Zekhan perked up, nodding his head vigorously. “The rebels, yes, it is as I said, ya majesty, the Horde is willin’ to help!”
“I am the queen, and I speak for the Golden Throne; Zekhan, be silent. This is not my first brush with insurrection,” Talanji fired back, directing herself first to the spy and then to Thrall. The Rastari honor guards protecting the chamber inched closer to Thrall as if sensing her growing irritation. “Like the traitors Yazma and Zul, this rebellion will be crushed and order returned to Zuldazar. This is Zandalari business, and it will be handled the Zandalari way!”
The pandaren plucked a stray poisoned dart from Thrall’s pauldron. “Indeed. It looks very handled.”
Talanji took a single trembling step down from her throne. Even the bottoms of her feet ached. “How dare you—”
“There is no time for this. We work together or these rebels win the day and topple your rule, your majesty.” Thrall’s voice rose to the threatening timbre of thunder. “Listen, and listen well, your majesty. Our shaman sense terrible unrest in the spirit realm; these rebels attacking you grow stronger, bolstered by the dark rangers of Sylvanas Windrunner.”
The chamber fell silent. Talanji’s heart clenched in her chest. Could it be true? The Blade of the Queen fidgeted, nervous, now she too was sweating in her pauldrons decorated with sharpened tusks and helm bearing a plume of emerald and blue feathers. Talanji exchanged a glance with Zolani, who gave the tiniest shrug of confusion.
“Dark rangers? Here? That is not possible,” Talanji felt her hands growing cold. “I…I would know of this.”
“No, you might not.” Thrall sighed and raked his hand through his dark, coarse hair. “Sylvanas works in the shadows. Her forces are minimal; they must use whatever resources they can. Whatever reinforcements they can.”
The world spun a little. Reinforcements. Yes. That would explain how the Widow’s Bite seemed to be everywhere and nowhere, how they could attack so many shrines and afford new weapons. They had borrowed the tactics and resources from an outside source. A blight had landed on her shores and begun to infect the most persuadable. Sylvanas Windrunner. A name synonymous with chaos and death. And what did the Widow’s Bite attack? Shrines belonging to the loa of graves—the weak spot in her rule. Slowly it began to intertwine, making a sick sort of sense.
“Oh,” she murmured. “There is proof of this?”
“Your reaction is proof enough,” Thrall said solemnly. She noticed him flick his eyes toward Zekhan. “But there is more. My…sources tell me that you have taken an Alliance spy into custody. He was investigating these exact suspicions. The rebels are using dark ranger arrows, and communications in their language have been discovered among abandoned camps.”
Talanji wished to grab the throne’s arm for support, but instead forced herself to stand still. The news washed over her in a powerful wave. They had indeed come across an Alliance dog sniffing around their lands, and her jailers reported that he insisted on a meeting with her. The dire threat of the Widow’s Bite had kept her from visiting his cell. In a certain light, it was a relief. This at least explained why they had been so unsuccessful in stopping the insurrection. Or…it partially explained it. Still, she wondered what “sources” had given him these tips. If it was Zekhan, then the ambassador had lied, holding back vital information. And yet her kingdom suffered, and had suffered for too long. It was time to be honest. It was time to admit the odds were becoming insurmountable. They no longer faced just one nest of vipers but two.
For a moment she simply observed Thrall, then bit her lip, making her choice.
“These are grave tidings indeed. These signs…I should have seen them.”
“That is how Sylvanas works,” Thrall said softly. “They would have infiltrated carefully. They will use all possible means to stay hidden.” He came nearer to the throne, gazing up at her. “We are not blaming you for their presence, Queen Talanji, only demanding that you take it seriously.”
“I will,” Talanji breathed. “I do.” She turned to Zolani, the Blade of the Queen. “We can delay no longer. Dispatch our forces to the remaining shrines. The Widow’s Bite are conspiring with a known war criminal and no friend to us. The people of Zandalar cannot accuse us of turning on our own, not when the rebels have chosen such vile traitors for friends.”
