Danor.
"Fuck!" I cursed again and did mathematics in my head. I had been a day or two off in my plan. Nadea was already here. She must have been notified of Brilla's political shift a few days after Isslata had captured me and made her way north with the army. I needed speak with Danor and find out exactly where Nadea was. If she hadn't met with the empress I would still have leverage.
The conversation with Telaxthe in her pavilion had not gone quite as I expected. She wanted to see her daughter, but she asked no questions as to her health or wellbeing. I wouldn't have answered if she had, but her detachment made me think that she saw her half-human child as a tool instead of an offspring. Perhaps this was how all Elvens viewed their children. It was possible that if Nadea and the empress met they could work out their disagreements. Perhaps Telaxthe would throw her arms around the duchess, overjoyed to be reunited with her long lost daughter. Nadea would be able to negotiate a surrender or removal of the Elven forces. Or maybe because of their kinship our two races really could coexist in peace. I suspected the empress would be more interested in manipulating Nadea to her own ends. She wanted her army in Nia for some reason.
Did her reason have something to do with the castle? The thought struck me suddenly and for a few seconds I forgot about trying to speak with Danor. The story they had fed me was that Nia was the most prosperous of countries, with perfect vineyards, endless ranch land, and easy borders to defend. But I sensed that was bullshit.
She needed the ruins beneath the castle.
Danor looked to be arguing with one of the Elven guards. They stood too far away for me to hear but I could tell that their troops were being denied entry into the city. There were tents on either side of the main road and various Elvens walking or riding between me and the gates, even at this late hour.
I debated jogging the rest of the way down the road but didn't know if it was worth the risk. The last time I entered the gates, the guards did little more than nod at me. But I had concealed my weapons in my travel bag and a river of refugees coming and going from the city helped obscure me. Now that the empress was here, it appeared that the Elvens were being more vigilant about protecting their new city. I suspected that I would be stopped and questioned before I even made it to Danor. But if Nadea's troops were allowed to enter the gates, I could lose Danor in the streets and would never get any answers.
I started to jog down the hill.
Paug had told me that no one was allowed to build or own the property for a mile radius around the walls of the city. The boy said it was to make sure that an attacking army did not have easy access to timber, food, and archer cover. I wasn't thankful for the law now; since it meant that I jogged across the open road surrounded by Elven tents, and no cover. At least if I was called out I would run through the encampment and cause some hilarious confusion before I would be killed.
I passed a group of Elvens sitting at their campsite playing a dice game next to the fire. They looked up from the game and eyed me suspiciously. I noticed their uniforms were blue with white threading and guessed that meant they were part of Jayita's army. I kept jogging past them and hoped they stuck to their game.
The tents grew more dense a mile from the gates and I decided to slow down to a walk as I passed another group of Elvens going northward on the road. There were two women and four men, all clothed in brown leather armor with red circles etched on silk cloth that hung from their shoulders. I moved to the edge of the road to let them pass.
"Good evening," I said with a slight smile to a male that looked at me.
"Get to a medic, human." He seemed disgusted and I nodded in agreement before I turned my back to them and continued my walk. It was a strange response, but I did reek of blood, and the Elven sense of smell was stronger than a human’s.
I passed a dozen more Elvens that gave me little notice. In fact, the closer I got to the gate, the less suspicious the looks seemed to be. They probably thought that since I had passed other Elven soldiers and not been stopped I must have a purpose here that was approved by someone of authority. Each step drew me closer to the gate and I almost doubted that I would make it the last hundred yards. Then I stood at the back of Danor's group of warriors and shouldered my way through them to where the knight captain argued with the Elvens.
"My orders were to enter the city and wait for the duchess. I don't care what you say."
"You'll care what I say when we butcher you and your little soldiers and send your heads back to your army for consideration." The guard arguing with Danor was a male and dressed in Alatorict's gold uniform.
I put my hand on Danor's shoulder and interrupted the man's reply. He turned his head around with a frown but when he saw me his face changed to shock.
"Kaiyer!" He smiled and grabbed my shoulders. Then his face grew worried. "By the Spirits friend, are you hurt?" His eyes went to my chest.
"No I'm fine. Where is Nadea? How long have you been here?"
"She was escorted into the city shortly before sunset. Greykin and Runir are with her. She asked me to bring a small attachment of troops into the castle walls if she did not return by midnight. Their general," he pointed back at the Elvens, "gave us permission to enter."
"I was not notified of that," the Elven sneered. "You should leave now. I've grown tired of arguing with you."
"Where is the rest of the army?" I pulled Danor's shoulder so that he turned to face me instead of the Elven. One of them could kill three of Danor's men easily and he was dangerously close to escalating the situation.
"We are on the south fields."
"Let's go back. Nothing can be accomplished at the gate."
"What name did he call you, human?" the guard asked me and I realized that Danor used my name.
"Doesn't matter. Sorry for bothering you. We'll return for the duchess another time." I gave Danor a look that communicated the seriousness of our situation and he nodded.
"Back to the camp!" he ordered the sergeant standing next to him, who promptly shouted out the orders. The warriors turned and slid south along the wall, rounding its curve but leaving plenty of space between us and the Elven tents.
