last night the drums took my spirit up into a whirlwind and i heard a voice coming from beyond the world

“I think you are another of these desert-loving English…No Arab loves the desert. We love water and green trees, there is nothing in the desert. No man needs nothing. Or is it that you think we are something you can play with because we are a little people?” –Lawrence of Arabia

I take a sip of my beer. They keep the kegs down in the Cleft of Shadow where they stay cool; it’s so hot and the sun beats so hard up on the battlements of Orgrimmar that you can’t get through watch-duty without cool drink, and as long as its watered the warchief lets the watch have their beer.

At least I’m wearing a hat. Kavok Len, Breach-pierce clan (I do not know this family) stares out at the horizon and I don’t know how that sun hasn’t made him blind by now. At the least he must have a monster headache. I’m sitting up here with him and the rest of his men on a dog’s afternoon in Orgrimmar. Southern wall; afternoon watch. This is the time to stay out of the sun for those who are off-duty, so there isn’t much for a tourist to do. And what can I say, I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that I have a streak of masochistic curiosity!

So people, even in the Horde, say the orcs are rapacious; they take what they want when they see it. But they don’t come from a place like Durotar. I’ve never been to Nagrand but from what I can tell, Nagrand is like Mulgore but with less gravity.

And yet when the orcs found Mulgore, they gave it away.

“Come on,” rumbles Kavok’s voice, his eyes narrowing. In the south, a great anvil of dark cloud is massing behind the Valley of Trials. Some times they’ll tower up for days, and the fire-shamans on the peak beat drums and burn torches to guide their coming, like a gnome directing traffic on one of their airstrips.

Kavok, like many of his people, see the clouds as a great enemy. Jul Zogg T’kon Zen – Keeper of Water, the ancient Draenic spirit of droughts. Keeper in the sense of a miser, a hoarder who buries food while their brothers are hungry.All that rain locked up in that dark tower, rising, rising up in the bowl of the sky.

Kavok dashes his empty mug against the battlement and howls his challenge at Jul Zogg; the other watch, stirring from afternoon torpor, take up the shout. I’m not a shouty guy, but I stand up and beat my hooves against the strong wood underfoot, causing a clatter. “COME AND FACE US!” shouts Kavok at the storm. That water will anoint the young ones, if it comes. It will make the plants grow for a time, if it comes. It will keep the game alive, if it comes.

The challenge-shout subsides and still it does not come. The green people must endure their self-imposed sentence a little longer. Sometimes I just want to give an orc a hug and tell them it’ll turn out okay. But that results in severe pummelings and I’ve learned to suppress it.

This is Orgrimmar, city of Enduring. But it can be a hell of a party.

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