Hir’eek instead, in his wisdom, brought Vol’jin to another place and another time. Crisp edges on stone buildings marked these as new construction, not ruins. He guessed he’d been taken back to when the Zandalari had spawned many troll tribes, and trolls were at the height of their power. The bats circled, then roosted high in towers surrounding a central courtyard, where legions of trolls hemmed in a jostling crowd of insectoid aqiri captives.
Amani, forest trolls, fresh from their wars with the aqir. Vol’jin knew the history well, but suspected Hir’eek wished to remind him of more than the glory days of the Amani empire.
The vision did just that. Trolls drove aqir up stone steps at spearpoint, to where priests waited. Acolytes would hoist the aqir onto stone altars slick with ichor, bellies exposed; then the celebrant would raise a knife. The blade and the hilt were worked with symbols, one for each loa. Sound-sight let him image the pommel and see Hir’eek’s face there, a heartbeat before the blade plunged down and ripped the sacrifice open.
Then, there, above the altar, Hir’eek himself manifested. The aqir’s spirit rose as ethereal steam from the corpse, and the bat god breathed it in. With subtle motions of gentle wings he pulled more of it to himself, glowing brightly, becoming more sharply defined.
Sound-sight did not communicate that to Vol’jin. That he saw with his own inner sight—something he’d refined and learned to trust as a shadow hunter. Hir’eek showed him the proper way to worship, the true glory and honor the loa were due.
A voice sounded in Vol’jin’s head—a high, piping voice. You have labored to preserve the Darkspears so there be trolls to worship us. This labor, it be withdrawing you from us. Your body heals but your soul cannot. Won’t heal, unless you be returning to the true ways. Abandon your history, and the chasm grows.
“But will returning make the chasm shrink, Hir’eek?” Vol’jin sat upright, speaking to darkness. He waited. He listened.
No reply came, and he took that as a fel omen.
10
Khal’ak refused to huddle beneath the tiger-fur cloak, though she was glad for its warmth. The storm had long since shrieked away its fury in battering the wooden ramparts surrounding the harbor on the Isle of Thunder, sharp breezes and brisk gusts still cut at her exposed flesh. She’d hoped she’d actually consumed enough ice troll flesh that their comfort with the cold would have been transferred to her, but this was not the case.
Little matter. I be preferrin’ Sandfury flesh. The desert environment gave it more flavor. It did not do her much good here, north of Pandaria, but there would come a time. When we retake Kalimdor.
That time would come. She knew it. All of the Zandalari did. All troll tribes had descended from their noble lineage, corrupting themselves as they pulled away. One needed to look no further than physiology to prove it: she stood taller than any other troll she’d met who was not pureblood Zandalari. Their worship of the loa was a game compared to the devotion she showed the spirits. And while some trolls might reach back and honor those traditions—the shadow hunters a rare example among them—they did not possess the traditions as the Zandalari did.
There were times, in her travels through the world, doing the bidding of Vilnak’dor, that she thought she had found a hint, perhaps a spark of the ancient ways amid the corrupted ones. She sought those who were throwbacks to the old days, searching often in vain. Many were the pretenders to a mantle they claimed to have inherited from the Zandalari, as if she and her tribe no longer existed. All too often—always, in fact—these self-anointed saviors of trollkind were the pathetic product of a degraded society.
That they failed so often no longer surprised her.
Vilnak’dor had risen from among the Zandalari, from a long line of trolls steeped in the lore and traditions that had faithfully been maintained and practiced for millennia. He had not allowed himself the distractions that others had. He did not look upon the Amani and Gurubashi empires as things to be reestablished and then elevated. He accepted that their failure marked their inherent instability. To reestablish them was to court failure, so he reached further back into history, to resurrect an alliance that had borne fruit.
A mogu captain approached her, respectful despite her standing on the walls of his city. A head and a half taller than she, ebon skinned, strongly built, he possessed a leonine aspect that was uniquely suited to Pandaria. His brows, beard, and hair were as white as his flesh was black. When she’d first seen statuary depicting the mogu, she had thought it highly stylized. Meeting them in the flesh dispelled that notion, and seeing them in action suggested that any round softness of form hid only a sharpness of purpose and courage.
“We have, my lady, completed all but the last of the loading. When the tide begins to go out, we will sail south.”
Khal’ak looked down at the black fleet bobbing in dark waters. Her troops, including her own elite legion, had boarded in good order. The assault force, save for mogu scouts, consisted primarily of Zandalari. No lesser trolls, none of the lesser races—though she would have entertained the notion of goblin artillery or a handful of their war engines.
Only two ships remained on the quay. Her flagship, which would be last off but would lead the way, and a smaller ship. It should already have been anchored near the breakwater. “What be the delay?”
“Concerns have been expressed, of signs and portents.” The mogu captain stood up straight, hiding massive fists behind his back. “The storm, they do not understand.”
Her eyes tightened. “Da shaman. Of course. I gonna attend to it personally.”
“The tide runs in six hours.”
“It gonna be takin’ but six minutes once I be down there.”
The mogu bowed sincerely enough that Khal’ak almost accepted the sentiment as genuine. It was not that she thought he or any of the other mogu hated or resented the Zandalari. They regretted needing Zandalari help and, secretly, wondered why it had taken so long for it to be offered.
Many millennia past, back when there were only the Zandalari, back before the mists hid Pandaria, the mogu and trolls met. It was a time when only a quarter of all there was to know even existed. Lion recognized lion. They should have destroyed each other, that first mogu and first troll, but they did not. They understood that in a war, pitting strength against strength, the survivor would be weakened. The survivor might even succumb to creatures far weaker than it. That would be a tragedy that neither race wanted.
With back firmly set against back, mogu and trolls carved out their positions in the world. Yet as events took place, as each race faced challenges, its ally became forgotten. The mogu disappeared along with Pandaria. Trolls found their own world sundered. And as it was with storied races pressed with immediate problems, the distant past dimmed in recollection, and more recent outrages burned blindingly bright.
Khal’ak descended the switchback steps. The steps numbered at seventeen. She did not understand the significance of this for the mogu, but then she did not have to understand. Her job was simply to carry out her master’s orders. He, in turn, sought to accommodate his ally, the Thunder King. Power would drive power until both possessed enough to return to their positions of glory and set the world to rights again.
She walked through a settlement that had been humbled by age yet now awakened to a new youth. The mogu, more and more of them appearing each day, bowed quietly in their way. They understood her significance and acknowledged it because her actions had brought them joy and would bring them more.
Even though they did bow and show her honor, enough reserve remained in their behavior to reveal how much superior to her, and to trolls, the mogu felt. Khal’ak suppressed a laugh, since her training would make it child’s play to kill any of them. The mogu had no understanding of how precarious their position in this alliance was or how vulnerable they could be if the Zandalari decided to destroy them.