The Sin'karri
Disclaimer: This story takes place in the WoW universe so I'm taking some of it from that, but to my knowledge it's ok to set your story in a universe that was already thought up. Anyway, I do not own any part of WoW, that is entirely owned by Blizzard, and anything unique was completely thought up by me! Creativity ftw?
The Sin'karri
Few people know anything about the Sin'karri, or was it? hell even their name isn't widely known. No one knows their secrets, or what they even do around Azeroth. There have been rumors that they are some sort of renegade guild that has dealings with both Thrall and Jaina Proudmoore, though great leaders as they are, neither will directly address it if you question about it. They occasionally recruit mercenaries for unknown tasks, but even those that come back alive know nothing of their employers.
It was a surprisingly cold day in the Barrens, and there had been quite a few lately. Over the past few weeks the barrens had become even more dangerous than before, there were reports of strange sightings all around. In response, the great Warchief Thrall increased security on all cities, and even started patrol routes through the barrens. Gisha was a loyal Troll under the service of Thrall, she had been ordered to go on a rather strange patrol route today.
It was the first time she had actually been granted audience with Thrall, himself; she was amazed how cold he kept his throne room with the weather around Durotar. Thrall almost seemed to be agitated by something; there was a glimmer of something Gisha had never seen before in his oh-so-rare blue eyes.
"Gisha, I want you to patrol around the northern Barrens near the Crossroads, I've been told to keep security high around that specific place."
Gisha couldn't help herself; she blurted out "Someone told you, Warchief? I didn't know you took orders from anyone." In reflection, this was a terrible thing to say, but Gisha always had a habit of acting before thinking. In fact, that was how she got into the Horde military. Having been born long before the Trolls had ever met the Orcs, she learned to hunt from tradition, well, from her grandfather. He was known as a witch doctor back then, that alone pretty much made her royalty before the Orcs showed up and changed their form of leadership. Sure, she was grateful, as were all Trolls of her tribe that the Orcs saved them from a never ending swarm of Murlocs, but she did miss the glamour of her previous life. She somehow conned her way past the recruiters (only she and the two guards would ever know how) and made it all the way to Thrall's Throne room before she was detected. She normally would have been executed, but Thrall saw her potential as a Rogue.
More than a little angry at such a question Thrall immediately chastised the girl for questioning his orders, which she promptly obeyed and quickly left.
So, now here she was, patrolling in a place with absolutely no activity, she couldn't help but wonder who could fool Thrall into falsely reinforcing the Crossroads. At least 50 new Horde guards had shown up in the past two days, she just happened to be one of them.
Nothing was going on out in the barrens, however, besides the weather it truly lived up to its name. The landscape was dotted with a few trees here and there, a raptor, or a Quillboar would occasionally pass by, never really paying them any attention.
Her partner during her outings was a large Tauren by the name of Ragoth who was riding his Kodo alongside her. "Why do you think Thrall sent us out here?" Asked Gisha.
"I've no clue, but I trust that wherever Thrall gets his information he questions it for a while before acting upon it." Replied Ragoth. He was remarkably well spoken, even for a Tauren. He elected to stay in Thunderbluff for a few more years of teachings from one of the wisest masters there instead of moving directly to Horde service as so many of his brothers did. This, in turn, paid off quite well as he became known as a resident battle mage, one both attuned with close quarters combat and very attuned with the powers of Nature and the Arcane. His Shamanistic teachers had reservations about his study of the Arcane, but he learned to control it as well as any Blood Elf.
"Well it's been two days and we still haven't seen anything unusual, do you think someone may be trying to trick Thrall?" The Horde had many enemies, some more subtle than others, the possibility of someone trying to take advantage of their Warchief was unlikely but plausible.
