The Destroyer

by Michael-Scott Earle

  "Fascinating," he said as he ran his fingers through his mustache and beard. "I wondered if the language we had learned would have been corrupted after generations of being passed down. Or maybe we never learned it correctly in the first place?" He sat back for a moment and thought to himself.

  The servant arrived with a large pitcher of water, some cups, and a loaf of bread with cheese. I took a glass and some of the cheese before I continued.

  I told him about our fears that the enemy was right on our tail and that they discovered us when we came out of the ruin. I recalled for him how Kaiyer had defeated them easily, then how we followed him to the guard post where he had massacred the rest of the soldiers.

  "Amazing. You said he moved like a spider, quickly and with great strength?"

  "Yes. I haven't seen much fighting, but he was so fast my eyes hardly had time to register his movements."

  "Surely, he must be the O'Baarni. I've never heard of such things, but the legends say he had amazing strength and speed. They also said that he was supposed to be very intelligent and was undefeated in his conquests over the Ancients."

  I nodded and told him of the travel up the cliffs, how I translated and taught him our language, and how he picked it up with amazing speed. Grandfather nodded and smiled.

  Then I got to the part I hadn't told anyone else about.

  He listened intently as I described waking up in the campsite. I hadn't known at the time, but everyone save for Kaiyer and I went to gather water and rinse off at the nearby stream. Grandfather's mouth hung open when I spoke of the quick battle, and of Kaiyer being shot in the chest by the crossbow.

  "He didn't seem to experience pain?" he asked in amazement.

  "He didn't seem to, no. He yanked it out easily. I fainted though." I frowned and remembered the wave of nausea that caused me to black out. "When I awoke he had changed his shirt and pretended like nothing happened."

  "Didn't Nadea or Greykin suspect something? Didn't they hear the sounds of the battle?"

  "It happened so fast there wasn’t much sound. When I awoke he smiled at me and shrugged like he always did. Nadea said later that night he told her that he surprised them. I didn't want to mention that he had been shot by the crossbow since I didn't quite believe it myself." Grandfather nodded.

  "Did you ask him more about it?"

  "No . . ." I sighed. "I was afraid to. But during our first night in the inn I brought up his bags an inspected his clothes. The shirt he had worn was still in his pack, and I could see the hole the bolt made and the blood stain. He seemed to be unharmed though." I sat back and felt relief. A huge weight had been taken off of my shoulders. Grandfather seemed lost in thought for a few more minutes.

  "I'll need to think about this some more. Please continue with your story, Paug."

  I told him about the assassins that tried to attack Jessmei while I had slept. I finally finished by accounting the remainder of our journey here. Several hours passed and I could have fallen asleep on the table.

  "How selfish of me! Here I am keeping you awake when we are going to have a very busy day tomorrow. Go to bed Paug, I'll talk to you in the morning. I am down the hall three or four doors. The duke, Nadea, you, the O'Baarni, and I will meet tomorrow after you break your fast," he said as he got out of his chair and grabbed the last slice of bread.

  I nodded as we hugged again and parted. Before he shut the door I had laid my head on the pillow and was drifting to sleep.

  Chapter 14-The O’Baarni

  "Wake up Kaiyer, time to work, son." My father's hands shook me awake gently. I moaned and rolled over, out of the bed and onto the dirt floor of the small room I shared with my father and brother. He looked at me as he sat back down at the table, the only other piece of furniture in the humble room besides our three beds and matching chairs. It was dark, we woke well before the sun, and our windowless room had little to light it save a small fire that was used for food, light and heat.

  "Want breakfast? Leotol is making eggs and heating some beans." I could smell them. My older brother's broad back was to me as he flipped eggs on a pan over our stone stove and stirred a pot with his other hand. There was never much time and he was an efficient cook, using what he could to flavor our meager rations fairly well. I was always hungry, and the smell of the food made my mouth water. My work was strenuous and there was rarely time to eat during the day, nor enough food.

