|
"Honor" Orcmar had never been a pleasant place, if the old
stories were true – always crowded, always dangerous, and wholly lawless
since Thrall had died centuries before.
This, though, the rioting and the looting and the civil unreast, must certainly be worse.
Or maybe it just seemed it, because you lived
down in it, down in the muck and the poverty. Because it wasn’t a vague story
about warring gangs from a hundred years ago, it was your own little
apartment in the middle of the slum canyons on fire.
With a crash, the wall blew out on the ground floor of a rickety wooden
building, and a young bull tauren, his white horns smeared with soot and
still a bit smaller than they would be, stumbled through with a look of
surprise on his face. Acrid smoke and sparks poured out after him. He
shook his big head, glanced up into the night sky, full of sparks, and
turned to look back into the burning building.
“I did it,” he shouted, with a thick Mulgore accent. “Can you see the
hole?”
A small green form appeared in the wall’s jagged, smoky gap. A moment
later, it was scooped up in the arms of a frail-looking orc woman, and
the two ran out, towards the tauren. Behind them, a beam collapsed. The
bull hoped vaguely that everyone else had made it out the front door –
but if they hadn’t, it was no concern of his.
“Thank you,” she said up to him, her voice thick.
Shouting echoed down the smoky, apartment-lined canyon – some fragment
of the civil unrest that had torched the building and several others.
The unrest was drawing closer. “You should get out of here,” said the
young bull quietly. The mother turned and ran swiftly away from the
voices, into the Orcmar night.
The angry shouting was approaching swiftly. The young bull ducked away
towards a building farther along the canyon, one not on fire yet.
“Hey!” cried a voice behind him.
The young bull squeezed his eyes shut, and kept walking.
“Hey, boys,” said the same voice, louder. “Does that look like an orc to
you?”
A chorus of drunken nos answered.
“Then what’s he doing in Orcmar?” shouted the first voice, clear and
sober. The others laughed nastily.
The young bull grimaced. He glanced quickly about, as though searching
desperately for some shadows to duck momentarily into, but none
presented themselves. He turned slowly around, a painfully faked look of
cocky assuredness on his face. He nonchalantly wiped the soot off of one
of his horns.
Opposite him, along the sooty canyon, stood a group of six thuggish
orcs. They twirled chains, smacked thick sticks against their arms, and
generally glowered and sneered. One of them, standing in front, held a
stubby wand. They wore matching black shirts, with a hand, palm
out, crudely painted in dark green paint. A red slash sliced each palm.
“Orcmar is for orcs,” growled the leader, staring the young bull down.
The bull paused for a moment, and then in one powerful movement, turned,
dropped to all fours, and ran for it.
“On all fours like a beast!” shouted one of them derisively. The bull
could hear their heavy boots pounding after him, but he was faster than
they –
There was a crackle, and then a whoosh, and a heavy fireball barreled
into him from behind. He cried out in pain and stumbled, his feet
tangling with each other, and he slid face-first to a stop. He scrambled
to his feet, but they were upon him – whipping with chains, beating with
sticks, punching and kicking with thick leather boots. A chain wrapped
around the bull’s horns, and he jerked his head aside. The chain pulled
roughly out of the hands of the orc that wielded it. The orc cried out
in pain and looked down at his hands. They were bleeding.
The bull swung his chain around by his neck, lunging with his horns, but
six burly orcs was too many. The bull cried out in as a club bludgeon
broke skin on his shoulder, and he fell backwards to the ground,
bleeding. An orc leapt on each of his arms and legs, pinning him face
up.
The leader stepped forward, and aimed his wand at the bull’s forehead.
He looked calm, almost serene, almost happy, but not quite. The wand
began to crackle with fire. The tauren’s black eyes leapt desperately
about.
“Feel the wrath of Thrall,” growled the leader. The others cheered.
“Thrall!” cried the bull. “He was our friend! Friend of, my family,” he
gasped.
The wand’s fire winked out.
“The Doomhammers and the Bloodhooves,” continued the bull desperately,
looking from one orc to another. “Thrall swore a pact of undying
friendship between our families.”
“And you’re a Bloodhoof?” said the leader, the wand still cocked and
ready. The bull nodded fervently.
“Who cares!” spoke the orc holding down the bull’s right arm. “’Ee’s a
cow!”
“He doesn’t even have the decency to talk to like an orc,” growled
another.
The leader turned to the first orc who had spoken, his eyes narrowed.
“Strength,” he said.
“And honor!” cried the other, instinctively. “Oh. Right.” He subsided.
The leader turned back to the bull, still pinned. “How long have you
lived in Orcmar?” he said.
“About three months,” said the other, still breathless, still glancing
about.
“You got a guild?”
“A what?” said the bull.
“Got any special skills?”
The bull paused. “Not really,” he said, glancing nervously about.
The orc looked inscrutably at the bull for a moment. Then he spoke,
formally. “We are a guild, and we are a family. Thrall built this city
with the sweat of our fathers, and he built it for us. If he swore
friendship to your family, our family will honor that, if you join us.”
“Join us!” shouted the orc whose hands bled. “He hurt me!”
The leader turned to the other. “Weakness,” he said simply, “sounds like a personal
problem.” The other glowered.
“Get off him, boys.” The orcs stood obediently, and the young
tauren got to his hooves and dusted himself off.
The lead orc inclined his head to the other. “Welcome to Thrall’s
Revenge,” he growled.
Next: Labor
Discuss
Index of Shorts
Table of Contents
Home
|
