Vol'jin: Shadows of the Horde

31

The Amani’s scream tightened Khal’ak’s flesh. She waited, listening for its repeat, for it to be abruptly cut off, or for the rumble of stones followed by other screams. The Amani did scream again, but it tailed into a pitiful mewing. Either he wasn’t hurt as badly as he was frightened, or he’d fainted from the pain.

Khal’ak had not intended to press Amani or Gurubashi into combat roles. She’d brought sufficient of each along with her because her Zandalari couldn’t be expected to cook and clean and carry for themselves. Unfortunately, her troops tended to stoicism when it came to the troll traps that had been laid out. They wouldn’t scream or panic, which meant they didn’t alert their companions to danger.

There had been dangers aplenty, and she knew they were mostly the shadow hunter’s doing. Pit traps and deadfalls, rockslides and showers of darts from small siege machines, all had been arrayed to take maximum advantage of the terrain. The path forced troops to slow and bunch in places. The Zandalari learned to be on guard in such areas, minimizing the actual damage done to her troops.

Physical damage, anyway.

Because trolls healed quickly, that which did not kill them immediately allowed them to recover. While the Zandalari viewed their bandages as badges of courage and dismissed the meager efforts against them, Khal’ak could already see the psychological effect it was having on them. They moved more cautiously, which wasn’t necessarily bad for an army, but her people became more tentative when she needed courage and decisiveness.

At places where there appeared a logical but difficult climb to work around a bottleneck, her troops would skillfully scale the sheer face. At the top they might find signs where a small siege engine had been set up, and then tracks leading back to the entrance to a warren of caves. The caves might be trapped, were always tight for the large Zandalari, and invariably sealed fifty or a hundred feet along a tortuous route.

As frustrating as that was, it wasn’t until hours later that the climbers, who had scratched fingers or debris trapped beneath nails, suddenly found their extremities tingling. They began to swell. Handholds had been smeared with toxins that wouldn’t kill anyone but incapacitated them by triggering hideous hallucinations. Thereafter, the presence of dampness or an oily residue gave them cause to hesitate. They’d concentrate on seeing if they had been poisoned, which meant they were distracted from their real task.

Vol’jin be attacking their minds, effectively killing them.

The shadow hunter also taunted them. Khal’ak flipped a small wooden token between her thumb and fingers. On one side had been burned the troll symbol for the number 33. On the other side, it had been rendered in mogu. They found the tokens scattered in the bottoms of pits or at sites where scouts had clearly been observing them. Rumor had it that one had even been found in her tent, hinting that the shadow hunter could have killed her as easily as he’d killed troops on the Isle of Thunder. The number, some determined, referred to the millennia since the fall of the Thunder King (through odd tricks of numerology), or to Vol’jin as the thirty-third shadow hunter of a particular tradition. None could actually state which tradition, and she’d been forced to kill an Amani to make an example of the perils of rumor mongering, but once the idea had taken root, there was no stopping it.

The theory she liked best was that every defender had pledged that they would slay thirty-three before they died, which meant her force faced less than twenty defenders. While such pledges had tactical value only in minstrels’ songs, it did make her wary. Intending me for one of your thirty-three, Vol’jin?

She listened on the wind for an answer. She heard nothing.

Captain Nir’zan ran up and saluted. “An Amani cook strayed out of cleared areas to be relievin’ himself. Found a likely spot. Ground crumbled beneath his feet. He fell forward on his knees, impaling his thighs, abdomen, and one hand. He will live.”

“Has he been freed yet?”

“No.”

“Can we be arranging for everyone to march past him as we proceed this morning?”

The troll warrior nodded. “As you desire, my lady.”

“Good. If he has the fortitude to survive until all have passed, free him.”

“Yes, mistress.”

He did not move, so she raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“A runner brought signals from the fleet. They will be returnin’ to Zouchin’s shores. There’s a severe storm coming in from the north. Heavy winds, ice, snow. It gonna delay the sailing from the Isle of Thunder too.”

“Good. Dat be giving us more time to consolidate Pandaria after we destroy the monastery.” Khal’ak glanced higher up the mountain at their destination, then down at her camp. The tents had been spread out and as often as not pitched on the backslope of hills to protect them from slides and assaults. They’d kept cold camps simply to make it difficult for the enemy to determine their numbers.

She tapped a finger against her lips for a moment, then nodded. “We have to be pressin’ on, and quickly. We cannot weather a storm in the open, and we be closer to the monastery dan we be to shelter below. A day and a half to the top, yes?”

“At our present rate, yes. We should be arriving as the storm does.”

“Send out two companies of our best, but have dem wear clothes they be exchangin’ with our Gurubashi contingent. I want them ahead and flanking us. By midnight I want them to be clearin’ any caves they find farther along. If the storm arrives fast, we gonna need shelter. Then, while the rest of us be pushing forward, I want them opening the monks’ escape tunnels and working their way up. Leave the wounded to be picked up later. Their traps only work to delay us. We have to push through quickly.

“And tonight, we gonna be having fires, not a cold camp. Big fires, two per tent.”

Her subordinate’s eyes narrowed. “Mistress, that gonna consume most of our firewood.”

“Most? Let it all go.” She pointed at the monastery. “If our people ever want to be warm again, it gonna be in the glow of the Shado-pan pyre!”

