The Spiral Path

by Greg Weisman

  But it was hard to maintain her anger at the boy. It isn’t his job to keep us safe. That’s my responsibility. Captain Thorne had commanded that of me. It was the man’s final order, and he had gone so far as to call upon the life debt I owed him for saving my own life years earlier.

  And why are we both in danger now? Because I have not been equal to the task of protecting Aram. We needed Thalyss to keep Aram safe. But Thalyss’s help had come at the cost of taking on the burden of Taryndrella, who has only managed to put us at further risk.

  She glanced over at Hackle. He nodded to her. She nodded back. She had come to rely on the gnoll as her good right arm. But that’s infuriating, too! The price of Hackle’s arm has been risking life and limb against more gnolls and yetis!

  And then there’s Murky, who was captured by Malus! It never ends! Every additional companion on our journey—EVERY ONE—has added complications and dangers that could not possibly be anticipated.

  She thought, I need to be more self-sufficient. That’s the answer. No more dependence on others. From now on these burdens will be mine and mine alone. Period. Blast, I miss my harpoon!

  Aram thought it was getting colder with each passing step along the curved path. His sweater and coat were still tied around his waist. He longed to stop and put them on, but he imagined that might be a difficult task to accomplish while holding a cutlass—assuming anyone would even be willing to stop. Frankly, he wasn’t willing to stop. He had no idea what they’d find at the other end of this corridor. But he knew they didn’t dare waste any more time. Not while Drella was still at risk.

  Hackle like having club and axe to grip. Hackle wonder if Hackle strong enough to wield club and axe at once. Hackle think wielding club and axe together would be good. Hackle practice wielding club and axe together after Hackle help save Drella.

  Murky worried about Drhla, but Murky was brave and determined. And Murky had a spear now. Murky would spear Drhla’s enemies like flllurlok!

  What is that feeling, that dread, which draws me on?

  He reached the entrance to the dome and found its two quilboar guards snoring before it.

  Well, that must portend something …

  Of course, he had no idea if this path would lead to what he sought, what he had been commanded to seek.

  But it blasted well leads somewhere, doesn’t it? There’s a flavor here I cannot identify but somehow recognize. The taste of something I don’t much care for, and a screaming in my head, warning me to turn away. Yet, at the same time, a summons, calling me forward.

  Ironically, it was the summons that nearly made him skirt the area. But in the end, he followed its call into Razorfen, because knowing would—at the very least—present opportunities for a little diversion.

  And so they all converged upon the Bone Pile.

  Shagtusk signaled for them to stop and pointed toward an archway. From beyond it, Aram heard some kind of noise, like rain on the roof of his family’s cottage in Lakeshire—but it stopped and started, regular and rhythmic. Shagtusk mouthed the words the Bone Pile.

  The other four nodded.

  Shagtusk held out her bristly hand for an axe.

  Makasa smiled a grim smile and mouthed, Not yet.

  Shagtusk glared at Makasa, then turned and barreled her way through the arch.

  Caught briefly off guard, Makasa raced in after, with Hackle at her heels. Aram and Murky reacted a tad slower, but soon they were inside, too.

  Four smoldering torches dimly illuminated a cavernous chamber with a ceiling of thorns. There was, of course, an immense pile of bones in the center. Aram didn’t need the nose of a gnoll to know the place smelled like death.

  “Aram!” Drella called.

  He turned to see the dryad tied to an iron post beside an altar of fire-scarred black wood. She was between two quilboar, one male—presumably Death Speaker Blackthorn—and one female—presumably Thornweaver Chugara Razorflank. Blackthorn was wearing some kind of quilboar mask and holding the biggest rattle Aram had ever seen. Aram shouted back to Drella, “Are you all right?!”

  “Of course,” she said, sounding suddenly pouty and almost disappointed in the question. “I am always right!”

  “No, all right—”

  Blackthorn shouted, “I need more time! Kill them!”

