“So it’s all on my shoulders,” Anduin said. “You’re really not giving me much of a choice, are you?”
“You don’t have to do this,” Varian said. “You know I’d rather you didn’t. I think you’ve been through enough.”
“Then why didn’t you just say no, Father?”
“Because you’re of an age to decide for yourself—and it’s got to be your choice,” Varian said. “As much as I wish it weren’t. I had to bring you the option. You can see Garrosh, or never have to see him again, if you’d like.”
That surprised Anduin, and he gave his father a small, grateful smile. He thought for a moment, trying to calm the flood of conflicting emotions.
He thought again of the bell’s pieces crashing down on his vulnerable body, of the hate on Hellscream’s face, and his bones ached in response. To never again see Garrosh, to sidestep a deliberate invitation to pain—oh, that was alluring. Garrosh had done nothing at any point to indicate anything but contempt and loathing toward Anduin, and there had been ample opportunities. The prince owed him nothing. He’d already spoken more kindly of the former warchief than anyone had any right to expect. He’d done enough to help save the life of someone who had been all too eager to take his.
And yet . . .
Anduin recalled Garrosh’s reaction when he thought the prince dead. Not gleeful or gloating, as one might suspect, but contemplative. And the weariness in Garrosh’s posture right here in the courtroom.
What had Garrosh been contemplating at those moments? What emotions was he experiencing, to reach out to a priest? Might he be feeling remorse?
The ache in his bones receded slightly, and Anduin arrived at a decision. He looked at the faces of those assembled, each one a different race and in a different relationship to him—his human father, a night elven heroine, a pandaren guardian, and Baine . . . tauren friend. Unexpected by anyone’s reckoning, never spoken of—but true.
“Someone in trouble has asked me to speak with him. How, Father, could I say no, and still stand in the Light?”
• • •
Varian at first had insisted on accompanying his son, but Anduin, keeping his hope to himself, had refused. He also demanded that any guards present come no closer than the entryway, so that his conversation with Garrosh would remain private. Varian had argued against that for almost a solid hour, but to no avail. “I am being called upon as a priest in this,” Anduin had said. “He must be able to speak freely to me, and know that what he says, I will keep in confidence.”
With little graciousness, Varian finally conceded. He looked at Taran Zhu, Tyrande, and Baine in turn. “If any harm comes to Anduin, I will hold you all responsible. And I will then kill Garrosh myself, regardless of the repercussions, and damn these proceedings.”
“Rest assured, King Varian, it is physically impossible for Garrosh to attack Anduin. Your son is completely safe, and I would not say it if it were not so,” Taran Zhu replied.
Now Anduin stood outside the sectioned-off area below the temple. Two of Garrosh’s guards, the Shado-pan monks Li Chu and Lo Chu, awaited him, flanking the door.
They bowed. “Welcome, honored prince,” Li Chu said. “You show courage in facing your enemy.”
Anduin’s stomach was in knots, and he was relieved when his voice didn’t betray his apprehension. “He is not my enemy,” he said. “Not here, not now.”
Lo Chu smiled slowly. “To understand that is to demonstrate that you are wise as well as brave. Know that we will be at the entry at all times, and will come the instant you call for us.”
“Thank you,” Anduin replied. Velen had taught him how to calm the spirit when agitated, and now he followed that advice, inhaling slowly for a count of five, holding the breath for a heartbeat, then exhaling to the same count. “All things will be well,” Velen advised. “All nights end, and all storms clear. The only storms that last are those within your own soul.”
It worked . . . at least until he stood before Garrosh’s cell.
The cell itself was cramped. There was room only for sleeping furs, a chamber pot, and a basin. Garrosh was unable to walk more than a pace or two in any direction, and even his limited amount of movement was defined by chains linking his ankles. The bars were thicker than Anduin’s whole body, and the octagonal openings were sealed with a soft purple radiance. Taran Zhu had spoken truly. Garrosh Hellscream was imprisoned both physically and magically.
