Chapter 4: Spoils of War

Cordelia couldn't believe the princess would save her – she was nothing but a lowly maid in waiting!

"What are you doing, slave?!" Ugly Pig's saliva rained down on the princess. "The insolence of this woman!"

As gross as it seemed, the princess didn't even flinch a tiny bit and only stared back at the mad overseer.

She had caught the whip just in time, but the spikes unfortunately dug up around her wrist and created awful gashes. Blood trickled along her raised arm and down towards her ragged dress.

Drip, drip, drip. Blood as red as the princess' eyes and hair dropped.

Elys was injured, but the pain that throbbed in her arm was nothing compared to the horrors that her people had to go through, and all the more of the women who were with her right now.

She wasn't thinking straight when Ugly Pig attacked Cordelia.

All that ever rushed through her head at the time was that it wasn't right for him to whip her.

Ugly Pig gulped down a lump stuck in his throat as the blazing eyes of Elys stared at him.

"L-let go, you stupid woman!" he stuttered. "Let go or I'll have you hanged by the neck!"

Hanging. It had been the cause of death of Elys' mother when the vampires attacked the Whitecaster Castle.

The word triggered bad memories – painful memories – for Elys and she tightened her grip on the whip, slowly pulling the overseer that was on an elevated part of the fields.

The overseer fought back and pulled for the black cord as hard as he could, but Elys' grip on the weapon was too strong that she didn't even budge from where she stood protecting Cordelia.

"Please, Elys. Let the whip go and save yourself from the overseer's wrath." Cordelia pleaded.

The women had scurried away from the commotion, scared whispers had begun to buzz all around which alerted the guards.

"Elys, what are you doing? You don't need to do that, please just let it be!"

The princess knew Cordelia was right, and she had been very wrong to step in.

But weeks of seeing poor women whipped for fun didn't sit well with the princess.

After days of ignoring the unimaginable tortures surrounding her, the final straw broke the resilient camel's back.

Elys finally snapped.

"So, you want to play this game, eh? Do you want to die an excruciating death or a peaceful one? Or would you rather live in perpetual torture?"

By this time around, the guards were moving closer to break up the ongoing commotion between the overseer and Elys. But the man told them to stay where they are, as he was determined to straighten Elys on his own.

"You are very beautiful, what is your name?" the overseer wanted to save his reputation from his earlier stutter and tried to act cool.

"Elys." Came the curt reply from the captured princess.

She wasn't trying to hide the disdain in her voice, nor the scorn and disgusted face that she was sporting against Ugly Pig.

"Apologize this instance, woman. And perhaps I will show you some mercy afterwards. You will get a lighter punishment than the gallows!" the overseer smiled evilly, and then pointed his chubby finger downwards. "Let the whip go, and kiss my foot."

Elys' red eyes followed the direction that Ugly Pig's fingers had pointed to his equally ugly foot. Every single one of his nails were black and obviously had fungus, or worse - dead.

"Go on, my patience wears thin by the second, bitch. You don't want that to happen."

Elys slowly lowered her head, and Ugly Pig began to smile thinking he has triumphed over her little insubordination.

But instead of apologizing and kissing the overseer's foot as he demanded, the princess laughed and whipped her head up to face the ugly man as she said,

"Go back and rot in your own shithole of dead toenails!" the princess spat at the overseer. "I'm not kissing anybody's feet."

She held her head high, her royal blood boiling with hatred. The princess then abruptly pulled the whip hard, and the overseer fell down from his vantage point as his face kissed the barren soils.

With expertise, Elys quickly wrapped the whip around the overseer's nearly non-existent neck and began to choke him.

The man did everything he could to counterattack the princess – grabbing her hair, punching her wounds, he even tried to bite!

Elys grappled Ugly Pig's body to restrain him from continuing his resistance, and she was winning effortlessly.

Her legs had wrapped around his rotund torso, and she tackled him as they rolled to the dusty ground.

The women near them screamed, while some had turned a blind eye and continued to do their work.

Cordelia on the other hand just stood stupefied.

She was simply too confused as to why the princess had literally swallowed her own words of wisdom earlier at the slaves' quarters.

Ugly Pig was clearly in trouble as his face turned red. With Elys' grip around his neck, he quickly changed to a purplish-blue sick hue as the princess prevented him from taking needed oxygen into his body.

Five guards that were stationed around the fields rushed over to pry Elys' hands off the overseer, beating her with the scabbards of their sword.

Frustrated that they couldn't get her to let go despite their efforts, one of the guards hit the princess on the head with the blunt side of his blade, and Elys felt her world spin around.

The metal that had hit her head may be blunt, but it had hit her solid enough to make her dizzy.

Elys released her deathly grip and the overseer scurried away, crawling towards one of the guards that picked him up.

The overseer limped his way towards Elys who had knelt to the ground and he kicked her stomach with the heel of his sandals.

He touched his neck as he gasped for air.

"You are… nothing... but spoils of war. The lowest… of the lows… trash!" he gasped. "You will be dead by this noon, woman. Mark my words!"

Blood trickled down her face and blinded the princess' left eye, and then she fell to the ground laughing like a maniac. "Go to hell… ugly pig."