War Crimes

23

When Taran Zhu struck the gong and announced that court was over for the day, Anduin immediately turned to his father. “I’m going to go see Garrosh now,” he said. “I’ll probably miss dinner.” Usually, he had a meal with his father and often Jaina, Kalec, and Vereesa at Violet Rise, and then excused himself to return to do . . . whatever he was doing with Garrosh. He wasn’t sure if it was talking with, listening to, guiding spiritually, or simply being a verbal training dummy for the orc. Sometimes all four. Right now, he wished there was a fifth thing he could be doing—shaking some sense into Garrosh’s thick skull.

Varian nodded. “Thought you might want to do that,” he said. “There’ll be something left.”

“It’s all right. I’ll have some of Mi Shao’s dumplings.”

“Wait, what?” Jaina said. “Garrosh? Anduin, what are you doing with Garrosh?” She looked both angry and alarmed.

“I’ll explain it over dinner,” Varian told Jaina. “Go on, Son.”

Anduin jumped down lithely over a row of seats and hastened to the stairs. Behind him he heard Jaina saying, “Varian, what’s going on?”

Anduin winced. He’d been so intent on getting to Garrosh, he’d forgotten about Jaina’s presence. He’d deliberately not told Jaina about his meetings with Garrosh. Few knew, and he liked it that way precisely because of the sort of reaction he was getting from Jaina. Everyone seemed to think they had a say in what he chose to do and with whom he interacted, and he was growing very weary of it. Right now, though, that took second place to his need to see Hellscream.

He hurried down the hall to the doors that led to Garrosh’s cell. “The prince is swifter than the prisoner today,” Li Chu said as Anduin arrived. “He is still on his way.”

“I’ll wait.” Anduin stepped to the side of the corridor and leaned against the wall, his arms folded tightly across his chest. He tried to force himself to relax, had a brief moment of dark humor at the absurdity of that particular task, and simply stood there.

Garrosh arrived a few moments later, favoring his bad leg, his approach heralded by the clinking and dragging of the chains that bound him. He was accompanied by Yu Fei and the six guards always assigned to him whenever he left the cell. Anduin saw a flicker of surprise on the brown face, quickly quelled. The Chu brothers opened the door. Yu Fei entered first, beckoning to Anduin to follow her. They descended the ramp and stepped to the rear of the room to stand quietly as Garrosh clanked up to the open cell door. Two of the guards unlocked all his chains save the ones about his ankles, while the other four and the Chus stood by, watching the orc’s every move. Garrosh went to the furs and sat down while the door was closed and locked. Yu Fei stepped up and murmured an incantation, waving her paws in a delicate motion. The windows began to glow a soft purple.

“What does that do, specifically?” Obviously it was an extra security precaution, but Anduin realized he didn’t know exactly how it worked.

“It is a one-way barrier,” Yu Fei answered. “The guards can reach in should it be required, but Garrosh cannot reach out.”

“Smart,” said Anduin, and Yu Fei colored slightly and bowed.

“You honor me,” she said, eyes downcast, and scurried out. Briefly, Anduin wondered at her odd behavior, but was much more interested in having words with the orc. Li and Lo nodded to the prince, then closed and locked the outer door, as per Anduin’s request to be alone with the prisoner.

Anduin didn’t move at first. He simply glared at the orc, who seemed amused at his obvious anger.

“Speak, Prince Anduin, or you shall burst,” Garrosh said. “And I have no desire to be blamed for the mess.”

“How could you do that? How could you do any of this?” The words tumbled from Anduin’s lips, and as if the act of speaking had given him the ability to move once more, he strode forward and stood less than a foot away from Garrosh’s cell bars. “You’re not crazy. You’re not without feelings. So tell me—how can you do this?”

Garrosh was enjoying himself as he leaned back on his sleeping furs, the chains jingling with the gesture. “Do what?”

“You know what I’m talking about. Allying with the Dragonmaw!”

