Warcraft: Assassin - Part 12
Here's the next part of Assassin, and I will say this was hard to write and held me back for a long time, but ultimately I feel like this was well done. I hope you enjoy it!
Title: Assassin
Part: 12/14+Epilogue
Word Count: 5256
Includes: This section explicitly includes violent death, blood, gore, and perhaps slightly too many details about the previous points. Discretion is advised.
Pairings: Technically, none.
Summary: The founding of Durotar, and lessons in history from the mouth of one who has been a part of it: Garona Halforcen.
Previous: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Garona had watched from the top of one of the watchtowers as Anduin Lothar and Khadgar depart in the company of a half-dozen soldiers and knights. Khadgar had waved until he could no longer see her, and Garona had seen the moment he turned around and the tiny figure had seemed to sigh.
I should be with him, Garona thought for the fifth time in three days. Khadgar was likely only at the river border between Elwynn Forest and the Duskwood, and then it would be another two days of travel to get to the Pass, then another to get to Karazhan. Unless he teleports, as he did for us, but can he teleport that many? Should he?
Garona peered at her own writing, which had progressed as slowly as the meanest boar trying to avoid hauling packs, and sighed. The latest tale she spun was about the warlocks and their infiltration of orc society. It was an important piece, perhaps the most informative of the tales she would ever tell, and yet she lagged.
They need to know, she insisted to her fingers, when they cramped from holding the pen too tightly, or when her hair seemed to catch on everything as she moved. She sighed as she washed the pen and set it aside, leaning back. She knew why she was distracted: the messengers.
A warning bell sounded, a low tone indicating ‘the enemy’ was moving. It seemed laughable to Garona. They were the enemy because they had green skin and approached Stormwind armed, but they had no intention of fighting. They were messengers, slender and swift, capable of running without rest for hours. They had been arriving -- and often not leaving -- once a week from the time she had arrived in Stormwind, and then over time their frequency had increased. From once a week to three. Then once a day. Today, they’d been arriving once an hour, leaving everyone on edge.
I’ll be needed for the translation, Garona thought and stood. She departed the room and hurried down the hallways, out of the keep and to the walls overlooking the gates.
Stormwind’s defenses, inside and out, were formidable: nestled between mountains, the city had expanded since its foundation to fill the valley left between the rocky peaks of the Redridge Mountain range and Southern Sea. The harbour to the west was a gateway to a greater world, while mountains to the north, east, and south were the confining, yet protective claws that drew close. A passage had been cut long ago in the mountains, or perhaps it had always been there, simply needing to be filled. There was a great wall that spanned from mountain tip to mountain tip, punctuated with a dozen watch towers. The wall itself was thick, but hollowed out on the city’s side. There were arrow slits for archers and their guardians, angled so that they could avoid blind spots, and further down, there were keyhole shaped openings, meant not for archers, but for mages, also with their protectors.
Those above the walls were not idle either, as they kept the mechanisms for their cauldrons well oiled and prepared to drop boiling oil on the heads of those who came close to the walls. Twin ironwrought gates guarded the only entrance to the Keep, capable of trapping invaders in a box of death. Attackers from the front, the only realistic target, were channeled through a bridge that, from Garona’s understanding, could be collapsed at any moment.
The orcs caught them by surprise in the swamp, and overwhelmed them in the villages, but human strongholds are not smoking mountains full of idiots that battle each other as much as they do their enemies. The humans are stronger than the Horde.
The lookouts on the tops of the wall barely started as she ran past them, their first glances at her green skin and dark hair, silky and tightly bound instead of coarse and loose, and the second at her blue and gold tabard and white shirt, and pointed her towards the primary lookout.
Garona made her way to the man and nodded to him. He nodded back and gestured downward. An orc was making her way to the walls. Below the lookouts, arrows were already pointing towards the orc, tracking her every move.
“Hold steady, lads,” the lookout said. “They’s sending the runty ones, eh?”
Garona frowned and looked closer. The orcs was small, hunter’s muscles only just beginning to develop. Garona blinked as realization hit her, what it meant. “They’re sending children to the walls.”
“Children?” the lookout asked, and brought a hand up to scratch at the stubble on his wide, square jaw. “I’d been thinkin’ they was sendin’ ‘em younger ‘n younger.”
“He’s running out of messengers, or…” Garona let the thought hang as she completed it in her mind. Or he’s doing it on purpose.
“Orders?” came the message from below, through a speaker pipe. “She’s a gonna hit the walls soon.”
“Let me go down,” Garona said, as the lookout hesitated. “She’s no warrior, just a child.”
“Let th’orc go down, no shootin’ blue,” the lookout ordered finally, and Garona avoided making a face, instead waving to the orc girl down below. The girl paused where she stood, waving back. Garona imagined she was relieved not to be shot.
There were stairs inside each lookout’s outpost that brought defenders down to street level swiftly, and Garona took them rapidly, surprising the defenders below. They eased the gates open enough to let her pass through, and Garona hurried out to meet the girl.
“What are you doing?” she demanded in Orcish. “Who sent you?”
“The Warchief,” the girl replied, licking her lips nervously.
Or hungrily, Garona observed. The girl was thin, the dark blue and black tunic of the Stormreavers fitting loosely over her grey-green frame. She regretted that she had no food in her pockets to give her. “You have a message, give it here.”
The girl nodded, and passed her a rolled up bit of skin. Garona opened it, glancing over the dark-painted runes on pale hide.
Garona, I wish to speak to you in person. Come to me. - Gul’dan.
Garona’s expression darkened. “You’ve delivered your message, go,” she ordered and the girl fled. It’s the same message, every time, she thought bitterly as she headed back to the gate, waiting for the humans to admit her once more. It took only moments for them to do so, and for all it sounded like a cage closing, Garona thought the sound of a metal gate crashing down was comforting.
~ * ~
“It’s the same message?” Llane asked. Today, Adalia sat at his side, her fingers creating delicate knotwork as she listened. Garona had learned, over time, that Adalia’s knotwork doubled as note taking, if necessary, and found the idea fascinating.
Garona nodded once. “The messenger lived this time, she was… very young.”
“Young?” Adalia asked, curious. “How young?”
“Eight or nine summers, Your Majesty,” Garona said, bowing to her. “And underfed.”
Llane and Adalia exchanged long looks, with the Queen finally saying, “That’s impressive emotional manipulation. We can’t kill children, even orc children. That steps out of the usual conduct of soldiers and straight into murder.”
“Your Majesty, Gul’dan doesn’t share your moral compunctions,” Garona said. “He doesn’t care if they die. All that happens is there are fewer and fewer orcs to survive to adulthood to become warriors and hunters.”
