The Destroyer Book 3 (11 page)

I was floating in darkness.

Someone said my name, but I ignored it. I was safe here. Alone. I had no worries. No cares.

No guilt.

The voice was insistent. I felt a hand rub my cheek. Then I heard my name being called again.

I opened my eyes and saw her.

"Iolarathe?" She knelt over me, blocking out the moonlight and encasing her face in shadows.

I had found her.

Or more appropriately: she had just found and saved me.

"Soldier. Are you okay?" I gasped when the man's words yanked me from my reverie. I looked around fearfully and couldn't remember where I stood or what I was doing.

"You look sick, boy. Maybe you should sit down. Or eat something. Maybe you should eat something while sitting down." My stomach flopped when I remembered that I was in Nadea's camp.

"I am fine. What were you saying?" I tried to relax but I couldn't. My brain had scattered like horses in a thunderstorm. The last time I had a memory that violent, I destroyed the East Wing of Castle Nia. I was surprised and relieved that the men and women around me were unharmed.

"I said: 'What's your name, soldier?' I have to write it on the log in order for you to take possession of this here gear." The man was older, leathery, and had a smile missing a tooth from the bottom front array. His face reminded me of the trader's from my memory and it must have been what triggered the sudden recollection. He was the quartermaster of Nadea's army. He pointed to a small pack and five-foot spear that he retrieved from the back of the large tent.

"Kaiyer is my name."

"What unit and commander?" He wrote in a thick log book. I hesitated for a few moments and he looked up from his writing.

"I am unsure."

"I don't have all day, son. Help me out here. Who do you report to?" He sighed and wiped the sweat off of his oily brow. His hair thinned at the top and it scattered the few strands across his forehead where they stuck like ivy on a wall. He had a slight accent that I was unfamiliar with, but that wasn't surprising since I had only learned the language around a year ago.

"I don't really report to anyone. I think it would be Nadea."

"Sure you do, son. Every boy wants to report to the duchess. I'm about ready to throw you out of here if you don't stop wasting my time." Annoyance coated his voice. A few other soldiers stood in the tent waiting to procure equipment and they chuckled at the quartermaster's words.

"Just write my name on the ledger and give me the equipment. Are you sure you don't have any sort of bow?" I remembered him saying that they were all out of scout kits and only had infantry ones. A few other soldiers entered the tent behind me but I didn't turn to look at them.

"No, I don't have a fucking bow." The man raised his voice to a shout. "And I'm not going to give you anything unless your fucking commander rides his horse in here and threatens to cut off my head and feed it to the Ancients, you fucking asshole!" The man's face turned red and a vein popped out on top of his balding forehead.

"That is enough," a man called out from behind me. I recognized the voice, but the rest of the men in the room turned around quickly and saluted.

"Sorry, sir." The quartermaster grimaced in pain.

"I am surprised you did not recognize this man's name. Or did you not pay attention?" Danor stepped next to me. I had never asked his rank during our escapades into the sewers of castle Nia, but it appeared he carried some clout.

"I am sorry, sir," the quartermaster said again with fear.

"Give Kaiyer what he needs," Danor said with a sigh. The older man nodded before he passed the spear and pack over the wooden table that separated his workspace from the rest of the tent.

"I still don't have a bow, sir. My apologies."

"I'll find him one." Danor turned to me. His mustachio was a bit longer than I remembered and there were streaks of gray in it. "Join me for dinner?"

"Of course." I smiled at him and threw the pack over my shoulder. I nodded to the quartermaster and walked out of the tent. The other soldiers parted to let us pass.

I followed him for a few steps outside the logistics tent before he turned to face me and gave me a light punch on the shoulder.

"Where have you been? I haven't seen you around the camp in the last few weeks. I even checked your tent a few times." His face transformed and he gave me a crooked smirk.

"I've been watching over Nadea." He nodded and then pointed toward the mess pavilion and we continued to walk beside each other.

"Rumor is that she has recovered." He raised an eyebrow at me.

"Yes." I couldn't help my smile.

"Excellent! Our duchess is too stubborn to die." He laughed and then gestured at the opening to the mess tent a few hundred yards up the face of the twisty gorge wall. "They are serving tasteless gruel mixed with two-week-old, half-rotten venison. If you don't get heartburn, you'll probably vomit." He smiled knowingly at me. "But I have something to wash it down with." He pulled a bottle from a pouch on his belt. Dark amber liquid swirled inside the thick glass.

"Sounds good to me," I said.

We hiked our way up the side of the gorge and then climbed up a series of sturdy ladders to reach the mess pavilion. Inside were benches for about thirty people and most of them were occupied. A few men and women looked up to see who had entered, but no one saluted. There was a line at the back of the tent where cooks scooped the gray and green slop into bowls for those waiting. The room reeked of sweat and the starchy warm smell of the gruel, which did little to mask the rancid stink of the meat.

Danor and I didn't speak until we had sat down with our food. The cooks had divvied out a small scoop of the oatmeal and venison mixture along with a slightly larger scoop of what possibly had been spinach but was now steamed beyond recognition.

"Beats hard rations. At least it is warm and wet." Danor fished out the bottle of alcohol and took a short sip before passing it to me. A few of the other soldiers at the table shot him a sidelong glance and then looked down at their food. The fluid was a rice and rye mixture. It tasted pleasantly sweet with enough bitter heat at the end to remind my tongue of the alcohol.

