“Yukha,” Thrall said. This was no mere messenger. He recognized the shaman at once. They had served together against the Legion, and anything that might drive Yukha from his post in the Maelstrom was dire indeed. “Throm-ka, old friend, what brings you to Orgrimmar?”
They clapped hands on each other’s shoulders, and Yukha chewed his cheek for a moment before drawing a deep, sorrowful breath.
“The spirits, Thrall, they are in disarray. Where once we communed peacefully with the ancestors, we now find them angry and vengeful. They lash out. They deny us their wisdom. My friend…something is terribly wrong.”
Yukha shifted his carved staff to the other hand nervously. It was not like the battle- and time-tested seer to fidget so.
“When?” Thrall asked in a low voice, keeping the conversation strictly between them. Zekhan sensed he was not invited to the discussion and took himself a polite distance away.
“I came with all speed,” Yukha replied. “The journey is unforgiving on my body now, but I knew you would listen to me, old friend.”
“Of course. You were never one to jostle your bones for less than the end of the world,” Thrall teased, but they only spared the shortest, driest laugh together.
“You jest, but I have never seen such unrest in the spirit world before, and you know how many long, long winters I have seen.”
Thrall nodded, his hand still resting firmly on the shaman’s upper arm.
“I have heard you, Yukha. The council will know of this and I will see to it personally that your concerns are not ignored.”
That drew a relieved smile across the orc’s wrinkled face. “Haste, son of Durotan. Haste. The ancestors cry out, and we must listen.”
CHAPTER TWO
Nazmir
Apari clasped her hands together under her chin, watching the last drop of life seep out of poor Seshi’s eyes. No, not poor Seshi. Foolish Seshi. The old wound in Apari’s leg throbbed, but she ignored it—her work was too important.
“You chose death,” she told him softly. “When ya chose her.”
“W-witch!”
His last ragged word echoed for a moment in the damp cave. It sounded as if the loa of death himself had torn the cry from the troll’s throat. The troll’s blue eyes flashed bright with desperation one last time and then went blank, his stare fixing on a point somewhere over Apari’s shoulder. On her other shoulder, a hungry dreadtick sat hunched and eager, its sharp little mouth sucking at the air, no doubt tasting death.
“Not this one, Daz,” Apari warned the tick. “One sip of his blood and you be flat as a coin, all your insides on the outside.”
Retchweed. Common as clouds in the Primal Wetlands. Seshi lay dead on a large stone slab, all that remained of a column from the Zul’jan Ruins to the east. A harsh, foul smell emanated from the body already, his purplish skin shriveled up and sagging as if he were a dried fruit. Fluid dribbled steadily from the stone slab, joining the soft drip-drop-drip of water from cracks in the cave’s ceiling. The constant drumming of the waterfall concealing the cave’s mouth distorted for a moment, and then Apari heard the nearly imperceptible footfalls of her most trusted general.
“This is how it will be?” Tayo asked. She joined Apari next to the corpse and wrinkled her nose. A huge slice of bone pierced her septum, her elongated tusks capped with sharpened gold points. Mud and black paint made her long ponytail look like a tar spill. Tayo had been a loyal friend and lieutenant since Yazma’s attempt at a coup. Her family had been sympathetic to the spymistress’s ideas, and subsequently banished by Talanji, threatened with execution if they returned. “This is how the traitor queen will die?”
“Retchweed and riverbud root,” Apari told her, holding up a small satchel of powder. “My own creation. A purge to remove the rot at the heart of our great land, sister.”
Apari knew her weeds and herbs, her poultices and powders. After receiving a grievous injury to her leg, she had tried everything to relieve the pain, the swelling, and then the infected smell. Nothing worked. It seethed and reeked on until at last she had accepted that, like many scars and betrayals in her life, it would simply have to become another reminder of all that she had lost. In the jungle villages of Zuldazar, retchweed was everywhere, and healers used it as a purge whenever a child swallowed something poisonous. The right quantity helped, but when dried, powdered, and mixed with riverbud root, retchweed became lethal.
And it was not a gentle way to pass on to the Other Side.
