Her expression could have withered the strongest tree. “In years past,” she said, “I was deemed too frail to be a true Frostwolf. That time is over. I go where you go. Whatever happens.”
There was no arguing with her, and Durotan found he did not want to. Their place was at one another’s side. That was part of the legacy he would bequeath to his child—be it male or female.
“Whatever happens,” he agreed. He turned to Orgrim. “I will need you to stay behind,” he said. “In case we do not return, there will be tension here. The clan will need a strong leader.”
Orgrim grunted unhappily. “I will serve my chieftain better by smacking the upstart soundly,” he said, “but I will obey.”
“Keep your armor on,” Durotan said, “Just in case.” He did not need to spell it out. The Frostwolf clan had been rocked by this event as never before. Durotan had never expected a challenge from one of his own, but it had come. Orgrim should be prepared in case things grew ugly.
Orgrim nodded, all humor gone. “Lok’tar,” he said.
“Lok’tar,” Durotan said, and went to the waiting Sharptooth.
* * *
Durotan and Draka rode side by side, surrounded by their hunting party. Sharptooth and Ice loped at a mile-eating but steady pace that allowed the couple breath enough to speak.
“I should have been better prepared for such a challenge,” Durotan said. “Gul’dan’s words would be intoxicating to the fearful, and Nokrar has a family to care for. And he has ever been impulsive. A few words from his wife or friend might have led him to believe that, somehow, this,” and he indicated the harsh terrain before them, “was the best option.”
“You have a kinder heart than me,” Draka said. “I have faced this terrain alone. I know how unforgiving it is.” She looked up at him. “I know how hard it is on the young. My anger at Nokrar is less that he left, than that he took his children with them.”
“He and the…” Durotan frowned. What should he call them? Frostwolves? They had scorned the title. Rebels? After the mak’gora, they had not offered violence. Traitors? He shook his head. There was no precise word in the orcish tongue for what Nokrar and his group were. “The deserters,” he said, unhappy with the word but knowing no better one, “will not elude us for long. If Gul’dan’s trail is hard to find, I think only the trail of a wounded clefthoof bull would be easier to follow than theirs.”
Draka threw back her head and laughed. Durotan grinned, warmed by the sound.
He had not exaggerated. The group had taken five wolves with them. It was clear that Nokrar was trying to catch up with Gul’dan: the tracks led almost directly south.
The hunting party was five strong: alongside Durotan and Draka were Gurlak the singer, and Kruglar and Melakk, both experienced trackers. Ice, Sharptooth, and the other wolves ran amiably, ears forward, tongues lolling. Durotan envied them their innocence. They ran not in pursuit of those who had betrayed them, but to join with their fellow pack members—both lupine and orcish.
What would he do with them? Durotan wondered. The children would have to come back, of course. Their chances of survival were higher with the protection of the full clan—and the children must survive. But Nokrar and the other adults? Nokrar had now challenged Durotan’s authority twice, first with the mak’gora, and now by absconding like a thief in the night with the most precious things the Frostwolves had. Even now, Durotan did not wish to kill the foolish orc, but he saw no way out of it.
Sharptooth halted abruptly, and Durotan found himself having to grab his wolf friend’s thick scruff to stay atop him. Sharptooth’s body tensed and he crouched, his ears flattening against his skull. A low, dangerous growl emanated from him. All the wolves were behaving in a similar manner. Durotan signaled to the rest of the hunting party to emulate him as he drew Sever.
He sniffed the air. He scented nothing that signaled danger. While an orc’s sense of smell was keen, it was feeble compared to that of a wolf. Durotan trusted his friend. He could not smell what the wolves did, but he realized he scented enough—the beasts’ musky tension and his party’s own sweat. Something very bad lay ahead.
