Before the Storm

by Christie Golden

  The hawks in the group stood with their arms folded and their lips pressed together. It was clear to them that Anduin’s mind was made up. Even though they outnumbered him four to two—Shaw seemed to take no side—they knew this encounter would proceed.

  Genn tried one final time. “I think the others need to know what I do,” he said, not unkindly. “That you lost your oldest friend just a few hours ago. You told me Wyll had wanted to see his wife, who died at Lordaeron. You’re doing this for him, and I understand why you want to. But you can’t put innocent lives at risk just to make yourself feel better.”

  “You’re partially right, Genn,” Anduin said quietly. “I would be lying if I told you that I don’t wish with all my heart that Wyll and Elsie had been able to see each other again. It’s too late for Wyll, but it’s not too late for others.”

  He placed his hands on the map table and leaned forward. “If Sylvanas responds with terms that are acceptable to me—terms that I believe will adequately protect Stormwind citizens—this meeting will take place. I expect all of you to accept that and turn your attention to following my orders to ensure that everything goes according to plan. Do I make myself clear?”

  Nods and a few murmured “Yes, Your Majestys” went around the table. “Good. Now let’s start our preparation.”

  Sapphronetta Flivvers awoke to pain.

  The gnome was bruised and battered, and her hands and feet were securely tied. She flexed them, noting that she still had good circulation, and began to assess her current situation.

  It wasn’t promising. She was lying facedown across something warm, and she could feel muscles tensing and contracting beneath her and hear the slow flap of wings. Gryphon? No; feathered wings sounded different when they beat. Wyvern.

  She had known her team would be targeted. That was why they had beefed up the security. Saffy felt an awful pang for her friends and for the Sentinels who had been assigned to help them.

  That an attack had come was hardly a shock. But why had she been allowed to survive? The Horde, of course, wasn’t fond of any of the Alliance races, but they had little use in particular for gnomes. Yet here she was, not just spared but taken. Kidnapped!

  She tried to recall the exact words she’d heard: Kezzig, that’s a gnome lady!

  Yeah, and I’m gonna punch the living—oh. Maybe she’s not the right one.

  She fits the description perfectly. You know the rules.

  Yeah, yeah, stupid rules.

  They had come to kill the Explorers’ League members and their protectors; that much was obvious. They hadn’t been looking for her but for someone who looked like her, and they wanted the “gnome lady” alive. If she could just figure out what they were after, she might be able to bluff her way to safety—and a chance to escape.

  Saffy couldn’t feel the comfortably familiar, pleasant weight of her massive tool belt. Obviously, they’d taken that. It was a shame they’d put ropes on her instead of locked chains, because she was pretty sure they hadn’t removed her hairpins. There was nothing she could use as a weapon, and someone had to be sitting near her to make sure the gnome they’d gone to all this effort to abduct wouldn’t fall off in midflight.

  Urf. Now there was a thought. Saffy stopped even her slight squirming and lay still, thinking furiously. They’d have to land, and they’d have to take her out of the sack in which they’d thrown her. They must want something from her or whoever they thought she was, but she couldn’t imagine…

  Oh, wait. Yes, she could. She could imagine it all too well. They’d been in Silithus, and they knew there were goblins out in force. Goblin activity meant one of two things: profit or technology. Well, all right, three things: profit, technology, or mining. Well, no: profit, technology, mining, or pummeling people.

  And goblins also meant…

  Oh, come on, Saffy, she told herself. There are a lot of goblins in the world. The odds of what you’re thinking are approximately 5,233,482 to 1. Someone would have to know your location, and—

  Oh, dear. They didn’t have to know her location. They were kidnapping every “gnome lady” they came across who fit the description.

  The wyvern landed with a thump. Saffy started to slide off and couldn’t suppress a gasp. Then the bag that encased her was abruptly dragged off the mount, and Saffy let out an oof as she was flung onto a bony shoulder.

