Vol'jin: Shadows of the Horde

33

As he engaged the trolls coming along the bridge and swarming up the edges of the island, Vol’jin consciously realized what he’d unconsciously discovered previously: he wasn’t facing Zandalari. Not all of them, anyway. The tall ones certainly were. Their height—and the fact that more than one sprouted a red-shafted arrow from eye or throat as they came—gave them away. The others, though wearing Zandalari armor, had to be Gurubashi and Amani.

Vol’jin understood the tactic of driving lesser forces before the best, overwhelming defenders. Khal’ak would think herself brilliant for coming up with it. Vol’jin felt compelled to convince her that it wasn’t a workable idea. Since he could not see her in the horde pouring into the monastery, he contented himself with destroying her troops.

Destruction it had to be, because it wasn’t truly a fight. Sheer weight of meat guaranteed her forces would overwhelm him. In addition to the warriors closing in, priests and witch doctors appeared from the grove. Black energy sizzled between their hands. Spells launched, arcing out toward the monks defending the Sealed Chambers. Some of them fell, but the handful of Shado-pan stormcallers responded. Their spells exploded amid the trolls, setting some on fire, opening the chest of at least one other.

His left shoulder already having recovered a minimal amount of utility, Vol’jin swept into the trolls. He considered himself a sharp and vengeful part of the winds swirling blinding snow blankets over the battlefield. Just as the cold wind could cut through clothing to chill the flesh, his glaive sliced deep. It plunged into groins, ripping open femoral arteries. It caressed necks, hot blood spurting to darken falling snow. The blade point punched through the backs of knees, cut heel tendons, and plucked out eyes.

He left his enemies’ throats intact so they could give voice to fear and pain.

Some opposed him bravely, but others came at him slowly and tentatively. They looked for openings and weaknesses. He just made openings. He’d long since counted himself dead, so their little cuts, their thrusts, mattered not at all. If a blow didn’t kill him outright, it was as good as a miss.

Deep down inside, Vol’jin knew he wouldn’t always prevail, but the snarl on his lips, the glint in his eyes, and the eagerness with which he attacked hinted at just the opposite. His enemies saw him as a troll who, despite wearing tattered armor and being bathed in blood, would keep coming. If they weren’t sure they could stop him or kill him, fear froze their guts.

And then Vol’jin opened them.

He spun away from one troll madly trying to stuff ropy intestines back into a ruined belly and found himself completely surrounded. The battle had turned him around, so he faced it as the invaders had. The arcane exchange of spells lit the battlefield to his right. Through sheets of snow, arrows came from off to the left. Half-visible trolls crested over the far gully edge, engaging the monks defending the Sealed Chambers. In that direction lay sanctuary, and Vol’jin knew he’d never make it.

Then, in a burst of light and licking flame, Chen exploded onto the island. As one of the true Zandalari turned toward him, Chen again breathed fire. The troll’s face ran like melting wax, his hair a torch and his flesh sizzling sweetly.

Behind him, Yalia, Cuo, and three other Shado-pan monks raced along the bridge to the island. The crack Chen had burned open was expanded with staves and swords. Yalia’s staff moved so quickly it would have been invisible even if there were no snow. Her blows dented armor and crushed bones beneath. Every thump produced a clank and a curse; every uppercut launched teeth from shattered jaws.

Chen extended a paw. “Hurry!”

Vol’jin, surprised, hesitated. The Zandalari circle might have closed around him again, but the monks drove forward. They surrounded him with their own cordon. Paws and feet blurred. Swords clanged. The monks proved excellent on defense, turning thrusts and blocking slashes. Even though their speed left their enemies open, they didn’t press their advantage. They didn’t seem to think their mission to rescue Vol’jin meant also killing as many of the enemy as they could.

Vol’jin took Chen’s paw and sprinted over the bridge. He had no desire to be leaving the fight, but the island was no place to be fighting. Had he stayed, they all would have stayed. And died. In fact, the monks withdrew in good order, all of them reaching the landing before the Sealed Chambers.

Even as he contemplated stepping up to defend the bridge, the Snowdrift Dojo’s alarm bell pealed loudly. It rang a half dozen times with urgency, then abruptly stopped. He looked over and trolls poured from it—obviously Zandalari despite the shabby clothes they wore.

And there, with them, stood a mogu and Khal’ak.

