The Destroyer

by Michael-Scott Earle

  "There are many men coming," I told Jessmei urgently. "We have less than a minute before they get here. Do you want me to leave?"

  "What?" she asked. Her face suddenly concerned.

  "About fifteen of them. Are you going to get in trouble if I am here? I can leave back through the other side of the garden and be in my room before they go looking there. Should I?"

  "No! Just stay. I don't care if they see you here with me. It is probably my brother and more of his buffoon guards."

  "No. It is Maerc and men wearing heavy armor, and a woman. I would guess your mother." There were softer footsteps with the group and an angry woman's voice.

  "Oh." Her face fell. She looked suddenly trapped. It was the only permission I needed.

  "Cerra," I called to the blonde woman who was playing. She looked over at me. "Sit down in my seat quickly." She got up from her chair and walked toward us. "Quicker! Yera, sit in Cerra's chair." I told the woman sitting on the ground as Cerra dashed to the chair I had occupied. She continued to strum on her instrument as soon as she sat down, but she looked nervous. The remaining girls went back to their knitting, focusing on it like they were tasked by the Elvens to produce or die.

  Jessmei was still sitting next to me. I could see tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.

  "Sorry. It's my mother. She always takes his side. I really do not want that confrontation with you here. Please forgive me?" I nodded and smiled. Then I leaned down and kissed the tears that had started to drift down her cheeks.

  "Don't cry. Let's do this again. I had a great time with you." Before she replied I dashed through the trees in the opposite direction. I went about thirty yards before I bounded up one and was able to get to a spot where I could watch the clearing and hear what transpired.

  I was surprised as I realized that I meant what I said. Of course I enjoyed the company of a beautiful girl, but I had not anticipated enjoying our time together as much as I did. At first I had seen her as simply a naïve, dull girl. She was naïve, sheltered and young, a product of her strange upbringing, but she was also more passionate and interesting than I had realized. It was clear she cared deeply about other people, and she felt things strongly. I wondered what she could have been like under different circumstances. If she had been given the freedom Nadea had, rather than raised to be nothing more than the mother of future generations of royalty, what would she have chosen to pursue? I truly did want to spend more time with her.

  Jessmei's mother, Maerc, Nanos, and a dozen guards stormed into the clearing like they were assaulting a fortress.

  "Where is he?" Nanos almost screamed at Jessmei. He had changed out of his wet clothes but his hair still looked damp.

  "Who?" she said coldly as she dotted her face with a napkin. "Hello Mother. Hello Maerc."

  "Were you eating with Kaiyer?" Jessmei's mother demanded. She was beautiful like her daughter, with platinum blonde hair and eyes as icy blue as Jessmei's, but she lacked the princess’s warmth. She was still quite young, and judging by her son’s age, I reasoned she had been used as Jessmei soon would be, a diplomatic gift of good breeding stock, married when she was a very young woman.

  "He was here but he left a little while ago," Jessmei said. I'm surprised you didn't see him. He must have entered the castle through the same door you used.

  "Was a guard with him?" Maerc said with concern.

  "No. We had just finished dessert and he said he had to get back to talk with Paug. Have you tried Paug's room?" Jessmei calmly lifted up a glass and drank the rest of her wine.

  "Were you crying?" her mother said. Her pretty mouth was a hard line and I guessed the woman never smiled.

  "Yes. Cerra played a beautiful sonnet for me and I found myself emotional."

  I laughed to myself as I silently crept down from the tree. Jessmei could handle them easily enough. I didn't know my way back but as I jogged through the many hedge mazes and secret paths of the garden I eventually found an entrance into the castle. Then I walked around until I found my wing and was able to retrace the steps to my room. There were a few guards around that smiled back at me and returned my light conversation, but none in front of my door.

  Maybe the stay here wouldn't be as dull as I thought? I needed something to fight. It looked like Runir and Nanos would be interesting recreation during the winter months.