  Two other quilboar in matching tunics of grey and black exchanged glances and advanced. But, frankly, the odds didn’t look good for them. Shagtusk, snorting and blowing, was already standing over a third uniformed quilboar, pummeling him into unconsciousness. She straightened up, and Makasa tossed her the axe while unhooking and unleashing her iron chain, which she immediately began spinning in tight circles. Hackle, meanwhile, dropped the axe he’d been carrying into the dirt and raced forward, bearing his club with both hands.

  Within seconds, both uniformed quilboar were dead, lying beside their unconscious fellow. That just left Blackthorn and Chugara between Drella and her rescuers. The thornweaver confirmed her identity by chanting and drawing down huge branches of thorns from the walls of the dome, which expanded to halt—if not trap or kill—the rescuers.

  But Drella, pulling one small hand free of her bonds, reached toward Chugara and cried, “Stop that. Can you not hear those thornbushes screaming? Listen!” The dryad put one hand on the thornweaver’s back, and in an instant, it was Chugara who was screaming. She dropped to her knees, breathing hard and … sobbing? The branches of thorns ceased their advance.

  Blackthorn roared something in unintelligible frustration. Then he squealed like a pig and shouted, “The Coldbringer comes to taste of his sacrifice! His power fills me!” He shook his rattle at the pile of bones. “They must not steal the Coldbringer’s sacrifice! Kill them for the Coldbringer!”

  In response to the Death Speaker’s rattling, the Bone Pile itself began to rattle and shake, and the pile’s bones began to rapidly assemble—klik, klik, klik, klik, klik—sorting themselves into skeletal warriors that advanced—unburdened by trifles like muscle, organs, sinew, and skin—toward Shagtusk, Makasa, and Hackle.

  Makasa actually took a step back. But her hesitation lasted only a moment, and her standard determination klik’d in. She swung her iron chain in swift, broad circles. It smashed through the bones of undead quilboar, tauren, humans, and centaur. She swung the chain high, and it knocked off quite a few skulls. Unfortunately, the skeletons didn’t seem to require heads for their current calling, and continued their advance.

  Hackle, who was considerably shorter than Makasa, focused his war club more on thighbones and pelvises, and met with more long-term success.

  Shagtusk, in her typical fashion, just barreled through the crowd, using her bulk to bash skeletons back into their component bones and swinging her axe to split what remained.

  Aram and Murky hung back. There wasn’t much Aram could do with his cutlass, and less Murky could accomplish with his little spear. At first, that hardly seemed to matter. Makasa, Shagtusk, and Hackle were routing the enemy.

  But it soon became clear victory wouldn’t be quite that easy. To begin with, more and more skeletons were forming from the Bone Pile, hyenas and gnolls, a bear, a wolf, and boars of all sizes. Harpy bones formed into two skeletons that took to the air, swiping their talons from above at Makasa and Shagtusk. What’s more, the skeletons already dealt with refused to stay down. Klik, klik, klik, they formed new combinations. A centaur with the upper torso of a tauren. A human with the head of a quilboar. And more. Even the skeletons with shattered legs wouldn’t rest, using bony fingers to drag themselves forward toward Blackthorn’s chosen prey.

  Shagtusk, who had waded in farther than even the length of Makasa’s chain, soon found herself overrun. The skeletons climbed over her, pulled at her, tried to drag her to the ground. They had no real strength, and she was practically all muscle, but they had the numbers—and soon she was barely holding her own.

  Hackle wasn’t faring much better. The skeletons were unarmed, but many still had teeth and a few h
ad claws. Hackle growled loudly as hyena jaws bit down on one leg. He shattered the creature’s skull, but more creatures were coming.

  Makasa’s chain kept all larger opponents at bay, and by tilting it upward briefly, she even clipped the wings of one of the skeletal harpies. It crashed to the ground, shattering into miscellaneous bones. But many of those bones were soon klik, klik, kliking back together, and the result began crawling toward her, beneath the arc of her iron swings. This and others would be upon her soon.

