Rise of the Horde

4

Last night, with the moon full overhead and the stars gleaming as if in approval, a young male was initiated into adulthood. It was the first time I have had the chance to be part of this ritual, the Om’riggor. In my earlier years, I was cut off from the rites and traditions of my people; and truth be told, all orcs had been cut off from such rites for too long. And once I had set my feet on my destiny’s path, I had become embroiled in battle. War consumed me. Ironically, the need to protect my people from the Burning Legion and to give them a place where our traditions could again flourish took me far away from these things.

But now, Durotar and Orgrimmar are established. Now, there is a peace, tenuous though it might be. Now there are shaman reclaiming the ancient ways, young males and females coming of age who, if the spirits will it, may never know the ashy taste of war.

Last night, I participated in a timeless ritual that had been denied an entire generation.

Last night, my heart was filled with joy and the sense of connection for which I had always longed.

Durotan’s heart hammered in his chest as he stared at the talbuk. It was a mighty beast, worthy prey, its horns not for mere decoration but sharp and dangerous. Durotan had seen at least one warrior gored to death, impaled upon the twelve prongs as surely as if upon a spear.

And he was to take it down with only a single weapon and no armor.

There had been the whispers, of course. Any mature talbuk will do to satisfy the needs of the ritual, he had heard someone murmur in his ear as he sat blindfolded in the waiting tent. They are all fierce fighters, but at this season, the males have shed their horns.

Other whispers: You may only carry one weapon, Durotan, son of Garad; but you could hide armor in the wilderness where no one would know.

And, most shameful of all: The shaman will determine if you are successful by tasting the blood upon your face; the blood from a long-dead talbuk tastes exactly like that of one freshly slain.

He ignored all the temptations. Perhaps there had been other orcs who had succumbed to them, but he would not be among them. Durotan would seek out a female, who was quite well equipped with horns at this time of year; he would take the one weapon he was permitted, and it would be the blood of the beast he killed, steaming in the cold air, that would anoint his checks.

And now, standing in the early, unexpected fall of snow, his axe growing ever heavier in his hand, Durotan shivered. But he never faltered.

He had been tracking the talbuk herd for two days now, surviving only on what he could gather, creating meager fires in the twilight that bathed the snow in a rich lavender hue and sleeping in what shelter he stumbled upon. Orgrim had already completed his rite of passage. Durotan envied the fact that his friend had been born in summer. He had thought it would still not be too difficult in early autumn, but winter had decided to come ahead of time and the weather was bitter.

It seemed as if the talbuk herd, too, was taunting him. He could come upon their tracks and droppings easily enough, see where they had scraped the snow for dried grass or pulled bark from the trees. But they always seemed to elude him. It was late afternoon on the third day when it appeared as though the ancestors had decided to reward his determination. Twilight was coming, and Durotan had thought with a sinking heart that he would have to again seek shelter to mark the end of a fruitless day. Then he realized that the small pellets of dung were not frozen hard, but fresh.

They were close.

He began to run, the snow squeaking beneath his fur boots, a new warmth filling him. He followed the tracks as he had been taught, cleared a rise—

And beheld a herd of the glorious creatures.

Immediately he crouched behind a large boulder and peered around to gaze at the beasts. They were still dark brown against the white snow, their winter coats not yet upon them. There were at least two dozen, maybe more, mostly females. It was good that he had found the herd, but now he had another problem. How would he take down just one? Talbuk, unlike many prey animals, would protect others in their herd. If he attacked one, the rest would come to defend it.

Shaman accompanied the hunters in order to distract the animals. Durotan was alone, and suddenly he felt very vulnerable.

He frowned and rallied himself. He had been searching for these creatures for almost three days, and now here they were. Nightfall would see a fresh haunch of meat devoured by a hungry orc youth, or it would see a stiffening orc corpse in the snow.

He watched them for a while, aware that the shadows were lengthening, but not wanting to hurry and make a fatal mistake. The talbuk were diurnal creatures, and they were busy digging hollows in the snow in which to curl up. He knew they did such a thing, but now he watched in dismay as they settled in tightly against one another. How would he separate one?

Movement caught his eye. One of the females, young and healthy from a gentle summer spent feasting on sweet grass and berries, seemed to be in a feisty mood. She stamped and tossed her head—crowned with a glorious set of horns—and almost danced around the others. She did not seem inclined to join them, but like one or two others, opted to sleep on the outside of the cluster of furry bodies.

