Chapter 5
Author's note: I will not be referring to female warlocks as witches. The style of magic generally attributed to witches, traditional or contemporary, bears no resemblance to that practiced by Fel Orcs.
One month after the arrival from Outland, the Orcs encountered their first satyrs. A night scouting mission did not come back, and Veren Redmorning went with the next group to see what had happened. This time he windwalked ahead of the rescue party, over Lev Darksun's hushed but vehement protest.
It was well that he did. He heard the wolves whine from yards away. He glided through the branches at the edge of a rocky embankment and found two Orcs firmly bound and lying in the rocks. Their mounts lay close by with their legs tied together, and they flopped about on their sides in a futile attempt to rise.
He did not see the satyrs at all, at first. The whole bank seemed gray and open, utterly empty. Then something moved on his immediate left, and he turned and found himself face-to-face with what seemed to be a demon.
The Men and Elves of Azeroth have been known to laugh at the Orcish battle cry. Many fewer have done so after hearing it on the field.
The Orcs of the Fel have no battle cries. Their world is populated with too many things that approach by stealth and kill in silence. So when Veren Redmorning came out of his invisibility, it was utterly without warning. The creature in front of him might have wondered briefly where the sudden whirlwind of flying blades came from, but its body was in doll rags before it could make a single sound.
He heard an animal scream from behind him. Redmorning drew his swords as the bladestorm died down, but the second creature was dead as well. He looked around him warily, but nothing moved on the hillside.
Then he heard a sound, like a cloven hoof striking a rock.
About half a second after that, a firebolt flew past him and outlined a body that had been invisible an instant before. It writhed, screaming as it burned, until Redmorning cut its throat.
"Good shot," he said. "I thought we left Shel'yin back in camp."
"You did," said a throaty voice. Redmorning looked back and saw a slim, cowled figure stepping lightly from stone to stone, alert for any more demons. This warlock was a great deal smaller than Shel'yin, a darker shade of red, and her facial bones made her gender obvious even under the mask.
"Whose apprentice were you?" Veren said. He tried without success to imagine any of the four senior warlocks voluntarily training a woman. They were stiff that way.
"My Master died months before I left Outland," she said. "His name does not matter."
"And what about you?" Veren Redmorning said.
"My name is Kev'ran."
The rest of the rescue party ascended the hill rapidly behind her, moving to free the prisoners and search for other enemies.
"I'm sure that thing was invisible," Redmorning said.
"Yes. I threw the bolt when I heard the sound."
Veren looked from the body to the small warlock as he sheathed his swords. "You could've hit me!"
"I have fought the Draenei since I was seven years old," Kev'ran said. Her face, where it showed, was young. Behind the gray cowl her eyes seemed large, and black, and very old. "If I had to see something to hit it, I would be long dead now."
"What was your clan?" Veren asked.
"Black Tooth Grin. I believe one of the grunts is from there as well, but since the Elves allied with the Draenei, we are probably the last surviving."
She spoke without emotion, as one relating the weather or the time.
It's the same story I could tell, Veren Redmorning thought. Remnants and rejects. We all are.
It no longer mattered that Veren's own father had died in a skirmish with the Black Tooth Grin Clan. There was nothing but madness while the demon ruled us. All of it is past now.
Two months after the arrival from Outland, it began to snow.
Redmorning woke to a draft on his arm and the sound of excited voices. He sat up and discovered he had thrown his deerskin blanket halfway off in his sleep. He shivered slightly as he rolled off the pallet and reached for his new hide cloak. It gets colder every morning. He had to break a skin of ice over the water bucket by the burrow's door to wash his face.
He ducked out of the burrow and discovered that the sky was falling.
"What in the Twisting Nether…?"
Cold, wet bits of something landed on his shoulders and his upturned face. All over the settlement, Orcs looked in wonderment at each other through a curtain of falling white.
"It is snowing," Shel'yin said, appearing silently beside the Chieftain.
"It's what?"
"Frozen water is falling from the sky, Chieftain," the warlock said. His tone of voice suggested that he was explaining things to a very small child. "No doubt it will continue to do so throughout the winter."
"You knew this was going to happen? And you didn't say anything?" Veren looked suspiciously up at his senior warlock. "If nothing else, I would think it would have made it onto your ongoing list of reasons we're all going to die."
"I knew about the satyrs also," Shel'yin said. He folded his arms, his skull-staff held in one large hand. Veren noted that he was also wearing a cloak, although it seemed a little short for him. "There is not enough time to tell you everything that could be dangerous here. This is why I prefer to follow you instead of warn you."
"And you like saying 'I told you so' every time something bad happens," Veren said. The warlock remained smugly silent. "Un huh. Well, since you're the only one who knows what's happening, you are now officially in charge of making sure everyone else knows. Go find Kerd and Lev."
"Yes, Chieftain," Shel'yin said, and moved off through the falling snow.