The Horde be my family. It be my duty to give everything for my family. Vol’jin nodded. Just sitting back in Pandaria, licking his wounds, was letting the Horde suffer. To do that was a betrayal of his family and his responsibilities.
As a troll and as a shadow hunter.
He’d not lied when he told Vilnak’dor that his duty as a shadow hunter was to do what was best for trolls. Joining a bloody effort to attempt to reestablish centuries-old empires was not best for trolls. This was not because it would cost lives; it was because the project had nothing to do with the realities of the world. The Horde was his family. The Darkspears were part of the Horde. The Horde was part of the current reality. The fates of the Horde and of trolls were undeniably tangled together. To act as if that wasn’t the truth would be complete folly.
Vol’jin took hold of the golden chain between his hands. “The past be important. We can and must be learning from it, but it cannot shackle us. Ancient empires built by legions would be vanishing if up against a single company of goblin cannoneers. The old ways be valuable, but only as a foundation for the future we choose to be building.”
The troll pointed a finger at Tyrathan. “It be like you, my friend. You be good at killing. But you can learn to be good at building—though, I gonna admit, killing be of more use right now. And you, Chen, you desiring a home and family, that be very powerful. Many a warrior has died opposing a fighter who seeks to defend just that. And you, Cuo, and the Shado-pan with your desiring balance. You be the water that lets the ship sail, and the anchor that stops it going too far.”
Tyrathan looked at him. “I know you value my skill at killing, but I’m not using it in the employ of the Zandalari.”
“I be hoping, my friend, you would be using it in my employ.” With a simple twist of his wrist, Vol’jin wrenched apart the soft gold link centering the chain. “They built this prison to hold Zandalari. I be more. I be Darkspear. I be shadow hunter. Time we be informing them just how bad a mistake they’ve made.”
27
Relief came off the others in waves. A tightness in Vol’jin’s chest eased. He’d surprised himself when he didn’t reject Khal’ak’s offer out of hand. He would have liked to believe that his hesitation was simply based on her having power over his friends, but that was no more true than his rejection being because accepting her offer wouldn’t save them from Warlord Kao. Hers was an offer he couldn’t dismiss without due consideration. Acceptance became impossible until he identified the family for whom he would be fighting.
The troll nodded, keeping his voice low. “Now, the first thing we need to be doing—”
“We have it covered.” Tyrathan stared out over his head. “Twelve guards. Eight split into pairs at the four points of the compass. Gurubashi given this detail as punishment. Four more, Zandalari, very young and new, out by the road, where it’s a bit warmer, a lot drier, and with fewer bugs.”
Vol’jin arched an eyebrow.
“I understand Zandali, remember? Guards complain, and the slurs that pass between the groups are horrible.”
Chen stretched. “The door has been set in posts that are still green. Lock side is solid, but not the hinge side. Bottom screws are almost out, and top screws cracked the wood.”
Vol’jin looked at the monk expectantly.
Brother Cuo nodded. “Inspections starting at north in fifteen minutes, with the circuit complete in twenty. Shifts change every eight hours. Next change at midnight, if what Tyrathan has overheard is true.”
Vol’jin rested his hands on his thighs, then stood and bowed to them. “You gonna be escaped in two hours.”
“Kao wants them dead, and I don’t like the view.” The man returned the bow. “We were off to find you, mind, maybe kill a Thunder King or two to pass the time.”
“The Thunder King has mogu, saurok, and massive quilen for guardians. Magics too. It would be taking an army to be getting an audience with him.”
Chen frowned. “Then we run?”
Vol’jin nodded. “If we be about stopping an invasion.”
Brother Cuo raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t killing the Thunder King be more likely to succeed?”
“Remember, emperors command armies, but they not be so good at taking or holding land.” Vol’jin smiled coldly. “If we be killing those who would win back his empire, we be hobbling him worse than a return to the grave.”
