Its left fist slammed down. Lothar leaped away, tumbling to the floor, as the creature struck where he had been seconds earlier. It followed up with a second swipe, dragging its right fist through the sickly green magic of the font. The hand emerged, dripping, glowing, and no longer clay, but solid black stone. This time, when the golem punched down, the stone fist smashed right through the floor, and Lothar tumbled down to the next story below.
Khadgar, meanwhile, fired a bolt at Medivh, but the Guardian deflected it, warping it so that it plunged into the pool of fel.
He began to bombard the younger mage with missiles, fireballs, and bolts. Khadgar somehow managed to block them, trying to get them to ricochet back to Medivh. But instead of returning to their sender, the magical attacks were caught by the power of the fel and began to whirl around the tainted font in a blur. Seemingly without effort, Medivh stepped up his offense.
Khadgar summoned all his magical energy, gathered up the whirling wisps orbiting the pool, and hurled the accumulation at Medivh. At the last second, the Guardian dove for cover as everything around him shattered.
All was quiet. Had Khadgar managed to—
Slowly, carefully, Khadgar moved toward where Medivh had hidden.
There was nothing there. The Guardian was gone.
20
With a bellow, Durotan closed the distance between himself and Gul’dan, swift as one of Draka’s arrows, landing a clean punch across Gul’dan’s jaw with all his strength behind it. Taken utterly by surprise, the warlock stumbled and fell. But before Durotan could press his advantage, he was on his feet, seizing the Frostwolf by his throat and lifting him up. Gul’dan began to squeeze.
Durotan’s vision swam, but he kept fighting. He would keep fighting until he was dead. He didn’t need to live through this. All he needed to do was what he had promised Orgrim he would—show the Horde the true face of the thing that led them. He shoved ineffectually at Gul’dan’s twisted, green face, then his questing hands clutched two of the warlock’s hideous horns. Even as Gul’dan’s fingers tightened around Durotan’s throat, the Frostwolf pulled the spikes with all his strength until one snapped off in his hand. He used the sharp end as a dagger, stabbing Gul’dan with his own unnatural horn.
Gul’dan roared, in pain, not anger, this time. He hurled Durotan several yards. Durotan hit the earth hard, gasping. Snarling, Gul’dan charged his enemy. He was huge, his body bristling with unnatural spikes and horns, his muscles stronger than Durotan’s. He pummeled his enemy with punches, each landing hard. Durotan rallied. He deflected the warlock’s next powerful swing with a kick, and dodged. Again Gul’dan struck, and again Durotan evaded it, landing a punch of his own.
But this time, Gul’dan caught his opponent’s arm and pulled him in. His splayed his hand and pressed it to Durotan’s chest. Green light sparked around his fingers as Gul’dan looked about furtively.
Suddenly, Durotan’s legs quivered, threatening to buckle. Weakness seeped through him as he saw a thin, white trail pass from his body into Gul’dan’s hand. Before his shocked eyes, the warlock’s body grew even larger, the muscles swelling. Chuckling, Gul’dan seized Durotan’s arm and wrenched it out of its socket. There was white-hot pain, and then a snapping sound, and then Durotan’s arm dangled, useless.
He dropped to his knees. Gul’dan pulled back, leering triumphantly, then lifted his gargantuan green fist for the death blow.
Durotan shouted and abruptly lunged upward. His head slammed into Gul’dan’s chest, sending the other staggering backward a few steps. He did not give the warlock a chance to recover. He clenched his good fist and landed blow after blow. Each time his fist struck unnatural flesh, he held the face of a Frostwolf in his mind, fueling it with passion and righteousness. Kurvorsh. Shaska. Kagra. Zakra. Nizka.
Draka.
Go’el.
A sound penetrated his ears that was not the singing of his blood in his own veins, or the cries of the watching crowd. The voice was human, and yet not, and it was chanting. Hope surged inside Durotan. Gul’dan needed to be at the portal, draining innocent human lives to open the Great Gate and bring in the rest of the Horde. Instead, he was here—fighting Durotan.
But Gul’dan heard it, too, and slammed his clenched fist into Durotan’s wounded arm. The Frostwolf bellowed in agony, but held onto consciousness by sheer will as he staggered back and fell to his hands and knees.
