The Destroyer Book 4 (2 page)

“You have to pay for your crime,” Gorbanni said. His eyes were sad. I did not know what they had expected, but my answers had not satisfied them.

“What do you have in mind?” I kept my face neutral and tried to keep sarcasm from my voice.

“We will talk and decide. This hurts us more than you know.” Alexia had always been skilled at keeping her emotions in check, but for a moment her facade slipped and my heart almost wept at the pain in her eyes.

“What more is there to discuss?” They looked between each other and some sort of communication passed that I did not understand.

“Why were you in my home?” Malek had not asked me this question during our previous meetings and I wondered if he understood the power and purpose of the Ovule.

“You would kill me if I told you.” I breathed a sigh.

“Trying to finish the job, eh?” Thayer shook his head, disgust clear on his face. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t need to be.” I gave Thayer a puzzled look.

“I think we have heard enough,” Gorbanni seethed. “We have all agonized about what happened and when this day would finally come. Let us report on what he said and then be done with him.”

Footsteps approached from down the hallway and the four ex-generals suddenly looked nervous.

“Report?” I almost laughed. “Who do you report to? Don’t tell me that you answer to Recatolusti’catri now?”

“Who?” Malek leaned forward but his eyes flickered between my face and door behind me.

“The dragon that escaped.” I had never debriefed them after the final battle.

“Is that the creature’s name? How do you know?” he asked.

“She spoke to me during the battle. Her words were in my head after I killed her mate and offspring,” I admitted.

“How?” Alexia asked. They all looked past my face and I heard their hearts beat faster. They were scared. Almost terrified. What could frighten these four? Malek opened his mouth as if to say something but then he closed it and sighed.

I studied them for a few seconds while the footsteps grew closer and the bar of the metal slid open. The hinges screeched and my nose was assaulted by the sickly sweet scent of rotting flesh. Whoever walked behind me was the source of the odor and it overpowered everyone in the room. Especially Malek, whose skin was now a light shade of green.

An armored hand rested on my right shoulder and I forced my nose to revert to human senses or I might have fainted. I could not turn my head to see who stood behind me but the fingertips of the armor looked like dripping, swirling wax that had been melted into metal. Another hand squeezed my left shoulder and I felt fear.

Fear like I had not felt since the dragons.

“Who are you?” I asked, but I already knew the answer.

I was an idiot. A fool. How could I have led the greatest army this world had ever known and missed something so critical? My friends' endless pursuit of me now made complete sense.

“Hello, Kaiyer,” Shlara whispered.

I screamed as I woke. The terror clung to me. Knowing she had lived somehow increased my anguish and regret. The strong, incredible warrior I had known and loved had not simply died. She had been transformed into a revolting, terrible monster. An angry, grotesque version of her former self, feared by her closest friends. She was not at peace. She was in agony and filled with justifiable rage toward me. It was worse than death.

I was so sure she had died by my Fire. I had seen the fireball scorch her skin, her armor; it had engulfed the beautiful woman in a sticky torch of horror. I heard her death cries. I heard her heart stop. I was haunted by those sounds.

“By the Spirits, man! You just scared the piss out of me!” The voice was familiar but I couldn’t see anything but the melted fists of her green gauntlets clutching at my shoulder.

I lay in a small bed made up of linen sheets covering dried straw. The sheets were wet and stank of my fear. The rest of the room contained a squat dresser, nightstand, and a full bookshelf. Each piece of furniture was crafted of simple oak stained an off-rose color.

“You’ve been unconscious for six days. But you were that way when I found you, so Spirits know what happened to you.” The voice drew my attention back to the doorway of the small, musty room. The man wore a sun-bleached yellow tunic and a pair of cloudy purple breaches. Both were stained with black swirls of ink and hung about him as if they were pinned onto a scarecrow. He had a kind face with sparkling blue eyes and long wisps of gray hair on his chin and head.

“Hello, Janci,” I said to Paug’s grandfather. The sight of the older man put me at ease and I felt my heart slow from a gallop to a canter.

“Good morning, Kaiyer. I am glad to see you alive, although I imagine I will not enjoy the news you bring from the capital.” His face formed a half-smile through the white beard.

“You don’t know?”

“I’ve heard rumors. Some minstrels and travelers have brought words. But their news is always old and the stories are conflicting.”

“Where am I?” I looked down at the bed. I wore a pair of undergarments that I didn’t recognize, but the rest of my body was bare under the sheet.

“You are in my home.” He nodded as if I should have already known the answer.

“I don’t remember getting here. You said I have been unconscious for almost a week?” I smelled salt on the air, and now that I was calmer I heard the sound of the ocean outside of the home.

“Aye. Are you hungry? Might be better to speak over some fish and eggs.”

“Yes, please.” I didn’t feel particularly famished, but I guessed that once I started eating, my appetite would return.

“I’ll grab you a pair of pants and a tunic.” He returned with more ink-stained clothes that may have once been white but were now a shade of bluish gray, probably from washing with said ink stains on the fabric.

Janci left to prepare the meal and I examined my body before donning the garments. Besides the scars I already knew of, I didn’t appear to have any injuries. My legs still seemed to have strength in them; I walked out of the room and into the main living area.

