World of Warcraft: War Crimes Read online

  She did not expect to be chosen as the Defender, and knew that Vol’jin was right to say that she would make a better Accuser, if nothing else.

  But Baine?

  The most placid “warrior” she had ever seen, bred from a race of gentle people?

  Madness, all of it. Baine had more of a reason than even she to wish Garrosh dead. The orc should have been Baine’s own personal Arthas, and yet she knew the tauren would, if he accepted, probably argue so well that everyone would want to give Garrosh flowers instead.

  Baine’s ears drooped as he sighed heavily. “I will undertake this task,” he said, “though I have utterly no idea how to achieve it.”

  Sylvanas had to exert a conscious effort to keep her lip from curling in a sneer.

  Ji poked his head in. “The Alliance has chosen their Accuser. If you are ready as well, we can reconvene in the arena.”

  They followed him back up the snow-dusted trail. The Alliance representatives were already there, and turned to regard their Horde counterparts. Taran Zhu waited until everyone had arrived, then addressed the two groups. “Each of you has made your decision. Warchief Vol’jin, whom have you selected to defend Garrosh Hellscream?”

  Defend Garrosh Hellscream. The very words were an offense.

  “We choose High Chieftain Baine Bloodhoof of the tauren people,” Vol’jin said.

  “Alliance? Do you have any objection?”

  Varian turned his dark head to look at his fellows. No one spoke; indeed, as Vol’jin had predicted, many of the Alliance seemed pleased. To Sylvanas’s disbelief, Varian’s spawn even had a small smile.

  “The Alliance accepts the choice of Baine Bloodhoof, who is known to be honorable,” Varian announced.

  Taran Zhu nodded once. “King Varian, whom does the Alliance put forth to serve as Accuser of Garrosh Hellscream?”

  “I will serve in this capacity,” Varian replied.

  “Absolutely not!” Sylvanas retorted. “You are done ordering us about!” She was not alone; other angry voices were raised in protest, and Taran Zhu had to shout to be heard over them.

  “Peace, peace!” Despite the literal meaning of the word, his voice was commanding, and the cries subsided to mutterings and then dwindled. “Warchief Vol’jin, do you exercise your right to reject King Varian as Accuser?”

  Varian had few friends among the Horde. Many distrusted his apparent personality change, and even his refusal to occupy Orgrimmar had won him only grudging acknowledgment. Humans were the enemy, would always be the enemy, and Sylvanas could see that the Horde’s displeasure with the trial in the first place would only become the sourer if they had to watch Varian speak as Accuser. It seemed as though Vol’jin saw this, too.

  “Yes, Lord Taran Zhu. We gonna exercise our right to veto,” he said.

  Oddly, the Alliance didn’t try to argue them out of it. Sylvanas was on alert at this reaction, and her mind seized upon the truth of the calculated trick even as the name of the Accuser was announced.

  “Then our selection as Accuser will be High Priestess Tyrande Whisperwind,” Varian said smoothly.

  Tyrande Whisperwind. Of all the races, even humans, the night elves hated the orcs the most. Rightly so, given their love of nature and the orcs’ desire for building and war materiel. Sylvanas was initially outraged, then found herself wondering for a moment if this really was as bad a choice as it seemed. Most of the Horde would have preferred to accuse Garrosh rather than defend him, as Baine’s reluctance had demonstrated.

  But as Tyrande’s glowing eyes swept over the Horde, Sylvanas saw no empathy for their plight. Tyrande was a priestess, but she had also fought her share of battles.

  Taran Zhu continued to speak, describing how Pandaren law dictated the trial’s points of order and in what manner they would unfold, but the Banshee Queen turned a deaf ear to him.

  “Well played, Alliance,” she murmured in her once-native language.

  “They only fronted Varian, knowing we would veto him, so they could get someone even more determined in his place, in case any of us had lingering affection in our hearts for Garrosh,” came an answering voice in the same tongue. “I do not think they quite understand that we hate him as much as they do.”

