He collapsed, crashing into the gunwale. He bounced up, then slid over the side, his feet the last thing going under. The boat, unbalanced, listed to starboard, then righted itself again.
Just in time for Vol’jin’s second arrow to pin the tiller troll to the rudder.
Vol’jin ducked back and turned away. As much as he might like to watch confused soldiers in an unsteady boat, that luxury would have cost him his life. Four arrows thudded into the wall against which he’d stood and two more overshot him.
Vol’jin pulled back to the ruins of the next building. He arrived as a monk helped a pandaren with a crushed shoulder crawl from beneath rubble. Farther out in the bay, where the last boat was coming in, an arrow slammed into the pilot’s ear. It twisted him around and flung him from the boat.
The lead boat grounded. A few Zandalari sprinted for cover. Others tipped the boat up and huddled behind it. The middle two boats backed water quickly in an attempt to stop. The last had a hardy soul take the pilot’s place at the rudder. An arrow transfixed him through the guts. He sat hard but kept his hand on the tiller, guiding the boat shoreward as the other trolls pulled on the oars.
The troll commanding the invasion from a ship farther at sea signaled furiously. The ships in the harbor renewed their assault with siege engines. Stones arced out, slamming into the beach in a great spray of sand. Vol’jin thought the half-buried stone a waste of effort, but one of the Zandalari sprinted toward it and threw himself down behind it.
And then another stone hit, and another.
So the game began. As Zandalari advanced, Vol’jin moved to the flank and shot. Spotters aboard ship would then turn the siege engines on his hiding place, smashing it to flinders. Off to the east they did the same with Tyrathan’s hidey-holes, though how they saw him Vol’jin had no idea. He couldn’t.
Each wave of stones drove Vol’jin back and let more trolls advance. The ships lowered more boats. Some of the Zandalari even stripped off their armor and dove into the bay with bows and arrows tightly wrapped in oilskins. The ships lay waste to a wide arc in the center of Zouchin, and troops moved ashore to occupy it.
The shadow hunter made every arrow count. He didn’t always kill. Armor blunted some shots. Occasionally a target provided him only the glimpse of a foot, or a patch of blue skin through a tangle of fallen timbers. The simple fact was, however, that for every arrow he possessed, the ships had a dozen ballista stones and half that many soldiers.
So Vol’jin pulled back. He found only one monk’s body as he went. She’d been struck through by two arrows. From the tracks leading south, she’d shielded two cubs from the shots that had killed her.
He paced after those cubs, trailing them back through the village. Just when their trail broke into the open behind a home collapsed on splintered pilings, Vol’jin heard scrabbling. He turned, quickly, as a Zandalari warrior slid into view. Vol’jin reached back for an arrow, but his enemy shot first.
The arrow caught him in the flank and punched out his back. Pain pulsed from his ribs, staggering him. Vol’jin dropped to a knee and reached for his glaive as the other troll nocked another arrow.
The Zandalari smiled broadly in triumph, flashing teeth proudly.
A heartbeat later, an arrow arced down between those teeth. For a half second, it appeared as if the troll was vomiting feathers. Then eyes rolled up in his skull and he pitched backward.
Vol’jin turned slowly, looking back along the arrow’s line of flight. Long grasses closed at the crest of a hill. Shot through the mouth. Four and a half inches. And he was wanting me to get the one who got him.
Dust still slowly settled over the twitching troll. Vol’jin reached back and snapped off the arrow’s head, then slid the shaft from his chest. He smiled as the wound closed; then he pilfered the troll’s quiver and continued the fighting withdrawal.
15
It should be rainin’. The bright sun mocked Khal’ak while failing to warm her. She stood tall on the bow of her barge, not because of the commanding image it made but because it was the best vantage point from which to survey the shore.
The barge nudged a floating longboat aside. It bobbed there in the slight swell. The pilot had died with his hand on the tiller, an arrow through his bowels. It had to have been painful, but his expression betrayed nothing. He stared forward, eyes now dulling as flies explored them.
Sand hissed beneath the barge’s hull as it came gently to shore. She leaped down, her dark cloak flapping. Two warriors awaited her—Captain Nir’zan, and a larger hulking troll carrying a massive shield. They immediately snapped to attention and saluted crisply.
She returned the salute, fueling it with her displeasure. “You determined what happened?”
“With as much certainty as be possible, my lady.” Nir’zan faced inland. “Owing to previous infiltration an’ study, we inserted scouts through a cove to the west. A pair swam ashore, killed two pandaren fishing dere, and secured the heights. They remained on station as per their orders and been interrogated. At that point the scouts proceeded inland, and all was as planned.”
She swept a hand out, taking in the broken landscape. “The plan deteriorated.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Why?”
The Zandalari warrior’s eyes tightened. “The why be less important than the how, my lady. Come.”
She followed him into the village, to the wreckage of a house nearly fifty yards from the beach. At their approach, another warrior dropped to a knee and peeled back a reedy sleeping mat. It had preserved a single footprint.
Ice water trickled through her insides. “Not one of ours?”
“No. Definitely a troll, but too small for Zandalari.”
Khal’ak turned and looked back down to the shore. “Dis archer killed the pilot?”
“And another warrior on that boat.”
“A very good shot.”
Nir’zan pointed to the east. “Over there, where you be seein’ your lieutenant, there be another track. Human, using our arrows. He killed another pilot.”
She measured from where the far soldier stood to the bay. “And one of our bows, yes? A lucky shot?”
Nir’zan lifted his chin, exposing his throat. “I be liking to believe that, but can’t. Neither luck nor bow leaves a track.”
“Honesty. Good.” She slowly nodded. “What else?”
The warrior headed off out of the village and south along the road. “We be finding a few more bodies in town. The archers shot and moved quickly. They were buyin’ time for others to evacuate. Many tracks leading south. You’ll want to see this.”
Nir’zan brought her to where one of the pandaren lay, transfixed with two arrows. Even in death, even wearing armor emblazoned with a snarling tiger’s face, the creature looked ridiculously benign. Khal’ak dropped to a knee beside the body and prodded the thigh with her fingers. Despite the body’s stiffening from death, she could tell the pandaren was well muscled and quite compact.
She looked up. “I see no weapon. No belt.”
“The paws, my lady.”
She grasped a paw and ran her thumb over the pandaren’s knuckles. The fur had been worn away. The dark skin had callused over. The palm felt similarly rough. “These be not fisherfolk.”
“We found four more. Some had weapons.” The warrior hesitated. “All had killed.”
“Show me.”
They continued south and then veered east to the grassy bowl beside the road. Khal’ak had chosen that spot for the ambush. She’d meant the scouts to kill a few refugees and drive the rest back into the village. Once her troops had secured it, the pandaren would serve as bearers and haulers.