Page 266 of The Wild Prince's Favorite
Dajan ran after him as Kassein walked back to his army, determined.
The Captain took a different route to find his place amongst the brigades without a word, but his head was now held high. Kassein had been truthful in his words: he hoped Dajan and more men like him made it out of this alive. Meanwhile, he crossed the ranks of men, hundreds of them lined up in tight formation, in their armor and carrying their weapons, greeting him with determined nods and shy cheers.
It only took him a handful of minutes to hurry past those who were already marching forward and make his way to the front, where General Sazaran stood at the helm, all geared up in his heavy armor.
“Ready for a good brawl, Commander?” The General grinned, looking excited.
“Try to stay alive, old man,” Kassein smirked.
The General blinked a couple of times, shocked, before he erupted in a loud, thunderous laugh that made the men behind them jump and Kassein wince.
“Ha! Haven’t heard you be this brash in a while, Commander!”
“Are you trying to warn the enemy we’re here?” Kiera grimaced as she joined them. “What did I miss?”
“Only the excitement of the upcoming battle, Princess Kiera!”
“Call me princess again and you won’t make it to the battle, old man,” she hissed.
That only made Sazaran laugh more and louder while she rolled her eyes. Kassein knew there was no point in hiding their arrival, anyway.
Their opponent had spotted them, and on the opposite side of the rift, they could see the black sea of fighters heading toward them, their two armies descending into what was to be their arena.
Kassein glanced up at the skies as thunder erupted in the distance, definitely looming to overtake the battle. It was hard to say if the sun had already set or not; it was eerily dark already. This would make things harder for everyone, but mostly, he was worried about Alezya riding his dragon in a thunderstorm. As much as he knew his dragon wouldn’t take any risks because of its rider, he regretted letting her join this battle at all.
Alezya was too fierce and determined, and he wasn’t sure she would put her safety first if things got worse.
“She’ll be fine,” Kiera sighed next to him.
When he directed an annoyed glance at his sister, she rolled her eyes.
“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.
