The Destroyer Book 2

by Michael-Scott Earle

  "Kaiyer," a woman hailed from behind me. I turned around and saw Permtara donning her last pieces of armor. The metal wasn't as heavily ornamented as my skull plate, but it was etched in the same manner. The nightmare armor and her long red cloak with the black skull indicated that she was one of the elite warriors given the honor of serving as my personal bodyguard for two years.

  For the first twenty-five years, I had never had bodyguards. I had never needed them. After one battle, during which I was cut off from the rest of the troops, surrounded by Elvens and nearly killed, Shlara had come up with the idea, and the other generals agreed it was wise.

  She called it the O'Baarni Games. They were a mix of fitness tests, barehanded combat, and weapon matches. These games lasted two weeks, with one winner from each general's force chosen as victor. The challenges took place every two years, and the winners served with me until they were beaten in the next round of games, or until they had served five terms. Our troops liked the events because they were able to challenge each other and prove their strength. The winners loved the prestige and the perks the position offered. They would each have armor crafted for them by my master smith and they would train with me weekly. I enjoyed their company and looked forward to a fresh group of powerful warriors to mentor.

  I smiled at Permtara as she approached. The Games were still new and nearing the end of the third term. Permtara was one of Thayer's soldiers. She had won the honor the first year of the Games and beat the competition in the following two games. My other guards were all new this year, but Permtara might be the first warrior to be forced to retire from my service.

  "Word is you'll be fighting with my brothers?" Her grin reminded me of Thayer's and I guessed that she was his daughter. She kept her hair shaved short and her broad nose, shoulders, and stocky build further convinced me she was his offspring. Unlike him, her weapon of choice was a one-headed axe that she wielded almost as effectively as her father danced with swords.

  "The word is correct." I saw the other guards dashing toward me from their tents on the perimeter of my staging area.

  "Excellent." She beamed.

  "We will ride with their second wave." They nodded with my orders. This was the first, and likely last, battle this particular team would guard me. I had gotten to know them all rather well and I believed them to be more than capable warriors.

  "Any special instructions?" Lemarti asked. She came from Alexia's army and had made a few attempts over the last year to bed me.

  "Yeah. Keep Kaiyer alive and kill lots of Elvens." Tarkas laughed. He was from Shlara's group and one of the rare humans who joined the O'Baarni as a middle-aged man. The process of learning the Elements slowed his aging, but his salted gray hair and wrinkles gave him a presumed amount of authority over the other guards.

  "Obviously." Lemarti tied her short black hair back across her forehead and scowled at him.

  "Who will command the field?" Loto asked. He was Gorbanni's representative and possessed a keen mind for battle. He often engaged me in deep discussions about tactics and training.

  "Malek," I said simply as attendants clasped the cloak around my shoulders and moved to do the same with my guards. I turned to look at the last member of my entourage. "Ready?"

  "Aye, Kaiyer," Jutea spoke with a smile. Sometimes I walked through the camps without wearing my armor. On one such occasion I visited Malek's camp and sat next to the pretty blonde woman. She had offered me a cup of beer and asked me for a story. I believe she realized who I was only after I left and had similar motivations as Lemarti, but she never expressed those feelings.

  "Meet me near Thayer's troops. I will be there shortly." They moved toward their horses, mounted, and trotted toward the bear banner. After they departed I donned my helmet and walked over to where Malek and Alexia reviewed my troop placement with their commanders.

  I stood in the background to observe them assign the runners and flag signalers their duties. After ten minutes the group of two dozen or so men and women dispersed in a swarm of excitement. They saluted me as they passed.

  "We are waiting for you to take position with Thayer's warriors," Malek said.

  "Everyone is ready?" He nodded and I turned to Alexia.

  "As soon as you ride down I'll move back with mine." She smiled and looked behind me, distracted for a second by the attendants tearing down my tent to place the wooden platforms that Malek would use to direct the field.

  "Leave now." She saluted at my command and spun without another word, sprinting down the hill away from the battle to where her army was placed out of the view of the Elvens. I'm sure Iolarathe knew we had almost a hundred thousand warriors there, but if we had to pull them out it would be even more demoralizing.

  "Kaiyer . . ." Malek's voice trailed off and I turned to look at him. He still had his helmet off and his face looked concerned.

  "Something is wrong?" I asked.

  "You tell me." He frowned and glanced back over his shoulder to make sure no one stood in hearing distance. Any who wanted to pay attention to us could hear our conversation, but everyone within earshot seemed occupied with the vast amount of preparations.

  "Everything is fine. This is the end of the road. Think of all we have accomplished my friend." I smiled underneath my helmet and the emotion came through my voice.

  "Did you know her?" he asked. My back went numb and I tried to breathe.

  "Who?"

  "The Elven general. She knew you. I saw it in her eyes and how she sat on her horse." He nodded as if he was agreeing with himself and brought his hand up to touch the gray hair at his temple. He had always been sensitive to these things, irritatingly perceptive.

  "Maybe in another life. As much as a human can know one of their kind." I didn't lie, but it was too late to tell the full truth. I could tell that he knew it was an omission, but also knew not to press me further. Not right now.

