Chen growled with just that right mix of gentle warning and true menace.
The cubs froze.
The elder pandaren straightened up, and by instinct, so did most of the cubs. “What exactly was going on here?”
One of the bolder cubs, Keng-na, pointed toward a recumbent Li Li. “Mistress Li Li was teaching us to fight.”
“What I witnessed wasn’t fighting. It was brawling!” Chen shook his head, exaggerating the action. “That will not do, not at all, not if the yaungol return. You are to have proper training. Now, look smart!” Chen snapped to attention as he gave the command, and the cubs mimicked him perfectly.
Chen fought to hide a smile as he dispatched the cubs, singly and in groups, to fetch more wood, to haul water, and to get sand for the sisters’ pathway and brooms to smooth it down. He clapped his paws sharply, and they sprung to their tasks like arrows loosed from taut bows. He waited until they’d all disappeared before he offered Li Li a paw.
She looked at it, her nose wrinkled with disgust. “I would have won.”
“Of course, but that wasn’t the point, was it?”
“It wasn’t?”
“No, you were teaching them a sense of camaraderie. They’re a little squad now.” Chen smiled. “A bit of discipline, some division of labor, and they might be useful.”
He added volume to the last phrase for the sisters, since they’d seen that initial benefit.
Li Li looked at his paw suspiciously, then took it and used it to steady herself as she stood. She tugged her robe into place and reknotted the sash. “Worse than swarming kobolds.”
“Of course. They are pandaren.” This, too, he said loudly so the Chiang sisters could take it in. He lowered his voice again. “I admire your restraint.”
“You aren’t kidding.” She rubbed her left forearm. “Someone was biting in there.”
“As well you know, someone is always biting in a fight.”
Li Li thought for a moment, then smiled. “No escaping that. And thank you.”
“For?”
“Unburying me.”
“Oh, that was me being selfish. I was done hauling for the day. No grummle here to help, so that’s a detail for your little army.”
Li Li cocked an eyebrow. “You’re not fooling me.”
Chen pulled his head high and looked down at her. “You can’t imagine that I might think a niece of mine, who is a well-trained martial artist in her own right, would need my help with cubs. I mean, if I thought that, I’d simply not help you. You’d be no niece of mine.”
She paused, her face scrunching up. Chen could see in the quick movement of her eyes the way she was working through that logic. “Okay, yes, Uncle Chen. Thank you.”
Chen laughed and draped an arm over her shoulder. “It is tiring work, dealing with cubs.”
“True.”
“In my case, of course, I had only one to deal with, but she was a pawful.”
Li Li dug an elbow into his ribs. “Still am.”
“And I could not be prouder.”
“I think you could.” She spun from beneath his arm. “Are you disappointed that I haven’t asked if I can work with you at the brewery?”
“Whatever would have given you that idea?”
She shrugged uneasily and glanced off toward the Valley of the Four Winds, where the Stormstout Brewery was. “When you’re there, you are happy. I see that. You love it so.”
Chen smiled wryly. “I do. And do you want to know why I haven’t asked you to cease wandering and join me there?”
Her face brightened. “Yes, I want to know.”
“It is because, my dearest niece, I need a partner who will still adventure. If I need Durotarian mosses from deep inside caves, who will fetch them? And at a good price? The brewery means I have responsibilities. I can’t be gone for months or years at a time. So I need someone I can trust, and someone who, someday, can come back and take over for me.”
“But I’m not cut out to be that sort of brewmaster.”
Chen waved away that objection. “Sedentary brewmasters I can hire. Only a Stormstout can run the brewery. Maybe I will hire a cute brewmaster, though, and you can marry him and…”
“. . . and my cubs will inherit?” Li Li shook her head. “You’ll have a brood of cubs next time I see you, I’m sure.”
“But I’ll always be happy to see you, Li Li. Always.”
Chen suspected Li Li would have given him a hug, and he’d have gladly returned it, save for two things. First, the sisters were watching, and displays of emotion would make them uncomfortable. More important, however, was that Keng-na came dashing through their vegetable garden, howling, eyes wide.
“Master Chen, Master Chen, there’s a monster in the river! A big monster! He’s blue and has red hair and he’s awful cut up. He’s clinging to the bank. He has claws!”
“Li Li, gather the cubs. Keep them away from the water. Don’t follow me.”
She stared at him. “But what if… ?”
“If I need your help, I’ll shout. Go, quickly.” He glanced at the sisters. “It looks as if it might storm. You might consider going inside. And locking the door.”
They stared defiantly at him for a moment but uttered not a word. He sprinted off, cutting around the garden, and oriented himself on the wooden bucket Keng-na had abandoned. Tracing the boy’s path through flattened weeds to the riverbank wasn’t hard, and Chen was halfway down the embankment when he saw the monster.
And recognized it immediately. A troll!
Keng-na had been right. The troll had been hacked badly. His clothing hung in tatters, and the flesh beneath was not in much better shape. The troll had half-pulled himself out of the river; clawed hands and a tusk thrust into the clay bank were the only things that anchored him.
Chen dropped to a knee and turned the troll onto his back.
“Vol’jin!”
Chen stared at him and the ruin of his throat. If not for the rasp of breath through the hole in his neck, and the bloody red seepage from the wounds, the pandaren would have imagined his old friend to be dead. And he might still die.
Chen grabbed Vol’jin’s arms and pulled him from the river. It wasn’t easy. Scrabbling came from higher up the bank, and then Li Li was at Vol’jin’s left shoulder, helping her uncle.
The pandaren’s eyes met. “I thought I heard you yell.”
“Maybe I did.” Chen bent low to the ground, then lifted the troll in his arms. “My friend Vol’jin is badly hurt. Maybe poisoned. I don’t know what he’s doing here. I don’t know if he will live.”
“That’s Vol’jin, from all your stories.” Li Li stared wide-eyed at the mangled creature. “What are you going to do?”
“I’ll do what we can for him here.” Chen looked up toward Kun-Lai Summit and the Shado-pan Monastery built high upon it. “Then I guess I’ll take him there and see if the monks have room for another of my foundlings.”
2
Vol’jin, shadow hunter of the Darkspear tribe, could not imagine a worse nightmare. He could not move. Not a muscle, not even to open his eyes. His limbs remained stiff. Whatever bound them felt as heavy as ship’s cable and stouter than steel chain. It hurt to breathe, and he could not do so deeply. He would have abandoned the effort, but the pain and weary fear that he might stop kept him going. As long as he could dread not breathing, he was alive.
But do I be so?
For now, my son, for now.
Vol’jin recognized his father’s voice in an instant yet knew he’d not actually heard it with his ears. He tried to turn his head in the direction from which the words seemed to come. He couldn’t, but his awareness did shift. He saw his father, Sen’jin, keeping pace with him, but not walking. They both moved, but Vol’jin knew not how or toward where.