“Advantageous for him,” Llane noted. “We care, he doesn’t, so he gets his way twice. Either he manipulates us into monstrosities or he learns our weakness. Could he use them to damage the walls? Give them explosives?”
Garona shuddered at the very thought, and Adalia held a hand out to her. Garona took it and she squeezed comfortingly. “The only reason he hasn’t done that is because he hasn’t thought of it yet,” Garona replied bleakly. “Orcs don’t use much in the way of explosives. They hadn’t mastered catapults, that’s why they had to steal them.”
“At great cost to both sides,” Llane muttered. “But you say the message is exactly the same?”
“Yes,” Garona said, frustrated. “No demands other than this, no curses. Just this same request.”
“The repetition is the thing,” Adalia pointed out. “It’s like nobles. They ask you politely for something and they wait. If you ignore them, they’ll ask again and then again, until it’s not polite any more. And not particularly noble.”
“I thought you were going to say children,” Garona confessed. Adalia chuckled.
“No, no. The children here are far better behaved.”
“They are,” Garona agreed. “He’ll keep sending more children, one an hour. I can’t… I can’t guarantee that if the child lives after delivering the message that they won’t then die when they return without me.”
Llane and Adalia exchanged another look. “He would murder children for the crime of delivering a message with no reply?”
Garona’s expression was bleak. “He’s murdered people for less.”
“This situation will escalate,” Adalia murmured, as much to herself as to Llane. “People will wonder what’s going on. The bells create tension as it is, but we can’t stop using them. They convey valuable information.”
“I suspect the only way to stop the bells is to give Gul’dan what he wants,” Llane replied evenly, and fixed his gaze on Garona. “Or who.”
“Then the only thing we can do is let me go to him,” Garona said slowly. “He wants to see me, for some reason, and that reason is enough to throw away countless lives on the walls.”
“It’s not safe,” Llane said flatly. “You’ve made it clear from your reports how dangerous Gul’dan is and that all he wants is ruin and misery.”
“And yet… is that not what he brings regardless?” Adalia asked. “Garona, what do you think?”
“He hasn’t harmed me since I completed my training,” Garona said, though a thought gave her pause. He hasn’t been able to do so… and I’m not certain as to why.. “He is dangerous, but now to others instead of to me. Those children… I was that young, once. Young and afraid. The least I can do is look out for those who come after me.”
“I don’t like it,” Llane muttered. “Making concessions to tyrants.”
“We concede to tyrants every moment we keep troops on the walls and the gates barred, my love,” Adalia pointed out. “We already live in fear.”
“Her Majesty isn’t wrong,” Garona said. “I don’t want to go-- I hoped to avoid it entirely-- but I must now.”
“Very well,” Llane said, nodding. “But I want you to come to me immediately once you return. I want to hear what he has to say.”
Garona bowed deeply to both humans. “Of course.”
~ * ~
The orcs were restless and impatient. Frustration rippled through the warriors as they squabbled and drank, eager to wet their blades with human blood. Garona listened to the whispers of the warriors as she moved through shadows, unseen by anyone. The orcs had not seen anyone depart from Stormwind, meaning that Khadgar had slipped away unnoticed. She couldn’t help but shake her head at the sheer idiocy of it.
No wonder you’ve needed so much help, Garona thought. You’re all but blind to anything that you can’t stab.
Gu’ldan’s tent was offset from the rest of the camp. As both a chieftain and a warlock, his residence was doubly elaborate: huge and black, it was adorned with runes painted in blood. Garona let her gaze slide over them, avoiding being caught in their trap, even as she was forced out of the shadows.
He’s never liked it that he can’t find me as easily as he used to, so he uses such traps to do the work for him. She grimaced. And when that failed, he sent children to fetch me back.
From her cursory examination of the children camped with their parents, the girl had not survived the report of her failure. Garona’s stomach clenched tight. The last one, Gul’dan. The very last one. Garona slipped inside the tent, and waited.
“Ah, there you are,” Gul'dan said, not bothering to turn around. He had taken off his robes, and was wearing only loose trousers. Garona's gaze bored a hole in his back, as though it were a dagger she could push through his ribs into his heart. She let her mind replay the thoughts several times, the gushing black blood, the sound he'd make as he choked on fluids until he breathed his last. “I've been expecting you for some time.”
“The murders will stop,” Garona said, and her hands clenched, though they did not go to the dagger strapped under her sleeve. Human clothing was less suited to hidden weapons, and it was harder to draw quickly, though she would dig it out if forced. “I am here, say what you have to say so that I can leave.”
“Leave to return to the bosom of the humans, isn't that right?” Gul'dan asked, and his lack of reaction to her tone and disrespect surprised her. A handful of years or a decade ago, his response would not have been a question, it would have been a blow. “You've adopted their clothing.”
“It reminds them that I am not part of the Horde's forces,” Garona replied. “That I'm not one of you.”
“And yet, you are not one of them either, are you?” Gul'dan asked.
The question struck Garona like a fist. How many times -- even just today -- had people simply assumed she was an orc because of the colour of her skin and hair? How many understood when she told them what halforcen meant, what it said about her background?
Gul’dan smiled as he watched her reaction. “You haven’t forgotten.”
“Forgotten what, exactly?” Garona demanded. “That I will never be an orc? Never be accepted? At least I know that I will never be human. I had no hopes of that.”
“But you hoped to be an orc, is that it?” Gul’dan asked. “You hoped to strip yourself of your mother’s blood, to be recognized by the clans? Is that what you want?”
“I--” Garona forced herself to think, to remember. “I don’t need that any more,” she insisted. “I don’t need to be accepted by the orcs to be a whole person. I am me, my mother’s daughter and my father’s!” She saw Gul’dan twitch, just for a moment, then his expression cleared. There were markings painted on his face, dark against green skin, wrinkles and scars. He’s old, she realized briefly. Was he always this old?
Gul’dan smiled at her. “You want a father, then. That’s why you’ve tried to find one… the traitor and the human king.”
Garona shuddered as both smile and words struck her. “Medivh was a good teacher, a better teacher than you.”
“You learned much from him,” Gul’dan agreed, pacing briefly, and his gaze fell to her necklace, gleaming in the dim light of the tent. “Like how quickly he turned on you.”
“It was the demon’s fault,” Garona whispered. “He would never--”
“Was it a demon that taught you, then?” Gul’dan demanded. “That brought you before me to speak across great distances? That planted the idea in your head that all it took was clothing to fit in?”
Three years of Winterveil gifts, mostly of clothing, fit to be worn by her, only by her, but made in the human way. “That’s not--”
“And the humans of Stormwind… they give you their colours to overshadow your own. You hope,” Gul’dan pressed. “How easily will they ignore those colours to kill, if your skin is the wrong shade?”
