This is the story that was requested from me from the winner of my Lore-quiz, Terra-chan. But I am afraid this is just the first part of it. I didn't think I would write more than something short, but it seems Jah, Za'rhin and Ba'ka will be ... convincing me... to make a short series about the time they spent together serving the Horde. Hope you enjoy this small beginning.

***

The rain was pummelling down over the battlefield, causing even the scavenging birds to find cover.

On one side of the valley there were lights in the lumbermills and farms where the victorious side had roof over their heads to keep them out of the rain. The alliance troops sat snug and warm inside, taking care of their wounded and dying. Outside their enemy, or what little was left of them, had scattered and disappeared in the grey fog of rain and evening.

Under a huge pinetree a priest was watching the rain in silent apprehension, while his cloak slowly was dyed in dark shades of the water that found its way between thick branches. He shivered and lifted his hands for a moment, creating a shield around his body that would grant him a moment of dry comfort.

As the shield faded the branches in front of him were pulled apart as a slim figure, his clothes dripping with water, crawled into the shelter of the tree.

"Ah canna find him," the newcomer sighed. "Ahm gonna go back, just need a break from da rains."

The priest was too wet and cold to say much, but he placed a friendly hand on the other's arm and squeezed it comfortingly.

"Ah have not been lookin' aftha him," the newcomer said, pulling his hood back to reveal a bush of deep-green hair.

"An' now mah hair is sad too," he pouted.

This almost made the priest laugh, and as he watched his friend try to get his hair back to the proud Mohawk it had been that morning he could not hold back a smile.

"Jah'ren," he comforted. "Paddo is wild still. Yah couldna control him good enough in da fight."

The hunter had just had his new pet for a short week before they were called upon to join the battle in the valley, and they were still trying to form a bond beyond Jah'ren yelling at Paddo, and Paddo trying to eat the troll.

"Ah shoulda listened to mah sista," the hunter said, still sulking. "A raptor is no good pet. Ah just want one 'cause Kor has one."

Now the priest was laughing, and it made the rain a little more bearable. The hunter turned to him, green eyes flaming with anger, but this only made him laugh harder.

"Ah shoulda known! Yah always be tryin' to be bettha than him. But Kor has had Trakkor foreva, and yah canna keep a pet for more dan a week!"

There was a sharp sound of a weapon being drawn and the priest looked at the sword that was barely touching one of his long tusks. With a small motion of a hand he had his shield up again and poked his tongue out between his lips to taunt the hunter.

"One of dese days," Jah'ren said, his rage subsiding. "Ah am gonna kick yah puny butt from here back to Durotar."

The priest smiled as his friend put away his sword again and started crawling back out through the branches.

"Ahm sure yah gonna, Tata Parnko," he laughed.

The rain had calmed down a little when Jah'ren left his friend for the second time to look for his pet. He was never angry at Ba'ka for very long however much the priest taunted him. They had grown up together, and Ba'ka, being several years older, had always seen Jah'ren as a smaller brother and looked after him like one.

More than anything Jah'ren was angry with himself at the moment. He should have known better than to send Paddo into the battle, but there had been enemies and blood and the thrill of fighting and he had forgotten to think.

Paddo was Jah'ren's second pet, after the first one had been killed, and he had decided that this was the one he was going to keep. Still young and inexperienced, Jah'ren had yet to figure out how to train or bond with a pet, and he tried doing it with the reckless enthusiasm that usually got him into trouble.

The raptor had been beside him one moment and gone the next. Jah'ren had barely had the time to give the command to attack before the wild and bloodthirsty animal had set off into the battlefield and disappeared.

"Paddo?" the hunter called silently, just because it was a comfort to hear his own voice instead of the endless drizzle of the rain upon dead bodies and bloody grass.

He was just about to give up when he saw something move behind some bushes and hurried over, his heart beating hard with new hope. Looking through the brambles he was filled with a rage that made his body shake in anger.

Paddo had not made it through the battle and was lying on the ground, green skin pierced by several arrows and one alliance lance, but the thing that infuriated Jah'ren was the troll kneeling by his dead pet.

The other troll had a skinning knife in one hand and had started cutting into the fleshy muscles on the raptor's hind legs.

Jah'ren attacked without thinking. He only knew one thing; Paddo was his pet, and nobody was going to eat him.

The other troll was taken by surprise, but still countered the attack by ducking under Jah'ren's blade and rolled around, sweeping the hunter's feet from underneath him. The struggle that followed was over in seconds as the somewhat larger troll caught Jah'ren's arms and forced the hunter down on his stomach in the mud.

"Easy, young one," a deep voice said as Jah'ren fought against the hands holding his wrists. "Ah be no ally-bastard. We be on da same side."

Jah'ren flung his head backwards and hit the other one on the chin with the hard back of his skull. This only resulted in a lot of swearwords and a knee pressing into his spine. Then the hands holding his wrists shifted and Jah'ren was even angrier when he found the other one could easily hold both his arms with one hand as the other grabbed his hair, pressing his face into the water and muddy grass.

"Mah pet," he gasped, trying to avoid filling his mouth with dirt. "Yah no eat my pet!"

"Dat's it?"

The pressure of the other's body went away and Jah'ren scrambled to his feet, burning with the shame of being weaker than anyone.

