Burning the Centaurs

"Report, Chieftain Rend. Several thousand centaurs are surrounding our brethren ahead. There are about five hundred of them, trapped in the middle. The situation is critical." Rend had yet to find the centaurs' lair when scouts reported discovering besieged orc warriors in another direction.

"Lead the way. We'll save our orc brethren first." Rend immediately led the army to rescue them. It seemed the Horde's landing forces had been too scattered; he needed to gather the orcs who had come ashore.

Malkorok and Vaur took the lead in dealing with the thousands of centaurs. After venting his frustration earlier, Rend had calmed down and chose to let his subordinates handle the battle.

The centaurs were startled by the sudden arrival of a large orc force. They had originally surrounded the orcs, but now they were being surrounded from both within and without.

"Reinforcements! Our brethren from the Blackrock Clan have come to save us! Break out! Lok'tar Ogar!" The orc leader of the small unit also spotted the Blackrock Clan forces rushing to their aid, and morale soared at once.

Under attack from both sides, not a single centaur escaped. Vaur slew the last one.

"Which clan are you from? Why are you here?" Rend began questioning the captain of the rescued unit.

"Reporting to Chieftain Rend, I am from the Jawbone Clan. My people and I became separated from the main force. Only a few of our ships, carrying several hundred people, landed nearby." The Jawbone Clan's minor leader naturally recognized the Blackrock chieftain's distinctive appearance. Rend had already become famous during the Second War, and practically every orc in the Horde could recognize him.

Along the way, Rend encountered many small orc units. Some numbered over a thousand, while others had only dozens of warriors. Some had been unlucky enough to be besieged by large centaur forces, and Rend could only find their corpses. Sacrifice was unavoidable. If the orcs wanted to claim a new homeland, only one side—the centaurs or the orcs—could remain in Durotar.

All Rend could do was gather the remains of the orc warriors as best he could and bury them simply. It was precisely through these predecessors' sacrifices that Durotar could one day become Horde territory.

By nightfall, Zaela finally rode Gyth back to Rend's army. After a day, Rend had gathered over a hundred thousand orcs, all encountered and consolidated along the way. Some reports said that Chieftain Grommash had landed in the south and encountered humans, while Thrall had landed between Rend and Grommash and seemed to have encountered new allies—trolls as well, but with blue skin.

"Chieftain Rend, beyond the mountain ridges ahead lies the centaurs' largest gathering place. By my estimate, there are at least one hundred and fifty thousand centaurs. They seem to have captured many of our brethren and are planning to hold a feast and eat them." Zaela relayed her intelligence to Rend. During the day, she had not dared fly too close and could only gather rough information.

"Filthy beasts, doing the same thing as ogres. Every last one of them deserves to die. Warlord Zaela, go rest for now and prepare yourself. We must rescue our brethren before they act." Rend despised the centaurs for eating intelligent beings, especially when those beings were his own people. It enraged him, but he forced himself to calm down. He had to prepare carefully and wipe out these centaurs with minimal losses. Rend had already killed tens of thousands of centaurs along the way, yet there was still a massive tribe of roughly one hundred and fifty thousand here. He had one hundred thousand orcs under his command, but only seventy thousand truly met his standards for warriors. Though both races could arm their entire populations, Rend could not afford the devastating losses of a direct clash.

Think, Rend. Use your brain. You love history so much—were all those battles you read about for nothing? Think!

When you studied history, you looked at famous battles. Because later generations had documented them in such detail, you thought they seemed simple enough, that you could at least imitate them when the time came. But when faced with the real thing, those little tricks were useless. Mere armchair strategy could not work on a battlefield that changed by the moment.

Still, Rend understood that the most important thing was to shatter the enemy's command structure—through decapitation tactics, or by creating chaos before launching a surprise attack.

Against a massive Horde of one hundred and fifty thousand, Rend was no Grommash. He simply did not have the strength to kill the enemy centaur chieftain and khans, much less escape unharmed afterward.

If shattering their command was impossible, then he could only launch a surprise attack amid chaos. The best time would be when the centaurs were resting, but the captured orc brethren had told him that would not work. He could only find another way to create confusion.

Adapt to local conditions. Durotar was barren and dry, with scarce water. Other than water elementals, all the elements here were highly active. That meant fire.

As the saying went, water and fire showed no mercy. Fire burned the Red Cliffs, water drowned the Seven Armies. Before the Cataclysm, Durotar suffered severe water shortages, but it was also an ideal place for a fire attack. The centaurs mainly built their dwellings from flammable materials like deadwood and straw, while the dung they casually scattered everywhere was excellent fuel as well.

After summoning several rogues and assigning them their task, Rend's need for every class became even more apparent. Every class had its own specialties. On a continent of sword and magic, having them made things much easier. It seemed the Blackrock Clan needed to cultivate a rogue division of its own.

"Shamans, when the rogues begin setting the fires, you will make the fire elementals rapidly intensify the blaze. At the same time, alter the wind elementals' direction of flow. Ensure the safety of our captured brethren, and do not let the smoke obscure the warriors' vision." After returning to the Horde, the Blackrock Clan's shamans had rediscovered the shamanic path with the help of Warchief Thrall. Shamans, who could communicate with the elements, made what had once depended on the right conditions far easier to accomplish. They could alter the wind, reshape terrain, control rain, and control flames. They truly were weapons of war, vastly increasing Rend's options.

The rogues began setting fires throughout the centaurs' crude camp. Even without the shamans communicating with the fire elementals, the flames spread rapidly in Durotar's dry climate. The centaurs' gathered fodder and wooden houses burned even more fiercely, while filthy horse dung gave off yellow smoke and threw the centaurs into chaos.

Rend stood atop a high platform and watched the centaurs burn. Even from so far away, he could still sense the fire elementals' activity. Under the shamans' guidance, the wind elementals kept both the flames and yellow smoke away from the captured orcs, ensuring their safety.

The centaurs' uniquely advantageous bodies gave them tremendous strength and greater speed, but every advantage had its drawbacks. Panicked centaurs shoved one another and ran wildly in every direction, causing even more horrifying trampling. Their own chaos left their camp looking as though heavy cavalry had ruthlessly plowed through it.