#manghild

 Which end had she come from again? She couldn’t remember, the rocks between her horns too tired to think. So rather than stop and ponder on it, the bulky she-troll picked a direction and started marching. As she did, the mist grew thicker, causing Uskagar to pause and reconsider her choice. Mist in the darklands was never a good thing. It always hid deep pools or sudden cliffs. Entire squads had been lost in the treacherous mists of the Darklands and she wasn’t keen on joining them.

Unshouldering her spear, Uskagar used it’s head to poke and prod the ground ahead of her, like a blindman with his stick. Low grumbling curses rumbled in her throat as she proceeded, but all came to a stop when smell of sizzling meat reached her nostrils. Uskagar straightened and breathed in deeply, taking in the rich, savory scent. Exhaling the wonderful, meaty perfume, the armored she-troll looked around, tapping the ground as she followed the scented trail.

Eventually, she found her way to a muddy hill that didn’t look like it belonged in the darklands. The door, a thick, round disk with a square hole in the top, was slightly ajar, letting a a stream of warm light and food smells waft past it. Uskagar stopped and swallowed. This was a den—no, not a den. A dwelling. This was a dwelling for a troll beyond the darklands, a dwell one would have made in the forests or mountains of the surface. But what troll would make a dwell like this in the darklands? No sooner did Uskagar wonder when a deep, feminine voice barked sharply from behind her.

“Halt there, soldier of Gunmar!” The voice shouted, the threat of a snarl coming with it. “Take any more steps an’ I’ll gore ye where ye stand!”

The startled Spartoi spun on her heel and gaped. What faced her was an enormous troll maren dressed out in beast and human bones. Her long crescent moon horns curved forward from the sides of her head like mammoth tusks and her faulds and braces were reinforced with human ribs and femurs. Around her neck and shoulders hung a mantel of ribs and long bones, possibly tibias and fibulas, the edges accented with large skulls of bird, stalking, and human. Whoever this maren was, she had the presence of a mountain and the bare-tooth ferocity of a queen nyarlagroth who’d just been crossed.

“I—I’ve just lost my way,” Uskagar stammered, taking a step back from the clearly infuriated maren.

“And so ye’ve wandered inta me home unannounced, did ye?” the maren demanded, taking a threatening step closer, "Thinkin’ ta steal away me fire ’n’ little rock as well!?”

Uskagar stared nonplussed. “What? No, I wasn’t going to take anything. If anything I was going… to…” Her voice trailed off as her gaze went to the maren’s horns which curved just like hers.

The maren narrowed her slanted eyes and bared her tusks. “What ye be starin’ at spear-girder?” she growled, her thick, unruly mane still standing on end.

“Your horns,” the Spartoi said, a hint of wonderment in her tone. “They’re like... mine.”

The maren blinked, her ridgeless brow furrowing. “Like yers? Wh—Have ye not seen horns akin ta them in yer own clan?”

Uskagar shook her head. “Spartoi do not have clans. We are wrought from troll, stone, and magic, ready made with swords in our hands to fight the human scourge. Among trolls, we are a clan to ourselves, but only the same as our helms allow.”

“No clan a’ yer own, eh?” the maren murmured, the turquoise of her irises glinting. “Well, take yer helm ’n’ let’s have a sight a’ ye, ’n’ I’ll tell ye where yer clan is.”

Uskagar stared for a moment, her green eyes narrowed. Was this old troll talking about clans like the Grugun and Wormbeard? Or was she talking about the other Spartoi from whom she’d been separated. Ugh, she was too tired for thoughts like this. If this old maren was going to help her, then she might as well get on with it.

“Tch, if it’ll get me to my squad…” Shouldering her spear again, Uskagar lifted her hands and removed her helmet, shaking her mane free of the cramped helmet space she’d contained it in. “There. It’s off. Now where’s my…” Her voice trailed off as the large maren’s expression changed.

Turquoise eyes wide with disbelief, the older maren stared, a hand held to her half-open mouth. “Ye look just like him…” she breathed, her voice quavering in just that way when tears were expected to spill.

Uskagar leaned back, her brow furrowed uncertainly. “Who?”

“Me Grogan,” the maren answered, her hands now clasped together. “Grogan, me burly brew, had the deepest set eyes ye ever did see. Clear as crystal an’ blue as the northern heartstone. Ye have the same brow an’ deepset eyes... An’ ye have me horns ’n’ an’ bushel brush mane ta boot.” Slowly she extended a paw. Not a fist or a claw to slash, but a tentative hand as if to see if the she-troll before her was real. “Oh, child, could ye really be ours?"

Uskagar blinked and flinched as the elder’s paw rested tenderly on her cheek, the words freezing her to the spot. The palm was soft, warm, and the contact made something inside her chest melt. No Spartoi had ever experienced whelphood. None of them had been hatched or raised by “families” or really had a concept of it, save for what they saw in the other clans. But this maren, this stranger in the mist, made her wonder if maybe it would be possible for a grown soldier like her to have that missing piece all Spartoi were denied.

Uskagar swallowed and wet her lips. For once her firm razor sharp eyes were uncertain, and a sliver of the youth denied her bled through.

“I could…” the Spartoi murmured, lowering her gaze, "if you wanted me.”