The Spiral Path

by Greg Weisman

  Yetis move east into Woodpaw lands. Next, yetis attack. Feral Scar is yeti brute. Yetis no call him brute. Yetis no talk. But Feral Scar is like brute for yetis. Like matriarch, too. Not matriarch, though. Feral Scar is male yeti. But Feral Scar lead yetis like Woodpaw matriarch Greasefang. Feral Scar lead in battle like Woodpaw brute Claw. Feral Scar is matriarch and brute for yetis. Feral Scar lead attack. Yetis attack Woodpaw clan. Feral Scar attack Woodpaw clan. Some gnolls die. Three or four gnolls die. One yeti die. Not Feral Scar. Feral Scar no die. Yetis move on. Move east. Feral Scar move on. Move east. Not dead yeti, though. Dead yeti no move. No move on. No move east. Dead yeti feed gnolls. Yeti meat good. Like bear meat. Better maybe.

  Greasefang say, “See, yetis chop trees. Then yetis attack. Trees were start of yetis’ attack.” All gnolls agree with Greasefang.

  Hackle silent. But Hackle shake head, and Jaggal cuff Hackle again. Jawstretcher and Claw nod at this. Jawstretcher and Claw think Jaggal right to cuff Hackle.

  Gnaw silent. But Gnaw talk to Claw. Gnaw walk with Claw. Hackle follow. Hackle watch Gnaw show Claw tree. Tree pushed over, root and all. “Yeti push tree,” Gnaw say.

  Claw nod. “Greasefang right,” he say.

  Gnaw show Claw other tree. Hackle follow and watch. Gnaw show Claw other tree, but there no tree. Just stump. Short stump. Shorter than Hackle, and Hackle is pup then.

  “Stump,” Gnaw say. “No root. No tree. Just stump. And look. Tree cut with axe. Feral Scar no use axe. Feral Scar no drag away tree. Stump not yeti stump.”

  “What, then?” ask Claw.

  “Gnaw no know,” Gnaw say. “But Hackle right. Greasefang wrong.”

  Claw cuff Gnaw then. But not hard. No blood even. Claw stare at stump. Claw think about stump. Claw say, “Greasefang right.” But Claw think about stump.

  Next day, Claw walk with Greasefang. Claw talk with Greasefang. Maybe Claw show Greasefang tree and other tree. Hackle never know.

  Claw and Greasefang no come back. Never come back.

  Jaggal angry. Jaggal say, “Yetis kill Greasefang! Feral Scar kill Greasefang!”

  Hackle say, “Yetis move east. Feral Scar move east. Feral Scar gone. Yetis gone.”

  Jaggal no cuff Hackle this time. Jaggal go for Hackle’s throat. Jaggal is friend of Hackle not so long ago—but go for throat. Jaggal pulled off Hackle. Jaggal is friend of Hackle no more.

  Gnaw become Woodpaw matriarch. Jawstretcher become Woodpaw brute. More trees gone. No shade. No squirrels. Game scarce. Gnolls should have known then.

  Finally, ogres attack. Gordunni ogres attack Woodpaw camp. Big surprise. Gnolls not ready to fight ogres.

  Wordok and Marjuk are like brutes for Gordunni. Ogres no call Wordok and Marjuk brutes, but Wordok and Marjuk are like brutes, lead attack on Woodpaw lands, on Woodpaw clan. Jawstretcher fight. Gnaw fight. Jaggal fight. Jaggal brave. Jaggal fierce. Kill ogre. Hackle fight. Hackle brave for pup. No kill ogre, though. And many gnolls die. Only three ogres die. Jaggal kill ogre. Jawstretcher kill ogre. Gnaw kill ogre. No kill Wordok, though. No kill Marjuk. Wordok and Marjuk no die. Three other ogres die. Gnolls no eat ogres, though. Ogre meat rancid.

