The torrential rain hammered the rivets and corrugated iron of Bilgewater Bay. The clouds were granite-grey and just as heavy, rolling low in the air and closing the lid over the metal streets.
Serat huddled under the eaves of the house, his long pale arms hugging his chest. He was drenched right through, his white hair flattened to his skull and even his specially treated paints beginning to run, turning his already fearsome death mask into something nightmarish. The rain in the goblin town was loud, louder even than the pattering applause of drops on the broad flat leaves in Stranglethorn. It hid things – a curtain of sound and water, masking the predators in its midst. He was not blind, he had seen the looks he and his partner had been given, heard the stories of the slaves that had been buried in the mines of Kezan. Here the tigers may hunt on two legs and the serpents' poison may be carried in their words, but they were no less dangerous for it.
The proof of that lay in the house behind him.
The small door opened with a rusty creak and a trollish finger beckoned him in. Serat swiped the water from the bald crown of his head and obeyed.
'There ain't much to look at, and they are definitely not here,' said his partner, Jese'Rai.
They had been assigned to the job together back in Ratchet with the hope that their skills would complement each other on the mission. Unlike Serat, she was bulky with one tusk cut away and permanent crooked grin where a human had tried to slice her jaw off. His finger bones hung on a knotted string around her neck.
They hadn't spoken much but she seemed a good sort, quiet and dependable if not imaginative.
Serat nodded and crouched low. He swept his thumb through the sticky puddle of congealing blood and brought it up to his mouth, tongue licking it up thoughtfully.
Fresh. Whoever had murdered Thrott Thunderjoy had done it during the storm.
'What are we gonna do Serat?'

It was a simple job, the troll who had been Ogoun told them, an easy pick up to cut their teeth on. But they both knew it was a test of their loyalty. They were to go to Bilgewater Bay and pick up a package from a goblin engineer. They were given the gold to pay him and then it was just a matter of bringing the package back to Ratchet to be smuggled into Orgrimmar.
Ogoun seemed pleased that neither of them asked what was going to be in the package or where the gold to pay the goblin had come from. Serat knew when to keep mouth shut and he supposed that Jese'Rai just did not have the imagination to worry about those kind of details.
They took a gnomish trawler to Aszhara, Jese'Rai hauling the sack of gold hidden somewhere on her muscular body while Serat squinted over the waves. They were nothing too unusual or out of place, just two more of the Horde as a loose end and wanting to spend their coin in Bilgewater. The goblins had not just brought their numbers and engineering to the Horde, but also their notions of leisure and excess. The tribal Horde were intoxicated by the new games of chances and the goblin approach to alcohol. It was no shock to see normally dour and professional orc soldiers passed out in the streets of Bilgewater with their coin pouches emptied on things they could barely remember. The goblins must have seen themselves as small but toothy sharks, hunting the large, slow moving porpoises of the fiscally naive Horde. It was true that there were fewer trolls, but not few enough to pass comment at the arrival of two more.
And anyway, it wasn't as if they were planning to stay very long.

