A dirge of daggers

The drag, Orgrimmar.

A lone troll creeps through the twisted alleyways as the moon begins to sink behind the northern mountains, as though being swallowed by Hethiss herself. For all appearances, he must be a wretched soul indeed. A tattered cloak, stitched from a combination of rags and fishnets, hides his face.

Good, thinks Jhaga. None must see him. None must know he is there.

He moves slowly. Surely. Cautiously.

He has time, is in no rush. Only the unworthy strike when the time is not right. A true devotee does his work with grace, and beauty.

Still... a sense of urgency grips him as he nears his destination. He relishes it, enjoying the feeling of dreadful excitement while it lasts.

A noise brings his attention from the stirrings of his heart. A tiny thing, little more than the scrape of a leaf against the stone... yet, such tiny sounds are the most dangerous. They often herald a swift and violent death. Jhaga knows this all too well.

He stops...waits. A moment later... there it is again!
Swiftly, he leaps. A sudden and violent motion, that brings him over a pile of crates that shield his enemy, his unwelcome observer, from vision. Whoever it is, it must die!
Jhaga lands, his cloak of rags discarded in the jump, his eyes fixed on the shadows... his mind fixed on the killing blow.

Oh. It is only a rat.

Partly relieved, partly disappointed, Jhaga grabs the rodent with dexterous precision.

Of course it was a rat. This is the drag. He was too anxious, too worried about his surroundings. He had plenty of reason to be, but such fear was unworthy of a servant of Hethiss. He must calm, in control.

Crouching down and leaning against the wall, Jhaga takes a moment to rest. While he does so, he spies something. A poster of some kind, obscured by filth on the floor.

"Wan'ted... Gransh'na'kuur..." He quickly reads over the text, idly biting off and swallowing the head of the rat as he does so.

"I 'memba im. Orc of bad mojo... he be hunted? Da pretties spoke dis would 'appen. Dey spoke I must watch."

It is happening so quickly. I must be ready!

He rose, moving to reclaim his cloak...his guise.

"JHAGA!" The cry was loud... so loud it seemed as if they very shadows had shattered and fled from it.

Jhaga leapt back, away from the call of his name, planting his back against a wall. Then, he saw whose voice it was.

A shadow moved on the rooftops, lowering itself closer and closer to the ground with the grace of a dancer. In this light, it looked like nothing less than a demon... a beast born from the nightmares of its victims to gorge its hunger on the screams of their minds. With every movement closer, it gained substance. One final jump...

A humanoid form landed twelve feet in front of Jhaga. Its hand rose up, to push back the mask on its face. A face that grinned out from between two trollish tusks.

"Jhaga... what ja be doin back in da Drag? I be tinkin dat ja gave up our craft fo good, mon Jhaga?"

Jhaga looked at the troll in front of him intently.

"Greetins... Zibolla. It 'as been... some time."

Zibolla was a large troll. He stood a foot taller than than the tall Jhaga, and his arms were as thick as an orc's. Jhaga had always wondered how he managed to move with such speed with such a bulky frame. It was as if he was an avatar of great Shirvalla. And now, that mighty troll was staring Jhaga down, his face contorted into a cheeky smirk.

"Reti'ment not suitinja Jhaga? Can't tink of anodda resen for ja ta be 'ere. Joo know ja canna ja walk bek in ana 'spect to be wel'com'd back. It aint be workin like dat mon."

Zibolla took several steps forward.

"Naie, I aint be back fer dat... I be here 'bout my own work... s'nuttin ta do wit da 'and. And if ja be tinkin of taken me in..." Jhaga let his words trail off as he drew his knives, matching blades each bearing the faint glow of mojo.

Zibolla laughed, heartily. "Ja not be tinking ta use dem cursed daggahs on me, boy? I be da one dat gave dem to ja, I kin takkem aweh!"

The large troll surged forward at Jhaga, slamming him in the chest with his elbow. Winded, Jhaga fell back, and before he knew it, Zibolla has disarmed him, and stood laughing down at Jhaga while holding his knives.

"Ah, s'naught muchas chang'd eh Jhaga? Joo be good, but I always bin betta." Zibolla grinned widely. "Lucky fa joo. I ain be 'ere to take ja in. I be 'ere to see an ol' frien', so if joo want ja knives back... joo half ta come ta my 'ouse an 'ave suppah wit I."

Jhaga looked up as his once-best friend extended a hand to help him to his feet, and a shadow fell over him.

The light of the moon was gone now.

He wondered if he would soon be swallowed too.