Anduin noticed all this only peripherally. His eyes went at once to those of the orc, who sat upright on the furs. The prince did not know what to expect—anger, pleading, mockery. But none of those were present. On Garrosh’s face was the same pensive expression Anduin had seen immediately after Garrosh had “killed” him.
“Please do not touch the bars,” Lo Chu instructed. “You may stay for up to an hour, if you wish. Of course, if you desire to leave sooner, simply let us know.” He indicated a chair and a small table, upon which sat a pitcher of water and an empty glass.
Anduin cleared his throat. “Thank you. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
Garrosh did not even appear to notice the guards, so intent was he on Anduin. The brothers, as they had promised, retreated to the far back of the room. Anduin’s mouth went dry. He sat and poured himself some water to ease the desert in his throat, and took a deliberate, unhurried sip.
“Are you afraid?”
“What?” The water splashed. Anduin’s bones suddenly ached.
“Are you afraid?” Garrosh repeated. The question was casually posed, as if the orc were simply making conversation. Anduin knew it for a verbal grenade. To either answer truthfully or lie would blow open a door to things Anduin had no desire to discuss.
“There’s no reason to be. You are restrained by chains and enchanted prison bars. You’re quite unable to attack me.”
“Concern for one’s physical safety is only one reason to fear. There are others. I ask again: are you afraid?”
“Look,” said Anduin, ardently placing the glass on the table, “I came here because you asked me to. Because Baine said that I was the only person you agreed to talk to about . . . well, about whatever it is you want to talk about.”
“Maybe your fear is what I want to talk about.”
“If that’s so, then we are both wasting our time.” He rose and went for the door.
“Stop.”
Anduin paused, his back to Garrosh. He was angry with himself. His palms were damp and it took every effort he could summon to refrain from shaking outright. He would not let Garrosh see fear in him.
“Why should I?”
“Because . . . you are the only person I wish to talk to.”
The prince closed his eyes. He could leave, right this minute. Garrosh was almost certainly going to play games with him. Perhaps trick him into saying something he shouldn’t. But what, possibly, could that be? What could Garrosh want to know? And Anduin realized that, afraid on some level though he might be, he didn’t really want to go. Not yet.
He took a deep breath and turned around. “Then start talking.”
Garrosh pointed at the chair. Anduin shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then took the seat with deliberate, casual movements. He lifted his eyebrows, indicating he was waiting.
“You said you believed I could change,” Garrosh said. “What in this world or any other could make you think that, after what I have done?”
Again, no real emotion, only curiosity. Anduin started to answer, but hesitated. What would Jaina . . . no. Jaina was no longer the sort of diplomat he wished to emulate. He felt a flicker of amusement when he realized that for all his threats of murdering Garrosh, Varian had now become more of a role model for Anduin than Jaina was. The realization was both sad, for he loved Jaina, and sweet, for he loved his father.
“Tell you what. We’ll take turns.”
An odd smile curved Garrosh’s mouth. “We have a bargain. You’re a better negotiator than I expected.”
Anduin let out a
short bark of laughter. “Thanks, I think.”
The orc’s smile widened. “You go first.”
The first point goes to Garrosh, Anduin mused. “Very well. I believe you can change because nothing ever stays the same. You were overthrown as warchief of the Horde because the people you led changed from following your orders to questioning them, and finally rejecting them. You’ve changed from warchief to prisoner. You can change again.”
Garrosh laughed without humor. “From living to dead, you mean.”
“That’s one way of doing it. But it’s not the only one. You can look at what you’ve done. Watch and listen and really try to understand the pain and damage you’ve caused, and decide that you won’t continue down that path if given another chance.”
Garrosh stiffened. “I cannot change into a human,” he growled.
“No one expects or wants that,” Anduin answered. “But orcs can change. You better than anyone should know that.”
Garrosh was silent. He looked away for a moment, pensive. Anduin resisted the impulse to cross his arms, instead forcing his body posture to seem relaxed, and waited. A bright-eyed, coarse-furred rat poked its head out from under the sleeping furs. Its nose twitched, and then it ducked back out of sight. The warchief of the Horde once . . . and now his cellmate is a rat.
