Aaaand… we're back!

This story is rated M for violence and adult themes. As usual, the story carries a general spoiler warning for Warlords of Draenor, particularly the Highmaul raid instance and the legendary ring quest line.

This work is a direct sequel to Lion's Trial and Lion's Vengeance. This series is sequential, so if you haven't read my earlier works it's probably a good idea to read them first if you like your stories to make sense. I hope you enjoy the next stage of this tale!

Lion's Heart

Auriana

Auriana Fenwild, Commander of Lunarfall Garrison, crouched low amongst the masonry of Highmaul. Beside her, her personal bodyguard Delvar Ironfist was similarly hidden. Highmaul was the jewel of the Gorian Empire, and it stood as a testament to the power and majesty of ogre civilisation at its pinnacle. Auriana's garrison, along with Vindicator Yrel's draenei forces, had stormed the ogre stronghold early the previous morning. They'd also been joined by a number of mages from the Kirin Tor, whose services had been graciously loaned to Auriana by the Archmage Jaina Proudmoore. It was currently late afternoon, and the Alliance forces were weary from a long two days of fighting. Spirits still ran high, however, as they had secured victory after victory over the guardians of Highmaul's outer gates. Most notably, her forces had defeated Kargath Bladefist of the Shattered Hand in Highmaul's infamous gladiatorial arena.

Auriana had savoured their triumph over one of the leaders of the Iron Horde, but Kargath was not her primary target. Not that Kargath's head was an insignificant prize, of course, but her real goal in Highmaul was to secure a number of magical artifacts in order to further Khadgar's pursuit of the warlock Gul'Dan. Chief among these artifacts was the Sigil of the Sorcerer King, a powerful item held by the ogre leader, Imperator Mar'gok. Mar'gok used his considerable arcane abilities to rule over Highmaul with an iron fist, and he was currently holed up in his citadel. Curiously, he had not yet deigned to address the army standing at his gates, though Auriana wasn't one to argue with her good fortune. She suspected that there were powerful enchantments protecting the citadel entrance, but she had more immediate problems to deal with before breaching the citadel proper.

One of those problems now stood directly in front of her. Both she and her dour death knight companion were hidden behind a long stretch of wall, looking out at one of the strangest creatures Auriana had ever seen. The rest of her army were well back, marshalling in one of the large open courtyards that made up the outskirts of Highmaul, while Auriana and Ironfist scouted further forwards.

"What is that?" Ironfist breathed.

"I have no idea…" Auriana said, somewhat awestruck. "It looks like an earth elemental of sorts, but… it's huge… and… malformed…"

She'd seen many strange creatures in her time on both Draenor and Azeroth, but this had to be one of the oddest. The creature was massive. It looked like someone had simply carved a slab off the side of a mountain and then given it legs. It had strange, glowing outcrops of rock on its arms and shoulders, and its yawning maw was molten gold. The ground trembled with every slow step the creature took, as it paced broodingly around the terrace.

"How big do ye reckon it is?" Ironfist whispered.

"Thirty feet? Forty?" Auriana guessed, trying to estimate based on the surrounding environment.

"What are we goin' to do about it, Commander?"

"Well, it looks like we're going to have to go through it… whatever it is..." she said thoughtfully, her mind racing.

She pointed to a glowing blue whorl faintly visible behind the elemental's considerable bulk.

"That's a portal into the citadel," she said. "If we want to get inside, that's where we need to go."

"So we're takin' on that lump o' mountain, then," Ironfist grinned, absentmindedly touching the haft of his axe. "'Bout time we had a real challenge, aye Commander?"

"You might want to temper your enthusiasm until I come up with some sort of a plan for dealing with that thing," Auriana said drily. "Come on, let's get back to the staging area."

Staying low, they carefully withdrew from their hiding position. The great stone creature seemed not to have been disturbed by their departure, though vaguely Auriana wondered if it would actually notice anything smaller than a boulder. Once they were out of the elemental's immediate radius, she and Ironfist broke into a brisk jog, and they soon arrived back at the temporary staging grounds.