“Right away, my queen.” Zolani bowed and left to do the queen’s bidding.
“I can go, too,” Zekhan volunteered, placing his hand up just a little above his shoulder. “Lead some soldiers, I mean. I serve the Horde, my queen, but I serve you, too.”
“You should wait for our forces to support your own,” Thrall interrupted swiftly, addressing them both. “Dark rangers are formidable—”
“My soldiers are formidable, too,” Talanji told him, holding her head high. Her gaze fell on Zekhan, and he straightened with pride. “Summon your Horde forces, Thrall, bring them to our aid, but Zandalar can wait no longer. Zandalar acts now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Dazar’alor
The walls of the prison might have glittered with all the promises of a poor man’s dreams, but a golden prison was still a prison. Shaw had to hand it to the Zandalari—even the dungeons in the city of gold lived up to the name. They really committed to the theme.
Relieved of his weapons, even the knife he thought he had pretty handily stashed in the false bottom of his boot, Shaw had nothing to do but lie back on the rock-hard bench they gave him for a bed and stare up at the cracks in the ceiling. For a while he counted them, desperate to employ his mind. Then, of course, his thoughts began to wander. One of the bricks was shaped sort of like a moon, or maybe a boat. Definitely the hull of a boat.
Fairwind and the crew had gotten away. That was his one and only hope, a notoriously unreliable pirate captaining a slapdash crew through an impassable, deadly storm. Great odds. He’d seen worse, of course, in his long, long career as spymaster, but these odds ranked pretty low…Maybe just above the time he had relied completely on a shoddy network of spies embedded in a cheese business. Not all of a man’s schemes could be brilliant.
He sprang up off the bench. It would take a brilliant scheme indeed to get him out of this prison and make a dent in this mission. So far, the Zandalari had treated him well enough, affording him the usual prisoner of war amenities—a bench for rest, a bowl for slop, and a bucket for his business. They had wisely chosen a cell at the very end of the prison. Twenty-four cells total, a few occupied, but they shoved him away from everything. Two guards stood sentry just outside his tiny golden room, changing shifts at breakfast and dinner. He was never left unsupervised. The kids watching him looked green, probably new recruits. That was odd. He thought a spy would rate at least a few grizzled veterans.
“This your first stint guarding the prison?” He had tried, the second day, to make conversation. The guard on the left looked like he barely fit into his armor, the pauldrons forged for a much larger troll. He saw the kid shift from foot to foot, glancing at his mate for help.
“Don’t look at him, look at me,” Mathias said.
The second guard muttered something, but Mathias didn’t catch it. His Zandali was all right, but the boy had said it fast.
“You two aren’t even a little bit curious about me?” he asked a few hours later, letting them settle down after his first try. The kid swimming in armor actually glanced his way, pale blue eyes flashing, brows tight with alarm. “Hey. I don’t bite.”
“We are not to speak with you,” he stammered, clutching his halberd for dear life.
“Says who?”
“Overseer. Everyone. Shut up!”
That was that. Mathias didn’t get an answer the next time he prodded them, so he tried a different tactic. He had once talked his way out of a headlock during a bar brawl in Dalaran. That time it was a gnoll latched around his neck, and if he could reason with a gnoll,
he could reason with anyone.
“Bit boring down here, don’t you think?” Day three. Shaw leaned against the bars of his door, casually picking his nails. Usually he whittled bird statues to keep his hands busy, but he was down a few crucial items for that. “I was going to take a vacation soon. Guess this is it now. Not really what I had in mind…Guess Valeera was right.”
The guards ignored him. A mosquito had found its way in, buzzing around Shaw’s ear. Because he was locked up, he let it go on principle.
“I thought maybe I would just disappear into the highlands. Had a cabin out there once. Small. What you might call cozy. Get up whenever I happened to, go to bed just the same. Put a chair out in the tall grass and kick my boots off. Whittle some. Work on my birdcalls. They’re pretty good, but they could always be better.”
