Warcraft: Official Movie Novelization

“It is good to see trees again,” Orgrim said. He and his chieftain were sitting on a rise. Below them was the grunt work going on near the portal and the ugliness of cages filled with human slaves. But above that, in the distance, lay a scene that almost… almost… reminded Durotan of home. The trees were different, but they still grew straight and tall. They still bore fruit, or smelled fresh and clean.

“And the snow,” Durotan said, wistfulness creeping into his voice. “Even from a distance.”

Orgrim scratched idly at his healing wounds. “When the humans are beaten, we can journey to the mountains. Feel the cold on our skin.” He spoke eagerly, and Durotan understood the yearning. Ever since they had left the north of Draenor, he had felt the pang of missing snow.

But Durotan had not asked his second-in-command to join him so they might gaze upon a snow-covered mountain together, beautiful though it was. He had brought Orgrim here to remind him what life looked like. Durotan could not find that reminder below, with the cries of the sick, starving humans and their children, and the grueling labor of hauling and carving stones. He rubbed his neck, not relishing the task before him, but there were things that needed to be said.

“Remember when we would track clefthooves through the Frostwind dunes? Whole herds of them, everywhere. And when there were no clefthooves, there were talbuks. There was always meat. Always life. We would dance in the meadows at Midsummer, and even in winter, we never hungered.”

“But our world was dying,” Orgrim said. “We had to leave. You stayed as long as you could, Durotan, but you knew what we had to do to survive.”

Thoughts crowded Durotan’s mind. What he had to say was dangerous… but necessary. His mind went back to when he had made the excruciating decision to follow Gul’dan, and the words he had told his clan. There is one law, one tradition, which must not be violated. And that is that a chieftain must do whatever is truly best for the clan.

“Orgrim… Do you not think it strange that we lost our home when Gul’dan came to power?”

Orgrim scoffed, prepared to laugh. The smile faded as he realized Durotan was deadly serious. “One orc cannot kill a world, Durotan.”

“Are you sure? Look around you. Does it not remind you of something?” He directed Orgrim’s gaze not to the beckoning forest and distant snow, but to what lay behind them. To the Great Gate, and the land around it. Orgrim’s brow furrowed for a moment in confusion, and then Durotan saw understanding spread across his friend’s face.

When they had entered this world, the land near the gate had been a swamp. Draka had birthed the son of Durotan on her hands and knees in stagnant water. Now, there was only dirt, parched and thirsty. What plants there had been were long dead, brittle and ground to dust beneath orcish feet as Durotan’s people moved giant stones to build a doorway.

It did remind him of something.

It looked exactly as the other side of the portal had looked, in the land they had fled. Emotions warred on Orgrim’s face.

Durotan knew what he was asking. But he also knew he was right. “Wherever Gul’dan works his magic… the land dies. If our people are to make a home here, my friend,” Durotan said, his voice rough with emotion, “Gul’dan must be stopped.”

Orgrim took a long time before he replied, but when he did, he did not disagree. All he said was, “We are not powerful enough to defeat Gul’dan.”

“No,” Durotan agreed. He scratched thoughtfully at his chin with a sharp thumbnail. “But with the humans’ help, we could be.”

10

It had been a dangerous gamble, and Llane had been anxious every moment since Lothar and Taria had departed the throne room. But he had felt it was the right decision, and he kept telling himself that as the moments ticked past. He was on the balcony, overlooking the dark city and thinking equally dark thoughts, when Taria returned.

She slipped an arm through his. “You were right,” she said. “A woman’s hand was needed. She will take Lothar to their camp, the poor creature.”

“Thank you,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it.

“How did you know I could reach her?”

It was hard to put into words. Garona was an adult female, and, from all reports, a fierce fighter. It was hard to think of someone like that as “vulnerable,” but he sensed that her wariness wasn’t hate-fueled, or cruel. There was something about her that reminded him of the children he had seen in the orphanage—wild, feral, but desperate for someone to look past that and see who they truly were.

“She needed a mother’s care,” he said at last. He squeezed his wife’s hand, then pulled her into his arms. “I know of none better.”

“Flatterer,” she teased, and kissed him.