Auriana waved over Lieutenant Barrett Gale, who was acting as second in command of the Alliance forces in the Highmaul assault. Gale was one of her best battlefield lieutenants, and he had been instrumental in executing her strategy for the takedown of Kargath Bladefist. He was a hard-faced, strapping warrior, and he looked very impressive in his heavy, shining plate.

"Who's next, Commander?" he asked, tapping an eager hand on the hilts of his twin blades.

"Er… what's next is probably a better question," she said, quickly explaining what she knew of their upcoming foe.

She rapidly developed a strategy for the encounter, based on her previous experience in fighting elementals. Without any other information to go on, she hoped it would be a sufficient method of countering the creature, but to a certain degree they would have to adapt the fight as it went on. Gale and Ironfist quickly disseminated her orders amongst the ranks, and soon she was leading her forces into battle with a wild and joyful cry.

Any strategy she had developed went out the window the moment they engaged the elemental. The creature bellowed ferociously at the audacity of the intruders, and the ground began to heave beneath their feet. Great upthrusts of rock burst from the ground, seemingly at random, and Auriana's battalion were soon on the back foot. They scattered desperately, and soon it was nearly impossible to see more than three feet as the air was filled with flying dust and rock.

Auriana blinked around the battlefield, trying to avoid the sudden and unpredictable rock bursts. Delvar Ironfist had managed to lead a group of soldiers wearing plate armour to the vanguard, but much of the rest of her forces were cut off by the flying grit and stone. Ironfist's group were harrying the creature's legs, chunking deep gouges of rock with their axes and swords while dancing around the creature's flailing arms. The creature appeared to be made of solid rock, and a single hit from one of the pounding limbs could easily break a man's back, plate or no. Off to the side, a group of shaman worked diligently, using powerful blasts of magma to soften the creature's rocky back for the subsequent bite of cold steel.

For her part, Auriana worked to conjure great bursts of solid ice, trying to restrict the creature's movements. She'd bound two water elementals to her service, and they tirelessly aided her efforts to hold the thing in place. A number of the Kirin Tor mages had also joined in her assault, though their collective might appeared to have had little real effect. The creature was almost unimaginably strong, and its pounding limbs shattered the ice as almost as quickly as they could make it.

The combined assault inevitably took its toll, however. As the fight wore on, Auriana could see the creature's movements become sluggish, and it was easier to hold the slab of a thing in place. Auriana's forces were flagging as well, but they fought with renewed vigour as it appeared their efforts were finally bringing the creature down. The elemental's front left limb had been hewn near through by her warriors, paladins, and death knights, and Auriana could see the creature stagger every time it tried to put weight forwards. Ironfist had seen the same weakness, and he was quick to take advantage. He swung his axe in one final, devastating blow, and one of the creature's limbs simply cracked in half, sending chunks of rock flying everywhere.

"Take that, beastie!" Ironfist crowed triumphantly, as the creature howled and tumbled to one side.

A number of lithe, fleet-footed rogues took the opportunity to leap up on to the creature's back, and finished it off with a flurry of perfectly aimed strikes to the beast's head and neck. With a final rumbling sigh, the elemental collapsed into the dirt, unmoving, and the wild heaving of the earth subsided.

Auriana brushed some of the grit out of her eyes and strode cautiously forward. Her normally dark hair was now sandy brown, and her silver-white skin had been given an impromptu dust tan. Ahead of her, Ironfist gave the fallen creature a poke with his axe. It didn't move, and he raised the weapon in triumph. A great cry went up from the Alliance forces at his gesture, only to fade a second later as the creature's corpse made a strange cracking noise.

"Get back!" Auriana yelled, and her men complied at once.

The ground roiled once more, and many of her soldiers were knocked off their feet at the unexpected movement. The massive corpse of the elemental shuddered, and with a scream of rending rock and clouds of grit, the creature actually split in two. From the rubble, two smaller creatures emerged, each with the same distinctive appearance of the original elemental, though roughly half the size. These creatures were clearly not as dead as the larger elemental that had spawned them, and they appeared to be very, very angry.

"Ironfist!" she hollered, seeing one elemental move to charge her healers. "Pick him up!"

