An Unlikely Offer

The acrid tang of burnt wood and something far fouler clung to the air, a perfume Borgen knew intimately. It was the scent of his life, the lingering miasma of battlefields that served as both his larder and his tomb. He was a familiar silhouette against the bruised twilight sky, a mountain of a boy, his massive frame a stark contrast to the scattered, broken bodies he navigated with practiced ease. The whispers followed him like carrion birds: ‘monster,’ ‘ogre-spawn,’ ‘troll-kin.’ They were right, in a way. He was larger than any human he’d ever seen, his limbs thick as young saplings, his hands capable of crushing bone. But he was only thirteen summers old, and the gnawing hunger was a constant companion, a dull ache that drove him to this grim work.

He knelt beside a fallen warrior, the glint of steel catching his eye. A sword, its hilt wrapped in worn leather, lay half-buried in the churned earth. Borgen’s fingers, surprisingly deft for their size, worked to free it. The warrior’s armor was dented and scarred, a testament to a life lived and lost in the brutal dance of war. Borgen felt no pity, only a professional detachment. He was a scavenger, a survivor, and every piece of metal, every scrap of cloth, meant another day. His own regeneration, a miracle he didn’t understand but relied on implicitly, had mended wounds that would have ended lesser beings. He’d fallen from heights, been pierced by blades, even caught in the blast of some strange, crackling energy that had left him burning for days, only to emerge whole, if a little scorched.

A gruff voice shattered the quiet. “Leave it, boy. That’s not yours.”