Michael Stackpole - Vol'jin - Shadows of the Horde

The monk shrugged stiffly. “If night never came, no one would maintain lanterns. The mists have been our defenses since before history began.”

“But you’re not defenseless.” Tyrathan pointed out toward the courtyard. “Your monks can shatter wood with their bare hands. They fight with swords. I watch them shoot arrows. They are among the world’s elite fighters.”

“Fighters, but not an army.” Taran Zhu pressed his paws together at his breastbone. “We are few and spread across the continent. We are Pandaria’s only line of defense, but we are more than that as well. Our training in the martial arts imparts to us more than just the ability to kill. For example, we study archery not for its martial aspect—we study it for balance. It is a means by which we can connect two points through an intervening space, having to manage and balance distance and momentum, arc and the breeze, and the arrow’s nature. We defend Pandaria and defend the balance.”

Vol’jin tapped the map. “You talk philosophy. This be war.”

“Can you tell me, troll, that war exists only on a material plane? That it is only steel and blood and bone?” Taran Zhu’s eyes became dark slits. “The two of you have physical scars. And deeper scars. War has thrown you out of balance, or your hunger for it has.”

The troll snarled. “War be imbalance. If it destroys your balance, your balance was false.”

Chen stepped between them. “I have just come from there. Li Li will be returning there. Yalia’s family is there. The Zandalari will unbalance everything for those people. We have to do what we can to tip the balance back.”

The man agreed with a nod. “If nothing else, we have to warn the people. Evacuate.”

Taran Zhu closed his eyes and composed his face. “You three are of the world beyond the mists. Your experience makes you value urgency above ways that are comfortable here. Where you demand haste, you will see sloth as resistance. Where you are skilled at tactics, you will think me blind. My charge, as the leader of the Shado-pan, is to deal with larger things.”

Vol’jin crooked an eyebrow. “Maintaining the balance?”

“War will not always exist. War only wins if the world cannot recover from it. You look to stop war. I look to reconquer it.”

Vol’jin almost snapped off a harsh retort, but something in Taran Zhu’s words pierced his heart. They echoed something his father had shared, in a private moment, after a predawn rain had left the world clean. He’d said, “I be loving the world like this. No blood, no pain, the world wet with happy tears and the hopes for sunshine.”

The troll squatted and bowed his head. “Your monks’ skills still apply.”

“They do. You shall have resources. Not enough to win your war, but enough to dull their war.” Taran Zhu exhaled slowly as he opened his eyes. “I will give you eighteen monks. They will not be the biggest or fastest, but they will be those best able to accomplish your ends.”

Tyrathan’s open-mouthed expression revealed his heart. “Eighteen monks and the three of us.” He looked at Vol’jin. “In your vision, the fleet, that’s, what, two ships apiece?”

“Three. One be small.”

“That’s not going to dull the invasion; it will just knock some rust off it.” The man shook his head. “We have to have more.”

“I would give you more were I able.” The Shado-pan leader opened empty paws. “Alas, only twenty-one of you can reach Zouchin in enough time to be any help at all.”

Vol’jin had expected that girding himself for war might be familiar enough a ritual that it would reforge a link with his past. Pandaren armor, however, frustrated him. Too short and too large at the same time, the quilted silk felt too light to be effective. The strip scale metal—all bound together with bright cords, along with a lacquered leather breastplate—flopped in places it shouldn’t and made him round in places he shouldn’t have been. A monk worked quickly to extend the armor skirting from the breastplate, and Vol’jin vowed that the first thing he’d do was strip the armor off a Zandalari and use that.

Then he laughed. He was too tall for pandaren armor but too short for Zandalari. He’d dealt with them before. They stood at least a head taller than he did, and twice that if one measured arrogance. Though he disliked the way they viewed all other trolls as their inferiors, he could not deny that their clean limbs and ennobled features made them pleasing to look upon. He’d once heard that they’d been referred to—by a man—as the “elves of trolls.” The Zandalari had found that a great insult, and their discomfort amused him.

While he was fitted for his armor, much banging and clanging heralded the preparations for battle. Chen proudly presented him with a dual-bladed sword. “I had the swordsmiths knock the grips off two of the curved swords, then rivet the tangs together and wrap them in shark’s skin over bamboo. It’s not quite your glaive, but it’s scary-looking.”

“Scarier yet when it drinks Zandalari blood.” Vol’jin took the blade by the central grip and twirled it around. He snapped the weapon so it was still, but the blades quivered and hummed curiously. Though it wasn’t his glaive, the balance matched favorably. “You be possessing more skills than just brewing.”

“No. Brother Xiao was one of those who drank with us.” Chen smiled. “I told him to make a weapon that was what you remembered from the brew.”

“He has done well.”

Tyrathan gave a low whistle as he entered the hallway. He wore a long leather surcoat with metal plates riveted onto it. His helmet came to a point and had a mail skirt to protect his neck. He carried two bows and a half dozen quivers of arrows. “Nice glaive. It’ll get lots of work.”

The man tossed Vol’jin a bow. “These are the best out of their armory. I scoured it and have the best of their arrows too. All field points—the combat arrows have been sent to monks elsewhere. These’ll fly true but won’t punch through armor.”

Vol’jin nodded. “You be needing careful shooting, then.”

“With trolls, I draw a line connecting the bottom of the ears, drop it three inches, and split it in half. Easy shot at the spine, and you get the tongue as you’re going.”

Chen looked aghast. “I think, Vol’jin, what he meant—”

“I be knowing what he meant.” The troll looked at Tyrathan. “These be Zandalari. Four inches. Their ears be set high.”

Chen and Tyrathan followed Vol’jin into the monastery courtyard. The monks who were part of the force most closely resembled the man in attire, save that each of them had the monastery’s tiger crest emblazoned on chest and back. They had a single strip of cloth—half of them red, half of them blue—dangling from their helmet’s point. Taran Zhu had not lied. These were not the monks Vol’jin would have chosen, but he accepted that the master monk knew his people best. It did surprise Vol’jin to see Yalia Sagewhisper among the eighteen, but then he recalled that they were going to defend her home and that her knowledge of the surrounding area would be invaluable.

Vol’jin also realized, as he came up the steps to the plane between monastery and mountain, why Taran Zhu could only send so limited a force. Eleven flying beasts, sinuous and languid, had been hitched up with double saddles and laden with some meager supplies in leather satchels. He’d seen smaller versions of the beasts carved into walls or as statues in niches throughout the monastery. He’d somehow assumed they were a pandaren artistic representation of dragons.

Yalia beckoned them forward and pointed each monk to a beast. “These are cloud serpents. In days past, they were feared, before a brave young woman befriended them. She taught us what they could do. They are not common these days. The monastery has access to a flock.”