Christie Golden - War Crimes

“The pandaren had crafted the means to combat the ringing of the bell. They had made the Harmonic Mallet, which turns the bell’s chaos to harmony. The mallet had been broken and scattered, but with help, I managed to find and assemble the pieces, and located an ointment to activate it. When it was restored, I headed out to confront Garrosh. I wanted to stop him before he rang the bell.”

“Alone?”

“There wasn’t time for anything else.”

Tyrande nodded at Chromie, and what Anduin had been dreading began.

This time, though, Anduin had a chance to hear what Garrosh said before the human prince had reached him.

Garrosh stood, larger than life in the Vision, the one whom Anduin remembered, not this still-as-stone orc who sat in the courtroom watching with an emotionless visage. He was alone save for his champion, Ishi, on a platform off the Mogu’shan Vaults, facing the bell. It was enormous, much bigger even than the mighty orc himself. It bore the face of a grotesque creature on it, and its lower rim was studded with spikes. Garrosh grinned and roared in triumph, lifting his arms. He called out to his people, still lingering in the vaults, “We are the Horde . We are slaves to nothing and no one! With the Divine Bell, I will burn away any remnants of weakness within us.”

Garrosh was trembling, Anduin realized, shaking with an almost uncontrollable passion and excitement as he spat out the names of the emotions he despised.

“Fear . . . despair . . . hatred . . . doubt. The lesser races are buried beneath their weight. But we will control their power. Together, we will destroy the Alliance and claim what is rightfully ours. Let our song of victory begin.”

Despite Tyrande’s words of reassurance, Anduin clenched his fists so tightly that his fingernails cut into his palms, and his brow was dewed with sweat. The dark song rang out, but he knew at once that the high priestess had been right—he heard the awful, discordant cry of the bell only in his ears, not in his heart or his bones. Gratitude left him weak for a moment as he watched and listened.

Anduin saw his image race toward the bell. He thought of himself as average-sized; his father, of course, was a particularly large human male, but Anduin had been used to that since his birth. But to see his form standing next to not only the then-warchief of the Horde but also the gargantuan bell made him realize how slender he was . . . how very breakable—

“Stop, Garrosh! You do not know what that bell is capable of!” His own voice—firm, certain.

Garrosh whirled, saw Anduin, looked past the prince, and then smiled as he realized Anduin was all that stood between him and victory. He threw back his head and laughed.

“So in the end, it is not Varian but his whelp who comes to face me. You run bravely to your death, young one.”

Tyrande called, “Stop here,” and the scene froze. Anduin blinked, coming back to the present moment. “That was indeed exceptionally brave, Your Highness.”

“I, uh . . . not so brave,” Anduin admitted. “I was scared to death. But I had to stop him, no matter what the cost.”

Tyrande seemed taken aback, but then she smiled—sweetly, genuinely. “Ah,” she said in a kind voice, “to proceed with what you knew was right even while afraid—that is courage indeed.”

Anduin felt his color rise, but all he said was, “Well, it’s the truth. He couldn’t be allowed to continue.”

Tyrande gave Chromie the signal to resume the scene.

“I will not let you do this. I swear to it,” the image of Anduin cried out.

“Stop me then, human,” Garrosh taunted, knowing Anduin couldn’t physically prevent him from striking the bell a second time. Couldn’t hold back that massive arm, couldn’t even reach him or the bell fast enough. Garrosh proceeded to make a mockery of Anduin’s threat.

Again the awful sound, terrible in its beauty, rang out, and this time the bell had a victim in Garrosh’s champion.

Ishi cried out, his body contorting as the dark entities known in Pandaria as the sha, the very essences of hatred, fear, doubt, and despair, descended upon and into him. Even now, the sound of the orc’s anguish made Anduin’s heart ache.

“This pain!” screamed the orc, who had likely endured more of it than most could ever imagine. “I cannot control it!”

Both Anduins—the one in the courtroom and his image—watched, transfixed, as Ishi struggled. No doubt drawn by the screaming, Horde members began to emerge from the depths of the vaults. Ishi charged his own people, who were forced to fight him or be slaughtered themselves. “Pause,” said Tyrande. “Prince Anduin—why did you not strike earlier, or now?”

“The mallet would only work once. A glancing blow would have wasted my chance. I had to wait till I could strike strongly and true. As for why I didn’t do anything here—I didn’t know what it would do to Ishi.”

“You were concerned for the welfare of an orc champion?”

Anduin was puzzled. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

Tyrande stared at him for just an instant before recovering. “Continue,” she instructed Chromie.

Garrosh kept encouraging Ishi to “fight,” to “master,” to “use” the sha, while Ishi went through every conceivable negative emotion—doubting the Horde’s strength, grieving the fallen, fearing his own death, which claimed him soon after. Ishi fell to his knees, his last thought of his duty, gasping, “Warchief! I . . . I have failed you.”

Garrosh went to the dying warrior and said, calmly and brutally, “Yes, Ishi. You have.”

And suddenly, Anduin was angry. Garrosh had forced the sha upon Ishi, and both he and Anduin had watched how hard the champion had struggled to dominate things that he simply couldn’t. He’d given his life to try to please his warchief, and for all his effort and suffering, he had received the cruelest possible words from Garrosh. Now Anduin did turn his gaze upon the prisoner, feeling his face flush with the emotion, and clenched his jaw when Garrosh, curse him, actually let his lips curl in a tiny smirk of satisfaction.

His bones ached.

“Your interference has cost me a great warrior, young prince,” the image of Garrosh was saying. “You’ll pay with your life.”

“That is where you are wrong, Garrosh.” Anduin’s own voice sounded impossibly young in his ears. He watched himself leap upward. He remembered praying silently with all his being to the Light, asking for peace, for this single strike to ring true. The image of Anduin brought down the hard-won mallet upon the Divine Bell, and saw a great crack mar the beautiful and dangerous-looking surface. Garrosh Hellscream reeled backward, stunned, barely able to keep his balance as the sound washed over and through him.

The then-Anduin turned, and hope shone brightly on his young face. He opened his mouth to speak—

Garrosh recovered, growled, “Die, whelp!” and charged—not at Anduin, but at the bell, which would never again summon sha with its call. The bell that fractured and fell upon Anduin in a rain of brass and agony. The bell that shattered his bones, which now ached so fiercely with remembered torment that it was all Anduin could do not to gasp.

The next thing he was to remember was waking up in the care of pandaren monks and his teacher, the kind and wise Velen, who had saved his life. What the Vision of Time now displayed was new to him, and Anduin forced himself to focus on what he was witnessing rather than the icy-cold ache of his body.

To his surprise, the Vision-Garrosh looked distressed, rather than pleased at having dealt a death-blow to the son of his great enemy. “There is much I do not know about this artifact,” he muttered. “The weak-willed cannot control this sha energy, but I will master it.”