Drogo watched with horror at the poster that was stuck to the wall of the house. It had a face painted on it that resembled him. His name was written right beneath it. The message below it was:
"Wanted for killing Prince Jade."
His stomach twisted into a thousand knots. He never killed Prince Jade. The princes had run away from there after the attack.
He stabbed his fingers in his hair, wondering what went wrong or what was it that he missed. His knees became wobbly when he re-read the message. If he was found guilty of something he never did, he was going to be beheaded or worse, the king was going to torture him to the point that he would beg him to kill him.
Drogo stumbled back, his throat going dry as paper. How did Prince Jade die? With his eyes he saw them running away. Was he killed on his way back to the palace? Did rogues kill him? But that wasn't possible. The royals could trace and if the rogues had attacked them, then they would have traced away to save themselves. Then how the hell did the prince get killed? His eyes went wide when the idea that Prince Jasper had killed him bounced in his mind.
"Fuck!" He stepped away from the wall. He walked further in the village in the dead of the night and found several posters pasted on the walls and every one of them had his name as a criminal. Suddenly, all his thoughts ran to Avice. Did the soldiers take her away or was she safe? It was possible that they would use her to trap him. He rushed back to his friends, Corg and Lester, who were still standing in the woods, waiting for him.
"Did you see Gastuj?" Corg asked with furrow in the middle of his brows.
"No…" Drogo replied as he sat down on a fallen log. "But I saw something else. Something even more drastic!"
Lester dismounted his horse and walked to him. "What did you see?" he asked as Corg narrowed his eyes on Drogo.
Drogo looked at him with bewilderment. "Tell me one thing. Did any of you see Prince Jade getting killed?"
"What the hell!" Corg growled. "I didn't see. I would have told you about it had I seen."
Lester stayed quiet for a tense moment. "What are you trying to say, Drogo?"
Drogo growled back. "Did you see Prince Jade getting killed and you didn't mention it to me?"
"Fuck you!" Lester snarled. "I went all the way with you to the north to fight with you and now you are accusing me of something so absurd? Our mission was to chase them away and not kill them. Do you think I am such a fool that I would lay my hands on a royal?"
Drogo got up and snarled, "There are posters about me in the village, pasted everywhere. The king has announced that I have killed Prince Jade! Now what do you say about it?"
Corg got down from his horse. "What the real fuck!" he rasped. "But you never killed him."
"That's what. I never killed him. How did Jade get killed? We all saw them running in their carriages. No one recovered Jade's body. Only the vampire soldiers were out there!" Drogo said, feeling anxious.
"That's right. They just left the village," Corg replied. He sat down on the log and rubbed his chest realizing that they had gotten into a bigger controversy. Or maybe the biggest.
"This is not good…" Lester said as he too sat down beside Corg. "We are going to be hunted by the king's men."
Drogo exhaled roughly as dread settled inside him. If he went inside the village to meet Avice, he was sure that he would be surrounded and taken prisoner. If he didn't, he didn't know what she was going to do to survive. He wondered if the king would even listen to him after his son died. In fact, things became even better for the king because not only did a fresh rebellion take place, his son died. And this meant that he must have gained sympathy. His work was done.
They sat there for an hour until it was twilight and the day began chasing the night. They all didn't dare to get inside the village, afraid that the soldiers might attack them. Suddenly, Lester got up and said, "Wait a minute. What did the poster say exactly?"
"It had my face and the message that I am wanted for the murder of Prince Jade," Drogo said, looking towards the village.
"Did it say anything about us?" Lester asked.
"No." Drogo shook his head.
"That night we had all gone secretly," Lester said to Corg. "That means that no one knew that we had gone with Drogo in our village. Only the villagers of the north knew our faces and names. But over here, they didn't know. The king is going to carry out his investigations and I wonder when the investigations are going to come here. By that time, our names will be forgotten."
Corg's eyes had a glint. "So no one knows about us, right?"
"No!" Lester chuckled. "Why are we two fretting? We can go back to the village and get on with our lives!"
"You bastard!" Drogo punched Lester and then straddled his thighs. He punched him again in the face. "You are going to leave me in this all alone."
"Drogo!" Corg caught him from behind. He punched him on his back and Drogo fell to the ground.
Lester got up and hit him hard on his chest and face. "You are a bastard!" he growled. "It was you who wanted to give the rebellion a fresh start after your wife went to the palace and showed her face in support of Prince Lazarus! All you wanted was to save your face and you were the one who came up with the idea of leading the villagers up north to strike against the vampires."
"It was you who willingly came with me!" Drogo shouted as he scrambled back, wiping the blood from his brow. "Don't tell me that you didn't want it either! Why did you come with me?"
"We came to help the villagers!" Lester lied through his teeth.
Drogo watched him with astonishment.
Corg took a deep breath in. "Stop it, both of you!" He sat down in front of Drogo and said, "If the two of us go back, then we will be able to give you all the information about the soldiers in the village. In my opinion, you should run for now. Go find shelter somewhere else. Go underground. Do not come out unless this situation mellows down. Do you understand?"
Drogo released anxious breath. Tears stung his eyes. His life had taken such a drastic turn. What Corg said made sense and it was the best thing he could do in this situation. He nodded. "I think this would be best for me."
"Good," Corg said, getting up. "We both will go back to the village as soon as the sun rises so that we avoid the vampire soldiers. Once we are in there, we will assess the situation. You come back to this spot in two days and we are going to let you know what the situation is."
He pursed his lips and shook his head at his condition. "Okay, I will come here two days later at sunrise."
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