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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 7578314" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 268Tightly bound in her tiny cell, Galendra tried to ignore the competing complaints of her body and think.Her head still throbbed, and even the tiny slivers of light that made it through the cracks in the walls of the hut made her eyes water.  She could hear the sounds of activity outside, occasionally punctuated by the sharp barks of the dragon-men.  The continued pain in her skull made her think that she had a concussion, but there was nothing to be done for it now.They had given her food and water last night, after her “interview” with the tribal chief.  The water had been a blessed relief, but the food had been a foul-smelling paste that one of the guards had shoveled into her with a broad spoon that barely fit into her mouth.  She had seen things squirming in the bowl, and the rancid taste had almost made her gag, but not knowing when she’d get another meal had forced herself to swallow all that she was given.  The stuff hadn’t sat well, and stomach pangs had kept her awake for most of the night.When she’d finally woken up, she’d felt only incrementally better.  Her captors had ignored her requests for a bathroom break, so she’d had no choice but to piss herself.  The stink of it was just another in the long list of humiliations inflicted upon her.She had first held out hope for rescue, but her view of the dragon-man camp had squashed that hope.  There had to be hundreds of the creatures there, and the priest’s presence had confirmed that they had potent magic.  Her former passengers were powerful, she knew firsthand, but she doubted that even they would have a chance against such an imbalance of numbers.  She wondered where they had gotten themselves to.  Clearly staying at the beach was no longer an option.  Or maybe, she thought in a moment of despair, their bones were already cluttering up the nest of some jungle predator.She heard something, a ruckus that rose over the general background din of the camp.  When it continued, she lifted her head to try to hear better, ignoring the sharp stabbing pains that the motion caused.  She couldn’t see anything through the narrow gaps in the walls of the hut, but a moment later she heard the low drone of signal horns.  That created a greater stir, and she could hear dragon-men shouting at each other, some of them sounding like they were right outside her prison.She pulled herself up, groaning against the gag at the fresh waves of agony that shot through her skull.  Her arms were numb, and while that was a mercy compared to the pain from before, she was genuinely worried that she might have suffered permanent damage.  She had already tried to twist around so that her arms were in front of her, but the bindings had been too tight to allow even her small body to contort sufficiently.  So instead she rubbed her face against one of the bars of her cell, trying to loosen the gag enough to get it off.As she worked at it, she heard more horns, accompanied by a deep booming sound that she thought at first was a distant explosion or earth tremor.  Only after the sound had continued for a few moments did she realize that they were drums.  The agony in her head seemed to pulse in echo to them as she struggled to escape from her bindings.  The already raw skin along the side of her face split as she rubbed more aggressively, but she ignored the pain.  If she could get her gag off for just a few seconds…The panel “door” to the hut swung open, and a figure stepped into view.  For a moment the increased intensity of the light blinded her, but there was no mistaking the identity of the new arrival, even before it growled something unpleasant at her.Blinking back tears, she met its stare and saw her fate reflected in those dark orbs.The dragon-man lifted his spear and took a step toward her.</blockquote>

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