“Let me lie to you and tell you no.” The man gave another smile. “If I say yes, then my oath would allow me to die.”
“I gonna, as I promised, get the one who kills you.”
“Then let that be a long time from now, when I’m too old to remember why but still young enough to be grateful.”
The troll looked at him, then away. “Why be our races hating each other so much, when we be reasonable, the two of us?”
“Because finding the differences upon which we can hang hatred is much easier than discovering the common ground that can unite.” Tyrathan chuckled quickly. “If I return to the Alliance and tell tales of what we have done together . . .”
“You gonna be thought a madman?”
“I’ll be tried for treason and executed.”
“More common ground between us. Execution be cleaner than assassination.”
“And yet rooted in the ease of finding differences.” The man shook his head. “You realize that if we do this—when we do this—were all the world to see and understand, they’d still never sing the songs or tell the stories of what we accomplished.”
Vol’jin nodded. “But do we be doing this to have songs sung about us?”
“No. They won’t fit through my door.”
“Then, my friend, let the songs be sung as Zandalari lamentations.” He stood and started down the mountain. “Let them be sung for a thousand generations and serenade us into eternity.”
21
The Shado-pan monks prepared for war with laudable focus, though their actions lacked the hints of grim humor that Vol’jin had seen accompany the same preparations among other peoples. Four monks, two from the survivors of the blue squad and two from the red, were chosen by lottery to join Vol’jin, Tyrathan, and Chen. At least, their choice was supposed to be by chance, but Vol’jin suspected that the lottery was just to allow those who could not handle the mission to withdraw from it without any loss of esteem.
Assaulting the Vale of Eternal Blossoms would not be a simple thing. Shrouded in shadow and warded by impassible mountains, the place was a fortress that had remained unexplored for thousands of years. If he took any comfort in the difficulty in actually entering the place, it was only that the Zandalari, with their much larger force, would find passage that much more troublesome.
I be hoping.
Each of the seven set about the preparations in his or her own way. Tyrathan searched the monastery’s armory, chose the best arrows, broke them down, and fletched them himself. He painted the shafts bright red and made the feathers blue—in honor of the red and blue monks, he said. When asked why he blackened the arrowheads with soot, he said it was to honor the Zandalari’s black hearts.
Chen set himself on the task of victualing the expedition. To the monks, in their inexperience with the kind of war the Zandalari would bring, this might have seemed almost a frivolous pursuit, but Vol’jin understood his friend’s twin purposes. Not only would having proper food, fluids, and bandages be critical for the mission’s success, but it was also Chen’s way of taking care of the others. No matter what war had shown him or would make him do, Chen would be true to his nature. Vol’jin was grateful for that.
Taran Zhu approached the battlement where the troll sat running a whetstone along the curved edge of the first of his glaive’s blades. “You cannot make it sharper with any more strokes. It can already split night from day.”
Vol’jin raised the blade and watched golden sunlight spark from the edge. “Sharpening the fighter who be wielding it wants more time than we have.”
“I think he, too, is honed to a fine edge.” The elder monk looked toward the south, where the vale’s mountains trapped a lake of clouds. “Back when the last mogu emperor fell, monks led the rebellion. I doubt the monks then would recognize the Shado-pan as their heirs, and we might not recognize them as our inspiration. We revere their legends too much, and they would have hoped for much more from us.”
The monk frowned. “In that rebellion, they had more than pandaren fighting with them. The jinyu, the hozen, even the grummles participated. It could be, though the Lorewalkers never mention it, that even men and trolls fought with the pandaren.”
The troll smiled. “Hardly likely. Unrefined, men were at the time. The Zandalari would still be seeing the mogu as allies then, too.”
“But there are always the exceptional among every population.”
“You be thinking of the insane and the renegades.”
“The point being that our fight for our freedom is a fight you could have understood then, and do understand now.” Taran Zhu shook his head. “That war, and the time before, our time of enslavement, was so terrible that it scars our souls. Perhaps that wound only had the chance to fester, never to heal.”
