Warcraft Fic: Scions of Azeroth - Prologue
Hi guys! Yes, I'm starting something brand new and non-Unity related. I've mentioned it but I went back to playing WoW, and in a tradition I've had, oh, for a while now, I'm writing a fic that's actually based on what's going on in the game. I tend not to finish these because they lose momentum entirely if they aren't finished by the time the expansion is actually over, so if that's a deterrent, I'll completely understand. The other important thing to know is that this story will contain spoilers relating to the questing in the game. I'll note for what in my headers, but I wanted to give you a heads up in case you intended to see these things for yourself. Okay, enjoy!
Title: Scions of Azeroth
Part: Prologue
Word Count: 2827
Includes: Spoilers for the Talador questing zone, including potential character death. Abusive behaviour and language, mentioned death and violence.
Pairings: Orgrim Doomhammer/Griselda Blackhand
Summary: Thanks to the interference of a rogue bronze dragon, Garrosh Hellscream has escaped Azeroth and travelled to an alternate-universe Draenor and recruited a very different kind of orcish Horde to do Kairoz' bidding, but things are not always as they seem... and for each Draenor, there must also be an Azeroth.
~ * ~
“Is this the best you can do?!”
Griselda Blackhand, daughter of Blackhand the Destroyer, jumped as her father’s fist came crashing down against her work table. She had been told since her youth that she would never draw a bow fast enough, or raise an axe before someone could slice her in half, but it was swift reflexes that saved her pot of paint from tipping over, though her brush clattered to the ground, spattering the wooden floor with black.
“Well?!” Blackhand demanded, leaning heavily on the table, and she cringed: this close, the stink of brimstone from his collar was nearly overwhelming, but more than that, he was leaning on her schematics. His heavy, blunt fingers and sharp nails could easily destroy her hard work, forcing her to copy them anew.
“I… I am sorry, Father,” Griselda stammered, doing her best not to recoil. She could not meet his gaze, would not, lest she see the madness that had been in his eyes for longer than she could name… certainly since she had killed her mother. Only her brothers would truly remember, and her brothers did not care to tell her. “I am doing the best I can.”
“That’s not good enough!” Blackhand roared, digging his fingers into the table, and now the delicate plans were tearing, and she let out a noise that was half-gasp, half-sob. “The Warchief demands more!”
“She can only work with what the Prophet brought with him,” said a voice behind Blackhand, and Griselda whimpered with relief. The voice was calm, not quite as deep as her father’s, and this man did not stink of the forge as her father did. “You don’t truly believe she could come up with her own designs, do you?”
Blackhand whirled, and Griselda could imagine the look of anger on her father’s face, of confusion as he tried to decide if he wanted to point out that Griselda was an idiot, as he tended to do, or contend that she was capable but unwilling, which would give her more credit than he wished.
Griselda held her breath, and released it when the Blackrock chieftain snarled wordlessly and stalked out, slamming the door to Griselda’s workroom so hard that it bounced open again. As gently as he could, Orgrim Doomhammer, warrior of the Blackrock clan, pushed it closed again.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I can’t… there’s only so much I can do.”
“I understand,” Orgrim said, and offered her a sympathetic smile. “I see I came to talk to you about the cannons at the wrong time.”
“No, no,” Griselda said hurriedly. “I have those designs here. Just a moment.”
“Take your time,” Orgrim said. He knelt down to pick up Griselda’s brush and carefully set it on top of the ink pot, then straightened to look around. Orgrim was not quite as tall as her father, but he had a presence she admired, and instead of using it as Blackhand did, to posture and threaten, he felt comforting. He did not lean against her table, and stood clear of the scroll rack, the burnished gold trim of his otherwise black armour gleaming in the lamplight.
“How goes the… campaign in Talador?” Griselda asked as she sorted through her scrolls. As she felt Orgrim weigh his answer, she found the most recent modifications she had made to the cannon schematic and drew it out. Without being asked, Orgrim lifted up her pot and brush, and she set the drawings down. She had made dozens of markings on the original schematic, and this was her redraw, cleaner and better made.
