Book Two — Chapter Nine
The Barrens, years before the events of Book One
They reached Camp Taurajo shortly before sunset.
Vegetaone had expected Jorn to be angry.
He had underestimated him.
The older Tauren stood beside the command fire while Serala gave her report.
He did not interrupt.
Not when she described the quilboar gathering.
Not when she mentioned the map.
Not when she explained that the gray-haired human had known exactly where they were hiding. Not even when she reached the part where Vegetaone had nearly stepped toward him.
Jorn simply listened.
That was worse.
Vegetaone stood beside Borak with his damaged bag over one shoulder. The strap had been repaired badly.
He had done it while walking.
Again.
Borak had noticed.
Again.
Neither of them mentioned it.
Serala finished.
Jorn looked at Vegetaone.
Jorn looked at Vegetaone. “You spoke with him.”
“Yes,” Vegetaone said.
“What did he say?”
“That he was teaching,” Vegetaone replied.
Jorn’s expression hardened.
“Teaching whom?”
“The quilboar.”
“To do what?”
Vegetaone thought about the Crossroads.
The patrol.
The maps.
The stranger’s words beneath Thorn Hill.
“He said strength that hasn’t been tested is only a story.”
Jorn looked toward the southern plains.
“That sounds like something said by a man who does not have to bury the people used in his tests.”
Vegetaone thought of the wrapped body brought into Taurajo.
“No.”
He placed the iron token on the table.
The broken circle.
Three lines.
Crown.
Jorn studied it.
“Did he give this to you?”
“He left it.”
“Then yes.”
Vegetaone frowned.
“Yes what?”
“He gave it to you.”
Vegetaone stared at the token.
Another lesson.
Another trail.
The anger returned.
“I’m done following what he leaves behind.”
Jorn looked at him.
“Good.”
Vegetaone glanced toward him.
“You agree?”
“I have been waiting several days for you to understand the difference between tracking someone and being led by them.”
That irritated Vegetaone.
Mostly because it was true.
“What do we do?”
Jorn unrolled a map.
“We stop letting him choose where the next fight happens.”
Harvek was awake.
That surprised Vegetaone.
The scout lay inside a healer’s tent with enough bandages wrapped around his middle to qualify as armor.
When Vegetaone entered, Harvek opened one eye.
“You still have the bag.”
“Yes.”
“Shame.”
Vegetaone sat beside him.
“We found the human.”
“That explains why you look disappointed.”
“He got away.”
“That explains it better.”
Vegetaone handed him the iron token.
Harvek turned it between his fingers.
“Crown.”
“You recognize it?”
“No.”
Vegetaone sighed.
Harvek handed it back.
“But Marrak might have.”
“The sergeant?”
Harvek nodded.
“The first night we watched Thorn Hill, he said he’d seen that mark somewhere.”
“Where?”
“He never told me.”
“Helpful.”
“He died the next morning. Very inconsiderate.”
Vegetaone lowered his eyes.
Harvek watched him.
Harvek studied him. “You’re blaming yourself.”
“No,” Vegetaone said.
“You’re terrible at lying,” Harvek replied.
“I didn’t even know him.”
“That has never stopped anyone.”
Vegetaone looked at the tent opening.
Vegetaone looked at Harvek. “He knew we were coming.”
“Yes,” Harvek said.
“He knew I would follow.”
“Yes.”
“He wanted us in that tunnel.”
“Yes,” Harvek said.
Vegetaone looked back at him.
“Can you stop agreeing?”
“No.”
Harvek adjusted himself painfully.
“The question isn’t whether he led you there.”
“What is it?”
“Why.”
Vegetaone held up the token.
“This?”
“Maybe.”
“Another trail?”
“Maybe.”
Harvek closed his eyes.
“Or a distraction.”
Vegetaone stopped.
The camp outside seemed suddenly louder.
“What?”
Harvek opened his eyes again.
“You said the human met quilboar elders.”
“Yes.”
“While you were looking at him.”
“Yes.”
“And then he made sure you escaped with a mysterious piece of metal.”
Vegetaone felt something settle into place.
He stood.
Too quickly.
The stool fell behind him.
Harvek smiled faintly.
“There it is.”
“He wanted everyone looking at Thorn Hill.”
“Maybe.”
“What’s somewhere else?”
Harvek’s expression became more serious.
“The Great Lift.”
Jorn was already moving people when Vegetaone reached him.
Apparently older Tauren could reach conclusions faster than injured orcs.
Vegetaone decided not to comment on it.
A messenger was saddling a kodo.
Two guards loaded spears onto a wagon.
Serala checked her bow.
Borak stood nearby.
“The lift,” Vegetaone said.
Jorn nodded. “Supply traffic from the Barrens into Thousand Needles.”
“The stranger asked about roads,” Vegetaone said.