To be continued

great stuff Jhaga. been wondering when we'd get to find out more

Very nice story

Nice one Jhaga, more please

Skeen

Jhaga sat staring into a bowl of stew.

Zibolla had taken him to his home in the drag; a two story structure that housed the mighty stalker and his two wives. It was a fine home, considering its location in the most wretched part of Orgrimmar.

Zibolla sat across from Jhaga, going on about his life and successes since they last saw each other.

"...so I sent Gruda to stay with my brother in Sen'jin after the birth." he spoke in Zandali "I am pleased that she gave me two sons, but there is too much crying! I can't stand all the crying. Can't get any sleep, and then the bosses are displeased. It reminds me of you when we first joined the organization. You were like a blubbering child!" Zibolla slaps his knee in laughter.

"Ah, don't look at me like that Jhaga. I do not mean to remind you of your grief. At least you only lost wives and daughter's eh? Nothing that can't be replaced... But I, I made triplets! Imagine my pride."

Jhaga wondered for a moment, what the third child had been. He knew what had become of it; Zibolla, like Jhaga, worshiped Hethiss. It was an old custom, dating back to before the Darkspear left the Empire, that, should a troll father triplets, he would devour the third child to celebrate his fertility. A wife only had two breasts after all. The practice had fallen out of use among most Darkspear, and had been outlawed along with cannibalism in the Horde. But worshipers of Hethiss still held to the old ways, secretly.

What were you? Could you have been a troll such I... or like my lost daughters? What could your future have been? Jhaga wondered as Zibolla prattled on. In such cases, it was custom that the third child is never named, or even identified by gender. It is simply the third.. the wasted... the runt... the sacrifice.

Jhaga had been a third triplet. Luckily for him, his father was a warrior-priest of Shirvalla, and his mother, a truly kind creature, was favoured by Ezili. Jhaga had lived.

Pity... he though, that his father had not devoured him. I would be free. I would not have been chosen...

"Jhaga! You aren't even listening to me are you? Too much pipe over the years, its probably made you slow. Kali'so! Bring Jhaga and I some wine! That will loosen him up."

Jhaga watched as Zibolla's second wife, Kali'so, brought them wine. She was a tiny, diminutive thing. Such females rarely became wives to trolls like Zibolla, who have their pick of mates. It is considered that the small women are at risk of not surviving childbirth. Kali had not yet been with child, so perhaps the risk still remained. But he knew why Zibolla had married her. Years ago, when Zibolla and Jhaga worked together, Jhaga had considered courting Kali. There had been something about her, a dynamic quality to the mind that lay inside that fragile frame, that had drawn him. Zibolla had known, and like any large predator, felt a need to show prove his dominance over "lesser males". It came as no surprise to Jhaga that he had married Kali. He probably began courting her the same day that Jhaga left.

Jhaga looked at her as she set down the wine. Was there something there, a smile in her eyes as she looked at him? No, there could not be. He had to believe there was not.

"Now Jhaga..." Zibolla looked at him intently. The time for chit chat was over. "What brings you back here, skulking through the drag hidden in a cloak stitched from garbage? I do not need to explain the... difficult choice... you have forced on me."

Talking a breath, Jhaga thought of what to say. He would have to be careful. A whisper in his mind told him that he had known this might happen, and that he was prepared to play his part.

"I came to see Mersh'akk. I want to speak to him one last time, before he passes. I owe it to him."

Zibolla snorted with scorn. "Owe it to him? You should have thought of that before you ran out on us Jhaga. Boss Mersh'akk is old, and we know what snakes are like when they get old, eh? What makes you think he won't kill you as soon as look at you?"

Jhaga couldn't help but make the slightest smile. "Nothing, brother. Nothing at all."

His expression perplexed, Zibolla sunk back into chair he was seated in, and took a deep puff of his pipe. "You are a fool Jhaga. But you are as much my brother as if we were born from the same womb. Stay here tonight, and in the morning I will take you to see Boss Mersh'akk. If he lets you live, I will give you your knives back and let you be on your way."

"Thank you, Zibolla. It is more than I deserve." Jhaga looked at the larger troll, and smiled with gratitude.

---

Hours later, Jhaga climbed out of the hammock he was pretending to sleep in.

He had to have timed this well, or else he would not survive.

He crept into the kitchen, and took a few moments to inspect it. He gathered a few of the sharpest knives, as well as a mortar and pestle, all the while looking over his shoulder to see if his movements had brought Zibolla or Kali out of their sleep and down here to the ground floor.

