Tides of darkness

After killing the corrupt Warchief Blackhand, Orgrim Doomhammer was quick to seize control over the Orcish Horde. Now he is determined to conquer the rest of Azeroth so that his people will once again have a home of their own in the…
WORLD OF WARCRAFT
Anduin Lothar, former Champion of Stormwind, has left his shattered homeland behind and led his people across the Great Sea to the shores of Lordaeron. There, with the aid of the noble King Terenas, he forges a mighty Alliance with the other human nations. But even that may not be enough to stop the Horde’s merciless onslaught.
Elves, dwarves, and trolls enter the fray as the two emerging factions vie for dominance. Will the valiant Alliance prevail, or will the Horde’s tide of darkness consume the last vestiges of freedom on Azeroth?
Aaron Rosenberg
Tides of Darkness
For David Honigsberg (1958 – 2007)
Musician, writer, gamer, rabbi, and friend extraordinaire. Teach Heaven to rock, amigo.
FIRST PROLOGUE
Dawn, and fog still shrouded the world. In the sleepy village of Southshore, people stirred, unable to see the dawn light but knowing night had ended nonetheless. The fog covered the world, draping itself over their simple wooden homes and concealing the sea they knew lay just beyond the town’s edge. Though they could not see it, they could hear the water lapping at the shore, rippling up around the single dock.
Then they began to hear something else.
Slow and steady it came, floating through the fog, the sound reverberating until they could identify neither source nor direction. Did it come from the land behind them or the sea before them? Was it merely the waves striking harder than usual, or rain beating down upon the fog itself, or some trader’s wagon rolling along the hard dirt path? Listening intently, the villagers finally realized the strange new sound came from the water. Rushing to the shore, they peered out

into the fog, trying to pierce its gloom. What was this noise, and what did it bring with it?
Slowly the fog began to shift, as if pushed forward by the noise itself. The fog swelled and darkened, and then the darkness took on form, a wave rushing toward them. The villagers backed away, several of them crying out. They were masters of the water, these men, fishermen born and bred, but this wave was not water. It moved wrong for that. It was something else.
The darkness continued its approach, carrying the fog with it, the sound intensifying. Then finally it breached the fog, piercing its veil, and the shape divided into many and took on form. Boats. Many, many boats. The villagers relaxed slightly, for boats they understood, yet still they were wary. Southshore was a quiet fishing village. They had a dozen small boats themselves, no more, and had seen perhaps a dozen others through the years. Suddenly there were hundreds approaching them all at once. What did this mean? The men grasped short wooden clubs, knives, hooked poles, even weighted nets, whatever came to hand. And they waited tensely, watching as the boats drew closer. More boats were emerging from the mists, an unending procession, and with each new row of ships the villagers’ shock grew. There were not hundreds but thousands approaching them, a veritable nation, more boats than they had ever seen before! Where had so many vessels come from? What could make them put to the water at once like this? And what could send them to Lordaeron? The villagers gripped their weapons more tightly, children and women hiding within their homes, and still the boats multiplied.