Warcraft: Assassin - Part 3
Wow, gosh, it's been a while, hasn't it? I'm not going to clutter this up too much with stuff, but take this as a sign: the writing train is rolling again. I'm making a committed effort to finish stories I've started and write out stories I have planned. Rather than writing my usual pair of slightly shorter chapters, this one is a single, but it's a longer one. Enjoy!
Title: Assassin
Part: 3/?
Word Count: 6526
Includes: Angst, sap, adorableness. A story told in flashbacks, there will be one-sided crushes and meaningful stares.
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
Thrall's fist connected with the training dummy and it rocked, creaking back on its mount, throwing dust into the air that glittered in the heat of the day before it rained down around him. Thrall did not picture an enemy before him. Too often, gladiators were encouraged to hate their enemy, to picture them in their mind while training so that they could punish them over and over. Thrall had once imagined Blackmoore. Sometimes, he was still tempted, but his former owner was dead, and such things were habit forming.
We must be greater than revenge, Thrall thought, throwing another punch, and then another. He monitored each blow carefully, wanting to exercise but not destroy the training dummy. Another sign of a loss of control, another sign that he wasn't in balance. A shaman must be in harmony with the elements at all times, and while the elements may be tumultuous at times, they are also calm. A shaman must know himself. A shaman must find his centre--
He felt his fist connect with a hand, the impact loud enough that he looked up, startled. Garona stood before him, one of her hands having caught his blow with remarkable ease. Thrall stopped and smiled. "You're very quiet."
"Your thoughts are very loud," Garona said. "Do you want a sparring partner?"
"If I may also have a storyteller," Thrall said, shifting his posture to square off against her. Sweat prickled along the muscles of his bare back, and he could feel it drip, soaking into the waistband of his trousers. His fists tightened, the wraps around his fingers sweat-soaked and dirty. Garona wore her usual garb, with no extra padding, but she met each of his blows easily. Thrall had known that Garona was fast and silent, and even now, as he could feel the fire within his heart, Garona was muted, her emotions as invisible to him as if he fought her blindfolded.
"Very well," Garona said. "As it happens, the next part of my story is appropriate." She blocked another blow, spun and made to strike at Thrall's knee. Thrall found himself on the defensive, blocking the blow and shifting back. "After Oshu'gun, Gul'dan brought me back to Karabor. He left me alone for a time, but then he dragged me out of the shadows again to present me to Kurd Shadowbreaker."
"You must have been..."
"Young, yes. As you were when you began to train with Sergeant." Garona snapped a kick at his side, and Thrall winced as he absorbed it. "Kurd was to be my combat instructor, though I use those terms loosely. I was given a knife. Kurd was bare-handed. I was instructed to defend myself. Kurd beat me until I learned how."
"But that's not--"
"Kurd was an assassin, not a drill instructor. He had little concern for fairness, or my personal welfare. If I died, it was because I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't worthy of the brief life I'd already had. The first time I managed to deflect a blow, I was so proud of myself... and then he sent me flying because I'd gotten distracted by my own success."
Thrall frowned, and ducked her next blow, sweeping his leg low. She jumped back, and Thrall advanced on her, striking hard and fast. "But you survived."
"I did, but our training could only end one way," Garona said, deflecting the blows. Thrall could feel the padding in her sleeves, and the muscle underneath. "I was ten when I killed him. For years of beatings, of torture. My first feeling was relief. I was free from him. My second was abject fear. I hid in the shadows of Karabor until Gul'dan dragged me out. He told me..." She paused, and Thrall pulled his blow. "That he was proud of me for surviving, that the objective had been to teach me to kill."
"When you were terrorized and backed into a corner," Thrall growled. "That's no way to teach a child."
"That depends on what you want to teach the child, doesn't it?"
~ * ~
"This is a map of Shadowmoon Valley," Gul'dan said. Garona peered down at it. She had seen maps before, brief sketches on hide, but this was the largest one she'd ever seen... and frankly, it was quite disappointing. While she could see the edges of the mountains, and the settlement of the Dragonmaw clan, she could recall much more from her journey to Nagrand. "What do you think?"
"It is very plain," Garona said. "It's missing details. The Hand of Gul'dan is here." She lay her hand over part of the map. "And the forest of obsidian trees was here." She pointed to another section that was largely featureless.
"Shadowmoon Valley has changed since this map was created," Gul'dan said, neither acknowledging nor disagreeing with her assessment, and Garona's spirits rose.
He approves, she thought, though Gul'dan made a noise in the back of his throat.
"Shadowmoon Valley needs to be remapped. The details need to be preserved, but that will be for another time." He studied Garona, his black gaze piercing her through and through. She kept her eyes on the map. “I need you to deliver a message for me to Shadowmoon Village.”
Garona found the settlement in question far to the west, and she traced a finger from the temple to the village along the mountain range, and then looked up for confirmation. He nodded slightly. “I would need to go this way.”
“The land has changed, as I said. Copy this portion of the map, and use it to guide you. Fill in what has changed and it will be added to the great map.” He gave a thin, humourless smile. “It is too valuable to be taken from Karabor.”
"Yes, Gul'dan," Garona said. Gul'dan nodded and presented her with a handful of tools. A stick of carbon to mark a series of smaller hides. Immediately, Garona began to copy the map, her movements quick and precise, and soon, the form of the mountain range was duplicated. She marked each portion of the map with runes, and Gul'dan raised an eyebrow, but said nothing of it.
“You will need supplies,” Gul'dan said, his voice grating. “And you will need this.” He drew a knife from his belt, a sharp piece of obsidian affixed on a wooden handle and bound with leather. Garona wrapped it carefully in one of the pieces of hide, and tucked it away on her person.
“I'll bring weapons with me, for hunting,” Garona said. Gul'dan did not reply, but her mind was already racing, making plans.
“Pack and depart immediately,” Gul'dan said finally. “And...” His lip twitched briefly. “Take as long as you need.”
“It will be done,” Garona said. It didn't take long to fold her tunics into her backpack, crammed into it tightly, creating a gentle cradle for her maps and Gul'dan's knife. She took her own knife and strapped it to her side. She would need that. Flint and tinder, too, would be needed, so she could start a cooking fire. They had never lacked for them when they had travelled the lonely path through Shadowmoon Valley, curving around the Hand of Gul'dan, but that would take her too far away from the Village.
Gul'dan had supervised, saying nothing, simply watching her. Her hands shook a little, but she forced herself to be calm, to concentrate. Once she was done, she looked up at him, determination shining in her eyes, before departing through the echoing halls. The warlocks eyed her with a combination of amusement and disgust, shaking their heads. Garona ignored them, holding her head high as her curls bounced against her shoulders. The scouts on the wall jeered at her as she carefully walked down the steps and took her first solitary steps on the valley's floor.
The ground was hard black, and Garona toed at it curiously. While it wasn't the same fel iron as Karabor's floors, it still felt hard, unwelcoming. She remembered seeing in on the journey to Oshu'gun and finding it to be quite curious. It's nothing at all like Nagrand. She knelt down, running her fingertips over it. It felt cold, and Garona looked up. She could see the sun's light filtering through dismal, thin clouds. In Nagrand, when she'd seen clouds, they were huge, white and fluffy. Here, they seemed to blanket the sky.
I wonder how long this will take? Garona wondered as she began to walk. Her gaze studied each detail, seeing ruins of old settlements, ground into dust by bad weather. She wandered into one of them, poking at what had been left behind. Some things were petrified, and others so worn down they were unidentifiable lumps.
This could be a skinning pit, Garona mused. And those are houses, though they look like they've collapsed into themselves… I wonder what happened here? She circled the worn village twice and began to sketch, using the shape of the mountains to guide her hand.
Her stomach reminded her that she would need to hunt soon, and Garona looked around over the dead, dirty ruins. She knew how to hunt, in theory. She'd listened to the hunters make their boasts. The key was looking for homes, and tracks, depending on what she was hunting.
As hunger gnawed at her stomach, she began to search and came to one unfortunate, painful conclusion: nothing was growing here. There was nothing for animals to eat, unless they could eat polluted soil and rock. Distantly, she could see stands of trees, thin, dark and sinister. Those were the homes of the Arakkoa, a strange race that had the appearance of the windrocs of Nagrand, save that they were more colourful, bipedal, and a little bit smarter.
