Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War

19

Baine was a warrior. His eyes had seen almost more than he could bear of the horrors of war. He had beheld towns and forts and even his own city of Thunder Bluff ablaze. He had witnessed battles of magic as well as those of blade and fire and fist, and knew that spells killed as surely and as brutally as steel. His voice had shouted orders to attack, and his two hands had taken lives.

But this…

The night sky was not a black background lit with the dull orange-red of flames consuming buildings and flesh, although some buildings had indeed caught fire earlier in the battle. Instead, there was a violet glow, almost pretty, like moonlight on snow, emanating from the city. And above that deceptively pleasant radiance, the sky was putting on a show. Bright spikes of lightning slashed through the blackness in all colors of the rainbow. Here and there, the jagged illumination lingered, moving and turning only to wink out and reappear elsewhere. They were close enough to hear booming and cracking sounds as the very fabric of the world was again and again rent asunder and knitted together. As the colorful lights paraded themselves in the sky, Baine thought incongruously of a phenomenon known as the northern lights he had seen in Northrend. Cairne had spoken of being filled with awe at the sight, and as Baine beheld the glow, awe mixed with stunned, sick revulsion filled him.

The soft purple glow heralded the blanket of arcane energy that enveloped Theramore. The mana bomb, so thoughtfully provided by the blood elves—who stood cheering with other Horde members who somehow felt that what Garrosh had wrought was a good thing—had exploded over an entire city and had not just harmed its citizens and buildings but crushed them utterly. Baine had watched both friend and foe perish from arcane magic attacks far too often to feel anything but fury at what he beheld. The people caught in the blast had been blown apart inside, as magic distorted and reformed them down to the last drop of blood. The buildings, too, were remade from the inside. So great had the blast been that Baine knew that every creature, every blade of grass, every handful of soil was now rendered dead and worse than dead.

And the awful magic would linger. Baine did not deal with magic. He did not know how long the eerie violet glow that marked Garrosh’s calculated brutality would pulsate around the city of the slain. But Theramore would not be livable for a long time.

Tears ran down his muzzle, and he made no effort to wipe them away. He stood surrounded by throngs of cheering Horde, but as he looked around, he saw, illuminated by the ghostly arcane glow, faces that wore his own expression of shock and revulsion. What had happened to the warchief who had once said, “Honor… no matter how dire the battle, never forsake it”? Who had hurled another orc, Overlord Krom’gar, off a cliff to die, for dropping a bomb on innocent, druids and leaving nothing but a crater? The similarity was eerie and struck Baine to the marrow. Garrosh had gone from decrying such murders to committing them.

“Victory!” shrieked Garrosh, standing atop the highest ridge of the small islands in the channel. He lifted Gorehowl, and the axe’s sharp blade caught and flashed the purple light over the assembled Horde.

“First, I gave you a glorious battle in which we claimed Northwatch Hold for our own. Then, I harnessed your patience, so that we could fight an even more honorable fight—against the finest soldiers and minds the Alliance had to offer. Each one of you is now a veteran of a battle against Jaina Proudmoore, against Rhonin, General Marcus Jonathan, and Shandris Feathermoon! And to secure our victory, I snatched from beneath the very noses of the greatest magic wielders in this world an arcane artifact so powerful it has destroyed an entire city!”

He pointed at Theramore, as if any of those standing there were not riveted by the evidence of mass destruction. “This is what we have wrought! Behold the glory of the Horde!”

Did none of them see? Baine couldn’t understand it. So many, too many, seemed happy at beholding the dead city, crowded with corpses of people who had died in a horrible and painful fashion. They were happy at being tricked into a battle against Theramore when all along, Garrosh had had the means to win without sacrificing a single Horde life. Baine was not sure which act he despised more.

The cheers were deafening. Garrosh turned and caught Baine’s gaze. He held it for a long time. Baine did not look away. Garrosh’s lip curled in a sneer. He spat on the ground and stalked off. The swell of the cheers followed him.

