The Spiral Path

by Greg Weisman

  This seemed to satisfy the old female. She nodded at Jaggal.

  But he shook his head again. “If runt really know where Feral Scar hides, runt tell Jaggal where Feral Scar hides. Jaggal kill Feral Scar.”

  The silence lasted long enough that Makasa glanced over at Hackle to warn him against giving away the one piece of information that might save all their lives. Immediately, she saw she needn’t have worried. Hackle was smiling broadly. His dark-brown eye squinted with mirth. His bright-blue eye almost seemed to sparkle.

  Hackle laughed at Jaggal then. “Hackle not fool. Hackle tell Jaggal nothing. Let Hackle go, and Hackle kill Feral Scar.”

  The old female said, “Let runt go. What do Woodpaw have to lose?”

  Without warning, Jaggal swung his axe toward her, missing her snout by a hairsbreadth, which seemed to be his intention.

  “Karrion not matriarch,” Jaggal said after the old female had stumbled back and lowered her head. “Woodpaw have no matriarch now.” He glanced down at the pup. “Woodpaw have no matriarch yet.” Then he slapped the flat of his axe against his chest. “So brute rule Woodpaw. Jaggal rule Woodpaw. Karrion no tell Jaggal what to do.”

  Karrion’s head bobbed abjectly. She said, “Jaggal is brute. Karrion not matriarch. Jaggal decide for Woodpaw.”

  “Jaggal decide for Woodpaw,” he said. He turned back to Hackle. “If Jaggal let runt and friends go, runt and friends run. No find Feral Scar. No kill Feral Scar. Runt just run. Runts always run.”

  “Hackle not runt,” Hackle said. “Hackle no run.”

  “Then runt leave friend with Jaggal. If runt run, friend die.”

  “No!” Aram shouted.

  “Jaggal say yes!” Jaggal growled back. “Runt leave friend. And runt take Sivet to confirm runt kill Feral Scar.”

  “Who’s Sivet?” Aram asked.

  Everyone ignored him. Makasa could tell exactly who Sivet was by the imperious look on the pup’s face. Makasa was mildly surprised that the brute would put his own daughter at risk like this. But then Makasa remembered her own mother taking similar chances with her four children.

  “What friend runt leave?” Jaggal asked.

  Murky said, “Murky mrrugl. Ukle frund Murky mrrugl.”

  Again, Aram protested. “Murky, no! You don’t have to do this!”

  Murky shrugged. “Mrgle, mrgle. Murky mrrugggl. Murky mrrugl.”

  Hackle said, “Hackle friend Murky stay with Woodpaw. Sivet go with Hackle, Aram, and Makasa. Sivet see Hackle kill Feral Scar. Sivet come back and tell Jaggal that Hackle not runt. Jaggal let Murky and Hackle and Hackle’s friends go.”

  Jaggal nodded, then actually shoved Sivet toward Hackle. Hackle shoved Murky toward the brute.

  Aram whispered to Makasa, “I don’t like leaving Murky as a hostage to these gnolls. We just got him back from Malus.”

  She whispered in return, “Do you see another option I don’t, brother?” If he could attempt to influence her by calling her “sister,” then she might as well learn to return the favor.

  Aram said nothing, but his head sank a bit, which was as good as a no.

  Thus, with negotiations complete, Hackle led Sivet, Aram, and Makasa down the road, away from Jaggal, his nine warriors, and the grinning, waving murloc.

  As soon as they were out of sight of the Woodpaw, Hackle led the small band off the road and up into the hills, setting a stiff pace. Aram—losing a few feet of ground on the others—felt light-headed from hunger.

  Sivet turned to him, and with her small voice dripping contempt, said, “Keep up, dumb boy!”

  Aram caught Makasa cracking the slightest hint of a smile. He said to her, “She remind you of anyone?”

  Flintwill’s smile instantaneously vanished. “No. Who? What do you mean?”

  “There is no one like Sivet of the Woodpaw clan,” Sivet said. “Sivet will be matriarch.”

  Hackle nodded and said, “Sivet will be matriarch.”

  The pup practically spat out, “Runt no talk to Sivet. Runt no talk at all until runt kill Feral Scar. If runt can kill Feral Scar. If runt can find Feral Scar.”

  Hackle said nothing. But he had clearly recovered some of his own. He smiled, uncowed. Aram wasn’t sure if Hackle was truly confident of being able to kill the yeti. But the young gnoll warrior seemed quite sure he could find the beast.

