Legacy of Ruin, Chapter 9: Red Horizon (P3)

Llorrin frowned as he put the ice against his bruised ankle. He’d called for Bors to get him some ice from the hold. Those ships that had a hydromancer on board to make it for them tended to keep some ice on board to quell bruises or conserve food. If they encountered another ship, it could even serve as a valuable trade resource. The ice was put in barrels that was filled with sawdust so it could keep its shape and kept in the darkest and coolest place in the ship. The barrels were enclosed in a way to prevent warm air from reaching it, but even that didn’t stop a lot of it from melting after a while. As soon as the adrenaline had faded he’d felt just how badly the orc’s fingers had pressed into his skin. He'd thought the warlock had been pretty strong for his age, but this orc had cast a whole new light on that observation.

It would’ve been child’s play for Irewyth to create some more ice for the crew, but he felt that was the last thing he could ask of her right now. He’d ordered Carekon to stay at Irewyth's side constantly while she regained her strength, just to be on the safe side. If she ever got out of bed and heard Llorrin had been so worried about her he knew she would be sure to pester him about it. It was something he was willing to endure though. He'd even decided he wasn’t going to let Carekon waste even an ounce of his mana on healing his ankle. He had to remember the chaplain had probably also not fully regained his strength yet, because he didn't want to repeat the mistake he'd made with Irewyth.

Captain Adane always carried his wounds in plain sight and rarely called for a healer, perhaps I should take it as an example, Llorrin thought, remembering the purple bruise Adane had carried on his head back in that dreaded desert.

Bors had advised him to wrap the ice in a piece of cloth and had mumbled something about ice being able to burn as badly as fire if it came in direct contact with your skin for too long, but that didn’t seem to make any sense to Llorrin, so he hadn't bothered. He’d pulled his trousers up to his knee and had put his foot in a bucket, which was being filled drop by drop by the quickly melting ice, but at least kept the floor of his captain’s cabin dry. Freshwater was too valuable to waste. The palm of his hand and his fingers tingled from the cold, but he held the cube tight, fixing his grip around it carefully to keep it from slipping out of his trembling hand.

The cold of the icecube made him aware of just how hot the rest of his reddened skin had become, and for a moment he contemplated rubbing cold ice all over his body. His breathing came slowly and every thought about confronting the orc captain again sent his heartbeat into overdrive. His first true confrontation with the Horde could have gone much worse, but it had been… different from how he had imagined it.

He’d caught glimpses of mangled orc corpses drifting in the water. Their limbs had been shattered, their faces caved in or swollen, their bodies pierced by large chunks of wood. It was one thing to kill an opponent in a fight, but Llorrin had rarely witnessed destruction on this scale. Training, skill, armour, it all mattered little against such power. War devoured everything, and no one, not even the greatest mage or warrior, was safe. It had reminded him of just how little he held his fate in his own hands. What if the next ogre juggernaught they encountered had a warlock on board? Would they end up like the orcs he’d just condemned to drown? After the images of the bloodied orcs had passed through his mind worse ones of the one time he’d sailed with captain Adane to give battle to the undead followed. He wanted to block them out, but nevertheless suffered a drawback to that day, a day he still dreamt about, the day the undead doom barges had cut through the Kul Tiras fleet that had sailed out in an attempt to save Lordaeron from the Scourge.

The sea had been turned into a chaos of splintering wood, men and body parts that were being hurled through the air. The screaming had drowned out all other sounds and the mist the foul magic of the undead had turned into as their magical volleys cut through hull, armour and flesh alike had coated the sea in a deathly pale light. My first battle, he thought with a sad smirk. If captain Adane hadn’t had the sense to turn his ship away from that chaos, they would’ve ended up on the bottom of the sea like so many others. It still felt strange to Llorrin that captain Adane has disobeyed his orders to engage the undead fleet. Then again admiral Proudmoore, who had decided against any further action against the Scourge, hadn't held it against him even once. The undead ships had pursued them, and a few times they had come so close he had seen the hollow eyes of the undead warriors on board the doom barges. Back then he had wished his eyesight hadn’t been so good, because as much as he tried, he hadn’t been able to tear his eyes away from their rotting, undead faces. Some of the undead warriors had been dressed in the armour of the men they had sailed out to save, a few had been fresh reanimated corpses, still coated in the dark green tunics of the Kul Tiras navy. Sometimes, Llorrin dreamed he saw himself standing among those corpses with lifeless eyes, and blood running down his nose and mouth.

