Michael Stackpole - Vol'jin - Shadows of the Horde

Vol’jin felt a wave of shame for Tyrathan. The pandaren monks held their heads high as their captors led them to their positions. They didn’t have to be shoved or coerced. The monks had a quiet dignity about them, completely denying the reality of what they had to know would happen. The men, on the other hand, whether lacking balance or being possessed of an acute sense of their own mortality, wept and had to be dragged into place. One could not stand and had to be held upright by two Zandalari. The other blubbered and urinated on himself.

Khal’ak half turned to Vol’jin and whispered, “I tried convincin’ the mogu dat all they needed were men, but when they saw the Shado-pan fighting, they insisted. I was able to make Chen and your man off-limits, but…”

Vol’jin nodded. “Leadership be demanding uneasy decisions.”

The mogu Spiritrender approached Brother Dao at the near-left corner. With one hand, the Spiritrender yanked the monk’s head back, exposing his throat. With the other, using a single talon, the mogu stabbed Dao’s throat—not a killing blow, not anything more than annoying. The nail came away heavy with a droplet of pandaren blood.

The mogu touched the drop to the corner of the bronze pedestal. A tiny gout of flame shot up. It shrank again into a small blue guttering tongue.

The Spiritrender moved next to the man at the front. His blood drop, when deposited at the corner, caused a small geyser of water to spurt upward. It calmed down into a tiny puddle. Its surface rippled in time with the flame’s dance.

The mogu then came around to the second man. His blood produced a small cyclone, red in hue. It became invisible after that, save for the slight flutter it introduced to the man’s dirty robe. Again, the flutter matched the water’s ripple.

Last the mogu came to Brother Shan. The monk lifted his own chin, exposing his throat. The mogu took his blood, and when it touched the bronze, Vol’jin interpreted the resulting volcanic eruption as being fueled by Shan’s anger. The molten earth did not quiet but continued to flow. It extended in lines toward the water and the cyclone.

Air, fire, and water also expanded. Where they met, they warred. The power of their collisions rose straight up in semitransparent, opalescent walls of force. They shot to the roof, quartering the statue. Sharp thunder sounded. Cracks appeared in the stone, huge rents as keen as those that remained on the broken stones outside. They radiated out like roots from a tree, and as Vol’jin figured it, when that statue collapsed, the tomb itself would be filled to a depth of ten feet.

Enough to bury us all .

But the statue didn’t collapse. The energy lines shrank back down and drew into the cracks. For a handful of heartbeats, they coalesced at the center, where the mogu’s heart would have been. They pulsed twice, maybe four times; then energy pumped out through invisible veins. An opalescent blush suffused the entire statue, and beneath it the statue cracked and cracked again. It was as if the glow put the statue under incredible pressure, like a millstone grinding it into dust.

And yet the power let it retain its shape.

Then, from ankle and wrist, an ethereal tendril flicked out. It looked like fog. It wrapped around Brother Dao’s face. The monk had thrown his head back to scream, and the fog flowed into his body. In the blink of an eye, the glow had surrounded him. And crushed him like a grape.

The slurry of what Brother Dao had been flowed back up through the tendril. Only after his horror ended did Vol’jin notice that the other three had vanished as well. The glow returned to the statue and grew brighter. It pulsed and intensified. Two spots burned where the eyes had been.

Then the magic contracted in a rippling series of pops and cracks. As the glow blazed, heat flared, then dropped off abruptly. The outline began to shrink. At the same time, the statue’s arms spread. Lifeless stone compressed itself into thick muscles sliding beneath black skin. The light drew itself into the statue, the flesh healing along the jagged lines where stone had broken. It left no scars, only a peerless mogu warrior, naked and invincible, standing on a bronze dais.

The other two mogu hurried forward. They both dropped to a knee before him. With bowed heads, one offered a thick golden cloak trimmed in black. The other held up a golden baton of office. The mogu took the baton first, then stepped to the floor and allowed the other mogu to dress him.

Vol’jin studied the mogu’s face intensely. He assumed that were he dragged out of the grave after millennia, he might be unguarded in his first few moments as he assessed what had happened. He caught a flicker of contempt when the warlord saw Zandalari present, and pure fury at a pandaren presence.

The warlord took a step toward where Chen and Brother Cuo stood, but centuries of death had made him a bit slow. Khal’ak interposed herself between him and the prisoners. As Vol’jin stood beside her and back one step, he realized that she’d chosen their vantage point for the ceremony anticipating this eventuality.

She bowed but did not go to a knee. “Warlord Kao, I be welcoming you in the name of General Vilnak’dor. He awaits your pleasure at the Isle of Thunder, where he resides with your resurrected master.”

The mogu looked her up and down. “Killing pandaren will honor my master and will not delay us.”

Khal’ak gestured with an open hand toward Vol’jin. “But it would be spoiling the gift Shadow Hunter Vol’jin Darkspear wishes to make of these two to your master. If it be pandaren you wish to slay, I gonna arrange a hunt as we travel. But dese two be promised.”

Kao and Vol’jin exchanged glances. The warlord understood what was happening but was not prepared to deal with it at the moment. The hatred flaring in his dark eyes, however, informed Vol’jin that his part in this play of manners would not be forgiven.

The mogu warlord nodded. “I wish to kill a pandaren for every year I have been in the grave, and two for every year my master has been dead. Arrange it, troll, unless your shadow hunter has promised more of them to my master.”

Vol’jin’s eyes narrowed. “Warlord Kao, you would be slaying thousands upon thousands. Your empire fell for the want of pandaren labor. What you want may be just. The result would be tragic. Much has changed, my lord.”

Kao snorted and turned away, stalking off to where the other mogu stood with Zandalari officials.

Khal’ak cautiously exhaled. “Well played.”

“And you, for anticipating him.” Vol’jin shook his head. “He gonna demand the lives of Chen and Cuo.”

“I know. The monk I gonna likely have to give him. The mogu be hatin’ the Shado-pan to the depths of their dark souls. I gonna find another to replace Chen. To the mogu, they all be lookin’ alike anyway.”

“If he discovers the deception, you gonna be killed.”

“As you and Chen and your human gonna be.” Khal’ak smiled. “Like it or not, Vol’jin Darkspear, our fortunes now be hopelessly intertwined.”

“Which means some discomfort for me. It be unavoidable,” said Vol’jin.

Khal’ak turned to regard him as troops guided the prisoners out and loaded them back on their wagon. “Meaning?”

“Kao is angry at being defied. Your master fears me. If I be traveling to this Isle of Thunder unfettered, their feelings gonna be encouraged.” Vol’jin shrugged. “You be needing to demonstrate control over me. I be still a prisoner. I must be treated as such.”

She considered for a moment, then nodded. “Plus this gonna put you close to your friends, so you can see after dem.”

“I would be hoping any generosity that extends to me might be shared.”