  And some of the skeletons circled wide—or sorted themselves back together beyond their first line of opponents—to attack Murky and Aram. A skeletal boar rushed at the murloc, its long, sharp tusks prepared to skewer Aram’s friend like a fish on a spit. Murky pointed his spear at the thing but realized it would do him little good. He squealed out, “Flllur mgrrrrl! Flllur mgrrrrl!” and ran in a serpentine pattern that seemed to confuse his pursuer. It tried to cut left to follow him, and one of its legs snapped. It continued to drag itself after Murky on its three “good” legs, but Murky saw an opportunity. He ran around behind the beast and jumped, landing on his butt upon the creature’s back, causing its bones to shatter and scatter beneath him. When Murky stood up, he was holding the boar’s spine and swinging it like a club.

  This inspired Aram. A gnoll skeleton had rushed at him, and he had barely managed to parry its swipes with his cutlass. Now, sheathing his sword, he launched his entire body at the creature, knocking it backward onto the ground. As with Murky’s boar, the bones scattered apart beneath him. Aram picked up a good, thick thighbone and swung it at the next skeleton—a legless human—that crawled toward him.

  But the numbers still favored the bone warriors.

  As Aram whacked at skeletons, he called out to Drella, who remained tied to the post between the low-chanting Death Speaker and the kneeling, sobbing thornweaver. “Drella! Can you stop this?!”

  “Yes!” she called back as she struggled to free herself. It was said with enough unthinking confidence to cause Blackthorn to look her way (and even make his mask appear concerned). But then she paused, looked confused, and shouted, “How?!”

  Blackthorn actually snorted out a laugh, and Aram groaned.

  At which point, a new arrival made things look even worse. Aram smelled him before he saw him. Is that jasmine? Jasmine in this desolate spot? It could only mean one thing. One person …

  Baron Reigol Valdread, the Whisper-Man, entered through the archway. Short of Malus himself, the Forsaken was the worst possible person at the worst possible time.

  He spotted Aram first, swinging a thighbone at skeletons. “Well, well, young squire, what have you gotten yourself into now? Throw me the compass, Aramar Thorne, and I might just …” He trailed off and slowly pulled down his hood to reveal the pale stretched skin that covered his skull-shaped head, which seemed to mark him as a comrade to Blackthorn’s skeletal army. And as if further proof of his compatibility were necessary, the second harpy skeleton swooped toward him—only to veer away shy of attacking. Aram glanced back at the Whisper-Man as he studied the chamber, bugged-out eyes scanning from bone warrior to bone warrior, taking in Murky and Hackle and Shagtusk, pausing briefly on Makasa, before passing over Chugara and Taryndrella, and finally landing on the Death Speaker.

  “You!” the baron called, pushing his voice to the limit of its volume. “What is your game?!”

  Blackthorn’s mask revealed little, but it seemed he was only now noticing the newcomer. “What are you?!” he shouted back.

  “I am Baron Reigol Valdread, and I am—”

  “FORSAKEN!” roared the Death Speaker. “ABOMINATION!” (The two words were clearly synonymous to Blackthorn.)

  “Whom do you raise, lunatic?” Valdread hissed, while the skeleton of a huge bear lumbered toward him, only to veer away at the last moment as the harpy had.

  “I raise Amnennar the Coldbringer! And when he comes, you will once again find yourself under the yoke of the Scourge!”

  “Over my undead body.”

  “So be it!” Blackthorn yelled, before chanting something low, which caused the bear-skeleton to pivot back toward Valdread.

  The Whisper-Man’s black sword was out, slashing through bear bones and making very short work of them, actually.

  But he had become Blackthorn’s new priority, and Blackthorn had become his. Every skeleton in the place broke away from Drella’s rescuers to converge on the baron, whose black sword sliced through bones like butter as he fought his way toward the Death Speaker with murderous intent.

  Even during the battle, the irony wasn’t lost on Aram. One of his greatest enemies was aiding their cause because the evil of the Scourge inspired more hatred in the Whisper-Man than any fifty casks of jasmine water could drown.

  Free of her skeletal opponents, Shagtusk reached Drella first, yanking the rope that bound her free of the post and scooping her up as if she weighed less than a feather.

  Makasa was right behind her, her cutlass out and poking into the quilboar scout’s ribs. “Lead us out,” Makasa growled, “and don’t try anything funny.”

