were home to the clans under the Sotu Mountains,
OrcHome. Animal skins and human bones adorned the
dank space, grime and dampness a mere pelt-thickness
away from every touch, every movement.
He had awakened several days earlier, bruised and
battered, swollen and crusty with blood. His weapons and
furs had long ago been stripped from him, so he lay,
sullen, in his damp loin cloth. In the past three days he had
tried, somewhat successfully, to work out the bruises and
contusions. His strength returned gradually as, surprisingly,
he had been well fed – from the greasy pot of his
chieftain/sire, Rahsik-ba.
His mother sat staring, though unseeing he
thought, through matted strands of gnarled hair at the
stained bedding of her rent and threadbare mattress, dried
brown straw prickling upward into gray, flaking skin.
The contusions around his ribs lanced pain around
his chest and he grunted as he shifted his weight from his
left side to his back. The chains around his ankles rattled
slightly and his mother’s head popped up, an immediate
smile lighting her face. Some color returned to her gray
cheeks as she beamed a gap-toothed grin at her son. It
seemed to Wank as if she merely tolerated the empty
spaces of her life between his visits, such as this was.
She immediately crawled to him, grabbing water
and cloth along the way, her own abrasions around knees
and ankles as nothing now that he was awake.
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