• • •
Midnight came and went, and with it the predicted change of guards. The new shift’s soldiers settled in quickly enough, wrapping themselves in blankets and cursing duty that left them without a fire. Vol’jin had heard such complaints in every military camp. Complaining about the cold or the food or overweening officers constituted ninety percent of conversation, meant only to stave off boredom or fear. Soldiers fell easily into patterns, and their worlds closed down into a tiny space where nothing existed outside their conversation.
While Tyrathan and Cuo kept watch, Chen and Vol’jin dealt with the door. The pandaren grabbed the bars, intending to push, while the troll grasped the post to twist. They would apply steady pressure, hopefully keeping any irregular noise to a minimum.
When Vol’jin got his hands on the doorpost, he snorted with disgust. “This prison wouldn’t be holding a gnome.” The doorpost had not been set deep at all. Given that any hole in the swamp must have filled with water almost immediately, the diggers went at it until they hit a steady flow of mud and dropped the post in place.
The troll worried the post like a loose tooth, and it came out easily. Chen did the same with the other side, and they were able to quickly pull the door out. The bolt slipped from the lock plate noiselessly, and Vol’jin had one more reason not to regret his choice.
To die here in this swamp be better than to command morons.
Chen and Cuo slipped out of the cage and into the swamp. They made their way to the western watch post. They eliminated the guards there with no more noise than to be expected from a guard stomping through the brush to see to bodily needs. Tyrathan and Vol’jin joined them, and each took possession of a dagger. The trolls had also carried bludgeons, which the pandaren appropriated.
Over the next fifteen minutes they worked their way around south and east to north, eliminating the posts in turn. Vol’jin opted out of using magic, since he felt none of the guards were worthy of being slain through a shadow hunter’s arts. Chen and Cuo returned to the eastern post just before two Zandalari were to walk the perimeter. At the north post, Vol’jin pulled on one of the Gurubashi’s uniforms and huddled beneath a blanket. As with the other bodies, Tyrathan dragged them deeper into the swamp and left them for the island’s dragon turtles.
On the hour, two Zandalari warriors started to the north post. One, the smaller of the two—which still made him taller than Vol’jin—kicked Vol’jin’s hip. “Get up, lazy dog. Where be your partner?”
Vol’jin grunted and pointed farther out at the swamp. As both Zandalari turned to look, he rose and swept his blanket over the closest Zandalari’s head. The warrior’s hands naturally went to pull it away, which allowed Vol’jin to quickly thrust his dagger three times into the troll’s guts. He must have cut an artery with the first or second thrust. Blood gushed hot and sticky.
The Zandalari collapsed thrashing at Vol’jin’s feet.
His companion fell over him. The Zandalari had never known Tyrathan was there until the man grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked his head back. The Gurubashi dagger wasn’t particularly sharp, so Tyrathan had to saw it back and forth across the throat. Luckily the first slash went deep enough to cut the windpipe, so cries for help just came out as hoarse whisperings of a night breeze. Blood jetted from severed arteries after that. The troll bled out before relative calm returned to the swamp.
Chen and Cuo, not dripping in gore like the man or the troll, joined them, dragging the last two Zandalari into the depths. Once the watch team had headed toward Vol’jin, the pandaren had handled the remaining trolls. One had his sku
ll caved in; the other might have been sleeping. Tyrathan nodded and dragged them off where, out of the monk’s sight, he slit throats to be sure. They, along with all the others, disappeared deep in the dark waters.
Despite wanting to gag on the stench, Vol’jin remained in his Gurubashi uniform. They’d agreed that there was no reason the others should try to disguise themselves. Even the most stupid troll wouldn’t mistake a man or pandaren for one of his or her own kind.
The fact was that they weren’t even looking. Vol’jin could understand it on one level. No one the Zandalari designated as an enemy knew where the Isle of Thunder was, nor did they have an invasion force that could possibly take it over. If the Alliance or the Horde had attacked, fighting at the harbor would slow the advance enough that troops would be able to organize and counterattack. Drawing attackers into the swamps and hitting them there would give the trolls a tactical advantage if only from their knowledge of the terrain.
