Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War Page 3

  He lifted Gorehowl again, and in response the gathered orcs uttered a great cry. The rest of the Horde joined in, Baine included, for this was in support of the mighty Horde to which they all belonged. Garrosh spoke this much truth: those who called themselves Horde would never let their spirits be beaten down—not by a shattered world, not by an insane former Aspect, not by anything.

  Not even by a father’s murder.

  Garrosh smiled around his tusks, nodding approvingly as he made his way to his throne, then raised his arms and called for silence. “You do not disappoint me,” he said. “You are the finest representatives of your races—the leaders, the generals. And that is why I called you here.”

  He settled himself in his throne, waving to indicate that the assembled crowd, too, could sit. “There is a menace that has been present for too long, which we must now root out without mercy. A threat that has challenged us for years, to which we have, until recently, turned a blind eye in the mistaken notion that tolerance of a little shame will do no harm to the mighty Horde. I have said and say again, any shame is a great shame! Any injury is a great injury! And we will endure it no longer!”

  A chill crept over Baine. He thought of Eitrigg’s reaction to his earlier inquiry. Baine had half-suspected what Garrosh wished to say when the order was given for the Horde leaders to congregate. He had hoped he was wrong.

  The orc continued. “We have a destiny to fulfill. And there is an obstacle to that destiny—one that we must crush beneath our feet like the insignificant insect it truly is. For far too long—nay, even a moment would be too long!—the Alliance pests, not content with their stranglehold over the Eastern Kingdoms, have wormed their ways into our lands, our territory. Into Kalimdor.”

  Baine closed his eyes briefly, pained.

  “Chipping away at our resources and sullying the very earth with their presence! They are crippling us, preventing us from growing, from reaching the heights that I know—I know—we are capable of achieving! For I believe in my heart that it is not our fate to bow and scrape and sue for peace before the Alliance. It is our right to dominate and control this land of Kalimdor. It is ours, and we will claim it as such!”

  Garrosh’s orcs roared in approval. Most of them, anyway—those who stood with the Kor’kron and the Blackrock orc. Some murmured quietly to themselves. Many Horde members followed the Kor’kron’s example, some bellowing with the same enthusiasm; others, Baine noted, with far less gusto. Baine himself remained seated. A very few of his own tauren applauded and stamped their hooves on the earth. The tauren had not been untouched by the recent changes. The Alliance, expanding from Northwatch Hold under false information that the tauren were planning an attack, had razed Camp Taurajo. The only residents it now had were looters. Many tauren died in the battle; others fled to Vendetta Point, where they sporadically attacked Northwatch Hold scouts, or to Camp Una’fe—the “Camp of Refuge.”

  In response to the aggression, Baine did what he felt was best to keep his people safe. The road to Mulgore had once been open; now what had been dubbed the Great Gate shut out any possibility of a massive Alliance incursion. Most tauren were content with the erection of the gate and did not burn for revenge. Others were still aching from the attack. He could not condemn these people. Baine did not rule with a tight grasp; the tauren followed him willingly and with love—perhaps mostly out of respect for his father, but with openness in their hearts nonetheless. Those who disagreed with Baine’s decisions, like many Grimtotem, or the tauren who chose to strike back at the Alliance from Vendetta Point, were expelled from Thunder Bluff but otherwise suffered no repercussions.

  He returned his thoughts to the present as the cheering died down and Garrosh resumed.

  “To that end, it is my intent to lead the Horde on a mission that will restore us to our rightful path.” He paused, looking over the sea of faces, drawing out the moment. “Our first target will be Northwatch Hold. We will raze it. And once we have reclaimed that land as ours, we will move on to the next step—Theramore!”

  Baine did not recall getting to his hooves, but suddenly he was standing. He was not alone. There was cheering, of course, but hard on its heels were cries of protest.

  “Warchief! The lady Jaina is too powerful!” came a voice. It sounded like a Forsaken. “She has been passive and quiet. Rouse her, and we will have war on our hands—a war we are not prepared to fight!”

  “She has behaved with fairness time and again, when she could have responded with force or deceit!” Baine shouted. “Her diplomatic efforts and her decision to work with Warchief Thrall have saved countless lives! To storm her realm with no provocation does not give honor to the Horde, and it is foolish besides!”

