Page 174 of The Wild Prince’s Favorite (The Dragon Empire Saga #3)
He and Kiera slowly walked back together to their army, checking on their men as everyone was getting back up and stepping away from the other collapsed columns or emerging from whichever hideouts they’d found.
Those who weren’t moving were already being dragged or carried to the back.
Someone brought Kiera’s blades to her, and two of the few men who’d followed Kassein handed him his weapon; it was nearly impossible for one of them to carry it alone.
Overall, it was clear their end of the rift had been mostly spared, as expected. The damages were mostly on the other side, and it would have been far worse if they hadn’t intervened.
Kassein realized the thunder had stopped.
His dragon was no longer furiously growling and attacking mountains, either, causing an eerie calm in the rift.
Everyone had stopped fighting, as the thwarted catastrophe had broken the armies apart, leaving them in a suspended interlude, an impossible pause in the chaos.
Heavy rain was quietly washing over the battleground in a strange, somber atmosphere, only broken by Ekata’s heartbreaking wails.
“Is it over?” Sazaran grunted.
“...We’re about to find out,” Kiera muttered.
Without exchanging a word, she and her brother turned around and marched ahead calmly rather than menacingly. They stopped to stand side by side ahead of their troops, quietly daring anyone to resume the fight.
Kassein’s green eyes scoured the enemy lines, looking each man in the eye, reading their fear, their confusion, their panic.
Now that the water had washed a lot of the mud and blood away, they could see the bodies of their fallen brothers all around them; they could see the fate that awaited them if this fight went on any longer.
Whatever their leaders had promised, it was lying dead in the mud along with their heads.
Several long seconds passed, but before hope could take root, furious voices came from the rear of the enemy lines.
Kassein tilted his head angrily, and a handful of men stepped forward, looking belligerent and, more annoyingly, pretty unharmed.
They carried cuts and bruises, but it was easy to see that those were most likely caused from being hit by fallen rocks and treacherous ground than any actual fight.
“Here come the cowards,” Kiera hissed.
Indeed, the only way those men were this fine so late in the battle meant they’d been standing at the rear all along.
Kassein had cut pretty deep behind enemy lines before the avalanche, and there were very few men who hadn’t been pulled into the fight; the two armies had been forced to meet where they hadn’t been pressured by the snowfalls and landslides his dragon had triggered.
Things were quiet on all sides now, and the avalanche had cooled most fighting spirits, but those men were walking ahead, looking determined, angry, and infuriatingly fine.
One of them stepped forward.
His equipment was slightly better than the others’, with thick fur draped over his shoulders, his sword looking sharp and unused.
He was tall, though not as tall as Kassein, his long hair held back by a circlet, fully exposing the disfigurement along the side of his face.
A web of dark, unnatural veins sprawled across his jaw and neck, twisting beneath his skin like something diseased, poisoned.
The scarring was uneven, creeping in jagged patterns, the sickly color standing out in stark contrast to the rest of his flesh.
When he clenched his jaw, the veins pulsed slightly, as if whatever had damaged him still lingered.
Kassein had seen many wounds, but none quite like this.
The man’s fingers twitched briefly at his throat before curling into a fist, as if resisting the urge to claw at the scars, but his eyes burned with hatred, locked entirely on Kassein.
There was something about this man that unnerved Kassein, although he couldn’t exactly pinpoint why.
An instinct, perhaps, his stomach curling to let him know this was a natural enemy.
“Why does that ugly bastard feel slightly familiar?” His sister similarly tilted her head with a frown.
The man stepped in front of the others, visibly putting on some sort of show.
He raised his blade, pointing the tip at Kassein, and spoke loudly in that tongue of theirs.
Kassein, who hadn’t spent nearly enough time trying to learn Alezya’s tongue, still managed to recognize the words “dragon” and “woman” in his long speech.
It was obviously meant for the tribes to hear, but his eyes were glaring at Kassein the whole time.
But then, the man said one word even his sister understood, who immediately straightened herself with anger.