"I doubt it, if the Legion taught us anything; they showed us Thralls fury when he's betrayed, besides, doesn't it feel like something is wrong out here? I don't just mean the weather, something strange is happening to all of Kalimdor." It was true, weird things were happening everywhere. Several tribes of Centaur, while yes they were always at war, had begun attacking each other even more violently than they had before. Murlocs had shown up in the hundreds, if not thousands along the coastlines causing more trouble for the Goblins than anyone else. Wildlife had become far more intelligent, even going so far as forming their own communities. But perhaps the strangest of all was the Razorfen Quillboar of the southern dens. For days their magic users had been channeling some spell, the Horde scouts sent to investigate came back with detailed reports stating that as they finally finished their casting, the Quillboar ran inside their dens and the giant thorns closed into an impenetrable wall fortified by continuous casting of some spell on the other side.
"Bah, why don't we call it a day and head back to the Crossroads, what do you say Ragoth?"
"I don't see why not, we can get a few extra drinks in with the boys back there."
About half an hour later Gisha was getting close the Crossroads. She and her partner had remained silent the entire time, the far too early nightfall making both of them nervous. Upon arriving at the Crossroads they greeted the usual guards, tied up their mounts for the night, and made way for the pub.
"Looks busy tonight" said Gisha
"Yeah, maybe we'll get lucky and finally get some sport."
By 'sport' Ragoth of course meant a good fight. He always did love to fight, that's one of the reasons Gisha liked him as a partner. When she looked at the pub, she thought to herself 'he just might get his wish after all'. There were at least half a dozen Tauren all in one group on the right playing a card game. More than a dozen Orcs were scattered here and there around the pub and a few Trolls were there too. Gisha was more than surprised to see a few Blood Elves in the pub, however.
The pub was a large building, but not set up for all of the guards for the Crossroads. It had the bar on the right as you entered as well as a few tables on the far end. It had four more tables on the left side, and two tables on the wall near the door. The center of the room, now occupied by the Blood Elves, had plush seating, often meant for higher ranked personnel to sit in them. She thought it almost an insult that these elves were taking the regular seat of the captain of the guard.
They were elaborately dressed, as all Blood Elves are, and seemed to be just as antisocial with the 'lesser-species' as the rest of their kind. Why they'd be in a Horde outpost newly filled with soldiers Gisha had no idea. But she and her partner ordered their usual drinks and he dismissed himself to go play cards with the other Tauren.
Gisha was a very beautiful young woman, so it was no surprise she got the occasional drunken braggart come up and try to fondle her. She made them pay for it every time, even breaking a few bones. 'Helps to have a little military training under your belt' she laughed to herself, but tonight she was more interested in figuring out the presence of these Elves.
"How much longer do we have to stay here with these drunken mongrels?" Asked the male, he had been patient beyond what he thought himself capable of. For days they had been here, it had felt like weeks to him. Their mission was to track down any emanations of the use of any abnormal magic.
"Just a little while longer, Kael'thas told us to come here and watch for any activity, something's wrong with the Barrens lately." Replied the younger female. "If we don't find anything soon we can return to Silvermoon, I promise."
Luscia had been talking to her partner through a mind link the past half hour to drown out the 'people' around them. She thought it odd that her master would ask her to come here for no reason, but even she was having doubts about this mission. Two days they were here, mostly without notice of the locals, and they still found nothing, no signs of the use of magic, not even a conjuring spell. The magic used by the Quillboar obviously piqued their interest, but it was more druidic in nature, instead of Arcane. Though the magic was powerful, they had no interest in studying it. Luscia however couldn't help but wonder what could frighten the Quillboar so much that they would close themselves off from the rest of the world. What did they know that the other races did not?
"You do feel it though don't you? Something's happening here, it feels just wrong in this entire desert."
"I do, but that could just be nausea from the smell of these beasts."
Gisha was just beginning to drift off in her chair when people started leaving the bar. Over the next half hour nearly everyone left and went to their homes, almost as if they had a curfew. She began dreaming of home, where she was usually stationed as a guard. The other Trolls, she knew all their names, the beach just a few feet from her front door, and of course her father who she missed very much. She awoke a few minutes later with her partner yelling at her that something happened.
