World of Warcraft: Vol'jin: Shadows of the Horde

by Michael A. Stackpole

  “This be a very difficult decision you’ve made.”

  “I question it every day, but I will not turn back.” Tyrathan’s green eyes narrowed. “Why this line of questioning?”

  “I, too, have a very difficult decision to be making. Similar to yours but of a bit greater magnitude.” The troll sighed heavily. “No matter my choice, nations gonna bleed and people gonna die.”

  • • •

  Proving themselves to be better friends than he felt he deserved, Vol’jin’s three companions contented themselves with the knowledge that he would share more with them when he was ready to do so. They trust me to make the right decision. I gonna. And I gonna bear the consequences. But they are not mine alone to bear.

  The Zandalari crew took some delight in tormenting Vol’jin, but within limits. They served decent food for the four prisoners, coming out of the same pot, but they served the two pandaren and the man first. Vol’jin got the leavings, which were not much, burned to the bottom of the pot and cold by the time he ate. If his companions balked, no one would eat, so Vol’jin encouraged them to get their fill.

  Likewise, they were taken up on deck for some fresh air at noon, whereas he was placed at the bow before dawn and the ship turned so crashing waves would soak him. Vol’jin endured the water and bitterly cold winds without complaint, secretly pleased that the time he’d taken to become accustomed to the chilliness in the monastery served him well.

  It helped more that while he stood there, the Zandalari themselves retreated to warmer and drier places.

  • • •

  Vol’jin chanced to be on deck when the ship arrived at the Isle of Thunder. The harbor facilities looked newer than anything else and bore signs of Zandalari construction. To the left, crews appeared to be moving gunpowder and other supplies to warehouses. He couldn’t tell if the low buildings were full or empty, but even half-full they would keep an army in good supply for a long time. He suspected, since they were arriving with Warlord Kao, that supplies just being off-loaded would soon be reloaded, preparatory to a trip to Zouchin.

  Once their ship had docked, the four prisoners were hustled down the gangway and into a cart drawn by oxen. It was really little more than a hay rig, but sailcloth had been used to shroud it, so the prisoners lay together in close darkness. The canvas had a few worn spots that were enlarged into holes with a thumb. Vol’jin and the others studied the island as the wagon made its way along roads paved with more broken stones than whole.

  To his frustration, Vol’jin could see far too little, which conveyed far too much. Given that he’d been on deck when they arrived, it should have been midmorning. Instead, it seemed an hour past midnight, with the only useful illumination coming through lightning flashes. The lightning revealed a soggy, swampy landscape in which every patch of dry ground featured a troop tent or pavilion. He could read some of the standards as they traveled and found them more varied than he liked.

  It could have been that the Zandalari had arranged a charade by putting so many tents along the route for their wagon, but Vol’jin doubted it. The need for such deception wouldn’t occur to the Zandalari. They’d never believe an enemy who had gotten this far would ever be able to escape with the false data, and they didn’t think any enemy could stand against them. Deception under those conditions was simply a dishonorable waste of time.

  A foolish thing to be thinking, but they might well be right. While what Vol’jin knew of the Horde presence in Pandaria was months old, and Tyrathan’s information was even older, the sheer numbers of Zandalari and allied trolls might be enough to drive the others back into the sea. Played well, and Khal’ak would see to it that they were, the Horde and Alliance might even be induced to turn on each other—or intensify their efforts against each other—guaranteeing success for Zandalari plans.

  And if they gonna succeed, this tips the balance of my decision.

  The cart trundled on slowly to their destination. This turned out to be a hastily erected detention cage, with strap-iron bars on a lockable door that looked as if it had been salvaged from one of the ships and pressed into service. The cage had been placed on a small hillock in a swamp, the only virtue of which was that a stinking moat separated the prisoners from their nearest guards.

  Before Vol’jin could be tossed in with his three comrades, a coach arrived and carried him swiftly along a high road snaking through the swamp. One soldier drove; the other stood on the groom’s board at the rear. They quickly made their way to a stone building set near a low, dark complex to the northeast.

