World of Warcraft: The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm Page 0,64

correct.”

“What do you mean? Greatmother, you have more wisdom than the rest of us combined. You have seen so much more.”

Geyah laid a hand on the girl’s smooth, brown arm. “I have seen more, yes. And I know much, yes. But there is someone who might understand such things even better than I.”

Aggra cocked her head in a confused look. “Who?”

“You, child.”

The brown eyes flew open wide. “Me? Oh, no. I know some, but—”

“Never have I seen a more natural shaman than you,” Geyah said. “The elements all but sang lullabies to you, Aggra. They claimed you for their own long ago. I am proud that I have been able to teach you, but if you had not had me, another would have served you just as well. When it is my time to join the ancestors, I will do so contentedly, knowing that you are here to take my place.”

Aggra blinked quickly. “May that day be many years in the future,” she said. “I am sure you have much to teach me and the others. Including your slave-named grandson.”

“Actually,” mused Geyah, a glint of mischief in her eyes, “I was thinking of leaving most of the instruction to you. If for no other reason than this old orc will get a great deal of amusement watching the two of you interact.”

Aggra could not see her own expression, but judging by the way Geyah tilted back her head and laughed, it was one of comical dismay.

Thrall had forgotten how beautiful Nagrand was.

It was closing in on sunset, and it was as if the sky had decided, like an exotic bird proud of its plumage, to put on a display to impress him. Blues and purples of all shades hosted pink-tinged clouds that looked like seedpod fluff. Below this spread, the earth, too, was beautiful. The grass was a carpet of thick, verdant green, and Thrall could catch the movement of large animals in the distance. He could hear the sounds of running water and the calls of birds settling in for the night, and he felt an unexpected tug on his heart.

This was the way he had been told so much of Draenor had once appeared. Elsewhere, Thrall knew, the land was damaged, desolate, scarred. But not here, not in Nagrand. And he could not help but wonder, as he drank his fill of the celestial display of sunset, if there might be some way that Durotar, too, could be made to flourish so. If the Barrens and Desolace might one day cease to deserve their ominous names.

“Lok-tar,” came a voice.

Thrall had requested that there be no ceremony to announce his arrival. He had come here to learn, to work, not to be feted. There was no time to waste on such frivolities. Therefore he was not surprised, and was actually pleased, when he turned around and discovered that only one female orc was awaiting his arrival.

She was young, perhaps a little younger than he, and bore a piece of bundled cloth in strong brown arms. Her shiny, reddish-brown hair fell loosely to her shoulders in an untidy, almost wild fashion, and she was dressed very casually, in a leather kilt and vest. She would have been quite beautiful, in a strong-jawed, straight-backed sort of way, had it not been for the scowl of disapproval that twisted her lips down.

“You are Thrall, son of Durotan,” she said without preamble.

“I am,” he replied.

“A filthy name. Here you will be called Go’el.”

The bluntness of her statement took him aback slightly. He had not been ordered around for many a year, not since he had proved his worth to the Frostwolf clan and to Orgrim Doomhammer one night long ago.

“Go’el might be the name my parents intended for me, but fate chose otherwise. I prefer Thrall.”

She turned her head and spat. “A human word that means ‘slave.’ It is not fit for any orc to bear, least of all one who claims to lead us—even the ones who don’t live in his world.”

Thrall’s nostrils flared at the insulting gesture, and his words had a sharp edge to them. “I am warchief of the Horde, shaman, and I have made the Alliance fear the name that once meant ‘slave.’ To them, it now means the glory and power of the Horde. I would ask you to use the name I have chosen to keep.”

She shrugged. “You can keep it, but we won’t use it. Unless I am mistaken, you come not as warchief of