Read World of Warcraft: Vol'jin: Shadows of the Horde for Free Online

suspecting.
    The pandaren carefully unwound the bandages. “I have my paw over your eyes. Open them, and I will slowly draw it away.”
    Vol’jin did as commanded, voicing a grunt meant to be a signal. Chen apparently took it as such, for he pulled back his paw. The troll’s eyes watered in the bright light; then Chen’s image swam into focus. The pandaren was much as Vol’jin remembered—stoutly built with a jovial sense about him, and an intelligence in his golden eyes. He was a very welcome sight.
    Then Vol’jin looked down at his own body and almost closed his eyes again. Sheets covered him to the waist, and bandages coveredalmost the rest of him. He noted that he did have both hands and all fingers. The long lumps beneath the sheets told him his lower extremities were likewise intact. He could feel bandages constricting around his throat, and itching suggested that at least a portion of one ear had been sewed back into place.
    He stared at his right hand and willed the fingers to move. They did, to his eye, but the sense of their moving took time to reach him. They seemed impossibly far away, but unlike when he’d first wakened, he could actually feel them. It be progress .
    Chen smiled. “I know there are many things you want to know. Shall I start at the beginning or the end? The middle would not be so good a place, but I could start there. But that would make the middle the beginning, wouldn’t it?”
    Chen’s voice rose with his explanation and its flight into folly. Other pandaren turned away, their interest in the conversation waning with their anticipation of tedium. In noticing them, Vol’jin also noticed the dark, ancient stone walls. As he had seen elsewhere in Pandaria, the place reeked of age, and yet, here, of strength as well.
    Vol’jin wanted to say “beginning,” but his throat refused. “Not end.”
    Chen looked back and apparently noted that the other pandaren had chosen to ignore them. “The beginning, then. I fished you out of a small watercourse far from here, at Binan Village. We did for you there what we could. You were not dying, but you were not healing either. Seems there was poison on the knife that did your throat. I brought you here, to the Shado-pan Monastery, at Kun-Lai Summit. If anyone could help you, the monks could.”
    He took a moment and surveyed Vol’jin’s wounds, shaking his head. The troll noticed no pity in his assessment, and this pleased him. Chen had ever been sensible when he wasn’t clowning, and Vol’jin knew Chen cast himself as a clown so others would forever underestimate how clever he truly could be.
    “I cannot imagine it was Alliance troops who did this to you.”
    Vol’jin’s eyes tightened. “My. Head. Gone.”
    The pandaren gave a short laugh. “Someone would be supping with the king in Stormwind, with your head the centerpiece, no doubt. But I figured you’d never let the Alliance catch you where they could hurt you so much.”
    “Horde.” Vol’jin’s stomach tightened. It wasn’t really the Horde; it was Garrosh. Vol’jin’s throat constricted before he could speak the name. The bitterness of the attempt lingered on his tongue regardless.
    Chen sat back and scratched at his chin. “That’s why I brought you here. There wasn’t any other choice for your care anyway, but your safekeeping . . .” The brewmaster sat forward, lowering his voice. “Garrosh leads the Horde now that Thrall is away, yes? He’s eliminating his rivals.”
    Vol’jin let himself sink back on the pillows. “Not. Without. Reason.”
    Chen chuckled, and try as he might, Vol’jin could detect no hint of reproof. “There’s not an Alliance head that’s touched a pillow that’s not had a nightmare of meeting you. Not surprising the same is true of a few in the Horde.”
    Vol’jin tried to smile and hoped he succeeded. “Never. You?”
    “Me? No, never. People like me, like Rexxar, we’ve seen you in battle being fierce and terrible. We’ve also