“They aren’t murderers!” Garona cried. “Not like you, you who sends children to the walls to die!”
“If you assume the humans will kill messengers, no matter how young, so long as their purpose is complete, that speaks more of the humans than it does of me,” Gul’dan replied, his eyes gleaming. “Did you not see the child? She is simply resting.”
“They… they don’t…”
“You are a messenger, Garona. A spy, an assassin. When Medivh was done with you, he tried to kill you. Do you think these humans won’t do the same? That they won’t open their great iron gates to pour their armies over our camps, sparing no one? Do you think that girl will live through a war?”
Garona shuddered, but she could remember every look she’d been given, every suggestion made by a noble. If you ignore them, they’ll ask again and again… “It’s your fault,” she whispered, as Gul’dan approached her. “You’re the reason why the humans hate us at all.”
“I’m the reason the orcs live better than they have in decades,” Gul’dan reminded her. “No one would have been able to open that Portal without me.”
“You ruined the land,” Garona said, her voice still hushed. “You bargained with demons. Everything is your fault.”
“The land was poor long before I was born,” Gul’dan said gently, though the words cut into her mind like daggers. “I did not start the wars with the draenei and the ogres. I didn’t fill the oceans with monsters or the skies with predators. All I have done, I have done for my people.”
“For yourself,” Garona insisted. “Llane cares for his people. He loves them.”
“He would send them to die to protect him,” Gul’dan said. “He would send you. He will kill the messenger. He will kill all the messengers. All the little children who came here, hoping for something better. Hoping for freedom.”
“The demons…”
“The humans have known demons longer than the orcs have. Surely, that was in the books you read,” Gul’dan pressed. “These mages… they know demons very well. This world belongs to the demons, and also to us. We will share it, we will keep it, once the demons get what they want.”
“And if they don’t get it?” Garona asked. “What will they do?”
“The humans will destroy us, then the demons will destroy them. All children will die. All hope, all futures.”
Garona’s mind raced, thoughts intermingling until they were tangled together, one idea hopping to another, until there was no beginning or end. “What can we do?”
“We need to win out over the humans,” Gul’dan said. Garona looked away. He reached out, putting his fingers under her chin, forcing her gaze back to him. “It’s the only way we can save our people.”
“They… they love Llane,” Garona whispered. “Everything falls on his shoulders. The queen is wise, his champions are strong, but all ties to him, the keystone in a bridge.”
“Then we must remove the keystone,” Gul’dan murmured, watching her expression with satisfaction as it fell. “You must kill Llane.”
“He’s my friend,” Garona said. “I can’t betray him.”
“But he will betray you,” Gul’dan warned. “Have you heard nothing I’ve said? The moment he does not need you, you will die, and then we all will. Stormwind must fall, and the human king with it.”
“He trusts me,” Garona said miserably. “He said so.”
“Then it will be easy for you to do your work,” Gul’dan said. “You will also need to weaken the defenses. I’m sure they’ve taught you much to reassure you of how primitive your people are.”
“My people?” Garona asked him, old anger overtaking new fears. “You have always told me I am other. My mother--”
“Your mother would have taken you and fled Draenor, her and her cowardly people… they cared nothing for the orcs. You know that is true,” Gul’dan said, shaking his head. “I was cruel to you, daughter, to make you stronger for what was to come. You are all that you are because of me.”
Daughter, Garona’s mind echoed. “You would tell others this?”
“I will tell two worlds that you are my daughter and that you are Stormreaver,” Gul’dan assured her. “But not while you wear human trappings.”
“I must… wear this to get close to Llane,” Garona said numbly. “And to the defenses.”
“Of course, but not, I think… this.” Gul’dan’s hand dropped to the pendant she wore. Khadgar’s gift, the two moons of Azeroth. He gave a hard tug, and the chain broke with a snap, and he dropped it on the floor. “It will catch the light while you hide in the shadows.”
“I dwell in darkness,” Garona murmured, and Gul’dan nodded, releasing her.
“When this is over and we press north, we will find more enemies to fight, but then…” Gul’dan turned away, though she caught the faintest hint of a smile. “We may find the Shadow Wolves, if they yet live. Their weakest have surely died off. The blind blasphemer, the weak girl mated with Durotan. What was her name?”
“Draka,” Garona supplied. Though Draka isn’t weak.
“Her name means little if she is dead, and if she’s not… she will be. Women and men alike fight for their mates. It will not be a challenge to you, I think. If you give me Llane, I will give you all you desire. A name, a clan, recognition… Durotan.”
Perhaps… even Durotan will agree that this was for the best… Garona thought as she knelt, and Gul’dan placed his hand on the back of her neck. Long ago, when she’d stopped growing, he had tattooed a mark on her, his mark. As he touched it, it itched and burned.
~ * ~
It was nightfall by the time she returned to Stormwind’s keep. She stood on the ledge outside the window, peering into Llane’s office, where they frequently met. No Varian within, sitting at his father’s knee. No Mara, pacing as he sat, snapping out her opinions while Llane answered calmly. No Adalia, discussing reports. It would have been easy enough to slip inside, but she had made a promise. It would be the last she kept, she had promised herself.
Return to me as soon as you’re able.
She had taken a slow route back from Gul’dan’s tent, over the walls. She knew where the humans kept their explosive powder, their supplies. All of the places that could be detonated in an instant to cover her retreat. Once Llane was dead, the army would attack, and they were dependent on her to destroy the humans’ defenses.
The Horde waited for her, prepared for her.
She wished that she were shaking, that she were nervous, but a kind of detached calm had entered her, filling in after the burning sensation had worn off. Her mind was focused, her purpose clear. Garona slipped away from the ledge, and moved past the guard patrols easily. They only saw her when she let them, and tonight she would not. She was one with the shadows.
She dwelt in darkness.
Moving between shadows, she maneuvered herself into the hall, outside Llane’s office, and with no hesitation, knocked on the door, that he might hear her.
“Come in,” Llane called. Garona opened the door and stepped inside, shutting it silently. After a moment, he looked over his shoulder, and surprise flashed briefly on his face before smiling. “Ah, of course. Come in, sit. I want to hear everything.”
The human king was standing by one of the shelves, and moved to the window, looking down, his expression reflected in the glass. Garona moved forward, though she did not sit. His expression changed from pleasure, as he watched his people below, to surprise, though he smiled. Garona moved closer.
“Gul’dan did not kill the messenger girl. I did not see her, but he claimed she slept and was resting.”
“That’s a relief, I knew you were worried. What did he say?”
“He said that you, personally, are the greatest threat to orc domination of Azeroth,” Garona said, keeping her voice even. “Your armies are powerful, your people are plentiful and wealthy, your mages cunning and your assassins well-placed to counter his, but it is you who are the key to holding it all together. Gul’dan has said he wants to see you eliminated, because once you fall, Azeroth will fall.” She studied his reflection closely, looking for any indication that he could understand what she meant. Instead, he only seemed pleased, and she inched closer.