  Ogres chop trees. Ogres hunt game. Ogres and Wordok and Marjuk take gnolls as slaves for Gordok. Woodpaw lands are all stumps now. No trees. No squirrels. No shade. Streams dry up. No game. Gnolls hungry. Gnolls fight ogres, but gnolls hungry. Many gnolls die. Many Woodpaw die. Few ogres die. Not Wordok. Not Marjuk. Just a few.

  Matriarch Gnaw say, “Time to move. Woodpaw must move east.”

  Jawstretcher nod.

  But Jaggal no nod. “These Woodpaw lands. Woodpaw no move!”

  Matriarch Gnaw cuff Jaggal. “Woodpaw move east,” Gnaw say.

  So Woodpaw clan leave Woodpaw lands. Move east.

  Ogres still attack from west. Wordok and Marjuk still attack from west. Yetis defend from east. Feral Scar defend from east. Woodpaw trapped in middle.

  Matriarch Gnaw say, “Time to move. Woodpaw must move south.”

  Jawstretcher nod.

  Jaggal say, “Gnaw no fight. Gnaw always move. Gnaw afraid.”

  Gnaw cuff Jaggal. “Woodpaw move south,” Gnaw say.

  So Woodpaw clan move south.

  In south, Woodpaw find new lands. Not so long ago. Good lands. Trees. Streams. Squirrels. Shade. Game. No hyenas. Hyenas follow ogres now.

  Woodpaw fight yetis. Fight ogres. But not all the time now.

  Many seasons pass. Hackle grow. Not pup now. Not pup. No grow as big as Jaggal. No grow as big as many gnolls. But not pup.

  Jaggal grow big. Jaggal big as Jawstretcher. Jaggal almost big as Gnaw.

  When Woodpaw fight, Gnaw lead clan. When Woodpaw fight, Jawstretcher lead battle. But Jaggal fight beside Jawstretcher. And Hackle fight beside Gnaw. Jaggal kill yeti. Jaggal kill ogre. Hackle no kill yeti, no kill ogre. But Hackle fight. Hackle warrior. Not pup. Hackle fight.

  Big battle come. Ogres come. Wordok come. Marjuk come. Big battle. Woodpaw fight. Woodpaw fight ogres. Many gnolls die. Some ogres die, too. Not Wordok or Marjuk, but some.

  Jawstretcher die then. Wordok kill Jawstretcher.

  Gnaw die, too. Marjuk kill Gnaw.

  Wordok take some gnolls as slaves. Marjuk take some gnolls as slaves. For Gordok. Ogres leave with slaves.

  Hackle sad. Hackle warrior now, but Hackle sad.

  No matriarch. Greasefang dead. Gnaw dead. No other gnoll female ready to be matriarch.

  No brute. Claw dead. Jawstretcher dead. So Jaggal become brute. All gnolls agree Jaggal become brute. Hackle agree, too.

  Jaggal turn on Hackle then. “Jaggal no need pup to agree,” Jaggal say. “Woodpaw no need pup.”

  “Hackle no pup!” Hackle say. Maybe Hackle shout.

  Jaggal nod. “Hackle no pup. Hackle runt!”

  Hackle silent. Gnolls all silent.

  Hackle finally say, “Hackle no runt.” But he say it like whisper.

  Jaggal say, “Who say Hackle no runt? Jawstretcher say Hackle no runt? Gnaw say Hackle no runt?”

  “Jawstretcher dead,” Hackle say. “Gnaw dead.”

  “Gnolls say Hackle no runt?” Jaggal ask.

  Gnolls silent. Woodpaw silent. Even Hackle silent.

  Jaggal say, “Runt no fight yetis. Runt no fight ogres. Runt no hunt game. But runt eat game. Runt live off Woodpaw. Runt take game from mouth of Woodpaw like hyenas. So Woodpaw no live with runt. Runt weaken Woodpaw. Runt must go.”

  Gnolls silent. Woodpaw silent.

  Hackle say, “Hackle no runt. Hackle hunt game.”

