Christie Golden - Warcraft - Official Movie Novelization

Llane looked around for Garona. She had just dragged a broadsword through the thick green torso of an orc. He had lost track of how many he had watched her kill. “Garona!” he shouted. “Ride with me!”

Without hesitating, she raced toward him and sprang up behind him on the horse. They set off at a mad gallop for the portal, now a symbol of hope rather than despair. They fought their way through, but it was easier than they had expected. The orcs had been shocked when the portal had been redirected, and the soldiers had rallied. Llane and Garona passed dozens of cages, some of which were already being hacked open.

“Varis! Set the men in a perimeter. Garona, Karos, take as many as we can spare to free the prisoners. Send them through! We will hold the line as long as we can!”

Khadgar’s eyes widened. He stumbled over to where the Guardian lay, his body trapped and partially crushed beneath the massive weight of his clay man. His eyes glowed blue, the color of mage’s magic, not warlock’s. And as Khadgar watched, a radiant, sky-blue tear trickled down Medivh’s face.

When Khadgar spoke, his own voice was thick. “You’re redirecting the portal to Stormwind!” Medivh blinked. The blank eyes refocused, retrained themselves on Khadgar’s face. He reached up a hand feebly to Khadgar, then let it fall.

“It’s the loneliness that makes us weak, Khadgar,” he said in a voice tinged with regret. As Alodi had told Khadgar, the boy recalled. Something so simple, so human, had destroyed a Guardian, and nearly the whole world along with him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I wanted to save us all. I always did.”

His eyes unfocused, and he was still.

The ocean of orcs was closing in, but Llane still felt confident. While he could have wished that the Guardian had redirected the portal sooner, he was nonetheless profoundly grateful. He and the remnants of the three legions had fought their way to the gate. While Llane, Garona, Varis and a line of Stormwind’s finest knights continued to stave off the waves of the enemy as best they could, Karos and others had freed the human prisoners and were protecting them as they fled through the gates to safety.

But the orcs kept coming. Sweet Light , Llane thought, still almost dizzy with relief at the turn of the tide, we would have had no chance at all had Gul’dan brought in the rest of the Horde. Humanity might not have survived.

“My lord, we must retreat!” The cry came from Varis. The man was as brave as they came, but he was right. The orcs were starting to win this fight here, at the base of the portal. More and more of his soldiers were falling; more and more huge brown and green-skinned orcs were shouldering each other aside, eager to fill the void.

“We should leave,” Garona agreed.

“Shortly,” Llane said. “There are only a few more cages left. We’ll save as many of our people as we can first.”

“My lord,” Varis said again, “I do not think—”

From behind Llane, a cry of horror and fear arose. He turned in his saddle, and felt the blood drain from his face.

The blue light that outlined the center of the portal, and the sight of Stormwind within it, was sputtering. Before Llane’s shocked gaze, the image of his city melted like wax, as if it had never been. All that was visible now in the center of the portal was the desiccation that had once been the Black Morass—and the group of orcs that had run around the gate’s back.

The gate had closed.

The orcs had seen it, too. And they roared as well, but with bloodlust and a hunger that would soon be sated. Llane was reeling. What had happened? Why had Medivh stopped? Then he knew.

“We’ve lost the Guardian,” he murmured.

He looked out over the sea of orcs, then at his comrades. They all bore the same shocked, stunned expressions. They had been so close…

It did not matter. “We’ve done what we came to do,” he said to them, looking at each in turn. An odd peace settled upon him. “No one could do more. All is as the Light wills it, my brothers and sisters.”

He turned to look at Garona, and gave her a smile. Expressions warred on her beautiful green face. She had wanted victory, of course. They all had. In the end, a victory would have saved the orcs as much as it would have saved the humans, but that could not be helped, not now.

Or could it?

An idea, wonderful and terrible, began to blossom in his mind. Llane turned his attention to his enemy. Fighting was still going on at the ends of the line of defenders, but here, in the center, things had, oddly, lessened. Now, Llane saw why.

Blackhand was coming.

He stood head and shoulders above the tallest of the orcs, his skin boldly green, his muscles bulging and powerful and veined. Was it blood that pumped through his veins, Llane wondered, or green fire? No matter. Blackhand was coming, shoving aside orcs and humans alike who blocked his path, and he was coming for Llane.

“Garona,” Llane said, and was surprised at how calm, how certain, he sounded, “we’re outnumbered. We can’t retreat. We’re going to fall. But you don’t have to. No good will come from us both dying.” Slowly, with hands that trembled, he removed his helm and let it fall to the earth. The cool rush of air on his face and sweat-soaked hair felt good.

Her jaw set. “I will die with you. I have chosen my side.”

“You don’t understand.” He turned his full attention upon her, his dark eyes boring into hers. “Your killing me is the only hope we have for peace. You once told Lady Taria that killing her would bring you honor. Killing me would make you a hero.”

Her eyes flew wide in comprehension. “No!” Garona spat.

The very thought of such betrayal was wounding her. Llane saw it. But he would have asked this same favor of Lothar, had the position been the same. Even of Taria.

“You were a slave,” he continued mercilessly. “You could be a leader. I’m not leaving here alive, Garona. That thing is going to kill me. But if you did so first—if you could claim killing the human’s warchief … You know us, Garona. You know us—and you care for us.”

He reached for her hand that clutched the small knife Taria had given her, grasping her wrist. “Survive. Bring peace between orcs and humans. He paused. “I can’t save my people, not now. But you can.”

“By slaying the king, my friend.” She was angry, insulted… hurt.

“You must.”

It was blunt, and it was true, and it was very orcish of him to say it. Llane knew that; knew that if she had learned to see the good in humans, he and others had learned to see the good in orcs. But Lothar, Khadgar… Taria… they would not know, not at first, about this dreadful bargain. About a possible future for humanity bought with the blood of a king. Garona knew this, too. She would be throwing away true acceptance for false honor.

Llane saw in her eyes that she could not do it. He felt a surge of despair and turned away. The battle still raged. His people were still dying. And the monstrous thing that had once been an orc lumbered inexorably toward him, his eyes glowing green with fel energy.

Llane didn’t want to die. He wanted to live, to be with his wife and children, celebrate weddings, and births, to drink a pint with Lothar and Medivh, to see harmony in his realm. To discover how beautiful his Taria would look with laugh lines and the white hair of wisdom.

But Death was coming, and he would meet it bravely. It was all that was left to him. He drew his sword and stood facing the orc they called Blackhand.

It was then that he felt the touch against his bare throat. Cool fingers, their brush feather-light, the calluses of years scratching gently at his skin. Almost tenderly, those fingers slipped under his chin and tilted his head back.