What possible balm could soothe a wound so impossibly deep?
* * *
—
They exchanged mounts at Valormok, leaving behind their long-maned wind riders for four saddled and restless hippogryphs, their feathers a brilliant rainbow of blue, purple, and green. Fortunately, the largest of the beasts was able to accommodate Baine’s considerable heft. Thrall spent the exhausting ride in subdued contemplation, hardly noticing the open scar of the strip mines outside Orgrimmar and then the far more placid view of the Southfury River. The burnished trees of Azshara diminished into just a smear of blood across the land as their hippogryphs lifted them higher, higher, following the path of a churning waterful until at last Mount Hyjal sketched itself in behind the evening mist.
The skies darkened to a striking imperial amethyst, and the first glimpse of the World Tree came, roots gripping the mountainside like gnarled hands.
“Oh,” he heard Calia Menethil say softly to his right. “Oh, but it is beautiful.”
“Nordrassil,” Baine Bloodhoof added, echoing her delight. “The Crown of the Heavens. What a gift, to walk in the shade of a World Tree.”
“Look!” Calia pointed at a pair of playful faerie dragons chasing each other across the surface of the lake below Nordrassil. They flew in a spiral, then dashed back toward the hills and the clearing where Thrall, Calia, Baine, and Yukha made their descent. The dragons passed within inches of Calia, their purple-and-pink wings ruffling her hair.
They dismounted, safe as Yukha had promised. The hippogryphs were wrangled and taken away while they waited in the almost oppressive calm.
“The light here is so different, the way it strikes the leaves…” Calia murmured, gazing up at the World Tree, its top unseeable in the clouds by even the keenest eyes. “And the flowers! Have you ever seen blossoms of truer blue?”
“By my father’s spirit, it is truly a blessing from the Earth Mother.” Baine knelt, the beads adorning his horns and armor twinkling as he admired one of the flowers, inhaling its fragrance.
Thrall watched the gloom of night crawl toward them, encroaching on the clearing, stone pillars topped with bright azure flames the only wards against the darkness. For all the fresh air and pretty flowers, Thrall couldn’t allow himself to be at ease.
“There is a pall over this place,” he said softly. Under the eaves of the inn nestled against the roots of the tree, a Hyjal warden, cloaked in the brown and green sigil of Nordrassil, kept vigil.
Only Yukha heard him. “We should move quickly. Come.”
The shaman led them, skirting the gray-timbered inn and taking them down a shallow slope to the banks of the crystal-clear lake. With a tap of his staff against the damp earth, the water ahead of them turned sturdy enough to hold them all. Yukha pressed on as swiftly as aged legs would carry him.
“Take care with your words,” Thrall warned Baine and Calia.
“Perhaps it is better now to listen,” Baine replied with a solemn nod. “Chatter will not help heal old wounds.”
“Yes, you sense the darkness that hangs over this place?”
“Mourning…” Calia spoke gently, her footfalls as delicate as raindrops on the watery path. “I did not at first realize, the beauty of the World Tree is overwhelming. But Thrall is right, this is a place in mourning, and we are trespassing on their grief.”
Thrall nodded, heartened that they both understood the gravity of the situation. He had chosen his companions wisely.
“I would not have come at all but that the spirit realm is fractured and our shaman cannot find a cause; that is too dire to ignore,” Thrall said, reiterating an argument he had made before the council when justifying this very journey to Nordrassil.
On the other side of the lake another hill rose, this one crowned with three silver tents, the poles intricately carved with leaves and painted moons. Thick blankets and furs were spread before the tents, along with a low, cushioned bench, the arms carved into owls. Seated beneath the bench, a night elf girl plucked dolefully at a lute.
Thrall hardly noticed the somber music, gripped instead by the two regal figures seated on the owl bench. As they neared, one of the figures stood, observing them but refusing to bow or give any respectful sign of recognition. Archdruid Malfurion Stormrage made an imposing impression, tall and strong as timeworn timbers, the antlers of a stag growing from his head, feathers sprouting from his arms, and an emerald beard longer and finer than Yukha’s hanging from his chin.
