Book Two — Chapter Three
Durotar, years before the events of Book One
Vegetaone woke before the sun.
For several moments he lay still beneath the thin blanket, listening to the sea beyond Sen’jin Village.
The waves sounded different in darkness.
During the day they crashed against the shore with enough noise to drown out voices. At night they seemed farther away, rolling in and out like something breathing beyond the huts.
Beside him, Zuro slept with one arm across his face.
Vegetaone sat up.
His shoulder ached where the knife had cut him the day before, but Master Gadrin’s bandage was still clean. He flexed his fingers, rolled the arm once, and reached for his vest.
One of the seams near the ribs had opened again.
He stared at it.
“Of course.”
Zuro’s voice came from beneath his arm.
“If you are arguing with your clothes, do it quietly.”
Vegetaone looked at him.
“You’re awake.”
“I was not until your shirt offended you.”
Vegetaone pulled the small sewing kit from his bag.
Zuro uncovered one eye.
“You carry thread into battle.”
“It keeps my gear together.”
“You carry an axe for that.”
“That is not what axes are for.”
Zuro closed his eye again.
“You are limiting yourself.”
Vegetaone smiled and began stitching. The work took only a few minutes. The stitches were not as uneven as the ones he had made in the Valley of Trials. He tied the thread off, pulled the vest on, and tested the seam.
It held.
So did the repaired bag at his side.
He liked that.
Things that held.
Things that could be repaired instead of thrown away.
His axe leaned against a post beside the fire. The new haft was still pale where his hands had not yet darkened it with use.
Yesterday it had held too.
Today would be another test.
Master Gadrin was already awake. The old troll stood near the edge of the village, watching the eastern sky brighten over Durotar.
He did not turn when Vegetaone and Zuro approached.
“You sleep poorly,” Gadrin said.
Zuro yawned. “He sleeps poorly. I sleep perfectly until he begins sewing.”
Gadrin looked over his shoulder at Vegetaone. “You sew?”
Vegetaone adjusted the strap of his bag.
“A little.”
“Useful skill.”
Zuro made a wounded sound.
“Do not encourage him.”
Gadrin pointed north.
The old watchtower stood several miles away beyond the village, little more than a dark shape against the red hills.
“Two nights ago, one of our fishermen saw fire in the upper room,” Gadrin said. “There has been no guard stationed there in years.”
“Could be travelers,” Vegetaone said.
“Could be,” Gadrin replied.
“Could be thieves,” Zuro added.
“Could be,” Gadrin said again.
“Could be something worse.”
Gadrin looked at him.
“That is why you are going.”
Zuro sighed.
“I keep providing my own bad news.”
Gadrin handed Vegetaone a small waterskin.
“Do not rush inside because you see fire.”
Vegetaone nodded.
“I won’t.”
Zuro coughed.
Vegetaone looked at him.
Vegetaone looked at Zuro. “What?”
“Nothing,” Zuro said.
“You don’t believe me.”
“I believe you believe you,” Zuro replied.
Gadrin smiled.
“Good. One of you is learning.”
They left Sen’jin Village as the sun broke over the hills. The road followed the coast for a time before turning inland. Red dust clung to Vegetaone’s boots. Dry grass hissed in the wind. At first the tower seemed close.
Then the road bent around a ridge and it vanished.
When it appeared again, it looked no larger than before.
Vegetaone frowned.
“Has it moved?”
Zuro glanced at him.
“The tower?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“It looks the same distance away.”
“That is because you are learning how roads lie.”
Vegetaone decided not to ask.
They walked another half hour before Zuro raised a fist.
Vegetaone stopped.
Ahead, the road was empty.
Zuro crouched beside a patch of dust.
“Tracks.”
Vegetaone knelt.
Small footprints crossed the road from west to east. Bare feet. Many of them.
“Kobolds?” he asked.
Zuro nodded.
“Maybe.”
Vegetaone studied the ground.
“There are too many.”
“That is usually how kobolds solve problems.”
The tracks led toward the tower.
They followed.
A hundred paces later, Vegetaone smelled smoke.
Not the clean smoke of a cooking fire.
This was thick and greasy, mixed with something sweet.
Wax.
They rounded the ridge.
The watchtower stood in a shallow basin surrounded by broken stone and scrub.
It had once been part of a larger outpost. The outer wall had collapsed in several places. One side of the tower was blackened by an old fire, and the wooden platform near the top leaned away from the stone.
A thin line of smoke drifted from an opening above.
Zuro lowered his voice.
