The thick, copper stench of fresh blood immediately flooded the narrow tavern hall, mixing heavily with the acrid smell of burnt wood, old thatch, and sweat.
Standing right at the ruined doorway of the ground-floor room, framed beautifully by the jagged splinters of the shattered timber, stood the vanguard. They had just thrown the final, broken assassin through the entrance, and now they stood completely blocking the only exit out of the inn.
Chinua stood at the absolute center of the threshold. Her face was an unreadable mask of cold stone, showing absolutely no outward trace of the blinding agony ripping through her newly patched abdominal wound. Her eyes—dark, sharp, and entirely devoid of fear—locked onto Minister Gegeen in a flat, unblinking glare that carried the lethal hunger of an alpha steppe wolf. She did not say a single word, but her steady, calculating gaze seemed to physically compress the air in the cramped space, demanding answers without speaking a single syllable.
To her right, Khawn stood like an immovable mountain of iron, his heavy broadsword held low and ready. His jaw was clenched so tightly the muscles bunched violently beneath his scarred skin, his facial expression one of pure, unrestrained hostility as he stared down the imperial guards. On her other side, Od and Muunokhoi flanked their commander, their weapons unsheathed and catching the flickering, volatile amber glow of the hearth fire. Od's lips were pulled back into a grim, dangerous sneer, his eyes darting across the room like a hawk choosing its next target, while Muunokhoi's heavy brow was furrowed, his massive chest heaving with the residual adrenaline of the slaughter.
Just feet away, Minister Gegeen stood entirely rigid, his hand frozen tightly on the hilt of his ceremonial sword. The initial look of absolute shock on his face at the sight of the bleeding assassin dying at his feet quickly hardened into something much more calculated. His eyes narrowed to slits as he met Chinua's gaze, desperately trying to maintain his political composure despite the sudden explosion of violence.
Behind Gegeen, his twenty-five imperial guards instinctively shifted their weight, their heavy armor clinking nervously in the tight corridor. In the suffocatingly close quarters of the ground floor, they found themselves staring directly into the unwavering, murderous eyes of the Hmagol's most elite legendary soldiers.
The silence inside the inn was total. Nobody moved, nobody breathed; it was a pure, eye-to-eye standoff where a single misstep would turn the entire ground floor into a total slaughterhouse.
"Now is the time to drop your weapon and confess your crimes," Chinua said, purposely taking a slow step forward, her chin held high. Her voice was fierce, freezing, and vibrating with command. "Or step forward and meet your end." A cold, dangerous smirk touched her lips as she raised her bloodied sword, pointing the tip straight at Gegeen's neck.
"Your Highness," Gegeen countered, a wicked, confident smirk spreading slowly across his own face. "The last man has not fallen yet; this fight is still far from over. If Your Highness surrenders willingly right now, I will personally ensure your body remains entirely intact. I will even take the time to inform His Majesty that his beloved sister died tragically at the hands of Kosanz border soldiers."
He smiled knowingly, completely convinced that the slow-acting poison he had laced into her rice porridge was already circulating through her veins. He had no idea that mere moments before the ambush began, a sudden, blinding spike of nerve pain from her untreated wound had forced Chinua to drop the bowl, sending the tainted porridge spilling uselessly into the floor. Blinded by his own arrogance, Gegeen firmly believed Chinua was a walking corpse who would soon be unable to stand on her own feet. "We have all night to make this decision."
At a single glance, Chinua knew Gegeen was deliberately stalling for time. Though she hadn't pieced together every single detail of the plot just yet, one thing was absolutely certain: Dzhambul was still capable of pulling the strings from outside of Hmagol territory. And when it came to that traitorous prince, Chinua had nothing left to say.
"You would rather choose to die for a traitor who murdered his own father and betrayed his people than protect the innocent people who chose you to represent them?" Chinua said coldly.
Before Gegeen could answer, she raised her blade high. "Anyone who sides with Dzhambul dies today!"
Chinua commanded the room, rushing forward like a flash of lightning. Her sword drove straight into the chest of the foremost imperial guard. Three more heavily armored imperial guards quickly swarmed forward, pushing Gegeen back into the safety of their ranks as the remaining imperial guards formed a protective defensive circle around the treacherous minister.
Ten imperial guards stepped forward in unison, their blades unsheathed and slashing toward Chinua. Instantly, Khawn, Od, and Muunokhoi surged forward to back their commander.
Muunokhoi, parrying a vicious down-strike, rapidly surveyed their claustrophobic surroundings. They were backed into the absolute rear of the inn, and the wooden backdoor was less than twenty yards away.
