Tallulah's head snapped up at the sound of shouting. At the edge of the tent, a hordebeast stood, paws cupped around his mouth. He shouted garbled, harsh words at her guard, then turned and hustled away.
The guard turned to Tallulah, stooping and reaching for her skirt hem. Tallulah, horrified, slapped his paw away, then cowered, expecting a slap in return. The slim guard jerked back, scowling. He muttered a few strange words, then paused, watching her. Tallulah stared blankly back. The guard snorted, then held out his footpaw, pointing to the ankle. Then he pointed to her. Tallulah understood, straightening her legs out from where she'd curled them under her skirt, exposing her ankle.
The guard nodded, evidently pleased, and untied her tether. Then he hauled her roughly to her footpaws. Still maintaining his grip on her arm, he pulled her to to Lachlan's tent. It was much more crowded now, with three other guards, four hordebeasts, and Lachlan. The wolf looked up as they entered. "Ah, Tallulah. Come stand here by me."
Tallulah obeyed, squeezing between a burly guard and the side of the tent. Lachlan watched her make her way around the table to stand by him, her shoulders hunched and eyes downcast. She bumped her hip on the corner of the table and stumbled on the dirty hem of her long skirts. Tallulah almost grasped the nearest thing- Lachlan's burly arm- to right herself, but stopped her paw. Instead, she meekly murmured, "Sir, what's going on?"
The wolf gestured to the four soldiers standing in front of his desk. "Tell me; which of these four brought you here?"
Tallulah scarcely met the four beasts' scowling faces, very much frightened. She hesitantly pointed to the outer two. "Him and him."
"Thank you," the wolf addressed his guards in their own language. Tallulah's captors' faces fell. One began protesting, the other taking a threatening step towards the coyotemaid, face creased in a furious snarl. Tallulah shrank back, almost cowering behind Lachlan. The wolf shouted a single word. The rat fell quiet, then was grabbed by the scruff of his neck and dragged out of the tent by two guards. the others left, leaving just Tallulah, Lachlan, and his two guards in the tent.
Tallulah glanced up at the wolf, then averted her eyes. "Excuse me, sir. But what was that for? Where are they going?"
Lachlan crossed to a trunk, pulling out a black swordbelt, complete with sheathed sword. He belted it around his trim waist, calmly explaining, "Just a bit of disciplining. Those two are off to be punished."
He strode out of the tent, pulling aside the flap. He paused, looking back at her. "You will remain here." He repeated an order to her guard, then left the tent. Tallulah, after making brief eye contact with her guard, also crossed tent, pulling back the flap to peek out. Her guard was closely watching her, she knew. But she didn't hear him up behind her until she felt the cold iron head of his spear between her shoulder blades. She gasped at it, turning her head to him, murmuring, "I'm not going to run."
He, of course, didn't understand, meeting her eyes with a with old gaze. Tallulah felt him take her arm, his grip painfully tight. But he didn't pull her away. Tallulah turned to watch as hordebeasts gathered around a risen platform. On the platform stood the two rats, bound paw and footpaws, two guards holding them in place. Hordebeasts bowed heads as Lachlan ascended the platform.
Standing tall and powerful above them all, Lachlan called over them in his brutish language. When he was done, he began again in the native tongue of Mossflower. "For those of you that I recruited in this country, I will translate. These two rats are to be punished. They brought me a captive, but they disobeyed me; I ordered captives to be brought unharmed. So I will punish them."
Tallulah saw him draw his sword, steel glittering in the sun. But she didn't realize what he was doing until he leveled the blade at the nearest rat's throat; he didn't stop the swing. Tallulah cried out and dropped the tent flap, cringing away. She heard a thump, the second rat's hysterical cries, and a second thump.
Tallulah in her stayed in her corner, trembling and whimpering with shock. She felt the breeze off the tent flap as Lachlan strode back in. The coyotemaid opened her and let out a muffled cry at the sight of his blade; doused in blood, the crimson liquid running off the edge and dripping onto the ground.
Lachlan eyed her, crossing to the trunk again. "You saw the punishment, then?"
Tallulah gulped for air. "Y-yo-you- why?"
Lachlan took a cloth out of the trunk and began cleaning the sword. "I have no room for disobedience in my army."
"But-but they-"
Lachlan stopped cleaning to force eye contact with her. "Tallulah, can you honestly tell me you feel pity for those two rats, after what they did to you?"
Tallulah couldn't answer. Lachlan returned to his cleaning. "Exactly." He added an order in his native tongue, not bothering to look up.
This time, Tallulah didn't fight back when the slim guard took her arm and led her to her pole to tether her. Once the knot around her ankle was secured, she sat down, making sure to angle herself away from the sight of the blood-sluiced platform.