Tayo nodded. “She deserves to suffer. Where will it be done?”
Apari turned and regarded her general. It was a far more pleasant sight than the desiccated mess on the stone slab. “Before the whole of her precious Horde. She has chosen them over her own people, now let her die among them,” she sneered. “Ancestors be willin’.”
“Ancestors be willin’,” Tayo echoed, making a fist and touching it to her enameled harness. Two leather bandoliers crisscrossed her chest, packed with brightly feathered poison darts. “There is more. The pale rider is here; he arrived with an unliving elf. They be anxious to speak with you.”
The body behind her let out a hiss of air, and Apari twisted, watching the muscles in the troll’s shoulders and chest contort. Black bile flowed freely from between his cracked lips. She imagined that same thick ooze pouring out from Talanji’s mouth, her bright eyes dim and hollow…Retchweed purged the sickness in one’s body, but this went far beyond sickness, far beyond one troll’s death. Talanji was a symbol of everything corrupting the Zandalari empire, her reign no more than a stain on their ancient and powerful legacy. She only wished she could be there to watch the traitor queen claw at her own throat in fruitless desperation.
“Apari…”
She nodded once, and Tayo returned to the entrance of the cave with its curtain of a waterfall. Daz squirmed on her shoulder, hungry. Outside, beyond the cascade of water and shadows that hid them, a herd of saurolisks grunted and shrieked at a passing threat.
“Go,” Apari said quietly. “Hunt.”
The tick fluttered its gray wings and scratched at her shoulder, then glided away, toward the water sheeting down from above. Apari watched Daz go, the sun glinting against the waterfall, a kaleidoscope of colors flashing so swiftly it might have been her imagination. But no, the rainbow remained etched on her vision, turning the shadows purple and blue. A good omen. Daz soared like a child’s ball toward the sunlight, his soft wings just grazing the top of the man’s head.
So. They had come. She shivered. Things were in motion now, truly in motion, and Apari felt suddenly alive. It seemed like years, an age, since she had experienced such excitement.
Apari folded her hands together, the heavy rings there clacking as she limped toward their guests. The man—dark of hair and red of eye—brushed with annoyance at the tick, then pulled at the collar of his thick black coat. Tayo towered a head taller than he, of near equal height to his armored companion.
“Pale rider,” Apari called out to him. “You are welcome here, but in two hours we depart. We do not stay long, and the sun never sets twice on our camps.”
“A wise precaution.” His bright gaze swept the cave, landing on the grisly sight behind her. He simply smirked. “We have come to discuss our…arrangement. Might we speak elsewhere, or is this what passes for courtesy in your swamp?”
“No,” Apari replied. She inclined her head with respect but did not bow. Apari no longer bowed to anyone. “Not courtesy, but a promise.”
The man arched one black brow, and the elf to his right sighed with impatience. Her pink skin, veined and mottled, was as sickly as a skyterror’s webbing. She held a strange winged helmet under one arm, and Apari wondered just how she could fight smothered in so much heavy armor. But she did not wonder if the elf was dangerous—the murderous glint in her eye transcended culture and custom.
“A promise,�
�� Apari reiterated, answering the dead man’s silent question. “A vow to my mother who drank the venom of Shadra, and to all of Zandalar who deserve better than a crown and gods who care not for them.” She pulled a green stalk of retchweed from her pocket and held it up, twisting it in the light. “Shadra is gone. Yazma is gone, too, but poison lingers. Poison in my heart,” she murmured, “and soon, poison in the traitor queen’s veins.”
* * *
—
Zekhan had not avoided the unforgiving boot of war by staying still. No, he had learned to make himself useful, to stay useful, and to know when that usefulness had come to its end. He had not landed on Varok Saurfang’s side on the battlements of Lordaeron by twiddling his thumbs or taking a nap. And so he did not stand still while his commander descended into a quiet, intense exchange with the Earthen Ring shaman.
