Page 135 of The Wild Prince’s Favorite (The Dragon Empire Saga #3)
Now, he was desperate to inspect every mountain, search every tribe for a woman, and make this area safe. To establish peace just so that a woman and her child could live happily in it, now that was a cause worth living and fighting for.
Kiera reached the entrance of the first mountain, a different one from the one they’d attacked the previous day, and Kein dove to the other side, ready to look for escapees.
For the first attack, he wanted to observe how the tribes would react. Since Tievin had established that there were several tribes and that they might not be as harmonious as they’d previously thought, Kassein was more curious to notice the differences and the dynamics between them.
Would the nearby tribes come to the rescue? Or would they simply be left alone to their fate?
Kiera had picked one of the mountains that definitely wasn’t Alezya’s, so he could be at ease knowing she had a low chance of being brought into the scuffle, even if it was also disappointing.
Kein flew lower, and soon enough, they heard shouts, screams, and the familiar sound of fighting going on. Kassein listened as the triplet dragons’ excited, high-pitched growls echoed from all sides of the mountains, spreading absolute chaos inside.
Much to his relief, he witnessed first-hand as his sister’s plan worked perfectly; within minutes, there were tribespeople who ran out of openings from the mountain, rushing down pathways or climbing to safety.
He kept Kein hovering above, high enough in the hopes that it wouldn’t scare any tribespeople and make them slip and fall to their death or something like that. Still, the mere sight of his dragon was enough to have some of them scream and run back inside through the nearest entry point possible.
For a while, it was a strange sight to see people appearing out of an unsuspected hole, running down a flank of their mountain, and disappearing through another, but Kassein kept observing, trying to gather every morsel of useful information while maintaining a distance.
He spotted women running with children, elderly, and younger men carrying supplies, but this time, it didn’t seem like any warrior was running from the fight.
He observed, letting his sister have her fun, not worried at all about her; with Kiki probably waiting on the other side of the mountains, a few men with her, and three young dragons running amok, Kiera was most likely having a great time.
Moreover, from what they’d seen previously, the tribes’ caves were too narrow for them to be ganged up on, and the tunnels too loud for anyone to come and take them by surprise.
While they made for great hideouts from sky-bound threats, grounded armies, and adult dragons, those mountains were nearly impossible to defend once they were invaded.
If Kassein had desired to do so, he would have probably been able to conquer the entire area in a matter of weeks.
But he had no desire to exterminate the tribes and no reason to.
The Dragon Empire had always thrived without taking an interest in what the mountains had to offer aside from hostile inhabitants and miles of unexplored caves and tunnels.
Kassein’s father, the previous ruler of the land below them, had never cared more about those than making sure they didn’t make a scratch on the North Army and his children could safely use the forest beneath as a playground.
There had been no chance to open communication and, therefore, no previous known attempt at peace aside from a mutual disinterest.
Funny how everything had changed because Kassein, the least interested of all, had found one good reason to force contact.
He waited while his sister took her time clearing every tunnel and cave, making circles around the mountain with Kein, and watching the rest of his army ascend.
It didn’t seem like the tribe had a proper evacuation strategy, a predetermined escape route, or a fallback place, for everyone had fled in all directions.
Most surprisingly, they didn’t seem keen on fleeing to seek help from nearby tribes either, as he didn’t see anyone try to climb into the entrance of a nearby mountain.
Instead, the fleeing tribe was taking cover under small gatherings of trees, in small crevices or natural caves, or climbing up or down their mountains, but never fleeing laterally.
Sure, it would have taken them a while longer to get to the next mountain, and as soon as they realized Kein wasn’t diving, they could have fled to any other nearby peak.
But that didn’t seem to be the case, which made Tievin’s theory stronger: the tribes weren’t as tight-knit as they’d thought.
Kassein ground his teeth, annoyed; that probably meant that not only did Alezya not have a tribe she could have escaped to when her own harmed her, but if she wasn’t back with her tribe, she could be anywhere in the mountains.
Did she truly have no place to fall back on, no one else to turn to, when her own people had let her be beaten and bruised?
