Michael Stackpole - Vol'jin - Shadows of the Horde

“Why are you letting Chen come?”

Anger simmered in Vol’jin’s blood. “Chen not gonna run.”

“I know that and did not mean to suggest it.” The man sighed. “It’s because he won’t run that I don’t think he should come. The monks, few have family beyond this place. I am alone. I don’t know of you… .”

Vol’jin shook his head. “She gonna understand.”

“Chen’s got his niece and Yalia. And, frankly, he’s got too big a heart to witness what we’re going to do.”

“What was it happened out there?”

As they climbed the rest of the way to the top, the man described in very precise detail exactly what had happened. Vol’jin understood perfectly. He’d chosen to kill the silent one first because he’d not removed his armor. That meant he’d be the hardest to eliminate. The other two soldiers were just that: soldiers. And conversation had indicated that their leader wasn’t a warrior.

The man had made the same decisions Vol’jin would have made, and for the same reasons. Finding a way to trap the trolls had been critical. It took them out of the fight, and the pain and terror also rendered them useless.

And yet, as much as he understood what Tyrathan had done and why, he also now understood Chen’s uncharacteristic taciturnity. Many people who went to war refused to look at what they were doing. War was defined by cultures in terms of heroic tales of bravery. Those stories skipped over the horror of it all in favor of praising courage and fortitude against overwhelming odds. A thousand songs were sung of the warrior who held off a thousand hated enemies, yet not a single one of the fallen merited even a memorial note.

Chen was one of those who had always been able to mythologize battles, primarily because he was at a distance from them. It wasn’t that he was never threatened. He was, often, and acquitted himself well. But any fighter who allowed himself to dwell on his personal danger was one who went mad or threw himself at the enemy to end his madness.

Until now, Chen had fought for his friends, supporting them in their battles. But here, he was fighting for a place he could call home. Out there, he was the only pandaren. None of the dead looked like him. Or his niece or his friend.

When they reached the pinnacle, Vol’jin crouched. “I be understanding your questions about Chen. Neither of us be doubting his courage. Neither of us be wanting him hurt. But this be why he must come. It gonna hurt him more not to have acted, whether we fail or succeed, than to watch us slay thousands in ways that leave them screaming out their last. He be pandaren. Pandaria be his future. This be his fight. We cannot be protecting him from this, so it’s better to have him with us so he can be saving us.”

The man considered for a moment, then nodded. “Chen told me some stories of you, of your past. He said you were wise. Did you ever imagine, during those times, that the tables would be turned, and you’d be fighting for his home as he did for yours?”

“No.” The troll looked out over Pandaria, studying mountains that nudged their way through clouds, and forests peeking out from gaps below. “This be a place worth fighting for. Worth dying for.”

“A fight so we can stop others from doing here what they’ve done to our homes?”

“Yes.”

Tyrathan scratched at his goatee. “How is it that a leader of the Horde and an Alliance soldier are united in fighting for a people who have no claim on our allegiance?”

“You be referring to the people we once were.” Vol’jin shrugged. “My body survived assassination, but who I was did die in that cave. The Vol’jin they meant to kill be truly dead.”

“You’re no closer to deciding who you now are than I am.”

“I be not a skull-crab.” Vol’jin read a lack of comprehension in Tyrathan’s eyes. “An allegory Taran Zhu told me.”

“He used the Room of a Thousand Doors on me. Some I can squeeze through, but only one will be a perfect fit, and the one I entered through has vanished.”

“Have you chosen your door?”

“No, but I think I am coming close to choosing. My choices have narrowed.” The man smiled. “You know, of course, that once I do go through, I’ll find myself in another room of a thousand doors.”

“And I gonna be outgrowing whatever shell I find myself in.” Vol’jin swept a hand over the expanse of Pandaria and the green valleys. “Promised yourself to be looking again on the valleys of your homeland before you died. Be these a worthy substitute?”

“Let me lie to you and tell you no.” The man gave another smile. “If I say yes, then my oath would allow me to die.”

“I gonna, as I promised, get the one who kills you.”

“Then let that be a long time from now, when I’m too old to remember why but still young enough to be grateful.”

The troll looked at him, then away. “Why be our races hating each other so much, when we be reasonable, the two of us?”

“Because finding the differences upon which we can hang hatred is much easier than discovering the common ground that can unite.” Tyrathan chuckled quickly. “If I return to the Alliance and tell tales of what we have done together…”

“You gonna be thought a madman?”

“I’ll be tried for treason and executed.”

“More common ground between us. Execution be cleaner than assassination.”

“And yet rooted in the ease of finding differences.” The man shook his head. “You realize that if we do this—when we do this—were all the world to see and understand, they’d still never sing the songs or tell the stories of what we accomplished.”

Vol’jin nodded. “But do we be doing this to have songs sung about us?”

“No. They won’t fit through my door.”

“Then, my friend, let the songs be sung as Zandalari lamentations.” He stood and started down the mountain. “Let them be sung for a thousand generations and serenade us into eternity.”

The Shado-pan monks prepared for war with laudable focus, though their actions lacked the hints of grim humor that Vol’jin had seen accompany the same preparations among other peoples. Four monks, two from the survivors of the blue squad and two from the red, were chosen by lottery to join Vol’jin, Tyrathan, and Chen. At least, their choice was supposed to be by chance, but Vol’jin suspected that the lottery was just to allow those who could not handle the mission to withdraw from it without any loss of esteem.

Assaulting the Vale of Eternal Blossoms would not be a simple thing. Shrouded in shadow and warded by impassible mountains, the place was a fortress that had remained unexplored for thousands of years. If he took any comfort in the difficulty in actually entering the place, it was only that the Zandalari, with their much larger force, would find passage that much more troublesome.

I be hoping .

Each of the seven set about the preparations in his or her own way. Tyrathan searched the monastery’s armory, chose the best arrows, broke them down, and fletched them himself. He painted the shafts bright red and made the feathers blue—in honor of the red and blue monks, he said. When asked why he blackened the arrowheads with soot, he said it was to honor the Zandalari’s black hearts.

Chen set himself on the task of victualing the expedition. To the monks, in their inexperience with the kind of war the Zandalari would bring, this might have seemed almost a frivolous pursuit, but Vol’jin understood his friend’s twin purposes. Not only would having proper food, fluids, and bandages be critical for the mission’s success, but it was also Chen’s way of taking care of the others. No matter what war had shown him or would make him do, Chen would be true to his nature. Vol’jin was grateful for that.