  "I don't think there is enough for the Little Demon. Aunt only brought us a dozen eggs and a few handfuls of beans." He looked over his shoulder with his trademark smirk.

  "Hey, I don't eat that much. I'm thinner than you are, fat ass." I looked for something to throw at him even though I knew I was wrong to say this. Neither my brother nor my father were fat. They were all muscle; they had to be since they worked in the smithy, over the hot forge all day, making horseshoes and tools for the master's slaves.

  "It's not fat little Brother. This is solid muscle. The girls love it. Once you get some meat on you maybe you'll get one for yourself, unless horses are your thing." He shook his head with laughter, his thick, dark hair flying over his shoulders. I moaned and sat down to watch my father, Kai, drink his morning cup of tea. He looked like an older version of my brother: muscular, with a dark mane of hair, bright green eyes, and chiseled facial features. By comparison, I was scrawny and awkward.

  She didn't seem to mind though. Perhaps she would tire of me when I began to fill out and look more like them. Our human bodies were big-boned, bulky and thick when compared to the sleek, beautiful bodies of our masters. Where we resembled lumbering, stout donkeys, work-worn and tough, they were graceful antelope, strong, yet lithe and elegant.

  My recollections of her were interrupted when Leotol slid a heaping plate of eggs and beans in front of me. We ate in silence, thoughts of the work we had to do filled each of our heads. It was Sunday, so there would be no training today. Most Sundays there were no visitors to the stable, so it was the best day for me to catch up on the never ending list of tasks. I always had too much to do, especially since I had been losing almost an hour of my work per day for the past few months.

  "Leotol?" I asked my brother for his attention. He grunted at me over his eggs but didn’t raise his face.

  "Can I have help shoeing that new stallion they brought in a few days ago? He's pretty unruly and I haven't gotten a chance to calm him down yet."

  "I don't know, Little Demon. I might be a little too fat to help you out with so difficult a task." He smiled at me and then opened his mouth to show me the food he was chewing.

  "Gross! Come on. I need your help. It will take me all day to do it by myself and less than half an hour with you," I begged him.

  "Fine. But you have to cook tonight and tomorrow."

  "Deal!" I liked cooking so I wasn't giving up anything. I was happy he was helping me so I offered to clean the dishes while Father and Leotol went to start the fires in the smith.

  "Get me when you are ready," he said as he followed our father out of the room to the workshop next door.

  I finished cleaning and went to the stables, doing my standard morning tasks: refilling feed and water, cleaning up manure, and setting up to do the re-shoeing. There were four of them that needed it today. Three of them I had reshod before many times, and the new one that didn't seem to like me much. After debating with myself I decided to do him first with Leotol's help.

  "I'm ready," I said to him as I poked my head into the smithy. He stood up from the piece of iron he had been hammering and nodded as he wiped his hands on his apron and across his sweating brow. Father was cooling something in a big barrel of water in the back. Steam rose like a white serpent from the liquid.

  "Be there in a second."

  I went back to the stable and got the new horse out of his pen. He grew antsy and I used my secret weapon on him: a small tart apple that I stole from the slave’s kitchen every Saturday night. The horse gobbled it out of my hands and we became friends.

  "
Alright. This guy doesn't seem so tough," my brother said as he walked into the stables. With practiced ease he grabbed my shoeing apron that was stuffed with tools and slid it on. Once attired, he picked up the back right hoof and started digging the dirt out of it with the pick. Leotol used to run the stable until I grew old enough to handle it myself. "Keep him occupied. He's squirming too much."

  "Got it." I went back to rubbing the stallion's face and whispering to him.

  "Ahh crap. Your piece of shit pliers broke. I've got another set in the smithy, by the crate where I keep my small hammers and nails. Go grab them for me?" he said as he threw aside the snapped pliers and went back to digging with the hook.

  I walked back to the smithy and ducked through the door.

  "What do you need?" my father asked from the corner.

