"Ner’zhul!" Rexxar shouted, leaning down so his face was right by Grom's. "This must be his fault! Who else could have caused a world to shatter so? He betrayed us all! He said he would save Draenor and instead he destroyed it!"
"We don't know that!" Grom insisted. "We knew he was dealing with extremely powerful magic to open portals to other worlds. Perhaps something went wrong."
"Or maybe it went perfectly right — for him!" Rexxar countered furiously. "Maybe he was just using us, all of us, our entire world, to further his own ambitions. That's what Gul'dan did, isn't it?" Many of the assembled orcs grunted or murmured or snarled agreement — everyone knew of Gul'dan's betrayal and how it had cost them the Second War. “And who trained Gul'dan?" Rexxar continued. "Who taught him? Ner’zhul! Clearly the fruit did not fall far from the vine!"
The mutterings were louder and angrier now, and Grom knew he had to stop them before the group of warriors devolved into an angry mob.
"Do you not see that it doesn't matter?" he stated, cutting through Rexxar's anger by projecting calm. "Shall we decide what we do based upon rumor and worry? Shall we pine for what could have been or fret about what might have happened? Is this how the mighty Horde behaves?" He looked from orc to orc. including them all in this conversation, and was pleased to hear the murmurs die down as they waited to hear what else he had to say.
"We have survived! We are on Azeroth, a world full of life and food and land and battle! We can restore the Horde and sweep across this world once more!"
Some of the other orcs cheered his statement, and Grom used that energy to fuel his own fervor, whipping Gorehowl around over his head so its shrieking would add a backdrop to his words.
"Yes. the Alliance is hunting us," he shouted, "and yes, we are no match for them today. But one day, and that day soon, we will be! Here we can rest, recover, and strategize. Here we will launch attacks, as we have already been doing for the last several turns of their moons. We will grow strong again. We will become the predators once more, and the humans will quake with fear!" He jerked his axe to a stop and held it still above his head, lowering his voice so his words fell softly into the sudden quiet. “And one day we, the Horde, will rise and take our vengeance against the humans with a true and final victory!"
The warriors cheered and whooped and shouted, raising their own weapons high, and Grom nodded. Pleased. They were all behind him again, all united once more.
All except one.
"You have been betrayed repeatedly, each time by another orc claiming leadership, and still you continue down that same path," Rexxar said softly, though his eyes burned with rage. "You have no reason left to fight! Before, we fought to protect our people by claiming this world for them. But they are gone! We no longer need this world! With the handful left, you could find a place the humans have never gone and claim it without shedding a single drop of blood!"
"Where would be the glory in that?" one of the other orcs shouted.
Grom nodded. "What is life without battle?" he demanded of Rexxar. "You are a warrior — you understand that! Fighting keeps us strong, keeps us sharp!"
"Perhaps," the half-breed admitted. "But why fight when there is no need? Why fight just for its own sake? That is not fighting to save anyone, or to win anything, or even for glory. It is fighting from sheer bloodlust, from love of violence alone. And I am sick of that. I want no part of it."
"Coward!" someone shouted, and Rexxar's eyes narrowed as he straightened to his full height, the twin axes rising to shoulder level.
"Step forth and say that," he challenged, his voice an ominous rumble. "Step away from the rest, where I can see you clearly, and call me a coward to my face! Then see whether I shrink from a fight!"
No one moved, and after a second Rexxar shook his head, a sneer on his heavy features. "You are the cowards," he proclaimed, spitting the words down upon them. "You are too afraid to live truly, outside the shadows of lies and promises you have been bought with. You have no courage, and no honor. That is why you cannot be trusted." The half-orc's shoulders slumped. "From now on, only the beasts will I trust."
Grom felt a mixture of emotions as he watched the towering warrior depart. How dare Rexxar abandon them now, when they most needed to stay together? At the same time, who could blame him? He was not even part of the Horde in the normal sense, for the mok'nathal were ever reluctant to leave the Blade's Edge Mountains. To the best of Grom's knowledge, only Rexxar himself had responded to the Horde's plea, to fight during the First War and then again during the Second. And what had it gained him? He had lost his world, his people, and even his companion the wolf. Was it any wonder the half-orc felt betrayed?
"No one walks away from the Horde!" someone insisted. "We should drag him back by his cars, or kill him!”
"He insulted us all!" another pointed out. "He should die for his insolence!"
"We need his strength," a third countered. "We cannot afford to lose him!"
"Enough!" Grom shouted, glaring at them all. The dissenters fell silent. "Let him go," he ordered. "Rexxar has served the Horde well. Let him have his peace now."
“And what about us?" one of the warriors demanded. "What will we do now?"
"We know what to do," Grom replied. "This world is our home now. Let us live in it fully." But even as they nodded and returned to the fire, to speak softly in voices about plans and victory and supplies, Rexxar's words returned to haunt him, and a part of Grom wondered if they would ever find that which they had lost so long ago: peace.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Turalyon emerged from the rift, blinking. "Is … is this … Draenor?" They had escaped Draenor's destruction by stepping through into another world, one they could barely make sense of. Khadgar and the other magi had shielded them from the tremors passing through the rift, and once it had quieted they had returned, hoping to search for any of their comrades that might have survived. But as his eyes registered what they saw, Turalyon jerked to a halt, staring. Only Alleria's tug on his hand reminded him to move out of the way so the rest could emerge as well.
"It is. What's left of it, anyway," Khadgar said. Turalyon recognized the rubble of the fallen Dark Portal behind them, with Honor Hold and Hellfire Citadel in the distance. The cracked red earth was the same as well. But the sky—!
It rippled with color now, and ribbons of light shot through it like multihucd lightning bolts that traveled across instead of ever touching the earth. The sun had vanished and the sky was a dark red, but he could see the moon hovering high above, looking far larger than it ever had before, A second sphere, this one rosy, was low on the horizon, and a third, smaller and a bright blue, floated just above that one. Wisps like tendrils of cloud drifted here and there.
And while the earth was the same in color and consistency, not far away Turalyon saw a small wedge of cracked ground — only it was perhaps a hundred feet up! It bobbed slightly, buffeted by the fierce winds that raged all around them, but otherwise stayed in place. Other fragments floated here and there as well.