Ogrimmar during the Pandaria Campaign
Blood welled through black fur.
Jama sagged against the ropes that bound her wrists and kept her lashed between the posts on either side of her. She gritted her teeth as she heard the shrill, eerie whistling sound of the whip fill the air before it tore into her back again. Jama had felt the kiss of leather before and that had been painful, but her pelt had protected her from the brunt of it. But fur and muscle were no match for a bone whip. It tore through both like paper, which was no doubt why the Mogu had chosen to use them. They had needed something special for their thick furred, heavy bodied Pandaren slaves.
She shouldn't have been surprised Garrosh been inspired enough by the images of the Mogu's bone whips to have one or two made.
The orc- Jama wasn't sure if he was actually Kor'kron or just one of Malkorok's cronies –grunted and brought the whip lashing down again. Jama had lost count of how many there had been. The orc had only said something about 'softening her up'.
She could feel blood dripping down her back, and she was pretty sure the heat of the sun wasn't entirely responsible for the way her vision was going fuzzy. She was losing a lot of blood, she thought with an odd sense of detachment. She would surely faint soon.
A tug on the ropes made her aware that the whistling of the whip being swung had stopped. The orc cut her wrists free and she collapsed, unable to hold herself up, her arms and legs numb. He kicked her in the side, growling with contempt. "Get up."
She didn't move, debating whether it was worth it to refuse. On one hand, it might be amusing to see how many of them it took to move her. Then she twitched and agonizing pain sang along her back and shoulders. If they had to haul her up, it would be ten times worse. When the orc kicked her again, she pushed herself up carefully, swaying on her hooves.
She was dimly aware of passing into a dim interior that did little to take away the heat. A Forsaken priest looked her over and healed her a little bit. This wasn't a kindness, she knew. They didn't want to heal her to stop the pain: they wanted her alive and aware for the real questioning.
She knelt on the floor, closing her eyes as the orc paced around the room. She focused on the pain, using it to clear her mind, breathing in deep.
Her tormenter was one of those orcs she considered typical for followers of Garrosh. Filled with arrogance, temper, and bloodlust. This one, however, had a ruthless calculation to him she recognized all too well. There were several other orcs in the room helping him, watching her eagerly. She'd heard them calling and urging their leader on during the flogging. Apparently they were already ready for more.
They'd gone from ropes to chains, forcing her to kneel in the center of the floor, her hands shackled together and a heavy chain around her neck that fastened to the floor, forcing her to keep her head lowered. The position strained her back and she felt several of the welts the healer had closed break open again.
The orc moved so fast he was a blur, bringing a fist smashing into the side of her head, making her ears ring. He hit her again, bringing a growl of approval from several of the orcs standing near the walls. The orc leaned down close enough she could feel his hot breath on her face. "You ready to talk?"
Jama said nothing, keeping her eyes sullenly on the floor.
The orc hit her again. "We can keep this up for days if we have to. No one will help you. No one wants to. Not even that whining chieftain of yours."
A spike of anger shot through her at that, but she tamped it down.
He leaned in close again. "You're going to tell me every bit of information…every scrap of it…that you passed on to that Alliance scum."
Careful, now. That hated voice, Magatha's voice, echoed through her head. It was that cold, calculating part of her…the Grimtotem part…that was guiding her thoughts now. Careful, careful. The orc kept babbling on about her selling secrets to the Alliance. All the questions had been geared toward the Alliance. He had no way of knowing all that browbeating about the Alliance scum was giving her something to cling to.
He was right. There was no one who was going to come for her, but not for the reasons he thought.
At first, she believed he might have been trying to fake her out, lure her into giving him the truth, but with all the questions about Jaina Proudmoore and Varian Wrynn, she realized with relief that he hadn't figured out the truth. There hadn't even been any questions about the Echo Isles or Thrall.
If he thought she was simply selling secrets to the Alliance, then that's what Malkorok believed as well.
Which meant he didn't know Vol'jin was still alive.
It meant they might not have realized Thrall was back and working against them. That Baine was helping stir the Horde against them.
And keeping Garrosh from knowing any of that for as long as possible was worth the pain.
