Nanos advanced a quick cut, but the Losher man just danced away with a return swing that was a good foot from hitting the prince. The prince fell back so quickly from the assault that he stumbled into me and we both tumbled to the ground in a mess of arms, legs, and curses.
By the time I made it to my feet, the king and Greykin had dispatched the last Losher soldier and finished off the one stunned with the head butts. The big man’s head was bleeding from a gash at his hairline, but it might as well have been water for how he treated it. The king looked pained by the kick to his chest, but appeared otherwise uninjured.
“Everyone unharmed?” Greykin asked as he eyed us. I nodded and looked to Nadea as she also nodded. “Let’s continue.” Too late I realized that I had forgotten to grab one of the fallen soldier’s swords.
We ran another hundred yards and I wondered again who had made this castle so big. It was like its own city. My chest was burning and I wished that this siege played out like it had in my mind. I would have arrived in the castle and told everyone of my desire to stand with them. They would have been happy to see me, the Losher forces would have failed to breach the walls and we would have remained safely inside, laughing them off all winter, then our reinforcements would have shown up just in time to rout them. The worst thing I would have dealt with was a few weeks of hunger and Nanos speaking to me.
I heard screams and turned to see half a dozen Losher soldiers down the hall. I was the last person in our little caravan of retreat.
“Behind us!” Nadea yelled before I found my voice. Greykin looked over his shoulder.
“Keep running! We are almost there!” the big man growled as he turned back toward the king and prince. I picked up my feet and tried to ignore the harsh pain through my lungs.
We ran for another ten seconds and I couldn’t help but glance back over my shoulder. The soldiers were gaining ground on me. I could see their insane hatred and I knew they were going to catch me and not merely kill me, but make me suffer a slow, tortured death. Fear grabbed around my heart like a frozen chill. It spread through my body, to my chest and arms, and to my hips and legs. My feet were like pieces of stone as I tried to move them faster and faster. It seemed that with each one of my steps they were advancing two on me.
Then I tripped.
I was too busy looking behind me and not where I was running. I screamed in terror as I went down and scraped my knees and palms. My book went flying and I knew that I was about to die. It seemed like I stayed on my hands and knees forever. My blood and heartbeat whooshed into my ears as if telling me it would be the last thing I would ever hear.
“Get up!” Nadea screamed into my ear. Her left hand yanked me up off of my knees and to my feet like I weighed less than one of my books.
“Keep running!” Greykin screamed at us as he stepped past me, in between the half dozen Losher men. I looked into his face and saw a calm determination. His eyes were focused intently on the advancing mass of men.
“Go now. I’ll hold them. Protect the king,” he whispered when he turned his head slightly to look at Nadea and me. He raised his shield and axe as Nadea yanked on my arm again. The king and Nanos were far ahead of us and I watched them turn a corner to the right. We set off again and I heard Greykin shout over screams and blades.
“For Nia! For the king!”
I didn’t turn around.
“We are almost there,” Nadea said over her breathing after we had turned the corner the king and prince had taken. “Next left turn and we are there.” I looked at her tortured face as she ran next to me. Mine probably looked the same way.
We made the right turn after the fleeing pair and went down another forty paces into an open room. Then we stopped. The king was on the ground in a quickly growing pool of blood. Nanos was standing over him with a bloody sword.
Nadea and I stared in shock for almost ten seconds until Nanos noticed us out of the corner of his eye and turned around to face us. His face wore its usual expression: a sneer.
“He never listened to me. I was his firstborn, the heir to the kingdom, and he never gave a damn about what I thought. Now I am the king. I’ve already made a deal with the empress. She extended me the same one she did to him,” he said as he looked down at the fallen body of his father.
“You fucking bastard!” Nadea said with disgust and hate. “You’ve doomed us all and killed your own father.” Her body was shaking with rage.
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand. You always got what you wanted, everyone thought you were so talented, so smart, so capable, and beautiful. Your father was always so proud of you and my father wished that I hadn’t been born.” Nanos sniffed his nose in disgust, or maybe it was to hide tears as he started to realize what he had done.
“You are a coward. Your father never felt that way about you. But if you wish to never have been born, I am more than happy to grant that.” Nadea got into a relaxed fighting stance and took a few careful steps toward Nanos. The young man looked a little shocked that Nadea was going to attack him but he quickly grinned in satisfaction.
“I was going to offer you safety, Cousin, but I think I prefer this. I’ve always wanted to kill you.” He crouched down into a low slung stance and waved his sword in the air in front of Nadea.
They circled each other for a few moments. I wondered how long it would be until the Losher men killed Greykin and came to find us. I realized that I couldn’t even help Nadea, I had no weapon besides the pathetic knife in my pocket, and I even dropped my book when I fell earlier. The prince advanced suddenly and lashed out at Nadea with three quick cuts. Nadea blocked the first two and retreated out of the way of the third one. I didn’t know who would win this fight. Nadea was strong, quick, and deadly. However, the prince still outweighed her by probably fifty pounds and trained every day. I guessed Nadea could use her sword, but I had never seen her practice with it. I had never felt so useless. I couldn’t help my friend survive this. Just like I couldn’t help Kaiyer, Jessmei, or Greykin.
