Vol'jin: Shadows of the Horde

28

Khal’ak would have pitied the Gurubashi kneeling before Vilnak’dor in a puddle of his own blubberings, but his explanation became even more pathetic with the second telling. Dat, and the fact that a Darkspear humiliated him. The troll looked up at the Zandalari general, tear-brimming eyes begging for mercy.

“Then they be wakin’ me up by dumping a bucket of water over me, my lord. And dis troll, he be grabbing my chin, and he gave me the message for you. His face, fierce by the light of the burning ships, it was. He be sayin’ he be a shadow hunter and took responsibility for all this. And dat with his man and the Shado-pan, he’d guarantee even more ruin if we be invading. Then he did dis!”

The Gurubashi pulled back the lock of auburn hair that had fallen over his forehead. A crude spear-shaped scar had been carved into the troll’s flesh. “Said it be so no one would forget the Darkspears.”

Vilnak’dor kicked the troll full in the stomach, then looked over at Khal’ak. “Dis be your fault, Khal’ak. All your fault. You be letting him deceive you.”

She brought her chin up. “He did nothing of the sort, my lord. We had Vol’jin, had his head and heart, until Warlord Kao here undercut my authority.”

The mogu warlord, who had stood silent during the gasping troll’s recitation, idly inspected a talon. “He was in league with the Shado-pan. He could never have been trusted.”

She suppressed a snarl. “He gonna be dealt with.”

“As he dealt with your officers and your ship?”

On an island where your master can raise buildings through dreams, and he never be noticin’ Vol’jin’s escape? She hesitated for a moment, wondering if the Thunder King had noticed and just decided to say nothing. Possible. Foolish. Foolish enough to seem brilliant, maybe.

She briefly shelved that idea and addressed her superior. “The damage done be insignificant, both in numbers and effect. Troops be already at much higher alert, which will carry over to operations in Pandaria. The loss of one ship be regrettable, but the fires were contained. Had the warehouse become involved, it might have been settin’ the invasion back a season. As it be, we gonna lose a fortnight in havin’ the quay repaired and harbor cleared of debris.”

Vilnak’dor smiled. “You see, Warlord Kao, we be sailin’ in two weeks. Your master gonna be pleased.”

The mogu shook his head. “You sail in two weeks. I sail inside a week. The Shado-pan must be destroyed. I will see to it, along with my bodyguards.”

Khal’ak frowned. Bodyguards? The only mogu with whom Kao had associated were the two who approached him with baton and cloak in the tomb. “How many do you have?”

“Two.” He brought his head up. “I will not need more.”

“You don’t know how many monks there be, Warlord.”

“It matters not. We will prevail.”

The troll general raised an eyebrow. “Don’t take dis as my being impolite, but you did not in the past.”

“This is not the past, General Vilnak’dor.”

No, it be the present. A present in which we pulled you from a tomb where your beloved master put you.

Vilnak’dor’s face closed. “I had hoped, my friend, to be surprising you with good news—that news bein’ of the elimination of the Shado-pan.”

“By what means?”

The troll nodded toward Khal’ak. “I be dispatchin’ my aide to deal with them. She gonna bring with her five hundred elite Zandalari warriors—over half from my own household troop. Upon your master’s arrival in Pandaria, they gonna present him with the heads of every Shado-pan—plus those of the Darkspear and his companions.”

The mogu’s eyes widened as he looked from the general to her and back again. “Her? The one who let this Darkspear slip away and create havoc? Have the Zandalari become senile over the centuries?”

“You fail to ask yourself, my friend, why I would be trustin’ her to bring Vol’jin here in the first place. A demonstration, if you don’t mind.”

Khal’ak nodded. She prodded the Gurubashi with a toe. “Get up.” A second kick and a sharper command roused him enough to reach his feet unsteadily.

She cuffed him hard over the left ear. “Run for the door. If you be makin’ it, you live. Now!”

His hand probing his ear, the troll spun and sprinted. Khal’ak brought her right hand up, filling it with a dagger that had lain hidden in her sleeve. She pulled her hand back, measuring the distance. The troll had picked up speed, urgency straightening his steps. He even reached out for the door.

She snapped her hand forward.

The troll staggered and clutched at his chest, gasping loudly. He crashed to his knees, then flopped heavily onto his side. His body shook with a spasmodic palsy, his palms squeaking against the polished stone floor. His back arched, and he cried out one last time. His eyes became almost instantly glassy.

