Cycle of Hatred (world of warcraft)

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  Still, it was worth it for the power. And the ability to walk the streets and drink in the Demonsbane without fear of physical reprisal.

  Shoving his hand past his collar to reach under his shirt, Margoz pulled out the necklace with the silver pendant shaped like a sword afire. Clutching the sword so tightly that he felt the edges dig into his palm, he spoke the words whose meaning he'd never learned, but which filled him with an unspeakable dread every time he said them: "Galtak Ered'nash. Ered'nash ban galar. Ered'nash havik yrthog. Galtak Ered'nash."

  The stink of sulfur started to permeate the small room. This was the part Margoz hated.

  Galtak Ered'nash. You have done as I commanded?

  "Yes, sir." Margoz was embarrassed to realize that his voice was getting squeaky. Clearing his throat, he tried to deepen his tone. "I did as you asked. As soon as I mentioned difficulties with the orcs, virtually the entire tavern joined in."

  Virtually?

  Margoz didn't like the threat implied in that one—word question. "One man was a holdout, but the others were ganging up on him to a certain degree. Provided a focus for their ire, really."

  Perhaps. You have done well.

  That came as a huge relief. "Thank you, sir, thank you. I am glad to have been of service." He hesitated. "If I may, sir, might now be a good time to once again broach the subject of improved accommodations? You might have noticed the rat that—"

  You have served us. You will be rewarded.

  "So you've said, sir, but—well, I was hoping a reward would come soon." He decided to take advantage of his lifelong fears. "I was in grave danger this evening, you know. Walking alone near the docks can be—"

  You will come to no harm as long as you serve. You need never walk with fear again, Margoz.

  "Of—of course. I simply—"

  You simply wish to live the life you have never been permitted to live. That is an understandable concern. Be patient, Margoz. Your reward will come in due time.

  The sulfur stench started to abate. "Thank you, sir. Galtak Ered'nash!"

  Dimly, the patron's voice said, Galtak Ered'nash. Then all was quiet in Margoz's apartment once again.

  A bang came on the wall, followed by the muffled voice of his neighbor. "Stop yelling in there! We're tryin' to sleep!"

  Once, such importunings would have had Margoz cowering in fear. Today, he simply ignored them and lay down on his pallet, hoping the smell wouldn't keep him from sleeping.

  Two

  What I don't get is, what's the point of fog?"

  Captain Bolik, master of the orc trading vessel Orgath'ar, knew he would regret the words even as he found himself almost compelled to respond to his batman's statement. "Does it have to have a point?"

  Rabin shook his head as he continued his cleaning of the captain's tusks. It was not a habit every orc indulged in, but Bolik felt that it was his duty as captain of the Orgath'ar to present himself in the best manner possible. Orcs were a noble people, ripped from their homes and enslaved, both by demons and by humans. Enslaved orcs had always been filthy and unkempt. As a free orc living in Durotar under the benign rule of the great warrior Thrall, Bolik felt it was important to look as little like the slaves of old as possible. That meant grooming, as alien a concept as that might have been to most orcs, and it was something he expected in his crew as well.

  Certainly it was true of Rabin, who had taken to the captain's instructions far better than most of Orgath'ar's crew. Rabin kept his eyebrows trimmed, his tusks and teeth cleaned, his nails polished and sharp, and kept decoration to a tasteful minimum—just a nose ring and a tattoo.

  In answer to Bolik's question, Rabin said, "Well, everything in the world serves some purpose, don't it, sir? I mean, the water, it's there to be givin' us fish to eat and a way of travelin' by boat. The air's there to be givin' us something to breathe. The ground gives us food, too, not to mention somethin' to build our homes on. We're makin' boats with what the trees give us. Even rain and snow—they're givin' us water we can drink, unlike the sea. All that means something."

  Rabin turned his attention to sharpening Bolik's nails, and so Bolik leaned back. His stool was situated near the cabin bulkhead, so he leaned against that. "But fog means nothing?"

  "All it does, really, is get in the way without givin' us nothin'."

