War Crimes

36

Guards rushed in carrying weapons. One pandaren tossed a small axe toward Baine. The tauren caught it smoothly in one hand as he ran toward the two Thralls locked in combat. He was grateful Go’el was clad in shamanic clothing, for there was nothing visually different about these two other than what they wore and what they wielded. Just as he reached them, he found himself frozen in midstride and struggled to keep his balance. He heard the bellow of draconic laughter and glanced up to see the mad Kalecgos grinning at him. This incarnation of the blue dragon was quite insane; it was the only reason there were not more dead inside the arena. He appeared to be targeting friend and foe alike, and had nothing resembling a battle strategy.

His counterpart did, though, and charged his other self, drawing the mad Kalecgos’s attention away from Baine. The two orcs fought on, but the other Thrall appeared to have the disadvantage. Of course, Baine thought. The alternate Thrall never had the chance to undergo shamanic training, whereas Go’el was a master shaman in addition to his battle experience.

Baine had almost gotten to the two when he sensed more than saw the attack. He barely turned in time to deflect the blow from the huge mace wielded by what seemed like an armored mountain come to deceptively quick life, and he stared into his own eyes. His other self seemed surprised, and backed off for a moment, long enough for Baine to remember that he was clad only in light clothing, while his alternate was in full armor.

Out of the corner of his eye, Baine noticed that the celestials had not moved, and he became furious. Could they not see that people were dying? Were they too “high above” it all to help?

At that moment, as if they had heard his thoughts, a shout went up, piercing through the haze and cacophony of battle. It was a strong voice, deep and rich and now coming from a tiger’s jaws, as much a plea as a warning, the voice of he whose temple this was—Xuen.

“Remember the sha! Remember the sha!”

And suddenly Baine understood.

These alternate selves he, Go’el, and others were battling—they were not random incarnations. Kairoz had deliberately selected the darkest, the most broken, the most bellicose versions he could find. Kalecgos was insane. Thrall was the champion of the hated Aedelas Blackmoore. Baine himself was the warchief of the Horde, and somehow he knew the other had gained that position by murdering Garrosh Hellscream to avenge his own Cairne Bloodhoof.

No wonder the celestials did not join the fray. Anything they did would do nothing more than add fuel to the fire.

“You killed Garrosh, didn’t you?” he asked his other self. “Because he killed our father.”

The other Baine’s eyes narrowed and he snarled. “I tore Hellscream apart with my own hands,” he said, “and the bronze dragon tells me you—you defended him!” With a bellow, he charged, but Baine parried, his axe’s blade clanging against the head of the mace. Baine’s own words came back to him, sharp and clear as any of the draenei’s crystals: “We all carry within us the potential to become our own versions of Garrosh Hellscream.”

Wisdom—the gift of Yu’lon. “This is what we all could be! They’re not the enemy; they’re us!” he shouted to the crowd. “We cannot fight them. Only accept them!”

A sudden certainty flooded Baine: fortitude, bestowed by Niuzao. Baine’s arm felt stronger as he deflected another blow. The more he opened to what the celestials were trying to tell him, the more he could accept their gifts.

Again the other Baine attacked, and this time the mace struck his counterpart’s shoulder. Baine grunted, but did not retaliate.

“Is my other self a coward?” shouted Warchief Baine.

“No,” Baine said. “We are the same. You chose another path, Baine. But I understand how you felt—why you wanted to kill Garrosh.”

“You lie, else you would have done the same.” And the other bull charged. This time, though, his anger made him careless. Baine got in a blow—but used the blunt end of his small axe.

“I will not harm you,” he panted, “but I will defend myself!”

Warchief Baine hesitated. He was listening—but who knew for how long?

Yu’lon’s wisdom again brushed the tauren’s heart, and he knew all at once what he needed to say, how he could reach his wounded, pained self. Baine spoke quickly. “Our friend Go’el, known perhaps to you as Thrall, told me that even in another timeline, we are always ourselves at our core. And our father, Cairne, believed that it was harder, but better, to—”

“—create something that lasts,” murmured the warchief.

And Baine felt hope.