Mathias closed his eyes, thumbnail gliding over his palm. Just keep your hands and mind busy. Pass the time. Don’t go mad. Stay sharp. “That whole thing sounds lonely, doesn’t it?”
He saw, out of the corner of his eye, the little troll nod, forgetting himself.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t go alone. I’m good at that, being alone. Comes natural to me. I was never all that personable—liked watching people, sure, observing, but too many and I just felt…swallowed up, like everyone could see me just fine but I couldn’t see them. I like to be above it all, perched. But I should find a friend.”
Mathias stopped, realizing he had stumbled into a truth he hadn’t meant to bungle into. “Well. I should make a friend. A partner.”
He thought he had one, or the start of one or something more, but that remained to be seen. If—when—he got out of the prison, he would just ask the man directly. There were ways, of course, that he could gather information and circumvent the discussion part, but Mathias, just then, wanted desperately to talk.
After all, they had a lot to discuss. He was just warming up to Flynn when that damn storm tossed them into chaos, and the pirate had even told him about the death of his mother. That couldn’t have been easy. There was so much Mathias now wanted to tell him—about himself, about his family, about the life he led for his country but not for himself.
They would have the talk eventually, of course, Mathias would get out somehow. This time it wouldn’t be on a ship where they could be interrupted by storm or sailors. That cabin might be the perfect location, come to think of it. Just the two of them with their chairs in the tall grass. The mountains all around would be standing guard, enfolding them like an embrace, a flock of distant birds calling to each other as they grew smaller and then were swallowed by the dark orange sun hanging low on the horizon.
“I never got to finish telling you about my grandmother,” Shaw would say. If he closed his eyes and concentrated, he could feel the stiff grass of the highlands poking into his calves.
Flynn would say something flippant like, “I thought you just wanted to enjoy the sunset.”
And Mathias would sigh and wait for the inevitable prodding. Flynn Fairwind was, of course, incorrigibly curious. Then Mathias would snap off a piece of grass and play with it, not nervously, but to give himself a focus. “Pathonia Shaw, the Silver Cutpurse.”
“Pathonia?” Flynn would cackle. “That’s a dreadful name. Full apologies to your granny.”
“She’s long dead, and it would take more than a cheap insult to bring on her fury.” Shaw would sigh and shake his head, and bend the grass into a moon shape. “No, she was made of iron. Caught three times for stealing and given the choice by the guard of Stormwind—work for them or hang.”
“It’s safe to assume she chose Stormwind?” he might ask.
“Oh, yes. She chose Stormwind. She chose to assassinate whomever they told her to and make it look like an accident, or a robbery gone wrong, or anything but what it was. She taught my mother the same trade, and when my mother died Pathonia taught me, too.” The little piece of grass would make a perfect circle, and he would hold it up and catch the sunset inside it. “She chose Stormwind for me, too.”
The bitterness broke the scene playing out in his head. He opened his eyes, and there was no tall grass and no cabin, and no Flynn there beside him to hear this tale. His grandmother Pathonia always wore a grotesque amount of rings, jewels glittering on every knuckle, but on her right ring finger she wore only a tied red string. As a boy, Shaw had asked what it meant once: Pathonia had cuffed him across the cheek and he never asked again.
He thought then of that small red thread, saw it unwind, growing longer, and longer, until he saw it connect from that scared boy to where he stood now, a line drawn in blood. How different his family’s legacy could have been, how different his life could have been, had he been given the freedom to choose for himself. Did Flynn Fairwind feel the same? Doomed to a life of piracy, of theft, because his mother had put him on that path?
Shaw leaned against the cold gold wall, forehead instantly chilled, and wondered about freedom, about how much of it he had felt aboard the Bold Arva, and the man that had been there with him. A man that smelled like whiskey and salt and soap, whose coat had been warm in his hands, as warm as sun-baked stones. He pushed himself away from the wall and retreated to the stone slab, finding only fitful sleep.
