The house stood near the city wall. The Southshore residents who had lived there had long since moved elsewhere, taking everything with them. The interior was bare, without even a wooden bed. Two chairs had been brought into the room for the occasion. Rex sat on one, his sharp gaze fixed on the Gnoll before him.
The Gnoll had none of Rex's comforts, not even a chair to sit on. Bound tightly, he was held down by two soldiers to keep him from struggling. Rex waved the soldiers away. This Gnoll was only at the fifth tier. That was respectable enough, but compared with Rex, he was worlds apart.
Even if the Gnoll were untied, Rex had no fear of any tricks he might try.
"Talk. What tribe are you from, and how did those Orcs find you?" Rex slowly questioned him, looking down at him.
The Gnoll turned a deaf ear to Rex's words, displaying a positively heroic resolve. Even his lupine face seemed wreathed in a sacred halo, proud and unyielding. "Has he been like this the whole time?" Rex asked Osborne beside him.
Osborne, not Rex, had been the first to interrogate the captured Gnoll. Earlier, while the battlefield was being cleared, Rex had been about to return and rest when Osborne reported that the interrogation had yielded nothing.
"Yes. No matter how harshly I torture him, he doesn't make a sound, let alone say a word. I'm even starting to wonder if he's mute." Frustration colored Osborne's voice, and he glared viciously at the Gnoll. Anyone would have been frustrated by someone so utterly unresponsive, who refused to make a sound no matter what punishment was inflicted on him.
Southshore had taken a few prisoners in that day's battle, but none received anything like the treatment