This is an open thread until the very end, but I'm probably going to post along as though it's a solo. So, on the off chance anybody wants to jump in, you're always welcome. No need to contact me first, but you can if you want. It's all good.
Do Mugu felt the blood ooze from low-hooked nose. The old shaman had just been thumped by a jangle of armour with a brutish underbite. His back was aching more than usual; being chained to a post played its part in the pain. Oh, the pain. Gum closed his eyes, and focused his resolve to cast off the dizziness and resist the next inquiry.

“Why were you skulking around town and asking about the Executors?”

Gum’s eyes stayed closed, but his bloodied lips opened. “I am a foreign holy man, curious about my hosts,” he said, lying convincingly. The shaman’s necklace of shrunken heads and outlandish garments heaped credence on his claim. “So many things have happened,” he elaborated, “you must forgive me my curiosity regarding your leaders.”

“Hmphfpphshhshs,” the rotten soldier said. “Well, curiosity killed the cat,” he sneered, with the wit of a cabbage, before swinging his boot at Do Mugu’s sunken abdomen. “Don’t be so fucking curious, will ya?” Little did Private Underbite know, but the cat would kill him before the sun would rise.

The ache was, of course, intense. But, the shaman’s trance allowed him to endure with tranquility. After all, he could escape at any time. Remaining captive was core to the plan.

Nevertheless, the sound of his assailant squelching away in the muck provided fleeting relief. Gum took the opportunity to finally open his eyes. They were stinging from the descent of his brow’s crusty salt and sticky blood. Despite the approach of overwhelming desiccation, he knew he had to get his bearings if the plan was going to work.

Thunderheads loomed over the Castigar outrider’s camp. With a wincing smile, Gum welcomed the clouds as an affirmation from the gods; they proved to be a reflection of the divine’s furious opposition to the proud and powerful’s abuse of the land.

And the land was going to be Gum do Mugu’s partner. The woods to the west, they were his escape route. The sinking mud, that was going to pull back his enemies. The roaring river, that was where he would shed his scent and leave the hounds hopeless on the bank.

Gum mapped out the plan in his head, and closed his eyes again—he was waiting for nightfall to take him.