What were they going to do? Serat didn't have much of a clue. Bilgewater might not have been huge, but it was a labyrinth of twisting streets and blind alleyways, tiny houses popping up like mushrooms from the oppressive metal. There were no friendly hearths here and no one to tell them what to do. And there was no way they could return to Ratchet and tell Ogoun that they had failed at the first hurdle.
'Serat?' Jese'Rai hissed again, peering out from a crack in the door.
'I'm thinking here!' he spat back, clenching and unclenching his hands.
'Think faster then, we don't wanna be caught with a dead bomb maker.'
Bomb maker? Serat lifted his gaze and for the first time really looked at the equipment that filled the goblin's home like so much trash. Clockwork mechanisms, wires, jars and metal parts all haphazardly stored and a cold shiver ran up the troll's spine as he realised what Jese'Rai had immediately spotted, that Thrott was sitting on a house full of a goodly amount of explosives.
'Least we know what we're lookin' for now I guess,' the warrior, her fingers squeezing the hilt of her sword.
Serat grunted and turned back to the problem they had, namely the dead goblin. Slowly a possible solution began to coalesce like so much smoke in his mind and he patted his pouches, grinning when he felt the familiar hard shape filling one of them.
'Jese'Rai, pass me some of them wires.'
To her credit, the warrior didn't even ask what he was doing, just snatched up a handful of short, malleable wires he had indicated, placing them at his side while he fished into his pouch, pulling out the tooth of a raptor he had killed some weeks ago.
He worked quickly, settled now on the course of action, placing the tooth on the puddle of blood while his fingers moved in practiced ways, twisting and shaping the wires together. Steadily a crude raptor figure began to take shape, necked stretched out in the hunt. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Jese'Rai moving around the workplace, picking up items and putting them in new configurations.
He didn't often work with metal, more used to twigs and twine, but he found the wires moved well under his broad fingers, taking on the shapes he wanted without too much resistance.
Carefully he took the blood sheathed tooth and placed it into the poppet, feeling the whirl of eager excitement of the raptor spirit as it sniffed the ether, already trying to follow the blood trail. He kept an iron grip on it though, to release it now would have it disappear from his control and he couldn't afford that just yet.
'This gonna take much longer Serat?' Jese'Rai said, winding some mechanism.
Serat ignored the question, pulling a long strand of his hair and quickly tying a noose in the delicate white hair. With skills borne of long practice he looped the noose over the neck and felt the buck as the spirit chomped against his mastery.
'We're done,' he said, holding the poppet in one hand and leash in the other.
'Good, 'cause so is this place. We ain't coming back here.'
Serat nodded without understanding and they both ducked through the door and back into the punishing downpour. He gave a little slack to the hunter spirit and it tugged to the right, and he beckoned the warrior woman to follow him.
And then suddenly she was close to his side, her hard body crushed against him, grabbing his arm in a vice-tight grip and bundling him forward, Serat almost stumbling to keep with her long strides. He shot her a dark, questioning look, but Jese'Rai was looking dead ahead with a determined expression and she lead him round a random series of corners and turns, no matter the insistent leads of the bound spirit.
'What are you doing?' he hissed, trying to tear his arm from her grip, but she only twisted his arm and tugged him along.
'Keep going and don't look startled, whatever happens,' was her only command and Serat growled in frustration. He was meant to be the one leading this expedition and here he was being dragged around like a petulant whelp.
Then there was an earthshaking boom, a thunderclap that seemed to make the road heave beneath his feet and Serat would have cried out if Jese'Rai hadn't slapped her free hand hard against his chest and knocked the breath from his lungs. Goblins appeared in doorways, eyes wide and ears twitching as they looked to the black cloud that poured down its own rain of debris.
Only then did Serat realise what Jese'Rai must have done to cover their tracks, her fiddling with the paraphernalia of the bomb maker's craft. Any objections died in his throat and he looked at the disfigured troll with a new sense of admiration, even through the numbness in his arm.
'Now,' she said quietly, eyeing the rush of goblins towards the bomb maker's house, 'now, we can follow your charm.'

