Lost Creek Hollow steam rising from the belly of the beast

open for anyone; for reference this is obviously set several days following mordecai's tango with shardul.

Days and nights had swiftly gone out from under him, though whether or not it had been through a haze of fever, rest, or some rudimentary form of medicine was lost on him.  Where pain had come and gone, restlessness had grown and Mordecai found that his range was severely limited.  If not corralled by Harlyn for making his attempts, he found that he simply lacked the energy and the tolerance to travel; the former with whom he would not argue, and the latter he saw no point in doing so.

Yet propped up in the mouth of some ruddy den, he found himself murmuring silently for the briefest of moments, shifting his weight again to fend of the prickle of stiffness that dared to persist.  At least once the aggravation of not venturing far had provoked him to give a flash of teeth to an early winter squirrel, which had done nothing but split the tear of his lip again.  His eye was swollen and he considered that a most definite unpleasant twist of events, though the understanding of what had occurred and what it spelt out had crested the horizon.  He disregarded it, not entirely willing to see that particular truth — the eye was useless and degrading.

Stretching out his leg as far as he dared, he gently rested his head upon it with a huff. The woodland around him had settled into silence, barring the ambient din of faint bird calls in the overcast day.  Harlyn had spirited herself away for a bit in spite of the damp chill that lingered in the air; the others Mordecai could not account for.  He heard neither them stirring nor their calls, and found the quiet almost overbearing for reasons he could not entirely explain.

murder by death — steam rising