Vol’jin could not help smiling as day surrendered to dusk and long shadows pointed toward dawn. Toward the Zandalari. His group’s traps and attacks had not killed nearly as many of Khal’ak’s forces as he desired, but she had been moved to acts of desperation because of them. She’d flung two companies wide, diluting her strength, and bulled on through a number of attacks. By the time they reached the monastery, they’d be angry, frustrated, and weary—three things no general likes in his soldiers.

Given that the Zandalari had stopped for the night exactly where the defenders planned for them to stop—save the flanking battalions that had found smaller places a bit higher—Taran Zhu had been willing to call together the Thirty-three. Actually it was only thirty-one. Brother Cuo and Tyrathan had agreed to take an early watch while the elder monk called his charges to the Temple of the White Tiger.

The monks stood before him in two rows of ten and a back row of eight. Chen and Vol’jin formed the rectangle’s back two corners. Off to the sides, tables had been laden with food and a brew that Chen had put together quickly—though he maintained it was his best. Vol’jin didn’t doubt him. He’d seldom seen his friend concentrate so on a task, and his claims came with sincerity, not hyperbole.

The old monk spread his paws. “You are all too young to recall when we overthrew the mogu. Despite speculation and joking, I am too young as well. Still, I have been given access to history and memories, tales passed down from a time before this monastery existed. Tales from a time when opposing the mogu was not only a high honor but a necessity.

“You are now part of that grand tradition. So are all our brothers and sisters. Many wished to be here, but our purpose demands they be elsewhere. Sister Quan-li, you will be happy to know, has not yet fallen from the bones. Yet one more of us lives to oppose our ancient masters.”

Vol’jin nodded to himself, quite pleased. He felt confident that Quan-li would be able to reveal enough information to the Alliance that they would be moved to act. Horde spies would pass on that information to their superiors. While he dreaded what Garrosh might do with the news, for once Garrosh’s affinity for war did not seem to be a great problem. Though the Thirty-three would die here, the Zandalari invasion would follow them quickly into the grave.

Taran Zhu pressed his palms together. “Though I was not present when the mogu fell, I am given assurances that this story of the last mogu emperor is true. He had climbed with a pandaren servant to the Peak of Serenity, high above us. He stood there, arms outstretched, turning round and round. He surveyed Pandaria and was pleased. He said to his servant, ‘I wish to do something to make everyone in Pandaria smile.’ And the servant said, ‘You’ll jump, then?’ ”

The monks laughed and the happy echo filled the room. Vol’jin hoped he would remember laughter when the screams of the wounded and dying dominated. There was no purpose in wondering if any of them would survive. None would, but he decided that were he the last to die, he would laugh and remind the room of that moment.

“The story does not tell what became of that servant, but it is said that the emperor, hurt and angry, let it be known that he considered this part of the mountain tainted. No mogu would visit, leaving the way open for us to gather and plan and train to overthrow them. Here we were unseen because they never thought to look for us.”

Taran Zhu bowed solemnly to Chen and Vol’jin before he continued. “Months ago I, like the mogu, had not thought to look for those we needed. Master Stormstout brought me first the man and then the shadow hunter. While I allowed them to stay, I told him to bring me no more. That is a decision I regret. In this very room, I spoke with Master Stormstout on this matter, speaking of anchors and ocean, of Huojin and Tushui. I asked him which was most important, and he said it was neither; it was the crew. I have thought long and hard on this, and now, here before me, you stand, the crew.”

He gathered his paws at the small of his back. “You all came here for different reasons. You have learned lessons as one. Yet it is this crisis, this noble cause, which makes you one.”

Taran Zhu held up one of the wooden tokens. “Master Stormstout has prepared a brew to share. He calls it ‘Thirty-three’ in our honor. And, as the Thirty-three, we shall forever be known. While people will think of us and remember us with pride, I wish you to know I have never been prouder than to be one among you.”

He bowed deeply and held it as long as respect demanded. The monks, as well as Vol’jin and Chen, returned the salute. Vol’jin’s throat became thick. Part of him found it remarkable that he was bowing so to a creature he would have once considered beneath him, and yet his heart swelled at being numbered in the same company with them all.

They were the Thirty-three, what he had always imagined the Horde to be. Their strength came from diversity united by common vision. Their spirits—the kind of spirit Bwonsamdi would see as troll—had fused through their purpose. Yes, Vol’jin still saw himself as a troll, but that was no longer the whole of his being, just an important part of it.

The monks straightened, and then the assembly broke and headed over to feast. Providing food and drink on the eve of battle made good sense, and Chen’s brew ran light on alcohol simply to prevent any disasters. The monks had laid out a great deal of food, and the idea of eating enough that the enemy would find the larder bare was the source of grim humor for all.

Chen, accompanied by Yalia, brought Vol’jin a foaming tankard of his brew. “I have truly saved my best for last.”

Vol’jin raised his tankard, then drank. Berry and spice scents tickled his nose. The brew, warmer than it was cold, felt full yet had the bite of a hard cider. Odd tastes, some soft and sweet, others tart and piercing, danced over his tongue. He would have been hard-pressed to identify even half of them, but they fit together so well he was inclined to do no analysis at all.

Vol’jin wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “It be reminding me of the first night I slept in the Echo Isles after we’d retaken them. Warm evening, soft breeze, tang of the ocean. I had no fear because that was the place I was meant to be. Thank you, Chen.”

“I owe you thanks, Vol’jin.”

“Because?”

“Because you have told me that my best did all I intended.”

“Then you be the greatest among us, for you have given us all heart. This be the place we be home. Without fear.” Vol’jin nodded and drank again. “At least until the Zandalari be arriving, hauling their fear, at which time we gonna load them down with more.”