  Sylvanas looked over at Lor’themar, lifting an eyebrow. The sin’dorei leader had always been polite but coldly resentful whenever Sylvanas had approached him to forge unity, keeping his precious dignity even when coerced. Did this conversation in Thalassian signal a shift? Was he perhaps smarting from being overlooked for leadership of the Horde?

  “She has no love for Garrosh,” Sylvanas continued.

  “She has no love for the Horde, either,” countered Lor’themar. “I wonder if Vol’jin will regret not taking Varian when we had the chance. I suppose we must wait, and watch.”

  “As we ever do,” said Sylvanas, curious as to how he would respond to the implied partnership. He did not seem to hear it, instead bowing to someone on the Alliance side as the various representatives filed out. Sylvanas turned to see who it was.

  Of course—Vereesa and Lor’themar had encountered one another recently. Her sister’s courtesy toward the blood elf leader surprised Sylvanas. She was even more surprised when, after acknowledging Lor’themar, Vereesa deliberately met Sylvanas’s eyes for a long moment before turning away.

  It was the first time the Windrunner sisters—two of them, anyway—had seen one another in years. It would naturally be somewhat emotional to Vereesa to see Sylvanas again. But there was neither bitterness nor sorrow in Vereesa’s face.

  There was only grim resolve and a peculiar sort of . . . satisfaction?

  And Sylvanas had no idea why.

  3

  Baine’s chest loosened as he set hoof once again on good Mulgore soil—he had felt constricted the entire time he was in Pandaria. He took a deep breath of the clean, fragrant night air and sighed it out.

  The shaman Kador Cloudsong was waiting for him. “It is good to have you home,” Cloudsong rumbled, bowing deeply.

  “It is good to be home, even for so brief a time—and for so somber a task,” Baine answered.

  “The dead are always with us,” Cloudsong intoned. “We may grieve that we do not have the joy of their physical presence, but their songs are in the wind, and their laughter in the water.”

  “Would that they could speak to us and give us advice, as they once did.” The thought made Baine’s chest ache again, and he debated the wisdom of deliberately reopening this old wound. But he trusted that Cloudsong would have dissuaded him had the shaman believed his request unwise.

  “They do speak, Baine Bloodhoof, though not in ways that we are used to hearing.”

  Baine nodded. His father, Cairne, indeed, was always with him. Baine and Cloudsong were together at Red Rocks, the ancient site where fallen heroes of the tauren were sent to the Earth Mother and Sky Father via cleansing flame. Set a slight distance away from Thunder Bluff, Red Rocks was aptly named, a naturally occurring formation of red sandstone. It was a peaceful and reflective site, where one could step out of the world of Thunder Bluff into a place that served as a transition between that world and the next. Baine had not been here since he had said farewell to Cairne. Now, as then, Cloudsong was beside him, although this time it was just the two of them. Looking due west, Baine could see Thunder Bluff in the distance, silhouetted against the star-crowded sky, its bonfires and torches little stars all on their own. A small fire burned in the direction of the east here on Red Rocks as well, adding warmth and a comforting glow.

  Fire. He turned back and looked at the pyre platforms, empty now of bodies awaiting ritual burning. Only ashes would remain, and even these would be taken by the singing winds and scattered to the four directions. Even though they had a lasting home now in Thunder Bluff, the tauren chose not to bury their dead. Their death ritual bespoke their origins as nomads, and if their beloved ones were freed to the wind and fire, they could wander in death as in life if they chose.

&nb
sp; “Did you have sufficient time for preparation?” he asked Cloudsong.

  “I did.” The shaman nodded. “It is not an overly complex rite.” Baine was not surprised. The tauren were a simple people, and had no need of elaborate words or strange, difficult-to-obtain items in their ceremonies. What the good earth provided was almost always sufficient. “Are you ready, my high chieftain?”

  Baine gave a pained chuckle. “No. But let us begin, even so.”

  Clad in leather made from the hides of beasts he himself had slain, Cloudsong began to stamp his hooves in a slow, steady rhythm as he lifted his muzzle to the eastern sky.

  “Hail to the spirits of air! Breeze and wind and storm, all these you are, and more. Tonight, we ask you to join this our rite, and whisper wisdom from the great Cairne Bloodhoof into the waiting ears of his son, Baine.”

