War Crimes

21

It was well after dusk when Vereesa finally arrived. Sylvanas had all but given up hope and was ready to return to the Undercity when she spied her sister’s hippogryph. Relief washed through her, and hard on its heels was anger.

“You are well over an hour late!” she snapped. “I am glad I no longer need to eat, if it takes the living so long to simply finish a meal!”

“I am sorry,” Vereesa said. “I wanted to talk with Jaina. To see if she had changed her mind after Go’el’s testimony.”

It had gone better than Sylvanas had hoped. Many of the Horde, and obviously many in the Alliance as well, had laid the grotesquery that was Warchief Garrosh squarely at Go’el’s green feet. Some doubtless would continue to mutter. Such was the way of the discontented. No proof, no explanation or reason would ever be enough to disabuse them of tightly held, deeply cherished grievances. Baine had come close to bringing Go’el down to the level of a mere mortal, but Tyrande’s masterful closing Vision had silenced the naysayers, at least for the time being. Even though the orc now said he agreed that the trial was a good idea, everyone still remembered that it had been Varian Wrynn who had halted the execution.

“Change her mind which way?” inquired Sylvanas, curious enough to put aside her anger with Vereesa.

“Any way. I do not know if it was Go’el’s testimony or the conversation she had with Kalecgos, but she seems less certain that she wants blood.” “I thought you said she was behind us!” hissed Sylvanas, alarmed now. “And what did that blue dragon say to her?”

“I do not know. I could not get close enough to hear,” Vereesa said. “But Kalecgos is not made of stern stuff; Sister, you know this. He is too close to the Life-Binder to want what we do—or to let Jaina want it, if he can stop it. I do know that when they came back from their walk, they both looked very distressed.”

“Do what you can to keep Jaina’s heart hard,” Sylvanas said. “And in the meantime, it sounds as if we must act more swiftly than we had originally planned.”

Vereesa nodded. “As you suggested, I have been talking to the pandaren food vendors who have set up temporary shop near the temple. Mi Shao has said that his sister, Mu-Lam, is one of those working in the kitchens to feed the prisoner and the guards. We talked about what Garrosh eats.”

This was better. “Tell me.”

Vereesa was not stupid, and she now visibly relaxed. Her hand moved from where it had been resting on the pommel of a dagger in her belt. The sisters walked down the shore to the ocean. “He eats the same thing for breakfast every morning: an assortment of buns and tea.”

Sylvanas shook her head. “That will not do. Unless your friend Mi Shao could be persuaded to prepare some ‘special’ buns for him.”

“No. Nor will his sister, I think. There are certainly pandaren who understand poisons, but few who would use it to this purpose.”

“Go on.” A glint of something in the sand caught her eye, and Sylvanas stooped to pick it up. It was a commemorative medallion, crafted within the last decade, which bore Kael’thas Sunstrider’s smirking image upon its golden face. Her lip curled, and she tossed the medallion into the waves.

“Lunch is rice and spit-roasted meat of some sort—chicken, mushan, tiger, whatever the hunters bring in, I imagine.”

Sylvanas struggled not to smile. “Not tiger meat, I think.”

“But it is served in—oh!” Vereesa looked shocked for a second, and then she laughed. It was a laugh of pure, surprised, and delighted mirth, free of any shadow of malice or manipulation. For the most fleeting of moments, Sylvanas was again standing on this beach, but bathed in sunshine and warmed by the sound of her sisters laughing at some antic of Lirath’s.

The memory caused her to twitch slightly. But still, she smiled. She couldn’t help it.

“No, I think you are right,” said Vereesa between giggles. “I do not think Xuen would appreciate that much.” She took a deep breath and recovered herself. “I . . . think that is the first time I have laughed since . . . well. That is what they give Garrosh for lunch.”

Sylvanas left the warm glow of the past, returning to the task at hand. Murder was much more comfortable than mirth. More familiar, at the very least.

