The Destroyer Book 4

by Michael-Scott Earle

  “Four eight seven seven six three nine.” I repeated the number aloud and then in my head until it was memorized. “Are all the worlds numbered?”

  “The last two digits are the Radicles on the world.”

  “Is there anything else I can say to beseech you, Mother?” Vaiarathe asked. I turned to look at her and my heart almost gave out on me.

  “No, my love. I will send you to this world and see you in a few months.” I forced a smile to my face and tried to choke back my tears. “I’m expecting to see a home already built with an orchard, garden, fishing spot, and some cattle ready for me. Will you complete those tasks before I come?”

  “Yes, Mother.” The girl nodded and her jaw set. I wanted to hug her one more time and I did. Then I leaned my face down and kissed her forehead.

  “I love you, Daughter.” My stomach flipped a dozen times and I had to force my jaw tight so that I did not sob. Why couldn’t there have been two Ovules in this place? I was surely cursed by the Dead Gods.

  “I love you, Mother. I will see you again someday.” She began to cry and I fought against my desire to keep her by my side. It would be too dangerous to make the journey to the human cities with her. I already traveled slower because of Vaiarathe’s age and I did not want to put her in jeopardy. The idea of her staying here or even returning to Relyara’s valley was also foolish, especially after she pulled down my hood a few days ago. The O’Baarni were probably only a few hours behind us now and I needed to make a quick escape if I wanted to put distance between us.

  “Did you hear that noise?” Vaiarathe asked.

  “No.” I spun to the door and readied my bow.

  “Voices.”

  “I did not hear anything,” I whispered and the three of us were silent for dozens of seconds.

  “We should get away from here,” Vaiarathe whispered.

  “No. You go through the Radicle.” I turned toward the girl and then nodded at the Ovule.

  “Won’t you check on the noise?” she asked. I nodded and then crept out of the chamber and into the other rooms where the stone beds lay in their perfect order.

  I heard nothing, so I moved out of the temple and took a hundred steps up the rocky slope. The green glow of the place almost faded against the inky blackness of the caverns.

  Vaiarathe must have been mistaken.

  I spent another minute listening and then returned to the rock-embraced tower. When I walked into the room again fear clawed at my stomach and I realized that I had made a mistake.

  “Where is she?” I asked the Elven man. He was meandering around as if he was trying to get some slow exercise.

  “Greetings, Mistress. Did you bring an Ovule?” His stone face split into a smile.

  “I’ve been gone for five minutes. Where is my daughter?”

  “Your daughter?” He tilted his head and the smile changed to an expression of puzzlement.

  “The girl I was with. You just spoke to us about the Ovule and the Radicle.” I tasted the rotten panic in my mouth.

  I knew what he was going to say. Vaiarathe lied about hearing something and I stupidly bought the story.

  “She is sleeping between the worlds. Once you journey to four eight seven seven six three nine, you can bring her the rest of the way.”

  “No!” I growled at the man and my vision spun.

  “Mistress, that is how she used the Ovule.”

  “You fucking asshole!” I wanted to punch his face until his skull turned into pudding. “Why didn’t you stop her?”

  “I cannot stop my masters. I am here to assist all who wish to travel.” He looked around the room and his voice picked up the song he had sung earlier.

  “Is there anything I can do?” I grabbed his shoulders and though I wanted to break him into pieces I only gently shook the ancient Elven. I needed him alive.

  “Where would you like to travel, Mistress? Do you have an Ovule? This one is empty of power.”

  “No. I want my daughter to fucking live you piece of shit!” I screamed.

  “Your daughter?” He looked puzzled.

  “Damn it.” I let go of him and felt my legs give out.

  “Damn it,” I heard my voice say again.

  Then I only heard my soft sobs and the sound of my tears splashing into the cold stone floor.

  If I did not find an Ovule, Vaiarathe would be lost forever.