It looked as I would have guessed: a small but accessible kitchen sat behind a long stone counter; a large, white-bricked oven took up one entire wall and warmed the room and the food Janci was preparing. In another corner, a long rickety table was surrounded with mismatched chairs facing a huge sheet of black slate still bearing some faint remnants of information scrawled with chalk. Paug had told me that he and his grandfather helped instruct the local children.

Then there were the books.

Save for the black slate area next to the table, the rest of the walls were covered with shelves laden with books of all sizes, shapes, colors, and ages. To me the arrangement looked haphazard, but I knew a man like Janci would have some method of organization, however illogical.

“I found you on the beach a few miles north of the lighthouse.” He had four gutted fish splayed open on a wood cutting board. They were coated with salt, dill, and slices of lemon. He threw a generous glob of golden butter into a hot pan and it popped and sizzled as it quickly melted into oily translucence. He began to crack some brown eggs into a bowl as he continued, “You were lying naked on the shore like a piece of flotsam. Paug told me you disappeared and everyone thought you were dead. So I was rather surprised to find you.”

“How did you get me back here?” I sat at the counter across from him and put my elbows on the table. I dreaded telling him about Paug, the cowardly part of me wanted to prolong it by staying away from the subject of Nia, but I knew the longer I waited the more difficult the conversation would become. I suspected Janci was avoiding the obvious question for the same reason. As long as it remained unspoken, he could protect that small warm hope he had for his grandson.

“I lashed half a dozen pieces of driftwood together, rolled you onto it, and then dragged you. I’m not a young man, but you don’t weigh much. I walk for a few hours every morning before the rest of the village wakes. Paug made me pick up the habit. I suspected it was so he could make himself extra breakfast, but I ended up enjoying the activity. One shouldn’t spend too much time alone with his books. Tea?” I nodded and he pinched leaves into a mug. Then he poured water from a steaming kettle into it before placing it down on the counter.

“Isn’t your home fairly far from the capital?”

“Aye. About two weeks’ journey by horse.” He set to whisking the eggs.

“How did I make it to the beach?” I tried to remember riding here from the castle but recalled nothing. The process frustrated me, so I took a sip of tea. It was bright and grassy, with a refreshing acidic tang that helped wake me up.

“Nia was attacked one night. The princess was kidnapped and then the soldiers said you were killed,” he said the words over his back as he poured the whipped eggs into the pan. “Obviously, the account of your death was greatly exaggerated.” He turned his head and winked at me.

“Yes. I chased after one of the Elvens. The people you called the Ancients.”

“I recall you mentioning that you thought of them as Elvens.” Janci nodded and began to slice up the fish.

“It was an ambush, I fought many through the city streets. I managed to defeat them but I saw several kidnap Jessmei. I chased after them and freed her before they made it too far north. Then a storm came and we holed up in a cave. Eventually, we found our way to a farming village and heard word that Nia had been attacked and taken by the Elvens. Rumors were that Jessmei’s family was dead.” Paug’s grandfather nodded and squeezed the lemon slices onto the fish before putting them in the pan with the eggs.

“I left Jessmei in the village and then I traveled back to the castle to see what had transpired.” I found my memory returning as the story unfolded.

“The capital had been invaded and the Elvens controlled it. In the city I met Greykin and he suspected that what was left of the royal family was imprisoned in the castle. I joined him and we used the catacombs and sewers under the city to reach the underside of the dungeons."

“The catacombs? There are tales of that place. Apparently it is incredibly vast and inhabited by horrible creatures. Some of my books say that there was once a city there and that Castle Nia was built on top of it.” Janci had forgotten about the eggs during my story and he quickly turned back to flip them.

“There were creatures there. Greykin called them wurms.”

“Wurms!” The old man gasped. “What did they look like?”

“Ugly, smelly snakes. Bigger than three horses in a line. They had beaks like birds that opened with three hinges. Many of Greykin’s men died.”

“That is unfortunate. After breakfast I will have to write the account in more specifics and perhaps make a few drawings, with your help. There are no scientific records of wurms, only fables and myths.” He produced a plate and put the large fish omelet in front of me. “I already ate breakfast. As I recall, you can eat plenty.”

“Yes.” I took the first scalding bite and allowed it to cool in my mouth before I swallowed. “This is delicious. Thank you.”

“You are more than welcome. Please continue with your account.” He began to scrub the counter and knives with a bar of soap and bristle brush. The question of Paug still lingered, unasked and unanswered, but I saw it in Janci’s eyes each time I paused in my story. I wondered if he already knew somehow. Jessmei would have believed this, that Paug’s Spirit could somehow communicate with the old man. I had always been dismissive of religion, but as more of my past unfolded, I was starting to believe that nearly anything was possible.

“I was separated from the rest of the men and made it to the castle. I found Greykin and the duke working in the servants’ quarters. Beltor believed that Nadea lived and seemed convinced that Nanos knew where she was. The prince was under constant guard but had been allowed freedom to move through the castle. We tried to communicate with him, but he was discovered.”

“What of Paug?” he finally asked. I could see the anguish plain in his eyes now. He had waited patiently as I recounted all the other details of the siege and rescue.

I had done this many times. We had lost countless men and women during our struggle for freedom, and while our kind never married, a dead soldier’s parents and offspring were always notified. Eventually, my generals took over this task within their own armies.