Chapter 363: Unleashing the Horde
"Death to the murderers!" Laya shouted as the rage in her heart boiled over. Before she knew it, she was sprinting across the sands as fast as her disproportionately short legs would carry her. Heila’s voice seemed to echo in her mind as she let loose another blood-curdling scream. "Make them fear the Mongrel Horde!"
"Fear the Horde!" her companions shouted from behind her as they too let loose all of the anger and humiliation they had stored up inside, some of them for decades since they first became one of Tausau’s progeny.
In the stands, people who had been cheering for the criminals just moments ago went still in shock. Mouths hung agape and a few people even dropped the delicate morsel of one delicacy of another that they were about to eat as they stared, wide-eyed, at the eruption of power from what should have been a group of feeble Clanless mutts.
"They, they’re vampires!" someone on the first floor said in shock, turning to look at Lady Nyrielle and seeing a predatory grin on the woman’s face. "But, but if they’re the vampires, then, those other people..."
All eyes in the arena turned to the convicts, seeing them with fresh eyes now that they realized the Clanless vampires were the ones who stood forth to execute the criminals who had just entered the arena. Normally, there would have been cheers for the executioners or slurs and insults hurled at the condemned men facing execution.
Now, however, they weren’t sure whether they should be cheering or not. The Clanless were hunted almost everywhere they went and their parents were put to death for the crime of giving birth to one of the ill-fated offspring. Yet now, these pitiable figures were sprinting across the sands of the arena with the ferocity of future champions. Were vampires this strong? So strong that even one of the Clanless could pose a threat?
On the sands of the arena, Laya cared nothing for the confused stares of the crowd or the lack of cheers. In her eyes, the world had narrowed to just one man. He was short, like her, though he was a member of the Horned Clan. There was a look of mockery on his face when he raised a short sword and took a simple, amateurish fighting stance as if to meet her charge.
Laya didn’t know what this man’s crime was. Had he been the one preying on small boys? The one sacrificing ladies of the night to his dark sorcery? She didn’t know and she didn’t care. That smugly superior look on his face was all she needed to decide that this man would be the first one to die tonight!
"Hunter’s leap," she whispered, using what little sorcery she was capable of to launch herself into the air, soaring above the horned man’s outstretched blade before falling on him with all of her weight, the heavy head of her mace leading the way.