Chapter 4
The peons, after a brief examination, declared that the trees would make even better building material than Draenor's mushrooms. Then they set to work.
Veren Redmorning looked at the frantically laboring peons, and the grunts and raiders who were far too many to patrol the camp, and promptly set most of them to work as well. Kerd Bladeleaper and Lev Darksun joined in with a will, organizing the fighters into shifts of working, hunting and sleeping so that some would be awake enough to guard the new camp at night.
At sundown, when most work stopped for the day, Veren sat on a section of log by a small fire and whittled nail-pegs. From time to time, he drank water from a wooden cup he'd hollowed out during the morning. A few others were also whittling as cook fires began to light around the camp.
Eventually, Merd Quickdigger came to collect the pile of pegs. Veren looked up as the peon approached. Nobody knew quite how old Merd was. His face was lined and leathery, but his arms and shoulders were as heavily muscled as most of the other peons. One of his tusked underteeth had broken off at the end, but it didn't seem to bother him.
"Hallo, Chieftain," Merd said cheerily. "How you doing?"
Veren glanced wryly down at the wrap over his chest as he set down his belt knife. His ribs seemed to hurt more as the evening grew colder. "Fine. Shel'yin says I can't do anything for a week at least, so I'm sitting here watching the rest of you do the real work. How did we do today, Merd?"
"Did good," Merd said. He began to gather up the variously-sized pegs into a scrap of fabric as he began to give his informal report. "Got lots done. Dug some burrows, and planted the spores we brought. Got a barracks up for everybody to sleep in. It's just a big lean-to 'til we get some of the animal hides tanned and sewed up. I think we found a tree for that. It smells like the mushroom we use for tanning, anyhow."
"How's the mining?"
"Eh." Merd tilted a thick, callused hand in a so-so gesture. "We got tools for making tools, but we gonna have to do a lot more before we can start smelting."
"We don't need the metal urgently," Veren said. "Except possibly for building. Everyone brought their own weapons."
"The pegs are gonna come in handy 'til we can make some nails," Merd agreed. "Oh, and Veddy made this." He reached back and removed something tucked in the back of his belt. "It'll show up better than the little one."
Veren looked at the rough rectangle the peon held up in front of him. It seemed to have been patched together from thick pieces of spider silk, dust rubbed into it to make it gray. One edge had been carefully made ragged in imitation of Veren's smaller flag.
Fifty Orcs in gray clothes, with an undersized Chieftain from a clan whose name no one remembers, Veren Redmorning thought. We've got no device, no symbol, no crossed hammers or skulls or history to make a name from. We've got ourselves, and this.
"Don't like it?" Merd said, looking at his Chieftain's fierce expression as he stared at the dingy flag. "We can use the silk for something else, you want."
"No, Merd, it's exactly right," Veren Redmorning said. "Tell Veddy I said thank you. Hang it up where it can be seen. If we're really going to be a clan, we'll call ourselves the Tattered Banner."
Merd grinned, showing all his teeth.
"Yeah," he said. "That's us. Made from bits of everything. I do it right now, Chieftain." The peon inclined his head and left, carefully holding the dirty silk in his huge hands.
The next few weeks went very quickly. After the first week, Veren Redmorning resumed careful sword practice. At this point, Darksun and Bladeleaper began to organize exercises for the grunts and raiders. Even the warlocks seemed to have set up a sort of practice rota. Between working, hunting, and drill, everyone stayed very busy.
Veren made sure to devote time to practicing his windwalk. He found, to his relief, that it was possible to maintain his invisibility for as long as before, once he grew accustomed to the mana of Ashenvale.
If we're in Ashenvale. There's still really no way to tell. His scouts, traveling in an ever-widening spiral, found no evidence of any other settlements or towns nearby, nor any edge to the forest. Sometimes they glimpsed stranger creatures than the spiders.
Redmorning windwalked for about two miles the third week, following the water upstream from the settlement. He ran down not far from a small clearing. As the blue haze cleared, he saw the shaft of now-familiar yellow light falling between the trees up ahead. He moved quietly up to the opening.
Four creatures, hunched of shoulder and taller than Orcs, turned to stare at him. Veren stared back. Draenor has no bears, and he had no way to describe what he saw. He made note of the claws and apparent fangs at once, however. Outland had no shortage of those.
Two of the creatures seemed to have red feathers stuck in their back fur in a way that must certainly be deliberate. The others were larger, and striped red over their pale fur.
They did not seem particularly hostile, just startled to see him. Veren backed slowly away. None of the four showed an inclination to follow. When he was out of sight, he turned and began to move rapidly back toward the settlement.
He listened closely to his surroundings as he moved. He was less than halfway back when he heard a footfall behind him. Veren Redmorning turned and drew in one smooth motion.
He found himself facing the warlock Shel'yin across a beam of pale light. Dust motes circled as the two Orcs looked at each other. Behind the cowl that covered the top half of his face, the warlock did not seem surprised.
"How did you follow me?" Veren said after a moment.
Shel'yin planted the end of his staff in the ground cover and placed both hands atop the skull that crowned it. "Lev Darksun suggested you should not be alone," he said. "And I was certain you would be killed, if you wandered on your own."
"I'm sure he did," Veren said. He sheathed the swords. "He hates it when I go anywhere by myself. And, given your own sunny outlook, I'm sure that's exactly what you were thinking. But I said how. Not why."
"I saw you leave the camp," Shel'yin said.
"I was invisible," Veren said. "And I leave no footprints when I windwalk. I've checked."
"So did I," Shel'yin said. "But it is possible to see the invisible."
"It shouldn't be possible for an apprentice," Veren said. "Just how long did you train with Nel'hesh?"
"We should return, Chieftain," the warlock said. "I will tell you as we go."
"Fine." Veren turned and resumed his walk. Shel'yin paced along beside him.
"You're good, for a warlock," Veren said grudgingly. "I didn't hear you at all until just now."
"My Master believed magic should not be a warlock's only defense," Shel'yin said. "Considering the number of things which can kill an Orc."
"That sounds like something Nel'hesh would say. How long did you know him?" Veren pushed a low branch aside as he stepped onto a narrow game trail beside the stream. Hopefully, the water would mask the sound of their conversation from any potentially hostile ears.
"All my life. I was his apprentice from the time I was old enough to speak," Shel'yin said.
That certainly explains a few things. "Didn't you have parents?"
"Briefly," Shel'yin said. "They were killed by voidwalkers while they hunted. Nel'hesh took me in."
In other words, he was your parents.
"Demons," Veren said. "I'm surprised you didn't strike me dead that first night. Or just now, for that matter."
The tall Orc shrugged. Muscle rolled in his red shoulders. "I gave my oath," Shel'yin said. "And the clan is unlikely to survive as it is. Without leadership, it would have no chance at all."
"Sometimes I wonder how I ended up Chieftain," Veren said slowly. "I'm younger than Darksun and Bladeleaper. Even Merd has more experience than I have."
"The raiders would not follow Darksun," Shel'yin said. "The grunts would not follow Bladeleaper. And the peons know you will not forget them. The older warlocks thought you a logical choice."
"Clans have been led by warlocks before," Veren said.
"You mean Gul'dan," Shel'yin said. "And Ner'zhul. No. We will not allow that to happen again. You will lead us well. If you live."