Malkorok, however, lingered. And then he began to laugh. It started slow and soft, rising to a maniacal cackle. Baine’s sensitive ears were awash in insane laughter, in cheers at suffering, and in the imagined sounds of a whole city crying out in torment before obliteration mercilessly descended.

Unable to bear it, unable to bear his own self-loathing at having been a reluctant and even ignorant part of it, Baine Bloodhoof, high chieftain of the tauren, covered his ears, turned his back, and sought what illusion of respite he could in the warm dampness of the swamp.

Morning was unkind to the ruins of Theramore.

Without the gentling of the darkness, the stark devastation was blatant. Smoke still curled upward from the mostly dead fires. The arcane anomalies that had provided a show of lights at night were revealed to be evidence of realities and dimensions ripped asunder. One could even glimpse other worlds. Hovering in the air were not only rocks and chunks of earth that had been torn free, but the debris of buildings and weapons. Bodies turned slowly in the air, like grotesque puppets floating in water. The crackling and thundering were ceaseless.

Gharga surveyed the city with a chest that swelled with pride for his part in the battle. Surely lok’tras were already being composed about the glorious fight. He had heard that there were some mutterings about Garrosh’s choices—rumor had it that they were coming mainly from the tauren and the trolls—but by and large, Gharga was proud that his orcs seemed as delighted as he by the outcome of the battle.

He waited on the bridge as the emissary from Warchief Garrosh was rowed over to the Blood and Thunder. Gharga stood even taller with pride as he realized that it was no ordinary orc but one of Garrosh’s own Kor’kron, who now stood in the small boat and quickly climbed up the rope ladder.

The Kor’kron saluted him. “Captain Gharga,” she said, “I have two missives for you as day dawns on the ruins of Theramore.” The orcs could not suppress smiles as they regarded each other. “One is a private message from Warchief Garrosh. The other contains your new instructions. You, Captain, have a pivotal role to play in the next stage of the Horde’s conquest of Kalimdor.”

His eyes flashed in pleasure, but otherwise Gharga gave no response other than a polite bow. “I live to serve the warchief and the Horde.”

“So it seems, and such loyalty has not gone unnoticed. I am instructed to wait while you read your orders and return with your response.”

Gharga nodded and unrolled the second scroll. His eyes flickered over the brief message, and he found he could no longer suppress his delight. Garrosh was no idle boaster. He had backed up his promise to destroy Theramore in a fashion so dramatic and so utter that he had stunned everyone, even his most loyal followers. The Horde navy that now floated in Theramore Harbor was to disperse and form a blockade at every point on the continent. There would not only be no aid sent to Theramore—there would be none sent to Lor’danel, or Feathermoon Stronghold, or Rut’theran Village, or Azuremyst Isle.

Gharga’s first stop would be Feathermoon Stronghold. And from there, he was to send word via his swiftest messengers to Orgrimmar that the Horde had been victorious beyond imagining and that the city was to prepare for the greatest celebration it had ever seen upon Garrosh’s return.

Rerolling the scroll, Gharga said with confidence, “Tell our warchief that his orders are understood and the fleet will sail within the hour to obey them. And that I feel certain that, when I deliver the news to Orgrimmar, he will be able to hear the cheering all the way from here.”

The first thing Jaina noticed as consciousness returned was the pain, although she had no memory as to why she was hurting so terribly. Every drop of blood, every muscle and nerve and inch of skin, seemed to be coldly aflame. Her eyes still closed, she moaned slightly and shifted position, only to hiss as the pain trebled. Even breathing hurt, and her breath seemed oddly cold as it escaped her lips.

She opened her eyes, blinking, and sat up. She brushed sand from her face, enduring the agony with gritted teeth, and tried to remember. Something had happened… something terrible beyond words, and for a second, she was cognizant enough to realize that she didn’t want to remember.

