One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
Fentulk's slack-jawed expression nearly assured Joanne that the woman had falsely accused him. When he rallied, however, the Orc only sank deeper in the mire Kora pushed him into.
"She ain't a whore, dammit!" he barked defensively. "Karie's a good woman!"
Smirking indulgently, Kora replied, "Of course she is." Turning to look at Joanne's stricken face, she barely hid her glee. "Don't worry, dear. I'm sure this... 'good woman' won't mind sharing him." Plastering an innocent expression on her own face, Kora asked Fentulk, "She doesn't mind sharing, does she? No hard feelings expected?" Then she chuckled at her own joke. "Well, she won't be feeling very hard, but perhaps you..."
"Kora, what the fuck are you doing?" Fentulk roared. His eyes darted between Kora and Joanne... gods help him, Joanne looked close to fainting. "Joanne, it ain't... Karie's not... please believe me, I..."
"Oh now, don't be modest, Fentulk darling," Kora interjected, her voice syrupy sweet. "I'm certain you can handle more than one, strong, virile man that you are. All those years on the ship... my goodness, will two be enough?" She put her hand to her mouth and widened her eyes with mock concern.
Fentulk was shaking so hard he could barely speak. Never in all his days had he felt compelled to raise a hand against a woman, but today might be the end of that restraint. She had him completely by the balls; if he socked her a good one, if he insulted her in any way, his only means of getting home would be removed. He had no idea how to get to the Dark Portal from here, or how much Alliance-held territory he'd have to somehow sneak through in the process. He had no money and no friends...
Especially not now, if he was reading Joanne's devastated expression correctly.
"Joanne," he tried again, his voice unsteady with desperation, but she raised her hand to stop him.
Straightening with dignity, she said quietly, "Answer me, yes or no. Are you keeping a... do you have a wife?"
Swallowing hard, he shook his head. "No, I swear it. This is..."
"Yes or no," she snapped fiercely. "This... Karie. What is she to you?"
He didn't know what to say. No matter what he told her, a lie or the truth, Joanne would hate him for it. She'd been sheltered all her life from certain realities, specifically the kinds of relations men and women indulged. Fentulk was no expert himself, and knew he hadn't the words to not shoot himself in the foot.
But he couldn't look Joanne in the eyes and tell her an untruth.
Bowing his head, Fentulk stared at the ground, wishing it would swallow him up. "Karie ain't... she's... just a friend. Maybe... less'n that, cause I only knew her for a week."
"I see," Joanne said evenly. "When did you last see her?"
"Month ago, maybe. Look, Joanne, it's not..."
"Not what I think?" she finished for him, arching her eyebrows. Anger was the only defense she had at the moment, and it rose obligingly with every word. "How can you know what I think? Do you have any idea what I have sacrificed for you? I left the only... world I've ever known! I can't go back there, not now. I am beginning to understand what Mister Dorath was telling me. You did come into Alliance territory in search of a human 'mate' because no other race would do! What a fool I was to trust you! Am I to be one of many? Will there be another woman 'acquired' at some point?"
"No!" he barked angrily. "I don't want nobody else! Just you!"
"It is not me you want, but this shell, this body!"
"That ain't true!" he protested, but she was on a tirade and wouldn't let him continue.
"Were I not a woman of compassion, had I not been moved by your suffering, would you have wooed me regardless, because of what I am? Did you only need to see what I look like?"
"Let me finish, woman!" Fentulk roared, and Joanne's mouth slammed shut. Damned if seeing her in full ire didn't inflame him! "I thought that's what I wanted, but... the ancestors know you're more than that. I know it. You got strength enough to stand for what you know is right. Fuck, you put the entire tower to sleep so you could get me out, and that's all. You could'uh killed'em all, but you ain't like that. Can't tell yuh what it meant to me, you not dippin' yer hands in their blood. Cause it's how I think. We... we got that in common." Struggling with words, he grew more and more desperate to make her see... it wasn't her race. Perhaps that's what drove him in the beginning, but it wasn't what claimed him.
"Joanne, you... you were kind to me in that place," he said brokenly, and forced himself to look her in the eyes no matter how much distrust and betrayal he could see there. "You only knew me as an enemy, but... you were good to me. You made me fresh bread." He had to pause and master himself, for his voice cracked. "You talked to me. Every time yuh did that, I could manage another day. I couldn't see you, remember? You coulda been a gnome and I wouldn't've cared. Yuh got my heart long before I ever saw yer face."
She was faltering, he could tell. Somehow, his clumsy words seemed to be chipping away at her shield.
"Are you still with this Karie person?" Joanne asked awkwardly.
He shook his head. "It was only... with her it wasn't... lasting. Just... loneliness, I guess. Thought I wanted someone like her." Glaring hotly at Kora, he snarled, "If you met her, you know damn well Joanne ain't like her. They don't even look anything alike. Not even close."