"Perhaps I should have been harder on the quartermaster." Danor took another bite and grimaced. The food tasted horrible, but the drink washed it down in a fiery inferno. "Wasn't much point though. No use getting people more excited or upset than they already are."

"I agree. I wasn't going to make a fuss. I figured I could live off of the land without any weapons. I've done so before." The memory of running across the Salt Desert entered my mind.

"Why would you need to live off of the land?" Danor passed me back the bottle after he took a swig. We sat shoulder to shoulder with other soldiers, but there was enough whispered talk at the table to keep our conversation private.

"I will be heading north."

"That seems like a terrible idea." Danor shook his head and then choked on a bite of steamed green mash.

"Safer than eating this food I think," I said with a smile that he returned.

"Fair enough. I figure you have your reasons for doing something crazy like taking on the empress's army alone." He frowned for a second and then suddenly seemed to remember something. "Hey, I never thanked you for saving my life a few months ago when we ran through the dungeons."

"It was nothing, friend," I said with a shrug.

"No. It was something. I have never been so terrified. I thought I would die down there half a dozen times and I would have if not for you. You also helped us get out of the castle with Nadea. I didn't see you kill the Ancients the night of the banquet, but I heard the stories about you." He nodded and I noticed that some of the surrounding soldiers had stopped talking and listened to what Danor said.

"You were the one that found me running lost through the halls with Nadea over my shoulder. I think I would still be there if you and Runir hadn't led me out." I took another bite and realized that the gruel was actually starting to taste better. The mixture was probably annihilating my taste buds past the point where I might heal them.

"Well, as a reward, you can have the rest of my grub. If you can figure out how to get those wurms out of my nightmares, I'll even offer you a bonus plate." Danor chuckled and pushed his tray away half-eaten. I laughed with him but didn't take him up on the offer. After another minute I pushed back my own tray and washed the scum in my mouth out with the rest of the liquid from his bottle.

"Looks like I finished it."

"Eh. It isn't mine. I stole it from Greykin. He was sleeping in Jessmei's room during our mission and had a stash there. He'll get angry at you for drinking all of it." The mustached man smiled again and made a half-serious attempt at a salute.

"I'll have to make it up to him." I hoped the Old Bear was still alive.

"Some of the other officers play a few games of Gamble every night. If you want to come join us, we might have a few bottles of wine." Danor got out of his seat and grabbed his dirty tray, gesturing for me to follow. We set them in a bin on our way out.

"Thank you for the offer, but I have a few tasks to attend to before I leave." He nodded and then turned around to survey the camp. The angle of the late day sun created deep shadows that clothed the sides of the cliff walls in dark purple.

"I hate long good byes. I'll have someone swing by your tent and drop off a bow."

"Thank you," I said gratefully.

"Be safe, Kaiyer. I'd like to eat some real food with you someday." He turned to me, held his hand out, and smiled when I grasped his palm.

"I'd enjoy that, Danor. Be safe as well." He nodded and walked away without another word. I stared at his back for a few moments and realized that I had more friends in this life than I thought I did.

Runir had procured a tiny tent for me about five hundred yards north of Nadea's. It had enough room for a small cot, a chest, and a chair. The top of the chest closed flat and could double as a desk of sorts. Runir told me that they had several backup stores of supplies concealed across the nation of Nia just in case a traveling unit might need to re-stock. They probably never imagined that they would have to support an army of a few thousand with these caches.

I laid my new pack on the top of the chest and inspected the spear for a minute. It wasn't a piece of artwork, but the leaf-shaped blade would be sufficient. Inside the bag were about two weeks’ worth of food that would keep well: flat bread, dried beans, a bag of salt, and a small leather skin of lime juice. I'd be able to kill what I needed out in the forest and my enemies would have food I could plunder from their corpses. The pack also contained three water skins, a hatchet, knife, wax tinder, a few sheets of oiled canvas for tent making, and a bedroll. By the time I finished inspecting all the equipment, the sun had set and the campsite was encased in darkness.

Night was treacherous in Fisherman's Gorge. We couldn't light torches on the upper levels for fear of the camp being discovered, so the soldiers moved their training and meals down to the cramped space next to the creek. Lantern bearers stationed themselves at pivotal points on the walkways to give brief flashes of illumination to guide people across the narrow cliffs. I could see in almost absolute darkness, so the lack of light didn't bother me, but I imagined that most of the warriors just stayed in their tents at night.

"Kaiyer?" Nadea's voice called softly from outside. I had heard footsteps approach, but my tent sat by a major stairway and there were always footprints moving past me.

"Enter," I said as I set my pack on top of the chest.

She wore a hooded cloak and carried a short bow and quiver in her arms.

"Knight Captain Danor left this with my guards for me to bring to you." She shook her head and the hood fell back away from her hair. There was an inkling of the twin moon's glow. It came through my tent and gave a sheen to her smooth brown hair.

"Thank you." I took the weapon from her and inspected its condition. The pull was set much too light, even for a normal human, but I'd make it work. While I looked at the bow she took off her cloak, laid it over the back of my only chair, and then sat down with her legs crossed.

"What is a knight captain?" I asked her after I finished.