The Destroyer Book 3 (2 page)

She waited a few seconds before answering.

"Malek is wonderful, and I enjoy spending time with him," she paused dramatically and looked at me again. I was about to press her to continue but then she spoke. "After I gain enough weight, he will change me into one of the O'Baarni, we think in about two weeks. But I want you to change me." Her heart sped up again.

I stared at her a moment, but her resolve held firm and she didn't balk when our eyes met.

"Why?"

"Kaiyer, your story drove us to leave our enslavers. We wandered for so long, we lost so many," her eyes drifted away from mine for a few seconds, "but we persisted, because we knew that you would take us in your arms and teach us. We believe in you." A blush came to her cheeks and she broke our eye contact again to look at the ground.

I felt myself growing angry. This was not how I wanted my brethren to view me. I did not even want them to think of me, but of our cause. I wanted them to devote themselves to our freedom, not to me. I was not a hero. I was not a savior. I was just a boy trying to atone for the death of his family.

"What did your people do?" I asked with a sigh. I needed to change the subject so I might consider the proper response to her request.

"Most of us worked on the farms for the Tulcita tribe."

I nodded. The Tulcita tribe was more than a few hundred miles southeast of us and too big for my small force to handle. We had disrupted some of their deliveries, but had never confronted them directly. Shlara was probably correct to leave and seek us out; my army was several years away from destroying Tulcita and freeing their human slaves.

"We were afraid to involve too many outside of the field workers. We didn't want our plans discovered. A few of my people know how to hunt and fish. That was how we survived," Shlara finished and we stood in silence for a few more moments.

"We need farmers. It is fortunate that you came to us. Are you skilled at growing crops?"

"I am skilled at everything I do." Her eyes beamed at me and I wondered if there was a hidden promise in the emerald orbs.

"Excellent. I have no lack of warriors, but food is an issue. We've got a few bags of wheat and corn seeds, as well as some vegetables. But this is Gorbanni’s realm. You should see him immediately."

"Will you change me then?" Her visage of confidence broke for a flash.

"I think you have potential. You have proven that you can manage a large group of people against adversity. You've gotten special attention from Malek. He is going to take you under his wing and develop you. This is all you will get for the time being."

"Why won't you change me?" her voice cracked and I saw the depths of her maturity.

"Malek is going to."

"I want you to." She crossed her arms in front of her small breasts and I felt the anger coming off of her.

"I want all the Elvens destroyed. Give me that and you can have whatever you want from me." I looked down to my map and pulled the lid off of the plate of eggs and beef. The smell of salt, pepper, and protein hit my nose and my stomach reminded me that one small bowl of gruel would not be enough.

"Change me and I will kill all the Elvens you want." She stepped closer than I would have expected and put her hand lightly on my bicep. The woman definitely had gumption.

"That isn't how you will build a relationship with me, Shlara." I looked into her eyes and briefly at her fingers on my arm. She didn't pull her hand away.

"Why not?"

"Because you earn trust with me by proving yourself consistently."

"I have proven myself!" Her face became enraged and her grip flew from my shoulder. "I've done something no one else has been able to do. No one but you. You know what I endured. Why won't you honor me?" Her voice was laced with anger.

"It isn't honor. It doesn't matter who changes you. Elvens changed me so I could serve in their war machine. Do I owe a debt of gratitude to those fucking bastards? Did they honor me?" She backed away and shook her head. I interrupted her as she opened her mouth to speak again. "But the real reason I'm not going to change you is because you are a self-absorbed brat. This isn't about you, or your needs. It's about the future of our race and the death of millions of our enemies. If I tell you to do something, you don't fucking argue with me. You do it. You don't come to me asking for boons, you come to me telling me how you can help me, and then you deliver. Everything you have said since you entered my tent has been about you. I don't give a shit about you until you provide results to me. Do you understand, girl?"

Her heartbeat sprinted again and her face betrayed absolute panic. She hadn't expected the conversation to go like this.

"Y-y-yes," she stuttered.

"Good. Thank you for breakfast. Get out." She turned white and retreated a step. Then the girl turned and dashed out of the tent flap so quickly that I thought she had already been changed into one of the O'Baarni.

I sighed again and looked down at the plate of food. I speared a chunk of beef and eggs and then put it in my mouth. It should have tasted good, but it felt like sand against my tongue.

"I like her," Entas's voice drifted from my cot.

"You are worse than Alexia." I turned to the old man and smiled. I hadn't even heard his heartbeat, let alone his entrance into my home.

He stretched across my bed with his left foot flat on the padding and his right leg crossed over it. He absently stared at the apex of my tent and chewed the end of a long blade of grass. His bamboo walking stick rested against the bottom of my cot. It was never more than two feet from him.

"Enjoying breakfast?" he asked without looking at me.

"Want any?"

"I already ate, but sure. I need more meat on me bones." He sat up a little and plucked at his threadbare shirt and pants. His flowing white hair came down to his shoulders and he looked like a cross between a skeleton, ghost, and monkey.

I walked over to him with the spare plate and dished some of the egg and beef mixture onto the dish. He frowned and shook his head, putting more back onto my plate until he only had half of an egg and less than a bite of beef. I shrugged and joined him on my cot. We ate in silence for a few minutes until I finally spoke.