And where Malfurion embodied the forest and its creatures, his wife, Tyrande Whisperwind, was a sublime manifestation of Elune, the goddess of the moon. Her white enameled armor chased with silver might have been woven from starlight itself. Two even turquoise braids framed her face, the clean loveliness of her garb and hair making the blackened pits of her eyes all the more unsettling.
Malfurion and Tyrande were not alone, and Thrall was surprised to find both Maiev Shadowsong and Shandris Feathermoon joined them. The two night elves had been in whispered conversation behind the bower, but grew silent at the Horde’s approach. Maiev’s cold steel helmet, winged and sharp, stood in unsettling contrast to the harmonious natural beauty all around them. Only her emerald green cloak, trimmed in cloud-soft fur, blended into their serene surroundings. Shandris Feathermoon had come as armed and armored as her companions, a fall of dark blue hair spilling from the top of her leather helmet, her eyes hidden, though he hardly needed to see them to know they were unfriendly.
Yukha stopped them several feet from the edge of the carpets, and Thrall stood shoulder to shoulder with him. Nearly two heads shorter than Thrall, Calia waited beside the orc, Baine to her left.
Expecting a chilly reception, Thrall bowed deeply, relieved to find that his council counterparts did the same.
“As promised.” Yukha also demonstrated his respect for the kaldorei leadership. “Thrall, son of Durotan, high chieftain of the tauren, Baine Bloodhoof, and Calia Menethil, princess of Lordaeron and councilor of the Horde Forsaken. They have come to discuss the disturbances noted by the shaman of the Earthen Ring and the Moonglade druids.”
Tyrande merely tapped the musician on the shoulder. The girl strummed one last time and then grew still. The insect nightsong of the glade began, though it did little to assuage the awkward silence. Thrall kept his attention on Tyrande, as she had locked her eyes on him and did not look away.
“Thank you for agreeing to this meeting,” Thrall began, his voice unexpectedly ragged. He cleared his throat and pressed on. “Yukha and others feel a sinister interference in the spirit realm. Our dead are not passing on as they should, and they are heedless of the shaman attempting to guide them.”
Nothing. None of them so much as blinked, though it was hard to say with Maiev and Shandris wearing their helmets. He decided it was a safe bet.
“Yukha tells me your priestesses have made similar discoveries,” Thrall continued, growing a little angry. His cheeks burned with the indignity of their reception. In different days, younger days, he would not have abided the insult. “We have come seeking answers. Will you speak with us?”
Nothing. Frosty, rigid silence. At his side, Calia shifted nervously.
Thrall collected himself before saying something rash. He looked into Tyrande’s eyes once more, into the hypnotizing aura of darkness in the never-cool embers of her eyes. That moment in Nagrand returned to him, when he tasted smoke and sensed a far-off pain. That pain was not so far off for her, it was constant and as potent as the day Teldrassil burned. They had once stood together, he, Tyrande, and Malfurion, all three of them defending Nordrassil. That tree they had managed to save, but now the crime of its sister burning must be answered. They had even witnessed his marriage to his wife, Aggra, there in the shade of Nordrassil’s venerable branches, though that seemed many lifetimes ago now. Perhaps Tyrande’s rage had obliterated those memories altogether.
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“I brought what you wanted, what is owed,” Thrall said, and at last he saw a spark of life in her eyes. “I bring you the sincere apology of the Horde. We are not a single voice now spoken through the mouth of a warchief, but a whole host of voices. We have formed a council, so that never again will one take power and abuse it as Sylvanas did. As…as Sylvanas used that power to slaughter your people.”
He could swear the moon above glowed brighter, as if the mere mention of the Banshee Queen’s name had ignited its anger.
“Calia Menethil has come, she stands as an example of how we hope to change,” Thrall soldiered on. Calia nodded, but mercifully kept silent. “Lilian Voss now speaks for the Forsaken. Both women seek to reforge themselves anew, free of Sylvanas, free of her poisonous influence. Those who are sympathetic to the traitor have been exiled, her loyalists torn out by the roots. Baine Bloodhoof even sought to overthrow Sylvanas and remove her as warchief; it is only a shame that he did not do so sooner, and that more did not listen.”
