Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king

Chapter 288: Dealing with rats(3)

Chapter 288: Dealing with rats(3)

Inside the temple, chaos reigned as the pirates scrambled to seal the entrance. With sweat-slicked hands and frantic desperation, they slammed the heavy wooden doors shut. Tables, benches, and statues of stone and wood were dragged across the floor, piled high against the doors to form a makeshift barricade. Their breaths came in ragged gasps as they worked, the thundering of hooves and the distant cries of their comrades outside a haunting reminder of what awaited them if the doors were breached.

Damn me!I should have left when I had the chance, instead of torturing that bastard....

Korran thought as his face turn into an ugly sneer.

As if mocking him the priest—bloodied and bruised, his robes torn—stood by the altar, his face twisted in a mix of delirium and grim satisfaction. "The gods call for your souls!" he declared, his voice rising above the commotion. "Their wrath descends upon you! No barricade will stop their judgment! No door will bar their will!" His laughter rang through the air, wild and unhinged, echoing off the stone walls.

Korran, teeth gritted and a hand resting on the hilt of his sword, turned and strode toward the priest. Without a word, he raised a hand and delivered a sharp backhand across the man's face, sending him stumbling backward into the altar. The sound of the blow snapped the pirates' attention momentarily from their desperate work.

"Shut your cursed mouth!" Korran hissed, anger and uncertainty burning in his eyes. 

The priest raised his head, blood trickling from his split lip, and smiled through his pain. Then perhapse if the slap brought him back to reason, his voice, though hoarse, carried a note of sinister clarity. "There is still a way," he rasped, his grin widening. "A way for all of you to live."