Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects

9

Taretha’s eyes narrowed as she aimed the blunderbuss straight at his broad chest. “I won’t miss,” she said. “How do you know my name?”

For a wild moment Thrall was totally confused. And then he understood. He must have stumbled into one of the wrong timeways—one of the ones that the bronze dragonflight was trying to repair. Because, painful as it was, he knew that Taretha Foxton, his only friend in childhood, had never lived beyond her midtwenties.

“This is going to sound very strange, but please, I urge you to believe me,” he said, trying to sound as calm—and as sane—as possible.

An eyebrow lifted. “You speak well … for a stinking greenskin.”

It hurt to hear Taretha, who had always thought of him as a brother, use such ugly words to Thrall, but he did not react.

“It is because I was educated—by humans,” he said. “I was raised by Lord Aedelas Blackmoore to be a gladiator. He made sure I learned how to read and write, the better to understand war strategy. Your mother, Clannia, saved my life, Taretha. She nursed me when I was an infant. My name … is Thrall.”

The gun wavered, but only for an instant. Thrall could tell by the way she handled it that Taretha was no stranger to firearms.

“That’s a lie,” she said. “That orc died after a few days.”

Thrall’s mind reeled. So he had existed in this timeway … but had died in infancy. It was all so hard to take in. He tried again.

“Have you heard about dragons, Taretha?”

She snorted. “Don’t insult me. Of course I have. What do they have to do with an orc I’m rapidly losing patience with?”

She was so harsh, so bitter. Still, Thrall pressed on. “Then perhaps you know that there is one group of dragons called the bronze dragonflight. Their leader is Nozdormu. They make sure that time unfolds the way it is supposed to. In another timeway, as I told you, I survived and became a gladiator, just as Blackmoore wanted. You sneaked me notes, hidden in books. You became my friend.”

“Friend to an orc?” Disbelief made her voice climb higher. “Not likely.”

“No,” he agreed. “Most unlikely. And most wonderful. You remembered the baby your mother nursed, and you were fond of him—of me. And you hated what they did to me. I have only just met you, yet I say I already know something about you. I believe that you do not like violence done to beings who cannot defend themselves.”

The gun wavered a second time, and her eyes flickered away for just an instant before she turned her gaze upon him again. Hope filled Thrall’s heart. Whatever had befallen her to make the gentle young woman he had known so tough and hard, he could tell that she was still Taretha underneath it all. And if she was still Tari, maybe he could reach her. Could help her, somehow, some way, in this timeway, in a way he had been unable to in his own.

“You helped me escape,” he continued. “I freed my people from the internment camps. I defeated Blackmoore and razed Durnholde. And later, humans and orcs and others united to defeat an attack on our world from a demonic force called the Burning Legion. All of this was because of you, Tari. My timeway owes so much to you.”

“It’s a nice story, and much cleverer than any I would have expected from an orc,” Taretha said. “But it’s a lie. The world is certainly not that way here. And that’s the only world I know.”

“What if I could prove it to you?” he said.

“That’s impossible!”

“But—if I could?”

Taretha was still wary, but he could tell she was growing curious. “How?” she asked.

“You did meet the infant orc,” Thrall said. “You remember what color his eyes were?”

“Blue,” she said at once. “No one had ever seen an orc with blue eyes before or since.”

Thrall pointed to his face. “My eyes are blue, Taretha. And I, too, have never known of any other orc with blue eyes.”

She snorted. “Like I’d come close enough to look into your eyes at night,” she said. “Nice try.” She jerked her head to the left. “Start walking, greenskin.”

“Wait! There is one more thing … to prove to you I’m telling the truth.”

“I’ve had enough of this,” she said.

“In the bag,” he persisted. “Look in the bag. There’s a small pouch in it. In that pouch … I think you’ll find something you’ll recognize.”

He prayed he was right. The small pouch contained only a few items. His totems. The acorn, of course—the gift of the ancients. A makeshift altar, with representations of each of the elements. And … something precious. Something that had been lost to him but had been found again … something that he would keep with him until the day he died.

“If this is a trick, I’ll blow a hole in you so big …,” she muttered, but, scowling and obviously despite her better judgment, she knelt carefully and began to rummage through the bag. “What am I looking for?”

“If I’m right … you’ll know it when you see it.”

She muttered again, shifting the musket to her right hand and dumping out the satchel with her left. She combed through the items, obviously seeing nothing that meant anything.

“All I see is a rock, a feather, a—”

Taretha fell silent. She stared at the small piece of jewelry glinting in the moonslight. She seemed to have completely forgotten all about Thrall as one hand, trembling, picked up the silver necklace. A crescent moon swung from the chain. She looked, openmouthed, at Thrall, and instead of the anger and underlying fear and hatred that had distorted her pretty features earlier, there was shock … and wonderment.

“My necklace,” she said, her voice soft and small.

“You gave it to me,” Thrall said. “When you helped me escape. There was a fallen tree you told me to hide it in. Near a boulder shaped like a dragon.”

