Vol'jin: Shadows of the Horde

4

Vol’jin of the Darkspear trolls chose not to move. He did this because he found making that choice preferable to acknowledging that he felt too weak to move. Though the hands dealing with him were gentle, their touch respectful, he could not have thrown them off were it his greatest desire.

Unseen aides plumped pillows, then thrust them behind him to prop him up. He would have protested, but the pain in his throat made anything more than harshly growled words—and very short words—impossible. The obvious choice—“stop”—no matter how sharply barked, would have mocked his inability to stop them. Though he accepted his silence as a concession to vanity, he found the roots of his discomfort running deeper.

The soft bed and softer pillows were not comforts in which trolls luxuriated. A thin sleeping mat over a wooden floor was the height of opulence in the Echo Isles. Many trolls slept on stretches of ground, occasionally seeking shelter if a storm blew in. Yielding sand made for a better bed than the hard stone of Durotar, but trolls were not given to complaining about harsh accommodations.

The insistence on softness and comfort irritated him because it emphasized his weakness. The thinking part of him couldn’t deny that a soft bed made shifting his wounded body much easier. He doubtless slept a bit better. But in calling attention to his weakness, it somehow denied the nature of his being a troll. Trolls were to hardship and harsh reality what sharks were to the open ocean.

To remove me from that be killing me.

The clunk of a chair or stool at his right surprised him. He’d not heard whoever carried it approach. Vol’jin sniffed, and the maddening scent underlying everything came back with the force of a punch. Pandaren. Not just pandaren, but one in particular.

Chen Stormstout’s voice, low but warm, came to him in a whisper. “I would have been to see you before, but Lord Taran Zhu did not think it wise.”

Vol’jin struggled to reply. He had a million things he wished to say, but few came wrapped in words his throat was willing to utter. “Friend. Chen.” Somehow Chen came more easily, being softer.

“No playing blindfold guessing games with you. You’re too good.” Robes rustled. “If you would close your eyes, I’ll remove the bandages. The healers say your eyes were not hurt, but they did not want you overly alarmed.”

Vol’jin nodded, knowing Chen was half right. Had he a foreigner brought to him in the Echo Isles, he’d also have blindfolded him until he decided whether the captive could be trusted. Doubtless that was Taran Zhu’s reasoning, and for some further reason, he had decided that Vol’jin could be trusted.

Chen’s doing, I be suspecting.

The pandaren carefully unwound the bandages. “I have my paw over your eyes. Open them, and I will slowly draw it away.”

Vol’jin did as commanded, voicing a grunt meant to be a signal. Chen apparently took it as such, for he pulled back his paw. The troll’s eyes watered in the bright light; then Chen’s image swam into focus. The pandaren was much as Vol’jin remembered—stoutly built with a jovial sense about him, and an intelligence in his golden eyes. He was a very welcome sight.

Then Vol’jin looked down at his own body and almost closed his eyes again. Sheets covered him to the waist, and bandages covered almost the rest of him. He noted that he did have both hands and all fingers. The long lumps beneath the sheets told him his lower extremities were likewise intact. He could feel bandages constricting around his throat, and itching suggested that at least a portion of one ear had been sewed back into place.

He stared at his right hand and willed the fingers to move. They did, to his eye, but the sense of their moving took time to reach him. They seemed impossibly far away, but unlike when he’d first wakened, he could actually feel them. It be progress.

Chen smiled. “I know there are many things you want to know. Shall I start at the beginning or the end? The middle would not be so good a place, but I could start there. But that would make the middle the beginning, wouldn’t it?”

Chen’s voice rose with his explanation and its flight into folly. Other pandaren turned away, their interest in the conversation waning with their anticipation of tedium. In noticing them, Vol’jin also noticed the dark, ancient stone walls. As he had seen elsewhere in Pandaria, the place reeked of age, and yet, here, of strength as well.

Vol’jin wanted to say “beginning,” but his throat refused. “Not end.”

Chen looked back and apparently noted that the other pandaren had chosen to ignore them. “The beginning, then. I fished you out of a small watercourse far from here, at Binan Village. We did for you there what we could. You were not dying, but you were not healing either. Seems there was poison on the knife that did your throat. I brought you here, to the Shado-pan Monastery, at Kun-Lai Summit. If anyone could help you, the monks could.”