  Chapter 40-The O’Baarni

  The dragon-armored warriors finished lifting Iolarathe to the metal cross. They secured her with a rope, then chain. The crowd of gathered humans and O’Baarni screamed so loud that I wanted to cover my ears and push my face into the ground.

  I could not escape. My arms were chained together and I knew that if I moved even a few inches from my spot beside Malek, one of the guards next to us would beat me again. My mind screamed against my skull and I struggled to find any sort of solution.

  All the years of running, hiding, and fighting with my people amounted to this. All the years of chasing Iolarathe were for naught. I could not tear my eyes from the men that leaned down to the wooden pile beneath my love and lit the logs aflame with their magic.

  “Stop this, Malek!” I begged my friend. My heart was pounding in my chest and I felt as though it would rip through my ribs. Tears stung my eyes and a colossal headache slammed into my skull.

  “It is too late, Kaiyer.” He did not look at me but I could sense the emotion in his voice. He may not have wanted this, but now the course was set.

  The pile of wood was five feet high, but it was catching quickly and the orange fire began to lick the bottoms of Iolarathe’s feet. Her soft, beautiful feet.

  I could almost feel the heat from the pyre when the wind changed direction and blew toward me. Her silver eyes met mine from across the empty stage of the barracks. They were filled with nothing but adoration. She should have hated me. She should have been cursing me for what I had done to her people. For what was happening to her. For allowing it. I was cursing myself, but I only saw love in her eyes.

  Her mouth opened to speak but the cries of the gathered O’Baarni drowned out her words. She spoke again, urgently, her eyes boring into mine just as they had when we made love. The screams of joy around me were so deafening that I could not even hear my own heartbeat. They compounded the pain in my head and I found myself screaming as well.

  The flames were taller. They flickered and danced up to my lover’s waist. Her hair blew along with another gust of wind and it was suddenly impossible to tell the difference between Iolarathe’s red mane and the flames that were seconds away from devouring her entirely.

  “No!” I shouted and my vision blurred. I could not take my eyes away from hers. I saw her feet and legs began to char and blacken beneath the fire that consumed her lower body.

  Iolarathe screamed and it was louder than any thunder I had ever heard. Her anguish screeched to the heavens and it cut through the cheers of the thousands of O’Baarni as if they were only whispering. The crowd grew silent and her scream continued with a chilling and horrific crescendo.

  She screamed my name.

  Her beautiful body burst into flames and the wail reached the apex of suffering. I wanted to put my hands to my head so that my aching brain would have some sort of relief, but the cries of anguish could not be silenced.

  I was screaming with her.

  I felt her die, but her screams did not cease. Neither did mine. I was beyond grief, beyond despair, and beyond caring about anything else now. They killed the woman I loved and now these fucking mortals would pay.

  I hated them all.

  The chains that bound my wrists seemed to disintegrate into dust when I looked at them. The guards at my side were crouched on the ground with their hands cupped to their ears. Their mouths opened to scream and blood flowed from between their fingers. I stepped toward the nearest one, the man who had punched me in the face, and drove my own fist through his skull like it was a rotted melon.

  Malek moved to grab his
sword, but he was ridiculously slow and I delivered a punishing side kick to his stomach before his hand could close around the hilt of his weapon. His body bent around my foot like a tree branch. I heard dozens of bones in his ribs and spine crack against the power of my attack.

  I had swords in my hands now. One was Malek’s, the other belonged to the guard I just murdered. I cut the remaining guards around me into four pieces each. They did not have time to scream.

  Alexia managed to pull her swords out in time to parry my first attack. Her weapons and Malek’s were both crafted of the same amazing metal as our armor and both of the blades cried out with a shower of blue sparks. I heard a snap and Alexia’s eyes opened with surprise. The blade had not broken, but her elbow had snapped from the force of blocking my blow. She brought up her other blade to block my next strike, but just like Malek, she was too slow and my other sword drove into her chest to the hilt.

  Perhaps I meant to miss her heart, perhaps she twisted out of the way at the last second. Either way, her back arched against the impaling blade and I heard her lungs fill with blood.

