Voodoo Child

Chapter 22 – Gallows Pole

By Genoscythe

AN: Right...so. It has been awhile, hasn't it? Well, I've got excuses for all! First off, I've been focusing more on my original novel (which I'm getting sorta close to finishing), and that's leaving little time or -more importantly - energy to do Voodoo Child. Second, I've been trying to finish my sophomore year without failing Algebra 1. Again. With the same teacher. Again. Fortunately, I did #2 and I've slowed down again on #1, allowing more creativity to be funneled into VC.

There's a lot of nonsense garbled on the internets about quitting the 'fic. I don't quit 'fics. I even add a chapter to my little Mega Man sidestory that nobody reads about every year or so. Well, not really. I might have quit that one. But I'm not quitting this! And barring the destruction of humanity, I won't. Because if I do quit, then the terrorists have won, and nobody wants that. Unless you're a terrorist.

"I'm serious. Please…kill me," Zuridan coughed, shaking violently as he had been for the past week and four days.

Argam shook his head forcefully. "I can't. They took away my fish."

"Stab me with your horn, do something! Even you're starting to look tasty."

"Hey!" One of the night elf guards rapped a truncheon against the cell bars testily. "Shut up!"

By now, Zuridan and Argam knew what that meant in Orcish.

"You don't understand," Zuridan pleaded, clawing madly at the ground toward their tormentor. "Cannibal. CAN-NI-BAL."

"Bur," the elf chuckled for what had to be the millionth time. Zuridan still didn't know what it translated to, but the Alliance liked saying it a lot.

"You can have a bite out of my arm," Argam offered. "I have enough to share." This was when Zuridan noticed that Argam had been gnawing on his forearm for who knows how long.

"Why are you eating yourself?" He asked, puzzled enough to forget his hunger.

"You kept talking about it, so I thought it sounded like a good idea."

"You know I only want to eat you because of a demon's spell, right?"

"I thought it was fun."

"No Argam, it's not fun."

"Are you sure?"

"Well, how do you like it?"

"I'm can't tell yet. Yesterday I was just chewing through hair, but I've almost gotten to the meat."

"I'd suggest stopping, but I don't think you'll listen."

"You're right," Argam affirmed. "I hope the elves aren't eating Xan."

Meridia Darkwater, in her orbit around Xan'Jin, came a bit closer.

"They're going to execute you," she informed him, then continued pacing the floor of the tower.

"Dere mus' be some kinda way outta here…" Xan sung to himself, ignoring the elf.

"I can't keep making up false information to please Luna."

"Said da joker to da thief."

"If you're going to do something, do it now."

"Dere's too much confusion…"

"Please."

"I can' get no relief."

"Over the last few weeks, Luna's built up a small army. She's turned Astranaar into a fortress."

"Race o' Man dey, dey drink my wine…"

"They're going to march on Splintertree Post within the week."

"Blue men dig my eart'."

"Don't you care?"

"None of 'em along da line – hell no – know what any of it is wort'."

"Luna wants to interrogate you herself one last time before your execution," Meridia sighed, stopping at a lookout port. "I had hoped you would have done something by now…I've never seen such an apathetic hero."

"People be throwin' out dat word a lot lately," Xan remarked casually. "I don' care anymore – go ahead an' call me a hero. I won' argue."

"Work with me," Meridia pleaded, turning around as an arrow from a trigger-happy sentinel zipped through the lookout port. "I'll help you."

Xan lifted a lazy eyebrow. "How?"

Meridia stuttered. "I-I don't know yet."

"Way I see it…" Xan began, stretching languidly on the couch. "Shit's gonna happen no matter what. I neva done notin' I wouldn'a done normally, an' dat be absolutely notin'. Fact dat I survived so long shows I be blessed. Why force it?"

"Uh…because you'll be lynched if you don't get off your ass and do something?"

"Relax. Sometin'll fall outta da sky an' squish Luna. Just watch."

Incidentally, at that very moment something did fall out of the sky and land in Ashenvale, though it was merely a dust mote and it squished nothing besides a small family of single-celled organisms on the head of an orc soldier.

"Okay, okay," Meridia held up her hands in defeat. "I get it, you won't think of a way out. I'll make you a deal. If I think of a plan to get us out of here, you'd better be willing to help out."

"Or what, babe?"

"Or I'll bump your execution up to right now."

"Dat's fair. But why don' joo jus' make a run for it? Why joo helpin' me?"

Meridia felt like every breath was a sigh these days. "I told you, Astranaar is a fortress now. Nobody gets in or out. If I try to scale the walls, they'll shoot me – if not on purpose, then on accident."

Xan nodded understandingly, looking out the window as Meridia had done to see a very intrepid little bird attempting to cross the Astranaar clearing. Before you could say "Oh crap, there's a bunch of psychotic warrior women shooting arrows at me," the bird was impaled by a fistful of jagged wooden shafts.

