A menacing chuckle sounded just out of reach as he felt Rayden collapse against his back. “It burns a little, doesn’t it?” the mutated figure, who could be no other than Rot, voiced amused.

Sieg coughed again, keeping his gaze lowered as Rayden worked his magic. The ground vibrated with the heavy strides of the bruiser. They were out of time. As soon as his legs obeyed again, Sieg exploded forward towards a very surprised enemy.

“How?”

Siegfried didn’t answer the question. His blade pressed against the man’s throat. “Where is she?” he growled, fighting to keep his arms from shaking.

A bloody hand gripped his shoulder. “Better answer the man,” Rayden suggested casually. “And you, you back up a little,” the healer waved a shooing motion towards the bruiser behind them.

Rot furrowed his brows and bared yellow teeth at them. “You’ll never get out of here alive if you kill me, boys.”

Sieg kept his eyes trained on the man in charge but could hear the shuffling of feet, hooves and claws behind him. Instead of easing up, he leaned forward, the blade biting slightly into Rot’s flesh. “I ask one last time,” he voiced slowly. “Where. Is. She?”

Finally, Rot’s eyes showed a sliver of fear and uncertainty.

Sieg could feel the warring forces in his body slow down. The burning stopped completely as Rayden's healing energy was the only foreign power left. Slowly, he pulled back the blade, letting his enemy breathe again.

Rot broke eye contact, glancing over Sieg’s shoulder. “Bracks. Show them.” He looked back at Sieg, letting out a sickly hiss. “Looks like our information was bad. You’re more trouble than that sword is worth.”

The grey-skinned giant circled around them to the back of the room where another heavy stonegate was resting between the stands. He went to one knee and grabbed the end of a broad log that was sunken into the ground. Heaving with a grunt, the bruiser slowly lifted it, and the stonegate moved up in tandem. It was a massive lever that must have operated a hidden contraption in the wall.

It was only one-third up when Sally and Haylee rolled through beneath it.

Rot’s eyes bulged as he saw the women. “Where are Kelth and Tama?” he asked with renewed fire.

“You mean your torturer?” Haylee shot back fiercely.

The implication sent a jolt through Sieg, and he stepped away from Rot towards Haylee, looking for any sign of physical harm on her body.

Several things happened the moment his focus changed.

Rot barked an unintelligible command, raising his left fist and swiping his right in an ark away from him.

The bruiser ripped off the lever and threw the heavy log at Sieg.

While Sieg evaded, a part of the ceiling broke loose above Rot, forcing Rayden to jump back.

The dark-grey jagged boulder rose on two powerful legs, grabbed Rot like a child would cradle a puppet and retreated towards the entrance.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Sieg didn’t bother giving chase. His immediate concern was for Haylee and Sally. There was a lot of blood, but it didn’t seem to be theirs. The bruiser was standing between them, a mountain of muscle under leathery skin. Sieg switched the sword to his left hand and started running before the giant could turn his attention to the women.

The ground trembled as they barreled forward. The battering ram that was the giant’s fist came straight for Siegfried.

He met it head-on with a punch of his own, his knuckles breaking through the middle finger of the bruiser and further into the fist, parting bones like a sword driven into a wooden plank. The joint of his own hand cracked as Sieg was pushed back by the sheer weight difference.

An ear-splitting howl sounded out behind the ruined flesh in front of him. He grabbed the wrist with both arms before the bruiser could retract it.

Twisting his body to the left, Sieg forced his enemy to stumble forward to save his shoulder joint. The weight of ten men as leverage on his arm was enough to bring the bruiser’s torso down. He crashed into the slate ground, a plum of dust blowing out to the sides.

Sieg jumped high. Gravity brought his feet down onto the leathery neck like an anvil.

“Bracks!” Rot cried out in a mixture of outrage and disbelief.

Sieg met the leader's glare with cold fury.

“Just what in the abyss are you?”

The others closed up to Sieg, and he handed the sword to Sally. The cracks in his wrist, drenched in dark red blood, were already healing. “Let us through, or you will find out,” Sieg responded. He eyed the line of cold-blooded killers barring the exit. “And no one will leave alive.”

Rot snarled, but Sieg could see the gears working in his head. A small group of fast, clawed enemies had injured him heavily, yet he also healed fast. Sally was also an unknown threat since Sieg offered her the sword.

The crunch of debris beneath heavy, clawed feet cut through the silence. A deep beastial growl came from the entrance corridor, prompting the nearest men to back away slowly.

Rak entered the room, not wasting a glance at the feline next to him. Their claws couldn’t pierce his scales.

Spittle flew from Rot’s snarling face as he looked over his men, his gaze finally flitting to the giant’s corpse. He snapped his finger and turned his head to the left. The stone creature carried him away, and his men opened a path.

Sieg fought down a sigh of relief and walked with feigned confidence. He kept his gaze unfocused to react to the slightest movement, but no one stirred while they left the room.

Samuel and Kaz awaited them outside. The former almost bored while the latter looked at the ground, ears flattened against his head.

Before anyone could voice their relief, Siegfried raised a fist to signal a stop, followed by a flat-handed chop pointing at the street beyond them. It felt strangely gratifying how everyone fell in line, intuitively sensing what he wanted without having gone through a guards training regiment.

Once they were clear of the immediate area, Haylee took off, jumping from wall to wall until she reached the ledge, her ears rotating in every direction. Kaz turned his ears to the front and led the party while Rak fell back to cover their rear.

When they reached the bar and entered the guest area, Sieg eyed the reinforced door closing behind them.

“We’re fine,” Kaz said. “The leather they squeezed into the frame holds out the noise. I can barely make out anything beyond it”.

“I can!” Haylee added helpfully.

“You don’t count”, he growled.

Weary as he was, Sieg ignored them both and made for the empty arena. He threw a glance towards the rooms around the circular space.

“No one’s here but us,” Kaz assured him. “I paid for us being the only residents”.

Sieg didn’t care about the details. He stayed silent until everyone had taken a seat on the benches.

Sally notably plopped down as far from him as politely possible. Her shoulders slouched over just a fraction, almost incidentally. The front top of her leather boots moved slightly as she wriggled her toes unwittingly. He knew what she wanted to say the moment her jaw tensed.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Sieg stated with an iron voice. “What happened today will not happen again,” he added frostily, roving his gaze around everyone present.

He saw Kaz twitch on his left and brought his full attention to the lion-man, not caring about the flinch in the feline's posture.

“How did they set up all this within a few hours, Kaz?”