  “You will all die!” It did not sound like my voice, but it came from my throat and my mouth formed the words. Alexia choked out a bloody gasp and then the Wind pushed through me. Magic shot the woman’s impaled body from me like an arrow. She flew backward, across the bottom of the courtyard, and smashed into twenty seated O’Baarni in the wooden stands a hundred yards behind where we stood.

  The pyre burned with the heat of a desert sun, but I could not tell if Iolarathe still screamed her death note or if the memory of it was only echoing in my head. It mattered little. I still heard it in my mind and I felt every part of my body fill with the endless power of my rage.

  The three guards who had set fire to Iolarathe’s pyre sprinted toward me with their weapons ready. The first one I cleaved in twain where his armpits met his raised shoulders. His top half-spun away in a shower of blood and his legs continued to run for a dozen steps behind me.

  The second dragon-armored warrior swung his blade at me from his right side with a quick vertical cut. I blocked his blow with the edge of Malek’s sword where the hilt met the blade and a shower of blue sparks exploded into the air between us. My right hand reached up and clutched the man’s neck where his helmet ended at the chain around his throat.

  Then I ripped the Water out of him.

  He screamed and his skin turned gray before his body turned into a statue of ash. Then the armor fell to the ground in a pile of white powder of bones and skin. The warrior’s life filled my own body and all of my senses suddenly grew exponentially more powerful.

  The colors were vivid. I could see the thousands of different shades of orange flame that consumed Iolarathe’s body. They danced around the wood and her charred figure like lovers seeking attention. Some of the fire matched the exact shade of her hair as it gave up the last fragments of its strands to feed the blaze.

  I could hear the tens of thousands of O’Baarni heartbeats gathered around me. Their breaths caught when they saw me slaughter their fellows and I could almost count the number of weapons being pulled from their sheaths. Most of them screamed to kill me, the ones who weren’t screaming had already leapt down from the stands and were running across the ground toward me in a tidal wave of muscle and hate.

  One of the dragon-armored warriors remained, poised to strike at me. The soldiers behind her sprinted toward us. The woman thrust the point of her sword toward my chest, but I flicked it away with the outside of my right hand and then slammed Malek’s finely crafted sword into her skull from above.

  There was too much power inside of my body. It felt wonderful when combined with the hate I bore toward these people. I wanted all of them to die. I wanted all of them to roast on the fire like Iolarathe. I wanted to end their existence as I had ended the Elvens.

  The charging warriors exploded into a green and purple flame. The magic did not even need to spew forth from my hands, I simply wished them gone, and my hate made it so. Instantly.

  I stood at the bottom of her pyre. The flames had consumed her and they swirled toward the heavens like the tower of a Radicle. The endless wave of O’Baarni closed in around me like a rising tide. Despite my power and the rage I yearned to unleash upon them, I knew I could not stand against them all.

  I stepped into the fire.

  The wood was charcoal now. It snapped and popped beneath my bare feet. My skin burned and bubbled. The pain seared against my anger and danced in my brain until the world was only red and orange and vermillion and gold.

  The O’Baarni stopped at the foot of the pyre. Thousands of eyes looked up at me in a mixture of horror, disbelief, and disappointment. Each of them sought the glory of being the one to end me. I would take this from them with the very fire they intended for me all along.

  Then the pain stopped.

  I was still awash in flame. I was still covered in the ash of my burning skin, but the flames and the heat were not damaging me. The heat was power. The heat was energy.

  I drank it in and the magic surged inside of me like a torrent of lightning. My brain spun across the world, into the stars, as it had when I pulled the life from the dragon. The understanding of the world crashed into me and I knew the life and the power of every living entity on this planet. I felt them connect with the Elements and channel through the Radicles. I saw the Radicles forging roads to other worlds with infinitely more and varied life. The creation of my universe was beautiful. I almost stopped my rampage to stare and gasp in wonder at what I had made.

  But I still wanted revenge.

