Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War

by Christie Golden

  And the wave broke free.

  Thrall arched his back and flung his hands up in the air. His muscles screamed and his lungs labored for breath as he poured all his strength into holding back the tide.

  It halted in mid-surge, quivering against the strain as Thrall himself did. Air and Water were in a conflict neither element truly wished as the tidal wave shivered. Thrall had no thought, no word, no gesture to spare for his own protection. He could feel the water struggling to break loose, feel the air fighting to hold it in place.

  And he was entirely at the mercy of a woman who stood a few yards away—one he had once called “friend” but who now was striving to be death incarnate.

  “Release the wind, Thrall!” Jaina shouted. One hand still on the Focusing Iris, she drew back the other. Arcane energy whirled about her, tossing her robes and white hair. “Or I will kill you where you stand, and you will still fail!”

  “Do so!” gasped Thrall. “Slay me! Turn your back on everything that once gave you integrity and compassion! For I will not permit this wave to crash upon Orgrimmar as long as there is breath in my body!”

  For an instant, it seemed to him that Jaina wavered in her determination. Then her face hardened.

  “So be it,” she murmured, and gathered the energy in her hand.

  A shadow fell over both of them, and before either realized what had happened, a huge reptilian form dropped down on the sand. He interposed his massive blue shape between the orc and the human and cried out, “Jaina! Don’t!”

  Thrall could not believe it. Kalecgos—here! How had he found them? At once he answered his own question. The blue dragon had been searching for the Focusing Iris. The quest had come to an end—Kalecgos had found both it and its brutal mistress. Thrall now had an ally—and the orc continued to funnel all his energy into holding back the seething, straining tidal wave.

  • • •

  Jaina stumbled as Kalecgos landed in front of her. “Move aside, Kalec,” she snarled, trying to recover. “This is not your fight!”

  He changed into his half-elven form, still interposing himself between her and Thrall. “But it is, you see,” he said. “The Focusing Iris is not yours. It belongs to the blue dragonflight. It was stolen, and something cowardly and horrifying was done with it. I cannot, I will not, let that happen again.”

  “It’s not cowardly!” Jaina cried. “It’s justice! You went back to Theramore, Kalec. You saw what was left. You didn’t know them as I did, but Pained and Tervosh and K-Kinndy—they were your friends too! There was nothing left of her but sand, Kalec. Sand!”

  Her voice broke on the word. He made no move to fight her, even though she still stood in an attack pose. Even though she still had her hand on the Focusing Iris.

  “I too have lost those I love,” he said. “I understand at least a glimmering of your pain.” Kalec took a step toward her, stretching out a hand imploringly.

  “Stop! Don’t you move!” Again arcane energy crackled about her. “You don’t know anything about what I feel!”

  “Are you so very sure?” Kalec had halted but not retreated. “Tell me if this sounds familiar. The initial incomprehension. The guilt, and the second-guessing, and the numbness, because you can’t take it in all at once. You can only take it in a little bit at a time, like opening a dark lantern just a crack. The strange shock every single time as you realize, again and again and again, you will never see that beloved person anymore. And then the anger. The outrage. The desire to hurt the thing that hurt you. To kill the thing that killed them. But you know what, Jaina? It doesn’t work that way! If you drown Orgrimmar, Kinndy still won’t be waiting for you in Theramore. Tervosh won’t be out tending his herb garden. Pained won’t be sharpening her sword and glowering happily. None of them will come back.”

  Jaina’s heart contracted in anguish. But she could not listen, because everything he said rang so sickly true. She could not agree, because then she would have to let go of the rage.

  “They will have company,” she spat.

  “Then you had best plan to join them,” Kalec said, continuing implacably, “because you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if you did this. Because, Jaina—all those things I described, I felt. I felt so deeply, so intensely, that I did not understand how my heart could bear to continue to beat. I know what it feels like. And… I also know that you can heal. It comes slowly, and in stages, but you can heal. Unless you’ve done something to yourself so that you’ll never recover. And believe me—if you loose this wave upon Orgrimmar, you will be as dead as the ones you claim to mourn.”