“There is your fire.”
Vegetaone looked at the ground.
Crates lay near the base of the tower.
Not empty crates.
Supply crates.
Several carried marks Vegetaone had seen in Sen’jin Village.
“The missing supplies,” he said.
“Some of them.”
They moved closer.
The first kobold appeared behind a broken wall. It was smaller than Vegetaone expected, wrapped in scraps of leather and carrying a chipped pickaxe. A candle had been tied to the top of its head with string.
It saw them.
Its eyes widened.
“You no take!” it shrieked.
Two more kobolds rose from behind the rubble.
Then four.
Then six.
Zuro slowly reached for an arrow.
Vegetaone counted again.
“Too many.”
“Yes.”
“Plan?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“Do not fight all of them.”
The kobolds began shouting.
“You no take candle!”
“Mine!”
“Stay back!”
One hurled a stone.
It struck Vegetaone’s shoulder.
He looked at Zuro.
“That plan is becoming difficult.”
Zuro fired.
The arrow struck the ground beside the closest kobold.
The creature jumped backward.
Vegetaone charged.
“Of course,” Zuro muttered.
They did not fight all of them.
Only most of them.
The kobolds were fast, loud, and completely unwilling to attack one at a time.
Vegetaone took a pickaxe handle across the back, a rock against his helmet, and something he hoped was mud across one boot.
But he remembered the road.
He remembered the thieves.
He did not swing wildly.
He used the broken walls.
He kept the kobolds from surrounding him.
When one rushed from the left, he stepped back and let it stumble into another. When two came together, he struck the ground in front of them and forced them apart.
Zuro’s arrows did the rest.
Not killing shots.
Warnings.
A shaft through a sleeve.
One through a sack.
One that pinned a kobold’s hat to a wooden post. The creature stood beneath it, staring upward.
“My candle!”
Vegetaone almost laughed.
The laughter disappeared when he saw the tracks.
Behind the tower.
Bootprints.
Large ones.
Human-sized.
They crossed over the kobold tracks and led directly toward the tower door.
Vegetaone raised one hand.
“Zuro.”
The troll followed his gaze.
His expression changed.
The remaining kobolds fled into the scrub.
Neither of them chased.
Zuro crouched beside the tracks.
“One person.”
“You sure?”
“Same tread. Same stride.”
The marks stopped at the tower door.
Vegetaone looked upward.
Smoke curled from the top floor.
“Someone is inside.”
Zuro stood.
“Yes.”
“Do we go in?”
Zuro stared at him.
Vegetaone waited.
The troll blinked.
“You are asking me?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to you?”
“I’m learning.”
Zuro smiled.
“Very slowly.”
He drew another arrow.
“We go in.”
Inside the tower, the air was thick with smoke.
Candles covered nearly every surface.
Small ones.
Tall ones.
White wax. Yellow wax. Black wax. Some burned inside broken bottles. Others had been pressed directly onto the stone floor. Melted wax ran down the walls in long frozen streams. Vegetaone stopped just inside the doorway.
“There are hundreds.”
Zuro pulled his scarf over his nose.
“Kobolds love candles.”
“This many?”
“No.”
The door creaked shut behind them.
Vegetaone turned.
Nothing stood there.
Only the wind.
He hoped.
The lower room had been stripped long ago. Rusted weapon racks leaned against the wall. A broken table lay beneath the stairs. The stone steps climbed in a tight spiral toward the upper floors.
On the table sat a crate.
Vegetaone recognized the mark on its side.
“Sen’jin.”
He opened it.
Inside were candles.
Dozens of them.
Zuro frowned.
“The thieves were stealing food and medicine.”
“These weren’t stolen by them.”
“No.”
Vegetaone lifted one candle.
It was new.
The wick had never been lit.
“Someone brought these here.”
A scraping sound came from above.
Both froze.
Then came another.
Slow.
Heavy.
Something dragged across stone. Zuro pointed toward the stairs.
Vegetaone nodded.
They climbed.
The second floor was darker.
Most of the windows had been covered with cloth. Candles burned in small circles around the room, leaving the center in shadow.
There were more crates.
Food.
Bandages.
Tools.
A coil of rope.
And one thing that did not belong.
A red banner.
Vegetaone crossed the room and lifted it. The cloth was dirty and torn, but the black symbol in the center was still visible.
The Horde.
Zuro stared at it.
“Old?”
“Looks old.”
“Could have been here from when the tower was used.”
Vegetaone ran his thumb across the cloth.
The dust came away easily.
“No.”