  His guards conveyed him inside. There he reacquainted himself with Khal’ak’s servants. They did their thorough job of making him presentable, including the removal of the gold chains and the return of his ceremonial dagger. Then back into the carriage and on to the larger building, with paired quilen statues warding the front door and Khal’ak waiting for him.

  “Good, you be quite presentable.” She gave him a quick embrace. “Kao be in talking to the Thunder King now. If there be saving to be done of you and your friends—again, my apologies over the monks—my master will be having to intercede.”

  Khal’ak guided him through twists and turns that defied his ability to catalog. He didn’t feel any magic at work but couldn’t discount it. He suspected the complex had been cunningly restored to welcome the Thunder King back from the grave. The layout likely had significance and resonance for the mogu emperor, feeling familiar to him. It would ease his transition back into a world that had forgotten him, a world that would be given cause to dread his return.

  Two guards snapped to attention beside a portal as Khal’ak swept into the room. At the far end waited Vilnak’dor, attired in mogu-style robes clearly tailored to fit his expansive girth. The Zandalari general had gone so far as to bleach his hair white, then have it curled in the manner of the mogu. It looked to Vol’jin as if he’d even started growing his fingernails into talons.

  Khal’ak paused and bowed. “My lord, may I present—”

  “I know who dis be. I be smelling his stench before he got here.” The Zandalari leader waved her introduction aside. “Tell me, Vol’jin Run-in-Fear, why I shouldn’t be killin’ you where you stand.”

  The Darkspear smiled. “In your position, I probably would be doing just that.”

  26

  Vilnak’dor stared at him, his eyes as wide as if they’d been trapped behind some pilfered gnomish goggles. “You would?”

  “Certainly. It would appease Warlord Kao.” Vol’jin opened his hands. “Your dress. Your styling. Clearly keeping the mogu happy be your primary concern. Killing me would help.” The Darkspear let the Zandalari’s gasped disbelief hang in the air for a moment, then continued. “It would also be a gross error. It would be costing you victory.”

  “Would it?”

  “Absolutely.” Vol’jin kept his voice low and as ragged as it had first been during his recovery. “The Horde believes me dead. Murdered. People know I have survived. If you be killing me and claim it, the Darkspears gonna never join. Your king’s dream of one pan-troll empire be dead. You also be setting the Horde against you. You be freeing Garrosh from internal dissent. While I live, he be fearing my telling the truth of what happened. Khal’ak knows. Rumors run rife. I be the arrow that can be shot into Garrosh’s heart when the time comes.”

  “An arrow in his heart or a thorn in my side?”

  “A thorn in many sides.” The shadow hunter smiled carefully. “You use me and my position to be goading the Gurubashi and Amani to do more. You use me as a promise of advancement for the smaller tribes. Motivation through fear works, but only if hope be balancing it.”

  The old Zandalari general’s eyes narrowed. “I would elevate the Darkspears as an example. That would be your price?”

  “Not too steep. You would bring in the Darkspears when your king could not.”

  Temptation again widened the old troll’s eyes. “But can I be trusting you?”

  Khal’ak nodded. “He be
motivated, my lord.”

  Vol’jin bowed his head solemnly. “Not just because you hold three companions of mine. My choices be narrowed. The leader of the Horde had me murdered. There be no power there for me. The Darkspears, while loyal, be too small to stand alone against the Horde or your efforts. I knew that before I saw the mogu. The pandaren been strong enough in the past, but now? They be requiring a man and me in opposing you.”

  “And yet, for you, personally, Vol’jin, what would you be wishing from dis?” Vilnak’dor spread his arms. “Would you be supplantin’ me? Would you be rising to rule the Zandalari?”

  “If I desired that much power, I would rule in Orgrimmar from a throne wet with orc blood. That path, that desire, be blocked from me.” Vol’jin patted the dagger bound to his upper-left arm. “You be heir to the Zandalari heritage. Zandalari traditions be shaping you. They be defining your destiny. So I be heir to an ancient tradition. I be shadow hunter. The Zandalari were in their infancy while my tradition had matured for a long while.

