The four male Elvens leaned against a smooth wall to our right. They wore the blue and gold colors of Alatorict's army.
"You lost, humans?" the one with dark red hair asked.
"Yes. We are supposed to deliver food to the duchess," I said with as much fear as I could muster.
"So go do it!" another one said with a small sneer.
"Do you know which room she is in?" Danor asked. He sounded surprised by his own question.
"Fifth floor, north side, two of our females are guarding the door."
"Thank you." I made a small bow while I backed away. Danor and I exchanged a relieved glance and then turned to walk up the stairs.
"Wait," one of the guards said from behind us. My heart dropped and we spun around slowly on the wide steps.
"You look familiar, human," the Elven said.
"I am new. Maybe you saw me walking in the castle?" I asked. If I hit them with fire they would all die, but it would be loud and messy. There was a better possibility that I could close the distance and gut a few with my dagger before the other two were able to draw their swords.
"No. No. The other one." He pointed to Danor.
"I have one of those faces, sir," my friend stammered with a nervous smile.
"You all do look the same. I think it is the mustache. It makes me believe I have seen you before, perhaps you were sweeping out the stables?" The four men laughed, but the intent didn't seem diabolical.
"Perhaps you did, sir." Danor smiled nervously and we continued our walk up the stairs. By the time we had reached the fifth floor the Elven's conversation had turned back to their training and talk of where in the town they would visit when their shift ended.
"I think this plan might work. The guards probably won't expect us to just walk out," Danor said.
"Unless one of the guards recognizes me."
"Maybe we should have gotten you a fake mustache." Danor grinned. I could tell his heart was still racing though.
"One step at a time." I smiled back and we headed north on the third floor.
"I bet they are staying in either Maerc's or Beltor's suite of rooms."
"Why?"
"Nadea said this was a peaceful surrender. The empress will not want to make them feel like prisoners. I'm sure she would have even kept Nadea in her own room if it had not been destroyed. Maerc and Beltor have the nicest rooms outside the Royal Quarters. We are going in that direction anyway, so we will soon find out."
“This way.” Danor turned west and we walked another two hundred feet before reaching an intersection. At the end of the hallway were two sets of doors, each guarded by a pair of Alatorict’s sentries. We approached the closest one. One of the guards had been assigned to my room when I was captive here. I struggled to keep my breathing and heartrate normal and looked down to avoid her gaze. I gave Danor a look that I hoped communicated that he needed to do the talking.
"We are supposed to deliver food to the duchess. Is this her room?" Danor's voice sounded confident.
"No, human. She is across the hall." The woman raised a leather gloved hand and pointed at the other pair of guards a hundred yards to the north.
"Thank you." Danor bowed carefully with his tray and we turned to walk toward the next group. I didn't recognize these two Elvens, but that didn't mean that they wouldn't know who I was.
"We have food for the duchess," Danor said.
"The duchess didn't order any food," the Elven on the left said. She had wispy metallic-blue hair and eyes a few shades lighter.
"We are just following orders, ma'am," my friend replied smoothly.
"Whose orders?"
"We were working in the kitchen and this tall Ancient came in. He had long silver hair tied up in a ponytail. He was dressed really nice and had this weird smile on his face. Told your cook down there to bring the duchess some food and she gave us the tray." I spat the words out quickly and hoped she would assume that I meant Alatorict.
"No one is supposed to see the duchess until the empress visits her."
"For the love of the Spirits, let them come in. We are hungry!" Nadea's voice sang out from inside the room. The Elvens hesitated for a bit and cast annoyed glances at each other before they opened the door to allow Danor and I to enter.
Nadea, Greykin, and Runir stood behind a square oak table and a group of handcrafted chairs. They each wore Nia army uniforms of purple and gold trim, but the three were not armed with any weapons. Their faces were a mixture of relief and surprise, especially Nadea, who tried her best to keep her face from splitting into a grin when I walked into the room ahead of Danor.
"Your food has arrived," I said with a careful smile. The door behind us was still open and the Elvens were observing us. Behind my friends were three doors that led to other rooms of the suite. To their left was a raised portion of the room that transitioned to a set of closed double doors that I guessed went to a veranda. I had lost my sense of direction within the castle, but I imagined that the balcony must have faced the north training courtyard.
"Straight from the kitchen." Danor laid out the tray and then pulled the lid off to show the three sets of plates, glasses, flatware, a basket of bread, and bottle of white wine. "We were told there were three of you here and that it would be difficult for you to get food on your own." He winked and I looked over my shoulder, the two Elven women stared into the room to ensure we completed our task and little else.
"Thank you, friends. I'm so hungry I could devour a cow, shit it out, and then eat it again." Greykin's voice was deeper and darker than I remembered. His face was thinner and more ashen than his usual ruddy skin tone. He had received a serious wound to his chest when Nia had originally fallen, but the Old Bear never showed it to me. I had smelled it, and the scent remained about him now, predicting an outcome that I didn't want to imagine.
