“Well,” he said, shattering the silence, “at least you’re not reading.”
Khadgar jerked his head back toward the path. Lothar smiled to himself.
“He wishes to lie with me.” Garona’s voice was matter-of-fact and Khadgar cringed, almost squirming with embarrassment. She propped herself up on one arm, watching them both.
“I beg your pardon?” Khadgar tried to sound perplexed by the accusation, but his voice climbed a little too high for it to be convincing.
“You would be injured,” she stated.
“I don’t want to lie with you!”
It was all Lothar could do to not laugh out loud. Garona simply shrugged. “Good. You would not be an effective mate.”
This time, Lothar couldn’t help it, and a snort of laughter escaped him. “Why do you laugh?” Garona asked, and it was Lothar’s turn to feel uncomfortable. “I cannot see how you humans survive such a thing. How you survive anything. No muscles to protect you. Brittle bones that break.”
“You don’t look that different to us. How did you survive?”
She went still. Her voice when she replied no longer held mirth. It was careful; cool. “Broken bones heal stronger. Mine are very strong.”
The humor bled out of Lothar. He thought of her green skin, soft as a human woman’s, lacerated by the manacles at her wrists and her throat. Of the massive males of her species, with enormous hands and torsos and tusks. Of the weapons that probably weighed as much as he did. His mind went to dark places at her words, places that made him grow angry, as well as sombre.
But yet, “I’m sorry,” was all he could find to say.
“Do not be.” The silence resumed. The fire crackled.
“My name, ‘Garona’,” she said at last. “It means ‘cursed’ in Orc. My mother was burned alive for giving birth to me.”
Lothar’s hands hurt. He looked down at them, surprised to see he had clenched them. Monsters.
“They kept you alive, though,” he said. Why? He wanted to know. How badly did they hurt you? What can I do to help?
“Gul’dan did.” She rolled over on her back. In the flickering firelight, he saw what she held: a cord, from which dangled a delicate tusk, only about the size of her little finger. “He gave me this. To remember her.”
Lothar watched the slowly moving object as if mesmerized by it. It both repelled and fascinated him, but clearly Garona cherished it. He wondered if, truly, it was so different from a lock of hair, treasured as a keepsake after a loved one had died. He had tried to argue Llane out of letting Taria talk to the orc. Now, listening to her speaking so openly, he realized that his friend had insight he did not possess. She was obviously beautiful, obviously strong. But she was also, as Llane had sensed, someone who responded to kindness. Someone who had been wounded more than physically.
“My parents gave me to the Kirin Tor when I was six years old.” Khadgar’s voice was soft, a confession that, like Garona’s, was better suited to being uttered in concealing darkness. “That’s the last time I saw them or any of my brothers and sisters. It brings a family honor to offer a child to the Kirin Tor. To have their son taken up to the floating city of Dalaran and be trained by the most powerful mages in the land.” He smiled self-deprecatingly as he looked at Garona. “Less so to have them run away.”
The orc woman held his gaze, then she nodded.
“Well,” Lothar said, “That was cheerful.”
He lay back down on his bedroll, hearing the other two shift positions. Lothar closed his eyes, seeing behind his closed lids firelight shining on an orc tusk held by a strong, beautiful green hand.
The night was lit by fire, painted with blood, and its songs were all of slaughter.
Gul’dan watched it all with quiet glee. Beside him stood his mentor, his advisor, the one who had kept his promises. The one without whom this night would never have been possible.
“North, south, east, west,” he intoned, sweeping a hand over the scene, “all will be ours.”
Movement caught his eye, and he frowned slightly. Some of the humans were escaping. There was a trail, as of busy ants, fleeing the conflagration. They carried things on their shoulders, and followed a long, winding path. “Tell me, teacher,” he inquired, “where do they run?”
“Stormwind,” the figure standing beside him intoned. The word was raspy, but powerful. It burned, as its speaker’s heart burned. “Their greatest city.” So much contempt. So much certainty that the flight was futile. As, of course, it was. There was no standing against the Horde… or fel.
“Ah,” said Gul’dan, “where Garona ran to.” Now was the moment. He turned to his mentor. “I brought her here. For you.”
Surely, his teacher would be pleased, would heap praise upon his faithful pupil, who had learned so well. But there was no reaction at all; not pleasure, not annoyance… only silence, from within the deep shadows of the cowl. Gul’dan felt disappointment—and a stirring of unease.
He tried to correct any possible misstep. “When the portal opens, we will take this city first.” He looked directly at the figure. “And we will name it… after you.”
11
Lothar had thought he would be prepared for anything he would behold. He was wrong. Now, standing beside Garona and the others as they stared at the horrifying panorama spread below them, Lothar felt both stunned and sickened. War was never tidy, or clean. It was never like gazing at one of Llane’s maps, even when strategy was orderly and victory was certain. But this…
Tents, hundreds of them, dotted the landscape, punctuated by watchtowers and larger constructions. There were cages, too. Not as many as he had initially feared, but enough to make Lothar’s hands clench in anger. Cages crammed with humans: men, women, even children. So this was where they had gone—seized and carried off while their homes burned about them, taken like animals.
And further on, enormous, chiseled hunks of stone hauled by the labor of the physically powerful orcs and arranged in a pattern. A flat, level base, like the foundation of a building. Or something much worse.
“The Great Gate,” Garona said, pointing to the stones.
“Why do they need so many prisoners?” Lothar asked. The breeze caught Garona’s black hair, playing with it. Her gaze did not leave the terrifying diorama as she spoke, and her words made Lothar’s heart sink.
“Like wood for fire,” she explained. “Green magic takes life to open the gate.”
Lothar’s gaze was dragged back inexorably to the scene below them. “How many more orcs are they planning on bringing?”
Her reply was simple and stark. “All of them.” She waved her hand at the scene. “This—this is just the war band. When the portal is opened, Gul’dan will bring the Horde.”
And all at once Lothar understood what, subconsciously, he had been denying. These hundreds of tents were, essentially, just the beginning…
A Horde.
“Get them back to Stormwind,” he snapped at Karos, already heading for his horse. “Varis and I will ride ahead.”
Garona gazed after Lothar and Varis as their horses galloped off. Thoughts crowded her mind. Was she truly doing the right thing? Why did she even have any loyalty to the orcs? They had murdered her mother, and she had only been spared from the fire herself by the will of Gul’dan. He had taught her how to read and write, and ordered her to study and learn other languages. But she was always a slave. Always bound, always sneered at or spat upon.
Except by a few. Every time she was filled with hatred for her treatment by her so-called “people” she recalled Durotan, twice a voice of reason for his people, and his wife Draka, who had treated her with gentleness and care. Other orcs might drown sickly children at birth, but the Frostwolves gave their weaker members at least a chance to earn their way back into the clan. Draka herself had been one such, and she became the mate of a chieftain.