It suddenly hit him as hard as a second blow to the groin, following on the heels of the first one Kora applied. He could barely form the words.
"Kora... did you say... you met her in Orgrimmar?"
The look of cruel enjoyment faded from the Orc woman's face. Even Gor'mul, one of the few in the fortress with a grasp of Common and barely keeping his own humor in check during the exchange, looked at her with surprise.
"Yes," she replied slowly, narrowing her eyes. "Why?"
"Where, exactly, did you meet her?" Fentulk pressed.
The conversation had just shifted away from where she wanted it, but there didn't appear to be a way to steer it back at the moment. Grudgingly, Kora snapped, "The Broken Tusk. That tavern in the Valley of Strength."
Fentulk blinked, speechless for a moment. He glanced at Joanne, likewise bewildered by this change of direction, then he leaned toward Kora. "Yer tellin' me that Karie, a human, was knockin' back beers a hundred paces from Grommash Hold?"
"Yes," Kora snarled through clenched teeth. "I fail to see the significance..."
"Fail to... woman, she's human!" Fentulk bellowed. "What the fuck was she doin' there? Besides samplin' the brew?"
"How the devil should I know?" Kora bit back. "She was looking for a Troll, so she said. There was one with her, as well as a member of the Kor'kron Elite. It isn't as if she was wandering aimlessly without escort in the heart of Orgrimmar."
Elation flowed through Fentulk. Turning to Joanne joyously, he grabbed her arms and forced her to look at him. "Yuh see? The Warchief don't mind humans. It'd be okay if we went there. We got choices."
Joanne shifted her arms in his grip, and he immediately let go. She smoothed her dress calmly. "I do not have any choices, Fentulk. I gave them up when I followed you from the tower. Go with you to Nagrand, or go with you to Orgrimmar. Those are not choices. They are sentences."
The promise of happiness drained from him. "I thought you... cared for me."
His hitching voice softened her somewhat, and she closed her eyes for a moment. "I believed I did, but I am shaken by this... revelation. I have heard your words, but I am not certain I can trust you. I must consider..." Taking a shuddering breath, she extended her hands in supplication. "I have no recourse but to accompany you, Fentulk. If I return to the Alliance, they will honor the law and send me back to the tower. If I go with you... I... I do not know what will happen to me. My life... my future is entirely in your hands. Either way, I am without any measure of control. You... or they, could abuse me if you wished. I would be helpless to defend myself in either case." Biting her lip to stop its trembling, she blinked tears from her eyes. "I believed in you."
"Yuh still can," he said softly, willing himself not to reach for her though his heart begged him to. "Ain't nobody made my heart beat and my soul sing... til I met you. If you... wanna go, I'll... I'll take yuh back to Refuge Pointe. They'll look after yuh, I'm sure. Yuh told'em about SI:7, and they still let us go. They'll probably see yuh safely away somewhere."
"You... would do that... for me?"
"Joanne, I would die for you," he rasped gruffly.
She had to bow her head to hide the spark of joy his words ignited. Masking it, she nodded, hugging herself. "I will... stay with you, Fentulk," she said softly. "I have no other choice. I do not think they would be willing to keep me there. Letting us go... they no longer needed to concern themselves about us. If I went back, they might have a different attitude."
Fentulk slowly dropped to one knee before her and gazed up at her face. "I swear to you, Joanne," he growled fiercely, "no matter what I feel, I won't... even try to... You don't owe me nothin', and I ain't gonna try and collect. You don't... gotta... love me back." He looked away and swallowed hard, pushing it away, shoving it down. If he broke apart here, in front of Gor'mul, in front of Kora...
"That man said an Orc stands by his word," she murmured. "I'll hold you to it."
He could only nod, then slowly rose. Turning to the Orc woman, he barely kept his voice even. "All right, Kora. Yuh had yer fun. Can yuh send us home now?"
Three pairs of eyes were trained on Hammerfall, peering out through a thick growth of bushes and trees on the side of the mountains skirting the eastern and northern corners of the walled fortress. One held a spyglass to his eye, a hand over the end to keep the sun from glinting off the lens and giving away their position.
"Lotta chest bumpin' goin' on down there," Derek muttered. "Didn't think the piece of shit had anything left."
"He's an Orc," Amarn pointed out witheringly. "They've always got a little something in reserve."
"Hmph. Well, our boy's backed down. Guess that's expected, eh?" Chuckling, he scanned the compound. "Ain't sure what... hold on, here comes someone else." He whistled low. "Orc woman. Wouldn't say no to that piece of ass."
"Like'em green, do you?" Andrew grumbled. He was still trying to patch up his arm from last night's tussle with a group of raptors. Amarn had pinpointed their quarry's location, but in the rain-spattered darkness, they were unable to find her. They did, however, stumble upon a mating pair of raptors who were less than happy about the interruption, and called in nearby friends to teach the SI:7 men a thing or two about privacy.