  It had been a still evening, but now Baine’s fur was ruffled by a gentle zephyr. He pricked his ears, but all he heard was a soft murmur, at least for the present. Cloudsong reached into his shaman’s pouch and withdrew a handful of gray dust. This he scattered on the ground as he walked, forming a curved line to link east and south. Normally the material so utilized would be corn pollen. But that was for ceremonies that involved life. This ritual was of the dead, and therefore the gray dust was composed of the ashes of those who had been sent to the spirits on this site.

  “Hail to the spirits of fire!” Cloudsong faced a little blaze, lifting his staff to honor it. “Glowing ember and flame and inferno, all these you are and more. Tonight we ask you to join this, our rite, and warm Baine Bloodhoof with the strong courage of Cairne Bloodhoof, his beloved father.”

  The flame shot up high for a moment, and Baine felt fierce heat from the wall of fire. Having made its presence known, the fire subsided to its more temperate state, crackling as it burned gently.

  Now Cloudsong turned to the west, invoking the spirits of “raindrop, river, and tempest” and asking them to bathe the tauren high chieftain in memories of his father’s love. Baine’s heart thumped painfully for a moment, and he thought, Tears are made of water too.

  The spirits of earth were made welcome next—soil and stone and mountain, the very bones of the honored dead. Cloudsong asked that Baine be able to draw comfort from the solid land of his people, to which Cairne had brought them all. Here Cloudsong closed the sacred circle, outlined with the gray ash. Baine felt the energy shift within the space, thrumming with power. It reminded him of the sensation he experienced when a storm was coming, but this also felt unusually calm.

  “Welcome, Spirit of Life,” called Cloudsong. “You are in our breath with air, our blood with fire, our bones with earth, our tears with water. We know that death is merely the shadow of life, and that the ending of things is as natural as the birth of them. We ask that you join this, our rite, and invite one who walks in your shadow to be with us this night.”

  They stood in silence in the center for a moment, their breathing rhythmic and steady. After a time, Cloudsong nodded and invited Baine to sit at the core of the empty pyres, facing Thunder Bluff. Baine did so, continuing to breathe deeply and stilling his galloping thoughts. Cloudsong handed him a clay goblet, filled with a dark liquid that reflected the starlight.

  “This will grant a vision, if the Earth Mother wills it so. Drink.” Baine raised the goblet to his mouth and tasted the not-unpleasant flavors of silverleaf, briarthorn, earthroot, and something else he could not identify. He returned the goblet to the shaman. “Do not drowse, Baine Bloodhoof, but rather look upon this land with soft eyes,” Cloudsong urged. Baine obliged, letting tension leave his body and his eyes unfocus.

  He heard the soft, regular thump-thump of a hide-skin drum, emulating the sound of a tauren heart. He did not know how long he sat and listened to Cloudsong, only that he was deeply relaxed, and felt peace within his heart as it beat time to the drum.

  Then, gently, he was made aware of a presence. Cairne Bloodhoof smiled down upon his son.

  This was a Cairne that Baine had never known—the mighty bull in his prime, his eyes sharp and keen. He held his runespear; it was whole again, as was he. Cairne’s massive chest rippled with muscle as he lifted the spear in salute.

  “Father,” breathed Baine.

  “My son,” Cairne said, his eyes crinkling in affection. “To walk between your world and mine is difficult, and my time brief, but I knew I had to come when your heart is so troubled.”

  All the pain that Baine had buried deep inside, that he could not express, could not even permit himself to feel lest it interfere with his duties to the tauren people he led, came pouring out like a flash flood.

  “Father . . . Garrosh killed you! He denied you the right to die with honor! He stood by while the Grimtotem and I fought like—like beasts in a pit, while he awaited the victor! He violated the land, lied to his own people, and Theramore . . .”

  Tears ran down Baine’s muzzle, tears of grief and anger, and for a moment he could not speak. The twin emotions choked him.

  “And now, you have been asked to defend him,” replied Cairne. “When all you wish is to put your hoof on his throat.”