  Bolik smiled, his freshly cleaned teeth shining in the cabin's dim lantern—provided illumination. The porthole provided none such, thanks to the very fog that Rabin was now complaining about. The captain asked, "But snow and rain get in the way, too."

  "True enough, Captain, true enough." Rabin finished sharpening the thumb and moved on to the other fingers. "But, like I said, snow and rain got themselves a greater purpose. Even if they do get in the way, leastaways there's a benefit to be makin' up for it. But tell me, sir, what does the fog do to make up for it? It keeps us from seein' where we goin', and don't give us nothing back."

  "Perhaps." Bolik regarded his batman. "Or perhaps we simply haven't learned its benefit yet. After all, there was a time when we did not know that snow was simply frozen rain. The orcs then saw snow only as the same kind of problem that you now see fog as. Eventually, its true purpose—as you said, to provide us with water to drink during the colder seasons—was learned. So it is not the fault of the fog, but ours for not yet seeing the truth. And that is as it should be. The world tells us what we need to know when we are ready to know it and not before. That is the way of things."

  Rabin considered the captain's words as he finished sharpening and started buffing. "I suppose that might be so. But that don't do us much good today, though, does it, sir?"

  "No, it does not. How is the crew dealing with it?"

  "As well as can be, I suppose," Rabin said with a shrug. "Lookout says he can't see the tusks in front of his face from up there."

  Bolik frowned. The rocking of the boat had been fairly constant, but now it seemed to bounce a bit more. That usually meant they were being affected by the wake of another vessel.

  Rising from the stool while Rabin was in mid—sharpen, Bolik said, "We'll finish this later, Rabin."

  Getting up off his knees, Rabin nodded his head. "Very well, Captain."

  Bolik grabbed his father's mace and exited his cabin into the narrow corridor beyond. Orgath'ar—which Bolik had named after Orgath, his noble father and the original owner of the mace, who died fighting the Burning Legion—had been built by goblins, since he wanted only the best. The shipbuilder, a sharp old goblin named Leyds, had assured Bolik that he would make the corridors extra wide to accommodate orcs' greater girth. Unfortunately, the short goblin's notions of "extra wide" were less generous than Bolik's, so the captain was barely able to squeeze his massive frame through to the staircase that led to the deck.

  As he walked up the stairs, he saw his first mate, Kag, stop himself from coming down. "I was just coming to see you, sir." Kag smiled, his long tusks almost poking his eyes. "Should've known you'd feel the change."

  Bolik chuckled as he came up to the deck. As soon as he arrived, he regretted not calling Kag back downstairs to meet him. The fog was almost thick enough to cut with his sword. He knew Orgath'ar well enough to walk to the edge of the deck without being able to see where he was going, but now that was the only way to get there. Kag followed, standing practically nose to nose with the captain so they could see each other.

  Realizing that he wasn't going to be able to see any other ships—indeed, he barely had any empirical evidence that they were actually in a body of water, since he could hardly see that—he turned to his first mate. "What is it?"

  Kag shook his head. "Hard to say. Lookout can't see much. He's caught glimpses of a ship, but sometimes he thinks it's one of the Theramore military convoys—other times, he says he looks nothing like any regular human or orc boat."

  "What do you think?"

  Without hesitating, Kag said, "Lookout wouldn't say if he wasn't sure. If he says he saw Theramore military, then says something else
, that means he saw something different the first time. I think it's two ships. Besides, the wake's enough for two, or for one going 'round in circles. This fog, one's as like as the other."

  Bolik nodded his agreement. Their lookout, Vak, could look at two specks on the horizon and tell you which was the fishing boat and which the troop carrier. Probably tell you whether or not the fishing boat was built by gnomes or humans, too, and whether the troop carrier was made before or after the Burning Legion's invasion. "Three ships this close is asking for trouble. We may need to sound the horn. Get—"

  "Ship ho!"

  Casting his glance up the mast, Bolik tried to see Vak, but the mast above his head was swallowed by fog. Vak's voice carried down from what humans called the "crow's nest," for reasons Bolik never understood—he knew that a crow was a type of bird, but he wasn't sure what its nest had to do with a lookout post—but the captain could not see him.

  Kag called up. "What do you see?"

