Chapter Thirty-Four: Death Soup

Emilian staggered into his assigned tent, wet, cold, and shivering.  The bottom of his trousers were caked in mud, and the fine blue robe that MeiLan had given him was completely saturated from the rain.  He had been beaten severely three times already for attempting to escape, and his body was full of bruises and lacerations from the heavy cane.  He was now forced to wear leg shackles all the time, which left his ankles raw and bloody. 

There were eleven other men in the tent, all of them equally miserable.  Their bodies were emaciated, some of them were coughing, some of them had skin infections, and all of them were soaked and shivering too.