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Chapter 1: The First Kill
Setting: Eastern Foothills of the Alterac Mountains, Northern Quel'Thalas
Time: Summer, 1 year after the fall of Azeroth
With a whipping, whirring sound ending in a loud thwack, a throwing axe planted itself firmly into a cedar post planted at the end of the target range. Thirty yards away a large green troll with a yellow face and long yellow hair crossed his massive arms over his chest and turned slowly to his nine respectfully quiet students. He let his gaze sweep over them as he spoke.
"Follow-through. Follow-through is the key to a good throw. The maximum strength of your arm during a good throw is above and slightly forward of your shoulder, but only if you have a good follow-through." Mahkolor continued to lecture on the importance of follow through and release position as his yellow eyes met each of his students'.
They were a fine crop of young trolls for the most part, Mahkolor thought. Most of them turned fifteen barely a season ago. All the young males had started part-time warrior training when they were thirteen and when they had all turned fifteen, they began to receive more advanced training that would lead to their rites of adulthood when they all turned seventeen. When a troll is born, he or she is put into a class depending on what year they are born into. All trolls born in one year are in the same class. Since female trolls can only bear one child a year, it works out that all the babies are born within a few months of each other. But sometimes a stupid couple doesn't get their timing down and one baby is born several months behind the others, forcing his or her classmates to wait with their training until the lager is the appropriate age. This generation was lucky. All twenty of them had been born within days of each other, so all warrior training proceeded with minimum time wasted.
That is, Mahkolor thought, If they would pay more attention.
"DANCHE!" he bellowed suddenly at the student in the center of the group. The young troll in question quickly tore his eyes from the young female troll carrying a basin of water between the huts near the range.
"What did I just say?"
Danche flicked his yellow eyes from side to side quickly before replying meekly, "Uh...that since the momentum of the axe is produced by the shoulder and arm, you should keep your wrist straight and solid."
"Good." He said and smiled inwardly. Danche was one of his best students. He had a blood red face that matched his long blood red hair. He was near the front of the pack in running, throwing, and strength. But he absolutely excelled in strategy and battle tactics. He was able to concentrate on more then one thing at once, a very useful skill for a battle commander, or a pack leader. If he could just pay more attention to work and training and not goofing off and females, Mahkolor had no doubt he would one day replace his father, Dadanche, as chieftain of the tribe.
"I want you all to spend the next two hours practicing follow through on the range. It doesn't matter how close you are to the center of the target, just practice your technique." Mahkolor laughed inwardly. They would try to beat each other in marksmanship as well as try to perfect their throwing style. Young trolls were extremely competitive at this stage in their training.
"After that, the day is yours. I suggest you use your free time for exercise and target practice." Not fighting and playing chase-and-tickle with the females.
With that said, Mahkolor turned on his good leg and limped away.
The students spread out on the range, picking up the practice axes that were laying in the dust. The practice axes were nothing more than smooth, flat stones tied with old thin rope between the forks of an ironwood branch. They were made to give students the feeling of throwing an axe. They were not made to be precise, as the young trolls often found out.
They checked the rope on each axe they picked up and began to practice. They practiced throwing overhand and sidearm, both left and right. They practiced spinning around and throwing, jumping up and throwing in mid-air. Last of all, they practiced double throwing, throwing with one arm then the other while moving, or in mid-air. When their two hours was almost up, they were all sore and sweaty, but they had gathered the usual crowd of female admirers. Like always, the young males tried to look as if they weren't watching the reactions of the females as they did their exercises. This usually resulted in one of the trolls stumbling when he was attempting to land the simplest of jumping maneuvers, bringing a chorus of giggles from the females.
Danche kept his eyes on the target during some of his more difficult moves, but when he was doing something he found easy, he looked out of the corner of his eye to hunt the group of females for Mischa.
Female trolls looked different then male trolls. To a human or an elf or any other species with distinctive facial characteristics, male trolls are hard to tell apart. They have the same general body shape as humans but are all taller, stronger, and more muscular than humans. They are also faster and more agile with larger feet and hands. They all have almost exactly the same face. Large long noses, thin lips and large pointed chins. All their skin is the same dark lime green color except for their faces. The skin on a troll's face is a bright color, anything other then green. The colored facial skin runs from the top of the throat Their hair is unusually soft and silky for such a brutish looking creature. And, except in rare cases, the hair is exactly the same color as the troll's face. But, as a male troll gets older a set of tusks grow from his upper molars and grow into his cheeks just growing outside his back teeth before turning ninety degrees forward and growing straight out. They curve slightly inward as they taper down, rarely growing out of the trolls mouth, and unless the troll opens his mouth, you couldn't tell they were there.
