Warcraft: Official Movie Novelization

Garona nodded, but he knew what she meant by it. It was an acknowledgement of his words, not a surety. She was too honorable to make promises she could not keep. Instead, she lifted the concealing hood over her head, regarded him with those dark eyes, and went to war.

18

The humans could not take their terrified eyes off of Durotan. They peered at him through the bars of their own cages, doubtless wondering what he had done to warrant being imprisoned alongside them. Or perhaps they feared he was there to trick them and torture them more, somehow. Durotan regarded them sadly. He had tried to help, but his attempt had failed. He had failed, and now he was here, with his own fears regarding the cruel things with which Gul’dan’s orcs had threatened his clan.

“Hey! Frostwolf!” shouted his guard. Durotan took his gaze away from the humans and frowned. Orgrim Doomhammer was striding up to Durotan’s cage. The Frostwolf chieftain tensed. What new horror had his once-brother come to inflict? The guard stepped into Orgrim’s path. Orgrim’s steady pace did not falter. He merely raised the Doomhammer and casually swung it down to crunch the startled guard’s head.

He did not rise.

Orgrim bent to pick up the guard’s key and his eyes met Durotan’s. With the same casualness Orgrim had just displayed in killing the guard, Durotan said, “Now you are enemies with all sides.”

“I’ll tell them it was you,” Orgrim responded. Durotan, with the knowledge of years of friendship, noticed that Orgrim’s hands trembled ever so slightly as he unlocked the cage. He glanced at Durotan, who sat quietly while Orgrim unfastened the shackles about neck, feet, and hands. He extended a hand to his chieftain, and Durotan took it. Slowly, wincing with feigned stiffness, Durotan let Orgrim help him to his feet. The two regarded one another for a moment, then Durotan struck his old friend savagely in the chest. Orgrim stumbled back against the twisted wood of the cage, falling. Instead of striking back, he simply sat there, his head lowered.

Finally, Durotan spoke.

“What happened?”

Orgrim looked him full in the face. “I am sorry, Durotan. I did not see how we could side with the humans against our own kind. I was wrong, my chief. Gul’dan’s fel magic is destroying us.”

Durotan closed his eyes, wanting the last few suns back, wishing things were other than as they were. But that way lay madness. He extended a hand to Orgrim. Orgrim took it and rose. Forcing himself to speak calmly, Durotan asked the question that was uppermost in his heart.

“Where is Draka?”

“Safe. She and the baby, both. But the rest… Most of them…” Orgrim’s pain and regret was naked on his face, and in the gray dawn light, Durotan could see tears in his eyes.

It was too late for tears. Too late for apologies, regrets, forgiveness. Pain, grief, rage surged inside Durotan, but he quelled them ruthlessly. He would be stone. It was the only way he would survive long enough to do what he needed to. He turned away from Orgrim, the betrayer. But Orgrim’s voice called after him.

“They wouldn’t follow him if they could see what he has become.”

“Then I’ll show them.”

Gul’dan’s orcs had set the Frostwolf camp on fire, in an attempt to burn all that remained of Frostwolf culture. Most of it had burned out, but here and there flames still climbed into the night. The awful light revealed without remorse a camp in shambles, and the wall Durotan had built about his heart threatened to crumble. He had to force himself to walk forward, to see what Gul’dan had done to his people in return for what Durotan had done to him.

There were far fewer bodies than he had expected. Durotan did not dare allow himself to hope that this meant that his people had succeeded in fleeing unharmed. No, more likely Gul’dan had taken them alive to use as fuel for the fel. The corpses he did discover lay where they had fallen—the ultimate disrespect. Some of them were charred by the fire. Here lay Kagra, Zarka, Dekgrul… even Shaksa and her siblings, the ebullient Nizka and the toddler Kelgur.

He had made his choice to protect not just them, but all the orcs. This very world. Durotan knew in his bones that it had been Gul’dan’s death magic, the fel, that had destroyed Draenor, and would eventually destroy this world, this Azeroth, as well. And the orc people along with it.

But he had underestimated the bitterness of the cost. Never thought that Gul’dan would give the word to obliterate an entire clan, including its children.

There were brief flares of gratitude. Orgrim had spoken the truth about Draka and little Go’el, at least. While all their food, clothing, furnishing and weapons—including Thunderstrike and Sever—had been taken to serve the needs of more loyal orcs, there were no mutilated bodies lying on the bare earth. Nor did he see any sign of the aged, blind Drek’Thar or his attendant, Palkar—or of their ritual items. Had they been taken, fuel for the fel? Or had they escaped?