The Traitor Chapter 6, a warcraft fanfic

The Traitor

Chapter Six

Chief Cairne Bloodhoof sat in his chair at night and leaned forward, tired, with his ears sagging and his braids feeling heavier than ever. His eyelids weighed down but he pulled out the small stone and looked over it. He wondered if it really had the power that his medicine woman told him it had; he trusted her and her powers of seeing the future. When he held it too close to his eyes he could see odd, misshapen reflections in it—reflections of things in other places, in other worlds. He had Zamah look every day to make sure the girl had her hellmark covered. He couldn't lose her and risk his kingdom.

He turned it over in his fingers and rubbed the smooth surface, both admiring it and fearing it. There were tiny, almost invisible streaks of gold in it, like marbling. If he held the stone too long it grew hot and sometimes it burned him. Then he would put it back in his deep pocket, where he kept it always.

Cairne monitored the apothecary with his implant, who reported every other day. The findings were usual and hardly interesting in the sense of new discoveries, though the chief found descriptions of the human to be intriguing and bewildering. There was something about the way she affected those around her that surprised him. He always thought that those who associated themselves with the denizens of hell would repel other living beings. Morla Stronghorn was not the case.

The tauren chief sighed and put the rock away, leaning back in his chair and staring out the window into the night. It was about time he slept.

Morla woke up and put on her clothes, and when she was finished, she brought up breakfast. At that point in the morning she generally woke up Clef, who slept quite through everything, but this morning he had left early on a hunting trip, and wouldn't return until sometime the next day. Today, she ate by herself, and then left without taking the tray back to the kitchen downstairs.

Thunder Bluff had mostly gotten used to the little human that lived among them, though often foreigners and newcomers would stare and glare at her, but they never threatened or attacked her. Strangers figured, if she was accepted among the tauren, they probably wouldn't hesitate to defend her.

In fact, her life there was quite ambiguous and often ignored. A few times shops refused to serve her; other times, she was treated with unseemly fairness. She disregarded all of it for the most part and tried to focus on her work, for it was her belief that if she showed proficiency in what she had been told to do, she was more likely to be accepted. So Morla put her heart into working with the apothecary, and Zamah very much appreciated it.

When the human went into the cavern beneath Elder Bluff, she heard the familiar hissing sound of the Gutterspeak. She had begun to pick up some of it, but many of those working with Zamah either ignored Morla or spoke Orcish around her. They were polite but occasionally, she heard words she had come to learn were somewhat derisive and at those times, she looked away and pretended to be keeping herself busy.

She went up immediately to the undead woman, who had ushered her over without looking up. Morla looked over the table, which was covered in various multicolored vials and contraptions for monitoring them. "We've made a breakthrough today," Zamah said, adjusting some of her meters, and then looked at the girl. "But I need to ask you some questions." The apothecary had learned some of Morla's hand signals, but couldn't understand full sentences. In these times, Morla wrote down her answers in Taurahe, which she had learned as a child, and Zamah could mostly understand this.

"I need you to fully describe the situation in which you believe you were poisoned." Morla raised her eyebrows. She had thought that they had fully covered this and moved on. Returning to it after days of teaching the girl herbalism and alchemy seemed strange, but she did as she was told.

Morla recounted exactly how they had come to the island, and been ambushed. She was poisoned by the spider and healed by the shaman. They fought with the hunter after the spider was killed, and the hunter had shot her through the collar.

She used the most description that she could accurately remember, and tried her hardest not to skew any of her memories. Zamah read over them then and rewrote some in Orcish on a separate piece of paper, which she wandered off with for a majority of the day. Morla busied herself with Zamah's apprentices and aides, learning new skills, and being sent out once or twice to fetch a few easy to find herbs that often lived outside the bluff.

That evening, just before Morla was set to leave, the apothecary returned and ordered her to sit. There they began.

