“It’s… so beautiful,” she whispered.
Kalec splayed his fingers and drew his hand through the orb. As if it were mist he disturbed, it fragmented, then reformed in still another way. It was a ceaselessly shifting kaleidoscope of magic, of precise patterns and order.
“Do you understand, Jaina?” he asked. She continued to stare, almost hypnotized by the exquisite patterns of formation, shattering, and reconfiguration.
“It’s… more than spells,” she said.
He nodded. “It’s what spells are made of.”
For a moment, she didn’t follow him. Spells had incantations, gesticulation, sometimes reagents—and then understanding smote her so powerfully she almost stumbled with the revelation.
“It’s… math!”
“Equations. Theorems. Order,” Kalec said, pleased. “Combined in one way, they are one thing—in another, something altogether different. It is fixed and mutable, as is a life. All things change, Jaina, whether from the inside out or the outside in. Sometimes with only a single shift in a variable.”
“And… we are magic, too,” Jaina whispered. She tore her gaze from the ineffably beautiful swirl of lyrical, poetical math and began to form a question.
“Lady Jaina!”
The shout startled them both, and they turned to see Captain Wymor galloping toward them on a bay horse. He pulled the beast up so sharply it reared and mouthed the bit.
“Captain Wymor, what—” Jaina began, but the guard cut her off.
“Pained has returned with news,” he said, panting from the short but intense ride. “The Horde—they are gathering. Coming from Orgrimmar and Ratchet as well as from Mulgore. It looks like they’re set to converge on Northwatch Hold!”
“No,” Jaina breathed, her heart, an instant ago so buoyed by the beauty and insight Kalecgos had shared with her, now heavy in her chest. “Please, no… not this… not now…”
7
It was Ol’ Durty Pete’s turn to keep watch in Corporal Teegan’s Expedition encampment, located on the edge of the mysterious jungle Overgrowth, which had seemingly sprung up overnight. Despite his fondness for a “mug o’ th’ brew” on, well, nearly an hourly basis, the white-bearded dwarf knew enough to take his assignments seriously. He hadn’t had anything to drink since nightfall, and it was nearly dawn.
He patted his blunderbuss—which he loved, even if it was becoming a bit erratic these days (unkind folks said it was Ol’ Durty Pete who was erratic, not his gun)—and sighed. Soon his watch would be over, and he could open up that cherry grog he’d been saving for—
There was a rustle in the undergrowth. The old dwarf got to his feet with more speed than most would have given him credit for. All kinds of strange critters could be attacking. Raptors, plainstriders, those big nasty flower- or moss-things—
A woman, wearing a tabard that sported a golden anchor, stumbled forward, stared at him a moment, and then collapsed. Pete barely caught her as she fell.
“Teegan!” roared Pete. “We got oursels a problem!”
A few seconds later, one of the guards was attempting to bandage the young scout’s injuries, but Pete thought sadly that it was pretty clear the little missy wasn’t going to pull through. She reached out frantically, grabbing on to Hannah Bridgewater’s arm as Hannah bent over her.
“H-Horde,” the scout rasped. “T-tauren. Opened the gate. Heading east. Think… Northwatch…”
Her eyes closed, and her black hair, matted with blood, fell back limply against Pete’s broad chest. He patted her shoulder awkwardly.
“Ye got yer message through, lass,” he said. “Ye done good. Take yer rest, noo.”
Teegan hurrying up in response to Pete’s call, shot the dwarf an angry look. “She’s dead, you idiot.”
Gently, Pete replied, “I know, laddie. I know.”
Two minutes later, the fastest one among them, Hannah, was running as quickly as her long, strong legs would carry her, east to Northwatch, praying to the Light that she wouldn’t be too late.
Admiral Tarlen Aubrey was, as usual, awake before dawn. He rose swiftly, splashed water on his face, dressed, and shaved. As he met his own eyes in the mirror, he saw that they had circles underneath them and frowned as he carefully shaped the beard and mustache that were his only concessions to physical vanity. Over the last few days, the Rageroar clan of orcs had appeared to be regrouping—what was left of them. Skirmishes had broken out, during which it had been reported that a few of the orcs had shouted insults along the lines that the Alliance would get what was coming to it, or had grunted defiant comments as they died, such as, “My death will be avenged.”
Nothing out of the ordinary, not really. Confidence and arrogance marked almost every orc, in Aubrey’s experience, and the Rageroar in particular. And yet, he had not gotten to his position without being alert to all possible dangers. It was odd that the Rageroar had come back after being defeated, and he needed to know why. He had sent out spies to confirm if the Horde was beginning to move toward war, and especially if its sights were on Northwatch Hold. None had reported in yet; it was too early.
Aubrey broke his fast with a banana and some strong tea and headed to his usual patrol route. He nodded a greeting to Signal Officer Nathan Blaine, who saluted smartly despite the early hour, and together the two men looked out over the sea. Dawn was full-on, and the ocean and dock were painted in shades of rose, scarlet, and crimson, the clouds hovering above limned faintly with gold here and there.
“‘Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning,’” Aubrey mused as he sipped his tea.
“‘Red sky at night, sailor’s delight,’” Blaine finished. “But we’re not sailing today, sir.” He gave the admiral a lopsided but still respectful grin.
“True enough,” said Aubrey, “but we are always sailors. Keep an eye out, Nathan.” The admiral’s eyes narrowed a bit. “There’s something…”
He pursed his lips, shaking his head, then turned and descended the tower quickly. He left the sentence unfinished.
“A tad superstitious, isn’t he noo?” said a dwarven guard to Blaine.
“Perhaps,” said Nathan, turning back to the bay. “But I bet you still always step onto a ship with your right foot first, don’t you?”
“Um,” said the dwarf, his cheeks flushing a bit red, “aye. No sense in invitin’ bad luck, noo, is there?”
Nathan grinned.
They were a sea of green and brown moving steadily down the Gold Road through the Northern Barrens toward Ratchet. Most of the orcs were on foot, though a few of the elite—including the Kor’kron, Malkorok, and the warchief himself—rode wolves. Some were mounted on kodos, the better to manage the drums of war that were sending a trembling pounding through the very earth itself.
Word had gone ahead, of course, so that at each town more could gather and join the march on Northwatch. Those who would not participate in the active battle, and they were few—the elderly, the very young, the mothers of suckling babes—nonetheless ran out to cheer Garrosh and his unquestioned victory.
Garrosh, tall and proud on his black-furred, muscular wolf, raised Gorehowl in response to the cheers but seldom dismounted. The pace of the march enabled the army to be seen from far enough away for the warriors, magi, healers, and shaman to fall in step without slowing down the river of Horde that flowed along the road. As they left the Crossroads, where their numbers had swelled, Malkorok brought his mount alongside Garrosh’s. He thumped his chest in a salute, and Garrosh nodded acknowledgment.
“Any word?” Garrosh asked.
“It seems that Baine is indeed loyal to us, for the present,” said Malkorok. “He and the trolls slew the Alliance scouts that hovered at the Great Gate and now march east to Northwatch, as they said they would.”
Garrosh turned to Malkorok. “I commend you for your watchfulness, Malkorok,” he said. “Surely now you see that I hold Baine in the palm of my hand. He is devoted to his people and would not risk them. He knows that I suffer no such hesitation when it comes to the tauren. His protectiveness of them is a trait to both admire and hold in contempt. And,” he added, “to use.”