Upon waking, the cavern was dark, as it had been
upon his entrance. He had no idea how much time had
passed, knew only that he was hungry. Hungry beyond
reason. His body trembled from knees to neck. He
struggled to hands and knees, head lolled between
shoulders, then eased slowly back to sit nearly upright.
Sweat dripped from him, though he could not say
why. Old fear no longer gripped him, but like the smell of
a rotting corpse, the air was steeped in it, his nostrils
swimming in the stench of his fetid past. His eyes stung
and clouded, teared up as the dripping of the cavern
echoed again in his mind. Apparitions formed before him,
reeled drunkenly around his swaying head.
Ping. Catch the boar! Truss him up! Cook him!
High-pitched voices squealed in delight and the
patter of bare feet on stone echoed toward him. He stood,
a child again, behind the body of a dead worg, its huge
mouth open in a death snarl, teeth bared and blood
pooling at its snout.
The half-orcling, fated ever to play the boar in the
game of worg hunt, stood alone among his brood, cast off
save when there was need for some prey or other. With
nowhere to run, Wank quickly crawled into the slit-open
belly of the beast, covering himself with a bloody flap of
fresh hide. He lay silently as the muted laughter swept past,
and the slapping of feet as if pounding across his skull
careened over him, driving his innocence like ethereal
sheep before them.
As the vision faded, pain once again lanced
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