Danor gave me a nervous glance while we set up the plates and glasses on the oak table. One variation of our plan involved me taking out whatever Elven guards might be around Nadea and then securing her in an empty room until we found Jessmei and Beltor. If the situation was still under control and we had not been detected at that point, then we would look for Greykin and Runir. We were lucky to find Runir and Greykin with Nadea, but the Elven guards made the situation difficult. Even if I killed these two by Nadea's door, there was another pair a hundred yards away. They would quickly raise an alarm before I could dispatch them. I hoped the door they guarded was Beltor's, but that would still mean that we would have difficulty finding Jessmei before the empress's warriors found us. My mind raced through thousands of different options before settling on a plan that I believed would have the best chance of success.
I pointed to one of the back rooms and met Nadea's brown eyes. She glanced over to the Elven guards at the door and nodded slightly. I stepped around the table and walked toward the room while Danor continued to place the plates. I heard Runir and Greykin sit down and begin to tear into the food. But their actions didn't distract the guards at all.
"Hey, human. Where do you think you are going?" one of the Elvens asked from the hallway behind me.
"To clean the duchess's room, of course." I smiled over my shoulder and then walked into the adjacent room as confidently as I could. Nadea followed me without looking and I closed the thick oak door behind her. I listened to the other room for a second and was surprised that the Elven didn't follow us. She probably thought I was a mere human servant who wouldn't dream of defying my new masters.
Once I had determined that they weren't going to follow us I turned to Nadea to explain my plan.
"I thought you were dead, again." Her arms wrapped up around my neck and her mouth whispered the words in my ear. I felt her warm breath on my face and smelled the scent of her hair and skin. My arms circled her lower back and I pulled her slender body against mine. For a few seconds I couldn't think of anything besides how much I wanted to make love to her. There was a bed in the room, a monstrous four post contraption that could have penned an
angry stallion if boards were added to the sides. It would have been wonderful to pick up my friend, carry her the thirty feet, throw her on the bed, and have my way with her. Alas, my animal brain recovered from its luxuriant fantasy and recalled the task at hand.
"I said I would return to you. I've come to rescue you," I whispered back, remembering the last time we saw each other in Fisherman's Gorge. Nadea had wanted me to stay in the camp, but I argued that her father and Jessmei needed me. My voice was quiet enough to keep the Elvens from hearing us. Or so I hoped.
"What do you mean?" She pulled away from me, her face painted with a puzzled expression.
"We are going to escape the castle. The army is departing east to your father's keep."
"No. No. No." She shook her head and her dark brown mane swirled around her shoulders and cascaded down her lower back like the sunset over a waterfall. She normally kept it tied up in a ponytail, but tonight it was loose. I noticed now how each thread of hair on her head had a faint metallic sheen. "I surrendered. It's over. We lost. There is nowhere to run."
"Your father's castle is on the cliffs of the Teeth. We can defend against the empress from there. We can also escape into the Losher lands if we need to."
"They will hunt us down. They are too powerful. I've thought about this Kaiyer. There is no way we can win at this point." She crossed her arms.
"I will change more of your troops and train them. I spent my life fighting Elvens and I can show your people what to do." I struggled to keep my voice low.
"It is too late. The empress has us cornered."
"There is always a way to victory. We have to get you and Jess out of the castle."
"She is here?"
"Somewhere. I believe your father is just across the hall."
"My father?" Her eyes glistened slightly and for a second the strong woman in front of me became a girl that missed her parent. I could relate to the feeling. The loss of my brother and father still made my heart ache, thousands of years later.
"We will kill these guards, retrieve your father, find Jessmei, and then flee the castle. We have horses prepared and can--"
"Ahhh shit!" Greykin's voice boomed in the room next door with the accompaniment of a broken glass.
"You poured wine all over me, human!"
"The wet and annoyed look suits you, Ancient. Maybe if you hadn't gotten in the way of me feast you wouldn't have suffered from the wrath of this glass."
The two began to argue and Runir jumped into the verbal fray to point out that the guardswoman was quite clumsy. Nadea and I turned our attention back to each other knowing that we only had a few precious seconds to conclude this discussion.
"I will speak to my father; we will listen to your plan and then make a decision." Nadea's words were backed by iron and she moved past me to open the door. "We can't risk offending the empress without a complete understanding of the consequences."
"Have you met with her yet?" I rested my hand on her arm to keep her from opening the door. The contact of her skin felt like warm sunlight baking my cold and tired body.
"No. I was told tomorrow at the earliest. They showed me respect when I arrived though, so I am going to demand to walk across the hallway and see if you are correct about my father. Then you can explain the plan to both of us."
"Fine, I will need to tell you both something else as well," I said through gritted teeth. Nadea wanted to see her father and at this point, nothing I could say or do would stop her. She was as stubborn as I remembered Shlara being. Just like me.
The argument next door was becoming more heated and I heard Runir moving toward our door to block the guard from entering. I moved my hand to my back and made sure the small dagger there was loose in its sheath under my shirt. If the guards denied us access to Beltor it would get messy. I hoped Nadea could at least get to the door down the hallway before the guards tried to stop her with force. Then I could kill them without risk of one escaping and sounding an alarm.
