Betrayed

The scent of food wafting on the wind roused him. Not the screams and pleadings for mercy from the men to his right and left, not the shouts and crude insults from the guards, not the plat-plat of the rain, not the tink-clink of the tiny bits of hail. Those were all commonplace. But the smell of cooking food, so close to his cage? Now, that was new. That was downright abnormal.

Meldrick opened his eyes slowly, blinked away the bleariness, and tried to focus. Though he'd just as well have stayed asleep; he'd been dreaming of home. Of Faldor. Not a total loss, he mused to himself, eyeing the approaching guard, who carried a platter of some sort of meat. The guard stopped at his door and kicked out, splashing him with filthy water, mud, and who knew what else. Meldrick raised a hand to fend off the muck, but the effort was useless. He wiped it away from his face as best he could and looked up at the guard.

The guard sneered at him and slung the food between the cage bars. It landed at Meldrick's feet with a wet plop. Though his mind told him the meat was likely rotten, his guts twisted and gurgled in noisy anticipation. He wasn't about to pass up the first meal he'd had all week, regardless of the state of it.

"Eat up," the guard instructed. "General wants you full of energy for tonight."

Meldrick closed his eyes and turned away from the guard, pressed his forehead against the bars of the cage. Now the food made sense. Part of him wanted to refuse to eat, scuff dirt over the rancid mess, and spit on it. Spit on the guard. But that wasn't going to happen. He would eat the food, relish it, savor it, make it last as long as he could, lick it from his fingers, and wish for more. Because there wasn't anything else to do.