The dwarf death knight moved immediately, sending a wave of death energy to distract and engage one of the duplicate creatures. The second slammed its rocky foot against the ground, sending tremors racing across the terrace, as it prepared to charge Auriana's own position. She was so busy concentrating on the whereabouts of her allied mages that she moved a second too slowly, and a fissure opened up right under her feet. She tried to dodge, but her ankle caught in the crack in the earth, and she tumbled to her knees, unable to move. The second, smaller creature was now heading directly towards her, bellowing fiercely as it charged.

Auriana yanked on her foot frantically, trying to free her ankle from the crack, but it appeared her bootstrap had caught on a rock. The creature was gaining ground rapidly, and in a moment of horror, Auriana realised that she was going to be trampled into dust.

With little recourse, Auriana closed her eyes against her inevitable doom, only to open them in surprise a second later when nothing happened. There had been no hideous crunch of bone as the creature ploughed into her, nor the empty blackness of unconsciousness. She looked about wildly, and realised that Barrett Gale had successfully managed to divert the creature away from her, his dual swords glinting in the afternoon sun.

As Auriana shook her head dazedly, there was a bright flash of light, and a second mage appeared. Auriana blinked, recognising her friend Kinzie Swiftspanner. The gnome mage's hands were much smaller and nimbler than Auriana's own, and she soon freed Auriana's trapped foot.

"Get up, Auri!" Kinzie urged, turning her attention back to the battle as soon as she was satisfied that Auriana had been freed.

Auriana needed no encouragement, and she hurled herself to her feet. She instantly resummoned her water elementals, and turned to deal with the new threat. Her men were well-trained and responsive, and they had already organised themselves into two efficient groups to manage the elementals.

Although the split elementals were smaller than the original colossus, they were much more difficult to deal with. They both seemed to have the ability to summon the sudden upthrusts of rock that had made the initial fight so challenging. Many of her soldiers had been knocked out of the way by the quick moving rocks, but those who had managed to maintain their footing had learned from the previous fight, and were successfully employing a similar strategy against the two smaller creatures.

The current fight was shorter than the first, as her men refined their tactics, but they suffered more casualties. Eventually, however, both creatures tumbled into the dirt with identical bellows of pain, before lying still. The earth ceased its tormented heaving once more, but Auriana remained unconvinced.

"Keep your distance," she ordered, keeping a spell primed on her fingertips.

The two small elementals appeared to be as dead as their predecessor, but she had a healthy scepticism honed by years of battle experience. Her suspicions were confirmed mere moments later, as the rumbling in the earth started up again, and suddenly four elementals stood before her, howling their rage against the sky.

Just my luck, she sighed, sprinting forwards to engage the nearest creature.

"Do ye think they'll split again?" Ironfist screamed at her, weaving desperately in and amongst the pounding fists of a single elemental.

"Why would I know that?" Auriana yelled back, thoroughly occupied by her own shardling.

She tumbled sideways into the dirt as a rock exploded inches from her feet, and she caught sight of a young draenei shaman working frantically to bring down the elemental pack. Something dimly registered in the back of her brain as she stared at him, trying to refocus her eyes.

Shaman, she realised.

She blinked to the draenei's side, grasped him firmly by the collar, and dragged him behind a rock pillar for protection. For a small woman, she was surprisingly strong, and he put up little resistance.

"How many more splits will we have to endure?" she asked, not mincing her words.

"I… I don't know…" the shaman stammered, recoiling from her intensity.

"Use your connection to the elements," she ordered him, her hand still grasping her collar. "Concentrate."

The shaman closed his eyes, trying to ignore the flying rock and grit and the endless heaving of the earth.

"It seems… it seems to be made of very primal energies, the sort of energies used in the initial creation of Draenor," he said finally. "But the elemental forces that hold it together fading… I think… I think this perhaps is the last split, or perhaps only one more."

His glowing eyes flew open.

"I'm sorry, Commander, I can't give you more," he said apologetically.

Auriana released him from her grasp.

"Just as long as this thing won't divide infinitely," she said, her attention returning to the raging battle. "This is getting out of control."

"No. I'm confident of that," the shaman assured her. "The creature's elemental energy is finite."

