Draconess

Chapter 14

"...always good for pay, huh?..."

"...pay and women. They love to fuck in war, it's always good for a warm bed... Oi! Why did you stop? Move it!"

I jerk at the bark in that last part and then I hear multiple grunts as they pull someone along.

I hear some sort of menacing, broken chuckle and then a harsh cough as if the man they are hauling in can't breathe. I press myself back into the corner of my cell as the soldiers finally come into view with their captive.

Skin and bones, but no bruises on the pale skin of this giant man who's veins run blacker than blue-green. This prisoner was dressed in black, ripped britches... the uniform of Zarcar's army. His eyes were hollow and barely flickered a once bright hazel but the pink lips were also cracked and bleeding. His head was shaved back roughly with dark patches of hair trying to grow through. He looked severely malnourished – kind of like how Zarcar no doubt wanted me to look by the end of today. Although that was an overstatement – this man was clearly a captive for years, so I could not compare.

"Which one?" one solider asks half-heartedly while one scans the cells by turning towards mine.

"You got to be kidding me," the soldier grins as he sees my cowering form in the corner of the cell, "That whore priestess Zarcar claimed as his prize."

"Oh, shit," the second solider is just as amused.

The hazel eyed man doesn't even turn to acknowledge me.

"You haven't seen a woman this close... in what, 7 years?" one soldier is almost sympathetic until he actually spits in the prisoner's face, "Here's a favour," the soldier jerks him to the cell next to mine.

With a turn of a key, the door opens and the prisoner is pressed through and kept in chains. He was dangerous, then – or maybe they didn't care about being cruel. The captive walks to the end of his cell, wrists and ankles locked up – and he sits on the clean stones just under the bench while he watches the soldiers gloat.

"Hey, pretty thing," one soldier goes to approach my bars, "You been naughty or what?"

I say nothing while his friend grips his arm and drags him along.

"Don't be a fool, she'll curse you if you look in to her silver blooded eyes," the one wise solider but also the cruellest one who spit – takes the arm of his companion and drags him out.

I wait to breathe easy only when the guards have left completely.

With caution, I now watch the starved prisoner who faces his cell's open bars but refuses to look at me.

"The King arrives tonight," he speaks suddenly; in a little rasp, I barely hear him.

"...who are you?" I ask, hoping not to offend.

He finally turns his head to glance at me, the hazel eyes blazing even though the rest of him was so weak. He looks like the kind of man that was very handsome a long, long time ago. Now, he was old and deranged. A crazy look was burning in that gaze.

"Do I look that distasteful?" he asks, tightly, almost as if he might cry with rage but has no extra hydration to waste.

I say nothing for a while but eventually I feel the need to say, "Distasteful is the wrong word. Hungry and thirsty. I would complain of such things but now I can't because of you," I try to joke and he looks a little shocked by my attempt at humour. He looks away from me finally and I relax, "Did Zarcar do this to you?" My question gets a smirk out of him but nothing more.

"I see why they moved me in here," the man speaks, finally, but now for some reason, he is offended, "They put you in a cell next to me to try and get me to open up."