  She heard whirring, buzzing, beeping sounds and muffled conversation in, as expected, Goblin. A language she’d picked up long ago, when she had been young and innocent and—

  Stupid. Come on, admit it, Saffy. Stupid.

  She couldn’t quite make out most of what they were saying, but she caught enough: …dead…take her…better be worth…know what to do.

  Her heart sped up. No. It couldn’t be. The odds were—

  She was dropped unceremoniously on the floor.

  “She better be okay,” came a voice from Saffy’s past. A voice attached to a goblin she despised with every fiber of her being. A goblin she had hoped to never have to lay eyes on for the rest of her life.

  She should stay quiet. Not give him any gratification. Pretend to cooperate with whatever dastardly, despicable scheme he was plotting.

  The bag was opened, and she blinked, momentarily blinded by the light. Rough hands grabbed her arms and held her down as a knife sawed through her ropes. Then she was hauled to her feet.

  “Hey, hey, what did you do to her?” came the loathed voice. “Her face is all—”

  With a roar of fury stoked by years of simmering resentment, Saffy managed to wrest free of the two bruisers on either side and launch herself like a mini-rocket, complete with fiery red hair, at her archenemy.

  The symbol of misery, frustration, and rage.

  She had the satisfaction of watching his tiny eyes widen in shocked horror and his big knobby hands come up toward his face.

  “You lying, manipulative, lazy, horrible, no-good, filthy wretch!” Saffy shouted, her hands, fingers formed into claws, outstretched to scratch his eyes out.

  Tragically, the bruisers got her just before she was able to scratch eight perfect furrows in that ugly green face. A rag coated with who knew what foul material was shoved into her mouth, and she was trussed up again. Could she ever learn to get her temper under control? Apparently not. Then again, this was Grizzek. He deserved everything she could throw at him. Just the thought made her squirm with impotent fury.

  “You change your mind, we’ll take care of her,” the biggest, burliest one said.

  “No need, Druz,” the loathed coward said. “You guys scram. I got this.”

  Saffy continued to squirm as Grizzek showed the bruisers out.

  “Hello, Saffy! Hello, Saffy!”

  He couldn’t have—but he had. There it was, the beautiful, exquisite parrot she had created. Oh, if she could just get free for two minutes—

  “I’m sorry they hurt you. They weren’t supposed to.”

  “Mmmphh mhphfmpp oo?” she repeated incredulously, and then launched into a string of beautiful but sadly unintelligible cursing.

  “Funny thing is, that group wasn’t even looking for you. They were after your friends. I—I’m sorry about that, too, kid.”

  But you’re not sorry you had me kidnapped! she tried to say. All that emerged was more muffled noises.

  “No, I’m not sorry about that. Besides,” he said, shaking his head, those big ugly ears flapping slightly with the motion, “crazy as it sounds, I think by the time all this is over, you’re not gonna be sorry either.”

  He winced at her denials this time. “You keep on like that, you’re not gonna have any voice left.” He paused. “Which, all things considered, might not be a bad idea.”

  She bit down on the terrible-tasting rag, her eyes shooting daggers at him. After her breathing calmed down a bit, Grizzek came over and untie
d the gag, keeping his big fingers away from Saffy’s sharp little teeth.

  They glared at each other. “Aw, Saffy. I gotta say, it’s good to see you again.”

  “The pleasure is all yours,” Saffy snapped.

  “Miss me?”

  “Yes. Repeatedly. As you recall, my Lightning Blast 3000 failed every time I took aim.”

  “I told you that piece of crap wouldn’t work.”

  “Aww, honey, I hate you, too. Tell you what,” the gnome said, “you untie me, give me food and water and my parrot back, and I’ll head out and not report you to the authorities.” Of course, she would. In a Gadgetzan minute, she would. Assuming there were any “authorities,” wherever they were.

  “Can’t do that, Punkin,” he said, shaking his head. “And it’s not your parrot.”

  “It is so my parrot!”