* * *
—
On the fourth day, the skinny little troll in the too-big armor slipped something under the door with his gruel. A long, wide piece of grass, perfect in every way, firm enough to take a slice. Like from a fingernail. Mathias picked it up, confused, studying it from every angle. Not much of a digging implement, not much of a shiv. Then he remembered all the junk he had spilled to the guards at the door, and he smiled at the blade of grass.
It was for his vacation. For the birdcalls. He clasped his hands together over the piece of grass as if he were praying, and maybe he was. If he did have a friend in the world—a real friend and not just an ally or an acquaintance or a source—then he hoped that friend had gone for help. Flynn had it in him. They had made a good team on the Arva, good partners. He hoped that partner hadn’t shipwrecked somewhere, that he wasn’t drifting dead at the bottom of the sea.
He had a lot of things to say to that man, if and when he got out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Nazmir
Shallow pools of orange light glistened on top of the tar pits. Just as they had feared and expected, the rebels had reached the shrine. Zekhan held up his hand, the lieutenant at his side doing the same, both of them calling for silence. Soldiers crouched in the brush that grew thinner and thinner as the sandy hillside gave way to the hardened earth before the pits. Juho, the lieutenant, grumbled wordlessly, shifting his spear to the ground for a moment.
The pterrordaxes had dropped them off a mile back up the hilly approach to Shoal’jai, diverting around the sharp peaks where more of the birdlike creatures nested. Speed and discretion demanded that they risk the dangerous maneuver. They had not been seen, but that didn’t matter.
“Too many,” Juho said. A square piercing hung from his lower lip, and he nudged it nervously with his tongue. “The fire…With those torches, they can control the pits. We can’t go near them.”
“We have to try,” Zekhan told him. “The queen needs us, Juho. Zandalar needs us.”
He scrunched his nose. “Dis is for Bwonsamdi.”
“No, Juho, it’s more than that,” he insisted. They were running out of time, and this hesitation was not helping. “These rebels are stealing trolls from their beds, sacrificing them for dark magics. Do ya not want to stop that? Do ya not want to protect ya city?”
Juho drew back, staring ahead, the glow of the torches hovering near the pits reflecting in his eyes. “To the west, then, fewer rebels that way.”
Zekhan grinned, and with another hand signal, the soldiers began their approach. He saw Juho lean down and gather sticky mud in his hand, then rub it over his golden armor, obsc
uring the shine. The others followed his lead, and Zekhan pressed forward ahead of them, already dressed in dark leathers.
The soldiers began to veer to the left, to skirt the nearest pit and try to strike with surprise along the far shore. Zekhan noticed the rebels clustered on the opposite side of the tar lakes, dark rangers among them, their eyes glowing faintly in the dark. A man stood among them with his own pair of pulsing red eyes, bright as the braziers lit at his feet. The loa’s shrine rose out of the middle of the black, smooth tar pit before Nathanos Blightcaller, he, the rebels, and the dark rangers nocking lit arrows and firing at it.
Something squirmed on top of the shrine. Something alive.
“Ancestors have mercy,” Zekhan whispered, rushing toward the nearest edge of the tar pit. “Children.”
“Zandalari! Now!” Juho had given the order, and the trolls rushed forward, spears raised.
Zekhan went his own way, watching the arrows sail over the shrine and over the children, landing on the far bank, mere feet from where he crept along the edge of the stinking black pit. The Zandalari soldiers cut through the rebels easily enough, but the dark rangers were already upon them, forcing a retreat. A perfectly aimed gust of wind might push the children to safety, or it might just shove them into the tar. He closed his eyes tightly, knowing he couldn’t just let the little ones be shot to death, but also keenly aware that this was bait.
And it was working. He felt power surge from his toes to his hands—he had to try the spell. Had to try something. He could never live with himself if he just left them there.
Air rushed between his hands, gathering into a larger, louder vortex as he channeled all his energy into it. Another arrow landed, thwipping into the dirt at his feet, disrupting the spell. He glanced up, just in time to see Nathanos Blightcaller lowering his bow. He was too far away to read any expression, but Zekhan already knew he was grinning.
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