Durotan knew this to be true and glanced over at his friend. Orgrim stood behind his chieftain, tall and imposing and solemn. Yet when he felt Durotan’s gaze on him, he met that gaze and nodded.
There had been those who had protested this unusual friendship between two adventuresome and, Durotan had to admit, trouble-prone youths. But Durotan would not be who he was today if he had not drawn from Orgrim’s steady strength; and he knew in his bones that Orgrim felt the same about him.
But the draenei …
“May I speak?”
The voice belonged to Drek’Thar, and Durotan turned, surprised. The question seemed to be addressed not only to his chieftain, but to the shaman who had been a mentor to all of them. Ner’zhul looked at Durotan, who nodded.
“My chieftain,” Drek’Thar said, and to Durotan’s shock his voice trembled, “my chieftain, what Ner’zhul has said is true. Mother Kashur confirmed it.”
The other Frostwolf shaman nodded. Durotan stared at them. Mother Kashur? If there was anyone Durotan trusted, it was that wise old orc. His mind went back to the moment when he stood in the cavern, feeling the cold air that was not air on his face, listening and watching with every fiber of his being as Mother Kashur spoke to someone he could not see but who he knew was there.
“Mother Kashur said the draenei are our enemies?” he asked, hardly able to believe his ears.
Drek’Thar nodded.
“It is time for the clan chieftains to listen to their own shaman, as Durotan has done,” said Ner’zhul. “We will reconvene at twilight, and the chieftains will tell me their thoughts. These are the people you know and trust. Ask them what they have seen,”
The gathered crowd began to disperse. Slowly, looking at one another cautiously, the Frostwolf clan wandered back to their own encampment. As one, they sat in a circle and turned their attention to Drek’Thar, who began to speak slowly and carefully.
“The draenei are not our friends,” he said. “My chieftain … I know you and the Doomhammer Blackrock stayed with them one night, I know that you spoke well of them, I know that it appears that they saved your life. But let me ask you … did nothing strike you amiss?”
Durotan recalled the ogre bearing down on them, bellowing in fury, its club swinging. And with an uncomfortable sensation, he recalled how very, very quickly the draenei appeared to rescue him and Orgrim. How they could not return home as it was so conveniently close to twilight.
He frowned. It was an uncharitable thought, and yet …
“Your brow furrows, my chieftain. I take it, then, that your youthful faith in them is now starting to wane?”
Durotan did not answer, nor did he look at his clan’s head shaman. He stared down at the earth, not wanting to feel this way, but unable to stop the doubt from creeping into his heart, like the cold fingers of a frosty morning.
In his memory, he again spoke to Restalaan, telling the tall blue draenei, “We were not as we are now.”
“No, you are not,” Restalaan had said. “We have watched the orcs grow in strength and skill and talent. You have impressed us,”
He felt again a sharp sting, as if the compliment were a carefully crafted insult. As if the draenei thought they were superior … even with their strange, unnatural blue skin, their legs shaped like those of common talbuks, with long, reptilian tails and shiny blue hooves instead of decent feet like the orcs had—
“Speak, my chieftain. What do you recall?”
Durotan told him in a rough and heavy voice of the fortuitous arrival of the draenei, of Restalaan’s near arrogance, “And … and Velen, their prophet, asked many questions about us, and he was not making idle conversation. He truly seemed to want to know about the orcs.” “Of course he did,” Drek’Thar said. “What an opportunity! They have been plotting against us since they arrived. And to find two—forgive me. Durotan, but two young and naive children to tell them everything they wanted to know? It must have been quite an event.”
The ancestors would not lie to them, especially about something so important. Durotan knew this. And now that he recalled the events of that day and night in this new light of knowledge, it was obvious how suspicious Velen’s actions had been. And yet … was Velen such a master of deceit that the sensation of trust both Orgrim and Durotan had felt had been all a lie?
Durotan bowed his head.
“There is part of me that doubts yet, my friends,” he said quietly. “And yet, I cannot stake the future of our people on such thin ice as my own personal doubts. Ner’zhul did not propose an assault tomorrow. He asked for us to train, and watch, and prepare, and draw closer as a people. This I will do, for the good of the Frostwolves and the good of the orcs.”
He looked at each worried face in turn, some merely friends, some, like Drek’Thar and Draka, known and loved.
“The Frostwolf clan will prepare for war.”
8
How easily the mind can be turned to hate from a place of fear—an instinctive, natural, protective response. Instead of focusing on the things that unite us, we focus on what divides us. My skin is green; yours is pink. I have tusks; you have long ears. My skin is bare; yours is covered with fur. I breathe air; you do not. If we had clung to such things, the Burning Legion would not have been defeated, for I would never have wished to ally with Jaina Proudmoore, or fight alongside elves. My people would then not have survived to befriend the tauren, or the forsaken.
So it was with draenei. Our skin was reddish-brown then; theirs was blue. We had feet, they had hooves and a tail. We lived mostly in the open, they lived in enclosed spaces. We had a fairly short life span; no one knew how long-lived they were.
Nevermind that they had shown us nothing but courtesy and openness. That they had traded with us, taught us, shared whatever they were asked to share. That had no bearing now. We had heard from the ancestors, and we saw with our own eyes how different they were.
My prayer, every day, is for wisdom to guide my people. And in that prayer is couched a plea, never to be blinded by such trivial differences.
The training began. It had always been custom among nearly every clan to begin training the younglings once they celebrated their sixth year, but previously, the training had been serious but relaxed. Weapons were for hunting animals, not sentient beings who had their own weapons and skills and technological advantages, and there were plenty of hunters who could easily bring down prey. A young orc learned at his or her own pace, and there was plenty of time for play and enjoying simply being young.
No longer.
The plea for unity among the orcs was answered. The couriers exhausted their beasts riding to and fro between clans carrying messages. At one point some bright fellow came up with the idea of training bloodhawks to carry the letters. It took some doing and did not happen overnight, but gradually, Durotan grew used to seeing the scarlet birds fluttering to Drek’Thar and others in the clan. He approved of the idea; every warm body was needed if battle plans were to be successful.
While spears, arrows, axes, and other weapons worked well against the animals of the fields and forests, they would need to be supplemented with other types of weapons if they were to be used against the draenei. Protection would be vital, and whereas before the smiths and leathercrafters focused on armor that would blunt attacks from claws and teeth, now they had to create things that would save the wearer if he were impaled or slashed by a sword. Those who understood the craft of smithing had been few previously; now, the master smiths found themselves teaching dozens at a time. The forges rang day and night with the sound of hammers and the hiss of hot metal being plunged into water barrels. Many spent long days swinging picks, forcing the earth to yield the necessary minerals for crafting weapons and metal armor. Hunts, which had been conducted as the need arose, now were daily events, as food needed to be dried and preserved and skins were required for armor.