“It goes,” Orgrim said at length. “It would seem that Fenris and his clan were unsuccessful at destroying the Frostwolves, and so they have gained an alliance with the Laughing Skull as well as the outlanders. The Frostwolves have pushed into Talador, seeking to fight the Iron Horde where they would go.”
“I’m sorry,” Griselda whispered as she smoothed the schematic down. “It must be hard for you.”
“Would that my brother would see,” Orgrim said, his voice heavy with resignation. “And he has already lost two brothers of blood.”
“Two?” Griselda asked, peering up at him through her thick bangs. “I had last heard that Ga’nar had been captured and taken to Tanaan. My brothers claimed he died covered in filth.”
“He survived Tanaan to die at Thunder Pass,” Orgrim said heavily. “Along with a large regiment of Iron Horde warriors. The Frostwolf shamans brought the pass down on top of them.”
“A risky move,” Griselda noted, pursing her lips. “You could get much the same effect with three stone of powder and a good length of detonation cord, and you wouldn’t need a shaman to do it.”
“You would do that?” Orgrim asked, curious. “To win?”
“If I were desperate enough, I might,” Griselda said. “I’d want to build the rig myself, though. I wouldn’t rely on the Prophet’s plans.”
“I wouldn’t rely on the Prophet, unless I had to,” Orgrim muttered, and Griselda nodded. “About the cannons.”
“The cannons,” Griselda agreed. She gestured him to take a look, pointing out her notes. “I’ve called for the inside of this to be better smoothed. The existing job was shoddily done. If what you’re trying to hit is large enough, it doesn’t matter, but if you want accuracy and force, it needs to be smoothed. I had the twins do some testing, and we found it needs to have a certain spin to it for greatest impact.”
“You let Rend and Maim touch a cannon?” Orgrim asked. “I’m surprised.”
“I couldn’t very well let someone useful do it, could I?” Griselda said, offering him a slight smile. Orgrim smile in return was broad and understanding.
“Little to lose if it fails. Will these work on the Ironclads?” Orgrim asked. “Though those cannons do well enough considering we have virtually no competition by sea.”
“You’ll have to remove the old ones and roll out these new ones, but the clamping mechanism should be an improvement over the old ones.” Griselda tapped the schematic again. “At least, so long as these ones aren’t also missing one bolt in three.”
“I’ll never let those creatures work on another ship I’m on,” Orgrim muttered. “I’m not sure how the Prophet’s land manages with such… cretins.”
“Goblins,” Griselda reminded him, and almost flinched out of reflex. She would have caught a blow from one of her brothers or her father for correcting one of them so casually, but Orgrim merely nodded.
“Goblins, indeed. Useless creatures.”
“They are greedy and selfish, but at least they wear it openly,” Griselda murmured, looking down at the cannon. She felt Orgrim stiffen. “Some hide it behind their righteousness, their belief in their superiority. At least a goblin might be bought off with a shiny rock. Others may only be bought off with spilt blood and corpses.”
“Griselda…” Orgrim warned, his voice a rumble, and then sighed. “It’s not that I disagree with you. Grom is so… cold, after Golka. He cares only for that which he might crush between his own two hands. The Prophet’s words have only made it worse. He’s encouraged Grom’s worst traits, and what little good he had remaining was buried along with his mate. Were it not for the visions, I…”
“You’ve never spoken to me of them, will you not tell me now?” Griselda asked, a hint of desperation in her voice. “Why do you support this war, this Iron Horde?”
