The only sounds in Corvus chamber were their ragged breathing, two frantic rhythms trying to sync.
Lyssa and Mila huddled together on the cold stone floor. Their eyes fixed on the massive, still form of Lord Corvus, a mountain of dead flesh in the flickering light. The dark pool around his head had stopped spreading.
Moments later..
“Once,” the girl spoke, the words so quiet they were almost inaudible. She turned her face into Lyssa’s neck.”
“He thought he had caught a disease. On his ugly cock. A red rash.” She let out a short, sharp breath that was nothing like a laugh.
“He blamed it on me.”
She pulled back, her pale eyes gleaming with fresh, furious tears.
“He said I gave it to him. That I got it from the thousand men I fucked the night before. That I brought a pestilence back to his bed” Her small hands clenched into fists.
“A thousand men.” Her voice cracked.
“How? Is it even possible? To lay with a thousand men in a single night? Did they line up? Did I grow another cunt?
The girl barreled on, the story a poison she had to vomit up.
“He made his guards hold me down. They pulled my feet apart until I thought my hips would crack. He called for his physician. He told him to… to examine me. To find the source of the disease.”
A violent shudder wracked her frame.
“The man… he knelt. He pushed his fingers inside me. Not once. Again and again. Searching.” Her gaze was now sharp and lucid with horror. “But he wasn’t examining anything. I could see his face. His breath was fast. And I could see… his cock rising in his trousers. Corvus watched, drinking wine, telling him to dig deeper.”
She swallowed hard.
“It went on and on. Feeling. Probing. Curling his fingers inside, stretching and nodding as if he was finding some great truth.”
“It hurt..”
“Then the man stood, wiped his fingers on a cloth, and declared me clean. No disease. Corvus was furious. For a week. Then his own rash cleared. You know why?” She leaned in, her whisper a ghost of sound. “The fat lord hadn’t washed his cock after forcing a girl in the stables. For three days. It was just filth. His own filth.”
Lyssa breathed, her heart shattering. She pulled the trembling form into a fierce, protective embrace, pressing the girl’s face into the softness of her breasts. She cradled her head, rocking gently.
They clung to each other, a single island of living warmth in the chamber of death. The girl’s breath hot and damp on Lyssa’s skin. Lyssa rested her cheek on the girl’s hair, staring blankly at Corvus’s corpse.
Rustle.
Lyssa froze. Mila went perfectly still.
Across the room, the massive form of Lord Corvus shifted.
At the junction of his thick, dead thighs, his cock… purple and twisted at a brutal angle from the girl’s first attack…. gave a distinct, shuddering twitch.
The girl’s breathes caught.
The limp, bruised flesh twitched again. Then it jumped, a full, spasmodic jerk. A final, macabre pulse of neural nonsense traveled the length of the shaft. The tip, which had been weeping a clear fluid, now darkened.
With a soft, wet splutter, it ejaculated.
A weak, thin spray of cum arced into the air, pattering onto the man’s own pallid belly and his naked thighs. It pulsed once, twice more, each emission weaker than the last, until it dribbled to a stop.
Silence.
The two girls stared, their faces identically blank with, profound shock. Their minds, already stretched thin by trauma.
BANG
A thunderous bang shook the door. Then another. Muffled shouts came from the corridor.
“My lord! Is everything alright? We heard a commotion!”
The door rattled violently. The guards were trying to enter.
Anya knelt on the thick fur rug before the hearth, the warmth of the fire doing nothing to dispel the chill that had settled deep in her bones. The silence in the king’s private chamber was thick, broken only by the crackle of logs and the heavy, anticipatory breathing of the man behind her.
King Theron had not moved from his position at her back for what felt like an eternity. A looming, oppressive presence. She could almost feel the heat of his gaze, like physical fingers tracing the contours of her body through the velvet of her gown. His hands, hovering mere inches from the full curve of her buttocks as she knelt. She could hear the faint rustle of his tunic as he shifted, crouched lower.
Her mind screamed for her daughter. She swallowed, forcing moisture into her dry mouth.
“Your Grace,” she began, her voice softer, more tremulous than she wished. “My daughter, Lyssa… where is she? She was taken...”
There was no answer. Only a low, hungry hum from the king.
She tried again, twisting slightly to look over her shoulder. “.My child. Where have you taken her?”
He was utterly lost in the view, his sharp, calculating eyes glazed with a focus that excluded all else.
