Then, his lip curled with pure loathing, he slammed his hand against Durotan’s chest, and began to drain him.
A gasp rose up among the crowd. “Gul’dan cheats!” came an outraged voice. Even as Durotan felt his life being siphoned to further Gul’dan’s grotesqueness, he felt joy. He had done it. It was impossible for the warlock to conceal his handiwork; Durotan knew he now resembled the draenei prisoners, their lives sucked from them until their bodies were misshapen and dessicated. He had forced Gul’dan to show the Horde exactly what he was.
Gul’dan drew back his hand, wreathed in the white mist of Durotan’s life, clenched his fist, and slammed it full force into the Frostwolf’s chest. The pain was unbearable. Durotan flew through the air, landing hard. His connection to the living now was but the finest thread.
Cries were going up, now. “You cheat, Gul’dan!” “Shame on you!” “This is not our way!”
Durotan had to rise, once more. Every sinew and muscle, every drop of blood was fiery agony. He fought it through sheer force of will, climbing to his feet and swaying. He could barely draw breath, but he filled his lungs and cried, “Gul’dan! You have no honor!”
With a low growl that grew louder with each step, Gul’dan bore down on Durotan, not swinging his arms this time, but holding them open, reaching for his enemy. Durotan struggled, but the arms around him were as strong as bands of iron, and he had no strength left. Gul’dan clutched him close in a travesty of an embrace, utterly heedless now of what the Horde saw. He crushed Durotan’s rapidly deteriorating body to his, so that more of his skin could pull forth the Frostwolf’s life energy. Durotan felt his spine snap. Through the haze of agony Durotan could see strange golden light pouring off his body, as his life—his soul? He did not know—went to feed the warlock’s ravenous, fel-driven hunger. Gul’dan smiled up at him ferally, triumphantly, as he paraded about the ring displaying Durotan’s dying body. Then, at last, when he could get no more from the Frostwolf, he threw Durotan down in disgust.
There would be no more rising for Durotan.
He found himself gazing up at Orgrim, but could not speak. He tried to lift a hand imploringly, but he could only twitch his fingers. But Orgrim understood. His eyes filled with tears, and he nodded. He, who had betrayed the Frostwolves, would now speak for them.
And that was all right.
The orcs had seen. Durotan had done what he had come to do.
It was enough.
Orgrim looked around at the assembled orcs. “You will follow this thing?” he cried, putting all his hatred and contempt into the word. “Will you? You will follow this demon? I will not. I follow a true orc. A chieftain!”
The crowd stared, murmuring. “He does not even look orc now,” Orgrim heard. Gul’dan stood, panting, daring them to defy him. Orgrim saw several orcs turn to leave. Some of them, he noticed, had the green tinge to their skin. They had seen their fate played out before them should they continue to use the fel, and were choosing to have no part in it.
Orgrim turned back to his friend and chieftain, whom he had betrayed. Durotan, son of Garad, son of Durkosh, was still. But he had died as he had lived, with courage, and conviction, and in a righteous battle against a terrible foe.
He recalled Durotan’s words, before the Frostwolves had marched south to join the Horde: There is one law, one tradition, which must not be violated. And that is that a chieftain must do whatever is truly best for the clan.
Today, Durotan’s clan had not been Frostwolves. His clan had consisted of the entire Horde.
Orgrim knelt beside his fallen chieftain and grasped one of Durotan’s tusks. He twisted it free. “For your son,” he told Durotan. “So your spirit can teach him.”
“I will deal with you later, Orgrim Doomhammer,” Gul’dan threatened. Several orcs were striding away in disgust after the offensive spectacle they had just witnessed. One of them spat, “Your power is not worth the price, warlock!” Orgrim paused, wanting to see this play out. Gul’dan, all but frothing at the mouth in his rage, reached out his hand. Three orcs who had the misfortune to stand near him—including, Orgrim saw, many who had been faithful to the warlock—arched in agony as their life essences were not siphoned, not extracted, but savagely ripped from them. The white energy flowed into Gul’dan’s outstretched hand. The warlock raised his other hand, and from it streamed the sickly, all-too-familiar color of fel energy.
“Anyone else?” Gul’dan challenged. Those who had not already moved out of reach of the angry warlock stood, shuffling their feet. They did not not want to stay, but neither did they wish to die as their comrades had. As Durotan had.
“And you, warchief!” Brimming with fel energy, Gul’dan whirled, his hand shooting out as he funneled everything straight into Blackhand. The warchief fell to the dead ground, screaming and writhing as his body was twisted and contorted. “You will take the fel,” Gul’dan shouted over Blackhand’s tormented cries, “and you will become stronger than any orc has ever been! And when the fel has remade you, you will crush the smallteeth!”
The green washed over and through Blackhand. Muscles swelled so large his armor popped off his body in places. Tendrils looking like veins pumping green blood twined along him, even down his metallic, claw-like appendage. Blackhand looked up, his eyes so bright with the fel that mist roiled from them. Orgrim turned away, sickened in body and spirit. It was too late for Durotan, and it was too late for Blackhand. But it was not too late for him, and the the few others who had been forced to see with fresh eyes thanks to the sacrifice of the Frostwolf chieftain.
As he strode into the forest, away from the fel and its false promises, he heard Gul’dan screaming, “Now—claim my new world!”
The Black Morass, the enemy, and innocent prisoners awaited King Llane and his troops over the next rise. Beside Llane rode Garona, who had been casting concerned glances at him.
In silence, the small group crested this final rise, and Llane’s stomach turned to ice.
The Frostwolves will meet you on the way, Medivh had told him.
And so they had. Impaled Frostwolves lined the road, an obscene invitation to enter the vast encampment of orcs. Horror closed Llane’s throat as he looked from body to body. Some had pendants with the clan’s symbol dangling from their necks. Others had had the Frostwolf banner stuffed into their mouths. There were so many…
Medivh had been wrong. The rebellion had been snuffed out. Their would-be allies had been reduced to gore-encrusted, stiffening corpses… or worse.
Llane took a long, deep breath. He forced himself to look past the horrifying spectacle, past the sea of orc tents, to the cages filled with prisoners. His people—still alive, for now. And beyond them—the Great Gate. The dark portal, which would shortly birth a flood of ravaging orc warriors. The Horde would descend upon Azeroth, slaughtering his people. The fel used to make them fierce would suck the life out of Azeroth, leaving it as dry and desiccated as the orcs’ own world. It was already happening. The Black Morass had been a swamp, but in the area around the portal, there was only parched earth, a grim preview of what was to come.
Unless, somehow, they were stopped.
“We few, then,” he said. Suddenly, a rain of fire and stone fell upon them, launched from hidden catapults. They had walked right into a trap—baited with hope, sprung with horror, and promising soon death for likely every member of the three legions who had followed Llane in this wretched folly.