The meeting with the prince had not gone as smoothly as Jasper had hoped. After getting turned away from Birnah’s gates, they’d spent the better part of the week wandering the countryside in search of the prince and his men.

Unfortunately, the durgu’s path proved easy enough to follow; while Jasper couldn’t help but view the lord of Birnah’s decision to close the gates to the city with a certain degree of judgment, it was undeniably true that the territory really was under attack. The fertile farmlands immediately in view of the city remained untouched, but as soon as they were out of sight of the guard, devastation reared its ugly head.

Plumes of smoke rose on the horizon in multiple directions, skybound pillars far too large to be caused by simple bonfires. They’d charted course for the nearest, where they’d found the burnt-out husk of a village. There were no survivors left, though a series of tracks in the road headed north suggested at least some of the village’s inhabitants had managed to flee elsewhere.

The second pillar of smoke led them to a settlement that had only lost a few homes, along with a sizable section of its wooden stockade. The villagers were already busy rebuilding their fortifications, but after Erin stepped in and did the work of days in an hour, they were more than happy to regale them with tales of a heroic rescue from a horrific monster.

The description of the monster seemed familiar, and when the Corsyths showed the team its rotting corpse, Jasper recognized it with a touch of horror. It was an Atrometos, the very monster that had decimated the first expedition he’d joined. It was little more than luck that he, Ihra, and Pa’al had made it out of that cursed city alive, but at least he hadn’t seen one of the foul beasts since.

He saw a lot more of them over the next few days. They found two more villages the durgu had saved, each with their own rotting corpses, and saved a village of their own on the day after, arriving shortly after a pair of Atrometos began their attack. He’d been surprised how easily the creatures had fallen, not living up to the memory of the undefeatable boogeyman they’d encountered in Yarr-Khenom. Then again, he had grown considerably.

Round two of the fight had come later that night when they’d finally tracked down the durgu. This village had not gotten so lucky. Nearly every building was burnt down, and the Atrometos were still on the rampage. At the edge of town, a man fought alone against one of the beasts while further away, a ring of soldiers surrounded what remained of its inhabitants. They’d split up and defeated them with no further loss of life. Their intervention had been met with overwhelming gratitude from the villagers, but the durgu had viewed them with suspicion.

Jasper shifted uncomfortably on the hard wooden floor and helped himself to another serving of the stew the dwarves had cooked. For food whipped up in the burnt-out ruins of a village, it was downright delectable, the sort of food that Jasper wouldn’t have hesitated to rate 5 stars back at home. He paused to savor a few bites and took the opportunity to scrutinize the man that sat opposite him.

If one counted his previous experiences with the game, then S̆ams̆ādur wasn’t the first durgu he’d seen, but he was certainly the first Jasper had encountered since arriving in Corsythia. While the durgu were a foot or two shorter than their neighbors - the elves, the Corsyths, and the trolls (Gemlirians) - they really weren’t that short; back on earth, S̆ams̆ādur would have been only a couple of inches shorter than the average male.

But what was unique about the durgū’s appearance was their breadth rather than their height, and the prince was no exception. S̆ams̆ādur was built like a bull, with shoulders that would have made a linebacker weep with envy and the sort of muscular mass that only the most reckless of steroid users could have hoped to match.

His eyes glowed with a tawny gold that perfectly matched the wild mane of hair that tumbled around his shoulders. In stark contrast to the long hair was his immaculately manicured beard, which was trimmed close to the cheek. He wore a suit of heavy armor, crafted in large, solid plates rather than the lamellar style the Djinn preferred, and his arms were in dark blue tattoos whose swoops and swirls seemed to carry a meaning Jasper couldn’t quite grasp.

A roguish air lingered around the prince, and Jasper suspected he’d broken more than a few hearts, but currently his eyes were not filled with charm but hooded suspicion. “Too much, far too much,” the prince replied to his question. “Did your goddess tell you why I’m in this kruvas̆ pit?”

Kruvas̆ pit? He mentally translated the unfamiliar curse to hellhole, and shook his head. “No, she was actually rather vague on the details - you know how gods are.”

“Do I?” the prince replied with an amused grin. “I can’t say that I’ve ever found Lord Samsa to be the talkative type, but perhaps the Lady of Last Light is different. So she really told you nothing?”

“She was more focused on the assassins,” Jasper replied, leaving out her not-so-subtle hints about the prince’s potential usefulness to the Empire’s cause. The durgu had already shown a decided lack of interest in that path.”

“Well, after my father and I had…a little disagreement,” the prince replied, “I decided it might be time to take a vacation. See the sights. Survey the lands that will soon be ours.” Though Samsadur did his best to keep his voice playful, he could entirely expunge the bitterness that laced his words. “Unfortunately,” he continued, “after a little run-in with some assassins in Yaspeh, King Kabani sent me here as a ‘payment of service.’”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“You met the king?” Tsia interrupted the man’s explanation, and leaned forward, her hands fumbling nervously. “How did he look? Was he well?”

“Uh, yes?” The prince paused at the unexpected interruption, shooting the girl a strange look. “I met him a few times. Can’t say I paid much attention to how he’s looking though. Why? Do you have some sort of crush,” he added with a sly wink. “Into the silver fox type?”