Taran Zhu appeared at the Sealed Chambers’ main entrance. “Fall back now!” The command contained no panic, nor did it allow for refusal. The monks pulled back immediately, with Chen and Vol’jin the last to retreat.

The Zandalari, confident of their victory, seemed happy to let them go.

Vol’jin paused in the doorway, looking toward the Snowdrift Dojo. Snow stole his sight of it, with the last thing he saw being Zandalari tossing dead monks into the gully. He looked for any sign of Tyrathan, but blood dripped into his eyes.

Two monks closed the ornate bronze doors behind him and dropped a heavy bar into place. Vol’jin went to a knee to catch his breath. He swiped at the blood on his face, then looked up again.

The Thirty-three had become fourteen. All but Taran Zhu showed signs of the fighting. Blood stained many robes. Magic had scorched others. At least two of the survivors had broken bones, and Vol’jin suspected others were hiding injuries. Yalia was definitely favoring broken ribs. The blood dripping from Chen’s right paw did so too fluidly to be anything but his own.

The troll glanced at the Shado-pan leader. “How did they get into the Snowdrift Dojo?”

“I believe they worked their way up through the tunnels.” Taran Zhu examined a fingernail rather distractedly. “Others tried coming up from below here, but were discouraged.” He glanced at a half-open alcove behind the statue of a tiger, and Vol’jin wondered what manner of mayhem lay beyond it.

The shadow hunter winced as he straightened up and worked his left shoulder around. “Khal’ak sent some of her elite troops out in those flanking parties. She be forcing the others into being the brunt of the attackers. We’ve done well. We’ve killed many.”

“But not enough.” The elder monk nodded. The winds howled and he smiled. “Perhaps the winter will kill them for us.”

Vol’jin shook his head. “I doubt they will wait that long.”

The Sealed Chambers had been laid out in the shape of a T. The main door opened onto a circular depression. Three wings spread out from it, opposite him and at right angles. To his left, in the longer of the wings, stood another pair of doors. A heavy fist pounded on them, demanding entrance.

Chen laughed. “I don’t think we should answer that.”

“Agreed.” Vol’jin looked from one door to the other. “I be suspecting Khal’ak gonna concentrate her attacks there, to the far side, to attract our attention. She gonna then hit this door, quickly and hard. Chen, if you wanted to be preparing her a warm welcome…”

The pandaren nodded. “My pleasure.”

“Brother Cuo, the far door be yours.” Vol’jin crossed over to where Tyrathan had hidden a quiver and a compact horse bow. He strung it and tested the draw. “I gonna position myself here, in the middle, to see what I can do.”

Taran Zhu nodded, then ascended the stair and seated himself at the heart of the wing opposite the door Chen would defend. He composed himself, serene and pristine, the antithesis of the other thirteen. Vol’jin would have protested, but Taran Zhu’s apparent peace and lack of concern buoyed the troll’s heart. If he be not worried, why should I be?

The Zandalari began their assault on the west-wing door. Spells pounded it with the relentless monotony of a blacksmith hammering a horseshoe. The metal opposite the wooden bar soon glowed a dull red. The wood smoked. Monks fingered their weapons. Chen and Yalia hugged.

Then came a heavy explosion. Molten metal sprayed out into the room. One of the doors sagged in; the other twisted outward. The oaken bar had been reduced to smoke and glowing cinders that created a red carpet for the invaders.

Vol’jin drew and shot as quickly as he could. Tyrathan had been right. The short bow sped arrows with enough power to pierce armor at such close range. So thick was the mass of Zandalari that he couldn’t help but hit a target. The difficulty was that they moved so quickly that wounding was as likely as a kill shot, and were packed so close that wounded or dead, they took their time falling to the floor.

The monks fought valiantly. Blades flashed silver and gold in the building’s warm lamplight, drinking deeply of troll blood. The same overwhelming rush of bodies that made it impossible for him to miss also restricted the monks’ movement. On a more open battlefield, they could have carved great swaths through the Zandalari. The carnage made apparent that trolls had died in droves outside not because they had been Gurubashi and Amani, but because they had dared attack the Shado-pan.

Spears and swords hungrily sought them and, one by one, the monks fell. Brother Cuo was one of the last. He spun, his face cleaved in half. Others just vanished in a sea of troll flesh, dying perhaps content in the knowledge that they had taken many trolls with them.

