"Why are there no guards outside your tent?"
"Why would I need guards?" I didn't look up at her.
"Couldn't someone come in here and assassinate you?" she answered with a question.
"Who would want to assassinate me?" Our eyes met and I smiled at her mirthfully.
"The Elvens of course!" Her brows knit and she seemed outraged with the idiocy of my response.
"I doubt they could get through the camp."
"What if they did?" She folded her arms and bit her lip.
"If an Elven somehow made it through the camp and got to my tent, I'd probably have to kill it. You may find this hard to believe, but I've killed them before." I chuckled.
"What if they send a half dozen?" She didn't seem to understand my lack of concern.
"I doubt half a dozen could make it through the army. But I've killed that many before." I turned back down to the map and ate another spoonful of the gruel.
Half a minute passed before Shlara cleared her throat again. I looked up at her and noticed she was eyeing the plate of food with one eyebrow raised.
"I forgot to thank you for bringing the food."
"No. You thanked me. I brought food for both of us. I wanted to have breakfast with you." She unfolded her arms and smiled confidently, but I heard her heart race with nervousness.
"I see why Malek likes you so much." Her smile brightened at the mention of Malek. "But I have plans this morning. Perhaps we can have lunch a few months from now, after you begin your training." Her grin faded.
"I have wanted to meet you for so long. We traveled such a great distance." She tried to regain her composure.
"Malek mentioned something of that to me." He had actually been bragging about Shlara for the last week. She had led a group of over two hundred men, women, and children through the wilderness to find us. She had orchestrated the group's escape and killed four Elvens with various weapons the slaves had crafted.
"We have been searching for your camp for sixteen moon cycles. I've heard stories of you and your army. I didn't want to wait for you to come free us." She regained her confidence and pushed her pretty chin up into the air boldly.
"Because of this, you think you deserve some of my time?" I stared at her.
"You normally have breakfast with your lieutenants." She licked her lips nervously and her heart betrayed her poise.
"Yes."
"Just think of me as your next lieutenant then. Actually, consider me your next general." She smiled again and I had to force myself not to grin back. Malek was never wrong about people and this girl already impressed me. She bordered on arrogant, but not without cause.
"You are quite confident."
"I will be your best general. I am very smart. I have only been in the camp a week and I have twenty ideas to improve your logistics."
"Logistics is something we need help with. Alexia and Gorbanni will want to hear your ideas."
"Don't you want to hear them?" she sat down on my cot and smiled at me again. Her heart beat as fast as a hummingbird's. I could not tell her age, but I guessed she was probably a few years older than I was when the Elvens had changed me.
After Iolarathe had killed my father and brother.
"If they are good ideas, I'll be informed of the changes." My words pushed through clenched teeth. I wasn't particularly mad at the girl, but the memory of Iolarathe made me want to crush skulls with my mace.
She shot to her feet. "I'll be going then." She took two steps toward the tent flap.
"Wait." She stopped suddenly and then slowly turned around to face me. I handed her a bowl of gruel and she grinned with surprise. "Did you make an appointment to see Alexia?"
"No. Not yet."
"Don't use this method with her. She'll break your nose and remind you of why we have ranks."
"I understand." Shlara's eyes widened as she nodded. She grabbed the spoon and took a small bite of the mushy oat cereal.
We ate in silence for the next ten minutes. Shlara tested her luck and stepped closer to the map on the table so she could see what I studied. When I didn't lash out at her again her heart started to beat at a normal rhythm.
"You are different than I thought you would be," she whispered.
"You are a slow eater." I smirked at her.
"I thought you would be uglier." Her pulse skipped into a canter again and she gave me a charming smile.
"Why?" I almost laughed.
"The tales say that you kill dozens of Elvens with a wave of your hand. They also say that you sacrificed your soul and body to gain dark powers from the Dead Gods."
"Dead Gods? I've never heard of such things." I knew that the Elvens had some sort of religion, but I never felt a desire to learn about it.
"The Elven's worship them. I'm surprised you don't know more about them. They have a pathos and creation foundation. We weren't allowed to worship them of course, but I knew of them." She smiled and I noticed her body relax with the conversation.
"I find it hard to believe that Elvens think anything is more powerful than they are. In the tribe I was raised in, we were expected to worship Elvens. But now I don’t spend any time talking to them. I just kill them."
"I didn't think you would be so single-minded either." She smirked.
"Today I am."
"What tribe were you raised in?" she asked.
"It doesn't matter. Are you done with your breakfast?"
"No. You are right, I am a slow eater. Tell me about being changed." She took a quick series of bites and looked at me over her bowl.
"It hurts. Women say it feels like childbirth, only the pain is in your spine and skull." Her green eyes grew wide and flashed with worry. "I don't think you should be concerned though. The pain is temporary and Malek will take good care of you."