  "Ship approaching! Humans! Not flying no colors I can see!"

  "What about the military ship?"

  "Can't see 'em now, but caught 'em a second ago! Runnin' parallel now!"

  Bolik didn't like this. A human ship flying no colors usually meant pirates. It might not have—flying colors was almost pointless in fog like this—and they might simply have been unable to see the orc ship. Bolik wasn't about to risk the possibility—or his cargo. If the crates in his hold weren't safely delivered to Razor Hill, Bolik didn't get paid, which meant the crew didn't get paid. Days the crew lost wages were never good days to be a shipmaster.

  "Sound the horn. And put guards on the cargo hold."

  Kag nodded. "Yes, sir."

  "Harpoons!"

  At Vak's cry, Bolik cursed. Harpoons meant only one of two things. One was that the other ship had mistaken Orgath'ar for a large seafaring creature such as a whale or a sea serpent. The other was that they were pirates and the harpoons were attached to boarding lines.

  Since sea serpents and whales didn't migrate this far north as a general rule, Bolik felt safe in assuming it was the latter.

  The harpoons slammed into the deck, the side of the staircase that led belowdecks, and other places Bolik couldn't see in the fog. Then the lines that were attached to them went taut.

  "Prepare for boarders!" Kag cried.

  Bolik heard a voice say, "Cut the lines!"

  The sound of a fist hitting flesh was followed by Kag saying, "Don't be a fool! Swords can't cut through those ropes, and you'll leave yourself open."

  Any other conversation was cut short by the sudden arrival of the very boarders in question, appearing as if by magic in the fog. They were human, Bolik saw, and not in any kind of military uniform. Beyond that, Bolik wasn't sure what they were wearing—humans' fascination with outerwear beyond what was absolutely necessary was something that had always baffled Bolik. He knew what Lady Proudmoore's military wore, but that was it.

  "Kill the pirates!" Bolik cried, but his crew needed no such prompting. The battle was joined. Bolik lifted his father's mace in his right hand and swung it at the closest human, who ducked out of the way, then lunged with his sword.

  Bolik parried the sword with his left arm, but by the time he was able to whirl the mace around his head for a second strike, the human had gotten his sword up to block the mace. However, when he leaned in to do so, the human moved his stomach closer to Bolik, making it easy for the orc captain to punch his foe with his fist. Doubling over in pain and coughing, the human collapsed to the deck, and Bolik brought his mace down on the back of the human's neck.

  Two more then leapt in front of Bolik, no doubt expecting him to cower at two—to—one odds. But Bolik was made of sterner stuff. Though born a slave in this world, he had been freed by Thrall, and swore he would never cower before a human again. He had fought alongside them, true, but never would he bow to one as an inferior.

  Nor to two who came at him with swords.

  The pirate to his left attacked with his blade—a curved one of a type Bolik had seen only once before—while the one on his right swung two shorter swords. Bolik blocked the curved blade with his left arm, though this time the edge bit into his forearm, while using the mace to deflect one of the two short swords. The other short sword missed Bolik's chest by a hair.

  Although the movement sent searing pain through his left arm, Bolik brought the limb swiftly downward, the blade still stuck in it. His superior strength and leverage meant that the foe on his left was now disarmed, his weapon lodged in Bolik's own flesh. Kicking at the pirate to his right, Bolik grabbed the head of the one on his left and pushed down, forcing the pirate to his knees.

  The one with the short swords flailed as he stumbled to the deck, managing to avoid a leg—breaking kick, but unable to keep his balance in the bargain.

  Bolik, still with his massive left hand on the head of the curved—sword—holding pirate, cast that fool aside. The human's head hit the mast with a satisfying thud.

  However, that move gave the other one a chance to regain his footing. Even as he lunged with his two tiny swords, Bolik leaned back and to his right, straightened his right arm behind him, then swung the mace over his head, bringing it smashing down on the human's skull, killing him instantly.

  "Vak!" Bolik yelled up the mast as he removed the curved sword from his arm and tossed it to the deck next to its insensate owner. "Sound the horn!" The pirates likely didn't know the orcish tongue, and so wouldn't expect it when the foghorn went off.

