Michael Stackpole - Vol'jin - Shadows of the Horde

Vol’jin listened to the anguish in the man’s voice, then studied the situation again. He nodded. “Sneak down as close as you can. I gonna shoot their leader. They gonna follow me into an ambush. You be getting the captives clear. Go into the mountains.”

Tyrathan rested a hand on Vol’jin’s shoulder. “That plan, my friend, is even stupider than our being here in the first place. There’s only one way this works. I work my way around to that group of rocks. You and the pandaren get down into that grove near the gap. When the arrows start falling, all the Zandalari must die.”

Vol’jin looked at the two staging points the man had picked out and agreed. “You be leaving the shooting to me. Your people gonna follow you out. They won’t be following a troll.”

“The hanging man is here because they believe me dead. It’s best they continue to think that. You roar at them, tell them to run. Have Sister Quan-li lead them, liaise with the Alliance.” Tyrathan sighed. “It will be for the best.”

Vol’jin measured the distances with his eyes and nodded. Regardless of the complications of human relationships, the troll knew he would be better fighting hand to hand with the Zandalari. Moreover, he wanted to do that. The way they had shifted what the vale should have meant made them deserving of death. He wanted them to read contempt from his face as they died.

“Agreed.”

The man squeezed the troll’s shoulder. “And I know you could have made the shots.”

“You know I would have been better than you.”

“That too.” The hunter smiled. “When you’re in place, you’ll see my signal.”

Tyrathan headed off to his staging point while Vol’jin returned to the pandaren. He briefed them quickly. That none of them protested the insanity of it all surprised him. Then he remembered that Chen had always been a loyal friend and that loyalty was highly prized among the pandaren. There was a difference between compliance to help a friend and blind adherence to duty—the former made doing the impossible actually possible. Moreover, the monks saw the rescue as a bid to restore balance to the world, which made it more of an imperative for them than it was for Tyrathan.

The rescue party slipped into place easily enough, hunkering down in a small grove twenty yards from the gap. Having failed to clear it was reason enough, in Vol’jin’s mind, for the Zandalari officer to die. Vol’jin brought his glaive to hand and slowly smiled.

Four and a half inches.

Tyrathan’s signal came in the form of a single arrow that punched through the officer’s open mouth. The troll had just turned to face his victim again, so the blood splattered two warriors squatting behind him. Before the first could spring up, a second arrow sank into his chest and burst out through his back. He stumbled and, in falling, impaled another troll on the bloody point.

The other squatting troll just fell back, grunting, staring at the blue-and-red arrow quivering in his chest.

The guards at the gap turned to face the commotion around the bonfire. That mistake destroyed their night vision, not that it would have mattered much at all. Vol’jin came silent as death, and the Shado-pan were death’s shadow. Even Chen, who lagged a bit behind, made little enough noise that it disappeared beneath the fire’s crackle and the gurgling deaths of the guards nearest the other prisoners.

Vol’jin raced into battle, his glaive humming as it spun. His first slash opened a thigh; then he whirled away as the guard turned toward him. The Darkspear came around, his second stroke crushing the troll’s head. Vol’jin recognized the delicious scent of hot blood misting in the air and turned, seeking other prey.

Around him the pandaren engaged Zandalari fearlessly, despite the trolls’ larger size and fierce weaponry. Sister Quan-li ducked beneath the slash of an axe and stabbed a knife-bladed paw into a troll’s throat. The Zandalari wheezed, trying to breathe around a crushed larynx. She then shattered his pointy jaw with a straight punch and dropped him with a roundhouse kick.

Brother Dao had appropriated a spear and engaged a similarly armed troll. The Shado-pan parried every thrust, giving ground with each parry. The Zandalari took this as both a sign of the pandaren’s fear and proof that he was winning the fight. This illusion lasted for two more parries, and then Dao swept in, spinning. He snapped the spear’s haft against the troll’s knee, crumpling it. Another blow caught the troll over the temple. That likely killed him, or at least rendered him senseless, thereby saving him the humiliation of the final spear thrust that pinned him to the ground.

Chen boiled into battle, lacking the precision of the Shado-pan but making up for it through experience. Wielding a stout staff, he blocked an overhand blow with a maul and twisted to let the troll’s weapon slide off toward the left. The troll, determined to overpower the smaller pandaren, shoved his maul back in the other direction.

Chen let him, ducking, then hooking a leg behind the troll’s. He shoved, simply and easily, dumping the Zandalari on his back. The troll hit heavily. Chen’s right foot flashed out, stamping hard on the male’s throat. Bones broke, and the brewmaster sailed toward another foe.

Throughout the fight, arrows flew. One of the ropes suspending the prisoner parted with a snap. The man twisted and slammed into the opposite post, hitting the back of his head. A second arrow cut the remaining rope and dropped the man to the ground. The arrow quivered in the post.

The Zandalari recovered from their shock quickly enough. They counterattacked, and two of them snarled as they drove at Vol’jin. One slashed low with a sword. Vol’jin parried it with one blade, then thrust sharply with his glaive’s other end. The weapon pierced the troll’s chest. As the troll fell back, ribs trapped the blade and ripped it from Vol’jin’s grasp.

The other Zandalari yelled in triumph. “You die now, traitor!”

Vol’jin, hands clawed, roared at him.

The Zandalari swung a barbed mace around waist-high. Instead of leaping back, Vol’jin stepped forward. He caught the troll’s wrist against his rib cage, then brought his left forearm up and over the Zandalari’s forearm. Then Vol’jin pivoted to the right quickly enough to lock the elbow and continued to spin until it snapped. Screaming, the Zandalari dropped to his back.

Vol’jin, reversing his spin, punched down into and through the troll’s face.

And as quickly as that, the battle ended. Sister Quan-li cut the prisoners loose. Chen already had reached the tortured man’s side. Vol’jin approached but slowed as Chen helped the man to his feet. The man felt the back of his head, and his hand came away bloody, but not terribly so.

The man looked at the pandaren. “Where is he? Where is Tyrathan Khort?”

Vol’jin interceded before Chen could answer. “There be no Tyrathan Khort.”

The man faced Vol’jin, his eyes filled with fire. “I may be seeing stars, but I know that shooting. I know the hand that painted and fletched those arrows. Where is he?”

The troll snarled. “He may have prepared those arrows, but Tyrathan Khort be dead.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Vol’jin flashed teeth. “He be dead by my hand. Vol’jin, leader of the Darkspears.”

Blood drained from the man’s face. “They say you’re dead.”

“Then we both be ghosts.” Vol’jin pointed south with his bloody sword. “Go, before you join us.”

Sister Quan-li came to get the man, and the other prisoners joined them. They quickly scavenged supplies from among the trolls’ gear, armed themselves, and fled into the mountains.

Chen turned to Vol’jin. “Why did you say he was dead?”