Page 95 of Crownless King

I slowed my steps, keeping to the shadows from the forest.

“When did the king leave?” The one with the crossbow demanded.

“Not soon enough,” Bavius snapped. “Now, get the fuck out of here before I lift you on my horns.”

His hands fisted at his sides, he stomped his hooves menacingly, digging grooves in the dirt of the path.

The two men looked at each other.

“We may still catch him on the way to Elaros?” one suggested.

The other one shook his head. “It’s hard to get close to him when he’s on the road. His personal guards are vicious and incorruptible.”

Bavius loudly puffed the air out of his nostrils, lowering his head.

“I said get off my land!” he boomed.

The guards raised their weapons.

“Bavius, no!” I tried to stop him in vain.

With a deafening roar, he charged, aiming his horns at them. A crossbow bolt hit him in the chest. His tunic turned dark around it, soaking up the blood from the wound.

The bolt didn’t stop him. The pain only seemed to enrage him. He slammed into the guard, sending him to the ground. Spinning on his hoof, he tossed the second guard aside with a jerk of his massive head.

“Fuck.” The first guard released another bolt.

It embedded into Bavius’s shoulder but still failed to slow him down. He stomped over to the man lying on the ground, training his horns to pin him to the path.

The man whimpered. A furioustaureanpresented a terrifying sight, his large nostrils flaring, his eyes glaring from under his heavy brows. His long, curved horns promised a gory, painful death.

The second guard flew up, higher than Bavius could reach him. He dropped from the sky, jamming both of his daggers into Bavius’s thick neck. The blades sparked with the red of Nerifir iron. Blood rushed out in two dark crimson streams.

Bavius staggered on his hooves, then crashed onto the field, between the neat rows he’d made and tended to all his life.

I froze, paralyzed by horror and disbelief. Nothing could fell Bavius. He was the picture of strength and health, permanent like the land he worked. Yet there he lay, fallen in the field, drenched in his own blood.

“Well…” His killer wiped his daggers, panting for breath. “That was unplanned.”

“Just as well. He saw our faces.” The other one scrambled to his feet, his hands still visibly shaking. “With the king dead, he would’ve talked.”

The king?

Dead?

I slammed both hands over my mouth in shock.

“I think I heard someone here.” One of the guards turned around.

I forced my feet to move, stepping back into the shadows. But it was too late.

They had spotted me.

ChapterTwenty-Five

SPARROW

Both guards flew into the air, heading toward me.

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