  Chapter 22-Paug

  "This is unacceptable! I refuse to have him stay here after what he has done to us!" the prince yelled over the argument that bounced off of the walls of the king's private receiving chamber.

  The plush carpeted room lay divided between factions. On one side sat Maerc, Runir, and Prince Nanos. The other side was the duke, Nadea, Grandfather, myself, and most surprisingly, Greykin. The big man leaned back in one of the leather chairs and peeled an apple with a blade that was almost as long as my hand. He hadn't been involved in the arguments until the prince made his last statement. Then he sat up abruptly and laughed, his belly movement cutting through the room like an avalanche of snow disrupts the noise of children playing.

  "You mean what he did to you? Ha! It's about time someone had the balls to smack you around a little. You don't do anything around here but bully your sister and bamboozle your way through the real soldiers' training." Greykin's words were bold; one didn't talk that way to the prince. But I figured that the big man would always speak plainly. From the tales he told, Greykin was one of the king's combat trainers many decades ago, and if that was true, he was probably used to giving the king honest feedback.

  "I am to be the king someday old man. When that time comes you will--"

  "Silence!" the king commanded. His son shut his mouth with a snap and glared at the axe man. Greykin smiled as if he had just been given a mug filled with his favorite brew.

  "The prince does have a point, though. Kaiyer doesn't seem to understand how we do things around here. He might do real harm," Maerc paused and looked at Runir, whose neck was wrapped with a white bandage, "or humiliate us. We should have him stay at another location for the winter. Then he can come back in the spring and begin his work." I wanted to scream at him. Kaiyer wasn't from our time. He didn't understand our ways, and the people that seemed to have the largest argument to him staying were the ones that couldn't be nice to him. I didn't speak up though. I was just a small boy amongst giants here.

  "We are repeating ourselves." Nadea got up and paced the room. Her leather boots didn't make a sound through the thick carpet. "If he is not here where will he go? Also, what happens if he remembers something that we can use immediately?"

  "What is he going to remember? He would have recalled anything he needed to by now. It is pretty obvious to me what is transpiring," the prince said. Nadea raised one of her perfect eyebrows in question and the prince continued. "He is working with the Ancients."

  "That is impossible." Nadea stood hip shot in defiance. Normally she wore dresses in the castle, but in the last few days she was more likely to be wearing her current attire: sturdy leather field pants and a smooth silk blouse.

  "Think about it. You happened to find the place where he was entombed when we supposedly needed him. Yet people have been finding and researching Ancient ruins for hundreds of years and no one has ever found anything but hints of the things he has done. How did you narrow down where he was located?" the prince asked with a knowing smirk on his face.

  "I am not at liberty to say," Nadea said as she frowned. From what I understood, this was a sore point of the whole quest. Nadea said that she found some evidence that the O'Baarni would be located at the ruin where we did find Kaiyer, but she could never say exactly how she came about this information. It had taken her a lot of convincing to get the king to agree. I was more than happy to accept her invitation those many months ago, but Grandfather had been a disbeliever and interrogated her mercilessly. He didn't want me to go unless he knew I would be as safe as possible.

  "Exactly, you aren't allowed to say. Yet as soon as this stranger ste
ps up to be rewarded by my father for saving you and my nitwitted sister, the Ancients show up at our door. Then he makes a show of killing them and we are supposed to worship him as a hero."

  "Your Highness, Paug told me about the fireball that knocked Kaiyer into the air and sent him crashing into the support pillar. How could he be a spy if that is true?" my grandfather asked politely. I nodded in agreement with him as I recalled that night. The blast had been so loud and Kaiyer's body had slammed into the pillar like a rag doll. For a second I thought he was dead. Anyone human would have broken into a million wet pieces. But he got up and defeated them.

  "Parlor tricks, you can see people swallowing fire and walking across hot coals during the Sunday bazaar in the market. This man is not our ally. He wants nothing more than to destabilize our government, confuse our military with false tactics, and allow for the Ancients to have an easier time of destroying us," the prince said confidently. Runir and Maerc nodded along with him.

