The Destroyer Book 3

by Michael-Scott Earle

  "You should speak to Nadea tonight. You will like her," I said.

  "Kaiyer told me that I would enjoy speaking to her. He thought very highly of her. She is probably asleep now."

  "She reminds me of you." I smiled.

  "What do you mean?" The empress raised an eyebrow.

  "You both look very similar and have mannerisms that match. She looks more like you than your sister, even though she is human." Telaxthe’s face rapidly lost some of its color that had been reflected by the candles. Suddenly she looked like her pale Elven sister.

  "Your uncle oversees the east side of Nia, correct?" Her words sounded hollow and empty. Her smile was gone and her eyes had lost their sharp focus.

  "Yes." I was puzzled by her sudden change in demeanor.

  "His keep is at the foot of the Teeth Mountains, is it not?" Her voice was now unmistakably angry.

  "Yes. Did I say something wrong? If so, please forgive me."

  "Oh no, Jessmei." Her face quickly broke into a smile and the color seemed to return to her skin. "You have done nothing wrong." She took a deep breath and brushed her hand over my cheek. "I will go visit Nadea now. Thank you for telling me about her."

  "Of course, and I will see you for lunch tomorrow?" I asked to confirm.

  "Yes. I look forward to it. Thank you again. This meeting has been more bountiful than I could have imagined." She bowed slightly as she edged toward the door, then she opened it and disappeared into the hallway.

  I walked back out onto the balcony. I no longer thought about flinging myself off of the edge. Tomorrow morning, I would see Nadea, and then we would go speak with Beltor. I'd tell them about what the empress was proposing and we would figure out what to do. Kaiyer was gone from me forever, but as long as I had the rest of my family, life was still worth living.

  Chapter 22-The O'Baarni

  I sat with his body for most of the night. The wood coffin was freshly cut and nailed together with obvious care. The smell of sap oozing from the timber mixed with the pine needles and powerful herbs on the bed of the casket. The fragrance reminded me of fresh rain and new beginnings. It was a comforting scent that my friend would have appreciated. He often would burn these types of incenses when his sickness grew to a point where the Earth could no longer quell the pain and he sought other remedies.

  We were so desensitized to death that we no longer dwelled on ceremonies and grief. We could not. All of us had friends or family who had perished as slaves at the hands of our Elven oppressors. All of us had seen our comrades fall in battle. Death was part of training. We thought about the fallen, remembered who they were and honored their sacrifice, and then moved onward in our quest.

  But Entas was different. I glanced away from the small brazier of orange coals and examined the old man's peaceful face for the hundredth time this night. It looked like he was smiling, the same expression that he had given me countless times, often after he had gifted me with some tiny fragment of advice that I did not understand, but would a few days later. I used to think he enjoyed mocking me, but that was just my ego lashing out. In reality, my mentor had always wanted me to find the answers myself.

  Thayer approached the tent and pulled back the thick canvas flap. His movement exchanged warm, sap scented air for a wintery mountain breeze. Although he was as wide as he was tall, and looked like he was made of rock, my friend possessed grace granted to him by hours of physical training. So when he slid around the tight space and sat down across from me without making more than a whisper of sound, I wasn't surprised.

  "We almost died that day on the foothills. Remember, Brother?" he said after a few minutes of careful silence.

  "Aye." I nodded and smiled at my friend.

  "If not for Entas, this army wouldn't be here. He was a great man." I nodded again. Thayer was a remarkable swordsman, warrior, trainer, and battle strategist. He had never been gifted with words, so the effort he made now to comfort me, despite the awkward feelings it must have given the burly man, was even more meaningful.

  "I did not spend enough time with him over the past few years. We had grown apart."

  "You run the army, Brother. We are all focusing on what needs to be done. Entas gave us the tools to be successful. No regrets, eh?" He smiled and the sincerity behind his expression made me feel better. I remembered all those years ago when Thayer and I had been training as empowered warriors for the Elvens. Our masters pitted us against each other until we became hated enemies. Then we decided that we would escape together and flee into the wilderness.

  "Your words are true." I smiled back at him. "We don't just owe our lives to him; he gave us the means to be free."

  "So we will be free." He shrugged and his grin widened. "Our forces cannot be stopped. We will crush the Elvens." I nodded but lost my smile. We still had so much more work to do. There were thousands of Elven tribes and we had only destroyed a handful.

  But that work could continue tomorrow. Now I just wanted to grieve. Maybe it was selfish of me to want this time with my mentor. I still had an army to manage and there were too many places where my attention was needed. I was a fool. I should have spent more time with him while he was alive. I should have expressed my gratitude. I should have learned more from him.

  It was the last fact that upset me the most. I had not relied on him for advice as much lately, but just knowing that I could had given me confidence to make decisions. This admission twisted my feelings. My friend was gone, and all I could think about was how this would hamper my attempts at winning this war.

  I was an asshole.

  "He knew this was coming." Malek's voice pulled me from my memories of the old man. I hadn't heard Thayer leave or Malek enter.

