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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Visla

By the time Khol returned, the day had already folded into night. He didn’t return alone. As I was washing some linens, the chatter and commotion outside the shelter could not be ignored. Khol’s majestic form and gleaming scales were unmistakable as he walked up the path. There were at least twelve hordesmen with him.

So much for laying low. I guess he couldn’t help it. He was the king after all. In my heart…he was still the king. And no jealous, greedy bitch would ever take that away from him. It was clear to see that he was also well respected. A handful of citizens who lived nearby kneeled to the ground as he passed.

I opened the door and rushed out straight past the burly men who were guarding it. I halted abruptly when I realized that he was dragging someone by a rope.

It was Zorfov. That devil who’d shoved me around and thrown me into prison—it was him!

I stopped short of meeting Khol halfway, wondering what he had up his sleeve, wondering why he was dragging Zorfov like a diseased rodent down the path toward our hut.

Zorfov was alive, skinned, and bloodied. Apparently, Khol had dragged him some distance. On his knees, Zorfov panted for breath like he’d run a marathon while Khol greeted me with a kiss to my lips.

“What are you doing?” I breathed, looking down at the bruised and battered Zorfov. I didn’t even feel sorry for him, but so much had happened I wondered if every choice we made would cost us.

“I told you I’d be back sooner, but I had a stop to make along the way.” He held up the tugging end of the rope, motioning to Zorfov. “This one is a traitor and a danger to my people. He threw you in prison, yes?”

I nodded.

“Well, do you have anything to say to her?” Khol tugged on the rope, jerking Zorfov forward.

Zorfov sputtered. “I…I…” A smug look crossed his face and he struggled to stand. “I will not apologize for something my Queen made me do.”

Khol backhanded him sharply across the face, knocking him several feet across the ground. The force of it caused his nose to break and blood to splatter everywhere. Some bystanders gasped in shock. I clutched my chest. Zorfov lay unmoving, but breathing, on the ground as Khol drew his axe.

I grabbed his forearm. “Stop. I don’t need an apology. Don’t do something you’ll regret.”

“I won’t regret killing him,” Khol said.

“Please, just let him go.”

“I cannot let him go. His crimes are numerous.”

“I’ve been worried all evening. Just come inside for now,” I urged him, hoping that I could talk him out of killing a traitor, which I knew was the way hordesmen handled these things.

Khol dragged Zorfov’s unconscious body over to a tree and tied his torso tightly to the trunk. “I will not put you out of your misery just yet, coward,” Khol hissed as Zorfov regained conscious.

Afterward, he wrapped his arm around my waist. “Come. Let me put your mind at ease.”

Khol uttered some commands in his native tongue and three hordesmen stood on guard in all directions around the tree. I understood then that Khol wasn’t planning on letting Zorfov go free.

Khol and I hadn’t even made it to within three feet of the cabin before the sound of warriors breaking out into a fight alarmed us. I spun around just as Khol shielded me with his body. I recognized Khol’s brother, Ghid, right away. It seemed that he had a small force with him and from the looks of how the men were fighting, things were going to get deadly.

The men fighting for Ghid were wearing armbands with the symbol of Sanjit’s Isles, which I had come to learn was an icon of a bird ascending upward. Ghid must’ve come to retrieve Zorfov—the coward he favored maybe even more than his own brother. I pondered on this for a long time before Khol came back, but perhaps he already knew that his brother might have fallen under that wench’s dirty spells.

Zorfov was now struggling to break free of his bonds, calling out for Ghid and the soldiers to unleash him. The warriors standing guard at the tree did not move, but they had already drawn their axes, ready for a fight.

“Go inside,” Khol warned, gently coaxing me toward the door.

I slipped inside, but I left the frame open just a crack and looked on in horror.

One of Sanjit’s mercenaries came straight for Khol. The alien was swiftly killed when Khol swung his axe, opening up its jugular. He dug his axe into the skull of another before slamming the heel of his boot down on the face off yet another who already lay dying.

I’d never seen carnage like this before. It was like a deadly train wreck I couldn’t look away from. It was Sanjit’s mercenaries against Khol’s hordesmen. Not even three minutes into the fight, it was clear which group would come out the victor. The hordesmen were trained to fight as an organized group. The mercenaries, on the other hand, fell one after the other, oftentimes, not knowing which hordesmen’s axe sealed their fate for they worked together like a pack.

“Tia! Ta!”Ghid called out, ordering the mercenaries to fall back.