"I thought you'd be dead, my friend," he said once we could no longer see the gate guards.
"I'm hard to kill."
"You practically look dead. Please tell me that is someone else's blood on your tunic?" he squinted in the torch light and pointed a finger at my collarbone.
I looked down and realized that the blood I had smelled was coming from the green shirt I wore. The collar, top of the sleeves, and half of the chest were stained dark red.
"It smells like mine, but I am fine. Do not worry." He nodded and gestured to their campsite. There were a few thousand tents organized in a neat grid on the south side of the wall. Each tent flew a purple Nia flag along with a small source of light nearby, either a campfire or a lantern. The humans needed much more light in their camp than the Elvens did.
"When did Greykin find you?"
"The army had marched up the coast. He sailed on a boat with the queen and they flagged us."
"How did they get separated from Beltor and Jessmei?"
"I'll tell you that tale, but first let me take you to my tent. Get you a bath and a change of clothes."
"Yes to the change of clothes, but take me to the command tent first." He hesitated and then nodded before he issued orders to have the men disperse through the camp.
"It's a shit storm in there," he muttered after his soldiers had scattered into the tents.
"I didn't pay attention to the city. Has it gotten worse since we delved into the sewers?"
"Sorry, I should have clarified. It is a shit storm in the command tent." He gave me a crooked grin accompanied by a sigh of frustration.
"That is why I am going there." I smiled back at him and could already hear the commotion inside the pavilion as we got within three hundred yards of it. The voices inside were shouting so loud that the noise had attracted the attention of a few
dozen soldiers. The Nia warriors listened hesitantly to the battle with disappointment painted on their faces.
"Like I've been saying for the last hour, that idea is completely ridiculous! We cannot negotiate a surrender with them!" I recognized the voice of Maerc before I entered the tent. I smiled as I approached the two guards posted outside the front flap. They exchanged glances with Danor and pulled back the entrance for us.
There were five men and a woman engaged in the screaming match: Maerc, who looked like an older version of the handsome blonde man Runir; the ancient and semi-retired Weatan; the lean and weathered Yabar; the soft but charming Corvan; and the sword master Julliar, who was always dressed extremely well and never seemed to be worried. The woman I spent an unfortunate few days of travel with and had almost killed out of annoyance: Jessmei's mother, the queen of Nia.
I knew the four men ranked lower than Maerc on the command structure, but the exact specifications escaped me. I recalled that there were three other generals in Nia's army that might have been equal to Maerc. They were currently in the North with the majority of the forces aiding Newvana, Loorma, and Timata in their defense against the empress's army.
But the Elven army managed to either destroy them outright, or had skirted around them and made it here through the icy mountain passes. I hoped that it was the latter, it sounded like the Northern army was over twenty-five thousand troops strong, and the thought of the Elvens trampling over them en route to the capital made my jaw tighten. Those forces wouldn't make any difference now, but I didn't want any more of my humans killed.
Our arrival halted the queen’s reply to Maerc as the first syllable left her mouth. The men quickly turned their heads and mirrored the confused look on her face. They stood over a large planning table with a ten-foot-long canvas map of Nia spread across it. I had seen the map before, and it was detailed enough to show the current layout of the city within the massive walls.
"Troop morale suffers when their leaders squabble like children," I said the words softly while moving through them and standing on the far side of the table. I took the quiver and bow off my shoulder, laying them on the carpeted floor next to me. I looked down at the drawing and then looked up to Danor, who had sheepishly followed me into the tent and stood behind the other generals. An idea had been building in my mind during the walk around the walls and the view of the map helped mature that thought into a plan.
"Kaiyer," Maerc's voice was as soft as mine. "Did you escape from the Elvens? We believed you were prisoner."
"He is probably here on their behalf, just as my son thought, he has been their agent all along," the queen sneered. The tall blonde woman was quite beautiful until she opened her mouth and spewed out her vile thoughts. No amount of physical attractiveness could overcome the ugly of her personality.
"Nadea saw Nanos kill his father, your husband, the king. Then he killed my friend Paug. When your daughter was kidnapped, I chased after the Elvens for two weeks and saved her from almost certain torture. Then I negotiated the release of you, your husband's brother, and Greykin from Elven capture because your son betrayed us again. He stabbed Nadea in the stomach, and if I had not been pressed for time while attempting to escape from the castle I would have enjoyed painting the walls of your Royal Safe Room with his blood." As I spoke the words her face paled and then turned a bright shade of red. The woman stood about ten feet away from me, on the other end of the map, which was why her face looked so surprised when I jumped over the table, grabbed her by her pretty throat, and lifted her a few feet off the ground.
"I don't want to hear you speak again!" I hissed through my teeth and pushed my face up against hers. "And the only reason you aren't dead now by my hand, is because it would upset Jessmei." I squeezed a bit harder and her already wide eyes grew impossibly large and frantic. Her nails dug into my left forearm, but she didn't have the strength to lift her body and relieve the pressure on her neck. I heard the rustle and rattle of the men behind me putting hands on their swords, but I doubted any of them would pull the blades out. "Now get the fuck out of this tent!" I pushed my arm out slightly and released the woman.