Gul’dan cursed, not pressing the attack. “I have no time for this,” he muttered. “Blackhand!”
The warchief looked over at Durotan appraisingly, taking note of the useless, dangling arm, the blood on his face and body, his shuddering breaths. Then his gaze traveled to Orgrim, and the banner Durotan had so defiantly sunk into the earth. Finally, he looked at Gul’dan.
And grinned.
“This is the mak’gora,” Blackhand said. “We will respect our traditions. Keep fighting!”
Gul’dan gave his warchief a furious look, and a fresh sense of hope flooded Durotan. If the warchief was beginning to see how vile, how dishonorable Gul’dan was, then surely the others would as well. The warlock charged now, with not a sneering arrogance, but an urgency and desperation. It made his blows harder when they landed, but it also made him careless. Again, and yet again, Durotan was able to evade a blow that could break his skull and deliver a powerful attack of his own, even with but one good hand. But when they connected, Gul’dan’s blows were vicious. More than once, Durotan felt a rib snap beneath the warlock’s clenched fist, but he refused to cease.
Keep going. For your clan. For the orcs who yet live. For their children.
A blow to the gut that had him doubled over and barely able to stumble out of the way. A sliding punch that cost him his sight in one eye. He endured it all.
He kept fighting. And he felt the tide start to turn.
What had once been jeers had turned to first silence, then murmurs of admiration. Gul’dan’s head whipped up and he stared at the orcs. “His” Horde.
Then, his lip curled with pure loathing, he slammed his hand against Durotan’s chest, and began to drain him.
A gasp rose up among the crowd. “Gul’dan cheats!” came an outraged voice. Even as Durotan felt his life being siphoned to further Gul’dan’s grotesqueness, he felt joy. He had done it. It was impossible for the warlock to conceal his handiwork; Durotan knew he now resembled the draenei prisoners, their lives sucked from them until their bodies were misshapen and dessicated. He had forced Gul’dan to show the Horde exactly what he was.
Gul’dan drew back his hand, wreathed in the white mist of Durotan’s life, clenched his fist, and slammed it full force into the Frostwolf’s chest. The pain was unbearable. Durotan flew through the air, landing hard. His connection to the living now was but the finest thread.
Cries were going up, now. “You cheat, Gul’dan!” “Shame on you!” “This is not our way!”
Durotan had to rise, once more. Every sinew and muscle, every drop of blood was fiery agony. He fought it through sheer force of will, climbing to his feet and swaying. He could barely draw breath, but he filled his lungs and cried, “Gul’dan! You have no honor!”
With a low growl that grew louder with each step, Gul’dan bore down on Durotan, not swinging his arms this time, but holding them open, reaching for his enemy. Durotan struggled, but the arms around him were as strong as bands of iron, and he had no strength left. Gul’dan clutched him close in a travesty of an embrace, utterly heedless now of what the Horde saw. He crushed Durotan’s rapidly deteriorating body to his, so that more of his skin could pull forth the Frostwolf’s life energy. Durotan felt his spine snap. Through the haze of agony Durotan could see strange golden light pouring off his body, as his life—his soul? He did not know—went to feed the warlock’s ravenous, fel-driven hunger. Gul’dan smiled up at him ferally, triumphantly, as he paraded about the ring displaying Durotan’s dying body. Then, at last, when he could get no more from the Frostwolf, he threw Durotan down in disgust.
>
There would be no more rising for Durotan.
He found himself gazing up at Orgrim, but could not speak. He tried to lift a hand imploringly, but he could only twitch his fingers. But Orgrim understood. His eyes filled with tears, and he nodded. He, who had betrayed the Frostwolves, would now speak for them.
And that was all right.
The orcs had seen. Durotan had done what he had come to do.
It was enough.
* * *
Orgrim looked around at the assembled orcs. “You will follow this thing?” he cried, putting all his hatred and contempt into the word. “Will you? You will follow this demon? I will not. I follow a true orc. A chieftain!”
