The Destroyer Book 4 (22 page)

I continued to study the boat. Behind me I heard Shlara sip her tea and cut herself more boar meat. The vessel crested a final wave and disappeared over the horizon. The sun was low in the sky and the water reflected its orange light.

“Are we spending the night out here?” Shlara asked.

“I was thinking about it.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks reddened against the twilight and she glanced back to the fire nervously. It reminded me of the time she first came to my tent to introduce herself a year and a half ago.

“I spend time with all of my commanders. I haven’t had the opportunity to talk with you much outside of our daily tasks. This will give us a chance for us to become better friends.”

“I would like that.” She smiled and pulled her hair back from one side of her head to expose her neck to me. Her hands stayed on the long dark brown locks and absently stroked them.

“Me too. Thayer and I have known each other for what feels like an eternity. We escaped our tribe together. I have known Alexia almost as long. Shortly after Thayer and I formed the army with Entas, we were scouting and found her being attacked by Elvens.”

“I’ve never heard about that from her. She is quiet about her past. I asked your other commanders about you, but they didn’t tell me much. I put the pieces together. They were raping her?” I nodded, grateful she had changed the subject quickly back to Alexia. My other commanders did not tell her much about me because they knew little about my life as a slave. Even Thayer and I had not known each other until we were forced together in the Elven army. I never spoke of my family or Iolarathe. “That happened in our tribe often, fortunately, my family was placed in the fields working the farm and I had very little interaction with the main estate.”

“Farming is physically demanding. It must have been difficult.” Shlara had joined our army after leading a few hundred of her people across the wilderness in search of us. They were all starving and would have only lasted a few more weeks had she not found us when she did. As thin as she had been, she did not have the hardened look of someone who had borne hundreds of hours of hard labor outdoors.

“I was more involved with the animals of the tribe. We would use pigs, goats, and sheep to prepare the land for planting. It helps reduce human labor and increase food production.”

Thayer and I used to handle the logistics of food production for the army. Alexia took over and, along with Gorbanni, had managed to feed the army for many years. Shlara’s methods had helped us immensely and we almost never needed to worry about feeding the army now.

“Of course,” she continued, “it makes it harder when we are always on the move. If we could stay in one place for a few years, we could feed an army twenty times our size.”

“You and Alexia will have to figure out a way. I plan on the army being one hundred times larger than it is now. But we must keep moving. It protects us from discovery and helps us stage more successful attacks.”

“I can just see it,” she laughed. “It will be a logistical nightmare. You might as well promote me now to General of the Latrines.”

“I like that title,” I laughed with her. “Instead of dragons on your armor we'll etch mushrooms and your reports will carry rakes and shovels instead of spears.”

“Ugh!” she moaned. “Our helmets will come with perfumed scarves to wrap around our noses and the boots will be more like galoshes.”

“It will be hard to recruit people, but easy to train them,” I said and our laughter echoed into the night.

“Speaking of shit and latrines,” she wiped a tear of laughter from her eye, “I’ve designed a new outhouse. It should help us turn the waste into compost quicker. I left the designs back at the camp, but I can tell you about it now if you wish.”

“Sure,” I agreed and we spent the next hour going over her idea. It seemed promising, so I gave her permission to borrow carpenters and build a few outhouses.

“Despite the amount of time we devoted to discussing shit, this has been a fun night,” she said at last when the conversation had slowly turned to discussing the lay of the night sky. “I was nervous when you asked me to come with you.”

I grunted and sipped my tea. Spiced wine would have gone better with the boar and I wished I had brought some. Then again, Entas swore pine needle tea was the source all of his power.

“Tomorrow morning, we’ll head back. We’ll try to do this every couple of months. I have a strong friendship with the rest of my commanders and I want the same with you.”

“Is a friendship all you want from me?” Her voice was soft. Not a whisper, but not much more.

“That and dedication. The same traits you and I discussed when you first came to the camp.” I looked past the fire to her and saw her green eyes aglow with the orange light. Her heart was beating quickly.

“I am grateful to be your commander and serve in the army. I had my doubts about being promoted, especially after the thrashing you gave my team last year.”

“You are cocky.”

“So are you,” she replied back with a smile.

“You have proven yourself to me, Shlara. Continue to do so and your desire to be my best general will be fulfilled.” I looked away from her eyes and back into the fire.

“What if I have other desires?” Her voice was husky. I knew what she hinted at; Shlara had not outright admitted her feelings for me, but had done more than hint at them several times. It was part of the reason I had hesitated to spend time alone with her. I didn’t want to give her the wrong idea. Entas had disagreed and my mentor had encouraged me to treat her as I did my other commanders.

“Everything will come to us after the Elvens are destroyed,” I said plainly. I did not meet her gaze.

“I expected that answer,” she sighed. “Unless there is something else you wish to do tonight, we should get some sleep. The sooner I help you destroy the Elvens, the better.” She lay her bedroll down between mine and the fire. For a second, I debated telling her to move it a bit farther away, perhaps to the other side of the campfire, but then I decided against it.

“Agreed.” I curled up on the mat next to her and listened to the ocean’s lullaby for a few minutes before sleep took me into darkness.