He could only imagine what chaos would follow when they met an army of orcs, or an entire fleet, because that was where this course was inevitably taking him. He told himself it could never become as bad as that slaughter had been. Orcs were many things, but they were at least not as… unnatural as the undead. What had astounded him the most was the drowning orcs’ willingness to aid each other and even sacrifice themselves to protect their captain. He'd expected them to be more... egoistic. He hadn’t told the men, but there’d been more than one reason he’d wanted to distance himself from the drowning orcs quickly.

Such strength… he thought as he adjusted the shrinking ice cube, noticing how his ankle was turning all sorts of colours.

All of a sudden someone entered unannounced. He looked up, expecting Eryck, but by the size of the men and his black armour he could tell it was Jeredan before the man had even fully passed the door. Llorrin picked his foot out of the bucket, dropped the ice and pulled his leg up to his chair, softly drying it with a towel. His skin felt oddly prickly and sensitive. He’d quit mending the bruise because he knew Jeredan was going to say something about it, but when the crusader grinned Llorrin knew he was going to make a comment on it anyway.

“Oh, did you strain your poor ankle, princess?” he chuckled.

“Why are you here?” Llorrin asked in a weary voice that showed how little he appreciated Jeredan’s jape. This was one of the times where he really could’ve really used Eryck guarding his door to at least slow down and announce Jeredan, but sadly he didn’t know where the guy was half of the time.

“Prisoners,” Jeredan said with a hungry glint in his eye that unsettled Llorrin.

“What?”

“You’re turning away our ships from those wrecks already,  but I’m saying we should go back and pick up a few of those orcs. Times at sea can get very dull, and they won't get the opportunity to eat much of our supplies, I can promise you that,” Jeredan said with a morbid delight. No matter how well you thought you knew him, only once the sight of an orc had set his blood aboil you could truly see how dangerous and deranged he was. Llorrin didn’t need to ask what Jeredan wanted with the orcs.  How he had enjoyed torturing the traitor who had attacked Irewyth already told him enough.

“No,” Llorrin said bluntly, knowing he was treading on slim ice. He could simply feel the anger radiating off of Jeredan’s body. He wouldn’t put it past Jeredan to assault him again, and Llorrin had already laid off his weapons. One glance told him they were both out of reach. Another thing I need to learn. Someone could’ve just bursted in here and killed me.

“We're not going back, but you could accompany me. I could use your help to intimidate that orc captain a little,” he added.

To Llorrin’s own surprise that seemed to please Jeredan enough to make him forget about the other orcs, even though he was pretty sure they both had an entirely different interpretation of the word ‘intimidate.’ No doubt he could persuade Jeredan to keep his mouth shut to the crew about whatever the orc was going to reveal, after all, Jeredan was as invested in getting back to the mainland and fighting the Horde as he was.

And if he tries to blackmail me again, I’ll slit his goddamn throat, Llorrin thought as he got up and tucked the knife he’d taken from Jeredan earlier into his pocket. He made a quick, hasty copy of the detailed map Elduin had drawn, only including the most basic outlines.

Let Gronbag think we’re clueless fools with no notion of anything that's happened since we sailed out, Llorrin thought, aware he could use this to his advantage. It was easy to make people believe things they wanted to believe, that was something he'd learned from dealing with Irewyth.

“Let’s go,” he told Jeredan, who followed so eagerly he forgot to close the door behind him.

