Before the World Broke — A Vegetaone Story
Sarn's price for fitting the helm involved hauling coal.
Vegeta considered this an abuse of a valuable warrior.
Rella considered it overdue.
Reddbull carried the other end of the first load and laughed whenever Vegeta looked at him.
By evening, the helm sat correctly. By the next morning, the stronghold had reinforced its western gate, moved the kitchen stores, and arranged a second route for the families sheltering inside.
Gorvek attacked the forge instead.
His men had crossed beneath the old quarry shelf, using the passage Marn had drawn on Sarn's map. The watchmen saw them before they reached the wall, but the outer furnace store stood beyond the gate.
It held the fuel.
The repair iron.
Half the tools needed to put the settlement's channel back together.
Gorvek meant to burn what he could not carry.
Rella was inside counting the newly unloaded braces when the first fire pot broke against the door.
Vegeta heard her shout through the forge wall.
He reached the store with both greatswords drawn.
Reddbull came beside him carrying his shield.
Sarn followed with the guards.
Nobody had asked Vegeta whether the armor fitted well enough to fight in.
He discovered it did.
The first raider expected the left sword to recover slowly.
It did not.
Vegeta let its weight bring his whole body around, guiding the right blade into the space the first had opened. He was no longer trying to win two separate fights with two separate arms.
He stepped.
Struck.
Recovered with his feet beneath him.
The new gauntlets held firm. The greaves let him turn without the old knee hinge catching. The Battle-Helm stopped a glancing blow from finding the wound beneath it.
None of those things chose his next movement.
He did.
Behind him, Reddbull put the shield above Rella while she crawled out through the store's low side opening.
“The oil!” she shouted.
Two sealed jars stood inside beside the burning door.
Sarn started toward them.
Reddbull caught him by the coat.
“Show me another way.”
The armorer pointed at the loading hatch.
They went around together.
Gorvek met Vegeta outside the store.
The ogre's hammer struck low, toward the greaves. Vegeta turned the blow aside with the flat of one sword and stepped inside the longer weapon's reach.
His other blade opened a seam in the patchwork breastplate.
Gorvek drove an elbow against him.
Vegeta struck the ground hard enough to force air from his lungs.
Above him, the furnace hammer rose.
He rolled toward the ogre rather than away.
Iron hit dirt beside his shoulder.
Vegeta got one knee beneath him.
The ogre lifted the hammer for another blow.
Reddbull's shield struck the weapon's haft.
“Up!”
Vegeta rose.
The Tauren did not hold Gorvek alone. He moved beside Vegeta, using the shield to spoil the hammer's sweep while the swords kept the ogre from recovering a clear line.
They drove him away from the store.
Step by step.
Gorvek backed toward the quarry path, where two of his men were already fleeing.
Then Rella shouted again.
The loaded fuel rack had tipped across the hatch.
Sarn was beneath one corner, his leg trapped by a bent iron stay. He had pushed both oil jars outside. Reddbull could see one smoking where burning oil from a shattered lamp had reached its wrapping.
Gorvek saw the same thing.
He smiled.
Vegeta could stay with the ogre and finish the fight.
Reddbull could try to reach Sarn alone.
Neither knew whether one pair of hands would lift the rack.
“Leave him,” Vegeta said.
He meant Gorvek.
Reddbull understood.
They ran to the hatch together.
Vegeta sheathed both blades before taking the rack's heated edge. He hooked his gauntlets beneath it and lifted while Reddbull forced the iron stay away from Sarn's leg.
Rella pulled the armorer clear.
One of the guards rolled the smoking jar down the bank toward bare rock and smothered it with sand.
The rack shifted.
Vegeta's old breastplate strap tore again.
The plate caught on a projecting hook.
For a heartbeat, it held him against the falling rack.
He tore the last fastening loose and stepped free as Reddbull hauled him backward.
The rack hit the ground.
The empty breastplate remained beneath it.
Sarn sat against the wall with Rella supporting his injured leg.
Beyond the store, the guards had closed the quarry turning.
Gorvek tried to force his men back toward it.
An arrow struck his shoulder.
His next hammer blow hit a shield and left his side exposed.
The guard captain's spear found the seam Vegeta had opened.
Gorvek fell.
His remaining raiders ran.
Vegeta stayed beside Sarn until the armorer stopped trying to get up.
They spent the following week finishing the work that had brought them there.
With Marn's directions and the surviving guards, the stronghold recovered the stolen consignment. Most of the medicines had been kept sealed for trade. The missing case had been pried open, but its marked pieces remained in Gorvek's store, too recognizable to sell locally.
The channel braces went back to Dorrak.
Rella and Hessa took the first load down.
Vegeta escorted it with Reddbull and helped set the replacement supports. When water reached the settlement trough again, nobody gave a speech. A child filled a pot. A woman watered the garden. Dorrak sat on the wall and put both hands over his face.
Marn and his nieces found work at the stronghold kitchen, where Loma's cooking pot immediately became the subject of a serious dispute over stew.
Sarn fitted the last piece from the recovered case.
A Destroyer Breastplate, originally brought from Shattrath for a buyer who had cancelled his journey north.
The stronghold paid for the recovery and defense. Vegeta used his share for the plate. Reddbull used his to repair the families' cart and send a letter home.
Neither thought the other had chosen badly.
Sarn worked from a stool while his leg healed.
He checked the full set on Vegeta three times.
Battle-Helm.
Shoulderblades.
Breastplate.
Gauntlets.
Greaves.
Five pieces fitted to one warrior, with his serviceable boots and belt beneath them and two familiar red swords crossed behind.
Vegeta stood before the polished sheet Sarn used as a mirror.
For once, he had no immediate complaint.
The armorer noticed.
“Can you still bend?”
Vegeta bent.
“Lift?”
He lifted the coal basket.
Sarn pointed across the room.
“Good. There.”
Reddbull laughed until Vegeta threatened to make him carry it.
The return convoy left the next morning.
Vegeta wrote before it did.
Work finished. Five pieces. Two swords that finally agree with one another. Returning on the route I gave you.
He added another line.
Reddbull is coming as far as the northern connection. I think you should meet him.
Then he folded the paper and secured Luvz's leather punch beside his spare buckles.
He had borrowed something.
He intended to bring it back.
At the northern connection, Reddbull tightened the strap of his pack. The road toward his own home divided from the one Vegeta's wagon would take to Durotar.
“This is me,” Reddbull said.
Vegeta climbed onto the wagon and looked back at him.
“You could come farther. Super will complain about feeding another Tauren, but he complains about feeding me, too.”
Reddbull smiled. “I've been away long enough. I ought to get home.”
“Then get there safely.”
They clasped forearms. The driver clicked his tongue, and the wagon began to move.
Reddbull stood by the crossroads with his shield on his back. He had meant what he said. There were roads he needed to take and people he ought to visit. But he watched Vegeta lean down to help the driver secure a loose bundle, then laugh when the knot slipped anyway.
He thought of the furnace, the broken lift, the children walking toward safety. For the first time in a long while, leaving a good fight behind did not feel like leaving a duty unfinished. It felt like walking away from a friend before the friendship had properly begun.
“Vegeta!”
The Orc turned.
Reddbull started after the wagon.
“Wait up for me!”
Vegeta called for the driver to slow.
“Forget something?”
“No.” Reddbull caught the side rail, breathing a little harder than he cared to admit. “I like this company. Thought I'd see where it goes.”
Vegeta held out a hand to help him up.
“Stonewake, first. After that, we'll see.”
Reddbull took it.
End of Chapter Six