A sudden wind blew her hair in front of her face. Instinctively she lifted a hand to brush it back, and as she did so, she froze, staring at the lock held captive in her fingers.

Jaina’s hair had always been fair. “The hue of sunshine,” her father had said when she was a child.

Now it was the color of moonlight.

She stood upon the edge of recollection, suddenly, desperately not wanting to know, and then toppled over that edge.

My home… my people…

Jaina unsteadily got to her feet, her body trembling violently. Those who had accompanied her were nowhere to be seen. She was alone… alone with what she now steeled herself to behold.

She turned around. The sky was torn apart. It was midmorning, but Jaina saw stars through the rents. Arcane anomalies winked in and out of existence. The colors, looking to her tear-filled eyes like open wounds and ugly bruises, danced mockingly above the ruins of what had once been a proud city.

A shadow fell upon her. Dazed, sick, she could not tear her eyes from the horror and cared not at all for what might be landing beside her. A voice shattered her trance.

“Jaina?”

It was a weary voice that held pain and concern and warmth, and she heard his boots crunching in the sand as he ran up to her.

She turned toward Kalec. Through tears standing in her eyes, she saw him clasping a hand to his side, though there was no blood. He was pale and looked exhausted but still found the strength to hurry toward her, limping slightly. As he drew closer, she saw his reaction to her changed appearance.

He reached for her just as her legs gave way, catching her and cradling her as she collapsed. Of their own accord her hands sought him, clutching him tightly as she buried her face in the crook of his neck. He held her just as fiercely, one hand on the back of her head and his cheek resting on her now-white hair. For a long, wordless moment, they clung to each other, and Jaina received the silent comfort.

“Gone,” she murmured, her voice raspy with pain and shock. “All gone. Everyone, everything—we fought so hard, so courageously, and we’d won, Kalec, we’d won…”

He held her even more tightly. He did not attempt to soothe her with words. There were no words of comfort to offer, and she was glad he knew it.

“My kingdom—all the generals… Stoutblow, Tiras’alan, Aubrey, Rhonin, oh sweet Light, Rhonin. Why did he do it, Kalec? Why did he save me? I’m the one who was responsible for this!”

Now Kalec did speak, drawing back to gaze at her intently. “No,” he said, his voice sharp with determination. “No, Jaina. This is not your fault. Don’t you dare blame yourself. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine—my flight’s, for allowing that cursed Focusing Iris to be stolen in the first place. That blast—you couldn’t have fought it. No one could. The mana bomb was powered by the Focusing Iris. I was farther away than most, and the force of it hurled me clear out to sea. There was nothing you could have done—nothing anyone could have done.”

One strong hand was wrapped around hers as they stood together. She clung to it as if it were a lifeline. And perhaps it was. Even so, she realized what she had to do.

“I have to go back,” she said thickly. “Someone… might still be alive. I might be able to do something.”

His blue eyes widened. “Jaina, no, please. It isn’t safe.”

“Safe?” The word exploded from her and she jerked in his arms, pulling back. “Safe? How can you talk to me of being safe, Kalec? That is—was—my kingdom. They were my people. I owe it to them to see if there is anything I can do!”

“Jaina,” Kalec said, stepping toward her imploringly, “that place is reeking with arcane energy. You managed to escape, but the blast is already—”

“Yes,” she snapped, the pain inside her heart far worse than the pain of her body. “What has it already done to me, Kalec?”

He hesitated, then spoke very calmly. “Your hair has been turned white. There is a single blond streak remaining. Your eyes are… glowing white as well.”

Jaina stared at him, sickened. If the blast had done so much that was already so obvious, what else might it have done to her that couldn’t be seen? Her hand went to her heart for a moment, pressing hard, as if she could somehow push the ravaging ache away.

