The Destroyer Book 4 (41 page)

“They made a mistake. This punishment does not fit the crime.” Gorbanni crossed his arms and glared at me. I knew him well enough to understand the posture.

“I cannot fucking believe you!” I growled through clenched teeth at the blond man.

“Why? They are my top lieutenants and we don’t have a rule against—”

“Stop. Fucking stop talking right now.” I put my face in my hands and rubbed my temples. Then I rubbed my eyes. I didn’t want to be dealing with bullshit like this now. There were a million and a half tasks I needed to perform before the sun set and I guessed there was only an hour left of its precious light.

“Kaiyer, I’ll suspend them, I’ll demote them, whatever you want to do besides that. It isn’t going to help anyone and it will destroy the morale of my unit.”

“The morale is already destroyed because you let this shit go on.” I didn’t look up from my hands.

“I didn’t know it was happening. I swear on the lives of all of my warriors.”

“Then you haven’t been paying attention and I am even angrier with you, Gorbanni. You are supposed to know what kind of activities your team is engaged in while in combat. Either you aren’t spending enough time with your warriors, or you are incompetent.” I looked up from my hands and our eyes met. I could see the anger and hurt in his, but I didn’t fucking care.

“You are taking this too seriously.” The blond man turned to Thayer. “This isn’t a big deal.”

“It is, Brother. We don’t do these things.” Thayer shook his head and ran a big hand over his bare scalp and scarred face.

“Fine. I’ll tell them that it was wrong and then suspend them from their duties.”

“No. The point is that they should have known not to do it in the first place.”

“How would they know? We kill them. All of them, without mercy. We kill their children, we kill their elders. We kill prisoners, the wounded; we accept no surrender. How is what they did any worse than killing them all?”

I heard footsteps approach my tent and knew it was Malek before he opened the flap.

“What did they do?” the handsome man said when he stepped into my tent. The chest plate of his pieced-together armor had a giant puncture in the shoulder that ripped down to the center like a cat’s scratch. The day’s battle had been fierce and Malek’s forces had been forced to enter the main fray to support Alexia’s team.

Thayer and I turned to Gorbanni and the blond man shook his head with a clenched jaw. The four of us stood in silence for almost a minute until he finally looked at his feet and sighed in defeat.

“Six of my men were raping Elven women.”

“Ah. I see.” Malek exhaled and looked around my tent. “Fuck, I could really sit down now. Why don’t you have chairs in your tent? And I could drink a flagon of wine. Or three.” He grunted and lowered himself down to the wooden planks of my floor. The movement sounded creaks and groans from his armor and I tasted the scent of blood from injuries that had already healed.

“Kaiyer wants them executed,” Gorbanni said with obvious disgust. ”My men do not deserve this punishment. They didn’t know we had rules against rape.”

“Why would you think we did not have rules against rape?” I asked. My heart beat in my ears and I did my best to fight against my anger and disappointment. Gorbanni was a talented commander, steadfast, loyal, disciplined, and I trusted him to run a chunk of our small army alongside Thayer and Alexia. He had done a wonderful job and even helped Malek get accustomed to his new role at our planning table.

It had been four or five years since Alexia and I saved him from slavery and I felt as if he was my brother. I was starting to question my assessment of him.

“Go get Alexia and return.” I realized what the man was missing.

“Very well.” He seemed pleased with my suggestion. “She will agree with me.” Thayer snorted and Gorbanni’s sudden strike of confidence faded from his face just as quickly as it came.

“What? She is merciless with them. She enjoys their suffering more than the four of us put together.”

“Just get her. And bring wine for Malek.” I sighed and felt my anger fade.

“Wait, not just for me. We will all need some wine for this.”

“Fine. Should I get Entas?” the horseman asked.

“No. I was just at his tent and he said he was busy.” Malek bent his neck sideways to glance at me. “He said he wants to see you after supper though.” I nodded and then watched Gorbanni leave the tent.

Malek waited a few minutes to ensure he was out of earshot before speaking.

“You really want to execute them?”

“Yes.”

“I’m surprised this has not happened yet.” Malek leaned back with a creak of leather until he was flat on the wood flooring of my tent.

“Why are you surprised?” Thayer walked over to the other side of the tent and lay down next to Malek on the floor with an exhausted sigh. All of us were covered with dried mud and Elven blood.

“It happens in war. Our men want to do to the Elven women what has been done to countless human women. We have watched our mothers, sisters, daughters, and lovers raped by Elven men. As Gorbanni said, we want to spread fear through their population. We only take a few prisoners and exterminate the rest, including their pregnant women, their children, and even their babies. Isn’t that more horrible than rape?”

“It is wrong.”

“I hate them and want our freedom at any cost, but I can understand Gorbanni’s argument.” Malek sighed and turned his head to look at me. “I don’t envy your role in this.” Thayer snorted a laugh and stretched on the ground. They both lay silent until Gorbanni’s footsteps approached.

“I brought her,” he said when he opened the flap. Both Gorbanni and Alexia were blond with blue eyes, but that was the end of their similarities. Alexia’s eyes were a cold snowy ice while Gorbanni’s were a warmer ocean water. Her hair was a light shade of sun-bleached platinum and his was darker, with shades of red and brown at the roots. Gorbanni was my tallest general and had a massive reach with his muscular arms, while Alexia was small and lithe. Her features were delicate, sharp, and beautiful, like a bird of prey.

“Heh. Couldn’t hear ya walking, Sister.” Thayer cracked open his eyes and then both he and Malek inched up from the floor and sat up with jerky movements that reflected their exhaustion.

“What do you need?” She looked at me without a smile. Her armor was unmarked from the battle but that was usually the case. She was fastidious with organization and cleanliness and often didn’t rest for many days after a battle.