If they have a nest there, they might have food, Garona thought, and gripped at the knife in her hand. If I have to fight more than one... She knew so little about them, they hid themselves often. The ogres were open about their existence, because they were so strong, and every orc knew about the draenei, but the Arakkoa..?
None of this was getting her any closer to food, and her hunger gnawed at her. She turned to look at the looming shadow of Karabor, and squared her shoulders. She would have to go back, admit she failed and... she shuddered, fear mixing with the stomach cramps. She would be punished, but there was no other choice. She could survive another beating, she couldn't survive starving to death.
Garona made her way back to the temple, stumbling up the great, wide steps until she reached the safe, cool, concealing shadows.
“Half-breed.”
Garona whirled towards the sound, her hand on her knife. Before her stood one of the warlocks, clad in black and purple. His face was relaxed into a sneer, as though he were unused to smiling. His tusks were slightly yellowed, aged past his years. His chin was bare, but his hair was pulled back into several knotted braids. She knelt in the presence of her better as she had been taught.
“Master Gorefiend.”
Teron Gorefiend, Gul'dan's co-conspirator, grunted. “Rise. Come with me.”
Garona did as she was bid, and Gorefiend began to walk. Instead of going inside the temple, they circled around outside along the balconies, one of the only places forbidden to her. Garona's stomach twisted, but she said nothing, instead watching the warlock's back. She had observed him before, often in secret and sometimes very briefly. What she knew of him was minimal: he had a mate and a child who lived elsewhere, and had spoken against her living in Karabor.
The Black Temple is no place for a child, he had said. Send her elsewhere.
No, Gul'dan had growled at him. She stays.
Is he trying to kill me now? Garona wondered, tensing up. She had confidence she could outrun him, for now, but if he caught her, he could still beat her. He was no Kurd Shadowbreaker, to torment her and leave her bleeding and crying. He would take her seriously, and that meant he was dangerous.
Teron said nothing, indicated nothing. He simply walked, his robes drawn around him tightly, his steps scraping and shuffling along the fel iron path. All of the Stormreavers lived in the Black Temple of Karabor, from the rough-handed warrior guards to the warlocks, trained by Gul'dan in the ways of the dark arts. There were women who manned the walls wielding bows, and there were men who pounded steel night and day.
“We're almost there,” Gorefiend said shortly, breaking the silence for the first time since he'd found her.
“Where are we going?” Garona asked, and expected a cuff for her question. Instead, he grunted.
“You'll figure it out,” he replied, and said no more. As it happened, Garona smelled it before anything else: the strong scent of dung. She quickly switched to shallow mouth breathing, and moments later, Teron led her down a ramp to a wide, open area behind the temple where there was a flat plateau. Her eyes widened with surprise.
There were people here, and more, there were boars. They were huge, nearly as tall as she was, all bristles and tusks. There were men here, and women, clad not in armour, but in plain leather, smeared with filth. Not far from where the boars were kept penned was green. Most of it was gresht, a tough vegetable that grew anywhere there was the slightest hint of moisture, but there were other things, root vegetables, being carefully tended by more filth-smeared men and women with different tools.
“These are farmers,” Gorefiend said. “We do not hunt here in Shadowmoon Valley. There is no food aside from what we can wrench from the land here, where it is softer, less dead. The boars are the meat, the leather, and other things. Their mess goes to the land to grow vegetables, and we feed the vegetables to the boars first, so that they live that we may have meat, and the rest to those who need it. It is a cycle.”
“What happened to the rest of Shadowmoon Valley?” Garona asked, staring out at those toiling. One of the boars jerked its head, goring the arm of one of the farmers. He fell back with a bellow, and quickly, two of his fellows pulled him back before the boar could stomp more than twice, while others prodded the boar away. It all took no more than a moment, and the sound of squealing boars and moaning faded.
“The draenei,” Gorefiend said shortly. “This was one of their strongholds once. You can see their old cities, worn down by the poison rains. They shared it with the Shadowmoon Clan, they who named this portion of Draenor. As the orcs grew stronger, the draenei turned the elements on us. They began to hate us. We have always made war, it is how it has always been, but this was new, it was poison. They killed the land so that we could not have it. They fled, but we remained. We have made the land comply enough to keep us here.”
There was conviction in his words, a determined, deep-seated hate towards the draenei and the elements both. She looked up, gazing at his hard, angry face, and saw how certain he was that this was the cause of the suffering of so many. She could hear Gul’dan’s words with Gorefiend’s voice, and realized that he didn’t know that he was wrong.
“What about the demons?” Garona asked. “Why do you think they're better?”
“The demons,” Teron said at length, “are only trying to help.” He gestured out towards the farmers. “If you're going out, you need supplies. Meat, gresht, vegetables. When we travelled to Oshu'gun, we slaughtered a whole herd of boars and left the farmers behind to build the herds back up and plant once more. You won't need that much, small as you are, but you must take all you can carry.”
“I thought I could hunt,” Garona said. “There is nothing alive out there.”
“No, things live,” Gorefiend said, and made to walk away. “They just aren't things that you can hunt better than they can hunt you. You will die, and no one will find your corpse.”
“Why do you care?” Garona asked, suddenly and fiercely. “You don't want me here.”
“No, I don't,” Teron agreed, and glanced down at her. “I thought you deserved better.”
With that, he strode off, his feet scraping along the fel iron path. Garona watched the farmers and the swine for a moment longer, before her stomach twisted in hunger, and she fled into the cool darkness of the Temple.
~ * ~
“He was right about one thing,” Thrall said as they sparred. “You did deserve better.”
“Perhaps it's what I deserved, but I didn't get it,” Garona replied, spinning and kicking. “I slept at the Temple that night, and in the morning I collected whatever food supplies I could carry. I had to repack my things three times to fit it in a backpack, and it was heavy. It made for slow going at first. I was two days out when I got caught in the rain.”
“You've spoken of the rains before, but I can't imagine what it was like. The rain in the Maelstrom hurt, but it wasn't poisonous.”
“It wasn't just poison,” Garona replied. “It was acid. That was the reason the cities had worn down, the reason why nothing could grow in the Valley. The Arakkoa had learned how to protect their trees, with their prayers to the Raven God and their tree houses and their oiled feathers, but flesh...”
Garona took a step back, and held up her hands. Thrall's fighting posture relaxed, and he nodded to her. She opened her shirt to the waist and pulled it off. Underneath her loose, black tunic she wore sheathes of knives, bound to her chest and torso tightly, and there was padding under her clothing, along her arms. Thrall kept his gaze polite, but he couldn't help but notice the corded muscle under her dull green skin, and the scars. She gestured him forward, and he took a look. There were a series of raindrop-sized scars along her left arm, pitted and pocked. Carefully, Thrall drew a finger along them, feeling each smooth crater and bump.
“Was this from rain?” Thrall asked. “They look like burns.”
“This was what fell from the sky,” Garona said. “I was caught in it one night, and it ate through my clothes before I could get away. It... hurt. It burned. I could barely eat from the pain, and I had to use my old, damaged shirt to wrap up my arm and put on a new one.”
“You must have gotten sick,” Thrall observed, his voice gentle with sympathy as Garona pulled her shirt back on, the knives and strength and scars hiding once again behind the secrecy of black.
“I certainly did.”
~ * ~
Shadowmoon Village was the oldest settlement in Shadowmoon Valley, home to the Shadowmoon Clan. It had been Gul'dan's home once, and that of Teron Gorefiend, and many others in the new Stormreaver Clan. It was not a temple. There was little fel iron here, and the walls that guarded the village were made of old, petrified mushrooms that had once grown thickly in Shadowmoon Valley, twice as tall as an orc with huge, vast protective caps. Most of them were gone, and only sad, stunted things could be seen through the gaps in the walls.
Garona felt hot all over and clammy. Her arm burned with each step, and her gait was shuffling. Her backpack, nearly empty, was slung over her good shoulder, the other strap cut away from the rest. It had absorbed some of the acid, and she'd need to cut it away to avoid losing the whole thing.
She was worried that the same would be necessary for her arm.