  “I do mourn them!” Jaina shrieked. “I do! I can hardly breathe, Kalec. I can’t sleep. I just see their faces, just as I remember them, and then their bodies. The Horde must pay!”

  “But not by your hand, Jaina, and not this way.” The voice came not from Kalecgos but from Thrall. Jaina turned stormy eyes upon him. “There is justice, and there is vengeance. You must see the difference between the two, or else you betray those who loved you.”

  “Garrosh—”

  “Garrosh is a thief and a coward and a butcher,” Thrall said calmly. “And you are doing precisely what he did—right down to using the same artifact that obliterated Theramore. Is that what you wish? Truly? To be remembered as that even by your own people?”

  Jaina staggered back as if struck. No, he was an orc; he was just like the rest of them; her father had been right. Thrall was trying to confuse her. She shook her head wildly.

  “I am doing what I know to be right!” she shouted.

  “As did Arthas, when he slaughtered everyone in Stratholme,” Kalec said. Jaina stared, appalled and disbelieving. He continued as if he hadn’t noticed. “And he at least didn’t act with hate in his heart toward those he killed. Is this what your legacy is to be, Jaina Proudmoore? To be another Garrosh, another Arthas?”

  Jaina’s legs buckled and she dropped to the sand, still keeping her hand on the Focusing Iris. Her mind was reeling, thick with fog and anguish.

  Arthas—

  I can’t watch you do this.

  She had said that to him, after begging him to change his mind. Had ridden off with Uther, weeping at what Arthas had become. Slowly, as if her head weighed a thousand pounds, she turned to look at her hand on the Focusing Iris. So simple a thing, to have so much power and to have caused so much pain. She thought of its energy being used to animate a five-headed monstrosity, Chromatus. To funnel all arcane energy to the Nexus. To fuel a mana bomb that incinerated innocent young girls.

  To wipe out Orgrimmar—

  She thought of Arthas mocking Antonidas before Archimonde destroyed Dalaran. And the face of her old mentor, crafted of purple smoke: “This is not for idle hands, nor prying eyes. Information must not be lost. But it must not be used unwisely. Stay your hand, friend, or proceed—if you know the way.”

  She had wanted justification so badly that she had seen his appearance as an invitation—even though she had been forced to break the magical seal. But it hadn’t been.

  Proceed—if you know the way.

  But she hadn’t known the way. She had been lost, blundering blindly. If anything, his brief appearance had been a warning, not a nod of approval. In her heart, Jaina knew what Antonidas’s reaction would be to what she was about to do. And the knowing was like a knife.

  The hand on the Focusing Iris clenched into a fist.

  Jaina slowly got to her feet and lifted her tear-stained face first toward Kalec, then toward Thrall.

  “For what he has done, Garrosh can be nothing but my enemy—and the Horde as well, as long as he is their warchief. I have hundreds of elementals enslaved to me. And I will use them.”

  Both Thrall and Kalec tensed.

  Jaina swallowed hard, and the words crawled past the lump in her throat. “I will use them to aid the Alliance. To protect my people. I will not obliterate an entire city, for I am not Garrosh. I will not slaughter unarmed civilians, for I am not Arthas. I am my own master
.”

  With those words, the tidal wave fractured. It was no longer a towering wall of water but hundreds of individual water elementals. They bobbed on the waves, awaiting Jaina’s command.

  “You have a right to wage war upon the Horde, Jaina,” Thrall said. “But the blood on your hands will now be those of warriors, not children. In time, your heart will be glad of this choice.”

  “You do not know my heart anymore, Thrall,” she said. “I am no butcher—but I will no longer call for peace at any cost. The Horde you do not lead is dangerous and must be challenged at every turn—and defeated. Then, perhaps, there can be peace. But not before.”

  Despite what she had said about her heart, she felt it ache at the sorrowful expression on his face. The lives lost at Theramore and Northwatch Hold were not the only casualties. This friendship of so many years, so cherished and championed by both of them, was another. It would be a long, long time—if ever—before she could call Thrall “friend” again. And she knew he knew it.

