“Good, you be quite presentable.” She gave him a quick embrace. “Kao be in talking to the Thunder King now. If there be saving to be done of you and your friends—again, my apologies over the monks—my master will be having to intercede.”
Khal’ak guided him through twists and turns that defied his ability to catalog. He didn’t feel any magic at work but couldn’t discount it. He suspected the complex had been cunningly restored to welcome the Thunder King back from the grave. The layout likely had significance and resonance for the mogu emperor, feeling familiar to him. It would ease his transition back into a world that had forgotten him, a world that would be given cause to dread his return.
Two guards snapped to attention beside a portal as Khal’ak swept into the room. At the far end waited Vilnak’dor, attired in mogu-style robes clearly tailored to fit his expansive girth. The Zandalari general had gone so far as to bleach his hair white, then have it curled in the manner of the mogu. It looked to Vol’jin as if he’d even started growing his fingernails into talons.
Khal’ak paused and bowed. “My lord, may I present—”
“I know who dis be. I be smelling his stench before he got here.” The Zandalari leader waved her introduction aside. “Tell me, Vol’jin Run-in-Fear, why I shouldn’t be killin’ you where you stand.”
The Darkspear smiled. “In your position, I probably would be doing just that.”
26
Vilnak’dor stared at him, his eyes as wide as if they’d been trapped behind some pilfered gnomish goggles. “You would?”
“Certainly. It would appease Warlord Kao.” Vol’jin opened his hands. “Your dress. Your styling. Clearly keeping the mogu happy be your primary concern. Killing me would help.” The Darkspear let the Zandalari’s gasped disbelief hang in the air for a moment, then continued. “It would also be a gross error. It would be costing you victory.”
“Would it?”
“Absolutely.” Vol’jin kept his voice low and as ragged as it had first been during his recovery. “The Horde believes me dead. Murdered. People know I have survived. If you be killing me and claim it, the Darkspears gonna never join. Your king’s dream of one pan-troll empire be dead. You also be setting the Horde against you. You be freeing Garrosh from internal dissent. While I live, he be fearing my telling the truth of what happened. Khal’ak knows. Rumors run rife. I be the arrow that can be shot into Garrosh’s heart when the time comes.”
“An arrow in his heart or a thorn in my side?”
“A thorn in many sides.” The shadow hunter smiled carefully. “You use me and my position to be goading the Gurubashi and Amani to do more. You use me as a promise of advancement for the smaller tribes. Motivation through fear works, but only if hope be balancing it.”
The old Zandalari general’s eyes narrowed. “I would elevate the Darkspears as an example. That would be your price?”
“Not too steep. You would bring in the Darkspears when your king could not.”
Temptation again widened the old troll’s eyes. “But can I be trusting you?”
Khal’ak nodded. “He be motivated, my lord.”
Vol’jin bowed his head solemnly. “Not just because you hold three companions of mine. My choices be narrowed. The leader of the Horde had me murdered. There be no power there for me. The Darkspears, while loyal, be too small to stand alone against the Horde or your efforts. I knew that before I saw the mogu. The pandaren been strong enough in the past, but now? They be requiring a man and me in opposing you.”
“And yet, for you, personally, Vol’jin, what would you be wishing from dis?” Vilnak’dor spread his arms. “Would you be supplantin’ me? Would you be rising to rule the Zandalari?”
“If I desired that much power, I would rule in Orgrimmar from a throne wet with orc blood. That path, that desire, be blocked from me.” Vol’jin patted the dagger bound to his upper-left arm. “You be heir to the Zandalari heritage. Zandalari traditions be shaping you. They be defining your destiny. So I be heir to an ancient tradition. I be shadow hunter. The Zandalari were in their infancy while my tradition had matured for a long while.
“My choices be defined by the loa. The loa want what be best for their people. If Elortha no Shadra had told me that your death be best for trolls, this little dagger would already be pinning your eye to the inside of your skull.”
Vilnak’dor tried to retain his composure, but crossing his arms over his chest betrayed him. “Be that what—”
“She be sending visions, expressing displeasure, General, but not demanding I kill you.” Vol’jin pressed his hands together. “She be reminding me of my responsibility. My life, my desires, be hers to command. Trolls again dominant, a return to the older traditions, these be making her happy. Serving you serves her. If you gonna have me.”
The sincere tone of Vol’jin’s last statement gave the Zandalari pause. He smiled indulgently, his hands tugging on the loose ends of the knotted sash of gold silk. His expression contracted into one Vilnak’dor clearly considered to be reflective of sagacity and deliberation.
And yet he be doing this while dressed up like a child in mogu clothing, in a room built to mogu proportions. With the tall windows as a backdrop, thick casement carvings, and images chiseled into the walls, the very decor diminished Vilnak’dor. Why Rastakhan would have sent him, Vol’jin could not imagine, unless it was that this general was least likely to offend the mogu. He also had to imagine that Vilnak’dor was not the only high-ranking of the Zandalari involved in the invasion.
But he be the one I have to deal with.
“What you have said be demanding thought, Darkspear.” Vilnak’dor nodded. “Your status as shadow hunter be considerable, and your political assessment valuable. I gonna think on dese things.”
“As it be pleasing you, my lord.” Vol’jin bowed in the pandaren fashion, then withdrew behind Khal’ak. They paced through the darkened corridors, their footsteps but whispers echoed through the shadowed vaults. They remained silent until they reached the steps and stood between the stone quilen.
Vol’jin faced her with an open expression. “You be realizing we gonna have to kill him. You be right that he fears me. He be fearing a shadow hunter more.”
“Which be why he gonna be forced to have you eliminated.” She frowned. “Nothing so clumsy as Garrosh’s attempt. He gonna want the Darkspears brought in first; then he can do away with you. A note you write before your death gonna commend him and name him, or his puppet, as your heir.”
“I agree. This be giving us time.”
“He’ll be letting you languish in prison for several days, then free you so you’ll be grateful.”
Vol’jin nodded. “Giving you time to prepare.”
Before she could say anything to that, Warlord Kao strode through the door. He still wore the cloak he’d been given but had added to it tall boots, gold silk pants, a black silk tunic, and a belt of gold. He stopped, not out of surprise but on purpose.
So he stalked us.
“My master has promised me that I may slay as many pandaren as I desire. They are flawed creatures, and we shall make better. Then they shall be eliminated.” The mogu bared white teeth. “Including your companions, troll.”
“Your master’s wisdom deserves honoring.” Vol’jin bowed, not deeply or long, but he did bow.
The mogu snorted. “I know you, troll. Your kind. You understand only power. Watch and learn to fear my master’s power.”
Warlord Kao spread his arms wide, but not in a gesture of someone gathering power. Instead, he was a host, a master of a faire, presenting the delights his guests would enjoy inside. As his hands opened, taking in the quilen, the beasts moved. The stone didn’t crack as it had during his resurrection. That magic had been inferior, trivial stuff compared to this. The Thunder King’s power instantly transmuted gray stone into living flesh, and hollow-eyed creatures into hungry monsters.