"I am coming to believe that it was not, in fact, the arrow that brought on your ailment, but this bite of the spider's." She gestured toward some of the vials she still had on the desk, which had been untouched that day. Then she drew out a paper with various names and numbers; Morla recognized some, and saw they made a distinct pattern. "Remember when I pricked you the other day, and scraped the wound?" Morla nodded. "I got the same results from that bit of skin as I did from the infected sample given to us. From this, I have determined that somehow, the spider's venom has remained in you and only comes to the surface when you have been wounded. It infects these wounds. While your previous doctor determined accurately the nature of the poison, as it is usually used, this poison was one contracted naturally and thus is not a plague." She narrowed her eyes. "I can deduce this because of your description of the spider, which is much like one of those that resides in Tirisfal Glades, where the same herb can be found that is used in the plague previously described. I believe this spider ingested the herb—or perhaps, since the undead have begun to farm it and mass produce it, all spiders have—and somehow assimilated it into its venom." Zamah then took a deep breath and put down both papers, and crossed her arms.

Morla furrowed her brow and looked down pensively. Zamah cleared her throat. "Thus, this raises some interesting questions. If this hunter was as advanced as you describe her, I wonder then why she would select a relatively weak animal as her companion. My answer to this is speculative and naturally, only a theory: I believe this orc knew of the powers of the Tirisfal spider and assimilated it into her own arsenal. This causes me to wonder how many others know of the farming of the Dreadfall herb and exactly how much of it is being created. Also, I wonder: if it gets out of the hands of those who know how to use it, is there any way to stop it from being used against ourselves or others of our own alliance?"

It was a question Morla didn't know how to answer, nor did she want to attempt to. Zamah sat down then and didn't say anything else, shooing the girl away. "Go sleep, or whatever it is you do. Tomorrow is going to be a bigger and better day." She looked at the human. "Soon, you'll have to do something with all this reputation you've built up for yourself."

The apothecary dismissed her, and walking back to the inn, Morla wondered what she meant.

Clef came back late that night and gave Morla a great lion pelt as a gift. It was trimmed and the top of the head, which was only the upper jaw, had the eyes replaced with jewels. She pressed the soft fur against her, which had been brushed and oiled, and she smiled at her friend.

"It's wonderful," she signed, and the tauren nodded his head.

They sat together for some time that night, and Morla told him a little of what Zamah had told her.

"P-perhaps you'll have t-to use your powers," he said. "Do you remember?"

Morla nodded her head. "Don't worry t-too much." Clef wrapped her up in the great pelt and laid her flat on her bed. "If you know what to do, that's a-all you c-can do."

Morla's first test was quite different than she expected. Zamah presented her with some herbs and asked her to conjure something from them. Whatever it was, she said, it didn't matter—but the quality and content of it would be the measure. She didn't say what she wanted, and so Morla didn't ask. She looked over the herbs and tried to remember what the apothecary had taught her.

She could make any number of potions, most of them various kinds of poisons or slowing mechanisms. However, she remembered one kind of spirit potion that could be made with these ingredients, minus one, and she figured it was better—and more reliable—to improve yourself than to try to damage your enemy. Thus, this was the potion she brewed. She made sure to apply just the right amounts and even added a bit of her own spice, to make it more palatable. When she finished—an hour later—she went up to Zamah and held out the little round bottle.

"I see," she said. "You could have made something crippling," she said. Morla nodded. Zamah looked it over, and then drank a little. Morla held her breath.

"Well, that's peculiar," she said, and looked over. The girl saw a little bit of extra light in the undead woman's eye. "Well, a booster potion. Not with extreme visible effects, but still enhancing. I approve."

She cleaned up the whole area and sat Morla down in a chair. The apothecary stood, still holding the bottle, and leaned forward a little to look the human in the eye. "I want you to know that I am turning you into a tool. This is what Cairne wants, and this is what will keep you here until he decides otherwise. You are going to become a spy, a magician, and a fighter. You may die." She twirled the bottle and Morla imagined it might fall and shatter. Strangely, the thought didn't scare her. "You may have your warrior with you, but know that you're going to have to learn somehow to communicate. I've been doing research, but I still have nothing cement as of yet. Until I do, you will be training with Matheas Brownwater to hone your skills as a warlock." Zamah took a breath. "You will still be here, then. But as soon as you are ready, I will expect you to know and use all the things I have taught you."

