The Destroyer Book 2 (6 page)

The thick door slammed from the hallway up above me again and then I was alone.

It was foolish of me, but for what seemed like hours I hung there, desiring to die more than anything else. Wishing that my life would just end so I wouldn't have to deal with the pain of loss, failure, and sickness. I also wanted revenge on Nanos and knew that my death would bring it. I closed my eyes and prayed to the Spirits that the darkness would last forever.

"Nadea," I thought a voice called my name.

"Psst! Nadea." I struggled to peel open my eyelids. The voice sounded like it came from my right, in the opposite direction of the exit. I tried to twist my head and see who spoke, but my strength failed.

Shadows danced in the hallway as a trio of dark figures moved quietly toward me.

"Nadea, can you hear me?" the figure in the front whispered. Coal darkened his face but I recognized his blue eyes in the dim light of the torch.

"Runir?" I coughed out blood.

"Shhh. Shit. Don't talk." He reached out to touch me and pulled back. He looked up at the chains anchored to the ceiling and manacled to my wrists. Then he examined the floor and my cell. He seemed indecisive. The dark figure to his right inspected the gash on my leg while my friend talked.

"We came to get you out of here. My father and I have a few hundred troops that managed to escape. We are camped out to the northeast in the High Forest."

"This wound is very infected and must be cleaned. We can't take her through the sewer like this," the man examining my leg interrupted and Runir grimaced.

"Okay Nadea, we are going to clean this and then take you." He reached out and touched my hair. It felt good to have affectionate human contact after what seemed like an eternity in the darkness. I saw the other warrior open up a small travel bag and search through the contents.

“Fuck. I don’t have the right medical equipment. We’ll need to come back. Curse the Spirits,” Runir’s friend growled.

"Wait," I croaked out. My throat seemed to be made of sandpaper and my tongue was so swollen that I had trouble pronouncing words.

"Shhh. Don't talk. We'll return soon. Just hold on, please." Runir whispered.

"Nanos," I whispered. Each word left my vocal cords in a searing roar of agony.

"I know. He's trapped here too. We will rescue him as well. You'll be easier to break out since they are keeping you in the dungeons by the sewer. We’ll return in a few hours."

"No." I tried to speak but my voice had reached the limit of what I could do today. I wanted to scream that Nanos had betrayed us all, killed his father and Paug.

The door above opened suddenly and the three would-be rescuers disappeared, sliding slippery and smooth into the darkness of the dungeon like frogs into a deep lake.

"Where are you taking me?" a voice filled with fear asked.

"Shut up and walk. I'm not here to answer your questions." It sounded like a dozen heavy sets of boots coming down the stairs. When the group passed the torch, the entire dungeon became engulfed in their flickering shadows. When they got into my cell they lit additional torches. I struggled to keep my eyes open but even when closed the firelight seemed to burn into my brain like a hundred suns.

"Duchess Nadea!" a mouse-like voice squealed in shock. I cracked my eyelids apart as much as I dared and saw a small man with glasses, a tiny mustache, and thinning hair. He wore the white attire of a medic and carried two leather bags overfilled with gauze, vials, and other medical supplies. "What is she doing here?" he turned to ask one of the guards.

"She is a traitor. But the Prin-King needs her alive for questioning so you are instructed to fix up her leg." I saw four other men with the original two guards and the medic. The new guards were Losherians and each carried two steaming buckets of water.

"How is the duchess a traitor?" the mousey man asked.

"If you don't shut up I will kill you here and find another medic,” the guard said easily.

"I need some more supplies. The water is good but also a stretcher, table, more light, and someone to bring me other tools from the infirmary." He set down his bags, causing a rat the size of a small dog to scurry around the cell and dash through the bars away from us. The small man let out a shriek and almost jumped into the arms of the guard that had just threatened to kill him. It would have been comical in any other situation, but the Losher soldiers didn't seem to possess a sense of humor, Nanos’s men worried about me dying, and it would have hurt too badly for me to laugh.

"Get to work asshole!" the prince's guard berated the small man, pushing him away from him. The medic stumbled and slammed into me. I let out a grunt and my vision swam. The guards yelled, I felt like I had to vomit, and then everything went dark.

I awoke slowly, my mouth tasted like bile and my body was on fire. I was burnt everywhere but I couldn't stop from shivering.

"It will be okay, Duchess," the mousey man's voice echoed. I realized I lay on a table. A thick sheet covered my naked body. I tried to raise my head, but my strength failed.

"I am stitching up your leg. It is infected, but I already cleaned it. I need to force water into you every half an hour. Sleep for now and I'll wake you soon." I knew it was the medic, but it sounded like he yelled at me from a quarter of a mile away.

"She is strong, but I might have to amputate if the infection doesn't clear. I probably should do it to be on the safe side, but I want to give her two more days to see if she can recover." The voice trailed away. It was foolish, but the thought of losing my leg was more horrifying than my life. I wanted to cry.

"Everything will be okay Naynay,” a voice consoled me from the darkness of my subconscious. It sounded like my father's voice, but I knew that was impossible. He was dead, along with everyone else I ever loved. I would have no one to cry to, no one to love, and no one to miss me.

I was alone in the darkness of my sleep.

“It’s been eight years,” I said to the old man when I walked into his tent. A tiny brazier burned in the middle of the small space, and its intense incense smell climbed up to my nose. The smoke smelled sharply of pine needles and ancient trees.

“And?” he said softly. He looked up from the leather bound book he was scrawling in and regarded me with a look that was part humor. The expression threw me off guard for a second and I wondered what I was going to say next. I was foolish. I should have prepared for this conversation.

