The sandy, coastal grass smoldered to a soundtrack of wails and invocations of loa early that evening. A handful of the Dark Iron dwarves milled about a pumpjack they’d assembled from spare parts in a chest they’d dragged there, capping an oil well they’d’ claimed further from the beach, though the majority of the dwarves busied themselves looting the wounded survivors of Raptari Honor Guard. Over the course of an hour or so, the dwarves had severed the limbs of the Zandalari trolls, leaving those who hadn’t been killed outright helpless in the sand. A tent had been set up a few yards away from the gore and detritus of the battlefield, wherein the diplomats had been sent to wait.
Marinna paced back and forth, brainstorming alone while her human counterparts sat traumatized on a long piece of driftwood laid out as a bench. Linda stared at the sand in a sort of shock while Semir chewed on his nails; neither of them seemed aware that Marinna was talking to them.
“Outrageous! Outrageous, scandalous, and unacceptable! That’s what we’ll tell the leadership back in Stormwind. Never in my entire career have I seen…he’s coming!”
Stained in blood and sand, the Overseer dragged the wounded Flamewaker by the tail, pulling the scaly elemental being toward the tent. The pyromancer walked alongside them, flipping through a few pages of notes while they approached. Linda and Semir didn’t even react, so frazzled were their nerves, until the leader of the Dark Iron warband dumped the Flamewaker right next to them. The creature had been battered and cut a few times, though it lived, and its breathing was heavy as it laid in a pile next to the driftwood. Semir almost poked it with a stick before Linda stopped him.
Marinna hurried over to her two dwarven counterparts, interjecting before the pyromancer could speak. “Let’s review how many laws you just broke, Overseer Smokestack!” she said, wagging her finger at him even though his back was turned toward her. The pyromancer stared daggers at her until he intervened.
“Darbakh is fine,” he replied while patting the pyromancer’s arm. He still didn’t look directly at any of the diplomats as he opened a treasure chest at one of the open sides of the tent and rummaged through it.
“Commander Darbakh, you have a lot to answer for!” Marinna said, raising her voice and visibly angering the pyromancer again.
He still didn’t turn to face her. “I’m not a commander.”
She stuttered in shock, arching her eyebrows downward in a tight V shape. “You just commanded an entire platoon of troops to engage the enemy on the eve of peace talks!”
Darbakh tapped a piece of wood against metal as he fiddled with some items in the chest. “Those aren’t troops; those are just some lads who owed me money. Now, they’re all debt free. The economy of Khaz Modan has been served.”
His words only enflamed Marinna further. “Economy? The economy, are you serious? Those trolls were people, Commander!”
“He’s an Overseer, actually,” the pyromancer said.
“I don’t care!” Marinna shouted loudly enough for the Flamewaker to groan in its spot in the sand and cover its ears. “You clearly heard me when I warned you of the coming peace! The movements of these Zandalari mariners were known, and we came specifically to avert this tragedy!”
Darbakh removed his helmet, revealing matted-down burgundy hair as he worked. He turned to face her, finally, revealing a beard styled with curled ringlets. “No tragedy occurred here; nothing happened.” He puffed on a pipe he’d been preparing while all three diplomats gasped in shock. “The Zandalari ship was sunk; the wreckage is out there under the waves. We reached this oil well unimpeded and claimed discovery rights. That’s all.”
“What!? I literally just watched you march on these trolls. This pyromaniac here even walled them in so they couldn’t flee. You’re a war criminal!”
The pyromancer glared at Marinna without any effect; civilian or no, the head diplomat wouldn’t be intimidated. Darbakh prevented any sort of confrontation by calmly handing the pyromancer a set of coals from the treasure chest.
“Could you check that they capped the well properly? Excess oxygen might need to be burned out.” He nodded to the pyromancer as she took the coals from him and led her out of the tent, angling himself to prevent her from staring daggers back at Marinna. Once she’d walked away to join the soldiers, Darbakh stepped back under the ten’s awning. “Let’s review what occurred here.”
“Yes, let’s review your breaches of Alliance diplomatic missions!” Marinna replied, moral outrage fueling her figurative fires.
Nodding and walking over to the Flamewaker, Darbakh sat down on the elemental creature as if it were a chair. The scaly beast groaned under his weight, but it didn’t move, as if used to the abuse. Marinna remained standing, confused by the behavior.
“What you’re saying, Marinna, is it? What you’re saying is that you arrived at the scene prior to the start of a conflict, failed to prevent it-”
“How dare you!”
“-and then stood idly by while a Horde expedition was massacred by Alliance ‘troops’ as you call them.”
“No!” Marinna cried, shaking with anger. “No, that’s not true!”
“So you say. But whatever you thought you saw won’t matter if the survivors among the Raptari live to tell their side of the tale. You’ve been seen, kinswoman. You stick out like a sore thumb here, as do the two humies here; the Zandalari will assume that you arrived to observe our victory. Consider this carefully.”
Linda and Semir finally looked up, seeking guidance in Marinna’s confused expression. She returned their sense of loss, even when shaking her head at Darbakh in disapproval. “But…you did this! You ignored the news I brought!”