  There were many murmurs of agreement. Other Alliance leaders were far less favored, and the lady Jaina had those who respected her among the Horde. Baine was heartened to hear the murmurs, but Garrosh’s next words plunged the tauren back into despair.

  “First,” Garrosh snapped, “Thrall has given leadership of the Horde to me. Whatever he did or did not do means nothing now. I am the warchief, to whom you have all sworn loyalty. My decisions are what matter. And those of you who condemn my plan do not even know what it entails. Be silent and listen!”

  The muttering died down, but not all of those who had risen took their seats.

  “You respond to this as if the conquest of Theramore were the goal. I tell you now, it is only the beginning! I do not speak solely of destroying the human foothold in Kalimdor. I speak also, and even more vigorously, of the night elves. Let them flee to the Eastern Kingdoms as we crush their cities and take their resources!”

  “Drive dem all out?” said Vol’jin, baffled. “Dey been here longer dan we have. An’ we try something like dat, da Alliance be over us like bees on da honey! You just be giving dem de excuse dey been looking for!”

  Garrosh turned slowly to the leader of the Darkspear trolls. Inwardly, Baine winced. Vol’jin had been among the most outspoken of Garrosh’s critics after the death of Cairne. There was little love lost between the troll and orc leaders. Garrosh had forced the Darkspears into Orgrimmar’s slums. Outraged at the insult, Vol’jin had ordered the trolls to leave Orgrimmar altogether. Now, the Darkspear leader came to the city only when summoned.

  “My soul is sick of the back-and-forth in Ashenvale that has gone on nearly since we set foot in this world,” growled Garrosh. Baine knew the orc was still smarting from the latest defeat there at the hands of Varian Wrynn. “And I am even more sickened by our own blindness to what we should and must do. The night elves claim compassion and wisdom, yet they murder us when we harvest a few trees that would provide life-giving shelter! The night elves have lived here long enough. Let them now linger only as a bad memory. It is the Horde’s hour to reign on this continent, and reign we shall! This is why Theramore is key, do you not understand?” Garrosh stared at the Horde members as if they were small children. “We crush Theramore, we stop the potential of Alliance reinforcements from the south. And then—we give the night elves their due.”

  “Warchief!” The voice was female, at once both musical and cold. Sylvanas Windrunner, former high elf ranger-general and now the leader of the Forsaken, rose and gazed at Garrosh with intense glowing eyes. “The Alliance may indeed not send reinforcements. Not at once, at least. They will turn and vent their wrath instead upon those of us in the Eastern Kingdoms—my people and the sin’dorei.”

  She looked at Lor’themar almost imploringly. The blood elf leader’s face remained impassive. “Varian will march on my borders and destroy us!” The comment was addressed to Garrosh, but she continued to stare at Lor’themar. Baine felt for her; she was hoping for support from one who might reasonably be expected to give it, and finding none.

  “Warchief! A word?” It was Eitrigg, turning with the respect he owed to his leader.

  “I have heard from you already, my advisor,” said Garrosh.

  “We have not,” Baine stated. “Eitrigg wa
s friend to my father and advisor to Thrall. He knows the Alliance in a way few do. Surely you do not object to the rest of us hearing what such a wise elder has to say?”

  The look that Garrosh shot Baine could have melted stone. The tauren met the gaze with deceptive placidness. Nonetheless, the orc nodded to Eitrigg. “You may speak,” he said curtly.

  “It is true that the Horde has done much to recover from the Cataclysm,” Eitrigg began. “And it has been under your leadership, Warchief Garrosh. You are right. Yours is the title. Yours are the decisions. But yours also is the responsibility. Think for a moment about the consequences of this choice.”

  “The night elves will be gone; the Alliance will be afraid to attack; and Kalimdor will belong to the Horde. Those will be the consequences, elder.” Garrosh uttered the word not with respect, but almost with contempt. Baine noticed that two or three orcs frowned at the warchief’s tone of voice and were listening intently to Eitrigg.