As she reached the gates, Garona found herself looking at a pair of huge, thick-armed guards at the gates to the village as they peered down at her. They were clad in the black tunics of their clan, shot through with a stark white moon and single star, and their equally black gazes were shot through with contempt.
“I'm.... I'm here to see Chieftain Ner'zhul,” she forced out through chattering teeth. She didn't know how she could be so cold and so hot at the same time. “I have a message from--”
“Get out of here, little Spook,” one of the guards said, his voice thick to her ears. Her heart was pounding, it was hard to hear.
“Little Halfbreed,” the second one added. “You aren't welcome here. The Chieftain doesn't see you.”
“Gul'dan sent me,” Garona gasped out. “I'm delivering something.”
They laughed in unison, and one swung out at her. She dodged away, and the blow sailed past her. They laughed harder as she fled into the low hills around the Valley.
Think, she told herself. Think.
She thought. Rarely, if ever, had she gotten what she wanted by asking for it. She'd had to sneak and hide and steal. That was what the temple had taught her, what Kurd had taught her. What Gul'dan had taught her. It isn't what Mama taught me, she thought dizzily. But there is only shadow, and no Light. There was something else she had been taught too, now. By Teron. Where are the farmers?
Approaching from the areas around the wall, Garona sniffed. She knew what boar-filth smelled like now, and it was present here. The boars needed space, and they needed food. Where there was space, there would be shadows, and new places to hide. She crept along the ground and the burning in her shoulder grew worse. Garona did her best to push it back, and then, when she couldn't, used it to drive herself forward.
The sooner I find Ner’zhul, the sooner I can stop, Garona told herself with each agonizing step. Then I can sleep.
She'd been in far too much pain to sleep.
There were farms here, tending quietly to the vegetables and mushrooms, and the boars were in more orderly pens. These ones seemed smaller, and slightly more docile, with fewer spikes on their great, broad backs. Garona noted each one of them before moving past them into the village proper.
There were a great many more people here than there were in the temple. They each had their own homes, domes of clay, sealed and protected against the acid rains. Garona could see places where the clay was pitted like her arm, and wondered what happened when the rain pierced all the way through, inside those small, weak sanctuaries.
I have to find Ner'zhul, Garona thought. She could see houses of differing sizes, some very small, as small as only one of the rooms in Karabor, and some large, like the great, echoing halls where Gul'dan addressed his clan. It will be the big one, Garona thought. Chieftains are the most important ones of their clan.
The trick was to avoid the people. Most of them wore cloth more than leather, and sometimes, here and there, she could see women weaving cloth or knotting string into patterns. They were the same ones, over and over, and were it not for the pain, Garona would find it more fascinating. She remembered patterns from Oshu'gun and the clans - Thunderlord, Shadow Wolf, Whirlwind - but there was nothing like this at Karabor.
Do we have no pattern? Garona wondered muzzily as she peeked inside first one great building, then another. The first one held pots and jars of all kinds, with people simply walking in and taking one, while others delivered heaps of clay. In another, there were blacksmiths, who shaped and refined iron, adamantium, and khorium. The Stormreavers came from the Shadowmoon, does that make Karabor an orphan?
She found Ner'zhul's hut on the fourth try, at the centre of the village. It was strung with bells, and they jangled slightly in the wind. A black drape covered the entrance, and Garona hurried to it, slipping under it without setting off the bells. The orc inside, whom she assumed was Ner’zhul himself, looked up as she entered and frowned.
“How did you get in here?” Ner'zhul asked. He was old, Garona noticed, his dirty green face lined and worn, and his hair was a dingy grey, hanging in loose braids, accompanied by a straggly beard. There was something about him, though. There was age, but no weakness, no kindness. His flinty grey eyes looked her over. “Well?”
Garona opened her mouth, but she could not hear herself speak. Instead, something roared in her ears, and she collapsed. She felt hot and cold all over, whimpering as she landed on her injured arm and curled around it.
Ner'zhul was moving forward now, and there was sound, deep sound, as he spoke but she understood nothing. She felt hands close over her, and then there was darkness.
The darkness was not restful. It was filled with angry shadows and sparks of light. She heard the voices of the dead - her mother, Kurd - and sometimes, those of the living. Gul'dan, reprimanding her. Teron's gruff lessons, and Ner'zhul's enquiries as to why she was there at all.
She fell into darkness and she did not dream.
~ * ~
”Well?” Ner'zhul demanded, turning the knife over in one hand. He recognized it, of course he did. He could only think of one person who would send him such a thing, one student so audacious and cruel as to send a child alone across Shadowmoon Valley. He tucked the knife aside.
“She will live, and keep the arm,” the necrolyte replied. “An orc would have died, I think.”
“No halforcen save for the Mok'nathal have been so strong,” Ner'zhul muttered. “When she is older, we will investigate further. I have time for neither children nor Gul'dan's experiments.”
“As you say, Master,” the necrolyte replied. “Do you think it is a sign?”
“It could be,” Ner'zhul muttered, gazing towards the fitfully sleeping girl. “It could very well be.”
~ * ~
Garona awoke to a dull pain in her arm. She gritted her teeth against it as she opened her eyes. As her senses came back to her, she could feel that she had been stripped down to her smallclothes and then wrapped in a blanket. Her feverish shivering was gone, and she felt neither hot nor cold, only sore and very tired.
“You're awake,” Ner'zhul said. She forced herself to focus on the location of his voice, and there he was, sitting by the fire, deftly sprinkling herbs on them. The scent was light, and Garona felt herself breathing it in, and relaxed a little more. Then she saw the knife. “Gul'dan sent you.”
“Yes,” she agreed, though it wasn't a question. “You are Chieftain Ner'zhul of the Shadowmoon Clan.”
“Yes,” he replied in the same tone she had used. “Why did he send you?”
“He said to bring you that knife,” Garona said, struggling to sit up. Ner'zhul observed this impassively, as though he didn't care whether she managed it or not. That only made her determined to sit up a little more, and wrap the blanket around her thin frame. “He wants to know if you have finished your task of dealing with the elements.”
Ner'zhul rose from his seat, and Garona could see he wore robes that were like Gul’dan’s in their cut and colour, but different in how they were decorated. While Gul'dan wore cloth painted in runes that hurt most to look at, Ner'zhul was festooned with feathers and small skulls, knots of colour and beads. Garona watched him, and put her hand against the cot she was lying on, ready to throw herself back. Her elbow shook.
“You are not well enough to hear my message,” he growled, and put his hand on her good shoulder, and pushed her down with ease. She whimpered, and he frowned. “When you can sit upright without collapsing, you will hear it.”
Garona nodded with resignation, and relaxed. She looked around Ner'zhul's home. It was lined with shelves, and each shelf held not books or scrolls, but totems and fetishes, some of them cracked and broken. There were dirty, inert rocks and coal, cracked jars and incense burned down to stubs.
Ner'zhul followed her gaze. “Memories of shamanism, broken,” he noted. “Once I needed them to give tribute to the elements of Draenor, air and earth, water and fire, that also represented the four great races.”
“Four?” Garona whispered. “Which four?”
Ner'zhul chuckled briefly, the sound like boots scraping over stone. “The ogres, Gronn, and their kin, are of earth. They come from the bladed mountains and to fight one is to take down a hill. The arakkoa are of air. They live in the trees and the look longingly to the sky for the day they can fly again. The draenei are of water. They are slippery and tricky, they hide in unlikely places. They had vast farms once, fields and fields, and then the land began to die.” Ner'zhul's expression twisted, angry like Teron's, but there was something else to it. Something that spoke of deeper knowledge. He fell silent then.
“What about fire?” Garona asked when he did not continue. Ner'zhul shook himself from his thoughts.
“Orcs.” He smiled briefly, and it changed the lines on his face oddly, and the flames flickered in the depths of his eyes. “Fire burns. It consumes. It roars and it dances. Sometimes, it warms. Sometimes, it feeds. It eats air and scorches earth and evaporates water. Always, it hungers. We are of fire, it is in our blood.”
What about the Eredar? Garona wondered to herself, but kept her lips clamped shut. What about halforcen?
“We four are the oldest, and we have always fought,” Ner'zhul continued. “As the elements do. We struggle for domination, but fire will be victorious.”
“If the elements are gone, what will we be?” Garona asked, and Ner'zhul glanced at her sharply. “You be.” She was not an orc.
