[Amanaduial the archer]

Fionel snuck another look at the Hunters, eyeing them up, seeing which would be a bigger threat. Her eyes swept over them, barely giving them a glance each, until she reached the female whose eyes she had met before. Their gazes clashed, and Fionel realised with a shiver that the Huntress had been watching her before. Once again that instinct came into her mind to look away, to hide, to make herself as small and insignificant as possible, but it was only for a second this time. There was a stronger will in her mind, and she forced herself to meet the Shivana's eyes, and to hold them. The easterling did the same, and Fionel saw her jaw stiffen slightly.

They seemed to keep each others gaze for years, but it was actually only a few second later that the drum began to boom once more, and the pipes once more began to play their haunting melody. But it was only when a whip cracked over her head, then onto her back, that Fionel looked away, distracted from her oponents gaze by the pain. She flinched and started to turn, before she was dragged up by both arms to her feet by the easterling behind her.

"Face your master, slave." He hissed in her ear. "I will deal with you later."

"You can't." Fionel knew it was a mistake saying those few words, but it was true; an overseer could do nothing to a slave that had been chosen for the Hunt. Wait a minute...an overseer couldnt, but...

"I can do what I like, slave!" He snarled, and it was then that Fionel realised that he was a soldier, rather than just an overseer. Not just any old soldier- from his clothes is was obvious he was of a high position. "Thats right. And you will feel my whip!" He hissed at her, before dragging her away.

Fionel struggled briefly, before being dragged off the platform with the rest of the slaves. But as they were taken away to the room where they would be given a small briefing on where they were to go, the soldier muttered something to the others about having to 'deal' with the 'unruly ones'. Fionel wondered for a second why it was 'ones' rather than one, when she saw another soldier come the same way with a struggling Desolyn. Evidently she hadnt stood for Ekatran either. Fionel was gratified to see the soldier's arm was bleeding slightly, a horse-shoe of red against his pale skin. So Desolyn had bitten him- good for her, but it certainly wasnt going to make it any easier for either of them.

The soldier who had brought Fionel in flicked his whip in the air as if warming it up, while the other held Fionels hands, pressing her against the wall with her arms above her head, so she was unable to defend herself against the whip. With a crack, the whip laid into her back. The slave bit down the cry which sprung to her lips, clenching her teeth. When he whipped her the second time, she felt the blood being drawn on her back, mirrored by the blood that ran down her chin as she bit her lip.

"Wait." The quiet voice came from the doorway, behind Fionel, but the third stroke hit her before the soldier processed the word. The soldier turned, then she heard him gasp.

"Sorry sir." He said stiffly.

"Leave." The male easterling voice was still quiet and calm, and it sounded vaguely familiar to Fionel. But when the man released her and marched quickly away out of the room, she didnt have time to see the mans face before he slipped away. She only saw a pair of brown eyes, but in those eyes there was none of the hate usually seen in easterling eyes when they looked at slaves, instead there was almost...pity. Before she could say anything, he was gone. The second guard hauled both Fionel and Desolyn up, and pushed them each into the single cells where they would spend the night before the hunt. Fionel looked around at the walls that had been the last thing in Nurn seen by so many other slaves before they were led out, blindfolded, quarry for a cruel game. She winced at the pain from the whiplashes, and for the first time wondere whether her insolence had been worth it, for the Hunt would be even harder with this. She was just thankful the man, whoever he was, had intervened before it became too serious. She leant her back tenderly against the wall, and closed her eyes, slipping into an uneasy sleep plagued by the face of Shivana and the desolate cries of the hundreds of doomed slaves who had gone out for the Hunt before her, whose ghosts kept her company in this lonely cell...