The Destroyer Book 4 (26 page)

I did not know how much Bur’tilon knew of the human army, but as Zaarmo’s son, he must have already had some inkling of what was going on there.

The big Elven nodded at my order and I turned away from Kaiyer before I could see my lover’s reaction. I had purposely kept my distance from the proceedings of the human army, so I knew little of what would be in store for Kaiyer. I did know that he would be safer there than in my company. Perhaps the training or a battle would kill him, but it was a probability rather than an absolute.

I’m sorry Kaiyer.

I walked up the hill and tried to control the scent of my emotions, the wind picked up slightly and I felt it whip my long hair around over my shoulder. It scattered my grief across the grasslands. The memory of the human would fade in time. I was foolish to make love to him. I would accept this failure, learn from it, and not make the same mistake again.

“That was ghastly.” My father shook his head and glared at me once I reached the top of the hill. The other males were already walking toward the mansion. Perhaps they would be too afraid to spend any more time with me today and I could just sit in a bath.

“You wanted it to be convincing.” I tried not to spat the words at him.

“I appreciate your commitment to this tribe.” His words came across as an apology and caught me off guard.

“I don’t forget my promises. I trust you won’t either.”

“Of course not.” I nodded to him and tasted the scent of avocados on his words.

“Where is Bur’tilon taking that human?” He turned his eyes down the hill.

“To your barracks. Every extra human will help us achieve our goals.”

“Excellent. Dluuzit always needs more humans. Apparently, they keep dying during the process of infusing our magic into their bodies.”

“Is the process complicated? How many survive?” I tried to keep my voice and scent calm to maintain the façade of my indifference.

“Only one in every six or so survive the change. Of those, only one in three keeps his sanity. They have a difficult time tolerating the pain.”

“I see.” My vision swam and my stomach knotted. I struggled to keep my scent in check. Thankfully, I was standing downwind of my father.

“Vertarus has been working tirelessly to improve the process. You said previously that you did not wish to know any of the details, but perhaps you should spend some time with him. He has not been able to court you appropriately because of this work. I would consider it a favor to me.” He smiled and gestured back toward the manor.

“I will arrange a dinner with him. I will need a new smith and stable crew. Elven this time, I seem to have poor luck with humans.”

“Anything for my daughter the Singleborn.” He smiled widely while he opened the front door for me.

Darkness and light.

Darkness and light.

Darkness and light.

A sliver of the latter came through the tent and cut through the former. I moved my hand through it and watched the waves part at my command. I marveled at the detail of the skin on my knuckles, the flakes of dust in the air, and the scent of grass that accompanied the illumination from outside my prison. The light was wonderful and soothing. Like her skin.

The screams of the other humans were made in the darkness. They cried against the pain, yelled for help, and beat futilely on the bars that held their bodies down, crouched and trapped. At first I wanted to help them, to free them from their confinements and comfort them somehow. I knew their pain. I felt it in my own body. I had endured this pain and their screams for weeks now.

They were so loud. Each cry sounded as if it originated right next to my ear, piercing my ear drum and shattering my brain with reverberating waves of pain. My own heart thundered in my chest. The movements of the other prisoners created a collage of sound that resembled the wind ripping through thousands of blades of grass, magnified thousands of times.

My hands were bruised from clawing at the bars. As blue as Leotol’s face after she strangled him. My fingers were bloody from scratching against the wood floor of my cage. Red like her hair. Red like my father’s blood. I had done my best to please her. I loved her so much.

When the night descended outside my cell, when the darkness was absolute, I spent the long hours examining the bars of my cage. Each piece of metal felt different, pitted and dented in its own individual pattern. I taught myself to identify each bar by its unique feel against the tips of my blood-crusted fingers. This little game kept my mind off of the overwhelming scents and sounds that surrounded me. It distracted me from the burning fire-itch that spread through my body. It kept me from going insane.

The manacles were gone now. They had chained me, forced me face down onto a table, and then it was all just pain and agony. It burned through my spine and brain like molten iron straight from the forge was being jammed into each vertebra.

Now everything was raw, terrible, and loud. Color and light seared my eyes, too vivid to comprehend. The taste in my mouth and the smells in my nose were overpowering, my senses too acute and overwhelmed with new sensations.

I didn’t know how much time had passed. The scorching pain had moved throughout my entire body, over every inch of my skin as if it had been burned. I could do little more than crouch in my cage or lie in a fetal position. The Elvens did not let me out to shit or piss. My legs were covered in filth and the scent of it filled my nose with each breath. This was the least offensive smell. I was surrounded by the excrement and fear of all the other humans trapped with me. Their bodies reeked, their skin thick with their own waste, their blood, vomit, and rage. Those who died were not promptly removed and the reek of decay overpowered all the others.

Hundreds of cages surrounded me.

Each one imprisoned a screaming human covered in shit.

I wanted to scream with them, to drown their agony with my own. But if I started screaming, I would never stop.

It was the path to madness.

They were all screaming.

The Elvens walked between our cages in the darkness. They asked the humans questions. Most could not answer. They growled. They bashed their heads against the bars, screeching like crazed animals. They gnashed their teeth wildly at their captors. They were swiftly killed.