Later that afternoon, the apothecary was working with Morla when a male voice came from the lower part of the pools. "The lovely Zamah," he said, coming up the stairs and onto the topmost terrace, where Morla and the head apothecary worked. "It's been a while."

"Ah," she said, raising one hand and patting the rotting man on the shoulder. She gestured to Morla, who was stricken, holding a vial in one hand and a full red bottle in the other. Her eyes bulged a little. "This is Matheas. Matheas, this is Morla, the prodigy." Matheas kept his eyes on the girl and bowed lightly.

"I've heard much about you," he told her, smiling broadly—without any lips, the girl noticed. There was something eerily familiar about the character, with his long, scraggly hair that was held loosely behind his head. His features were softer than Morla expected, as if the places where flesh was missing blended into the rest of him easily. The glowing eyes beamed with a soft light. Strange, she thought. He looked friendly. It was a bizarre experience.

She nodded her head and with hesitation she offered her hand. He shook it, looking at her curiously, and didn't speak again until Zamah leaned over and spoke to him, "She's a mute." Matheas's mouth opened a little with surprise and he looked back at Morla with an apologetic expression. She smiled. He returned the gesture.

"You will be working with Matheas on improving your skills and training new ones," Zamah told Morla. "You two will begin immediately. Acquaint yourselves quickly and move on."

Morla pitied the undead man, who couldn't quite grasp many of Morla's gestures. Instead, they took to a method that would never have worked for anyone except the obliging human girl: Matheas told her what to do, and she did it. Never did she have to ask questions; never did she attempt to argue, and never did she have trouble following through with the other warlock's commands. He was very skilled; an under-recognized member of the Horde, he told her. He didn't mind it, though, for then he had more time for himself and improving than training weaklings or running errands for his higher-ups. They mostly left him alone in the Undercity, he said. "But those ruins quickly bore one, especially when you live forever. It was a great privilege to come here."

The first day they met, Matheas met Alrash, and the imp wasn't sure how to regard him. The creature sometimes relayed messages to Matheas if he asked a question. As imps usually are, Alrash was mostly rude to the warlock trainer, but listened when he was taught new skills. However, when Matheas asked, "How do you summon more than one demon?"—hoping to bait Morla into revealing whether or not she could do so, as he had been told—Alrash snappily told him, "She doesn't know." Matheas, having dealt with his kind before, only nodded his head and moved on. She never called them during practice or when asked, and so he assumed Cairne's claim was unfounded and far-fetched. He dismissed it.

Matheas was much kinder to Morla than she had expected. Zamah was rough-edged with her and often exercised her power of authority; Matheas, however, always put forth an effort to be accommodating—though it was unnecessary—and was almost fatherly to the girl. While she at first found being near him difficult, for the bugs living in his hair and the amount of his innards that she could see often put her off, she grew used to him rather quickly and after two weeks, she hardly noticed that she could see his jaw bone when he spoke or that the leather strap tied around his neck pressed grotesquely skin.

Morla learned to improve her shadow bolt and various fire attacks; she learned to port small distances, to create health stones, and to summon an Eye of Kilrogg. Though many of her specialty talents were weak, her basic attacks were incredibly powerful and Matheas had many scars from when he had initially underestimated her ability. In time, he taught her to hold onto the heat that made her strong and nurse it higher and higher, like a volcano, until she could do most anything he asked of her. Especially destructive were her curses.

It was difficult to teach her this art, but once she grasped the concept, Morla took off with it. She couldn't speak, and thus it was impossible to tell when she was beginning a curse. Her eyes would shift subtly and one eyebrow lowered; though he learned to recognize the signs, no casual enemy would have an idea of what was going on behind those innocent-looking brown eyes. They were outside practicing on a pride of lions, when Morla had used her Curse of Agony: the beast had convulsed, crying a cry like one that could be heard in the depths of hell. Its skin rippled and blood vessels in its eyes popped, until blood streamed from its orifices and it fell to the ground, a twitching, lifeless organism. The human turned to her mentor and he watched her, eyes unfocused, one hand trembling.