Orgrim closed his eyes briefly, and nodded. He took a seat, and she sat across from him, reaching across her schematics. He reached out and put a hand over hers, enclosing her small, ink-stained fingers with his large, rough ones. “For a handful of moon risings, I had the same dream. Draenor burned. The forests were charred, the jungles tinder, the plains of Nagrand nothing but ash and regret. Oshu’gun was dead and dull, no spirits daring to linger there. The land was dead or dying. Our people sickened and starved. Scores were struck down by an illness, a pox that marked its victims with red. The warlocks, Gul’dan and his ilk, stood over our charred world, laughing as they took to the skies with the wings of bats and birds and eyes poisonous green. ‘Only the Horde can save us,’ a voice whispered to me. ‘Doom comes for us all’. Every night, I sought out the source of the voice. On the last night before the Prophet appeared, I saw where the voice was coming from.”
“Where?” Griselda asked, urgent. “Where was it coming from?”
“This,” Orgrim said, and from his side, he drew the Doomhammer. Griselda made a soft noise as he held it out to her. “I feared it and wanted to destroy it. Your father prevented that… prevented me from escaping my fate. When the Prophet came and spoke of uniting all of the orc clans as one Iron Horde, I knew that was a sign. I was needed, as a warrior, to protect Draenor. The outlanders came not long after. They freed the warlocks and destroyed the great Portal. They ally with those who would see the Iron Horde fail.”
“But Orgrim…” Griselda began, and placed her hand on the Doomhammer’s haft. “The Prophet’s weapons all burn as they strike. The Prophet was the one who proposed using the warlocks to open the Portal instead of using demon magic… and parts of Draenor do burn. Tanaan, where the jungle was cleared to create the Foundry, the Iron Stars, all of the cannons I design, the Ironclads, all of it… and my father was only ever stronger for this, because he bound you to him.”
Orgrim was silent, and it took all Griselda had not to apologize for her words. She forged on. “What if Durotan was right?”
“Durotan would see us fall to these outlanders,” Orgrim rumbled. “Look how he gave them his own ancestral land as a gift.”
“In return for saving Ga’nar and rescuing the Frostwolves from the Iron Horde!” Griselda replied, though she kept her voice soft. “Has Durotan ever acted against you in any way before you took up Warchief Hellscream’s cause?”
Orgrim fell silent again, and she searched his expression, searching for anger, but found only deep consideration. “No,” he replied finally. “Durotan has been my pact brother since we were but children, meeting in Oshu’gun’s shadow. I have always found him to be wise, but… he must be wrong. He must.”
“Ask questions,” Griselda urged. “Questions will bring answers, and answers will bring illumination. There is a price to be paid for the Prophet’s wisdom, of this you can be certain. Find it, and we will learn the truth.”
“You are as wise as you are beautiful, Griselda,” Orgrim said, nodding once. Griselda bowed her head, feeling her cheeks heat. Orgrim touched her chin, raising so that she met his gaze. “I have been promised great reward for crushing resistance in Talador. I can ask for whatever I want, within reason. Not the clan, but something just as valuable.”
“You would ask for me?” Griselda asked, hopeful. “If I could leave my father’s house, I could improve these designs, and use what I learn to build new things, things other than war machines.”
“I would,” Orgrim promised. “He should be ashamed to treat you with so little regard, but if he will not respect you, I will. We can be mated.”
“He will have to be satisfied with keeping me close at hand but just out of reach,” Griselda said, smiling brightly. She leaned into his touch, and Orgrim tilted his head to kiss her. As their lips met, she heard Orgrim inhale, taking in the faint scent of book dust and ink that tended to surround her.
All I need do is wait.
~ * ~
“Griselda!” Blackhand bellowed. His left shoulder was in agony. His bleeding was sluggish, if blood was what one could call the slag that fell from his wounds. Few knew the extent of his elemental blessing, bound to him in the same incident that had secured Orgrim’s loyalty.
Or so I thought… phaugh! Blackhand thought angrily, staggering towards Griselda’s workshop. With his good arm, he yanked the door from its hinges, and pushed his way inside. The room was dark, and Blackhand seethed in the dim light, looking around. He roared wordlessly, grabbing at one of her scroll racks and pulling it down.
