Vol'jin: Shadows of the Horde

15

It should be rainin’. The bright sun mocked Khal’ak while failing to warm her. She stood tall on the bow of her barge, not because of the commanding image it made but because it was the best vantage point from which to survey the shore.

The barge nudged a floating longboat aside. It bobbed there in the slight swell. The pilot had died with his hand on the tiller, an arrow through his bowels. It had to have been painful, but his expression betrayed nothing. He stared forward, eyes now dulling as flies explored them.

Sand hissed beneath the barge’s hull as it came gently to shore. She leaped down, her dark cloak flapping. Two warriors awaited her—Captain Nir’zan, and a larger hulking troll carrying a massive shield. They immediately snapped to attention and saluted crisply.

She returned the salute, fueling it with her displeasure. “You determined what happened?”

“With as much certainty as be possible, my lady.” Nir’zan faced inland. “Owing to previous infiltration an’ study, we inserted scouts through a cove to the west. A pair swam ashore, killed two pandaren fishing dere, and secured the heights. They remained on station as per their orders and been interrogated. At that point the scouts proceeded inland, and all was as planned.”

She swept a hand out, taking in the broken landscape. “The plan deteriorated.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Why?”

The Zandalari warrior’s eyes tightened. “The why be less important than the how, my lady. Come.”

She followed him into the village, to the wreckage of a house nearly fifty yards from the beach. At their approach, another warrior dropped to a knee and peeled back a reedy sleeping mat. It had preserved a single footprint.

Ice water trickled through her insides. “Not one of ours?”

“No. Definitely a troll, but too small for Zandalari.”

Khal’ak turned and looked back down to the shore. “Dis archer killed the pilot?”

“And another warrior on that boat.”

“A very good shot.”

Nir’zan pointed to the east. “Over there, where you be seein’ your lieutenant, there be another track. Human, using our arrows. He killed another pilot.”

She measured from where the far soldier stood to the bay. “And one of our bows, yes? A lucky shot?”

Nir’zan lifted his chin, exposing his throat. “I be liking to believe that, but can’t. Neither luck nor bow leaves a track.”

“Honesty. Good.” She slowly nodded. “What else?”

The warrior headed off out of the village and south along the road. “We be finding a few more bodies in town. The archers shot and moved quickly. They were buyin’ time for others to evacuate. Many tracks leading south. You’ll want to see this.”

Nir’zan brought her to where one of the pandaren lay, transfixed with two arrows. Even in death, even wearing armor emblazoned with a snarling tiger’s face, the creature looked ridiculously benign. Khal’ak dropped to a knee beside the body and prodded the thigh with her fingers. Despite the body’s stiffening from death, she could tell the pandaren was well muscled and quite compact.

She looked up. “I see no weapon. No belt.”

“The paws, my lady.”

She grasped a paw and ran her thumb over the pandaren’s knuckles. The fur had been worn away. The dark skin had callused over. The palm felt similarly rough. “These be not fisherfolk.”

“We found four more. Some had weapons.” The warrior hesitated. “All had killed.”

“Show me.”

They continued south and then veered east to the grassy bowl beside the road. Khal’ak had chosen that spot for the ambush. She’d meant the scouts to kill a few refugees and drive the rest back into the village. Once her troops had secured it, the pandaren would serve as bearers and haulers.

She surveyed the carnage. Her troops, albeit clad in light armor, with light weapons, meant to move fast, lay scattered and broken. Three dozen of them dead, and only a handful of pandaren to account for that destruction? That she could see two bodies here indicated that they’d made no attempt to remove their dead. And even if two or three had been wounded for every abandoned corpse…

“Have you any accounting for the number of pandaren?”

“South and a bit more east be where they staged. We found da man’s and troll’s footprints too, as well as tracks of other beasts.”

“The whole of the force, Nir’zan!”

“Twenty-one, near as we be making it.”

Khal’ak stood and strode to the center of the bowl where an exceptionally large body lay. It was Lieutenant Trag’kal. At least she thought it was. His face had been destroyed, but there was no mistaking his height. She’d handpicked him to lead the scouts.