  I extended my gauntleted fist. Each knuckle of my glove was a screaming, demonic skull. "Steer us to victory," I said. He nodded, smiled, and took my hand in return.

  Then I was on my horse and down again amongst the troops. The wind picked up with the approaching dusk and the last rays of sun fought to stay over the mountains we had pushed the Elvens against.

  This was the end of their existence.

  My massive warhorse ripped craters into the soft grass of the knoll when I rode him down the slope toward Thayer's army. The warriors gave a cheer that sounded like angry thunder and parted before me. I plunged deep into the swarm of armored bodies and made my way to the middle of the mob, where my personal guards stood out like an island of red in the sea of Thayer's brown.

  The Elvens had amassed their forces on the distant hill slope. Their standing army was slightly larger than Thayer's, but each of Thayer's troops could massacre three or four Elvens. Strange feelings of dread began to build in my stomach. This didn't seem right, but my brain wouldn't tell me why. It was probably because I felt nervous about what my role would be tomorrow. Would I be needed anymore? Shlara seemed convinced that we had to rebuild a civilization committed to prosperity and not violence. I agreed with her, but didn't know how to live in a peaceful world.

  "I want their general." My guards nodded at my command but didn't comment. The air was thick with hundreds of thousands of men and women standing at attention, waiting for a flag to signal our advance. Excitement and stress pressed down from the darkening sky and made my armor feel even heavier.

  The flag at the front of the lines waved.

  A scream echoed a thousand times as Thayer's warriors dashed forward to cover the mile between the Elven forces. Hundreds of fires lit up the dark blue sky as fireballs flung from our gathered troops and spun toward the Elvens in the distance. The space was a little too far for most magic to travel, but a few balls of molten hate landed before our enemy could deflect them. A few seconds after the blasts erupted I heard their distant screams of surprise.

  The flag heaved up again and our wave surged forw
ard. We were the mounted section of Thayer's troops. We would skirt the back side of the first wave, then pick off any Elven forces that may have emerged from the other end of the wall of pikes, swords, and shields. Then we intended to wrap up the east flank to lead the initial charge of Shlara's army. My band of warriors rode point of this deadly arrow.

  My feelings of misgivings began to disappear once my angry horse devoured the short distance between our lines. As soon as my mace liquefied the first armored skull of an Elven, my fears completely vanished and only the calm flow of the battle consumed my thoughts.

  Thayer's initial assault hit the Elvens with such force that it shattered Iolarathe's defending lines and left hundreds of the bastards on the other side of Thayer's attack. They would have turned around and carried an advantage on Thayer's back side if not for our second wave. I rode like a storm of death and killed four more Elvens before they even realized my horse was upon them.

  It was almost too easy, slaughtering them from horseback while they stood on foot. They didn't have enough leverage to block the massive weight of my mace from the high angle, and the steed gave me amazing reach when I leaned off the saddle. I pushed my way eastward in the planned path, and even though I was efficiently killing each Elven I rode past, there were more than enough for my bodyguards to enjoy.

  A roar rose from the direction of the enemy army. At first I thought it was the sound of Thayer's initial wave reaching Iolarathe's command center and killing her. Then the scream formed a crescendo that flooded my head and caused my horse to stop dead in its tracks.

  I realized that it wasn't the roar of humans.

  The noise was something else. Something horrible.

  My guards closed around me and I turned to look toward the Elven lines. The sun had almost fallen past the mountains, but there was a thin sliver of orange light pushing up over their edges. It backlit the army and cost me precious seconds in identifying what had made the mind-curdling scream.

  There was a movement in the sky and my eyes strained to search for the source of the disturbance. Then I saw another movement to my left, where the western part of Gorbanni's troops pushed up the side of Thayer's flank. My vision finally found the creature and my heart stopped beating. My blood froze. Fear sank into me.

  It was a dragon.

  They were myths. Legends that had been the inspiration for art, song, and children's tales. They were not real.

  No matter. If it lived, it could die. If something could die, we could kill it.

  The monster suddenly swooped into the air, ascending like an eagle that had caught a sudden wind draft. Then it dove with its massive wings pulled tight against its sides, so that it looked like a fat, falling snake. Just before it hit the ground a few hundred yards behind me it thrust out its wings to stop itself from a nosedive into the army. It smashed into the earth like a meteorite, sending a shock wave out of the point of impact that knocked down human and Elven foot soldiers alike, while every horse screamed in fear. Even my battle-hardened steed reined up and foamed at the mouth.

  Scores of my troops died the second the massive winged lizard made impact with the ground. The creature plunged so quickly that none of them had been able to run from the impact zone. It happened so fast, I wasn't even sure they saw the monster plunge from the sky.

  Hundreds of arrows unleashed at the monster along with twenty balls of flame. All of the arrows found their mark, but only a few dozen actually penetrated the creature's thick scales and lodged into the flesh. The rest were easily repelled, like hail bouncing off of a stone road. The volleys of fire thrown by the best of our Elementalists did little more than annoy the beast. It ignored most of them, batted a few aside with a powerful wing stroke, and even took one right in its massive jaw with no effect.