"I am going next door," Nadea said to everyone in the room as soon as she opened the door. She slid around the tall blonde man and went to move past the guards that he had been blocking.
"No. You are to stay in your quarters," the guard with the blue hair and eyes said.
"Is my father in the room down the hall?" Nadea took a step toward the Elven and the table with the uneaten plate of food.
"You can ask the empress tomorrow when she sees you." The Elven crossed her arms and rested the palm of her right hand on the pommel of her sword. The other guard still stood in the entryway to the suite but also rested her hand casually on her blade.
"Are you going to draw your swords?" The duchess glared at the two women and stepped toward them. I wondered how much she had practiced with the Earth in the time we had been apart.
"The empress wishes you alive, human." The blue-haired Elven inched a few steps closer to the side of the table away from Nadea and then nodded with her head nonchalantly over to where Danor, Greykin, and Runir stood. "But one of them can be killed easily. Don't test our resolve."
"He must be there or you would have answered differently. I will see him now."
"No, human. You will not." The guards drew their swords from their scabbards. To me, it was a slow movement that I could have interrupted with a simple push on their arms, but it probably seemed fast to Greykin, Runir, and Danor. The Elven guard in the hallway stepped a few feet into the suite but still blocked the exit. I heard a hurried set of footsteps make their way toward us from the other room.
"There is no need for weapons. Just let me see my father." With the swords drawn, the room suddenly felt too small. The Elven closest to us with the blue hair could move a few feet and cut down any one of us. Unfortunately, if she actually chose to attack the three men on the other side of the table there was little I could do about it without harnessing magic.
Every heart in the room beat furiously.
"No. We have our orders." She looked at me. "The servants shall leave your room now or I will remove them. You will stay here until the empress sees you. Another outburst like this and I will either remove or kill your friends." The two other guards came to stand in the hallway. It was only a matter of time before the woman who used to guard my door recognized me. Then I would be forced to act.
"The empress promised me autonomy with her people. Do your actions mean that she lied to me?" Nadea was getting angrier. I could imagine her frustration. It had been a year since she last saw her father and the knowledge that he was in the next room must have been agonizing.
"You can address her directly tomorrow." She looked to me and narrowed her eyes. "Leave now."
"Let's go," I said to Danor. Then I stepped around the table and walked toward the Elven with the blue hair. She glanced at me for a second and then turned her attention back to Nadea.
"Are you done whining, human?"
"I will inform the empress of your actions," Nadea seethed at the blue-haired Elven.
I had walked past the last guard in the room and was a few feet from the doorway the other two Elvens were guarding when Nadea said the words. The woman on the right glanced to me as I neared her and then her eyes registered the recognition that I feared. Her mouth opened in surprise, but my dagger was already leaving the sheath tied sideways in the small of my back. I made a quick shuffle forward and twisted my body, whipping my hips and arms around to slash at her. My weapon was short, only five inches of blade, but the ferocity and speed of my attack separated her head from her neck like a butcher would handle a chicken.
The other Elven reached for her sword, but my left arm was already traveling away. None of these warriors wore helmets, so when my elbow collided with the side of her face it shattered skull and teeth, like a rock tossed through a red windowpane.
The other two guards were in the process of turning around to see what the noise was behind them. I dashed through the doorway and rammed the dagger in my left hand deep into the back of the closest Elven. The stab went bet
ween her ribs, splitting her slow beating heart in twain. It would probably take her brain a few seconds to realize that she was dead, and by then I would have killed the blue-haired Elven who turned toward me.
In combat, even the smallest mistakes could cost you everything. When battling with an O'Baarni or an Elven, mistakes compounded quickly. Actions that took a human a second to execute only took me an eighth of one. My warriors had to think quicker, respond faster, and plan their fighting tactics five steps ahead of their opponents. So far I had been disappointed with the prowess of the empress's troops. Yillomar had apparently been one of their best warriors, even skilled enough to beat the current O'Baarni crop, yet I defeated him easily. Could it be that the science my generals and I perfected had somehow been lost in these five thousand years? The stakes were much lower for my current brethren and the Elvens. Competing in a series of games for fame, instead of training for survival, must have dulled their skills.
My thoughts turned back to the blue-haired guard as she turned the wrong direction to face me. I was behind her, to her right, yet her sword was in her right hand. The novice would have turned as she did, clockwise toward me, but this allowed me to trap her weapon against her body as she twisted and slam the dagger into her right eye socket. Had she known better and spun counterclockwise, she could have addressed me with the point of her blade. It may not have mattered ultimately, but it was the finer techniques, committed to memory over thousands of repetitions, that separated the master warrior from the novice.
"What did you do Kaiyer?" Nadea's voice was frantic.
The four bodies fell to the floor at almost the same time, but I was already back to the second guard. Her body twitched a few times while her brain tried to rearrange itself. After a few seconds, her limbs stopped moving and I confirmed she was dead. Then I looked at the hallway. The first guard's blood splattered all over the side of the wall and pooled on the tile beneath her body. I had moved fast enough to escape the initial artery spray, but my left hand was covered with it from when I stabbed the third guard.
The Destroyer Book 3 Page 48