Kalec knew that of all the out-of-time combatants, his doppelganger posed the greatest threat. Not only was he a dragon, but the alternate Kalecgos was clearly quite insane.

And that terrified him.

Only Kalec knew how close he had skirted madness born of deep grief when Anveena had died; only Jaina knew how he had almost lost himself while reliving the dawn of the Aspects through the eyes of Malygos, himself lost to insanity. This alternate timeline version was far, far too possible.

Baine’s words reached him, but how could he ever accept this? Even as he had the despairing thought, the blue dragon dove and lashed his tail, scattering a huddled crowd of onlookers. Some of them did not rise.

“No!” shouted Kalec. He blasted Kalecgos with ice, slowing the great dragon, but not stopping him. Kalecgos swiveled his head and laughed and sobbed.

“Why not?” he pleaded. “Let them hate me. Let them finish me! Please!”

Kalec had had his dark moments. But he had never felt what the dragon before him was feeling. “What happened? What could have done this to you?” he asked, his voice breaking, even as he dreaded the answer.

“They’re gone. All of them!”

They were talking, at least. Kalecgos, for this moment, was not killing. “Who is gone?” Kalec asked.

“All of them!” bellowed Kalecgos. “Anveena! Jaina . . . all the blues, all of them, even Kirygosa—”

“What?”

“After Orgrimmar fell, they died in the war—all except me . . . all because of me. I couldn’t stop her, and they’re all gone now . . .”

Kalec couldn’t believe it—except, horrified, he could. This broken Kalecgos had not been able to dissuade his timeway’s Jaina from destroying Orgrimmar, and the war that ensued had wiped out the entire blue dragonflight. For a moment, Kalec could do nothing but reel at the shock, and felt the brush of madness himself. Then, his thoughts cleared, and he understood how to reach Kalecgos.

“It’s not your fault,” he said. “Jaina made the choice, and she chose not to listen to you, or to Go’el.” Clarity filled him as he spoke the words, realizing exactly how true they were. How could he himself not have seen this?

“I should have stopped her!”

“She is not yours to command!” Kalec cried. “She is her own woman! I am so sorry, Kalecgos, so very sorry for what you have lost, but this is not your burden!”

“So easy for you to say such things! Your Jaina lives! She loves you!” Kalecgos shouted, then hesitated. “She . . . does, doesn’t she?”

Kalec’s chest ached at the question. “She does. But she still walks under a shadow. And only she can make the choice to step away from it. Don’t you see?” Kalec implored. “We’re the same. We did the same thing. The difference lay in what Jaina chose to do. Not in anything you did or didn’t do.”

Kalecgos looked stunned. “And . . . Anveena?”

The other he had once loved with his whole heart. “She chose, too.”

Kalecgos did not instantly return to sanity with his comprehension. But he paused, and his face relaxed as his expression turned contemplative.

And then, he was gone.

With mixed feelings, Varian realized he was looking forward to the coming battle. The trial had been more of an ordeal than he had expected, and he welcomed the chance to do something physical, useful, and unequivocally right.

He paid little attention as spectators came tumbling out of the arena and the monks sorted them into two groups—those that could fight, and those that needed to be kept out of the fighting. The monks swiftly began to usher the noncombatants down the steps from the flagstone courtyard, toward the grassy training area and then over the bridge. Most of them seemed terrified. He couldn’t blame them, if what—who—he suspected was coming was indeed on its way. It had to be the Dragonmaw. Who else would storm the temple on the final day of Garrosh Hellscream’s trial?

It would be a long, harrowing race to safety—if there could truly be any. The temple was largely undefended from the air. It was a place to train to fight, where strength was appreciated—but it was strength of the body and the will, not magic or engines of war. This, he thought, was Pandaria’s greatest weakness, and in a way, what made it so special.

He was willing to die to protect it.

Those who had brought flying beasts took to the skies, ferrying hunters, magi, shaman, and others. Varian didn’t know if these spellcasters would even be able to attack. He had no sensitivity to magic, and thus couldn’t himself tell if the dampening field had been removed. The sound of wings came nearer. Varian tensed. If the hunters were good at their job, they’d kill some right away, or at least knock off a few of the Dragonmaw. Once riderless, the proto-drakes would flee if they could.

