My only real plan once I reached the other world was to obtain an Ovule and return as soon as I could. At least I would not have to escape from the O’Baarni Council. As long as I returned before Telaxthe taught Jessmei how to close the Radicles, I would be able to return and find out if Nadea knew anything more about my daughter. The probabilities were low that I would be successful, but I had succeeded against worse odds.
“So what is your request?”
“I’ve never lost in combat since I won the O’Baarni Games. I thought I was even stronger than Kannath. Fehalda could beat me with the use of her magic, and I never had the opportunity to spar with Isslata, but I felt confident that I had reached the pinnacle of my abilities.” The big Elven sighed and ran his left hand through his mane of hair. “Then I fought you, and it pains me to admit that you defeated me easily. After I awoke, I realized that I had much more to learn. Perhaps that is another reason I want you to stay.”
“You want me to teach you?”
“Every hour is precious now. We need to get back to Nia so that my empress can continue working with the human queen. She was angry at me when I lost to you, but now that she, all of us, realize your identity, it would be a shame to exile you from this world without using some of your knowledge to make us stronger.”
“Then it seems to me that you should be able to convince Telaxthe that I need to stay here.” This was a surprising turn of events and I realized that I should have thought of this angle when bargaining with the empress earlier. She wanted a Singleborn offspring from me, but training for her warriors might have been more useful. Even if the idea of training the Elven people to fight my own made my stomach churn, I wanted to stay on this world until I learned of Nadea’s connection with Iolarathe and my daughter.
“We have tried, Kaiyer.” He frowned and shook his head. “Even Dissonti was unable to convince her. I am sorry, but there is no changing her mind.”
“What if I agreed to her terms?” I asked with a sigh. I had already asked Vernine about this possibility and she said that the empress was no longer willing to entertain the idea.
“It has already been asked and refused.”
“She is stubborn.” I rubbed my eyes again with my hands. Malek’s voice was echoing in my head again.
“Warrior to warrior, will you work with me for a few hours until we reach the Radicle?” He placed his palms flat on the dirt ground of my small tent and bowed his head slightly.
I considered his request for a few seconds before I answered. I respected him for apologizing and being willing to admit he needed to improve and that he had something to learn from me. Though I had little to gain from teaching him and I was not thrilled with the idea of spending what were potentially my last few hours on this planet sparring with an Elven I did not even like.
But an extra hour or two might delay the empress in sending me back and perhaps it would earn me a few small stones of favor with the woman. Maybe she would change her mind at the last second and allow me to stay. The worst that could happen would be that the Elven would become a better warrior. But I felt no loyalty to any side anymore. O’Baarni, Elven, human, I did not care as long as Jessmei, Nadea, and my other friends were safe.
“Fine. I will teach you what I can in the time that the empress gives us.”
“Thank you! Come with me.” He stood from his spot on the floor and I followed the red-haired Elven out of my prison tent.
The campsite was busy with the activity of the small army. The warriors wore red or black armor and they glanced at me tepidly as the Red Hatchet led me through the camp. We came to a circle of grass ringed in felled tree trunks. The land bordering Brilla was composed of green sloping hills blanketed in long grasses, ferns, palm trees, and groves of copper wood.
Yillomar told an Elven woman to fetch us some flagons of water and to ask Fehalda to join us.
“The White Flame asked if she could watch you beat the shit out of me again. Is that agreeable?” I nodded and tried not to hide the surprise at how polite the big Elven was acting toward me.
“Excellent. Can you show me your stance again? Was it like this?” He attempted to copy my battle stance but his position was incorrect. I adjusted the placement of his front leg, the height of his arms, and the bladed angle of his body.
“The face is the most important body part to protect in combat.” I had instructed hundreds, maybe thousands of warriors in all forms of combat and the critiques to his stance came easily to my lips. “If your hands are up like this, you won’t be able to deliver a roundhouse punch, but it doesn’t much matter.” I flowed into the stance and demonstrated palm strikes from the relaxed position of my hands held above my eye level. “Gravity will assist with the power and your strong side is forward.” I pointed down to my left leg and his right. “So you have the most power with the quickest strike that has the longest range. If I get a hit in with my right hand, I am happy, but I’m only using it to confuse my opponent’s defense. I really want to connect with my left palm on the enemy’s face. Your turn.” I held my hands up and blocked the large Elven’s quick strikes to my face.
“That is correct. While your hands are up, you can attack and also defend easily.” I threw a few of my own punches toward the Elven’s face and he blocked them. “If my punches are lower, you can drop a quick elbow and block them as well.” I attacked him in the chest and stomach. The big man was swift and managed to drop his elbow and stop my fist from penetrating his defense.
“Just choose your defense carefully. When I fight someone who mirrors my stance I have to feint my attacks. Even if your arms are raised in the correct position, you will block the quickest attacks.” I increased the speed of my punches at Yillomar’s face and a few slipped past his blocking hands, though they still did not connect with his nose because I was too far from his face.
