Commander Pinter Ch. 10

"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.

"How much longer, though?" Mandala asked. "We don't even know if..."

A high-pitched scream ripped through the heart of all inside the garrison. Mandala looked to see one of the ghost soldiers on the parapet igniting in flames. He dropped his iron bucket, which spilled molten rock on the platform, igniting the wood quickly.

"How did they do that?" Anna asked as she planted a ring of green mushrooms around her feet.

"I don't want to know," Mandala said. "Get ready! They're coming through!"

Jarvus and the soldiers scattered away from the wagons. They formed a battle line with Mandala and the sergeant at the front. Jarvus took his red panther form, ready to deliver as much mayhem to the oncoming Orcs as he could manage. Indrid and Anna stood in the rear, Indrid's hands already conjuring some fiery hell for their assailants, Anna building up a green cloud of spores to send to whoever needed them.

Crash! The wagons pushed two feet into the garrison.

"We want your Commander!" an Orc yelled outside.

Crash! The wagons pushed two more feet.

"We want the hunter! The girl who killed our Chieftain!"

Crash! The broken wagon splintered and crumbled. The sharpened head of a battering ram stuck through the cracked garrison gate.

"Come and take us, you beasts!" Mandala challenged. "You can take our lives, but you will not have Commander Pinter!"

"I don't want them to take my life," Anna said.

"None of you will fall, lass," the sergeant said. "Not if I have anything to say about it."

One more crash, and the wagons parted.

An ocean of gray Orcs poured into Admiral Taylor's garrison.

Indrid pushed her hands forward with a swirl of fire at her feet. A massive, flaming rock fell from the sky, and when it impacted with a cindery blow it sent a dozen bodies flying through the air. Flame spread through the Orc ranks, and all who had entered the garrison were dead.

But there were more behind. They wouldn't stop until they were all dead, or until they found what they had come for. What they came for wasn't here, Mandala knew, which meant only one thing. She threw her shield, ricocheting it around the front ranks of Shattered Hand Orcs, and she joined the fight.

They held their own. They held on for a long time. The Orcs were so crazed in their determination that they fought blindly, leaderless, inefficiently. Mandala in her first onslaught cut down six before Jarvus joined her. Indrid ignited one of the Orcs with a scorching blow, and flame skipped from Orc to Orc in the melee. That slowed them down. Admiral Taylor's ghost soldiers joined the fray, adding to the ferocity that Mandala and Jarvus already wrought upon their enemies. Soon the ground was covered in gray bodies, but for every Orc they killed it seemed that five more poured through the gates.

Mandala threw a hammer of light into the ground, its sparks rippling through the gray Orcs, combining with the lingering effect of Indrid's spell. Jarvus ripped open an Orc from neck to belly, and in the fighter's moment of death he exploded in fire, burning the six Orcs around him, scattering them like uncovered cockroaches fleeing daylight. A squad of Admiral Taylor's soldiers rushed to plug the gap, denying the Shattered Hand their lost foothold.

Suddenly one of the garrison soldiers burst into flames, sending a piercing scream through the air. The soldiers around him backed away, retreating, and Mandala caught a glimpse of the poor soul in his moment of suffering. His incorporeal self seemed to flake away in ash until just the outline of a skeleton remained, and then that vanished in a cloud of material as the fire put itself out. All the while the soldier screamed. Mandala and the others watched it happen.

Some of the Shattered Hand Orcs carried torches that glowed with green flame. Mandala realized this was some sort of enchantment that let them incinerate the ghost soldiers, so that they weren't entirely immune. The sergeant barked more orders, closing up his ranks, but then three more of them burst into flames. They were dropping fast now. It wouldn't be long.

"Fall back to the town hall!" Mandala shouted.

"Are you sure?" Indrid asked.

"Just go!" Mandala said. "We'll figure it out from there."

Indrid rushed ahead, drawing what sounded like a thousand gallons of air into her lungs, and as Mandala and Jarvus rushed past her she exhaled. Fire engulfed the Orcs, driving them back, and when she was exhausted she followed her sister and the adventurers back to the town hall. She had bought just enough. Anna slammed closed the thick doors, and Jarvus dropped the wooden bar, holding them shut. They caught their breath, and Mandala took stock of who remained.

Indrid was there, and Anna and Jarvus. The sergeant was there, as well, but the full might of his company had been reduced to sixteen soldiers. Mandala hadn't realized so many had given their all.

"It's not much," Jarvus said as he changed back into Worgen form. The silver-haired Anna stood next to him. "It's not enough."

"Not if we want to get out of here alive," Indrid said.

Mandala snuck a peak out of one of the windows, covered with bars from the outside. The Shattered Hand Orcs were ignoring the other structures, focusing instead on the town hall. They knew where everyone was hiding.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," the sergeant said. "We failed you."

"No," Mandala said. She turned to him with a warm smile. "You fought bravely. It's all I could have asked for."

"What do we do, Mandala?" Anna asked. Her ears perked and drooped over and over in agitation. Jarvus scratched the back of her neck with his hand, but his own ears betrayed his growing anxiety.

"Can you drop an area of effect outside the doors?" Mandala asked Indrid.

Her sister shook her head. "I have to see the ground," Indrid said.

"We could let them in," Jarvus said.

"And we would die in seconds," Indrid said. "My spells have cooldowns. We wouldn't last long enough for me to cast them more than once."

"Then what do we do?" Jarvus asked irritated. "Either we let them in now or wait until they break the doors down and kill us."

"We wait," Mandala said.

"Just prolong the inevitable?" Jarvus asked.