Then I noticed the king’s golden sword on the ground, its blade partially submerged in the pool of blood coming from the king’s dead body. It was on the other side of Nadea and Nanos, but maybe I could get there and use it. Maybe I could finally help one of my friends when they needed me.
Nadea feinted forward and Nanos took the bait; she bounced back lightly and then struck forward again, fast as a striking snake, and made a shallow cut across the prince’s right upper arm.
“Fucking bitch. You cut me!” he screamed as he scurried back and looked down at his arm.
“I’m going to cut your heart out and eat it you spineless idiot!” Nadea thrust her blade toward his chest with the words. The prince may have been injured, but he blocked her strike and pushed it away from his body. Then he sprinted forward and slammed his shoulder into Nadea, pushing her away and knocking her to the ground. I took this as my chance and ran behind the prince as he pressed forward an attack. Nadea flipped herself easily to her feet and twisted around three of the prince’s strikes like she was a dancer evading the dirty grasps of a hated suitor.
I reached down into the blood and grabbed the king’s hand-and-a-half sword. It was heavier than I expected it to be, but my fear must have given me strength enough to hold the weapon. Nanos had his back to me and I stepped forward, moving the sword back in both my hands like I was going to chop down a tree with its fine blade.
“What’s this?” the prince said with a chuckle as he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “The little mouse wants to die too?”
“Leave him alone, Nanos. I am the one who will kill you,” Nadea said as she pressed another thrust. The prince parried this one in much the same way as her previous attack. Nadea seemed to have expected this though and she stepped to her left, turning the blade at the last second and bringing it up to make a deep cut across his chain armor and into his chest. The prince screamed and fell back toward me. I took the opportunity and swung the sword with all of my might.
I was so foolish. I didn’t know how to use a sword. If I would have even spent five minutes training with Greykin during our two-month journey together, he would have told me that I needed to at least keep my eyes open when I swung a blade.
They did open when I made sudden contact against Nanos’s back, causing him to scream. The blade only marginally penetrated the chain mail, but it took his attention away from Nadea. I think I was too scared to smile at the young man but my heart was racing with joy. Nadea quickly closed in from behind the prince and raised her sword. I was finally able to help her. I wasn’t a burden. Kaiyer would have been proud of my bravery.
I didn’t expect the balance of the blade and it spun me around easily as the prince turned and slammed his sword against it. Something hot tickled my stomach and I looked down to see Nanos’s blade sticking a good six inches into the right side of my abdomen. I felt the warmth and pain slowly spread through my body. Then it seemed to spill out of me when Nanos yanked the blade away.
I heard the king’s blade crash into the stone floor. Did I drop the weapon? I looked down at the blade and my chest. Was blood supposed to come out that quickly? It almost seemed like I was pouring a bottle of wine from the inside of my shirt. It collided with the stones like rain falling against the castle walls, some of it mixed with the king’s on the ground and it formed an ocean of red-colored glass.
The pressure of the floor was suddenly on my knees. I hadn’t remembered making myself kneel, but I felt so tired. I wanted to lie down for a while. Nadea screamed my name, but it sounded so far away. I hadn’t realized that my eyes were closed. I opened them to see her fighting against a group of men. They wore brown and gray armor and had skin many shades darker than hers. She cut one across the face with her blade and a shower of red blood flew across the room, then she stabbed another through the chest. I felt myself smiling. She was so beautiful. I wished that Kaiyer was alive to watch her.
I tried to turn my head but only my eyes moved. They made contact with the prince's eyes and I saw the look of sadness in the blue orbs. Then he looked up to watch Nadea dance with the men. I remembered her at the banquet in the purple dress. I remembered how Kaiyer looked at her then, he would have asked her to dance, even though I didn’t have the courage to speak with the Dove Herald. If I was going to die, then maybe I would meet him in the afterlife. Maybe Greykin too. When Grandfather died I would see him as well.
I thought of Grandfather sitting at home waiting for my return. He would get a letter, or maybe hear news about the fall of Nia. I imagined his big blue eyes filling with tears like when my mother had died. Now he would have no one left.
I had been so selfish to leave him. I coughed and tasted copper in my mouth. It was wet but I felt thirsty. Suddenly the warmth turned to coldness and I shivered.
My eyes opened again and I saw Nadea tackled by a man almost twice her size while other soldiers began to kick her body when she landed on the stone tiles. One of the men raised his sword and thrust down into the pile of twisting shapes. Everything became colder, like the ocean during the winter months.
I was running on the sand toward my mother. I had to tell her something. She looked to me with a smile and she said words that I couldn't hear. The sun was setting across the ocean and she had to squint her eyes and raise her hands like the brim of a hat to look at the piece of children’s beach treasure I was showing her. I didn’t know if it was a shell, or a rock, or twist of seaweed, but I found it tremendously interesting. Sitting next to her was Kaiyer. His face formed a relaxed smile, the one that made me think he had just woken up from a good dream.