The crowd stared, murmuring. “He does not even look orc now,” Orgrim heard. Gul’dan stood, panting, daring them to defy him. Orgrim saw several orcs turn to leave. Some of them, he noticed, had the green tinge to their skin. They had seen their fate played out before them should they continue to use the fel, and were choosing to have no part in it.
Orgrim turned back to his friend and chieftain, whom he had betrayed. Durotan, son of Garad, son of Durkosh, was still. But he had died as he had lived, with courage, and conviction, and in a righteous battle against a terrible foe.
He recalled Durotan’s words, before the Frostwolves had marched south to join the Horde: There is one law, one tradition, which must not be violated. And that is that a chieftain must do whatever is truly best for the clan.
Today, Durotan’s clan had not been Frostwolves. His clan had consisted of the entire Horde.
Orgrim knelt beside his fallen chieftain and grasped one of Durotan’s tusks. He twisted it free. “For your son,” he told Durotan. “So your spirit can teach him.”
“I will deal with you later, Orgrim Doomhammer,” Gul’dan threatened. Several orcs were striding away in disgust after the offensive spectacle they had just witnessed. One of them spat, “Your power is not worth the price, warlock!” Orgrim paused, wanting to see this play out. Gul’dan, all but frothing at the mouth in his rage, reached out his hand. Three orcs who had the misfortune to stand near him—including, Orgrim saw, many who had been faithful to the warlock—arched in agony as their life essences were not siphoned, not extracted, but savagely ripped from them. The white energy flowed into Gul’dan’s outstretched hand. The warlock raised his other hand, and from it streamed the sickly, all-too-familiar color of fel energy.
“Anyone else?” Gul’dan challenged. Those who had not already moved out of reach of the angry warlock stood, shuffling their feet. They did not not want to stay, but neither did they wish to die as their comrades had. As Durotan had.
“And you, warchief!” Brimming with fel energy, Gul’dan whirled, his hand shooting out as he funneled everything straight into Blackhand. The warchief fell to the dead ground, screaming and writhing as his body was twisted and contorted. “You will take the fel,” Gul’dan shouted over Blackhand’s tormented cries, “and you will become stronger than any orc has ever been! And when the fel has remade you, you will crush the smallteeth!”
The green washed over and through Blackhand. Muscles swelled so large his armor popped off his body in places. Tendrils looking like veins pumping green blood twined along him, even down his metallic, claw-like appendage. Blackhand looked up, his eyes so bright with the fel that mist roiled from them. Orgrim turned away, sickened in body and spirit. It was too late for Durotan, and it was too late for Blackhand. But it was not too late for him, and the the few others who had been forced to see with fresh eyes thanks to the sacrifice of the Frostwolf chieftain.
As he strode into the forest, away from the fel and its false promises, he heard Gul’dan screaming, “Now—claim my new world!”
* * *
The Black Morass, the enemy, and innocent prisoners awaited King Llane and his troops over the next rise. Beside Llane rode Garona, who had been casting concerned glances at him.
In silence, the small group crested this final rise, and Llane’s stomach turned to ice.
The Frostwolves will meet you on the way, Medivh had told him.
And so they had. Impaled Frostwolves lined the road, an obscene invitation to enter the vast encampment of orcs. Horror closed Llane’s throat as he looked from body to body. Some had pendants with the clan’s symbol dangling from their necks. Others had had the Frostwolf banner stuffed into their mouths. There were so many…
Medivh had been wrong. The rebellion had been snuffed out. Their would-be allies had been reduced to gore-encrusted, stiffening corpses… or worse.
Llane took a long, deep breath. He forced himself to look past the horrifying spectacle, past the sea of orc tents, to the cages filled with prisoners. His people—still alive, for now. And beyond them—the Great Gate. The dark portal, which would shortly birth a flood of ravaging orc warriors. The Horde would descend upon Azeroth, slaughtering his people. The fel used to make them fierce would suck the life out of Azeroth, leaving it as dry and desiccated as the orcs’ own world. It was already happening. The Black Morass had been a swamp, but in the area around the portal, there was only parched earth, a grim preview of what was to come.
Unless, somehow, they were stopped.