  Jaggal say, “Hackle hunt squirrels. Hackle feed Hackle. Jaggal hunt boars. Jaggal feed Woodpaw. Hackle take game from mouth of Woodpaw like hyenas.”

  Hackle say, “Hackle no runt. Hackle fight.”

  Jaggal say, “Hackle no kill ogres. Hackle no kill yetis. Hackle no fight. Hackle hide behind Gnaw. Gnaw dead now. Hackle runt. Runt weaken Woodpaw. Runt must go. Or runt die.”

  Gnolls silent. Woodpaw silent. Even Hackle silent. Hackle shamed.

  Jaggal cuff Hackle then. Hackle mouth bloody. Jaggal raise club. Jaggal say again, “Runt must go. Or runt die.”

  Hackle shamed. Hackle go.

  Hackle stay away from Woodpaw. Hackle die if Woodpaw catch. Runt die if Woodpaw catch runt on Woodpaw lands. So Hackle die if Woodpaw catch.

  But Hackle plan. Hackle prove. Hackle end shame when Hackle catch Feral Scar. Hackle think, Hackle kill Feral Scar. Hackle prove Hackle no runt.

  Hackle search for Feral Scar. For yetis. But Hackle no find yetis. No find Feral Scar. Hackle search long.

  Hackle hunt. Hunt squirrel. Eat squirrel. Hunt boar. Eat boar. Hunt deer. No eat deer. Deer too fast. Hunt bear. No eat bear. No find bear. But Hackle good hunter. Eat squirrel. Eat boar.

  Hackle hunt for yetis. Hackle hunt for Feral Scar.

  Hackle find Feral Scar!

  Now, Hackle can kill Feral Scar and end shame. But Wordok find Hackle first. Wordok take Hackle as slave for Gordok. Hackle shamed again.
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  Hackle fight in arena. Fight murloc in arena. Kill murloc in arena.

  Hackle fight Aram in arena. But Aram and Hackle are friends. Hackle no kill Aram. Aram no kill Hackle.

  Hackle and Aram fight Old One-Eye. Aram and Old One-Eye become friends. Hackle no kill Old One-Eye. Aram no kill Old One-Eye. Old One-Eye no kill Hackle and Aram.

  Then all fight ogres. Makasa fight ogres. Makasa fight Wordok. Even Murky fight Wordok. Makasa hurt Wordok. Hackle kill Wordok. Hackle kill Wordok, who killed Jawstretcher, Hackle’s father. Hackle take Wordok’s club.

  Now Hackle here with Makasa, Murky, and Aram. Hackle back in new Woodpaw lands with Makasa, Murky, and Aram. But Hackle still runt to Woodpaw. Still shamed. Runt die if Woodpaw catch. Hackle die if Woodpaw catch. Makasa, Murky, and Aram die if Woodpaw catch.

  Aram was stunned. He remembered the Hackle he had first met in the ogres’ slave pit: bitter and defensive, angry and so very lonely. Aram realized now that Hackle had tried to tell him some of his story then. But there hadn’t been time before the slaves had been called to the arena. Yet, in the pit and in the arena, Aram had somehow managed to win the young gnoll over to his side. They had fought together against the wyvern One-Eye, whom Gordok had summoned to kill them both when each refused to kill the other. Then they had escaped together on One-Eye’s back with Makasa, Murky, and a dying Thalyss. They were friends now. Fast friends. But amid all the dire acts and daring actions, Aram’s thoughts had never returned to wonder about Hackle’s story. No, it had taken Makasa’s bluntness to wring it free of the gnoll.

  She said, “All right, we’ll swing wide to avoid the Woodpaw lands.” She glanced at the flooded Thousand Needles canyon to the left. “We can’t go farther east unless we plan to swim to Gadgetzan.”

  Murky said, “Murky flllurlog.”

  Makasa ignored the murloc. She said, “So we’ll head west. As far as you think necessary, gnoll, before tacking back on course.”

  Hackle nodded, but Aram piped up, “Is that really necessary? We know how to deal with gnolls. Look how Greydon dealt with the Grimtail. Look at Hackle and me. We can do this. Reconcile Hackle with his people.”