"I'm waiting for you to tell me how badly I mistreated her."

"I don't know about that."

"Really? I thought Malek had already convinced you that she was our secret weapon against the Elvens by now." I laughed at the thought, but my friend spent more time with my old mentor than I currently did.

"Of course not. You have an ability to tell people exactly what they need to hear. When the girl came in here, I believe she was intent on warming your bed." Entas gave his dry chuckle.

"Humm, I didn't get that from her."

"No of course not. You are blissfully ignorant to the ways of women."

"Thanks. I think."

"But you are savvy in the ways of leading men and women. Shlara is now intent on proving you wrong and making you appreciate her. She is en route to our gray-haired friend so that he can change her immediately. She'll probably train twenty hours a day until she earns your respect." Entas finished the last bite off his plate, set it on the ground, and then leaned back down on my bed. He was so short that his legs didn't even touch my back when he stretched out.

"That is ridiculous. She won't survive the change. She is too weak from starvation." I frowned.

"Ahh my friend. Never underestimate the willpower of a woman who wants something. Malek will try to convince her of your logic, but she'll get her way." I nodded and hoped it wasn't true. Maybe I had been too hard on Shlara, but I didn't have a place in the army for someone who would not follow my instructions. I hoped she wouldn't take the risk.

"Was there anything about her conversation that interested you?" Entas said after a few moments of relaxed silence between us. I searched my memory of the conversation and wondered if this was one of the old man's fancy riddles.

"Not that I can recall."

"Really? Nothing?" I looked at him and our eyes met. He squinted at me in concentration. I wasn't passing this logic test.

"Help me out here. What did I miss?" I finally shrugged my shoulders and gave up on the riddle.

Entas glanced up at the ceiling of the tent again and I could tell he was debating giving me the answer.

"She mentioned the 'Dead Gods' of the Elvens. Does that interest you at all?" His eyes stared deep into mine and I realized this was the most direct conversation we had experienced in the past year or so. My mentor had let me run the army for the last five summers and only cared to see me if I had a problem. When I did come to him, he normally asked me a series of bizarre questions that gave me the answer I was looking for only after I meditated on them for a few hours.

"No.”

"Why doesn't it interest you?" The monkey man sat up in his bed and leaned toward me. His voice was just a whisper.

"I don't really give a shit about their religious beliefs. They didn't let us have any, so why should I care about theirs? The knowledge won't help me kill them easier, will it?"

"Oh, no of course not. Do not worry Kaiyer. This isn't a test. I just wanted to see if you wondered about the topic. You normally seek out knowledge about everything . . ." his voice trailed off and he raised an eyebrow to look at me.

"Not this time, Entas. I have to plan our next assault."

"Ahh yes." He bobbed his head like an old monkey. "I'll leave you to it then."

The old man scooted around me on the cot, got to his feet, and then snagged his walking stick with a smooth flip.

"Ahh wait," he said before he strolled out of the tent. He cupped his right ear dramatically and I heard a distant scream. It was one of complete and total agony and seemed to grow so loud that it became hard to tell if the voice that made it was a mile away or a hundred yards. Then, the woman's screech cut off suddenly. She had either died or passed out from the pain. It was a scream I had once made many years ago.

"One of these days, you need to teach me how to know everything that is going on in the camp."

"I don't know everything that goes on in the camp, Kaiyer. I just know the important things. That's what you need to learn." The monkey man smiled at me with his characteristic chuckle and then he walked out of the tent.

I took the last few bites of my eggs and then gathered up the plates. It was a short walk to the dining tent, and from there it was an even shorter walk to see if Shlara had survived.

Half a dozen crows rested on the twisted limbs of the tree in front of me. Every few minutes, one of them would caw, leap off of its branch, swing outward, then return to the embrace of the oak and scatter the others. I spent some time studying their behavior until it became clear that there was no hierarchy in their ranks. The birds seemed to change places with no plan or great purpose other than creating distress for each other.

I killed Shlara. Her last panicked scream echoed in my memory, louder than the crows singing their pain.

I took a deep breath and felt it swirl around my lungs. I had grown so accustomed to the Elements that it was difficult to separate the natural feelings of my body from their power. That would need to change soon; I needed to remember how to train the newly changed in harnessing the Elements.

Footsteps approached. I guessed who they belonged to from the heavy falls of the slightly agitated gait. He was still one hundred yards away, so I had time to prepare for our conversation before he reached me.

"Kaiyer?" Runir's voice sounded timid. I looked down from the crows in the trees to the tall handsome man. Last I saw him he was blonde, but in the two weeks since I had arrived in the camp he explained the situation that forced him to dye his hair black in disguise.

"What do you need?"

"Do you still want to watch her? Gerald's shift is coming to an end and I think he would like to spend time with his daughter." Runir crossed his arms and turned his gaze away from the lone oak tree to the camp where Nadea's army was fortified. The majority of the army was well hidden in a gorge that cut into the side of a cliff face.

"Yes," I said with as much enthusiasm as I possibly could. Watching over Nadea's body pointed to my failures with Shlara and the experience was far from pleasant.