“Sit down children, and listen to a story the likes of which you have never heard…”


I woke up in my tent at Camp Narache. I had reached my sixteenth summer, and the time had come to begin my passage to manhood, the Rites of the Earthmother. As I rose and donned my simple brown cloth pants and vest, my twin sister awoke. We were orphaned, our parents fallen in battle to the Burning Legion. They were isolated from the main battle, and were found mutilated but with scores of dead enemies surrounding them. They fought madly to return to the children they loved. But I shook my head, cleared my mind. There were more important things to discuss that day. For this day, not only did I begin my trials, but my sister did as well.

She slipped into her long leather robe. “Today is the day, my brother…”

“Yes, the time has finally come, Mirubell. I fear we will be separated for our trials, but I wish you the best of luck.”

“Earthmother be with you Banicorl.” And with that, she picked up her simple mace and left the tent. I swung my large battle hammer over my shoulder and proceeded outward after her.

We stood before the village chieftain in silence. “Your trials begin today young ones. However, first the daily chores must be completed. Banicorl, we need the pelts of many mountain lions, new winter tents must be made. Mirubell, the stew pots run low. The meat of plainstriders will fill nicely.” We nodded in unison, and trotted off, her heading eastward towards the roosts, and I southward, into the low hills ringing the plateau on which the camp sat.

I sighted my first lion about fifty yards away, one matured but still fairly young. A tough fight, but a good pelt. I slowly approached it, using the sparse foliage for cover. I closed to within twenty yards when my hoof struck a rock with a clack that resounded loudly in the silent hills. This was the moment I had trained for. My first kill in the making. The cougar swung its head in my direction; I charged, pulling my hammer from my back. The hammer came crushing down as the beast leapt at me. I stuck it’s shoulder, a glancing but painful blow. A single claw caught my shoulder, tore slightly through my shirt and drew blood. I used the momentum to divert my next swing horizontally. This blow struck the stumbling cougar squarely across the head; it dropped with a dull thud.

Skinning a cougar was a task I had preformed many times, but always skinning those killed by the elder males of the tribe. I felt a sense of pride welling within me, and I wondered if my sister had fared as well with her first.

I would later learn that hers went much more smoothly. She drew upon the powers of nature to cast a bolt of pure lighting at the tall, long-necked bird, dropping it before it could react.
As proud as I was of my first kill, many more pelts were needed. I soon established a smooth hunting rhythm, mastered hitting it in the head or chest on my first swing. Soon the cougars fell like scythed grain under my wooden mallet, and when I finally grew tired I had a stack of pelts to my waist. I bound them with a rawhide strip and headed back to the camp.

Along the way I passed the well, and saw the Greatmother of the village struggling with a large pail of water. I stopped and set down my bundle of furs.

“Excuse me Greatmother, but I was wondering if I could be of assistance?”

Her voice was hoarse, raspy, but tender. “Yes my child… This water is heavy, and I have grown older than I would wish. One must always carry one’s weight…”

“You do Greatmother, you do more than anyone asks of you. Allow me to carry this for you, ‘twill be no hardship.”

“Thank you my child.” I picked up my furs in one hand, the pail in the other. She joined in step beside me, and we conversed idly about the seasons, the harvest, the recent tidings from Thunder bluff.

“Yes, I have always thought… Greatmother, look out!” I yelled in alarm. I threw down my furs, dropped the pail upright on a rock, and swung my hammer straight off of my back at the razor boar that had charged us. The Greatmother ducked, dodged back, and glanced quickly for any kind of stick or branch she could use to assist me.

The powerful boar deflected my swing with a flick of his tusk, and the next flick sliced my forearm to the bone. A guttural grunt of pain arose from deep within my throat, and he charged again. With a roar I mercilessly swung the two-handed hammer again, with only one arm, but the blow struck him in the side and knocked him off balance. I led with another strike to the back, and then to the chest. He charged me in a last dying attack, but I raised my hammer sideways and he hit the haft snout first. As he dropped to the ground, I flew into a rage and pounded in his skull with a roar and swung the hammer into his mangled body time and time again. He was dead by my fourth swing but I continued in a blind fury, until the Greatmother grasped my uninjured arm and pulled it to my side with surprising strength.

As my vision cleared, I realized two things. First, that blood was flowing freely from my arm and I could not move it, and second, if the strength she had shown was any indication, the Greatmother would have had no trouble carrying the pail. I realized it to be part of a test, and smiled slightly. However, she was examining the wound on my arm.

“A deep cut, but no damage to muscles or tendons. A bandage and time will heal it, but I feel we should speed the process.” She muttered a small incantation, and a faint green light emanated from her fingers into the wound, and I watched in amazement as the skin and muscle knitted itself together. “Should be fine now.”

“Greatmother, I never knew you were…”

She cut me off mid sentence. “… a shaman? Yes, there are many things about me you do not know. For instance, I have trained your sister in the shamanistic ways and she possesses similar powers over the forces of nature.” With that, she smiled and continued on towards the camp. I quickly cut the boar’s tusk from his flattened head as a trophy, grabbed my load, and followed her.

As I followed, I couldn’t help but wonder why she had tested me so, feigning weakness to get me to carry her load. It was not out of laziness, I had known her too long to believe that. But her newfound powers seemed to indicate… she had something to do with my training?

But my thoughts were cut off as I saw a figure in the distance, heading the same way as we. I peered closely… it was Mirubell! I would have waved, but I had a load in both hands. We would be at the village soon enough, we could talk then.

I finally arrived at Narache, set my load of furs near the leatherworker’s tent, and followed the Greatmother with my water. She lead me to the well in the center of Camp Narache and we set our buckets down beside the well. I witnessed Mirubell speaking to one of the many others around traiding in feathers of a plains strider, and in turn, received a chain mail chestplate.

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Harth Stone To World Of Warcraft