“We have been training for too long without attacking a major tribe. We are strong now. I want to conquer one.” I spoke with confidence.

“We have attacked many of their caravan transports, sacked some of the smaller tribes, saved almost three thousand humans in the last eight years, and our ranks have swelled immensely, all because of your leadership,” he said as he bobbed his chin and took a deep breath of the smoky incense. His head had thin streaks of gray hair that fell down past his shoulders like spider webs.

“Yes. I was considering a larger prize, I think we are prepared to attack them directly.”

“Sounds like a good idea. Which tribe will you attack? What will be the intent? Are you going to kill them all, or only free their humans, or perhaps just take equipment from them?” He went back to his book and made careful marks in it. It seemed that he was going to be ignoring my response.

“I hadn’t planned that far, actually.” I felt my insides seethe. Fuck me. I would never make this mistake again. Entas was too smart and I should never come to him without working out the details. I was always thorough when I devised our other raids. Emotion had gotten a hold of me this time. Maybe I wasn't ready.

“Do you know who would be best suited for this mission? Who will go? How are you going to bring everyone? If you leave one of your commanders behind, how will they respond?" He didn’t make eye contact with me as he spoke.

“I will prepare that for you immediately,” I replied as I began to plan which tribe we would attack and our goals.

“You aren’t preparing that for
me,
Kaiyer,” he said suddenly as he stopped writing and looked back to me. “The plan is for you and the O’Baarni. I have already done what I can for you. I taught you this magic, I instructed you in battle strategies, I explained to you what I understand of leadership. I lack the charisma, intelligence, and battle prowess you possess. You are the only person that can lead this army to victory.”

I nodded and was about to speak when he continued.

“Why did you come here to visit with me?”

“I wanted to ask you about the eight years,” I fumbled over my words.

“What about it?” His brows knit together. Entas never got angry, only a deep expression of concentration ever alerted me when he wasn’t pleased.

“I lost track of time. I hadn’t realized that much time passed since you found us.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“It is mine, obviously.” I let out a deep breath and saw him smile slightly.

“So why are you coming to me? Did you want to tell me how happy you are that the skills that took me hundreds of years to learn only took you eight?” His smile got bigger. He was always digging into my answers as if I knew something that I never told him.

“No. I was upset that we had not made a major move against the Elvens yet. I was angry at you, but that is foolish. If I am going to get agitated, I should blame myself for not keeping track of time and preparing.” I smirked. It was almost worse that he never got mad at me

I felt like even more of an idiot.

“So go plan, if you want my opinion of your efforts come back so I can see.” He looked back to his book and scribbled more. This was him dismissing me. I looked over his hunched form and wondered how old my teacher actually was. He often hinted that he had been alive for over two thousand years. Sometimes, when he coughed for what seemed like an hour and spit blood out of his mouth I believed his tale. Other times when he was excited about something, he almost appeared younger than all of us.

"Kaiyer," he said as I turned my back to leave.

"Yes?" He had an unusual expression on his face.

"Do you ever feel as if we have had our conversations before?" He squinted at me and coughed a little.

"There are many lessons you've had to teach me over and over before they could penetrate my thick skull." I laughed at him, but he looked worried. "Why?"

The old man sighed and turned back to his burning incense. Finally, he spoke again.

"I never taught you anything you didn't already know. You were always the teacher." His voice was sad.

He did this sometimes, speaking in riddles that never made sense to me. I used to lie awake at night and try to puzzle through his confusing references to our relationship. He'd given me the permission I thought I needed now, and I would act.

I left the old man’s tent without another word. As I made my way to my own dwelling, the cool night air cleared my mind and eased the anxiety his cryptic words caused.

“Kaiyer!” a voice called from a nearby campsite. I recognized Malek’s tenor, so I walked over to a group of his warriors that gathered around a small cooking fire. I remembered all of them by name and could recall the circumstances that brought each one into our group. Malek sat cross-legged near the flame. His gray-streaked hair was tied back in a ponytail; he was the only one I knew of who had experienced a change in his appearance after being changed.

“Hello my friend,” he said softly as I walked over to his fire.

“Malek,” I said to him in greeting. I turned to his group of five warriors, two women and three men, and nodded to them. “O’Baarni.” They nodded back and smiled nervously.

Malek was the third commander to be promoted under me after Thayer. We rescued him six years ago when our small troop of magically enhanced warriors sacked a caravan, delivering a slave trade between the Elven tribes of Balist and Turring. We only had a small group of warriors at the time and had managed to kill the fifty Elven soldiers who protected the merchandise. Malek had impressed me then. As soon as the attack started, he found himself a sword and butchered a few of the guards himself, an almost impossible task for a human.

“Did you eat yet?” he asked me.

“I had a small meal a few hours ago, but I could eat again,” I responded. His warriors quickly disappeared and within a few seconds gave me a large dish filled with lamb, asparagus, and fruit. I nodded to them and sat down on a small block of wood around the fire. Malek grabbed a plate from one of his lieutenants and moved from the ground to a seat next to me. The food was delicious and dripping with juices. I used to be concerned with the logistics behind feeding the soldiers, but in the past few years Shlara, Alexia, and Gorbanni took over those roles and delegated them down through their own ranks.

“Did you talk to Entas?” he asked around a mouthful of his meal. I noticed that we were now alone by the fire, the only company we had was the full face of the bright green moon. It hung above us so close that I felt as though I might be able to jump up and grab it.