The commander of the Orc Wolf Rider Vanguard sensed that something was wrong, but he could not stop and wait for the main force. He had to find out what had happened first.
Otherwise, even if he halted and waited for the main force to arrive, he would have no explanation to offer his chief, Gul'dan. Gul'dan was anything but easygoing. On the contrary, he was a terrifyingly cruel leader.
The disappearance of two scouting parties unsettled the commander of the Orc Wolf Rider Vanguard. He sent a rider back to report the situation to Gul'dan, then led his troops onward. He no longer dared to send out another small detachment.
After traveling a while, he raised a hand and halted the advancing troops.
This location gave him an especially strong sense of unease. Everything looked normal, but that was precisely what made it suspicious-it was too normal.
It was a small depression with slopes on three sides and level ground on the fourth, and his troops had the misfortune of standing right in its center. As a cavalry commander himself, he knew just how disastrous this terrain was for mounted troops. He surveyed the three earthen slopes.
Suddenly, his pupils contracted sharply, and his eyes narrowed.
Along the uneven skyline of the three slopes, human heavy armored cavalry slowly began to appear, one rider after another, row after row, atop the low rises. Their silver-white armor reflected a dazzling glare in the sunlight.
A faint stir of unrest spread through the Orc Wolf Cavalry, but they soon regained their composure and steadiness. They were, after all, an elite Wolf Cavalry unit.
When the number of human heavy cavalry along the crests of the three gentle slopes stopped increasing, the corners of the Orc Wolf Rider commander's mouth curled upward.