“ Miski ti loptaa latka, sinun kayarun! Vikaya labga hamrun! Deklaan Kulani loyka tyo kutiya Alezya ra tyo ho dryagaan bastarko ilkat agadi taneka hanra! ”
He finished his spiel by spitting in the mud at their feet. Kiera clicked her tongue, a sound their family used when they were getting annoyed.
“...Fine,” she muttered. “This one’s yours.”
Kassein didn’t reply because this wasn’t up for debate.
His dark green eyes were locked on his prey, watching as the man tried and failed to rouse their troops. Except for the handful of men around him, he was standing alone to face the two of them, and clearly, he was trying hard to convince their army to resume the fight.
“We need to find Alezya,” he said to his sister, glancing up as Kein was making nervous loops above them.
“Kiki’s looking for her too.”
As grateful as he was for his sister’s dragon helping out, Kassein needed to find Alezya himself.
He needed this fight to be over so he could find her, hold her, make sure she was safe and sound.
He wouldn’t stop until then. He didn’t like not knowing where she was or how she was, and he hated even more that his dragon seemed as concerned and clueless as he was.
Kein’s frustrated growls were now like a heavy thunder above their heads as his dragon was getting just as restless as he was.
“Let’s end this,” he hissed, stepping forward.
His opponent let out a loud shout that could have been a convincing war cry if his army hadn’t remained rooted in place, refusing to resume the fight before them, turning their heads away.
Undeterred, he lunged at Kassein with his blade leading the charge, his determined gaze suggesting he truly believed he had a chance.
In other circumstances, Kassein might have taken his time.
He would have let the man get a few swings at him, making him believe they were on the same level.
He would have made this duel last longer, inflicting small but painful wounds on his opponent, making him suffer, and using him as an example.
Kassein wasn’t much of a merciful man, and he had never claimed to be one.
But right then, he didn’t have the patience to indulge in this madman; he had to end this and find Alezya.
He had led this war for her, and it would all mean nothing without her.
He certainly didn’t care to entertain a man who had spat in the mud in the same breath he’d dared to utter her name.
Everything happened in a short moment; the man jumped at Kassein, his sword held high to slice him from above—a bold move, but too slow.
Kassein stepped aside, spun around, and slashed the man’s heels.
A horrible scream echoed as his opponent fell on his face into the mud and coughed, his tears adding to the wet ground.
“Seriously?” his sister panted between two strikes.
Kassein didn’t answer; instead, he helped her finish the handful of madmen who had seriously thought they could take the two of them on.
It would have taken at least three times as many for them to even have a chance at defeating one of them.
When they were done, Kiera wiped the sweat off her forehead with a groan.
“You think they’re done now?” she hissed, glaring at the rest of the tribes, challenging them with her eyes.
Kassein looked around, but this time, no one pushed through or stepped forward; they had just seen a handful of men fall in seconds.
The outcome was clear if they decided to foolishly risk their lives attempting to do the same.
Someone moved, and Kassein glared fiercely, Kein echoing his annoyance with a growl from above, but against all odds, the man suddenly got down to his knees.
With a fearful glance at Kassein, who looked pissed enough already, he threw his weapon in the mud and put his hands on his knees, his head low in an obvious sign of submission.
The man looked slightly older than most, in his fifties or older, and as soon as they saw this, some of the younger men behind him exchanged looks, and after glancing nervously at the siblings, they did the same.
It was only one tribe at first, but Kiera and Kassein didn’t move. A lot of the other tribes hesitated and waited, apprehensive, almost waiting to see if either of them would use their weak position to finish them off.
But Kassein and Kiera remained still; instead, their eyes scrutinized all the men still standing. They didn’t need to speak the same language to make their intentions known. All the tribes present quickly understood, and, one by one, men’s knees and weapons hit the ground.
Kiera and Kassein waited until not a single head was raised, all eyes cast on the ground.
“...That will do, I guess,” Kiera finally said.
But Kassein had already moved on. As soon as the last man’s knees had hit the ground, he began running toward them.
“Kassein!”
His sister’s call was lost behind him.
Frightening the kneeling men nearby, Kassein ran past, ignoring them all as he ran deeper into the rift, his eyes scouring the area.