The mogu stalked over, his footfalls vibrating through the floor. He stared hard but did not bend close for a thorough inspection. There could be no doubting the troll was dead, but no blade protruded from his chest, nor did he lie in a widening pool of blood.

Kao turned back, then nodded. “I shall still send my bodyguards. You will deal with the Shado-pan, but one caution.”

Khal’ak smiled indulgently. “Yes?”

“It would please my master if their demise was considerably more messy than this.”

Once the mogu had departed, Khal’ak bowed to Vilnak’dor. “Your confidence in me be heartening, my lord.”

“Expedient, more like. You have an enemy in Kao, and he gonna poison the Thunder King against you. You gonna deliver the heads as promised, or I gonna deliver your head.”

“Understood, my lord.” Khal’ak cocked her head. “How did you come to decide on five hundred?”

“At five hundred, those chosen will consider it an honor. More, and dey would be thinkin’ it a fool’s mission, or a forlorn hope. That impression would be takin’ the heart out of the entire force. But, really, a Darkspear, a man, and some pandaren trapped on a mountain? The monastery can’t be supporting more than a dozen dozen. Could you possibly need more?”

“You be quite right, my lord; dey should more than suffice.” She smiled. “I gonna take great pains that they do so.”

“Of course you gonna.” The general pointed at the dead Gurubashi. “I be commending your handiwork.”

“You’re welcome, my lord. I gonna send for him to be hauled away.” She bowed, then headed to the door. She stepped over the body without adjusting her stride, as if it were as much of a phantom as the knife she’d thrown.

The Gurubashi’s death had been a show for the mogu. The knife she’d drawn and feigned throwing had slipped back into the wrist sheath as Kao turned to watch its flight. The Gurubashi hadn’t died because of an invisible knife but because of the poison needle in a ring on the hand with which she’d cuffed him. Once she’d struck him, he had the count of ten before he died, and she the count of eight to throw her knife. Without using magic, she appeared to have killed with magic, which would give the mogu pause to wonder if the Zandalari had uncovered some new power while the mogu slept.

That sort of deception wasn’t just for the mogu. Khal’ak had the feeling that it would take all that and more to destroy the Shado-pan. After all, Vol’jin had abandoned her and the Zandalari to cast his lot with the pandaren. She assumed that he knew something she did not and that her enlightenment would be bought with blood.

Under Chen’s direction, Vol’jin and the others had put as much canvas on the ship’s masts as they could hold. Though not the world’s most accomplished sailor, the pandaren kept them running with the wind, south toward Pandaria. While tending to the ship and keeping watch for pursuit did demand attention, every so often one or another of them would laugh aloud, nervously, when thinking of their escape.

Vol’jin found himself amidships with Brother Cuo as the noon sun blazed overhead. The monk had been quiet, which was hardly uncharacteristic, but Vol’jin wondered if events during their escape further stilled his tongue.

“Brother Cuo, what I done with the Gurubashi soldier… . Cutting him that way be cruel, no denying, but I be not intending cruelty.”

The pandaren nodded. “Please, Master Vol’jin, I understand why you did what you did. I also understand that balance is not a matter of abundance opposed by poverty. In theory, peace is the balance of war, but in practice, violence is balanced not by a lack but by violence of an equal nature, moving in the opposite direction.”

Cuo opened his paws. “You think of the Shado-pan as isolated, perhaps provincial, because we have not seen what you have. But I do understand that violence is nuanced. What is the damage done by a sword stroke that cuts nothing? What you did in cutting that troll will distract the enemy so he strikes at nothing. Killing the soldiers means that the hand wielding the sword will be weak.”

Vol’jin shook his head. “What I did means he not gonna strike at nothing; he gonna strike at us. He gonna strike at the Shado-pan. What we did gonna terrify the mogu and be forcing the Zandalari to eliminate the Shado-pan. And you saw the armies assembled on that island.”

“They are formidable.” The pandaren smiled. “But your Zandalari see us as a bright light. The mogu feel us as searing heat. What they fail to perceive is that we are fire. This will be a mistake they will very much regret.”

Chen brought the small fishing boat into a tiny cove beneath the Peak of Serenity’s stone spire. They hauled the boat up onto the beach at the high-water mark and moored it there. They knew they’d never use it again, but letting it drift off or scuttling it seemed unworthy payment for the service it had done them.