  “The coming war will shake this world as the Cataclysm did, but in a different way,” Thrall said. “And I have pledged to heal the world. I return now to the Maelstrom. Lady Jaina, I would we had parted another way.”

  “So do I,” Jaina said, and meant it. “But that wish changes nothing.”

  Thrall bowed deeply. He summoned a ghost wolf and climbed atop its back. Shaman and mystic creature departed, the ocean as solid as ground for them. She and Kalecgos watched him depart in silence. Finally, Jaina turned to the blue dragon.

  “And what will you do, Kalecgos of the blue dragonflight?” she asked quietly.

  “I will bear Lady Jaina wherever she wishes to go,” he replied.

  “I will find where the Alliance fleet is engaged in battle,” she said. “But first… I… I wish to see Orgrimmar.”

  26

  Garrosh had ridden as fast as his dire wolf would carry him to Bladefist Bay as soon as he understood all the troll had told him. The ships had not yet arrived, so he commandeered the goblin vessel that seemed permanently moored there, to the surprise and pleasure of the small green captain. The craft chugged out to rendezvous with the other vessels approaching from Northwatch, with Garrosh, Malkorok, and many others on board.

  It did not go unnoticed, but fortunately the Alliance was not yet within range. “Faster!” demanded Garrosh, but there were no shaman aboard to make the oceans obey. Garrosh itched to pull alongside one of the vessels, leap onto the deck, and start slaughtering Alliance, but he could not. Not yet. He roared with frustration as the Alliance quickly and brutally dispatched the first brave Horde ship. He watched it go down, blasted in twain and licked by fire, and let his anger fuel him.

  Garrosh had been taken by surprise by the news but had recovered quickly. The Horde fleet might have been scattered over Kalimdor, but its secret weapon could be employed anywhere. Despite being so greatly outnumbered, he knew that vengeance would shortly be his.

  As the goblin ship chugged valiantly toward the Alliance fleet, Garrosh laughed as several of the Alliance craft were suddenly swathed in fog. “Let them fear what is out there,” he told Malkorok. “Let them feel the terror of not knowing what we do—until they behold our true power.”

  “Would that I could engage Varian myself, on his own vessel,” growled Malkorok. “He would not taste a swift death, nor an honorable one.”

  “He deserves only to outlive the rest of those who accompany him, and watch them despair and die,” Garrosh said in agreement. Some of the Alliance ships had managed to evade the fog or else had been out of range. They were bearing down hard now on the three remaining Horde vessels, but as the goblin vessel finally pulled alongside the Bonecracker and Garrosh and the others leaped easily to the other ship’s deck, the war chief was calm, even anticipatory.

  “Summon them,” was all he said to the captain. The troll took up the cry, and soon the call of “Summon them! Summon them!” was passed from ship to ship. The battle continued on and the air grew thick with smoke from cannon fire. On nearly every deck, Horde fighters were bleeding or dead, impaled by cruel splinters of wood the size of a human’s forearm. Healers rushed about, tending to those they could while trying to avoid being casualties themselves.

  The ocean’s surface, already surging fiercely with the violation of cannonballs, shamanic enforcement, and the flotsam and jetsam of the battle, began to churn in earnest. White froth boiled, and then something exploded up from the depths.

  The crew of the unfortunate Alliance ship only had time to gape in horror as the creature struck. Huge tentacles whipped about the mighty vessel, closing around it in a parody of a loving embrace. The kraken—for such it was—began to tighten the coils, squeezing, and the ship splintered. Garrosh threw back his head and laughed.

  Other monsters arose from the cold heart of the ocean, angry and hostile at their enslavement but unable to vent their rage upon their masters. They turned their fury instead upon the Alliance ships, snaking out tentacles to seize and shake and sometimes fling the pieces they had made. Alliance soldiers of all races tumbled, screaming, off their broken ships and into the churning waters, where the kraken devoured them.

  “Come, Malkorok!” cried Garrosh. “Let us take a few Alliance lives for our own. The kraken are powerful tools, but I do not wish all my foes to simply become food for the fish!”

