Wave Caster

This isn't a campaign storyline, just something I have been working on a while. I put it on fanfiction.net, but seeing "Rise of the Tide MOD" here I though this Murloc story might be in good company. Here's chapter one, the introduction:

Wave Caster
By DevilFish
Note: Devilfish doesn’t own Warcraft, it’s a Blizzard trademark. Devilfish is just borrowing it.


Chapter One/Introduction: The Raid

Under a half moon and a sky filled with stars no-one on Earth will ever see, the Murloc raiding party crept through the murk of the Mulgore River Delta, crouching with only their eyes above the water. Silently they waded through brackish dirty water, undetected by any creature save a few leeches that chewed hopelessly at their tough scales. From channel to channel, in between the clusters of brown and green swamp plants, they snuck closer and closer to their objective: the nearby Orcish pig farms that watered their animals from the river Mulgore. Like any predators, the Murlocs love the easy prey of livestock. The sea is full of fish, but populations always grow to the limit of their food supplies, and that means hunger. The fish-men were famished, grim, and determined.
The leader was a large and dark Murloc hunter-warrior of the Nightcrawler caste. He spoke to his followers in a squawking, watery hiss.
“Stay close, stay quiet, we near them. I taste the beasts upon the water. Stay silent, silent, and follow…” Closer in they pulled their formations, appearing as a little army of ripples flowing through the wetlands. They were fifteen in all, the great black Nightcrawler, Tepalsish, his apprentice Eta’cha, four orange huntsmen carrying their nets, and nine of the Tiderunners, the small but tough yellow hunter-warriors that made up the bulk of Murloc forces.
Kalas was the smallest and weakest of the fish-men. He alone had fear in his eyes and butterflies in his empty stomach, and he moved with the nervous jerkiness of a newly initiated Tiderunner carrying his knife and shield into battle for the first time. He had set foot on land many times before; Murlocs were amphibious by the age of a few months. As a youngling, he and others of his generation would crawl the shores and shoals off the coast of Kalimdor frequently, pulling mussels from the rocks and robbing the nests of gulls. He had even seen the denizens of the land up close, the Tauren and Quillboars and Centaurs who came to drink from the rivers they explored. “It is no different,” he thought, trying to reassure himself. But it was. He had never before been carrying weapons, never before had his face borne the aggressive red stripes of a Tiderunner. He had not fought anything fiercer than a marsh-snake, never seen another Murloc killed. He was well trained in the use of his knife and shield, and the bamboo spears on his back, but his heart was completely unprepared, and his mind knew it. He heard a groaning in the bushes and jerked around to face whatever it might be, splashing even more.
“Kalas, you trying to imitate a crab mating dance? Stop twitching like that! You’ll have us all at the end of Troll spears!” It was Eta’cha. She was one of his siblings; as was all of his generation. All of Tepalsish’s generation were their parents. In a mass egg-laying race, there is no way to keep precise track of lineage—it truly does take a village to raise a child. Since they operated on a mating-season system, each year’s generation was within one week of each other in age, and were all considered siblings.
“Sister,” he addressed her, “were you not afraid the first time you raided? Do you forget what it’s like so fast? This is only your third!” As a Nightcrawler she had priority in training, and had become a full-fledged member of the clan sooner than he. It was a rule to only bring one new warrior on a raid, for in a world without small family groups it was sink or swim. Many sank.
“Yes, I remember being afraid, and I am afraid now. But I didn’t splash every time I took heard a noise, and neither shall you!”
Kalas tried to steady himself. They came to a large open pool, and Tepalsish gave the order for all to dive and stay hidden underwater. He and Eta’cha went out to scout. To Kalas, under the water, they shimmered as they crawled the shore, invisible as lumps of swamp grass when they held still. Then they moved out of sight, and for a long time he sat there in the gloom, the odd cocktail of salt and fresh water making his gills itch. He though about what his fate might be. He had a good enough general idea—he had seen raiders come back with huge gashes from Centaur axes, or whole limbs crushed off by Tauren. Often they were crippled and deformed for life. Sometimes they died.
Finally, the Nightcrawlers returned to the waters edge and beckoned the rest of the raiding party to surface.
“We have found our place to strike. The guards walk the whole farm, and if we are fast we may get to one of the pens between their rounds and take food without fighting.” Kalas felt a moment of relief; perhaps he would not die after all. They emerged from the water and followed the Nightcrawlers towards the peaked roof of an orcish pigsty. Waiting under the nearest patch of cover to the building for the right moment, the night breeze blew the slime on Kalas’s scales and chilled him, stiffening his cold-blooded muscles. When Tepalsish gave them the signal to move, he had to strain to walk. He reached the wooden hut last, as the hunters readied their nets and Tepalsish pried the gate open with his large knife.
The leader spoke to the hunstmen sternly: “Now, catch them quietly, or--” but he was too late. The youngest huntsman, in his over-eagerness for food had already cast his net upon the fattest pig and was trying to pull it away. IKt squealed so loudly that Kalas had to cover his ears. “FOOLS!” came Tepalsish’s thunderous hiss, and at the same moment the sound of barking, dry Orcish and Trollish voices could be heard, and heavy footsteps growing rapidly closer.
