Despite his imprisonment, forcible nudity, distinct lack of sustenance, and upcoming execution, Saptheth found he could not abandon physical training outright. It would be an insult to his past. And so, attached to the walls of a dank, festering dungeon somewhere in a gleaming white city with no name he knew of, he'd figured out a way to grasp his hands around the short lengths of chain between his wrist manacles and the wall mounts, and used them as handholds to lift his body weight from the ground many times each day. Not particularly far, as his feet were also chained to the floor, but enough to satisfy his need to move around, whilst no guards were looking in on him. Realistically, he refused to believe that he might break the mounts from their positions by doing this, for they were sturdy, lodged into well-maintained bricks, but as anyone who has been imprisoned can tell you, a desire for freedom implants fragments of hope where there is otherwise none, and every so often, he would have a moment where his heart exclaimed "those chains just loosened a bit more", only to be quelled by his head's response of "do not fool yourself, for you are surely doomed".

Naturally, whenever guards were present, to feed him the gruel that apparently kept people alive in that place and to exchange the pan left beneath him to capture his waste- and it was never less than three guards at a time, at least one with a crossbow aimed at his head whilst the others held him in place and forced the thin liquid into his mouth- he remained as sullen an individual as he ever had been since his desertion, since he'd found himself alone in enemy territory with no guarantee that he'd be alive at the end of a day, or indeed at the beginning of a day. In a way, he considered this lack of collapse a form of rebellion, as if to say "though you have tried to humiliate me, see how I remain as true as steel, unperturbed by your actions and intentions". A rebellion with no purpose, of course, but satisfying in a small way nonetheless. In the Golden Serpent's mind, it proved the superiority of a Balchothi heart over that of a mere Gondorian, even though the Westrons held physical power over him.

Even so, he was quite surprised by the abrupt presence, the day before his assumed death, of the warden of the prison himself - a man in his late middle age, of some bulk both muscle and fat, perhaps an ex-soldier who had let himself go in recent years judging by the beer gut, dressed in clothing designating his role as glorified guard supervisor, albeit over a certain amount of chainmail and leather for self-protection. Naturally, he was accompanied by about eight other guards- at least those visible through the bars of his cell- in various states of fitness, two of whom held crossbows in hand, and at least three others with such weapons around their belts. Should luck avail him, Saptheth wondered if he'd succeed in snatching one of the weapons and putting a bolt through the warden's skull before being killed himself. Perhaps they would make good clubs. For the time being, however, he could only glare at the man as he unlocked the cell's door, and all nine men poured into the cell, arrayed with the main antagonist himself at the center of the pack, just meters away from Saptheth's nude and bedraggled form.

Silence reigned for a time, the Easterling glaring at the calm prison chief as he in turn gazed over Saptheth's form, calm and seemingly smug, if the smirk on his face and the hands laid casually behind his back were any indication. At last, however, the warden spoke. 'Today is your lucky day, Golden Serpent, much as I'd rather it weren't,' he proclaimed, drawing from behind him some form of rolled-up note. A letter, it seemed, going by the quality of the parchment, and the broken seal on each end of the document. A surprisingly detailed seal, at that. 'I don't suppose you can read, at least in the tongue of civilised men?'

'As acid is to wood and silk alike,' Saptheth stated bluntly, 'so is your foul language to my ears and eyes.' In truth, he had a little bit of competency in reading some of the languages of the Westlands, necessary as it was for figuring out some less specific job postings, but he found he was nowhere near perfect when it came to speaking more complex words, never mind reading formal missives. Still, with another smug grin, the warden waved his meatshields forward, four of whom took hold each of Saptheth's arms and legs, two working to remove the bolts that chained the Balchothi to the walls and floor only to force a burlap robe over his body and attach new manacles chaining wrist to wrist and ankle to ankle, and the two crossbowmen remaining where they were, all as the warden unrolled the manuscript and began to speak. Much of it was worded in ways that Saptheth barely understood - aside from the initial capitulations about "His Majesty King Eorl, Monarch and Ruler of the Nation of Rohan", equivalent to a greeting from Balchothi's supposed ruler under the Necromancer, the only thing he really figured out were the words pertaining to the reason for his sudden "freedom": the King of Rohan, it seemed, had specifically asked that "the Golden Serpent who hails from across the Sea of Rhûn be escorted to Aldburg, there to function in service of the Kingdom of Rohan until further notice."

And to Saptheth, that meant being pressganged into the service of a nation he explicitly considered his enemy. If luck was availing him, it was certainly being quite counter-intuitive about it.

[hr]

He'd struggled, yelled and screamed in the tongue of Balthoth, kicked, punched, flailed, even attempted to bite, but nothing had given him the opening needed to ensure his escape. Instead, he had been flung into the back of a wooden wagon, the door promptly closed, barred, and locked tight - a minor improvement from his previous cell, if only because he could move around it, but a mobile cell nonetheless. Since then, he'd exercised with pushups, situps, and squats rather than mere pullups, as his manacles allowed, and the passage of time had been marked in essentially the same barely-cognizant manner as before, with a daily visit from maniple guards to supply meagre nutrition and change his bedpan. The biggest difference was how his cell jostled about during its journey - an issue when the bedpan contained fluids, but otherwise tolerable.

He knew not how many days had passed before the journey came to its end, but eventually, he was retrieved from his containment once again. This time, he appeared to be within the walls of a round castle, just outside its keep, though he was led into that building soon enough, and escorted to a room that seemingly contained little furnishment. Shortly after his arrival and the removal of manacles, the best possible scenario occurred: his equipment, slightly under-maintained but nonetheless fully functional, was taken into the room with him. O, what luck! And yet, it meant naught - the number of crossbowmen accompanying him had more than doubled since his last movement from cell to cell, and skilled as he was, he could not kill so many men arranged separately across the room without mortal wounds being dealt by those infernal bows. He was told to get changed into his gear by one of them men, and though he attempted to taunt them for their perversions, the only response he got was 'No funny business, Easterling. Get changed.'

Alas, he had no choice but to nudify himself once again before a swarm of guards. For the last time, he hoped. Either way, he equipped himself, all weaponry present and correct save his lost mount, and all armour and clothing in place to defend himself adequately - though perhaps not sufficiently, against so many bolts. Immediately afterward, he was taken by both arms, and pulled rather than escorted through the keep again, out of his chains and back in his usual clothing, yet no freer than he had been the day before. Twists and turns were made, past paintings that suggested a surprisingly high culture for such a cowardly, heathenistic society, and the large group ultimately found itself before two overly-large wooden doors. Whoever lay beyond those, then, would be the one who had called Saptheth from the brink of death, only to ensure he would work as a lapdog of sorts... perhaps a worse outcome than simple death after all.

Two guards pushed the doors open and announced the arrival of the Golden Serpent, and at crossbow point, he was brought in before the King of Rohan.