World of Warcraft: War Crimes

by Christie Golden

  “This Pandaren court of justice is open. So shall it be,” Taran Zhu said. “Chu’shao, summon your first witness.”

  Tyrande nodded, rose, and walked to the witness’s seat.

  “The Accuser summons Alexstrasza the Life-Binder.”

  Jaina’s jaw dropped. This, she had not expected. Alexstrasza, whose true form was of course a dragon, did not usually display much modesty in her choice of clothing when in her humanoid guise. Today, however, she was clad in a shimmering, red-gold gown that covered her from neck to toe. Only her arms and throat were bare. She rose with quiet dignity and made her way to the chair.

  A handful of people stood up—her flight, and her sister. Then members of the other flights, and then still others, until the room was filled with the gentle thumping sounds of hundreds of booted feet hitting the floor. Nearly everyone present was standing in silent respect as the former Aspect, who had guarded, protected, and loved all life on Azeroth for millennia, reached the chair. Before she sat down, Alexstrasza tilted back her horned head and looked up at the sea of faces. A gentle smile illuminated her visage, and she placed her hand on her heart in a gesture of gratitude. Her eyes glittered with unshed tears.

  Standing beside Jaina, Kalec whispered, “Do you need this?”

  Jaina did not answer.

  Tyrande smiled warmly at Alexstrasza, making a low bow. “Life-Binder. I will endeavor to make your testimony as painless as possible.”

  “You are kind,” Alexstrasza replied. “I am grateful.”

  Tyrande took a deep breath. “This witness needs no introduction. Even the celestials know of her.”

  “With respect, I protest,” said Baine. “Unless the witness can give evidence directly against Garrosh Hellscream, I implore that she be asked to step down.”

  Tyrande said, “Fa’shua, Garrosh Hellscream received important and influential assistance from one clan in particular—the Dragonmaw clan. I wish to show you the sort of people with whom Garrosh allied himself in recent times.”

  “Fa’shua,” Baine interjected, “we all have—most of us have, anyway—kept poor company from time to time. What the Dragonmaw clan did in the past is irrelevant.”

  “Chu’shao Bloodhoof’s point is accurate,” said Taran Zhu.

  “Yes, but it is not the whole story,” Tyrande replied. “The Dragonmaw enslaved and continue to enslave and torment dragons. They did so under Garrosh’s reign, and I think this witness highly appropriate.”

  Taran Zhu nodded, satisfied. “I agree with the Accuser. You may continue your examination.”

  “Life-Binder, you and your people were kidnapped and imprisoned by the Dragonmaw at one time, correct?”

  “Yes,” Alexstrasza said. She was, Jaina thought, remarkably calm.

  “Can you tell us how this happened?”

  “The Dragonmaw had gotten ahold of the Demon Soul, an artifact that was used to control dragonkind. They followed a wounded male to our home, and used the Demon Soul to capture three of my consorts and me—though not without a fight.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Nekros, the master of the Demon Soul, ordered my flight and me to follow him to Grim Batol.”

  “What did they want with you?”

  “They wished us to serve them as mounts in their war against the Alliance. To . . . ride us into battle, and have us attack their foes.”

  “Surely, some red dragons fell in these battles. How did the Dragonmaw replace them?”

  “They took my children from me, as I laid each clutch.”

  Jaina bit her lower lip in sympathy. She did not have children, nor was she likely to. She adored her “nephew” Anduin. And she had been devastated at the death of her apprentice, Kinndy. But she knew that even those great affections were nothing compared to the parent-child bond. To be the mother of creatures that were magical, life affirming, and all but immortal, and to see them enslaved—she had no idea how Alexstrasza could bear such a thing. Glancing over at the celestials, she could see that even they, who had listened with attentive and kind detachment, were moved.

  “Forgive me for the personal nature of these questions.”

  “I understand why you ask them.”

  Tyrande looked grateful, and Jaina realized that astonishingly it was the Dragonqueen who was comforting the night elf high priestess in this moment. Jaina shook her head in wonder.

  “You said ‘each’ clutch,” Tyrande resumed. “How was it you laid more than one? Why would you willingly continue to conceive children, knowing they would be taken?”