"Good," Auriana said. "Let's end this."

As one, mage and shaman stepped out from behind the safety of the rock pillar. Ironfist and her other heavy infantry had managed to shepherd the elementals into a corner, and Auriana saw her chance. She lifted her hands and called down a raging blizzard. At her side, the shaman summoned down a lightning storm of his own. Several other casters also picked up on the strategy, and soon the elementals were crushed under a barrage of frost, lighting, and crackling fire.

For several long minutes, nobody moved as they stared at the fallen creatures. Everything was silent and still, even the once-tortured earth, but Auriana could see that her men were ready to fight at a moment's notice. Everyone was covered in a thick layer of dirt and debris, and many weapons had been shattered against the immovable stone of the elementals.

Nearly twenty minutes passed before Auriana was satisfied that no more creatures would rise from the ground.

"Stand down," she ordered, her voice echoing off the stone walls of the terrace. "I think we're done here."

She breathed a sigh of relief, and allowed herself to relax for the first time all day.

"Tend to the wounded," she added, as she strode over to the bright blue portal that marked the entrance to Mar'gok's citadel.

Auriana wasn't especially sensitive to this sort of magic, but her arcane instincts hummed as she approached the portal. She summoned all her concentration, and reached out a tentative hand. At her spell command, bright runes shimmered in the air, detailing the parameters of the portal spell. Ogre magic was a curious blend of the familiar and the entirely alien. It would be difficult to explain to someone who had never known magic, but she might have likened it to speaking the same language with the words out of order.

She could tell instantly that Highmaul citadel was protected by both ancient and powerful magics. Auriana sighed. The spellwork around the portal was extremely complex, and a brute force attack would likely prove catastrophic. This wasn't her area of expertise, but she knew it would take significant, careful work to breach the protections surrounding the inner sanctum of Highmaul.

She beckoned the senior Kirin Tor mage over. Elwin Lansing was a short, heavily built man who looked more like he should be a brawler than a mage. He was about ten years Auriana's senior, and he was particularly gifted with arcane magic. She'd never served with him before, but so far he had lived up to Jaina Proudmoore's assurances of both skill and dependability. If anyone was able to break the invisible barrier surrounding Highmaul, it was likely to be Lansing.

"I don't think we're getting through here tonight," she observed, nodding to the setting sun.

"Almost certainly not," Lansing concurred, conducting his own inspection of the ogre spellwork. "I doubt we'll be able to crack this inside a week, if I'm being honest. Certainly not without considerable risk to those attempting to break the spells. This is some fearsome magic, and not at all the type of thing one should rush."

"That's what I thought," Auriana said, biting her lip in frustration. "We'll have to pull it apart one enchantment at a time. Not tonight, however, we all need to rest. Could you arrange teams of mages to start work on it tomorrow? We need to get inside as soon as possible, I don't want to give Mar'gok time to build up his defenses"

"Of course," Lansing said, clearly eager to test his abilities against those of the Gorian mages. "I'll see to it at once."

"I'm going to have my men set up camp lower down in the terraces, so we'll also need some magical shields in case the Imperator decides to come out and play," she added.

Lansing nodded, and she could see him already thinking and planning as he went back to report to the rest of the Kirin Tor mages.

"Lieutenant!" she called out to her second, once Lansing had departed.

Barrett Gale hastened to her side, looking as dusty as she felt. Only his bright green eyes were untouched. He grinned broadly as he approached.

"Good show, Commander," he said enthusiastically. "At the rate we're going, we'll have Mar'gok's head in time for dinner tomorrow!"

"Slow down, Gale. Taking the citadel will be no simple task," she said ruefully. "It's going to take our mages some time to break through the magical protections around the citadel, so it looks like we're now engaged in a siege. Pull half our forces back to Lunarfall, including the wounded, but leave the remainder here to hold the outer gates. I doubt we'll have much resistance in holding this position, but I won't risk losing the ground we've gained so far."

She gestured to the group of Kirin Tor mages, now receiving their own instructions from Lansing.

"Keep a couple of the mages with you in case you need to open a portal between here and the garrison. Just say the word and I'll have troops sent through at once. The Kirin Tor will also offer you magical protection from any sort of counterattack," Auriana continued.