Kalas was not sure what to feel more of; terror, or relief that he was not the only one capable of endangering the raid with mistakes. The other three hunters netted pigs quickly as Tepalsish ordered a retreat, and the fifteen clambered back towards the delta as fast as webbed feet could carry them, roughly dragging the ensnared pigs behind. But, luck was not on their side. Kalas had not been entirely wrong to fear the noise in the marsh. It seemed two orcs had snuck off into the undergrowth for a dalliance-- and apparently carried their weapons with them. How typical. On their way back to camp, they had heard the alarm and come running, and now were straight in the path of the Murlocs’ retreat.
Confused fish-voices shouted out their shock: “By the great Whale! How did they get behind us so quickly?! A trap!” The party was thrown into scared disarray and was unable to follow Tepalsish’s order to make a formation and break through the two lovers to reach the water’s safety. The two orcs came in charging, and ran into a pile of disorganized fish-out-of-water, devastating them. The male’s axe beheaded the irresponsible huntsman immediately. Fitting, Kalas had time to think. The other Murlocs were massing the two orcs, marring their green legs with many knife-cuts, trying to overbear them. Kalas ran to do the same, striking the male’s shin with the edge of his heavy shell-shield. But, the orcs were too strong. They swung their axes and knocked away enemies right and left. Another Murloc died, Slekrix, an old Tiderunner beginning to weaken with age. Tepalsish himself was bleeding.
In the hopeless pandemonium, Kalas felt sure they would never break though and reach the waters before the orcs arrived to kill them. He was, by necessity, prepared to die now. It felt odd-- his fear at the possibility of death in the swamp had been so great, and now the certainty of death moved him not. Angry courage welled up, and he raised his knife to hurl it.
“If this must be the end, let me die fighting and leave my mark on the enemy!” he cried, quoting the Murloc hunter-warrior’s code. He threw his knife at the orc male’s face, making him flinch back. Kalas drew a bamboo spear from his back and ran at him, driving the stake into his stomach. The massive musculature would not give, he could not stab through to vitals and kill the orc—but he seemed to be hurting. Little did he realize, the orc was in as much shock as pain—this little skinny-armed water runt was actually attacking him? Impossible!
Seeing her lover wounded and pushed back, the enraged female knocked a Tiderunner aside and came straight at Kalas, roaring a terrible dry land-beast sound. Her axe came down like a great wave crashing, and he barely had time to raise his shield. The shell broke apart under the impact, dissipating the force and saving his arm. He put both hands on his spear, prepared to fight this terrible thing to his end. He would have been hacked to death, if Eta’cha had not saved him. She scraped her poisoned Nightcrawler knife across the orc’s gouged leg, and she fell to her knees in stunned pain.
“KALAS, RUN!” bellowed Eta’cha, sounding almost like a land creature herself. He ran. Behind him he could see the male orc struggling to tear his way out of a net—one of the huntsmen had had the presence of mind to take the net from one of the pigs and ensnare the assailant as he reeled from Kalas’s attack. Around the orcs were the bodies of two dead Murlocs, and one severed arm, Tiderunner yellow. A rather shell-shocked looking pig stumbled in a daze, cracking the bits of Kalas’s shield under its hooves. The orcish reinforcements ran past the defeated pair, seconds too late. That scene burned itself into Kalas’s mind forever. He had been so sure he would die.
Then, with the splash of swamp water and they were safe in the delta, fleeing through the channels with their booty. Troll spears flew through the undergrowth, all missing. The Trolls were attacking randomly, out of anger, a hopeless waste of spears. Soon the Murlocs were out to sea, dragging the three drowned pigs under the salty water. Kalas felt its cold on his arm; he was cut. It wasn’t bad, but it would be a battle scar—his first. For the first time since his departing the village for the raid, a Tiderunner’s red stripes now grown upon his face, he felt good. He felt pride.
Eta’cha swam beside him. “You are a worthy Tiderunner indeed, Kalas,” she said. “ You turned the tide. I wish we could have you for a Nightcrawler. Tepalsish is going to give you a commendation before the village, at the feast of these pigs, after we have honored the two dead. He’s going to present you with the hearts, Kalas. That’s a huge award.”
Honor. So this was the feeling. Initiation as a Tiderunner was nothing compared to this, it was a fiery warmth all through his body, a feeling of strength, of energy—honor. He would be commended and honored before the people of the reef, he who turned the tide against the orcs and made their escape possible. Ignoring the aches and pains of battle, and the blood coming from his arm, he swam a little faster, his eyes shining brightly in a Murloc smile.

Well written, keep it up : )

Just when I thought a murloc campaign would be original...

and btw kala is fish in finnish... Just wanted to point out that. Goes well with the enviroment though..

I didn't mean to cheapen the idea of a Murloc campaign at all! As a matter of fact Rising of the Tide MOD was part of what inspired me to put this fanfic here. And it is not part of a campaign, it's just a fanfic.

I did not know that about "kala" in Finnish! How interesting.

oh, it's ok. I never took it in a bad way anyway.