He tightened his fists just as Kein let out equally furious growls. That was why she’d risked everything to go back and save Lumie and why she had sent her little girl to him; Alezya had no one else.
“Let’s go,” he hissed.
Kein dove down to the mountain and landed brutally, the rocks breaking and falling under its claws while its furious growls echoed throughout the range. Kassein hoped that Alezya could hear that and that she would know he was coming for her.
He jumped off Kein’s back, falling until his feet landed on some natural plateau, and began climbing up toward the nearest entrance he could find.
Once he stepped inside the narrow tunnel, it was easy to find his sister: all he had to do was follow the panicked screams and the tiny dragon grunts and screeches.
A man carrying a spear but without any injury on him appeared at one end of the tunnel, spotted him, and turned around with a panicked expression. Kassein frowned, confused. What kind of warrior turned around at the mere sight of an opponent?
He wasn’t surprised when he crossed paths with a few defeated men, although, as agreed, his sister and their men hadn’t killed any, instead leaving them unconscious and battered.
He kept walking down the tunnel and first came across Vele; the young dragon was digging through baskets and ransacking something that smelled like dry meat.
“Leave it,” Kassein hissed.
The little dragon replied with a high-pitched growl, but under Kassein’s stare, it stopped immediately, tucked its tail, and scurried off.
Kassein followed its yellow scales down the tunnels and found Bora next, the one with a coral hue, which was grunting and trying to pull a thick piece of fabric out of an elderly woman’s hands.
The younger dragon seemed to be having fun playing tug-of-war, but the woman was absolutely terrified, with tears in her eyes, and doing her best to hold on to the fabric while staying as far from the dragon as possible.
“Bora,” Kassein called the dragon. “Leave it.”
Bora immediately let go, turning its innocent-looking big black eyes to him instead, and the woman fell back, her piece of fabric still held in her hands.
Kassein didn’t know why that woman was so desperate to keep it, but he could guess Bora was merely playing because the young dragon seemed to lose all interest as soon as Vele appeared to play, and they chased each other down another tunnel.
Kassein turned toward the woman and noticed she looked even more terrified of him than she was of the young dragon.
He switched hands so his blade would be farther away from her, and seeing as she seemed paralyzed by fear, he extended a hand. The elderly woman’s first reaction was to jerk back, but Kassein didn’t move.
Instead, he waited calmly until the older woman relaxed enough to recover her ability to move.
She didn’t take his hand, but her eyes were riveted on him with a mix of confusion and fear while she slowly got up, her entire body shaking.
She didn’t seem harmed, and Kassein wondered why she hadn’t run away with the others.
Maybe she wasn’t confident in her running abilities because even once she stood, she only retreated until her back hit a wall, still transfixed on him.
Kassein couldn’t waste any more time here; only the gods knew what more mayhem the young dragons were up to, and he had to reunite with Kiera to finish this raid.
So, he simply turned his back and left the older woman alone there, hoping someone from her tribe would get her out of there or something.
He hurried down the tunnels, inspecting cave after cave, instinctively trying to catch a whiff of Alezya’s scent while he analyzed the aftermath of the first attack; despite the time it must have taken them to scale this first mountain, their army had just arrived and was catching up, and he crossed paths with some of his men before he found his sister, all of them giving him respectful nods.
Kassein was relieved to confirm that they were respecting the orders to let the tribespeople live, as he didn’t see any bodies, only injured people who hadn’t been able to flee and some warriors bound by ropes or knocked out.
While the warriors would behave unless they wanted to lose their heads, he had been more worried about the young dragons who weren’t as keen to follow orders.
Thankfully, it seemed like the triplets didn’t have any interest in biting human flesh and, instead, had been far more interested in playing chase and ransacking everything they found for food.
They ran past Kassein several times, racing through the tunnels in loops and proving to be a nightmare to herd, as even his men were wary of the miniature dragons and regularly had to jump out of the way when one to three of them barreled by.
In fact, he located Kiera simply by following his sister’s furious voice.