The hand on the Focusing Iris clenched into a fist.
Jaina slowly got to her feet and lifted her tear-stained face first toward Kalec, then toward Thrall.
“For what he has done, Garrosh can be nothing but my enemy—and the Horde as well, as long as he is their warchief. I have hundreds of elementals enslaved to me. And I will use them.”
Both Thrall and Kalec tensed.
Jaina swallowed hard, and the words crawled past the lump in her throat. “I will use them to aid the Alliance. To protect my people. I will not obliterate an entire city, for I am not Garrosh. I will not slaughter unarmed civilians, for I am not Arthas. I am my own master.”
With those words, the tidal wave fractured. It was no longer a towering wall of water but hundreds of individual water elementals. They bobbed on the waves, awaiting Jaina’s command.
“You have a right to wage war upon the Horde, Jaina,” Thrall said. “But the blood on your hands will now be those of warriors, not children. In time, your heart will be glad of this choice.”
“You do not know my heart anymore, Thrall,” she said. “I am no butcher—but I will no longer call for peace at any cost. The Horde you do not lead is dangerous and must be challenged at every turn—and defeated. Then, perhaps, there can be peace. But not before.”
Despite what she had said about her heart, she felt it ache at the sorrowful expression on his face. The lives lost at Theramore and Northwatch Hold were not the only casualties. This friendship of so many years, so cherished and championed by both of them, was another. It would be a long, long time—if ever—before she could call Thrall “friend” again. And she knew he knew it.
“The coming war will shake this world as the Cataclysm did, but in a different way,” Thrall said. “And I have pledged to heal the world. I return now to the Maelstrom. Lady Jaina, I would we had parted another way.”
“So do I,” Jaina said, and meant it. “But that wish changes nothing.”
Thrall bowed deeply. He summoned a ghost wolf and climbed atop its back. Shaman and mystic creature departed, the ocean as solid as ground for them. She and Kalecgos watched him depart in silence. Finally, Jaina turned to the blue dragon.
“And what will you do, Kalecgos of the blue dragonflight?” she asked quietly.
“I will bear Lady Jaina wherever she wishes to go,” he replied.
“I will find where the Alliance fleet is engaged in battle,” she said. “But first… I… I wish to see Orgrimmar.”
26
Garrosh had ridden as fast as his dire wolf would carry him to Bladefist Bay as soon as he understood all the troll had told him. The ships had not yet arrived, so he commandeered the goblin vessel that seemed permanently moored there, to the surprise and pleasure of the small green captain. The craft chugged out to rendezvous with the other vessels approaching from Northwatch, with Garrosh, Malkorok, and many others on board.
It did not go unnoticed, but fortunately the Alliance was not yet within range. “Faster!” demanded Garrosh, but there were no shaman aboard to make the oceans obey. Garrosh itched to pull alongside one of the vessels, leap onto the deck, and start slaughtering Alliance, but he could not. Not yet. He roared with frustration as the Alliance quickly and brutally dispatched the first brave Horde ship. He watched it go down, blasted in twain and licked by fire, and let his anger fuel him.
Garrosh had been taken by surprise by the news but had recovered quickly. The Horde fleet might have been scattered over Kalimdor, but its secret weapon could be employed anywhere. Despite being so greatly outnumbered, he knew that vengeance would shortly be his.
As the goblin ship chugged valiantly toward the Alliance fleet, Garrosh laughed as several of the Alliance craft were suddenly swathed in fog. “Let them fear what is out there,” he told Malkorok. “Let them feel the terror of not knowing what we do—until they behold our true power.”
“Would that I could engage Varian myself, on his own vessel,” growled Malkorok. “He would not taste a swift death, nor an honorable one.”
“He deserves only to outlive the rest of those who accompany him, and watch them despair and die,” Garrosh said in agreement. Some of the Alliance ships had managed to evade the fog or else had been out of range. They were bearing down hard now on the three remaining Horde vessels, but as the goblin vessel finally pulled alongside the Bonecracker and Garrosh and the others leaped easily to the other ship’s deck, the war chief was calm, even anticipatory.
“Summon them,” was all he said to the captain. The troll took up the cry, and soon the call of “Summon them! Summon them!” was passed from ship to ship. The battle continued on and the air grew thick with smoke from cannon fire. On nearly every deck, Horde fighters were bleeding or dead, impaled by cruel splinters of wood the size of a human’s forearm. Healers rushed about, tending to those they could while trying to avoid being casualties themselves.
The ocean’s surface, already surging fiercely with the violation of cannonballs, shamanic enforcement, and the flotsam and jetsam of the battle, began to churn in earnest. White froth boiled, and then something exploded up from the depths.
The crew of the unfortunate Alliance ship only had time to gape in horror as the creature struck. Huge tentacles whipped about the mighty vessel, closing around it in a parody of a loving embrace. The kraken—for such it was—began to tighten the coils, squeezing, and the ship splintered. Garrosh threw back his head and laughed.
Other monsters arose from the cold heart of the ocean, angry and hostile at their enslavement but unable to vent their rage upon their masters. They turned their fury instead upon the Alliance ships, snaking out tentacles to seize and shake and sometimes fling the pieces they had made. Alliance soldiers of all races tumbled, screaming, off their broken ships and into the churning waters, where the kraken devoured them.
“Come, Malkorok!” cried Garrosh. “Let us take a few Alliance lives for our own. The kraken are powerful tools, but I do not wish all my foes to simply become food for the fish!”
“I am with you as ever, my warchief,” Malkorok said. Up ahead there was one Alliance ship that had, thus far, evaded the grasp of the kraken. It had pulled about and, instead of firing its starboard cannons at the remaining Horde ships, was turning its full attention to blasting one of the kraken.
“Captain, take us there!” he cried. “I have a thirst for Alliance blood!”
Only too grateful to oblige, and with an uneasy glance at the blue-black, shiny, half-submerged things churning in the water, the captain pulled along the port side of the Alliance ship the Lion of the Waves. The crew cried a warning, but most of the attention was focused on the starboard side. With a grace belying their great size and muscular weight, the two orcs leaped the short distance between the vessels, and the fight began in earnest.
Malkorok was swinging as he sprang onto the Lion’s deck. A draenei priest, engrossed in healing the ship’s crewmen, was cut down without even realizing the threat. Gorehowl sang its eerie song of slaughter, announcing Garrosh’s presence and chopping off the furry head of a worgen. Sensing something behind him, the orc whirled, swinging, and Gorehowl collided with the oversized axe of a looming demon. The felguard’s hideous gray face split in a yellow-toothed grin.
Garrosh laughed. “My father slew a demon far greater than you.” He sneered.
The felguard laughed in return, a dark, sinister sound. “Enjoy it while you can,” he rumbled.
Axe clashed with axe. The felguard was massive and powerful, but Garrosh was fueled by familial pride. He thought of his father fighting Mannoroth, one of the most powerful pit lords that had ever lived, and the tusks he wore in memoriam on his own brown shoulders. The felguard’s laugh halted abruptly and he began to frown as Gorehowl struck home on his gray torso. Another strike, then another, and the felguard toppled in chunks to the deck.