And he failed me.

She kicked his corpse, then turned to Captain Nir’zan. “I want it all cataloged. I want to know their positions, their wounds, everything. I want all you know, not guesses or estimates. And I be wanting to know who dese pandaren are. We been told they have no army. They have no militia. They have no defenses. Our sources appear to be woefully misinformed.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“And I want to be knowing where the villagers have gone.”

The Zandalari warrior nodded. “We be deployin’ a screening force forward. We tracked the archers, the man and the troll, heading east, away from da road, but all indications be that the refugees have withdrawn south. We found signs that dese beasts have returned to carry the old and wounded.”

“Yes, I need to know more about dem as well.” She stooped and pulled a bloody arrow from a dead troll’s neck. The slender shaft ended in a simple point. “This be not even suited to varminting. We brought an army, and they faced us with toys?”

“Dey took our supplies as quickly as they could, my lady.”

“And organized a retreat in good order.” Khal’ak pointed the arrow at the scouts’ bodies. “After you have cataloged everything, I be wantin’ them stripped an’ skinned. Fill their skins with straw and post dem on either side of the road. Throw their bodies in the sea.”

“Yes, my lady, but you realize there are no pandaren that sight gonna frighten.”

“I be not wanting to frighten pandaren. It be meant for the rest of us.” Khal’ak flung the arrow down. It bounced off armor and settled in the grasses. “Any Zandalari who believes empire be his birthright needs to remember that births be seldom easy and often are inclined to be bloody. Dis will not happen again, Nir’zan. See to it.”

Vol’jin woke with a start. It wasn’t because of his dream of being chased by Zandalari. He’d enjoyed that. To be hunted meant he was someone. They hunted him out of anger and fear, and to be able to inspire that gave him pleasure. Being able to inspire dread in his enemies had ever been a part of him, and it was a part he wanted to salvage.

His body ached, especially his thighs. He could still feel the stitch in his side, and his throat remained raw. His wounds had all closed, but permanent healing would take longer. He resented the lingering pains, not because of what they were but because they reminded him of how close his enemies had come to killing him.

He and the man had pulled back as planned. They found stores of arrows and bows where they’d told the monks to leave them. They also found food, which they consumed hurriedly, and lines of stones pointing them to the next cache. They scattered those before they moved on; without those indicators, they’d have been lost and doubtlessly killed.

The Zandalari had come after them, but both man and troll had known their business. They killed the archers first, which gave them the advantage in ranged combat. The Zandalari archers had not been bad—a bloodied rag tied around Vol’jin’s left thigh attested to that. Vol’jin and Tyrathan had just been better. The troll grudgingly admitted Tyrathan was much better. He’d killed one pesky Zandalari archer by arcing one arrow into a narrow crack between rocks, and had the second in the air—aimed at where the troll would draw himself back—even before the first had struck. Vol’jin told himself he’d seen equivalent displays of skill before, but never at a time when targets shot back.

The troll awoke with a start because of his surroundings. The Temple of the White Tiger, while by no means posh or opulent by any standard, was warm and filled with light. Vol’jin had been given a cell not much larger than the one he had at the Shado-pan Monastery, but the lighter color, and flashes of greenery through the windows, made it seem huge.

He arose, washed, and, when he returned to his cell, found a white robe laid out for him. He pulled it on, then followed the elusive piping of a flute to a courtyard away from the temple’s main precincts. Chen and Tyrathan stood there, along with the rest of the red and blue monks. Taran Zhu had appeared—undoubtedly flown in on a cloud serpent—and all of them wore white. Some of the monks, like Vol’jin, had been wounded in the fighting. They leaned on crutches or had arms in slings.

Five small white statues, no more than a handbreadth in height, carved of a soft stone, stood on a table to the side. Beside them were a small gong, a blue bottle, and five tiny blue cups. Taran Zhu bowed to the statues, then to the assembled crowd. They returned the bows. Then the master monk looked toward Chen, Tyrathan, and Vol’jin.