“For all your piety, you are very quick to judge,” Garrosh said. “Tyrande played a fine card today; I will give her that. Alexstrasza certainly made more than one eye grow moist with her tale.”

“Tale? Is that all it was to you?”

Garrosh shrugged. “It is history now, and wringing my hands over it will accomplish nothing.”

“Any more than would others wringing their hands over you?” Anduin shot back.

“Exactly. I do not need your sympathy, human.”

“So why did you want to talk to me? Me, a priest, someone you tried to kill?”

Garrosh was silent.

“She’s the Life-Binder, Garrosh. She’s—she’s the kindest thing in this world. And your people did that to her.”

Garrosh’s eyes brightened. “Aha, so the truth comes out. You are just like Jaina, aren’t you? You secretly think us all monsters.”

Anduin made a strangled noise and turned away in frustration. The orc laughed. “You are all alike.”

The prince snorted. “Sure we are. Just as you are like Go’el and Saurfang and Eitrigg.”

Garrosh grunted and looked away. “They have forgotten or, in Go’el’s case, never known the true glory of the Horde.”

“Oh yes, there’s an awful lot of glory in smashing eggs.”

“There is glory in bending a dragon to your will!”

“So, you do think that torturing the protector of life is a fine thing to do.”

“I did not kidnap Alexstrasza!”

“No, but you’re in neck-deep with those who did. With those who still enslave dragons. Because there’s ‘glory in bending a dragon to your will,’ isn’t there?” He stepped closer. “What is your vision for the Horde, Garrosh? Because all this world has seen of it is needless violence, torment, and the betrayal of friends.”

“My Horde would crush its enemies as a giant crushes an insect!” Now Garrosh was on his feet, shoving his face so close that Anduin could feel hot puffs of angry breath on his cheeks. But Garrosh did not touch the bars.

“And what happens when this Horde you envision crushes all the insects that are bothering you? What happens then? What are you going to do when you run out of enemies? Turn on yourselves? Oh, wait, you’ve done that already, haven’t you?”

They stared at one another for a long moment; then Anduin sighed. The fury had bled out of him, and all that was left was sorrow. Sorrow, and sickness at the ruination Garrosh Hellscream had left in his wake—not the least of which was Garrosh himself.

“I want so badly to understand,” Anduin said, his voice barely a whisper. “Because at least some of it, I already do. I understand you want your people to carry their heads high. You want your children to be healthy. You want the orcs to be strong, so you can thrive. You want to do great deeds, so you won’t be forgotten when you crumble to dust. This, I do, I really do, understand. But the rest? Alexstrasza? The inn? The trolls? Theramore?” He shook his golden head slowly. “I can’t.”

As Anduin spoke, Garrosh, too, had grown quiet. He watched Anduin raptly, almost transfixed by the boy’s words. Now he replied in a voice as calm as Anduin’s.

“You never will.”

For a moment, Anduin didn’t reply. Then he said, “You may be right.”

“Prince Anduin, please step back from the cell,” came Li Chu’s voice. Anduin started at the sound and obliged. Li’s gaze was on Garrosh. “Is everything well, Your Highness?”

“As well as it can be,” Anduin said. Behind Li stood Lo, carrying a tray. On it was a bowl of steaming green curry, another one of rice, two peaches, a tropical sunfruit sliced into quarters, and a fresh pitcher of water. Garrosh could not, at least, complain of being treated as poorly as he had treated his own prisoners. Yu Fei murmured her incantation, and the glow on the bars faded. Under Li’s watchful gaze, Lo placed the meal on a small table right beside the door.

Anduin left Garrosh to his supper. At the entrance to the ramp, he paused for a moment, then turned around.

“Then again,” he said to Garrosh, “you might be wrong.”

This time, it was Sylvanas who was delayed. By the time she reached Windrunner Spire, Vereesa was already there, pacing back and forth on the beach. When Sylvanas alighted from the bat, Vereesa ran to her.

“We can do it!” she cried. “It is perfect!”

Sylvanas found herself smiling at Vereesa’s excitement. If true, this was wonderful news. “Speak quickly. I am eager to listen!”

