Page 169 of The Wild Prince’s Favorite (The Dragon Empire Saga #3)

“Your woman is a lot of things, and if I’ve seen anything, it’s that she is a survivor, Kassein,” Kiera insisted.

“Not everyone grows up being taught how to fight as we were, but she’s a damn fighter in her own right.

She’s come out of her shell so much since you showed me that shivery little thing cornered in your tent.

Look around. She launched a war, for dragon’s sake.

She didn’t convince just you, but other people to fight against the tribes who wronged her.

The reason I agreed to this is because if so many people are willing to fight with us, it means the battle’s worth it. ”

“I thought you were just here to brawl.”

“That too,” she grinned, “but I respect the hell out of your woman, Kassein. She’s as sharp as my blade, and she’s got the heart of a dragon. I can’t say I don’t understand why you and Kein tripped over yourselves for her.”

Kassein smiled. That moment he had set his eyes on her, battered and bruised in the snow, felt like ages ago already. The woman who was now riding his dragon because she had refused to stay away from this battlefield felt like a completely different person. And he loved her even more for that.

“Ugh, stop making that face,” his sister groaned. “You’ll get to see her after the fight, but I need your head here first, Brother. ...They’re coming.”

He schooled his expression immediately.

Indeed, both armies were getting closer to each other, and just like the thunder rumbling above, the tension was rising quickly as the armies filled each end of the rift, their numbers making their way down the tortuous pathways.

Kassein felt the pair of sibling tribe leaders step up to their side, and he exchanged a quiet, understanding nod with them.

Those two were clearly fighters, ready to lead their people into battle.

He could tell by their build, lean and muscular, shaped by movement and endurance, and by the weapons they carried.

Both wielded long, double-headed spears, and their people carried similar ones.

Their warriors were few, at least compared to his army, but they didn’t hesitate.

Their stance showed discipline, and the way they moved suggested they had received some level of training.

None of them had tried to avoid the fight.

If anything, they had insisted on standing at the front.

They had explained their plan at length, including his army for sure, but this was still very much their battle; they weren’t cowering behind Kassein or expecting his men to do all the work, regardless of the numbers.

Instead, the two leaders were standing on the same line as Kassein, Kiera, and Sazaran as soon as there was enough space for it, and he knew that the other tribe leader had led some of his warriors on a different route to bring them support from the side.

When both armies got closer, Kassein surveyed their ranks, evaluating them to be in the hundreds too.

For now, the size of their armies looked somewhat equal, but he had kept some of his men at the back with Herken as reinforcements.

If the tribe leaders were right, their opponents also had more tribes that would probably attack from the flanks of the rift as well, using the dangerous descents to try and trap them down here.

Kassein’s eyes scoured the heights, spotting several men indeed lurking there.

“The little rats are hiding,” his sister hissed with vicious glee.

Their eyesight as bearers of Dragon Blood was better than humans’, and without it, Kassein doubted they would have been able to spot this many men stalking them from all corners of the surrounding heights.

He glared at those he sighted before redirecting his gaze to their main forces, still yards away, squeezing themselves into the rift, progressing slowly but surely toward the inevitable.

The main difference between their armies was how disparate the enemy’s was.

He couldn’t even begin to guess how many different tribes they were facing, but as they got closer, it became evident that unlike the Munsa, who had made a point to blend in with his men, their tribes weren’t even trying to be homogenous, making them look as uncoordinated as possible.

Each group among the gathered men had distinct features, such as tribal paintings, piercings, color-coded accessories or clothing, specific hairstyles, or face tattoos.

There were even what looked like dogs in a corner, held on a leash by one of the tribes and growling in warning; one glare from Kassein had some of them stop and whimper instead.

“Wait,” Kassein said aloud as he saw the Munsa Tribe’s male leader step forward.

He raised his hand, and his army stopped as one.

Both sides now stood at a distance, facing each other with a stretch of muddy ground between them. It was a gap that a running man could cross in under a minute, yet it felt wider than ever.

Tension rose again as thunder cracked above their heads, followed by a flash of lightning that lit up the field for a heartbeat.