  “I refused, at first,” Alexstrasza said. “I told them they had one clutch; I would not give them any more. Nor would my mates agree. Nekros . . . Nekros took one of my eggs, held it before my face, and crushed it between his hands. He . . . spattered me with it.”

  Her voice broke and she paused, composing herself for a moment, then continued. “I cried out in anguish—my unhatched child, murdered before my eyes, my body adorned with its gore . . . Despite the chains that bound me, I attacked the orcs, wounding several of them before they subdued me.”

  “So you did what they wanted.”

  “Not right away. I refused food, trying to die before I would produce more children for them to torture. They destroyed another egg. After that . . . I did what they wanted.” She smiled sadly. “You see, if my children lived—I had hope that they could perhaps one day be freed.”

  Jaina’s hand went to her mouth in sympathetic horror. She’d known about this brutal part of orcish history, of course, but hearing Alexstrasza tell it . . .

  In this moment, Jaina found she agreed with Kalec about the Vision of Time. Hearing the story was upsetting enough. She was grateful beyond words that Tyrande had refrained from showing it.

  “Other lives were lost too, were they not?”

  “Yes. Eventually, three of my four consorts were slain.”

  Jaina glanced over at Vereesa. The high elf sat as if she were carved out of stone. Only her quickened breathing gave away the intensity of her emotions.

  “So despite you and your consorts agreeing to these horrific demands, you were not treated with care by your captors?”

  “No. I was kept in chains. Even my jaw was in a brace, so that I could not attack them. If any of us resisted or struggled to free ourselves, they would use the Demon Soul against us. It was”—and Alexstrasza gave a faint shudder at the recollection—“unspeakably painful.”

  “Would you like to take a respite?” Tyrande asked gently.

  The Dragonqueen shook her great horned head. “I would prefer to finish and be done with the retelling,” she replied. Her mellifluous voice was strained.

  “You produced red dragons for them to use, as they demanded,” Tyrande said. “How were they so used?”

  Alexstrasza gazed down at her hands, neatly folded in her lap. “They were ridden into battle, like beasts, and their abilities were harnessed to kill members of the Alliance. Any rebellion on their part would lead to torment and possibly the deaths of their unhatched brothers and sisters.”

  “How would a red dragon, in particular, feel about being forced to perform such acts?”

  Alexstrasza lifted her head, and could not disguise the pain in her voice when she spoke. “We revere life, all life,” she said. “We abhor the taking of it. The Dragonmaw could not possibly have forced us to do anything that appalled us more.”

  Tyrande nodded, as if satisfied, and turned to face the spectators. “As leader of the Horde, Garrosh Hellscream willingly and knowingly allied with the Dragonmaw clan and their methods of obtaining mounts. You have heard what they have done to the most benevolent race on the face of our world.”

  She began to walk, counting off on her fingers as she had after Vol’jin’s testimony. “Enslavement. Torture. Forced pregnancy. The abduction of children. The killing of prisoners. Five counts are laid against Garrosh, once again, by the evidence of a single witness.”

  Tyrande spared a moment to regard Garrosh
, then turned back to Alexstrasza. “Thank you,” the night elf said. Then, to Baine, she said, “Your witness.”

  Baine rose and approached the Dragonqueen. Jaina frowned and said to Kalec, “Doesn’t it bother you that he’s going to question her after that?”

  “I wish she hadn’t had to speak at all,” he replied. “But the Life-Binder is strong, and has suffered far worse than words in a courtroom. She does what she must. So does Baine.”

  “He doesn’t have to do this,” Jaina hissed. This time, it was Kalec who did not reply. Jaina leaned forward, watching intently, propping her chin in her hands. She’d thought better of Baine. But watching him during this trial, she just couldn’t understand how he could defend Garrosh, especially when it required such cruelty. Couldn’t understand any of it.

  “Thank you, Life-Binder. I regret the necessity to cause you pain,” the tauren said. As if he means it. “I will be brief. You have suffered greatly at the hands of the Dragonmaw specifically, and the orcs in general. How do you feel about them now?”

  “I have no quarrel with any race on Azeroth,” she replied. “I am the Life-Binder, and even though most of my powers as Aspect have disappeared, my heart is still the same.”