“One of the rotating meals is green curry,” she said. “It is every third day, usually, but Mu-Lam Shao says that the order depends on what is fresh more than anything. They make it in a large pot in the kitchen, and everyone is served from that pot.”

They fell into easy, almost perfect step as they walked, both their movements swift and excited. Sylvanas felt as though all her senses were heightened, as though she were awake for the first time in a long while. “Go on.”

“When Garrosh’s meal is dished up, it is sent down to him on a tray along with rice and some sort of fruit—again, whatever is fresh. They also give him a quartered sunfruit.” Vereesa could barely contain herself. “Sylvanas—the preparation of the dish is finished by the diner. You mix in rice with each bite and put a squeeze of the sunfruit juice atop it. The fruit itself is tart, but the peel is sweet, so you can eat the peel at the end of the meal. We do not have to put the poison in the curry—”

Sylvanas stopped in her tracks. “We can put it in the sunfruit,” she murmured. “And Garrosh will poison himself!”

“Yes!” Vereesa’s joy radiated from her like a sun. “All we need to do is swap out the sunfruit right before the dish leaves the kitchen.”

Both of them reached out their hands at the same time. Vereesa’s gloved fingers squeezed tightly. She is so happy, Sylvanas realized. And . . . so am I.

“This is brilliant, Little Moon,” Sylvanas told her. “You are brilliant.” Her sister blushed with pleasure. “Will you be able to get into the kitchens to do this?”

Vereesa nodded. “Yes. I am already a regular. I talk with Mu-Lam while she prepares the food. No one has objected so far; I think Mi Shao has told them of my interest. I watched them prepare the curry today. The sunfruit is cut up right before the curry is ladled into the bowl, then placed on the tray. I can bring one already quartered and poisoned and swap the one for the other in a heartbeat’s time.”

“And you know he uses the sunfruit?”

“Yes. Mu-Lam says he finds it delicious.”

“How lovely,” mused Sylvanas. “Garrosh, possibly one of the most dangerous orcs to ever live, slain by a fondness for a Pandaren fruit.”

“It feels like a gift,” said Vereesa. “As if this is destiny.”

Sylvanas looked down at their clasped hands. She felt . . . warmth inside. Not physical, no; she would never again feel that. If she and her sister had not been wearing gloves, Vereesa would recoil from the cold touch of Sylvanas’s skin.

Or . . . perhaps not.

“Maybe it is destiny,” Sylvanas murmured. “Maybe you and I were meant to reach out to one another. It could be that Garrosh Hellscream could not be toppled by anything other than the combined forces of the last two Windrunners in Azeroth.”

She lifted her head, her glowing red eyes boring into Vereesa’s sky blue. “The Horde and the Alliance could barely manage to stop him. But you and I alone, my sister, will make an end of him. And . . . perhaps a beginning of something else.”

“What do you mean?”

“We do not have to stop with Garrosh’s death,” Sylvanas said. Her voice trembled slightly. How long had it been since it had done so? Only once, since her murder. Once, years past now, when an adventurer had given her a sapphire-adorned locket.

“What is there in the Alliance for you now?” she pressed, hoping she read her sister correctly. “Garrosh can be only the beginning. We are powerful, we Windrunner sisters. We have changed the world. And we can keep changing it—together. When Garrosh is slain, come join me.”

“What?”

“Come and rule by my side. You hate the Horde—so did I, until I had a place of power there. We can be our own law, Little Moon. We can reshape the Horde in our image. Nothing could stop us. We will grind our enemies into dust and elevate our allies. I feel this; I think you can feel it too.”

Her hands gripped Vereesa’s, hard. But the high elven ranger did not draw back. She stared, lips slightly parted, her eyes searching Sylvanas’s.

“I . . .”

“I want you with me, Sister,” Sylvanas said, and her voice broke. “I have been . . . so very lonely. I did not even realize it until now. I did not think I could—stay with me. Please . . . stay, my Little Moon.”