Michael Stackpole - Vol'jin - Shadows of the Horde

Similarly, moving to the lead of the Darkspears and assuming responsibility for them had started a cascade of events. He regretted none of them either. Zalazane had to be stopped. Even supporting the Horde against the Zandalari king Rastakhan was a choice already made since Thrall and the Horde had helped him and his father save the Darkspears and build their home in the Echo Isles.

Withdrawing from the Horde be the hardest decision I ever made. It almost be my death.

Vol’jin returned to the monastery. He joined the monks in their exercises, not only to learn what they could do and to strengthen himself but also to show them what a troll could do. The monk he’d saved by beheading a Zandalari at Zouchin ratified Vol’jin’s stories about the hardiness of trolls. The Shado-pan, by and large, then redoubled their efforts against him.

And left him hard-pressed to defend himself.

There were, no doubt about it, skull-crabs and helmet-crabs among the monks. This did not disturb Vol’jin on one level. For every warrior in the ranks of an army, there were five people left back to keep him fed, his kit in good repair, and to see to his other needs. Many of the Shado-pan, the old monks especially, contented themselves with these support roles, while the younger monks took more eagerly to learning how to fight trolls.

Vol’jin watched Taran Zhu as the elder monk observed the exercises. Be you liking the shape of the helmet into which your monks are growing? Even though their gazes met from time to time, the leader of the Shado-pan gave no sign of his thoughts one way or the other.

During the time when he was not training physically, Vol’jin bent himself to becoming a scholar of Pandaren geography and military history. He found the latter a frustrating subject. Everything had happened so long ago—at least for the pandaren—that it had taken on the status of myth and folklore. It could, in fact, be that a dozen monks had held a mountain pass for twelve years, each one defending it for a single month himself, then resting for the remainder of the year. Each monk was said to have pioneered a fighting style, from which all current styles were said to have descended.

Geography was easier. Ancient imperial charts had mapped the continent out in great detail. He still found some areas only vaguely described. This was especially true of the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, where one map had clearly been inked over in the south central area.

Vol’jin pointed it out as Taran Zhu entered the library. “I be not finding many references to this area.”

“That is a problem we must take steps to remedy.” The monk half turned as Chen and Tyrathan, haggard and just a little bloody, entered the library behind him. “As your friends have discovered, it would appear that’s precisely where the invaders are headed.”

Chen quickly blew out the lamp. Darkness filled the cellar. It amplified the sounds from above. As nearly as the pandaren could determine, an entire company of trolls had jammed themselves into the croft.

One of the trolls lit a candle. Thin slivers of light shot down through cracks in the floorboards. They striped both Chen and Tyrathan. The man had frozen in place, a finger raised to his lips. Chen nodded once and the man lowered his hand, but otherwise did not move.

Chen couldn’t understand a single thing the Zandalari were saying, but he listened intently anyway. He was less hoping to pick up any Pandaren geographical references than he was to identify individual voices. He caught one that seemed to be giving a lot of short, sharp orders, and two others that replied wearily. One of those also made whispered comments.

He looked at Tyrathan and raised three fingers.

The man shook his head and added another. He pointed toward where the commander stood, then the two Chen had identified. His hand then indicated a fourth, in the corner, whose presence was marked by a slow drip of water on floorboards.

Chen shivered. This was not at all like the time ogres had captured him. Not only were trolls smarter in general, but the Zandalari prided themselves on being smart. And cruel. From what little he’d seen at Zouchin and heard about other battles the Zandalari had fought, he had no doubt that to be discovered was to be killed.

Because they’d been exploring the house, Chen and Tyrathan had not left their weapons or packs upstairs. They weren’t unarmed, but the cellar was not really a good place for an archer to ply his trade. While Chen could defend himself with martial arts, close-in fighting like this generally favored people wielding short, stabbity-type weapons. Any battle in the cellar would be nasty, tight, and even the victors would get bloodied.

We have to hope they don’t get curious and come down here. The storm will break, and they will go . The wind’s shrieking intensified, mocking Chen’s hope. At least we won’t go hungry .

Tyrathan seated himself on the floor and selected eight arrows from his quiver. Each had a nasty, barbed head, half of them with two edges and the others with four. All the edges had a crescent cut back in toward the shaft so that once they went in, like a fishhook, they’d be tough to pull out.

He laid the arrows side by side, pairing a two edge with a four, and reversed the four. Using bandages, which he cut into short lengths with a skinning knife, he tied the arrows together, making them double-headed.

Though the partial light made reading his expression difficult, Chen could see Tyrathan’s face had a grim determination. As he worked he would glance up at the low ceiling. He’d watch and listen, then nod to himself.

After an eternity, the trolls settled down. Heavy thumps from above suggested they’d removed their armor for sleeping—three of them, anyway. The silent one didn’t, but blotted out enough light to mark where he lay. The commander was the last to bed. He blew out their final candle before he stretched out.

Silent as a ghost, Tyrathan reached Chen’s side. “On my signal—and you will know it—go up the stairs. Find the lever to open the pantry. Kill anything you find.”

“They could leave in the morning.”

The man pointed toward where the commander lay. “He’s keeping a logbook. We need it.”

Chen nodded, then moved to the base of the stairs. In the main part of the cellar, Tyrathan took his double-headed arrows and slid the double-edged heads into the floor cracks. He twisted, lodging an arrow beneath each of the sleeping trolls. He positioned things for the commander first, then the two talkers, and finally the silent one. Remaining in that last place, he looked at Chen. He pointed to the four arrows, ending with the commander, then pointed at Chen and signaled for him to go up the stairs.

The pandaren nodded and prepared himself.

The man shoved the first arrow up into a troll and twisted it. Even before his victim shouted, he leaped back to the middle two and drove them up, one with each hand. They yelped as he got to the last arrow and stabbed it up too.

Chen bounded up the stairs and didn’t even bother to search for a lever. He barreled through the door. Wood cracked. Crockery and wooden bowls flew into the room a half second before he did. To his right, the silent troll lay on his left side. The arrow had run through his upper arm and into his chest. He reached for a knife with his right hand, but Chen lashed out with a foot. The Zandalari’s head snapped back, smashing into the stone wall.

Chen spun and stopped. The two talkative trolls thrashed on the floor. An arrow had come up through one’s belly. The other appeared pinned by the spine. As each tried to sit up, the four-edged arrowhead snagged in the crack, catching them firmly. Blood sprayed with their screams as their heels beat against wood and fingers clawed curled splinters from the floorboard.