  “He had a way of predicting the future.” I remembered Entas visiting my tent after I first met Shlara. He had been right about her, as had Malek.

  “I know you are upset that the two of you had grown apart.” I frowned, but he knew me well enough to speak the truth. "But he didn't feel that way, Kaiyer. He loved you like his own son and spoke often of how proud he was of you. Entas was happy that you were coming to him less for help. He said that you were fulfilling your destiny."

  “He often spoke cryptically of my future. It bothered me, but now that he is gone, I wish I had asked him more about what he meant.” Pain hit my heart again.

  "I am thankful that he left peacefully, after a long and meaningful life. We got to speak with him one last time."

  "Our last conversation was not the best. I was angry afterward. I even told you that we would not be lost without him. Now he is gone and I regret those words." I sighed. "I took him for granted."

  "He didn't feel that you took him for granted," Malek said. I looked over at my handsome friend and nodded. His words did help me feel better.

  "I wish I had known him as long as you did. He taught me much in the last few years."

  "Now it is up to us." The words lacked my usual conviction, but I didn't think my friend noticed.

  "In a way, that is comforting. He had stepped back long ago before I even joined your army. We know what to do. If there were any secrets, he would have told you about them."

  "He often spoke to me in riddles. As if there was some joke he knew that I didn't."

  "What do you mean?" Malek sat forward and looked a little confused.

  “It was just his method of instruction. He would ask me if I remembered how to do something just before setting about to show me how to do it. The first time I learned to harness Air, he got a bit frustrated because I did not remember how.”

  "That would anger me." The handsome man nodded and the gray hair around his temples reflected the firelight like silver coins. “But anger motivates you. Entas was insightful. He knew the best way to teach each of his students. He would sometimes ask me to figure topics out for myself but never spoke as if I should already know the answers."

  "It isn't important anymore." I leaned back and uncrossed my legs in front of me. My body was begging to g
o exercise. I normally didn't sit this long.

  “There are still a few hours before dawn. I will sit with him if you want a break. I’ll ask my team to prepare the pyre.” Perhaps once upon a time, our people had a ceremony for their departed loved ones. But the army had no traditions to honor our dead. Most deaths occurred on the battlefield. If we could recover the bodies, we would, then return them to the earth with either a burial or burning. There was no ceremony or grieving. There was no time.

  I’d elected to burn Entas’s body. We would scatter the ashes with the rising sun. Besides myself, Thayer and Malek were the closest to the old man, so we would speak before the gathered when dawn broke.

  "I'll be back shortly then. Thank you." He nodded gratefully and I realized that my friend probably wanted to spend some time alone with his mentor's body as well. By sitting here all night I had robbed him of that opportunity.

  It was just another way I was being selfish about Entas's death.

  The stars were bright angry reminders of the light the dawn would bring. Entas had once told me they were suns similar to our own, and there were other worlds that circled these suns with lands and people just like us. I then asked him if these people had killed all the Elvens on their planet and he just chuckled. I should have asked him more about these other worlds. Though I did not care much about them, it would have made the old man happy. He always seemed disappointed in my singlemindedness and lack of interest in history or philosophy. Malek had been a better student, the two had bonded deeply and quickly over their shared interest in such things.

  We moved his body into a small tent in the center of camp. There were other tents set up fifty yards away, but most of the warriors were asleep or on the outskirts of the camp on watch. I took a deep breath of the frigid night air and exhaled smoky life back out again.

  I started a slow jog to the east end of the campgrounds where the trees briefly surrounded the campsite before opening to a field perfect for training exercises. The stars gave more than enough light for my keen eyes to see, but there were still a few fire pits carefully placed on the open ground for soldiers to huddle around while they recovered from their training.

  There were only sixty warriors on the field, and most of them were gathered around a fire. As I ran the perimeter of the field warming up my body, I could hear their various conversations. Some spoke of preparations for upcoming battles, some spoke of previous battles, and some spoke of more carnal desires they wished to act upon with their training partners.

  There was no talk of Entas.

  My mentor had not spent a great deal of time with my soldiers. He had focused most of his attention over the past few years on Malek and his troops who wished to improve their mastery of the Elements. Before that, he spent time with Thayer and I, but left most of the physical and magical training of the army to us, preferring to advise us nightly. I hoped that more than a few of the O’Baarni would show up to view his body one last time, but it would probably be a small group. His contribution would never be realized by most of my kin. They wanted to believe in the invincible Kaiyer and his steadfast team of brilliant commanders. That image was much more romantic and inspiring than a wizened old man who spoke in riddles and could not even walk without a cane.

  I heard footfalls running behind me and recognized the sound of Shlara a few dozen feet before she caught up to me.

  "Malek said you took a break. I guessed you would be here." I grunted and continued my run.

  "Do you want to talk?" she asked after we made a lap around the field.

  "I'm fine."

  "I know you too well to believe that." She smiled and I chuckled.

  "I am angry at myself," I admitted. She didn't reply for a few minutes and our jog slowly increased in speed until we were almost running.

