Christie Golden - Rise of the Horde

The draenei who had been speaking with them turned. “They will notify your families that you are well and safe. You will return home tomorrow. In the meantime, I am happy to offer you the hospitality of the draenei. My name is Restalaan. I am the leader of the guards of Telmor, the town with which both your clans regularly trade. I regret to say I do not remember either of you, but then, the orc younglings seem a bit leery of us when We come to your territory.”

Orgrim bristled. “I am afraid of no one and nothing.”

Restalaan smiled a bit. “You ran from the ogre.”

Orgrim’s brown face darkened and his eyes glinted angrily. Durotan lowered his head slightly. As he had feared, Restalaan and the others had borne witness to their shame, and now they would be mocked.

“That,” Restalaan continued calmly, as if he had not noticed the effect his words had had on the two. “is wisdom. If you had not fled, we would be sending two corpses home to your families tomorrow instead of two healthy, strong orc youths. There is no shame in fear, Orgrim and Durotan. Only in letting fear prevent you from doing the right thing. And in your case, running was definitely the right thing.”

Durotan stuck out his chin. “One day, we will be strong and our full size. Then, it will be the ogres who fear us.”

Restalaan turned a mild face to him, and to Durotan’s surprise, he nodded. “I completely agree,” he said. “Ores are powerful hunters.”

Orgrim narrowed his eyes, looking for the taunt, but there was none.

“Come,” Restalaan said. “There are dangers in the Terokkar forest at night that not even the guards of Telmor would willingly face. Let us go.”

Though exhausted, Durotan found the strength to keep up a steady running pace; he would not twice be shamed in one day. They ran for some time, and the sun eventually dipped below the horizon in a glorious display of crimson, gold, and finally purple. He glanced up now and then, trying not to appear rude, but curious indeed at seeing these strangers at more than several yards’ distance. He kept waiting for the signs of a city—roads made by countless feet traveling the same path, fire cairns lighting a path, the shadows of buildings against the darkening sky. He saw nothing. And as they continued, he felt a quick stab of fear.

What if the draenei were not planning to help him and Orgrim after all? What if they were going to capture them, to hold them for ransom? What if they were going to do something worse—sacrifice them to some dark god, or—

“Here we are,” Restalaan said. He dismounted and knelt on the ground, moving aside some leaves and pine needles. Orgrim and Durotan exchanged confused glances. They were still in the middle of a forest. No city, no roads, nothing at all. Both orcs gathered themselves. They were severely outnumbered, but they would not die without a fight.

Still kneeling on the pine-needle carpet, Restalaan uncovered a beautiful green crystal. It had been carefully hidden beneath the everyday detritus of the forest. Durotan stared, enraptured at the beauty of the thing. It would fit into die palm of his hand, and he ached to touch it, to feel that smoothness, that strange pulsing, against his skin. Somehow he knew it would exude a calm the likes of which he had never experienced. Restalaan uttered a string of syllables that branded themselves on Durotan’s brain.

“Kehla men samir, solay lamaa kahl.”

The forest began to shimmer as if it were a reflection caught by a once-still lake into which a stone had been tossed. Despite himself, Durotan gasped. The shimmering increased, and then suddenly there was no forest, no trees, only a large, paved road that led up the side of the mountains to a place that contained images Durotan had never even conceived.

“We are in the heart of ogre country, though it was not so when die city was built so long ago,” Restalaan said, rising. “If the ogres cannot see us, they cannot attack us.”

Durotan found his tongue. “But … how?”

“A simple illusion, nothing more. A trick of … the light.”

There was something in the way he said this that made Durotan’s skin prickle. Seeing the orc’s confused expression, Restalaan continued. “The eye cannot always be trusted. We think what we see is always real, that the light always reveals what is there the same way at all times. But light and shadow can be manipulated, directed, by those that understand it. In the speaking of these words and the touching of the crystal, I have altered how the light falls on the rocks, the trees, the landscape. And so your eye perceives something entirely different from what you thought was there.”

Durotan knew he still stared stupidly. Restalaan chuckled slightly. “Come, my new friends. Come where none of your people have ever been before. Walk down the roads of my home.”

Drek’Thar had not seen the cities of the draenei when they were at peace. He only saw them when … well, I am getting ahead of myself. But he told me that my father had walked the shining roads of the draenei, had eaten their food, slept in their buildings, spoken with them fairly. Had caught a glimpse of a world so unlike our own that even today, it is hard to wrap one’s mind around it. Even the lands of the kaldorei are not so alien to me as what I have learned of the draenei. Drek’Thar said that Durotan did not have the words to describe what he saw; perhaps today, living in this land that bears his name and seeing what I have seen, he would. Regret is a bitter taste …

Durotan couldn’t move. It was as if the mysterious net of shining energy had flung itself about him as it had the ogre, and he was as helpless to resist. He stared, his mouth slightly open, trying to make sense of what his eyes showed him. The draenei city was glorious! Woven into the side of the mountain as if it had sprung from it, to Durotan’s eyes it was a union of stone and metal, of nature and artifice. He did not know exactly what he was seeing, but he knew it to be harmonious. With its concealing spell dissolved, the city was revealed in its tranquil magnificence. Everything he saw drew the eye upward. Massive stone steps, wide and blunt at the base and tapering toward the top, led to spherical dwellings. One reminded Durotan of a snail shell; another, of a mushroom. The combination was striking. Bathed in the hues of the setting sun, the bold lines of the steps were softened, and the domes seemed even more invitingly rounded.

He turned to see a similar expression of awe on Orgrim’s face, and then saw the slight smile curving Restalaan’s blue lips.

“You are welcome here, Durotan and Orgrim,” Restalaan said. The words seemed to break the spell, and Durotan moved forward awkwardly. The stone of the roads had been smoothed, by time or draenei hands, he could not say. As they drew closer, Durotan could see that the city continued up the mountain. The architectural pattern of wide, bold steps leading to a softly curved structure was repeated here. There were long roads, made of the same white stone that somehow did not seem to get dirty although at least ten generations of orcs had lived and died since the draenei had arrived. Instead of the skins and horns of animals slain in the hunt, the draenei seemingly utilized the gifts of the earth. Gleaming gems were everywhere, and there was that curious overabundance of light brown metal unlike any Durotan had ever seen. The orcs knew metal; they worked it to serve them. Durotan himself had helped in the hunt with axe and sword. But this …

“What is your city made of?” Orgrim asked. It was the first thing he had said since the two began their odd journey in the company of the draenei.

“Many things,” Restalaan said amiably. They were passing through the gates now, and receiving curious, but not hostile, looks from the denizens of this place. “We are travelers, fairly new to your world.”