A wave of nausea was twisting her stomach.
“Such a perfect, silent answer,” he murmured, not to her, but to the shape of her.
“A question posed by the gods and answered in curves.”
One of those hovering hands twitched. The fingers curled slightly, a clear gesture of intent… he was going to grab her. To finally close that unbearable inch of space and take handfuls of her flesh.
Anya moved.
She pushed up from her knees in one fluid, desperate motion, rising to her feet and pivoting in the same instant. She turned her backside away from him, putting the generous swell of her hips out of his reach, and brought her own hands behind her back in a protective, if futile, gesture.
The King rocked back on his heels, the intense focus shattering into stark irritation. Slowly, he stood to his full height. The irritation was plain on his face. And something else was plain beneath the fine embroidery of his trousers. A Thick, rigid line straining against the fabric, the head of his cock visibly tenting the material. He was fully, unabashedly erect.
“You have a tiresome habit of turning away from your king,” he said, his voice deceptively soft.
He didn’t wait for a reply. His own hand moved to the lacings of his trousers. He worked them open with deliberate, bold slowness, his eyes locked on hers. “You ask of your daughter and that traitor,” he mused, as if discussing the weather. “When your king stands before you. Hard for you. Why does your mind wander to childish things?”
He freed himself. His cock sprang out, thick and flushed. He wrapped his fingers around the shaft, giving it a slow, idle stroke from root to tip, a blatant display of ownership. A pearl of moisture glistened at the slit. He began to walk a slow circle around her, his intent clear… to get behind her again, to reclaim his view.
Anya turned with him, keeping him in front of her.
He paused. A flicker of amusement touched his lips. He changed direction, stepping to the side. She mirrored him, turning again.
He tried a third time, a quicker step to her left. She turned again, a dizzying pivot.
His patience snapped.
“Why do you resist me!” he shouted, the sudden roar echoing off the stone. His face flushed with anger. He stood still, stroking himself all the while, a grotesque parody of contemplation.
“I am your king. My desire is a royal command. You should be honored.”
Anya forced a brittle smile. “It is an honor I must decline. I belong to Lord Barlon. I am his wife. My vows are to him.”
Theron’s face darkened.
“Barlon!...B... that traitor.” He sneered.
“Do you compare me to that brute?.. Do you think he is better than me!.. Do you prefer his cock over mine!?.. Are you saying that his cock is better than mine?!” He thrust his hips forward slightly, making his erect cock bob.
“Mine is MIGHTIER. That is why you resist. You fear it. You know his was a boy’s toy compared to the scepter of a king.”
He searched her face, his eyes hungry for a reaction. “Did he take you in your ass?” he whispered, his gaze dropping meaningfully to her backside. “Did that peasant fuck your tight little ass? Did you squeal for him? Did you beg for his peasant seed in your bowels?”
Silence.
“Is it that you prefer an audience? Shall I call my men? To hold you. Bent you over this very table.” He gestured to a heavy oak table littered with scrolls. “They can pull your skirts up. Pin your hands. Then I can gaze upon the beautiful, naked form of your buttocks at my leisure.”
He took a step closer, his voice dropping into a disgusting, intimate purr. “I would have it bare for hours. Just to look. To admire the peach-fuzz in the firelight. The deep cleft. I would spread those cheeks… wide. See the little pink star of your asshole clenched in fear. I would spit on it. To wet it.”
Anya felt a cold sweat break out all over her body. But she said nothing.
Theron, irritated turned his head slightly towards the chamber door.
“MEN!”
The door opened instantly. Two hulking men in full armor entered, their faces impassive.
“Hold her,” Theron commanded, his eyes never leaving Anya’s.
Lyssa pressed her back against the cold, rough stone, her chest heaving in shallow, ragged gasps. The sheet she had snatched from the bedchamber was wrapped tightly around her frame, a flimsy barrier against the elements , but the fabric did little to hide the trembling of her thighs or the hardened peaks of her nipples pressing against the linen. The cool air ghosting over the curve of her ass and the sensitive folds of her entrance.
Beside her, Mila clung to the masonry, her knuckles white with effort. Her shift flayed violently against the wind… leaving her smooth, pale ass and the tight cleft of her cunt exposed to the open sky.
“I can’t!” the girl sobbed, pressing herself flat against the cold stone wall, her eyes screwed shut. “I can’t do heights!”