Kalec continued. “I know you want to do something, to take some kind of action. But there are other things we can do. There’s no one left there, Jaina. All you’ll be doing is risking further harm to yourself. We can go back later, together, when it’s safer, and—”

“There’s no we, Kalec,” she said bitterly. The hurt that appeared on his beautiful face only made her heart ache more, but she welcomed the pain now. It was suffering, and only her own suffering could ease the agony of the fact that she alone, of all the souls who had been in Theramore to help her, had survived. It felt good, cleansing, in a hard and brutal way. “There’s only me, and my decisions, and my responsibility for those corpses back there. I’m going to see if there is anything at all I can do, any single life I might be able to save. And I’m going to do it alone. As I’ve always done. Don’t follow me.”

Swiftly she cast a teleportation spell. She heard him crying her name behind her and refused to shed the tears.

They hurt her more when she kept them inside.

Jaina had thought she was prepared for what she would see. She had been wrong. Nothing could prepare a sane mind for what the mana bomb had done to Theramore.

The first thing she noticed was the tower—or rather, where it had once been. Gone was the beautiful white stone building that had housed her extensive library and her cozy parlor. In its place was a smoking crater, horrifically reminiscent of the one that yet lingered in Hillsbrad Foothills. Except that gash in the earth had been made by a city departing for war, while this one had been made by Rhonin’s desperate attempt to avert disaster, an attempt that had been bought with his life.

She was surrounded by death, engulfed by it, overwhelmed by it. Death was in the line of listing buildings, not a single one of them intact. Death was in the feel of the earth beneath her feet, in the cacophonous and erratic sky above her. And most of all, death was in the bodies that lay where they had fallen.

Healers sprawled, the injured still in their arms. Riders and horses remained units in death, as in life. Soldiers had fallen with their weapons still sheathed, so sudden and inevitable had been the attack. The air crackled and sizzled and hummed around her, making her white hair float as Jaina, moving like a somnambulist, stepped carefully around the ruination of her life.

Jaina observed with a strange detachment the odd things that the mana bomb had strewn about. Over here was a hairbrush; over there, a severed hand. Near the edge of the crater fluttered leaves from a book. Automatically she reached to pick them up. One of them had been altered at so fundamental a level by the bomb that it crumbled to pieces as she touched it. By the armory, a soldier lay in a puddle of red blood… three paces away, another soldier floated at Jaina’s eye level, globules of frozen purple liquid drifting upward from a rent in his armor.

Her foot stepped on something soft and she jumped back quickly, peering down. It was a rat, its body glowing violet. A piece of perfectly normal cheese was still gripped in its mouth. Kalec’s warning that no one could have survived the blast echoed in her mind. Not even the rats, it would seem…

She shook her head. No. No, someone must have survived this… It couldn’t possibly have killed everyone, everything. She moved with grim determination, sorting through rubble where she could, pausing to listen, hoping to hear a voice crying for help over the buzzing and crackling of a broken sky. She found Pained, who had fallen over the body of an orc she had clearly slain. Jaina knelt beside the warrior, brushing the long dark blue hair back, and then gasped as the strands shattered like spun glass. Pained had died with her sword in her hand, the familiar grim expression on her face. She had died as she had lived, defending Jaina and Theramore.

The hurt, numbed by horror, moved again like the awakening of a limb gone to sleep. Jaina forced it down and kept moving. Here were dear Aubrey, and Marcus Jonathan, Tiras’alan, and the two dwarves. On the top of one of the broken roofs was sprawled the body of Lieutenant Aden, his shining armor turned purple-black from the blast.

Suddenly Jaina’s mind was clear, and rational, and her own.

You should stop. Kalec was right. Get out, Jaina. You’ve seen enough to know no one survived. Get out now, before you see too much.

But she couldn’t. She had found Pained. She needed to find the others. Tervosh, who had been her friend for so long—where was he? And the guard Byron, and Allen Bright the priest, and Janene, the innkeeper who had insisted on staying—where were they? Where was—

The shape looked like a child at first, which was what drew Jaina’s eye. The children had all been evacuated safely. Who—

And then she knew.