Llane turned, facing her with a broad smile. “I’ll admit, while having a cult of personality is ideal, I don’t shun it. After the Baewynns, and the others… even my father was more warlord than king. I am obeyed and loved rather than obeyed and feared, and that pleases me.” Garona felt something shiver through her, and she did not let it show on her skin. She let nothing show. “What do you think, Garona? Do you agree?”
She had always been swift. She had always surprised people the first time they saw her fight. Telkar, Khadgar, and now Llane Wrynn: his eyes widened as she seemed to disappear from her respectful distance, the helpful subordinate gone, and reappear just in front of him, the silent, deadly assassin. Her dagger was in her hand. She stabbed upwards, the knife sliding under Llane’s ribcage and aimed straight for his heart.
The human king’s eyes widened, and his mouth opened, though little sound came out. You would think that you would remember, by now, that I am silent as I pass, and so is all around me. She grasped him with one hand as he tried to stagger away from her, and with the other pulled the knife out. With both hands she lowered him to the ground, and leaned in close to speak. “I agree with him,” she replied, her voice hoarser than she’d intended. “For the orcs to live, you must die.”
Humans did not bleed the same murky black that orcs did. They did not bleed Garona’s steel-blue, the product of her mixed heritage. Llane’s heart’s blood, deep red, flowed from him in a torrent, soaking everything. Garona’s clothing, blue and white and gold, lost colour as the fallen king’s blood turned them dark, and the remainder created a shadowy stain on the floor.
Garona reached out, closing lids on Llane’s wide, staring, betrayed look, and left red fingerprints there. She resisted the urge to wipe them off. She had work to do. She cut Llane’s shirt open easily, tugging it wide to expose his chest. She eyed his blood-smeared abdomen and considered simply cutting that hole open wider. I’ll butcher the heart if I do that.
Instead, Garona cut a long slit from the base of Llane’s neck to the base of his ribs. Using her dagger, she cut under the skin and pulled it back, exposing his rib cage. Feeling around, she recalled that humans too had a softer, bendier kind of bone, cartilage, and her dagger sawed through it with difficulty. First one side, then the other, and she tugged his sternum free, setting it aside.
There was Llane’s limp, unbeating heart and his blood-soaked lungs. Reaching in, she simply cut the organ free, and pulled it out.. Holding it in her hand, it was comparatively large, but Llane had been a taller, broader man than she. She replaced his sternum, setting it inside his chest, and then tugged the skin back over. It did not fit, and could not conceal the gap in the fallen human king’s chest.
How will I carry-- Garona set the heart down, and tugged her tabard off. She set the heart over the Azerothian lion, the scant fat deposits several shades lighter than the once brilliant, now tarnished gold, and wrapped it quickly. She wiped her hands and her dagger on her trousers, and stood.
Garona made her way to the window and opened it, slipping out into the night air. She let it remain open, and pressed herself against the wall, deep in the shadows. She was uncertain as to how long it would take for someone to notice, but as she waited, as the night’s insects chirped their song, as guards patrolled without care, Garona heard the study’s door open.
“My love, I--” Adalia, the first to find her husband’s corpse, screamed, anguished and angry and afraid all at once. Garona saw the guard snap to, hurrying towards her, and that was Garona’s signal. Around her neck, to replace the gift Khadgar had once given her, was a spell key Gul’dan had commanded her to activate.
She had been correct when she told Llane the orcs hadn’t mastered blasting powder. That didn’t mean they were incapable of wide-scale destruction. One-handed, the other arm cradling Llane’s heart, she snapped the symbol in half. Around the city, fires bloomed. Soon, dozens of screams split the night air, and Garona was running, darting through the shadows.
As she fled towards the gates, Garona heard a sound, not as loud as screams or bells, but rumbling, like a rockslide. It was the sound of orcs. Loosed from their stasis outside of Stormwind keep, its defenders distracted and absent, the Horde attacked.
The city quickly descended into chaos. Humans fled towards Stormwind Harbour, and fell as they were cut down, quickly choking the canals with bodies. Without Anduin Lothar to lead the defenses, Mara Fordragon stepped up, bellowing orders to the passing soldiers.
Without Llane, without Lothar, the knight was forced to order as many as possible to evacuate, seeing to the safety of the Queen and the Prince -- now child-King -- that they might survive the fall of Stormwind. Garona was forced to hide in the city, to watch as orc forces bowled over the humans, all of their careful order for naught.
She saw neither Blackhand nor Gul’dan in the attack, and no warlocks rose to counter the human mages. Warriors crowded the courtyard of Goldenspire Academy, making up for their lack of warlocks with sheer numbers, as the circle of mages defending it shrank. It was there that Khadgar and Lothar with their escort reappeared, looking weary, and then horrified as they saw what had happened in their absence.
They had little choice but to follow Mara’s orders. The child-King was passed to Lothar, and Garona could not read Mara’s lips nor hear her voice, but she could read the elder knight’s expression well enough: she was telling him to leave.
Stormwind is lost, the orcs have won, Garona thought silently as she watched the scene play out. She saw Mara, blood streaked and caked in soot, kneel to put her hand on Bolvar’s shoulder. She knew not what they said, but Bolvar nodded, tears flowing freely down his young face. Mara embraced her son and shooed him off.
Garona made to move, and felt a shiver down her back. She looked around, and saw Khadgar, staring off into the distance. Looking right at her. She pulled back, and began to run again.
It took hours for Garona to finally be clear of the battle. By then, it was over. The humans who had escaped Stormwind’s destruction had sailed away, thanks to Lothar, Khadgar, the handful of remaining mages, and Mara Fordragon’s sacrifice. The orcs were looting all they could, finally revelling in the wealth they had been promised, even as Garona saw the spoils as a shadow of what the prosperous human city had once held.
She picked her way through the abandoned army camps, making her way steadily towards Gul’dan’s tent, which still stood. As she approached it, something tingled along her spine. She could hear voices, too soft to discern, and wondered if this was where Blackhand had gone. She stepped inside.
“I have done--”
The figures within were not Gul’dan and his pet warlord. Garona found herself staring at the back of a Blackrock warrior’s armour, black and trimmed with gold. A huge weapon, more slab of spiked metal than proper mace, was slung on his back. She knew that armour, that mace, though she was less familiar with the way he jumped at the sound of her voice, disrupted from his search of Gul’dan’s chest of magical reagents. She had little time to take pleasure from that as realization hit.
Doomhammer! Garona thought frantically as she took a step back. What is he--
She did not hear the blow that struck the back of her head, but she felt it briefly before her vision went black and she knew no more.