Vol’jin flipped his sword around and rasped the whetstone over the other curved edge. “Wounds that foul need cutting and draining.”
“In our desire to forget our nightmare, we might have lost that knowledge. Not of how to do such things, but the why of their necessity.” The elder monk nodded. “Your presence here and your conduct so far have contributed greatly to my seeing that.”
A chill ran down Vol’jin’s spine. “I be glad but also saddened. I’ve seen enough war not to like it. Not like some, who live for it.”
“Like the man?”
“No, not even him. He be good at it, but were he the sort to need war, he’d have long since quit this place.” Vol’jin’s eyes became slits. “One thing he and I share be the willingness to shoulder responsibilities others are not. The same be true of the Shado-pan, and now you know why it be so important.”
“Yes.” The pandaren nodded. “As per our discussions, I have sent envoys to the jinyu and hozen. I hope they will stand with us.”
“The grummles seem willing.” A small knot of the tiny, long-armed creatures had gathered around Chen, each being fitted with sacks to haul. They would bring the team’s gear to the vale, then head back to the monastery to let Taran Zhu know the team had gotten that far. Given the grummles’ stamina and great strength, they would save the team’s energy for the second half of the expedition, into the vale itself.
“They are compliant and wiser than they would seem.” The monk smiled. “We, and I mean the peoples of Pandaria, will never be able to thank you for all you’ve done. I have sent my master carvers into the mountain to carve your likenesses into the bones. If you die . . .”
Vol’jin nodded. For him, the dropping of a statuette would be a matter of military intelligence, but clearly, for the Shado-pan, it was another matter entirely. “You be honoring me greatly.”
“Yet inadequately memorializing what you are doing for us. Monks led the rebellion and now will write a new ending to it.”
The troll lifted an eyebrow. “You know we just be buying time. We can slow them down. We can set them back, but seven, or forty-seven, won’t be enough to be stopping the Zandalari or the mogu.”
“But time is what we need.” Taran Zhu smiled. “Almost no one will remember the time when we were slaves, but no one wishes to be enslaved. As the mogu rise, they bring with them the rebirth of the reason we threw them down. Time is what we need to organize. Time to remind people of their past and teach them the value of their future.”
As they set off the next morning for the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, Vol’jin took a look back toward the Peak of Serenity. There the first monks had trained in secret, their privacy guaranteed because the mogu were too lazy to climb to the top. His memory of lounging farther down with a mogu comrade burst with his remembrance of climbing to the top with the man. Another ally, a comrade, but circumstances that felt so much different.
And so proper, despite how strange.
Vol’jin studied the group and smiled. For each one of them came two grummles bearing weapons and rations and other supplies. Five pandaren, a man, and a troll. Had Garrosh been there to see it, to see how easily Vol’jin got along with them, he’d have yet more charges of tr
eason to lay against him.
And it wasn’t as if this company replaced the Horde in his mind or heart. It was a company of necessity, and in that way, it reminded him of the Horde. A diverse company united to preserve freedom. It was that unity of purpose that defined the Horde he knew and loved, the Horde that had fought under Thrall.
The purpose of Garrosh’s Horde came from him, from his need for conquest and power. His desires would fracture it, perhaps beyond repair. That would be as great a tragedy, in Vol’jin’s mind, as the Zandalari-mogu alliance returning the mogu to power in Pandaria.
They headed south and, after several days, reached the heights above the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. The clouds seethed and curled like ocean waves heralding a coming storm. If the grummles felt any foreboding, they said nothing. They made camp as before and segregated themselves.
Though he knew better than to do it, he had made a point of learning each pandaren’s name, as had Chen. Tyrathan had adopted the wiser course, addressing each one as “brother” or “sister” or “my friend,” keeping some distance between them. Not knowing their names, not knowing their hopes and dreams, would make it easier if . . . If their statues drop from the mountain’s bones.