But Matheas knew he was training a devil. The kindness he summoned in himself kept her at bay, and he nursed his tender side—which surprised him, a warlock of considerable power. It was a talent not come by with a nurturing personality, and he found his job difficult not in his pupil, for she caught on to things faster than himself or any other warlock he had known of; instead, he was tortured by having to keep himself away. He couldn't give in to his desire to create a monster. He had to keep her away from the darkness and keep her sane. She had an important job to do, though he wasn't permitted to know exactly what that was.

The day of the Curse of Agony, Matheas Brownwater knew the girl was ready for whatever Zamah had for her to do. At that point, she had become more physically powerful than even himself, and all he had left to teach her was control. How much of that he could do, Matheas didn't know.

It was very late on a summer night when there came a knock on the door. Clef and Morla sat on the bed, playing a game with little marked wooden pieces, fighting over who had won. Morla turned sixteen the previous week, and they had had a small celebration with a fruit cake. They ate it alone together and stayed up late taking the leaves off of some potent magical flowers that Clef had picked on his last hunting trip.

This night, when the knock came at nearly midnight, Morla jumped and nearly fell off the bed; Clef got up and stomped over to the door, which he opened mightily and flashed his fangs at whoever might be there.

Matheas gasped. "Oh, I must have the wrong room," he said, coughing a phlegmy cough. "I apologize. It must be the next one."

Morla quickly peeked around the great tauren, who had one hand on each side of the doorway, effectively blocking it. He saw her then and gasped again. The girl smiled, and signed to Clef that it was all right. "This is my teacher," she told him. Still looking suspicious, Clef moved to the side and allowed Morla out into the hallway where she could speak with Matheas—or rather just be spoken to.

Clef sat on a chair inside the door. "I need you to come with me immediately," he told her. She only nodded her head. "Zamah has wanted me for a while now to provide her with proof of your abilities, and to determine if you are material for the job she wishes to assign. Now's your chance." The human could only nod her head and stare wide-eyed at her tutor. He leaned down, then, and whispered in her ear: "You cannot bring anyone with you. I will go with you to the giant."

Clef heard a noise and leaned out into the hall. He was suspicious of the entire scourge; when he saw that both the undead man and Morla had disappeared, he roared loudly and stood, breathless, in the hallway, before sitting down outside the door to wait for her to come back; there was little else he could do.

Matheas had never shown Morla his own skills, and she had never wondered. He had summoned them outside, and she felt for a moment that everything was moving too quickly; she felt like she was caught in Matheas's whirlwind, and she couldn't get out. They stood in the middle of a great expanse of grass, and the mountains rose high to the north and west. Matheas was silent and did not once look at her. He kept his face trained ahead and the features she had once thought were soft and friendly were rough, as if the flesh of him was beaten by the wind that burned on that cold night.

As they waited and seconds passed, Morla felt a rumble. It was more of a vibration that could not be heard, but went through the ground and up into her bones like an electric current. There came another rumble soon after the first, and they continued ever stronger, rapidly, like footsteps. Soon the vibrations could be heard and Morla realized what giant Matheas had spoken of.

She looked up. The creature, bluish-green skinned, appeared above them very suddenly, a beast emerging from the darkness. The moonlight shone on his immense form, which towered what she imagined to be at least thirty feet, if not forty. He was bigger than a building, and carried an enormous hammer in one arm that looked like it should drag the whole beast to the ground. However, he swung it up and over one shoulder like it was weightless. He took the land with great ease, agility, and speed, all lent by his immense size: he came from the mountains, Morla could tell at once, and would be upon Thunder Bluff in a few minutes' time. Staring up at him, she knew what Matheas had brought her here for.