[ Chapter 13]
Title: Assassin
Part: 12/14+Epilogue
Word Count: 5256
Includes: This section explicitly includes violent death, blood, gore, and perhaps slightly too many details about the previous points. Discretion is advised.
Pairings: Technically, none.
Summary: The founding of Durotar, and lessons in history from the mouth of one who has been a part of it: Garona Halforcen.
Previous: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Garona had watched from the top of one of the watchtowers as Anduin Lothar and Khadgar depart in the company of a half-dozen soldiers and knights. Khadgar had waved until he could no longer see her, and Garona had seen the moment he turned around and the tiny figure had seemed to sigh.
I should be with him, Garona thought for the fifth time in three days. Khadgar was likely only at the river border between Elwynn Forest and the Duskwood, and then it would be another two days of travel to get to the Pass, then another to get to Karazhan. Unless he teleports, as he did for us, but can he teleport that many? Should he?
Garona peered at her own writing, which had progressed as slowly as the meanest boar trying to avoid hauling packs, and sighed. The latest tale she spun was about the warlocks and their infiltration of orc society. It was an important piece, perhaps the most informative of the tales she would ever tell, and yet she lagged.
They need to know, she insisted to her fingers, when they cramped from holding the pen too tightly, or when her hair seemed to catch on everything as she moved. She sighed as she washed the pen and set it aside, leaning back. She knew why she was distracted: the messengers.
A warning bell sounded, a low tone indicating ‘the enemy’ was moving. It seemed laughable to Garona. They were the enemy because they had green skin and approached Stormwind armed, but they had no intention of fighting. They were messengers, slender and swift, capable of running without rest for hours. They had been arriving -- and often not leaving -- once a week from the time she had arrived in Stormwind, and then over time their frequency had increased. From once a week to three. Then once a day. Today, they’d been arriving once an hour, leaving everyone on edge.
I’ll be needed for the translation, Garona thought and stood. She departed the room and hurried down the hallways, out of the keep and to the walls overlooking the gates.
Stormwind’s defenses, inside and out, were formidable: nestled between mountains, the city had expanded since its foundation to fill the valley left between the rocky peaks of the Redridge Mountain range and Southern Sea. The harbour to the west was a gateway to a greater world, while mountains to the north, east, and south were the confining, yet protective claws that drew close. A passage had been cut long ago in the mountains, or perhaps it had always been there, simply needing to be filled. There was a great wall that spanned from mountain tip to mountain tip, punctuated with a dozen watch towers. The wall itself was thick, but hollowed out on the city’s side. There were arrow slits for archers and their guardians, angled so that they could avoid blind spots, and further down, there were keyhole shaped openings, meant not for archers, but for mages, also with their protectors.
Those above the walls were not idle either, as they kept the mechanisms for their cauldrons well oiled and prepared to drop boiling oil on the heads of those who came close to the walls. Twin ironwrought gates guarded the only entrance to the Keep, capable of trapping invaders in a box of death. Attackers from the front, the only realistic target, were channeled through a bridge that, from Garona’s understanding, could be collapsed at any moment.
The orcs caught them by surprise in the swamp, and overwhelmed them in the villages, but human strongholds are not smoking mountains full of idiots that battle each other as much as they do their enemies. The humans are stronger than the Horde.
The lookouts on the tops of the wall barely started as she ran past them, their first glances at her green skin and dark hair, silky and tightly bound instead of coarse and loose, and the second at her blue and gold tabard and white shirt, and pointed her towards the primary lookout.
Garona made her way to the man and nodded to him. He nodded back and gestured downward. An orc was making her way to the walls. Below the lookouts, arrows were already pointing towards the orc, tracking her every move.
“Hold steady, lads,” the lookout said. “They’s sending the runty ones, eh?”
Garona frowned and looked closer. The orcs was small, hunter’s muscles only just beginning to develop. Garona blinked as realization hit her, what it meant. “They’re sending children to the walls.”
“Children?” the lookout asked, and brought a hand up to scratch at the stubble on his wide, square jaw. “I’d been thinkin’ they was sendin’ ‘em younger ‘n younger.”
“He’s running out of messengers, or…” Garona let the thought hang as she completed it in her mind. Or he’s doing it on purpose.
“Orders?” came the message from below, through a speaker pipe. “She’s a gonna hit the walls soon.”
“Let me go down,” Garona said, as the lookout hesitated. “She’s no warrior, just a child.”
“Let th’orc go down, no shootin’ blue,” the lookout ordered finally, and Garona avoided making a face, instead waving to the orc girl down below. The girl paused where she stood, waving back. Garona imagined she was relieved not to be shot.
There were stairs inside each lookout’s outpost that brought defenders down to street level swiftly, and Garona took them rapidly, surprising the defenders below. They eased the gates open enough to let her pass through, and Garona hurried out to meet the girl.
“What are you doing?” she demanded in Orcish. “Who sent you?”
“The Warchief,” the girl replied, licking her lips nervously.
Or hungrily, Garona observed. The girl was thin, the dark blue and black tunic of the Stormreavers fitting loosely over her grey-green frame. She regretted that she had no food in her pockets to give her. “You have a message, give it here.”
The girl nodded, and passed her a rolled up bit of skin. Garona opened it, glancing over the dark-painted runes on pale hide.
Garona, I wish to speak to you in person. Come to me. - Gul’dan.
Garona’s expression darkened. “You’ve delivered your message, go,” she ordered and the girl fled. It’s the same message, every time, she thought bitterly as she headed back to the gate, waiting for the humans to admit her once more. It took only moments for them to do so, and for all it sounded like a cage closing, Garona thought the sound of a metal gate crashing down was comforting.
~ * ~
“It’s the same message?” Llane asked. Today, Adalia sat at his side, her fingers creating delicate knotwork as she listened. Garona had learned, over time, that Adalia’s knotwork doubled as note taking, if necessary, and found the idea fascinating.
Garona nodded once. “The messenger lived this time, she was… very young.”
“Young?” Adalia asked, curious. “How young?”
“Eight or nine summers, Your Majesty,” Garona said, bowing to her. “And underfed.”
Llane and Adalia exchanged long looks, with the Queen finally saying, “That’s impressive emotional manipulation. We can’t kill children, even orc children. That steps out of the usual conduct of soldiers and straight into murder.”
“Your Majesty, Gul’dan doesn’t share your moral compunctions,” Garona said. “He doesn’t care if they die. All that happens is there are fewer and fewer orcs to survive to adulthood to become warriors and hunters.”
“Advantageous for him,” Llane noted. “We care, he doesn’t, so he gets his way twice. Either he manipulates us into monstrosities or he learns our weakness. Could he use them to damage the walls? Give them explosives?”
