The March of Forneus 7
Nazgrel is dressed in his full regalia, the rich pelt of a wolf across his shoulders, the snarling, fanged face above his own as stand surrounded by his warriors, his axe on his shoulder. Sesk and Ishi stand before him, barring the way, the others in the Cleft readying themselves…
"Young warrior." Nazgrel says, his voice easily carrying across the Cleft, "The Warchief would hear your report. Come."
The moment is tense and further words seem unnecessary. With a look at your father, then to the rest of your clan you make the first step forward.
You feel a hand on your shoulder and you look back into your father's eyes.
"I must… I must."
The dispute is larger than you, Nazgrel's even tone betrays that at least and the general looked more to your father than you, clearly expecting what was to come. It is not within you to refuse such an order, you are bound by honour.
His lips curl but he steps forward as well, giving swift orders to several of the onlookers in the demon tongue. But it seems as if your father was right because as soon as he falls into step behind you the Kor'kron close in, cutting off any escape from the rear as you go forward. If Nazgrel merely wanted a report he might have questioned you in the Cleft of Shadow, or perhaps conveyed your words back to Thrall but instead you're being led through Orgrimmar.
You hear a rasp of a sword unsheathing, metal on leather behind you and look back, catching sight of Sesk and Ishi standing across from the Kor'kron still guarding the Cleft. Sesk is sneering, his sword on his shoulder, the Fel in his eyes burning as he sizes up to the guards.
You don't feel in especial danger, the mood of Nazgrel is formal rather than hostile, but you still fear the journey. Even if your father's apprehensions are overblown, why the summons like this? Why the armed escort? You didn't escort heroes like this, and you didn't talk with villains. This was how you escorted prisoners…
The rocky walls that made up the many canyons of Orgrimmar are ruined and several times you pass by immense heaps of stone from the devastation of the battle. Even now, weeks after the event there are Orcs digging in the rubble, whether to retrieve the corpses of any who had perished or whether simply to clear the detritus away, you don't know. Almost no building is left standing and the few permanent structures of wood and stone in the city have been thrown down. Orgrimmar had become a city of tents and leaning walls, beams from one house taken to prop up another, canopies spread across the canyons and hunched dwellings established in the shadow of the largest boulders.
While you're heartened to see your people rebuilding, the scale of the destruction is enormous. You pass great towers and edifices which have entirely fallen away and sometimes you step over mortared brickwork lying cracked on the ground or have to pass around some other obstacle.
You weren't being led to the Valley of Wisdom, the home of Grommash Hold and the Warchief's seat, that was plain, instead you were taken by circuitous routes through the city, perhaps due to the destruction? Many people stopped to watch as Nazgrel and his Frostwolves led you and it all had the feeling of a pig being led to the slaughterhouse. There were neither cries nor cheers, the people seemed apprehensive, curious, but uncertain.
"Where are we going?" you speak quietly to your father.
"The Valley of Strength." he replies, equally quietly, "Forneus fell there, it is suitable enough for such a...spectacle."
As you walked you perceived a darkness to fall and out of the corner of your eyes you see your father's hands working in spell forms again, his lips moving in whispers. You grew cold as shadows shrouded you, the wispy demons you'd seen reporting to your father previously surrounding you with the lightest of pressures on your shoulders like a black mantle. He was taking away his own protections to weave them around you instead. He fears for you, you know that well enough despite his rough sort of love... will he have enough power to protect himself?
Then the canyon opens out into the Valley of Strength. This had been the entrance of Orgrimmar once, the central thoroughfare and valley to the rest of the canyon-city. Now you saw its new form. Whereas previously the valley had been quite flat, a small river running through it and the slopes up to the cliffs above covered in layers of dwellings, you seen now that the march of Forneus has caused just as much destruction here as elsewhere. There is now a canyon within a canyon. An enormous crack reaches down through the earth, its jagged edge running along the base of the valley, a vast deep crevice, a waterfall flowing into it and a dull roar echoing from the bottom. It's as if the valley has become one massive arena and apprehension weighs in your stomach as you walk forward, down into the valley, around massive boulders and over small bridges that have been put up over the cracks in the earth leading to the new chasm.