“It’s alright," Lyssa cried out, her voice barely carrying over the wind. She didn't look down. The drop was sheer, a stomach-chattering fall onto jagged flagstones that would snap bones like dry twigs.
Earlier...
Corvus chamber door exploded inward in a shower of splinters. Guards stumbled through, swords drawn, their eyes wide as they took in the scene…The mountainous corpse of Corvus, his face a ruined mess , fork in his eye, naked from the waist down, his thighs stained with his own final, grotesque release.
The girls, no where to be seen..
Lyssa had grabbed the girl’s wrist and yanked, pulling her toward the room’s single, window.
The girl scrambled onto the sill, her shift catching on the rough stone. She tumbled out…not into open air, but onto a narrow, crumbling parapet that ran along the outer wall of the keep. Lyssa followed, snatching a thin towel-sized sheet from the foot of the bed as she went. She wrapped it around herself as she swung her legs out, the coarse translucent fabric doing little to cover her nakedness.
A guard appeared at the window they had just vacated. He leaned out, scanning, then bellowed to the guards behind him.
"They're on the ledge!"
Lyssa froze. Mila whimpered, a small, broken sound. There was nowhere to go. The ledge stretched out into nowhere, narrowing as it curved around wall. To jump was suicide. To go back was capture. They were trapped in a terrifying limbo between the sky and the earth. The wind whipped at them, threatening to pluck them off into the void.
"Move!" a voice roared from inside. "Don’t let them escape!"
Lyssa forced her legs to move. She shuffled sideways, her bare feet scraping against the masonry. The slave girl followed, mimicking her movements, her breath coming in sharp, terrified hitches. The stone was icy, numbing Lyssa’s soles, but the heat of fear flushed her skin, making her sweat despite the chill.
Suddenly, a whistling sound tore through the air, followed by a heavy, metallic thunk inches from Lyssa’s fingers. A spear, thrown with brutal force, had embedded itself in the mortar between her fingers. Stone chips sprayed, stinging her cheek. She flinched, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"You missed you bastard!" a guard shouted from below. "Throw it higher!"
Another spear hissed past the girl, missing her stomach by a hair’s breadth. The wind of its passage ruffled the thin fabric of her shift exposing her pale thighs to the guards that had gathered below.
"Look at that!" one man yelled, his voice dripping with lust and cruelty. "Keep moving slut. Show us more!"
Lyssa grabbed the slave girl’s arm.
"Don't stop. Ignore them."
But they couldn't ignore the next wave of terror. The heavy clatter of armor signaled a change in tactics. A squad of archers marched into the courtyard below, taking up positions with practiced ease. They nocked arrows, the string creaking as they drew back.
"Loose!" their commander barked.
Twang.
The arrow struck the stone near Lyssa’s shoulder, the shaft vibrating violently with the impact. The iron head gouged a furrow in the limestone, showering her arm with dust. If she had been a fraction slower, it would have pierced her throat.
“You missed, you limp-dicked fools!”
The commander screamed, his face turning a mottled purple. He turned on the archer, spittle flying from his lips. “They are women and clinging to a wall! How can you miss?!”
The archer flinched, lowering his bow. "The wind, Commander…it's shifting!"
"I don't give a fuck about the wind!" The captain kicked the man in the shin. “Put an arrow in the whore’s thigh! Let’s see if they can hang on with one leg!”
Lyssa and the girl scrambled faster, their movements frantic and uncoordinated. The ledge was becoming narrower.
Mila gritted her teeth, tears filling her eyes. The wind played with her shift, lifting the hem. The girl tried to hold it down with one shaking hand, but the ledge demanded both hands for balance. The fabric rode up, exposing the smooth curve of her thigh, then higher.
"Look at the slave," one of the guards jeered, pointing up. "She's dripping with fear. Or maybe she likes showing us that wet little cunt."
Another volley of arrows flew. Three shafts clattered against the wall around them, one skimming the girl’s calf, slicing a thin red line through her skin. She cried out, stumbling, but Lyssa yanked her back.
"Its okay. I have you. Don’t look down!” Lyssa urged, her own voice trembling.
"Again!" the commander roared. "And for the love of the gods, hit the cunts or I will have all of you on your knees begging as I shove my cock in your assholes!"