“Griselda!” he cried again, rage distorting his scarred, twisted features. “Where the hell are you?!”
When she did not appear immediately, he surged towards her work table, upending it so violently that it splintered, and the ink pot shattered on the floor, dark paint soaking into the boards. The motion tore at Blackhand’s injuries, and he roared, spinning. In the darkness, he saw a familiar, jagged metal shape. He squinted at it, bending all of his intellect towards it, and slowly began to move.
“Father!” Griselda cried, appearing in the doorway of her bedroom, lit by lamplight and framed by the cloth hanging that separated her workroom from her sleeping quarters. “I’m here, please. What… what happened to you?”
Blackhand whirled away from the shape and focused on his daughter. His vision was hazy from pain, but he had enough to sneer at her. “About time you showed your face. Your precious Orgrim betrayed us.”
“No… how could this be?” Griselda asked, distressed. She took a step forward, letting the curtain fall closed behind her. Briefly, Blackhand scented charred meat.
Useless weakling, Blackhand thought. Stupid and naive. “He questioned the Iron Horde. Accused us of killing the wrong things! Filthy coward!”
“That’s… how could he say such a thing?” Griselda murmured as she came closer. “What happened to you?”
“Stop asking stupid questions!” Blackhand barked, and reached out to cuff her. She cried out, pained, and he sneered at her. “Attend me!”
“Yes, Father, of course.”
Blackhand shouldered his way from her workroom, out into the open. You have no idea what true pain, a warrior’s pain, is like, he thought contemptuously. Otherwise, you wouldn’t whine and whimper at every correction we give you. He seated himself by a fire and let Griselda strip him to the waist, her weak hands making much of the task of lifting his armour and setting it aside, and he bellowed as she pulled the sundered metal from his wound.
“A-are you sure you want me to--”
“Do it, fool!” Blackhand roared, and Griselda ducked from the blow, hurrying to retrieve a metal tool. Griselda gestured over two peons to help her bend a length of metal along the wound, pressing it to his molten blood, and immediately the metal heated, melting into his skin.
“Bolting it into place now,” Griselda murmured, more to herself than anyone, and pressed the tool into his shoulder, then fired.
Blackhand’s cries filled the night air, shaking the very stars in the sky.
~ * ~
The moons were dark, and the sun not yet risen by the time Griselda returned to her bedroom. Her workroom was a mess, and there was much she would have to replace before she used it again, and yet she could not feel heartbreak at its destruction. Instead, she felt only conviction.
“He is a monster,” Griselda said, her soft voice filling the silence. “A tyrant and a fool. He seeks the means to destroy those he hates and yet he cannot see those tools in front of him. He cannot see the value in learning and knowledge, only in a club or a blade, and yet he still demands those weapons while demeaning those who create them. He deserves nothing, not respect, not love, nothing but hate.”
There was a soft, muffled noise in the darkness. She smiled sadly.
“I’m sorry that you learned it at your own peril. If I had known you were going to confront him about it directly, I would have warned you to take a different path. He understands nothing of honour, of concern for the people of Draenor, only of death and conquest. He is the flame that will burn Draenor to ashes, just as you saw.”
There was another muffled noise, and she approached her bed. The smell of charred flesh was stronger here, though she had done all she could to conceal it. She reached down, and gently withdrew a cloth from the mouth of the bed’s occupant. Immediately, he released a shuddering, pained breath. “Griselda…”
“He suspects nothing, you are safe for now,” she murmured. “Here, I took some of the pain draught I brewed for him. His is strong and he will sleep deeply while we make our escape.”
“...can’t…”
“You will die if you stay. It will be hard, but I believe I know where we must go. We will go where they do not expect, right into the maw of our enemies. We’re going to to Wor’gol in Nagrand.” Griselda’s voice took on an eager, almost feverish tone. She could taste freedom now, and craved it as she had craved nothing else. “We’re going to find Durotan and the Frostwolves and give them all that we have.”