  Eitrigg shook his head. “No,” he said. “That is a hope. You hope to begin claiming this continent as ours. And you might. You would also begin a war that would involve armies from all over this world, Horde and Alliance, locked in a combat that would take lives and drain resources. Have we not suffered through enough of those costs?” The orcs who had been paying close attention now started nodding. Baine recognized one of them as a shopkeeper here in Orgrimmar. Another, surprisingly, was one of the guards, though not a member of the elite Kor’kron.

  “Costs?” said a slightly screechy voice. “I hadn’t heard Warchief Garrosh mention costs, friend Eitrigg.” It was, of course, Trade Prince Gallywix. He was standing—not that anyone could tell. The crown of his top hat was all that could be seen of him, but it bobbed up and down animatedly with his speech. “What I hear is talk of profit for everyone. Why not expand, taking the resources of our enemies and driving them away at the same time? Even war is good business if you go about it properly!”

  Baine had had enough. The greedy, self-absorbed goblin’s quip about the blood of heroes and foes alike being spilled for profit pushed Baine’s anger past prudent silence.

  “Garrosh!” he said. “There is none here who can say that I do not love the Horde. Nor any who can say that I do not honor your title.”

  Garrosh did not speak. He well knew that he had not come to Baine’s aid when it was needed, and yet the tauren still had acknowledged him as warchief. Baine had even saved Garrosh’s life once. The orc made no attempt to silence Baine… yet.

  “I know this lady. You do not. She has worked tirelessly for peace, knowing well that we are not monsters but people—like the people who compose the Alliance.” His sharp eyes scanned the crowd, and any rabble-rousers who might have been tempted to protest his labeling humans, night elves, dwarves, draenei, worgen, and gnomes as “people” wisely held their tongues. “I have received aid and shelter in her home. She helped me when even members of the Horde would not. She does not deserve this treachery, this—”

  “Baine Bloodhoof!” snarled Garrosh, closing the distance between himself and the tauren high chieftain in a few strides. Baine towered over him, but Garrosh was not cowed. “If you do not wish to share your father’s fate, I would advise you to watch what you say!”

  “You mean dying betrayed?” Baine shot back.

  Garrosh roared. Archdruid Hamuul Runetotem stepped forward at the same time as Eitrigg. But another interposed himself between Baine and Garrosh—the Blackrock orc. He did not touch Baine, but the tauren could almost feel the fire of the other’s banked rage churning. The gray-skinned orc’s eyes glittered, their coldness not tempering the heat of his anger but rather augmenting it. And Baine felt a prickle of unease. Who was this orc?

  “Malkorok,” said Garrosh. “Step down.”

  For what seemed an eternity, the Blackrock orc did not move. Baine had no desire for a confrontation—not here, not now. Attacking Garrosh, or this gray-skinned warrior who was clearly appointed specifically to defend him, would only further aggravate the young warchief and make him even more disinclined to listen to reason. At last, expelling air from his nostrils in a snort of contempt, Malkorok did as he was told.

  Garrosh moved forward, shoving his face up toward Baine’s.

  “This is not a time for peace! The time for war has come—it is long overdue! Your own people have suffered from the expansion of the Alliance into your territory, unprovoked. If anyone should wish to destroy at the very least Northwatch Hold, it should be the tauren! You say that Jaina Proudmoore assisted you once. Are your loyalties now to her and the Alliance, who have killed your people… or to the mighty Horde and me?”

  Baine took a long, slow breath and let it out through his nostrils. He bent his head to within an inch of Garrosh’s and said, for that orc’s ears only, “If I were ever to turn my back on the Horde and you, it would have been before this moment, Garrosh Hellscream. If you believe nothing else I say, believe that.”

  For a heartbeat, it seemed to Baine that an expression of shame crossed Garrosh’s brown face. Then the scowl returned. Garrosh turned again to address the gathered crowd.

  “This is the will of your warchief,” he said bluntly. “This is the plan. First Northwatch Hold, then Theramore, then we drive the night elves before us and take for our own what was theirs. As for any Alliance protests,” he said, sparing a brief glance for Sylvanas, “rest assured, they will be dealt with swiftly. I am grateful for your obedience in these matters, but I expected nothing less from the great Horde. Return now to your homes, and prepare. You will hear from me again soon. For the Horde!”