Thrall was once a gladiator and he now sits on a throne above an arena, looking down into the depths, banners of the Horde above him, surrounded by wolf-pelted Frostwolves and his own riding warg at the side of his throne. You look around at the slopes and all the clans of the Horde are there, the banners of the Frostwolves, Blackrock and Warsong most prominent, but you see many others of clans both greater and small and Orcs from all across the Horde's society, though few of any of the clans which might be more friendly to your own.
Nazgrel leads you to the foot of the throne, the wrecked slopes of the valley forming a sort of bowl like a court with the Warchief as solemn judge.
"Say nothing." your father murmurs, his hands going still at the scrutiny of the collected shaman.
Thrall's eyes briefly flit toward you, then settle on your father.
"I have called you here to speak of history." the Warchief begins, "First I will speak, then you," he points at your father, "will respond."
The order, Thrall's accusatory finger, the position of superiority where you father stands in the arena and Thrall sits above him, even the obvious audience the Warchief has assembled all contribute to your father's anger and he seethes beside you, fists clenched. What can Neeru do but stay silent and wait? Shouting up at the Warchief would hardly be seemly and you find yourself frowning at the dishonourable behaviour, what was such a set up meant to produce but anger?
"I appeal to you, my people." Thrall begins, standing before the throng, "Great tragedies have befallen us recently, great sorrow… a time to reflect." the words are slow, sonorous, easily carrying across the arena, "We have struggled in this land, struggled to survive, to thrive, struggled to live in peace, to have lives of glory without dishonour. Again and again we have triumphed, carved out a place for our people in this savage land, but an old wound holds us back."
The Warchief continues his oration, his metaphors simple and direct, clearly understandable to his audience. Many warriors could remember an infection or a festering injury, still more were veterans of many battles and remembered their mistakes when their scars ached on cold nights. Medicine was crude among your people and it had been the experience of internment and the learning of Thrall himself that had brought some advancements from Human herblore to the art of sewing wounds.
"An infection fells neither beast nor warrior immediately. It is less sure than a thrust to the heart, less savage than claws or teeth, but in the end it is disease and corruption that kills more than battle itself!"
Thrall likens the Horde to a family, speaking of a contagion spreading through from brother to brother till the community itself is outwardly twisted and warped to reflect the inner corruption.
"After the battle I sought the guidance of the Spirits." Thrall speaks, arm reaching down toward the chasm below, "I climbed down, down into the bowels of the earth. There I meditated for three days and nights. Truth has come to me in dreams… I dreamt I held a fiery sword, that I cut gouges in the land and left all that opposed me cracked and burnt. It was a sword of greatness, a sword of such power that it destroys our enemies, but when I stood alone among the ashes and set the sword down I found my own hand burning."
If the audience had been different, if it had been other than the chief of the Burning Blade on trial it might have been thought that Thrall refered to some other issue. But it is your father on trial, your clan. Thrall's metaphors are unsubtle, direct enough that everyone should know what he refers to, yet in the veneer of poetry he uses, his statements of dreams and portents, the Warchief is able to avoid directly accusing your father of anything, yet still managing to further inflame Neeru's anger.
"The greatest threat is the one from within. Only through the removal of the corruption within our society can there finally find peace in our home. How intricate a web we can weave when motivated by greed and power! The hidden agendas, the corruption, all of it will become clear. O my people! Open your eyes and you will find yourself in the midst of a war you never knew existed."
Thrall's gestures have become more bellicose, his oratory louder, playing off the crowd who cry out as he speaks. The Warchief plays his audience well, for after all, had his human once-master Blackmoore not trained the orc as a general and leader? The story of Thrall's childhood was well known among the Horde and it seems he had been taught more than just the ways of battle.
The speech grows ever louder, the reactions of the crowd encouraging, only the Frostwolf shaman surrounding the Warchief remaining unmoved, their eyes on your father as he seethes, hands clenched, hunched forward as if to grapple with his opponent, eyes bright with the Fel.