Zuro looked at him.
“It was folded.”
Vegetaone pointed to the clean lines in the fabric.
“Someone put it here recently.”
A whisper came from the stairs above them.
Not words.
Breathing.
Vegetaone lowered the banner.
The sound stopped.
Zuro’s bow creaked as he pulled the string tight.
“Someone is listening.”
Vegetaone tightened his grip on the axe.
“Then we should give them something to hear.”
He raised his voice.
“We’re coming up.”
Zuro looked at him.
“That was your idea?”
“They know we’re here.”
“They did not know you were stupid.”
“They probably guessed.”
A laugh came from above.
Quiet.
Human.
Zuro’s expression hardened.
“There.”
They climbed again.
The third floor had no roof.
Morning light poured through broken beams above. Smoke drifted from a metal brazier in the center of the room.
A man stood beside it.
He was tall and thin, wearing travel-worn leather beneath a dark cloak. His hair was gray at the temples. A short sword hung at his hip, but his hands were empty.
Around him, candles burned in a wide circle.
Behind him stood three cages.
Inside the first were two kobolds.
Inside the second was an orc.
The third was empty.
Vegetaone stopped.
The orc lifted his head.
He was bruised and exhausted, but alive.
The stranger smiled.
“I wondered when Gadrin would send someone.”
Zuro aimed at his chest.
“You know Gadrin?”
“I know many people.”
“Name.”
The man looked at Vegetaone instead.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes,” Vegetaone said.
“Why?”
“So I know what to call you when I tell Gadrin who we found.”
The stranger’s smile widened.
“You assume you are leaving.”
Zuro released the arrow.
The man moved before the string finished snapping.
He kicked the brazier.
Hot coals scattered across the floor.
Wax ignited.
Fire raced along the candle circle.
The room exploded with light.
Vegetaone raised an arm over his face.
The stranger drew his sword.
Zuro fired again.
The arrow struck the man’s cloak and tore through it, but missed flesh.
He moved fast.
Too fast.
The short sword struck Vegetaone’s axe with a sharp crack.
Vegetaone stepped back.
The man attacked again.
One cut high.
One low.
Then a thrust toward the ribs.
Vegetaone blocked the first, barely caught the second, and twisted away from the third.
The blade sliced his vest.
His stitches snapped.
He felt the fabric open.
For some reason, that made him angry.
“You ruined that.”
The stranger blinked.
“What?”
Vegetaone swung.
The man ducked.
The axe struck a wooden support post.
The cracked beam overhead groaned.
Zuro shouted.
“Vegeta!”
Too late.
A section of the roof frame collapsed between them.
Dust and sparks filled the room.
The stranger disappeared behind the falling timber.
The fire spread.
The kobolds screamed from their cage.
The orc pulled at the bars.
“Keys!” he shouted. “He has the keys!”
Vegetaone looked toward the far side of the room.
The stranger was gone.
A doorway opened onto the broken outer platform.
Zuro reached it first.
“He’s climbing down!”
“Can you hit him?”
Zuro leaned out, then cursed.
“Not without hitting the wall.”
The floor cracked beneath Vegetaone’s boots.
Smoke thickened.
The cages.
The stranger.
The fire.
For half a heartbeat, the old instinct told him to chase.
Catch the enemy.
Finish the fight.
Then one of the trapped kobolds coughed.
Vegetaone turned away from the doorway.
“The prisoners first.”
Zuro looked at him once.
Then nodded.
“Good.”
They searched the floor near the brazier.
No keys.
The orc grabbed the bars.
“He keeps them on his belt.”
Vegetaone looked at the lock.
Small iron box.
Old chain.
He raised the axe.
Zuro stepped back.
“This is what axes are for.”
Vegetaone swung.
The first blow bent the lock.
The second broke it.
The orc shoved the door open.
“Other cage!”
Vegetaone moved to the kobolds.
They shrank away from him.
“You no take candle!” one shouted.
“I do not want your candle.”
“You lie!”
“The tower is on fire.”
The kobold looked around.
“Oh.”
Vegetaone broke the second lock.
The creatures ran so quickly that one lost its candle hat in the doorway.
It came back for it.
Zuro grabbed the kobold by the back of its vest and threw it toward the stairs.
“Go!”
They went.
The rescued orc leaned against the wall.
“I can walk.”
“Then walk,” Vegetaone said.
They descended through smoke.
Flames had reached the second floor.
Wax burned across the stones like small rivers of fire.
Vegetaone pulled the Horde banner from the floor and wrapped it around his hand to shield himself from the heat.