  Makasa asked him, “Are you sure Jaggal won’t follow?”

  Sivet said, “Jaggal send Sivet. Jaggal no need to follow runt and dumb humans.”

  Makasa’s movement was swift. In an instant, she had torn the small axe from the young gnoll’s grip and wrapped a strong hand around her throat. She said, “I am Makasa Flintwill of Stranglethorn Vale. I am no runt. And you are not yet matriarch. Learn respect for your elders and betters, pup, or you will get no better and no older.”

  Sivet didn’t struggle. She fearlessly looked Makasa in the eye and nodded once, respecting the human’s speed and strength.

  Makasa released the gnoll and proffered the pup’s axe. Sivet took it. Makasa turned on her heel and walked on alongside Hackle. Aram, just behind Sivet, was briefly worried that the pup might choose to plant the weapon in Makasa’s back, but instead Sivet sped up to flank Makasa, glancing up at her with no little admiration. Makasa looked down at the pup and nodded to her, respecting the respect she was now being shown.

  Aram shook his head. He walked behind the other three, pondering what might have happened if he had responded that way to Second Mate Flintwill’s angry contempt aboard Wavestrider, and whether he might not have gained her respect sooner.

  Just at sundown, they paused at a stream. All four slaked their thirst—the humans cupping the water to their mouths with their hands, and the two gnolls getting down on all fours to lap it up with their tongues. Makasa also refilled Thalyss’s canteen.

  Sivet sat back on the dirt. From a small pouch on her belt, took out a strip of boar jerky and ripped off a good-size chunk with her teeth. Her companions—even Makasa—stared at the jerky as if prepared to worship at its altar.

  The pup smirked. She pulled another long strip from her pouch and offered it to Makasa. She watched Makasa tear a piece off and give it to Aram. But when Makasa tore a second piece off for Hackle, she barked out, “No! Runt no get Woodpaw grub!”

  Hackle hesitated. So did Makasa. She said, “Hackle takes us to the mighty Feral Scar. Hackle will kill Feral Scar for Woodpaw. So Hackle must be made strong with Woodpaw grub.”

  Sivet clearly didn’t like this, but she respected Makasa and nodded reluctantly. Makasa held the piece of jerky out to Hackle, who took it and quickly shoved it all into his mouth in case either female changed her mind.

  As Hackle led them forward again, following the stream up a rocky slope, Aram gratefully chewed on his strip of the salty and flavorful dried meat, while marveling at Makasa’s ability to handle Sivet. He became more and more convinced that Makasa knew how to influence the gnoll pup, because in looking at Sivet, Makasa was basically looking in a mirror. Not that they actually were anything alike in appearance. They were different ages, different species, different physically in almost every way. But Aram felt sure that, by observing Sivet, he was getting a kind of glimpse of Makasa as a child. He imagined a thin young girl in Stranglethorn Vale, imperious and unstoppable. He’d have wagered that precious piece of jerky that her three older brothers had had no small amount of trouble keeping her in line.

  Hackle led them to the northwest, down into a hollow and then up another hill. Aram was keenly aware that they were now trudging in the exact opposite direction of Gadgetzan—and, in fact, were vaguely heading back toward the ogres of Dire Maul. Still, he wanted to help Hackle and ransom Murky, so he never even considered objecting. He did worry—assuming Feral Scar was as dangerous as the Woodpaw seemed to think—whether or not Hackle would really be able to bring the creature down. But he relied on Makasa to help Hackle during the fight and set the table for their gnoll friend to go in for the final kill.

/>   Final kill? That phrase gave Aram pause. Should killing really be the goal?

  Aram thought of the wyvern One-Eye, whom he and Hackle had regarded as merely a monster that needed killing so they might survive—before, in fact, discovering she was the mother of a litter of cubs captured by the ogres to force her to serve Gordok’s whims. In the end, Aram had found a way to save those cubs and ally with One-Eye against their common enemies.

  It was one of Greydon Thorne’s favorite lessons, expressed over and over in a hundred different ways, but mostly boiling down to this: “There is always something worthwhile—-something to treasure—in every species.”

  And as further evidence, wasn’t that also true of the gnolls themselves? The first time Aram had seen a gnoll clan, he had definitely regarded them as nothing more than monsters. Now, he counted a gnoll among his best friends.