  “My choices be defined by the loa. The loa want what be best for their people. If Elortha no Shadra had told me that your death be best for trolls, this little dagger would already be pinning your eye to the inside of your skull.”

  Vilnak’dor tried to retain his composure, but crossing his arms over his chest betrayed him. “Be that what—”

  “She be sending visions, expressing displeasure, General, but not demanding I kill you.” Vol’jin pressed his hands together. “She be reminding me of my responsibility. My life, my desires, be hers to command. Trolls again dominant, a return to the older traditions, these be making her happy. Serving you serves her. If you gonna have me.”

  The sincere tone of Vol’jin’s last statement gave the Zandalari pause. He smiled indulgently, his hands tugging on the loose ends of the knotted sash of gold silk. His expression contracted into one Vilnak’dor clearly considered to be reflective of sagacity and deliberation.

  And yet he be doing this while dressed up like a child in mogu clothing, in a room built to mogu proportions. With the tall windows as a backdrop, thick casement carvings, and images chiseled into the walls, the very decor diminished Vilnak’dor. Why Rastakhan would have sent him, Vol’jin could not imagine, unless it was that this general was least likely to offend the mogu. He also had to imagine that Vilnak’dor was not the only high-ranking of the Zandalari involved in the invasion.

  But he be the one I have to deal with.

  “What you have said be demanding thought, Darkspear.” Vilnak’dor nodded. “Your status as shadow hunter be considerable, and your political assessment valuable. I gonna think on dese things.”

  “As it be pleasing you, my lord.” Vol’jin bowed in the pandaren fashion, then withdrew behind Khal’ak. They paced through the darkened corridors, their footsteps but whispers echoed through the shadowed vaults. They remained silent until they reached the steps and stood between the stone quilen.

  Vol’jin faced her with an open expression. “You be realizing we gonna have to kill him. You be right that he fears me. He be fearing a shadow hunter more.”

  “Which be why he gonna be forced to have you eliminated.” She frowned. “Nothing so clumsy as Garrosh’s attempt. He gonna want the Darkspears brought in first; then he can do away with you. A note you write before your death gonna commend him and name him, or his puppet, as your heir.”

  “I agree. This be giving us time.”

  “He’ll be letting you languish in prison for several days, then free you so you’ll be grateful.”

  Vol’jin nodded. “Giving you time to prepare.”

  Before she could say anything to that, Warlord Kao strode through the door. He still wore the cloak he’d been given but had added to it tall boots, gold silk pants, a black silk tunic, and a belt of gold. He stopped, not out of surprise but on purpose.

  So he stalked us.

  “My master has promised me that I may slay as many pandaren as I desire. They are flawed creatures, and we shall make better. Then they shall be eliminated.” The mogu bared white teeth. “Including your companions, troll.”

  “Your master’s wisdom deserves honoring.” Vol’jin bowed, not deeply or long, but he did bow.

  The mogu snorted. “I know you, troll. Your kind. You understand only power. Watch and learn to fear my master’s power.”

  Warlord Kao spread his arms wide, but not in a gesture of someone gathering power. Instead, he was a host, a master of a faire, presenting the delights his guests would enjoy inside. As his hands opened, taking in the quilen, the beasts moved. The stone didn’t crack as it had during his resurrection. That magic had been inferior, trivial stuff compared to this. The Thunder King’s power instantly transmuted gray stone into living flesh, and hollow-eyed creatures into hungry monsters.

  Kao laughed. The quilen, like hounds called to the huntsman, spun on their pedestals and came to sit flanking him. “Your pandaren did not build this. With all the time they have had, they never could have built anything this elegant. The Thunder King raised this himself, through his dreams. Now that he is returned to us, he will raise his empire again. There is no force on this world which can stop him, and no force which can deny him anything he desires.”

  “Then only a fool would be opposing him.” Vol’jin bowed more respectfully. “And I be no fool.”

  Once Kao withdrew, Khal’ak sighed deeply. “He be not an enemy I would have wished to cultivate.”