  Murky said, “Mmmrrglllmmm.”

  Hackle shook his head.

  Makasa said, “That’s not a chance we need to take. We’ve made enough enemies. We have enough to do …” She ticked off the items on her fingers. “Finding food, finding crystals, avoiding Malus, getting to Gadgetzan, delivering Thalyss’s Seed, bringing you home to Lakeshire. We don’t need to engage an entire clan of gnolls in some pointless attempt to change their long-held customs.”

  “We don’t need them to change their customs. We just need to prove that Hackle’s not a runt.”

  “Runt is runt,” said a new voice, catching them all off guard.

  “Jaggal.” Hackle growled low.

  But it wasn’t just Jaggal. Aram, Makasa, Hackle, and Murky were standing in the middle of the wide road—with no cover—completely surrounded by ten to twelve gnoll warriors.

  Makasa was kicking herself. She had needed to hear the gnoll’s story, but how could she have been such a fool as to allow him to tell it on this open road? And how had she allowed herself to become so engrossed in his tale that she hadn’t heard nearly a dozen gnolls getting the drop on her from every side?

  Hackle had offered little description of Jaggal in his account, but Makasa quickly identified the brute. Though relatively young, he was by far the biggest gnoll she had ever seen, broad as a tree trunk and as tall as she at five foot ten despite his hunched posture. He had brown-and-gold fur, black spots, and a thick rust-colored mane that began behind his head and ran all the way down his back. He had only one piercing, a small iron bar near the top of one pointed ear. He sported a very big axe and a permanent sneer (the former, most likely taken off an ogre; the latter, more likely taken as a birthright).

  Nevertheless, Makasa Flintwill was prepared to fight the gnoll and—though she desperately missed her harpoon—liked her odds in single combat against him. Unfortunately, she was painfully aware that any attack she might launch now could easily generate a massacre. Because, of course, the brute was not alone. There were nine other warriors, three male and six female, some as young as Hackle, some considerably older. There was also a small female pup, standing less than half an inch from Jaggal’s left haunch. She held a smaller version of the brute’s axe (more like a double-bladed hatchet) and sported a smaller version of his permanent sneer. (If Makasa were a betting woman, she’d have wagered ready silver that the pup was Jaggal’s daughter.) Makasa could take the brute, but she couldn’t possibly take down this many combatants fast enough, even if Hackle joined the fight—something she couldn’t count on, given his current defeated posture. And, in any case, she’d be leaving Aram exposed.

  So she stood in a defensive pose—one hand on her cutlass, the other ready to let loose her iron chain—prepared for whatever move the gnolls made next. What she was not prepared for was Aramar Thorne, who launched himself at the massive Jaggal. Makasa just barely managed to grab the flying tail of Greydon’s leather coat, tied around the boy’s waist, and pull Aram back. The gnoll’s axe whistled through empty air, slicing down where Aramar’s skull had been a second before.

  Jaggal didn’t seem to mind that he had missed. He laughed and said, “What dumb boy doing?”

  “Boy not dumb. Boy is Aram,” Hackle said. “Aram attack to prove Aram worthy to talk to gnoll.”

  Jaggal turned toward Hackle and growled low.

  The little pup barked sharply, saying in a small but almost ridiculously confident voice, “Runt no talk to Jaggal. Runt no talk to any Woodpaw gnoll.”

  The brute looked down proudly and patted the pup’s head. He spoke to Hackle without deigning to look at him. “Jaggal warn runt what happen if runt caught on Woodpaw lands. Runt die now. Then Jaggal eat runt. Eat runt’s friends, too. Runt’s friends dumb for being friends of runt. Deserve to be eaten.”

  Aram looked stunned. “You’d eat another gnoll?”

  All the gnolls shrugged, as if not quite fathoming the purpose of the question. Even Hackle shrugged. “Meat is meat,” one said, and more than a few echoed the truism.

  “Listen,” Aram said.

