Shadows Within

Re-wrote a few portions of the chapter for ease of reading.

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The human stared at them, as passive as ever... just like he had for the last two weeks. Fronai shook his head at the rogue sitting in the cage as it swung like some old, heavy flag, back and forth on its chain, and sighed.
They had captured this one as he was wandering out in the Barrens, just north of Crossroads. He had been alone, quite unusual for a human. When the five guards surrounded him, however, they said he fought like a whirlwind, almost taking two of them down before they managed to subdue him.
The orc didn't know why he had been spared from the axe; maybe the Warlords just wanted a trophy for their troubles that they could show off to the rest of the Horde. Fronai didn't know, or even much care.
Everyone was expecting the inevitable raid by the Alliance to retrieve their ally... but as the days dwindled on, it was clear that no raid was coming. And so, the human sat, watching the comings and goings in the Valley of Strength, stranded by his own people.

He certainly was a strange one. The warrior didn't think he was very old, perhaps twenty-one or twenty-two winters at the most, which by itself confused the Orc. How could someone so young and sick-looking fight so well against a group of trained soldiers?
His skin was deathly pale, like it hadn't seen the sun in years; his frame was thin and tapered, with only light traces of muscle on the little skin that could be seen, and all of his natural lines seemed sharp and harsh, from his bare feet up to the short mop of coal black hair. The war axes of the Horde would surely have broken him in half if they had managed to connect.
And then there were his eyes. Those crystal blue orbs seemed far too sharp and bright to belong in a human's head, and they followed everything... of course, the boy didn't have much else to do, other than make sure his faded grey shirt or dark leather pants didn't develop a new hole.

His looks were hardly the only odd thing about him. The first few days, he barely ate or drank anything. A loaf of bread here, a bottle of water there, but not ever enough to be called a meal. After four or five days, though, they realized that he wasn't starving, and simply stopped giving him so much.
Not like it mattered; Rajas, a troll mage that had also been assigned to watch the boy, simply conjured some food and water, then looked over at the rogue. More often than not, he would shake his head, and that would be that.
After nine days, Fronai began to notice that the boy didn't sleep very much, either. He would feel the human's eyes boring into his back in the dead of each night, and would turn around to find that same look; a passive, calm stare that he always wore.
That face barely ever changed, no matter what. The children would come by sometimes and call him names, the citizens would throw various insults at him, but he would just look at them with those cold blue eyes and not move.

Sometimes, Rajas or one of the others would look over at him and see his mouth moving as he stared out from his cage. He never said anything, except one time when a goblin was in town.
They paid the green creature to translate for them, and they asked what he was doing out there to begin with.
"Staying out of sight," he told them, and when they asked him what he was hiding from, he only told them, "Dun Morogh," and said no more.

After a month of being held in Orgrimmar, one of the higher-ups decided to move the captive to Crossroads, to keep him from being a distraction. Fronai, Rajas and Dagor, the only forsaken guard, were sent with him, just to make sure nothing happened.
They unhooked the chain and set the cage in a sort of cairrage. For a brief moment, the rogue wad a questioning look on his young face, but a shrug and a sigh later, it melted back into that passive, watching stare.

When they arrived, a larger cage, sitting on the ground, had been built for the human, who didn't make any attempt to break and run when they moved him the few short feet from one door to the next.
He stood up for a moment and walked around with a bit of a smirk, perhaps glad to be able to stretch his muscles. Soon after, though, he went back to his watching.
Crossroads was suddenly abuzz with activity; a captive was a rare thing, especially since most humans fought to the death rather that risk capture.

Many people came to look at the rogue, sitting quietly and watching them hurl insults and curses at him. Sometimes, he would mouth to himself again when there was no one around, but no words ever left him.
There was one day when a new face came to see the coal-haired boy, a one-eyed old orc that watched him for a long time. There was an air of something between them; perhaps it was recognition, wonder, or something else altogether, but unlike the majority of the human's visitors, there were no words spoken.
Rajas and Fronai both watched this strange scene, silently preparing for the worst to happen. After what felt like a small eternity, the grey-haired orc decided to leave. He gave the human a nod and said in his low, rough voice, "Strength and honor."
To Fronai's mild surprise, the human smirked at the words and waved lightly to the warrior's back.