"The town is on fire, damn it! Wake up!"
Both of them rushed outside to see that indeed 3 buildings had been set ablaze, even more interesting than that, it was raining.... in the Barrens. The rain was doing nothing to put the fire out, however, so they rushed to the aid of others trying to put out the fire. Nothing they did could stay the flame; it looked like the buckets of water were feeding it, not putting it out.
Gisha was getting frantic, the fire was dangerously close to spreading to the other buildings, and she didn't know what to do. Her partner was carrying a bucket full of water far larger than anyone else in the camp could manage, but even when he poured that on, it only quenched the flame momentarily. Many thoughts ran through Ragoth's mind on how to deal with the flame, but then he thought of that old human saying 'fight fire with fire' so he quickly prepared a frost spell and began raining down freezing water and ice on the flame.
Gisha was going to get the guards to help put out the fire when she heard a scream. Struggling to find where it came from; she eventually realized it was coming from one of the guard positions on the outside of town. She rushed there as quickly as she could, pulling her dagger free from its sheath.
She arrived a moment later and found both the Orc guards on the ground 20 feet away from their post. She checked them, and they were dead. She knew whatever could kill two Orcs could easily kill her and she thought of going back to fetch Ragoth. She heard another scream around the corner of the building, and knew she didn't have the time.
Creeping around the corner, she saw an unconscious female Blood Elf on the ground, and something worse than that was right near the gate. It was a male Blood Elf, he was shouting curses and trying to cast magic at whatever it was that had him hanging by his neck.
Gisha's grandfather had told her of the Sin'karri. He described them as "large mon's wit da wildlife on dey heds." She had made the mistake of thinking he was just trying to scare her with stories of how they came into a town to recruit mercenaries while saying little, if anything. It was enormous, far taller than any human, and even taller than most Trolls, but it was as wide as a Tauren. It wore armor like she'd never seen before, it was detailed with gold and silver, and the rest of it was black, completely black. Legends said that the Sin'karri were not even of this world, they were from the Nether like the Legion, this was because no one had ever seen their faces, and in fact no one had even seen any of their skin, they always wore armor completely covering every inch of their body and an elaborate helmet of some sort.
This one wore a mask that looked like a metallic wolf. It yelled a few words at the Blood Elf and raised him even higher off the ground before the Elf yelled another curse at him. Gisha did not understand either side of the conversation, the Elf was yelling in his language, but whatever he said angered it. In one quick movement, the Sin'karri snapped the neck of the Elf it was holding with a single hand, throwing the body to the ground several feet away.
Gisha couldn't wait anymore; she had to get out there and save the girl if she could. She rushed forward with practiced grace, dagger aimed at just the right point in the bottom right back of the beast, ideally mortally wounding the target. Something happened then that she'd never seen before. Her blade broke, clean off of the hilt upon connecting with the Sin'karri armor. It looked down at her and a rush of fear spread through her whole body. It was not until now that she noticed its eyes were glowing blood red, even without the current situation she would have gasped in fear at the sight of those eyes.
She was paralyzed with fear. The gargantuan figure grabbed Gisha's neck and began to lift her off the ground when Ragoth came running around the building shouting at it. The Sin'karri dropped Gisha and turned his attention on him. Ragoth wasted no time attacking, he rushed, shield at ready and brought his axe down on its helmet. The axe shattered in a flash of sparks, and the Sin'karri kicked Ragoth away like he was a rag doll.
Gisha tried yelling, praying that someone would hear and come save them, but she still couldn't breathe and all that came out of her mouth was a rasp Ragoth tried to stand again, picking up what was left of his axe off the ground, but only managed to stumble and collapsed into slumber a second later. Yet the Sin'karri did nothing more... he simply gave one last gaze at the two of them then walked away, greaves making a sound like thunder each step he took.
I know there's no sex involved but I think that this site is more... accepting to that sort, oh and for those of you who might recognize this story, I'm the original author, I just proofread it a bit.