Durotan began to grin. What an offering from the spirits! It was a good omen. The liveliest, healthiest doe in the herd, the one who did not need to follow mindlessly, but chose her own path. While that choice would likely be her death, it would also give Durotan a chance to win his honor and right to be treated as an adult. The spirits understood the balance of such things. At least, he was told they did.

Durotan waited. Twilight came and went, and the sun sank below the mountains. With the sun went even the feeble warmth it had hitherto provided. Durotan waited with the patience of the predator. Finally, even the edgiest of the herd tucked up its long legs and bedded down with its fellows.

At last, Durotan moved. His limbs were stiff and he almost stumbled. He crept slowly from his hiding place behind the boulder and went down the slope, his eyes on the drowsing female. Her head drooped on its long neck, and her breathing was regular. He could see small white puffs appearing in front of her muzzle.

Slowly, placing his feet as carefully as he could, he moved toward his quarry. He did not feel the cold; the heat of anticipation, the powerful focus, drove any sensations of discomfort away. Closer still he came, and still the talbuk doe dreamed.

He lifted his axe. He swung it down.

Her eyes opened.

She tried to scramble to her feet, but the death blow had already come. Durotan wanted to scream the battle cry he had heard his father utter so many times, but he bit it back. It would not do to slay the talbuk only to be slain himself by a dozen of her herd in retaliation. He had sharpened the blade to shocking keenness, and it sliced through the thick neck and vertebrae as if slicing through cheese. Blood spurted, the warm sticky fluid spattering Durotan gently, and he smiled fiercely. Anointing himself with the blood of his first solo kill was part of the ritual; the talbuk doe had done it for him. Another good omen.

Silent though he had tried to be, he heard the sounds of the awakening herd. He whirled, breathing heavily, and let loose with the blood-chilling battle cry his throat had been aching to utter. He held his axe, the gleam of its metal blade now obscured with crimson blood, and bellowed again.

The talbuk hesitated. He had been told that if it was a clean kill, they would flee rather than attack, intuiting on some primal level that they could no longer help their fallen sister. He hoped this was true; he might be able to take down one or two, but would fall beneath their padded feet if they chose to attack.

Moving as one, they began to back away, and then finally whirled and turned to run. He watched them gallop over the rise to disappear, their pawprints in the pristine snow the only evidence that they had been here.

Durotan lowered his axe, panting with exertion. He raised it again and let out a cry of triumph. His empty belly would be full tonight; the spirit of the talbuk would enter his dreams. And on the morrow he would return to his people an adult male, ready to take his place in serving the clan.

Ready to one day become its leader.

“Why do we not ride?” Durotan asked petulantly, glowering like a child.

“Because that is not the way it is done,” Mother Kashur said curtly. Irritated, she cuffed the boy. Durotan was young and fit; the lengthy hike to the sacred mountain of the ancestors was as nothing to him. She, on the other hand, would have deeply appreciated being able to ride atop her great black wolf Dreamwalker. But the traditions were ancient and specific, and as long as she was able to walk, walk she would. Durotan bowed his head in acknowledgment as they continued on.

Despite the fact that each trip exhausted her more than the previous one, Mother Kashur felt a sense of excitement that helped temper the pain and weariness. She had taken many a youngling—both male and female, for each was as valued as the other—on this final part of their rite of adulthood. But never before had she been asked to bring one before the ancestors. She was not too old to be curious.

It was less than a few hours for the young, about a day for the older bones to make the trip. Evening was coming and they were almost there. Mother Kashur looked up at the familiar shape of the mountain and smiled. Unlike other mountain ranges, whose angles seemed to be random. Oshu’gun’s spire was a perfect triangle. Gleaming like crystal, its facets catching the sun, it resembled the surrounding terrain not at all. It had come from the heavens, long ago, and the spirits had been drawn to it. It was for this reason the orcs had settled here, in its sacred shadow. Whatever squabbles and petty differences they had as living beings, they were as one here, inside this mountain. She would go there again soon, she knew, but not as a hobbling, elderly woman. This was her last visit in such a broken vessel. The next time Kashur approached Oshu’gun, she would come as a spirit, floating in the air as the birds did, her heart light and clean and made new.

