World of Warcraft: Vol'jin: Shadows of the Horde Read Online Free PDF Page B

You know how great an evil they are, and how thinly spread are we. As has been long said, the enemy of my enemy is my friend—no matter the havoc they might wreak—and the sha have ever been the enemy of Pandaria.”
    Chen almost chimed in with, “If you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas,” but he refrained. Not that it wasn’t on point, but it wasn’t terribly helpful, especially when so many pandaren thought of wanderers like Li Li and himself as wild dogs. He hoped Yalia didn’t see him that way, and wasn’t about to introduce the concept.
    Chen lowered his head just a bit. “I am not certain, Lord, that you can ever get the two of them—my ships or the Horde and Alliance—to work together permanently, no matter how unfriendly the mutual enemy might be.”
    Taran Zhu chuckled, almost silently, definitely without echo and with nothing more than a ghost of a smile. “That is not my purpose for keeping your ships in harbor, Chen. It is so that by being here, troll and man can learn from us, and as they learn from us, so we can learn from them. For as you wisely suggest, when there is no more enemy to unite them, they will once again be at each other’s throats, and then we will have to choose whom we will befriend.”

4

     
    V ol’jin of the Darkspear trolls chose not to move. He did this because he found making that choice preferable to acknowledging that he felt too weak to move. Though the hands dealing with him were gentle, their touch respectful, he could not have thrown them off were it his greatest desire.
    Unseen aides plumped pillows, then thrust them behind him to prop him up. He would have protested, but the pain in his throat made anything more than harshly growled words—and very short words—impossible. The obvious choice—“stop”—no matter how sharply barked, would have mocked his inability to stop them. Though he accepted his silence as a concession to vanity, he found the roots of his discomfort running deeper.
    The soft bed and softer pillows were not comforts in which trolls luxuriated. A thin sleeping mat over a wooden floor was the height of opulence in the Echo Isles. Many trolls slept on stretches of ground, occasionally seeking shelter if a storm blew in. Yielding sand made for a better bed than the hard stone of Durotar, but trolls were not given to complaining about harsh accommodations.
    The insistence on softness and comfort irritated him because it emphasized his weakness. The thinking part of him couldn’t deny that a soft bed made shifting his wounded body much easier. He doubtless slept a bit better. But in calling attention to his weakness,it somehow denied the nature of his being a troll. Trolls were to hardship and harsh reality what sharks were to the open ocean.
    To remove me from that be killing me.
    The clunk of a chair or stool at his right surprised him. He’d not heard whoever carried it approach. Vol’jin sniffed, and the maddening scent underlying everything came back with the force of a punch. Pandaren. Not just pandaren, but one in particular.
    Chen Stormstout’s voice, low but warm, came to him in a whisper. “I would have been to see you before, but Lord Taran Zhu did not think it wise.”
    Vol’jin struggled to reply. He had a million things he wished to say, but few came wrapped in words his throat was willing to utter. “Friend. Chen.” Somehow Chen came more easily, being softer.
    “No playing blindfold guessing games with you. You’re too good.” Robes rustled. “If you would close your eyes, I’ll remove the bandages. The healers say your eyes were not hurt, but they did not want you overly alarmed.”
    Vol’jin nodded, knowing Chen was half right. Had he a foreigner brought to him in the Echo Isles, he’d also have blindfolded him until he decided whether the captive could be trusted. Doubtless that was Taran Zhu’s reasoning, and for some further reason, he had decided that Vol’jin could be trusted.
    Chen’s doing, I be