“We few, then,” he said. Suddenly, a rain of fire and stone fell upon them, launched from hidden catapults. They had walked right into a trap—baited with hope, sprung with horror, and promising soon death for likely every member of the three legions who had followed Llane in this wretched folly.
Anger chased out despair. Anger, and awe at the courage his troops were displaying. Llane pulled out his sword. “Trust in your training! Trust in your arms! Ride with me! The Frostwolves have fallen, but with the Guardian’s help, we can still destroy the gate and bring our people home!”
A cry of defiance rose up. Though it issued through a pitiful handful of throats, it was passionate and defiant. The king of Stormwind and his three legions charged forward, shouting their battle cry. They were met with an answering bellow, deeper, darker, and the orcish army met them halfway.
* * *
Gul’dan disliked how he had been played. Pushed to his wit’s end by the Frostwolf’s stubborn refusal to simply die, he had unwisely revealed his usage of the fel. He had lost some of his best warriors, Orgrim included. I should have known better than to trust a Frostwolf, the warlock thought bitterly. But they were gone, and soon enough, many times their number would surge through the great gate. His Horde.
More than once over the last several moments, Medivh’s chanting had been interrupted somehow, but interruptions did not matter. Every time the chant had resumed, and from his platform overlooking the battle below, Gul’dan could see that all was still going according to plan. Blackhand, fel-bloated and undefeatable, was down there now. As Medivh had promised Gul’dan, only a feeble three legions had arrived with the human king. Armed with weapons Gul’dan had never seen, yes, but they were outnumbered, and outmatched, and what did weapons matter when there were no hands to wield them?
And farther away still, the gate.
Earlier, before the ritual had begun in earnest, orcs could, and had, walked through it as if it were nothing other than an ordinary archway. But now… now, he could see Draenor. See shapes moving. Orcs. Ready, more than ready, to come through, to become engorged with fel, to take, to devour, and take more still.
It was time. Exultation flowed through Gul’dan. This was the moment Medivh had promised. This was the triumph of the so-called Guardian of Azeroth, of the fel… the triumph of Gul’dan. He marched to the cage of terrified humans, enjoying their fear for a few heartbeats before he splayed his hand hard and began to pull out their precious, sweet life energy. Their screams were music to his ears, and, grinning, he lifted his other hand.
“Come, my orcs,” he said, in a tone laced with affection, as of a parent to a beloved child. “Let the fel unleash the full power of the Horde!” His other hand shot out, in the direction of the distant portal. A flood of emerald energy, routed through
him, exploded out in the direction of the gate. It raced over the ground, heedless of the fighting going on beneath it, of lives lost and blood spilled. Sped along by the chanting, it wanted only to reach the gate, to open a pathway so that more fel could enter, to claim more victims.
And the first small figures, shouting for blood and brandishing weapons, came through.
* * *
Medivh’s voice still sounded from the mouth of the clay man. It stretched out a massive, tree-trunk leg, stepping down to where Lothar stood on the story below, and Lothar hacked at it wildly. His sword bit deep, dragging through the heavy clay and he managed to sever the limb at the knee. The golem jolted. Lothar dove out of the way, but the cursed thing would not fall! He glared furiously up at it, frantically wondering how he could muzzle the monstrosity, and spotted something dangling from the golem’s shoulder: the tool that Medivh had used to shave off curls of clay—a length of wire held between two wooden handles.
Not muzzle. Bridle. Even better.
Lothar abandoned the sword. He climbed up the creature, digging in feet and fingers, until he had reached the thing’s shoulders. Seizing the wire garrote-like apparatus, he slung it over the golem’s misshapen head and yanked it into where its mouth was. Immediately it lurched, turning around and trying to strike the pesky thing perched atop it with its huge, obsidian hand. Lothar scrambled out of the way and the stone fist smashed through the wall of the Guardian’s chamber. The golem followed the movement, bending over and trying to shake Lothar from its back.
Lothar looked up in time to see Khadgar on the lower level, sprawled face down, covered in rubble. He didn’t move. Lothar had no time to fear for the mage, though. Medivh had turned and impaled his old friend with his glowing green gaze, and was drawing back his hand for an attack.
Warcraft Official Movie Novelization Page 18