“And responses,” Jorn added.
“If the quilboar hit Thorn Hill—”
“We send patrols east and north.”
“Leaving the lift weaker.”
Jorn looked at him.
“Exactly.”
Vegetaone reached for his axe.
Vegetaone reached for his axe. “When do we leave?”
Jorn stared at him. “We?”
“Yes.”
“No,” Jorn said.
Vegetaone closed his eyes.
“We’ve done this.”
“Yes.”
“And how did that work?”
“You nearly died.”
“That happens a lot.”
“That does not strengthen your position.”
Borak made a sound suspiciously like a cough hiding laughter.
Vegetaone pointed at him.
“You stay out of this.”
Borak raised both hands.
Jorn rolled the map.
“You want to help?”
“Yes.”
“Then this time, follow instructions.”
Vegetaone waited.
Jorn handed him a pack.
“What’s this?”
“Medical supplies.”
Vegetaone looked inside.
Bandages.
Water.
Two potions.
Food.
He looked offended.
“You want me carrying supplies?”
“I want you useful.”
“I have an axe.”
“So do twelve other people.”
Vegetaone looked at the pack.
Then at Jorn.
Then at Borak.
Borak smiled.
“Your bag was worse.”
Vegetaone took the pack.
They reached the Great Lift after dark.
The enormous wooden platforms clung to the cliff like something built by people who did not believe falling should prevent travel.
Vegetaone stood at the edge.
Below stretched darkness.
Very far below.
“How far down?”
Borak looked over.
“Far.”
“That is not a measurement.”
“It is enough of one.”
Vegetaone stepped away from the edge.
He did not fear heights.
He simply respected the ground. Especially when it was somewhere he could not see. One of the lift platforms hung halfway down.
Stopped.
The other remained at the upper station.
A Tauren guard stood beside the mechanism.
“Rope was cut.”
Jorn crouched near it.
“Recently?”
The guard nodded.
“Someone also jammed the lower brake.”
Vegetaone looked south.
No attack.
No fire.
No quilboar.
Too quiet.
Serala’s wolf growled.
Everyone froze.
Dust faced the supply hut.
Vegetaone reached slowly for his axe.
A voice came from inside.
“You finally stopped following the obvious trail.”
The gray-haired stranger stepped into the moonlight.
He looked exactly as he had at the watchtower.
Calm.
Clean.
Almost bored.
The dark cloak was gone.
Its silver clasp was missing.
A short sword rested at his side.
Jorn raised one hand.
Spears leveled around the man.
“You are surrounded.”
The stranger smiled.
“So was Thorn Hill.”
Vegetaone stepped forward.
The stranger looked at him.
“There you are.”
“You know my name.”
“I do now.”
Vegetaone tightened his grip.
“What is yours?”
The man considered the question.
“Aderic.”
“That your real name?”
“No.”
Vegetaone stared.
Aderic smiled.
“You’re learning to ask better questions.”
“I’m done learning from you.”
“Everyone says that just before the important lesson.”
Jorn moved between them.
“What do you want with Horde roads?”
Aderic’s gaze moved toward the lift.
“Nothing.”
“Then why attack them?”
“To see which ones matter.”
“To whom?”
“To everyone.”
Jorn said nothing.
Aderic continued.
“Armies do not conquer land first. They conquer movement. Food. Messages. Reinforcements. Roads.”
Vegetaone remembered the captive messenger in Durotar.
Orgrimmar.
The Crossroads.
Thorn Hill.
It had never been about quilboar.
They were tools.
So were the thieves.
Probably others.
“You’ve been mapping us.”
Aderic smiled.
“There.”
Vegetaone hated when he did that.
Jorn asked, “For whom?”
Aderic looked toward the southern horizon.
“That depends on who pays when the map is finished.”
Something in Vegetaone changed.
All the mystery disappeared at once.
There was no grand cause.
No hidden kingdom.
No brilliant philosophy.
Just a man willing to get people killed so he could sell what he learned.
“You did all this for money?”
Aderic’s expression hardened.
“For information.”
“That’s money with extra words.”
Borak laughed once.
Aderic did not.
Good.
Vegetaone stepped forward.
“You attacked villages.”
“I tested defenses.”
“You killed scouts.”
“They chose to follow.”
“You used quilboar.”
“They chose to listen.”
“You never choose anything, do you?”
Aderic’s eyes narrowed.
Vegetaone continued.
“Everyone else chooses. Everyone else dies. You just watch.”
For the first time, the man looked angry.
Good.
Vegetaone knew something about angry fighters.
They hurried.
Aderic’s hand moved.
Serala shouted.
“Down!”
A knife crossed the space.
Not toward Vegetaone.
Toward the lift mechanism.
The blade struck a small glass vial hidden beside the rope housing.
Flame erupted.
The platform ropes caught.