I grinned back at both of them as the sun continued to set into the glowing ocean. I was so happy that we were together.
The End
Thank you for reading this novel. Don't forget to write a review!
Kaiyer and friends continue their struggles against the Elvens in The Destroyer-Book 2. Keep reading for an excerpt!
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Editing and e-book formatting by Ginger Earle
Cover art by Daniel Kamarudin
Typography, illustration and print book formatting by Jason Faraci
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Michael-Scott Earle
An excerpt from: The Destroyer-Book 2
Nadea
It was so cold I couldn't sleep. Or maybe I slept but my dreams only contained the same darkness, fear, and agonizing sadness that I felt when I was awake. Sometimes the pain seemed unbearable, but I had already cried until my eyes turned into dead riverbeds and my body shook with dehydration.
I did not know how long it had been since they had brought me water, nor how long I had been imprisoned. Time didn't exist in absolute darkness.
I had never imagined I would spend the last days of my life in the dungeon.
The Loshers beat me half to death after they dragged me in here and chained my arms up to the ceiling. Then they left me dangling like a piece of meat waiting to be carved. I screamed and tried to kick them with my good leg. They had just laughed and punched me in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me and causing my vision to blur. My leg bled so profusely from the stab wound that it sounded like rain falling on stone. The Losher men ripped off part of my shirt and tied a rough bandage around it to prevent any more blood from dripping. They probably didn't think I would live long enough to get an infection.
I thought about Paug's body lying lifeless on the floor while his life drained out of him. The red of his blood seeped through my brain, mingled with the king’s and fed my insanity. He looked so surprised when Nanos stabbed him. I wished I could have comforted my young friend in his last seconds.
His blood filled the room.
The king's blood filled the room.
Nanos smiled as the Losher soldiers dragged me away.
Greykin screamed as I ran from him.
I recalled the four men talking amongst themselves after they had ripped off part of my shirt. I remembered shouting for help but no one had come. One of my captors tried to kiss me and I had bitten his nose. He had hit me a few times in the face and then punched me so hard in the chest I felt a rib crack. It was funny that I didn't feel pain in my face or ribs now.
Either the cut on my leg was very bad, or the fever was close to taking me.
I was at sea, adrift in darkness and waves. I sank deeper into the saltwater. It was cold at first, but then it became warmer, like the hugs my father would give me when we sat in his study and he told me of my mother.
A sound jolted me awake. My nose inhaled sharply and the scent of urine and fecal matter almost made me gag. I'd always had an amazing sense of smell, so it didn't take me more than a couple deep breaths to realize that the rancid odor came from me. They hadn't unchained me to let me relieve myself so I had no choice but to do it in my pants.
I'd also experienced my useless moon flow. The scent of my menstruation was impossible to separate from the other stains on my body and the shit that mixed with it in my undergarments. At least they wouldn't want to rape me now.
Another sound emerged from the darkness. Metal on metal, and I saw a light slowly begin to glow from the hallway to the left. It cast a reddish glow on the rough stone walls and made my prison seem even more of a hell. I looked at my ripped shirt, stained leather pants, and a dried pool of blood that covered my boots and the hay beneath it. Something skittered
away from the light on the right side of my field of vision but I didn't have enough energy to turn my head. It was probably a rat that would consume my corpse after I died.
The light got agonizingly intense and I tried to close my eyes. It was so bright that my eyelids and lashes couldn't shelter me from the piercing glare. The pain of my fever and leg became overshadowed by the agony that shot through my brain. It sounded like many sets of boots walked across the stone dungeon floor, but I didn't possess the strength to dare the light. I moaned in pain but it came out in a dry rasp. Like a death rattle.
I heard the metal door of my cell open and it made a creak as it moved on un-oiled hinges. There were more boot steps and I guessed that people stood in front of me. The light was so bright through my eyelids that I couldn't stand it. I tried to moan again and I got out half a gasp.
"Well. Here she is." It was Nanos's voice but it echoed in my head like he was yelling at me from across the castle hallways. I should have wanted to kill him, but all I wanted was to die.
"The instructions indicated that she should be alive." The voice sounded warm and full, it reminded me of a baritone singer. I cracked my left eye open slightly and was rewarded by a searing jab of pain into my brain from the light.
"She is alive," Nanos argued in defense.
"My empress wishes to question her," the voice spoke again.
"She can," Nanos said quickly. A pause stretched on for a few minutes. I heard feet shift on the floor of my cell.
"What of the human boy?" I decided that the voice was beautiful.
"Dead. Unfortunately, he attacked me and I had to defend myself." Nanos sniffed in disgust.
Anger filled me and I opened my eyes against the pain. I pulled with all my strength and the chains that shackled my arms. The ceiling came down in a shower of stone and dust. Before anyone moved, I jumped forward and wrapped my hands around Nanos's throat. He screamed in horror and then choked on bile and blood as my grip crushed the life from him.
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