  Makasa stifled a groan. What happened to the boy who could never manage to utter a single sound during a crisis? When had this twelve-year-old become a miniature Greydon Thorne, a semi-eloquent ambassador for his father’s nuanced approach to interspecies relations? Makasa had admired her captain, but Aram didn’t have Greydon’s skill with a sword to back his plays. Yet her brother didn’t seem to understand that fine distinction and stumbled on heedlessly.

  “Hackle is not a runt,” he said.

  “Runt is runt,” the brute said with a dismissive wave.

  “No. Hackle is a brave warrior. He fought in Gordok’s arena. He fought beside me against the wyvern One-Eye. He killed the ogre Wordok.”

  This got Jaggal’s attention. His head snapped up, and he growled out, “Runt no kill Wordok.”

  And that got Hackle’s attention. He raised his head and spoke with pride and not a little umbrage: “Hackle kill Wordok! Hackle kill!” But then his head sank again, and he muttered, “Makasa and Hackle kill Wordok.”

  Jaggal laughed once more. “See? Runt no kill Wordok. Jaggal knew runt no kill Wordok.”

  Makasa spoke for the first time. “Hackle killed Wordok. I am Makasa Flintwill. I hurt Wordok, yes. But I could not kill him.” She chose not to mention that she couldn’t kill the ogre because, at the time, Murky had been hugging her and wouldn’t let go. “Hackle saved Makasa. Hackle killed Wordok. Hackle took Wordok’s club.”

  Hackle managed to perk up. He hefted the ogre’s hefty war club onto his right shoulder and tried his best to look defiant. “Hackle kill Wordok,” he said, nodding curtly in confirmation.

  “So you see,” Aram said carefully, as if trying to be logical with a child, “Hackle is no runt. Hackle is a warrior worthy of the
Woodpaw clan.”

  Jaggal stared at Aram. Then he stared at Hackle. Then he shot a glance at Makasa, who still had one hand on her cutlass and one on her chain’s release hook. He looked at Hackle again, and his expression softened, as if he could finally remember the days when Hackle and Jaggal were friends, training together with Hackle’s mother, “not so long ago.” Then the brute looked down at his pup, who clung to his leg and looked up at him with the sneer he had briefly lost. He shook his head, almost sadly. He said, “Runt is runt. Runt come back to Woodpaw lands. Runt die.”

  Every gnoll took a step forward. Makasa drew her sword, prepared to take the brute down and risk the result. Even Aram drew his sword.

  “Runt die,” Hackle said then—but his tone was not one of defeat or resignation. No, there was a calculated edge to it now. “Or runt prove runt is Hackle by killing Feral Scar.”

  All the gnolls—except Jaggal and the pup—took a step back as if the mere mention of the name Feral Scar had summoned the great yeti into their presence.

  Jaggal, however, was not impressed. He laughed again. “Runt no kill Feral Scar. Runt not even find Feral Scar. Feral Scar hide from Woodpaw with all his yetis. He attack hunting parties, kill gnolls, then disappear into hills.”

  “Hackle already find Feral Scar. Find Feral Scar before Wordok capture Hackle. Now, Wordok dead. Hackle kill Wordok. Now, Hackle kill Feral Scar with Wordok’s club.”

  Jaggal stared at Hackle, then shook his head. “No,” Jaggal said.

  “Yes,” Hackle said. “Jaggal let Hackle and friends go. Hackle and Aram and Makasa and Murky find Feral Scar again. Then Hackle kill Feral Scar with war club of Wordok. Hackle swear this on Hackle’s life.”

  One of the older gnolls, a bronze-furred female with drooping grey eyes, said, “If runt no kill Feral Scar, then Feral Scar kill runt. Or if Hackle no find Feral Scar, Jaggal kill runt. Either way, runt die.”

  Hackle nodded. “Yes. But if Hackle find Feral Scar, if Hackle kill Feral Scar, then Jaggal let Hackle and friends pass through Woodpaw lands.”