They should have brought a healer, Andrew thought. A wad of bandages and a couple flasks of booze were only working to a point. At the very least, they should have stopped at Refuge Pointe to resupply, but Amarn said they couldn't let the woman and the Orc get much further ahead or they might lose them.
"Shut yer trap," Derek snapped. "Pussy's pussy. Don't matter what ugly bitch owns it."
Amarn chuckled. "I suspect she would beg to differ."
"Like I care," the man shrugged. Returning his attention to the silent tableau a hundred yards away, he frowned. "Looks like she owns the place." he muttered. "You don't think she's the contact, do you?"
"Let me see!" Andrew hissed, reaching for the spyglass. Derek swatted his hand.
"Back the fuck off," he snarled.
"Hand it over," Amarn said firmly, holding out his hand. Derek glared at him, but complied. Adjusting the focus, Amarn squinted across the distance. "I'll be damned," he murmured. "It's that bitch Orc I've seen causing no end of trouble in Dalaran."
"What, the woman?" Andrew asked.
"Yes," Amarn confirmed with a slight nod. "Merchants nearly close up shop when she marches into the Exchange."
Derek snickered. "So that's a 'yes', eh?"
Amarn smirked. "Pretty fair assumption. I wouldn't put it past her." Returning his attention to the action in the fort, his brow furrowed. "Odd. Our Orc just went down on his knee..."
"Can I fucking have a look?" Andrew said a bit too loudly. Both men hissed for him to shut up. Amarn watched carefully as Fentulk rose, a few words more were exchanged, then the mage began casting a spell.
"What's she doing?" Derek asked, squinting.
"Ssshh," Amarn snapped, concentrating. A shimmering oval of fiery energy flared into life, suspended in midair a few inches from the ground. "She's summoned a portal."
"Where to?" Andrew automatically asked.
"I'm looking," Amarn murmured. If he could focus past the heat haze-like surface, he might be able to see through and identify the endpoint. His gaze remained fixed on the portal until the Orc man and Human woman stepped through and the oval shrunk abruptly to nothing and disappeared.
Lowering the spyglass, he said simply, "Blasted Lands. They've gone to the Dark Portal."
Derek stared at him. "What the hell for?"
Shrugging, Amarn looked down into the fort again. The obnoxious-beyond-reckoning Orc woman was casting another spell. He had a feeling he knew what it was, and her swift disappearance at the end of the cast confirmed it. Once she was gone, the fort's residents returned to their normal routine. Amarn snapped the spyglass shut.
"We'll need to notify Shaw," he declared briskly.
"Wait, you know where they've gone," Derek interjected. "Why aren't we following them? And what about the green bitch?"
Amarn gave him a withering look. "The 'green bitch,' as you so elegantly call her, is likely going to Dalaran. She is well known there; sooner or later, that's where she'll go. We won't have any trouble finding her, believe me. As to the others, do you want me to cast a portal here, right now? Not only would the Orcs down there see me do it, but we'd likely appear right next to our quarry. Are you ready to break our cover this soon?"
Chagrined, Derek folded his arms over his chest and glared down at the Orcs in the fortress below as if they'd insulted him.
"Can't you, you know, aim for somewhere else or something?" Andrew asked. "So we land a bit further away where they won't see us?"
"Such as...?" Amarn prompted sarcastically. "Portal spells are fixed to specific locations so the caster doesn't wind up sunk halfway through a rockface or at the bottom of the ocean. The only difference is a few feet at most, when Horde and Alliance portals are going to the same location, and only so we don't land on top of, or worse, merged inside one another."
"Oh," Andrew muttered, looking away with embarrassment.
Amarn rolled his eyes. To most, a mage was simply a weapon or a transportation mechanism. It was thoroughly annoying. "Needless to say, we should give them at least a half hour. I suggest we move from this location in the meantime and find a better place to cast the portal unseen."
Agreeing to the mage's suggestion, the men carefully picked their way down the hillside, Derek and Andrew Stealthed and Amarn Invisible. None in the fort even knew they were there.
Less than half a mile from their hiding place, Amarn suddenly stopped short, back gone rigid. The two rogues, unable to see the mage, bumped into him.
"What the...?" Derek snarled. "That you, Amarn?"
"Yes," the mage growled, releasing the Invisibility spell and reappearing. The rogues un-Stealthed. "She's gone."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I can't sense her attunement spell. It's like...," he said, grasping for a way to convey a concept the men couldn't hope to understand. "Similar to snuffing a candle. One moment there is light, the next... darkness. She must have passed through the Portal."
"Well, we better fucking move our asses, don't you think?" Derek snapped.
"Yes, I believe you are right," Amarn agreed, then began casting the portal spell.