Initially, the trail appeared no different here from what they had seen before. The carelessly paw-trampled snow led on for a while before being swallowed up by a thick cluster of pines. The rest of the party awaited their chieftain’s orders. Durotan silently dismounted, and the others followed suit. He pointed at the trail ahead of them, and held up two fingers. He then pointed to the wolves and, keeping his hand palm down, swept it in front of him. The orcs would proceed two by two, and the wolves were to be released. Unlike the orcs Durotan was tracking, frost wolves would never desert their pack, and in the closeness of the forest, if it came to a fight, they would fare best unhindered by riders.
The group moved forward, taking care not to disturb the snow-laden boughs, a lifetime of practice rendering them able to maneuver almost soundlessly through the snow. The forest was still as they entered. There was no sound of birdcalls or the rustling of small creatures going about their business.
The tracks revealed that the deserters, too, had dismounted, walking alongside their wolves. There were no prints of small children’s boots, so Durotan assumed the parents had permitted the children to ride. He looked ahead along the path, noting that it bent to the right.
The wind shifted. Durotan gasped. He could smell it now, the reek of blood from both orc and wolf. It was not fresh. Whatever had happened had occurred hours ago.
He looked back at his companions and pointed left and right, indicating that they were to separate and close in on the site of the battle from different directions. They nodded and obeyed.
Durotan did not know what to expect. Bodies, almost certainly, of both wolf and orc. But what—or who—had killed them?
He could glimpse the site now, through the tall dark shapes of the pine trees: a clearing spattered with blood, both red and reddish-black. But…
“Where are the bodies?” asked Draka, who was a slight distance away from him.
The wolves had come forward, sniffing at the partially frozen puddles of snow. Ice lifted his muzzle to the sky and began to mourn its fallen pack mate. The others joined in. Convinced now that there was no immediate threat, Durotan lowered his axe.
The rest of the party drew closer, also lowering their weapons. The entire area had been churned up, snow and pine needles alike drenched in a veritable lake of red blood. As Durotan approached, he saw a wide, bloody trail continue through the woods.
Something must have slain all five wolves and dragged them off. There was too much blood, and besides, the wolves would never flee if their riders were in peril. Durotan could think of only one predator that could—or would—do that.
They had not left the Red Walkers behind with Frostfire Ridge after all.
Durotan stepped closer to the wide red trail. He could now see that boot prints led away from it. He followed the prints with his eyes as they disappeared into the shadowy darkness of the forest. The wolves were already bounding in that direction, whimpering and growling. Draka sprinted off with them, taking care not to disturb the tracks.
“There is too much orc blood,” Gurlak pointed out. “Someone died here.”
Durotan looked at the black-red snow and realized that the lok’vadnod singer was right. He had assumed, naively, that a member of Nokrar’s group had been injured, but—
Another mournful howl rent the air, this one sharper, more heartfelt with the rawness of grief.
“Durotan!” called Draka. Her voice, barely audible over the frost wolves’ own lok’vadnod, was sharp and laced with something he had never heard in it before: fear.
The rest of the group raced to her. They found her and their mounts in a small clearing. The wolves had their muzzles raised to the sky. Draka stared, transfixed, at the carnage before her.
The five wolves had been skinned and butchered, only carcasses remained. That, Durotan had half-expected. Their pelts would p
rovide clothing for an orc, and their flesh would feed them. Even the Frostwolves work the skins of their wolf brothers, so that the wolves would be remembered and still serve the clan even in death. While he would have ached at the sight of their slaughter, that was not what had him, and the others, rooted with shock.
Orc life was often brutal. Death was no stranger. Durotan had witnessed fellow clan members, some close friends, trampled beneath raging clefthooves. He had watched them bleed out after being gored by the horns of talbuks. He had even witnessed death in battle and shocking and violent accidents.
But this—
Before them lay a body—no, he thought wildly, that wasn’t even right, what was left of a body. It was naked; the murderers had taken all of this orc’s clothing and supplies—and more. His flesh had been carved from his bones, as the flesh of the wolves had been. His entrails had been scooped out and laid to one side. With a peculiar clarity in the midst of his shock, Durotan noticed that a few organs were missing.