Using one of his knives, he cut into his own thigh. Sticking his fingers into the wound, he pulled something out of it. A tiny pouch, only slightly larger than a fingernail, had been concealed beneath the skin. Opening it, Jhaga removed four small, round pills. Swiftly, he ground them up using the mortar and pestle, using the contents of the kitchen to mix the resulting powder with water and his own blood. The final product was a thick, tar-like substance.

He began applying it to the kitchen knives, and was almost finished...

Pain exploded in the back of Jhaga's skull. The unseen blow threatened to collapse him, but he turned his fall into a roll, luckily managing to keep hold of the two knives.

"So, this is how it is Jhaga?" Zibolla cracked his necked as he spoke, "I give you shelter for the night, and find you stealing knives to kill me with from my own kitchen?"

Zibolla charged at Jhaga's prone form. The smaller troll kicked out against the wall and rolled away, just barely avoiding being gored by Zibolla's tusks.

"You didn't think I would be foolish enough to sleep with you in the house? After so many years of your betrayal. Mata'gal, killed in Gadgetzan. Gotai, dead in Ratchet. Both members of our Fist, both undercover..."

Jhaga rose to his feet and held up the kitchen knives, and Zibolla laughed.

"Not saying a word? You expect those kitchen knives to do the talking?" Zibolla gestured to his belt, where Jhaga's cursed daggers rested. "Not while I have these, I am afraid. But I don't need them to beat your miserable hide into submission, runt!"

Rather than stay on the defense, Jhaga dashed forward to attack. That proved to be a mistake, as a swift kick from Zibolla to Jhaga's shin nearly made the smaller troll loose his feet. Jhaga raised a knife to try and counter a right hook from Zibolla, but accomplished nothing more than a cut to the forearm before Zibolla's fist connected and sent Jhaga smashing into the kitchen table.

Jhaga tried to recover, but in less than a second Zibolla's massive frame filled his vision. Lashing out, he tried to stab the larger troll in the abdomen. Jhaga managed to make a shallow cut, before Zibolla grabbed both his wrists, kicked him in the chest, and disarmed him.

"I knew you would come" Zibolla grabbed Jhaga by the throat with his left hand, and drew one of the daggers from his belt with his right. "When Gotai died, Yhagar came to me. He said it had to have been you, and that we would be next. He is a smart orc, but a fool if he though I would hide from you, Jhaga."

He gribbed Jhaga's throat harder, and Jhaga struggled to breathe as he saw Zibolla slowly raise the dagger... Jhaga's dagger.

"I don't know why you are doing what you are Jhaga. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that now... I will kill you for it."

The dagger was aimed at Jhaga's chest. Death was a mere few inches away. As Zibolla raised it to strike, Jhaga saw the cut he had made on the larger troll's forearm. It was black.

Zibolla's breathing grew heavy. His hand dropped the dagger.

"My hand... my chest... Jhaga, you poisoned me you worthless jillik... I swear I will gut y..."

The hand on his throat relaxed its grip. Jhaga pushed Zibolla away, and charged.

Zibolla gave a cry of pain as Jhaga's tusks tore through his chest and exited from his back.

He tried to speak, but only a muted gasp escaped his throat as he died.

Jhaga began the morbid process of extracting his tusks from the corpse. Several moments later, after an effort that would doubtlessly leave his neck sore for a few days, he came free and sat back, contemplating what he had done.

A noise to his left made his heart leap. In one motion he scooped up one of the kitchen knives he had poisoned, and threw it.

"Jhaga..." It was Kali'so. The knife had struck her in the chest.

A powerful burst of emotion... was it sadness?... exploded in Jhaga's heart. For a moment he was distraught, before the feeling subsided.

Just as well, he though, as he moved to her side. This needed to happen.

She looked up at him, with those clever eyes.

"Why...Jhaga?" She barely spoke the words.

"Forgive me, Kali" he placed his hand on her forehead, "but it is very complicated."

---

Jhaga broke open several flasks and jars of cooking oil that had been kept in Zibolla's kitchen, his reclaimed daggers resting on his belt. He had bundled together many of the linens and sheets of the house, and now saw to the task of soaking them with oil.

When he was finished, he lit a torch and prepared to set the house alight.

Kali's body caught his eye.

No, they do not deserve this. Let them walk the spirit world intact, and seek me out for retribution in Naraka should they wish. If I fail, I will not matter.

He doused the torch in a bucket of water, and fled the house. As he emerged outside into the cold night air, he only looked back once.



To be continued

It seems the second part was even better than the first one And I love that you went ahead and invented a new troll custom. Well thought through and seems like something the Darkspears would've been doing.

I'm really looking forward to the next part!

yes, its a delightfully gruesome little thing that you could totally see Hethiss asking of her followers.

great stuff

Glad you like it so far. I'm enjoying writing these.