  The cheer, uttered so often and always with such passion, filled the hold. Baine joined in, but his heart was not in it. Not only was Garrosh’s plan dangerously reckless, which surely should have been enough to condemn it, but it was based on treachery and hatred. The Earth Mother could never give her blessing to such an endeavor.

  Garrosh waved Gorehowl above his head one final time, letting the weapon sing as the wind whistled through the holes in its blade, then lowered it. The Blackrock orc—Malkorok, Garrosh had named him—right behind Garrosh before even Eitrigg, before even the Kor’kron. The orcs encircling the gathering snapped to attention and followed their leader out of the hold.

  The crowd began to disperse. Baine saw the blue-skinned, red-haired troll leader moving toward him and slowed his own steps.

  “Ju baited him,” said Vol’jin without preamble.

  “I did. It… was not wise.”

  “No, it wasn’t. Dat why I stay quiet. Gotta tink about my people.”

  “I understand.” The trolls were in more immediate peril from Garrosh’s anger, living as close to Orgrimmar as they did. Baine did not blame Vol’jin. He glanced at the troll. “But I know what your heart is telling you.”

  Vol’jin sighed, looking somber, and nodded. “Dis a bad path we be walkin’ down.”

  “Tell me, do you know who this Malkorok is?”

  The troll scowled. “He be a Blackrock. Dey say he still don’t like da light of Durotar, after bein’ so long in Blackrock Mountain, servin’ Rend.”

  “I suspected as much,” growled Baine.

  “He denounced his crimes in service to Rend an’ asked for amnesty. Garrosh be givin’ it to him, along wit’ any others who swear to serve him wit’ dere lives. Now da wahchief got a nice big dog wit’ sharp teeth ta protect him.”

  “But—how can he be trusted?”

  Vol’jin laughed a little. “Some might say, how can da Grimtotem be trusted? Yet you let da ones who swear loyalty stay at Thunder Bluff.”

  Baine thought of Tarakor, a black bull who had served under Magatha. Tarakor had led the attack against Baine but had pleaded for reprieve for himself and his family. Tarakor had proven to be as good as his word, as had all the others whom Baine had pardoned. And yet, somehow, to Baine, the Grimtotem seemed different from the Blackrocks.

  “Perhaps I am inclined to prejudge,” said Baine. “I think better of the tauren than I d
o of orcs.”

  “Dese days,” Vol’jin said quietly, making sure he was not overheard, “so do I.”

  • • •

  Garrosh waited outside so that those who wished to take this opportunity to swear loyalty to him could do so more conveniently. A goblin female was kneeling before him, nattering on about something, when Malkorok said, “There he is.” Garrosh looked up and spotted Lor’themar.

  “Bring him.”

  He interrupted the goblin, patted her head, said, “I accept your oath,” and shooed her off as Malkorok approached with the blood elf leader. Lor’themar inclined his pale blond head in a gesture of respect.

  “You wish to see me, Warchief?”

  “I do,” said Garrosh, steering them off a few steps so that they might speak with more privacy. Malkorok ensured they would not be disturbed by stepping in front of them and folding his massive gray arms. “Out of all the leaders, save Gallywix—who is supportive merely because he sees coins to be made—you are the only one who doesn’t question your warchief. Not even when Sylvanas tries to play upon your sympathy. I respect that, elf. Know that your loyalty to me is duly noted.”

  “The Horde embraced and supported my people when no one else would,” Lor’themar replied. “I will not forget that. And so, my loyalty, and that of my people, is to the Horde.”

  Unease stirred in Garrosh as he noticed a slight emphasis on Lor’themar’s last word. “I am the Horde’s warchief, Lor’themar. And as such, I am the Horde.”

  “You are its warchief,” Lor’themar said, agreeing readily. “Is that all you wish of me? My people are anxious to return home and prepare for the war that is to come.”

  “Of course,” Garrosh said. “You may go.”

  Lor’themar had said nothing inflammatory, but the unease did not dissipate as Garrosh regarded the sea of red and gold move toward the gates of Orgrimmar.

  “That one is worth watching,” he said to Malkorok.

  “They are all worth watching,” the Blackrock orc replied.