Seasons passed.
Velen, their prophet leader, had visited them two days ago… or was it four?
Lately Nobundo found it harder to remember some things.
Velen had come from one of the neighboring camps.
His exact location remained a closely guarded secret, in case one of their number was taken
alive and tortured.
The draenei could not give up information they did not possess.
At any rate, Velen had spoken to them about their future, about how they would have to
lie low for quite a long time, possibly years, to watch and wait and see how events concerning
the orcs would play out.
According to Velen, the greenskins had begun construction on something that seemed to be
monopolizing their time and resources.
The project had apparently diverted their attention from hunting down the surviving
draenei, at least for the time being.
What the orcs were building, not far from their base citadel in the scorched lands,
appeared to be some kind of gateway.
Velen seemed to know a great deal more that he did not say, but he was after all a prophet,
a seer.
Nobundo thought the noble sage must know many things, things he and others were simply not
wise enough to understand.
Nobundo watched now as Korin waded into the water with her fishing spear.
Something about her appeared different.
It seemed to him that her physique had changed in the past several weeks.
Her forearms had grown slightly larger; her face looked drawn; and her posture had deteriorated.
As improbable as it sounded, her tail seemed to have actually shrunk.
Herac and Estes approached, and Nobundo could have sworn he saw similar transformations
in them.
He looked down at his own forearms.
Was it his imagination, or did they appear swollen?
He had not felt right ever since…
ever since that night.
But he had assumed he would recover in time.
Now he was becoming increasingly worried.
Korin approached.
“I am finished for today.
I need to go lie down.”
She handed Nobundo her spear.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Korin attempted a smile that lacked conviction.
“Just tired,” she replied.
Nobundo sat atop the mountains overlooking Zangarmarsh, eyes closed.
He felt tired, tired to his very bones.
He had come here to be alone.
He had not seen Korin in several days.
She and the other two had holed up in one of the caves, and when he enquired as to their
condition, his enquiries were answered with unknowing shrugs.
As for the one called Akama, he was still unresponsive, barely hanging on despite Rolc's
continued efforts.
Something was drastically wrong.
Nobundo knew it: he had seen the changes in himself and in the other survivors, Akama
included.
The rest of the camp knew it as well.
They seemed to speak to him less and less, even Rolc.
And just the other day, when Nobundo had returned to camp with a few small fish, he was told
that they had plenty, that he should eat the fish himself… as if whatever malady was
plaguing him and the others could be spread by touching the same food he had handled.
Nobundo was disgusted.
Had his service meant nothing?
He had taken to spending long hours here among the hilltops, quietly contemplating, forcing
his mind to focus, trying desperately to achieve what still remained unattainable: access to
the Light.
It was if a door had been closed to him, as if the part of his mind that had been able
to make contact simply no longer functioned, or worse yet, no longer existed.
Even simple musings such as these made his head ache.
Lately it was becoming more and more difficult to articulate his thoughts.
His arms had continued to swell, a swelling that would not go away, and his hooves had
begun to splinter.
Pieces of them had actually fallen away and not grown back.
And all the while, the nightmares…
the nightmares persisted.
At least the patrolling orcish war parties had grown less frequent.
Reports had come in that whatever the orcs were constructing was nearing completion.
And it did appear to be some kind of gateway, just as Velen had predicted.
Good, Nobundo thought.
I hope they go through it, and I hope it carries them straight to their doom.
He arose and slowly, deliberately made his way back toward camp, grateful for the support
of the hammer, which had grown so heavy in recent weeks that he carried it head down,
using it more often than not as a walking stick.
Hours later he reached his destination and decided to see Rolc.
Together they could call a meeting to address the issue of the increasing intolerance displayed
by--
Nobundo stopped at the entrance to Rolc’s cave.
Korin was there, lying on a blanket.
She had now transformed so that she almost looked no longer like a draenei, but rather
like some parody of their race.
She was sickly and emaciated.
Her eyes were milky, and her lower arms had swollen to a massive size.
Her hooves had sloughed away to twin bony protuberances, and her tail was nothing more
than a small nub.
Despite her frail condition, she was struggling in Rolc’s arms.
“I want to die!
I just want to die; I want the pain gone!”
Rolc held her firmly.
Nobundo quickly approached, leaning close.
“Don’t be foolish!”
He looked at Rolc.
“Can you not cure her?”
The priest frowned at his friend.
“I have tried!”
“Let me go!
Let me die!”
A glow emanated from Rolc’s hands then, soothing Korin, subduing her gently until
her exertions lessened and finally stopped completely.
She broke down into racking sobs and curled into a fetal position.
Rolc motioned with his head for them to leave the cave.
Once outside, Rolc fixed a stern gaze on Nobundo.
“I have done all I know.
It’s as if her body, like her will, has been broken.”
“There must be something that can--some way to--" Nobundo struggled to properly communicate
his thoughts.
“We have to do something!” he finally blurted.
Rolc was silent for a moment.
“I worry for them, for you.
We have received reports that Shattrath survivors in the other camps are undergoing similar
changes.
Whatever this is, it is not responding to any kind of treatment, and it is not going
away.
Our people are afraid that if measures are not taken, we will all be lost.”
“What are you saying?
What has happened?”
Rolc sighed.
“Just talk.
For now.
I have tried to be the voice of reason, but even I cannot defend you and the others for
very long.