A second explosion blasted the main doors open. Chen breathed fire, wreathing Zandalari in flame. More elite warriors poured through, engaging Chen and Yalia. The captain who had led the attack outside darted forward. Behind him, Khal’ak stood with the other mogu. She surveyed the place as if the fighting were finished and she were only there to count bodies.

Vol’jin cast aside the bow, downed a troll in a blistering burst of dark magic, then brought his glaive to hand. He intercepted the Zandalari officer, turning a cut meant for Yalia, then nodding and beckoning the Zandalari forward. “You be not fearing me now, would you be?”

The Zandalari snarled and went for him. Whereas the mogu had relied on power, the troll fought with speed and skill. His saber whistled past Vol’jin’s ducking head. The shadow hunter slashed at his midsection, but the Zandalari leaped back. Before Vol’jin could press him, he circled, then came in again, slashing sinisterly across the Darkspear’s body.

Vol’jin turned the slashes, deflecting them high or wide. Saber rang against glaive; metal hissed on metal through parries. The blades themselves seemed alive, striking with the speed of vipers, vanishing as quickly as ghosts. Feints and dodges, leaps and strikes, had each troll circling with and through and around the other in lethally fluid motions. The pace of their fight increased, sparks flying.

Vol’jin thrust and the Zandalari leaped back, but only barely in time and with the leeway of an inch. He glanced down. Joy chased disbelief off his face. His belly should have been opened, his entrails spilling out. But, somehow, luckily, he’d avoided that thrust.

Then Vol’jin pushed with his left hand and raked back with his right. The motion hooked the glaive’s curved blade around, ripping into the Zandalari’s back. Vol’jin twisted his hands upward. The blade carved neatly around a kidney, severing the artery feeding it as well as the one going to the Zandalari’s legs. He yanked the blade free in an explosion of crimson. His enemy fell in a limp tangle of limbs, splashing blood over the floor.

“Vol’jin, look out!”

Hands shoved the troll aside. Vol’jin tripped over his dead foe’s legs, landing hard and rolling. He came up as the mogu’s spear, which would have taken him full in the back, caught a battle-worn Tyrathan Khort in the belly. It hit him with enough force to carry him back to the wall. The spearhead embedded itself there, and the man, suspended grotesquely, stared down at the spear buried in his guts.

The mogu rushed forward, hands raised, making for Vol’jin. He didn’t even glance at his spear. The fury in his eyes and the twitching of his fingers betrayed his intention to tear Vol’jin limb from limb.

And that might have happened, had not Taran Zhu launched himself in a flying kick. The Shado-pan lord caught the mogu in his left flank, denting armor. He struck with sufficient force that the mogu stumbled to the right, crashing into Zandalari surrounding Yalia and Chen. He landed heavily on one, but thrust himself to his feet quickly. The fact that he’d crushed a troll’s skull in doing so appeared to be beneath his notice.

Vol’jin scooped up his glaive as he regained his feet, then stood and watched as the mogu hurled himself at the pandaren. Heavy blows pounded the ground where Taran Zhu had stood but a heartbeat before. They cracked stone and shook the earth. Fists flew. Feet swept and scythed and snapped. The mogu, though clearly skilled in unarmed combat and bigger than his enemy, simply couldn’t touch the pandaren.

Taran Zhu ducked or danced back or tumbled and rolled. He leaped over leg sweeps, then slid away from combinations. The mogu shifted forms—Vol’jin recognized a few from his training—yet the pandaren did not adopt the opposing form. He just remained elusive, a phantom. The harder the mogu pressed him, the more easily he escaped, until the mogu finally paused to gather himself.

Then Taran Zhu attacked. Almost playfully he bounded forward, then snapped a kick up and around to the right. It caught the mogu in the middle of his left thigh, breaking it crisply. No sooner had the pandaren landed than he kicked again, this time with his left foot. The mogu’s other thigh parted with a thundercrack.

As the mogu fell forward, Taran Zhu punched up and out. His spear-pawed strike pierced the mogu’s breastplate with a high-pitched pop. His arm disappeared to the elbow in the mogu’s chest. Stiffened fingers dented the backplate from the inside out.

The elder monk slid his paw free and slipped back as the mogu crashed face-first onto the floor. Taran Zhu looked at him for a moment, then up at the spellbound Zandalari. He tugged on his bloodied sleeve. “Leave now, or we shall be compelled to destroy what remains of you.”