The archers drew again, the tension on the bowstrings audible even from the height. The sunlight glinted off the arrowheads, a constellation of death aimed at their trembling bodies. Lyssa squeezed her eyes shut for a second, feeling the rough sheet against her skin, the cold air, the sheer, overwhelming weight of the wall pressing down on her. They were miles from safety, inches from death, and the men below were taking aim like it was a holiday festival.
“Don’t touch me”.
Anya tried backing away, but there was nowhere to go. The guards moved with practiced efficiency. One seized her right arm, the other her left. Their gauntleted hands were like iron manacles, crushing, impersonal. She fought, she twisted, but she was a sparrow in a hawk’s grip.
“On the floor,” Theron said, his voice returning to that awful, contemplative tone.
They forced her down. Not gently. Her knees hit the fur rug, then her palms. One guard placed a heavy boot between her shoulder blades and pushed, not with brutality, but with inexorable pressure. Her back was forced into a deep, helpless arch. Her face was pressed down, her cheek against the fur. Her arms were wrenched back and held taut at the wrists. The position lifted her buttocks high into the air, making the full, rounded hemispheres the absolute focal point of her body, presented like an offering on a platter.
Theron moved behind her. He knelt.
“Hello there,” he cooed, but not to her. He was speaking to her body. To the part of her he coveted… her buttocks…
“Aren’t you a pair of lonely-looking things... All quiet. Waiting for attention. Poor, neglected cheeks.”
He reached out. But he did not grab. One finger, adorned with a heavy ruby ring, extended. He traced the air an inch above the lush curve, following its shape from the crest of her hip down to the place where her thighs met.
“You are a masterpiece of patient breeding,” he whispered, his voice thick with a reverence that was more obscene than any curse. “A lord’s wife, fed on sweetmeats and wine, kept soft and ripe for a husband’s pleasure. I can see the history in you. Every feast, every lazy afternoon, every time Barlon filled you with his seed, it added to this… this magnificence. It is a ledger of comfort. A chronicle of fucking.”
Anya whimpered, struggling against the immovable hold. The guards tightened their grip. Pain lanced up her arms, sharp and bright, as her joints were stressed to their limit. Any movement sent fresh agony through her shoulders. She was pinned, utterly displayed.
Theron leaned closer. She felt the bridge of his nose, then his lips, press against the velvet-covered swell. He inhaled deeply, a long, slow sniff that made her skin crawl.
“Mmm,” he hummed, his mouth moving against the fabric. “Lavender. And rosewater. And beneath it… the faint, sweet musk of a woman who knows her power. The scent of a cunt that has been worshipped. It clings to you here.” He sniffed again, groaning with pleasure. “It is the perfume of ownership. But his name is fading from it. Soon, it will smell only of me. Of king’s musk. Of my sweat. Of my seed dripping from you.”
He pulled back slightly. His hand came up, and this time, it did land. Not a grab, but a slow, possessive palming of one full cheek through the gown, weighing it, molding it. “I will have you like this every night,” he promised the flesh. “I will watch these magnificent pillows part for my entry. I will watch them jiggle with each thrust. I will bite them. I will mark them with my teeth. You will learn to love it. You will learn that this…” he squeezed, hard, “…this is what you were made for. To be the king’s cushion. The royal mattress. The silent, lush receptacle for a monarch’s lust.”
Terror, thick and cold, flooded Anya’s veins. This was worse than violence. This was a dissection of her very humanity, reduced to a single, objectified part.
She felt his other hand join the first, both hands now gripping the heavy, velvety curves of her buttocks, spreading them slightly apart, preparing to claim what he saw as his.
His hand slid downward and gripped the hem of her gown. With a sudden, rough yank, he pulled the fabric upward, gathering it toward her bent waist, revealing the delicate, lace-trimmed linen of her panties.
A sharp, punched-out shriek escaped Anya’s lips. She tried to hunch forward, to hide herself, but the guards’ hands on her shoulders were immovable.
“Ah!” Theron cried out, a shout of pure, lewd joy. “Look! The lacings! See how they criss-cross!”
He was staring, transfixed, at the back of her panties, where intricate laces held the garment closed over the full, rounded swell of her buttocks. The linen, taut across her flesh, revealed every contour, the deep, shadowed divide between her cheeks a maddening promise.
Theron turned his ecstatic face to the guard on Anya’s right, a young man trying desperately to stare at the far wall.
