World of Warcraft: Vol'jin: Shadows of the Horde (2 page)

Li Li looked at his paw suspiciously, then took it and used it to steady herself as she stood. She tugged her robe into place and reknotted the sash. “Worse than swarming kobolds.”

“Of course. They are pandaren.” This, too, he said loudly so the Chiang sisters could take it in. He lowered his voice again. “I admire your restraint.”

“You aren’t kidding.” She rubbed her left forearm. “Someone was biting in there.”

“As well you know, someone is
always
biting in a fight.”

Li Li thought for a moment, then smiled. “No escaping that. And thank you.”

“For?”

“Unburying me.”

“Oh, that was me being selfish. I was done hauling for the day. No grummle here to help, so that’s a detail for your little army.”

Li Li cocked an eyebrow. “You’re not fooling me.”

Chen pulled his head high and looked down at her. “You can’t imagine that I might think a niece of mine, who is a well-trained martial artist in her own right, would need my help with cubs. I mean, if I thought that, I’d simply not help you. You’d be no niece of mine.”

She paused, her face scrunching up. Chen could see in the quick movement of her eyes the way she was working through that logic. “Okay, yes, Uncle Chen. Thank you.”

Chen laughed and draped an arm over her shoulder. “It is tiring work, dealing with cubs.”

“True.”

“In my case, of course, I had only one to deal with, but she was a pawful.”

Li Li dug an elbow into his ribs. “Still am.”

“And I could not be prouder.”

“I think you could.” She spun from beneath his arm. “Are you disappointed that I haven’t asked if I can work with you at the brewery?”

“Whatever would have given you that idea?”

She shrugged uneasily and glanced off toward the Valley of the Four Winds, where the Stormstout Brewery was. “When you’re there, you are happy. I see that. You love it so.”

Chen smiled wryly. “I do. And do you want to know why I haven’t asked you to cease wandering and join me there?”

Her face brightened. “Yes, I want to know.”

“It is because, my dearest niece, I need a partner who will still adventure. If I need Durotarian mosses from deep inside caves, who will fetch them? And at a good price? The brewery means I have responsibilities. I can’t be gone for months or years at a time. So I need someone I can trust, and someone who, someday, can come back and take over for me.”

“But I’m not cut out to be that sort of brewmaster.”

Chen waved away that objection. “Sedentary brewmasters I can hire. Only a Stormstout can run the brewery. Maybe I will hire a cute brewmaster, though, and you can marry him and . . .”

“. . . and my cubs will inherit?” Li Li shook her head. “You’ll have a brood of cubs next time I see you, I’m sure.”

“But I’ll always be happy to see you, Li Li. Always.”

Chen suspected Li Li would have given him a hug, and he’d have gladly returned it, save for two things. First, the sisters were watching, and displays of emotion would make them uncomfortable. More important, however, was that Keng-na came dashing through their vegetable garden, howling, eyes wide.

“Master Chen, Master Chen, there’s a monster in the river! A big
monster! He’s blue and has red hair and he’s awful cut up. He’s clinging to the bank. He has claws!”

“Li Li, gather the cubs. Keep them away from the water. Don’t follow me.”

She stared at him. “But what if . . . ?”

“If I need your help, I’ll shout. Go, quickly.” He glanced at the sisters. “It looks as if it might storm. You might consider going inside. And locking the door.”

They stared defiantly at him for a moment but uttered not a word. He sprinted off, cutting around the garden, and oriented himself on the wooden bucket Keng-na had abandoned. Tracing the boy’s path through flattened weeds to the riverbank wasn’t hard, and Chen was halfway down the embankment when he saw the monster.

And recognized it immediately.
A troll!

Keng-na had been right. The troll had been hacked badly. His clothing hung in tatters, and the flesh beneath was not in much better shape. The troll had half-pulled himself out of the river; clawed hands and a tusk thrust into the clay bank were the only things that anchored him.

Chen dropped to a knee and turned the troll onto his back.

“Vol’jin!”

Chen stared at him and the ruin of his throat. If not for the rasp of breath through the hole in his neck, and the bloody red seepage from the wounds, the pandaren would have imagined his old friend to be dead.
And he might still die.

Chen grabbed Vol’jin’s arms and pulled him from the river. It wasn’t easy. Scrabbling came from higher up the bank, and then Li Li was at Vol’jin’s left shoulder, helping her uncle.

The pandaren’s eyes met. “I thought I heard you yell.”

“Maybe I did.” Chen bent low to the ground, then lifted the troll in his arms. “My friend Vol’jin is badly hurt. Maybe poisoned. I don’t know what he’s doing here. I don’t know if he will live.”

“That’s Vol’jin, from all your stories.” Li Li stared wide-eyed at the mangled creature. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ll do what we can for him here.” Chen looked up toward Kun-Lai Summit and the Shado-pan Monastery built high upon it. “Then I guess I’ll take him there and see if the monks have room for another of my foundlings.”

V
ol’jin, shadow hunter of the Darkspear tribe, could not imagine a worse nightmare. He could not move. Not a muscle, not even to open his eyes. His limbs remained stiff. Whatever bound them felt as heavy as ship’s cable and stouter than steel chain. It hurt to breathe, and he could not do so deeply. He would have abandoned the effort, but the pain and weary fear that he might stop kept him going. As long as he could dread not breathing, he was alive.

But do I be so?

For now, my son, for now.

Vol’jin recognized his father’s voice in an instant yet knew he’d not actually heard it with his ears. He tried to turn his head in the direction from which the words seemed to come. He couldn’t, but his awareness did shift. He saw his father, Sen’jin, keeping pace with him, but not walking. They both moved, but Vol’jin knew not how or toward where.