Soon they would come for me. They would ask me why I imagined I was worthy of her. They would torture me. The thought of further agony cascaded through the darkness of my thoughts and made me want to bang my head on the bars like the other humans. Maybe I could kill myself somehow before they came for me. End my suffering now.

There was too much of everything. Too much insanity.

I could not die like this. I owed my father and brother that much. I owed them vengeance. I would survive. The Elvens had taken a live human out with them once. If someone else had survived, I could. I could pretend I was more than the animal they believed me to be. They would release me from this cage and I would have revenge. I would kill them all.

Especially her.

The thought of her name brought her face to my mind and I had to grab the bars to keep from crying. I felt her kiss my face and lips; I smelled her blood-red hair as it wrapped around me. I heard her voice whisper in my ear.

I remembered her strangling my brother. I heard her command them to kill my father.

Why didn’t she kill me?

My legs started to cramp and I moved from my crouched position on my right side. I forgot about the corner of my cell where I had been defecating and accidently sunk my left foot into the mess. A fresh scent of shit hit my nose. I grunted in surprise and then moved my foot to the other corner. Anger filled my stomach again and I worked for a few minutes to release it. I was already covered in shit, a little more wouldn’t matter. I couldn’t lose my mind now.

Water.

I was so thirsty. I should have tried to drink my piss, but that opportunity had passed. My throat felt like it was nothing but one crusted scab. A cup of water would help me think. It would cool me. I wanted it. I needed it almost as much as I needed to wrap my arms around Iolarathe and make love to her one last time. I shook my head in frustration. I wanted to strangle her. I wanted revenge.

I could never kill her. Elvens were so strong, and she was the strongest among them. They all feared her. I did not know how to fight. I had never killed anyone. All I knew how to do was care for horses and pleasure her.

Water. I needed water. My thirst burned dark red and scratched over my entire body. I burned with fever but there was not enough water left to make sweat. I was nothing but dust and pain.

The flap of the tent opened like a lightning strike and half of the tortured humans began to scream louder. It was a crescendo of agony and the brief increase of light allowed me to see that I wasn’t in a mere tent, but a large pavilion that stretched hundreds of yards in each direction. The flap closed and the screams grew louder at the depressing absence of light.

Three Elvens walked through the rows of cages. They moved to my left and I heard them head deep into the darkness of the tent before the cries of my fellow prisoners drowned out the sound of their thunderous footfalls.

Maybe they would walk by my cage and I could ask them for some water. Or some food. Or maybe a bath. I laughed at the last thought. The only request they would grant would be my death. I would welcome an end to this pain.

Minutes passed. Hours passed. The Elvens grew closer. The screams of the humans grew louder wherever they went. The noise slammed into my ears and rang in my head like I had my ear pressed against my father’s anvil. They continued through the tent, but there was too much noise for me to comprehend what they said.

They approached my cage. I would try to reach out my hand to get their attention and beg for water. That was all I wanted.

“Subject B, five, six, seven. Has been in confinement for,” the voice paused above me and the male Elven leaned over my cage. He held a lantern in his hand and there was a brief flash of light while he read something scrawled on the top of my cage. “Thirty seven days.” The light burned my eyes and I had to cover part of my face and clench my teeth together to keep from moaning.

“That can’t be correct,” another voice said.

“That is the date here.”

“Are you both fucking idiots? I want them checked every twenty days. Do you understand? Twenty fucking days. By the Dead Gods, we are losing them quick enough as it is. I can’t afford for you two to forget about one and leave it to die here.”

The other Elvens apologized and I smelled the fear in their voices, tasted it in their bodies, and saw it in the dim glow of the lamp. I tried to get my mouth to form the words for water but nothing came out.

“You buffoons are making my job difficult. If you weren’t my cousins I’d kill you right now.” The voice stopped and the other two shuffled their feet anxiously.

I was so tired; trying to talk was taking too much energy. Damn it. I needed water. My throat burned like white coals. Thousands of daggers were stuck in my spine. My ear drums wanted to bleed. My eyes struggled to stay open. If I closed them now they might stay that way forever. This might be my last chance to make the request.

“Alright.” The Elven in charge sighed, “Don’t let this happen again. You might as well kill this one, the insanity has no doubt claimed it by now. We can use the cage for the next subject. Start making your rounds every day. Inspect the date on every cage.”

I heard the sword draw from a sheath. It sounded like a song, beautiful, short, pure, and full of the promise of release. I realized that my eyes had actually closed and I somehow managed to pry them open and look up at my executioner. The back of the blade caught the sliver of light from the crack in the tent flap and bounced it off of the walls like a mirror.

“Water.” The words suddenly emerged from my mouth. They echoed around in my own skull.

“Wait. Did it just speak?” The figure in the middle held out his hand to stop the swordsman to his left.

“I don’t know. I can’t hear anything over this racket,” the other one said.

“You dumb fuck. Your job is to ask them questions and listen to their responses.” The center figure stepped toward my cage and bent down slightly. His sharp Elven face was pale and vicious.