Draka, warrior, mate, and mother-to-be, rode her wolf Ice beside Durotan. For most of the journey, as was fitting, she had marched beside her mate. But eventually Durotan asked her to ride. “If not for your sake or the child’s, for mine,” he had said. “It is exhausting, wondering if you will drop in the dust.”
She had grinned at him, her lips curving over her small tusks, her dark eyes sparkling with the humor that he loved so well. “Huh,” she said. “I will ride, if only because I fear you will topple over trying to pick me up.”
In the beginning, spirits had been high. The clan had faced and defeated a terrible foe, the Red Walkers, but they had also learned that they could no longer expect aid from the weakened Spirits.
Durotan had assured his clan that they would always stay Frostwolves, even if they joined together with other orcs in the Horde. The thought of meat, fruit, water, clean air—things the clan badly needed—was heartening. The trouble, Durotan realized, was that the clan—and, truth be told, he himself—had departed thinking that their troubles would be over soon. The journey’s hardships had beaten that out of them.
He looked over his shoulder at his clan. They shuffled, they did not stride; and there was a bone-weariness about them that made his heart ache to see.
The light touch of his mate’s hand on his shoulder drew his attention back to her. He gave her a forced, weary smile.
“You look like you should be riding, not me,” she said, gently.
“There will be time enough for all of us to ride,” he said, “when we have enough meat that our wolves stretch out with bulging bellies beside us.”
Her gaze flickered from her own stomach back to his and her eyes narrowed teasingly. He laughed, surprised by the mirth, almost convinced he had forgotten how to. Draka always knew how to calm him, whether with laughter, love, or the occasional punch to help him get his head back on his shoulders. And their child—
The real reason, he knew, why he had left Frostfire Ridge. Draka was the only Frostwolf who was pregnant. And in the end, Durotan could not find a way to justify bringing his child—any orc child—into a world that could not nourish it.
Durotan reached to touch the belly he had teased her about, laying his enormous brown hand on it and the small life within. The words he had told his clan, on the eve of their departure, flitted through his mind: Whatever the lore says about what was done in the past, whatever the rituals stipulate we do, whatever rules or laws or traditions there are—there is one law, one tradition, which must not be violated. And that is that a chieftain must do whatever is truly best for the clan.
He felt a strong, rapid pressure against his palm and grinned in delight as his child seemed to agree that his decision had been the right one. “This one would march beside you already,” Draka said.
Before Durotan could respond, someone shouted for him. “Chieftain! They they are!!”
With a final caress, Durotan turned his attention to Kurvorsh, one of the scouts he had sent on ahead. Most Frostwolves kept their hair; it was only prudent in the frigid north. But Kurvorsh, like many others, had opted to shave his skull once they had traveled south, leaving only a single long lock he tied off. His wolf halted in front of Durotan, her tongue lolling from the heat.
Durotan tossed Kurvorsh a water skin. “Drink first, then report.” Kurvorsh swallowed a few thirsty gulps, then handed the skin back to his chieftain.
“I saw a line of structures along the horizon,” he said, panting a little as he caught his breath. “Tents, like ours. So many of them! I saw smoke from dozens… no, hundreds of cook fires, and watchtowers positioned to see us coming.” He shook her head in wonder. “Gul’dan did not lie when he said he would gather all the orcs in Draenor.”
A weight that he’d never even acknowledged lifted from Durotan’s chest. He had not let himself dwell on the possibility that they had been too late, or even that the entire gathering had been an exaggeration. Kurvorsh’s words were more of a comfort to the weary chieftain than he could know.
“How far?” he asked.
“About half a sun’s walk. We should reach there with enough time to make camp for the evening.”
“Maybe they will have food,” Orgrim said. “Something freshly killed, roasting on a spit. Clefthooves do not come this far south, do they? What do these southlanders eat, anyway?”
“Whatever it is, if it is freshly killed, roasting on a spit, I do not doubt you will eat it, Orgrim,” Durotan said. “Nor,” he added, “would anyone in this camp refuse. But we should not expect it. We should not expect anything.”
“We were asked to join the Horde, and we did.” The voice was Draka’s, and it was at his side rather than above him. She had dismounted. “We bring our weapons, from spears to arrows to hammers, and our hunting and survival skills. We come to serve the Horde, to help all grow strong, and eat. We are Frostwolves. They will be glad we have come.”
Her eyes flashed and her chin lifted slightly. Draka had once been Exiled, when she was young and frail. She had returned one of the fiercest warriors Durotan had ever seen, and had brought the Frostwolves knowledge of other cultures, other ways, that would now, no doubt, be all the more valuable.
“My mate is right,” Durotan said. He made as if to lift her back onto Ice’s back, but she put out a hand, no.
“She is right,” Draka agreed, smiling a little, “and she will walk beside her chieftain and mate into this gathering of the Horde.”
Durotan looked toward the south. For so long, the sky had been mercilessly clear, with no chance of rain in the offing. But now, he saw the smudge of a gray cloud. As he regarded it, the billowing mist was abruptly lit from within by lightning that glowed an ominous shade of green.
Kurvorsh had calculated their travel speed well. The sun was low on the horizon when they arrived at the encampment, but there would still be plenty of light for the clan to prepare the evening meal and erect their tents.
The sound of so many voices talking was foreign to Durotan, and there were so many unfamiliar sights to behold it was exhausting. His gaze swept over the large, circular tents, similar to the one he and Draka shared, and came to rest on the field that had been roped off so that children from different clans could play together. He took in all the scents and sounds—conversation, laughter, the rough music of a lok’vadnod being sung, the pounding of drums, so many that Durotan could feel the earth tremble beneath his feet. Smells: of fires, and grain cakes cooking and flames roasting meats, stews bubbling, and the strong but not unpleasant musk of wolf fur and orc teased his nostrils.
Kurvorsh had not exaggerated; if anything, he had minimized the absolute vastness of this seemingly endless stretch of leather and wood structures. The Frostwolves were among the smallest of the clans, Durotan knew. But for a moment, he was so overwhelmed he couldn’t speak. Finally, words came.
“So many clans in one place, Orgrim. Laughing Skull, Blackrock, Warsong… all have been summoned.”
“It will be a mighty warband,” his second-in-command said. “I just wonder who’s left to fight.”
“Frostwolves.”
The voice was flat, almost bored, and Durotan and Orgrim turned to see two tall, burly male orcs marching up to them. They were unusually large and well muscled, given that the land was dying and many orcs had too little food. Unlike the Frostwolves, who had only a few pieces of mail or plate armor, relying mostly on spike-studded leather to protect them, these orcs wore undented pieces of shiny plate on their shoulders and even on their chests. They carried spears and moved with a united sense of purpose.