If Serat had thought he was wet before, he was truly soaking now.
They trail of murder led his hunter spirit and the two trolls to a dead end alleyway on the edges of the island town, and the slowly spinning knife of a gold-toothed goblin.
The two groups eyed each other up; three goblins, one dressed in the outlandish finery of a goblin money maker, purple leggings and a yellow jerkin studded with gold coins, and the other two in the far more down to earth tough leather and chain of bruisers, the heavy maces of their namesake held tight in meaty fists. And they faced by two trolls, the woman with shoulders and arms bulked with muscle, giving her the look of a forest troll if it was not for her sky blue colouring and the male rope thin and ghost white, red eyes like pools of fresh blood.
'Nice trick with the explosion, done good work for covering my tracks as well, that you have my friends,' said the Goblin in a rakish orcish, tipping his feathered hat at them.
Neither of the trolls said anything for the moment, though Serat noted that goblins were wont to call everyone but their actual friends "my friend".
'I was just on my ways to sending a runner to you two, thought that you might want to do some business.' With that the goblin stood up and pulled the box that he had been sitting on up to their gaze. It was a long rectangle, thin and wooden, nailed shut and with warning signs stamped up and down its length.
'Done you a favour I have. Thrott was banging on about a big payday coming to every bunny willing to sit on he's lap. That ain't good business now is it?' asked the goblin, looking at them earnestly.
Serat met Jese'Rai's eyes and tried to puzzle out what she was thinking. It would not do to come into this with separate purposes, not when everything was at stake. His gaze flicked to her hands quickly and he noted they were purposely nowhere near the hilt of her weapons. Talking then. He straightened up and shaped his mouth around the orcish words.
'Ah tink you've got somethin' for us?' He said, nodding his head at the box.
The goblin grinned like he had just been greeted by a long lost lover.
'That depends, yes it does! Do you have something for me?'
At his side, the bruisers leered and patted the heads of their maces into their open hands.
Serat shrugged with one shoulder, 'Jus' wat was agreed, no more en no less.'
'That suits me just fine. I ain't a greedy man. Just what you promised dear ol' departed Thrott will please me more than enough.'
Serat turned to Jese'Rai, who was grinning at one of the bruisers, but then, he supposed she didn't really have a choice in the matter.
'Let's pay de man den,' he told her, throwing a thumb loosely at the goblin hustler.
The warrior gave a lopsided frown and grunted, turning away from their eyes and wriggling a bit as she reached into whatever nook she had hidden their stash of gold.
'Big lass you've got their friend. Know some folk that appreciate that in a woman,' said the goblin to Serat as they waited. He just returned a blank, fishy stare.
Eventually Jese'Rai pulled free the pouch and held it out. Serat felt his hackles rising. He didn't know much about doing things like this, but even he could see that now the money had been washed up, it would be the perfect time for the goblin to try something. He edged one hand slowly behind his back, feeling the hilt of one of his daggers that were sheathed up along his back. The goblin murderer edged closer, reaching out with one hand, the box hanging from his other fist. Soon he was within reach. Serat knew that he could swipe his dagger across the villain's throat in a flash should he try anything. His breath was caught in throat, like he was breathing through a thin reed and his eyeballs throbbed.
But he just snatched at the money bag as he thrust the package into Jese'Rai's hand and then backed away, crab-like and scuttling, already pinching open the pouch and peering inside.
'Yes yes yes, that will do, that will do indeed my friends. All good in Bilgewater, no harm done, no blood split.' The goblin grinned, a golden smile, 'Well, apart from poor young Thrott of course, but eggs and omelettes and that.'
Neither Serat nor Jese'Rai said anything in reply. The troll woman just hefted the package and nodded at Serat, who nodded back. The sooner they could leave behind the poisonous grin, the better Serat would feel and the sooner they could get off this damned cauldron of a town.

But as soon as they were out of sight of the goblins, Jese'Rai touched him on the shoulder.
'Serat, we gotta go back,' she said, her husky voice set with determination.
'What? Why? We got the package, goblins got their gold. Who cares which green one we gets it from, so long as we got it.'
She shook her head, 'They're a loose end Serat. Thrott might had been loose tongued and they sorted him, but he ain't got no reason to be loyal to us. Probably thinking of how to best sell us out right now.'
Serat pushed his fingers hard against his eyes. He didn't like having to think like this, like everyone was waiting to push a foot of steel into his back. But he knew Jese'Rai was right, had been right most of the damn mission.
'Now?' he asked wearily.
'Right now. We wait too much longer and they gonna be gone like they never were.'

'What if someone sees us?'
The warrior's expression was set and Serat could see how she must have looked when facing a line of the enemy. Dangerous, even had she not had the scar cutting her face she would have looked dangerous.
'We'll do it quickly, before they can make a sound.'
'But there's three of them Jese'Rai. Can we do three before one of them lets out a scream?'
She nodded quickly, turning him around and pushing him on, 'Here's how we'll do it...'

