Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 by Galvin, Aaron (top 5 books to read TXT) 📗

part.” Malik offered up the sword. “He lives it . . . even to his last breath.”

Darius refused acceptance of the sword. “You expect me to fight him?” he squeaked.

Malik glanced over his shoulder at Quill, already kneeling to take up his sword anew. “If you would have the savage’s head, Your Grace,” said Malik, turning back to the king. “I see no other way but you go and take it from him.”

Even in the king’s grip, Sydney felt Darius tremble.

“I am no fighter though,” the king quietly admitted.

“No,” said Malik. “But then you’ve never been a true king either . . .” He cast the blade at Darius’s feet. “So, let us see if you are at least capable of playing at one, Your Grace. Pick up your sword and give this savage a fight, at least . . . or stand there and be killed for cowardice.”

Sydney startled when Malik’s left hand shot forward to clamp hold of the king’s wrist.

Malik twisted then, tugging away at the grip Darius held over Sydney and then twisting to the point that the king dropped the dagger he held hovered over her throat. With his free hand, Malik guided Sydney away from the king. “Come away with me, Princess,” he purred, taking her to stand among the other Orcs. “It would seem all the fireworks have not yet ended today.”

Sydney looked on the king with little pity in her eyes.

Darius rubbed the back of his wrist, then knelt to pitch up the blade cast at his feet.

“Come on then, Your Grace,” Malik crowed, backing away with Sydney to give more room between the king and Quill awaiting him. “Make a fight of it, will you? Show this savage what a real, Merrow king is made of!”

It won’t be a fight. Sydney knew when Quill closed the space between himself and Darius. Her true father’s blade was raised, but did not fall, however, not even once Quill was within striking distance. It’ll be a slaughter.

Darius nearly tripped over himself when attempting to circle around Quill. “C-Come on, then,” the king stuttered, whipping his blade to bear and swinging at his opponent’s head.

Quill easily parried each move and step from the king, maneuvering away, but not so as to turn his back on Rupert, the Blackfin, or any of the Orcs who stood further off. For every try the king made, Quill’s movements both kept his enemies in front of him and forced Darius to rethink his next step.

Darius roared then, his movements signaling an attack that even Sydney saw coming from far. “Come on and fight me, you coward!”

Again, Quill dodged the blow. Then, in a single, fluid movement, Quill drew near enough to the king to grab him by the nape. He sent Darius flailing and stuttering backward to trip over his cape. The sword clattered on the ground as Darius fell, momentum carrying his legs up and over his head, as if he had meant to perform a failed, backward somersault.

Sydney understood the fight was ended, if ever it had truly begun, when Darius reached for the fallen sword beyond his grasp and Quill stepped upon the king’s hand.

Darius cried out at the pain, his face a blustery red as he relented beneath Quill’s boot. “Do it,” he said. “Kill me and done with it.”

“There was a time I would have done so gladly,” said Quill. “But it would seem all those years trapped in your oubliette taught me some smallest of pities for such weak creatures as you are. I think offering you the same amount of time down there to reflect on your choices might do you some good also, Your Grace.”

Sydney winced when Quill pulled the king to his feet then, turning him about to face the Blackfin and his Painted Guard.

“You wanted the king, Orc,” said Quill. “I want my daughter.”

“And you shall have her . . .” said Malik, his grip still firm upon Sydney’s bicep. “But my requirement in our arrangement was for the king’s life, I’m afraid. He still looks very much alive to me.”

Quill’s gaze flitted toward Sydney before looking to the Blackfin again. “Did you not claim a king lives his role, Orc?” He shoved Darius toward their shared enemies. “If you would have the king’s mantle, then let you take it yourself, Blackfin. For whatever Sydney may think of him now, she named Darius her father once. I will not kill him in front of her.”

I called him father many times. Sydney thought, unable to comprehend how she had done so after all Darius had subjected her to along with those she truly loved. But no more. She thought, looking from the frightened and whimpering king who had played at fatherhood, and then to the one who her heart warned she had should have recognized for such all along. You’re my dad . . . Sydney thought, her eyes shining as she looked on the stoic gaze of Quill. My real dad.

The Blackfin interrupted her realization by handing the charge of Sydney over to Rupert instead. Then, he drew his broadsword. “What times we live, eh, Your Grace?” He mocked both Darius and Quill, even as he approached the king and looked down on him instead. “A baseborn, savage bastard who refuses to kill a Merrow king when granted the opportunity? I should’ve never thought to see the day.”

To Sydney’s surprise, the king had not moved from his position at the center of all. Yet the longer she watched Darius lingering there, trembling, she understood there was also nowhere for the weakling king to go. The Blackfin and his Orcs blocked one end of the tunnel, and with Quill retreated back to stand guard at the other.

Darius’s eyes were red-stained with tears as Malik knelt beside him, his sword resting upon his shoulder, its sheen glinting in the surrounding torchlight.

Malik chortled as he lay his brawny hand upon the king’s left shoulder. “Any last words, Your Grace? Surely you can