"Gorkrak."
"Gorkrak," Hamuul said, relishing the name and emblazing it upon his memory. "Any chance you stood of advancing in the Horde, Gorkrak, ends right here."
Gorkrak's expression shifted slightly. His piggy eyes moved coldly, deliberately, from the night elf druids, to Hamuul, to something behind the tauren. A crafty smile spread across his face, and too late Hamuul realized what was about to happen.
"Not if I end you first," Gorkrak crowed.
And Hamuul heard the twang of an arrow taking flight.
Gorkrak of the Twilight's Hammer looked about with satisfaction.
"I thought druids were supposed to be smart," one of his brethren said, tugging his sword out of the body of a white tauren female.
"All are foolish who do not embrace the coming destruction," Gorkrak said. He dropped the stupid expression he had worn to trick Hamuul. "It is inevitable and beautiful. We will bury the corpses, but not so well that the carrion eaters will not find them. We want the bodies discovered." He smiled darkly. "Eventually."
He was glad that Hamuul had mentioned Garrosh. It meant that already suspicion had begun to spread about the acting warchief. Some were already whispering that it had been Garrosh who butchered the Sentinels. Now they would believe him behind this slaughter as well.
"For the nothingness that awaits," Gorkrak said. "Dig."
Hamuul Runetotem regained consciousness slowly. He blinked awake, then wondered if he really was awake. Where was he? What had happened? He could see nothing, and something pressed in on him from every angle.
Breathing was difficult; what little air there was smelled of old blood and earth. He tried to move and realized that he was pinned. His body was in agony, and thirst clawed at his throat. He was in his bear form; he imagined he had had a split second to change shapes before he had been shot—
—in the back—
—by fellow Horde members.
Memory crashed down on him like an avalanche, and he suddenly realized where he must be, and what was pressing on him.
He was in a mass grave.
Adrenaline shot through him, giving his tormented body fresh strength. Which way was up? Corpses draped lifeless arms across his shoulders, pressed cold torsos against his back, as if trying to force him to join them in death. Hamuul opened his sharp - toothed mouth, gasping in fetid air and dirt, and pressed his paws against the bodies of his friends. He clawed his way upward, causing the corpses to bleed sluggishly, to where the freshest air was coming, using all his strength to shoulder aside bodies and dirt, until his head broke the lightly packed surface and he gulped in fresh air. Grunting, now feeling anew the pain of his wounds, he climbed free and collapsed, white and light brown fur clotted with blood and other gory fluids, gasping and shivering in horror at the atrocity.
He tried to shift back to tauren, but the first attempt made him pass out a second time. When he came to what seemed like a few minutes later, he was able to make the change and heal his wounds, at least somewhat. It would take time for him to recover completely.
Grimacing, he got to his hooves and moved, wincing, to examine the grave, wondering if anyone else had managed to survive. It was night by this point, but he did not need the sun's radiance to behold the tragedy.
Dead. All dead. Night elf and tauren alike. He had been the only one to survive. His great heart broke. His knees gave way, and for a moment he collapsed beside the hole in the earth that held his friends, weeping for the slain, weeping for the future wounds this would cause to any hope for peace.
He lifted his face, his muzzle streaked with tears, and beheld the sacred ritual items he and Renferal had brought with such high hopes. They had been broken, the beautiful pipe, the simple, ancient goblet. Trampled beneath careless feet and falling bodies. Shattered beyond repair, as his dream for peace had been.
Closing his eyes, Hamuul clambered unsteadily to his hooves again, raising his hands to the sky and asking for aid. It came in the form of an owl, hooting quietly as it perched on a branch nearby. Hamuul fumbled for a piece of parchment in his bags. In his own blood, for the ink bottle he had carried had been crushed in the conflict, he wrote a brief message. He bound it around the owl's leg. It fidgeted, bobbing its head and fixing Hamuul with a glare from lambent eyes, but accepted the strange sensation.
Hamuul whispered Cairne's name, and held an image of the old high chieftain in his mind's eye. When he was satisfied that the owl would obey his request, he released it with a blessing. It headed southwest.
In the direction of Thunder Bluff.
He closed his eyes in relief and gratitude, and slumped quietly to the earth, letting its embrace take him, for the moment, or forever, he did not know.
Twenty one
The pain was so much more than Garrosh had anticipated, and he embraced it joyfully.
He was pleased with how his decisions to rebuild Orgrimmar had been received. While some seemed unhappy, like Cairne and Eitrigg, most seemed to revive at the idea of returning to old orcish ways. Garrosh was glad of it.
Often he walked out to gaze at the skull of the enemy his father had slain, and one day he had rubbed his chin thoughtfully and decided to take yet another step to honor his late father.
The decision had been easy, but the reality was painfully red hot. He lay face up on the floor of his quarters, forcing his body to stay relaxed and calm and not tense. Hovering above him was an elderly orc whose powerful muscles and steady hands belied his wrinkles and snowy ponytail. In one hand he held a sharp, narrow blade, the tip of which he repeatedly dipped in black ink. In the other he held a small hammer. The only sounds in the room were the crackling of the brazier which provided illumination and the tap - tap - tap of the hammer as the orc tattooist used it to slice into Garrosh's face.
Most designs were simple. A family design, a word, the Horde insignia. Garrosh, however, wanted his entire jaw tattooed solid black—just to begin with. His desire was to eventually have his chest and back decorated with elaborate tattoos so that both friend and foe alike would see and know that he had willingly inflicted pain upon himself. At the rate of a single piercing of the flesh with each tap, this would take hours—hours when every puncture was like being jabbed with a white - hot needle.
At one point Garrosh swallowed. He also realized he was sweating—from the pain or the heat in the confined, firelit room, he did not know. The tattooist paused and glowered down at him. "Do not move," he said. "And do not sweat so. Your father did not sweat."
Garrosh wondered how it was that Grom was able to control sweating. He would strive to do so as well. He said nothing, as speaking would force him to move his mouth, but merely blinked to show he understood.
The tattooist, an apprentice to the orc who had ritually tattooed Grom Hellscream, stepped aside to let his own apprentice dab at the sweat on Garrosh's brown forehead and wipe away the excess blood and ink from his chin.
Garrosh breathed deeply during the reprieve. It had already been four hours, and only three fingers' breadth of ink had been applied. The tattooist bent over him again. Garrosh willed himself still once more, and the torment—the sweet, honor - bought torment—resumed.
"Garrosh!"
Cairne's bellow was loud and deep and echoed as he strode into Grommash Hold. The guards moved to him, allegedly to assist, not quite to intercept. He glared down at them balefully and snorted in derision, and they stepped aside.
"Garrosh!"
There was always somebody awake in Grommash Hold, tending the fires that never went out, making preparations for the following day, so it was not quite deserted, if still. Cairne's shouting roused those who had been sleeping, and the rooms slowly filled with curious, still slightly drowsy onlookers rubbing their eyes and dressed in clothes that were obviously hastily donned.