“Is she not wonderful, peasant? Is she not a marvel of womanly design?”
The guard, swallowed hard. His eyes, flickered. For less than a heartbeat, he glimpsed the lace-edged fabric stretched over the voluptuous curves. A faint, awed gleam touched his eyes before he wrenched his gaze away.
Theron’s joyous expression evaporated, replaced by a mask of instant, irrational fury.
“You dare?!” he roared, spittle flying. “You dog! You look upon what is MINE?!”
The king trembled, his attention whipping back to Anya’s exposed backside. Just the sight of her, bound in lace and linen, was enough.
His cock twitched, spilling out his seed, untouched, undone purely by the vision of her. A low, shuddering groan of ecstasy tore from him.
“Enough of this,” he panted. “Now I will see the canvas itself. I will see the art.”
His fingers scrabbled for the knotted laces at the small of her back.
Anya began to struggle in earnest. A silent, fierce rebellion. She bucked against the guards hold. She twisted her hips, left and right, a frantic, painful motion to dislodge the king’s fingers, to delay the inevitable stripping.
It failed.
The motion, that fierce, defiant grind of her pelvis… was his undoing.
The friction was minimal. The implication was everything.
A preview of what those hips could do…
Theron's eyes widened at the sensation, the shake of her hips jolting through him like electric fire, pure joy surging from his groin outward. His cock twitched violently as her movements ground against his fingers, the friction igniting waves of lust that made his balls tighten and his vision blur.
He screamed suddenly, a raw, guttural howl of ecstasy as her resistance pushed him over the edge, his cock erupting again in a hot, spurting mess, cum splattering across her thighs.
Anya stopped, disgusted.
“Why have you stopped, you teasing bitch?!” Theron shrieked, his fingers fumbling on the laces again.
“Hold her! Hold her still!”
The guards pressed harder and pinned her utterly, her body locked in place, her hips forcibly stilled. Only the rapid, terrified rise and fall of her breath showed her panic.
Theron snarled in triumph. He found the knot. He pulled. The lacing slithered loose with a soft, sinister whisper. The linen panties, their tension gone, began to sag. He hooked his thumbs in the waistband at her hips.
He began to push them down.
Anya felt the cool air of the chamber kiss the feverish skin of her lower back, the upper curves of her buttocks. The fabric inched downward, millimeter by agonizing millimeter, revealing the creamy, lush expanse of her bare flesh. She felt the drag of the linen over the fullest part of her cheeks, then the shocking, vulnerable exposure as it passed over the sensitive, clenched furrow between them. She was being unveiled, one obscene inch at a time. Theron’s panting breath was hot on her newly bared skin.
Just as the fabric reached the point of revealing the very apex of her cleft, the shadowed, secret entrance he so craved to violate…
THUD.
The chamber door slammed open, crashing against the stone wall.
Theron jerked back as if scalded.
“Who dares?!” he shouted, fury and interrupted lust making him incoherent.
The Royal Captain, strode in, his face pale. He did not even glance at the half-naked woman on the floor.
“Your Grace! A thousand pardons."
"Lord Corvus has been assassinated!”
A stunned silence gripped the room. Theron’s mouth hung open.
Before he could form a response, another figure burst past the captain… Councilman Malthus… his robes disheveled from running. His eyes, wide with panic, swept the scene. For a fatal second, they stuck on the breathtaking, half-bared curve of Lady Anya’s buttocks, gleaming in the firelight. He stared, his mission forgotten, captivated by the brutal, erotic tableaux.
“Malthus!” Theron bellowed.
The councilor jolted, tearing his gaze away with visible effort.
“Forgive me, Your Grace! A messenger… just arrived…” He gulped air.
“A large army. They have assembled in the southern hills.”
The blood drained from Theron’s face.
“Barlon’s army Your Grace”
Anya slowly lifted her head.
The dank air of the Palace deep dungeon cell was thick with the smell of stale sweat, cheap ale, and sex.
Iron manacles bit into Lord Barlon’s wrists, the heavy chain running to a ring in the stone floor forcing him to kneel on the cold, filthy straw. His head was bowed, a curtain of his greasy hair obscuring his face. The flesh of his bare back was a ruined map of angry, crisscrossing welts, some still weeping.
Beyond the bars, ten of the best royal guards had turned their post into a vulgar tavern.