Zuro saw him.
“You are stealing that?”
“Evidence.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That is not how evidence works.”
The stairs shook.
“Move.”
They moved.
The tower windows burst one by one as they reached the ground.
Outside, the surviving kobolds were already halfway across the basin.
The two they had freed ran after them, shouting.
The injured orc collapsed beside the broken wall.
Vegetaone turned toward the rear of the tower.
The stranger was gone.
Zuro found the tracks quickly.
“They head north.”
“Can we follow?”
Zuro studied the ground.
Then the orc.
Then the burning tower.
“Not now.”
Vegetaone did not argue.
That surprised both of them.
The orc noticed.
“You two always talk this much?”
“Yes,” Zuro said.
“No,” Vegetaone said.
The orc laughed once, then winced.
“What happened?” Vegetaone asked.
The orc’s face became serious.
“I was carrying messages from Razor Hill to Sen’jin. He caught me two nights ago.”
“The man upstairs?”
“Yes.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he want?”
The orc looked at the burning tower.
“Names.”
Zuro crouched beside him.
“What names?”
“Guards. Scouts. Supply runners. Anyone moving between the village and Razor Hill.”
Vegetaone felt something cold settle beneath the heat of the morning.
“Why?”
“He never said.”
The orc pointed toward the folded banner in Vegetaone’s hand.
“He showed me that. Asked if I would die for it.”
Vegetaone looked at the Horde symbol.
“What did you say?”
The orc smiled weakly.
“I told him it was cloth.”
Zuro grinned.
“I like him.”
The orc’s expression faded.
“Then he asked what I would die for.”
Vegetaone waited.
“What did you say?”
“My people.”
The answer stayed with Vegetaone.
Not the banner.
Not the road.
Not the idea of glory that had followed him out of the Valley of Trials.
His people.
The tower cracked behind them.
Part of the upper wall collapsed inward with a roar.
Smoke rolled into the sky.
Whatever secrets had been left inside were burning now.
But not all of them.
Someone had used Horde supplies.
Someone had collected names.
Someone had captured a messenger and filled an abandoned tower with candles. And that someone was still alive.
Master Gadrin listened without interrupting.
By the time Vegetaone finished, the sun was high above Sen’jin Village.
The rescued orc sat near the fire with a bowl of water in his hands. A healer worked on the bruises along his ribs.
Zuro placed the torn Horde banner on the ground between them.
Gadrin stared at it for a long time.
“You have seen this man before?” Vegetaone asked.
“No.”
“But he knew your name.”
“Many know my name.”
“That does not make me feel better.”
“It should not.”
Gadrin picked up the banner.
“He wanted you to find this.”
Vegetaone frowned.
“How do you know?”
“If he wished it hidden, he would not have left it on the floor beneath a ring of candles.”
Zuro crossed his arms.
“So the tower was a message.”
“Perhaps.”
“To who?” Vegetaone asked.
Gadrin looked at him.
“That is the question.”
Vegetaone glanced toward the north.
“His tracks went that way.”
“Yes.”
“Then we follow them.”
Gadrin shook his head.
“Not today.”
Vegetaone opened his mouth.
Then stopped.
The old impulse rose again.
Chase.
Fight.
Finish.
He looked at the rescued orc.
Then at the torn vest beneath his armor.
Then at the axe in his hand.
The haft was scorched near the head.
Still holding.
He exhaled.
“What do we do?”
Gadrin’s expression softened.
“Today, you eat. You repair your gear. You listen. Tomorrow, I will send word to Razor Hill.”
Zuro leaned toward Vegetaone.
“He told you to sew.”
Vegetaone ignored him.
Gadrin continued.
“And you will learn something important.”
“What?”
“That surviving an enemy is not the same as defeating him.”
Vegetaone looked again toward the north.
Somewhere beyond the red hills, the stranger was walking away.
For the first time since leaving the Valley of Trials, Vegetaone did not feel the need to run after him.
Not yet.
There would be another road.
Another trail.
Another chance.
He looked down at the tear in his vest.
Zuro followed his gaze.
“Going to fix it?”
“Yes.”
“With thread?”
“Yes.”
“Not the axe?”
Vegetaone looked at him.
“Not the axe.”
Zuro sighed.
“Still limiting yourself.”
Vegetaone laughed.
Behind them, the sea rolled against the shore.
Ahead, Durotar waited.
And somewhere beyond the smoke of the ruined watchtower, a man without a name was carrying secrets north.
End of Chapter Three