The orc lay face down in the snow and pine needles. Swallowing his gorge, Durotan extended Sever. He could not bear to touch the blood-slicked bones. Prodding gently, he rolled the corpse over.
Nokrar’s face stared up sightlessly at him.
“I knew they adorned themselves with orc and draenei blood,” Draka said softly. “But this…”
“They… they cut him up like…” Gurlak couldn’t finish the sentence. He swallowed hard and said, “Was this a trophy?”
Durotan looked from the wolf to the orc and shook his head.
“No,” he said grimly. “Food.”
19
“The children,” Draka said at once. “The Red Walkers took them!”
Durotan shook his head to clear it, fighting back the daze of revulsion. “The Red Walkers needed to kill the wolves outright, and swiftly,” he said, working it out as he spoke. “That was the greatest threat, and the most… the most meat. Orcs could be overcome, subdued, and made to walk under their own power. They took the wolves’ meat and hides and they took…”
For some strange reason, Durotan’s mind seized on a careless comment he had made years ago, when they had first seen Gul’dan. He had said that Geyah looked like she wanted to make a feast out of the warlock. And Ogrim’s words before they left: Or mayhap they will run across Red Walkers who will do the job more swiftly than hunger.
He thought of the times when some hunting parties had simply never returned, and his stomach clenched.
If you can’t say it, you give them power, Durotan told himself. His fists clenched hard, bruising the palm that clutched Sever. Name the thing you fear, and you become its master.
“They took Nokrar’s flesh as well,” he said. His voice was steady. “The others, including the children, I believe they have taken prisoner. Food for later.”
“Then,” said Draka, speaking as bluntly as he had, “they are perhaps all still alive.”
Durotan and the others had been single-minded in their purpose when they set forth that morning. They had come to hunt down deserting clan members. Now, that quest had turned into a rescue mission.
“The Red Walkers are not mounted, and we are,” Durotan said. “We will find them. And when we do… they will die. Lok’tar!” he shouted, and the others joined in. Their voices rang in the unnatural stillness. Doubtless, the Red Walkers heard them.
Durotan did not care. Let them know what awaited them.
Let them know the Frostwolves were coming.
* * *
The scent of their pack mates’ lifeblood filled the nostrils of the frost wolves, and they ran with all that was in them. Their riders hung on tightly, giving the magnificent, huge white beasts their heads. They ran swiftly but steadily, as they did when in pursuit of a herd, but Durotan could feel Sharptooth’s tension. This was a very different sort of hunt, and both wolf and orc knew it.
It was Gurlak who spotted the stream of smoke curling upward, so thin that Durotan had to look carefully to see it. His stomach lurched as the wind shifted. It carried the smell of cooking flesh. It might have been appetizing, if Durotan had not known what it was.
Like his father before him, Durotan prided himself on being an orc of reason, not just battle prowess. Seldom had he felt the red haze of bloodlust, but it descended upon him now full force. He had not realized that he had shouted a battle cry until his throat was raw, or that the sound in his ears was his own voice. The others picked up the cry. Their mounts, sensing their riders’ desire, lowered their heads and ran as swiftly as they could.
The hunting party was made of five orcs. The tracks of the Red Walkers indicated that there were twelve. The Frostwolves didn’t even slow down. They burst out of the trees and into an open area, the encampment before them nothing more than a stopping point in the snow. The haze of bloodlust lifted long enough for Durotan to note the camp’s layout: a central fire pit, with several spits of meat part-roasted, a pile of still-bloody wolf pelts, a bulging sack leaking pools of red and reddish black, and—bound together like so many pieces of kindling—the missing, living, Frostwolves.
The Red Walkers who had slain Garad had been horrifying enough. They had dipped their hands in animal blood and marked their bodies and faces with it. But the ones who turned to face the Frostwolves now looked like animals themselves. No, not animals, Durotan amended. Animals were natural creatures. What stood before him looked like the embodiment of nightmares.