Belowdecks, the men were celebrating their victory. They were singing the praises of Irewyth and even Llorrin. Llorrin saw Bors, whose belly pushed the table he sat at up at least an inch. The provisions master himself was putting their remaining beer supplies to a serious test. Flynt was one of the few members of the crew who still looked sober, though he seemed to be in need of a drink more than anyone. He'd barely touched his pint, and still looked kind of shaky.

Eryck, who had put an orcish helmet he must have fished out of the water on his head, stumbled up in front of them, a bottle of rum in his hand.

My vigilant guardsman, Llorrin thought, smirking.

“Sir,” he blurted out. “We need to celebrate t- this victory… properly. Tomorrow, the men want to p… parade that orc over the deck.”

Llorrin frowned. “Why?”

“Just, you know. To make a fool of him. We could-” Eryck said, waving the bottle.

“No,” Llorrin interrupted, even though he didn’t really know why.

Eryck blinked, clearly surprised.

“Why not? It’s good for morale,” he tried.

“I’m not like them,” Llorrin said, pushing him out of the way gently so he wouldn’t fall over. Humiliation was a form of torture, and torturing captives seemed more like something orcs would do. Jeredan gave Eryck a look that would have frozen a sober man in place as he passed him by, but Eryck merely smiled.

I fear the next guy to slow us down is going to lose a couple of teeth, Llorrin thought, glancing at Jeredan.

Luckily, they suffered no more delays on their way down to the brigg. His heartbeat increased steadily as he got closer and closer to the cell. To his surprise, Llorrin found Wheann guarding Gronbag's cell. That the half-elf was here meant he must’ve volunteered to take a guards’ place, which was very unlike him. The half-elf was crouched down in front of the jail. His head hung low, and his expression made it seem like he was the one behind bars. He barely noticed their approach, and got up only slowly once they reached him. The look he gave Llorrin was full of contempt. A while back they’d been drinking together by the fire. Llorrin had suddenly had to go see captain Adane and had been so drunk he’d nearly drowned that poor guy who’d rowed him to the Orcduster, something they had both laughed about later. Laughing seemed to be the last thing on Wheann’s mind now, though. Llorrin had more than just a hunch what it was that was bothering the half-elf, but he still tried to play it off with a joke.

“He really makes for bad company, huh?” he said, smirking briefly at the orc, who grinned as if he took it as a compliment. Gronbag's wounds had been taken good care of, and by Llorrin’s orders they’d even brought Gronbag some ale. To dull the pain and praise his courage, he'd been told, but the real reason was Llorrin wanted him to be more talkative. Unlike Gronbag, Wheann didn’t grin. His eyes were cold and distant.

“I know, Llorrin, about you and Irewyth. She was mine, how could you do that?” he said, his voice little more than a hiss.

Llorrin was momentarily speechless. Wheann hadn’t spoken to him in so long, so he’d already figured he must have found out, but he hadn’t been expecting to have this conversation, not now, not in front of the orc. Gronbag’s grin continued to grow.

“She chose to,” he blurted out, unable to come up with anything better.

Wheann’s lip quivered before he answered.

“She doesn’t love you. She used me, and she used you as well. Once she’s done with you, she’ll drop you like she does everyone else.”

“She used you both. Get over it,” Jeredan sighed, crossing his arms.

“She didn’t use-” Llorrin started, but Jeredan laughed dismissively.  

“She played the entire crew. Remember when we were caught in the mist, and our ships got separated? That mist was her doing. She caused the ships to drift off.”

“You’re lying. I would’ve noticed something like that, and so would Llorrin” Wheann said, narowing his eyes.

Jeredan shook his head.

“Nu-uh. Separating herself was her way of making sure she could deal with the mutiny the way she wanted to without interference. That girl doesn’t take insults lightly, and she never liked that damn dwarf. Oh, she also sent her water elementals below this ship to push it back towards her own once she was done hanging the traitors. She wanted Llorrin to get the credit for bringing the ships back together and make Chuth look bad for letting his ship drift off. Remember the rain? Also her doing. Chuth was an experienced sailor, he would have lighted torches to keep track of each other’s positions before the distance between the ships became too large, but there was no way he could do that with the rain. So you see, she fooled everyone on this ship. Well, everyone except me. Now, can we get on with our interrogation?” Jeredan explained, sounding almost bored, like they were fools not to have figured this out by themselves.