  "Broke the pliers, Leotol said there was a spare by his small hammers and nails?"

  "In that corner." He gestured to the back and I walked over and spent a few minutes looking through the chaotic bucket of discarded tools until I found it.

  As I stepped outside the door to the smithy I skidded to a halt. There were eight Elvens walking down the grassy hill from their main house toward the stables. At the top of the hill three more waited. They turned to look at me when I exited the smithy, but I ducked back into the doorway before they saw me. At least, I hoped that I dodged back in time. The coppery-haired woman that had been my malaise for the past few months was leading the group of eight walking toward the stable. She had her hand on her sword hilt.

  "Father!" I whispered.

  He didn't need to ask what the matter was. He dropped the piece of iron he was working on and ran to the doorway. His hammer was still in his left hand.

  "Step back," he commanded and I obeyed, letting him move before me. I ducked down and peered around his waist; the woman waved her hand toward the stable and two of her companions ran inside. In a few seconds they emerged, each holding one of Leotol's arms as he struggled.

  I heard a gasp from Father and his right hand clamped onto the frame of the doorway.

  "Oh no. No no no," he sobbed as we watched them drag Leotol toward the woman. She looked back to her companions and said something. Her friends laughed. She then turned and spoke to Leotol, he said something back and she hit him hard across the face. My stomach felt like I had swallowed a bucketful of water from the stream during the winter. Leotol struggled in his captor's arms, he was strong for a human, but even the weakest Elven was still twice as strong as a human.

  She smiled as she reached out and stroked his face. Then her hand clamped down on his neck and I could see her shoulders tense as she began to squeeze. Leotol's body started to thrash as he felt his life being strangled out of him.

  Father was out the door before I even realized, running toward the group of Elvens as he screamed, his hammer raised over his head. She looked up at him as he dashed the last forty yards toward them. I saw her mouth move.

  Her friends drew their swords.

  It was over before he even swung his hammer. His body burst into a bloody spray as three expertly wielded swords pierced and ripped out of him. My father, Kai, the strongest man I had ever known, who had raised my brother and I alone after our mother had been killed by Elven hands, died in a splutter of blood and hate, as the last bit of air was choked out of his eldest son a few feet from him.

  I ran out, not caring that they were going to kill me too. I wanted to die with them. I couldn't imagine life without my father's kind eyes, or my brother's rakish smile and teasing. When I reached my father's corpse, I fell upon it. His eyes stared up lifelessly, his skin already looked waxy and pale. Blood oozed out of him, I felt the disturbing sensation of the warm viscous liquid flowing over my skin. His body felt strange and soft, broken and yielding in places that were normally solid, normally strong.

  I looked up through tears at her. Her friends still had their swords drawn, waiting for her instruction. Her eyes locked with mine for a few seconds. There was no emotion in them. I felt oddly distant, looking at her, as if I had left my body and was observing this scene from afar, removed and unfeeling. I no longer felt my father’s blood on my hands, nor the grass beneath me. I felt nothing. I was floating, tethered only to her eyes, trying to read them, trying to puzzle out how the same soft white hands that had clung to me in passion could be so coolly used to choke the life from my brother.

  She looked to the Elven standing next to her. He had dark onyx-colored hair that was braided down his back.

  "Next time you think I am copulating with a human slave, I'll do the same to you. Do you understand?" The Elven nodded. He looked terrified. I had never seen one scared.

  "A human stable boy?” she said with disgust. I have every male within two hundred miles courting me. Are you a fucking idiot?" She demanded of the black-haired man. His face panicked.

  "I'm sorry, I thought I saw you with the human," he stuttered. All of her companions seemed terrified of her. My father's hammer lay on the ground a few inches from me. I could probably hit her before they killed me. The world spun and everything started to turn red.