Orgrim Doomhammer, badly burned and nearly crippled, made a soft noise of assent, and in her heart of hearts, she believed that he would live.
Finally, we will do something worth fighting for.
[To Be Continued...]
Title: Scions of Azeroth
Part: Prologue
Word Count: 2827
Includes: Spoilers for the Talador questing zone, including potential character death. Abusive behaviour and language, mentioned death and violence.
Pairings: Orgrim Doomhammer/Griselda Blackhand
Summary: Thanks to the interference of a rogue bronze dragon, Garrosh Hellscream has escaped Azeroth and travelled to an alternate-universe Draenor and recruited a very different kind of orcish Horde to do Kairoz' bidding, but things are not always as they seem... and for each Draenor, there must also be an Azeroth.
~ * ~
“Is this the best you can do?!”
Griselda Blackhand, daughter of Blackhand the Destroyer, jumped as her father’s fist came crashing down against her work table. She had been told since her youth that she would never draw a bow fast enough, or raise an axe before someone could slice her in half, but it was swift reflexes that saved her pot of paint from tipping over, though her brush clattered to the ground, spattering the wooden floor with black.
“Well?!” Blackhand demanded, leaning heavily on the table, and she cringed: this close, the stink of brimstone from his collar was nearly overwhelming, but more than that, he was leaning on her schematics. His heavy, blunt fingers and sharp nails could easily destroy her hard work, forcing her to copy them anew.
“I… I am sorry, Father,” Griselda stammered, doing her best not to recoil. She could not meet his gaze, would not, lest she see the madness that had been in his eyes for longer than she could name… certainly since she had killed her mother. Only her brothers would truly remember, and her brothers did not care to tell her. “I am doing the best I can.”
“That’s not good enough!” Blackhand roared, digging his fingers into the table, and now the delicate plans were tearing, and she let out a noise that was half-gasp, half-sob. “The Warchief demands more!”
“She can only work with what the Prophet brought with him,” said a voice behind Blackhand, and Griselda whimpered with relief. The voice was calm, not quite as deep as her father’s, and this man did not stink of the forge as her father did. “You don’t truly believe she could come up with her own designs, do you?”
Blackhand whirled, and Griselda could imagine the look of anger on her father’s face, of confusion as he tried to decide if he wanted to point out that Griselda was an idiot, as he tended to do, or contend that she was capable but unwilling, which would give her more credit than he wished.
Griselda held her breath, and released it when the Blackrock chieftain snarled wordlessly and stalked out, slamming the door to Griselda’s workroom so hard that it bounced open again. As gently as he could, Orgrim Doomhammer, warrior of the Blackrock clan, pushed it closed again.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I can’t… there’s only so much I can do.”
“I understand,” Orgrim said, and offered her a sympathetic smile. “I see I came to talk to you about the cannons at the wrong time.”
“No, no,” Griselda said hurriedly. “I have those designs here. Just a moment.”
“Take your time,” Orgrim said. He knelt down to pick up Griselda’s brush and carefully set it on top of the ink pot, then straightened to look around. Orgrim was not quite as tall as her father, but he had a presence she admired, and instead of using it as Blackhand did, to posture and threaten, he felt comforting. He did not lean against her table, and stood clear of the scroll rack, the burnished gold trim of his otherwise black armour gleaming in the lamplight.
“How goes the… campaign in Talador?” Griselda asked as she sorted through her scrolls. As she felt Orgrim weigh his answer, she found the most recent modifications she had made to the cannon schematic and drew it out. Without being asked, Orgrim lifted up her pot and brush, and she set the drawings down. She had made dozens of markings on the original schematic, and this was her redraw, cleaner and better made.
