Be patient, reader, for my story is long. My first memories are of the inside of a thatched hut. A kindly ranger had found me, in the wilderness, and took me in. From a young age, this ranger taught me that my duty in life would be to help others, and protect them. He took me into a nearby human village, and I played with the children there, unaware that I was any different from them. I made many friends, and my early memories are ones of happiness. Soon, though, as we grew older, the children I loved as friends noticed that I wasn't one of them. What troll can masquerade for human, after all? They all left me, one by one, and eventually, I was alone, for no reason other than what I was. I vowed to myself to prove that they needed me. I trained long and hard in the arts of war, and at the age of only 16, was far and away the mightiest warrior in the vicinity of the village. Then, the wolves came....
The village was attacked. Of course, it fell to me to get most of the townsfolk to safety. I must not have been strong enough, for a family of four was trapped in a hut, with wolves surrounding them. My sword had broken, so I fought the wolves off with my hands. Entering the hut, I screamed... I had been too late to save two children. Their entrails glistened wetly in the dirt, half-eaten. I knelt there, screaming and crying at this senseless waste, and collapsed next to them, passing out from my wounds. When next I awoke...
I was in a cage. Suspended above a pit, in the town square. Gathered around the square were all the people of the village, glaring at me. As soon as he noticed I was conscious, the village elder pronounced me a 'monster' and told me that I was to die in the pit for the killing of those two children. Shocked, I did not speak, as the rope that suspended my cage was cut, and I plummeted into the pit, amid a cheer from those ignorant villagers. The flimsy cage shattered, and I saw then what they meant to be my death. They had captured those wolves... Snapping at me, they began to work themselves into a frenzy. I retreated to a corner of the pit, in terror. I was hungry, and weak from my blood loss. I begged all the Gods I knew for mercy, but none responded to me. None but one.... The voice resonated in my mind. "Serve me and I will save you." At first, I thought it a cruel villager taunting me from the side of the pit. But it kept sounding in my ear... "I can save you." I didn't want to die.... As the wolves began eating at me, tearing flesh from me, I screamed aloud my acceptance. That is the last I remember of the pit....
I awoke, and the first thing I saw was blood. Blood everywhere. Peering around me, I saw stacked bodies. Some of them had been mutilated and half-eaten. Death had visited the village... death, or perhaps something even more sinister. Smoke rose from the burnt-out shells of what had formerly been houses. My kindly mentor, the ranger, lay dead at my feet, an expression of utter terror on his face. Had I done this? I didn't know. Yet, it felt right... somehow. I was at peace inside. Turning, I strode out of the village, never looking back. Something in my heart led me to Naerlan... and I fear for you all.