Slowly, not even looking at him anymore, she put the gun down. With her other hand, Taretha reached into her worn linen shirt and pulled out a necklace identical to the one she held.

“There was a dent I made in it when I was young,” she said. “Right … here …”

Both necklaces had the exact same dent: a slight misshaping of the bottom horn of the crescent.

She looked up at him, and for the first time he could see the Taretha he remembered gazing back at him. Slowly he went to her, kneeling down on the ground beside her.

Her hand closed upon the second necklace, then she held it out to him. She released it, and it crumpled gently into his huge green palm. She looked at Thrall, no fear in her face, and smiled slightly.

“Your eyes,” she said quietly, “ are blue.”

Thrall was pleased, but not surprised, that Taretha believed him, despite how ludicrous he knew his story sounded. He had given her proof she could not dispute. The Taretha he had known would have looked without bias on such proof. And this woman before him was still Taretha, though much different from the gentle, sincere young woman he remembered.

They talked for a long time. Thrall told her of his world, although he did not tell Taretha what eventually became of her. He would not lie if she asked, but she did not. He told her of his history, and the task that Ysera had set him on.

And she told him, poking at the fire, bits and pieces of information about this new, twisted timeway that had sprung up.

“Oh, Blackmoore is definitely in this timeway,” she said bitterly when the conversation turned to that wretched man. “Except I think I like the one in yours better.”

Thrall grunted. “A crafty, selfish drunkard trying to create an army of orcs to use against his own people?”

“In this timeway he is a crafty, selfish, sober general who doesn’t need an army of orcs to use against his own people,” she said. “From what you have told me”—she turned her short-cropped head to eye his powerful build—“you are a mighty warrior. And I believe it. It sounds like Blackmoore relied upon you and his secret scheme too heavily. When you died, he had to do the work himself.”

“Normally, that is an admirable trait,” Thrall said.

“Normally. But he is hardly … normal.” She turned away as she said it.

There was something in her expression that made Thrall instantly alert. A personal anger, and … shame?

“He … you were his mistress in this timeway too,” he said. “I am sorry.”

She laughed harshly. “Mistress? A mistress gets to attend parties, Thrall. She gets jewelry, and dresses, and goes hunting with her master. Her family is well taken care of. I was nothing so respected as a mistress.” She took a deep breath and continued. “I was just a diversion. He tired of me quickly. I can at least be grateful for that.”

“Your parents … what happened to them?”

“They were punished.” She smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. “For ‘letting’ you die, not very long after we lost my brother, Faralyn. Father lost his position and was demoted to the basest task of cleaning the stables. Mother died when I was eight. Blackmoore wouldn’t even let her see the doctor that winter. Father died a few years later. I took what meager savings they had and left without a backward glance. By then Blackmoore couldn’t have cared less. He was too busy ruling.”

“Ruling?” Thrall gaped at her.

“No one recognizes his claim to the throne of Lordaeron, of course. But no one dares topple him from it.”

Thrall sank back, trying to make sense of this. “Go on,” he said, his voice hollow.

“He was so popular. He started only with his own men, training them, driving them to perfection.”

Thrall thought of the endless gladiator matches he had been forced to endure. This did, in a twisted and bizarre way, sound like Blackmoore.

“Then he hired mercenary soldiers and trained them the same way. And after the Battle of Blackrock Spire, well, there was no stopping him.”

“What happened there?”

“He slew Orgrim Doomhammer in single combat,” Taretha said offhandedly, and took another handful of berries from those Thrall had gathered earlier.

Thrall could not believe his ears. Blackmoore? That sniveling, drunken coward? Challenging Orgrim Doomhammer, warchief of the Horde, to single combat? And winning ?

“The defeat completely disheartened the greensk—I’m sorry. The orcs,” Taretha quickly corrected herself. “They’ve become slaves, Thrall. Their spirits are broken. They’re not even kept in camps like you told me about. Any found wild are purchased by the kingdom and either broken to servitude or, if they prove too defiant, killed.”

“That’s why you wanted me alive,” Thrall said quietly.

She nodded. “If I turned in a wild orc, I could live on what they paid me for more than a year. It’s … that is how my world is, Thrall. It’s how it’s always been. But …” Taretha frowned. “… I’ve always felt … well, it never felt right. Not just morally, but …” Her voice trailed off.

Thrall understood what she was trying to say. “It never felt right because it isn’t,” Thrall said firmly. “This timeline is wrong. Blackmoore is dead; the orcs have their own land; and I have made friends among humans.” He smiled. “Starting with you.”

She smiled a little in return and shook her head. “It’s strange, but … that seems right to me, now.” She hesitated. “I notice that you never mentioned what happened to me in that other timeway.”

He winced. “I had hoped you would not ask. But I should have known you would.”

“I, um … I take it I don’t end up like this Jaina Proudmoore woman you spoke so highly of,” she said, attempting lightness and failing.

