"My king. Look down there," Alex yelled through the deafening wind.
Lodin followed his pointed finger. A wagon left with no horse and four bodies strewn around it. The blood they'd spilled was daunting even from the sky.
"Kaisog."
The drake whined in reply and he and Elias' crimson dragon, which Alex rode, dove towards the scene.
Lodin slid off the drake's back and quickly approached the bodies. He couldn't see a single one with all limbs intact - be that arms, legs or worse. Each of them had cuts all over as if mauled by a lion. Yet they were too precise to be made by any claw.
"Barbarians." Alex squatted by one of them.
Lodin nodded briskly. It could be no one else. Of course they'd attack these men; they were Dragon Slayers of the Southern Kingdom. This confirmed his suspicions. The West truly had allied themselves with these human beasts.
Kaisog's ferocious snarling had his train of thought stop.
"What is it?" he asked the dragon, who was standing by a spot of blood that was too far from any body to belong to them.
The drake glanced at him and snorted, stomping his foot on the ground.
Lodin approached, immediately understanding what he'd found. A single piece of silken fabric lay near the wagon, splattered with blood. Far too fine for any man to war; whether Barbarian or Dragon Slayer.
He clenched his teeth, inhaling air through them.
"Alex," he called. "Bring these bodies back to the castle. And round up all the Dragon Slayers in the dungeons. Arthas included."
"It shall be done," Alex said behind him, unflinching in the face of such a sudden order.
"And tell Sergon this; the Dragon Slayers were behind this kidnapping and they may have inside help." He met the guard's gaze over his shoulder.
"What about you?" Alex asked after a short pause.
Lodin turned to the drake in front of him, who was impatiently thumping his tail on the ground.
"Do you have a trail?" He got an affirmative snort in reply. "Kaisog and I will find Ciara."
"Of course, my king."
Lodin glared at the piece of fabric in front of him. To think a tyrannous king would sink even this low. He should've guessed.
"If war is what he seeks, then war is what he gets."