"How long do you expect it will take?" Gale asked.

He radiated excitable energy, and she had to fight not to get swept up in his enthusiasm for battle.

"This sort of magic can be tricky, but we should have the portal open in about a week," she explained. "Just in case it takes a while, set up a rotation between here and Lunarfall so that the men don't feel too hard done by when they're stuck on camping duty."

"As you wish, Commander. Do you intend to stay here, or return to Lunarfall?"

"I'll return to Lunarfall," she said. "There are a few other matters that need my attention, and the Kirin Tor mages are far better equipped to deal with this sort of magical conundrum than I am."

"I'm sure you'd do just fine," Gale said, smiling winningly. "Er… Commander."

"That'll be all, Lieutenant…" she said slowly, staring Gale down.

She shook her head as he turned and walked away. Gale was a good officer, but he had a tendency to flirt with anything that moved. Thus far, she'd largely escaped the more exuberant side of his nature, most likely because she was his superior. She idly wondered what had changed.

Her dust-covered soldiers had begun to move, filing neatly down into one of the large lower terraces to set up camp. The Kirin Tor mages were also hard at work, opening wide portals to Lunarfall garrison for those who would be returning straight away. Auriana declined to take one of the available portals, however, instead summoning her own power and teleporting directly into her war room.

She startled a hard-at-work Lieutenant Thorn, the second in command of Lunarfall Garrison. The shocked worgen nearly fell off her chair, and she knocked a large stack of garrison reports on to the floor in her efforts to stay seated.

"Er… sorry," Auriana said, kneeling down to collect the papers and return them to the desk.

"You look like you had some fun, Commander," Thorn said, eyeing Auriana's dust-covered robes.

"Oh, you know me, Thorn," she retorted. "I always have fun."

"I take it the assault went well, then?"

"Very well, in fact," Auriana said, somewhat surprised by her own success. "Outer Highmaul is ours, and we should be able to breach the inner sanctum within the week."

She paused, her eyes skimming over the assorted reports on Thorn's desk.

"What's been going on here?"

"The usual business, mostly," Thorn said. "I've organised the relevant reports for your perusal, whenever you're ready. I respectfully suggest that you have a shower before looking over them, however."

"What would I do without you, Thorn?" Auriana mused, idly flicking through one of the aforementioned documents. "And I concur on the shower. I think my dirt is covered in dirt."

She smiled up at Thorn, and was pleased to see the Lieutenant return the expression in kind.

"This also came for you," Thorn added lightly, handing her a missive marked with the official seal of the King of Stormwind.

Auriana froze. Her earlier confidence and good humour vanished as if she'd been punched in the chest. It had been two months since she'd last seen Varian Wrynn; two months since her fear and doubt had overruled her heart and she had turned him down. She could still remember their searing, aching kiss as if it had happened only moments ago, and she had questioned her decision nearly every day since. Although they'd ostensibly agreed to remain friends, she'd hadn't been able to muster the courage to contact him. He had made no attempt to contact her either - until now.

She turned the note slowly in her hands, and slipped the seal. It was soon apparent that this was not a personal communication, but rather an official summons. Auriana tried very hard to ignore the way her heart fell in her chest at the impersonal tone of the message.

"Might I ask?" Thorn said tentatively.

The worgen lieutenant had no idea what had happened between Varian and Auriana, of course, but she must have had some inkling that they were friends.

"The King wants an update on garrison operations. He's summoned me to Stormwind at my earliest convenience," Auriana said flatly, reading over the note a second time.

"When do you intend to go?" Thorn pressed.

"It will be some time before I'm needed at Highmaul again, I suppose," Auriana said dully. "Ah… send a courier, and let them know I will return to Stormwind tomorrow."

She turned away from Thorn, feeling strangely morose.

"I need to get cleaned up. See that I'm not disturbed, Thorn. Unless it's an emergency, of course," she added. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Commander," Thorn added.

Auriana could feel the worgen woman's eyes on her back as she retreated, but she gave it no mind as she walked slowly up the stairs to the still emptiness of her lonely room.