User:Minionman/Hellscream's War

After the battle of Hyjal, the horde had been on good terms with the Night Elves. When the crossroads was established, the rocs had also built a road to Ashenvale, to allow trade with the Night Elves to the north. The Night elves had also built a road from their city of Astrannar, to further assist with trade. The orcs had originally planned to trade metalwork (produced from mines in Durotar and craftsmen in various orc cities.) for wood produced in Ashenvale by the Night Elves.

These plans were disrupted when the warsong clan travelled ot Ashenvale to built a statue of Grom Hellscream, to celebrate his killing of Mannoroth. The Night Elf Sentinels in the area, who still mainly remembered Hellscream as the orc who killed Cenarius, did not want to statue built on their land, and ordered the Warsong clan builders out of ashenvale. The leaders of the warsong clan considered this an insult to Hellscream's memory, and sent fighters into ashenvale to force the statue to be built. The sentinels in the area did not expect warsong fighters to come to ashenvale, and at first allowed construction to start. Messengers, however, were sent throughout ashenvale to bring word to more sentinels, and soon a large group approached the statue site to remove the warsong from the forest.

Word soon reached the Orc and night Elf leaders of these events. The two leaders met on the road between the barrens and Ashenvale to negotiate some solution to this disagreement. Thrall offered to buy the land from the Night elves for the statue, the night elves preferred that the statue be built somewhere besides Orgrimmar. thrall and furion, the more peaceful leaders, were more willing to acknowledge the other side's view on hellscream, more aggressive leaders, such as Tyrande and Nazgrel, clung more to their original point of view, but still preferred to avoid fighting.

Warsong leaders, however, felt that negotiations were taking too long, and felt that thrall was too likely to let the night Elves get away with attacking Hellscream's armor. They organized their more fighters again, entered ashenvale, and continued building the statue. When Night Elf sentinels appeared to stop them, the hellscream warriors charged the sentinels and killed several. The sentinels sent word to negotiators, and brought more to the statue site to get revenge on the Warsong. The warsong fighters attempted to fight back, but were outnumbered and in bad terrain to handle the Night Elves. Some dropped their weapons and attempted ot leave, but the Sentinels killed many of the surrendering warsong as well.

Word of these two attacks spread though the rest of the Ashenvale night Elves, and the warsong clan. Each side only heard their version of the story, and large amounts of warsong fighters and ashenvale, and quickly sent fighters to the statue site. A full scale battle soon occured between the Warsong and Sentinels.

The negotiating leaders also heard the news of the battle. they were slow to react to the news, some leaders wanted to call off negotiations, but most wanted to somehow stop the fighting to allow negotiation to settle the issue. The leaders agreed to travel to the battle site together to try and settle issues between the Sentinels and Warsong. As the battle site was approached, several sentinels attacked the horde guards, and warsong clan members attacked the Night elf guards. The leaders were able to settle very little, both the Sentinel and Warsong leaders agreed to stop fighting for a short time, but once the leaders left, both started fighting again. when news reached Tyrande, she ordered thrall to reign in the warsong by force, or the Night Elves would cut off all trade relations with the horde. Thrall sent several ambassadors to stop the warsong from fighting, but the warsong leaders were obstinate, and only stopped when Thrall sent other horde soldiers. It took several days, however, for the other orcs to finally remove the warsong from Ashenvale, not fast enough for tyrande, and she ordered the Night Elves to stop trading with the orcs.

Many orcs in Durotar were angry at this order. they had eagerly been waiting for a supply of wood from Ashenvale. Soon, the story of the sentinel's first contact with the orcs, and Tyrande's aggression towards the orcs before Hyjal began circulating mong orcs, and many offered to fight for the warsong to capture the statue site. Tyrande was preparing to allow trading again with the orcs, but before she could send the order out, the Warsong with supporters attacked. Tyrande rescinded the order, and declared war on the horde. Many soldiers from both sides began travelling to Ashenvale to fight against the Night Elves.

Normally, this declaration of war would have drawn the Night Elves and Horde into a long, bloody war that might have killed off many from both races. However, on hearing the full story of events, Furion Stormrage offered to meet in secret with Thrall on the barrens border. The two leaders agreed that the war would be a huge waste of resources and lives on both sides, and that it should be oprevented or limited in some way. While large sections of the orc and Night Elf population supported the war, ensuring a supply of volunteers for the fighting and likely making it impossible to end, the two leaders agreed that their main militaries would not involve themselves in the conflict. the two leaders agreed that small settlements would be allowed somewhat in each other's territory, settlements that would become the Zoram'gar outpost, Splintertree post, and the Stonetalon Peak settlement, but overall the two sides were to mostly stay out of each other's territory.

Enough high level leaders were told of this agreement to ensure enforcement, and the so called "Hellscream's War" has remained a skirmish to this day. However, the war has been quite damaging to the Ashenvale forest. To Pay for the war, and to remove hiding places from the Night Elves, the warsong clan has hired goblins, and brought in tree cutters, to cut down large sections of Ashenvale near the statue site. Almost all night Elves, and many in the horde who see the destruction, wish the tree cutting to stop, but neither side is willing to end the fighting, and the both sides have enough popularity amongst the alliance and horde that the two sides cannot be controlled enough to stop the fighting. The orcs have, over time, switched from wood to stone for most buildings, to avoid supporting the warsong and entangling themselves in the fighting. The main Night elf leaders, as best they can, try to sabotage tree cutting equipment and regrow the forest without directly getting involved in battles.