“We will still be fire,” Ner'zhul said firmly. “We are not children, to be ordered about by the elements. We will seize our destiny by any means necessary. I am certain of that.”
“Is that what the ancestors say?” Garona asked. “You would have spoken to them when you were a shaman.”
“The ancestors say what we wish to hear,” Ner'zhul declared darkly, startling Garona. “Tomin has said you require food and drink to recover.”
“Tomin?” Garona asked, and Ner'zhul crossed his hut again, sticking his head out of it and barking an order. He retreated back inside, and Garona could hear urgent activity outside.
“Tomin is a necrolyte,” the chieftain replied. “He closed your wounds and burned your infection away. He will tend to you further.”
“He's a healer, then,” Garoan said. “I thank you for--”
“No, child. He does not heal,” Ner'zhul replied. “Do not mistake what he does for such an old, gentle art.”
Garona considered, and lay still and silent. In her mind, she could see them, the graceful bird people and lumbering ogres, the sly, half-hidden draenei and the fearsome orcs - represented not by Gul'dan or Ner'zhul, but by the young warrior she'd seen at Oshu'gun - engaged in a deadly dance, a mix of Kurd's brutal training, the showy duels at the gathering, and the raw, terrible aggression in Gul'dan's eyes when he beat her. She shivered, and tried to push the ideas aside.
Tomin the necrolyte came swiftly, and a slope-backed peon walked behind him, carrying a bowl. The peon set the bowl down before Ner'zhul and waited, bowed.
“Not today,” Ner'zhul grunted, and the peon fled; any hunger Garona felt fled at the sight of the relief on the her face. Ner'zhul jerked his head towards Garona, and Tomin went to her side.
Tomin was thin, clad in plain black robes, edged with white, and Garona saw neither warlock nor shaman in him. Instead, he was something else entirely, flat-faced and bald. His expression was blank, as if he'd forgotten how to smile or frown, but Garona would not mistake him for stupid. Intelligence, and a bit of cruelty, sparked behind his eyes. He reached for her and she shrank back, but there was nowhere to go.
The necrolyte peeled her bandages back, and from what Garona could see, her wounds were raw looking, but very clean. There was no infection-grime, and no limb-rot. It just hurt. Tomin put his hand on her arm and pulled. The smell of her own flesh burning reached her nostrils and she cried out. The necrolyte clamped his hand over her mouth, and she bit him. He did not flinch, and he let her dig her teeth into his fingers.
The sensation went on and on, and it was as though the poison coming from the clouds was pounding on her again, driving its way through her clothes and into her flesh. She couldn't bite, all she could do was scream and scream.
When it was over - and it did end, after too long - Garona fell back, limp and tired, and Tomin retreated to tend to his fingers while Ner'zhul rebound her arm. He was not gentle, but he was firm, and her arm felt more numb than not, so even rough treatment did not trouble her.
“Never again,” Garona whispered. “Never...”
“The alternative is that you lay here, useless and draining our resources, halfbreed,” Tomin said, his voice thick and harsh, pain and exhaustion linked together. “There is always a price, and it is either coin or time. You do not have time, and you do not have coin. You will not be able to stay here, in the home and the bed of our Chieftain forever. Gul'dan's parasite will not be suffered to stay here.”
“Enough, Tomin, go,” Ner'zhul said. “And clamp down better next time, she shouldn't have been able to bite you.”
The necrolyte snarled and stormed out. Garona watched him go, and looked up at Ner'zhul. “I didn't know it was your bed.”
Ner'zhul grunted dismissively. “I don't use it much. Trances are more restful than sleep. They also keep you more alert. I recommend it when you feel unsafe.”
I always feel unsafe, except when I am in the shadows, Garona thought. “What did he mean? What did I pay? What did he do?”
“Necrolytes do not heal, I've told you,” Ner'zhul said, frowning. “They pull your strength out, and you heal yourself. If your wound was too bad, it would have killed you.” Garona blinked, unsettled, and Ner'zhul continued. “In a day or two, if you are strong, you can travel again. You will learn my message and take it back to Karabor.”
“What coin could I have paid?” Garona asked. “If I had something to pay?”
“Necrolytes can pull strength from others to repair injuries,” Ner'zhul said. “But your life is not worth that of one of the peons.”
'Not today', Ner'zhul had said to the peon. Garona thought of the way her mother had died, and shuddered. “What do I pay to you?”
“Nothing, yet,” Ner'zhul replied. “You are not useful to me. This will not be your last trip into the wilds of Shadowmoon Valley. You will be useful to me, as you are useful to Gul'dan.”
“I'm not,” Garona said abruptly. “I'm not useful to him at all, he hates me.”
Ner'zhul chuckled, and secured the bandage on her arm, then brought her the bowl, and she saw it was filled with broth, though it was no longer very hot. She wondered how much time she had lost by being 'healed', and how much she had paid. She brought it to her lips and drank, tasting Tomin's blood mixed with it.
“You are not special in that regard, child,” Ner'zhul told her pointedly. “Gul'dan hates everyone.”
~ * ~
“What was the message?” Thrall asked. The sparring session had ended long ago, and now he was washing himself in the barrels of water collected from the shore. It was biting and salty, but it didn't waste good, clean water on sweaty fighters.
“The elements had been all but banished from Shadowmoon Valley, and the only ones left were those that could be harnessed to violent purpose,” Garona replied. She had rolled up her sleeves, and was rinsing her wrists and hands in the cold water, and scooping it up to wipe along her face and neck. “He made me memorize it until I could speak the words in his voice as if from his mind.”
“I've done that trick,” Thrall murmured. “But... Ner'zhul is an enemy of our people, like Gul'dan. That we use the same techniques... that Drek'thar teaches the way Ner'zhul did...”
Garona was silent, but her expression, the way her nose wrinkled and her mouth twisted, indicated contempt the way a snort would. “Ner'zhul was a shaman once, a true shaman. I never learned why he betrayed the others, aside from the rise of the warlocks and Gul'dan's influence, but what was hinted at was that one day he heard something from the ancestors he did not like.”
“It's strange to think someone like that could become a leader,” Thrall remarked, and began to wipe himself down with a rough piece of linen. “People looked up to him once.”
“If a hero lives long enough, they can see themselves become a villain,” Garona said.
Thrall turned his head, his mouth open to deny it, but she was gone.
~ * ~
Thrall found Varok Saurfang, warrior of the Blackrock clan, High Overlord of the city of Orgrimmar, standing outside the city's gates, watching the farmers tend to their hogs. Thrall found himself thinking of Garona's stories, of the way the farmers of Draenor had perpetuated their herds.
“It smells just as bad here as it did on Draenor,” Varok began, nodding to the farms. Thrall wrinkled his nose. “A pig shits the same no matter where they're doing it.”
“Why are you standing downwind from it, then?” Thrall asked, and Varok shrugged.
“To remember that fact,” Varok replied. “You've made a new friend.”
“An old friend, technically,” Thrall said, and let his gaze drift over the farmers and pigs both. “One with very old stories.”
“Ah,” Varok said. He was silent, but rested his hand on his belt where his axe would usually hang. “What do you think?”
“That there was much of the stories that Drek'thar and Orgrim left out,” Thrall replied. He looked over at Varok. “Though I suppose stories about farming aren't very exciting for a boy that wants to know all about his people.”
Varok relaxed a fraction, and Thrall knew why. His heart clenched painfully. “No, farming isn't exciting. It isn't glamourous. It isn't stirring, but it is necessary. A great deal that isn't pleasant is necessary.”
“We can tell ourselves that,” Thrall said quietly. “We can tell ourselves that we are justified in doing unpleasant things out of ignorance.”
“Just so,” Varok growled, and looked away. Thrall put his hand on Varok's arm, and he looked back. “Warchief?”
“The difference between being a villain and being a hero is that when a hero makes mistakes, they acknowledge those mistakes. They understand that they've made them and move on. They don't make the excuse that it was inevitable, that it had to happen.”
Silence hung between them, and then Varok chuckled, just a little. It was a sad thing, a dry thing. “You are so very young, Thrall.”
“Then it's a good thing I have those who are well-aged to guide me, isn't it?” Thrall replied lightly.