Jese'Rai bulled around the corner, appearing through the sheet of rain like some kind of avenging spirit from the waves. She held up the package and shook it, probably too hard given its probable contents. The goblins, who had been clustered around the money pouch sprang apart and reached for their various weaponry.
'Wha' da fuck is dis?' the warrior thundered, dangling the package with a vengeful look on her face.
'What are you talking about woman, we've concluded are business, time for you to piss of says I,' the goblin replied, his bruisers spreading apart.
'Dis nail is loose... Ju tink ju can empty our box and we wouldn't know it? Ju tink all trolls are big an' slow huh?' Jese'Rai pointed to one of the nails which they had pried slightly from the wood like it was the prick of a cheating husband. Serat had to admit, perched on the roof behind them all, that she was doing a mighty fine job of acting the deceived customer.
The group fell to squabbling, Jese'Rai demanding her money back and the goblin demanding they open up the package and prove that he had not tampered with it, which gave Serat just the distraction he needed. Rubbing his hands together, trying to dry them off even some small amount he began to crawl down the wall behind the goblins.
Yes, it was slick and slippery, but Serat had been climbing longer than he had been running and he moved slowly and surely, each movement as careful as a sloth's. Strong fingers wrapped around pipes or slipped around bricks, and he descended the wall like a great pale spider, long limbs stretching him out.
He gathered himself on the ground, the noise of the rain masking his movements and with aching slowness, reached his hand behind his back to unsheathe his black glass dagger. Jese'Rai was looking everywhere but at him, not giving any of the goblins an excuse to follow her gaze and spot him before everything was in place. He was sure that they would hear him though, the pounding of his heart, the hollow gust of his breathing. He had killed before, all manner of men and beasts, but this goblin had simply walked into something he shouldn't have. Was it different? Samedi would have to sort it out, because Serat couldn't afford to think about it now.
Uncoiling like a striking cobra, Serat wrapped both arms around the flamboyantly dressed goblin, pulling him back against his chest and yanking his knife across his throat. He thought the keen blade would go through neatly, and gaped when it caught on the goblin's spine. He had to yank hard to dislodge and a great wash of arterial blood gushed from the green neck.
Jese'Rai was the only one not shocked by the act. Both the bruisers spun around as they heard their boss gurgle his last and as they did, she was already reaching for her weapons while they fumbled to realise what was going on. The blade of her sword chopped deep into the back of one of the bruiser's skulls, felling him with a confused look on his face, while her other hand sought to stab the other in the base of his neck.
At the last moment he twisted though and the dagger stabbed deep into the meat of his shoulder. He would have screamed then, had Serat not leapt at him, hands empty and clamped his hands over the goblin's skull, slamming his jaw closed, and cutting of any such yell. The two creatures struggled, the goblin punishing Serat with hard punches to his stomach, while the troll hung onto his head desperately, knowing that to be caught by the goblin authorities would likely mean their execution.
The blows quickly got weaker though, and Serat cracked open his eyes. Jese'Rai stood above him, her hand red to the wrist and the goblin's back a map of puncture wounds. With old-man slowness, Serat unwrapped himself from the body and cradled his aching ribs.
Jese'Rai on the other hand, moved with quiet professionalism, quickly dragging the bodies to the back of the alley and throwing some of the detritus of them. It wouldn't disguise them long, but in the rain and with the confusion on the explosion, it might do enough. While Serat tried to wash some of the blood off in the puddles of rainwater, she gathered up the package and money pouch.
'Time to leave Bilgewater behind then?' he asked her, knowing completely that she was far more suited to this sort of work than he ever might be.
She nodded, already having tossed away her blood drenched jerkin, leaving her in a loose undershirt that clung wetly to her battle-hardened body and breasts.
'Time to go Serat.' She said and gave him a warm smile, with both sides of her mouth, 'And hey, who says you can't leave the goblins with your pockets full?'
She jingled the money pouch.

Some weeks later, drinking in the Wyvren's Tail, Serat heard the news.
Two supply air ships, being loaded to head to Gromgol and the effort against the Gurubashi, had been scuttled while resting in their cradles. Most of the supplies had been ruined and dockworker who had been dozing somewhere he shouldn't had been killed in the explosions.
Like most of the others in the tavern, Serat scowled at the news and offered his theories on who might have been responsible amidst the cries for vengeance.
Alliance spies hiding amongst the blood elves maybe? Weren't they goblin devices? Could those short-arse mercenaries really be trusted?
The raise of a cup can hide all sorts of smiles it seemed.