“Once I mix up the attacks to your body, you will be tempted to block them all.” I varied my punches toward his stomach again and he had to drop his elbows slightly to keep them from hitting his body. “But then you leave your face open and a clever attacker could take advantage of the break in your defense.” I told him what I was going to do, but my palm still struck him in the nose with a wet sound that brought the memory of Malek’s confrontation to my mind again.
The blow had not been executed with full force, but Yillomar fell back away from my strikes so that he could regain his composure. Getting hit in the face was a terrible feeling, especially when the nose broke, and it took a hardened warrior to shrug off the damage without temporarily losing their vision or defense.
“So most of your defensive effort should be focused on your face.” I stopped attacking and stepped away from him. The big Elven nodded and the river of blood coming down from his nose dribbled onto his red tunic. He raised a hand and then blew out a fat glob of blood to the side of the circle. Then the big Elven adjusted his nose with a few loud cracks of cartilage.
“I’ll press and attack. Don’t let me hit your head.” He nodded and we took up mirrored positions. I remembered that when we first fought he had jested that my hands in the air made it seem like I was afraid. It was ironic that he was now a student of the technique.
But it was more ironic that I was his instructor.
I varied my attacks between his face and body again. The big Elven did an excellent job of keeping his head defended. A few of my strikes sneaked past his lower defense and smashed into his stomach and ribs. Yillomar’s torso might as well have been carved out of rock though, my attacks did little damage to him; even if their impact sounded like planks of wood being clapped together.
My strikes grew harder and I could see him struggle to fight through the pain I was inflicting on his stomach. I wasn’t hitting him with my full strength, but I guessed the battle would not have been different if I had instructed him to hit me back. After five minutes of punishment I stopped.
“Good.” A crowd of Elvens had gathered to watch, occupying every spot on the logs circling
the field. More were standing behind the seated spectators. Fehalda commanded a prime seat, flanked by twenty of her warriors.
“Let’s break and have some water.” I nodded at Yillomar’s suggestion and two Elvens wearing red armor handed each of us a clay jug of cool refreshment. The big Elven had been working hard to tolerate the pain and defend himself and was covered with a thick layer of sweat. Though my strikes required more exertion than parrying, I was not even warmed up yet.
“You can attack me back now. Let’s leave kicks out for the moment. Just focus on downward palm strikes from your defending position.” I guessed a half-hour had passed and I doubted that we would be able to get to any more advanced strategies in the time that remained.
“Looking forward to it.” Yillomar smiled and raised his hands to the position I had taught him. He darted forward quickly and pounded down with a flurry of sequenced palm strikes. He was fast for an Elven, and very strong, but the enemies in my memory were much more capable and I had little difficulty defeating them by the half dozen. I trained with the best warriors of my army and their skill, strength, and speed made the Red Hatchet seem like a child in comparison.
He did have talent and I knew that if we were able to spend a few months together I could have trained him well enough to stand against most of my O’Baarni soldiers. I had judged him a fool when we first met, but the man was learning from my training and his mistakes.
When it was appropriate, I offered him pointers about his technique and reinforced the positioning I taught him earlier. I coached him through the pain that my counterattacks left on his opened defenses. Another half-hour of sparring left him covered in bruises and bleeding from gashes that my blows had inflicted upon his face.
“You are improving quickly.” I nodded and motioned for the woman with the jug of water to bring it to me. Her hair was a dark gold and her eyes an amethyst hue that contrasted sharply with her red armor.
“Thank you,” the big Elven said. “You don’t seem to be working very hard.” He was panting between the words and reached up the hand not holding the jug to wipe some of the blood away from his mouth before he drank.
“It has been many lifetimes since I’ve trained one-on-one. It is too bad I will be leaving shortly.” I shrugged my shoulders, drank deeply from the jug and handed it back to the woman.
“Yes it is. Can you instruct me on kicks?” There were probably two hundred warriors observing our session now and the air was dead silent. It was a little unnerving to be watched by so many Elvens, but I knew each extra minute of training I gave to Yillomar might swing the empress to change her mind on my exile.
“Show me your techniques,” I instructed the red-haired Elven. He nodded and displayed a variety of his leg attacks.
“Don’t kick above waist level,” I commented after he showed me a few of his shin, side, and front kicks. “They are too risky for combat and too easy for an opponent to counter.” I pointed out a few other tiny flaws with his supporting foot position and the way he moved his hands when he kicked. His technique was already very polished, but the few suggestions would make him more powerful if he continued to practice them.
“Let’s spar now. Kicks and strikes. Hit me back.” He nodded, and we spent the next chunk of time battling in the circle while the Elven army watched. I had expected Yillomar to be a quick study and I was not disappointed. If I could have spent a year with the man he might have eventually rivaled Malek or Gorbanni in combat.
Yillomar stopped our match with a wave of his hand and gestured with his head toward the perimeter of the circle. The crowd of Elven warriors had parted and four green-armored warriors walked into the field with Vernine at their point.
“It is time.” Her ruby eyes met mine and I thought I perceived some sadness in them.
“Very well. Thank you, Kaiyer.” Yillomar nodded to me and I returned the gesture. I beckoned to the woman carrying my water jug and she passed me the container. The liquid was still cool and I drank it while Vernine’s warriors circled me.