He stood beside the brazier in the courtyard, adjusted his grip on the two-handed sword, and shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. Battle lust was rising in him, and he invited it. Beside him were several pandaren monks, whose names he didn’t know. They appeared tranquil, but Varian knew that they were ready for the fight.

Their enemies were small dots at first, drawing closer and closer. Varian squinted. “The silhouettes,” he said to the pandaren. “It’s hard to tell from this distance, but . . . they look wrong.”

“What do you mean?” one asked.

“The Dragonmaw orcs ride proto-drakes, not dragons, not anymore. And these . . .” The words died in his throat.

“Are dragons,” the pandaren finished. “Therefore, they do still ride dragons.”

A terrible suspicion began to grow in Varian. No more black dragons, surely. And the twilight dragonflight was gone as well . . . “Inside—what happened?”

“I was given no clear explanation, but I was told something went wrong with the Vision of Time.”

Varian swore. “The infinite dragonflight,” he said. “My pandaren friends . . . we are in trouble.”

At that moment, the leader’s dragon dove, breathing a black cloud of swirling sand. The field was down! A brutal grin twisted Varian’s lips. “Things just got more even,” Varian said.

“Even? They have dragons!” protested the pandaren.

“And we have warlocks!” A cheer went up as several people from all different races began casting summoning spells. Felhounds—ugly, red, spined creatures from the depths of the Twisting Nether—shimmered into being. Nearby, a human warlock, a woman whose young face belied her white hair, bent to absently stroke the beast, calling it a “good puppy.” These particular demons fed on magic, Varian recalled. He found himself grinning, and the lovely young woman who dealt so affectionately with demons gave him a wink.

Magi began hurtling fireballs, ice shards, and missiles of arcane energy. The Dragonmaw leader threw something down several yards away. A small globe of violet-white light encircled the area, with the incongruous beauty of an opalescent bubble. Varian knew what it must be, and the appalling proof became evident a moment later. Three corpses lay sprawled on the flagstones, their bodies turned purple with the arcane energy of the mana grenade. Others recognized it too, and panic again began to ripple through the crowd.

Righteous fury rose in Varian. “Bring them down!” he shouted to the spellcasters. “Get them on the ground where the rest of us can have a piece of them!”

His words heartened the spellcasters, who began their attacks anew. One or two of the orcs tumbled from their mounts, hurtling to crash into the waters below if they were lucky, to break on the stone if not. One Forsaken mage sent a solid, powerful fireball to burn clear through an infinite dragon’s membranous wing. The dragon cried out in pain, flapping erratically and finally crashing to the ground in front of the main temple steps, where those without magic fell upon it mercilessly.

But other dragons came. Over a dozen flew in a V-formation over the temple and its environs. Powerful wing beats knocked dozens off their feet. Varian, rushing toward a downed and injured orc, moved as if he were trying to run through mud. He heard the sharp sting of arrows and hissed as one of them found its target, piercing his shoulder. He wore no armor. No one did. They had been attending a trial, not preparing for a battle. He was lucky; a nearby orc shaman collapsed, a black-fletched arrow in his throat.

Arrows weren’t the only things that the Dragonmaw used as missiles. Two more mana grenades struck, sending up their unholy globes of instant arcane death, and now their own magi were raining down fire and ice.

The dragons banked and turned upward, veering off from their strafing run, and now a goblin zeppelin chugged into position. For a brief, awful instant, Varian thought that somehow the Dragonmaw had cobbled together another true mana bomb like the one that had obliterated Theramore, but the zeppelin appeared to be carrying no payload. Then why—

Dozens of figures leaped off the flying vessel, their parachutes blossoming behind them. The hunters and the spellcasters needed no urging from him to attack the incoming enemy. Many would be dead by the time they hit the ground. But not all.

The arrow had lodged where his left arm joined his shoulder, and the pain was white hot. Varian left the arrow in rather than risk pulling it out, ignoring the wound’s shriek of protest as he lifted his two-handed sword and started charging the parachutists, incredulity and dark pleasure filling him as he realized that the Dragonmaw had hired not only mercenaries as cannon fodder, but pirates at that.