Most other races find it easier to identify individual female trolls over male trolls. Female trolls are slightly smaller then males, and have the same body shape as human women, only taller and much more muscular then human women. A full grown female troll is a time and a half stronger than a human male of the same age. Female trolls also have more distinct facial characteristics then male trolls. Their chins are not as large, and their noses are smaller and sharper, and their lips are not quite as thin as a male troll's. Overall, they have a playful impish look. They also do not grow tusks. Like the males, their eyes are all golden yellow with the iris covering most of the eye as it is with dogs. They also have a single facial color matching their hair.
But as he scanned the crowd from the corner of his eye, Danche didn't need to search hard at facial features. He just needed to look for Mischa's distinct royal blue hair. The only other troll in the tribe with royal blue hair was Mischa's mother. The fact that Mischa was Mahkolor's youngest daughter didn't put Danche off in the slightest. The fact that the crippled teacher's hut was nearest to the throwing range meant he was likely to see her during lessons and training. Of course he sometimes missed a thing or two in the lectures, but he usually had his ears on the teacher and his eyes on Mischa, so he could recall the teacher's words easily.
He finished a spinning side-arm throw without seeing any sign of Mischa in the crowd. Must still be doing chores, Danche thought I wonder if she will get finished in time to go swimming. Swimming was a favorite pastime of young trolls. It helped them relax and cool off after a day's worth of chores and training. The adults encouraged it because it was good exercise, and the northern tribes migrated south for the winter near the bay and met with their southern kinsmen who made a living fishing from longboats and raiding human shipping lanes. Southern trolls trained their young in the arts of sailing and naval combat rather then hunting and hand to hand combat. Northern trolls encouraged their children to become strong swimmers so they would be better of if they should choose to stay with one of the southern tribes during the summer. So, it was common for students to gather at the nearest lake after their various chores and practices were finished.
Before the two hours was up, however there was a loud piercing scream from a lookout. The hunting party had returned from their week-long trek. The young trolls dropped their axes and ran to see how successful the hunt was.
They reached the far end of the village to a welcome sight. Out of the group of forty-something warriors each was carrying a large animal. The smallest thing was a any of the warriors had was a single cow elk. The largest load was carried by Mahkolor's twenty-three year old son, Melikin. He had to construct a travois out of thick branches to carry the massive grizzly bear that he was dragging behind him. On the bear's back was a medium-sized mule deer buck that looked like it had been thrown on as an afterthought. Mischa, her mother, and Andorra, Melikin's wife ran to help as the rest of the village went to help their relatives. Mahkolor, limped up and clapped his son on the back with fatherly pride as he picked up the deer by its neck and put it over his own shoulder as if it was a sack of grain.
Even though he had only one good leg, Mahkolor wouldn't do any less work then he absolutely had to. He even stayed up most of the night on watch duty because he felt he hadn't done enough during the day, despite the objections of the rest of the tribe. They felt his long experience as a warrior and how well he trained the younger generations made up for his inability to fight or hunt.
Leading the party of troll hunters was Dadanche, the tribe's chieftain, and Danche's father. He was dragging a large bull elk buy its massive antlers, and he had a wild brush pig over his shoulder. Dadanche had a tar black face and matching hair which was cut in a thin, long mowhawk, traditional warrior style. Although he could be mistaken by anyone as a common troll, another warrior of any race could see by his confidant stride and the way the other members watched him that he was an experienced leader. Ten years to be exact. He had been elected by the council of elders to be the new chieftain when he was thirty years old. Like all young trolls, Danche practically worshipped his father.
He trotted up to him and Dadanche smiled as he hefted the pig into his son's eager arms and they walked together back to their hut where Danche's mother welcomed her husband back with open arms. Dadanche told them stories of the hunt as they skinned the elk and butchered the pig. Dadanche took the large antlers and put them in a corner of the hunt where he kept all his tool making supplies. Then they took some of the raw pig meat and took it to the village square where the entire village was celebrating the hunt. There was a massive bonfire with the parts of the dead grizzly bear Melikin had killed roasting in the center. There were several spits of meat and roots being turned in the fire as trolls of various ages listened to the hunters tell about stalking deer and wild pigs, and how they had ambushed a herd of elk, and finally when the bear had attacked their camp in the middle of the night, and Melikin had finally run it through the heart with a spear. Trolls danced and sang around the fire feasting on hot meat until long into the night.