  "He killed the four Ancients. Or did you forget that?" Nadea laughed, as if the prince had just told her that the sky was yellow.

  "Of course he did. This so called 'empress' he serves needs to make it look convincing. What better way than for him to kill some pawns? It will make us trust him more and let our guard slip. Then he will strike!" The prince was charismatic, his handsome smile accented his points perfectly. Nadea was not impressed.

  "No. Kaiyer didn't even know what Ancients were when we first awoke him. After we explained our war he told us that he called them the Elven people. He used to be their slave. He told Paug that his father and brother were killed by them. How could he be on their side? All we have seen is him talk about killing them. Then we saw him do it. Their corpses were real. The fear on their faces was real when he attacked them." Nadea crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Nanos.

  "What do you know of fear, girl?" the prince spat back.

  Nadea threw her arms up into the air with frustration and sat back down in her chair. There was silence for a few minutes. I thought about the jungle in Vanlourn when we had been cornered by their soldiers. Their leader told us to kneel and I believed we were going to die. We all did. I suddenly felt overwhelming hatred for the prince. He had never faced anything like that while he trained under a blanket of safety here in the castle.

  "I have heard both sides of the argument and I am ready to make a decision," the king said. Everyone directed their attention to him. "But first, Paug, has Kaiyer told you anymore that he has remembered? Does he remember more about the Ancients?" I suddenly got nervous as the powerful people turned their heads to look at me. I had been content to observe this debate from the corner.

  "He, he, he said that he led an army," I stuttered a bit before I got going. "He still believes that he is not the O'Baarni, but he recalls his role as a general of the army."

  "Yes boy, we know that. Did he tell you how many men were under his command?" Maerc said from his seat. I felt a lump in my throat start to form because he had told me a little more about his past memories.

  "He said he recalled leading a force of two thousand warriors. The mission he remembered involved a group of humans that were being used,” I paused and gulped, “as food for the Ancients." Their faces paled.

  "They ate humans?" Runir said. His voice was scratchy through the bandages around his throat. He said that he injured himself in a training exercise last week.

  "That's what he told me." I nodded.

  "How did he free them?" the duke asked. I was afraid someone would ask that question. The lump in my throat grew bigger and my voice squeaked at the end. I looked around the room, they were all waiting. It was my job to tell them what Kaiyer had confided in me. But what he had told me had been horrible. I didn't want to repeat it.

  "He . . . he didn't. He told me that--"

  "I killed them," a voice said from above us. Everyone gathered gasped as they looked up. It was Kaiyer.

  The audience chamber had a tall ceiling, at least thirty feet high. Thick wooden beams ran from the corners and formed crosses of structural support. He lay on his stomach like a lounging cat, right leg swinging freely as he supported his chin with one hand.

  "How the hell did you get up there?" the duke yelled in surprise.

  "I jumped up the wall there and grabbed on the wood," Kaiyer said as he gestured with a finger to the far corner where the stone walls and one of the beams converged. It was still thirty feet in the air.

  "How did you do that? No wait. How did you get in this room in the first place?" the king demanded.

  "I used the window," he said with his gentle half-smile as he casually pointed from the corner to the window in the center of the room.

  "We are in one of the highest towers in the castle! It's almost eighty feet off the ground!" Nadea gasped. He shrugged.

  "How long have you been up there?" Maerc demanded. His hand lay on his sword hilt.

  "Do you mean this morning?"

  "Yes!"

  "Since about a quarter of an hour before you all arrived." Kaiyer said after he considered for a moment.

  "What? So you've been eavesdropping on us during this whole meeting?" the prince fumed.

  "Only this one, the one before, and the one on Monday. I missed Tuesday's because Monday's was very boring and I decided to have a longer breakfast with Iarin instead." He twisted his mouth as he recalled the dates.

  "You have proved my point. You mean to betray us to the Ancients," the prince said smugly as he folded his arms. "Father, we must execute him."

  "Can you come down from there?" the king held his palm out to his son.