He took a moment and surveyed Vol’jin’s wounds, shaking his head. The troll noticed no pity in his assessment, and this pleased him. Chen had ever been sensible when he wasn’t clowning, and Vol’jin knew Chen cast himself as a clown so others would forever underestimate how clever he truly could be.

“I cannot imagine it was Alliance troops who did this to you.”

Vol’jin’s eyes tightened. “My. Head. Gone.”

The pandaren gave a short laugh. “Someone would be supping with the king in Stormwind, with your head the centerpiece, no doubt. But I figured you’d never let the Alliance catch you where they could hurt you so much.”

“Horde.” Vol’jin’s stomach tightened. It wasn’t really the Horde; it was Garrosh. Vol’jin’s throat constricted before he could speak the name. The bitterness of the attempt lingered on his tongue regardless.

Chen sat back and scratched at his chin. “That’s why I brought you here. There wasn’t any other choice for your care anyway, but your safekeeping…” The brewmaster sat forward, lowering his voice. “Garrosh leads the Horde now that Thrall is away, yes? He’s eliminating his rivals.”

Vol’jin let himself sink back on the pillows. “Not. Without. Reason.”

Chen chuckled, and try as he might, Vol’jin could detect no hint of reproof. “There’s not an Alliance head that’s touched a pillow that’s not had a nightmare of meeting you. Not surprising the same is true of a few in the Horde.”

Vol’jin tried to smile and hoped he succeeded. “Never. You?”

“Me? No, never. People like me, like Rexxar, we’ve seen you in battle being fierce and terrible. We’ve also seen you mourning your father. You’ve been loyal to Thrall and the Horde and the Darkspear tribe. Thing is, those who can’t be loyal never believe when others are. I trust in your loyalty. Someone like Garrosh figures it’s a mask over treachery.”

Vol’jin nodded. He wished his voice worked enough that he could tell Chen of his threatening to kill Garrosh. It wouldn’t have mattered to the pandaren; of this the troll was certain. Chen’s loyalty would have led him to rationalize a dozen justifications for the threat. Vol’jin’s current state would prove each of them true.

Only thing proved by that be the depth of Chen’s friendship.

“How. Long?”

“Long enough for me to do a spring ale and be halfway into a late spring shandy. Or early summer. Pandaren are a bit looser about time, and those from Pandaria looser still. A month since we found you, two and a half weeks here. The healers poured a draught down your throat to make you sleep.” Chen raised his voice for the benefit of those who had begun to come closer. “I told them that I could brew you up a hot black tea with some kelp and berries that would have you up and about in no time, but they don’t think a brewmaster knows enough about healing or you. Still, they did pour nourishment into you, so they’re not completely without hope.”

Vol’jin made the effort to lick his lips, but even that seemed to exhaust him. Two and a half weeks and this be all I have mended. Bwonsamdi released me, but I be not progressing as I should.

Chen leaned in again, his voice dropping. “Lord Taran Zhu leads the Shado-pan. He has agreed to allow you to remain here to recuperate. There are conditions. Given that both the Alliance and Horde would be quite happy to see to your further care, each in its own ways…”

Vol’jin shrugged as much as he was able. “Helpless.”

“. . . and given that you’re on the mend, listening won’t hurt.” Chen nodded, holding a paw palm out in a calming gesture. “Lord Taran Zhu wishes you to learn of us. Well, not us really. Most pandaren from here see pandaren who grew up on Shen-zin Su as ‘wild dogs.’ We look like them, sound like them, smell like them, but we’re different. They aren’t sure what we are. Puzzled me, at first, all that, until it struck me that a lot of the other trolls might see the Darkspears the same way.”

“Not. Untrue.” Vol’jin closed his eyes for a moment. If Taran Zhu wishes me to learn of the pandaren and their ways, then he gonna study me. As I would be doing with him.

“He thinks you’re Tushui—more thoughtful and stable. I’ve told him a lot about you, and I think that, too. Tushui’s not a trait he’s seen in the Horde. He wants to understand why you’re different. But this means he wants you to learn the pandaren way. Some of our words, our customs. It’s not like he wants you to be one of those trolls who go to Thunder Bluff and become blue tauren. He wants you to understand.”