"I'm going out for awhile. I'll bring you some food later," Meridia promised, walking to the door and pushing it open. The portal clunked against the head of a human marine, one Robert Dillon. He had been sitting on the stairs, writing something on a pad of paper. Meridia froze, thinking he had been spying on her and writing down her plans of treachery. The first wave of relief came when she remembered that the entire conversation was in trollish, and unless Dillon majored in barbaric foreign languages then they were safe.

The second bout of relief hit when Dillon didn't appear to be frightened or worried about being found out – just annoyed that he had just been struck on the head by a door. Without a word, he stood up and ran off down the stairs, cradling the notepad like a gnoll would cradle something rancid.

Unbeknownst to anyone important, Robert Dillon was taking the notepad full of trollish to a man who had majored in barbaric foreign languages. This man was a Stormwind Marine by the name of James Marshall Hindrex, and he thought he had heard the makings of a great song coming from the prisoner's watchtower one night. He sent Dillon to write down anything the troll sang, and it was now being brought back to him for translation.

The entire reason for sending Dillon and Hindrex to Kalimdor was for the crime of being both talented musicians and talented warriors simultaneously. The Silver Hand – which was essentially judge, jury and executioner for the population of Stormwind – was mainly composed of blowhards and muscle-headed idiots hiding behind nifty magic. Neither stereotype is particularly conducive for talent, so when an extremely gifted individual comes along the Silver Hand tends to get jealous and find a way to be rid of him.

Being the talented musicians that they were, Hindrex and Dillon soon had two completely different versions of the song brought back from the troll. Dillon was the first to complete his version, and it prominently featured screeching harmonica and uninspired vocals. However, the song seemed to be made for Hindrex, who wrote psychedelic guitar lines to accompany the lyrics (which were better sung by a black man in the first place).

After surviving the forthcoming battle of Astranaar, Dillon and Hindrex would return to 'civilized' lands and publish their songs. Dillon, as usual, would do it first, but Hindrex, also as usual, would do it better. Hindrex's version of the song would make it into the top 40, becoming so successful that many people believed he made the original.

Xan had no idea the little ditty stewing in his brain would ever become a hit, and if he did, then he probably would not have forgotten it the next day.

Melchiah was worried. Not about escaping from the bleak, empty netherworld he was trapped in, but because swearing loudly no longer made him feel any better. Because of this, he had absolutely nothing to do until he was rescued. He had already contemplated how to murder the night elf bitch that put him here, and decided that as soon as he was free, he would slap her across the face. While not a very dire punishment coming from a Forsaken without a malicious curse, from Melchiah it was a very painful un-death sentence.

During the week of vomiting and dysentery, he planned to drag her to the eastern coast and throw her into the maelstrom. There, she could wait out the last of her days spinning in an underwater vortex until such time as Melchiah found and killed Araj the Summoner and sent all his cursed little minions into oblivion with him.

This plan had taken a good deal of time to formulate, and the rest was filled with unabashed swearing. Now that not even a good rant could entertain, Melchiah had nothing left but to stab his sword into the intangible ground and wait for inevitable rescue. He had faith in Xan, simply because of the universal principle Melchiah had become familiar with throughout his undead life: Good things come to those who aren't looking for them.

Later that night, the door to Xan's plush holding cell creaked open. The troll was crouched under the window, gleefully tossing his dinner at the guards below. So enthralled was he by tormenting his tormentors that he didn't look behind him and naturally assumed it was Meridia coming to tell him the plan and maybe finally confess how much she had fallen for him over the past week and four days.

So you can imagine Xan's surprise when he was jerked up by his scalp, painfully suspended in mid-air by a meaty fist. He spun himself around, coming face to face with an awfully familiar blond human. The man glared at him, then at a yellow book in his other hand marked "Trollish for Paladins."

"My name is Marek Belheim," he informed Xan with shaky trollish. He turned back to the book and began flipping through pages. Xan had to chuckle at the picture on the cover: a googly-eyed man in massive armor next to the words "A reference for the Warriors of Light."

"I intend to head you," he declared. Xan's jaw sagged, and he hastily set about protecting his happy sack. "And your…friends and…family." Xan silently shook his head. Marek paused, then flipped back to the previous page. "Oh. Apologies. I intend to cut your head. Cut it off. Like a sponge."

"Joo talkin' crazy, mon."

"And all the trolls you have intimate relations with."

"All zero of 'em?"

"Yes. No. Speak simple please thank you."

"Okay. I be Xan'Jin. What'choo got against me? I seen you before."

This took Marek several minutes to translate, and Xan was beginning to see spots. Fortunately, none of his precious hair had given way yet.

"You make me look like a contemptible person."

"Huh?"

"Oh. Humiliate. Yes, humiliation."

"Joo wanna kill me 'cause I humiliated joo?"