They did not have merely a few handprints of dried blood on their bodies. They wore the blood like clothing. Layer upon layer had crusted on their chests, arms, and legs. It was impossible to guess what color the blood had been when it had first been spilled, or how long it had been on their bodies. The new flies of spring clustered on the things that had once been recognizable as orcs as they charged the mounted Frostwolves with a crazed recklessness.
One, a female with long, matted hair and wild eyes, raced toward Durotan with her spear. The blade was still coated with red wolf blood. Durotan leaped off Sharptooth. The wolf knew this maneuver and veered left when Durotan turned his attention to his attacker. Sharptooth bounded forward, springing on a second Red Walker who was swinging a mace at Melakk. The wolf’s jaws yawned wide, his teeth as white as his coat, and then clamped down on the orc’s neck. The Red Walker went down at once in a flurry of snow, ash, embers, and a fountain of his own red-black blood.
Draka stayed mounted as her wolf ran in a tight circle. Her hand was a blur as she nocked and released arrow after arrow. One of the Red Walkers, snatching up a piece of flaming wood from the fire, dived for Draka’s mount. Durotan could smell burning fur and Ice howled in pain, but the Red Walker went down with two arrows through his throat.
Durotan was glad he had selected Sever and not Thunderstrike. He would not have wanted to dispatch these creatures from Sharptooth’s back. He wanted to thrust his snarling face within inches of theirs, smell the caked, rotting blood, and watch the light of life in their eyes wink out as he split their chests open or sliced off their heads. He had never hated before, but he hated these orcs.
He fell into his trance-like focus, losing track of time as his blade found flesh or blocked a strike, ceasing to count the number of times he ended a Red Walker’s life so that he or she would never, ever, do to another orc what they had done to a Frostwolf. Finally, his body wet with sweat and blood—some of which was his own—Durotan slowed, blinking, to behold the area littered with corpses. Most of them were the hideous, fly-covered ones of the Red Walkers, but he saw Draka kneeling over the still body of Gurlak.
“He fell under three,” she said simply. “He took them all with him.”
Durotan realized he was panting and simply nodded. Gurlak, who loved to sing the lok’vadnods, would have been pleased to think he had earned a glorious one of his own. Melakk and Kruglar were in the process of sawing at the ropes that bound the remaining Frostwolves. It took Durotan another moment to come back to himself, and he realized with an icy jolt that the prisoners were
all adults.
“The children!” he shouted. He strode over to the rescued prisoners, treading without caring upon the corpses of the Red Walkers. They were not orcs. They were insane, twisted monsters, and they earned even less respect in death than they had commanded in life. “What happened? Where are they?” He grabbed Grukag by the front of his tunic.
“They fled!” Grukag said, his voice was close to a sob. He and all of the former prisoners wore desperate, stunned expressions, but Durotan had no time for sympathy. “When we were attacked—they bolted and fled into the trees.”
“Some of the Red Walkers went after them,” Kagra said, “but they returned empty-handed. The children must have escaped.”
“When was this?” Durotan demanded. He remained furious with them. Gurlak and Nokrar were dead because of the ill-advised decision to slink away in the night, and the thought of the children—
“Half a day ago,” Grukag said. His voice was somber. He knew what that meant. There were dangers in the woods for three children, two of whom were quite young. Wild wolves seldom attacked adult orcs, but would view such small ones as prey. Insects, whose bites were lethal, had emerged with the spring. Venomous snakes would still be too sluggish to slither away at a child’s approach, choosing to strike instead.
And night was coming.
“Hurry,” Durotan ordered. “We will search as best we can.” He hoped that the Spirits would guide them to the no doubt terrified youngsters.
But the Spirits were not kind. Six fruitless hours later, in the middle of a dark and bitter night, the party was forced to abandon the hunt. It would be foolish to continue. The Red Walkers had taken most of the clothing from the Frostwolves they had captured, and had not bothered to feed them or give them water. They were in bad shape. The darkness was so deep that the children could be lying unconscious a few feet away, and the adults would walk right past them.
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