Role

Chapter 1

The whistle of a frigid wind passing through the rusting wrought iron bars of
a stock pen, carrying with it flakes of snow that bounced off his head,
stinging the tender skin of his then little face. That was Grommak's first
memory. There were others of course, from when he was quite small, but he
either could not or would not remember them. It was of little consequence,
for this first memory was when Grommak was really born.


His skin was not tough yet, and so the chill of the wind had cooled it to the
point that it was sore and red, and starting to become puffy. The pen was
outside, and the morning light of the day did little to stave off the cold.


Grommak sniffed around the door of the pen for feed, none had come the
evening before, but all his nose smelled was the soiled straw that sparsely
covered the bottom of the filthy enclosure. His stomach protested it's lack
of contents with a growl, and so Grommak pushed a handful of the dirty straw
from the floor into his mouth. This seemed to confuse his stomach, welcome
for the company but now entitled to a new type of protest. His belly roiled,
but the new fare wasn't much worse than the feed he had been getting, so he
curled up on the floor in hopes of some meager comfort.


A sudden eruption of noise roused him from a fitful slumber; metal on metal,
labored breathing and shouting, the scrape of heavy boots sliding on stone.
His pen was in the corner of a dingy warehouse yard on the docks of Seantryn
Modan, the clamour had come from up the alley and around the side of the
warehouse.


Grommak squinted against the wind, blinking away the tears formed from the
cold gust. Several figures spilled into sight up the alley. Grommak thought
he recognized the shapes of some of his handlers, they fought a massive
figure flanked by two other armored fighters that seemed allied with the big
one. Wielding a long staff with a large blade affixed to the end, the
gargantuan figure quickly dispatched those who stood before it. It turned
back to it's allies a moment before plodding down the alley toward his pen.