“Are you calling me old, boy?” the High Overlord demanded, and Thrall smiled at him, blue eyes sparkling in the light of day.
“I would never,” Thrall replied, and together, they went back to watching the farmers toil.
[Part 4]
Title: Assassin
Part: 3/?
Word Count: 6526
Includes: Angst, sap, adorableness. A story told in flashbacks, there will be one-sided crushes and meaningful stares.
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
Thrall's fist connected with the training dummy and it rocked, creaking back on its mount, throwing dust into the air that glittered in the heat of the day before it rained down around him. Thrall did not picture an enemy before him. Too often, gladiators were encouraged to hate their enemy, to picture them in their mind while training so that they could punish them over and over. Thrall had once imagined Blackmoore. Sometimes, he was still tempted, but his former owner was dead, and such things were habit forming.
We must be greater than revenge, Thrall thought, throwing another punch, and then another. He monitored each blow carefully, wanting to exercise but not destroy the training dummy. Another sign of a loss of control, another sign that he wasn't in balance. A shaman must be in harmony with the elements at all times, and while the elements may be tumultuous at times, they are also calm. A shaman must know himself. A shaman must find his centre--
He felt his fist connect with a hand, the impact loud enough that he looked up, startled. Garona stood before him, one of her hands having caught his blow with remarkable ease. Thrall stopped and smiled. "You're very quiet."
"Your thoughts are very loud," Garona said. "Do you want a sparring partner?"
"If I may also have a storyteller," Thrall said, shifting his posture to square off against her. Sweat prickled along the muscles of his bare back, and he could feel it drip, soaking into the waistband of his trousers. His fists tightened, the wraps around his fingers sweat-soaked and dirty. Garona wore her usual garb, with no extra padding, but she met each of his blows easily. Thrall had known that Garona was fast and silent, and even now, as he could feel the fire within his heart, Garona was muted, her emotions as invisible to him as if he fought her blindfolded.
"Very well," Garona said. "As it happens, the next part of my story is appropriate." She blocked another blow, spun and made to strike at Thrall's knee. Thrall found himself on the defensive, blocking the blow and shifting back. "After Oshu'gun, Gul'dan brought me back to Karabor. He left me alone for a time, but then he dragged me out of the shadows again to present me to Kurd Shadowbreaker."
"You must have been..."
"Young, yes. As you were when you began to train with Sergeant." Garona snapped a kick at his side, and Thrall winced as he absorbed it. "Kurd was to be my combat instructor, though I use those terms loosely. I was given a knife. Kurd was bare-handed. I was instructed to defend myself. Kurd beat me until I learned how."
"But that's not--"
"Kurd was an assassin, not a drill instructor. He had little concern for fairness, or my personal welfare. If I died, it was because I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't worthy of the brief life I'd already had. The first time I managed to deflect a blow, I was so proud of myself... and then he sent me flying because I'd gotten distracted by my own success."
Thrall frowned, and ducked her next blow, sweeping his leg low. She jumped back, and Thrall advanced on her, striking hard and fast. "But you survived."
"I did, but our training could only end one way," Garona said, deflecting the blows. Thrall could feel the padding in her sleeves, and the muscle underneath. "I was ten when I killed him. For years of beatings, of torture. My first feeling was relief. I was free from him. My second was abject fear. I hid in the shadows of Karabor until Gul'dan dragged me out. He told me..." She paused, and Thrall pulled his blow. "That he was proud of me for surviving, that the objective had been to teach me to kill."
"When you were terrorized and backed into a corner," Thrall growled. "That's no way to teach a child."
"That depends on what you want to teach the child, doesn't it?"
~ * ~
"This is a map of Shadowmoon Valley," Gul'dan said. Garona peered down at it. She had seen maps before, brief sketches on hide, but this was the largest one she'd ever seen... and frankly, it was quite disappointing. While she could see the edges of the mountains, and the settlement of the Dragonmaw clan, she could recall much more from her journey to Nagrand. "What do you think?"
"It is very plain," Garona said. "It's missing details. The Hand of Gul'dan is here." She lay her hand over part of the map. "And the forest of obsidian trees was here." She pointed to another section that was largely featureless.
"Shadowmoon Valley has changed since this map was created," Gul'dan said, neither acknowledging nor disagreeing with her assessment, and Garona's spirits rose.
He approves, she thought, though Gul'dan made a noise in the back of his throat.
"Shadowmoon Valley needs to be remapped. The details need to be preserved, but that will be for another time." He studied Garona, his black gaze piercing her through and through. She kept her eyes on the map. “I need you to deliver a message for me to Shadowmoon Village.”
Garona found the settlement in question far to the west, and she traced a finger from the temple to the village along the mountain range, and then looked up for confirmation. He nodded slightly. “I would need to go this way.”
“The land has changed, as I said. Copy this portion of the map, and use it to guide you. Fill in what has changed and it will be added to the great map.” He gave a thin, humourless smile. “It is too valuable to be taken from Karabor.”
"Yes, Gul'dan," Garona said. Gul'dan nodded and presented her with a handful of tools. A stick of carbon to mark a series of smaller hides. Immediately, Garona began to copy the map, her movements quick and precise, and soon, the form of the mountain range was duplicated. She marked each portion of the map with runes, and Gul'dan raised an eyebrow, but said nothing of it.
“You will need supplies,” Gul'dan said, his voice grating. “And you will need this.” He drew a knife from his belt, a sharp piece of obsidian affixed on a wooden handle and bound with leather. Garona wrapped it carefully in one of the pieces of hide, and tucked it away on her person.
“I'll bring weapons with me, for hunting,” Garona said. Gul'dan did not reply, but her mind was already racing, making plans.
“Pack and depart immediately,” Gul'dan said finally. “And...” His lip twitched briefly. “Take as long as you need.”
“It will be done,” Garona said. It didn't take long to fold her tunics into her backpack, crammed into it tightly, creating a gentle cradle for her maps and Gul'dan's knife. She took her own knife and strapped it to her side. She would need that. Flint and tinder, too, would be needed, so she could start a cooking fire. They had never lacked for them when they had travelled the lonely path through Shadowmoon Valley, curving around the Hand of Gul'dan, but that would take her too far away from the Village.
Gul'dan had supervised, saying nothing, simply watching her. Her hands shook a little, but she forced herself to be calm, to concentrate. Once she was done, she looked up at him, determination shining in her eyes, before departing through the echoing halls. The warlocks eyed her with a combination of amusement and disgust, shaking their heads. Garona ignored them, holding her head high as her curls bounced against her shoulders. The scouts on the wall jeered at her as she carefully walked down the steps and took her first solitary steps on the valley's floor.
The ground was hard black, and Garona toed at it curiously. While it wasn't the same fel iron as Karabor's floors, it still felt hard, unwelcoming. She remembered seeing in on the journey to Oshu'gun and finding it to be quite curious. It's nothing at all like Nagrand. She knelt down, running her fingertips over it. It felt cold, and Garona looked up. She could see the sun's light filtering through dismal, thin clouds. In Nagrand, when she'd seen clouds, they were huge, white and fluffy. Here, they seemed to blanket the sky.
I wonder how long this will take? Garona wondered as she began to walk. Her gaze studied each detail, seeing ruins of old settlements, ground into dust by bad weather. She wandered into one of them, poking at what had been left behind. Some things were petrified, and others so worn down they were unidentifiable lumps.
This could be a skinning pit, Garona mused. And those are houses, though they look like they've collapsed into themselves… I wonder what happened here? She circled the worn village twice and began to sketch, using the shape of the mountains to guide her hand.
Her stomach reminded her that she would need to hunt soon, and Garona looked around over the dead, dirty ruins. She knew how to hunt, in theory. She'd listened to the hunters make their boasts. The key was looking for homes, and tracks, depending on what she was hunting.
As hunger gnawed at her stomach, she began to search and came to one unfortunate, painful conclusion: nothing was growing here. There was nothing for animals to eat, unless they could eat polluted soil and rock. Distantly, she could see stands of trees, thin, dark and sinister. Those were the homes of the Arakkoa, a strange race that had the appearance of the windrocs of Nagrand, save that they were more colourful, bipedal, and a little bit smarter.
