Bey turned to the warrior with the crossbow, who was sitting on a bench by the entrance.
“Shoot and that’s done!”
“Okay,” he nodded.
“And then we will cut off his head and take it to the prince! And let's see how he suffers. Just as I suffered for my Jazmina, the prince will suffer for his lover! Yes, Toby?” And Bey laughed unpleasantly.
Toby turned pale, but nodded in agreement.
“And then we will kill Prince Arel.”
“What about the girl? The crossbowman asked. “Should I shoot her too?”
“No. She is noble. Yes, nevertheless you know who her father is, we will return her safe and sound, I have no business with this sir from the Upper and I don’t want to have. We must stay away from him, otherwise you won't end up with problems!”
“That's right,” nodded Mike Rout. “We will return her, he will not touch us.”
“He has his own business, and we have ours,” agreed Edin Ole.
“Why this revenge,” Tobias Bat said timidly, “all the same the streets are occupied by Tol and Coal. Nikto and Arel have nothing to do with it now.”
“It is a revenge! Revenge for my Jazmina!”
“But she refused you!”
“Sh-h-h”, Mike Rout hissed, eyes widening.
“She didn’t refuse me, you are a stupid boy and don’t understand anything in the relationship between a man and a woman! She was just humble and clean so that she could agree right away. Therefore, she refused and ran away! This is the usual female coquetry! It is clear, you are still green!”
Toby thought it best to remain silent.
And Bey bared his teeth. He looked sideways at the straw scattered by Edin Ol and the boards lying on the earthen floor, as if covering something.
“Damn this place! I am glad that at dawn we will finally leave here!”
Chapter three
The meeting
At about noon, they went out to an abandoned cemetery. Karina felt uneasy. But not from the sight of cracked gravestones overgrown with weeds and collapsed crypts. No. Some kind of anxiety lodged in her chest, like a premonition of something bad. Something was about to happen. Nikto walked as usual in silence, and she didn’t want to ask him, she felt some kind of evil as if thickening around them, hovering in the air. And yet, despite all the premonitions, Karina cried out in surprise when from behind the ancient crypt several soldiers suddenly came out to meet them.
One of them had jet-black hair tousled, and equally inscrutable black eyes. The pupil in them merged with the iris. Black Bey! This man really had some devilish ability to appear suddenly in the most unexpected place and at the wrong time. He looked at her, clearly hearing her exclamation, and grinned contentedly. His warriors were with him. Karina recognized them: half-blood Toby, Edin Ol, and the man she'd sworn she'd seen several times among the visitors at Backara.
All this lasted literally a few seconds, and then one of Bey's men threw up a crossbow and shot at Nikto. Nikto, who stopped slightly in front, jerked sharply to the side and, bending down to the ground, grabbed his right forearm. At this moment, without hesitation, Karina rushed forward, blocking him from the shooter. She screamed, trying her best to give her voice courage:
“Stop it! Bey! My name is Karina Kors, and my father is the head of the Royal Security Service, he will pay a big ransom for me!”
She spread her arms, trying to cover Nikto with herself as much as possible:
