrongs of it. Like her followers. Fortunate the warrior without doubt in his mind.

A Chieftain has to think about these things, though, or else be no Chieftain at all.

The war. Why even wage it at all?

For resources? War devoured materiel almost as eagerly as it swallowed lives.

For revenge? The massacre at Taurajo had been a crime, no doubt, and there had been others before and since. But the massacre at Theramore had been no less pitiless. The first blood, and the latest, in the wars between orc and human had been shed by the orc.

For the Horde? It had become a trite, circular idea. The Horde must fight to live, the Horde must live to fight.

All very glorious and stirring, if you weren't dribbling out your last scrambled thoughts through the ruin of an axe-broken skull, or trying to express unendurable pain through incomprehensible screaming as you cooked in some wizard's fel-spawned fire.

All very noble, if you weren't watching a cornfield wither in fire, knowing that the farmer and his family would themselves wither soon enough, gnawed away by starvation that would take first their strength, then their minds, then their lives. If you weren't looking at a child's toy left upon one of so very many graves outside Theramore.

Blood and glory, she'd yelled on a hundred or more gore-soaked battlefields. Words to inspire, but so much blood, and for what? For whose glory?

I am made for war, she thought, and yet it sickens me. My smith's hands could turn to ploughshares and horseshoes. My strength, my height, would be as valuable in labouring as in war. I could build instead of destroy. I could make the world just a little better, instead of ruining and reaving. So why do I keep on doing this?

"Chieftain!"

Scowling as her reverie broke, she turned to the Marauder behind her. Saw the respect, yes, and the fear, in his eyes.

"The Marauders wait for your command, Chieftain."

She nodded firmly. Introspection could wait. The Alliance relief column would not. There was work to be done.

"Pass the word. When the horn sounds once, the Hammer breaks cover and charges. Should take'em by surprise." All very glorious. "Half-circle and drive them back against the mountain, like we planned it. When it sounds again, let fly the arrows. Let none escape." All very noble. "When no defenders live, we take what we can carry and return to the rally point." So much blood, and for what?

She drew her blade, metal hissing on leather whispering a reassuring promise. The fires at the back of her mind rose, glowed, called to her in voices of flame and thunder.

"Blood and Glory, my Marauders. We ride!"



Epilogue: The Alliance never truly gained a foothold in the Jade Forest, first opposed by warbands such as the Marauders and then - in the Jade Fist campaign - crushingly defeated.

The Marauders' reputation as warriors of the first rank among the Horde was cemented by their actions in the Jade Forest.



Incidentally, such victories also helped to pave the way for Hellscream's further domination of Pandaria, and for his agents' fateful trespass into the Vale of Eternal Blossoms.

As the Marauders pushed deeper into the heart of ancient Pandaria, their masters in Orgrimmar became interested in what these mercenaries might uncover...and keen to maintain control of whatever that might be.

A Kor'kron political officer, the formidable veteran warrior 'General' Grek was sent to assume control of the Shatterskull Marauders, to bring them to heel and to claim their plunder for the Horde.

Initially the Marauders could do little about this.  Orders are orders, and at that time the Warband still owed fealty to Hellscream.  However, Grek's vicious and callous attitude, and his high-handed arrogance, soon brought him into open conflict with the Warband's chieftain, Thrakha Ironsong.  In the heat of temper, she challenged him to a lethal honour-duel.

That provocation, the ensuing duel, and its outcome, would set the Marauders' path in the coming war.


Slow and reluctant, dawn's light crept across the bedroll upon which she lay, carrying with it a faint warmth that awoke the ghost of a memory of the evening's incense-laden scent.

It woke her with a start. Ridiculously, she was struck by a momentary fear she had somehow overslept. Somehow missed her own duel.

She grinned without humour at the irony of such a concern, as she reached for the water-bowl and her clothing.


A quarter-hour had turned, and she stood before a small forest of blades, hung vertically upon a bamboo rack. Many weapons, each of which had served her well. Each was practically a comrade, an old friend. Now, she would choose to hazard her life upon one of them, and perhaps to die with it in her hand.


First to catch her eye, Winter-storm, the great axe for which she had fought, bled, nearly lost an eye and her life. A blade of tempered Saronite, with a shard of the Throne itself at its heart. A weapon born of the cruellest frosts of winter, wielded in burning anger and bitter vengeance. Borne by champions; first held by the Lich King's nightmarish bone-construct Valourbane, then (so very briefly) by the treacherous human knight Gared the Golden, then as Gared fell screaming from the citadel's high walls, the axe became hers'.

This blade, she had carried to war against the Neferset in the deserts of Uldum; with it she had reaped a bloody harvest from the Twilight Cult in vengeance for fallen comrades; for the despoiled name and reputation of her Chief, too.

Her hand strayed toward it, then dropped back to her side.


Next to it hung the broad-bladed greatsword Flamefang, forged by her own hand. Liquid pyrium burned at its core, safely encased in layers of beaten elementium and titansteel. The pinnacle of her craftsmanship as a smith, and of the skill of the enchanters she'd hired to speak words of power as she hammered the blade into shape; few finer weapons were to be found, and it had served her well of late.

When the Marauders made landfall upon Pandaria, this blade had burned in her hand as she screamed the order to attack. It had crumpled blue-enamelled plate armour and crushed lion-crested shields all along the blood-strewn paths from the Jade Forest to Kun-Lai.

She moved on.


Last, her eyes fell upon a simple weapon. Another greatsword, but slim-bladed and simple in design, lacking adornment or enchantment. An old sword, kept for sentimental reasons.

This blade had no name.

It was the sword of her father.

It was made of steel.

Her hand closed around the hilt.


Epilogue: That day, Thrakha faced Grek in single combat.  No armour, and a single weapon each.

She was gravely wounded and still bears the scars to this day.

Grek was slain.  The Marauders cremated his body with honours befitting his rank, and his axe was returned to his family.

Further attempts were later made to assign political officers in order to control the Marauders, however their heavy-handed actions and constant suspicion eventually drove the warband into exile, and then into open rebellion.

Woo!

An enjoyable and interesting read.