  The Fire emerged from my hands like a sticky purple tidal wave of death. It flooded the arena on all sides of the pyre and thousands of O’Baarni and humans instantly burst into a wet flame as if they were walking wax fire starters.

  Iolarathe’s body was gone; it was now part of the charcoal upon which I stood. Even the cross they had bound her to was twisted and bent against the colossal heat. My love was dead and with her went any chance to find our daughter. My old friends had taken everything for me.

  I turned my attention back to the thousands of fleeing O’Baarni and set another group of a hundred ablaze with my limitless anger. The fire I stood upon was almost expired now. I had pulled all of its life and energy into me. My power would not fade until every last one of them was destroyed.

  I stepped from the mountain of charcoal to continue my revenge.

  The ground was awash in lava but I walked through it. The Fire knew I was its master. I was beyond the simple pains of the flesh now. The stadium was empty now. Thayer jumped toward me once I reached the arch marking the exit. My friend with the scarred nose was as quick as usual, but his sword stopped against my skull shield with a symphonic screech that seemed to echo across the entire city. I did not remember picking up my shield, but the heavy piece of metal glowed the same purple and green color as the Fire that dripped from my skin like sweat.

  My mace was in my hand now as well and I swung the devastating weapon at my friend’s shaved head. He attempted to dodge it but it seemed as if he moved through molasses and the mace connected with his shoulder. Dozens of bones shattered and his torso buckled beneath the attack. My leg instantly kicked forward and the ball of my foot slammed into his chest. More of his ribs shattered and the man who had once been my dearest friend tumbled away from me like a cast pebble. A stone building a hundred yards away broke his uncontrolled roll and the structure shattered like ice and then crumbled around his dead body.

  Gorbanni led twenty of his armored warriors against me. They carried spears and shields decorated with various ram effigies. I considered destroying them with another wave of Fire but I wanted the satisfaction of feeling each of their bodies break under my mace. I sprinted toward them and leapt into the air right before I reached their spear range.

  My armored body landed at the edge of the squad and two of the warriors’ ram-helmeted heads imploded with a single swing of my mace. Before the r
est could turn around, three more were dead and I stood upon their twitching corpses.

  Spears were wonderful weapons for large scale warfare or open spaces, but Gorbanni’s warriors had not expected me to get closer than lance length to them. By the time the remainder of the squad turned around and realized they needed to grab for their swords the city street was awash with gallons of blood and the dead at my feet numbered sixteen.

  I swung my mace a few more times and only Gorbanni was left standing before me. He blocked my first strike with his shield and I felt his muscular arm break beneath the blow. He grunted in annoyance, but the pain didn’t stop him from slashing at my legs with his heavy cavalry sword. My shield deflected this blow easily and it felt almost as if a child was attacking me.

  I heard arrows twang against bow strings and I swung my shield behind me to block the volley of missiles Alexia and her warriors intended for my back. The arrows bounced off of my screaming death shield like angry rain. Half of her archers died when the rooftop they crouched upon burst into a giant ball of purple and green flame.

  Gorbanni may have believed that I forgot about him, but I spun away from the vertical strike he aimed at my exposed back, and then I smashed my mace into his spine. The blond man bent backward like a wet rag and every single disc in his back exploded. He managed to gasp out a scream, but I did not care about his pain. He had killed Iolarathe and now the horseman was going to pay.

  I raised my mace and was about to bring it down on his helmet, but Malek stepped from the corner of the building I had just set on fire. He was with ten of his warriors and they raised their hands toward me in unison. I thought about diving out of the way, but I realized it would not matter. Nothing would stop me. I would kill all of them.

  Especially Malek.

  Then Alexia.

  Then Gorbanni.

  Then I would finish what I started with Shlara.

  Their magic swirled around me in a rainbow of oranges and reds. It should have burned me, but I pulled the power from it and felt my blood boil and surge with strength. Malek’s soldiers then tasted my own purple Fire as it consumed their souls.