“Again, unless we can manage to poison the animal before it is slaughtered and butchered, there is no window to tamper with it,” she mused. “This is more difficult than I had anticipated.”

Vereesa had picked up a shell and was idly tossing it from one hand to the other. The humor had gone from her, and she frowned slightly. “Sylvanas . . . how are we going to get the food to him? I mean—I do not think they make special meals for him. The guards eat the same thing he does.”

“I fail to see a problem.”

“Well—we do not want to kill the guards.”

Sylvanas blinked. “Pardon?”

“We want to kill Garrosh, not the pandaren guards who attend him.”

Sylvanas shook her head. “It does not matter who dies as long as Garrosh does. He certainly has not lost any sleep over the notion of collateral damage. If a few pandaren die, it is worth it. Or do you not have the stomach for this after all?”

Vereesa stared at the seashell. Back and forth, from one hand to the other. Just like her mind. Sylvanas would take no pleasure in killing Vereesa, but she could not permit her sister to lose her nerve. Not now.

Stay the course, Sister. Stay with me on this.

“I-if others than Garrosh die, Varian will be much more inclined to try to find out how this happened. So will Taran Zhu. That could lead them back to us. If it is just Garrosh—everyone will be much more willing to look the other way.”

Sylvanas’s red eyes narrowed as she regarded Vereesa. “That . . . is something I had not considered,” she was forced to admit. She still suspected Vereesa simply didn’t want to take innocent lives. “You realize it makes our task harder.”

“I would rather think a bit more now about how to kill him without being detected than think of ways to elude capture,” Vereesa said. “From what I have observed in court, even Vol’jin might disapprove. Certainly Varian would.”

The wind picked up, playing with their hair. “I thought you were supposed to be distraught with grief,” Sylvanas said.

“I am! Do not dare—oh.” The anger left as quickly as it had come. “Thank you.”

“Well, continue with the menu served for dinner at the Temple of the White Tiger.”

“Three different dishes. Rice noodles with fish, some sort of stew, and green curry.”

Sylvanas was thinking furiously. It had been so long since she had tasted food. Her mind went back to the festivals and feasts she had shared with her family. Picnics here on the shore, with music from Lirath’s flute. Alleria would be curled up with a book, and Sylvanas and Vereesa would splash in the surf and return to shore wild with hunger, and voraciously devour roasted quail and ham, apples and watermelons, cheese and breads . . .

“Sylvanas?”

Sylvanas snapped back to the present. A second time, now, she had drifted away. This was not good. “You will need to learn how to prepare these dishes,” she said to Vereesa brusquely. “Once we know the ingredients, perhaps we can find a way to salve your tender conscience and still achieve our objective.”

“I shall,” Vereesa said. “I will tell Mi Shao that my boys are interested in pandaren foods. That will please him.”

“Keep an eye on Jaina as well,” Sylvanas said.

“Oh, I will, do not worry about that,” Vereesa said.

They stood at the water, and Sylvanas realized that their meeting was over—yet neither Windrunner wanted to depart. The silence stretched between them; then Vereesa said, “Are you speaking to anyone on . . . on your side?”

“No,” Sylvanas said. “My dislike of Garrosh is very well known, and I have already run afoul of Baine and Vol’jin. Also, the fewer who know, the better. I think we can trust one another.”

Vereesa turned to the Banshee Queen and regarded her steadily. “Can we, Sylvanas?”

Sylvanas nodded. “I will not betray you, Sister. We have suffered enough losses.” She realized as she spoke them that the words were true. It was . . . unexpected.

Vereesa smiled. “Good. We had best be getting back.”

They fell into easy step with one another, returning to their respective mounts. “When do you think you can talk to Mi Shao?”

“I can do it tomorrow at the first respite, get the conversation started,” she said.

“Then let us meet back here tomorrow after court.”

“Are you sure that is wise? We do not want to arouse suspicion.”

Sylvanas almost stumbled at the thought of not seeing Vereesa again tomorrow. A strange pang she should not be able to feel, like the ache of a phantom limb, stabbed her, and she bit her lip against crying out.