Danche woke in the middle of the night a few days later. The party had lasted the whole night and most of the trolls slept through the next day. There would probably only be minor chores to do later in the day , so Danche could enjoy the whole morning.
Quietly, so not to wake his parents, he dressed in a simple leather lion cloth and the elk skin cloak his mother had made from the one Dadanche had killed on the last hunt. He grabbed a few tools and a leather satchel before he slipped out into the night. He ran swiftly to the end of the village nodding a brief greeting to the axethrower on watch duty. He slipped into the trees and began jogging east.
Hours later, he arrived at a clearing in the trees that sloped gently down to a crystal clear lake. He had discovered the lake on a long run he had taken weeks before. The lake was wonderfully clear and teeming with fish, and had a good sized outcropping of rock on one side of the clearing that was perfect for high diving. He crawled up the rock and left his tools and cloak in a bundle before diving in.
Less then a hundred yards away, a young footman and a young elf maiden were walking together toward the clearing. The young man's name was Eric Henstoff and he was a native of Azeroth. He had been trained as a footmen shortly before the human's exodus to Lordaeron. After a year of moving around the great kingdom, the humans had formed a pact with the Elves and he had been assigned to a new settlement in the northwestern area of Quel'Thalas. He had woke up and offered to take Sylvia for a hike. She had said yes, of course. She thought he looked so handsome in his shiny new armor and royal blue cloak. They walked together toward one of the many glacier lakes that dotted the forests in the area. They were chatting about what a nice day it had been and an what the weather would be like in the coming weeks, unaware that a pair of yellow eyes followed them from the trees.
As soon as he heard the strangers' footsteps, Danche had jumped from the water and climbed up the nearest ironwood tree. He tracked the pair across the clearing trying to decide what to do. His cloak and satchel of tools was on the rock, out of reach. He didn't know how long the lake stretched so he would have to circle around the clearing and remain unseen to get away from them. He wasn't worried about the elf, it was the human that he was afraid of. He had never seen a human before, and he knew he was stronger then almost any human, but this human had armor and weapons. A shield was slung on his back and he had a helmet tucked under his arm.
If only I had an axe Danche thought. He could probably hit the human in the back of the head from his spot in the tree. But he had no weapons so the best he could do would be to try to slip away.
As he prepared to crawl down the tree, the elf let our a shrill scream and pointed at him. The human drew his broadsword and ran toward him. The female elf turned and ran back the way they both came. Danche cursed as he dropped out of the tree and started to sprint away as fast as his legs could carry him. Under normal conditions a human was no where near as fast as a troll, and the footman was wearing heavy steel armor, so there was no chance of him catching up.
Danche ran until he was out of breath. He stopped and looked behind him and to all sides, making sure the human hadn't followed him. He considered himself lucky to be alive. He was about to climb another tree and find out how far he had gone when he thought of his father and the elders and his teacher. What would they think if they knew that the first time he had seen an enemy he had ran like a little child? They would probably be disappointed at such un-trollish behavior.
Danche scanned the forest floor and found a dead branch about as long as his arm and thick as his wrist. He found his trail and headed back to the clearing.
Eric considered himself lucky to be alive. Sylvia had gone fleeing back to the town screaming bloody murder, probably thinking that there was a huge troll warparty ready to charge into the town. That's not exactly what Eric thought as soon as he had seen the troll in the tree. He assumed that it was a hunting pack and was still scared out of his mind, for troll warriors seldom traveled alone. But when he saw the size of the troll and the way it had fled like a spooked deer, he know he was out of danger. Just a young troll too far from home.
Eric looked around and found Danche's satchel and tools. It wasn't much, a leather satchel with a arrow thin fishing spear about three and a half feet long, a saw made of a thick stick with sharpened animal teeth, a small stone knife, and a long coil of thin rope, and a few pieces of flint. It seemed that the troll had been planning to do some fishing. Eric was still sorting through the bag when he heard a slight crunching footstep. He whirled around with his hand on the hilt of his sword to see the troll standing less the ten feet away. Danche let out a high piercing war cry and lunged forward, swinging the branch and connecting solidly with the surprised human's face. There was an audible crunching sound and the footman's broken nose began to gush blood as he flopped on his back.