Sentries dozed at their posts or quick marched their perimeters so they could return to be with friends. This made executing Vol’jin’s plan to cripple the invasion far too easy. The group would have accomplished it even if they had to kill sentries, but they didn’t. They were able to walk through camps like ghosts—rather fitting in the case of Tyrathan and Vol’jin.
The trolls laid out their camps with boring regularity. They posted standards in the middle to announce which unit they were, and put smaller ones before the tents housing their sleeping officers. Vol’jin moved through those camps, killing sergeants and captains, the two key positions in the command structure of any army. Without captains to interpret orders, and sergeants to make sure the common soldiers actually executed them, even the most brilliant strategy would fall to pieces.
Vol’jin tackled this work coldly and efficiently. A quick slash in the dark. A troll gasping, then just falling limp on his sleeping mat. Vol’jin didn’t care and happily consigned them to Bwonsamdi’s cold embrace. Their own stupidity sentenced them to death. Vol’jin merely collected a debt.
And, every so often, he made certain to leave a clean and clear footprint in his wake.
It became quickly apparent, as they worked their way toward the harbor, that they couldn’t kill enough officers. Cuo and Chen kept watch at the swamp’s edge, forward and back of the area where Vol’jin and the man struck. Tyrathan didn’t stray very far from the swamps, but Vol’jin was able to kill targets farther in. Progress came slowly, but as dawn was coming on, the time demanded by each strike ate into the chances of their escape.
Vol’jin didn’t keep count of their victims, but if 5 percent of the officers were slain, he would have been happily surprised.
It gonna help, but it be not enough.
Tyrathan rejoined them, with a powerful Zandalari recurve bow and a quiver full of arrows. “A sergeant. He isn’t going to need them. I don’t feel naked anymore.”
They pushed on more quickly, directly toward the harbor, and emerged from the swamps into some low hills on the warehouse side of things. While workers still moved supplies from ship to shore and back again, the stream had been reduced to a trickle. From the banging of carpenters’ hammers aboard many of the ships, Vol’jin assumed bulkheads were being shifted around to make the ships over into troop carriers.
But not all of them. He smiled and turned to Tyrathan. “I be thinking you’ll be happy you taught me jihui.”
Vol’jin pointed to a small but sturdy fishing boat dragged up on the beach seaward of them. “Chen, to your thinking, can that boat make it to Pandaria?”
The brewmaster nodded. “As long as it doesn’t have a hole in the bottom.”
“Good. You and Tyrathan be getting it in the water and to a hundred yards aft of that three-masted ship in the middle of the harbor. Half hour. By dawn.”
“Consider it done.”
Vol’jin grabbed Tyrathan’s forearm. “Be ready to shoot, if you have to.”
“Of course.”
“Go.”
The monk looked at him as the other two slipped away. The troll pointed at a lone guard patrolling the end of a short mole protecting the entrance to the harbor. “I be needing him alive, Cuo, right there, and you with him. Shortly after dawn.”
The monk bowed. “Thank you, Master Vol’jin.”
“Go.”
Vol’jin waited for the pandaren to disappear before he worked his own way down the hill and toward the warehouse. He wished dearly now that he’d taken a Zandalari uniform from one of those they’d killed. Had he done so, despite being a head shorter than most, he’d have been able to stroll brazenly along the dock to the ship he’d pointed out. He would have added an imperious swagger. Everyone would have cleared out of his way.
Since he lacked the disguise to play to that set of expectations, he suited himself to another. Damp with swamp muck to the waist, and with his uniform sleeves already crusting with blood, he hunched his shoulders and let his right leg drag a bit, as if the hip had once broken and healed poorly. He pulled his leather cap slightly askew, then tilted his head back in the other direction.
He made his way along the docks, hurrying and purposeful—the urgency wasn’t his own, it would seem. And the guard at the gangway to the ship barely gave him a glance.
Not so the Zandalari officer on the upper gun deck. “What be you doin’?”
“My master be wantin’ a bilge rat. Not too fat, not too skinny. White if I can find it. White one be makin’ for da best eating, you know.”