Another pause, more pages fluttering. Then, "Yes. Next week. At…execution."

"Cool. Anythin' else?"

It took two agonizing, literally hair-pulling minutes to find the answer in the book. "No." With a grumble, Marek released his captive and trudged off down the stairs. Xan gulped, taking a seat once more on the couch. This paladin, despite showing all the mental capacity of a small child beaten with a steel pipe, was now a considerable threat to Xan's well-being. Xan didn't like considerable threats to his well-being.

Back in the newly dug prison, Argam was discovering the wondrous properties of moonwell residue as his thoroughly-chewed arm began to heal. If Zuridan weren't so stark-raving mad, then he too would have realized that the leftover magic from the hollowed out well was replenishing his mana stores. The mana stores that had been drained by the night elves a week and five days ago.

Zuridan was so stark-raving mad that he was willing to ask Argam a question that was very uncharacteristic of the impersonal orc.

"So, what is the deal with your schizophrenia?" He asked.

"It's not a very good story," Argam murmured plaintively. "But I've got a better one."

"I don't want to hear it."

"Once upon a time, there was a young Shaman who liked talking to his dead ancestors. He liked talking to them so much, they eventually materialized for him. He was so happy he sacrificed an entire family of prairie wolves to them. But then one of his ancestors asked the young Shaman to do a very strange thing for him. This ancestral spirit wanted to be alive again, so he asked the Shaman to borrow his body. He allowed the ancient spirit to possess him, and it tried to take over his mind. Another spirit – a nice spirit – jumped in too and tried to stop it. They both ended up trapped in the young Shaman's head, and shortly drove him insane."

Zuridan raised an eyebrow.

"Oh wait. That's the same story."

"You've got spirits trying to take over your mind?"

"Isn't it great?"

"Which one am I talking to right now?"

"You're talking to me," Argam pointed out simply. "Dumbass," he added, taking a cue from Melchiah.

"So…what about the other ones?"

"Itherian is over there," he said, pointing at a scrap of meat left over from their last meal. "And poor Moradon was inside my fishblade. He's the bad one."

"I gotta hope either one of them would have a better idea about getting us out of here."

"You're damn right." Argam's voice had suddenly taken on a more authoritative tone, and he was focused on the scrap of meat. "However. I can't control his body unless his mind – screwed up as it is – is incapacitated. I recently discovered that the best way to do this is to get him drunk."

"I don't think the night elves are gonna give us any beer."

"Well, you'd better hope they do, or we're not getting out of here."

"You're so wise, Mr. Meat Scrap," normal Argam awed.

"Shut up, you know I rue the day I tried to save you."

"Speaking of which, I wonder what we're going to do without Uncle Moradon."

"It would be very beneficial to me that you continue thinking he's gone. So keep doing that. Okay?"

It was all a little too disturbing for the half-crazed orc to handle, seeing his ally in an argument with himself.

"We haven't been properly introduced," Zuridan interrupted, crawling over the piece of meat. "You must be Itherian Stonehoof. I'm Zuridan Fargaze." With that, he grabbed the edge of the meat strip and shook it.

"Great Earthmother's mammaries…he's worse off than you are," Itherian rumbled. "Listen. Somehow, you've got to get a hold of some ethanol. That, or remember how to cast Earth Shock."

"But I'm bad at that…"

"I know. Just – aaaah!" Argam came back into focus, and looked up at Zuridan, who had a strip of meat hanging from his jaws. With the kind of laugh that gets you thrown into dark places, he slurped it up and grinned with the kind of grin that keeps you in a dark place for a very long time.

"You ate Itherian!" Argam gasped. "Dumbass!"

"He tasted like knowledge," Zuridan informed him. "Well, it's my knowledge now!" The orc hissed, swiping at Argam. Behind the bars, gold pieces shifted as bets were won and lost. The prison janitor had bet they would both crack before the new moon, and it helped his cause that one was cracked long before he was even imprisoned. He had also bet that one of them would eat the scrap of food left on the floor. As it stood, he estimated having enough gold by the execution to buy all the shops in Darnassus.

The first thing he planned to do was to have the current prison guards come and clean his bathrooms.

Meridia passed by quickly, just long enough to scoff at the gambling prison guards and the lucky janitor. She was going to check on the Horde prisoners, but from hearing the deranged cackle and constant yelling, she deemed them a lost cause and decided to just escape with the troll. For quite literally the billionth time, she thought about what she was doing, and if she should turn her back on her people. Then, she looked back at the guards, hollering and carrying on and occasionally pelvic thrusting.

That was an answer in and of itself.

End

AN: I suppose I should have named this chapter 'All Along the Watchtower' but it's far too late. Besides, everybody likes more Led Zeppelin titles.

Originally, I wasn't going to give away Argam's past yet, but since you've all been so patient and since this is a pretty pivotal part of the 'story', it's just as well that I put it in now. So...happy birthday?