  “Do you like them?”

  “I love them,” she said simply. Jaina froze, then slowly lifted her head from her hands. Her eyes were wide and unblinking as she stared, shocked, at the Dragonqueen.

  “Orcs?” said Baine, as if he had read Jaina’s mind. “Who did such terrible things to you? How could you possibly love them? Do you not cry out for their destruction? For the destruction, particularly, of Garrosh Hellscream, who restored them to power?”

  “Few beings are truly evil,” said Alexstrasza. “And even they are not necessarily beyond redemption. Change is inherent in life. As long as something lives, it can grow. It can seek the light, or the darkness. It is only when it chooses the darkness so completely that life itself is endangered that I would say there is no hope.”

  “As was the case with Deathwing and Malygos.”

  “Yes. To my bitter regret.”

  Tyrande was searching through documents at her table, her body taut. Now and then she glanced up, frowning slightly.

  Jaina kept staring at the red dragon. “What is she saying?” Jaina whispered sharply. “What is she doing?”

  “With respect, I protest!” shouted Tyrande. Jaina, relieved, closed her eyes.

  “Yes, Chu’shao?” asked Taran Zhu.

  “I call for a respite!”

  “On what grounds?”

  “The witness is clearly distraught by these questions!”

  Taran Zhu blinked, then looked down at Alexstrasza. “Life-Binder, do you need a respite?”

  “No, Fa’shua. It was painful to recount what happened, but I am well enough.”

  “Request denied. Continue, Chu’shao Bloodhoof.”

  “Thank you.” The tauren inclined his head, then turned to regard Alexstrasza. “I have a final question. If one of the selfsame orcs who so tormented you, who killed your children while they were still in the shell, were to come to you today and ask your forgiveness . . . what would you do?”

  The great Life-Binder’s smile was small at first, but it grew. Alexstrasza looked over to where Go’el and his family were seated, and held his gaze. When she spoke at last, a light seemed to shine from her, so bright was her spirit.

  “I would forgive him, of course.” She said it to Baine as if he were a child, as if it were a simple, obvious answer.

  There were no further questions.

  23

  When Taran Zhu struck the gong and announced that court was over for the day, Anduin immediately turned to his father. “I’m going to go see Garrosh now,” he said. “I’ll probably miss dinner.” Usually, he had a meal with his father and often Jaina, Kalec, and Vereesa at Violet Rise, and then excused himself to return to do . . . whatever he was doing with Garrosh. He wasn’t sure if it was talking with, listening to, guiding spiritually, or simply being a verbal training dummy for the orc. Sometimes all four. Right now, he wished there was a fifth thing he could be doing—shaking some sense into Garrosh’s thick skull.

  Varian nodded. “Thought you might want to do that,” he said. “There’ll be something left.”

  “It’s all right. I’ll have some of Mi Shao’s dumplings.”

  “Wait, what?” Jaina said. “Garrosh? Anduin, what are you doing with Garrosh?” She looked both angry and alarmed.

  “I’ll explain it over dinner,” Varian told Jaina. “Go on, Son.”

  Anduin jumped down lithely over a row of seats and hastened to the stairs. Behind him he heard Jaina saying, “Varian, what’s going on?”

  Anduin winced. He’d been so intent on getting to Garrosh, he’d forgotten about Jaina’s presence. He’d deliberately not told Jaina about his meetings with Garrosh. Few knew, and he liked it that way precisely because of the sort of reaction he was getting from Jaina. Everyone seemed to think they had a say in what he chose to do and with whom he interacted, and he was growing very weary of it. Right now, though, that took second place to his need to see Hellscream.

  He hurried down the hall to the doors that led to Garrosh’s cell. “The prince is swifter than the prisoner today,” Li Chu said as Anduin arrived. “He is still on his way.”

  “I’ll wait.” Anduin stepped to the side of the corridor and leaned against the wall, his arms folded tightly across his chest. He tried to force himself to relax, had a brief moment of dark humor at the absurdity of that particular task, and simply stood there.