“A bilge rat? Who be your master?”
“Who knows a witch doctor’s mind? One time I be gettin’ kicked awake because he be wantin’ three silent crickets.” Vol’jin ducked his head and hunched his shoulders as if ready to take a beating. “Those be not good eatin’, da noisy kind or silent. Rats, though, some be liking to skin dem first, but I don’t. You just get a stick and be shovin’ it right up through—”
“Yes, yes, fascinatin’, of course.” The Zandalari looked as if he’d already eaten his fill of rat and hadn’t found it agreeable. “Get on with it, den.”
Vol’jin ducked his head again. “Thank you, boss. Won’t be no trouble to catch you a plump one.”
“No, just be hurrying.”
The Darkspear went into the ship’s depths. Two decks down he straightened up and headed directly for the magazine. One sailor sat on watch at the door, but the ship’s gentle rising and falling with the swells had lulled him to sleep. Vol’jin grabbed his chin and skullcap, then twisted sharply. The troll’s neck snapped wetly but quietly. He found the magazine key on the dead sailor, which saved his having to go back up on deck to kill the officer on watch to retrieve it, and unlocked the hatch.
Vol’jin deposited the body inside the magazine. He set aside four sacks of gunpowder, each sufficient to load a cannon, then stove in the lid of a barrel with his elbow. He tipped the barrel over toward the hatch, then picked up the bags and closed the hatch again. The hatch’s lower edge leveled the black powder to a height of a half inch out onto the deck. Vol’jin then used two of the sacks to lay a line of powder along the bulkhead, hiding it in the shadows there, and around to the aft cabin.
There he laid a trail to the middle of the floor and poured out the other two sacks in a great pile. The cabin, which apparently served as the ship’s hospital, had two oil lamps hanging on chains from the deck above. Vol’jin lit both, then turned their wicks up and spread the gunpowder beneath them.
He barred the door, surveyed his handiwork, and smiled. Then he opened the aft window and slipped out. He let himself hang from his hands so his feet dangled only ten feet above the dark water. He pointed his toes and let go. He plunged straight down with very little splash, then pushed off from the hull and swam underwater toward where he hoped Chen had his fishing boat.
He surfaced halfway there and reached the boat quickly enough. Chen and Tyrathan hauled him aboard. He lay in the bottom of the boat and pointed back. “You see those two lights?”
Tyrathan nocke
d an arrow, smiling. “Jihui. The fireship.” He drew and released.
The arrow disappeared in the fading night. Though he trusted Tyrathan, Vol’jin did have a moment of doubt. Then he heard something break. He assumed it was a pane of glass as the arrow passed through. Tyrathan maintained Vol’jin was imagining things, since his shot went through the open window.
Liquid fire splashed through the distant cabin. Light flared brilliantly, and thick smoke billowed as the gunpowder flashed in a muffled thump. Vol’jin could imagine the officer of the watch turning, seeing the smoke rising. He’d either raise the alarm or leap from the ship—and certainly give no thought to a ratcatcher below, or his fellow crew trolls.
Then the magazine blew. That first barrel’s spilled contents had ignited. Flames jetted beneath planks, popping one or two here and there. Then bagged charges went, and they lit off the other barrels. Explosions cascaded, building in brilliance and speed until they merged into one massive roar that blew out the starboard hull.
The ship rolled violently toward the dock, crushing it. Pilings stove through the hull. Explosions continued, working forward, blasting lids off gunports. One cannon was actually blown through the breached hull, dropping onto and through the dock.
And, in Vol’jin’s imagination, crushing the fleeing watch officer.
Then a thunderous explosion shot a pillar of fire into the air, utterly destroying the ship. The masts became black silhouettes, jetting high through the flames. They reached for the stars, then tumbled back down. One stabbed through a second ship, punching through the hull. Another splintered a dock.
Cannons whirled through the air, guns separating from carriages. One flew to the shore, spinning wildly. It bounced through two trolls, then collapsed a warehouse façade.