If I not be dead, then I must be alive.

A voice, strong and low, came from the other side, from his left.
That decision be still hanging in the balance, Vol’jin.

The troll dragged his consciousness around to look toward that voice. A fearsome figure, troll in general aspect, with a face that looked to Vol’jin like a rush’kah mask, studied him with pitiless
eyes. Bwonsamdi, the loa who served the trolls as the guardian of the dead, slowly shook his head.

What be I making of you, Vol’jin? You Darkspears be not offering me the sacrifices you should, yet I help you free your home from Zalazane. And now, you be clinging to life when you should be giving yourself to my care. Have I treated you badly? Be I unworthy of your worship?

Vol’jin desperately wished his hands would curl into fists, but they remained weak and limp at the ends of dead arms.
There be things I must do.

The loa laughed, the sound scourging Vol’jin’s soul.
Listen to your son, Sen’jin. Were I telling him it be his time, he would be telling me his needs are paramount. How be it you raised such a rebellious son?

Sen’jin’s laughter fell as a soothing, cool mist to bathe Vol’jin’s tortured flesh.
I taught him that the loa respect strength. You be complaining he did not offer sufficient sacrifices. Now you be complaining that he wishes more time to offer greater sacrifices. Be I boring you so that you need my son to entertain you?

Think you, Sen’jin, that his clinging to life is so he can be serving me?

Vol’jin could feel his father smile.
My son may have many reasons, Bwonsamdi; but that one be serving your purposes should suffice for you.

You would be telling me my business, Sen’jin?

I be reminding you, great spirit, only of what you have long taught us to do in your service.

Other laughter, distant laughter, rippled gently through Vol’jin. Other loa. The high keening tones of one laugh and the low rumble of another suggested Hir’eek and Shirvallah were enjoying the exchange. Vol’jin took some pleasure in this yet knew he would pay for that liberty.

A growl rolled from Bwonsamdi’s throat.
Were you so easily convinced to surrender, Vol’jin, I should be rejecting you. You be no true child of mine. But, Shadow Hunter, know this: the battle you face be more terrible than any you have known before. You gonna be wishing you had surrendered, for the burden your victory earns gonna be one that will grind you into dust.

In a heartbeat Bwonsamdi’s presence evaporated. Vol’jin sought
his father’s spirit. He found it close by, yet fading.
Be I losing you again, Father?

You cannot lose me, Vol’jin, for I be part of you. As long as you be true to yourself, I gonna be with you always
. Vol’jin sensed his father’s smile again.
And a father being as proud of his son as I be of you gonna never let that son get away
.

His father’s words, though demanding contemplation, provided enough comfort that Vol’jin did not fear for his life. He would live. He would continue to make his father proud.

He would march straight into the terrible fate Bwonsamdi foresaw and deal with it in defiance of all predictions. With that conviction held firmly in mind, his breathing eased, his pain dulled, and he dropped into a black well of peace.

•  •  •

When awareness came to him again, Vol’jin found himself whole and hale, strong of limb and standing tall. A fierce sun beat down on him as he stood in a courtyard with thousands of other trolls. They had nearly a head’s height on him, yet none of them made an issue of it. In fact, none of them seemed to notice him at all.

Another dream. A vision.

He did not immediately recognize the place, though he had a sense that he’d been there before. Or, rather,
later
, for this city had not surrendered to the surrounding jungle’s invasion. The stone carvings on walls remained crisp and clear. Arches had not been shattered. Cobbles had not been broken or scavenged. And the stepped pyramid, before which they all stood, had not been humbled by time’s ravages.

He stood amid a crowd of Zandalari, members of the troll tribe from which all other tribes had descended. They had become, over the years, taller than most and exalted. In the vision they seemed less a tribe than a caste of priests, powerful and educated, quite apt for leading.

But in Vol’jin’s time, their ability to lead had degraded.
It is because their dreams all be trapped here
.

This was the Zandalar empire at the height of its power. It dominated Azeroth but would fall victim to its own might. Greed and avarice would spark intrigues. Factions would split. New empires would rise, like the Gurubashi empire, which would drive Vol’jin’s Darkspear trolls into exile. Then it would fall too.

The Zandalari hungered for a return to the time when they were ascendant. It was a time when trolls were a most noble race. The trolls, united, had risen to heights which someone like Garrosh Hellscream could not possibly dream existed.

A sense of magic ancient and powerful flooded through Vol’jin, providing him the key to why he was seeing the Zandalari. Titan magic predated even the Zandalari. It was more powerful than they were. As high as the Zandalari had been above things that slithered and stung, so were the titans above them—likewise their magic.

Vol’jin moved through the crowd as might a specter. The Zandalari faces glowed with fearsome smiles—the sort he’d seen on trolls when trumpets blared and drums pounded, inviting them to battle. Trolls were built to rend and slay—Azeroth was their world, and all in it were subject to their dominion. Though Vol’jin might differ with other trolls as to the identity of their enemies, he was no less fierce in battle, and vastly proud of how the Darkspears had conquered their foes and liberated the Echo Isles.

So Bwonsamdi be mocking me with this vision.
The Zandalari dreamed of empire, and Vol’jin wished the best for his people. Vol’jin knew the difference. It was simple enough to plan for slaughter and far more complex to create a future. For a loa who liked his sacrifices bloody and battle-torn, Vol’jin’s vision held little appeal.

Vol’jin ascended the pyramid. As he moved up, things became more substantial. Whereas before he had been in a silent world, he could now feel drums thrumming up through the stone. The
breeze brushed over his light fur, tousled his hair. It brought with it the sweet scent of flowers—a scent just slightly sharper than that of spilled blood.