“When a pandaren becomes fully Shado-pan, the monk travels with one of our master artisans to the heart of Kun-Lai. They travel deep beneath the earth. They find the bones of the mountain and they mark out a little piece of it. The artisan then carves it into their likeness, leaving it connected to the bone. And when the wheel turns, and when that monk passes, the statue breaks free. The statues are gathered, and we store them in the monastery, so all may remember who have come before.”

Yalia Sagewhisper moved from the ranks of the monks and struck the gong. Lord Taran Zhu called out the name of the first monk. Everyone bowed until after the echoes of his voice had died. They straightened up again, the gong sounded, and Taran Zhu called out another name.

It surprised Vol’jin that he recognized the names and could easily call the faces to mind. Not as the monks were when they went to war, but before, during the time of his recovery. One had fed him strong broth. Another had changed his bandages. A third had whispered advice at playing jihui. He remembered each of them as they lived, and that both sharpened the pain he felt at their loss and closed the wound just a bit faster.

He realized that Garrosh, were they to have somehow changed places, would not recognize these five monks. He would understand them. He would have assessed them and measured them for their martial prowess. For their ability to project his power and will upon others. But that was all they would be to him, five or five thousand. His hunger for war did not permit him to know soldiers, just armies.

This be not how I wish to be. This was why, whenever he was home in the Echo Isles, he spoke with the trolls who had done well in their training. He made an effort to remember them and their names. He valued them and wanted them to know that. Not just so they would feel proud that he had taken notice of them, but so that he would not think of them as numbers to be pitched into the maw of war.

Once the last monk’s name had been spoken and everyone had straightened up, Yalia replaced the gong. She returned to the ranks and Chen stepped forward. He took up the cups—so very tiny in his paws—and placed one before each statue. Then he picked up the bottle.

“My gifts are not much. I do not have much to give. I have not given as much as they have. But my friends said that fighting the Zandalari would be thirsty work. This I intended to slake their thirst. While I am happy to share it with all of you, it’s these five who should drink first.”

He poured out a golden liquid in five equal measures into each cup. He bowed after each cup was filled, then set the bottle down on the table when he was done. Taran Zhu bowed to honor him, then the statues, and everyone else followed his lead.

The master monk looked at the others. “Our fallen brothers and sisters are pleased that you survived. You have honored them in doing this and in saving so many. That this may have required from you acts that you never thought you might have to commit is regrettable, but not insurmountable. Contemplate, grieve, pray, but know that what you have done has preserved the balance for many, and this is, after all, our purpose.”

After another round of bowing, Taran Zhu approached the three outsiders. “If you would favor me with consultation in these matters.”

Taran Zhu led them to a small room. A number of maps had been laid out in a detailed mosaic of Pandaria. Jihui pieces had been placed strategically. Vol’jin hoped against hope that the relative strengths were not meant to be reflective of reality. If they were, Pandaria was lost.

Taran Zhu’s sober expression suggested the pieces represented worse: optimistic estimates.

“I must confess, I am at a loss.” The monk swept a paw out at the map. “The Alliance and Horde incursions did not involve wholesale slaughter. They balance each other, and both sides have been useful in dealing with difficulties.”

Tyrathan’s eyes hooded. “Like the Serpent’s Heart.”

“The release of the Sha of Doubt, yes.” The pandaren hid his paws behind his back. “Either force is better suited to opposing this invasion than we are.”

Vol’jin shook his head. “Bad blood between everyone. No trust. They’d be slow to move. No telling where they would move to. Can’t be moving without secure supplies and flanks.”

Taran Zhu’s head came up. “Could neither of you influence your old allies?”

“My people tried to murder me.”

“It would be best for mine if I truly was dead.”

“Then Pandaria is lost.”

Vol’jin smiled, flashing teeth. “We be without a voice. We can be telling you how to speak to them. They gonna listen to reason. We be needing information to convince them, and I know how we be getting it.”