A crude game of cards was underway on an upturned barrel, coins clinking. But the main spectacle was against the far wall, illuminated by a single guttering torch.
One guard, a brute named Krell, had a slave girl pinned against the damp stone. Her simple linen dress was bunched around her waist, his trousers around his ankles. Her head was thrown back, eyes closed, a steady, breathy whimper escaping her lips as he drove into her with rough, practiced strokes.
“That’s it, take it,” Krell grunted, his hands squeezing her breasts through the thin fabric. “You love my cock, don’t you, sweet thing?”
Another guard, lean and sharp-faced, sidled up and ran a hand up her thigh. “My turn next, Krell. Don’t wear her out.”
“She’s got plenty of holes,” laughed a third, taking a long swig from a wineskin. He turned and spat a stream of the sour liquid through the bars. It splattered against Barlon’s shoulder. The lord didn’t flinch.
“Look at him,” the spitter jeered. “Nothing. Like a statue. Maybe we should give him a better view.” He grabbed a half-eaten chicken leg from a nearby plate and hurled it. It struck Barlon’s temple with a soft thud and fell into the straw.
“He’s thinking of his precious girls,” said the sharp-faced guard, now running his fingers over the girl’s parted lips as Krell continued to pound into her. “Aren’t you, m’lord? Thinking of your little flowers.”
Krell chuckled, the rhythm of his hips never faltering. “Oh, they won’t be flowers for long. The King’s promised your daughter to the barracks after your execution. A week with us, and we’ll have that highborn cunt begging for a commoner’s prick. We’ll take turns seeing who can make her scream the prettiest.”
The girl beneath Krell gasped as he drove deeper, her tears spilling.
“See?” the sharp-faced guard leered at Barlon. “Even this kitchen slut knows what’s good. Imagine what we’ll do with a real lady.”
A fourth guard, the youngest, his face still dotted with pimples, joined in, his voice trembling with forced bravado.
“And your lady wife.” He said. “She’s in the king’s bed right now, opening those noble thighs for him. She weeps when he fills her. The guards by the door say that the king screams she’s the tightest cunt he’s ever had.”
Barlon’s chains gave the faintest rattle. His knuckles, visible where his hands were bound, were white.
“Hear that?” Krell taunted, his thrusts becoming erratic, grunts punctuating his words.
“Your… ah… your wife weeps… and your daughter… nngh… will scream.”
The girl crescendoed into a sharp cry. Her body arched, tensed, then went limp as Krell shuddered against her, spilling himself inside her with a final, guttural roar. He slumped over her for a moment before pulling out with a wet sound. The sharp-faced guard was on her immediately, spinning her around to face the bars, bending her over the stone.
“Look at him while I take you,” he hissed in her ear, positioning himself. He shoved into her from behind, and she cried out again, a mixture of pain and shock at the sudden fullness. Her eyes, glazed with tears, flickered towards the silent, kneeling lord in the cell.
“Your daughter will learn to love this,” the guard snarled, his hands gripping her hips, pulling her back onto him with each thrust. “She’ll learn to crave it. To open up for any man who wants her. Just like this one does.” The girl mewled, trying to push her hips out from him, but he held her firm.
The young guard picked up a small, sharp stone and tossed it. It bounced off Barlon’s ear.
“Maybe we should fetch the cunt now! Give her a preview of her new life! Let her see what a real man feels like while her useless father watches!”
The sharp-faced guard was nearing his peak, his pace becoming frantic, slapping flesh against flesh echoing in the vaulted space.
The girl was crying now, “Please… p… enough”
Krell, fastening his trousers, walked to the bars. He unlatched his belt and urinated in a long, steaming arc into Barlon’s cell, the acrid smell joining the cocktail of stench.
“That’s the only crown you’ll ever wear, traitor.”
Through it all… the vile words, the sounds of coupling, the physical insults… Barlon remained a silent statue. His breath was the only movement, a slow, controlled rhythm in his chest.
The sharp-faced guard finished with a shout, collapsing over the girl’s back.
It was then, in the relative quiet broken only by heavy breathing and low chuckles, that the sound came.
Faint, from a vast distance above, muffled by layers of stone and earth. The deep, mournful blare of multiple war horns. One. Then another. Then a third, a fourth… their notes intertwining in a signal that was not for the changing of a guard.
Every guard in the chamber froze, their leering smiles dying. The young one dropped his wineskin.
Barlon’s eyes opened.