The moon was full in the night sky.

He lay peacefully beneath the stars. Next to him lay, Nera'fi. Dear Nera'fi.

"Jhaga... will you love me forever? As your household grows and your new wives bear your strong sons... What becomes of me?"

"Ah, Nera..." he heard himself say, "there are no women to compare to you. More wives I may take, but you are my partner. No other woman will ever hold sway in my mind."

She seemed to grow larger, angry.

"You lie Jhaga! What of Her? She is your only love! She is your only thought! Even now you are with her, she watches!"

He looked up at the sky, at the moon. But it wasn't a moon. It was an eye; a lidless, serpentine eye that hung in the sky and stared with its gaze fixed on him

He looked back at Nera'fi. She seemed herself again; her voice was sweet.

"Jhaga... will you love me forever?"

Then there was fire. Everywhere. Fire on the hut. Fire in his ears. Fire in his eyes.

A part of his mind succeeded in identifying sounds. Cannon fire?

He tried to get up, to react to this danger. He tripped, and fell. Looking up, he saw the heart of the blaze. And in the shimmering heat, he saw an image. An... anchor?

The flames roared, and he closed his eyes recoiled from them.

His eyes were closed, but his ears were not. Screams were everywhere.

He opened his eyes, to shut out the noise in his ears. The anchor was gone. He saw the moon again. But it wasn't a moon. It was an eye. It was staring at him.

"Jhaga... will you love me forever?" Nera'fi spoke to him. He looked at her, and she was grinning at him. She twisted... changed her shape in a violent blurr.

The snake that had been Nera'fi twisted itself around his chest, his neck, his throat. It hissed at him, as the fire hissed at him, with a terrible voice.

"I love Jhaga! You are mine! You will always be mine!"

He wanted to cry out, to struggle. He couldn't.

"WILL YOU LOVE ME FOREVER?"


Jhaga came awake with a start. He was sweating and shaking uncontrollably.

First came the sickening feeling of fear and dread. Then came the relief of knowing it was only a dream. After that...

There was anger. He lost himself.

In a shrieking fury Jhaga lashed out at everything in the small Orgrimmar hut that he lived in. The furniture, he smashed. The tribal masks and wall hangings, he tore down. His blankets were ripped to rags, and his hammock was harrowed by his tusks.

A movement caught his eye. Gone were his usual jumpy nerves; in this moment he wanted nothing more than to smash whatever creature dared to come near him until it was nothing more than gore on the red clay floor. He turned to it, and his heart was filled with murderous intent.

A small form slithered out from beneath an overturned table. A little red kingsnake, one of many serpents that Jhaga kept and cared for.

Oh... His anger suddenly faded, as quickly as it reared its head. His mind calmed, and he felt very small indeed.

"Oh my love, I can not hurt you..." he spoke softly in Zandali as he reached out to the viper.

Jhaga looked around his hut. In the course of five minutes he had thoroughly trashed it.

"Forgive me dear. Let us find the others, and see that they are alright." Jhaga lifted the snake to his tusks, where it coiled around them. He then began picking up the pieces of his home, trying to put things as close to what they were before his night terror as he could. He looked in every nook and under every piece of cover, finding and collecting each of his wards... his pretties... his family.

Nearly two dozen snakes in all, Jhaga found them and gathered them to him. It always surprised him that, when nights like this happened, they always found their way to safety. His berserker rages, a primal instinct that would well up in his trollish heart on nights when his dreams troubled him, had never so much as harmed a single scale on a single serpent.

He looked over the hut once more. His efforts at cleaning up had done little to make it look better. He sighed, suddenly feeling so very tired.

Jhaga took the snakes, all draped over his arms, neck and shoulders, outside the hut. He had made a little rock garden for them to sun themselves on when he had moved into the hut, and he now carefully set them all down in it. The hut itself was an extremely modest building, in Orgrimmar's most sparsely populated section. Near the Talon Gate... as far from the Drag as he could go and still have a roof over his head within the boundaries of Orgrimmar.

Returning inside, he saw that his hammock was beyond repair. He would need to make a new one.

Exhausted, Jhaga lay down on the floor and curled into a sleeping position. He fell asleep, comforted by the fact that he was too drained of energy to dream any more dreams or break any more furniture. The moon moved behind the clouds, seemingly content to let him have the rest of the night in peace.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is not really the next installment in Jhaga's tale. It's just a little character fluff added in in the meantime.

Orgrimmar, the Valley of Strength.

A hooded figure dressed in in plain linen robes made his way through the hustle and bustle of the great marketplace.