"The backdoor!" Muunokhoi roared, delivering a brutal kick to an imperial guard's midsection. He broke away from the melee and rushed toward the exit. But the moment he cracked open one side of the heavy door panel, a black-shafted arrow hissed through the gap, embedding itself deeply into the frame. Muunokhoi slammed the door shut just in the nick of time. "Blocked! Archer contingent outside!"
Hearing the warning, Khawn broke away from the frontline. He sprinted back into the ruined bedroom, kicked a wooden chair onto the table, and vaulted upward. Grabbing the exposed ceiling beams with his massive hands, he pulled his heavy frame into the rafters, tore through the remaining thatch of the roof, and threw himself out into the night air.
He plummeted down with his hunting dagger drawn, crashing directly into the cluster of ten imperial archers stationed outside the door. His sudden, brutal descent broke their formation instantly, creating the perfect opening for Muunokhoi to throw the backdoor wide open and charge out with his broadsword swinging.
Inside, Od fiercely pushed Chinua toward the open exit. He scooped up a fallen sword from a dead guard, wielding twin blades in a blinding, defensive vortex that completely blocked the remaining imperial guards from advancing toward the door.
Chinua rushed out into the cold night air of the backyard. Spotting a fallen bow and a quiver of arrows near a dead scout, she snatched them up in a single fluid motion. She notched two arrows simultaneously, drawing the string back to her ear despite the agonizing tear in her abdomen, and let fly. The twin arrows found their marks, piercing the chests of two mounted guards. As their bodies slipped from their saddles, Chinua sprinted forward, vaulting onto the back of one horse while snatching the reins of the second.
Having slaughtered the last of the immediate archers, Khawn dropped to one knee on the stained dirt. He violently pulled a fresh arrow from a dead man's quiver, notched it, and began firing directly back through the open doorway into the inn. His rapid, suppressive fire pinned Gegeen's remaining soldiers behind the stone pillars, giving Od the vital window he needed to sprint clear of the threshold. Khawn loosed arrow after arrow, a relentless barrage that held the entire corridor at bay.
"Khawn!" Chinua shouted, wheeling her horse around and reaching her hand down toward him.
Khawn sprinted forward, grabbed her hand, and vaulted seamlessly onto the back of the second horse. With Muunokhoi and Od already leading the charge, they dug their boots into the horses' flanks, thunderously riding away into the pitch-black safety of the tall, sweeping grasslands.
Seconds later, Gegeen and the surviving, blood-drenched imperial soldiers spilled out from the backdoor of the inn. Just as they reached the yard, a heavy company of thirty fresh imperial cavalrymen halted at the threshold, their mounts foaming at the mouth.
Gegeen pointed his ceremonial sword toward the dark horizon, his face twisted in a mask of pure fury.
"Chase them down!" Gegeen screamed into the night. "Ride them ragged! They must not be allowed to cross the Cigan Pass alive!"
The heavy darkness of the steppe swallowed the distant figures as Gegeen stood outside the inn, watching the secondary ambush wave hunt Chinua and her commanders into the night.
A cruel, satisfied grin stretched across the minister's face. He could already taste the victory. With Chinua wounded and cornered, the vanguard's line was supposed to break tonight.
The illusion of his perfect trap shattered as the frantic pounding of hooves approached from the opposite direction. An imperial scout violently pulled on his reins, throwing himself off his panting horse before it had even come to a complete stop. The soldier sprinted toward Gegeen, his armor clattering loudly in the dark, his breath ragged and wild with panic.
"My Lord!" the soldier gasped, stumbling to his knees in the dirt.
Gegeen didn't look down, his eyes still fixed on the dark horizon where Chinua had fled. His grin only widened, filled with a smug, unbreakable arrogance. "What is it? Speak."
"Sir Khunbish and Sir Khenbish... they have broken through," the soldier wheezed, his voice trembling violently. "They and their men arrived on the outskirts of town just now."
The smug grin instantly vanished from Gegeen's face. His heart dropped like a stone into a bottomless abyss, a cold, paralyzing dread washing over his entire body.
If Khunbish and Khenbish—Chinua's most trusted guards—had managed to survive the temple massacre and ride this hard to reach them, it meant only one terrifying thing. The Salran Hill Bandits, the brutal faction Khunbish had been allied with, would be hot on his heels. The pieces on the board had completely shifted. In a single heartbeat, Gegeen realized that the execution of the People's Princess and his number one enemy was no longer a guaranteed slaughter—it was about to become a total war.