Chapter 422: A Mistake…?
The small group of the Blood Fang tribe hiked up Mt. Moon Fang at a slow and steady pace. It had been three days since the ambush at Grimstone. They had been traveling from dawn to dusk and tending to their wounds at night. The goblins hadn’t had a true moment of respite since.
Stryg had been asleep for most of it. Tauri had told him wounds had been worse than when had fallen down the pillar during his first year at the academy. He didn’t remember much about his fight with the frost troll king. His memories were in a mess, his mind still trying to sort out the memories Krikolm had shown him from his own.
The youngest of King Alok’s children trailed behind the group. Her hands and feet were bound with rope. Srixa had covered her eyes and gagged her mouth with strips of old cloth. Despite her tall stature, the frost troll girl must have been 13 or 14 years old at most. A child in both their cultures. And yet here she was, a prisoner, having to pay for the crimes of adults.
Some part of Stryg pitied the girl and another part of him hated her for being the daughter of the man who had caused the deaths of several of his tribemates. He understood that the girl needed to be kept alive for the sake of the new pact between the frost trolls and the Sylvan, but if that wasn’t the case, if this troll child was just a prisoner… would he kill her right here? This nameless girl? Would he end her life? For the crimes of her parents? To prevent her from becoming a future threat? It was the logical choice, right? Right…?
He wasn’t certain and that hesitation bothered him more than he’d like to admit.
“Stryg, you okay?” Tauri asked.
“Hm?” He looked up at her inquisitive eyes and wondered to himself when he had stopped hating her. She was an orc, an enemy of his people. But to him, she was just Tauri. When had that changed? When had she stopped being an enemy? Stryg’s eyes wandered down towards her curvaceous legs and her plump bottom and simply stared at her butt.
Perhaps his change of heart had begun the first time he had seen those soft, round—
“What are you staring at?” Tauri frowned.