World of Warcraft: The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm Page 0,85
to warn you. Your father was a great tauren, even if I disagreed with some of his decisions. He did not deserve such a death, nor do you. Long have I served the matriarch, but this time …” He shook his head. “This time she has gone too far. She has disgraced what it means to be a shaman. I will not participate in her plans any longer.”
Baine closed the distance between him and the Grimtotem in two strides and jerked the other tauren’s head up by his beard. The Grimtotem grunted slightly but met Baine’s gaze evenly.
The strange dream … the sense of unease …
A great pain filled Baine’s chest, lancing his heart, and he could hardly breathe. “Father,” he whispered, and even as he said the word, he realized that the Grimtotem defector had spoken the truth. Tears stung his eyes, but he blinked them back. There would be time to properly mourn his father later. If what the defector said was true—
“What is your name?”
“I am known as Stormsong, Chieftain.”
Chieftain. He supposed he was chieftain of the Bloodhoof now. … “I will stand and fight,” Baine declared. “I will not run from danger. I will not abandon the people of the village that bears my family’s name.”
“You are outnumbered,” said Stormsong, “and yours is more than simply another life to be thrown away in battle. You are the last Bloodhoof, and, too, you would be the obvious choice to lead your people as well as your tribe. You have a responsibility to the tauren to stay safe and reclaim what has been stolen from you. Do you think Bloodhoof Village is the only tauren settlement under attack tonight?”
Baine’s eyes widened in growing horror as Stormsong continued. “Even now, slaughter goes on in Thunder Bluff! Magatha will rule the tauren by the time the sun peeks its head over the horizon to regard the bloody aftermath of this shameful night. You must survive. You do not have the luxury of dying to avenge your father! Come, please!”
Baine snorted angrily, gripping Stormsong by the front of his leather vest, then releasing him. The shaman was right.
“This could be a trick, a trap!” one of the braves said. “He could be leading you into an ambush!”
Baine shook his head sadly. “No,” he said. “No trick. I can feel it. The shaman speaks the truth.” He opened his hand, which he had clenched hard around the runespear fragment, and regarded it for a moment before tenderly placing it in a pouch. “My father is slain, and I must survive tonight if I am to take care of our people as he would have wanted me to. Stormsong Grimtotem, you risk much, coming to warn me. And so I risk much in trusting you. Know that if you betray me, you will die within seconds.”
“Well do I know that,” Stormsong agreed. “I am one and you are many. Now … the Grimtotem are on three sides, but I think I know a way to scatter them. Follow me.”
The Grimtotem charged the village. They were met not by sleeping, unaware tauren, but by warriors in training, fully armed and ready for them. Tarakor was not altogether surprised; he had assumed that Stormsong had been captured and Baine had been alerted to the attack. Still, they were Grimtotem, and they would fight to their deaths.
Many fell beneath Tarakor’s axe, but there was one he did not see—Baine Bloodhoof. Every Grimtotem present knew that killing Baine was the sole objective, and as the moments ticked by and Baine did not appear, Tarakor began to panic.
There was only one explanation.
“Grimtotem!” he cried, brandishing his axe over the body of a druid he had sliced almost in two as she attempted to transform into cat form. “We are betrayed! Baine has escaped! Find him! Find him!”
Now the battling villagers were not a target, but a nuisance, as the Grimtotem tried to move past the boundaries of Bloodhoof Village. And then suddenly the earth began to shake. Tarakor whirled, axe at the ready, and stared for a split second in horror.
Nearly a dozen kodos were charging directly at him and his men. Some of them were being ridden by Bloodhoof villagers, but others only had saddles and harnesses. Some, not even broken for riding yet, did not have that much. They bellowed, eyes rolling, frightened out of their wits, and gave no indication that they were even considering slowing down.