The sound of the ocean woke me from my slumber. I rolled toward the campfire and sighed. I doubted Shlara would mind if I took a few extra minutes of sleep before we broke our fast and journeyed back to the army. Despite the full night’s rest, I was exhausted. My bedroll felt like a solid piece of marble.

“
Your habits remain as I recall.”

The voices echoed in my head. I jumped to my feet and realized that I was not on the cliff overlook camping with Shlara. Instead, I lay at the feet of the dragon statue on the dais. What I had thought was the campfire was the eerie blue light of the braziers. The sound of the ocean from my dream was the flow of water that crashed into the pool from the dragon statue’s mouth.

There was no movement from the stone dragon, or any sound from the rest of the caravan where I suspected the thousands of lizard-spider creatures waited for me. I turned up to the eyes of the statue and pondered whether the voice had actually come from it.

“How long have I been asleep?” I asked cautiously. My words hung in the air and then were lost in the sound of the falling water.

“How do I explain time to you? You have been asleep for eternity.”

They were whispers in my head, each voice spoke at a different tempo, creating a disorienting echo. My brain started to hurt.

“What are you?”

“You recall so little. It is disappointing, but foreseen. Name me now and I will carry that title until you forget me again.”

“I don’t understand.” The voices felt as if they came from the statue, but I didn’t really hear them. They just slammed into my brain like a punch from the back of my head.

“You do not want to understand. Maybe you wish not to.”

“Mulakanna’teall.” The word escaped my mouth as I exhaled.

“Yesssssss!”
the voices hissed and purred with pleasure.
“You have not forgotten your servant.”

“How are you my servant? How do I know your name?” There was still no movement from the statue, but I expected it to come alive at any second and attempt to destroy me.

“I followed your instructions. None of your enemies have come before you. Not the O’Baarni, their servants, or my traitorous siblings.”

“Why would the O’Baarni come here before me? Who are their servants?”

“You asked me to guard this world from them. Then half an eternity passed. I wondered if you forgot about your servant. Anger came. Anger left. Fear came. Silence came. My bones returned to this world. Only my dreams are here. They know more than I did.”

“What do your dreams know?” Nothing these voices said made any sense to me and I wondered why I had even bothered to ask it another question.

“They know why you never relieved me of my task. They know why you have finally come to this world. The reconciliation is close at hand.”

“Reconciliation?” Pain shot through my head again.

“Mistakes will be accounted for. The beings will be set free or damned.”

“Whose mistakes? Beings? I don’t understand.”

“She knows you are in this form. Now she sends her minions after you. They will take the Ovule to her and all will be lost.”

“They don’t want to take the Ovule from me. They offered me one to leave this world.” Vernine had tried to give me the leather backpack which contained the Ovule.

“You struggle to forget, while my dream fades. I wish I could tell you more, but once I am gone, the creatures will return for your flesh and then she will be victorious. Leave this place. Protect the Ovule.”

“How do I leave?”

“You created life with Water. My dream fades now. Farewell, Master. Remember me as your greatest servant, for I was the last of my kind,”
the voices whispered in my ear, as soft as Jessmei when we lay in the cave those many months ago.

The blue light faded from the sapphire gems in the statue’s eyes. Their intensity was mirrored by the magical torches that sat upon the dais. Their light also began to fade and along with it, the distant rasps of the lizard creatures rose.

Fuck.

The light extinguished suddenly, and I was plunged into absolute blackness. The screams of the creatures echoed through the cavern like trumpets. I could hear the ocean sound of their claws scraping off the walls as they ran toward me. The noise blended with the roar of the waterfall flowing from the effigy’s mouth.

The sound of the pool made me consider what Mulakanna’teall said of water. It must be draining somewhere, or it would have overflowed.

The approaching monsters made my heart race in my chest. If this did not work, I would die. Fuck, even if the pool did have a drain, there was no telling if I could hold my breath long enough to make it to wherever it ended. I had escaped the Elvens before using the dark river beneath Castle Nia. I could hold my breath for upwards of ten minutes, but there was no surer way to kill an O’Baarni or Elven than drowning. Lack of air cut off the functioning of our brain rendering us unable to heal. This was why both our races feared the ocean.

The lizard-spiders grew closer. I could not stay here. The water was a dangerous choice, but it still gave me a chance. I took a few deep breaths, then dove into the pool at the dragon’s feet.

The water was cold. For a precious second I froze in shock and almost lost the air in my lungs. I pushed through and swam toward the bottom of the pool. There was a strong current and I felt some of the stress of my choice leave my mind. I found the tunnel at the bottom of the pool. I couldn’t see anything through the darkness, but the current was strong and I let it carry me downward in its embrace.

I could hear nothing but the sound of my heart hammering in my chest and the pulling swish of the water. I reached out my hands and felt the sides of a smooth tunnel. It was probably four feet in diameter, wide enough for me not to worry about getting caught and trapped.

I counted.

The water grew colder. My blood felt like ice. I remembered sitting under the waters of the river while I waited for Jessmei’s three Elven captors to ford it. These waters were even colder. Numbness filled me everywhere and I pulled more Earth into my body in an effort to warm myself with magic.