Michael Stackpole - Vol'jin - Shadows of the Horde

Since he lacked the disguise to play to that set of expectations, he suited himself to another. Damp with swamp muck to the waist, and with his uniform sleeves already crusting with blood, he hunched his shoulders and let his right leg drag a bit, as if the hip had once broken and healed poorly. He pulled his leather cap slightly askew, then tilted his head back in the other direction.

He made his way along the docks, hurrying and purposeful—the urgency wasn’t his own, it would seem. And the guard at the gangway to the ship barely gave him a glance.

Not so the Zandalari officer on the upper gun deck. “What be you doin’?”

“My master be wantin’ a bilge rat. Not too fat, not too skinny. White if I can find it. White one be makin’ for da best eating, you know.”

“A bilge rat? Who be your master?”

“Who knows a witch doctor’s mind? One time I be gettin’ kicked awake because he be wantin’ three silent crickets.” Vol’jin ducked his head and hunched his shoulders as if ready to take a beating. “Those be not good eatin’, da noisy kind or silent. Rats, though, some be liking to skin dem first, but I don’t. You just get a stick and be shovin’ it right up through—”

“Yes, yes, fascinatin’, of course.” The Zandalari looked as if he’d already eaten his fill of rat and hadn’t found it agreeable. “Get on with it, den.”

Vol’jin ducked his head again. “Thank you, boss. Won’t be no trouble to catch you a plump one.”

“No, just be hurrying.”

The Darkspear went into the ship’s depths. Two decks down he straightened up and headed directly for the magazine. One sailor sat on watch at the door, but the ship’s gentle rising and falling with the swells had lulled him to sleep. Vol’jin grabbed his chin and skullcap, then twisted sharply. The troll’s neck snapped wetly but quietly. He found the magazine key on the dead sailor, which saved his having to go back up on deck to kill the officer on watch to retrieve it, and unlocked the hatch.

Vol’jin deposited the body inside the magazine. He set aside four sacks of gunpowder, each sufficient to load a cannon, then stove in the lid of a barrel with his elbow. He tipped the barrel over toward the hatch, then picked up the bags and closed the hatch again. The hatch’s lower edge leveled the black powder to a height of a half inch out onto the deck. Vol’jin then used two of the sacks to lay a line of powder along the bulkhead, hiding it in the shadows there, and around to the aft cabin.

There he laid a trail to the middle of the floor and poured out the other two sacks in a great pile. The cabin, which apparently served as the ship’s hospital, had two oil lamps hanging on chains from the deck above. Vol’jin lit both, then turned their wicks up and spread the gunpowder beneath them.

He barred the door, surveyed his handiwork, and smiled. Then he opened the aft window and slipped out. He let himself hang from his hands so his feet dangled only ten feet above the dark water. He pointed his toes and let go. He plunged straight down with very little splash, then pushed off from the hull and swam underwater toward where he hoped Chen had his fishing boat.

He surfaced halfway there and reached the boat quickly enough. Chen and Tyrathan hauled him aboard. He lay in the bottom of the boat and pointed back. “You see those two lights?”

Tyrathan nocked an arrow, smiling. “Jihui. The fireship.” He drew and released.

The arrow disappeared in the fading night. Though he trusted Tyrathan, Vol’jin did have a moment of doubt. Then he heard something break. He assumed it was a pane of glass as the arrow passed through. Tyrathan maintained Vol’jin was imagining things, since his shot went through the open window.

Liquid fire splashed through the distant cabin. Light flared brilliantly, and thick smoke billowed as the gunpowder flashed in a muffled thump. Vol’jin could imagine the officer of the watch turning, seeing the smoke rising. He’d either raise the alarm or leap from the ship—and certainly give no thought to a ratcatcher below, or his fellow crew trolls.

Then the magazine blew. That first barrel’s spilled contents had ignited. Flames jetted beneath planks, popping one or two here and there. Then bagged charges went, and they lit off the other barrels. Explosions cascaded, building in brilliance and speed until they merged into one massive roar that blew out the starboard hull.

The ship rolled violently toward the dock, crushing it. Pilings stove through the hull. Explosions continued, working forward, blasting lids off gunports. One cannon was actually blown through the breached hull, dropping onto and through the dock.

And, in Vol’jin’s imagination, crushing the fleeing watch officer.

Then a thunderous explosion shot a pillar of fire into the air, utterly destroying the ship. The masts became black silhouettes, jetting high through the flames. They reached for the stars, then tumbled back down. One stabbed through a second ship, punching through the hull. Another splintered a dock.

Cannons whirled through the air, guns separating from carriages. One flew to the shore, spinning wildly. It bounced through two trolls, then collapsed a warehouse façade.

Wooden debris, much of it burning, sprayed out. It rained over other ships and roofs of distant warehouses. The embers mirrored the scattering of stars in the sky. Flames flickered and coals glowed, silhouetting trolls and mogu running in panic.

A wave washed out from where the bow and stern of the ship slowly sank, propelling their small boat toward the ocean. Chen got both paws on the tiller and steered clear of fiery debris, while Tyrathan and Vol’jin wrestled a triangle of canvas up the mast.

The troll smiled as they headed for where Cuo awaited them. “Nice shooting there.”

“One arrow, a ship killed and a harbor wounded.” The man shook his head. “Just as well Tyrathan Khort is dead. That’s so tall a tale, no one would believe it no matter who told it.”

Khal’ak would have pitied the Gurubashi kneeling before Vilnak’dor in a puddle of his own blubberings, but his explanation became even more pathetic with the second telling. Dat, and the fact that a Darkspear humiliated him. The troll looked up at the Zandalari general, tear-brimming eyes begging for mercy.

“Then they be wakin’ me up by dumping a bucket of water over me, my lord. And dis troll, he be grabbing my chin, and he gave me the message for you. His face, fierce by the light of the burning ships, it was. He be sayin’ he be a shadow hunter and took responsibility for all this. And dat with his man and the Shado-pan, he’d guarantee even more ruin if we be invading. Then he did dis!”

The Gurubashi pulled back the lock of auburn hair that had fallen over his forehead. A crude spear-shaped scar had been carved into the troll’s flesh. “Said it be so no one would forget the Darkspears.”

Vilnak’dor kicked the troll full in the stomach, then looked over at Khal’ak. “Dis be your fault, Khal’ak. All your fault. You be letting him deceive you.”

She brought her chin up. “He did nothing of the sort, my lord. We had Vol’jin, had his head and heart, until Warlord Kao here undercut my authority.”

The mogu warlord, who had stood silent during the gasping troll’s recitation, idly inspected a talon. “He was in league with the Shado-pan. He could never have been trusted.”

She suppressed a snarl. “He gonna be dealt with.”

“As he dealt with your officers and your ship?”

On an island where your master can raise buildings through dreams, and he never be noticin’ Vol’jin’s escape? She hesitated for a moment, wondering if the Thunder King had noticed and just decided to say nothing. Possible. Foolish. Foolish enough to seem brilliant, maybe.