Invasion

               To his left and right were trees. Behind him, trees. As far as he could see in front of him? Trees. Cursed trees that were scattered and spotted across the land, all odd and twisted, with the occasional one that apparently had caught fire. Green fire. He tried to keep his breathing slow and steady as he kept up his pace, moving as fast as his short legs would allow him. Somewhere behind him he had lost his hat, but like hell if he was going to go back and retrieve it. That thing was still back there, and knew it.

               It had come from nowhere. Well, not really nowhere. It had come from the sky, after the clouds had turn a sickening green. Like a terrible thunderstorm, except the lightning had been replaced with glowing green rocks that housed hordes of demons all ready to maim and kill. Or worse. He had been out gathering some herd of rams, who promptly defected from any sense of order the moment the sky started spitting fire. Not that he blamed them at all. When his brain finally clicked into what was going on, he hoofed it too.

               His first thought was to head back home. He had to warn his folks, until it occurred to him that they had gone off to Ironforge for the day to pick up some equipment. Which happened to be a rather lucky choice, he noted upon cresting the hill that overlooked their humble home. What stone was above ground was cracked from some sort of nearby impact, and the door had been kicked in. Things were moving about, namely the rather large thing that happened to be heading in his direction. Somewhere inside of him something screamed for him to find some way to defend his home. The rest of him said that despite the longstanding history of the place, it wasn’t worth his life.

               So off into the forest he’d gone. On a better day he would have been able to navigate this particular bunch of trees with ease, but his focus had been thrown out the window a few minutes ago. He had taken enough turns now that there was no particular way he could consider to place himself. All he could really think to do was continue moving so that the thing couldn’t catch him. The pointy hatted, heavy axe-wielding thing. Demon. It almost had to be a demon, especially since he couldn’t imagine it being anything else. Druids were all about being green, last he had heard, but they weren’t so into crashing in from the sky and raiding people’s homes.

               Shit.

               Regardless of any better words he would have produced in other situations, especially when in the presence of his relatives, that seemed the most appropriate for now. So much show that he muttered it out loud more than a few times as he grew closer to the worldly structure he had dreaded to find. The steep rocky walls of a cliff all he could see. Worse still when he curved off in either direction to start working his way elsewhere he noted that he had wormed his way into the tail end of some canyon. He racked his brain to determine how far he must have ran to end up at the end of a canyon, and could only decide that he must have gone miles. How long he had been going he couldn’t even say. What he could say, based on the rustling behind him, was that he was going to regret coming this far.

               There was the most basic of hopes he could muster that he was going to turn around and see a wolf or something that had decided he would make a good midday meal. But no, it was that pointy headed thing from before, still lugging around that massive axe. It had a terrible grin on its face as it thumped along, its heavy armored feet leaving impressions deeper than just the snow and into the dirt that was frozen below it.

               He glanced off to the left and right, debating which way would give him more room to run and a bigger space between him and it, but didn’t get much time to consider the idea. There was a loud groan from the demon as it jerked its body forward, stumbling enough that it had to use the pole of its long axe to keep its footing. The dwarf had to squint to notice that the thing had been attacked from its flank, with something still clinging onto its back, dangling a few feet off the ground.

               The demon began twisting and turning until its attacker was successfully flung off, slamming into the tree. Squinting the dwarf noted that the pile of metal and fur that had dropped to the ground near the tree’s trunk appeared to be a Worgen, a large mace slung along his back. With a fair amount of muttering and cursing the Worgen picked himself off the ground and faced the demon, whose attention had turned from his previous prey to this new one.

               Despite the size of the mace he was lugging about, the Worgen continued on unarmed, dropping a foot back to prepare for the demon’s charge, which came soon after. It brought its weapon back for a forward swing, which the Worgen managed to duck under, barely missing the tips of his ears. The Worgen’s claws found their way into the demon’s shoulder as he swept upward from under the axe, before the quickly jumped backward to wait for another strike.

               The demon stumbled back, not from the blow far as the dwarf could tell, but rather something happening because of the blow. It hacked and coughed and scratched at the place it had been struck, grunting in pain as though someone had set a match against its skin. Its opponent took this as another moment to strike, making another slash on the demon before it was smacked away by the demon’s unoccupied hand.

               Crashing to the ground again the Worgen clawed his way to his knees before swiftly receiving a kick from the demon, grazing a tree and ending up further in the snow. The beast flopped onto his back, awkwardly laying on top of the mace, staring up at the sky for a moment while regaining his composure, lazily looking towards the direction he had been tossed from to find his attacker charging to do the same again. One of his claws slammed against the ground, a section of his glove glowing bright blue as the area under the demon’s feet causing it to fall forward at its sudden drop in momentum.

               With the demon grounded, the Worgen slowly clambered back to his feet, finally drawing the mace from its back. Before he got the chance to use it, the demon slammed its axe into the ground a giant burst of green fire knocking the Worgen back against the canyon wall. It slammed the blade of the axe against its iced feet, bringing it back to its full height. It stomped over to the Worgen, bringing a foot down on the beast before it could recover. It continued to do this until it seemed satisfied that the Worgen wasn’t getting up to oppose it for the time being, preparing to bring its axe down on its enemy’s neck.

               The Worgen lifted a hand up, flicking his wrist, a motion that was followed by another flash of light, this time red in color. The demon paused in its attack, apparently lifted up into the air by its throat, gasping for air. The Worgen heaved itself up, mace and all, bringing the former up to slam against the demon. As the weapon made contact the demon appeared to be released, allowing it to fly off into the forest, dropping its axe as it flew.

               Letting the head of his mace drag along the ground, the Worgen limped over toward the fallen demon. He flicked his other hand again, another       flash of blue light as the demon apparently froze to the ground, struggling against its icy chains. With a final heave, the Worgen brought his mace up over his shoulder, bringing it down against the demon’s head. The dwarf quickly looked away, grimacing and grinding his teeth at the sound of bone crushing. By the time he had looked back the Worgen had sheathed his weapon, and was in the process of letting out a sigh.

               The Worgen took a moment to glance at the dwarf, raising his voice so that he could be heard, “Find somewhere to hole up.”

               The dwarf blinked, looking down at the now-dead demon, “There’s more of ‘em?”

               The Worgen snorted, turning to head back into the forest, voice still raised, “There’s a lot more of ‘em.”