“What’s wrong, Mother?” Durotan asked, concern in his young voice. She blinked, coming out of her reverie, and smiled at him.

“Not a thing,” she assured him truthfully.

The shadows had chased away the sunlight by the time they reached the foot of the mountain. They would sleep here tonight and begin their ascent at dawn. Durotan fell asleep first, wrapped in the hide of the talbuk doe he himself had slain not too long ago, and Mother Kashur watched him fondly as he slept the deep sleep of the innocent. She herself would have no dreams; her mind needed to be clear if she was to be ready to receive visions on the morrow.

The climb was a long, tiring one, harder by far than the simple hike to reach the mountain, and Kashur was grateful both for her sturdy staff and Durotan’s strong hand. But today, Kashur’s feet seemed to move more surely her lungs work more efficiently as she and her young charge climbed. She felt as if the ancestors were pulling her forward, aiding her physical body with the power of their spirit ones.

They paused at the entrance of the sacred cave. It was a perfect oval in the smooth surface of the mountain, and as always, Kashur felt as though she were entering the womb of the earth. Durotan tried to look brave, but succeeded only in looking slightly nervous. Mother Kashur did not smile at him. He should be nervous. He was about to enter sacred space at the specific request of one of his long-dead ancestors. Even she was not unmoved.

She lit a bundle of dried grasses that gave off a sweet, pungent scent, and waved the smoke over him to purify him. Then she marked him with the blood his own father had shed for this moment, kept carefully in a small stoppered leather bag. Kashur placed her withered hand upon his smooth, low brow, murmured her blessing, and then nodded.

“You well know that few are called before the ancestors who do not walk the path of the shaman,” she said gravely. Brown eyes wide, Durotan nodded. “I do not know what will happen. Maybe nothing. But if something occurs, you know to behave with honor and respect to the beloved dead.”

Durotan swallowed and nodded again. Then he took a deep breath and stood straight and tall, and in the yet-unmolded body of the boy, Kashur saw a hint of the clan chieftain to come.

Together, they went inside, Mother Kashur going first to light the torches that lined the walls. The orange illumination showed them the downward twining path, worn smooth by years of bare or booted orc feet. Here and there steps had been carved, to make those pilgrim’s feet more secure. It was always cool inside this tunnel, warmer than it was outside in winter. Kashur let her hand brush the sides of the wall, remembering the first time she had come here long ago, the blood of her mother wet on her own face, her eyes wide, her heart racing.

Finally, the long, gentle downward slope cased. There were no more torches on the wall to light, and Durotan looked at her, puzzled.

“We will not need to bring fire to come before the ancestors,” Kashur said. They continued on a level surface, traveling into darkness. Durotan was not frightened, but he did look confused as they left the comfort of fire behind.

Now it was completely dark. Kashur reached out a hand and grasped Durotan’s to guide him. His strong, stubby fingers folded gently around hers. Even now, when he might be expected to clutch my hand, he remembers how it aches, she thought. The next Frostwolf chieftain would have a considerate heart.

They continued without speaking. And then … subtly, like the arrival of dawn after a long, dark night, light began to grow around them. Now Kashur could dimly see the shape of the youth who stood beside her, so much younger than she and yet already walking in the body of a grown male. She watched him as they moved forward; the miracle of the cave of the ancestors was familiar to her, but Durotan’s reaction was not.

His eyes widened and he inhaled swiftly as he looked around. The glow emanated from a pool in the center of the cavern, casting a soft white light over everything. All was smooth and soft and dimly radiant; there were no sharp angles or rough places, and Kashur felt the familiar sensation of deep peace wash over her. She let Durotan look his fill in silence. The cavern was huge, larger than the main drumming and dancing area at the Kosh’harg festival, and branching tunnels led to places that Kashur had never dared explore. It would have to be so large, would it not, to be able to host the spirit of every orc who had lived and died? She walked to the water and he followed her, watching her closely. She removed the pack she carried and gestured that he do likewise. Carefully, Kashur removed several waterskins, opened them, and with a soft prayer added their water to the glowing liquid.

“You asked about the waterskins as we departed,” she said quietly to Durotan, “The water in here is not native to this place. Long ago, we began offering blessed water to the spirits. Every time we come, we contribute to the sacred pool. And even so, I know not how, the water does not dissipate as it would in an ordinary hollow. Such is the power of the Mountain of Spirits.”