Vol’jin didn’t want it to be easy. He never had, but in the past he had been fighting with and for his tribe. Here it would be easy to distance himself, since it wasn’t his people, wasn’t his home, wasn’t his tribe. But if the fight be worth fighting, then these be my people, this be my home, and they be my tribe.
It occurred to him that the mogu might be thinking exactly the same thing, though rooted in the past. This was their land. These were their people. Even after centuries and tens of centuries—even after they’d all but been forgotten—they burned with a hunger to have rights wronged. It was one thing for trolls to desire to return to the past because they, at least, had explored a future. The mogu had done little to organize or reestablish their domain. They remained shut off from the future because they clung so tightly to the past they’d lost.
Despite having made their camp in a cave facing south and west, the group lit no fire. They supped on rice balls, dried berries, and smoked fish. Chen had managed to steep tea in a waterskin, which made it all more than palatable.
Tyrathan drained his small bowl and held it out for a refill. “I always wondered what my last meal would be.”
Chen smiled with genuine joy. “It’s a question you’ll ponder for a long time yet, Tyrathan.”
“Perhaps, but if this is it, I can’t imagine a better meal.”
The troll raised his cup. “It be the company, not the food.”
• • •
Vol’jin slept solidly until just before dawn, having taken the first watch after supper. He suffered no visions or dreams—at least, none he could remember. For a heartbeat, he wondered if the loa had abandoned him again. He decided, quite to the contrary, that Bwonsamdi had kept the others distant so Vol’jin would be rested enough to send more trolls his way.
The seven bade farewell to their grummle bearers. Tyrathan gave each of them one of his arrows as a remembrance. When Vol’jin threw him a glance, he shrugged. “I’ll replace them with Zandalari. Face it: my supply of arrows was bound to run out well before their supply of Zandalari did.”
Not to be outdone, and feeling the same level of gratitude, Vol’jin shaved the sides of his head. He presented each grummle with a lock of his red hair. The grummles looked as if they’d been handed fistfuls of jewels, and then they melted back into the hills and mountains.
The seven made their descent through the mountains easily enough. Brother Shan led the way, finding footholds on sheer faces and having the strength to anchor ropes as others followed. He recounted a story that said monks had, at the time of the rebellion, rappelled down these very mountains to surprise the mogu. Vol’jin took some comfort from that legend and hoped they would be equally successful.
By the middle of the day, they got below the clouds. The sun had burned off none of the mist, but the clouds glowed with a subtle golden light, which came as much from the ground reflection as it did from the sun’s rays. Vol’jin crouched at the edge of a clearing on a mountain’s southern face and studied the valley below.
Had the troll been pressed before to pick a color to define Pandaria, it would have been green. So many shades of green, from the light buds of new grasses to the deep emerald of forests; the continent was green. But here, in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, green gave way to gold and red. These were not the colors of autumn—though in places they came close—but the exploding hues of plants in full flower. They were in their glory, springtime frozen in a world that did not age. The diffuse light cast no sharp shadows, and what little moved below did so with a dreamlike, languid quality.
The vale looked the way it felt to stretch luxuriously and long upon waking.
From the heights they could see some buildings but had no clue as to who lived there or maintained them. Their antiquity could not be disputed, but vegetation had not risen up to consume them. The vale’s timelessness preserved them. Vol’jin wondered if that quality would keep all of them alive.
Or keep us dying forever.
Sister Quan-li, a pandaren with liver-colored fur to contrast with the white, pointed southeast. “The invaders would approach from that direction. The mogu palace lay there, and Lord Taran Zhu says the emperor’s warlords were buried directly south of our position.”
Tyrathan nodded. “The journal would have had them seeking passage in the east part of the valley. I don’t see any signs they’ve made it yet.”
The troll chuckled. “What would you expect, my friend? That we be seeing a black stain pouring over the landscape? Smoke from villages being burned to the ground?”
“No. There should, however, be makeshift camps. So we can choose to wait here until dark and see if fires reveal the enemy to us . . .”