He casually fell into step behind the tall and well-armed leader of the Darkspear trolls, Rokhan, using his shadow as a concealment of sorts, ignoring the screams and cheers of the crowd as the assembled council members and their assorted bodyguards, advisers, and hangers-on retreated to the tempting shade of the feast tents. Zekhan wasn’t foolish enough to think those celebratory cheers were for him. No, he was in a shadow and was a shadow, first his father’s, then Saurfang’s and now Thrall’s.
And as a shadow he crept along, looking for something interesting enough to occupy his time. “Keep ya hands busy and ya mind sharp,” his father, Hekazi, had told him when Zekhan was still knee-high to a raptor. “And ya will never want for work nor amusement.”
Work and amusement would have to go hand in hand that day. A drum circle with a trio of wild dancers had been set up outside the tents to welcome the esteemed guests. He watched the goblin, Gazlowe, sidle up toward the drums, doing a silly two-step and making the dancers laugh. The music, the steady, infectious rhythm of it, gradually spread to the others approaching the tent, tense shoulders moving instead to the beat, narrowed eyes widening with appreciation at the talented (and scantily dressed) dancers.
Only Talanji and her Zandalari contingent stood apart. The detached detachment. He wasn’t exactly surprised. While the Horde Council had welcomed her and her folk warmly, her response had so far been nothing but chilly. Zekhan had kept a close eye on her, intrigued and, admittedly, a little besotted with the beautiful queen. She had the most delicate tusks and arresting blue eyes…
She also, quite clearly, had a temper.
Talanji paced back and forth on the far southern end of the feast tables, a turquoise-skinned, yellow-haired young troll girl fanning the queen with a massive palm frond. Annoyed with the little puffs of wind, Talanji batted at the girl, shooing her away. Zekhan frowned. Had there not been more bodyguards with Talanji when they arrived? Or had one of her handmaidens gone missing? Orgrimmar was not the most confusing city to navigate in the world, but perhaps one of the Zandalari had gotten lost on their way to the meeting that afternoon.
Maybe, he thought. Maybe. He sidled closer, sensing an opportunity. The Horde needed every advantage it could get, and that meant securing Talanji’s allegiance anew: an ally willing to join them in war or peace, one willing to provide troops. One willing to join the council. So far she didn’t seem very impressed.
“Might I be of service, ya majesty?”
Zekhan gave a low bow and brought out his most dazzling smile. The girl fanning the queen made a tiny sound of alarm. The queen herself stared at him—through him—then rolled her eyes.
“And how could you possibly be of service?” Her keen eyes no doubt took in his humble garments and dirt under his fingernails. Meanwhile, she and her servants glittered like firebugs at dusk.
“Ya entourage be lookin’ a little light. If ya need an errand run or a fresh cup of wine—”
Talanji tilted her head to the side, her earrings jangling softly as she interrupted him. “You are spying on me now?”
Not the response he was hoping for. Zekhan backed away, already bracing for the lecture Thrall would give him for bothering the queen. He threw up his arms as if in surrender, a cold shiver overcoming him, like someone had traced the tip of a knife down his spine. And then he fell backward, steady one minute and flailing the next, his elbow smashing into something hard and then wet. A goblet. Talanji’s missing servant had returned, and Zekhan had crashed right into him.
The cup and its contents fell to the ground, splashing wine all over Zekhan’s feet and the hem of Talanji’s gown.
“Mind yaself!” the servant carrying the tray and goblet shouted, scrambling to scoop up the fallen goblet. He was older than Talanji, the servant, with scars crisscrossing his nose and a visible sheen of sweat over his brow. “Clumsy oaf! That was the queen’s wine!”
“Just a mistake,” Talanji said, calmly lifting her skirt to inspect the damage. “He meant no harm…”
But Zekhan stopped listening to the queen, staring at the stain on the fine white silk of her dress. First Arcanist Thalyssra’s silken voice was suddenly in his head…
I cannot wait for you to sample our arcfruit sangree, Lor’themar. We have generously arranged enough for all of Orgrimmar to enjoy.
The ugly splotch on the queen’s hem was purplish blue and turning black. What’s more, the puddle left behind on the dirt smelled distinctly of death.
“Another cup for ya majesty, I will return,” the servant was saying, bowing to Talanji as he shuffled away.