“It goes,” Orgrim said at length. “It would seem that Fenris and his clan were unsuccessful at destroying the Frostwolves, and so they have gained an alliance with the Laughing Skull as well as the outlanders. The Frostwolves have pushed into Talador, seeking to fight the Iron Horde where they would go.”
“I’m sorry,” Griselda whispered as she smoothed the schematic down. “It must be hard for you.”
“Would that my brother would see,” Orgrim said, his voice heavy with resignation. “And he has already lost two brothers of blood.”
“Two?” Griselda asked, peering up at him through her thick bangs. “I had last heard that Ga’nar had been captured and taken to Tanaan. My brothers claimed he died covered in filth.”
“He survived Tanaan to die at Thunder Pass,” Orgrim said heavily. “Along with a large regiment of Iron Horde warriors. The Frostwolf shamans brought the pass down on top of them.”
“A risky move,” Griselda noted, pursing her lips. “You could get much the same effect with three stone of powder and a good length of detonation cord, and you wouldn’t need a shaman to do it.”
“You would do that?” Orgrim asked, curious. “To win?”
“If I were desperate enough, I might,” Griselda said. “I’d want to build the rig myself, though. I wouldn’t rely on the Prophet’s plans.”
“I wouldn’t rely on the Prophet, unless I had to,” Orgrim muttered, and Griselda nodded. “About the cannons.”
“The cannons,” Griselda agreed. She gestured him to take a look, pointing out her notes. “I’ve called for the inside of this to be better smoothed. The existing job was shoddily done. If what you’re trying to hit is large enough, it doesn’t matter, but if you want accuracy and force, it needs to be smoothed. I had the twins do some testing, and we found it needs to have a certain spin to it for greatest impact.”
“You let Rend and Maim touch a cannon?” Orgrim asked. “I’m surprised.”
“I couldn’t very well let someone useful do it, could I?” Griselda said, offering him a slight smile. Orgrim smile in return was broad and understanding.
“Little to lose if it fails. Will these work on the Ironclads?” Orgrim asked. “Though those cannons do well enough considering we have virtually no competition by sea.”
“You’ll have to remove the old ones and roll out these new ones, but the clamping mechanism should be an improvement over the old ones.” Griselda tapped the schematic again. “At least, so long as these ones aren’t also missing one bolt in three.”
“I’ll never let those creatures work on another ship I’m on,” Orgrim muttered. “I’m not sure how the Prophet’s land manages with such… cretins.”
“Goblins,” Griselda reminded him, and almost flinched out of reflex. She would have caught a blow from one of her brothers or her father for correcting one of them so casually, but Orgrim merely nodded.
“Goblins, indeed. Useless creatures.”
“They are greedy and selfish, but at least they wear it openly,” Griselda murmured, looking down at the cannon. She felt Orgrim stiffen. “Some hide it behind their righteousness, their belief in their superiority. At least a goblin might be bought off with a shiny rock. Others may only be bought off with spilt blood and corpses.”
“Griselda…” Orgrim warned, his voice a rumble, and then sighed. “It’s not that I disagree with you. Grom is so… cold, after Golka. He cares only for that which he might crush between his own two hands. The Prophet’s words have only made it worse. He’s encouraged Grom’s worst traits, and what little good he had remaining was buried along with his mate. Were it not for the visions, I…”
“You’ve never spoken to me of them, will you not tell me now?” Griselda asked, a hint of desperation in her voice. “Why do you support this war, this Iron Horde?”
Orgrim closed his eyes briefly, and nodded. He took a seat, and she sat across from him, reaching across her schematics. He reached out and put a hand over hers, enclosing her small, ink-stained fingers with his large, rough ones. “For a handful of moon risings, I had the same dream. Draenor burned. The forests were charred, the jungles tinder, the plains of Nagrand nothing but ash and regret. Oshu’gun was dead and dull, no spirits daring to linger there. The land was dead or dying. Our people sickened and starved. Scores were struck down by an illness, a pox that marked its victims with red. The warlocks, Gul’dan and his ilk, stood over our charred world, laughing as they took to the skies with the wings of bats and birds and eyes poisonous green. ‘Only the Horde can save us,’ a voice whispered to me. ‘Doom comes for us all’. Every night, I sought out the source of the voice. On the last night before the Prophet appeared, I saw where the voice was coming from.”