  "Oh I don't know about that . . ." Kaiyer said as he looked at Maerc and Runir, who both gripped their sword handles. "I think it is probably safer for them if I stay up here."

  "Gentlemen, be at ease. I doubt our friend means us any harm," the king said as he smiled back to the two soldiers. They grimaced and put their hands away. Runir looked remarkably like the general, especially at the moment, as they took the same stance. Their sandy hair was similar, Maerc’s a little faded and silvery compared to the younger man. Their bone structure and eyes were also alike. I wondered if they were father and son. The prince looked like he was about to say something, but he stopped when he looked at his father, the king’s word was final, even for Nanos.

  Kaiyer stretched his body slowly, making him seem even more catlike. He twisted around the beam and lowered himself down, then fell to the ground in a smooth motion. There was an open seat at the table next to me and he sat down without worry on his face.

  "Why have you been eavesdropping on our meetings?" the duke asked carefully.

  "I grew bored waiting in my room. It is more interesting to hear you all argue about me."

  "Seems like dastardly motives!" Greykin said with a smile. "Relieving boredom is definitely cause for execution around here." He eyed the prince with humor.

  "You were going to come to a decision?" Kaiyer asked the king.

  "Yes." The king sat back down in his chair.

  "Wait. Wasn't Paug talking about something when you interrupted him?" Nadea said with concern.

  "Yes," I said. I prepared to speak again, but Kaiyer held up his hand.

  "He was telling you about what I remembered. I will tell you because you need to understand what I was willing to sacrifice to destroy these Elvens." He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. We waited for a few moments as he recalled the memory.

  "There were about two hundred humans: men, women, and some children. They were slaves of the Elven army that we had warred with for the past three years. From their perspective it wasn't really a war. They possessed thirty thousand troops and we had less than twenty-five hundred. At first they considered us an annoying wasp that they hunted for sport."

  Everyone leaned forward with extreme interest. Even though the story was familiar to me I couldn't help but feel sucked in again.

  "We had experienced a good run against various Elven tribes for
the previous five years. Their homes lay scattered across the land and were easy for us to prey upon. I don't remember how many we annihilated before they got wise and started to congregate like a mob of lions. We predicted it would eventually happen, so we had prepared.

  "We knew the land well and had hidden stashes of food, arms, equipment, and gardens across our territory. It seemed like we were winning against their kind, but later I realized that the past five years amounted to nothing more effective than killing a dozen ants from the hive. They had numbers and power that we could only dream of. There were around thirty tribes within a month's travel of our budding army. They quickly became organized under one command and set out to exterminate us.

  "We ran at first. But once we got a significant enough lead on them we started to think and realize that we would never win if we couldn't mount an offensive against them. But what could we do, outnumbered as we were?

  "We decided to harass them with our maneuverability. A single one of our warriors could easily take on one of theirs. We created situations where we skimmed their troops. Maybe we would kill a scouting party here, or a tribe that had drifted too far back from the main group. We would do night raids where we would assassinate a few Elvens and disappear. It destroyed their morale to wake up and find their bunkmate with his throat slit. We also played the same games with their supplies.

  "It takes a lot of food and equipment to keep an army of that size motivated. Our troops traveled like the wind, so their army always had to be on the move as they tried to follow us. We would stretch out their supply lines and then destroy them. Our scouts would poison their food storages and the rivers from which they drank. Finally, they began to die of painful starvation."

  "How did your troops survive?" Maerc asked. "Didn't you need supplies and food?"

  "Of course. We took their supplies, we stole their horses and ate them, sometimes we went hungry for days, and sometimes we went hungry for weeks. We didn't care. Our vision was loftier than theirs. To them, we were a pest that needed to be squashed, and they underestimated our ability. They couldn't believe that there was any way we would win with an army a tenth their size. Yet we had no choice but to destroy them. We woke up every morning dreaming about a world where our race was free. We had nothing to go back to if we failed, so we were ruthless and brazen, yet effective. We would have done anything to win.