They made their way up the rocky slope, at times having to climb nearly sheer cliff faces. Vol’jin imagined Zandalari swarming over the same rocks. In his mind they became an undulating black wave cresting over the cliff. He indulged himself with the fantasy of an avalanche sending boulders tumbling down among them. Crushed trolls bled between rocks, while others were blasted back into the ocean and sank slowly as air bubbled out of their lungs.

But that be not how this gonna happen.

The best-case scenario for the Zandalari was not to attack the monastery at all. What they needed to do was surround the mountain with two or three cordons of troops. They could prevent the monks from descending to aid in Pandaria’s defense. If the enemy included a company of pterrordax riders to counteract the cloud serpents, the Shado-pan would be helpless while the Zandalari and mogu occupied the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, the Jade Forest, and the Townlong Steppes. Once they had consolidated those areas, they could conquer the monastery at their leisure.

The problem for Vilnak’dor was that this strategy would not work. The mogu would demand the monks’ destruction. The Zandalari would not allow the mogu to accomplish this because the mogu had not done well before against the pandaren. If they actually succeeded in killing the Shado-pan, the mogu might come to question their need for the Zandalari at all. If the mogu failed, the Zandalari would have to clean up after them and deal with an upset Thunder King.

Moreover, the troll troops would know just how lethal a shadow hunter and a man had been on the island. Given the way rumors flowed through military camps, Vol’jin was certain the soldiers believed that he was a shadow hunter trained by the monks or that the monks had been given special shadow hunter training by him. Either way, suddenly Pandaria had a new threat that could move unseen through enemy camps, which meant every soldier was vulnerable. This would not be good for morale.

Vol’jin explained his thoughts to Taran Zhu after the escapees reached the monastery. The elder monk had been only mildly surprised to see them. He’d known they weren’t dead, since they’d not dropped from the mountain’s bones. Neither had the image of Sister Quan-li, which gave the travelers heart.

The Shado-pan leader stood studying a map of the Kun-Lai district with Vol’jin and Tyrathan. “Your assessment, then, would be that the Zandalari must throw elite troops at us? Only that will raise morale and appease the mogu.”

Vol’jin nodded. “I would be doing this along with a heavy push south from Zouchin. I would be sending one force straight south, and then one to the west, cutting you off from the Jade Forest and Townlong Steppes. Even if their elites did fail to kill you, you would be having no retreat.”

Tyrathan tapped a finger on the map’s southern edge. “If we move now and withdraw to the Valley of the Four Winds, we escape their trap. We leave a few people in place to make the monastery appear lived in, then have them escape at night by cloud serpent as the Zandalari close in.”

The elder monk clasped his paws at the small of his back and nodded thoughtfully. “It is a wise plan. I shall arrange for you to evacuate.”

Vol’jin’s eyes tightened. “You sound as if you not gonna come.”

“No Shado-pan will.”

The troll stared at him. “I pointed the Zandalari here. I made you a target. I did that thinking you would move and be leading the opposition from elsewhere.”

The pandaren slowly shook his head. “I appreciate your attempt to take responsibility for your actions, Vol’jin, but you did not make us a target. From this place pandaren planned the overthrow of the mogu. History is what made us a target. You may have provided more urgency, but they would have come for us. They must.

“And, for that same reason, we cannot leave.” The monk pointed to the map with an open paw. “From here we secured the freedom of Pandaria. This is the only place from which we can keep Pandaria free. If the Peak of Serenity falls, peace will forever vanish from our home. But this is our home, not yours. I do not expect you or Chen to remain here. You should go south. Your people have the power to oppose the invasion. Warn them. Make them see sense.”

Vol’jin shivered. “How many be you defending this place with?”

“With Brother Cuo’s return, we are thirty.”

“Thirty-one.” Tyrathan hooked thumbs through his belt. “And I’ll wager Chen’s not leaving.”

“Then I be thirty-three.”

Taran Zhu bowed to both of them. “Your gesture humbles us and does you honor, but I shall not hold you to it. Return to your people. There is no reason for you to die here.”

The troll lifted his chin. “Did you not carve us into this mountain’s bones?”

The monk nodded solemnly.

“Then the Shado-pan be our people. They be family.” Vol’jin smiled. “And I have no intention of dying here. That, my friends, be a job for the Zandalari.”