Alrash sprung from a little wisp of smoke, spinning on one foot before hopping over to stand beside his master. Matheas looked at Morla.

"Bring me that," he said, pointing up at the monster. Morla followed his gaze to a jewel embedded in the giant's forehead, which glittered like a third eye. As the two stared, the giant slowed in his incredible step and looked down—directly at them. Before Morla could glance at her teacher for reassurance, he disappeared.

Morla was stone paralyzed when the immense creature howled, and raised his hammer high above his head with both hands. She imagined the giant using all the force in his body to swing it down, the flat end coming with her right standing right in the middle of its shadow, where she would then be crushed beneath it, her body mangled and broken to become one with the earth again.

Time seemed to slow down and she imagined a curse in her mind, the only thing she could think of to stop her destruction. She recited the words, moving her lips only a little.

She felt the wind on her face, but the shadow above her hadn't moved. She stared up.

The giant was fixated on her, holding his hammer with one hand. The other went to his side, which bubbled. There was a roar of pain, loud enough to wake the city lying miles away; it reverberated off the mountains and echoed throughout the valley of Mulgore. It rattled Morla's very bones. The giant hefted the hammer back and Morla took the opportunity to run at least twenty more feet away, where Alrash came up beside her. "Shall I go at him?"

Morla held one hand to him, watching the beast writhe in pain, and then nodded her head. Alrash immediately fired a blast; the fireball hit him in the shoulder and he spun around, one hand on his horrible wound, the other launching the hammer into the ground somewhere off to the side, where the giant must have imagined the blast came from. The hammer was quickly lifted back up and Morla saw an incredible crater where it had landed in the ground.

The giant saw them again, then, and rushed forward—which only required a few heart-stopping steps. Morla immediately summoned a shadow bolt and released it at his face. He roared again and dropped the hammer this time; Alrash had to jump-leap out of the way to avoid being hit by the house-long handle. Watching the giant clutch his face and lean over in agony, the warlock knew she had him stunned for a moment's time—long enough to deliver the finishing blow. She formed the fire in her hands and began to call up her power from the ground, and what lie beneath it. What Morla didn't see coming was the giant's hands, which suddenly left his face and he focused one eye on her—the one that wasn't nearly melted over—and grabbed her easily. Immediately Alrash released another few fireballs, but the giant ignored them like they were fleabites and opened his great mouth.

For the second time, Morla imagined her death: she would be chewed up and crushed in those immense fangs like a bug. Her guts would splatter all over the lolling purple tongue. As she approached the wide, foul mouth, she unconsciously released the flame she had summoned, and the damned beast lit on fire like a holiday bonfire.

Morla was dropped from the giant's crushing fingers. She landed on something soft, blue, and warm; when she looked up, feeling slightly dizzy from the rush and from her squished guts, she saw the giant dwarfed by two familiar-looking red demons, their arms bound with gold bracers, their mouths forming and disappearing, spitting fire and smoke. They looked crazed but focused, and cries of rage rolled off of them like water, making a high-pitched, ethereal sound. The giant's eyes rolled back into his head.

Her enemy let out one last panicked breath as the demons seemed to melt and drift together, forming a great flame around him. The giant disappeared in the inferno and there was a great, bloody howl, and the wall of flame seemed to contract; it squeezed itself together like elastic and blood sprouted from the top in a geyser, raining bits and pieces of the giant onto the grass. Morla was kept at a safe distance, inexplicably.

When all sound had faded, the two demons separated and slowly disintegrated, shrinking and shrinking until they wailed and disappeared into two little sparks on the grass. Morla was set down on her feet and she turned to look at her savior.

A voidwalker, eyes glowing and unfocused, hovered in front of her. With a sudden lurch the shadowy, smoky bottom of it was sucked into an invisible hole in the ground, and with a loll of the head, the voidwalker was digested by the earth with a slurp. Where it had been Morla saw a little black bracer, which she held up; looking down at her bandaged arm, she slipped off the wrapping and put the bracer on over the mark instead. It felt pleasantly warm, and it seemed to her like the right thing to do.

