The Destroyer Book 4 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1-The O’Baarni

  Chapter 2-Kaiyer

  Chapter 3 -Iolarathe

  Chapter 4-The O’Baarni

  Chapter 5-Kaiyer

  Chapter 6-Iolarathe

  Chapter 7-The O’Baarni

  Chapter 8-Kaiyer

  Chapter 9-Iolarathe

  Chapter 10-The O’Baarni

  Chapter 11-Kaiyer

  Chapter 12-Iolarathe

  Chapter 13-The O’Baarni

  Chapter 14-Kaiyer

  Chapter 15-Iolarathe

  Chapter 16-The O’Baarni

  Chapter 17-Kaiyer

  Chapter 18-Iolarathe

  Chapter 19-The O’Baarni

  Chapter 20-Kaiyer

  Chapter 21-Iolarathe

  Chapter 22-The O’Baarni

  Chapter 23-Kaiyer

  Chapter 24-Iolarathe

  Chapter 25-The O’Baarni

  Chapter 26-Kaiyer

  Chapter 27-Iolarathe

  Chapter 28-The O’Baarni

  Chapter 29-Kaiyer

  Chapter 30-Iolarathe

  Chapter 31-The O’Baarni

  Chapter 32-Kaiyer

  Chapter 33-Iolarathe

  Chapter 34-The O’Baarni

  Chapter 35-Kaiyer

  Chapter 36-Iolarathe

  Chapter 37-The O’Baarni

  Chapter 38-Kaiyer

  Chapter 39-Iolarathe

  Chapter 40-The O’Baarni

  Chapter 41-Kaiyer

  Chapter 42-Iolarathe

  Chapter 43-The O’Baarni

  Chapter 44-Kaiyer

  Chapter 45-Iolarathe

  Chapter 46-Kaiyer

  Epilogue

  End Notes

  By Michael-Scott Earle

  Chapter 1-The O’Baarni

  “Just tell me why.” Malek’s voice echoed in my head. He had been repeating the question for hours.

  Was it hours or days?

  Was it days or weeks?

  It may have been months.

  I opened my eyes a crack and confirmed that yes, he did stand outside my cell bars and his voice wasn’t an agony induced hallucination. A cup full of light dripped through a hole in the doorway behind him, highlighting the pain and anger in his eyes. The absolute agony.

  “You know why.”

  “No,” he replied.

  “Just execute me and end this.”

  I tried and failed to negotiate Iolarathe’s release. I tried to escape. I was now in special chains crafted with spikes that drove through the flesh of my arms and into the bone beneath the muscle. The chains were attached to a ring of steel and then looped back to a chain wrapped around my neck like a noose. Any movement threatened to render me unconscious, even shitting on the tiny bucket Malek left me.

  Then again, I really didn’t need to shit, or piss. They had stopped bringing me food after I stopped eating.

  “Did she mean so little to you? Did we mean so little to you?”

  I closed my eyes. I could not tolerate the ridiculousness of his question. They meant everything to me. But I could never explain it to him. I could never explain Iolarathe. I closed my eyes and imagined I was back in the inn with her, planning to steal the Ovule from Malek.

  I should have convinced her to leave Shlara’s Rest. We could have found another Ovule. She was so committed to saving our daughter. Nothing else mattered to her. Not her own life, nor mine.

  I thought back to our written communication in our room. I longed to hear her voice, but I feared we would be overheard, so we remained silent, scratching out our desperate plans on paper passed back and forth.

  “How did you know we would be in your house?” The timbre of my voice disappointed me. I sounded weak and defeated.

  I was defeated.

  I did not know where she was. The moment we set our feet in Malek’s courtyard, scores of Thayer and Malek’s elite warriors attacked. At first I was thankful we had not been killed. Now I longed for death.

  I opened my eyes. Malek was gone. The light had changed. I must have passed out from the pain. I closed my eyes again and thought of my daughter.

  She is wonderful beyond anything our people have ever created.

  I wanted her to tell me more, but she shook her head sadly and wrote: “Every second we waste makes it less likely you will ever meet. She is the best of you and me.”

  She pointed to the rough map of Malek’s estate and asked me about the guards I had observed when I scouted the perimeter.

  I wished I could have known my daughter’s name before Iolarathe and I died.

  I was foolish to think Malek would ever give up his search. He was too smart and too driven to just let me wander the world unobserved. He had been waiting and watching until we walked right into his trap.

  “Wake the fuck up!” A booted toe slammed into my chest with enough force to break stone. My ribs weren’t quite rock hard, so a few of them broke and instantly knitted together. I’d been so used to the Earth running through my body that I couldn’t even turn off my healing if I wanted.

  Hands grabbed me and the chain around my neck slid through the loop on the wall. I opened my eyes.

