Thrall - Christie Golden [3]
Many were not so charitably minded, and Thrall felt angry gazes being cast his way as he approached Nobundo. Others came silently to join in this informal gathering.
“You know the spell we were attempting to work,” Nobundo said, his voice still calm. “It was to soothe and comfort the earth. It is admittedly a difficult working, but one that all of us here know how to do. Can you tell us why you—?”
“Stop dancing around the subject,” growled Rehgar. He was a massive orc, battle-scarred and hulking. One would not look at him and think “spiritual,” but whoever made that assumption would be very wrong. Rehgar’s life journey had thus far taken him from gladiator to slave owner to loyal friend and advisor to Thrall, and that journey was far from over. Now, though, a lesser orc than the former warchief of the Horde might have quailed before his anger. “Thrall … what the fel was going on with you? We could all feel it! You weren’t focusing!”
Thrall felt his hands curl into fists and forced them to relax. “Only because you are my friend will I permit you to speak so to me, Rehgar,” Thrall said quietly, but with an edge to his voice.
“Rehgar is right, Thrall,” Muln Earthfury said in his deep, rumbling voice. “The working is hard, but not impossible—not even unfamiliar. You are a shaman, one who has been through all his people’s true rites. Drek’Thar hailed you as the savior of his people because the elements spoke to you when they had been silent for many years. You are no inexperienced child, to be coddled and sympathized with. You are a member of this Ring—an honored and strong one, or else you would not be here. And yet you crumbled at a crucial moment. We could have silenced the quakes, but you shattered the working. You need to tell us what is distracting you so that we may aid you.”
“Muln—” Aggra began, but Thrall lifted a hand.
“It is nothing,” he said to Muln. “The work is demanding and wearying, and I have a great deal on my mind. Nothing more than that.”
Rehgar uttered an oath. “You have a great deal on your mind,” he spat. “Well, the rest of us do as well. Trivial things like saving our world from ripping itself apart!”
For a second, everything went red in Thrall’s vision. Muln spoke before Thrall could. “Thrall was leader of the Horde, Rehgar, not you. You cannot know what burdens he bore and perhaps still does bear. And as one who until recently owned slaves, you cannot sit in moral judgment upon him!”
He turned to Thrall. “I am not attacking you, Thrall. I am merely seeking to see how we can aid you, that you can better aid us.”
“I know what you are doing,” Thrall said, his voice close to a snarl. “And I do not like it.”
“Perhaps,” Muln said, striving for diplomacy, “you are in need of some rest for a while. Our work is very demanding, and even the strongest must tire.”
Thrall did not even grace the other shaman with a verbal reply; he merely nodded curtly and stalked off to his shelter.
He was angrier than he had been in some time. And the person he was most angry with was himself.
He knew he had been the weak link in the chain, had failed to put forth the ultimate concentration at the moment when it was most desperately needed. He could not yet drop deep into himself, touch the Spirit of Life within, which was what had been required of him. He didn’t know if he would ever be capable of doing so. And because he could not do this thing, the effort had failed.
He was unhappy with himself, with the working, with the petty arguments—with everything. And he realized with a start that this unhappiness had been with him for a long time.
A few months ago, he had made a difficult decision: he had chosen to leave the rank of warchief of the Horde in order to come here, to the Maelstrom, to follow the path of shaman rather than leader. He had thought at first that it would be temporary. He had relinquished command to Garrosh Hellscream, son of the late Grom Hellscream, in order to travel to Nagrand to study with his grandmother, Greatmother Geyah. This was before the great Cataclysm that had shaken