Garona shuddered at the very thought, and Adalia held a hand out to her. Garona took it and she squeezed comfortingly. “The only reason he hasn’t done that is because he hasn’t thought of it yet,” Garona replied bleakly. “Orcs don’t use much in the way of explosives. They hadn’t mastered catapults, that’s why they had to steal them.”
“At great cost to both sides,” Llane muttered. “But you say the message is exactly the same?”
“Yes,” Garona said, frustrated. “No demands other than this, no curses. Just this same request.”
“The repetition is the thing,” Adalia pointed out. “It’s like nobles. They ask you politely for something and they wait. If you ignore them, they’ll ask again and then again, until it’s not polite any more. And not particularly noble.”
“I thought you were going to say children,” Garona confessed. Adalia chuckled.
“No, no. The children here are far better behaved.”
“They are,” Garona agreed. “He’ll keep sending more children, one an hour. I can’t… I can’t guarantee that if the child lives after delivering the message that they won’t then die when they return without me.”
Llane and Adalia exchanged another look. “He would murder children for the crime of delivering a message with no reply?”
Garona’s expression was bleak. “He’s murdered people for less.”
“This situation will escalate,” Adalia murmured, as much to herself as to Llane. “People will wonder what’s going on. The bells create tension as it is, but we can’t stop using them. They convey valuable information.”
“I suspect the only way to stop the bells is to give Gul’dan what he wants,” Llane replied evenly, and fixed his gaze on Garona. “Or who.”
“Then the only thing we can do is let me go to him,” Garona said slowly. “He wants to see me, for some reason, and that reason is enough to throw away countless lives on the walls.”
“It’s not safe,” Llane said flatly. “You’ve made it clear from your reports how dangerous Gul’dan is and that all he wants is ruin and misery.”
“And yet… is that not what he brings regardless?” Adalia asked. “Garona, what do you think?”
“He hasn’t harmed me since I completed my training,” Garona said, though a thought gave her pause. He hasn’t been able to do so… and I’m not certain as to why.. “He is dangerous, but now to others instead of to me. Those children… I was that young, once. Young and afraid. The least I can do is look out for those who come after me.”
“I don’t like it,” Llane muttered. “Making concessions to tyrants.”
“We concede to tyrants every moment we keep troops on the walls and the gates barred, my love,” Adalia pointed out. “We already live in fear.”
“Her Majesty isn’t wrong,” Garona said. “I don’t want to go-- I hoped to avoid it entirely-- but I must now.”
“Very well,” Llane said, nodding. “But I want you to come to me immediately once you return. I want to hear what he has to say.”
Garona bowed deeply to both humans. “Of course.”
~ * ~
The orcs were restless and impatient. Frustration rippled through the warriors as they squabbled and drank, eager to wet their blades with human blood. Garona listened to the whispers of the warriors as she moved through shadows, unseen by anyone. The orcs had not seen anyone depart from Stormwind, meaning that Khadgar had slipped away unnoticed. She couldn’t help but shake her head at the sheer idiocy of it.
No wonder you’ve needed so much help, Garona thought. You’re all but blind to anything that you can’t stab.
Gu’ldan’s tent was offset from the rest of the camp. As both a chieftain and a warlock, his residence was doubly elaborate: huge and black, it was adorned with runes painted in blood. Garona let her gaze slide over them, avoiding being caught in their trap, even as she was forced out of the shadows.
He’s never liked it that he can’t find me as easily as he used to, so he uses such traps to do the work for him. She grimaced. And when that failed, he sent children to fetch me back.
From her cursory examination of the children camped with their parents, the girl had not survived the report of her failure. Garona’s stomach clenched tight. The last one, Gul’dan. The very last one. Garona slipped inside the tent, and waited.
“Ah, there you are,” Gul'dan said, not bothering to turn around. He had taken off his robes, and was wearing only loose trousers. Garona's gaze bored a hole in his back, as though it were a dagger she could push through his ribs into his heart. She let her mind replay the thoughts several times, the gushing black blood, the sound he'd make as he choked on fluids until he breathed his last. “I've been expecting you for some time.”
“The murders will stop,” Garona said, and her hands clenched, though they did not go to the dagger strapped under her sleeve. Human clothing was less suited to hidden weapons, and it was harder to draw quickly, though she would dig it out if forced. “I am here, say what you have to say so that I can leave.”
“Leave to return to the bosom of the humans, isn't that right?” Gul'dan asked, and his lack of reaction to her tone and disrespect surprised her. A handful of years or a decade ago, his response would not have been a question, it would have been a blow. “You've adopted their clothing.”
“It reminds them that I am not part of the Horde's forces,” Garona replied. “That I'm not one of you.”
“And yet, you are not one of them either, are you?” Gul'dan asked.
The question struck Garona like a fist. How many times -- even just today -- had people simply assumed she was an orc because of the colour of her skin and hair? How many understood when she told them what halforcen meant, what it said about her background?
Gul’dan smiled as he watched her reaction. “You haven’t forgotten.”
“Forgotten what, exactly?” Garona demanded. “That I will never be an orc? Never be accepted? At least I know that I will never be human. I had no hopes of that.”
“But you hoped to be an orc, is that it?” Gul’dan asked. “You hoped to strip yourself of your mother’s blood, to be recognized by the clans? Is that what you want?”
“I--” Garona forced herself to think, to remember. “I don’t need that any more,” she insisted. “I don’t need to be accepted by the orcs to be a whole person. I am me, my mother’s daughter and my father’s!” She saw Gul’dan twitch, just for a moment, then his expression cleared. There were markings painted on his face, dark against green skin, wrinkles and scars. He’s old, she realized briefly. Was he always this old?
Gul’dan smiled at her. “You want a father, then. That’s why you’ve tried to find one… the traitor and the human king.”
Garona shuddered as both smile and words struck her. “Medivh was a good teacher, a better teacher than you.”
“You learned much from him,” Gul’dan agreed, pacing briefly, and his gaze fell to her necklace, gleaming in the dim light of the tent. “Like how quickly he turned on you.”
“It was the demon’s fault,” Garona whispered. “He would never--”
“Was it a demon that taught you, then?” Gul’dan demanded. “That brought you before me to speak across great distances? That planted the idea in your head that all it took was clothing to fit in?”
Three years of Winterveil gifts, mostly of clothing, fit to be worn by her, only by her, but made in the human way. “That’s not--”
“And the humans of Stormwind… they give you their colours to overshadow your own. You hope,” Gul’dan pressed. “How easily will they ignore those colours to kill, if your skin is the wrong shade?”
“They aren’t murderers!” Garona cried. “Not like you, you who sends children to the walls to die!”