“So you say. But I don’t recall hearing anything other than Zandali battle shouts. Explaining how you arrived on the scene in time to witness the skirmish, yet remained here to watch it play out, will prove difficult. Listen well and think clearly: to these survivors, as well as anyone who wasn’t here, you’ll appear to be my accomplice.”
“You dastard! You lying, murdering dastard!”
He only puffed on his pipe and leaned back, much to the discomfort of the Flamewaker coiled into the shape of a chair for him. “I’ve lied about nothing, kin; I’m merely telling it like it is. It’s not what you know; it’s what you can prove. If you spread news of what happened here, then you’ll have no means of proving your innocence. I’m looking out for your interests.”
“But…” Marinna hesitated, her anger confounded and diverted entirely. “We did nothing wrong. We only wanted peace!”
Humming and nodding, Darbakh puffed his chest out as if he were a hero. “Worry not, my Bronzebeard kin; peace is what you’ll have.” He stood up, toppling over the Flamewaker as he adjusted his armor and folded one arm behind his back, self-satisfied and assured. “We arrived and laid claim to this oil well shortly after the Zandalari ship sank off the coast, leaving the resources to this merry band whose debts have now been forgiven. The Horde will recoup its losses, the Alliance will extract every last drop from this well and leave, and everybody wins.”
A few of the Raptari Honor Guard survivors, maybe half a dozen of them, groaned in the bloodied spots on the beachgrass where they’d been maimed. Marinna closed her eyes and looked away. “These trolls - these people - need medical attention. And as soon as they’re well, they’ll talk. They have a right to be angry at you…at us.”
Darbakh said nothing. Arm still folded behind his back, he stared at Marinna without blinking. His eyes glowed a shade of red only slightly lighter than his beard and hair, perhaps tinged with orange, and the glow seemed to brighten - or the tent seemed to darken - as he stared. His face relaxed with comfort and innocence, yet the entire diplomatic team reviled that calmness.
“No! Marinna, we can’t consider this!” Linda said, finally speaking up when she realized what Darbakh intended to do.
“Prisoners need to be protected…right?” Semir asked, and not rhetorically. “Um…right?”
Legitimately stunned into silence, Marinna looked between her two subordinates and the faux commander on either side of her. Her hesitation granted Darbakh the opportunity to walk past them.
“Your peace will be had; your peace will be had. If a truce is being negotiated between the factions, then we ought to do our parts to ensure it endures. An embarrassing incident so early would damage those prospects, though.” He took a long drag at the edge of the tent, puffing smoke. A few of the Dark Iron soldiers who hadn’t removed their armor yet took notice. “Marinna and friends…do you have what it takes to support this truce?”
Linda stood up, nearly sweating with nervousness. “Marinna, don’t listen to him! No more death, please!”
“Yes…no more death,” Darbakh said without turning back to them. “Let it end here. Let us leave it all behind. Let us leave it…buried.”
At the word ‘buried,’ a few of the dwarves took up shovels and began digging shallow graves a good distance away from the pumpjack. They were quick and efficient in their work, and the Raptari Honor Guard began wailing to their loa when they realized what was happening.
Semir joined Linda, though he tripped over the Flamewaker’s broken tail. “Wait - ouch! Wait, let’s think about this. Maybe it makes sense.”
“This isn’t why we came out here!” Linda cried in protest, though the dwarves continued digging.
Finally turning back to them, Darbakh held his pipe up to Linda’s mouth. “Calm yourself, young one. This will end soon.”
The Kul Tiran human tried to puff on the pipe to calm down, but then she coughed and hacked after the first second. “That - ack! Hurrk! That isn’t tobacco! Why…why does this smell like peacebloom!”
Darbakh took a long drag and blew the smoke at her, causing the Alliance government employee to panic and return to the driftwood bench, spitting into the sand and exhaling as much of the smoke as she could. Marinna didn’t even notice, instead watching the dwarf kin from Shadowforge as they prepared a grave. The pyromancer crushed pieces of coal and sprinkled the chunks into the hole, and the Zandalari survivors were dragged over to the hole before the corpses of the fallen were. He stood directly next to Marinna as they both watched.
“I’ll send a letter of thanks to your superiors…unsolicited, of course,” he said quietly. “I have many contacts among the Blackrock clan of orcs, too…I’ll mention your name if they ever request parley with the Alliance. Your discretion is a most useful asset.”
Marinna shook her head and walked toward her companions. “Don’t ever mention my name to anyone, ever.” She didn’t turn back to see if he was watching her, instead fetching her coat from one corner of the tent and donning it. “Let’s go.”
Semir dusted the sand off of himself, accidentally stepping on the Flamewaker again while following his elder diplomat. “What…what are we going to do?”
Linda stood and followed them out of the tent toward their mounts. Behind them, the Raptari were dumped into the shallow grave and screamed as they were set ablaze with the enchanted coals. Semir watched as the corpses were piled in after them, and the fire was set to burn before they were all buried.
Head held low, Marinna climbed atop her mount and tried to blot out the sounds behind them. A Dark Iron banner was raised over the spot where Darbakh had beheaded the Zandalari Prelate, but not joy was had by the diplomatic team as they took their leave.
“The truce will hold,” Marinna said, sighing as she accepted a harsh lesson in reality. The three of them rode off, all doing their best to put the memory of what Darbakh Smokestack had done in the far reaches of their forgotten memories.
THE END