If they have a nest there, they might have food, Garona thought, and gripped at the knife in her hand. If I have to fight more than one... She knew so little about them, they hid themselves often. The ogres were open about their existence, because they were so strong, and every orc knew about the draenei, but the Arakkoa..?
None of this was getting her any closer to food, and her hunger gnawed at her. She turned to look at the looming shadow of Karabor, and squared her shoulders. She would have to go back, admit she failed and... she shuddered, fear mixing with the stomach cramps. She would be punished, but there was no other choice. She could survive another beating, she couldn't survive starving to death.
Garona made her way back to the temple, stumbling up the great, wide steps until she reached the safe, cool, concealing shadows.
“Half-breed.”
Garona whirled towards the sound, her hand on her knife. Before her stood one of the warlocks, clad in black and purple. His face was relaxed into a sneer, as though he were unused to smiling. His tusks were slightly yellowed, aged past his years. His chin was bare, but his hair was pulled back into several knotted braids. She knelt in the presence of her better as she had been taught.
“Master Gorefiend.”
Teron Gorefiend, Gul'dan's co-conspirator, grunted. “Rise. Come with me.”
Garona did as she was bid, and Gorefiend began to walk. Instead of going inside the temple, they circled around outside along the balconies, one of the only places forbidden to her. Garona's stomach twisted, but she said nothing, instead watching the warlock's back. She had observed him before, often in secret and sometimes very briefly. What she knew of him was minimal: he had a mate and a child who lived elsewhere, and had spoken against her living in Karabor.
The Black Temple is no place for a child, he had said. Send her elsewhere.
No, Gul'dan had growled at him. She stays.
Is he trying to kill me now? Garona wondered, tensing up. She had confidence she could outrun him, for now, but if he caught her, he could still beat her. He was no Kurd Shadowbreaker, to torment her and leave her bleeding and crying. He would take her seriously, and that meant he was dangerous.
Teron said nothing, indicated nothing. He simply walked, his robes drawn around him tightly, his steps scraping and shuffling along the fel iron path. All of the Stormreavers lived in the Black Temple of Karabor, from the rough-handed warrior guards to the warlocks, trained by Gul'dan in the ways of the dark arts. There were women who manned the walls wielding bows, and there were men who pounded steel night and day.
“We're almost there,” Gorefiend said shortly, breaking the silence for the first time since he'd found her.
“Where are we going?” Garona asked, and expected a cuff for her question. Instead, he grunted.
“You'll figure it out,” he replied, and said no more. As it happened, Garona smelled it before anything else: the strong scent of dung. She quickly switched to shallow mouth breathing, and moments later, Teron led her down a ramp to a wide, open area behind the temple where there was a flat plateau. Her eyes widened with surprise.
There were people here, and more, there were boars. They were huge, nearly as tall as she was, all bristles and tusks. There were men here, and women, clad not in armour, but in plain leather, smeared with filth. Not far from where the boars were kept penned was green. Most of it was gresht, a tough vegetable that grew anywhere there was the slightest hint of moisture, but there were other things, root vegetables, being carefully tended by more filth-smeared men and women with different tools.
“These are farmers,” Gorefiend said. “We do not hunt here in Shadowmoon Valley. There is no food aside from what we can wrench from the land here, where it is softer, less dead. The boars are the meat, the leather, and other things. Their mess goes to the land to grow vegetables, and we feed the vegetables to the boars first, so that they live that we may have meat, and the rest to those who need it. It is a cycle.”
“What happened to the rest of Shadowmoon Valley?” Garona asked, staring out at those toiling. One of the boars jerked its head, goring the arm of one of the farmers. He fell back with a bellow, and quickly, two of his fellows pulled him back before the boar could stomp more than twice, while others prodded the boar away. It all took no more than a moment, and the sound of squealing boars and moaning faded.
“The draenei,” Gorefiend said shortly. “This was one of their strongholds once. You can see their old cities, worn down by the poison rains. They shared it with the Shadowmoon Clan, they who named this portion of Draenor. As the orcs grew stronger, the draenei turned the elements on us. They began to hate us. We have always made war, it is how it has always been, but this was new, it was poison. They killed the land so that we could not have it. They fled, but we remained. We have made the land comply enough to keep us here.”
There was conviction in his words, a determined, deep-seated hate towards the draenei and the elements both. She looked up, gazing at his hard, angry face, and saw how certain he was that this was the cause of the suffering of so many. She could hear Gul’dan’s words with Gorefiend’s voice, and realized that he didn’t know that he was wrong.
“What about the demons?” Garona asked. “Why do you think they're better?”
“The demons,” Teron said at length, “are only trying to help.” He gestured out towards the farmers. “If you're going out, you need supplies. Meat, gresht, vegetables. When we travelled to Oshu'gun, we slaughtered a whole herd of boars and left the farmers behind to build the herds back up and plant once more. You won't need that much, small as you are, but you must take all you can carry.”
“I thought I could hunt,” Garona said. “There is nothing alive out there.”
“No, things live,” Gorefiend said, and made to walk away. “They just aren't things that you can hunt better than they can hunt you. You will die, and no one will find your corpse.”
“Why do you care?” Garona asked, suddenly and fiercely. “You don't want me here.”
“No, I don't,” Teron agreed, and glanced down at her. “I thought you deserved better.”
With that, he strode off, his feet scraping along the fel iron path. Garona watched the farmers and the swine for a moment longer, before her stomach twisted in hunger, and she fled into the cool darkness of the Temple.
~ * ~
“He was right about one thing,” Thrall said as they sparred. “You did deserve better.”
“Perhaps it's what I deserved, but I didn't get it,” Garona replied, spinning and kicking. “I slept at the Temple that night, and in the morning I collected whatever food supplies I could carry. I had to repack my things three times to fit it in a backpack, and it was heavy. It made for slow going at first. I was two days out when I got caught in the rain.”
“You've spoken of the rains before, but I can't imagine what it was like. The rain in the Maelstrom hurt, but it wasn't poisonous.”
“It wasn't just poison,” Garona replied. “It was acid. That was the reason the cities had worn down, the reason why nothing could grow in the Valley. The Arakkoa had learned how to protect their trees, with their prayers to the Raven God and their tree houses and their oiled feathers, but flesh...”
Garona took a step back, and held up her hands. Thrall's fighting posture relaxed, and he nodded to her. She opened her shirt to the waist and pulled it off. Underneath her loose, black tunic she wore sheathes of knives, bound to her chest and torso tightly, and there was padding under her clothing, along her arms. Thrall kept his gaze polite, but he couldn't help but notice the corded muscle under her dull green skin, and the scars. She gestured him forward, and he took a look. There were a series of raindrop-sized scars along her left arm, pitted and pocked. Carefully, Thrall drew a finger along them, feeling each smooth crater and bump.
“Was this from rain?” Thrall asked. “They look like burns.”
“This was what fell from the sky,” Garona said. “I was caught in it one night, and it ate through my clothes before I could get away. It... hurt. It burned. I could barely eat from the pain, and I had to use my old, damaged shirt to wrap up my arm and put on a new one.”
“You must have gotten sick,” Thrall observed, his voice gentle with sympathy as Garona pulled her shirt back on, the knives and strength and scars hiding once again behind the secrecy of black.
“I certainly did.”
~ * ~
Shadowmoon Village was the oldest settlement in Shadowmoon Valley, home to the Shadowmoon Clan. It had been Gul'dan's home once, and that of Teron Gorefiend, and many others in the new Stormreaver Clan. It was not a temple. There was little fel iron here, and the walls that guarded the village were made of old, petrified mushrooms that had once grown thickly in Shadowmoon Valley, twice as tall as an orc with huge, vast protective caps. Most of them were gone, and only sad, stunted things could be seen through the gaps in the walls.
Garona felt hot all over and clammy. Her arm burned with each step, and her gait was shuffling. Her backpack, nearly empty, was slung over her good shoulder, the other strap cut away from the rest. It had absorbed some of the acid, and she'd need to cut it away to avoid losing the whole thing.
She was worried that the same would be necessary for her arm.
As she reached the gates, Garona found herself looking at a pair of huge, thick-armed guards at the gates to the village as they peered down at her. They were clad in the black tunics of their clan, shot through with a stark white moon and single star, and their equally black gazes were shot through with contempt.