“Ew! Gross - he’s my dad,” she blurted out before her brain caught up with her lips.

“Your dad?” The prince echoed in disbelief. His eyes sharpened, and though his hands did not twitch, Jasper got the sense the durgu briefly cast some sort of spell. “Kruvas̆, you’re not lying, are you?” He said, his body stiffening as he spoke. “Did your father send you to check up on me?”

Crap. Jasper sighed internally as he watched the man’s suspicion return full throttle. “I know it’s a mighty suspicious coincidence, but, honestly, our coming here had nothing to do with her father,” he intervened. “Tsia ran away from the court about a year ago, so she was eager to hear about him. That’s all it is.”

Frankly, Jasper doubted he would have believed himself on that matter but, to his surprise, after another moment of scrutiny, the man relaxed. “Who would have thought a tiny village like this would ever host two royals,” he said with a grin.

“Three,” Ihra chimed in, and the prince laughed.

“Don’t tell me, you’re the long-lost princess of Onkodos Laos.”

“It’s him,” she replied nodding her head toward Jasper, who waved his hand dismissively. “I may be technically of the Royal House, but I’m no prince.”

“Your mother was,” she replied promptly, her eyes glinting with amusement, and Jasper just snorted. “Not when I knew her. I spent more of my life in the slums than in the courts. Besides,” he shot her a warning glare, “we’re getting off track. Our new friend here was going to tell us what he’s doing in Birnah.”

The prince’s good humor faded slightly, and he shot Jasper a questioning glance. “You really don’t know?”

“Not a clue.”

“Well…” After another long glance at Tsia, S̆ams̆ādur resumed speaking. “As I was saying, after a certain unfortunate incident in the capital, Kabani sent me here to…” He lowered his voice, glancing around at the villagers clustered in the massive warehouse Erin had constructed, but found them mostly asleep “...to keep an eye on Lord Sarganil,” he continued softly. “The king fears that Sarganīl’s loyalties are beginning to stray.”

“Surely not,” Tsia gasped. “His family has kept Birnah safe for generations, and Lord Sarganīl has ensconced himself firmly in the kingdom. His daughter is my father’s queen, and he has raised himself above all other lords - what more could he want?”

“Power.” Jasper and the durgu prince replied at the same time and shared a wry grin.

“As your friend here was saying,” the prince continued with a nod at Jasper, “Men who crave power are rarely content with second place. Of course, I don’t know exactly what his plan is, so maybe he has other motives altogether. Maybe Stryn just offered him a better deal, but there’s definitely something fishy going on here.”

“Because he won’t let you in the city?”

“Eh.” The prince shrugged, “If that was the only thing Sarganil had done, I’d understand. The durgu may not be at war with the Empire yet, but tensions are high and I am my father’s son, after all. If the situation were reversed, I wouldn’t let you in, no matter how charming you may be, my lady,” he turned the focus to Tsia, who blushed like a schoolgirl.

A trickle of irritation rippled through Jasper, but he kept the conversation on focus. “But it sounds like that wasn’t the only thing he’s done. What else?”

S̆ams̆ādur nodded his head toward the villagers sleeping around them. “He’s abandoned his people. For the last few weeks, my men and I have been dashing around the countryside trying to fend off the fiends terrorizing the villages while Lord Sarganīl does nothing. He’s just holed himself up in that fortress of his and refuses to come out. I’d say the man is a coward if I hadn’t met him.”

“The guard we met at Birnah said the attacks were just a distraction to lure them out of the city. Maybe he’s just thinking tactically,” Jasper offered, though personally he agreed with the prince that the lord was wrong to abandon his people.

“You could keep the gates closed without completely abandoning the villages,” the man replied dismissively. “And besides, that’s not all that he's done.” He nudged the shoulder of the mage who had sat beside him silently the entire time, the healer who Jasper had helped. “You want to tell them, Asata?”

“Me?” She squeaked, startled by the question.

“You understand what happened with the temple better than I do.”

“Yes, well…” A shadow passed over her face, and she twisted her hands nervously in her lap. “When S̆ams̆ādur asked me to help him, I didn’t think the temple would agree. For many years now, Lord Sarganīl has paid for exclusive rights to our healers, but S̆ams̆ādur worked out a deal that overbid him - but just for my contract, not all the healers.”

“I’m guessing he didn’t take it well,” Jasper reasoned.

“Lord Sarganīl accused Master Babbānu of treason and extortion and tossed him and most of our leaders in his dungeon. I fled before the guards could grab me, along with a few of my brethren, but from what I’ve heard he’s appointed his nephew as the new head of the temple. The man’s not even a priest!”

“Well it certainly sounds like there’s some corruption,” Jasper agreed, “but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s plotting against the kingdom.”

“No, but I’d wager my axe on it,” the prince replied. “There was something off about the man when I met him, almost as if his thoughts were altered, or perhaps, corrupted.”

“His thoughts? Then you’re-” Jasper picked up on the ramifications immediately, and the durgu winced.

“Yes, I’m a mind mage,” he admitted reluctantly.