"Lord Koran," said Sophiana with a voice full of disdain. "I recognized your foul stench when I was brought in here."
"Charming to the last." Koran said with a scornful grin.
"Traitor! M-my father will have your head for this!"
"My head?" laughed Koran. "Well yes, the former King Argan would actually be in dire need of it at the moment as he seems to have lost his own."
The massive ironclad barbarian next to him let out a thunderous laugh. The strange mage woman on the other side of the throne however rolled her eyes and muttered, "Oh enough with the beheading jokes already."
Sophiana was speechless. Her father, the king, dead? She couldn't believe it! And her mother, the queen, naked and kneeling in front of this monster? Sophiana couldn't even bare to look at her.
Anyway, little princess," Koran said. "Your fate, now what will it be?"
"You mean I have a choice?"
"Well actually yes," said Koran. "You see me and Zorolf Ironwrath here made a deal to devide the women of King Argan, more precisely you and your mother, equally between us. And I thought it would be an amusing game to let you choose for yourself which conqueror to be, well, conquered by. "
Koran paused for effect and smiled triumphantly. The huge barbarian next to him looked on with a wolfish grin and adjusted his formidable codpiece.
"Simple. Choose me and stay here at the castle and take place at my feet as my willing concubine. Choose Zorolf and be hurled off into the mountains with the rest of his loot as the price of him, and his sons."
"A-and if I choose neither?"
Lord Koran just made a gesture towards the other side of the hall where a whole group of barbarian warriors were in the midst of tearing the silk dress and jewelry off a wailing noblewoman.
"As you can see, her higness has already made her choice. In fact, she begged me on her knees to pick her instead of you," he laughed. "I suppose the thought of a savage having his way with her royal body was revolting enough to sell out her own daughter.
"Mother?"
Sophiana looked at her mother with despair and tried to meet her eyes, but the queen looked away and sobbed.
"However, little princess. Since you arrived late to this banquet, it is only fair to let you get the final choice. What will be yours, and the queen's fate?" |