Once she had emptied the waterskins, she sat down with a soft grunt and peered into the luminous depths. Durotan emulated her. She knew the angle at which she could see her reflection and made sure they were both positioned correctly. At first, all she could see was her own face and that of Durotan. Their features looked spectral themselves, reflected in a white pool rather than a dark one.

Then a third figure joined them, as if Grandfather Tal’kraa were standing right beside her shoulder, his reflection as clear as theirs. Their eyes met, and Kashur smiled.

She craned her neck to look up at him, but Durotan continued to gaze into the water as if searching for the answers there. Kashur’s heart sank a little, but immediately she reprimanded herself. If Durotan was not of the shamanic path, then he was not of the shamanic path. Surely his destiny would be an honorable one regardless, born to lead his clan as he had been.

“My many times great granddaughter,” Tal’kraa said with more gentleness than Kashur had ever heard from him before. “You have brought him, as I asked.” Leaning heavily on a staff as insubstantial as he, the spirit of the Grandfather moved in a slow circle around Durotan as the young orc continued to look into the water. Kashur watched both Frostwolf males closely. Durotan shivered and looked about, no doubt wondering where the sudden chill came from. Kashur smiled to herself. He could not see his ancestor’s spirit, but he knew, somehow, that Tal’kraa was there.

“You cannot see him,” she said a bit sadly.

Durotan’s head came up and his nostrils flared. Swiftly, he got to his feet. In the eerie light, his tusks looked blue and his skin had a green cast to it.

“No, Mother. I cannot. But … is an ancestor present?”

“Indeed he is,” Kashur said. She turned her attention to the ghost. “I did bring him here, as you requested. How do you find him?”

Durotan swallowed hard, but remained standing straight and tall as the spirit circled him thoughtfully.

“I sensed … something,” Tal’kraa said. “I had thought he would be a shaman, but if he cannot see me now, then he never will. But although he will not see spirits or summon the elements, he is born to a great destiny. He will be an important asset to the Frostwolf clan … indeed, to all his people.”

“He will be … a hero?” Kashur asked, her breath catching. All orcs strove to uphold a code of courage and honor, but only a few were powerful enough to have their names engraved upon the memory of their descendants. At her words Durotan inhaled swiftly, and she could see the wanting on his face.

“I cannot tell,” said Tal’kraa, frowning a little. “Teach him well, Kashur, for one thing is certain: From his line will come salvation.”

In a gesture of tenderness the likes of which Kashur had never seen, Tal’kraa reached out and brushed an insubstantial finger across Durotan’s check, Durotan’s eyes went wide and Kashur could see he had to fight the natural instinct to draw back, but Durotan did not quail beneath the spectral caress.

Then, like mist on a hot day, Tal’kraa was gone. Kashur stumbled a little; she always forgot how the energy of the spirits fed her. Durotan stepped forward quickly to catch her arm, and she was grateful for his youthful strength.

“Mother, are you all right?” he asked. She gripped his arm and nodded. His first concern was for her, not for what the ancestor might or might not have said about him. Even as she pondered the words, she decided not to tell Durotan of them. Level-headed and great-hearted though he was, such a prophecy could corrupt even the truest of orcish hearts.

From his line will come salvation.

“I am all right,” she reassured him, “But these bones are no longer young, and the energy of the spirits is powerful,”

“I wish I could have seen him,” Durotan said a bit wistfully. “But … but I know I felt him.” “You did, and that is more than most are honored with.” Kashur said.

“Mother … can you tell me what he said? About—about me being a hero?”

He was trying to act calm and mature, but a note of pleading crept in. She did not blame him. All wanted to live on in glorious memory, through tales told of their adventures. He would not be an orc if he did not share that desire.

“Grandfather Tal’kraa said it was uncertain,” she said bluntly. He nodded and hid his disappointment well. That much was all she had planned to say, but something moved her to add, “You have a destiny to fulfill, Durotan, son of Garad. Be not a fool in battle and die before you can fulfill it.”

He chuckled then. “A fool does not serve his clan well, and that is what I wish to do.”

“Then, future chieftain,” said Kashur, chuckling also, “you had best be about finding a mate.”

And she laughed out loud as, for the first time on their journey together, Durotan looked completely unnerved.