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“The human, Iris, has been going about stirring up rebellion in the provinces. Productivity is already down 2.3 percent,” Matematicus said. “If that trend continues, we could be looking at substantial losses carried through the next quarter.”
A sensible species might well have witnessed the show of unrelenting brutality, and decided to pull their collective heads in and behave themselves. But humans were not a sensible species. And Archon was not a particularly sensible king.
Archon did not care about losses, substantial or otherwise. He cared about the hunt.
“If you’re keen to put this rebellion down, we can find her with drones and probes. We can use the technology we have embedded around the planet to find her quickly…” Naxus trailed off as the king interrupted him.
“And where would the sport be in that? When you hunt elkor, there is no honor in picking them off from the air. You must go down on foot, draw bow and arrow. You must play the game the way they are playing, or there is no point. A hunt is much more than a capture or a kill.”
“So you are going to wander around this planet as a human might?
“I can pass as a human easily enough,” Archon replied. “A larger, stronger, more powerful human, but more or less.”
“You will have to be fully clothed all the way to the neck,” Naxus said. “You will have to wear a hat at all times.”
“Maybe. Or maybe if they see my scales they will think I have tattooed myself. Pierced myself. They are all so desperate to look individual. They will think I am a freelance warrior.”
Naxus looked very much taken aback. It was clear he had expected Archon to be upset about his prey’s rebellion and subsequent hell-raising, but if anything she had simply made it all the more fun. This was an amusement to the king, a much needed break from the tedium of pretending to care about the minutiae of state. He would leave the percentages to Matematicus. The prey was his.
“Sire. All due respect, I don’t think you will have much success with that approach.”
“I know what she looks like. I know which direction she went in. I have hunted targets where I did not know so much as a name.”
“You don't know her name either. It’s Iris, by the way. You will be very much at a disadvantage.”
“I already have significant advantage over this prey. I have physical power, and the resources of a king. What does she have?”
“Human wit, cunning, the advantage of this world being her home…” Naxus paused for a moment. “And a lack of arrogance.”
“Are you calling me arrogant, Naxus? We do not know one another that well.” Archon’s expression became feral, vicious, and utterly imperious besides.
“I, er…”
“I am going to hunt the girl. I do not deserve to be king if I cannot survive here alone.”
Chapter 10
Iris managed to evade the hands and intentions of the drunk farmers on that first night, and set off on a tour of every tavern, hen house, dog house, out house, and indeed, normal house which was within her ability to reach via foot or by hitch-horse.
People needed to know who they were really serving. The king was not untouchable. Even with his fiery dragons and his floating buildings and his plumes of destruction, he was a creature of flesh and blood.
“I made him bleed with this knife!" She declared, raising her blade to a tavern full of people who were mostly listening to her. Having delivered her message many times over, she was starting to get the hang of it. Showing the knife was a high point, because the king’s blood had dried upon it in a golden sheen which made the blade glow in an ethereal sort of way. People usually cheered when she did that. They cheered this time too, a drunk, happy sort of sound.
But something was wrong. The crowds were often lewd, rude, and skeptical at first, but the feeling she got from them was almost always harmless. Not tonight, though. Tonight, she felt eyes on her from across the bar. Iris was used to lascivious looks. They irritated her, but did not make the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. This was different. This was a stare which penetrated a jolly crowd, and cut through the people who passed back and forth across its line of sight.
“Anyway, so, don’t pay your taxes!” She shouted to the crowd before disappearing into it.
She had already paid three silver for a bed upstairs. The feeling in her belly gave her reason to pull her cloak around her shoulders and the hood up over her head, and slip away amid the general chaos of the conversation.
This was fine by her. Slipping away after her speeches had become her modus operandi. She did not want to become the focus of the rebellion. She wanted the movement to swell up around her and take on a life of its own, form a wave of change which would sweep the king away forever.
