(FREE COMPLETE BOOK) Wothlondia Rising, Beginnings Saga, Book 1

Chapter 5, Reflections (Orngoth Ironskull short)

Chapter 5

Reflections

Orngoth left the grotto of his own accord. His barbarian ogre brethren were going about their everyday routines, mostly sleeping and eating, within the series of caverns they now called home on the lower western side of the Blackstone Mountain range.

At dusk yester eve the Ironskull tribe had encountered a pack of ferocious mountain bears approaching their cave entrance. There were three bears all told, with paws as big as a man’s head and claws sharper than any dagger. When they stood on their hind legs, they were taller than any of the ogres. Each bear weighed at least one and half times that of a full grown ogre and had a mouth full of razor sharp teeth.

They did not stand a chance against the Ironskulls.

As the ogres dined on the cooked flesh of the bears, Orngoth had to wait for scraps as usual. But this time, instead of lingering, he decided he would come back later when they were all sleeping to claim his portions.

The cool breeze coming from the north was chilly today, penetrating the furs he wore around him and causing bumps to permeate his skin. Underneath the furs were oddments of chainmail that he had managed to salvage from the armored horses of some of their victims, and which he now wore draped loosely across his massive back and chest. His ram-horned helm sat firmly atop his head and his dark, bristly hair was bound beneath it, aiding in his warmth. He barely wore any clothing at all, mostly fur-covered leather boots and a heavy chain loincloth over woolen undergarments.

The ogre clan had moved around a lot in the last few years, Orngoth recalled, scavenging food here and there and sacking passersby in caravans. Sometimes their victims were wandering sellswords or mercenaries whom they happened upon. Occasionally, they would invade the dwellings of some of the less aggressive humanoids, taking what they desired. Ogres were cruel to begin with—barbarian ogres were even more bloodthirsty. This was beginning to bother Orngoth more than a little as he felt that what they did was… wrong. There was really no other way to describe it. He did not feel good inside when the ogre clan raided a village or pillaged a road-weary group of travelers. He did not know how or why—he only knew that it felt wrong.

This fact made him reflect upon his birth mother. She was the only explanation for these emotions, Orngoth reasoned. She was human; he had discovered that much, as had the Ironskull ogres. And he had very faint recollections that at some point in his childhood, he had belonged to a family of humans who had abandoned him somewhere. He was also told that he was ‘lucky’ that the ogres had found him and claimed him as their own those many years ago. It was an ogre female in the clan named Hazel that took him in and cared for him for those first years. She had died a while ago, but Orngoth remembered her deeds better than he recalled what she looked like. She had been kind to him at least and that was what he remembered most.

Further evidence of his ‘impurity’, as the ogres called it, was the color of his skin. It was less in the yellowed tones of the ogres and more along the shades of pink of the humans. It was also free of the warts and boils commonly found on the hides of his ogre brethren. His eyes were reflections of the bluest of skies, quite unlike those of any ogre, whose eyes were always as black as the darkest caverns of the Subterrane.

Orngoth was treated callously and with minimal care by the Ironskulls. The clan had been given their name by Muurg, their leader and chieftain. He was a brutish hulk of a thing, with a bloated belly and stiffened muscles atop his back and arms like none Orngoth had ever seen before. However, Orngoth was no slouch either when it came to size and strength, weighing as much as a horse and standing tall amongst the pure blooded ogres.

Muurg was fairly intelligent and extremely cunning for an ogre. He had deciphered Orngoth’s human heritage from the features he displayed shortly after Hazel claimed the boy as her own. Orngoth received daily beatings and the catalyst was the simple fact that his veins were ‘polluted’ with the blood of the humans. Muurg instigated the attacks with an insult here or there, and the barbarian ogres did not need much more in the way of incentive. Scars and fractured bones sometimes lingered as results of the thrashings, at which time the ogres would simply leave him lying in a pool of his own blood as they walked away laughing. But Orngoth would never plead for them to stop, nor would he show any signs of fear. That would result in his death. The ogres did not stand for cowardice in any fashion or render any mercy whatsoever.