  “I am with you as ever, my warchief,” Malkorok said. Up ahead there was one Alliance ship that had, thus far, evaded the grasp of the kraken. It had pulled about and, instead of firing its starboard cannons at the remaining Horde ships, was turning its full attention to blasting one of the kraken.

  “Captain, take us there!” he cried. “I have a thirst for Alliance blood!”

  Only too grateful to oblige, and with an uneasy glance at the blue-black, shiny, half-submerged things churning in the water, the captain pulled along the port side of the Alliance ship the Lion of the Waves. The crew cried a warning, but most of the attention was focused on the starboard side. With a grace belying their great size and muscular weight, the two orcs leaped the short distance between the vessels, and the fight began in earnest.

  Malkorok was swinging as he sprang onto the Lion’s deck. A draenei priest, engrossed in healing the ship’s crewmen, was cut down without even realizing the threat. Gorehowl sang its eerie song of slaughter, announcing Garrosh’s presence and chopping off the furry head of a worgen. Sensing something behind him, the orc whirled, swinging, and Gorehowl collided with the oversized axe of a looming demon. The felguard’s hideous gray face split in a yellow-toothed grin.

  Garrosh laughed. “My father slew a demon far greater than you.” He sneered.

  The felguard laughed in return, a dark, sinister sound. “Enjoy it while you can,” he rumbled.

  Axe clashed with axe. The felguard was massive and powerful, but Garrosh was fueled by familial pride. He thought of his father fighting Mannoroth, one of the most powerful pit lords that had ever lived, and the tusks he wore in memoriam on his own brown shoulders. The felguard’s laugh halted abruptly and he began to frown as Gorehowl struck home on his gray torso. Another strike, then another, and the felguard toppled in chunks to the deck.

  “Warchief!” shouted Malkorok. His blades dripped scarlet, and there were no fewer than four bodies at his feet. “Behind you!”

  He barely turned swiftly enough to get Gorehowl up between him and the large, black-haired, nearly impossibly fast human who came at him, wielding a massive sword—Shalamayne. Varian uttered a loud, furious howl, more suited to the ghost wolf for which he had been named than a human. Garrosh grunted as the unique blade bit his arm and drew blood. He parried in time to halt the blow from cutting deeper, and shoved hard. Varian staggered back, but Shalamayne descended again.

  “The ancestors bless us indeed!” shouted Garrosh. “I knew you would die today, but I did not hope to have the luck to be the one to slay you!”

  “I am surprised you have the guts to take me on,” Varian sna
rled. “You’ve grown cowardly since we last met. First magnataur, then elementals, then kraken to do your dirty work. Did you run and hide when you dropped the mana bomb? I’m sure you were a safe distance away!”

  Gorehowl sang again, sweeping low in a blow designed to cut off Varian’s legs. The human jumped and whirled in midair, only to have Gorehowl nearly slice off his head as Garrosh followed through with the axe’s movement.

  “You are slower than you were the last time we met,” sneered Garrosh. “You are growing older, Varian. Perhaps you should let that sniveling son of yours be king. I will march on Stormwind when the kraken have reduced your mighty ships to kindling. I will take your precious boy, slap him in chains, and parade him through Orgrimmar!”

  He had thought to so anger the king of Stormwind that the human would explode in fury, fighting wildly instead of well. To his astonishment, Varian merely grinned, dodging the swing of the axe, measuring his next step. “Anduin might surprise you,” he said. “Even lovers of peace despise cowards.”

  Garrosh suddenly grew tired of the taunting. “Thrice before have we fought,” Garrosh snarled, “and it is three times too many. This time, you die—and so does all that you love.” Garrosh charged, swinging Gorehowl, and Varian danced away. Garrosh followed, all finesse and strategy gone. The world had narrowed to this one man and his impending death. As the two closed in tight, their faces mere inches from each other, they were abruptly hurled into the air.

  Garrosh flailed, holding on to Gorehowl by sheer will. He landed hard on the deck and then was suddenly sliding down it. He heard a massive cracking sound and then was falling toward the blue surface of the ocean. His armor was no friend now, and he sank like a stone as bits and pieces of the Lion of the Waves threatened to pin him to the ocean’s floor.