And, truth be told, I am not sure that I should.”
Nobundo felt bitter disappointment in his friend, in the one person he thought he could
trust, who was now succumbing to the same narrow-minded paranoia as the others.
At a loss for words, Nobundo turned and walked away.
Korin’s condition worsened, and the decision that Nobundo dreaded, that Rolc had spoken
of, was finally rendered a few days later.
Nobundo, Korin, Estes, and Herac were gathered before the camp members.
Some wore grim expressions; some appeared sad; others were unreadable.
Rolc, for his part, simply appeared conflicted but resolved, like a hunter who prefers not
to kill, but knows he must eat and is preparing to deal his prey a mortal blow.
As it turned out, it was Rolc the camp had chosen as their spokesperson.
“This is not easy for me, for any of us….”
He indicated the stoic assembly behind him.
“But we have spoken with representatives from the other camps, and together we have
come to a decision.
We believe it would be in the best interests of everyone involved if those of you who have
been… afflicted commune together, but… separate from those of us who remain in good
health.”
Korin, looking particularly forlorn, spoke in a harsh rasp: “We are being banished?”
Before Rolc could demur, Nobundo broke in: “That is exactly what this is!
They cannot solve our problems, so they… they hope to ignore us!
They just want us to go away!”
“We cannot help you!”
Rolc blurted.
“We have no idea whether or not your condition is contagious, and your decreased physical
abilities, your diminished mental faculties are a liability that we cannot afford.
There are not enough of us left to take chances!”
“What of the other, Akama?”
Korin asked.
“He will stay here in my care until he awakens,” Rolc responded, and then added, “if he awakens.”
“How kind of you,” Nobundo muttered, his words laced with sarcasm.
Rolc strode forward to stand defiantly before Nobundo.
Despite his failing health, Nobundo straightened and looked Rolc squarely in the eyes.
Rolc said, “You have said that you wonder if perhaps the Light is punishing you with
its silence, for your failure at Shattrath.”
“I gave everything at Shattrath!
I was prepared to die so that you, all of you could live!”
“Yes, but you did not die.”
“What are you--are you saying I deserted?”
“I think that if the Light has abandoned you, it has done so with reason.
Who are we to question the ways of the Light?”
Rolc looked back at the others for support.
Some of them looked away, but many did not.
“Whatever the case, I think it is time you accepted your new place in the order of things.
I think it is time you took the welfare of others into account….”
Rolc reached down and snatched the hammer from Nobundo’s hand.
“And I think it is time you stopped trying to be something you are not.”
Pg 4: t was a mistake to come here.
Nothing has changed.
You are still Krokul?you are still Broken.
No.
They would listen.
He would make them listen.
There was, after all, the epiphany.
Nobundo forced his eyes from the gathered assembly to the fountain in the center of
the small plaza.
From that water he asked for clarity.
He felt his thoughts resolve into focus.
He thanked the water and, leaning heavily on his stick, forced himself to meet the sea
of disapproving gazes below.
There was a moment of awkward silence.
“This is nonsense,” he heard someone whisper.
When at first he tried to speak, his voice sounded small and hoarse, distant to his own
ears.
He cleared his throat and began again, louder.
“I have come to… to talk to you about--”
“We are wasting our time.
What can a Krokul have to say to us?”
More voices of dissent joined in.
Nobundo faltered.
His mouth worked, but his voice was lost.
I was right.
This was a mistake.
Nobundo turned to depart, and looked up into the placid eyes of the prophet, their leader,
Velen.
The seer fixed Nobundo with a critical gaze.
“Going somewhere?”
***
Nobundo sat atop one of the cliffs overlooking the scorched lands.
They had not changed much in the last… how long had it been since he first ventured out
here?
Five years?
Six?
When he and the others were sent away to the new camp for Krokul, as they had finally come
to be called, Nobundo was angry, frustrated, and depressed.
He went to the farthest spot possible in the only direction he was allowed.
He had always meant to investigate the hills bordering Zangarmarsh, but at the base of
those hills were camps of the “unaffected", a region now off-limits to “his kind".
And so he ventured here through the blistering heat, to the peaks high above the most desolate
wastes on Draenor: wastes that had been lush glades before the orcs’ policy of hatred
and genocide, wastes created by the warlocks and their twisted magic.
At least the orcs presented less of a problem these days.
Some wandering orcish parties still patrolled, and they still killed the draenei on sight.
The orcs were fewer in number, however: many of the green-skinned savages had departed
through their gateway years ago and not returned.
As a result Nobundo had heard that his people were constructing a new city somewhere in
the marsh.
No matter, he thought.
It is a city I will never be welcome in.
The changes in Nobundo and the others continued.
Appendages appeared where before there were none.
Spots and warts and strange growths spread across their bodies.
Their hooves, one of the draenei’s most distinctive features, were entirely gone,
replaced by things that now resembled misshapen feet.
Nor was such change limited to the purely physical.
Their brains struggled more and more to maintain higher functions.
And some, some became lost completely, turning into vacant shells that meandered aimlessly,
conversing with audiences that existed only in their minds.
Some of those Lost Ones would simply wake up one day and wander off, never to return.
One of the first to do so was Estes.
Now Korin was left with only one of her companions with whom she had shared that dark time at
Shattrath.
Enough, he thought.
Stop putting it off.
Do what you came here to do.