Llorrin was astonished by this revelation. He was reluctant to believe Jeredan, but the plot seemed far too intricate for him to have come up with himself, not to mention he had very little to win by lying to him about this. What was worse than the actual reveal was how smug Jeredan was about it however, and what his knowledge of Irewyth’s plotting implied…

“How do you know all this?” he asked him, but he had a feeling he already knew.

“We had similar interests,” Jeredan said with a slight nod. “That girl is sick of being stuck on a boat with nothing to kill, and so am I. She thinks she’s destined for greatness, you know. She wants to see her name put in every history book. I’m a bit more modest than that, but I’d still enjoy cracking some orcish skulls before I go down. She was smart enough to see I felt nothing for letting some damn mutineers who wanted to continue this damn exploration take over. She approached me, revealed her plans and asked me to make sure you stayed alive while she was gone. After all, she couldn’t know if the mutineers were going to try and make use of the opportunity to take over your ship.”

Llorrin remembered how Jeredan had guarded him while they were stuck in the mist, how it had already seemed back then like he knew something more.

Wheann seemed frozen, and Jeredan appeared to take delight in seeing his shock. “You… You…” the half-elf stammered.

“I wonder what Irewyth is going to do to you once she finds out you revealed her little secret,” Llorrin said darkly. Somehow the idea of seeing Jeredan in pain suddenly felt really appealing.

Jeredan shrugged. “She promised to put in a good word with you in for me after she’d killed Chuth. She said she had you in her grasp and could easily convince you to make me captain if I helped her, but then of course, she got stabbed and I had to take matters into my own hands, which means I don’t owe her anything. Besides, it’s not like you would let this slip out, and there’s not a whole lot she can do right now either,” Jeredan said casually.

His confidence was aggravating. Llorrin contemplated punching him again, but then realized it was Wheann he should be concerned about. Despite the fact he had little to no sympathy for the half-elf’s anger, he still found it very unfortunate to have lost a friend.

“Listen, I can tell every day on this ship is eating you up alive. You joined the fleet voluntarily so if you want, you can always leave again once we reach the mainland. There’ll be a whole new continent for you to explore. No more small islands or boring coastlines. That’s got to be worth something, right? I won’t stop you from leaving,” Llorrin said before he realized Irewyth was probably the only reason Wheann hadn’t departed from the expeditionary fleet already.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you,” Wheann said, a hardness to his eyes he hadn’t witnessed before. Llorrin answered that look with a hardness he didn’t know he possessed. Friend or not, Wheann was crossing the line.

“You’re the one with the problem, you brought it up, and we both know it’s not going to get settled overnight. As long as you’re on this ship, you’re going to answer to me and follow my orders. If you can’t stand that, and it seems to be the case, I’d advise you to leave” he said, his own voice suddenly reminding him of captain Adane’s.

“I wish I could leave already,” Wheann said bitterly, looking past him.

“You can,” Llorrin said, aware they were wasting time, and he already regretted having this conversation in front of Gronbag.

“You know what we orcs do when we’re fighting over a woman? We fight, we don’t throw pretty words at each other,” the orc chimed in, oblivious to Jeredan’s murderous glare.

“I wouldn’t jeer too much about it,” Llorrin said, turning towards the cage and taking a step towards it as Wheann hurried to leave. “It just put me in a bad mood.”

Gronbag raised his hands defensively, but he simultaneously showed a toothy grin.

“Oh, should I be afraid now? Are you going to ask your big friend to beat me up this time?” he sniggered.

“He’s not my friend,” Llorrin said, shooting Jeredan a glare.

“I’m the best friend you have, you fool,” Jeredan protested, oddly serious. “Good friends tell hard truths.”