  Garrosh arrived a few moments later, favoring his bad leg, his approach heralded by the clinking and dragging of the chains that bound him. He was accompanied by Yu Fei and the six guards always assigned to him whenever he left the cell. Anduin saw a flicker of surprise on the brown face, quickly quelled. The Chu brothers opened the door. Yu Fei entered first, beckoning to Anduin to follow her. They descended the ramp and stepped to the rear of the room to stand quietly as Garrosh clanked up to the open cell door. Two of the guards unlocked all his chains save the ones about his ankles, while the other four and the Chus stood by, watching the orc’s every move. Garrosh went to the furs and sat down while the door was closed and locked. Yu Fei stepped up and murmured an incantation, waving her paws in a delicate motion. The windows began to glow a soft purple.

  “What does that do, specifically?” Obviously it was an extra security precaution, but Anduin realized he didn’t know exactly how it worked.

  “It is a one-way barrier,” Yu Fei answered. “The guards can reach in should it be required, but Garrosh cannot reach out.”

  “Smart,” said Anduin, and Yu Fei colored slightly and bowed.

  “You honor me,” she said, eyes downcast, and scurried out. Briefly, Anduin wondered at her odd behavior, but was much more interested in having words with the orc. Li and Lo nodded to the prince, then closed and locked the outer door, as per Anduin’s request to be alone with the prisoner.

  Anduin didn’t move at first. He simply glared at the orc, who seemed amused at his obvious anger.

  “Speak, Prince Anduin, or you shall burst,” Garrosh said. “And I have no desire to be blamed for the mess.”

  “How could you do that? How could you do any of this?” The words tumbled from Anduin’s lips, and as if the act of speaking had given him the ability to move once more, he strode forward and stood less than a foot away from Garrosh’s cell bars. “You’re not crazy. You’re not without feelings. So tell me—how can you do this?”

  Garrosh was enjoying himself as he leaned back on his sleeping furs, the chains jingling with the gesture. “Do what?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. Allying with the Dragonmaw!”

  “For all your piety, you are very quick to judge,” Garrosh said. “Tyrande played a fine card today; I will give her that. Alexstrasza certainly made more than one eye grow moist with her tale.”

  “Tale? Is that all it was to yo
u?”

  Garrosh shrugged. “It is history now, and wringing my hands over it will accomplish nothing.”

  “Any more than would others wringing their hands over you?” Anduin shot back.

  “Exactly. I do not need your sympathy, human.”

  “So why did you want to talk to me? Me, a priest, someone you tried to kill?”

  Garrosh was silent.

  “She’s the Life-Binder, Garrosh. She’s—she’s the kindest thing in this world. And your people did that to her.”

  Garrosh’s eyes brightened. “Aha, so the truth comes out. You are just like Jaina, aren’t you? You secretly think us all monsters.”

  Anduin made a strangled noise and turned away in frustration. The orc laughed. “You are all alike.”

  The prince snorted. “Sure we are. Just as you are like Go’el and Saurfang and Eitrigg.”

  Garrosh grunted and looked away. “They have forgotten or, in Go’el’s case, never known the true glory of the Horde.”

  “Oh yes, there’s an awful lot of glory in smashing eggs.”

  “There is glory in bending a dragon to your will!”

  “So, you do think that torturing the protector of life is a fine thing to do.”

  “I did not kidnap Alexstrasza!”

  “No, but you’re in neck-deep with those who did. With those who still enslave dragons. Because there’s ‘glory in bending a dragon to your will,’ isn’t there?” He stepped closer. “What is your vision for the Horde, Garrosh? Because all this world has seen of it is needless violence, torment, and the betrayal of friends.”

  “My Horde would crush its enemies as a giant crushes an insect!” Now Garrosh was on his feet, shoving his face so close that Anduin could feel hot puffs of angry breath on his cheeks. But Garrosh did not touch the bars.

  “And what happens when this Horde you envision crushes all the insects that are bothering you? What happens then? What are you going to do when you run out of enemies? Turn on yourselves? Oh, wait, you’ve done that already, haven’t you?”

  They stared at one another for a long moment; then Anduin sighed. The fury had bled out of him, and all that was left was sorrow. Sorrow, and sickness at the ruination Garrosh Hellscream had left in his wake—not the least of which was Garrosh himself.