“Do you believe in destiny, Anduin Wrynn?”
For the second time Anduin was blindsided. What was going on inside Garrosh’s head?
“I—I’m not sure,” he stammered, his carefully maintained image of coolness dissolving immediately. “I mean—I know there are prophecies. But I think we all have choices too.”
“Did you choose the Light? Or did it choose you?”
“I—I don’t know.” Anduin realized he had never asked himself that question. He recalled the first time he considered becoming a priest, and had felt a tug in his soul. He craved the peace the Light offered, but he didn’t know if it had called him, or if he had set out in pursuit of it.
“Could you choose to deny the Light?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Any number of reasons. There was another golden-haired, beloved human prince once. He was a paladin, and yet he turned his back on the Light.”
Outrage and offense chased away Anduin’s discomfort. Blood suffused his face and he snapped, “I am not Arthas!”
Garrosh smiled oddly. “No, you are not,” he agreed. “But maybe . . . I am.”
14
The Ghostlands, it was called now. Once, the Windrunner family called it home. Vereesa had been invited back a single time before by Halduron Brightwing, to fight their mutual, ancient enemy, the Amani. It had made her soul-sick then, and did so again now. As she flew her hippogryph over the Thalassian Pass, her stomach muscles contracted and her palms grew slippery on the reins.
The Dead Scar. Twining its way through a once-beautiful land, leaving a trail like a slug where hundreds of undead feet had trod. No one knew if it would ever recover. It penetrated Tranquillien, aptly named no longer, dividing the Sanctums of the Moon and of the Sun, on into Eversong Woods and through Silvermoon, cleaving that wondrous city of song and story as well. Even from this height, she could see the legacy of the Lich King, dead things still shuffling, still killing.
Dead, but not dead. Like my sister.
No. Not like Sylvanas. She and her people had their own wills, their own minds. They could choose what they would and would not do. Whom they would and would not kill. And that ability was what had brought Vereesa back to the place of her childhood, where she had never thought to return.
Her eyes were dry, her senses dull with the constant press of pain that had begun with word of Rhonin’s death and had not ever truly eased. She steered her mount to the west, and could not help but wonder if Sylvanas was enjoying the thought of Vereesa returning to Windrunner Spire.
Seeing it again brought a wave of fresh pain, new and sharp and adding fuel to her hatred. Orcs had not done this to her home, but orcs had taken enough from her—first her brother, Lirath, and then Rhonin, her great light. They desired to raze Quel’Thalas as thoroughly as Arthas later had.
As she drew closer, Vereesa’s lip curled in a snarl. The spire—her family’s spire—was crawling with walking corpses and transparent spirits.
Banshees.
The spirits drifted, seemingly as without aim in death as they had been full of purpose in life. Speckled in among them were hooded figures in red and black robes. Vereesa knew who they had to be. They were the human followers of the Deatholme cult that had sprung up after Arthas’s incursion, using Windrunner Spire for some obscene and violent purpose.
Using my home.
Vereesa let out a wordless shriek, and all the impotent anger that had raged inside her since Garrosh’s defeat surged forward at this welcome outlet. She nocked and let fly arrow after arrow. The first one caught the acolyte in the eye. The second and third pierced throats before the victims even registered what was happening. The fourth target turned a shocked face up to Vereesa, and his fingers flexed as he reached for a weapon; then he too was dead. Leaping off her hippogryph before it even had a chance to land, she attacked the fallen rangers, swinging a sword that glowed as it sliced through incorporeal flesh, sending them to oblivion and presumably peace, with more rage than pity. Vereesa winced as a banshee’s howl shuddered through her body, but it only slowed her an instant before the specter’s terrifying scream was forever silenced. The high elf added her own screams to the cacophony, jumbled phrases that said nothing but spoke bitterly of poisonous anger and pain.