  Seconds later, an ear—splitting noise filled the air. Bolik was prepared for the sound that felt as if it vibrated his very bones, as were his crew, he assumed—he couldn't really see most of them.

  The humans that Bolik could see were caught off guard, however, which Bolik had counted on. The orcs that Bolik could see pressed their advantage. Bolik himself started twirling his mace over his head until he found a good target. His father's weapon slammed into the shoulder of a nearby pirate, who fell to the floor, screaming in agony.

  Bolik heard a human voice yell a word in the human tongue that he was fairly sure meant "retreat," a guess that was proven accurate as the pirates started to climb the ropes back to their vessel. Bolik saw Kag slice off the leg of one of the retreaters, causing the victim to fall into the Great Sea.

  Kag turned to Bolik. "Do we give chase?"

  Shaking his head, Bolik said, "No. Let them go." There was little point in trying to chase a ship in this be—damned fog. "Check the cargo."

  Nodding acknowledgment, Kag ran off to the hold entry, his footfalls echoing on the deck.

  Gazing upward, Bolik said, "Lookout, what about the human ship?"

  "They didn't move," Vak said, "until after we sounded fog. Then they moved off. Don't see 'em now."

  Bolik's fists tightened, his right hand gripping the handle of his father's mace so hard, he thought it might break. The humans were their allies. If some of Lady Proudmoore's precious soldiers were nearby, why did they not assist when brigands boarded Orgath'ar?

  "Sir," Kag said, returning alongside Forx, the warrior in charge of guarding the cargo, "one of the crates was smashed. Another was thrown overboard by one of the humans to cover his retreat."

  Forx added, "They sent most o' their men to the hold. We drove 'em back good, we did, sir. They'd'a taken it all otherwise."

  "You did well, Forx. And you will be rewarded." Bolik knew his words would have meaning. Two crates lost meant twenty percent of their cargo was useless, which meant a twenty percent reduction in wages. Bolik put a hand on Forx's shoulder. "You shall all receive the same cut you would have if all the cargo came intact—the difference will come out of my own share."

  Kag's eyes grew wide. "You honor us all, Captain."

  "Not at all—you defended my ship. You won't be penalized for that."

  Forx smiled. "I'll inform your warriors, sir."

  Bolik turned to Kag as Forx went off. "Assess damage, dump any human bodies into the sea, and put us back on
course." He took a breath, then blew it out through his tusks. "And when we return, I want a messenger found. Thrall must be informed of this right away."

  Nodding, Kag said, "Yes, Captain."

  Staring into the fog that had allowed the pirates to get so close for their attack, Bolik thought back on Rabin's words, and decided that no use they could get from fog would be worth this…

  Three

  Lady Jaina Proudmoore stood atop the butte on Razor Hill, gazing out over the land where she helped form the most unlikely alliance in the history of the world.

  Razor Hill was orc territory, of course, but Jaina and Thrall had agreed that, given her abilities, it was best for their meetings to happen on orc land, where Thrall generally was. For Jaina's part, her magic allowed her to go wherever she wished in an instant.

  In truth, when the summons had come from Thrall, it had come as a relief. Jaina's entire adult life, it seemed, consisted of going from one crisis to another. She had fought demons and orcs and warlords, and had the fate of the world in her small hands more than once.

  She once was the lover of Arthas, when he was a noble warrior, but he had been corrupted, was now the Lich King of the Scourge, the cruelest warlord in a world that had seen its fair share of them. Some day, she knew, she would have to face him in battle. Medivh, the Sargeras—cursed wizard who had seemingly doomed humanity by letting demons and orcs overrun this world, became a staunch ally who convinced Jaina and Thrall to unite their people with the night elves against the Burning Legion.

  After that, when the humans built Theramore as their new home on Kalimdor, Jaina had thought that things would calm down. But things were never calm when one ruled, even in times of peace, and she found that the day—to—day running of Theramore almost made her long for the days when she was fighting for her life.

  Almost, but not quite. In truth, she had few regrets—but she also grabbed the opportunity for a respite like a desert traveler grabbing a water flask.