“No.” Zekhan knelt and swept his fingers through the spill on the ground, then sniffed. Whatever it was, it wasn’t wine. An herbal tea, maybe, or something worse. “What you be servin’ her?”
“W-wine,” the servant stammered, but the sweat on the troll’s brow poured heavy down his temples. “Just wine.”
Standing, Zekhan had barely enough time to wedge himself between Talanji and the scarred servant, who yanked a dagger from under his tunic and lunged toward the queen. The commotion had aroused the interest of the entire council, and now Zekhan felt the feasting tents explode into chaos around him. The drums went abruptly silent followed by hushed whispers from the crowd outside.
“Back!” Zekhan thundered at Talanji. “Behind me!”
A throwing axe flew straight over Zekhan’s shoulder, close enough to give him a haircut. He shook it off, hurling a fork of lightning right after the axe—the bolt slammed the servant into a tentpole before he slumped to the ground, the throwing axe buried in the ground beside him, a narrow miss. Thrall’s heavy tread came next, and then his intimidating shadow as he raced by them and toward the assassin. That explained the axe.
“Hold him!” someone was shouting.
“Protect the queen!”
Zekhan came to his senses and stumbled after Thrall, who reached the assailant a moment too late. The dagger was still in the troll’s hand and swiftly put to use, jammed into his own stomach and yanked upward.
“Speak.” Thrall had the troll by his neck, but the dagger had done its gruesome work. “Who sent you? Who sent you?”
The old scarred troll had just enough left in him to whisper a final threat, “She…will know our…b-bite.” Then his head went loose on his neck, a trickle of blood seeping from between withered lips.
No sooner had the troll spoken his last than Talanji was upon them, pushing Thrall and Zekhan aside and kneeling in the blood-soaked earth beside the assassin. “He is Zandalari. One of my own…But how?”
“All of your people must be held and questioned,” Thrall replied sternly. “There is never just one assassin.”
“Question your own people!” Talanji fumed, leaping to her feet, her hands and gown covered in blood. Covered in poison. “We will return home before more blood can be spilled.”
Thrall sighed and shifted, standing in her way. “I assure you—”
“You can assure me nothing—not ships, not soldiers, not my own personal safety.” She straigh
tened her head, and at her height, she could easily look Thrall in the eye. Zekhan cowered, the tension around them thicker than tar. “You do not need me here. Zandalar, my home, will always need me, so that is where I will be.”
All eyes followed the Zandalari queen as she gathered her small entourage and marched out of the tents, head held high and proud. All eyes, Zekhan noted, except for those belonging to Thrall. It had all happened in the space of a blink, the assassin, the axe, the queen’s outrage…He couldn’t help but fixate on the moment when his arm knocked the cup out of the assassin’s hand. He felt certain his feet had been firmly planted on the ground, that something or someone had shoved him back into the Zandalari.
The council members came one by one, drawn by the commotion, the Darkspear chieftain Rokhan appearing at his side, only then sheathing his daggers. Smirking, the taller troll clapped Zekhan on the back, and Zekhan was just dizzy enough from the chaos to sway a little from the force of it.
“Ya did good, boy. Those be the reflexes of Kimbul.”
But I didn’t do it.
The lightning he could take credit for, but the cup? The cup…He frowned, gazing around at the faces of relieved council members. Only Thrall, visible at the back of the crowd, shared his concern, his brow furrowed, his eyes dark and distant. Now all the mightiest the Horde had to offer gathered around him, echoing Rokhan’s sentiments. Already he heard someone say the word “hero,” and Zekhan shook his head. No, no, he wasn’t a hero at all, just a boy from the jungles, from a village that would fit inside the gates of Orgrimmar a hundred times over; he only wanted to make himself useful, not win some kind of accolade.
Zekhan found Thrall’s face among the throng again, but his expression went unchanged. The single black smudge in the otherwise cloudless sky, the distant warning presaging rain. Only a few would notice it, only a few would take heed, but when the great leader worried, the wise warrior beneath him worried, too.
Shadows Rising (World of Warcraft: Shadowlands) Page 3