Michael Stackpole: Vol'jin: Shadows of the Horde

And to play to a standstill, to have forces balanced, this was the greatest victory.

Tyrathan handed Vol’jin the red canister. Each shook out a half dozen cubes, centering them on the last row of the twelve-by-twelve grid. They oriented them to their lowest value and faced them toward the opposition. Then each shook out one more cube and compared the highest side. Tyrathan’s beat Vol’jin’s, so he would move first. Those cubes returned to the canister, and they began playing.

Vol’jin nudged a piece forward. “Your Pandaren. Good. Better than they be knowing.”

The man raised an eyebrow without lifting his gaze from the board. “Taran Zhu knows.”

Vol’jin studied the board, watching the man’s flanking maneuver develop. “You hunt. His track?”

“Elusive but strong where he means you to see it.” The man nibbled at a thumbnail. “Interesting choice in refacing your archer.”

“Your kite move too.” Vol’jin had seen no hesitation in making the move, but his praise of it caused Tyrathan’s glance to flick toward that piece again. He stared hard, searching for something, then glanced at the canister.

The troll anticipated him. He shook out a cube, which spun and clattered to a stop. The fireship. He placed it contiguous to the archer, strengthening that flank. The game’s balance shifted—not in either player’s favor, but away from that side of the board.

Tyrathan added another piece—a warrior that did not fall on its strongest side, but strong enough. Knights, which could move far, came up quickly on that other flank. Tyrathan played his moves swiftly, but not in haste.

Vol’jin picked up the canister again, but the man grabbed his hand. “Don’t.”

“Remove. Your. Hand.” Vol’jin’s grip tightened. One twitch of his hand and the canister would shatter. Game pieces and splinters would fly everywhere. He wanted to shout at the man, asking how he dared touch a shadow hunter, the leader of the Darkspears. Do you know who I be?

But he didn’t twitch. Because his hand couldn’t tighten any more than it had. In fact, that brief exertion was enough to fatigue his muscles. Already his grip was failing, and only the man’s hand kept the canister from crashing onto the board.

Tyrathan opened his other hand, dispelling any hint of malice. “I am given to teaching you this game. You do not need to draw another piece. Were I to allow you to draw, I would win and your draw would inflate the value of my victory.”

Vol’jin surveyed the pieces. Black’s warrior, with the change of a face, could crush his warlord. The fireship would have to come back to counter that threat, but in doing so would come into range of Tyrathan’s kite. Both pieces would be destroyed, leaving the warrior and the cavalry on the right to crumple that flank. Even the best draw out of the canister, even if it fell well, could not save things. If he reinforced the right, the man would renew his assault on the left. If he reinforced the left, the right would go.

Vol’jin let the canister drop into Tyrathan’s hand. “For my honor. Thank you.”

The man set the canister down on the table. “I know what you were doing. I would win, but I would have defeated a student whom I allowed to make a frightful mistake. So you would have won. And you have won, because you forced me to act at your whim.”

And should it not be so, manthing? Vol’jin’s eyes narrowed. “You win. You read me. I lose.”

Tyrathan shook his head and sat back. “Then we both lose. No, this is not a semantic game. They are watching. I read you. You read me. They read the both of us. They read how we played the game and how we played each other. Taran Zhu reads them all and how they read us.”

A chill ran down Vol’jin’s spine. He nodded once. He’d hoped it was all but imperceptible, but Taran Zhu would know. It was enough, however, that the man caught it, and, for the moment, the two outsiders were united.

Tyrathan’s voice shrank as he scooped pieces back into the canisters. “The pandaren are used to the mists. They see through them and are unseen within them. They would be a terrible force unleashed were they not so balanced and concerned with balance. In it they find peace and, with reason, are reluctant to surrender that peace.”

“They be watching. Looking at how we balance.”

“They would like us to balance.” Tyrathan shook his head. “On the other hand, perhaps Taran Zhu wants to know how to unbalance us so much that we destroy ourselves. It is my fear that this is something he’ll learn all too easily.”

That night, visions mocked Vol’jin. He found himself in the midst of fighters, each of whom he recognized. He’d gathered them for that final assault on Zalazane, to end his madness and free the Echo Isles for the Darkspears. Each of the combatants took on aspects of a jihui cube, faced to be at their maximum power. Not a fireship among them, but this did not surprise Vol’jin.

He was the fireship, but not yet turned to display his maximum power. This was not a fight, though desperate, in which he would destroy himself. Aided by Bwonsamdi, they would slay Zalazane and reclaim the Echo Isles.

Who be you, this troll, who be having memories of a heroic effort?

Vol’jin turned, hearing the click of a cube snapping to a new facing. He felt trapped inside that cube, translucent though it was, and shocked that it had no values on any face. “I be Vol’jin.”

Bwonsamdi materialized in a gray world of swirling mists. “And who be this Vol’jin?”

The question shook him. The Vol’jin of the vision had been the leader of the Darkspears but was no longer. Reports of his death would just now be reaching the Horde. Perhaps they had not yet gotten there. In his heart, Vol’jin hoped his allies had been delayed, just so Garrosh could dwell one more day wondering if his plan had succeeded.

That did not answer the question. He was no longer the leader of the Darkspears, not in any real sense. They might still acknowledge him, but he could give them no orders. They would resist Garrosh and any Horde attempt to conquer them, but in his absence, they might listen to envoys who offered them protection. They could be lost to him.

Who do I be?

Vol’jin shivered. Though he thought himself superior to Tyrathan Khort, at least the man was mobile and not wearing sick-robes. The man hadn’t been betrayed by a rival and assassinated. The man had clearly embraced some of the pandaren way.

And yet, Tyrathan hesitated when he should not have. Some of it was a game to make the pandaren underestimate him, but Vol’jin had seen through that. The other bits, though, such as when he’d hesitated after Vol’jin complimented a move, those were genuine. And not something a man be allowing in himself .

Vol’jin looked up at Bwonsamdi. “I be Vol’jin. I know who I was. Who I gonna be? That answer only Vol’jin could be finding. And for now, Bwonsamdi, that be enough.”

Vol’jin might not have been wholly clear about who he was, but he certainly knew who he was not. He forced himself out of his sickbed by degrees. He would ease back the covers, deliberately folding them neatly when he desperately wanted to throw them off, and then he’d swing his legs out.

The first touch of cool stone on his feet surprised him, but he drew strength from the sensation. He let it override the pain in his legs and the tight tugging of scars and stitching. Holding on to the bedpost, he pulled himself upright.

On the sixth attempt he made it. The fourth had popped stitches on his stomach. He refused to acknowledge that fact and waved away the monks attracted by the darkening stain on his tunic. He thought he would have to apologize to Tyrathan for making him work harder, but he asked the monks to set the tunic aside.