  “Nope, we made him together. C’mon,” he said, almost looking hurt, “you gotta remember that. It was our first anniversary present to each other.”

  It had also been their last. Saffy didn’t want to think how crazy in love she had been with the green mook. Well, she amended, just plain crazy, at least.

  “Besides. Just hold on to your hat here for a minute and you’ll understand.”

  “Your goons took my hat!” she shouted after him as he wandered out. Her beautiful pith helmet, given to her expressly for this mission.

  “They’re not my goons,” he said. “They’d never have hurt ya if they’d been my goons. Or your pals. You know I don’t work that way, Punkin.”

  “Don’t call me that!” She strained against the ropes with all the strength in her small body, but the knots were good. Of course the knots were good. We’re in Tanaris, by the ocean. Everyone’s a sailor. Even the goons.

  She was thirsty, hungry, overheated, sunburned, and exhausted, and she slumped against her bonds.

  “Here,” Grizzek said almost gently, and took one of the hands that were bound behind her back. Saffy twitched angrily, but he pressed something into her palm and closed her fingers over it.

  She gasped once. The pain on her sunburned, bruised face eased. Her mouth was no longer dry nor did her stomach rumble for food. She felt alert, strong, sharp. Her gaze fell on the parrot.

  “There’s about five different things I can do to improve Feathers if you’ll just give me an arclight spanner, three sets of nuts and bolts, and a good screwdriver,” she announced. And then blinked.

  How had she known that?

  Grizzek released her hand. She kept her fist tightly closed around…whatever it was he had pressed against her palm.

  He moved around behind her, sitting in the single chair, watching her reaction. “It’s something, ain’t it?” he said, his voice soft and filled with reverence.

  “Yeah,” she breathed, as awestruck as he was.

  Silence stretched between them. Then, finally, Saffy asked, “What is it?”

  “Boss says it’s called Azerite,” Grizzek said.

  Azerite! The very substance she’d been brought into that awful desert to analyze. Now Saffy understood why. Her brain was on fire but calm, not frantic. This stuff was amazing.

  “Actually, what the boss really calls it is ‘My Path to Ruling Azeroth with Lots of Statues to Glorious Me.’ ”

  Saffy abruptly recalled one of the things he’d said to her while she was shouting and struggling to escape. They’re not my goons, he had said. Which meant that they were someone else’s goons. Which meant…

  “Oh, Grizzek,” she said, horrified. “Please tell me you aren’t working with that ugly green monster with the terrible fashion sense!” She paused. “That could apply to lots of goblins, actually. What I meant to ask was—”

  “I know what you meant,” he said, lowering his head and not meeting her eyes. “Or, rather, who you meant. And yeah.”

  “Jastor Gallywix?”

  He nodded miserably.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been more disappointed in you. And that’s saying something.”

  “Look. He came to me with this stuff. You got a taste of what it can do. He’s agreed to let me decide what I do, what I make, and most important, how it’s used. And he’s given me everything I’ve asked for supply-wise in order to understand it, refine it, and make amazing, fantastical inventions with it.”

  “Everything, huh? I guess that explains why you had me kidnapped.”

  “Punkin, I—”

  She shook her head. “No. I get it. I…” She gulped. Swallowing her pride was hard. “I might have done the same. Might have. Probably not. But I might have.”

  His eyes widened in an expression of gratitude, and his ears drooped ever so slightly with relief. “So…you’ll help me?”

  “I’ll help you.”

  “Aw, Punkin, we made a hell of a team back when,” he said.

  She smiled. “Yeah. We did. Too bad we got married and ruined all that.”

  “Well, we ain’t married now, so I say, let’s get to work.”

  “You have to untie me first.”

  “Oh? Yeah, right, sure.” He slipped off the chair, reaching for a knife with one hand, and hurried behind her. Her bonds were cut free for the second time that morning.

  Belatedly, he paused. “You…you mean it, right? You’re not going to clonk me with something and run off with Feathers?”