The dead branch had snapped in half and as the human groaned and rose, Danche back handed him across the face and he fell back in a daze. Danche quickly grabbed a rock half the size of his head. When Eric looked up and saw the green monster with the blood-red face and hair holding the boulder over his head he let out a terrified scream. Danche gave a victorious howl and slammed the rock down on the humans head. Again and again he smashed the humans skull until his arms were sore. He dropped the rock and stopped to catch his breath as the last of the adrenaline rush left his body. Working fast he turned the body over and unclasped the beautiful blue cloak from his shoulders. Then he stripped off the armor and stuffed the boots, gauntlets and shin guards into his satchel. The sword went across his back and used his bone saw and cut off the young man's left hand and stuffed it in his satchel. He wrapped the shoulder and thigh plates and torso guards in his own cloak and slung it over his shoulder. Finally he wrapped the blue cloak around his left hand and strapped the shield to his right forearm.
Danche dragged the body into the trees and covered it in brush before running into the woods toward home.
Nine footmen found Eric's body a few hours after the scavengers did. The clearing was well out of a safe range from the town, so it was no real surprise that trolls had ambushed him. The Captain knew that he was young and foolish, but they didn't think he would venture this far just to get a woman alone. The girl had said that it was a whole pack of trolls, but they could see by the tracks that it was probably one. And probably unarmed, by they way his skull had been crushed by a rock they found by the lake. Unarmed probably meant young.
The captain sighed. Two young fools too far from home and Eric was probably stupid enough to think that any troll would blindly run away without putting up a fight. The squad of footmen turned and marched back to the town.
Danche knew that his killing a human soldier would cause an uproar in the village, but this wasn't quite what he had expected. True, he had received praise and recognition for what he had done. His father had taken the hand and made the bones into a necklace for him, then had taken the helmet and put it on the front left corner of their hut, signaling that it was Danche's kill.
He also earned the admiration of his class. He was the first in his class to be in a real fight, and the first to have a real kill, a human footman to boot! But he thought he would just be in the spotlight for a few days, tell his story around the fire, and hang the trophy helmet outside his hut, and the village would go on with normal life. But a few days after his return, Danche had summoned him to travel with him to another troll encampment in the mountains. He insisted that Danche bring the sword of the footman. Danche didn't understand why but he did. After a few days of hard running, they came to a large settlement where it looked like several tribes of trolls had been living for some time. It was at least four times larger then Danche's home village. As they approached, a lean axethrower trotted out to meet them, and promptly led them to the center of the town. In the center was the Lumber Mill.
Any permanent Troll settlement of any size has at least one lumber mill. Trolls were masters of carpentry and woodcrafting, and warriors always met at lumber mills to practice and train. The mill itself is unique in that it is made from a hollowed out ironwood trunk, over sixty hands tall (1 troll hand= 1 human foot) and a hundred hands in length. The ends of the trunk had wooden walls and the one entrance was a arched double door on the side of the trunk.
Their guide led them up the short steps to the door and into the Mill. The inside was a buzz of activity. Veteran trolls worked at tables crafting axes while other trolls labored using steel saws to make long ironwood planks. On one far end, three young trolls cranked a large circular saw twice as tall as either of them, sunk halfway into the floor. Two more trolls guided a massive tree trunk through as it was sawed in half.
Dadanche didn't stop to look around and led Danche to the far end of the Mill where a long table had been set up. Sitting around the table were the chiefs of most of the troll tribes of Quel'Thalas and northern Lordaeron. They were all talking of raids on elf villages and hardships the southern trolls had been facing over the sudden unexplained human population boom. Danche and his father sat down and listened for a few minutes as one of the southern chiefs explained to them the best way to sail a longboat past a human armada when the doors swung open and Zuljin walked in, followed by four young axethrowers.
Zuljin was the chief of this settlement. He was a younger troll with pale pea green colorings. He was lanky for a troll and had a long, thin crooked nose. He wore a scarf over the lower half of his face at all times. The settlement they were now in was made up of five smaller tribes that had forged together under Zuljin's rule. Zuljin was a firm believer that the only way for their race to survive would be to unite all the tribes into one society as the humans, elves, and dwarves had done.
Danche had never seen Zuljin, but he was well know among the tribes for his daring raids on elven strongholds and cunning strategy that won him many battles against odds often as high as three to one. He nodded greetings to all the chieftains and sat at the head of the table.
