User:Joshmaul/Battle of the Court of Bones

The Battle of the Court of Bones was the final climactic meeting between the forces of Saavedro of Stratholme and Joshmaul the Corruptor.

While Saavedro explores the halls of Icecrown Citadel, his allies in both the Alliance and Horde are ambushed in a surprise attack by Joshmaul's legions, led by his vrykul enforcer Helbrand and his chief general Shankolin Blightpath.

Prelude


With the siege of Icecrown Citadel underway, Joshmaul decided to take advantage of the Argent Crusade's (and most particularly Saavedro's) focus on finishing off the Lich King by ambushing the outnumbered forces that followed him: The House of Whitehair's vaunted House Guard under its seasoned captain, Master Taeril'hane Ketiron; a battalion of Stormwind soldiers known as "Vorian's Veterans", commanded by the young General Oren Tanis; and a small force of death knights of the Ebon Blade under Baron Artimus Devaneaux. They were each given orders to hold the gates of Icecrown to ensure that no Scourge forces attacked the Citadel raiders from behind.

Saavedro had met with Tanis, Ketiron and Artimus prior to the beginning of the battle with the Lich King, and organized his Lordaeron Deathsworn, the House of Whitehair, and Artimus' decaying Council of Deathlords into a grand coalition which, the paladin hoped, would last beyond the fall of the Lich King. The four men swore a blood oath to formally christen their new alliance. With the battle about to begin, Saavedro blessed the army and then left to enter Icecrown Citadel to fulfill the oath he had sworn upon entering the Silver Hand four years before - to avenge Lordaeron and Quel'Thalas.

Joshmaul knew full well that he would not get a better opportunity to destroy Saavedro's power base and deliver a crippling blow to the paladin on the eve of the ultimate triumph over the Lich King. He also knew that - with his legions of both living and undead vrykul under Helbrand's control, as well as his many volunteers from various sides in the ongoing war engulfing Azeroth - he had the numerical edge. Joshmaul had also gained control of the Horde fortress on the Isle of Conquest and the powerful gunship that patrolled the skies, a fortress that came under siege from Saavedro and his allies not long after. However, Joshmaul was able to escape with his flying behemoth, which he called the Vengeful Spirit after his first ship, sunk by Artimus' Sword of Acherus.

Holding the vessel in reserve, Joshmaul took position at Corp'rethar the Horror Gate, the final fortification protecting Icecrown Citadel, and convened a council consisting of himself, Helbrand, Shankolin, and Joshmaul's favored student Linavil Shadowsun. Having ascertained the strength of the force that opposed them and with Zaelan Bloodhammer's estimates of their own strength, the death knight General believed that the Hands of Joshmaul had a two-to-one numerical advantage over the combined forces. Pleased, Joshmaul dispatched both Helbrand and Shankolin back to Utgarde Keep to join with Zaelan in rallying the army. Linavil, however, expressed doubts - Saavedro had been a most stubborn enemy, and she believed even with their numerical edge, they would be defeated. Joshmaul conceded the possibility, but remained optimistic that this time, they would win...

The Battle is On
Tanis and Ketiron were joined by Master Ordevaas Portalseeker, the Whitehair patriarch, just as Helbrand and Shankolin arrived on the field. With orders from Joshmaul, the two generals of the Corruptor began the attack. But it was clear that, despite the martial culture of the vrykul and the mass numbers of the Corruptor's force, the enemy had no real experience in warfare, while both Tanis and Ketiron were seasoned military commanders leading veteran armies. While the chaos raged around them, Ordevaas and Shankolin engaged in single combat, trading blows so powerful that they created their own special circle within the midst of the battle. It seemed that the Coalition had the upper hand and would win the day. The Corruptor's forces had aid, however; by that point, the Vengeful Spirit had arrived and begun opening fire on the fighting below, heedless of who it struck - doing severe damage not only to the enemy, but to Joshmaul's own forces as well.

Ketiron, realizing the problem that the massive vessel would cause if not dealt with, dispatched one of his men to take Saavedro's flying machine, the Legacy of Lordaeron; the soldier's task was to find the House of Whitehair's goblin engineer, Kellik, and have him infiltrate the Vengeful Spirit and set explosives while Joshmaul's attention was diverted. To that end, he called upon a man he was glad to have as an ally in this case - the one man that Joshmaul truly feared.