  The thought had occurred to her, but Saffy didn’t volunteer that bit of information. No, she was in this for the long haul. Anything that could do what this Azerite could do was something she wanted a part in developing. What vehicles, what gadgets and trinkets, what contraptions they could create!

  “No. I won’t do that.” She got to her feet as easily as if she hadn’t spent far too long in a burlap sack being shunted across a continent. “But I do have one condition.”

  “Anything!”

  “When we’re done, I get Feathers.”

  He winced, then stuck out his hand. She opened up her tiny pink one, seeing the soft golden-blue gleam of Azerite, and then it was nestled between their two hands as they shook on it.

  Vellcinda didn’t miss sleep.

  She had not realized until after her death just how much time had been wasted with her eyes closed and her body still. There was an old saying, “Plenty of time for sleep in the grave,” but she had found the reality to be exactly the opposite. She’d slept far too much when she lived: an entire third of that life, how remarkable. Now that she was a Forsaken, she had done all she could to make the most of what she, with what remained of the incorrigible optimism she’d had in life, firmly viewed as a second chance.

  She’d been a servant when she died. So of course, when Vellcinda “awoke” as a Forsaken, the first thing she did, as her mind gradually became accustomed to her new reality, was serve. It was what she knew best. She’d been kind and patient with those who had awoken terrified and disoriented and had helped to rebury those who had refused Lady Sylvanas’s dark gift.

  Part of her understood the refusal. Who among them hadn’t been confused and frightened to awaken to the sight of their own skin decaying? No one with half a brain left, that was who. And of course, some of the poor things didn’t have even half a brain.

  Vellcinda seemed to have been one of the fortunate ones who’d awoken with their minds completely intact, thank you very much, and had firmly resolved to put it to good use.

  She missed her husband, and upon awakening, she had wanted to seek him out. He had been in Stormwind, and Vellcinda had been in Lordaeron, visiting family, when she died. She had been in the castle when Arthas had returned. She’d hoped to catch a glimpse of the beloved paladin and his triumphant homecoming but had been stuck working in the kitchens as he marched through a rain of rose petals into the throne room. But she had been well within range of what unfolded immediately after Arthas committed both pa
tricide and regicide with one thrust of an unhallowed sword.

  Her beloved had been spared that, and she was glad of it. Others told her that attempts to contact him would only lead to heartbreak for them both. He believed her dead, and in the end, Vellcinda had decided that it was better that way. He was a good, kind man. He deserved to find a living woman to love.

  Many other Forsaken, such as her friend and fellow Governor Parqual, seemed to miss their loved ones as much as she did. Others seemed lukewarm, and still others didn’t care at all. Some were even…evil. What had happened, to her, to them, to have such differing personalities and mind-sets? It was one of the mysteries about being Forsaken.

  She had no memory of her time as a mindless creature, and that was a good thing.

  As the years unfolded, though, Vellcinda grew tired of serving. But her brain was almost as sharp as it had ever been, and Vellcinda began to want to learn, to achieve, rather than simply do for others.

  She directed her genuinely caring nature toward how best to take care of the, ah, unique challenges of being an active, sentient corpse. Injuries, for example.

  “Come now,” she would say to the wounded, “Forsaken flesh won’t heal itself, you know!” Stitching; grafting on new muscle, sinew, and skin; and magical potions were the options open to her people instead of simply cleaning a wound, bandaging it, and trusting in the body’s innate ability to repair itself.

  Time spent physically mending undead flesh eventually led to a desire to study with the apothecaries. Although Sylvanas put most of them to work on poisons, Vellcinda studied ways to keep the Forsaken active and healthy, mentally and physically.

  She noticed that some of the wounded appeared to be more afraid of dying now than they had been when they lived. As she inspected the fit of a new hand onto the right arm of a blacksmith—an accident with molten steel had made short work of his original one—he had said to her, “Always makes me nervous to come in here.”