  Baine nodded. “Yes. You spoke out against him before anyone else had the courage. Father . . . should I have done so? Could I have stopped him? Is . . . is all the blood he has spilled upon my hands too?”

  He was surprised by the question, but the words came of their own volition. Cairne smiled gently.

  “The past is past, my son. Borne away, like blossoms in the wind. Garrosh’s choices are his alone, as is the responsibility for his actions. Always, you follow your heart, and always, you have made me proud.”

  And at that moment, Baine knew the answer Cairne was about to give him. “You . . . think I should do this thing,” he whispered. “Defend Garrosh Hellscream.”

  “What I think does not matter. You must do what you feel is right. As you have ever done. What was right for me, at that time, was to challenge Garrosh. What was right for you, at other times, was to support him as leader of the Horde.”

  “Varian should have let Go’el slay him,” growled Baine.

  “But he did not, and so we are here,” said the young-old bull placidly. “Answer this, and you will know what to do. If it grieves you that I was slain by treachery, can you then do anything but strive for perfect truth and integrity, even—perhaps especially—when it does not come easily? Can you not do your utmost to honor this role that has been given you? Dear son of my blood and my heart, I believe you knew the answer before ever you came.”

  Baine did. But the knowing pained him.

  “I will take up this burden,” he murmured, “and I will defend Garrosh to the best of my ability.”

  “You could do no less and still be you. You will be glad of it, when it is all over. No, no,” he said, lifting his hands in protest when Baine tried to speak. “I cannot tell you what the outcome will be. But I promise—your heart will be at peace.”

  Cairne’s image began to fade. Baine realized this, stricken that he had wasted this precious opportunity complaining like a mere youngling when his father . . . his father . . . !

  “No!” he cried, standing, his voice cracking with emotion. “Father—please, do not go, not yet, please not just yet—!”

  There were so many things Baine wanted to say. How terribly much he missed Cairne. How hard he strove to honor his father’s memory. That these few moments meant the world to him. Too late, he reached out imploringly, but his father walked in the shadow of life, not the sun of it, and Baine’s grasping hands closed only on empty air.

  Cairne’s eyes grew sad, and he too reached out, only to vanish in the next breath.

  Cloudsong caught Baine as he fell.

  “Did you find the answers you sought, High Chieftain?” asked Cloudsong as he handed Baine a goblet filled with cool, clear water. Baine sipped, and his head began to resolve.

  “The answers I sought? No. But I did get the answers I needed,” he said, smiling sadly a
t his friend. Cloudsong nodded his understanding. The not-silence of the night, the song of crickets and the sigh of the breeze, was broken by a familiar hum as whirls of bright color took shape.

  “Who dares interrupt a ritual?” growled Cloudsong. “The circle has not yet been released!” Baine got to his hooves while the shaman strode over to the opening portal. A slender high elf stepped through. He looked fairly typical of the race, with sharp, elegant features, long, flowing golden hair, and a decoratively trimmed tuft of beard gracing his chin. He beckoned urgently to Baine.

  “High Chieftain, my name is Kairozdormu. Taran Zhu has sent me to escort you to the Temple of the White Tiger. Please, you must come with me.”

  “You are interrupting a sacred ceremony—” Cloudsong began.

  The elf gave him an irritated glance. “I’m terribly sorry to be disrespectful, but we really must hurry!”

  Baine’s eyes fell to the tabard the elf wore. Brown with gold trim, it had an insignia in the center of the chest: a golden circle inlaid with the symbol of infinity. It was the tabard worn by Timewalkers, and Baine decided to hazard a guess. “I did not know your flight continued to wear this,” he said. “I thought your power over time—”

  Kairozdormu waved a long-fingered, impatient hand. “The story is long, and the time is short.”

  “Amusing phrase, coming from you. Is there some dire timeways catastrophe afoot?”

  “Much more prosaic a reason—this portal won’t stay open forever.” He suddenly chuckled. “Well,” he amended, flashing white teeth in a wry grin, “theoretically it can, but that’s neither here nor there in this particular moment. High Chieftain Baine, if you please?”