“Where?” Griselda asked, urgent. “Where was it coming from?”
“This,” Orgrim said, and from his side, he drew the Doomhammer. Griselda made a soft noise as he held it out to her. “I feared it and wanted to destroy it. Your father prevented that… prevented me from escaping my fate. When the Prophet came and spoke of uniting all of the orc clans as one Iron Horde, I knew that was a sign. I was needed, as a warrior, to protect Draenor. The outlanders came not long after. They freed the warlocks and destroyed the great Portal. They ally with those who would see the Iron Horde fail.”
“But Orgrim…” Griselda began, and placed her hand on the Doomhammer’s haft. “The Prophet’s weapons all burn as they strike. The Prophet was the one who proposed using the warlocks to open the Portal instead of using demon magic… and parts of Draenor do burn. Tanaan, where the jungle was cleared to create the Foundry, the Iron Stars, all of the cannons I design, the Ironclads, all of it… and my father was only ever stronger for this, because he bound you to him.”
Orgrim was silent, and it took all Griselda had not to apologize for her words. She forged on. “What if Durotan was right?”
“Durotan would see us fall to these outlanders,” Orgrim rumbled. “Look how he gave them his own ancestral land as a gift.”
“In return for saving Ga’nar and rescuing the Frostwolves from the Iron Horde!” Griselda replied, though she kept her voice soft. “Has Durotan ever acted against you in any way before you took up Warchief Hellscream’s cause?”
Orgrim fell silent again, and she searched his expression, searching for anger, but found only deep consideration. “No,” he replied finally. “Durotan has been my pact brother since we were but children, meeting in Oshu’gun’s shadow. I have always found him to be wise, but… he must be wrong. He must.”
“Ask questions,” Griselda urged. “Questions will bring answers, and answers will bring illumination. There is a price to be paid for the Prophet’s wisdom, of this you can be certain. Find it, and we will learn the truth.”
“You are as wise as you are beautiful, Griselda,” Orgrim said, nodding once. Griselda bowed her head, feeling her cheeks heat. Orgrim touched her chin, raising so that she met his gaze. “I have been promised great reward for crushing resistance in Talador. I can ask for whatever I want, within reason. Not the clan, but something just as valuable.”
“You would ask for me?” Griselda asked, hopeful. “If I could leave my father’s house, I could improve these designs, and use what I learn to build new things, things other than war machines.”
“I would,” Orgrim promised. “He should be ashamed to treat you with so little regard, but if he will not respect you, I will. We can be mated.”
“He will have to be satisfied with keeping me close at hand but just out of reach,” Griselda said, smiling brightly. She leaned into his touch, and Orgrim tilted his head to kiss her. As their lips met, she heard Orgrim inhale, taking in the faint scent of book dust and ink that tended to surround her.
All I need do is wait.
~ * ~
“Griselda!” Blackhand bellowed. His left shoulder was in agony. His bleeding was sluggish, if blood was what one could call the slag that fell from his wounds. Few knew the extent of his elemental blessing, bound to him in the same incident that had secured Orgrim’s loyalty.
Or so I thought… phaugh! Blackhand thought angrily, staggering towards Griselda’s workshop. With his good arm, he yanked the door from its hinges, and pushed his way inside. The room was dark, and Blackhand seethed in the dim light, looking around. He roared wordlessly, grabbing at one of her scroll racks and pulling it down.
“Griselda!” he cried again, rage distorting his scarred, twisted features. “Where the hell are you?!”
