He looked down at the river battles that raged below as the Sentinel and Scourge clashed in their eternal struggle for victory. From his vantage point atop the promontory, it seemed that the Scourge was gaining the upper hand. Waves of relentless, merciless ghouls poured down the three lanes, throwing themselves into battle with a ghoulish frenzy. The Sentinel lines held for a moment, wavered, then broke. There were simply too many necromancers. A hard smile creased his pale face.

From atop the slope deep within Sentinel territory, an illuminating wave of energy suddenly burst out and all the Scourge units died instantly. The smile turned into a frown. Yet, it was nothing he had not expected. This stalemate had lasted for years with no conclusion, and those Scourge units which had died were expendable pawns, no more.

A hint of doubt started to gnaw, deep within his frozen heart. This war had taken much out of the Scourge. It no longer possessed the formidable might that humans had come to fear; instead, the heavy toll the war exacted had greatly weakened the Scourge. The dead rising to serve the Scourge? The Scourge becoming stronger with every single unit which fell? All those were legends of the past, a glorious past which had existed when the Scourge was in its prime, and at its full strength.

Now, though the legions of undead seemed endless, the necromancers were greatly exhausted, their stores of energy greatly depleted by their constant summoning. The animated bodies of ghouls were poorly preserved, and some were literally rotting to pieces. Late game, they would not last. They would be quickly finished off by heroes. Yet the heroes themselves, with the exception of a few who fed off the death and misery, were weary of war, exhausted by the years of fighting and dying. One would have thought that a Shallow Grave would be of great benefit, but there were those who now desired a return to their eternal rest. Dirge, for one. Leoric was another. Especially Leoric.

He sighed, and shifted uncomfortably atop his mount. Being skeletal, several of the more bony parts tended to stick out, which he could feel uncomfortably, even through his saddle. A rustling behind alerted him, and Abaddon, Lord of Avernus, spun around, blade at the ready. He had given express orders to his lieutenants that he was not to be disturbed, and this was a no-man’s land, so he was always on the ready for enemies.

The Lord of Avernus was an impressive, yet terrifying sight. His long hair which swept to both sides of his face had been bleached a stark white by the harsh chills of Northrend, and his skin was pallid and stretched, an ashen gray not unlike that of the undead he commanded. A pair of intense eyes, which burned with an unholy fervour, scanned the surroundings, as he held the legendary runeblade Frostmourne at the ready. The intricately carved, half-sentient blade glowed an icy blue, as if sensing the presence of an enemy. His skeletal mount shifted uneasily as footsteps approached.

Then the Moonlight’s Shadow fell away, revealing a horny night elf, sporting a long, dark blue beard, wielding a gnarled staff, a symbol of his office, and dressed in a cloak resembling the feathers of a bird, which gave him a rather ragged appearance, the general consensus of Scourge heroes who had seen him before. Furion, the elusive leader of the Night Elf Sentinel. Abaddon’s eyes narrowed with hatred, and Frostmourne glowed a blinding blue, hungering for the soul of the Sentinel hero. “Now, Frostmourne,” the Lord of Avernus commanded, as he spurred his mount forward, blade at the ready.

The Prophet raised his staff, and a ring of trees suddenly sprouted of the ground around him, hemming him in, rendering him unable to move. “Hear what I have to say first, before you act rashly, Lord of Avernus,” Furion commanded.

Grudgingly, Abaddon lowered his sword. “What is it now?” he demanded.

“I…have a proposal to make,” Furion cleared his throat, as if suddenly embarrassed. Furion, the great leader of the Sentinels, embarrassed? Abaddon found the concept hard to fathom. “Years of warring have greatly exhausted both sides with no visible result. This war has exacted a heavy toll on all of us. The ground is soaked with the blood of our warriors. Our trees lie dying, and the bark of our treants are peeling off. You, on the other hand, are suffering much the same consequences. Ghouls are falling apart, and the bound spirits are slowly breaking free of their prisons. Resources are depleted, and hero morale is low. Some heroes are so heartily sick of the battles that they go farm neutral creeps. And all for what?”

“What do you propose then? Do you think that us, the Scourge, will so willingly surrender to you to prevent a loss of life? We delight in the loss of lives, elf!” Abaddon spoke harshly. “Or is it that you have come to surrender to us?”

“Neither, Lord of Avernus,” Furion replied. “These years of war have taught me several things, and one of them is your temperament. Yet, you, as the military commander and the biggest bigwig of the Scourge, will surely see the expediency of…a temporary truce.”

“A truce?” Abaddon laughed out loud in ridicule. “You desire a truce?” he spoke truculently. Then he reconsidered. A temporary truce had numerous benefits, including allowing them to recoup their losses, to rearm, and to regroup without the Sentinel constantly harrying at their lines. A truce would give them the time to properly plan battle strategies instead of just throwing them meaninglessly at the Sentinel towers in waves.

“A temporary one,” Furion reiterated.

“Then we can engage again, in battles more intense than ever, with all the glory and might of the old days!” Abaddon laughed again, excited and spurred by the passion of war, which had reignited within him. “I grow sick of this pathetic mockery of war, where we are like children fighting each other with sticks, both sides too weak to do any sustainable damage to the other. This war of attrition has worn down both armies. Very well then, I agree! But first, there are some issues to settle.”

A hint of a smile, which had appeared on Furion’s face, disappeared. “What is it?”

“Some of my more bloodthirsty lieutenants still find joy in this war. They will be reluctant to stop. I will require some time to persuade them to my view.” Abaddon replied.

“A few weeks then, say a month or two?”

“Probably less, we will see.”

“Till then, we continue in our war?”

“Agreed.”

Furion then took a few shots at Abaddon, before teleporting off. He howled in rage, even as he was forced to suffer the indignity of eating the trees to escape the ring of trees. However, he thought of the truce, and the things he had planned, and a hard smile creased his face again.

*Like they said, I will need some time to be persuaded to stop. But I’ll still stop, in the end. A levels very important.