Alrash came up to her then and said, "He'll be here in one moment. You'd best get it." The imp pointed toward the bloody mess that was scattered all about and among ripped innards something glittered, even in the dull starlight. Morla immediately went to it and without flinching she pulled out the great, bloody jewel, red in color and perfectly cut. She held it up to the light.

"I'll have that," she heard Matheas say, and she turned around to give it to him. The undead warlock looked at her then, his eyes far less soft and friendly than she remembered. "So, you can summon demons." He sucked in and ticked his partially-maimed tongue against the roof of his mouth. Then, he cleaned the jewel with a dirty rag and tucked it in his pocket. "Come on," he said, "we'll go back."

And so they did.

The next morning, Clef didn't wake her. Instead, Morla opened her eyes to a high sun and the scent of a warm breakfast.

The tauren sat at the table, smoothing a bar of gold with a special stone. The sound was loud, and Morla was surprised she hadn't woken up sooner. She crawled out of bed and came up to the table behind Clef. Taking his long hair in her hands, she began to weave it together, starting at the top and slowly working down so that no rogue pieces came out from sloppiness. When she finished, she tied it with a dark blue ribbon she had lying on the bed table and pushed it over his shoulder.

They sat quietly, eating. After Clef finished—he ate far faster than she—he turned to her and spoke. "Your teacher said you didn't have to come in today. You could rest. He asked me to stay with you." His eyes narrowed. "W-what did you h-have to do?"

Morla put down her fork and looked ahead for a moment, then signed, "I killed a giant."

"What do they want n-now?" He cleared his throat, and Morla thought he looked nervous. She placed one hand on his arm. "W-what are they g-going to m-make you do?" His nostrils flared and she noticed a bead of nervousness in his green eyes. She couldn't imagine what he was worried about. She had defeated the giant, hadn't she?

Morla shrugged off Clef's worry and signed, "I'm fine." The tauren kept his eyes on her for some moments, and then without warning he grabbed her in his arms and hugged. Morla gasped when he squeezed tighter.

"You never understand," he told her, and she could feel his breath on her hair. "N-n-never. I o-overheard them t-talking. They w-want someone to g-go in. You'll be a spy." Morla couldn't sign with her hands stuck between them. "You'll be caught."

The human put her hands on his chest and slowly pushed him away. Clef stared at her in confusion as she stood up and turned around, pressing her hands to her thighs. "I will be fine," she signed to him, not looking back. "I can take care of myself."

When Morla looked back, she saw that Clef had stood up and opened the door. He went out, without a word, and closed it behind him.

Morla sat up late that night, waiting for Clef to come back. She pondered his reaction. Was he so concerned over something so trivial? She had proven herself. She trusted Zamah—specifically, she trusted Matheas. Of course Clef couldn't understand her trust, but she hoped that he at least would trust her.

She sat on the bed and pulled her knees up to her chest, still unable to understand why he would seem to be almost offended by her certainty. Morla thought and thought, and she couldn't come up with a good reason for Clef's attitude. So she decided to wait and ask him.

One hour after midnight, the door opened. All the lights were off, and Clef kept them that way when he came in, expecting to see Morla asleep so that he could bypass her altogether. Instead, he saw movement on the bed, and hastily turned on the light. "What are you doing awake?" he asked, lightly baring his big teeth in a reflexive gesture. He came over to the bed and stood there, but didn't sit down. Morla sat up so she was on her knees. She reached up, brushing her hands over the big gold ring he had recently put in his nose, and traveled up his furry face to his wide, white-grey horns. He sighed then and put his hands on her shoulders.

"Girl," he said to her, "you're just a girl. You're my girl. And I don't know what those undead magicians want with you. You're human—you must remember this." Morla nodded her head, and carefully and gently, Clef lifted her up into his arms, holding her palms with one hand and her waist with another. He sat down on the bed and she curled up in his lap, her face pressed against the soft, white fur of his chest. She stroked it. There they sat in silence, until morning came.