  "My sister was raped and killed by Elvens. It was a few years before I gathered my people and escaped from the tribe." Malek had told me this story, but Shlara never spoke to me of her past.

  Everyone had their tragic memories, I knew theirs were likely as terrible as mine.

  Shlara continued, “She was older than me. I always looked up to her. She was so strong and beautiful. I was even a bit jealous of her as I felt my parents gave her more attention than me. Everyone I knew constantly reminded me of how amazing she was.” I could not imagine a woman more incredible than Shlara, but I knew voicing this opinion would give her false hope about our relationship.

  “I was so absorbed in my envy, I never let her be my friend. I never told her I loved her, because I really did not love her until she was gone.”

  “Was that when you decided to leave?”

  “Yes. It was selfish, I was not motivated by some noble desire to save my people. I was driven by fear. I knew it was only a matter of time before the Elvens raped me. I hated them for taking her away from me before I could make things right between us. I hated myself because it was not until she died that I really became my own person. I’ve already told you how I organized my people and escaped. We were pursued, of course, but the Tulcitas were attacked by another tribe. That was why we made it. Not because of me. Because of simple luck.”

  "Preparation has a lot to do with luck." Entas had told me that and I repeated it to all of my commanders often enough that they believed it to be true.

  “I understand your grief. Once death takes someone, you can never take back the things you said, or say the things you should have. But you can remember and honor them by pushing forward and being the person you think they would have wanted you to be.”

  "You're right."

  “Entas could have left whenever he wanted. He chose to go now because he knows you are ready to lead without him. He could not have built this army. He needed someone with your charisma and strength. He was ready to leave this world peacefully because he was confident you have mastered all he set out to teach.” Her smile was brighter than the stars and I felt the ache in my heart ease.

  "The regret will pass. I've forgiven myself for the way I treated my sister. You'll forgive yourself for not spending every second of your life with Entas," she continued and her light teasing did make me grin.

  "I know. New wounds hurt for a bit until they heal. It always hurts to lose someone. Perhaps it is easier to leave than it is to stay on this world," I said.

  "I've thought of that as well. We have many years of work and pain ahead of us. Entas gets to rest now." Her smile faded and we ran in silence for another quarter of an hour, increasing speed until we sprinted almost as fast as a galloping horse.

  "Spar?" she questioned. I nodded and we slowed down and stopped. We squared off, facing each other a few steps outside the track. She raised her arms over her head and twisted her body sideways to angle toward me. I quickly matched her stance and blocked her first few strikes and shin kicks. I countered with a feinted palm strike to her face and then landed a solid left punch to her stomach. Her abdomen was as hard as a maple tree, but she let out a short gasp of air from the blow.

  "I've never done the morning training routine with you," she said after she caught her breath and elbowed past my guard, cutting my skin above my right eyebrow.

  "You don't need it." I wiped away my forehead with a flick of my hand and tested her guard with a few quick punches to her face and sternum. She blocked them all, but I was able to close the distance between us and wrapped my left arm over her shoulders. It was a veiled attempt to take her to the ground, but she must have expected the move. When I sidestepped her body to pull her off balance, she flowed toward me with a careful shuffle as soon as my arm touched her.

  Her head smashed into the bridge of my nose, breaking it with a wet snap that would have tumbled most people. But my nose had been broken hundreds of times and the normal blurred vision and stinging pain no longer affected me. Instead, I slid my left arm up and hooked it around the back of her neck as I twisted my torso, lifted my right arm under her left armpit, and threw her on the ground headfirst. My body lay on top of her sideways a
nd she struggled to block a quick series of elbows that I aimed at her temple.

  One slipped through and graced her cheekbone. She grunted in annoyance and then finally caught onto my elbow and pulled me down to her chest, preventing me from getting more piercing attacks in on her face. This position let me knee her in the side though, but after a few blows that would have easily cracked the ribs of a normal human, I realized that she was just too tough for them to make an impact. I guessed that this grappling game was going to go on for another hour, so I disengaged from her grasp and pushed myself off of her, rolling backward and coming up into my battle stance.

  She was already on her feet and had a mischievous smile painted on her beautiful face. Her grin did not fade as I threw a volley of left jabs at her face and then followed up with a right elbow. She blocked all the punches and danced away to avoid my forearm. I tripped her trailing foot and managed to force her down again with my shin, then I stepped toward her and kicked out with my left food. The edge of my boot caught her in the temple and knocked her unconscious. It would have killed a normal human, but Shlara woke up a few dozen seconds later and stuck her tongue out at me.

  “Fuck. I’ll feel that for the rest of the day.” She gasped and spit out a mouthful of blood. “Looks like my unarmed skills need work.”

  “You did fine; I am pretty hard to beat.” I flashed her a smile and then instantly regretted it. I had to be more careful about leading her on. I hardened my expression and turned away from her. “Let’s finish our calisthenics.” I sprinted over to the nearest pine tree and grabbed the lowest hanging branch with my right hand. Shlara grabbed one adjacent to me and matched my reps until we had done two hundred pull-ups. Then we switched to our main hands and began the count again.