The War Of Crowns | #ONC2023

Chapter 7

A giggle erupted from Leia and he beamed at her, winking as though they were two friends sharing an inside joke. Roarke however, was not impressed. He was looking more and more golden by the minute. Leia thought he might burst.

Atreyu put his hand on his angered brother and to her surprise, Roarke settled, grumbling to himself.

"Sacrifices must be made for the better of our people brother," Dakath said to Roarke, who opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted.

"Let us not say anything we will regret later on." Atreyu said, keeping his hand on his brother in an attempt to keep him subdued.

Leia studied Atreyu's face, wondering how he often seemed to be all knowing. Just then a pint of beer was placed on the table, snapping her out of her thoughts. She turned to a dwarf with pointed ears. "Aye you called for some more drinks prince?" He said in a gruff voice.

Atreyu nodded to the stocky man who pulled out a tissue and loudly cleared his nose in front of them. The sheer force alone caused Leia to jump in her seat. Her hand flew up to her chest. It blew the hollowed tree cups on the table over and knocked her hood off her head.

Before Leia could pull it back up, the dwarf shrieked in horror. "A human in my tavern with a weapon!"

Leia looked at the bow and arrow on the floor behind her. "I mean no harm!" She raised her hands, palms facing outwards at the dwarf but the damage had already been done. Just about everyone in the tavern was on their feet and inching closer to their table.

"Dakath?" Leia asked nervously.

"Yes, Leia?" The way he said her name sent a shiver up her spine.

"This is your land, do we run or fight?" Leia couldn't deny she was scared. The tavern was near full capacity. Dwarfs, faeries and one or two goblins turned their calculating eyes on them, on her. This was the one and only time she regretted choosing a bow and arrow as her specialty weapon when she trained with the general. Facing this many beings, she desperately wished she had her hands on a gun right now.

Dakath placed a hand on her thigh and their eyes locked. Instantly she felt calmer as his magic flowed into her. Under normal circumstances, she would have been aghast, but right now she was thankful. "You were foolish to come here, I would have told you what we discussed when I got back to the castle," he said.

Leia looked at him incredulously. Did he really want to talk about this now?

"They're blocking the only way out," Dakath spoke again, drawing her back to the threat at hand. "Keep moving towards the door... and Leia?"

"Yeah?" Her breathing became uneven.

"Do not aim to kill," he ordered.

He briefly glanced at his brothers and in an instant they knocked back their chairs, Dakath sliding his own straight into a group of dwarves that fell as a result.

The noise was deafening as Leia grabbed her bow and picked an arrow from her quiver. She had shot three faeries in the arm by the time it took her to make a run for the door. A goblin stepped into her path. It was half her height, its fingers long and gangly and its nose almost covered the entire lower half of its face.

Before her eyes the goblin started growing taller until it hovered over Leia. Dakath and his brothers were fighting off various faeries armed with daggers. The dwarf that had brought them their drinks was now wailing at the damage they were causing to his tavern.

Leia's jaw dropped as the giant goblin's head burst through the tavern's roof, taking half of it off and throwing it to the ground at the side of the structure. She shot an arrow which sank into the sickly green skin of the goblin's leg. It had about as much effect in bringing the goblin to the ground as one of the needles she might have used when she was forced to spend her time embroidering back home.