"To make a plan," Mandala said.

"What plan?" Indrid asked. "The druid is right. We have two options and neither one results in us surviving."

"There is always a way," Mandala said. "This group. I can't explain it. Something watches over us, and there is always a way. We will make it through. We always do."

"It better happen soon," Jarvus said.

"Give us time," Mandala said.

"It's running out," Indrid said.

"When will we see it?" Jarvus asked.

"I don't know," Mandala said.

"Who is coming for us?" Indrid asked.

"I don't know!"

"Look," Anna said, pointing behind them all. They turned.

The townsfolk were emerging from the basement, led by Reshad and his guards.

"What are you doing?" Mandala asked, rushing to stop them. "You don't belong up here."

"I could not stop them," Reshad said. "They want to be here."

Mandala wanted to urge them back, to push them back to safety, but she held herself. She had seen this before, a group of ordinary people banding together for the sake of their home, for the existence of something higher than themselves that they all believed in. The Iron Horde had invaded Pinter's garrison, and the townsfolk had all joined in driving them out. They didn't need to. They wanted to. It was just as much their fight as any defender's, as much as Mandala's, as much as Pinter's. This fight today, it belonged to the townsfolk. It was time to let them join in.

Mandala nodded. Indrid felt it, too, and she joined Mandala as the room filled with a hundred ghosts all ready to fight with whatever they had. "This might work," Indrid said.

"It will," Mandala said.

"Maybe," the sergeant said with regenerating enthusiasm. "Just maybe."

In a few seconds they were positioned. Two of the ghost soldiers were ready on the door stop, ready to pull it away. They waited for Mandala's command. She nodded quietly.

The Shattered Hand roared through the unbarred doors.

And then they ran for their lives.

Indrid launched a flaming rock that devastated their ranks. If they had opened the doors earlier it would have been far too little. They would have all died before any of her spells were ready for casting. Now, however, the townsfolk were with them, clawing and gnashing with just as much rage as Jarvus in his panther form. Anna sent wave after wave of green spores over the garrison fighters. Indrid sent three fireballs racing into three different Orcs who exploded as living bombs, scorching all the Orcs around them, and Mandala led the charge. She planted her sword in the spine of the last stricken Shattered Hand Orc, and she looked around the garrison.

Gray bodies littered the ground, but there was no sign of the people they had lost. Mandala didn't want to imagine what realm their souls had departed for, something farther beyond death, or some plane in between worlds that none could escape. It didn't matter now. None of the Shattered Hand had survived. It was over. They had won.

Jarvus and Anna returned to their Human forms. Anna wiped a bit of blood away from Jarvus's nose with sisterly love. Indrid wrapped Mandala's forearm with a bandage, covering a slash she had totally missed in the intensity of combat. They all looked back at the townsfolk who waited patiently for their next orders, for whatever these four brave adventurers commanded for the benefit of Admiral Taylor's garrison, this home that each and every one of them loved more than anything.

"Wait here," Mandala said to the townsfolk. "We have friends to save."

* * *

Pinter clenched her teeth and closed her eyes tight, balling the bedspread in two fists as she dug her elbows into the mattress. She moaned as her body shook with Admiral Taylor's steady thrusts behind her, but very little of it was from pleasure. All ten inches of his cock were planted firmly inside her, his erection working in and out just a little with his effort, all that his speed and Pinter's tightness would allow. Any other situation on all fours like this and Pinter would have been wild with an orgasm by now. She was far from it. Her ass burned from Admiral Taylor's dogged, unrelenting fuck.

They had started out pleasantly enough. Pinter let the ghost of Admiral Taylor undress her and suck her nipples for a while as he rubbed her clit, enticing her to an early come. She then returned the favor by trying out oral on a ghost. He was there. He was solid. Not fleshy but still slick in a strange way that peaked Pinter's interest, his welling arousal driving her on to see what his climax was like. She let him go right before he came, unsure how he would taste if anything even ejaculated from his erection. Something had shot her in the face, something that smelled salty sweet like cotton candy and trickled warmly down the side of her nose. She rubbed out a few more spurts and dove in, sucking what remained on the tip of his head. It was delicious. Pinter cleaned him up with her tongue.

They fucked missionary for a long time before Taylor fell on his side, lifting Pinter with him, and they fucked some more that way, Admiral Taylor holding Pinter and driving up and into her as they lay there with each other. The sensation was wholly different from anything physical, still physical in the sense that Pinter was actually having sex with a ghost, but someplace in between as Admiral Taylor wasn't really there. It was as if she were being fucked by his soul, a manifestation of his will that remained in this world and occupied some sort of cavity that he had vacated in death. Pinter hadn't arrived in Spires of Arak with intentions of taking Admiral Taylor to bed, but just as she had realized at the outset of this little escapade she didn't have much choice given her current predicament.

And she couldn't deny that she had masturbated to Admiral Taylor once or twice while in training. If he were real and this had just happened, two officers giving in to a momentary desire the way things went sometimes, Pinter would have been thrilled. As it was, Pinter endured this the only way she could. She threw herself into the fuck, resisting Admiral Taylor's slow, heavy thrusts with pressure from her hips, and they came simultaneously on their sides. The ghost of Taylor grit his teeth and threw his head back. He growled. Pinter's body shook once, mightily with her orgasm, like a euphoric shiver, and that strange, hot fluid of his filled her. She wondered why a ghost would have to catch its breath, and then the realization of what she was doing overtook her, and she laughed. Admiral Taylor laughed, too. "I see you're enjoying yourself," he said.