GROWING UP
Early in my childhood I learned that life was cruel. Maybe it was the stories my tribal elders told about Loa Dambala stealing men's spirit-souls just to torment their families and friends, a game he played to amuse his sibling gods. Or maybe it was watching whole bands of war-painted hunters walk off into the jungle to find and be killed by viscous legendary beasts, thus becoming part of legend themselves until they too were forgotten. Troll history is built on tales of war and sacrifice, betrayal, and voodoo. My history is no different.
The island on which I was born was part of an archipelago, a long chain of tropical stepping-stones stretching away from what is now called the Eastern Kingdoms. Most of my early memories are of the water — fishing, swimming, playing around in boats. I recall endless days spent wrestling in the shallows with my fellow tuskers, ever watchful for sharks and other dangers among the coral. News of children disappearing below the waves was not uncommon, and it was not treated as tragic but simply as a case of Loa Ixnextli, the Giver of Life-Blood, sating her thirst and humbling her children.
My family had a modest hut near the center of our village, which makes me think that we were somewhat respected. Those of lower standing were pushed to the outer rim, where their homes would be swept away by violent sea storms. None were saddened when this happened. It was simply the way of things. Our tribe would give these families what tools and materials they needed to rebuild. No one in our village went homeless or hungry unless they became truly wicked. Usually my people would account this to a dark hex or possession by a foul spirit, and the trolls in question would be put to the knife.
Like most trolls, we were fiercely proud of our roots. Our tribe was Darkspear, once part of the mighty Gurubashi Empire, which had fractured when the Atal'ai summoned the demon-god Hakkar into the world. Our ancestors had been driven from the mainland in the ensuing civil war and had started life anew as island dwellers. While this all came to pass many thousands of years ago, my people have always taken great pleasure in our tribe's tenacity, so much so that they chose to stay behind when the other Darkspears were finally driven across the ocean by the Sea Witch and her accursed murlocs not so long ago.
I have of course met many of my estranged "cousins" during my life, and many of them I hold in high regard. Yet I also find that a troubling number of the Darkspear trolls now in Thrall's Horde know little of the ways of their ancestors. And what is worse, they do not care. It always amazes me that these trolls mistake caring about their traditions as being shackled by them, while they so easily accept the rule of a pig-headed outsider.
I wish I could share more detail about my early days, but before I had even reached the age of six, things changed forever. What I recall now, looking back, are vague memories: The warm embrace of my mother and the stern hand of my father. Ceaseless fights for dominance among the adults, sometimes secret, sometimes flagrant. Dangerous forays into the jungle and far out to sea. Evening bonfires with storytelling and drums. And (always) chores, from mending fishing nets to collecting firewood to diving for clams.
Still today many people view trolls as nothing more than savages. I cannot deny that this is part of who we are, but it is not all that we are. Our fishing and hunting was done at sunrise or sunset, usually lasting no more than a few hours. The rest of our time was spent enjoying games and contests, studying old scrolls, or cultivating the arts — singing, dancing, sculpting, practicing voodoo. People forget that long before the elves, we trolls had vast empires touching every sea, our golden pyramids beacons of promise in a primitive world.
* * * * *
There is one clear memory that I have of my island life, and it begins with a childhood rite of passage. A large stone wall on our eastern beach fascinated us tuskers, and had for generations. Reaching the height of three adult trolls, it ran out of the jungle and stopped abruptly after traveling some distance into the ocean. Perhaps it was an ancient seawall for berthing Gurubashi warships. Or as we children liked to believe, maybe it was a place for the bravest warriors to fight one another where they could be watched from far around.
Whatever the wall was, the tradition became for youngsters who were brave enough to climb to its top and try to push each other off. Whoever was left standing would run to the end of the wall and jump some thirty feet to the water below, then swim back to shore having "earned their tusks." There was no quarter given for age or gender; all were free to take part and face the consequences. On the day of my first contest, I climbed onto the wall from where it began under the tree line and smiled recklessly down at my friends. They were too frightened to take part.
I made it nearly halfway down the length of the wall with the group of older kids chasing after me. I had surprised them by not fighting, but rather running flat-out to the far end. It was then that I saw the tall ship out at sea. It had already turned side-to our village and had dropped several launches into the water, the armed men in the smaller boats pulling hard for shore. As I began to slow my run, the cannons belched flame and smoke, and an eruption unlike anything I had ever heard blasted away the morning calm of my village. So strange was the scene that I didn't react when an older boy stuck me from behind and I flew off the wall, landing with a bone-jarring thud at its base.
All these years later, I wish I could remember the name of the boy, because he saved my life that day. I did not know what had happened to the other tuskers when I finally awoke some time later. All I knew was that I had been left alone where I had fallen in the sand on the side of the wall opposite my village, hidden from view. My right arm hung limply at my side, either broken or dislocated at the shoulder. I picked myself up and headed for home, wincing in pain and cradling my useless arm.
As I stood in the middle of the burned-out shells of our huts, many still seeping black tendrils of smoke, I discovered a lone troll man who had walked out of the jungle soon after the attack had ended. Whether he had been hiding or was just far from the village when the pink-skins struck, I do not know. With his spear he was helping to send the dying to Akumea, where they would face their final judgment before Ixnextli. None survived the attack that morning except for him and me. I saw the bodies of the children I had been with a few hours earlier, now dead, never to earn their tusks in this world.
By the time the other troll tried to put me in a canoe and get us off the island, I was in a stupor. But when his arms grabbed mine, I fell into a beast-like frenzy. My body trembled. My spirit-soul raged. I do not remember entering the canoe; I think the man was forced to drag me kicking and screaming. Going so suddenly from normal island boy to orphaned refugee was very odd, and it had happened in the blinking of an eye. The world-shattering abruptness of this change, and my drastic reaction to it, would be a pattern that would stay with me for much of my life.