Michael Stackpole - Vol'jin - Shadows of the Horde

The man extended his cup to the pandaren and nodded when it was refilled. “Then what do you feel here?”

Chen set his waterskin down and scratched his chin. “I feel the peace that is this place’s promise. I think the two of you feel a bit of the mogu legacy. But, for me, the peace, the promise, it’s what I want in a home. It tells me I can stop wandering—but it doesn’t demand it. It’s a welcome that will never be withdrawn.”

He looked at the both of them, and for the first time Vol’jin could remember, Chen’s big golden eyes filled with sorrow. “I wish you could feel that too.”

Vol’jin gave his friend a smile. “It be enough for me that you do, Chen. I have a home, one you helped win. You secured a home for me. Impossible not to be pleased for you.”

Without much inducement, Vol’jin managed to get Chen and the monks to elaborate on their sense of the place. They complied happily, and Vol’jin took some joy in their impressions. However, after the sun set, a cold, dark wave rippled out from the east. The monks fell silent, and Tyrathan, who had been standing watch at the crest of the hill beneath which they camped, pointed.

“They’re here.”

Vol’jin and the others scrambled up with him. There, to the east, Mogu’shan Palace had lit up. Silver and blue lightning played over its faces, defining the structure with ivy-like twists that sparked at the corners. The display of magic impressed Vol’jin, not because of any sense of power but because of the aimless and casual way in which it was being displayed.

Chen shivered. “The welcome is being blanketed.”

“It being smothered.” Vol’jin shook his head. “Buried deeply. No one be welcome here anymore.”

Tyrathan looked at Vol’jin. “It’s more than a bowshot, but we could make it by dawn. Well before any revelers are awake.”

“No. They be baiting us with that display. That be where they want us to strike.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “They know we’re coming?”

“They have to assume we be, just as we have to assume they know we gonna react to the journal you captured.” Vol’jin pointed toward the southern mountain range. “Likely Horde and Alliance scouts be on the ridges. They gonna spot this and react. It gonna just take a while to discuss plans before they be moving.”

“Unless someone does it on his own initiative.” Tyrathan chuckled. “Months ago, that would have been me. I wonder who’ll play the hero?”

“It doesn’t matter to our mission—as long as they don’t be getting in the way.”

“Agreed.” The man ran a hand over his beard. “Still straight in and hook east?”

“Until something be making that plan impossible, yes.”

Vol’jin passed another dreamless night, but it was not a wholly restful one. He considered reaching out to the loa, but as was true of all gods, they could be capricious. If they were bored or annoyed, they could let slip a word that would alert his enemies to his presence. As he’d said to Tyrathan, they had to assume their enemies knew they were coming. The fact that the Zandalari could not pinpoint where they were was an advantage. Given the nature of their mission, any advantage was to be cherished.

The next morning, if the sun dawned at all, Vol’jin had no real way of knowing. The clouds had thickened. The only light coming through, aside from a faint jaundiced glow, was the result of the stray thunderbolts rippling through their depths. The lightning never touched the ground, as if afraid of reprisals from those in Mogu’shan Palace.

The seven slowed their pace out of necessity. Dim light made missteps more common. A trickle of gravel sliding underfoot sounded like thunder. They’d all freeze in place, ears straining for reactions. And their scouts had to shorten their lead on the party simply because darkness made it harder to see. This contributed to more frequent stops.

Night after night, the lightning show repeated itself from Mogu’shan Palace. With it came an intensification of the sense of the vale. This was Vol’jin’s place by right, and those in the palace were challenging him. The palace was a flame to the moth of opposition, but none of the seven were to allow themselves to be trapped.

What Vol’jin didn’t like was the lack of any sign of Zandalari scouts. Had he been in command of their force, he would have pushed light troops far forward, even to the western wall between the vale and the home of creatures called the mantid. The stories told of them were the sort that would have quieted unruly children—and Vol’jin meant trolls, not mere pandaren cubs. To not secure that border would be gross negligence, especially when the Zandalari knew they faced opposition.

Two days of no sun had passed before they found their first sign of the Zandalari. Brother Shan had been in the lead, pausing in a saddle between two higher hills early in the evening. They’d reached the south wall of mountains and were heading east through the foothills. The monk signaled. Vol’jin and Tyrathan came forward, and Shan retreated to where the others waited.

The view below made Vol’jin’s blood run cold. A company of a dozen and a half Zandalari light warriors had created an outpost. They’d cut down a stand of golden-leaved trees and hacked off the limbs. They’d sharpened the trunks and stouter limbs, then sunk them into the ground around the perimeter. The stakes pointed outward in all directions save for a narrow gap toward the west. There the ring’s ends overlapped, so any attackers would have to make a sharp turn before they got inside the camp.

The troll’s nostrils flared, but he refrained from snorting angrily. To have reduced a stand of beautiful trees to a cruel fortress seemed to Vol’jin to be blasphemy itself. A small crime, but there gonna be retribution .

Two tree trunks had been sunk into the ground at the heart of the camp, just east of a large bonfire. Twenty feet tall, they stood half that apart. Ropes had been attached at the top of each post, and again to the wrists of a warrior. His blue tabard had been torn from him down to the waist, held by an unseen belt. His flesh had been cut in numerous places, never deeply but enough to be painful and for blood to flow.

Vol’jin was certain he’d never seen the man before, yet he seemed familiar. Four other humans were there, wearing tattered tabards that, the troll guessed, would have matched the one worn by the torture victim. The four were roped together and cowered as Zandalari watched over them.

Two trolls warded the gap, and two others guarded the prisoners. The rest, including a junior officer holding a human sword, gathered around the hanging man. The officer said something that prompted the Zandalari to laugh, and then he cut the man again.

Vol’jin had seen enough and was ready to move on. Then he looked at his companion’s face. “We cannot be intervening. You know that.”

The man swallowed with great difficulty. “I cannot leave him to be tortured.”

“You be having no choice.”

“No, you have no choice.”

The troll nodded and drew an arrow. “I understand. I gonna be killing him then.”

Tyrathan’s jaw dropped; then he closed his mouth and shook his head. He refused to meet Vol’jin’s gaze. “I can’t let him die.”

“A rescue gonna be suicide.”

“It can be done.”

“Who be they that you would be risking our lives and mission?”

The man’s shoulders slumped. “There’s not enough time to explain, not so it would make sense.”

“To me, or to you?”

“Vol’jin, please, I have an obligation.” The hunter closed his eyes, pain flashing over his features. “But, you’re right about the mission. Get everyone else clear. I think I can manage this myself. We have to be close to our goal, so I’ll make this a distraction. Please, my friend.”