The Destroyer Book 4 (31 page)

“The painting should be enough reward for the victor of our contest.” He nodded at me and I felt my stomach clench.

I had always thought of Grednil as a fool, a useful tool to be manipulated because of his loyalty to me, but feelings of affection never entered my mind when I thought of the man. His words made me realize how wrong I had been about my half-brother. He always did his best to protect me, even though he probably sensed that I cared little for him. Loyalty was perhaps more important than any other quality, and in the past I had judged my poor brother too harshly.

“Nonsense.” Yerryne’s words cut off Grednil’s next phrase. “If anything, the Singleborn needs a night of pleasure. She has been so aloof for many months. We owe her the enjoyment just as much as she owes it to us.”

“The gift of my bed for the night is not appropriate.” I should have prepared for this moment with Yerryne, but I had never imagined she would approach from this angle.

“Then perhaps you should just dismiss us all! We have waited patiently for over three years. Then you avoid us all for months. Are we wasting our time?” She crossed her arms and the hint of cinnamon touched her scent, indicating the sincerity of her outrage.

Silence hung in the air after her words and the small crowd turned to face me. I breathed in to inhale their mixture of lust, anticipation, fear, and anger. I needed to continue this charade with the suitors until the army was ready. Yerryne’s strategy eluded me. She was Elder Gnella’s daughter and must have realized that sprinting toward the resolution of my courtship would only put the entire tribe in danger.

Unless this was a play directed by Gnella.

I thought briefly about the older woman and wondered at her motivation. She had always been kind to me on the surface and hinted that I could trust her. From what I observed, she spent a great deal of effort making sure she was not involved in any of the power plays that seemed to hamper the other elders. Relyara had no spies watching the woman since we never thought her a threat.

I would have to worry about that possibility at a later time. Yerryne’s challenge seemed straightforward, and she probably was not expecting me to agree. What would be the harm in accepting the proposal? Perhaps one of my suitors would die, but that often happened in arrangements such as this. We would send our apologies to the tribe and then ask them for a replacement. Even if one of Laxile’s perished at the claws of a carrion beast, it would not be overwhelmingly tragic. I would blame the situation on Yerryne and could turn her game back in my favor.

The worst possible outcome of this was that I would have to fuck one of these morons. I would not be impregnated, so it would not end my courtship with the other suitors. I would prefer a female to win, and if it was Yerryne, that would make things more interesting. The woman was gorgeous, but I did not trust or particularly like her. That would add spice to the sex.

“You are right Yerryne.” The woman’s cold black eyes seemed surprised at my words. “I have been away from the group far too long, and I would enjoy some comfort in my bed. Tonight I have plans, and you mentioned earlier that you already have a hunting spot chosen. That seems an unfair advantage over the others. Let us schedule the hunt for two weeks from tonight. That will give everyone time to prepare.” Yerryne’s scent soured slightly when she realized I had used her own words to delay her game.

“My brother will not participate, and I also believe we should leave Daranyet out of the game because of her condition.”

“I will participate, Singleborn.” Her blue eyes sparked with anger. “Ubarwa females never decline a challenge. I am a skilled hunter and my condition will not slow me.”

“Very well then. My brother will judge the event.” I turned to him and nodded. “He’ll spend the next few days thinking of the rules and will inspect the corpse, if one is brought down.” The gathered men and women nodded. Relyara motioned to me from behind the group.

“Lunch has been laid out inside. Let us dine together.” I pointed back into my suite and the gathered Elvens moved inward. Vertarus was the last to leave the veranda and I clasped his shoulder and brought my mouth to his ear.

“I still wish to see your humans. Let us do so after lunch and plan a trip before this little game in two weeks,” I whispered softly enough to keep the others from hearing.

“Of course!” he nodded eagerly and whispered back before we walked inside.

If Kaiyer was alive I wouldn’t have to worry about this ridiculous challenge. Vertarus and I would take Kaiyer’s group with us into the wilderness, then I could escape with my love and we would be together forever.

I skidded to a stop against a boulder grasped like a prize in the roots of a massive red pine tree. My breath steamed out of my mouth and I did my best to control the agonized sound of air leaving my body. I did not hear my pursuers, but I only had a few moments before they would follow me down the waterfall that had led me here and swim ashore to track me.

My hand reached down to my chest and gave a light tug on the arrow that pierced my ribcage. The bolt shredded my left lung, but if it had been half an inch north or west it would have ripped through my heart and ended what was left of my terrible existence. I had been lucky. Alexia was the best archer to ever grace our army and I could have been the only quarry she had never slain with a single arrow.

I grimaced at the memory of the massive and powerful beings. I would have preferred to battle a dozen of those omnipotent flying lizards instead of the group that currently hunted me. I would have stood a better chance of living through the ordeal.

I was not sure I wanted to live.

Tears began to sting my eyes when I thought of Iolarathe. I yanked with all my strength and ripped the arrow out of my chest. The tip of the missile was barbed and it took most of my lung and slit the side of my heart on its way out.

I leaned against the tree and tried not to scream. They could probably smell my blood from a mile away, but a shout would help them find me even faster. My vision swam and the pain wanted me to vomit, or pass out, or just fucking die already.

