Christie Golden: War Crimes

It crashed with a discordant yet musical sound, the globes shattering and the sand they contained spilling outward—and upward. An almost blinding storm of energy rose up, a tornado of golden, whirling light. The sounds of the crowd turned to shrieks of terror instead of anger, and Jaina felt a change in the air—the frisson of magic. The dampening field that had blanketed the temple was gone. The only magic that had been excepted was that of the bronze dragons—magic that now eliminated the field. Before Jaina’s numbed gaze, an enormous slice in time and space yawned open. Garrosh and Kairoz seemed to drop straight through the floor—and other beings surged out of it.

They were not demons, or elementals, or anything so ordinary. As Jaina recognized these beings who shook their heads, looked around, and brandished their weapons, shock rendered her unable to speak for a moment.

Her gaze was riveted to the woman with a single golden streak in her white hair, clad in flowing white, purple, and blue, and bearing an ornate staff. The woman’s mouth was set in a hard, angry line, and her eyes glowed pale blue. Hovering over her, large enough to grasp her in his foreclaws, was a blue dragon, splendid and all the shades of ice and sky, laughing insanely. Standing beside the white-haired woman was a night elf, her features cruel and cold, and next to her—

“Kalec!” Jaina cried. “They’re us!”

But he was already on his feet, racing toward the open floor to find a large enough space in which to transform. Jaina dropped into battle mode, her mind clearer and sharper than it had been for the duration of the trial. She and Kalec had an advantage many others did not. With the dampening field down, they had their weapons back.

And she intended to use hers. The woman on the floor, targeting the races of the Horde and sending fireballs in their directions, was no stranger. Jaina remembered all too well how that woman felt. This was not merely a possible Jaina—this was one she had been , in this timeline, and she was grimly determined to stop that woman in her tracks. She summoned a crackling ball of whirling fire and hurled it at her other self.

That Jaina turned and met the fireball with a blast of pure arcane energy. A cold smile twisted her face, and Jaina had an instant where she wondered, I know exactly what I will do, and so must she—how do I fight myself?

Go’el and Varian leaned against one of the stone pillars that flanked the entrance to the temple, listening to Garrosh Hellscream rave. “He digs his own grave with each word he speaks,” Go’el said, shaking his head. “What a waste.”

Varian started to nod, then cocked his head, frowning slightly. At once, Go’el was alert, and turned from the frenzied display inside the temple. He heard it now too, still faint but growing louder, a steady but erratic beat, as of many—

“Wings,” snapped Varian. Even as he spoke, another sound became audible, this one more regular and thrumming, a rhythmic whump-whump-whump .

“Zeppelin!” shouted Go’el. Two skilled warriors with decades of experience between them, they acted in perfect concert with no more words. Varian sprinted down the corridor and outside, shouting out a warning while snatching up a sword from the paw of a surprised guard. Go’el spun on his heel and turned to the temple floor. He had just opened his mouth to call the fighters out to do battle when he saw Kairoz, so very casually, so very calculatedly, tip over the Vision of Time, and the floor of the Temple of the White Tiger was engulfed in chaos.

Go’el lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the energy storm, swirling and emitting a noise that almost, but not quite, drowned out the screams of the crowd. A massive temporal rift burst open. Squinting, Go’el watched in impotent fury as Kairoz and Garrosh, both grinning victoriously, disappeared through the floor. Go’el expected the aperture to close, but Kairoz had left nothing to chance. Where once two had stood, now there were ten, and Go’el knew them all. His eyes went at once to the powerful orc clad in traditional human plate armor. Across his gleaming chest was a tabard of red and gold, bearing the crest of a black falcon. The orc swung a gigantic battleaxe as, swifter than his fellows, he charged straight for the seats filled with screaming spectators.

Go’el knew that crest. An enemy out of time who had come to kill him had worn it. Go’el had killed that enemy. He would kill this one as well.

“Thrall!” Go’el screamed, and the mighty orc, wearing the tabard of Aedelas Blackmoore, whirled to face himself with a hungry grin.

Zaela laughed as the infinite dragons, with loyal Dragonmaw orcs crouched atop their backs, approached the Temple of the White Tiger. Inside, her warchief was making his escape, thanks to Kairozdormu. She recalled that first meeting with the bronze dragon in Grim Batol, in the same room where Alexstrasza had been held captive by the Dragonmaw of years past. “I will give you, the leader of the Dragonmaw, a draconic army to command,” he had told her.

“Bronze dragons?” Zaela had asked.

He shook his head. “The bronze dragonflight would have time unfold as it wills, no matter the consequences. The infinite dragonflight and I believe in altering time to suit our will.”

There had been no leak, no warning, nothing to distract from the glory of this certain victory. The most important of Garrosh’s foes were gathered in one place; she was sure that when Kairoz revealed everything to him, he would appreciate the tribute to his own brilliant strategy at Theramore. Striking from both within and without the temple would pin those who sought to quench their ugly obsessions with Hellscream between death at the hands of the Dragonmaw and death from their own alternate selves.

It was an elegant plan. Zaela was untroubled by the thought of killing members of the Horde in this attack. As far as she was concerned, the only members of the real Horde were with her now.

She had difficulty restraining her normal, casual violence toward the dragon she rode. The infinite dragon was no dominated beast of burden, but a willing ally provided by Kairoz. She leaned to the left, and the dragon, the membranes of his wings the pleasant color of the metal of guns, banked and brought her alongside Harrowmeiser’s somewhat repaired zeppelin.

“Is your jolly crew ready?” She shouted to be heard over the rattling noise.

The goblin glanced over his shoulder at his shipload of pirates, all of whom bristled with weapons, and gave Zaela a thumbs-up. Some of the pirates had initially wanted to slaughter Harrowmeiser, but the promise of gold had mollified them. “Yeah, though some of ’em don’t quite trust the chutes. I am deeply offended. Shokia’s in position in the bow, ready to pick off stragglers and key targets, and Thalen is in the stern prepared to do the same. So”—and he pointed to the ball and chain that still encircled each foot—“when can these come off?”

Zaela threw back her head and laughed, freely, joyfully. To think that she was lost in despair but a few days ago!

“You will dance at our victory celebration, goblin. I promise you!”

“I better—I’ve sunk a lot of money into this venture,” Harrowmeiser said.

“I will go on ahead and see if Kairoz has been successful!” she shouted, and again, with just a squeeze of her right thigh, the dragon banked and resumed course. She heard Harrowmeiser’s fading voice yelping, “Hey, hey, don’t touch that—no, no, don’t drink it, for the love of . . . !”

Though there had been no means to create another mana weapon even approaching the power of the one that had reduced the once-proud Alliance city to a sinkhole, Thalen had managed to craft several dozen smaller ones. Exploiting their newfound respect for one another to the fullest, Harrowmeiser had rigged some of Thalen’s mana grenades with random timers. They would appear to be duds, only to explode erratically and, hopefully, at the worst possible moment. Each dragon rider was equipped with at least two or three, and they would boost morale with each victim they claimed. Zaela could see the temple now. It spread out before her, its serenity about to be rudely interrupted. Its bridges, walkways, and little pagodas were filled with pandaren; its center arena, with the enemies of Garrosh Hellscream.