And as you stand there between the two figures, Warchief and father, shaman and warlock, you understand Thrall's strategy…
The march of Forneus, the destruction of the newly established capital, your father's victory, they'd all shaken the Warchief's legitimacy, for what was the worth of such a leader if they couldn't protect their people? The Elements had risen up and smashed the city that bore Orgrim Doomhammer's name, and the inheritor of that weapon had been equally brought down, retreating from battle while the supposedly evil warlocks of the Burning Blade had stood against Forneus and cast him back down to Deepholme.
There were no actions Thrall could take to restore that legitimacy instantly, yet to him it was essential to the long term success of his policies (and indeed the future of his people), that he quickly took back the mantle of leadership. Of all things the most damaging was the idea that the shamans of the Horde could begin to turn again to the Fel, and you knew certain clans like the Bleeding Hollow and Blackrock held far different views on the Elements than the Frostwolf orthodoxy that Thrall espoused.
Thrall had been the first new shaman in a generation, the first orc to touch the Elements in many years and as such he stood as both the Elder Shaman and the Warchief of the Horde, an unprecedented position which held great power, yet also great vulnerability. It was beyond his purview to simply command the shaman of other tribes to follow his wishes and indeed while he had maintained many of Doomhammer's policies he'd also relaxed some. Thrall had allowed cultural variation to flourish in an attempt at reviving the old clan structures of Draenor that were fading away in this new Horde, but that also meant permitting the Fel and warlocks to act openly, though with certain restrictions.
Yet Thrall's conciliatory attitude had also meant he was frequently disobeyed. Warriors, even loyal ones like Vark, routinely made war on their own initiative, such as your blood-brother's actions against the Kul Tirans, while you knew your clan had habitually violated the restrictions on the use of the Fel, such as in the activities of the elders of Dreadmist.
Thus the Warchief's strategy now. It was insidious… Your father had feared direct confrontation and a decimation the likes of which Doomhammer had perpetrated on the Shadow Council, yet instead Thrall had outdone your father in subtlety. Thrall was deliberately enraging your father, deliberately playing on his fears. It was well known that your father was young for a warlock, he hadn't been a part of the Shadow Council and had survived Doomhammer's purge, and now Thrall must know how his summons would appear, even sending Nazgrel, your previous superior, to summon you, again knowing from your previous interactions that your overbearing father would follow to protect you. Thrall had previously tried to chip away at your father's legitimacy by using your ambition, you had seen it on your first day back in Orgrimmar, now the same thing was happening again.
For a moment the world stills and it's as if the future plays out in front of you. You know what will happen. You feel sick to your stomach, the feeling of dread when you see a sword heading toward you but know you can't block it in time.
Thrall would continue his oratory, stoking your father's anger with insults, whether in the initial situation like positioning himself above the two of you on his throne, or in his metaphors, accusing the modern Burning Blade of perpetuating the corruption and evil of the Shadow Council, striking at the Horde from within. Thrall would position himself as Doomhammer, standing for the old ways and taking vengeance against the warlocks for their deception just as Doomhammer had.
