The first thing I am aware of is warmth.  I don’t remember feeling warm in a long time.  And softness,  I appear to be enveloped in softness.  There is a sweet, though slightly medicial, scent in the air.  I don’t know where I am but for the moment I can’t remember where I should be and I am comforted by the warmth and the softness and sweet scent, so I don’t panic. 

With my eyes still closed I stretch, wanting to enjoy the feeling of extraordinary comfort.   My joints complain.  I become aware of a searing pain in my shoulder and another in my thigh.  My sudden cry of pain breaks the silence.

My eyes shoot open but I see nothing.  Listening instead of the sounds of footsteps, a reaction to my cries.  But there is nothing.  I relax slightly.  My eyes, no longer blinded by panic,  start to see the room.  The walls are curved,  I am in a four poster bed in a circular room made of stone, there are bars on the windows.

I remember now.  I remember the battle.  I remember the seering pain of steel cutting through my flesh, first in my thigh, then my shoulder.  I remember falling.  Seeing my blood spilled on the stony ground.  I remember the quest.  Our small band and our mission.  I wonder who else had fallen. 

I try to rise and I cannot.  I turn my head wildly to try and see why my hands won’t move.  I see ropes round my wrists.  Looking to the foot of the bed I see ropes ties to the foot of the bed and the their taught stretch under the covers to my feet.

I am captured.