Kokoro sat in meditation at the edge of a small plateau about two-thirds of the way up the mountain, his eyes closed, his long blade held perfectly still at a ninety-degree angle to the ground. The attack would soon begin. Before him, on the slopes below, sat arrayed the defenses of the pathetic human Alliance, and beyond them, like a shadow, sprawled the endless armies of the Legion. Above him, at the summit, sat the invisible Night Elf forces, waiting in ambush for the demons – and all around him were the orcs.
Kokoro didn't know why the self-styled 'Warchief' Thrall had thrown his chips in with the humans and elves, but it didn't matter. They'd all have to fight the demons eventually; there was no use running. Kokoro had been fighting his own demons for many years. So why not today? They would die together, poetically, and then they would have no more troubles.
Except that Kokoro didn't plan to die just yet. Had he still possessed some sense of self-direction, he would not have been here. He would have been out in the world, enjoying what was left of his sanity while he still could. He would be evading his fate, making the most of what time he was allotted. But Kokoro had lost his sense of self-direction long ago, surrendering himself to circumstance and greater powers.
Today, greater powers had a sense of humor. That he, Kokoro, who hated the humans, hated the elves, and hated his fellow orcs perhaps most of all, should die at their side, as one of them, was ironic.
Greater powers loved irony.
"Kokoro," said a voice like fire, a voice he had not hoped to hear ever again.
"Kil'jaeden?" he whispered.
"Open your eyes," the demon's voice commanded.
Kokoro did so, but it was not the humans and demons on the slopes below that he saw before him. Instead, the landscape had been replaced by one of fire and destruction. All around him, a burning lake of lava spit chunks of flame into the air. Above, a pale red sun, the color of pooled blood, shone dimly down, drenching all he surveyed in its pale crimson glow.
And directly in front of him, on a throne of crushed bones and mutilated corpses, sat Kil'jaeden the Deceiver.
"Kokoro," the great Eredar repeated.
"It is I," the blademaster replied.
"You look well," the demon taunted. "The redness in your skin has nearly faded. You look almost like one of them."
"I am one of them," Kokoro said.
"No, Kokoro, you were never one of them. Have you forgotten your pact? Have you forgotten the blood that flows through your veins, Slayer?"
"Do not call me that. Mannoroth is dead. The others have returned to the ways of the shamans, and I—"
"And you what? You are a fool, Kokoro, if you think your ties are so easily broken."
"Am I? The other chieftains' ties are severed, and so are mine. The blood of Mannoroth holds no more sway over us."
"You forget, Kokoro."
"What? What have I forgotten?"
"That you are different than they." There was a flash of lightning, and a sudden force knocked the bladesman to his knees. "You forget how you earned the name Slayer."
"DO NOT CALL ME THAT!"
"It is your name, Kokoro, no matter how you run from it. You have forgotten it, but now – now, you will remember."
The lightning flashed again, and once more the scenery changed. It was Draenor, but not Draenor as the orc remembered it, not as it had died, blackened and cracked. It was a Draenor of long ago, when grass covered the land and the sky was still blue. It was Draenor when it had been beautiful... untouched.
He was in a clearing, and the chieftains of all the clans were gathered in a semicircle about its edge. In the center of the clearing was a hulking stone altar, and behind it sat two of the largest demons Kokoro had even seen – Kil'jaeden and Mannoroth. The latter was waddling towards the altar, his huge hands clutching a great jade knife. He stopped when he reached the altar, and paused. Then, with a stifled cry of pain, he plunged the jade knife deep into his arm, letting his thick, dark blood drip into a large stone basin, which rested on the altar. As the droplets filled the basin, he raised his head and laughed.
"Come," he said, in a voice great and terrible. "Come, all of you who hunger for power."
One by one, the assembled orcs approached the altar, and, cupping their hands, brought the dark liquid to their mouths, then silently returned to their place at the circle. Slowly, almost unnoticeably, their skin began to change, to redden. All the while, the demons watched and grinned.
Then, when each of the chieftains had drunk from the basin, Kil'jaeden approached the altar.
"Give me the blade," he said, and Mannoroth did so. The Eredar looked at the blade for a moment, then slit his own arm. His own blood, fiery and red, began to pour out. "Where is the child?" he said. An old and wrinkled orc, his robes decorated with the symbols of the shamans, approached the altar then, and from a satchel on his back he produced a tiny creature – an infant orc. Slowly, gingerly, Kil'jaeden lifted the baby and placed its mouth on his wrist. It began to suck, the green of its impish face becoming a bright, fiery crimson...
The scene changed again in another flash of lightning. The grass evaporated, and the skies grew dark. A young orc, just coming of age, appeared, his skin as red as fire. He was running through a forest of sorts, a forest of great brown mushrooms. Slowly, a clearing came into view, and in the clearing, dozing, lay a fat orc wearing a crown adorned with skulls. Silently, the young orc unsheathed a long, curved blade, and raised it over the sleeper's head. He brought it down violently; the sleeper gave a sudden and brief gasp, then was silent.