As he dried the dirt and water from his face he had the time to look the other troll over. He was as tall as Ba'ka, but much more muscular. The spear stuck in the ground beside Paddo's body also marked the stranger as a fighter rather than a spellcaster.

"Yah didna have to attack me," the troll said, a smile raising the edges of his mouth. "Ah didna kill da raptor."

With that he turned his back to the hunter and knelt down to continue his task of cutting meat from the raptor's thigh.

When Jah'ren attacked the second time the stranger merely grabbed him by one of his long tusks and held him at arms length.

"Ah thought we'd been through dis."

Jah'ren kicked out, but before his leg had the chance of connecting to the other's body he was flung to the ground again.

"Da raptor is dead," the stranger said, starting to sound annoyed. "Ah am hungry. Now he is food."

"No!" Jah'ren managed to get to his feet again, now feeling the tiredness from the battle, as well as his soaked and muddy clothes, take their toll on his strength.

He stumbled forward in blind fury, and before he knew what had happened he was lying flat on his stomach again, his hands tied behind his back while the stranger wrapped a long vine around his feet. After a while he grew tired of Jah'ren's angry shouting and gagged him too.

Jah'ren was furious and ashamed, but he could do nothing more than wriggle around in the mud. He wished that Ba'ka would come and cast all the nasty spells he could on this annoying and rather unpleasant troll, but the priest did not show up, and soon Jah'ren found himself being flung over a broad shoulder and carried away.

Half an hour later he was lying on the earthen floor of an abandoned mineshaft while the strange troll was lighting a fire. Soon the smell of smoke and fried meat filled the cave and made Jah'ren's stomach rumble.

"Yah wanna some food, young one?" the stranger asked, smiling friendly although the look in Jah'ren's eyes would have murdered him if possible.

The hunter swore behind his gag when he noticed there was a figure standing in the entrance to the mine, looking at the two of them. His heart skipped a beat as he recognized the tall, cloaked shadow of the priest.

Sure the annoying troll would get what he deserved now, Jah'ren grinned and mumbled a muffled greeting towards his friend.

"Smells good," Ba'ka said, leaning against the wall of the cave. "An' Ahm afraid dis whelp is mine."

The priest came into the cave, but to Jah'ren's disappointment he did not show any sign of preparing to fight the other troll. Instead he gave the stranger a nod and a smile.

"Yah be Za'rhin, if mah mem'ry be not playin' tricks on me."

"Aye."

While Ba'ka loosened Jah'ren's bonds the young hunter stared at the bluehaired stranger. The shame and anger he had felt for being defeated disappeared when the thought hit him that not everyone got to fight a legend and live.

"Yah be da last one of da Meri Kri?" he asked the second his gag was removed.

"Dey tell me so," Za'rhin answered, testing the meat over the fire with his knife.

And just like that all the fury ran off Jah'ren like water on a turtle (old troll-saying). He had heard stories about this troll, he had even heard mother's tell their children to eat their vegetables so they could grow up and be as strong as the last of the Ocean-blood clan.

Realising he was being stared at, Za'rhin raised his head and met the green eyes of the hunter. There were things that distinguished the other from the two Darkspears; like the shorter, curled tusks, the deepblue eyes and ears that were shorter than usual on a troll. Za'rhin's hair was even longer than the priest's, and while Ba'ka kept his neatly braided Za'rhin's hung around his shoulders in thin braids and dreadlocks.

Jah'ren tried to remember some of the stories he had heard and felt like a five year old whelp meeting Vol'Jin for the first time.

"It be true dat yah can understand da murloc-talk?" he asked enthusiastic.

"It just be anotha language. Da poor murlocs. Always people say: dem be nasty little things, but sometimes dem just come to say Hello, an' How yah doin'? An' people kill dem."

"How dey say Hello?" Ba'ka wondered.

The two Darkspears listened as Za'rhin made a gurgling noise in the back of his throat. To their ears it sounded like all the other words that apparently was in the murloc's language.

"It be so easy to misundastand it for da words for Kill, or Go away or Ah gut yah like a fishy," Za'rhin sighed. "So sometimes yah just have to take no chance."

"But did yah really kill dat giant shark dat terrorized Ratchet? Ah heard yah gave da head to Thrall an' told his dere'd be fish for dinnah!"

The two older trolls started to laugh and exchanged a look.

"Ah did not do it all by meself," Za'rhin grinned. "Ah had a healer. An' Ah did give Thrall da head, but Ah didna tell him to eat it."

"But can yah really walk on da waves an' ride sharks an' did yah once make a raft from turtles dat yah bound togetha with yah hair?"

There was a deep sigh from both of the other trolls and Za'rhin looked at Ba'ka with a humorous sparkle in his eyes.

"Ah liked da whelp bettha when he was gagged."

****

Those who know me and my writings know that I make up my own Zandali-words, so here's the language notes:

Tata Parnko = Little brother

Meri Kri = Ocean blood (it's Za'rhin's clan, and yes, I think he's the last of them... Meri is inspired by both French and Finnish, and Kri is the Slovenian word for blood.)

Thanks for reading!

Warcraft belongs to Blizzard, but the stories belong to me, and Za'rhin and Jah'ren belongs in my bed. Ba'ka belongs to my husband, who is gay for his pinkhaired troll. ^^