“Gorbanni and I have a disagreement,” I began. The pretty woman raised an eyebrow at the horseman and he lifted a hand politely to interrupt me.

“Kaiyer wishes to execute six of my men.”

“For?” Her mouth hardened and silence hung uncomfortably in the air. She already knew what had transpired and was making her friend voice the crime.

“They raped Elven women. We had no rules against the—” She raised her hand suddenly and Gorbanni’s words cut off like he had been choked.

“Are you asking my opinion because I am a woman, a victim, or a human?” She looked at him with a hard stare that could have crumbled rock.

“You forgot commander.” I smiled at her and her shoulders relaxed slightly. “You have a unique perspective. Please tell us your thoughts. I am prepared to be persuaded from my opinion.”

“I am a human first and a woman second.” She took a deep breath and ran her left hand through her short hair. “But I would be lying if I didn’t think about the Elvens that raped me every time I kill one of them. Each battle we win I think of as one step closer to freedom and one step closer to my sisters being safe from their vile assaults. I care not what happens to the Elvens, and I have killed too many to count.” Gorbanni nodded and opened his mouth to speak but she continued, “With that said, we should aim to deal them their fate as quickly as possible. I do not condone rape of their women. I doubt they have the same emotions that we possess, but we are better than that. Are we not fighting for a world where the strong do not prey upon the weak?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call their women weak, Sister,” Thayer grunted.

“No. But Gorbanni’s men were stronger. They overpowered a woman and forced themselves upon her. I shudder to think of how similar the situation was to my own rape.”

Alexia never spoke in detail of her assault. Thayer and I stumbled upon the attack while we were scouting the tribe’s trade route and farming lands. The Elvens that were in the process of raping the beautiful woman were dealt with quickly and without mercy.

“We will make it part of our laws. I will tell all of my warriors and it will never happen again. We do not need to execute them.” Gorbanni attempted to speak the words with conviction, but the last sentence sounded like a question. He was leaving this decision up to Alexia.

We all were.

“The offending men need to seek forgiveness from the women in your unit. Our army has valued equality between our sexes and I have never felt unsafe around any of the human men in our ranks. But allowing them to rape women, even Elven women, sets a dangerous precedent and destroys the trust and equality we have built here. If we allow them to view Elven women as things they can use for their own pleasure, it will not be long before they begin to view their fellow female soldiers in the same way.”

“They will apologize. It will not happen again.” Gorbanni rose to his feet easily and dashed from the pavilion without another word. Alexia waited until our sensitive ears heard his steps blend into the crowd of the camp before speaking.

“May I speak alone with Kaiyer?” she asked Malek and Thayer. They nodded quickly and followed Gorbanni’s path out of the tent and down into the camp.

“I wish you had not gotten me involved,” she said the words with no anger.

“I was not able to convince him,” I said.

“I understand your reasoning, but it doesn’t change my wishes.”

“How could I have done it better?”

“I don’t know. But that is what you do; you figure shit out that we can’t.” She crossed her arms and tilted her head slightly. It made her short hair bob to one side of her slender neck.

“Fair enough. I’ll get better.” I smiled at her and she mirrored the expression.

“I’ve got more work to do. We all having dinner tonight?”

“Yes. Today was a good day. You figure out the losses?” I asked.

“Fifteen for me. Gorbanni lost two dozen, Thayer twenty-eight, and Malek lost twelve. The Elvens were wiped out. Six hundred or so. A few dozen escaped into the forest, but my warriors are tracking them. They should be exterminated by the end of the night.”

“Thank you for the update.” She nodded and silently slid out of my tent. Later tonight she would have an exact list of names for me to review. I hated losing soldiers, but it was unavoidable. We could not rid this world of the Elvens without bloodshed on both sides. We were close to a thousand strong, but only one third of that number was trained thoroughly enough for combat. The rest would not be ready for many more months.

“Didn’t Malek ask you to come see me?” I spun around and stopped myself from sending a dagger flying out of my hand at the last second.

“You scared the shit out of me.” I let out a breath and glared at Entas. The old man was sprawled out on my cot like a snake. “How did you get in here?”

“You were lost in thought and I walked right past you.”

“I doubt that happened.”

“There are infinite possibilities in the universe. One day you might even take a ride on a dragon and change the world forever.” He bobbed his balding head and made a cooing sound like a dove.

“What do you need?” Usually I tried to ignore the old man’s ramblings. Half of the time he made little sense and the other half he spoke in riddles that only made sense a few days later.

“There is a group of humans running from Elvens. They are about two hundred miles south and a few dozen miles to the west. You should send Malek and another one of your commanders to intercept them and bring them into our camp.”

“How do you know this?” For once my teacher was being direct and it was puzzling to me.

“The same way I knew that you and Thayer were at the foothills of my mountain.” He smiled a goofy grin. “You were both really loud and it woke me up.”

“Fine. I’ll send a group.”

“Malek. Send Malek and his entire unit.”

“Okay, anyone else you prefer?”

“Nope, but send another commander and their unit just in case Malek runs into some of our pointy eared friends. Tell him to camp at the merging of the Elard and Corlard Rivers. The Elard runs north and south and is fresh water. The Corlard runs east and west and is salty.”

“I am familiar with the area.” There weren’t any Elven tribes within fifty miles of the rivers, but the terrain was wide open and we deemed it unsuitable for a camp because of the lack of cover.

“That is all I need.” His face scrunched. “Let me know when they return.”

“You haven’t been interested in recruiting in a few years. Is there anything special about this group?”

“You’ll have to tell me!” He giggled like a little boy and then rolled back on the bed. He did that when the answer to one of his questions should have been obvious.