Chapter 23

Sitting in her chambers, the queen of snakes Birgit, having opened a huge chest, rummaged through its contents, shifting and sorting her numerous golden ornaments.

And even though the servants could do it for her, she loved to do this herself, at the same time remembering what was lying around in the bins.

Suddenly, someone hugged her around the waist.

In surprise, the queen of snakes dropped from her hands a golden diadem encrusted with diamonds, which, falling to the floor and rolling, made a rather unpleasant grinding sound.

And strangely enough, Birgit did not need to turn back to look at the culprit of this incident, for she could instantly recognize the touch of her beloved master.

- Gh, sir?

- What?

"It's like me," the girl stuttered terribly, and her face blazed with a blush.

"You wanted something, Lord," concentrating all her will into a fist, Birgit, trying with all her might to move away from the fact that the Lord, whom she adored so much, was hugging her, asked about the reasons for his arrival.

Yes, I did.

- Pp, right? So what? - the tip of Birgit's tail beat on the floor like crazy.

- I wanted to hug you.

- ...

The girl was ready to swear that she was now sleeping and seeing a sweet dream in which her beloved master came to her.

- I'm like, maybe ...

- You don't like it?

- LIKE! the queen shouted at the top of her voice, which made her blush even more.

"I want to rest in the hot springs, can you prepare one for me," releasing the girl, Vladyka said with a smile.

- Of course! Which one do you prefer, which oils and incense should I prepare? Or maybe pick the petals, and the temperature in ...

Unexpectedly, the sovereign approached the queen, gently kissed her on the lips, completely depriving her of speechlessness.

"I leave that up to you," he said.

Birgit, who only miraculously did not die of happiness, could not say even half a word, completely dumbfounded by what was happening.

She simply looked at her master with eyes full of love and admiration.

Inmir, in turn, gently stroked her head, from which the queen came to her senses at least a little, and wanted to say something, but did not have time.

The second consecutive counterattack of the Lord, in the form of another kiss, completely brought the girl's brain into a state of chaos, after which she was no longer able to recover. Therefore, after standing next to the ruler stroking her head for several minutes, she bowed out and went to prepare the spring.

By the way, the first question Birgit left her chambers, which she asked her servants, was:

- This is not a dream!?

***

An imposingly built man, dressed in full armor, ran along the hillside, densely dotted with bushes.

At his heels, like a pack of hungry wolves, followed a detachment of thugs dressed entirely in black.

The faces of these people were covered, and there was not a single distinguishing mark on their clothes.

"I can't get away from them. Hell, someone ratted me out, they knew exactly which route I was going to take. What to do now…"

Here, a spear was thrown at the paladin who was running at full speed.

Trying to dodge the weapons fired at the back, the once former champion of the arena decided to jump to the side, but ...

"Trap!" flashed through his head.

Stopping abruptly, Herald Hornik concentrated all the power of the light energy that was seething in his body and hit the ground with force.

[Shining light. All-reflective barrier. ] - pouring out from the paladin's mighty fist, the light literally reflected everything.

The spear, the ground, the air, everything within a ten-meter radius of the area of ​​application seemed to step back. And of course, the magicians of the earth, who sat in ambush, in the amount of five people, were literally flattened into a bloody compote by the shift of the earth, in the bowels of which they were hiding.

Slowly descending into the crater formed after the technique, Herold looked around.

"Surrounded by bastards!", - he made a disappointing conclusion.

It turned out that those five magicians that the paladin buried in the depths of the earth were by no means all the reinforcements. For to the ten of his pursuers, six more joined at this moment.

One of them, apparently the former commander, jumped down to Herold, and approaching at arm's length, spoke:

"Give us the letter of recommendation and the crystals enclosed in it, and you will leave here alive, we don't really want to fight the former champion of the paladin arena."

"An interesting suggestion, I don't want to fight you either." Hmm, what to do?

"It's simple, give back what you're told, and roll wherever you want," said a tall man with an enchanted spear behind his back, holding out his right hand.

Suddenly, something flashed before the eyes of the mercenary, he looked down, and there, he saw a hand chopped off at the elbow.

- AAAAAAGGHHHH ...

- You clean up your rake, otherwise you scattered them here.

"Kill her…" The mercenary commander, holding tightly to the stump of his bleeding arm, couldn't finish his sentence. A sweep of the paladin's imposing sword cut his skull in half, making a precise horizontal cut.

The commander, who fell literally in two strokes of the sword, stunned the rest by the suddenness of his death.

"Well, bitches, let's check whose blade is faster," said the once invincible champion of the Ru-Drak arena with anger in his voice.