"You all know why I called you here." he started, staring at them each individually.
"In the past months there has been a massive human population boom. New settlements have been springing up all over, on both sides of the Alterac Mountains. For the northern tribes, Hunting is becoming harder, game more difficult to find, and entire villages have had to uproot and move into the mountains or further north into the tundra. Southern tribes have fared no better. Their fishing boats are constantly under attack, human settlements have been popping up like thistles along the coasts, each more heavily guarded then the next. Rather then sacks of food and tools, raiding parties return with the bodies of our brethren. And the humans and elves keep multiplying and spreading out. Elves, Humans, and Trolls have warred with each other since the beginning of memory, but scouts report that the Humans and the Elves have made a pact together and now our warriors either die under the arrows of Elven Archers or the sword of a Human." Zuljin stopped and took a breath. All the chieftains had been nodding in agreement as Zuljin spoke.
"Now, I know there are three questions that must be answered. First, where are the thousands upon thousands of the new Humans coming from? Second, why the sudden alliance between Humans and the Elves? Third, and most important, how will we survive this sudden invasion of the land we have lived in for thousands of generations? I believe we have found the answers to these questions."
"You have all heard the rumors of the war in the land called Azeroth. A land far south, on the other side of the Great Sea. The war between the Humans and the Orcs that lasted half a decade. Well, my spies have reported that the Humans lost Azeroth to the Orcish Horde and the remaining population fled across the Great Sea and came upon the shores of Lordaeron."
Zuljin waved a hand at Danche. "Why, a few days ago, this young warrior killed an armed human footman, just a few hours run from his village. The footman was wearing royal blue, the color of Azeroth, and had an emblam of a lion's head on his cloak, the symbol of Azeroth."
All the chieftains looked impressed and Danche glowed with pride.
"The King of Lordaeron allowed them to settle and live across the whole of the continent. And it seems that the Humans fear the Orcs will one day cross the sea and bring the war to the Humans once again, so the Humans allied themselves with the Elves and have been spending the past year constructing and fortifying cities and townships across the land."
"So," Dadanche said, "what must we do about this?"
"The answer is a simple one. We must bring all the tribes together in a single fighting force. The world is made up of only the races that can band together in the dark times. If the Humans can do it, so can we. We are not as numerous as Humans, or Elves, but we are stronger and faster, our craftsmen are just as skilled as theirs. We need not fight them openly, but we will all be stronger if we all unite together under one."
"Under you, of course." One of the others put in sarcastically.
"My valley is a haven for Trolls." Zuljin said, a little heatedly. "The mountain passes can't be safely taken by a wagon or a horse, the climbs are to much for a man in armor, and any Elven Archers that make it into the valley will be slaughtered by defenses. There are mountain streams with schools of trout and thousands of acres of ironwood forests filled with elk and deer. Plus, there are dozens more valleys just like this one all through the northern mountain range. We could build permanent towns and solid houses and become one of the greatest fighting forces in the world."
One of the eldest of the chieftains spoke up. "We have avoided being wiped out by the Humans and Elves for generations. We live in small villages so they won't have a large tempting target for them to hit. I say we continue to be nomadic and do hit and run attacks like we always have done. Just do it faster, and quicker and we will still send them running. Trolls have always done well against superior numbers."
Zuljin nodded and walked over to where Danche was sitting. "Let me see your sword. I want to show you all something." Danche gladly relinquished the weapon to Zuljin and watched as he strode to the middle of an open space. He picked up a thick block of ironwood and tossed it into the air. As it was coming down, the sword sliced through it with almost no resistance. Two blocks of wood clattered on the floor. Danche swallowed hard. Ironwood was hard to cut with the best of their axes, and that sword had sliced through it as if it was made of warm mud.
Zuljin walked back to the table and looked at them holding the sword in the light. "Dwarven Steel. And if a footman in a small backwoods village has a weapon like this, what do you think the veterans of the human armies will be carrying?"
He handed the weapon back to Danche who looked at it with a new awe.
The chieftains debated for hours. Finally, most of the chieftains agreed that the best course of action would be to ally themselves under Zuljin, but still remain in their respective villages. They would gradually move inwards and break the tribes apart until all the trolls stood together as one force. In the meantime, messengers would be sent to the far south to Kahz Modan to try to make contact with the leaders of the Orcs and negotiate a way to spare the Trolls from the wrath of the Horde.
© 1998 Andrew
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