“If you assume the humans will kill messengers, no matter how young, so long as their purpose is complete, that speaks more of the humans than it does of me,” Gul’dan replied, his eyes gleaming. “Did you not see the child? She is simply resting.”
“They… they don’t…”
“You are a messenger, Garona. A spy, an assassin. When Medivh was done with you, he tried to kill you. Do you think these humans won’t do the same? That they won’t open their great iron gates to pour their armies over our camps, sparing no one? Do you think that girl will live through a war?”
Garona shuddered, but she could remember every look she’d been given, every suggestion made by a noble. If you ignore them, they’ll ask again and again… “It’s your fault,” she whispered, as Gul’dan approached her. “You’re the reason why the humans hate us at all.”
“I’m the reason the orcs live better than they have in decades,” Gul’dan reminded her. “No one would have been able to open that Portal without me.”
“You ruined the land,” Garona said, her voice still hushed. “You bargained with demons. Everything is your fault.”
“The land was poor long before I was born,” Gul’dan said gently, though the words cut into her mind like daggers. “I did not start the wars with the draenei and the ogres. I didn’t fill the oceans with monsters or the skies with predators. All I have done, I have done for my people.”
“For yourself,” Garona insisted. “Llane cares for his people. He loves them.”
“He would send them to die to protect him,” Gul’dan said. “He would send you. He will kill the messenger. He will kill all the messengers. All the little children who came here, hoping for something better. Hoping for freedom.”
“The demons…”
“The humans have known demons longer than the orcs have. Surely, that was in the books you read,” Gul’dan pressed. “These mages… they know demons very well. This world belongs to the demons, and also to us. We will share it, we will keep it, once the demons get what they want.”
“And if they don’t get it?” Garona asked. “What will they do?”
“The humans will destroy us, then the demons will destroy them. All children will die. All hope, all futures.”
Garona’s mind raced, thoughts intermingling until they were tangled together, one idea hopping to another, until there was no beginning or end. “What can we do?”
“We need to win out over the humans,” Gul’dan said. Garona looked away. He reached out, putting his fingers under her chin, forcing her gaze back to him. “It’s the only way we can save our people.”
“They… they love Llane,” Garona whispered. “Everything falls on his shoulders. The queen is wise, his champions are strong, but all ties to him, the keystone in a bridge.”
“Then we must remove the keystone,” Gul’dan murmured, watching her expression with satisfaction as it fell. “You must kill Llane.”
“He’s my friend,” Garona said. “I can’t betray him.”
“But he will betray you,” Gul’dan warned. “Have you heard nothing I’ve said? The moment he does not need you, you will die, and then we all will. Stormwind must fall, and the human king with it.”
“He trusts me,” Garona said miserably. “He said so.”
“Then it will be easy for you to do your work,” Gul’dan said. “You will also need to weaken the defenses. I’m sure they’ve taught you much to reassure you of how primitive your people are.”
“My people?” Garona asked him, old anger overtaking new fears. “You have always told me I am other. My mother--”
“Your mother would have taken you and fled Draenor, her and her cowardly people… they cared nothing for the orcs. You know that is true,” Gul’dan said, shaking his head. “I was cruel to you, daughter, to make you stronger for what was to come. You are all that you are because of me.”
Daughter, Garona’s mind echoed. “You would tell others this?”
“I will tell two worlds that you are my daughter and that you are Stormreaver,” Gul’dan assured her. “But not while you wear human trappings.”
“I must… wear this to get close to Llane,” Garona said numbly. “And to the defenses.”
“Of course, but not, I think… this.” Gul’dan’s hand dropped to the pendant she wore. Khadgar’s gift, the two moons of Azeroth. He gave a hard tug, and the chain broke with a snap, and he dropped it on the floor. “It will catch the light while you hide in the shadows.”
“I dwell in darkness,” Garona murmured, and Gul’dan nodded, releasing her.
“When this is over and we press north, we will find more enemies to fight, but then…” Gul’dan turned away, though she caught the faintest hint of a smile. “We may find the Shadow Wolves, if they yet live. Their weakest have surely died off. The blind blasphemer, the weak girl mated with Durotan. What was her name?”
“Draka,” Garona supplied. Though Draka isn’t weak.
“Her name means little if she is dead, and if she’s not… she will be. Women and men alike fight for their mates. It will not be a challenge to you, I think. If you give me Llane, I will give you all you desire. A name, a clan, recognition… Durotan.”
Perhaps… even Durotan will agree that this was for the best… Garona thought as she knelt, and Gul’dan placed his hand on the back of her neck. Long ago, when she’d stopped growing, he had tattooed a mark on her, his mark. As he touched it, it itched and burned.
~ * ~
It was nightfall by the time she returned to Stormwind’s keep. She stood on the ledge outside the window, peering into Llane’s office, where they frequently met. No Varian within, sitting at his father’s knee. No Mara, pacing as he sat, snapping out her opinions while Llane answered calmly. No Adalia, discussing reports. It would have been easy enough to slip inside, but she had made a promise. It would be the last she kept, she had promised herself.
Return to me as soon as you’re able.
She had taken a slow route back from Gul’dan’s tent, over the walls. She knew where the humans kept their explosive powder, their supplies. All of the places that could be detonated in an instant to cover her retreat. Once Llane was dead, the army would attack, and they were dependent on her to destroy the humans’ defenses.
The Horde waited for her, prepared for her.
She wished that she were shaking, that she were nervous, but a kind of detached calm had entered her, filling in after the burning sensation had worn off. Her mind was focused, her purpose clear. Garona slipped away from the ledge, and moved past the guard patrols easily. They only saw her when she let them, and tonight she would not. She was one with the shadows.
She dwelt in darkness.
Moving between shadows, she maneuvered herself into the hall, outside Llane’s office, and with no hesitation, knocked on the door, that he might hear her.
“Come in,” Llane called. Garona opened the door and stepped inside, shutting it silently. After a moment, he looked over his shoulder, and surprise flashed briefly on his face before smiling. “Ah, of course. Come in, sit. I want to hear everything.”
The human king was standing by one of the shelves, and moved to the window, looking down, his expression reflected in the glass. Garona moved forward, though she did not sit. His expression changed from pleasure, as he watched his people below, to surprise, though he smiled. Garona moved closer.
“Gul’dan did not kill the messenger girl. I did not see her, but he claimed she slept and was resting.”
“That’s a relief, I knew you were worried. What did he say?”
“He said that you, personally, are the greatest threat to orc domination of Azeroth,” Garona said, keeping her voice even. “Your armies are powerful, your people are plentiful and wealthy, your mages cunning and your assassins well-placed to counter his, but it is you who are the key to holding it all together. Gul’dan has said he wants to see you eliminated, because once you fall, Azeroth will fall.” She studied his reflection closely, looking for any indication that he could understand what she meant. Instead, he only seemed pleased, and she inched closer.
