World of Warcraft: Vol'jin: Shadows of the Horde (24 page)

Had the troll been pressed before to pick a color to define Pandaria, it would have been green. So many shades of green, from the light buds of new grasses to the deep emerald of forests; the continent was green. But here, in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, green gave way to gold and red. These were not the colors of autumn—though in places they came close—but the exploding hues of plants in full flower. They were in their glory, springtime frozen in a world that did not age. The diffuse light cast no sharp shadows, and what little moved below did so with a dreamlike, languid quality.

The vale looked the way it felt to stretch luxuriously and long upon waking.

From the heights they could see some buildings but had no clue as to who lived there or maintained them. Their antiquity could not be disputed, but vegetation had not risen up to consume them. The vale’s timelessness preserved them. Vol’jin wondered if that quality would keep all of them alive.

Or keep us dying forever.

Sister Quan-li, a pandaren with liver-colored fur to contrast with the white, pointed southeast. “The invaders would approach from that direction. The mogu palace lay there, and Lord Taran Zhu says the emperor’s warlords were buried directly south of our position.”

Tyrathan nodded. “The journal would have had them seeking passage in the east part of the valley. I don’t see any signs they’ve made it yet.”

The troll chuckled. “What would you expect, my friend? That we be seeing a black stain pouring over the landscape? Smoke from villages being burned to the ground?”

“No. There should, however, be makeshift camps. So we can choose to wait here until dark and see if fires reveal the enemy to us . . .”

“Or be slipping down and looking more closely just in case they, too, are keeping cold camps.” Vol’jin stood. “I be favoring the latter.”

“Easier to shoot by daylight. Not impossible at night. Just easier.”

“Good. We gonna come out on this little plateau above that road. Keep to the heights.”

Tyrathan pointed with the end of his bow. “If we can head straight south and curl back around east, we could come in behind their line of march. They wouldn’t be looking for us in ground they’ve already secured. Plus, those folks who are critical to accomplishing their ends are not likely to be at the front line but somewhere back, away from perceived danger.”

“Yes. Identify them and kill them.”

Chen glanced over, his eyes tight. “And slip away again.”

The troll and the man exchanged looks. Then Vol’jin nodded. “Probably back south and west. We be going back out the way we came in.”

“At least we’d know the terrain and know where to set traps.” The man lowered his bow. “Given that we’re pitting seven against the elite of two empires, that isn’t the most stupid plan we could have come up with.”

“Agreed.” The troll shifted the pack strapped to his back. “That I can’t be thinking of a better one disturbs me.”

“That’s not the point, is it, Vol’jin?” Chen tugged on his own pack’s straps. “We’re here to disturb them, and I think this plan will do just that.”

T
hough they walked through a golden valley that few outsiders had seen for years uncounted, Vol’jin did not fear. He knew he should have and consciously took every precaution he could to avoid discovery. Still, he didn’t have that little chill cutting at his spine. The fur at the base of his skull didn’t rise. It felt as if he had on a rush’kah mask, insulating him from fear.

And yet . . . he had no dreams while he slept in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, but that was because he needed none. Walking through the valley was walking through a living vision. Something about the reality of the place bled into him. An arrogance, in part, resonating with his troll heritage. He was touching a lingering bit of mogu magic, being caressed by the ghost of the mogu empire.

Here, in this place, where great races had wielded great power, he could not know fear. There, on the far distant steps of Mogu’shan Palace—where his enemies likely slept—proud mogu fathers had faced their sons west, sweeping a hand before them to take in the whole of the valley. This land was theirs, and all land that touched it, to do with as they pleased. They could make it over as they willed, shape it to their hearts’ desires. There was nothing here that would hurt them, because everything here feared them.

It was that last bit that saved Vol’jin. He knew what it was to be feared. He liked that his enemies feared him, but their terror was
born from what he had done. He had earned it, sword stroke by sword stroke, spell by spell, conquest by conquest. It was not something he’d inherited and not something he saw as his birthright.

It was something he understood, and this separated him from the young mogu princes who beheld their domain. Because he understood this concept, he could use it. He could feel it ebb and flow. But they remained above it, seeing what they wanted to see, hearing what they wanted to hear. And never feeling the need to climb to the heights to see the reality of the world.

When they made camp on the night they’d gotten halfway across the valley, Tyrathan looked at him. “You feel it, don’t you?”

Vol’jin nodded.

Chen looked up from his tea bowl. “Feel what?”

The man smiled. “That answers my question.”

The pandaren shook his head. “What question? What is it you feel?”

Tyrathan frowned. “A sense that this place is mine and that I belong here because the land is soaked in blood and I am steeped in killing. That’s what you feel, yes, Vol’jin?”

“Close enough.”

Chen smiled, pouring himself some tea. “Oh, that.”

The man’s frown deepened. “Then you do feel it?”

“No, but I know you do.” The brewmaster looked at the man and the troll in turn, then shrugged. “I’ve seen that look in your eyes before. You, Vol’jin, more than Tyrathan, but I’ve not fought beside him nearly as much as I have beside you. In every battle, at that point when you are fighting your hardest, you get that expression. It’s just hard. Implacable. I see it and I know you will win. That expression says that you are the best combatant on the field that day. Anyone who challenges you will die.”

The troll cocked his head. “And that’s the expression I be wearing now?”

“Well, no, maybe a little, around the eyes. The both of you.
When you don’t think anyone is looking. Or when you don’t realize anyone is looking. It says this is your land, won by right, which you won’t surrender.” Chen shrugged once more. “Given our task, this is good.”

The man extended his cup to the pandaren and nodded when it was refilled. “Then what do you feel here?”