Another twelve days passed without incident, with no sign of any rescue for the rogue. If the Orc had to guess, the human wasn't even expecting anyone to come... but Fronai had been wrong before.
The simple grey shirt he had been wearing hadn't been washed since his capture, nor the leather pants, but the young man had yet to make any motion to care. Everything else had been confiscated by the guards, and Fronai wouldn't doubt that it had all been sold off by now.

Then it happened.

There wasn't any warning. Even the bright-eyed scouts had missed them.
A mob of satyrs poured down from Ashenvale and bore down on Crossroads. They swarmed around the buildings like a wave, surging southward despite the best effort of the Horde's soldiers.
As Fronai fought, he heard wood and metal being torn asunder behind him.
"Da prisoner's loose, mon!" Rajas bellowed out as the orc turned around.

He charged out of the cage, lightning fast. The two satyrs who had freed him followed, but even in the din of combat, Fronai knew that they weren't here to free the human.
Leaping over a falling guard, the rogue glanced behind him, then doubled hastily back to the dead orc, yanking a dagger out from the soldier's belt.
"Shit," the warrior heard Dagor mutter, "now he's armed!"
Fronai didn't know what was going on, but followed his instincts and began to cut a path to the rogue.

The two satyrs ran straight at the boy... but one fell over as the human effortlessly tripped him, then wrenched the other's arm behind its back. One, two, three quick stabs, and the twisted creature dropped dead.
Without pausing, the boy ran to the east, leaping over corpses, and with a feat of acrobatics, jumped onto a satyr's shoulders. The rogue only needed a moment to steady himself, then he was off, hopping across the creatures like a set of stones in a river.
A high jump later, and he came down onto the one who looked larger than the rest with all his weight.

The creature collapsed to the ground, sending them both sprawling across the dirt. The satyr stumbled and struggled to rise, disoriented, but the human tucked into a roll and leapt to his feet with trained ease.
A dash for momentum, and then the boy's arms were a flurry of stabs and open-fisted strikes to the dazed satyr. A raking slash to the face, gouging the creature, and the rogue slipped behind him with a powerful stab between the ribs, wrenching the dagger around hard enough to snap the blade.
Quickly, the boy jammed three fingers into the gaping wound and pulled, hard. With a loud crack, one of the satyr's ribs was ripped free, then almost instantly jammed back into its neck.

A gout of blood sprayed the human, but Fronai noticed something much more important; the satyrs, without a leader, began to break and run with incredible speed. Cheers rose up from the soldiers, and several hunters tore away to pursue the foul creatures.
The rogue, however, just looked at the dead beast like anything else, and started to walk back to his cage, nonchalantly ignoring the enormous spatter of arcane-tainted blood running down his body.

"Wait," Fronai called out, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Where did you learn that?"
Rajas shook his head at the warrior. "Fronai, ya dope," he chided to hid guildmate, "he don' know de language, mon."
Just out of their sight, the human's face cracked into a self-satisfied smirk.

"Wanting to bet?"

The three guards stopped, slightly dumbstruck, and looked at the human as he turned his head to face them.
"Wha'choo say, boy?" the mage asked in a soft voice.
"Are you... wanting to bet I know... not Orcish?" the human told them with a passive indifference, only furthering their amazement.
Dagor was the first to recover, his dead, glowing eyes dropping into a glare. "Well, you suck at it, kid," the forsaken said flatly.
It took a moment, but the boy replied, "I am... knowing of... this, dead one," he said in a slow, plodding tone, "but I have... been made learning from... hearing. An easy thing, this... is not, let me making... surely of you."

Without another word, the human went back to his cage, stared at his shirt, and attempted to wring the fluids out of it.
Fronai looked at him, then back to his companions, giving the troll a long, thoughtful face. "Perhaps Elarian should know about this?"
Rajas shrugged. "Mebbe. What, choo tink she'l be able to get de boy pardoned?"
"She's connected," the warrior reminded his companion. "This kid could be of use."

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