[Legolas]

It takes the better part of an hour to organize the wagons and carts, abandoning the dun road for use by the nightly traffic which would not pass through in a village like this. Even now, as most of the trekkers have reached their spot, there is a lot of settling ahead. Camp fires are lit, using the dried waste of pack animals for want of proper wood. Pots are mended, bedrolls unfurled. The first scents of dinner fill the dusty air in this least unwelcome of unwelcome places.

The prisoner's wagon is drawn up at the edge of camp, away from what light the settlement provides at this hour. It is no accident the cage rests next to a cart laden with manure, though surely this was not his guards' idea as their noses wrinkle and their hatred for the man grows each time the wind picks up. Their spite was displayed in different ways; harsh words, spilled dinner or else their own special recipes they spiced with spit and hoped to make him beg for. This night, they would simply leave the prisoner to starve a while before feeding him his grub. If they should remember to feed him. One unpacks the dice.

Elsewhere in the caravan, in a place smelling more of roses, a young boy in a commoner's rags approaches an expensive looking carriage, tugging at the pants of its smartly dressed driver.
"'scuse me, mister," he says. "Me ma says yer lord's welcome to stay at our place, if he likes. We got room an' it's not all liced up like Grysson's inn."
The child points out his home, a modest construction near the centre of Brisken - in so far as there was one.
"She's boiling chicken an' everything," the youngster adds, surprised and delighted, before running back home.

The cage itself is cramped. Thick metal bars rising up from the wagon bed, with equally thick bars wrapped around them. The holes between allow the air in, along with a pattern of light during the hours of day. It is no place for a man, but none would argue their content on this trip isn't beastly indeed. Like every night before it, a group of the righteous and concerned gathers around to catch a glimpse of the thing inside, that man who is no man. Some carry sticks, and try to fit them through the gaps. Laughter rises every time a noise emerges from within. The guards continue their game. He should arrive alive, but nothing more had been asked for.