Artimus' Gambit
Artimus Devaneaux and his lieutenant, Battlelord Velenkayn, had both finally buried the hatchet with Saavedro and joined forces with his Deathsworn. Having been appraised of Ketiron's plan to send the goblin explosives expert to infiltrate the Vengeful Spirit, Artimus led a small group of his knights to take flight and land on the deck of the massive warship. Joshmaul was surrounded by a small battalion of his Swordguard, the elite death knight bodyguards of the Corruptor, along with his monstrous Avatar and the leaders of the House of Shadowsun, Erennia and Linavil.

Once again, Artimus and Velenkayn's greater martial prowess won the day against the untested Swordguards, and while their four comrades were killed, the human and the draenei fought like they were possessed, breaking through Joshmaul's circle. While Velenkayn dealt with the remainder, Artimus once more entered battle with Joshmaul himself in hand-to-hand combat, runic weapons against demonic energies.

While the battle raged on the upper decks, Kellik busied himself setting the explosives to destroy the Vengeful Spirit's guns and ammunition, which would cause enough damage to the superstructure to put it out of action. At the same time, Ketiron's blood elf runner - himself an engineer - was setting explosives on the twin zeppelin airbags that kept the vessel afloat, and the two finished by setting a final bomb on the engine of the great vessel. Their job done, the two escaped in their flying machines, and Kellik - who held the detonators to both sets of explosives - set off the first charges. This was the signal to Artimus that their objectives had been achieved. Artimus and Velenkayn immediately mounted their skeletal steeds and flew away. However, the Scarlet Baron had one last item of business to deal with: Erennia, the traitor in his Council. Diving towards the flaming deck of the Vengeful Spirit, Artimus swung with his hammer, which was given enough momentum to knock Erennia completely off the deck and falling, screaming, to her death.

The Corruptor's Fall?
Joshmaul, realizing that despite all odds his assault had failed, ordered the captain of the Vengeful Spirit to move the ship out of the battlezone, where they would try to repair it. It was then that Kellik, holding all the cards, detonated the second set of explosives, consuming the whole rear and top portions of the gunship in an inferno. No longer propelled or held aloft, the second Vengeful Spirit suffered the same ignominious end as the first, crashing (appropriately enough) into the Conflagration on the north side of Corp'rethar. Shortly before this, Linavil - shocked by the second death of her sister and by Joshmaul's utter failure - abandoned her master and teleported away to Dalaran.

While the battle was going on aboard the Vengeful Spirit, Ordevaas and Shankolin continued their struggle. They had inflicted serious damage to one another, but Ordevaas - fuelled by rage and the Light - finally made the fatal blow, incinerating the Forsaken in a burst of holy flame. The battle came to a sudden halt with the destruction of the Vengeful Spirit, and Helbrand, coming to the same conclusions that Linavil had, decided to preserve what remained of his forces and retreat. He saluted with his bladed hand to Tanis and Ketiron, indicating that he found them worthy adversaries. Then the Wanderer and his "Ghosts" were gone.

Aftermath
The battle was incredibly costly for Saavedro's Coalition, with more than half their number dead or wounded (the majority of them to the Vengeful Spirit's cannons), but it was an overwhelming defeat for the Hands of Joshmaul. Roughly 3/4 of the Corruptor's army was either dead or captured, and the remainder - Helbrand's vrykul - had made their escape. However, Ketiron did not believe that they would plague anyone again. Two of Joshmaul's senior commanders, Shankolin Blightpath and Erennia Shadowsun, were dead and the others had either abandoned him or disappeared.

Ordevaas Portalseeker was so seriously wounded that it was thought that he would not survive. But when Ketiron and Tanis reached him, he was alive and still coherent, despite the severity of his wounds. A mage in the House Guard teleported Ordevaas to Dalaran, where he rested under the watchful eye of the House physicians established there by Ordevaas' father months earlier. However, the lung ailment that had crippled him months earlier had come back with a vengeance, and he died one week later. Ketiron succeeded him as patriarch of the House of Whitehair, now known as the "Joint Houses of Ketiron and Whitehair".

As for Joshmaul, he miraculously managed to survive the crash of the Vengeful Spirit (via the careful application of black magic) and escape, albeit broken and bloodied. He had an ace-in-the-hole for dealing with Saavedro personally, and he would make use of it as soon as Saavedro began to revel in his ultimate triumph, the defeat of the Lich King...