Passing near the great bank of Orgrimmar, Jhaga pulled his hood down low and did his best to remain unnoticed by anyone of importance. His journey was not as quiet as he would have liked; every step had been forced to include a polite word of refusal to whichever begger or loud-mouthed merchant had tried to get his attention. He had been particularly vexed when a remarkably stubborn forsaken had insisted on stopping and badgering him about signing a chartered agreement. The effort it took to get from point A to point B in this city without being disturbed was extremely uncomfortable for the snake worshiper.

However, Jhaga was willing to tolerate these mundane interruptions as long as he did not fall prey to more specific attentions. The people who were in the position to recognize him were few, but it would mean a very unpleasant reunion for Jhaga if they did.

Jhaga was just nearing his destination when, in a moment of misfortune, he collided with an armour-clad orc in mid step. The impact sent Jhaga falling back to his feet, while the orc only seemed affected in his temper.

"Watch your step, whelp!"

In his mind, Jhaga was rolling his eyes. Years of practice made him act differently on the exterior, with barely any thought.

"Aiei, please masta! Fo'give poor I. Is be butta 'umble ser'vaant, great masta! Foolish is I to dis'turb joo!" Jhaga bowed, practically folded in half as his tusks scraped the ground.

"Don't dishonour me by begging." The orc spat. "Pitiful...get away now, before I need to clean my axe again." The orc turned away.

Jhaga silently thanked Hethiss for letting him slither out of a confrontation. He doubted the orc would have killed him over a simple pedestrian collision, but being thrown in a holding cell overnight or being conscripted into army service would have been disastrous.

Winded from walking front-first into a suit of heavy orcish warplate, Jhaga took a moment to rest with his back against a wall. Pulling an apple from the pocket of his robes, he let his gaze wander across the market.

The streets of Orgrimmar were even more full of soldiers than was normal. Warriors, more heavily armoured than the standard Orgrimmar grunt, were out in force. These orcs, like the one Jhaga ran into, were Warsong Battlecryers; warriors from north who were here in Orgrimmar to round up volunteers and conscripts alike to join the war effort in Northrend. They had been preaching of "glory to be found on the Isle of Conquest"; some island in North sea which had the Horde and the Alliance fighting over its possession.

Jhaga found himself thinking about the orcs. He often found himself forced to admit that there was something about the green-skinned offworlders that terrified him. Individually, they were simple enough. Brutal warriors, always ready to take some kind of disproportionate revenge for whatever imagined slight one might make to their personal or collective honour. They were loud, reckless, and overly concerned with the challenge of a fair fight. On the whole, Jhaga disliked working with them and loathed living among them.

But there was more to the orcs, as Jhaga knew well. His thoughts of them as individuals aside, as a host they were awe-inspiring. The orcs were the kind to endure any burden and face any threat, without a word of complaint. They would come together, eagerly embrace any conflict or threat as a challenge to make them stronger, and lay down their own lives in an instant if need be. All for the growth and accomplishment of their race.

He remembered vividly a conversation he had with an orc soldier in the Broken Keel some months ago. She had been telling him of the Horde's battles against the Fel Horde on the broken remnants of the orcish homeworld of Draenor, and her words were etched onto his brain.

"Some might call it a pity that our greatest foes in that campaign were our own kin. But, who better to challenge and strengthen the Horde... than orcs?"

If he had found the words themselves chilling, they did not compare to the the manner in which they were said. There had been a light in her eyes, a longing, that had frightened him. Jhaga, who was used to playing the fool and acting like a nitwit to divert attention from himself, had been lost for words. Who are these creatures we have bound ourselves to? he had wondered at the time. With meditation, he had come to understand the orcs purpose in the lives and future of the Darkspear, and his own purpose in helping to bring that about.

A movement brought Jhaga back to the present, and out of his thoughts.

A troll mounted on a raptor rode up to the shop Jhaga had been observing. After a brief conversation with the proprietor, a bowyer, the troll was handed a package.

It is him, Jhaga smiled. My guide.

Jumping into action, Jhaga climbed to the roof of the building he had been resting against. The streets were too crowded, and he would not be able to follow on them.

The rider, after a brief period of dialogue with the bowyer, spurred his raptor into a brisk walk. Jhaga followed as best he could on the rooftops, climbing and leaping with practiced efficiency.

Some ten minutes later, the rider's immediate destination became clear. He was leaving the city, bound for Durotar.

For a moment, Jhaga was confused. He had not predicted that his hunt would lead him outside the walls of Orgrimmar. But then, it made sense.

He abandoned his chase, and left the courier to proceed on its journey. It had already told him enough.