When she did not appear immediately, he surged towards her work table, upending it so violently that it splintered, and the ink pot shattered on the floor, dark paint soaking into the boards. The motion tore at Blackhand’s injuries, and he roared, spinning. In the darkness, he saw a familiar, jagged metal shape. He squinted at it, bending all of his intellect towards it, and slowly began to move.
“Father!” Griselda cried, appearing in the doorway of her bedroom, lit by lamplight and framed by the cloth hanging that separated her workroom from her sleeping quarters. “I’m here, please. What… what happened to you?”
Blackhand whirled away from the shape and focused on his daughter. His vision was hazy from pain, but he had enough to sneer at her. “About time you showed your face. Your precious Orgrim betrayed us.”
“No… how could this be?” Griselda asked, distressed. She took a step forward, letting the curtain fall closed behind her. Briefly, Blackhand scented charred meat.
Useless weakling, Blackhand thought. Stupid and naive. “He questioned the Iron Horde. Accused us of killing the wrong things! Filthy coward!”
“That’s… how could he say such a thing?” Griselda murmured as she came closer. “What happened to you?”
“Stop asking stupid questions!” Blackhand barked, and reached out to cuff her. She cried out, pained, and he sneered at her. “Attend me!”
“Yes, Father, of course.”
Blackhand shouldered his way from her workroom, out into the open. You have no idea what true pain, a warrior’s pain, is like, he thought contemptuously. Otherwise, you wouldn’t whine and whimper at every correction we give you. He seated himself by a fire and let Griselda strip him to the waist, her weak hands making much of the task of lifting his armour and setting it aside, and he bellowed as she pulled the sundered metal from his wound.
“A-are you sure you want me to--”
“Do it, fool!” Blackhand roared, and Griselda ducked from the blow, hurrying to retrieve a metal tool. Griselda gestured over two peons to help her bend a length of metal along the wound, pressing it to his molten blood, and immediately the metal heated, melting into his skin.
“Bolting it into place now,” Griselda murmured, more to herself than anyone, and pressed the tool into his shoulder, then fired.
Blackhand’s cries filled the night air, shaking the very stars in the sky.
~ * ~
The moons were dark, and the sun not yet risen by the time Griselda returned to her bedroom. Her workroom was a mess, and there was much she would have to replace before she used it again, and yet she could not feel heartbreak at its destruction. Instead, she felt only conviction.
“He is a monster,” Griselda said, her soft voice filling the silence. “A tyrant and a fool. He seeks the means to destroy those he hates and yet he cannot see those tools in front of him. He cannot see the value in learning and knowledge, only in a club or a blade, and yet he still demands those weapons while demeaning those who create them. He deserves nothing, not respect, not love, nothing but hate.”
There was a soft, muffled noise in the darkness. She smiled sadly.
“I’m sorry that you learned it at your own peril. If I had known you were going to confront him about it directly, I would have warned you to take a different path. He understands nothing of honour, of concern for the people of Draenor, only of death and conquest. He is the flame that will burn Draenor to ashes, just as you saw.”
There was another muffled noise, and she approached her bed. The smell of charred flesh was stronger here, though she had done all she could to conceal it. She reached down, and gently withdrew a cloth from the mouth of the bed’s occupant. Immediately, he released a shuddering, pained breath. “Griselda…”
“He suspects nothing, you are safe for now,” she murmured. “Here, I took some of the pain draught I brewed for him. His is strong and he will sleep deeply while we make our escape.”
“...can’t…”
“You will die if you stay. It will be hard, but I believe I know where we must go. We will go where they do not expect, right into the maw of our enemies. We’re going to to Wor’gol in Nagrand.” Griselda’s voice took on an eager, almost feverish tone. She could taste freedom now, and craved it as she had craved nothing else. “We’re going to find Durotan and the Frostwolves and give them all that we have.”
Orgrim Doomhammer, badly burned and nearly crippled, made a soft noise of assent, and in her heart of hearts, she believed that he would live.
Finally, we will do something worth fighting for.
[To Be Continued...]