The Alien King’s Prey (Royal Aliens 1)

They were not terribly good minstrels, but the drinking meant it didn’t matter. The same modus operandi applied to the art on the walls, which had been done by the local society for women who painted with their forefingers. They painted with their forefingers because their hands were occupied with flasks of wine.

Iris was beginning to feel better. She had not expected to find allies so quickly, or so easily. But she had forgotten the appeal of a damsel in distress. She was a young woman, or at least, a young enough woman that men of all ages felt protective of her as well as interested in her carnally.

She had never been with a man. Not because she wasn’t inherently interested in them, but because having a father who used his axe to split the skull of the first fellow who dared to lay a hand on her as she was coming of age ensured that there had been no further suitors - and now that she was fully of age, she was far more acclimated to trapping and gathering than to searching out mates.

So it was that she had very little understanding of the corollary of the mood swelling in the bar. Where there is a damsel in distress, there must also surely be a hero who rescues her, and having rescued her, makes wildly free with her loins.

Every male in the bar besides Floyd the Fabulous, who was playing pipe to his fellow minstrel’s fiddle, was now thinking about fucking the maiden who had stood up and made such an impassioned speech about tyrant kings and taxes.

Now that the speech was over, Iris found herself still very much on the table, but much less inclined to get down and join the fray. There were hands snaking toward her out of the mass of men, big brawny, hairy hands with agendas she did not care for.

“Let the lassie alone!” The barkeep came to her rescue again, batting the revelers out of the way with a mucky towel which had wiped down the bar so many times it was verging on becoming sentient in its own right, colonies of bacteria forming civilizations of their own, perhaps even suffering under their own tyrant kings. One never knew.

Iris was grateful for his intervention, but she knew it was not over. Having stirred up one tavern full of drunk field laborers, she was hardly on the cusp of a revolution. Not yet. But perhaps if she went to a hundred taverns, and told her story a hundred times, perhaps then the people would begin to turn on the king. Perhaps the story would take on so much of a life of its own that she herself would not have to tell it anymore. Maybe it would spread of its own volition, much like the king’s fires had done as they tore through thatch, reed, and even daub to leave nothing but a smoldering cairn where her life had once been.

Chapter 9

Before embarking on any hunt, it was common courtesy to let the groundskeeper know. That was the only reason Archon bothered to return to Naxus’ ridiculous palace, where the general met him with his usual smirking insolence.

“Naxus, I have come to hunt my prey. I will need the full resources of your army. I trust you have spies?”

“You’re talking about the village girl, aren’t you.”

Naxus surprised Archon with his knowledge and indirectly confirmed that he had spies.

“I am. What do you know of my prey?”

“That prey is currently stirring what could amount to a global uprising,” Naxus drawled.

Archon turned to face the general, only barely managing to hide the sneer which tried its best to appear on his face whenever Naxus was in the vicinity. The general had been hospitable, but that in itself was a problem. Archon was not a noble to be hosted. He was the king of all he surveyed. He expected deference, not tolerance. Groveling, not hospitality.

“What are you talking about?” The question came out, biting and impatient.

“I’m saying I’ve found your prey, your majesty. A girl escaped the village, but saw everything you did. She believes that you killed everybody there. She also claims you attempted to ravage her, but were repelled by her blade.”

“You found my prey?”

This was another insult to the many injuries Naxus had delivered to Archon’s ego.

“At least in the sense I know where she has been, and what she has been doing. I haven’t bothered to catch her. It has been most amusing, actually.”

“Why, pray tell, has it been amusing?”

“Well, you would think that having burned a village to the ground, the humans would be more afraid of you.”

“I would think that,” Archon agreed. It was the entire reason for having done it in the first place.

“I’ll let my advisor, Matematicus, explain,” Naxus said, gesturing to a furry creature with glasses and a squint.