It would depend on what exactly Thrall had planned, but you could see several results of this confrontation, ever more complex, difficulty and fraught with danger as a duel. Firstly, Thrall might publicly disparage your father's leadership, compare him directly to the corrupting influence of Gul'dan, call for his arrest or execution, which while Thrall himself would be disinclined to carry out immediately, might lay the groundwork for such a purge as Doomhammer carried out. Second, Thrall could present what proofs he had of your clan's offenses and call for the Burning Blade's dissolution or potentially throw his social capital behind some other figure as clan chief, perhaps one of the well-respected Blademasters, likely causing a schism between the different factions of your clan. Third, Thrall might note the inherently destructive nature of the Fel and reinstate Doomhammer's ban on it, eroding your father's legitimacy and again setting up the necessary conditions to purge the warlocks completely, after all, the Cleft was already guarded by Thrall's own forces…
Your father, prideful, paranoid, suspicious, would respond poorly at best to any of the possibilities. If he was removed he'd lash out, trying to secure himself against the perceived, and possibly real, threat of the Warchief. It was likely Neeru's actions and reactions would push Thrall further into thinking the Burning Blade were an enemy rather than an asset, such as the move of your people into the secret ways and caverns beneath the city. You weren't threatened with civil war, not yet, Thrall's assembly and indirect strategy of confrontation saw to that…
But even if that wasn't the intention, a bloody future might be ahead in any case. You'd never been told what exactly lay in Desolace, what the remainder of your clan not in Orgrimmar were doing there but you could guess. If the elders at Dreadmist were tormenting the Elements and summoning demons, what more could your clan be doing 'off east' further away from Thrall's gaze? If the Burning Blade were dissolved and abjured would your father seek refuge at Thunder Axe Fortress? Would the warlocks of the Horde slip further into demonic magics, further into corruption without the mitigating influence and social acceptability of the Burning Blade and the prestige of the clan's position? You could see it now, a thousand Darkstorms would spring up, each warlock heading off on their own, now absent your father's oversight, a thousand mutated, red skinned, burning eyed orcs skulking in caves, ambushing caravans and calling down demons to defend them when discovered and rooted out.
Even the Blademasters would decline. You had little time for selfish dreams but you could imagine the remaining wanderers and battleseekers falling further into their malaise, their ancient clan destroyed and many of its remaining secrets lost, ancient learning, scrolls and tomes like the one you'd once owned now destroyed or worse, confiscated and the traditions of your people let out for the Horde's shaman to pour over and marvel at.
As Thrall continued to speak you could see the destruction of your people. Thrall didn't intend to strike the first blow and risk the public opinion turning on him. Instead he relied on cultural memory and your father's stubbornness. The Warchief had set the stage, the pieces moved on their own…
Thrall knew of your clan's disobedience and could simply use the reports of Kartha or Scorn, rich in detail of the horrors the elders had called up during that day of blood against the Kolkar. Indeed, if you had decided to come to warn the city yourself would that have even made the situation worse? What impression could the Warchief have formed from your testimony, could you have improved the situation or would the report of the clan heir merely have caused further problems?
The blade comes down upon you, but in that moment you feel your sword at your side, you feel it's weight, you feel a hilt you can grasp.
The testimony of the clan heir…
You look over at your father, then up to the Warchief, a choice clear before you:
[ ] Remain silent
Obey your father's initial command, do nothing and work as you have before, a loyal orc, a loyal son, a loyal member of the Horde. Accept the Warchief's judgement and the events as they progress. Without intervention the events you fear will play out, your father's personality colliding with the Warchief's strategy. Your clan won't fall this day, but this is the thrust that will propel your people into a downward spiral which may lead, in time, to their destruction.
[ ] The Lie of Honour
Lie. You ultimately aren't responsible for all the events of the past few weeks, the issues go back years, even generations. Yet now you could step forward and take responsibility. You were the commander at Dreadmist Peak, tell the assembly that you ordered the demon to be summoned, tell them that you did it for the Horde, emphasise the destruction of the Kolkar, an enemy of your people for years. Turn Thrall's strategy back on him, say that all the Burning Blade has done has been for the greater glory and security of the Horde. Draw the attention of the assembly to you and away from your father, no doubt bringing judgement down on you and falling on your own sword for the good of the clan, and in truth, the wider Horde. This strategy will undermine Thrall's rhetoric, but at least it will maintain the Burning Blade...
So now we have the true confrontation of the arc, the culmination of the themes of agency and obligation, showing that while yes you are blown to and fro by political machinations and cultural history greater than yourself, you can still influence events at key points. Voting is open because if I put a moratorium on it it's night time for most of the people who read this now so it'll have elapsed by morning anyway. Discussion is highly encouraged, indeed mandatory given this choice will determine and influence many events and circumstances in future. Questions and also encouraged so I can clarify (or not as I choose) any points in edits to the chapter.
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