World of Warcraft: The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm Page 0,76

few minutes later, he was able to make the change and heal his wounds, at least somewhat. It would take time for him to recover completely.

Grimacing, he got to his hooves and moved, wincing, to examine the grave, wondering if anyone else had managed to survive. It was night by this point, but he did not need the sun’s radiance to behold the tragedy.

Dead. All dead. Night elf and tauren alike. He had been the only one to survive. His great heart broke. His knees gave way, and for a moment he collapsed beside the hole in the earth that held his friends, weeping for the slain, weeping for the future wounds this would cause to any hope for peace.

He lifted his face, his muzzle streaked with tears, and beheld the sacred ritual items he and Renferal had brought with such high hopes. They had been broken, the beautiful pipe, the simple, ancient goblet. Trampled beneath careless feet and falling bodies. Shattered beyond repair, as his dream for peace had been.

Closing his eyes, Hamuul clambered unsteadily to his hooves again, raising his hands to the sky and asking for aid. It came in the form of an owl, hooting quietly as it perched on a branch nearby. Hamuul fumbled for a piece of parchment in his bags. In his own blood, for the ink bottle he had carried had been crushed in the conflict, he wrote a brief message. He bound it around the owl’s leg. It fidgeted, bobbing its head and fixing Hamuul with a glare from lambent eyes, but accepted the strange sensation.

Hamuul whispered Cairne’s name, and held an image of the old high chieftain in his mind’s eye. When he was satisfied that the owl would obey his request, he released it with a blessing. It headed southwest.

In the direction of Thunder Bluff.

He closed his eyes in relief and gratitude, and slumped quietly to the earth, letting its embrace take him, for the moment, or forever, he did not know.

TWENTY-ONE

The pain was so much more than Garrosh had anticipated, and he embraced it joyfully.

He was pleased with how his decisions to rebuild Orgrimmar had been received. While some seemed unhappy, like Cairne and Eitrigg, most seemed to revive at the idea of returning to old orcish ways. Garrosh was glad of it. Often he walked out to gaze at the skull of the enemy his father had slain, and one day he had rubbed his chin thoughtfully and decided to take yet another step to honor his late father.

The decision had been easy, but the reality was painfully red hot. He lay face up on the floor of his quarters, forcing his body to stay relaxed and calm and not tense. Hovering above him was an elderly orc whose powerful muscles and steady hands belied his wrinkles and snowy ponytail. In one hand he held a sharp, narrow blade, the tip of which he repeatedly dipped in black ink. In the other he held a small hammer. The only sounds in the room were the crackling of the brazier which provided illumination and the tap-tap-tap of the hammer as the orc tattooist used it to slice into Garrosh’s face.

Most designs were simple. A family design, a word, the Horde insignia. Garrosh, however, wanted his entire jaw tattooed solid black—just to begin with. His desire was to eventually have his chest and back decorated with elaborate tattoos so that both friend and foe alike would see and know that he had willingly inflicted pain upon himself. At the rate of a single piercing of the flesh with each tap, this would take hours—hours when every puncture was like being jabbed with a white-hot needle.

At one point Garrosh swallowed. He also realized he was sweating—from the pain or the heat in the confined, firelit room, he did not know. The tattooist paused and glowered down at him. “Do not move,” he said. “And do not sweat so. Your father did not sweat.”

Garrosh wondered how it was that Grom was able to control sweating. He would strive to do so as well. He said nothing, as speaking would force him to move his mouth, but merely blinked to show he understood.

The tattooist, an apprentice to the orc who had ritually tattooed Grom Hellscream, stepped aside to let his own apprentice dab at the sweat on Garrosh’s brown forehead and wipe away the excess blood and ink from his chin. Garrosh breathed deeply during the reprieve. It had already been four