Chapter 12: Mountain Sabers
Kaelor watched the chaos unfold with a flicker of amusement playing on his lips. He didn’t flinch when some of the townsfolk broke through the shouting scuffle and chased Ned down into the mud.
The sight of the once-dominant town head being tackled and pummeled until he writhed in the dirt brought no small amount of satisfaction.
Without hurrying, Kaelor turned his eyes toward the other end of the field, where his Dreadclaw Guard had been watching the spectacle. A sharp whistle pierced the air.
Hound and the six beastlike warriors charged over at once, fangs bared and kicking up dust behind them. Kaelor walked, calm and composed.
By the time he arrived, the fight was over.
Ned and his sons, along with a few bruised cronies, had already been dragged out of the flooded fields. They knelt in the muck, faces swollen, noses bleeding, breath ragged. The sight was pitiful.
"My Lord!" a woman cried out.
She stepped forward, shoving Ned down once more. Her gown clung to her in muddy clumps, soaked to the bone, but there was fire in her eyes. She looked to be in her early thirties, worn, but strong.
Kaelor recognized her as one of the women Mildred told him about. "Elsa," he said quietly.
She nodded, panting, then pointed at Ned with a trembling, angry hand. "I heard him. He said he’d sell all the rice by year’s end, report to the Baron, tell him to burn this town and then run."
Kaelor’s eyes dropped to the groaning man on his knees.