Chapter 72 Eleanor Recovers

When Eleanor finally awoke, it was back against her chain post in the side room of the cave. Everything hurt, and she couldn't see out of one of her eyes. Reaching up to feel it, she yelped in pain and jerked her hand away. It was swollen shut. She attempted to shift her sitting position, until a searing pain shot through her leg that caused her entire body to explode in agony, and she screamed. So her leg was broken as well, at the very least. She closed her one good eye and sighed before slumping gently back against the wooden pillar she was chained to.

She had only hazy memories of what had happened to her, which was probably for the best. The could remember the force of the impact when she refused the shaman's demand for her spells and training, then the sound the other gnolls made as he shouted something in his growling dog language, then blows from their fists and claws, then pain, then the feeling of being held down, the smell of gnoll fur in her face as one of them climbed on top of her. Then darkness.

She knew what had happened. She was grateful her mind had chosen to forget the details.

She looked down to see her dress was in tatters.Her broken leg sat at an odd angle from the rest of her body, and both of her legs, as well as the fabric across the front of her dress, were dark with dried blood, and wrapped in several places by rough bandages.

As she sat there in the darkness, numb from the pain, she finally felt herself despair, and before she could find any way to stop herself, she began to sob uncontrollably.

What was she going to do? How long had she been down here? Why hadn't Jack and her sisters gotten to her yet? Were they even coming? Did they even know where to look? What was going to happen to her if they didn't come soon?

And what was Jack going to do when he found out what they'd done to her? Would he still want her as one of his companions, or would he be repulsed by her and turn her away? Would she even ever see him again for him to find out?

She sat there, a thousand thoughts running through her head until the tears finally stopped coming. Some time later, a short, chubby looking gnoll wearing an apron and carrying a large steaming cauldron and a bowl walked into her cave room, flanked by two armed guards. It set the bowl in front of her, and ladeled a couple spoonfuls of steaming soup into it before pulling a rough hewn spoon from the apron and dropping it with a splash into the wooden bowl.

"Rawgh'faz shays to eat. You wfill need your shtrength for tomorrow's meeting." One of the guards said, while the other one looked her up and down and chuckled.

The three of them left, leaving her in the room with the bowl. She looked at it for a long moment, before her primal need for food overrode her desire not to eat it, and reached down and snatched the bowl up.

The soup, surprisingly, was rich and hearty, and quite tasty. It could have been that she hadn't had real food in a while, but either way she quickly emptied the bowl's contents, and regretted there wasn't more when she was done.

She leaned back against the post again, and tried to think about something besides her circumstances. Home, and her sisters, and her training at the academy... But it seemed like no matter what she chose to focus on, her thoughts always seemed to circle back to the weird, handsome goofball Frumpkin had sent them to.

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She hoped, wherever he was, that he was safer and happier than she was.