Two more acolytes had the misfortune of being too slow in their spells. Vereesa charged them, slicing the head off of one and following through to bring the sword carving across the chest of another. As he fell, blood spurting, she thrust the sword down through his belly.
She caught her breath, yanking the sword free, looking about for any more enemies, living or undead, that might be converging on the spire. Vereesa was unconcerned about being recognized. Few enough living beings ventured out here anymore. A hooded cape was sufficient disguise if an intrepid blood elf dared approach the deserted place, and any acolyte that saw her would not live to report back.
The minutes crawled past. From time to time Vereesa heard again soft, mindless moans and sighs. She fought her adversaries back when their meandering brought them onto Windrunner property, ruined though it was. Mist, clammy and cold, clung to her skin. She began to pace back and forth, wondering if this was all some kind of cruel trick on Sylvanas’s part.
Her sharp ears caught the faintest of sounds behind her and she whirled, bow ready, arrow nocked. Before she could let the missile fly, there was a splintering of her arrow’s shaft, and the string twanged.
The archer, clad in black leather, had shot Vereesa’s arrow right out of the bow.
The newcomer brushed her hood back. Glowing red eyes pierced the haze, and black lips twisted in a sardonic grin.
“Have a care, Sister,” Sylvanas said, lowering her weapon. “I do not think you want to kill this banshee.”
• • •
They walked along the gray sand, the sound of the waves easier to bear than the sighs and laments of the dead, though not by much. Sylvanas thought the place full of ghosts, not only literal, but those of a family that once picnicked here.
“We are all that is left,” Vereesa said, as if reading her thoughts. Sylvanas smiled a little. As the two middle children, they had always had a bond that set them apart from Alleria, the eldest, and Lirath, their only brother.
“A diplomatic choice of words,” she said.
Vereesa had come to a halt, peering out across the North Sea. “First Lirath, murdered by the orcs. Then Alleria, vanished in Outland. Why did you pick this place, Sylvanas?”
“Why do you think, little sister?”
“To wound me. You chose a rendezvous site where the dead feel at home. Where the living are not welcome.” Then she amended, “Unless they have evil
intentions.”
Sylvanas stiffened. “To wound you? Arrogant child!” She laughed without humor. “Did you not notice who clustered about you, sobbing and shrieking for their lives back? Those were my rangers! I died here!”
Vereesa winced. “I—I am sorry. I thought . . . you were used to . . . well . . .”
“Being the ‘Banshee Queen’? The ‘Dark Lady’?” Sylvanas spoke in an exaggerated tone. “It is better than rotting. At least now I have a say in what happens in the world.”
“We have less of a say than we could have hoped,” Vereesa said. She picked up a rock and threw it into the ocean, where it immediately vanished. “I do not know who you are now. You are not she who was my beloved sister.”
I am . . . and I am not, Sylvanas thought, but said nothing.
“But you and I agree on one thing.” Vereesa turned, her face flushed and her eyes blazing. “Garrosh Hellscream must die for what he has done. And it seems as though you, like me, do not trust the celestials to reach that same decision, or else you would not have come.”
“I cannot disagree with you on any of those counts. And it was brave of you to attempt to contact me—especially if, as you have said, you do not know who I am now.” Brave, and a bit reckless. Had the locket been intercepted, Vereesa would have been branded a traitor.
“I took a risk. It seemed worth it. I hope it was.”
“You did not do so simply to have me sympathize with how wretched a creature Garrosh Hellscream is,” Sylvanas said, folding her arms. “You must have a plan.”
“I—well, not yet.”
Sylvanas arched a brow, and began to calculate how long it would take to kill Vereesa.
“I wanted to tell you that we are not alone,” said Vereesa. “There are others who think exactly as we do, and who would either actively help us or not stand in our way if we attempted to . . . to murder Garrosh.”
“People complain and grumble, Sister, but few are willing to act. These allies you speak of will evaporate if they get a whiff of any danger to their persons or their reputations.”
World of Warcraft: War Crimes Page 13
