He licked his lips which should have been dried and cracked from being a prisoner for so long but instead they were moist and his mouth watered at the promise of food. At least his hunger made sense and his stomach tightened with the need to eat. He strained against the chains which held him and rolled onto his side as the iron manacles from his dream disintegrated and his nightmare dispersed like morning mist. Unfortunately the ache in his back and shoulders was real enough but when he opened his eyes, speckled sunlight filtering through the everleafs lit up a large clearing alive with sounds and smells and activity. Jonderill blinked away the confusion and slowly sat up, ignoring the complaints of aching muscles and bruised flesh. He struggled to dispel the last remnants of his unpleasant dream, which still played at the edges of his mind, but the bustle of the campsite was pushing it further away. The smell of roasting meat was coming from the fire at the centre of the camp, where two men in grey livery attended to a spit which held the carcass of the small forest runner.