“I'm.... I'm here to see Chieftain Ner'zhul,” she forced out through chattering teeth. She didn't know how she could be so cold and so hot at the same time. “I have a message from--”
“Get out of here, little Spook,” one of the guards said, his voice thick to her ears. Her heart was pounding, it was hard to hear.
“Little Halfbreed,” the second one added. “You aren't welcome here. The Chieftain doesn't see you.”
“Gul'dan sent me,” Garona gasped out. “I'm delivering something.”
They laughed in unison, and one swung out at her. She dodged away, and the blow sailed past her. They laughed harder as she fled into the low hills around the Valley.
Think, she told herself. Think.
She thought. Rarely, if ever, had she gotten what she wanted by asking for it. She'd had to sneak and hide and steal. That was what the temple had taught her, what Kurd had taught her. What Gul'dan had taught her. It isn't what Mama taught me, she thought dizzily. But there is only shadow, and no Light. There was something else she had been taught too, now. By Teron. Where are the farmers?
Approaching from the areas around the wall, Garona sniffed. She knew what boar-filth smelled like now, and it was present here. The boars needed space, and they needed food. Where there was space, there would be shadows, and new places to hide. She crept along the ground and the burning in her shoulder grew worse. Garona did her best to push it back, and then, when she couldn't, used it to drive herself forward.
The sooner I find Ner’zhul, the sooner I can stop, Garona told herself with each agonizing step. Then I can sleep.
She'd been in far too much pain to sleep.
There were farms here, tending quietly to the vegetables and mushrooms, and the boars were in more orderly pens. These ones seemed smaller, and slightly more docile, with fewer spikes on their great, broad backs. Garona noted each one of them before moving past them into the village proper.
There were a great many more people here than there were in the temple. They each had their own homes, domes of clay, sealed and protected against the acid rains. Garona could see places where the clay was pitted like her arm, and wondered what happened when the rain pierced all the way through, inside those small, weak sanctuaries.
I have to find Ner'zhul, Garona thought. She could see houses of differing sizes, some very small, as small as only one of the rooms in Karabor, and some large, like the great, echoing halls where Gul'dan addressed his clan. It will be the big one, Garona thought. Chieftains are the most important ones of their clan.
The trick was to avoid the people. Most of them wore cloth more than leather, and sometimes, here and there, she could see women weaving cloth or knotting string into patterns. They were the same ones, over and over, and were it not for the pain, Garona would find it more fascinating. She remembered patterns from Oshu'gun and the clans - Thunderlord, Shadow Wolf, Whirlwind - but there was nothing like this at Karabor.
Do we have no pattern? Garona wondered muzzily as she peeked inside first one great building, then another. The first one held pots and jars of all kinds, with people simply walking in and taking one, while others delivered heaps of clay. In another, there were blacksmiths, who shaped and refined iron, adamantium, and khorium. The Stormreavers came from the Shadowmoon, does that make Karabor an orphan?
She found Ner'zhul's hut on the fourth try, at the centre of the village. It was strung with bells, and they jangled slightly in the wind. A black drape covered the entrance, and Garona hurried to it, slipping under it without setting off the bells. The orc inside, whom she assumed was Ner’zhul himself, looked up as she entered and frowned.
“How did you get in here?” Ner'zhul asked. He was old, Garona noticed, his dirty green face lined and worn, and his hair was a dingy grey, hanging in loose braids, accompanied by a straggly beard. There was something about him, though. There was age, but no weakness, no kindness. His flinty grey eyes looked her over. “Well?”
Garona opened her mouth, but she could not hear herself speak. Instead, something roared in her ears, and she collapsed. She felt hot and cold all over, whimpering as she landed on her injured arm and curled around it.
Ner'zhul was moving forward now, and there was sound, deep sound, as he spoke but she understood nothing. She felt hands close over her, and then there was darkness.
The darkness was not restful. It was filled with angry shadows and sparks of light. She heard the voices of the dead - her mother, Kurd - and sometimes, those of the living. Gul'dan, reprimanding her. Teron's gruff lessons, and Ner'zhul's enquiries as to why she was there at all.
She fell into darkness and she did not dream.
~ * ~
”Well?” Ner'zhul demanded, turning the knife over in one hand. He recognized it, of course he did. He could only think of one person who would send him such a thing, one student so audacious and cruel as to send a child alone across Shadowmoon Valley. He tucked the knife aside.
“She will live, and keep the arm,” the necrolyte replied. “An orc would have died, I think.”
“No halforcen save for the Mok'nathal have been so strong,” Ner'zhul muttered. “When she is older, we will investigate further. I have time for neither children nor Gul'dan's experiments.”
“As you say, Master,” the necrolyte replied. “Do you think it is a sign?”
“It could be,” Ner'zhul muttered, gazing towards the fitfully sleeping girl. “It could very well be.”
~ * ~
Garona awoke to a dull pain in her arm. She gritted her teeth against it as she opened her eyes. As her senses came back to her, she could feel that she had been stripped down to her smallclothes and then wrapped in a blanket. Her feverish shivering was gone, and she felt neither hot nor cold, only sore and very tired.
“You're awake,” Ner'zhul said. She forced herself to focus on the location of his voice, and there he was, sitting by the fire, deftly sprinkling herbs on them. The scent was light, and Garona felt herself breathing it in, and relaxed a little more. Then she saw the knife. “Gul'dan sent you.”
“Yes,” she agreed, though it wasn't a question. “You are Chieftain Ner'zhul of the Shadowmoon Clan.”
“Yes,” he replied in the same tone she had used. “Why did he send you?”
“He said to bring you that knife,” Garona said, struggling to sit up. Ner'zhul observed this impassively, as though he didn't care whether she managed it or not. That only made her determined to sit up a little more, and wrap the blanket around her thin frame. “He wants to know if you have finished your task of dealing with the elements.”
Ner'zhul rose from his seat, and Garona could see he wore robes that were like Gul’dan’s in their cut and colour, but different in how they were decorated. While Gul'dan wore cloth painted in runes that hurt most to look at, Ner'zhul was festooned with feathers and small skulls, knots of colour and beads. Garona watched him, and put her hand against the cot she was lying on, ready to throw herself back. Her elbow shook.
“You are not well enough to hear my message,” he growled, and put his hand on her good shoulder, and pushed her down with ease. She whimpered, and he frowned. “When you can sit upright without collapsing, you will hear it.”
Garona nodded with resignation, and relaxed. She looked around Ner'zhul's home. It was lined with shelves, and each shelf held not books or scrolls, but totems and fetishes, some of them cracked and broken. There were dirty, inert rocks and coal, cracked jars and incense burned down to stubs.
Ner'zhul followed her gaze. “Memories of shamanism, broken,” he noted. “Once I needed them to give tribute to the elements of Draenor, air and earth, water and fire, that also represented the four great races.”
“Four?” Garona whispered. “Which four?”
Ner'zhul chuckled briefly, the sound like boots scraping over stone. “The ogres, Gronn, and their kin, are of earth. They come from the bladed mountains and to fight one is to take down a hill. The arakkoa are of air. They live in the trees and the look longingly to the sky for the day they can fly again. The draenei are of water. They are slippery and tricky, they hide in unlikely places. They had vast farms once, fields and fields, and then the land began to die.” Ner'zhul's expression twisted, angry like Teron's, but there was something else to it. Something that spoke of deeper knowledge. He fell silent then.
“What about fire?” Garona asked when he did not continue. Ner'zhul shook himself from his thoughts.
“Orcs.” He smiled briefly, and it changed the lines on his face oddly, and the flames flickered in the depths of his eyes. “Fire burns. It consumes. It roars and it dances. Sometimes, it warms. Sometimes, it feeds. It eats air and scorches earth and evaporates water. Always, it hungers. We are of fire, it is in our blood.”
What about the Eredar? Garona wondered to herself, but kept her lips clamped shut. What about halforcen?
“We four are the oldest, and we have always fought,” Ner'zhul continued. “As the elements do. We struggle for domination, but fire will be victorious.”
“If the elements are gone, what will we be?” Garona asked, and Ner'zhul glanced at her sharply. “You be.” She was not an orc.
“We will still be fire,” Ner'zhul said firmly. “We are not children, to be ordered about by the elements. We will seize our destiny by any means necessary. I am certain of that.”