“Or be slipping down and looking more closely just in case they, too, are keeping cold camps.” Vol’jin stood. “I be favoring the latter.”
“Easier to shoot by daylight. Not impossible at night. Just easier.”
“Good. We gonna come out on this little plateau above that road. Keep to the heights.”
Tyrathan pointed with the end of his bow. “If we can head straight south and curl back around east, we could come in behind their line of march. They wouldn’t be looking for us in ground they’ve already secured. Plus, those folks who are critical to accomplishing their ends are not likely to be at the front line but somewhere back, away from perceived danger.”
“Yes. Identify them and kill them.”
Chen glanced over, his eyes tight. “And slip away again.”
The troll and the man exchanged looks. Then Vol’jin nodded. “Probably back south and west. We be going back out the way we came in.”
“At least we’d know the terrain and know where to set traps.” The man lowered his bow. “Given that we’re pitting seven against the elite of two empires, that isn’t the most stupid plan we could have come up with.”
“Agreed.” The troll shifted the pack strapped to his back. “That I can’t be thinking of a better one disturbs me.”
“That’s not the point, is it, Vol’jin?” Chen tugged on his own pack’s straps. “We’re here to disturb them, and I think this plan will do just that.”
22
Though they walked through a golden valley that few outsiders had seen for years uncounted, Vol’jin did not fear. He knew he should have and consciously took every precaution he could to avoid discovery. Still, he didn’t have that little chill cutting at his spine. The fur at the base of his skull didn’t rise. It felt as if he had on a rush’kah mask, insulating him from fear.
And yet . . . he had no dreams while he slept in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, but that was because he needed none. Walking through the valley was walking through a living vision. Something about the reality of the place bled into him. An arrogance, in part, resonating with his troll her
itage. He was touching a lingering bit of mogu magic, being caressed by the ghost of the mogu empire.
Here, in this place, where great races had wielded great power, he could not know fear. There, on the far distant steps of Mogu’shan Palace—where his enemies likely slept—proud mogu fathers had faced their sons west, sweeping a hand before them to take in the whole of the valley. This land was theirs, and all land that touched it, to do with as they pleased. They could make it over as they willed, shape it to their hearts’ desires. There was nothing here that would hurt them, because everything here feared them.
It was that last bit that saved Vol’jin. He knew what it was to be feared. He liked that his enemies feared him, but their terror was born from what he had done. He had earned it, sword stroke by sword stroke, spell by spell, conquest by conquest. It was not something he’d inherited and not something he saw as his birthright.
It was something he understood, and this separated him from the young mogu princes who beheld their domain. Because he understood this concept, he could use it. He could feel it ebb and flow. But they remained above it, seeing what they wanted to see, hearing what they wanted to hear. And never feeling the need to climb to the heights to see the reality of the world.
When they made camp on the night they’d gotten halfway across the valley, Tyrathan looked at him. “You feel it, don’t you?”
Vol’jin nodded.
Chen looked up from his tea bowl. “Feel what?”
The man smiled. “That answers my question.”
The pandaren shook his head. “What question? What is it you feel?”
Tyrathan frowned. “A sense that this place is mine and that I belong here because the land is soaked in blood and I am steeped in killing. That’s what you feel, yes, Vol’jin?”
“Close enough.”
Chen smiled, pouring himself some tea. “Oh, that.”
The man’s frown deepened. “Then you do feel it?”
“No, but I know you do.” The brewmaster looked at the man and the troll in turn, then shrugged. “I’ve seen that look in your eyes before. You, Vol’jin, more than Tyrathan, but I’ve not fought beside him nearly as much as I have beside you. In every battle, at that point when you are fighting your hardest, you get that expression. It’s just hard. Implacable. I see it and I know you will win. That expression says that you are the best combatant on the field that day. Anyone who challenges you will die.”
World of Warcraft: Vol'jin: Shadows of the Horde Page 17
