“Hey! Frostwolf!” shouted his guard. Durotan took his gaze away from the humans and frowned. Orgrim Doomhammer was striding up to Durotan’s cage. The Frostwolf chieftain tensed. What new horror had his once-brother come to inflict?The guard stepped into Orgrim’s path. Orgrim’s steady pace did not falter. He merely raised the Doomhammer and casually swung it down to crunch the startled guard’s head.
He did not rise.
Orgrim bent to pick up the guard’s key and his eyes met Durotan’s. With the same casualness Orgrim had just displayed in killing the guard, Durotan said, “Now you are enemies with all sides.”
“I’ll tell them it was you,” Orgrim responded. Durotan, with the knowledge of years of friendship, noticed that Orgrim’s hands trembled ever so slightly as he unlocked the cage. He glanced at Durotan, who sat quietly while Orgrim unfastened the shackles about neck, feet, and hands. He extended a hand to his chieftain, and Durotan took it. Slowly, wincing with feigned stiffness, Durotan let Orgrim help him to his feet. The two regarded one another for a moment, then Durotan struck his old friend savagely in the chest. Orgrim stumbed back against the twisted wood of the cage, falling. Instead of striking back, he simply sat there, his head lowered.
Finally, Durotan spoke.
“What happened?”
Orgrim looked him full in the face. “I am sorry, Durotan. I did not see how we could side with the humans against our own kind. I was wrong, my chief. Gul’dan’s fel magic is destroying us.”
Durotan closed his eyes, wanting the last few suns back, wishing things were other than as they were. But that way lay madness. He extended a hand to Orgrim. Orgrim took it and rose. Forcing himself to speak calmly, Durotan asked the question that was uppermost in his heart.
“Where is Draka?”
“Safe. She and the baby, both. But the rest… Most of them…” Orgrim’s pain and regret was naked on his face, and in the gray dawn light, Durotan could see tears in his eyes.
It was too late for tears. Too late for apologies, regrets, forgiveness. Pain, grief, rage surged inside Durotan, but he quelled them ruthlessly. He would be stone. It was the only way he would survive long enough to do what he needed to. He turned away from Orgrim, the betrayer. But Orgrim’s voice called after him.
“They wouldn’t follow him if they could see what he has become.”
“Then I’ll show them.”
Gul’dan’s orcs had set the Frostwolf camp on fire, in an attempt to burn all that remained of Frostwolf culture. Most of it had burned out, but here and there flames still climbed into the night. The awful light revealed without remorse a camp in shambles, and the wall Durotan had built about his heart threatened to crumble. He had to force himself to walk forward, to see what Gul’dan had done to his people in return for what Durotan had done to him.
There were far fewer bodies than he had expected. Durotan did not dare allow himself to hope that this meant that his people had succeeded in fleeing unharmed. No, more likely Gul’dan had taken them alive to use as fuel for the fel. The corpses he did discover lay where they had fallen—the ultimate disrespect. Some of them were charred by the fire. Here lay Kagra, Zarka, Dekgrul… even Shaksa and her siblings, the ebullient Nizka and the toddler Kelgur.
He had made his choice to protect not just them, but all the orcs. This very world. Durotan knew in his bones that it had been Gul’dan’s death magic, the fel, that had destroyed Draenor, and would eventually destroy this world, this Azeroth, as well. And the orc people along with it.
But he had underestimated the bitterness of the cost. Never thought that Gul’dan would give the word to obliterate an entire clan, including its children.
There were brief flares of gratitude. Orgrim had spoken the truth about Draka and little Go’el, at least. While all their food, clothing, furnishing and weapons—including Thunderstrike and Sever—had been taken to serve the needs of more loyal orcs, there were no mutilated bodies lying on the bare earth. Nor did he see any sign of the aged, blind Drek’Thar or his attendant, Palkar—or of their ritual items. Had they been taken, fuel for the fel? Or had they escaped?
Durotan’s eyes fell on a Frostwolf banner. It had survived the fire, though it was singed at the edges. There was a bloody handprint on it. Someone had tried to save it.
The walls around him came down then, but not for grief. For fury. Durotan reached to pick up the banner and clutched it tightly while he let white-hot rage run unfettered through him.
He had lost everything. But he was not yet done.
They wouldn’t follow him if they could see what he has become.
Then I’ll show them.
Hope, thought Llane as he rode through the torchlit night streets of Stormwind, was perhaps the most powerful weapon of all. And sometimes, it was the only weapon. He had feared it would be their only weapon in truth, but Medivh had returned, even if Lothar had… temporarily… been overwhelmed by the mindlessness of grief. Hope had returned to him, and he saw it reflected back at him on the faces of the citizens of the capital city, as they thronged the streets, even as that hope was tempered with the worry that all thought of war evoked, despite the hour.
The river of horses and armored soldiers forked around the towering statue of the Guardian, then rejoined as they approached the city’s gates, where his family stood on a hastily erected dais waiting to send him on his way. His daughter, almost as tall as her mother and looking more like Taria every day, stood with her hands clasped, perfectly mimicking the gesture of the queen. Except Adariall trembled more than her mother did. The burden of a princess, Llane thought. Llane gave her a reassuring nod, then his gaze fell on Varian. The boy was splendid in his formal tunic, breeches, and cape, but he leaned on the balcony as if he wanted to climb over it and into his father’s arms. His prince’s circlet rested atop his dark head, and his lips were pressed tightly together. The expression made him look stern, but it tugged at Llane’s heart. He knew it meant the boy was struggling to hold back the tears that made his eyes shiny. Too smart for his own good, that one. Llane and Taria had said all the reassuring things to their children, and truly, with Medivh restored and at his side, Llane felt more confident than he had since the whole horrifying ordeal had begun. But Varian picked up on the subtle glances, on the things unspoken. He would be a good king one day. But, hopefully, not too soon.
Llane longed to embrace the boy, but he was almost a man now, and would not appreciate a public display. So Llane granted the boy the gravitas he deserved. “There is no other man I would entrust my family’s welfare to, Varian. Keep them safe until I return.”
Varian’s chin quivered, ever so slightly, but he nodded
Taria regarded her husband now, slender and regal, her dark eyes on his. Taria, his best friend’s sister, who balanced a kind heart with a level head better than he ever could. Who had seen him ride off to possible death more times than he could count. Who had seen him uncertain, and determined, and joyful, and battered, and who loved him through all of those seasons.
They had said their goodbyes earlier, in private. They needed no more. They knew.
“Ready?” It was Medivh who broke the moment, sooner than Llane would have wished. The king nodded, and without another word he squeezed his horse into a trot as they headed for the open gates of the city.