Vol’jin opened his eyes again and nodded. Then he caught a moment’s hesitation in Chen’s recitation. “What?”

Chen looked up and away, nervously tapping his fingertips together. “Well, see, Tushui is balanced by Huojin. That’s more impulsive, kind of kill them first, sort the hides out later. Like Garrosh deciding to kill you. Very Hordish thing to do these days. Not what the Alliance normally does.”

“And?”

“These things are in balance now. Taran Zhu talked to me about water and anchors and ships and everything. Very complicated, even without mentioning crews. But the important thing is balance. He really likes his balance, and, you see, until you got here, they were out of balance.”

Vol’jin, though the effort cost him mightily, arched an eyebrow.

“Well…” Chen glanced over his shoulder toward an empty bed. “About a month before I found you, I found a man wandering, hurt badly, his leg broken. And I brought him here too. He’s a bit further along than you are, but trolls heal faster. And the thing is that Lord Taran Zhu is putting you in his care.”

A jolt ran through Vol’jin’s mind, and though he was weak, he attempted to rise. “No!”

Chen reached out, pressing the troll down with both paws. “No, no, you don’t understand. He’s here under the same restrictions you are. He won’t—I know you’re not afraid of a man, Vol’jin. Lord Taran Zhu hopes that in helping you heal, this man will help heal himself. That is part of our way, my friend. Restore the balance and you encourage healing.”

Even though Chen kept his paws soft and strength gentle, Vol’jin could not struggle against him. For a heartbeat he imagined that the monks had made certain that whatever potion they’d poured down his throat would leave him this weak. That, however, would have required Chen to be part of the deception, and he never would have agreed to that.

Vol’jin forced his anger away and let frustration go with it. Lord Taran Zhu wanted to study not only him but also his dealings with a man. Vol’jin could have easily given him a long history of troll-human relations and why they pulsed with hatred. Vol’jin had killed more men than he cared to think about. Far from losing sleep over it, he slept better for it. And he was willing to bet the man in the monastery felt much the same way.

The troll realized that while Taran Zhu might have had access to all that history, those accounts would be tainted by the nature of the tellers. By putting troll and man together, he would watch, learn, and make his own judgments.

A wise course, I be thinking. Vol’jin reminded himself that no matter how much Chen had told Lord Taran Zhu about him, to the pandaren monk, Vol’jin was nothing more than a troll. Doubtless the man’s pedigree mattered little either. Who they were had nothing to do with how they reacted to each other. That was the information the pandaren wanted. Knowing that, and realizing he could control the information, gave Vol’jin power.

He looked up at Chen. “You. Approve?”

Surprise widened Chen’s eyes; then he smiled. “It is best for you and for him, for Tyrathan. The mists have hidden Pandaria for a long time. You and he share common bonds that the pandaren never will. You will heal better together.”

“To. Later. Kill.”

Chen’s brows arrowed down. “Likely enough. He is no more happy about this than you are, but he will abide so he can abide here.”

Vol’jin cocked his head. “Name?”

“Tyrathan Khort. You won’t know him. He’s not risen as high in the Alliance as you have in the Horde. But he was an important man. He was a leader among the Alliance forces here. And his wounds were not from the king’s assassins. I only know he was hurt in a battle that helped Pandaria. This is why Lord Taran Zhu agreed to tend to him. He has great sadness, which nothing seems to cure.”

“Not. Even. Brew?”

The pandaren shook his head, his eyes focusing distantly. “He drinks and holds his liquor well. But he’s not a boisterous drunk. Introspective and quiet. Another trait you two share.”

“Tushui, no?”

Chen threw his head back and roared with laughter. “They cut your body but could not hurt your mind. Yes, that would seem to be Tushui, which would cause the balance to be off. But every day, every day since he has been able to stand with crutches, he heads out to climb the mountain. Very Huojin. And then he stops. A hundred yards, two hundred, and returns, spent. Not physically, but in will. Very Huojin.”

Very curious. I wonder why— Vol’jin caught himself, then gave Chen a tiny nod. “Very. Good. Friend.”

“Maybe you can find the answer.”

Which means I have to abide the man, being exactly what everyone wants. Vol’jin slowly exhaled and let his head rest on the pillows. And, for the moment, I be including myself in that group.