The now-familiar horn awakening the Horde and summoning them to the courtyard blew before dawn. Durotan had not been sleeping; he did not sleep much anymore. He and Draka rose without a word and began to dress.
Suddenly he heard her inhale swiftly. He turned at once to see that she was staring at him, her eyes wide.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Your … your skin,” she said quietly He looked down at his bare chest. His skin was dry and flaky and as he scratched at it, the skin beneath it looked … green. He remembered seeing the same tint on young Ghun’s skin not so long ago.
“It’s just the light,” he said, trying to reassure them both. She would not be so easily placated. Draka lifted her own arm and scratched. Her skin, too, was green. She lifted dark eyes to him. They both saw it. It was no trick of the light.
“What is happening to us?” Draka asked.
Durotan had no answer. They continued to dress in silence, and as he went outside to the courtyard to wait, Durotan’s eyes kept traveling to his arm, the strange green hue of his skin hidden beneath dented metal armor.
The announcement about the assembly had come yesterday afternoon, during a training session with some of the younger orcs. Durotan still could not get used to seeing children who, a few months earlier, had been barely able to walk now wielding swords and axes with extraordinary power. They seemed content with their new status, even pleased, but Durotan fought the urge to shake his head every time he saw them.
Durotan found he could not even summon curiosity about their next target. It would be the same as before—slaughter, rage, defilement of corpses. Recently, even the bodies of slain Horde had been left where they had fallen, their weapons and armor taken to be used on a living body. Sometimes a friend or family member bowed over die corpse for a moment, but even that was happening less frequently. Gone were the days of bringing home the honored dead and placing them with deep ritual upon a funeral pyre, their spirits sent with all ceremony to join the ancestors. Now, there was no time for rituals, or pyres, or the ancestors. There was no time for the dead. There was no time for anything, it would seem, but slaughtering draenei and mending weapons and armor so the Horde could go out again to continue the task.
He stood with dull eyes in the courtyard, awaiting his orders. Blackhand rode to the gates of the Citadel, where they could see him clearly. There was a wind today With nothing to block it in this desolate place, it caused the banners of the various clans to snap fiercely.
“We have a long march ahead of us,” Blackhand cried. “You were told to pack supplies. I hope you listened. Warriors, your weapons must be ready and your armor sound. Healers, have your ointments, potions, and bandages at hand. But before we march to war, we will march to glory.”
He lifted a hand and pointed off in the distance, where the sullen mountain that jutted against the sky puffed black smoke.
“That is our first destination. We will stand on the mountain … and what happens there will be remembered for a thousand years. It will begin a time in which the orcs will know power that we have never before tasted.”
He paused to let this sink in, and nodded, visibly pleased, at the murmur that ran through the crowd.
Durotan tensed. So … it would be today …
Never one to talk more than he needed to. Blackhand ended this rallying speech with, “Let us go!”
The Horde surged forward eagerly, curious and excited by Blackhand’s words. Durotan looked quickly at Draka, who merely nodded her support of his plan. Then, forcing his heavy feet to move, he followed, caught up in the tide.
There was a narrow, steep path that led partway up the smoky mountain to a large plateau. It looked to Durotan as if a chunk of the mountainside had been cut away with a clean sword strike, so unnaturally perfect was it. His skin crawled at the thought. Very little that came into his life these days was natural, it seemed. Three large slabs of black, polished stone lay in a row, partially embedded in the soil. They were beautiful, but sinister at the same time. The orcs were wear after the long climb in the hot sun wearing full armor and carrying weapons and supplies, and Durotan wondered what the logic behind this was. There seemed little point in exhausting the warriors before the battle. Perhaps the attack would come later, on the morrow when they were rested.
To Durotan’s surprise, once everyone had gathered and quieted, it was not Blackhand who addressed them, but Gul’dan.
“It was not so very long ago,” Gul’dan said, “that we were a scattered people. We came together only twice a year, and then only to sing and dance and drum and hunt.” He said the words in a voice dripping with contempt. Durotan looked down. For centuries, the clans had come together at the Kosh’harg festival. It was not something foolish, as Gul’dan’s tone of voice implied, but something sacred and powerful. It was what had kept the clans from attacking one another. But it might have been a lifetime ago, by the way the orcs around him reacted. They, too, grunted in disapproval, shook their weapons fiercely, and looked ashamed. Even those among them who had been the shaman.
“Now, look at us! We stand shoulder to shoulder, clan by clan. Laughing Skull next to Dragonmaw, Thunderlord next to Warsong, all under the strong, insightful leadership provided by Blackhand—whom you have chosen to unify you. For Blackhand!”
A cheer went up. Durotan and Draka did not participate.
“Under his shrewd guidance, and with the blessings of the beings who have chosen to ally with us, we have grown strong. We have grown proud. We have advanced further in skills and technology in the last two years than we have in two centuries. The threat that once loomed over us has been broken, and it will take only a final push to see it forever crushed. But first … first, we will pledge ourselves to this cause and receive blessings in return.”
He bent and held up a strange chalice. It looked to be carved from the horn of some creature, but Durotan had never seen even a clefthoof sport so large a horn. Too, it was curved and yellowed. Strange glyphs had been inscribed on it, and as the night closed in around them, the inscriptions seemed to glow faintly. Whatever the cup contained glowed as well. As Gul’dan held it before him, an eerie yellow-green light lit his face from beneath, casting grotesque shadows.
“This is the Cup of Unity,” Gul’dan said in a reverent voice. “This is the Chalice of Rebirth. I offer this to the leader of every clan, and he in turn may offer it to anyone in his clan whom he wishes particularly blessed by the beings who have been so very, very good to us. Who will come forth first, to pledge his loyalty and receive his blessings?”
Gul’dan turned a little to his right, toward Blackhand. The other orc grinned and opened his mouth to speak when a savage, familiar voice rent the night air.
No, Durotan thought. No … not him …
Draka’s hand clamped down hard on Durotan’s arm. “Will you warn him?”
Durotan’s throat worked. He could not speak. He shook his head: No. Once, he had counted the slender but imposing orc who strode boldly forward as a friend. But he could not risk revealing that he knew what was going on.
Not even for Grom Hellscream.
The chieftain of the Warsong clan had made his way through the crowd to stand in front of Gul’dan. Blackhand looked a bit put out at Hellscream. Clearly, both Gul’dan and Blackhand had anticipated that the Warchief would drink first.
Gul’dan’s mouth quirked in a smile. “Ever one to seize the moment, dear Grom.” he said, bowing a little as he handed the cup filled with the swirling green fluid to Grom. Waves of heat and light rose up from the chalice, and Grom’s face—already decorated to inspire fear in his enemies and respect from his allies—looked even more alarming.