  So if his father’s wisdom applied to gnolls and wyverns, might it not also apply to yetis?

  Cautiously, he asked, “Are we sure the yetis are our enemy?”

  Sivet rolled her eyes. In fact, she rolled her entire head and yipped out, “Of course, yetis are enemy! Yetis kill gnolls, dumb boy!” She glanced anxiously at Makasa—her new hero—to confirm that the woman approved of her name-calling.

  Makasa was grimacing. Aram guessed she was probably torn. More than likely she had no problem with him being called “dumb boy,” especially as his question would strike her as absurd, since she regarded nearly everyone—no matter the species (humans not excepted)—as a potential enemy. (Makasa Flintwill was, in her own way, as egalitarian about potential enemies as Greydon Thorne was about potential friends.) But she also hated eye-rolling on principle, and Aram knew from personal experience it particularly grated on her.

  So while she scowlingly searched for her response, he forged on: “Yes, yetis killed gnolls. But didn’t gnolls kill yetis as well? If all the killing stopped on both sides, couldn’t—”

  “Killing no stop,” Hackle said, absently scratching behind his ear with his free paw. “Killing never stop.” The young gnoll sounded neither sad nor gleeful. He was simply stating a fact, as he saw it.

  But Aram saw things differently. Or he was coming to, anyway. He talked of his father’s lessons. He brought up One-Eye. He described his father’s encounter with the matriarch of the Grimtail gnolls.

  Hackle grunted some begrudging acknowledgment. But Sivet gawked at him incredulously.

  Aram reached back to remove his sketchbook from his pocket to show the gnoll pup the good magic therein. When presented with the commonalities between species, most everyone saw things in a new perspective. (In any case, it had always worked before!) But Makasa stayed his hand.

  She said, “And what did you find to ‘treasure’ in the Gordunni?”

  This instantly stumped him. He racked his brain but could summon up nothing worthwhile in the bloodthirsty behavior of even one of the ogres.

  He gaped up helplessly at his sister and was surprised to find her looking down on him kindly. She said, “You can’t save everyone, Aram. And not everyone deserves saving, either.”

  He found himself nodding in agreement—then grew angry with himself for acquiescing. Yet he couldn’t summon up the evidence to defend his position from her argument—and that grieved him.

  Sivet chose that particular moment to snicker at his fallen expression and his fallen ideals, which in turn caused him to briefly question whether this particular arrogant pup deserved saving.

  But that question would get answered soon enough.

  Soon enough, Hackle was leading them along the knife-edge of a ridge that had been blocked from view by a ring of tall pines. The ridge curved around a hidden canyon, small but deep, rocky but accented with green. Some millennia ago, a mighty river must have carved a gulch out of this granite terrain. The gulch became a ravine; the ravine, a canyon. Now all that remained of the river was a small nameless stream far below them on the canyon floor. It was further proof to a morose Aram that nothing in this world stayed the same—not even things as seemingly constant as stone or mighty rivers … not even his own constancy in the lessons of his father.

  The sun had set. The White Lady had not yet risen, but the Blue Child—or seven-eighths of it, anyway—crested the tree-line. Though Aram was only halfway through his current sulk, the artist in him saw the little stream glittering blue in the moonlight and couldn’t resist whispering, “Beautiful …”

  Hackle and Sivet both looked over their shoulders at Aram. Like the stream, the gnolls’ eyes eerily reflected back the Child’s azure light. Sivet stared at the human boy for a bit, then barked out her small, contempt-filled, yipping laugh.

  Hackle hushed her, whispering, “Shhh. We right above yeti caves, above Feral Scar cave.”

  As they had already trudged over halfway round the canyon, Sivet glared at Hackle and growled, “Runt lead Sivet in circles. Runt lie about Feral Scar. Runt no know where Feral Scar is.”

  The “runt” was afforded no time—or need—to respond. Because at just that moment, a huge hairy hand smashed up out of the chalky ground, grabbed ahold of Sivet’s legs, and yanked her down and out of sight—seemingly into the bowels of Azeroth—all before she even had time to scream.

  Raising his club over his head, Hackle yelled, “Hackle follow Sivet! Cave entrance below! Go!” Then he brought the war club down, smashing and expanding the hole in the ground until it was as wide as his shoulders. Instantaneously, he dropped through it and out of sight.

  Aram stood there stunned. He stared down into the hole but could see only darkness. He turned to exchange a glance with Makasa—but she was gone.