Chen set his waterskin down and scratched his chin. “I feel the peace that is this place’s promise. I think the two of you feel a bit of the mogu legacy. But, for me, the peace, the promise, it’s what I want in a home. It tells me I can stop wandering—but it doesn’t demand it. It’s a welcome that will never be withdrawn.”

He looked at the both of them, and for the first time Vol’jin could remember, Chen’s big golden eyes filled with sorrow. “I wish you could feel that too.”

Vol’jin gave his friend a smile. “It be enough for me that you do, Chen. I have a home, one you helped win. You secured a home for me. Impossible not to be pleased for you.”

Without much inducement, Vol’jin managed to get Chen and the monks to elaborate on their sense of the place. They complied happily, and Vol’jin took some joy in their impressions. However, after the sun set, a cold, dark wave rippled out from the east. The monks fell silent, and Tyrathan, who had been standing watch at the crest of the hill beneath which they camped, pointed.

“They’re here.”

Vol’jin and the others scrambled up with him. There, to the east, Mogu’shan Palace had lit up. Silver and blue lightning played over its faces, defining the structure with ivy-like twists that sparked at the corners. The display of magic impressed Vol’jin, not because of any sense of power but because of the aimless and casual way in which it was being displayed.

Chen shivered. “The welcome is being blanketed.”

“It being smothered.” Vol’jin shook his head. “Buried deeply. No one be welcome here anymore.”

Tyrathan looked at Vol’jin. “It’s more than a bowshot, but we could make it by dawn. Well before any revelers are awake.”

“No. They be baiting us with that display. That be where they want us to strike.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “They know we’re coming?”

“They have to assume we be, just as we have to assume they know we gonna react to the journal you captured.” Vol’jin pointed toward the southern mountain range. “Likely Horde and Alliance scouts be on the ridges. They gonna spot this and react. It gonna just take a while to discuss plans before they be moving.”

“Unless someone does it on his own initiative.” Tyrathan chuckled. “Months ago, that would have been me. I wonder who’ll play the hero?”

“It doesn’t matter to our mission—as long as they don’t be getting in the way.”

“Agreed.” The man ran a hand over his beard. “Still straight in and hook east?”

“Until something be making that plan impossible, yes.”

Vol’jin passed another dreamless night, but it was not a wholly restful one. He considered reaching out to the loa, but as was true of all gods, they could be capricious. If they were bored or annoyed, they could let slip a word that would alert his enemies to his presence. As he’d said to Tyrathan, they had to assume their enemies knew they were coming. The fact that the Zandalari could not pinpoint where they were was an advantage. Given the nature of their mission, any advantage was to be cherished.

The next morning, if the sun dawned at all, Vol’jin had no real way of knowing. The clouds had thickened. The only light coming through, aside from a faint jaundiced glow, was the result of the stray thunderbolts rippling through their depths. The lightning never touched the ground, as if afraid of reprisals from those in Mogu’shan Palace.

The seven slowed their pace out of necessity. Dim light made
missteps more common. A trickle of gravel sliding underfoot sounded like thunder. They’d all freeze in place, ears straining for reactions. And their scouts had to shorten their lead on the party simply because darkness made it harder to see. This contributed to more frequent stops.

Night after night, the lightning show repeated itself from Mogu’shan Palace. With it came an intensification of the sense of the vale. This was Vol’jin’s place by right, and those in the palace were challenging him. The palace was a flame to the moth of opposition, but none of the seven were to allow themselves to be trapped.

What Vol’jin didn’t like was the lack of any sign of Zandalari scouts. Had he been in command of their force, he would have pushed light troops far forward, even to the western wall between the vale and the home of creatures called the mantid. The stories told of them were the sort that would have quieted unruly children—and Vol’jin meant trolls, not mere pandaren cubs. To not secure that border would be gross negligence, especially when the Zandalari knew they faced opposition.

Two days of no sun had passed before they found their first sign of the Zandalari. Brother Shan had been in the lead, pausing in a saddle between two higher hills early in the evening. They’d reached the south wall of mountains and were heading east through the foothills. The monk signaled. Vol’jin and Tyrathan came forward, and Shan retreated to where the others waited.

The view below made Vol’jin’s blood run cold. A company of a dozen and a half Zandalari light warriors had created an outpost. They’d cut down a stand of golden-leaved trees and hacked off the limbs. They’d sharpened the trunks and stouter limbs, then sunk them into the ground around the perimeter. The stakes pointed outward in all directions save for a narrow gap toward the west. There the ring’s ends overlapped, so any attackers would have to make a sharp turn before they got inside the camp.

The troll’s nostrils flared, but he refrained from snorting
angrily. To have reduced a stand of beautiful trees to a cruel fortress seemed to Vol’jin to be blasphemy itself.
A small crime, but there gonna be retribution
.

Two tree trunks had been sunk into the ground at the heart of the camp, just east of a large bonfire. Twenty feet tall, they stood half that apart. Ropes had been attached at the top of each post, and again to the wrists of a warrior. His blue tabard had been torn from him down to the waist, held by an unseen belt. His flesh had been cut in numerous places, never deeply but enough to be painful and for blood to flow.

Vol’jin was certain he’d never seen the man before, yet he seemed familiar. Four other humans were there, wearing tattered tabards that, the troll guessed, would have matched the one worn by the torture victim. The four were roped together and cowered as Zandalari watched over them.

Two trolls warded the gap, and two others guarded the prisoners. The rest, including a junior officer holding a human sword, gathered around the hanging man. The officer said something that prompted the Zandalari to laugh, and then he cut the man again.