Michael Stackpole - Vol'jin - Shadows of the Horde

This be going back to their sense of balance. The fear and hatred be offset by respect . Vol’jin watched as the tombs were sealed, the clues were hidden, and the mists were raised to shroud Pandaria. That, too, is balance. The peace of camouflage—invisibility—versus war’s terror. Their kindness be for healing, just as the hiding be outta necessity .

As the vision faded, the troll met Taran Zhu’s gaze. “I be understanding, Lord Taran Zhu. I do not judge.”

“But you wish things were otherwise.”

“Things past counting. Wishing, however, be not winning battle.” Vol’jin pressed a finger to the Tu Shen region on the map. “People be living there, you said. What can they tell us?”

“Scant little. They are largely content and do not explore, nor do they communicate with outsiders. They are happily hidden in their paradise.” Taran Zhu smiled. “And those pandaren who were of the adventuring nature were encouraged to chase the turtle.”

Chen’s head came up. “So we would not disturb the tombs of mogu warlords and emperors.”

“You understand, Master Stormstout. Though some mogu survived, they never presented much of a threat. What little we knew of the Zandalari came from the mogu viewpoint. They understated the power of the Zandalari. We labored under the belief that no one had the ability or desire to resurrect the mogu. It would appear that your Zandalari have taken steps to do so. They removed the Thunder King from his tomb, and…”

The man folded his arms over his chest. “. . . now they’re going back for the Thunder King’s warlords?”

“They amplify his will and his power.”

The Thunder King be seeing them the same as Garrosh does the leaders of the Horde’s other contingents . Vol’jin nodded. “So, then, it be logical to be thinking two things. The reestablishment of his reign be the first goal for the Thunder King.”

Chen shook his head. “That would be bad for Pandaria.”

“Yeah. Folks here may have forgotten him after putting him in the grave, but I doubt time in the tomb has dulled his memory.” The man sighed. “The second thing is to stop a Zandalari invasion force from getting to the burial ground.”

“No,” said Vol’jin, “stop them from resurrecting the warlords. Likely there be only a few individuals strong enough for the summoning.”

Tyrathan nodded curtly. “Got it. Kill them… .”

“Killing a portion of them gonna work, I be thinking.” Vol’jin looked at Taran Zhu. “And your priorities gonna be to prepare Pandaria to resist the mogu. How many monks do you have for doing that?”

“A hundred, almost half of whom I have dispatched to the provinces to begin to organize. Logistics. Some training. But these are not the monks to whom you refer.” The pandaren lifted his chin. “Of the sort you mean, of the lethal kind, including the three of you and myself, I have fifty.”

“Half a hundred to be stopping a Zandalari invasion and sending a millennia-old mogu tyrant back to the grave.” Vol’jin nodded slowly. “To be dealing with the burial ground, I’ll need seven. Now let’s be figuring out what you’ll be doing with the rest while we’re gone.”

“This be not pleasing me, Captain Nir’zan.” The fact that the troll lay prostrate on the ground before Khal’ak did not have the usual mollifying effect on her spirit. “I be believin’ you wish praise for having determined dat the man who killed a party of scouts was da same who fought here in Zouchin. You might be understanding that I would prefer to know he be dead, not that he continues to fight.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Losing the shaman’s journal, that be deepenin’ my displeasure. The man and his pandaren ally shoulda been captured. I should be having the journal here, now.”

Had the troll attempted to protest the impossibility of her comment, she would have killed him herself as an example for the other officers watching. Khal’ak knew it was quite unreasonable to have expected that he, dispatched only after the scouting party had failed to report back, could have caught up with their murderers.

She toed his shoulder, prompting him to rise into a kneeling position. “It be doing you credit that you reported back yourself. Same with keeping your unit posted to the east. It be good you sketched the man’s footprints in the fishing village and recognized his track here. You got more intelligence than I might otherwise be thinking.”

Captain Nir’zan kept his gaze averted to the ground. “You be kind, my lady. I be lucky that the storm that extinguished the croft fire had not washed away the footprints.”

She pressed her hands together before her lips for a moment, then lowered them and nodded. “Each of you gonna take your companies and fan out along our intended route. Assume the enemy knows you be coming. You gonna set up at crossroads and appropriate places where you can delay any material opposition. If you or any of your soldiers retreat, well, do not. Better you die quickly at da hands of the enemy than you die slowly under my tender care.

“You will be takin’ prisoners. You gonna wring from them information. If dey are individuals of political influence or office, you gonna convey them to me. Their families gonna be beheaded. Their bodies gonna be burned and their heads gonna be posted at crossroads. The deaths of our scouts be attributable in part to a pandaren, so I wish ten of dese beastly creatures slain for every one of our losses. Release one prisoner—someone young or old, not a combatant—to spread the story.”

She leaned forward, lifting Nir’zan’s pointy chin with a crooked finger. “And to you, Nir’zan, be going a great privilege. You identified the man’s part in dis. You and your company gonna range farthest. You gonna find where the Alliance lines are drawn. You gonna, without revealing yourself, capture prisoners. Humans preferably, worgen even, elves if you must, two dwarves or three gnomes. I be wantin’ a dozen equivalent in man weight to pay for our dead. With them, release no survivors. They gonna soon enough know why their people be missing.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“You gonna bring them to the warlords’ tombs. I gonna find a use for them there.” She straightened up. “Go now, all of you. Report back when you have success.”

Sand flew as a dozen troll captains raced to their units. She watched them go, suppressing a laugh of satisfaction. They would not fail her, but only because the mission she’d given them was one at which they could not fail. Success was necessary to build their confidence, which they would need when later she demanded they do the impossible.

She turned, having felt the mogu’s shadow fall over her before she saw it darken the sand. “Fair morning, Honored Chae-nan.”

“You value your dead too little. I would slay a hundred pandaren for each of your dead.”

“I considered dat, but we have located too few crossroads, and there be a shortage of sticks.” She shrugged easily. “Besides, we can always be killin’ more, and I would do so at your master’s pleasure.”

“I doubt dead pandaren would amuse him, but men, these might.” The mogu smiled in a way that demonstrated why executioners often wore hoods. “The man you seek, the pandaren, and, I believe, a troll from before—these would greatly please my master.”

“Den I gonna do all in my power to obtain them.” She bowed to him. “I gonna deliver them myself, and da Thunder King can suck out their souls and sup on their agonies.”

Vol’jin found himself trapped in a dream or a vision. He wasn’t certain which. The dream he could have dismissed as his mind digesting what he had seen and been told. The vision—which had all the signs of being a gift from the Silk Dancer—had to be given weight, and that meant he had to see it through.