  Where?

  Below!

  Belatedly, he scrambled toward the edge of the ridge and looked over. Below, Makasa seemed to be vanishing into the side of the mountain.

  Aram couldn’t see the entrance to the cave from above, but having finally gotten his head around what had happened, he knew the cave must exist. The ledge before its entrance was about ten feet beneath him. He hadn’t seen how Makasa had gotten down. He imagined now that she had jumped. He tried to steel himself to do the same but couldn’t quite work up the nerve. So he grabbed the stone at the edge of the ridge and swung himself over. Fully extending his arms, he hung down, then dropped the last five feet or so to land in a crouch before the yawning entrance of the dark cave.

  He stood, drew his cutlass, bit his bottom lip, and raced inside.

  The cave was rank with the smell of musk. Blue moonlight shone down through the hole in the ceiling, eerily illuminating the scene before him. An immense creature of fur and muscle—presumably the yeti Feral Scar—had Sivet in the grip of his impossibly enormous right fist. She was conscious but straining, her arms pinned to her sides. Aram spotted her small hatchet-size axe on the cave floor.

  Hackle was hanging by one paw from the rightmost of the two long horns that emerged horizontally from the beast’s great head. The young gnoll warrior used his free hand to swing Wordok’s club at the yeti. It thudded against the monster’s right shoulder with little observable effect. Certainly, it wasn’t making him drop Sivet.

  Makasa was before the beast, her sword in one hand, her chain in the other. The latter hung limply at her side. She didn’t—couldn’t—swing the iron chain, because Feral Scar held Sivet out in front of him. It flashed through Aram’s mind to wonder: Is this supposedly dumb animal blessed with dumb luck? Is the beast simply holding Sivet away from Hackle and only inadvertently thwarting Makasa’s most devastating attack? Or does the yeti know what he’s doing?

  Aram could almost hear Makasa wishing she still had her harpoon. And at first—aside from the regular muffled thumping of Hackle’s club on Feral Scar’s thick, fur-covered hide—there was little else to hear. None of the combatants made a sound. Feral Scar swung his head back and forth, trying to shake Hackle off his horn, but Hackle held on. The yeti reached his free left hand across his body to grab the gnoll, but Hackle swung his legs out of range.
And all this was done as a kind of pantomime. Sivet didn’t scream. Hackle and Makasa let loose no war cries. Aram hardly breathed.

  And the yeti didn’t roar.

  This surprised Aram. He had imagined a beast that size would roar loudly enough to shatter the stone walls of the cave. But the creature made no sound. Hackle was hanging from one of the yeti’s horns (which one would think was quite uncomfortable for the yeti), yet the creature made no sound. And what was that expression on the beast’s face? Determination?

  Sivet emitted a strangled, barely audible cry. Aram realized her tiny body was being crushed in the monster’s grip. It looked a bit like her head might pop off any second.

  Aram came up even with Makasa. He wanted to help but wasn’t sure how and didn’t want to get in his sister’s way. They exchanged a glance. He could see Makasa had no clear idea of what to do, either.

  But Hackle did. He growled out, “Go low, Makasa.”

  Aram didn’t understand, but Makasa Flintwill did. She stepped back to swing her chain in tight circles. Now, Aram definitely saw the yeti move the hand holding Sivet in Makasa’s direction. Feral Scar was using the tiny gnoll as a shield to protect his head. But Makasa wasn’t swinging for the beast’s head. Without warning, she crouched down and let the chain swing toward the monster’s legs. It wrapped around a tree-trunk-thick ankle. The chain went taut, and Makasa pulled, trying to yank the beast off his very big foot. But the creature didn’t budge. She gestured with her head, and Aram, suddenly understanding, joined her to help pull on the chain. Straining loudly, their efforts breaking the silence, both pulled with all their might.

  Still, Feral Scar could not be moved. His glowing yellow eyes squinted a bit into an expression resembling contempt. It was the only reaction they got. The yeti raised Sivet up toward his huge toothy maw. If her head hadn’t yet popped off, he looked ready to bite it off—or perhaps simply to swallow her whole.

  Amid the renewed silence, there finally came a sound. Not from within the cave but from without. It was the kind of roar one might expect to hear from a bear being attacked by hounds: angry, plaintive, deadly, frustrated. Aram thought he could hear all those sounds in this bellow.