Jaina stood, barely breathing, wanting to look away but unable to. Slowly, jerkily, her feet moved, almost of their own accord, taking her to the body.

Kinndy lay face down in a still puddle of her own blood. The crimson stain had tainted her pink hair, matting it, and Jaina realized she wanted to plop Kinndy into a hot bath and help her scrub herself clean, get her a fresh new robe—

She fell to her knees and placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder, to turn her over. Kinndy’s body crumbled into shining violet dust.

Jaina screamed.

She screamed in utter horror, frantically gathering up the crystalline powder that was all that remained of a smart, lively young woman. She screamed in loss, in grief, in guilt, and then most of all, in rage.

Rage at the Horde. Rage at Garrosh Hellscream, rage at those who followed him. Rage at Baine Bloodhoof, who had warned her but had nonetheless permitted this to happen. Had perhaps known this was going to happen. Her screaming turned to racking, hoarse sobs that ripped her throat. She kept lifting handfuls of the purple sand, trying to hold on to Kinndy, her sobbing increasing as the dust persisted in trickling through her fingers.

This wasn’t war. This wasn’t even murder. This was obliteration, done at a comfortable distance. Killing in the most brutal and cowardly fashion Jaina could conceive of.

Something glinted, like a sort of signal, on the dead earth. She stared at it for a moment, then slowly, unsteadily got to her feet. Staggering like a drunk, she made her way toward the strange gleam.

The shard of silvery glass was no larger than her palm. She picked it up. In her shocked state, Jaina didn’t realize at once what she was looking at, and then pain stabbed her afresh. So many memories—Anduin’s lively face as he chatted with her. Varian’s scarred visage. Kalec standing out of sight in the corner when she used this mirror. Rhonin—

She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and whirled to look, hoping against all rationality that maybe someone had survived.

They were large, and covered in armor, and green. There were at least twenty-five, perhaps more than thirty of them, all orcs, and they were busily poking around the debris. One of them dropped something in a pouch, spoke to the others, and harsh orcish laughter punctuated the ceaseless ripping and popping sounds.

Jaina clenched her fists, including the one that clutched the shard of broken glass. She was only vaguely aware of the pain as the shards sliced open fingers and palm.

It took a minute, but one of them noticed her standing in the midst of the devastation. He pulled back thick green lips from yellowed tusks in a grin and nudged one of his comrades. The biggest one in the best armor—clearly the leader of the little scouting party the coward Garrosh had no doubt sent to make sure everyone was quite dead—grunted, then said something in thickly accented Common.

“Little lady, don’t know how you survive. But we correct mistake.”

They all drew their weapons—axes, broadswords, knives that glinted dully with the slick of poison on their blades. Jaina felt her own lips stretch in a rictus of a grin. They looked at her more closely, at first clearly puzzled by her unexpected reaction, and then their leader began to laugh. “We get to kill Jaina Proudmoore!” he said.

“Bring her head back to Warchief Garrosh!” asked another orc.

Garrosh.

Jaina didn’t even deign to reply. She tossed away the mirror shard and simply lifted her hands. A wave of arcane energy, augmented by the lingering effects of the mana bomb, struck them all. They stumbled back, shaking and weakened. One of those clutching a dagger dropped the blade from nervous fingers and struggled to maintain her balance. Stronger orcs shook it off and again brandished weapons, hastening to close the distance.

A smirk curved across Jaina’s face. The orcs froze, literally, in their tracks, their lower legs encased in ice. Jaina’s fingers danced in the air, weaving a spell, calling fire out of nothing and hurling an enormous whirling ball of crackling flame right in their midst. Weakened from the blast of arcane energy, six of them succumbed at once, screaming in torment as they were burned alive. Ten more were severely scorched and spasmed in agony. They too would be dead shortly. The spell wore off, and the remaining orcs, somewhat more cautiously this time, continued to approach.