“Is that what the ancestors say?” Garona asked. “You would have spoken to them when you were a shaman.”
“The ancestors say what we wish to hear,” Ner'zhul declared darkly, startling Garona. “Tomin has said you require food and drink to recover.”
“Tomin?” Garona asked, and Ner'zhul crossed his hut again, sticking his head out of it and barking an order. He retreated back inside, and Garona could hear urgent activity outside.
“Tomin is a necrolyte,” the chieftain replied. “He closed your wounds and burned your infection away. He will tend to you further.”
“He's a healer, then,” Garoan said. “I thank you for--”
“No, child. He does not heal,” Ner'zhul replied. “Do not mistake what he does for such an old, gentle art.”
Garona considered, and lay still and silent. In her mind, she could see them, the graceful bird people and lumbering ogres, the sly, half-hidden draenei and the fearsome orcs - represented not by Gul'dan or Ner'zhul, but by the young warrior she'd seen at Oshu'gun - engaged in a deadly dance, a mix of Kurd's brutal training, the showy duels at the gathering, and the raw, terrible aggression in Gul'dan's eyes when he beat her. She shivered, and tried to push the ideas aside.
Tomin the necrolyte came swiftly, and a slope-backed peon walked behind him, carrying a bowl. The peon set the bowl down before Ner'zhul and waited, bowed.
“Not today,” Ner'zhul grunted, and the peon fled; any hunger Garona felt fled at the sight of the relief on the her face. Ner'zhul jerked his head towards Garona, and Tomin went to her side.
Tomin was thin, clad in plain black robes, edged with white, and Garona saw neither warlock nor shaman in him. Instead, he was something else entirely, flat-faced and bald. His expression was blank, as if he'd forgotten how to smile or frown, but Garona would not mistake him for stupid. Intelligence, and a bit of cruelty, sparked behind his eyes. He reached for her and she shrank back, but there was nowhere to go.
The necrolyte peeled her bandages back, and from what Garona could see, her wounds were raw looking, but very clean. There was no infection-grime, and no limb-rot. It just hurt. Tomin put his hand on her arm and pulled. The smell of her own flesh burning reached her nostrils and she cried out. The necrolyte clamped his hand over her mouth, and she bit him. He did not flinch, and he let her dig her teeth into his fingers.
The sensation went on and on, and it was as though the poison coming from the clouds was pounding on her again, driving its way through her clothes and into her flesh. She couldn't bite, all she could do was scream and scream.
When it was over - and it did end, after too long - Garona fell back, limp and tired, and Tomin retreated to tend to his fingers while Ner'zhul rebound her arm. He was not gentle, but he was firm, and her arm felt more numb than not, so even rough treatment did not trouble her.
“Never again,” Garona whispered. “Never...”
“The alternative is that you lay here, useless and draining our resources, halfbreed,” Tomin said, his voice thick and harsh, pain and exhaustion linked together. “There is always a price, and it is either coin or time. You do not have time, and you do not have coin. You will not be able to stay here, in the home and the bed of our Chieftain forever. Gul'dan's parasite will not be suffered to stay here.”
“Enough, Tomin, go,” Ner'zhul said. “And clamp down better next time, she shouldn't have been able to bite you.”
The necrolyte snarled and stormed out. Garona watched him go, and looked up at Ner'zhul. “I didn't know it was your bed.”
Ner'zhul grunted dismissively. “I don't use it much. Trances are more restful than sleep. They also keep you more alert. I recommend it when you feel unsafe.”
I always feel unsafe, except when I am in the shadows, Garona thought. “What did he mean? What did I pay? What did he do?”
“Necrolytes do not heal, I've told you,” Ner'zhul said, frowning. “They pull your strength out, and you heal yourself. If your wound was too bad, it would have killed you.” Garona blinked, unsettled, and Ner'zhul continued. “In a day or two, if you are strong, you can travel again. You will learn my message and take it back to Karabor.”
“What coin could I have paid?” Garona asked. “If I had something to pay?”
“Necrolytes can pull strength from others to repair injuries,” Ner'zhul said. “But your life is not worth that of one of the peons.”
'Not today', Ner'zhul had said to the peon. Garona thought of the way her mother had died, and shuddered. “What do I pay to you?”
“Nothing, yet,” Ner'zhul replied. “You are not useful to me. This will not be your last trip into the wilds of Shadowmoon Valley. You will be useful to me, as you are useful to Gul'dan.”
“I'm not,” Garona said abruptly. “I'm not useful to him at all, he hates me.”
Ner'zhul chuckled, and secured the bandage on her arm, then brought her the bowl, and she saw it was filled with broth, though it was no longer very hot. She wondered how much time she had lost by being 'healed', and how much she had paid. She brought it to her lips and drank, tasting Tomin's blood mixed with it.
“You are not special in that regard, child,” Ner'zhul told her pointedly. “Gul'dan hates everyone.”
~ * ~
“What was the message?” Thrall asked. The sparring session had ended long ago, and now he was washing himself in the barrels of water collected from the shore. It was biting and salty, but it didn't waste good, clean water on sweaty fighters.
“The elements had been all but banished from Shadowmoon Valley, and the only ones left were those that could be harnessed to violent purpose,” Garona replied. She had rolled up her sleeves, and was rinsing her wrists and hands in the cold water, and scooping it up to wipe along her face and neck. “He made me memorize it until I could speak the words in his voice as if from his mind.”
“I've done that trick,” Thrall murmured. “But... Ner'zhul is an enemy of our people, like Gul'dan. That we use the same techniques... that Drek'thar teaches the way Ner'zhul did...”
Garona was silent, but her expression, the way her nose wrinkled and her mouth twisted, indicated contempt the way a snort would. “Ner'zhul was a shaman once, a true shaman. I never learned why he betrayed the others, aside from the rise of the warlocks and Gul'dan's influence, but what was hinted at was that one day he heard something from the ancestors he did not like.”
“It's strange to think someone like that could become a leader,” Thrall remarked, and began to wipe himself down with a rough piece of linen. “People looked up to him once.”
“If a hero lives long enough, they can see themselves become a villain,” Garona said.
Thrall turned his head, his mouth open to deny it, but she was gone.
~ * ~
Thrall found Varok Saurfang, warrior of the Blackrock clan, High Overlord of the city of Orgrimmar, standing outside the city's gates, watching the farmers tend to their hogs. Thrall found himself thinking of Garona's stories, of the way the farmers of Draenor had perpetuated their herds.
“It smells just as bad here as it did on Draenor,” Varok began, nodding to the farms. Thrall wrinkled his nose. “A pig shits the same no matter where they're doing it.”
“Why are you standing downwind from it, then?” Thrall asked, and Varok shrugged.
“To remember that fact,” Varok replied. “You've made a new friend.”
“An old friend, technically,” Thrall said, and let his gaze drift over the farmers and pigs both. “One with very old stories.”
“Ah,” Varok said. He was silent, but rested his hand on his belt where his axe would usually hang. “What do you think?”
“That there was much of the stories that Drek'thar and Orgrim left out,” Thrall replied. He looked over at Varok. “Though I suppose stories about farming aren't very exciting for a boy that wants to know all about his people.”
Varok relaxed a fraction, and Thrall knew why. His heart clenched painfully. “No, farming isn't exciting. It isn't glamourous. It isn't stirring, but it is necessary. A great deal that isn't pleasant is necessary.”
“We can tell ourselves that,” Thrall said quietly. “We can tell ourselves that we are justified in doing unpleasant things out of ignorance.”
“Just so,” Varok growled, and looked away. Thrall put his hand on Varok's arm, and he looked back. “Warchief?”
“The difference between being a villain and being a hero is that when a hero makes mistakes, they acknowledge those mistakes. They understand that they've made them and move on. They don't make the excuse that it was inevitable, that it had to happen.”
Silence hung between them, and then Varok chuckled, just a little. It was a sad thing, a dry thing. “You are so very young, Thrall.”
“Then it's a good thing I have those who are well-aged to guide me, isn't it?” Thrall replied lightly.
“Are you calling me old, boy?” the High Overlord demanded, and Thrall smiled at him, blue eyes sparkling in the light of day.
“I would never,” Thrall replied, and together, they went back to watching the farmers toil.
[Part 4]