"Can I ask a favor?" She set her dish down on the table. I noticed it was still a quarter full. She probably needed to eat twenty bowls every day for the next four weeks to get her weight up to a healthy level.
Our eyes met and I was struck again by her beauty, even with the malnutrition affecting her body. I knew Malek would have his hands full with her. He had a soft spot for pretty girls and this one would make his head spin. If it wasn't already.
"I believe you are rather presumptuous, Shlara."
"I believe you are falling in love with me, Kaiyer," she said with a cocky grin. I laughed.
"Fine." I waved my hands at her in surrender and stepped away from the table. "What do you want?"
She waited a few seconds before answering.
"Malek is wonderful, and I enjoy spending time with him," she paused dramatically and looked at me again. I was about to press her to continue but then she spoke. "After I gain enough weight, he will change me into one of the O'Baarni, we think in about two weeks. But I want you to change me." Her heart sped up again.
I stared at her a moment, but her resolve held firm and she didn't balk when our eyes met.
"Why?"
"Kaiyer, your story drove us to leave our enslavers. We wandered for so long, we lost so many," her eyes drifted away from mine for a few seconds, "but we persisted, because we knew that you would take us in your arms and teach us. We believe in you." A blush came to her cheeks and she broke our eye contact again to look at the ground.
I felt myself growing angry. This was not how I wanted my brethren to view me. I did not even want them to think of me, but of our cause. I wanted them to devote themselves to our freedom, not to me. I was not a hero. I was not a savior. I was just a boy trying to atone for the death of his family.
"What did your people do?" I asked with a sigh. I needed to change the subject so I might consider the proper response to her request.
"Most of us worked on the farms for the Tulcita tribe."
I nodded. The Tulcita tribe was more than a few hundred miles southeast of us and too big for my small force to handle. We had disrupted some of their deliveries, but had never confronted them directly. Shlara was probably cor
rect to leave and seek us out; my army was several years away from destroying Tulcita and freeing their human slaves.
"We were afraid to involve too many outside of the field workers. We didn't want our plans discovered. A few of my people know how to hunt and fish. That was how we survived," Shlara finished and we stood in silence for a few more moments.
"We need farmers. It is fortunate that you came to us. Are you skilled at growing crops?"
"I am skilled at everything I do." Her eyes beamed at me and I wondered if there was a hidden promise in the emerald orbs.
"Excellent. I have no lack of warriors, but food is an issue. We've got a few bags of wheat and corn seeds, as well as some vegetables. But this is Gorbanni’s realm. You should see him immediately."
"Will you change me then?" Her visage of confidence broke for a flash.
"I think you have potential. You have proven that you can manage a large group of people against adversity. You've gotten special attention from Malek. He is going to take you under his wing and develop you. This is all you will get for the time being."
"Why won't you change me?" her voice cracked and I saw the depths of her maturity.
"Malek is going to."
"I want you to." She crossed her arms in front of her small breasts and I felt the anger coming off of her.
"I want all the Elvens destroyed. Give me that and you can have whatever you want from me." I looked down to my map and pulled the lid off of the plate of eggs and beef. The smell of salt, pepper, and protein hit my nose and my stomach reminded me that one small bowl of gruel would not be enough.
"Change me and I will kill all the Elvens you want." She stepped closer than I would have expected and put her hand lightly on my bicep. The woman definitely had gumption.
"That isn't how you will build a relationship with me, Shlara." I looked into her eyes and briefly at her fingers on my arm. She didn't pull her hand away.
"Why not?"
"Because you earn trust with me by proving yourself consistently."
"I have proven myself!" Her face became enraged and her grip flew from my shoulder. "I've done something no one else has been able to do. No one but you. You know what I endured. Why won't you honor me?" Her voice was laced with anger.
"It isn't honor. It doesn't matter who changes you. Elvens changed me so I could serve in their war machine. Do I owe a debt of gratitude to those fucking bastards? Did they honor me?" She backed away and shook her head. I interrupted her as she opened her mouth to speak again. "But the real reason I'm not going to change you is because you are a self-absorbed brat. This isn't about you, or your needs. It's about the future of our race and the death of millions of our enemies. If I tell you to do something, you don't fucking argue with me. You do it. You don't come to me asking for boons, you come to me telling me how you can help me, and then you deliver. Everything you have said since you entered my tent has been about you. I don't give a shit about you until you provide results to me. Do you understand, girl?"
Her heartbeat sprinted again and her face betrayed absolute panic. She hadn't expected the conversation to go like this.
"Y-y-yes," she stuttered.
"Good. Thank you for breakfast. Get out." She turned white and retreated a step. Then the girl turned and dashed out the tent flap so quickly that I thought she had already been changed into one of the O'Baarni.
