Lady Edith's Revenge

I had been captured by an enemy country. I was being tortured for information as I lay on a stone slab with my hands cruelly bound behind me.

Her tanned skin glowed in the flickering firelight, her black hair tangled around her bare shoulders. The woman moved closer and unhooked one of my small iron shackles from a heavy chain binding my feet. She smiled wryly, "Well, it's about time you woke up." Her voice was low and melodious; I could see her sharp white teeth as she spoke.

I grunted something incomprehensible as she slid the shackle off my ankle and then roughly grabbed my arm, pulling me to my feet. Her touch was cool but strong as she led me over to a rack of implements hanging from the dungeon wall.

She held up a curious looking device that had two long wooden handles attached at the top by a curved arch. It looked like an upside-down bow with a shorter section in the middle and two long pronged forks at the bottom. The woman ran her fingers along the length of one of the prongs and then touched my face with it, "Open your mouth." I complied and she slid the prong into my mouth, past my teeth and against my gums. Then she wrapped a piece of leather around the base of my neck and tied it tightly. Whatever this thing is, it has made some sort of impression on this woman.

"We need to secure you to this framework," she said as she led me over to the frame against the wall and pushed me back down onto the stone slab. She strapped my wrists and ankles to four heavy iron rings that were mounted onto each corner of the frame. I was nearly immobilized now, only able to move my head slightly up or down in response to her questions or movements within arm's reach of me. The woman bent down next to me, examining me intently with her blazing green eyes. "Where did you get this armor?" She asked, running her finger along one of the thin metal plates making up part of my upper body protection.

I spat out the wooden contraption from earlier and replied through bloodied lips, "This isn't your country's armor! It's Exilonian!" The woman jumped back away from me quickly, startled by my answer. She reached into her belt and pulled out a small knife that caught the firelight as she stared at it with wide, frightened eyes.

"You... You're an Exilonian Knight?!" She asked incredulously while pointing threateningly at me with her knife hand while still holding onto her belt knife with her other hand wrapped protectively around her stomach area just above her waist sash beltline over what I assumed was a hidden dagger or sword carried there like mine was concealed behind mine.

I replied softly through cracked dry lips, "Yes... But why are you so afraid? We don't go around killing innocent women do we?" The woman shook her head slowly in reply before speaking in a shaking voice, "No... But when I heard you speaking... I thought... Well... Never mind..." She put away both knives into their hiding places on either side of her waist belt line before turning toward an overturned wooden bucket that had been sitting next to me on the stone slab where I was being held captive by those same people who now held both us prisoners here in this dungeon deep underground in their country somewhere far from home in Exilonia across our border ocean.

The woman picked up an old rag from inside the bucket and returned to where I was bound securely to the rack framework beside one of its corners near where I lay propped up against its side wall next to large container filled with water sitting atop another raised stone slab nearby; it was apparently used for washing purposes given how dampened the stone slab beneath it appeared near that particular corner where she had walked over during our conversation just now.