  There were six of them. Thayer’s. The first time they put me in the cell they had only sent three. I killed two of them before a dozen warriors came to their aid and sedated me with a sea of pummeling fists. Now I was restrained with the spiked manacles, and the guards carried long metal poles tipped with sharp hooks, so they could control me from a safe distance.

  “Where are we going?” My words tasted like blood.

  “Shut the fuck up!” A pole hit me in the head. Then another. I felt the coldness of the stone floor and heard the wet slapping sounds of more pole strikes against my body. I didn’t feel them.

  “Get him up,” a voice commanded and the arms grabbed me again.

  A cloth sack slid over my head and the beating squad half-dragged me out of my cell and into the hallway beyond my prison. I considered resisting again, but the collar and shackles were still embedded in my skin and bones. There was little I could do against this many guards unarmed.

  The trip was short. They lifted me up and slammed me down into a chair. My nose was filled with dried blood but I could still detect weapon oil, leather, and chain armor. The guards secured me to the chair with more chains. I could hear the sounds of many more heartbeats.

  I knew their scents before they removed the hood from my head.

  “Hello, old friends.” I mustered a smile and realized that a couple of my back teeth were missing. The new ones pushed through my gums already.

  “Fuck you!” Gorbanni’s voice cracked. His face was red and his blue eyes looked ready to tear.

  I did not know how much time had passed since the last battle, but they had not changed. They had abandoned their armor in favor of looser garments, still in the colors of their armies.

  “You may leave,” Malek said to the guards behind me. I watched them exit the thick iron door forty feet away. The metal portal clanged shut and a thick bar slid in to lock it.

  “Do you have anything to say to us?” Alexia whispered. Her eyes were blue like Gorbanni’s, but a few shades lighter. She had grown out her blonde hair and now wore it braided down the left side of her neck. They sat behind a massive stone and oak table that looked well worn. Perhaps I wasn’t the first of our kind to face trial in this room.

  “As I told Malek, I made a mistake.” I met her stare and she quickly glanced away.

  “One hell of a mistake!” Thayer spat.

  The chains and metal poles tied me to the steel frame of the chair; it in turn was secured to the rock floor with massive studs of iron. I closed my eye
s and leaned my head back slightly. It didn’t matter. Even if I could escape my bonds, there would be no way I could fight through the four of them, break out of the door, and make it to Iolarathe.

  “Is it too late to beg forgiveness?” I opened my eyes and knew the answer before any of them spoke.

  “Why did you run?” Malek couldn’t hide his frustration, his jaw clenched and his back sat rigid in his own chair.

  “You know why.”

  “I want you to fucking tell me!” He slammed his fist into the wood of the table and it creaked under the sudden load. His eyes shone with tears and his nostrils flared.

  “I made my choice.” I just wanted this to end. My punishment had been too long in coming.

  “You chose some Elven woman over her. Over us? Over your own fucking people? We believed in you. We loved you and thought you loved us.” Malek’s voice cracked and it sounded like he wanted to say more but he stopped. I didn’t dare open my eyes. I clenched them tighter and gave another futile wish that this could just be over.

  “How did you deceive us, for all that time?” Alexia’s voice was less than a whisper now.

  “There were no tricks. He knew the Elven. What was she to you?” Malek questioned.

  “If I told you, it would make even less sense.” I sighed and struggled to force my tears back into their ducts.

  “She was the daughter of the chieftain in the tribe we belonged to,” Thayer said. “She was known to be ruthless and evil, even among her kind. I never interacted with her. I saw her a few times watching from the hillside while Kaiyer and I trained. I did not even realize she was at the last battle. I did not figure out who she was until we captured her. But I still do not understand.” He grunted and I heard his chair creak.

  “Perhaps it doesn’t matter anymore, but I would still like to know why. For her.” Gorbanni’s voice had calmed, but the anger had not left it.

  “Can we negotiate?” I had successfully kept the tears at bay and I opened my eyes.

  “Fuck no!” Thayer seethed. “But you owe us answers.”

  “No.” I felt myself growing angry. “I owe the four of you nothing I haven’t already given. I owe Shlara answers and an apology.” They looked stunned but I didn’t give them a chance to reply. “I swore we would destroy the Elven race. They are all but wiped out now. Our people are free. I trained you, taught you, guided you, loved you, and led you to the victory I promised. You have created a civilization from their ashes. I am proud of what we accomplished, but I want no part of it. I just want the Elven woman, and to be left alone.”

  “What kind of madness possesses you?” Malek’s eyes squinted. “These aren’t the words of Kaiyer. They are the words of a man who thinks nothing of his people.”

  “I spent most of my life thinking of my people. What more can I do? What more do you want from me? My work is done.”

  “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.

  Chapter 2-Kaiyer

  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.”