Sudden strength flooded back into me as if I was fully rested. I started to question whether the Elements were a gift or a curse. I had been using them for so long now the healing came easier than breathing, but I was not sure I wanted to heal anymore.

I moved before I felt the magic rush toward me. I leapt up and spun backward to grab the edge of the boulder. A massive bolt of Fire erupted below me and flung me away from my temporary perch as if I was a fly swatted from the back of a horse by its tail whip.

I tumbled across the forest floor and smashed my arm, knee, and face against rocks before I had enough sense to roll to my feet and start running. The path before me was clear, but my battle-ready mind knew better and I dove to my right to avoid another powerful wave of red Fire that burned the trees to ash.

Damn it, Malek!

The burst of magic helped me locate him, so I sprinted in the opposite direction through the thick forest. There was no trail here, and the branches ripped across my face and body like the lashes of a whip. I felt my old friend’s magic chase me again and I managed to dive behind another large redwood to save myself. A cascade of heat wrapped around me. It choked off all the air and singed the hair that had grown long on my face and head. The tree ripped, splintered, groaned, and tumbled to the ground.

I did not stay to watch the giant fall. I could fight, die or flee. I could never defeat all of them, and as defeated as I felt, I could not give up and break my promise to Iolarathe. I had to find our daughter. I knew precisely where Malek was now so I kept as many trees as I could between us as I ran.

A shadow flickered through the forest and I twisted my body to avoid a volley of arrows. They came at me in a triangle pattern, and while I could dodge the first few, the last would take me in the chest and end my flight. I attempted to snatch the arrow from the air before it hit me. This would have been a simple feat had the arrows been launched by an Elven or an unchanged human, but our bows pulled hundreds of pounds of weight and sent arrows at speeds that punched ripples into the air with their speed.

My hand grasped along the shaft of the closest arrow while I twisted my wrist, arm, and shoulder in an effort to deflect the momentum of the bolt. The thin wood burned across my palm and tore the skin of my fingers as I continued to run, but the arrow stayed in my palm. I almost risked a smile.

Alexia had now missed her target four times. Perhaps this situation wasn’t as dire as I thought.

I didn’t see the woman ahead of me, but the arrows had obviously come from her. I guessed that I was half a mile ahead of Malek, so I cut my run to the left and attempted to put some trees between myself and Alexia.

My guess was wrong and she stepped around one of the pine trees in front of me with bow drawn and half a dozen arrows notched between the fingers of her right hand. She was close, less than a hundred yards away, and I knew she could slice a fly in half with an arrow at this range. I threw the arrow in my hand at her and dove behind another tree. Arrows ripped through the air and sent dirt, rocks and pine needles spewing into the sky.

I was lucky again, but it wouldn't last forever. I didn’t want to kill my friends, but it was now becoming painfully obvious that I could not simply flee from them. It was many hundreds of miles to the ocean and there was no way my ex-generals would let me go.

There was no way I could escape them without fighting back.

I pulled the Earth to me and ducked out from behind the tree and flung the Fire toward Alexia. The purple and green ball of molten magma grew as it traveled through the air, igniting every speck of dried tinder within thirty feet of the missile’s path. The tree she hid behind erupted into blue flame that quickly spread to its neighbors like a virus.

I ran away from the burning forest. It was not the direction I needed to go, but Alexia would not be able to follow me through the fire, and Malek would not suspect I had taken this path. I could circle back later.

If I lived that long.

I reached a sharp ravine and jumped down the walls before reaching the shallow river that ran through the canyon. The water ran north, and my gray-haired friend was somewhere on the higher ground to the south of me, so I followed the river. If my pursuers did not realize I was here, it was possible that the water would disguise my scent and the sound of my footfalls would not reach the tops of the cliffs. If they did find me here, I would be easy to trap.

The river was old, it bent and twisted through the gorge in an unpredictable tangle thick with rocks and fallen trees. The walls of the canyon were a hundred yards apart. Though I was doing my best to run silently, my bare feet slapped against the water and made enough sound to bounce and echo through the gorge. I hoped the labyrinthine twists of the river would throw off my pursuers, but I knew better. These were my generals, the best warriors that had ever lived.

Booted footsteps clomped around the next corner and I guessed whose they were before I rounded the bend. I had no weapon, or armor, or anything to defend myself with other than my terrible magic.

“Why?” Gorbanni’s face was ashen and his eyes heavy with grief. I pushed his question aside with a grunt and sprinted the short distance between us.

Gorbanni was probably the weakest of my generals in melee combat, but his skill was nothing to consider lightly. His favored weapon was a heavy single-edged long sword that resembled more of a curved cleaver than the straight, pointed blades my other generals preferred. It was a perfect weapon when on horseback, but would be slow and clumsy on foot.

Or so I hoped.

He drew the heavy blade with a speed and fluidity that came from countless hours of dedicated use and sliced it horizontally at my chest when I dashed toward him. The quick attack looked effortless and would have killed most opponents. But I expected the move and used my momentum combined with the slickness of the river rock to slide on my knees at the very last fraction of a second.

I felt the blade part the air an inch above my hair while I skidded painfully toward him. Surprise registered in his blue eyes, but then I sprang to my feet after his swing had passed and thrust the top side of my head into his face. I had enough momentum to break his skull, but our bones were harder than those of a normal human. Only his nose shattered with a wet splat.