Llane turned, facing her with a broad smile. “I’ll admit, while having a cult of personality is ideal, I don’t shun it. After the Baewynns, and the others… even my father was more warlord than king. I am obeyed and loved rather than obeyed and feared, and that pleases me.” Garona felt something shiver through her, and she did not let it show on her skin. She let nothing show. “What do you think, Garona? Do you agree?”
She had always been swift. She had always surprised people the first time they saw her fight. Telkar, Khadgar, and now Llane Wrynn: his eyes widened as she seemed to disappear from her respectful distance, the helpful subordinate gone, and reappear just in front of him, the silent, deadly assassin. Her dagger was in her hand. She stabbed upwards, the knife sliding under Llane’s ribcage and aimed straight for his heart.
The human king’s eyes widened, and his mouth opened, though little sound came out. You would think that you would remember, by now, that I am silent as I pass, and so is all around me. She grasped him with one hand as he tried to stagger away from her, and with the other pulled the knife out. With both hands she lowered him to the ground, and leaned in close to speak. “I agree with him,” she replied, her voice hoarser than she’d intended. “For the orcs to live, you must die.”
Humans did not bleed the same murky black that orcs did. They did not bleed Garona’s steel-blue, the product of her mixed heritage. Llane’s heart’s blood, deep red, flowed from him in a torrent, soaking everything. Garona’s clothing, blue and white and gold, lost colour as the fallen king’s blood turned them dark, and the remainder created a shadowy stain on the floor.
Garona reached out, closing lids on Llane’s wide, staring, betrayed look, and left red fingerprints there. She resisted the urge to wipe them off. She had work to do. She cut Llane’s shirt open easily, tugging it wide to expose his chest. She eyed his blood-smeared abdomen and considered simply cutting that hole open wider. I’ll butcher the heart if I do that.
Instead, Garona cut a long slit from the base of Llane’s neck to the base of his ribs. Using her dagger, she cut under the skin and pulled it back, exposing his rib cage. Feeling around, she recalled that humans too had a softer, bendier kind of bone, cartilage, and her dagger sawed through it with difficulty. First one side, then the other, and she tugged his sternum free, setting it aside.
There was Llane’s limp, unbeating heart and his blood-soaked lungs. Reaching in, she simply cut the organ free, and pulled it out.. Holding it in her hand, it was comparatively large, but Llane had been a taller, broader man than she. She replaced his sternum, setting it inside his chest, and then tugged the skin back over. It did not fit, and could not conceal the gap in the fallen human king’s chest.
How will I carry-- Garona set the heart down, and tugged her tabard off. She set the heart over the Azerothian lion, the scant fat deposits several shades lighter than the once brilliant, now tarnished gold, and wrapped it quickly. She wiped her hands and her dagger on her trousers, and stood.
Garona made her way to the window and opened it, slipping out into the night air. She let it remain open, and pressed herself against the wall, deep in the shadows. She was uncertain as to how long it would take for someone to notice, but as she waited, as the night’s insects chirped their song, as guards patrolled without care, Garona heard the study’s door open.
“My love, I--” Adalia, the first to find her husband’s corpse, screamed, anguished and angry and afraid all at once. Garona saw the guard snap to, hurrying towards her, and that was Garona’s signal. Around her neck, to replace the gift Khadgar had once given her, was a spell key Gul’dan had commanded her to activate.
She had been correct when she told Llane the orcs hadn’t mastered blasting powder. That didn’t mean they were incapable of wide-scale destruction. One-handed, the other arm cradling Llane’s heart, she snapped the symbol in half. Around the city, fires bloomed. Soon, dozens of screams split the night air, and Garona was running, darting through the shadows.
As she fled towards the gates, Garona heard a sound, not as loud as screams or bells, but rumbling, like a rockslide. It was the sound of orcs. Loosed from their stasis outside of Stormwind keep, its defenders distracted and absent, the Horde attacked.
The city quickly descended into chaos. Humans fled towards Stormwind Harbour, and fell as they were cut down, quickly choking the canals with bodies. Without Anduin Lothar to lead the defenses, Mara Fordragon stepped up, bellowing orders to the passing soldiers.
Without Llane, without Lothar, the knight was forced to order as many as possible to evacuate, seeing to the safety of the Queen and the Prince -- now child-King -- that they might survive the fall of Stormwind. Garona was forced to hide in the city, to watch as orc forces bowled over the humans, all of their careful order for naught.
She saw neither Blackhand nor Gul’dan in the attack, and no warlocks rose to counter the human mages. Warriors crowded the courtyard of Goldenspire Academy, making up for their lack of warlocks with sheer numbers, as the circle of mages defending it shrank. It was there that Khadgar and Lothar with their escort reappeared, looking weary, and then horrified as they saw what had happened in their absence.
They had little choice but to follow Mara’s orders. The child-King was passed to Lothar, and Garona could not read Mara’s lips nor hear her voice, but she could read the elder knight’s expression well enough: she was telling him to leave.
Stormwind is lost, the orcs have won, Garona thought silently as she watched the scene play out. She saw Mara, blood streaked and caked in soot, kneel to put her hand on Bolvar’s shoulder. She knew not what they said, but Bolvar nodded, tears flowing freely down his young face. Mara embraced her son and shooed him off.
Garona made to move, and felt a shiver down her back. She looked around, and saw Khadgar, staring off into the distance. Looking right at her. She pulled back, and began to run again.
It took hours for Garona to finally be clear of the battle. By then, it was over. The humans who had escaped Stormwind’s destruction had sailed away, thanks to Lothar, Khadgar, the handful of remaining mages, and Mara Fordragon’s sacrifice. The orcs were looting all they could, finally revelling in the wealth they had been promised, even as Garona saw the spoils as a shadow of what the prosperous human city had once held.
She picked her way through the abandoned army camps, making her way steadily towards Gul’dan’s tent, which still stood. As she approached it, something tingled along her spine. She could hear voices, too soft to discern, and wondered if this was where Blackhand had gone. She stepped inside.
“I have done--”
The figures within were not Gul’dan and his pet warlord. Garona found herself staring at the back of a Blackrock warrior’s armour, black and trimmed with gold. A huge weapon, more slab of spiked metal than proper mace, was slung on his back. She knew that armour, that mace, though she was less familiar with the way he jumped at the sound of her voice, disrupted from his search of Gul’dan’s chest of magical reagents. She had little time to take pleasure from that as realization hit.
Doomhammer! Garona thought frantically as she took a step back. What is he--
She did not hear the blow that struck the back of her head, but she felt it briefly before her vision went black and she knew no more.
[ Chapter 13]