  "Hurmpf," she snorted. "I am already bored with this. Let's go do something else." She began to walk away, up the hill toward the three Elvens that stood atop the slope. My legs wouldn't move. My arm wouldn't move. I couldn't even breathe through the sadness. I wanted to die, but no noise escaped my mouth when I tried to scream.

  "What about this human, Iolarathe?" one of her friends said. I felt the blade of a sword lay on my shoulder.

  She turned back, her eyes stared deep into mine. We had spent hours looking into each other's eyes before this. Tears clouded my vision, distorting her. I thought I saw remorse flash across her face.

  "He looks strong for a human. Take him to the barracks. They can use him in that ridiculous hobby army of my father's." Then she turned and walked away toward the gathered Elvens waiting for her. As she reached the top of the hill, the sun caught her hair, and it blazed as if on fire. It was a beacon in the darkness that became my field of vision.

  Strong hands grabbed my shoulders and forced me to my feet. My brother's face was blue, and his tongue rolled out of his dead mouth. There was no anger on his face, just pain. I couldn't look at my father's body as they dragged me away.

  Chapter 15-Kaiyer

  My eyes were so dry and grainy it hurt to open them, my eyelids stuck and slowly peeled back as I forced them open. I was afraid to keep them closed, to remember. I rubbed them and blinked to moisten them, wanting to look around, to orient myself in the present, away from the horrific dream.

  I could still smell the sweet wet scent of the grass, feel the sticky warmth of my father’s blood, a sharp contrast to his slick cold skin. It felt as if he had been in my arms only moments ago.

  I looked down at my hands. The dawn trickled a bit of light through the window in my room. It was enough for me to see that my father's blood did not still cover my hands. I sighed in relief and realized I had a splitting headache.

  I had caused their death. The Elven woman, Iolarathe, and I were lovers. Repeating her name in my head caused it to spin along with the pain.

  I struggled out of the covers that entwined me and made my way to the bathroom. I turned the metal wheel as Paug had instructed. The steam from the stream of water pouring out distracted me. When it had almost filled the tub, I slipped out of my pants and slid into the burning hot bath. I took a deep breath and submerged myself completely.

  Underwater I heard nothing but my heart beating. It grew louder the longer I stayed under and I wondered if the force of my heart caused ripples on the surface of the tub. It would cause the water to move like waves in the ocean, it would match the water in the blood that coursed through my body, giving my muscles strength. I felt the power of the Water flow around me and blissfully fill my body like a wine skin. I thirsted for it everywhere, my skin and eyes parched with their own need.

  My brother and father were dead and it had happened so lo
ng ago that there was nothing I could do about it. I wasn’t even sure I was the same person as in my memories. What did it really matter? Should I go through the agony of losing them twice just because I forgot my past while I slept?

  I came up to the surface and laughed. The emotions coursing through my memory had little impact on my life now. The memory of Thayer must have been from after the deaths of my father and brother. So even though I experienced great sadness with the loss of my family, I also found joy with my friendships. I'm sure that I had taken my revenge serving in the O'Baarni's army and crushing the Elvens into extinction.

  I had a new life now. The memories were there to guide me but not to rule me. My headache seemed to vanish and I smiled at the sudden release of pain.

  I grabbed the soap and rubbed it over my body, cleaning away the sweat the nightmare produced. Then I rinsed off and looked into the mirror that hung over the ornate sink. My beard was dark and thick, but in my memories I only recalled being clean-shaven, even my hair had been cut very short. It was one thing I wanted to keep, so I grabbed the razor blade and went to work.

  After I shaved my beard I debated doing the same to my head, but the thick dark strands did remind me of my brother and father. Would they have approved of what I had done in my life? Had I asked that of myself already? I didn't remember.

  A soft patter of feet stopped in front of my door; I guessed it was a girl's from the quick, light heartbeat before a knock sounded.

  I opened the door to see a young woman around Jessmei's age standing with a basket. I recognized the color of the tunic on top but it was neatly folded. The girl's mouth hung open as she looked at me. Her eyes glanced down my naked body in astonishment.