A minute passed. Then two. The young orc did not move from his position. More time passed; a half hour, an hour... someone was approaching. The youth looked up. A pair of figures walked towards him across the clearing.
"Ah, Kokoro," one said. "Good work."
"It is done, Ner'zhul," the second said as they drew near. "The old chieftain is dead. Shadowmoon belongs to you now."
"Gul'dan?" the youth said. "Master, can he be trusted?"
"Relax, Kokoro," Ner'zhul said. "We have nothing to worry about from him. You have done well tonight."
"Yes, Master."
"Ner'zhul," Gul'dan said, "the last of the preparations have been made. Tomorrow I shall open the rift."
"Then let us retire to the Warlocks' spire. Murder and little sleep are no good for one's temperament, and we don't want you making any mistakes with the portal."
Gul'dan laughed. "Of course, Master."
The scene shifted drastically now. The ground everywhere was brown and drained, and the skies above were bright and red. Numerous portals, like empty eyes, stared down upon the ground, where chaos reigned as humans and orcs battled in desperation; desperation, because in mere moments, Kokoro knew, the whole world was going to die...
He saw a lone warrior with dim red skin dodging battling soldiers and dying men as he darted up the battlefield towards a huge portal, which had opened out of the ground itself.
"Ner'zhul!" the warrior yelled, and an old orc standing in front of the giant portal turned around to look at him. "Ner'zhul!" the red-skinned warrior yelled again, but the old wizard just laughed, and jumped through the portal. The warrior neared the rift and peered through it, as if trying to see where his master had gone. He hesitated, then leapt in after him...
Kokoro, watching, saw the young warrior – himself, he realized – emerge in a world of flames and terror: the Twisting Nether. Huge and imposing, Kiljaeden stood with Ner'zhul in his grip, chanting some incantation as the former shaman burst into flames. Then Kil'jaeden opened his hands, and Ner'zhul plummeted into the unending abyss.
Kil'jaeden turned now to the young Kokoro. "You are Ner'zhul's Slayer," he said.
The orc nodded.
"I have use for you yet," the demon said, lifting Kokoro up. The orc began to scream...
The scenery had returned to Kil'jaeden's throne in the present, and the orc was on his knees, sobbing. The lightning continued to play across the unnatural sky, and Kil'jaeden stood from where he had been seated.
"Oh, cheer up," he said. "I'm not going to kill you. I have use for you yet, as I said."
"I know," Kokoro muttered. That was why he was crying...
"I have a task for you. You believed that I destroyed Ner'zhul when I flung him into the Nether; this is only half-true. Though he is no longer an orc, Ner'zhul still lives."
Kokoro blinked through his sobs. "Ner'zhul still lives?" he echoed. Ner'zhul, the madman that had fed him demon's blood as an infant, who had made him the murderer of a thousand innocents, who had deserted him on the dying world of Draenor, yet lived?
"Yes. I sought to make him once more my servant, but he has betrayed me."
Despite his sobbing, Kokoro was forced to chuckle. Ner'zhul did have a habit of betraying people...
"Even now, he seeks to undermine the Legion's domination of a world. And I want you to kill him."
"Of course you do." Kokoro was sobbing again. "What makes you think I'll do it?"
"Because I told you to, whelp, and because you are still my Slayer, whether you like it or not. The blood in your veins commands you to serve me, even as your fellows break free." The demon paused, and waved his arm in a semicircle. There was a burst of light, and the orc's skin resumed the fiery red color it had missed for so many years. He glowed as brightly now as he had on the day he had first drunk Kil'jaeden's blood...
"There," the Eredar said. "I have rekindled your energies. Now, you look like my Slayer again. Now... GO." The lightning flashed. The flaming sea and the throne of bone vanished, replaced by the green and blue world of Mount Hyjal.
"DEMON!"
Kokoro looked up. A shaman, bedecked in bear and wolf skins, was pointing at him and repeating the accusation. Kokoro knew the shamanistic orcs would destroy him in an instant if he did not run, so he did just that. He jumped up – he had still been seated in his mediation pose – and leapt over the cliffside to a lower-level plateau. He hit the ground running, and did not look back.
He would seek out Ner'zhul, he already knew. He would do as the higher powers willed.
He suddenly remembered something Kil'jaeden had said. "Though he is no longer an orc..."
"I'm not really an orc anymore, either," Kokoro said, looking down at his red skin with disgust. Yes, he would seek out Ner'zhul, the being that had time after time destroyed his life. He would kill him, as the higher powers wished him to.
And then he would die.
Below, in the human camp, drums boomed and trumpets sounded. The battle was beginning.
The hands had been dealt; the board was set. It was time to let the game play out.