Was he speaking to a wall? Would nothing move Tyrande? Even Malfurion gave him the smallest nod of understanding, perhaps only indicating that he was listening.
To his surprise, Shandris Feathermoon removed her helmet, revealing the red tattoos and startling white eyes beneath. “You will understand our hesitation, Thrall. Even promises made by our own allies have been broken. I would hear more of what you have come to say, but only because I crave justice as dearly as I crave healing for our people.”
Maiev scoffed. “Have a care, Shandris. Listen to his honeyed words at your peril, believe him at your peril, join the Horde to hunt Sylvanas at your peril, for once the deed is done, you will again find their daggers at your back.”
At that, Tyrande almost smiled.
Shandris’s wispy brows met in frustration. “I believe justice is action, Maiev, I have told you as much before.”
“Whose action?” Maiev demanded, her sharp voice shattering the peace of the glade. “The Horde’s? Whose action? What justice? For I will not be content with only Sylvanas Windrunner receiving her due. She was not alone when Teldrassil burned.”
“Baine was imprisoned for opposing Sylvanas,” Thrall reminded them. “Not all of the Horde stood with her that day.”
“And yet she spoke for your side, acted for your side,” Maiev shot back. “The warchief is the voice of the Horde, the hand of the Horde, but now you have scattered yourselves to a council, dispersing the blame, hiding behind cowardly revisions of a history that will not be forgotten!”
She punctuated her anger with a step toward him. Carefully, Shandris drew her back.
“I doubt you would like to be held accountable for every mistake and crime committed by the Alliance,” Shandris said in a soothing tone.
“Aye,” Baine spoke up. “What is justice to you now? Must Thunderbluff burn? Must Orgrimmar? Will the deaths of our innocents appease you? Do you think pain does not simply bring more pain?”
“High Overlord Saurfang engineered the siege with Sylvanas, though he had no intention of destroying the World Tree,” Thrall added. “His part cannot be forgotten, but he is now in the grave, put there by his own warchief.”
Calia Menethil glanced between the far taller, larger Baine and Thrall, then softly joined her voice to theirs. Quietly, but no less firm and sure. “These disagreements are a distraction. Our divided sides only keep us from apprehending the one who gave the order.”
Maiev swiveled, watching for Tyrande and Malfurion’s reaction, but neither of them replied. In the lingering silence, Shandris ventured her opinion once more.
“If we agree to…to a temporary understanding,” she said, obviously picking her words with care, “then we do so not to exonerate the Horde entirely, it is but the strategy of a moment. I see no reason why this cannot be.”
“I see many reasons,” Maiev muttered.
Tyrande, it seemed, still did not care to speak.
The elf began plucking her lute again, but Tyrande slammed her hand down on the owl-shaped arm of the bench, demanding a return to silence. Had the moon grown bigger in the sky? Was it somehow closer? Threatening?
“It was not yet time.” Malfurion’s grave baritone filled the clearing. He leaned down toward his wife, placing a furred, clawed hand on her shoulder. “This was folly. Let them go.”
Tyrande uncrossed her legs and sat back on the bench, shaking off her husband’s hand with a tight grimace.
And then, all at once, she cared very much to speak.
“When you have washed the bodies of a thousand kaldorei burned and broken, when you have fallen to your knees and kissed the feet of a thousand mourning souls, when you look into their eyes and tell them ‘our Horde has changed’ and they believe you, only then will I accept your apology and treat you as my equal.” Tyrande’s voice, edged as steel, pulled the air out of the clearing. “My brethren here may be willing to entertain your empty pledges of justice and aid, but I know better. I have learned better.”