“You’re making this fun, Dragonmaw!” he shouted defiantly, and charged the first pirate. Still struggling out of the parachute, he was an easy kill, but others had gotten free and now converged on Varian. The king’s blood was hot, and he swung the great broadsword as if it were a child’s toy, decapitating the troll who came at him with a cutlass and following through to cleave the black-haired human woman almost in two. The mammoth tauren, no less fierce for the fact that he had one eye, was more of a challenge. Varian harnessed his momentum and twisted his torso, bringing the blade upward and slicing off the tauren’s right arm.

But the left had a weapon too, and this one bit deep into Varian’s side. Dizziness filled him and he stumbled back, abruptly unable to lift the sword to defend himself. But the blow never came. Something even bigger than the tauren, gray-skinned and wearing red and yellow armor, rushed forward. With a single slice, the tauren’s horned head was cleanly separated from his body. The felguard fixed Varian with tiny, glowing eyes and rumbled, “Your fate will be the same.”

Varian couldn’t summon the energy for a witty retort. He blinked, trying to focus. His legs gave way and he fell to his knees, wondering if perhaps the felguard had been right.

Gentle hands touched him. There was an abrupt sear of agony as the arrow was tugged from his shoulder, replaced immediately by warmth and a sense of well-being. He gave a grateful look to the night elf priestess, a slip of a thing with long, dark purple hair and lavender skin. She ducked her head shyly and turned, lifting her hands in supplication to pray for the white-haired warlock whose felguard had saved his life.

Varian rushed again into the fray, launching at a cluster of five pirates who were ganging up on a young orc shaman. Together, he and the orc defeated the pirates, nodded in acknowledgment, and looked for more enemies.

Shadows again passed over them. Varian expected another attack, but this time, seven dragons wheeled away from the immediate area of the temple. For a moment he wondered why, and then he knew. They were heading for the bridges. Almost nonchalantly, a dragon struck at one with a massive tail, snapping the ropes and sending the pandaren reinforcements unlucky enough to be crossing hurtling to their deaths. Another grabbed the ropes of a second bridge in a great foreclaw and simply yanked.

Everyone who had not already reached safety was now stranded in the courtyard and training ground.

More pirates dropped from the sky. Varian had thought that they had been sent to occupy the guards outside, but now he saw that while some of them were engaged in combat, most of them were heading for the temple interior.

His son was in there. Growling under his breath, Varian took off in that direction. He heard the crack of rifle fire and then felt as though his left side had been hit by a hammer. Grimacing as pain followed almost at once, Varian pressed a hand over the wound and kept going. But before he covered more than a few yards, an enormous shadow fell over him. Varian stopped in his tracks, whipping up the broadsword.

“Zaela!” he grunted in disbelief.

She was crouched atop the great infinite dragon, grinning maniacally, an axe in her hands. “King Varian Wrynn! I free my warchief and take your head all in one day!”

“Come get it then!” he shouted. Springing into action and ignoring the increasingly sharp, white-hot agony of the bullet wound, he leaped up as high as he could, seized her ankle, and yanked her off the dragon.

She had not been expecting that, and landed badly. Her dragon had to veer and rise abruptly or risk slamming into the temple wall. If Varian had been wielding a smaller sword, that would have been the end of her, but he had to pull back to use the broadsword. As he did so, Zaela snarled, bit his ungloved hand, and wrapped one leg around his. He didn’t fall, but he stumbled. The orc warlord scrambled to her feet and raised her more maneuverable axe, about to bring it down on his midsection.

She screamed as a blast of fire exploded into her.

Still on the flagstone, Varian turned to see Jaina Proudmoore, her extended hands already forming the motions to make a more lethal spell, a fireball beginning to manifest between her palms. A crack rang out and Jaina twitched, her eyes going wide, the nascent fireball suddenly snuffed out as red began to blossom across her chest.

“Jaina!” Varian shouted.

Stumbling, her torso scorched, Zaela began to lurch down the corridor into the temple. Varian could still catch her, still kill the orc and end any threat she would ever pose. But he did not follow.

Others would stop her, or not. But someone needed his help more than he needed to kill.

Varian reached instead for Jaina.