It started slowly.
Effie was still chained in the mud, with more dead soldiers scattered around her now. Azarax did not seem inclined to remove the corpses, maybe as a way of making her already morbid existence even more oppressive, maybe to instill a sense of competition into other warriors of the Steel Horde.
As if seeing their dead comrades would motivate them to try harder and succeed where others had failed. That was a questionable tactic, at best, but considering that a handful of fools inevitably attempted to attack Effie every day, it seemed to be working.
In the meantime, her wounds had healed, somewhat. When they did, Azarax personally arrived to disable her all over again. That was one of the only two times he had bothered to tend to her personally after expelling her from his tent — the second time was immediately after the first major assault on the Stone Castle had failed.
That time, Effie really thought that she would die.
But, in the end, she didn't.