“You said yourself time is of the essence,” Sylvanas replied. “And we do not know yet what poison will be required, how it will be administered—”

Vereesa held up a hand, smiling a little. “All right, all right! I will be so glad when this is done. Think of it, Sylvanas!” Her eyes were bright with delight. “Garrosh Hellscream . . . on the floor of his prison cell, gasping out his last breath as he feels cold poison slowly stopping his heart. How I wish there could be some way for him to know who had done this to him.”

“You are more bloodthirsty than I remember,” said Sylvanas. “It becomes you.”

“I have to be. I have thought of nothing else but that orc’s death since—” Her voice caught and she glanced away. “Well. I will see you tomorrow, Sister.” She smiled with an odd shyness, and suddenly looked less like the harsh, angry woman recent events had molded her into and more like the little sister Sylvanas remembered. “It may sound strange, but . . . I am glad we are doing this. Together.”

“So am I, Little Moon. So am I.”

“We will not make it in time!” Zaela snarled, pacing up and down the deck of the Lady Lug. Harrowmeiser stood, the balls and chains still at his feet, his arms crossed. His glower was truly magnificent.

“Well, lady—”

“Warlord!”

“Warlord, I think the Lady Lug is doing a fine job considering I’ve not been allowed to really tinker with her for a few years. I’m doing the best I can!”

“Do better! All this will be for nothing if we do not get there before the sentencing!”

“It might help if you take these off,” snapped Harrowmeiser, pointing to the iron balls.

“I leave them on so that you will fall faster to your death when I throw you overboard for failing me!”

“Actually,” said Harrowmeiser, “objects of equal mass fall at the same speed.”

“Correct, but you are not factoring air resistance into that equation,” Thalen said, inspecting his fingernails. “Or any magical means of intervention. For example, suppose you had a parachute or a slow fall spell cast on—”

“You will help him, Thalen.”

The archmage froze. “I beg your pardon?”

“Since you are both so clever, work together. Now. Find a way to get us to Pandaria swiftly.”

Until right this moment, Thalen had been enjoying the flight. Zaela was a worthy colleague. She had overthrown a fel orc to seize leadership of a clan hardly known as pushovers, and she had given the anti-Garrosh traitors a good run for their money. It was unsurprising that their draconic ally had appointed her head of the unlikely band. The Dragonmaw had gone on ahead and were currently waiting to regroup with them in Pandaria.

Shokia had been recruited next. The orc sniper seemed to know their leader personally, though she would not mention how. Her understanding of battle tactics, particularly from heights and distances, had helped to refine their strategy.

And Harrowmeiser . . . had stayed out of his way. Until now.

The two went belowdecks, where Harrowmeiser sullenly briefed the blood elf on how the Lady Lug operated. Thalen found himself reluctantly impressed.

“This zeppelin is not quite the deathtrap that you lamented it is,” he commented. “How did you keep it running so well for so long while you were a prisoner?”

Standing next to a wheezing bellows and a loudly turning crank, the goblin replied, “Taffy, twine, and a troll voodoo fetish.”

Thalen laughed. “You are a funny fellow. But, all joking aside, how?”

Harrowmeiser sighed and pointed a grimy green finger at the engine’s inner workings. Thalen found himself staring at the skull of some small, hapless animal that had been decorated with paint and colorful feathers.

“Oh, dear,” he said. “I see.” He could feel the magic coming off the fetish and mused, “Well, nonetheless, what you have done did seem to be working. Mostly.” Gingerly, he reached for the item and peered at it for a long moment. “I have a proposition for you.”

“Hey, right now my mind is totally wide open to anything that doesn’t end with me plummeting to my death. At any velocity.”

“You use some spit and polish and get this running as smoothly as possible.” He waved his fingers, and violet mist began to subtly roll off them. “And I will see if I cannot augment our little friend here to give us more speed.”

He raised the fetish and blew on it, softly, and smiled as the feathers fluttered.