His highness

When King Katthike saw the pool of blood around the dead prisoner, he began to rage. He knocked down the guard next to him with a single brutal blow. His legendary anger was unleashed before those around him had managed to get to safety. Excited, he ran in a circle around the body of Hy, lying on the ground, limping badly. His stocky muscular figure sent out hot waves of anger and everyone present crouched in fear when he came near them.

“To hell with you all! How did that happen? ”He roared into the silence of the dungeon room, and his powerful voice echoed off the walls.

"Am I just surrounded by useless and miserably stupid idiots?" He came to a stop in front of the second soldier and stared at him with his ice-blue eyes. The soldier immediately lowered his gaze and stammered: "Your Majesty, e-he ... somehow he overpowered the guard and h-stabbed himself with his knife!"

The king grimaced and bared his teeth as if wanted like a wolf at his opponent's throat.

"Hasn't everyone who was in contact with this prisoner been expressly advised several times that extreme caution and vigilance are required?" He hissed sharply.

The soldier nodded shakily, embarrassed to answer.

"You pathetic bastard!" Shouted Katthike, and his voice almost cracked. As was to be expected, he knocked this soldier down too, and since that didn't seem to be enough for him, he kicked him straight in the face a few more times with full force. There was an audible crack, and the soldier stopped making a sound. Blood streamed from his nose and his eyes glazed over. When the King of Askhar looked up, they all took another step back from him, scraping their backs desperately against the roughly hewn dungeon wall, wishing that an escape route might open up.

Katthike glared at the rest of his terrified subjects. Their inability, with which they had so thoughtlessly ruined the unique gift of the gods, was actually the best reason for immediately shortening them by their lousy heads, those spineless dungeons. But there was something else that angered him beyond measure, and he didn't know what was offending him at that moment: the idiot negligence of his soldiers who had just robbed him of a fortune, or that it was that son of a dog of one Hy had managed to evade his violence, simply slip through his fingers like running water! He forced his gaze to the almost smiling face of the dead man at his feet.

“You're laughing at me, aren't you? You hyaun devil, you got away from me! ”He growled and kicked the dead man in the face. But he continued to smile uninhibitedly. Katthike turned away in disgust.

Damn him, now the secret of the Auns was gone! And they were close to their goal. The torturers had done an excellent job so far, and the hy was already at the edge of his sanity. A little longer and he would certainly have talked. But now he was dead and the aun useless. Katthike turned abruptly. Where was it anyway? At least not on Hy's forehead.

He swore loudly, and in the barren dungeon all the unfortunate figures that remained flinched. They tried hard to put on faces that were as indifferent as possible, and each of them silently lamented his fate of having to be here and now with the angry king. Katthike grabbed one of the guards again and shook him violently.

“You freak, who stole it? Speak! Who's got the aun? ”

“ It wasn't me, your Majesty, ”muttered the soldier, beside himself with fear,“ it wasn't one of us. It was gone when we entered the dungeon. Please, it's the truth. ”

Katthike raised her fist and the soldier closed his eyes. But the king stopped unexpectedly. His instincts told him something was wrong. He let go of the man, who was stumbling away almost passed out, and walked over to the soldier who was overwhelmed by the prisoner, who was lying in a pool of blood a few yards from the door. He turned it over. The throat had been cut cleanly. For a brief moment Katthike felt a certain respect for the harsh uncompromising nature of the warriors from Hy, who stood out so much from the simple-minded and weak rest of their people. His gaze fell on the dead soldier's sheath. But what was that? The knife was still there! He looked at the hy. It was clearly the handle of another knife sticking out of his chest. So someone else must have helped him. And that someone had certainly removed the aun and taken it with him. But who among all the names of the demons could it have been? The king sensed a conspiracy right under his nose, in his palace. He jumped up, wiped his hands on the hem of his tunic and hurried out of the room.

A little later, at his behest, the entire court with all its subordinates, soldiers, servants and all domestic and foreign slaves were assembled in the large inner courtyard of the palace. It was unusually cold for Askhar that winter, and in fact some snowflakes were falling from the sky, which made the king's irritability worse, for he hated the cold.

At the same time, the soldiers of the Royal Bodyguard searched the quarters of the servants and slaves for the missing headband.

There was dead silence in the square, everyone waited anxiously, trembling with fear and cold. With anger still seething in her bowels, King Katthike limped up and down in front of the ranks of his subordinates, next to him his closest confidante: his first advisor Lata and the Army General, Duke Kasai.

Katthike stopped and looked intently into the crowd. Everyone immediately lowered their gaze because it was forbidden to look directly at His Royal Highness.