Guards rushed forward.
Aderic ran.
Vegetaone followed.
This time he knew he was being led.
That changed everything.
Aderic sprinted toward the cliff path.
Vegetaone chased for five steps.
Then stopped.
Behind him, fire spread across the lift supports.
Below, the trapped platform held people.
He heard shouting.
A child.
Someone screaming for the brake.
Aderic disappeared around the rocks.
Vegetaone stared after him.
Every instinct screamed to follow.
Catch him.
Finish it.
End the hunt.
Then he heard the rope snap.
Vegetaone turned back.
“The lift!”
One of the support lines had broken.
The platform dropped several feet before the emergency brace caught it.
Passengers screamed below.
Jorn and two guards fought the fire.
Borak hauled water.
Serala fired an arrow carrying a line down toward the platform.
It fell short.
Vegetaone dropped his axe.
“What do you need?”
Jorn looked at him.
“Second anchor!”
Vegetaone ran to the supply wagon.
Rope.
Hooks.
Tools.
He grabbed everything.
His hands found the line.
Fold.
Loop.
Pull.
He knew this.
Not from fighting.
From stitching.
From repairing straps.
From watching how weight pulled against corners.
He wrapped the rope through the iron brace.
Wrong.
He stopped.
Started again.
Double.
Distribute the pull.
Do not let one point carry everything.
Borak reached him.
“What?”
“Hold this.”
Borak held.
Vegetaone threaded the rope through a second brace.
Then a third.
Jorn saw what he was doing.
“Good.”
Vegetaone pulled the line tight.
“Now!”
Together they hauled.
The burning support cracked.
The new rope caught the weight.
For one terrible second, nothing moved.
Then the platform steadied.
Serala’s second line reached it.
Passengers began securing themselves.
One at a time.
Slowly.
They brought them up.
A Tauren trader.
Two Horde messengers.
An elderly troll.
A mother.
A child.
The last guard reached the top just as the damaged lift platform tore loose.
It fell into darkness.
No one spoke until the crash echoed from far below.
Vegetaone stared over the edge.
Then remembered.
Aderic.
He turned toward the cliff path.
Gone.
Again.
Vegetaone took one step.
Stopped.
Jorn watched him.
Vegetaone looked at the people sitting beside the lift.
Alive.
Because he had stayed.
Aderic had known exactly which choice Vegetaone would face.
Maybe he expected him to chase.
Maybe that had been the final test.
Vegetaone no longer cared.
“He got away.”
Jorn nodded.
“Yes.”
Vegetaone waited for the anger.
It came.
But differently.
Smaller.
Manageable.
“He won’t stop.”
“No.”
“So someone else will catch him.”
Jorn studied him.
Vegetaone looked down at the rope in his hands.
“I’m done letting him decide where I go.”
A long silence followed.
Then Jorn nodded.
“That is probably the first thing you have done that truly frightened him.”
They found Aderic’s abandoned pack the next morning.
Inside were maps.
Dozens.
Durotar.
The Barrens.
Orgrimmar.
Patrol routes.
Water sources.
Supply camps.
Names.
Descriptions.
Weak points.
Everything he had spent weeks collecting.
He had left it behind to escape quickly.
Jorn burned the originals after copies were made for Horde command.
The broken-circle token went into the fire too.
Vegetaone watched the word Crown blacken.
No prophecy.
No hidden destiny.
Just one of Aderic’s marks.
He felt strangely relieved.
Harvek would later tell him the human had been spotted heading east toward neutral territory.
Then south.
After that, nothing.
Perhaps Aderic escaped Kalimdor.
Perhaps someone else caught him.
Perhaps the desert took him.
Vegetaone never learned.
For years, that would bother him.
Eventually, it would not.
Some roads did not need to be followed to their end.
The repaired Great Lift groaned beneath Vegetaone’s boots. He stood on the platform beside Borak. Below waited Thousand Needles.
Stone pillars rose from the canyon floor like the bones of some enormous buried creature.
Vegetaone leaned over the railing.
Immediately reconsidered.
Borak noticed.
“You dislike heights.”
“I dislike poorly placed ground.”
“The ground is exactly where it has always been.”
“That is the problem.”
The lift descended.
The Barrens rose away above them.
Vegetaone rested one hand on his repaired bag.
The stranger was behind him.
Durotar was farther behind.
The Valley of Trials farther still.
For the first time in weeks, no one waited at the end of the road because Vegetaone was chasing them.
He had chosen the road himself. Thousand Needles waited below.
Vegetaone smiled.
“What’s down there?”
Borak shrugged.
“Trouble.”
Vegetaone’s smile widened.
“Good.”
Borak sighed.
“You learned nothing.”
“Not true.”
Vegetaone checked the stitching on his bag.
“I reinforced the corners.”
End of Chapter Nine