He eyed her thoughtfully, then said, very seriously, “Do you truly wish to know?”

Taretha frowned, poking again at the fire, then shoved the branch in and sat back. “Yes. I do want to know.”

Of course she would. Taretha did not shrink from the uncomfortable. He hoped that what he had to tell her would not turn her against him, but it would be wrong to tell her anything other than the absolute and complete truth.

He sat for a moment, gathering his thoughts, and she did not interrupt. The only sounds were the crackle of the fire and the soft murmurs of night creatures.

“You died,” Thrall said at last. “Blackmoore found out that you were helping me. He had you followed when you went to meet with me, and when you returned … he had you killed.”

She made no sound, but a muscle in her face twitched. Then, her voice strangely calm, she said, “Go on. How did I die?”

“I don’t know, exactly,” Thrall said. “But …” He closed his eyes for a moment. First witnessing the butchering of his parents, and now this. “He cut off your head, and put it in a bag. And when I came to Durnholde and asked him to release the orc prisoners … he threw it down to me.”

Taretha put her face in her hands.

“He thought it would break me. And in a way, it did—but not the way he wanted.” Thrall’s voice deepened as he remembered the moment. “It made me furious. For what he had done—for the sort of man he had proven himself to be—I would show him no more mercy. In the end, your death meant his. I have relived that moment many times. Always I wondered if there was something I could have done to save you. I am sorry that I could not, Taretha. So very sorry.”

She kept her face covered, and when she at last spoke, her voice was thick and muffled.

“Tell me one thing,” she said. “Did I make a difference?”

He couldn’t believe she was asking that. Did she not understand everything he had said?

“Taretha,” he said, “it was because of your kindness that I was able to understand that some humans could be trusted—and that’s why I was willing even to consider allying with Jaina Proudmoore. It was because of you that I believed I was more than … than a green-skinned monster. That I and therefore my people—all orcs—were worthy of something more than being treated like animals.”

He placed a hand on her shoulder. She lifted her head and turned toward him, tears streaming down her face.

“Taretha, my dear friend,” he said, his voice shaking. “My sister of the spirit. You didn’t make a difference. You made the difference.”

To his astonishment, she gave him a shaky smile.

“You don’t understand,” she said brokenly. “I’ve never made any kind of a difference. I’ve never mattered. I’ve never done a single thing that affected anything or anyone.”

“Your parents—”

She made a dismissive sound. “The parents from your world sound more caring than mine. I was a female, and little use to them. We were all too busy trying to survive. The schooling you talked about—I never got it. I can’t read, Thrall. I can’t write.”

Thrall couldn’t imagine Taretha being illiterate. Books were what had bound them to each other in the first place. Without her notes, he might never have escaped. He had thought her fate in the true timeway a brutal one, felt that it was unjust to one who was so kind and greathearted. But in a way, the life she had been leading here was almost worse.

Aggra had accompanied him on his shamanic vision quest, and had, in a fashion, “met” Taretha.

She should not have died, Thrall had said on that spiritual journey.

How do you know this was not her destiny? That perhaps she had done all she had been born to do? Aggra had replied. Only she knows.

And Thrall realized with a lurch in his heart that Taretha—in both timeways—did know.

“To hear this from you—to know that my being alive mattered to anyone, let alone to nations, to … to the history of the world—you don’t know what it means to me. I don’t care if I died. I don’t care how I died. At least I mattered!”

“You did, and you do,” Thrall said, his voice urgent. “You may not have made a difference … yet. But that doesn’t mean you can’t.”

“If I turned in a wild orc, I could live on what they paid me for more than a year. It’s … that is how my world is, Thrall. It’s how it’s always been. But …” Taretha frowned. “… I’ve always felt … well, it never felt right. Not just morally, but …” Her voice trailed off.

Thrall blinked. “So you have said.” It was an important insight, but he did not understand why she had chosen to repeat it now.

She frowned. “Said what?”

The air felt … different. Thrall got to his feet, and picked up Taretha’s gun. It was to Taretha’s everlasting credit that she did not panic, but instead was instantly on her feet and at his side, looking out into the surrounding woods for the threat. “Did you hear something?”

“You did, and you do.” Thrall was sitting beside her. “You may not have made a difference … yet. But that doesn’t mean you can’t—”

He stopped in mid-sentence. And then he understood.

“This timeway is wrong,” he said. “We both know that. And there’s something so wrong with it, so amiss, that it’s not even flowing correctly anymore. Things are … repeating. Things may even be unraveling.”

Taretha paled as he spoke. “You mean—you think—this world’s just going to end ?”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Thrall said honestly. “But we need to figure out how to stop it, and how to get me out of this timeway. Or else everything—your world and mine, and who knows how many others—will be destroyed.”

She was frightened. She looked down at the fire, gnawing her lower lip, thinking.

“I need your help,” Thrall said softly.

She looked up at him, and smiled. “You have it. I want to make a difference … again.”