A cone of frigid air encircled them. They now moved as if through mud, and Jaina picked four more of them off with fireballs. They fell instantly. Another arcane blast, which felt almost effortless to Jaina, slew more.

Ten were left. Six of them were struggling; four were largely uninjured. Again fire sprang from her fingers, and all ten of them fell to the ground. She sent out another blast of arcane energy.

When she finally lowered her hands, sweat plastering strands of white hair to her face, they were all still. All save one. His chest heaved with ragged breaths, and he twitched and shuddered.

Jaina bent and picked up the mirror shard. She didn’t look at it. Slowly, stiffly, a cold pleasure growing in her, she stepped over and on the bodies until she reached the lone survivor.

He was coughing, red-black blood streaming from his tusked mouth. Most of his body was covered in burns, the plate mail melted to his skin. It had to be terribly painful, Jaina mused.

Good.

She leaned over the orc, bringing her face close enough to his that she could smell his fetid breath as he gasped for air. He looked up at her, tiny eyes wide with fear. Fear of Jaina Proudmoore, the friend to orcs, the diplomat.

“Your people are despicable cowards,” she hissed. “You are nothing more than rabid dogs, and you should be put down. You spit on mercy? Then you will have none. You want carnage? Garrosh will get more blood than ever he bargained for.”

Then, with a savage cry, she brought the shard of mirror down into the small space between the orc’s gorget and his shoulder armor. Blood spurted up, covering her hand, splashing her face.

The dying orc tried to roll away, but she held his head between her hands, forcing him to look at her as life ebbed with each heartbeat. When he at last was still, she rose. She left the shard of glass from the broken mirror embedded in the orc’s throat.

Jaina continued her grim perusal of what the Horde had left of Theramore. The cold rage inside her burned stronger with everything she beheld. The dock was completely gone. Oddly, she felt better here, looking at the wreckage, than she did near the crater where—

She blinked. Not wanting to, but feeling compelled, she turned and walked back to where her tower had stood. She felt the tingling that was the hallmark of arcane energy growing stronger. The whole city was bathed in its residue, but she realized she was approaching the source of the disaster. Her heart rate sped up and she quickened her pace. She closed her eyes, then opened them. She did not want to look into the crater, but she knew she had to.

It was so simple and so lovely—a plain, glowing purple orb that pulsated with arcane energy. It looked delicate, but it had survived a blast that had reduced a city to ashes without so much as a scratch on its surface.

Kalecgos had not exaggerated the power of the item—or, she thought with a stab of fresh grief, the violence it could wreak in the wrong hands. She could feel the energy almost washing over her physically from the artifact’s proximity. Her hair stood on end, and she felt her eyes strain for a moment, then adjust, and knew that they were glowing even brighter now. Purposefully she began to climb down into the crater. Rhonin’s remains were nowhere to be seen. It appeared that he had succeeded in drawing the bomb directly to him. All that remained of Rhonin were two children, a grieving widow—if Vereesa had been far enough away to have survived the blast—and his memory. Jaina tasted bitterness in her mouth at the thought. He had died trying to save her. She would not let his death be in vain.

She reached the bottom. The Focusing Iris was at least twice her size and certainly heavy. She could teleport it with her and hide it for now, but the most pressing thing was how to conceal it from Kalecgos. The solution struck her almost at once. Kalec had come to know her well, had grown to care for her. Jaina bent down and placed her hand on the artifact, feeling a gentle thrum of energy. Coldly, calculatedly, she proceeded to ward it with her deepest sense of self, holding in her mind her greatest strengths and weaknesses. When he sought to find the Focusing Iris, he would sense only her. She would use Kalec’s feelings for her to trick him. As the sole remaining survivor and ruler of Theramore, Jaina Proudmoore claimed the Focusing Iris for her own.

The Horde wanted war. They had gone to grotesque lengths to crush their enemy.

If war was what they wished, Jaina would give it to them.

With pleasure.