The queen fell out of my grasp and tumbled to the carpeted ground with a frantic gasp of air. Her hand went to her throat and the bruise that was starting to form there already. She looked up at me with malice mixed with a larger portion of fear and then crawled back against the floor toward the exit of the tent. Her eyes darted between the other men, perhaps she expected them to come to her aid, but she had no friends here.
"Have a guard take her to her tent. She is not to leave. If she attempts to contact her son or the Elvens, let me know and I will break one of her hands," I said to Danor. The man nodded and the queen let out a muffled whine. I thought about telling her how fitting this was, that she probably understood fear close to the same way that her daughter did while under her supervision, but I wasn't going to rob that opportunity from Jessmei.
Danor pulled the queen to her feet and walked her out of the command pavilion. By the time I moved back to the table, he had instructed a guard to take the woman to her tent and assign sentries so that she couldn't leave. I looked at the other men gathered behind the map and measured their mix of fear, outrage, and relief. This seemed to be a reoccurring problem with the royal system of leadership. Their rulers became entitled to their power, despite results, and those who served came to depend upon that fucked up form of slavery.
"We've lost the battle for Nia," I said when Danor returned. "But the war is not over. We need to get space and buy time so that I can retrain your army."
"Retrain the army?" Maerc asked. The man had never liked me, but this question didn't have the mocking tone he normally carried when he addressed me.
"Yes." I nodded and put the flat of my palms on the wood table. "I can kill these Elvens, you've seen me do it, or heard of me doing it." I looked around the table at the men and then made eye contact with Maerc. "When Nadea and Paug awoke me, I didn't remember much of my past. But now I do. I was once the general of a great army whose only purpose was destroying the Elven race. And we were successful.”
"Kaiyer," Maerc stopped me politely with a raised hand. "Our country owes you tremendous gratitude, but claiming that you can fix this situation single handedly is hard for us to believe."
"These creatures are too powerful; the only option is to surrender," Corvan said while he shook his head.
"No. We need to fight like the duchess wants. We can whittle down their defenses and take back our kingdom." Julliar's voice was slightly louder than Corvan's.
"And live like hunted animals for the rest of our lives?" Corvan yelled and the tent exploded into another shouting match between the five men.
"Do you have another copy of this map?" I asked without raising my voice. The men continued to argue, but it looked like Danor might have heard me. He just shrugged his shoulders when I glanced at him. I could understand why the man had not wanted to bring me here.
I pulled the axe off of my back and shook loose the backpack. Then I pulled the leather cover off of the blade of the heavy axe and smiled when Danor gave me a worried look. The other men didn't notice me brandish the weapon, but I doubted that they would have stopped bickering even if they had.
I put my right arm out on the table over the sketch of Nia, and then slammed the blade of the axe down on my forearm. The massive weapon easily cut through the skin, muscle and bone. Blood from my stump of a forearm sprayed over the desk, the map, and dripped onto the ground. Danor shouted, and the other men backed up with a surprised cry of absolute shock.
"Let me explain how this is going to work moving forward," I said with a smile on my face. I was used to pain, but getting a bone cut in half was never pleasant. I reached across the table with my left hand and grabbed the wrist of my severed right arm. "I have powers beyond what you know and I have magic more powerful than these Elvens." I put my forearm back on the cut stump and felt the nerves, muscles, and bone began to reattach. Th
e feeling was more annoying than the cut that severed them.
"These powers can be given to others and I know the process." The men's eyes grew wide when my fingers wiggled. "But first I need to get Jessmei, Nadea, Greykin, and Beltor out of that castle so we can regroup." My hand closed into a fist and then opened again. The cut that the axe had made across my forearm stopped bleeding and scarred.
"I have a plan, but I don't need you to help me with it." I looked at the men and saw the fear on their faces. "I'm not going to patronize you with the illusion of choice." I smiled and they understood what I implied. I figured they would. These were smart men, they were just afraid. They needed a strong leader.
"So does anyone wish to join the queen in her tent?" They all shook their heads.
"Good. Let's get started."
Chapter 21-Jessmei
My balcony had perhaps the best view of the Royal Gardens. From my private river stone paved veranda, I could see almost every single fruit tree and blooming flower, and the small brook that carefully meandered through the grounds. I couldn't guess precisely how high I was, but my view was not obstructed by any of the tall trees.
The drop would surely kill me.
I felt the cold stone of the balcony rail under my palms. They were sweaty with nervousness and it made the smooth gray rock feel frigid. I leaned over again and looked straight down to the garden. The edge of the brook was directly below me. There was some grass, but it was mostly boulders placed to make the view aesthetically pleasing. I closed my eyes and imagined how those short weightless seconds would feel. Would I experience any pain when I touched the ground? Would I gasp for air under the weight of my crushed body like a fish out of water?
I sighed and pushed myself away from the cold stone. Except for those last seconds of painful existence, suicide would be the easy way for me to get out of this mess. It was what my heart was telling me to do. It wanted to depart from this world, to leave a red stain on the beautiful green garden floor below, to show these monsters that in the end I was more in control than they were.
The Destroyer Book 3 Page 40