It felt like the calm before the storm, but the storm was already raging angrily above their heads in anticipation of the fierce battle.

And yet, there was this eerie pause, during which men on both sides considered one another, staring, gauging, tensing up as the inevitable loomed closer and closer.

Eventually, the Munsa Tribe leader next to him cleared his throat.

Kassein turned to watch as the man stepped forward, just enough to make his voice carry across the field. He shouted toward the enemy line, loud enough for the front ranks to hear. His words echoed against the stone walls that bordered the ravine, cutting through the wind and rain.

He could guess it was a last ditch attempt at peace, although it felt far too late for that. Not now. Not when both sides stood ankle-deep in mud, armed and ready for blood.

Still, Kassein waited patiently, using that brief pause to gauge their enemy tribe leaders with his eyes, wondering which of them had hurt Alezya, which were the ones he had to kill first, and those he could let die a slow, painful death.

He had no personal vendetta against any of those men but the ones who had injured Alezya and made her cry.

He would ask for no unnecessary deaths so long as her abusers paid.

Although most eyes were on him, their gazes ranging from fearful to excited, they were all listening to Ekut.

Some of the men had their fear written all over them, Kassein thought.

Some of those men might run before the battle began if there was anywhere to run.

As a man on the opposite side also stepped up, the shouting between both sides went back and forth for a while, but their demeanors showed little promise of stopping this war.

Many of those men looked determined, while the Munsa Tribe’s male leader’s tone sounded pleading.

Kassein didn’t need to understand a word he said to know he was pleading with them to give up and surrender before they launched into this war.

While he could see many fearful faces, more men looked determined, especially those who appeared to be the leaders.

Kassein let out a faint sigh; only foolish leaders would lead their people to a certain death.

“They’re not going to give up, are they?” Kiera muttered lightly as if she were commenting on the weather.

“Doesn’t look like it,” Sazaran nodded. “Well. We came all the way for this, didn’t we? Might as well show them how we–”

“Don’t kill them all,” Kassein cut him off, their gazes snapping to him. “Lots of them are scared. Some will flee. Some will try to survive. Only kill when they don’t give up.”

“Are you sure?” Kiera raised an eyebrow. “They surrounded us down here; I doubt it was to extend the same courtesy.”

“Alezya was forced to flee by her tribe,” he said. “Look at those men. They’re terrified. Their leaders forced them into a fight they already have little chance of winning in a place like this.”

“Since when do we care?” Kiera groaned.

“Since Alezya does.”

His sister rolled her eyes. She didn’t say anything for a while, and Kassein could feel she was also scouring the ranks, glancing up at the men standing in the deadly heights or hiding between crevices.

He had often cared very little about their opponents’ survival, but things were different since he had seen things from Alezya’s perspective.

She had done everything she could to prevent this fight.

She had been the first one horrified by the battleground and what it would imply too.

He had mastered very little of their language, but if he had understood one thing from all their exchanges and what he’d observed, it was that this battle had not been her and her allies’ doing; they had sought peace as much as they’d been able to until this very moment.

“...Fine,” Kiera finally sighed. “There’s no fun in fighting cowards anyway.”

“Target the leaders,” Kassein hissed, his tone getting angrier as the negotiations seemed to reach a dead-end. “From what we’ve seen of the tribes, they’ll be in disarray once we get rid of their heads.”

“That I can do,” Kiera grinned. “...Any idea which of those dragon dungs is that Darak bastard?”

“Not yet,” he groaned.

Alezya’s and Lumie’s fathers were his priority targets, but for now, he had no idea where they were in the sea of men.

He would have expected the man who had initiated this war to be at the forefront, but none of those men seemed to look anything like Alezya, and he couldn’t pinpoint anyone who looked like they belonged to her tribe.

He leaned toward the Munsa Tribe’s female leader, Ekata, to ask.

“Deklaan Kulani ?” he did his best to pronounce it right. “Darak?”

She glanced at him, visibly slightly surprised he was addressing her, but after a glance at the army they faced, she shook her head, confirming what he had already guessed: neither Alezya’s father nor her tribe was on the frontlines.