Before the World Broke — A Vegetaone Story
Blade's Edge looked as though the world had tried to grow teeth.
Vegeta stood at the northern end of the approach from Zangarmarsh and considered whether the teeth were directed at him.
A goblin beside a broken cart answered the question.
“Mostly at the wheels.”
She had one boot against the hub and both hands around a wrench. A ridge of splintered stone rose above her. Farther along, the track passed beneath a natural arch narrow enough to make Vegeta distrust the mountain's intentions.
“Rella,” she said. “If you're going to stare, hold this.”
He took the wrench.
“I was admiring the country.”
“Don't. Encourages it.”
A Tauren stepped around the cart carrying its unloaded axle across his shoulders.
Vegeta looked up.
The stranger wore battered plate and carried a broad shield beside an axe. Old cuts marked the shield's face. One horn had a leather wrapping near its base; the rest of him looked equally practical.
He set the axle down carefully enough not to jar the crates beside it.
“You came through the marsh alone?”
“With a convoy until the turning.”
“Good.”
“You expected me to drown?”
“I expected you to have more sense than that.”
The Tauren smiled openly.
“Reddbull.”
“Vegetaone.”
Rella looked between them.
“Excellent. You've met. Now the cart.”
They reached Thunderlord Stronghold before dark.
Reddbull had come down from Northrend several weeks earlier. A healed wound still stiffened his left side when he lifted too quickly. He had meant to spend a few days helping the Outland convoys before going home.
“How many days?” Vegeta asked.
“Eighteen.”
“A generous few.”
“People kept needing the cart.”
Vegeta understood that better than he wanted to admit.
Sarn's forge stood against a blackened stone wall. The armorer was an orc with close-cropped hair, a damaged ear, and the habit of looking at metal before faces.
He studied Vegeta's shoulders.
“Destroyer work.”
Vegeta stood a little straighter.
“You know it.”
“I know how much weight you've hung on two tired straps.”
Rella laughed.
Sarn pointed to a bench.
“Off.”
Vegeta surrendered the shoulderplates with reluctance.
The armorer examined their inner seams, then the maker's marks beneath the edges.
“Matched pieces come through Shattrath. Old campaign stock. Recovered sets. Nothing cheap and nothing improved by being worn over this mess.”
He tapped Vegeta's breastplate.
“This mess has served me.”
“Then let it finish with honor.”
The missing consignment mattered to more people than Vegeta.
Sarn laid its inventory on the workbench. Most of it was ordinary: fittings, repair steel, medicine, replacement tools for a quarry settlement beyond a mountain pass. A few pieces were valuable enough that Rella had locked their case separately.
Now the whole load was somewhere below the western ridge.
Bloodmaul raiders had taken the driver, three laborers, and the draft beasts. They had also taken the steel braces intended to keep the settlement's water channel from collapsing.
“Gorvek,” Reddbull said.
Sarn nodded.
“An ogre with more men than food. He's gathering the scattered bands. Calls every road through his valley his road.”
“A toll?” Vegeta asked.
“At first. Then whatever the wagons carried. Last week he wanted the people driving them too.”
Rella unrolled a sketch.
“He has the old quarry furnace. If he blocks our upper channel, the little camp below loses water. If he opens it all at once, the road washes away.”
Vegeta looked at the braces on the inventory.
The armor case no longer held his attention.
“How many people in the camp?”
“Twenty-seven,” Rella said. “More if the drivers are still alive.”
Sarn could spare six guards once the next caravan arrived.
The caravan was three days away.
Reddbull had found a side trail overlooking the furnace, but he had not taken it alone. The recovered axles and loaded carts had kept him useful where he was.
Vegeta spread the sketch flat.
“We look tomorrow.”
Reddbull nodded.
“Look,” Rella repeated. “You aren't a siege.”
Vegeta glanced at the Tauren.
Together they occupied most of the forge's clear floor.
“A modest one.”
Reddbull laughed.
Sarn did not.
“If you can reach the prisoners, bring them. If you can't, bring information. I won't pay for two more missing fighters.”
Vegeta nodded.
He knew that kind of order now.
That night, he wrote his first letter home.
Arrived. The mountains are offensive. The forge is competent. The job is larger than the letter, so I am looking before I do anything memorable.
He paused over the next line.
Met a Tauren warrior called Reddbull. He lifts axles without complaining, which makes him suspicious. We are scouting together. Six weeks still stands.
He gave the letter to the stronghold courier before supper.
Reddbull was sitting outside the forge, holding a bowl in one broad hand. He moved over when Vegeta approached.
There was room beside him.
Vegeta sat.
Beyond the wall, the mountains cut dark shapes against Outland's strange sky.
“Miss them already?” Reddbull asked.
Vegeta looked at him.
“Your letter,” the Tauren said. “You wrote the last line twice.”
“I dislike leaving things unclear.”
“Good.”
Reddbull ate another mouthful.
He did not ask Vegeta to explain what the last line had been.
End of Chapter Two