  The creature was so enormous that even from a few hundred yards away and on horseback I still had to bend my neck to see where its head rose in the sky. Arrows that my warriors lodged into its chest looked ridiculous, like a splinter stuck in my arm. The monster looked up to the rising moon, let out another scream of rage and then bent over on itself like it was trying to sniff its crotch. Then it whipped its long neck out and opened its maw to release a stream of phosphorescent green magma that spread over my troops like a blanket of heat and oblivion.

  Thousands of my soldiers screamed in fear, in pain, and then in death. The dragon's breath wasn't like the Fire that we harnessed and released into the air by channeling the Elements. It resembled a sticky liquid that coated everything it touched and consumed it like ants ate a carcass. The wind smelled of burning flesh, toxic fumes, and the ground after a lightning bolt has just impaled a tree. Only a dozen seconds had passed, but the dragon killed at least twenty-five hundred of my warriors without taking any damage.

  The Elvens to my north shouted in victory and pressed their attack forward against Thayer's front line. I had been studying the serpent while my guards fought off eight long-eared fuckers who pushed through Thayer's first wave with a desire to end me. The sounds of their struggle brought me back in time to block a spear thrust that slid past Jutea's guard a fraction of a second after she screamed out a warning.

  I knocked the lance up with my shield after I had blocked it and Jutea carved through the place in the attacker's armor where the shoulder and neck plates met. Then Tarkas cut through the other side of the throat to remove the head from the Elven's body. We had a few seconds of space and I turned back to look at the dragon. It was hard to tell its exact color in the twilight, but the fires seemed to reflect off its scales like it was made of thousands of mirrors.

  The claws struck down with a swooping motion and came up in a bloody stream. The ground was so thick with troops that by striking out in any direction it easily killed dozens of men. The air was filled with arrows and balls of fire, but the creature did not seem damaged or even slowed by the assault. It made the same bending movement again, with an ominous fluidity. Then the winged serpent unleashed another blast of sticky green lava that coated thousands of our warriors and burnt them alive inside their armor.

  "Behind!" Permtara pointed and then struck downward with her axe. Her chop cut the arm off of an Elven who had thought it a good idea to attack the group of us with no coordinated effort from his companions.

  I turned around and my stomach sank seconds before another wave of force toppled the foot soldiers surrounding us and sent our horses into a frenzy of fear.

  Another winged serpent had crashed into the distance where Shlara's troops were positioned. Unlike the first dragon that landed, this monster wasted no time showing off its plumage and releasing a torrent of molten flame. This particular wave flowed like an orange-colored sea from the creature's mouth and destroyed everything in its path. Trees, horses, and Shlara's warriors all exploded into plumes of fire with the intense heat.

  I screamed Shlara's name but couldn't even hear my voice over the sound of another roar. Then a third dragon slammed into the ground fifty yards from me and threw my steed and I into the air. I managed to twist my body and land standing. My horse had fallen on its back near me but was struggling to do the same. My guards had all sprung to their feet, but their horses were in the same confused mire; the animals weren't trained on fighting dragons or rapidly recovering from being thrown around like toys.

  The giant winged creature made the familiar bend with its neck and I sprinted toward its legs.

  "To me!" I shouted as loud as I could, hoping that my guards heard it and had quick enough reactions to follow me before the lava erupted from the creature's mouth and engulfed them.

  I could run as fast as a normal horse, but my steed was not a normal horse and I missed his sudden speed as the universe slowed to a painful crawl. The monster seemed miles away by the time its head came down and its maw opened to spew more of the deadly fire. I dove forward and rolled while my heart and lungs seized with terror. The whooshing sound behind me and the screams of thousands of more dying was the only assurance that I was still alive.
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  I stood under the creature surrounded by liquefied corpses. It’s clawed foot was so massive it could have taken my warhorse in its talons as easily as an eagle holding a field mouse. I unleased a powerful strike with my mace against what I hoped was a sensitive spot in the creature’s heel. The blow would have crushed a fully-armored Elven, or even one of my own troops, creating damage that could never be healed.

  My mace bounced off of the heel of the dragon without scuffing a scale.

  I'd left craters in trees with half as much force. This creature didn't even realize I had hit it.

  Fucking shit this was bad.

  “What now?” Permtara shouted over the sounds of the battle, the wails of the dying, and the cheers of the Elvens as they swarmed behind the dragons to finish the carnage. We turned to the sound of another inhale of breath as the first dragon to our west unleashed another menacing volley of molten flame. My guards had been quick enough to reach my spot beneath the monster.

  Loto and Tarkas had taken their swords to other parts of the creature's legs but were experiencing the same disappointing results. Even our magically crafted weapons seemed completely ineffective against the lizard's scales and size.

  Loto and Tarkas were testing other spots of the creature’s legs for weaknesses, but it seemed impervious to our weapons unaffected by any strike they could muster. I had to stop thinking of the beast as a human, or elven, or animal. It had to have some point of vulnerability, but could be anywhere. If it lived, it could die. And I would kill it.