Her silence enraged the orc. He hit her again and again until she slumped in the chains, dizzy. The orc managed to get himself under control and swung away, snarling under his breath. The sounds echoed oddly in her left ear and she dimly wondered if he had damaged her hearing permanently.
The Forsaken priest shuffled back in, carrying something, but she couldn't quite see what. She heard a wet, rattling chuckle issue from him and then he moved out of the room again, arms empty.
For a long time after that, there was silence except for the shuffling of the other orcs in the room and the occasional sound as her captor worked on something. She felt apprehension build in her, a buzz of alarm that spread down her spine and through her body. She forced herself to tamp it down, staring at the floor determinedly.
Endure, that cold voice in her said. The longer you hold out, the more they'll be certain you're hiding something of great importance.
Which she wasn't. Rowen had not told her anything Garrosh or Malkorok would consider important. She knew nothing about the Alliance's plans or their movements. Eventually, she was going to have to make something convincing up, she supposed.
Rowen had been keeping her updated on the situation with the creature known as the Thunder King. A threat Garrosh seemed to have failed to notice entirely. It had killed Jama not to be there with the rest of her friends battling the bastard- she hated the mogu –but once she'd earned the right to be considered a 'champion' of the Horde, Vol'jin had asked her to keep as close to Garrosh as possible. She wasn't an orc, so she had no chance of really being in his inner circle, but she'd been able to pull off quite a bit before they'd caught her talking to Rowen.
It was always the little, stupid mistakes that got you in the end, she supposed. She'd learned that one from Magatha, as well.
Still, she'd helped stir things up a bit. And more importantly, her little game with Malkorok and his cronies had hopefully pulled his attention away from Baine Bloodhoof.
A hand tangling into her hair and yanking her head back interrupted her thoughts. The orc was grinning in a way she didn't like at all. He loosened the chain around her neck and slid a wooden stool up close to her. He adjusted the chain, drawing her down, tightening it until her head rested on top of the stool, the chain holding her head and neck still. It was a supremely uncomfortable position, especially with her hands still shackled, contorting her body in a way that made her muscles burn. The orc pressed a hand over her muzzle, holding her head still.
That was when she saw the blade in his other hand.
It wasn't a dagger or a hunting knife, she noticed with a shiver of fear. The blade was longer, its edges serrated like a saw.
"I was thinking Malkorok could use a new hunting horn," the orc almost crooned. He brought the knife down and the shiver of fear bloomed into full on terror as he settled the edge at the base of her right horn. He wasn't going to just saw off a piece of it; he was going to slice it clean off her skull. "Yours are too puny to be a real hunting horn, though. Oh, well. I'm sure he can find some use for it."
The position of her head allowed Jama a clear look at one of the orcs standing against the wall. The eager expression and lusty cheering were all gone. In fact, he looked uncomfortable. It was an expression she'd seen on a couple orcs in the past couple of days. This kind of cold torture didn't sit well with some of the orcs, she realized. Whipping and beating they were okay with but this…it was behavior more in line with the Forsaken. It wasn't the way orcs did things. Or it hadn't been once.
Then the orc holding her down started sawing and all thought vanished. She cried out when the blade bit into her, unable to help herself. The orc laughed, delighted to get a real scream from her for the first time. Jama squeezed her eyes shut and prayed to the Earth Mother for endurance, for the strength to keep the truly vital secrets within her. If not for her own sake, then for the sake of Baine Bloodhoof, who was surely one of the Earth Mother's most blessed children. For the sake of her people, who would be broken under the weight of Garrosh Hellscream's madness. For Vol'jin, who had already survived far too much to be betrayed by her weakness.
And she prayed for oblivion before she had to feel that knife tear through the last bit of her horn.
Blood welled through black fur.
Jama crouched in that dark, dank cave, surrounded by the bodies of saurok and orc alike, and watched as Vol'jin made a cut in his own palm. The troll reached out, grasping her hand, pressing cut to cut, blood to blood. A silent oath. "Ah, it be done." His voice was rough but he remained steady on his feet. "We in dis together, until de end."
She nodded, closing her hand into a fist as he drew away, ignoring the pain it caused.