I sighed again and looked down at the plate of my food. I speared a chunk of beef and eggs and then put it in my mouth. It should have tasted good, but it felt like sand against my tongue.
"I like her," Entas's voice drifted from my cot.
"You are worse than Alexia." I turned to the old man and smiled. I hadn't even heard his heartbeat, let alone his entrance into my home.
He stretched across my bed with his left foot flat on the padding and his right leg crossed over it. He absently stared at the apex of my tent and chewed the end of a long blade of grass. His bamboo walking stick rested against the bottom of my cot. It was never more than two feet from him.
"Enjoying breakfast?" he asked without looking at me.
"Want any?"
"I already ate, but sure. I need more meat on me bones." He sat up a little and plucked at his threadbare shirt and pants. His flowing white hair came down to his shoulders and he kind of did look like a cross between a skeleton, ghost, and monkey.
I walked over to him with the spare plate and dished some of the egg and beef mixture onto the dish. He frowned and shook his head, putting more back onto my plate until he only seemed to have half of an egg and less than a bite of beef. I shrugged and joined him on my cot. We ate in silence for a few minutes until I finally spoke.
"I'm waiting for you to tell me how badly I mistreated her."
"I don't know about that."
"Really? I thought Malek had already convinced you that she was our secret weapon against the Elvens by now." I laughed at the thought, but my friend spent more time with my old mentor than I currently did.
"Of course not. You have an ability to tell people exactly what they need to hear. When the girl came in here, I believe she was intent on warming your bed." Entas gave his dry chuckle.
"Humm, I didn't get that from her."
"No of course not. You are blissfully ignorant to the ways of women."
"Thanks. I think."
"But you are savvy in the ways of leading men and women. Shlara is now intent on proving you wrong and making you appreciate her. She is en route to our gray-haired friend so that he can change her immediately. She'll probably train twenty hours a day until she earns your respect." Entas finished the last bite off his plate, set it on the ground, and then leaned back down on my bed. He was so short that his legs didn't even touch my back when he stretched out.
"That is ridiculous. She won't survive the change. She is too weak from starvation." I frowned.
"Ahh my friend. Never underestimate the willpower of a woman who wants something. Malek will try to convince her of your logic, but she'll get her way." I nodded and hoped it wasn't true. Maybe I had been too hard on Shlara, but I didn't have a place in the army for someone who would not follow my instructions. I hoped she wouldn't take the risk.
"Was there anything about her conversation that interested you?" Entas said after a few moments of relaxed silence between us. I searched my memory of the conversation and wondered if this was one of the old man's fancy riddles.
"Not that I can recall."
"Really? Nothing?" I looked at him and our eyes met. He squinted at me in concentration. I wasn't passing this logic test.
"Help me out here. What did I miss?" I finally shrugged my shoulders and gave up on the riddle.
Entas glanced up at the ceiling of the tent again and I could tell he was debating giving me the answer.
"She mentioned the 'Dead Gods' of the Elvens. Does that interest you at all?" His eyes stared deep into mine and I realized this was the most direct conversation we had experienced in the past year or so. My mentor had let me run the army for the last five summers and only cared to see me if I had a problem. When I did come to him, he normally asked me a series of bizarre questions that gave me the answer I was looking for only after I meditated on them for a few hours.
"No.”
"Why doesn't it interest you?" The monkey man sat up in his bed and leaned toward me. His voice was just a whisper.
"I don't really give a shit about their religious beliefs. They didn't let us have any, so why should I care about theirs? The knowledge won't help me kill them easier, will it?"
"Oh, no of course not. Do not worry Kaiyer. This isn't a test. I just wanted to see if you wondered about the topic. You normally seek out knowledge about everything . . ." his voice trailed off and he raised an eyebrow to look at me.
"Not this time, Entas. I have to plan our next assault."
"Ahh yes." He bobbed his head like an old monkey. "I'll leave you to it then."
The old man scooted around me on the cot, got to his feet,
and then snagged his walking stick with a smooth flip.
"Ahh wait," he said before he strolled out of the tent. He cupped his right ear dramatically and I heard a distant scream. It was one of complete and total agony and seemed to grow so loud that it became hard to tell if the voice that made it was a mile away or a hundred yards. Then, the woman's screech cut off suddenly. She had either died or passed out from the pain. It was a scream I had once made many years ago.
"One of these days, you need to teach me how to know everything that is going on in the camp."
"I don't know everything that goes on in the camp, Kaiyer. I just know the important things. That's what you need to learn." The monkey man smiled at me with his characteristic chuckle and then he walked out of the tent.
I took the last few bites of my eggs and then gathered up the plates. It was a short walk to the dining tent, and from there it was an even shorter walk to see if Shlara had survived.
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