  Shagtusk grunted and led the way, skirting wide round the battle of bones. Neither the Whisper-Man nor the Death Speaker nor the still sobbing thornweaver seemed to notice that the Coldbringer’s sacrifice was being carried off. The bones were once again piling up beneath Reigol Valdread as—compass forgotten—he sought to keep the Scourge from gaining another foothold on Azeroth.

  Only as the group reached the archway did Blackthorn realize what he was about to lose. “No! The sacrifice!”

  “If a sacrifice is required,” Valdread whispered, “then let it be you.”

  It was the last Aram heard of either of them, as he followed Shagtusk, Drella, Makasa, and Murky out of the chamber. He looked back once to confirm that Hackle was behind him (which he was) and that none of the skeletons were following (which they weren’t). Then he glanced down at the thighbone he still held in his hand. A tiny spider scurried along its length.

  Aram screamed and chucked the bone away.

  They didn’t stop running until they were back at the entrance to Razorfen. The two sentries, Whistler and Bristlemaw, were still snoring contentedly right where they’d been left. Makasa whistled for Amberhide and Elmarine. Shagtusk put Drella down.

  “Thank you, Shagtusk,” the dryad said. “That was a new and interesting experience. For the most part.”

  Shagtusk stared at her. The others stared at her as well.

  Drella started to look uncomfortable. She said, “I am sorry. Is it possible I have disappointed you? I could not bring all the unnatural magicks to an end.”

  Shagtusk grunted and said, “If you taught Chugara something, you’ve done more than anyone else has managed.”

  Makasa cleared her throat.

  Shagtusk added, “And I’m sorry I got all of you into this mess.”

  Aram said, “You made up for it. Or did your best to, anyway.”

  The tauren and the high elf rowed up, towing Rendow’s boat. Both stared up at Shagtusk angrily, causing Aram to repeat, “She made up for it.”

  Thalia Amberhide nodded but seemed less than convinced. Elmarine kept her own counsel.

  Makasa growled, “Let’s get out of here. Now.” She climbed down into Rendow’s boat.

  Shagtusk picked Drella up again and lowered her into Makasa’s arms. Aram, Hackle, and Murky followed.

  Drella stretched and yawned demurely. “Excuse me,” she said. “I am a little tired.” She curled up in the center of the boat and was asleep before they’d said their good-byes and pushed away from shore to continue their journey toward the Speedbarge and, ultimately, toward Gadgetzan.

  Maluss and Ssarbik, meanwhile, were taking their own route to Gadgetzzan.

  Ssside by ssside, they walked down the ssstepss leading away from the war room of the Masster of the Hidden, after ssspending nearly a week in the highlord’zz gloriouss pressencce.

  Maluss pauzzed at the bottom, painf
ully pulling an iron gauntlet over hizz left hand, while ssstaring acrosss the dessolation of rock, debris, and flame that encompasssed Outland. In the disstancce, the campss and campfirezz—or more accurately, bonfirezz—of the Burning Legion were jusst barely vizzible through the sssmoke and hazze.

  Ssarbik was almosst giddy with pleassure over the reprimand Captain Maluss had recceived from the dreadlord of the Legion for not having already achieved the compasss. The arakkoa gleefully exxpresssed hizz hope that Maluss had learned the error of hizz wayzz—and wazz, at lasst, properly motivated to complete the tassk at hand.

  But truthfully, Malus required no reprimand or punishment to achieve the compass. He felt no need to justify his actions. Not to himself. Not to the Hidden’s Master. And certainly not to Ssarbik. This is about completing what I started, he repeated to himself over and over. Else, why did I do what I did at all? He glared down at the giggling bird-man and shut him up with a slap from his new gauntlet. The arakkoa squealed out in pain, and Malus’s own hand stung from the effort—though he would not even allow himself a grimace, let alone a grunt.

  The captain did take some pleasure in knowing he remained in command of the Hidden on Azeroth. Not because it would have changed anything for him. He would do what he must no matter what His Highlordship decided or declared. But Malus knew Ssarbik coveted his command, and thwarting the bird-man brought a begrudging smile to the big man’s face.

  He said, “Time to get to it. Open a portal,” while he thought, After all, what’s my alternative? Admit I committed a terrible—He wouldn’t allow himself to complete the reflection.