“The Radicle is located an hour’s walk from us, at the base of the canyon that forms the border between Nia and Brilla,” Vernine informed me as we walked. For half a second, I thought perhaps she and her four armored warriors were to be my only guards, but then I realized that the entire group of Elvens that had observed Yillomar and I fighting were accompanying us as well.
“Looks like you aren’t taking any chances.” I smirked.
“No.” Fehalda had floated into the ring of the empress’s guards and moved to walk beside me. I turned my head and saw that Yillomar was a few hundred yards behind conversing with a group of his warriors.
“Was Yillomar correct?” I asked the two women. I remembered carrying their barely conscious bodies away from the switchbacks of Nadea’s keep so that I could use the power of the Water to heal the injures the spider-lizard monsters had inflicted upon them.
“About?” Fehalda asked with a white raised eyebrow.
“She said you and Dissonti asked the empress to let me stay on this world.”
“Does it matter?” Fehalda didn’t bother to look at me.
“I suppose it doesn’t. Perhaps I just wish to understand why you changed your mind about me.”
“We have faced nothing but bad luck since crossing paths with you. But now that Turnia is dead, the rest of the clans will soon find out that something is amiss on our world. Even if the other clans do not come here, the rest of the Two Bears will search for their leaders. These people are your enemies as well as ours,” Fehalda explained. She did not make eye contact with me. I could see Vernine looking at me out of the corner of her eye and I wondered what the woman would say if we were alone.
We reached the end of the campsite and continued south for another mile before deviating from the main road to a small path that ran eastward. The path was narrow and looked as if it may have once been a game trail.
The trail clung to a creek bed that ran down the side of the gorge. Though there was some shade from giant ferns, palms, and leafy trees, the air was thick with humidity and the breath of the hundreds of Elvens that surrounded me. The air smelled of fresh brown dirt, organic plants, and the oil of weapons.
We had walked for three quarters of an hour and the trail began to dip down into the moving creek before rising up the other side. The entourage moved through the water and I noticed that there were many more Elvens positioned high in the trees surrounding us. These warriors were camouflaged with leaves and mud, and carried composite long bows. The empress was not taking any chances with my exile and did not think that the hundreds of warriors already surrounding me were enough to ensure my departure.
“What if I find a way back to this world?” I asked after we crossed the surprisingly refreshing creek and began to climb the steep trail on the other side.
“You won’t,” Fehalda said curtly.
“I just need an Ovule. From my understanding they are prized but most clans have them. Won’t I be able to find or steal one?”
“No, Kaiyer.” Vernine spoke softly from her position to my right side. “You won’t find another Ovule.” She avoided looking at me.
“You know I am relentless. I will return here. I wish you no harm. I just want to live in peace. If I return, will the empress attempt to send me back?” The hair on the back of my neck was standing on end and my gut was screaming to me that something was wrong. I was alone in the wilderness with hundreds, perhaps thousands of Elvens that wanted me banished from this world. Or dead.
“You will not return,” Fehalda repeated.
“So you intend to kill me?”
“No,” Vernine said. “The empress is going to send you through the Radicle as she said she would.”
Then I realized what was really going to happen.
Anger drove my vision black and my jaw clenched so firmly that I felt my teeth scrape through my skull. I didn’t want to believe what I guessed, but there was no other explanation for Vernine’s odd answers.
The woman was normally cold to me, but the change in her body language and tone was apparent. She was not happy with this situation and neither was Fehalda.
They were going to do what Malek and my friends once did to me. They intended to manipulate the Radicle like my daughter had thousands of years ago. Telaxthe would send me through into the stasis and I would never be awakened unless someone knew my name and the procedure for waking my unconscious mind.
I would never be able to return to this world, or any world for that matter. This was the purest form of exile that would guarantee I could never be a loose end for Telaxthe. She would not have to worry about me returning, advising her daughter, or thwarting her plans with Jessmei.
I took a long breath and tried to force down my anger. I meant my words of alliance with the empress sincerely. While I could acknowledge that I represented a deadly risk to her people, I also saved the woman’s life and thought we had reached some understanding. The leader of the Elven people was one step ahead of me again.
There was no way out of this. There were archers in the trees and hundreds of weapon-carrying Elven warriors on all sides of me. Even if I could harness my magic and incinerate a good deal of them, there were too many to escape.
Maybe it was better to die here than be lost for another millennium.
Would I float through the clouds again? Could I chase the birds and the distant colored ships that swam through the blue skies? Maybe I would find peace with the floating islands of my dreams. What were the chances that Nadea could find out my daughter’s name and how to bring her back, if she even lived? My body had been so weak when Nadea and Paug pulled me from my sleep. There was a chance I would have perished from lack of nourishment in another few years.
I loved Shlara and I killed her. I loved Iolarathe and she was dead because of me. I loved Jessmei and Nadea as well. Would they suffer an early end because of my involvement in their lives? Everything I touched turned to death. Perhaps the skull armor really did exist under my skin. Maybe the incarnation of death, demons, and hell was my actual self and the human face I wore now was the lie.
The Destroyer Book 4 Page 47
