“No need for glory at the moment,” Thrall said. “There will be enough of a challenge for you without any extra effort. The Horde’s honor is already assured. You just need to take care of it. Put its needs before your own, as your father did. The Kor’kron will be instructed to protect you as they would me. I go to Nagrand as a shaman, not as warchief of the Horde. Make good use of them—and of Cairne and Eitrigg. Would you go into battle without a weapon?”
Garrosh looked confused. “That is a foolish question, Warchief, and you know it.”
“Oh, I do. I am making sure you understand what powerful weapons you have,” Thrall said. “My advisors are my weapons as I struggle to always do what is best for the Horde. They see things I do not, present options I did not know I had. Only a fool would scorn such things. And I do not think you a fool.”
“I am not a fool, Warchief. You would not ask me to serve so if you thought me one.”
“True. So, Garrosh, do you agree to lead the Horde until such time as I return? Taking advice from Eitrigg and Cairne when they offer it?”
Garrosh took a deep breath. “It is my true longing to lead the Horde to the best of my ability. And so, yes, a thousand times yes, my warchief. I will lead as well as I can, and I will consult with the advisors you suggest. I know what a tremendous honor you do me, and I will strive to be worthy of it.”
“Then it is done,” Thrall said. “For the Horde!”
“For the Horde!”
“Stop here, please.” The scene froze. Tyrande walked up to the still, enormous figures, looking carefully at the younger Garrosh. He looked happy and deeply moved. She then turned and looked at the present Garrosh, silent, chained, his eyes half shut as he stared back at her. She didn’t need to say a word, Go’el realized. The contrast between the two versions of Garrosh Hellscream could not have been starker.
She shook her head, as if having difficulty believing the evidence of her own eyes, then resumed. “Please tell us what happened after you left—presumably for a brief time.”
“The Cataclysm struck,” Go’el said. “My shamanic abilities were needed more than I—than anyone—could have anticipated.”
“So that kept you from returning? Your studies?”
“Initially. I then went to the Maelstrom, to aid the Earthen Ring in their efforts to calm the elements, as I said earlier. But after Deathwing exploded into our world, my skills with the element of earth, especially, proved to be important.”
“I would say absolutely vital to his destruction,” Tyrande said. She cast a quick glance in Baine’s direction, no doubt expecting a protest, but there was none. “In the absence of the original, uncorrupted Neltharion, there was no Earth-Warder, is that correct?”
“Yes.” Go’el shifted uncomfortably.
“And only you were strong enough to hold the element of the earth against Chromatus, and the Demon Soul against Deathwing, is that true?”
“Yes,” Go’el said. “Even so, we would have failed without the help of many others from both sides. And I maintain that any other shaman capable would have unhesitatingly taken the risks upon himself or herself.”
“But there was no one else capable,” Tyrande pressed.
“No,” Go’el said. He disliked being regarded, even temporarily, as an Aspect’s equal, or given credit for any particular remarkable act of heroism when he knew bone-deep that any member of the Earthen Ring would have done the same if he or she could have.
“And after Deathwing’s fall, you returned to the Maelstrom, where you continued your work, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Even by then, word of what Garrosh was starting to do had reached your ears.”
He shot her a searching look, then nodded. “Yes.”
“Many feel you should have returned to lead the Horde once this started.”
“Those who say so were not with me in the Maelstrom,” Go’el said. “Any one of the Earthen Ring who served there can tell you that no one was dispensable.”
“So, you were forbidden to leave?”
“No. No one was ordered to stay. We had to search our own hearts as to what was best. I still heard the call of the elements, and so, I knew I had to remain.”
“Suppose you had not continued to hear the call. That you had been able to leave the Maelstrom. What would you have done? Would you have perhaps gone to Orgrimmar and told Garrosh to get off your throne?”
“By then he was the warchief. I had no authority to do such a thing. I was not even a member of the Horde, truly, by that point. I became the leader of the Earthen Ring, and it was there that my loyalties lay. Other leaders were in a position to make change, but I was not. I did not even know for certain if my old vision of the Horde was still what the people wanted.”
“I am not sure I understand.” Go’el knew she did, but he nonetheless welcomed the chance to speak something that had weighed on him.
“The world did not wait on my return,” he said with a self-deprecating smile. “It changed. The orcs changed. My Horde changed. What was I to do—kill my fellow orcs until it was once again my Horde? Did I have any right to force the Horde to be what it was under my leadership? Did I even have a voice to protest anymore, if I had chosen another path?”
“If you had been asked—what would you have done?”
“I was indeed asked for help by Vol’jin. And the moment I received that request from my brother, I answered it with a full heart.”
“What did you and those who followed you have to do to help Vol’jin and the trolls?”
Go’el did not answer at once. “Kill the Kor’kron who were holding the Echo Isles under martial law.”
“Was that not acting against the will of the warchief?”
“It was. But regardless of who leads it, the Horde is, and always will be, family. This was not an outward defense or even an incursion against an enemy. This was the Horde attacking its own.”
“And this is what made you decide to take arms against Garrosh.”
“Yes. I could not stand idle when asked to aid my brother against one who should value him, not seek to kill him.”
Tyrande smiled and inclined her head in a gesture of respect. “Thank you, Go’el. I have no more questions. Defender, your witness.”
Go’el realized that, grueling as Tyrande’s examination had been, it would be nothing compared to what was coming. His friend Baine, son of Cairne Bloodhoof, had risen. Go’el had seen what Baine had done to Vol’jin—Baine’s ally and friend against Garrosh, who had urged the tauren to take the responsibility and defend Hellscream to the best of his ability.
Baine had done so, and was continuing to do so. And he, no doubt, would attack Go’el as he had the troll.
How have we come to this place, all of us? Go’el wondered, and steeled himself for the interrogation.
19
Harrowmeiser sighed. Another gorgeous evening in the scenic Howling Fjord, in the lovely continent of Northrend. With those spiffy “northern lights” that everyone just went on and on and on about. And the delightful subfreezing temperatures. And an oh-so-appealing lumpy cot and something that sometimes could actually be called “food.”
The goblin stood regarding the setting sun. A woman flanked him on either side, and not for the first time he wondered what their faces looked like without their helms.
Yep . . . just another glorious day here at Westguard Keep, a reluctant “guest” of the Alliance.
He had lost track of how long he had been held captive, his beautiful zeppelin, the Lady Lug, used now by the enemy to protect the keep from being overrun by nearby pirates. Day in, day out. With no real change of seasons, it was hard to estimate. Years, certainly.
Not even a shirt, he thought sadly as the chill set in. I’m from Ratchet. A tropical clime, thank you very much. And they have me here, with iron balls strapped to my feet and not even a shirt.