  “My mistake.”

  “A temporary misstep, which can be remedied.” She moved to Vol’jin and removed the ceremonial dagger. “I gonna convince Vilnak’dor that you are the key to success. He gonna free you. Until den . . .”

  The Darkspear smiled and lifted his hands to be bound again in the golden chains. “I be troll. I can be very patient.”

  Khal’ak kissed his cheek before turning him over to the guards. “Soon, Shadow Hunter, very soon.”

  • • •

  Vol’jin’s companions drew back from the cage’s door as per Zandalari command, then welcomed him once the guards had gone away. They asked him to tell them everything. He did, starting with Khal’ak’s offer to him and continuing to his conversation with the Zandalari leader and Kao’s display of power.

  Cuo said nothing. Chen remained uncharacteristically quiet. The man reached up, gripping the cage’s overhead bars. “I can’t fault your reasoning.”

  Vol’jin regarded him closely. “You made your decision to remain dead because, no matter how painful, it be best for your family, yes?”

  “Right.”

  “And you made that decision because you be looking at life as it truly be, not as you imagined it or wished it be, yes?”

  Tyrathan nodded. “As I said, I can’t fault your logic.”

  Vol’jin squatted, lowering his voice. “To be doing the best for family, one must be acting on the truth, not illusion. This be, this will ever be, the Zandalari problem.”

  Chen crept a bit closer. “I don’t understand.”

  “You should be seeing, my friend. You’ve seen firsthand. You be knowing the Darkspears. You been among us. You have seen our heart. The Zandalari, the Gurubashi, and the Amani, they be looking down on us. They be thinking we have accomplished nothing while they be raising empires and losing them. The Gurubashi be thinking they could exterminate us. They failed. They failed to be seeing the truth.

  “The Darkspears have survived. We have survived because we be living in the world that is, not in the world we lament having lost. They be measuring everything against a standard that be imagined. They do not know what the past empires were like, not truly. They only be knowing the romantic fantasy of those empires. Their standards be unrealistic, not only because they be based on lies but also because those standards have no place in the world of today.”

  Seeing Vilnak’dor in mogu clothing, dwarfed by mogu architecture, had crystallized in Vol’jin’s mind a thought that had haunted him through dream and vision. If one looked at the wh
ole history of trolls, it could only be seen as a descent from heights. The trolls had once been unified, but since those days, their society had fractured, and then the shards had tried to re-create the imagined glory of the whole. Not only was that impossible, but to make it happen, they preyed upon each other. Even now the Zandalari collected a unity of trolls less to re-form what trolls once had been than to confirm their place at the apex of troll civilization. Each shard, in its drive to shape an empire and dominate the world, did so to prove it was the best.

  But all they do confirms they don’t believe they be the best.

  Vol’jin’s father, Sen’jin, had never seen it that way. He’d wanted what was best for the Darkspears. That was for them to be given a home free from fear, where they could see to their wants and needs without stress. For those obsessed with power, the past, and dreams of empire, this seemed a very tiny ambition.

  And yet, that ambition be the only seed for empires. Tyrathan had framed it in terms of his wife’s fears that all he knew how to do was to kill and destroy. Vol’jin felt she underestimated him, but her assessment certainly applied to the Zandalari and the mogu. A need for revenge drove them, but once they had destroyed all their enemies, what then? Would they be driven to create an idyllic society, or just to find new enemies?

  Tyrathan was ready to sacrifice himself for family. Chen would do it in a heartbeat for Li Li and Yalia. Cuo and the Shado-pan would do it for Pandaria. Vol’jin’s father had, and Vol’jin himself would. But who be my family?

  When King Rastakhan’s agent, Zul, had tried to gather all the trolls together, Vol’jin had withdrawn and told him that “the Horde be my family.” Garrosh’s attempt to kill him seemed to put the lie to that statement, but then Vol’jin realized that this act was not in furtherance of the Horde’s goals. The murder had been to further Garrosh’s goals. That he could murder Vol’jin marked the point of divergence between what the orc wanted and what was good for the Horde.