On Leadership

For the first time in a long, long while, Desmond Hodges was worried. It was infuriatingly hard to concentrate on the task at hand without lapsing into hysterical ranting. He was good at hysterical ranting; he was pathetic at trying to lead a clan. 
There had certainly been events more significant and disastrous than this, including a particular catastrophe to do with the Wrath Gate, but these had been affairs he had no influence over. It was the Dark Lady's or Thrall's job to deal with those kinds of dilemmas. The onus wasn't on him to steer the good ship back to port. 
But now... well, was now he was leading half of a Kalimdor military clan with the mission to save the other half. Right at the time when he was finally reading to embark on a Northrend campaign and cut swathes through the Lich King's war machine, a disease the apothecaries had cheerily named Isiliosis had reared its head. He knew and understood little about the illness, other than the fact that it originated from Feralas and that it was fatal. But now it dominated everything he did. 
And that was because his Chieftain and two sergeants had caught it, and were currently stranded near an ogre mound in Feralas. It meant that Hodges was the only one capable of leading the recovery campaign. The Stone Guard and Sergeant Shra were nowhere to be found, and neither was the Den Mother. Admittedly, informing the Den Mother of her mate's predicament was probably something that Hodges was happy to skip the business of, but at least after all the initial snorting and shouting and amputations, there would be someone else to sort things out. 
He had found a nice little corner of the War Quarter to examine a map of the Plaguelands. That, at least, was a region he knew well. When they went to Un'Goro and Silithus to gather regeants, he'd had to get the grunts to lead the way. He'd never been to the true wilds of Kalimdor. Even in the Barrens he'd stuck to the road. The lizard-like beasts with exotic names that they had to claim the skin of were brutal creatures, and he hoped never to have to see them again, even if something told him that he certainly would. It HAD been somewhat of a pleasure to take down a Silithid the size of a mammoth, but you had to have a shaman's eyes to see that silver lining. 
Hodges was only a corporal, and that wasn't even an official rank of the Horde. It was a throwback to his days as a human - a gesture of good will, a pat on the back for joining in with Orcs, Tauren and Trolls. But that previously token position had elevated him to the point of supreme authority in the times of crisis, and he utterly hated it. 
Somehow though, they had harvested more than half of the ingredients. This would have been more of a comfort were it not for the fact that there were bandits around, seeking to make profit out of calamity. There was a good chance that Ursala had already fallen prey to one such attack, that had reportedly left her out cold. That, obviously, had been his failing. He should have given all the reagents to Ciite Stonemane, or Naudiz. Not to fragile young Ursala. 
But he had only the dregs of the clan anyway - the reserves. These were the ones not called up to personally accompany the Chieftain. In some, he could see why. Hodges had had to endure psychotic charges into devilsaurs by Ciite, the voice vomit of a an orc by the name of Bonechewer, the humming of Naudiz, and an assassin who liked talking out of turn in places she couldn't be seen and reprimanded for it. They were all, he supposed, competent, and far beyond the ability of most of the privates he'd dealt with in his past life, but it was stressful all the same. He had to admit to liking some of them: Awqe was a good sort even if everyone hated him, and Naudiz, for all her grinning and humming, was probably his "friend", but to be the highest figure of authority to this lot, a lot he had only known for a month... yes. Stressful. 
Death didn't worry Hodges much. He'd seen it before and honestly, he wished he'd never awoke from it. Now that he was up and running, possibly for all of eternity come to think of it, he wanted to lead an unlife that wasn't painful and cold. Awqe and Rowka had suggested it was all a second chance, and Hodges had no time, inclination or energy to explain, in very vivid detail, about how mistaken that flowery and inspiring depiction was. He couldn't find the right words. 
What worried Hodges was that this was going to end in failure, and almost forty years in some military or another was going to have absolutely no effect on anything that mattered. He was the one with the responsibility. Just like "second chances", he scoffed at the notion that this was his "fifteen minutes of fame". It was more like the "5 days of not being able to save my clan". 
And even if he did, and the clan fell apart, and he was brought back to fight in Northrend under the Dark Lady's banner... as much as he wanted to return to Northrend... it would not feel right. Not in the slightest. Knowing that people had died from his incompetency. It had happened far too many times when he was still alive, and a few times in undeath, and he was just about sick of it. He wasn't going to let it happen again. 
Hodges finished off dotting points on the map, and peered at it. Now, at least, he knew what he was doing...
Category:Story