Then she stood, and Thrall worried that the moon might truly fall from the heavens and crush them at Tyrande’s command. Her eyes, though black, somehow glowed, Elune’s fury blazing colder and brighter along her skin with each word. The glade itself grew gray and almost dead, as if by her will she had sapped the life out of everything around them, withering the trees and obliterating the flowers and grass to dust.
“How many orphans did your Horde create that day?” Tyrande sliced the flat of her hand diagonally across her body. “Those children will grow, they will wake each morning tasting ash, and one day they will come for you. Oh, they will come for you, and they will make you taste that same ash, and then you will know their justice.” She sat down again, as if winded. Light returned to the clearing, and the plants around them were green and vibrant once more.
“Quickly,” Yukha muttered, trying to gather them. “We must go. This was a mistake; I should not have brought you here.”
Baine and Calia allowed Yukha to corral them back toward the path of glittering solid water. Thrall remained, only taking slow, careful steps, never showing Tyrande his back. For his trouble, Tyrande directed her final words to him and only him.
“You will find that justice less sweet than the sorry excuse for punishment you faced, and when this justice comes, there will be no armistice to save you.”
Thrall felt Yukha grab him by the arm and yank. But he did not agree with the shaman’s assessment; it was important and right that they had come. Thrall had thought he knew what Tyrande wanted, that what was owed was his remorse, but now he realized his error.
He easily shook off Yukha’s hand and pressed his fist to his chest to prove his sincerity.
“I will bring what is owed, then. I will not bring words or promises, I will bring you the head of Sylvanas Windrunner.”
The faintest trace of a smile appeared on Tyrande Whisperwind’s face. “Do it, then, or never seek to speak with me again.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dazar’alor
The nightmares had come frequent enough that Talanji could reconigze them for the falsehood they were. Recognizing them was different from escaping them. Still, as venom dripped from fangs as thick and white as riverbeast tusks, the first corrosive splash landed on Talanji’s shoulder. She screamed, helpless to protect herself as the spider hovered over her, jaws descending. Razor sharp. So, so close…Thrashing, kicking, twisting, nothing helped. No hope.
The creature in Shadra’s own image pinned Talanji to her bed, its eight legs trapping her like a living prison. Its abdomen heaved, silk threads filling the chamber, the threads that would form a deadly cocoon and Talanji’s mausoleum. The giant spider opened its dripping mouth wide, and Talanji cried out once more. Inside, struggling to get out, she saw the face of Bezime, the inconsolable father who had come to beg for a queen’s lenience so that a young marriage might blossom.
But the Widow’s Bite had taken him from the palace during one of their raids on the city, Talanji’s patrols finding Bezime’s corpse at the edge of Nazmir, charred almost beyond recognition.
The troll clawed at the spider’s insides, desperate to get out.
“Help me! My queen! My queen, help me!”
“I cannot.” Talanji thrashed harder. If this was the end, if she was to be visited by all her failures, then she would not simply lie still and die without a fight. One name might save her. One cry for aid might actually banish the nightmare. Tears streamed down Bezime’s frantic face, and then his skin began to blister and burn, his pleas buried in the spider’s thorax as the beast clamped its jaws shut and lunged for Talanji.
“Bwonsamdi!”
The image of Shadra stilled then broke apart, fragmenting into puffs of blue smoke that gradually faded, rising to the ceiling like candle smoke. Just another dream. Another nightmare. It didn’t matter; Talanji gasped for breath, leaping out of bed and grabbing up the blanket, wrapping it around herself while she wiped at the very real sweat on her brow. As she pulled her hand away from her forehead, she saw deep lines carved into it, wrinkles that had not been there the day before. How could that be? Was ruling leeching the life out of her so quickly?
“Ya called?”
She exhaled and sat back down on the edge of her bed, knowing Bwonsamdi waited just on the other side of the immense golden platform. A merciful breeze, humid yet cool, blew in from the open balcony window. Talanji turned her face toward it, greedy for the relief it brought.
“It was…it was only a nightmare,” she said. “Shadra wanted me dead, and the poor father they stole from the palace was inside her. It felt so real.”
Shadows Rising (World of Warcraft: Shadowlands) Page 13
