“This makes no sense!” His voice was full of despair. He fell to his armored knees and reached out hesitantly over the smoking figure. “Kaiyer!” Tears streamed down his face.
I kneeled in silence while he sobbed over Shlara’s corpse and I fought with the knots of agony in the pit of my stomach. Finally he turned to look over at me and the rage was plain on his face. He sprung to his feet and moved to face me.
“Something happened. You better fucking tell me now, Kaiyer.” He pointed a gloved finger down at my face.
“I killed her.” I was suddenly aware that I was naked and the scent of Iolarathe clung to my body like perfume. I wondered why Malek had not commented on my lack of armor.
“Liar! I don’t believe you.” His jaw clenched and his eyes went wide with insanity. I said nothing and he began to tremble in his armor.
I was divided in my own mind. The pain of Shlara’s loss and the horror of what I had done tied my tongue and kept me from explaining what had happened. Another part of my consciousness wanted to buy as much time as possible for Iolarathe to escape.
His fist lashed out, and though it moved slowly, I didn’t bother to block it. My head snapped sideways and my face numbed with shock. He pulled back his arm again to strike.
“You are hiding something from me!” he seethed.
I sprung to my feet and my friend took a startled step backward. The rage in his eyes briefly flashed to fear, but he stood his ground and stepped back toward me. Our faces were close enough so that our noses almost touched and I could smell the anger on his spittle.
“Tell your guards to leave,” I commanded. The armored warriors upon their horses behind him turned to look at each other. When Malek didn’t say anything for a few seconds the one at the end turned his horse around slowly.
“Why? So you can kill me as well?”
The guard who had turned whirled back toward us, though it was clear none of them wanted to be here.
“No. I want to speak with you about it privately.”
“Tell me what happened. Now.” His fists fell to his side and one of the hands brushed the handle of his sword.
“We argued. She attacked. I didn’t mean to kill her.” The half-truths skipped from my mouth like stones across a lake.
“What did you argue about?” he growled. He looked past me and must have noticed my discarded armor, shield, and mace scattered on the grass.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does if you killed her! Fuck! Stop with your lies!” His teeth ground together and I felt the power of the Earth surge through his armored body.
“I just did not love her enough, Malek. Not the way she wanted,” I whispered the words. Each syllable tore through my throat. “I finally made her understand.”
“No. You loved her.” The tears streamed down his face. “Just tell me what happened, Kaiyer.” He sobbed the words. “We finally won, our people are free, and now the woman I love is dead, by your hands?” He kneeled before me and grasped my wrists. “Why did you do this?”
I pulled my hands away from his grip and took a deep breath in an effort to steady my nerves. A plan was beginning to form in my mind. There were only three possible outcomes: I would die here, I would be captured, or I could escape and continue on my path to meet with Iolarathe as we planned.
How could I ensure the last result without killing anyone else?
“I am going to put my armor back on.” I regretted the words when they left my mouth, but I knew Malek would understand what I was doing as soon as I touched the skull-emblazoned metal.
“Why was it off? How are you even alive? I saw you fall from the dragon. Shlara told me she was going to recover your body. We thought you died.” I hoped that my friend was too distraught to figure out why I was putting on my armor.
I didn’t answer him. Instead I grabbed my blood-crusted undergarments and slipped into them. I didn’t know how I had survived the fall from the dragon but perhaps I shouldn’t have, then Shlara would still be alive. I grasped my leather shirt piece and shrugged it over my shoulders with practiced ease.
Then Malek punched me.
Perhaps I should have expected the blow. Maybe I wanted him to hit me. The fist caught me on the left eye and knocked me spinning through the air with the force of a horse’s hoof. I landed on the ground next to my discarded armor and it took a few seconds for my brain to steady the sky.
Malek jumped on top of me but I managed to block the next few strikes of his armored fists. I finally caught one of his arms and managed to trap it next to my neck. Then I lifted my hips with a sharp jerk and threw his body off of mine. Malek was skilled in combat, but he wasn’t a match for my prowess. No one but Shlara came close to my level. I soon had our positions reversed. Instead of pummeling him, I just pinned his arms under my hands so that he could not continue to strike me.
“Who the fuck is she?” he screamed from beneath me.
“What are you talking about?”
“The woman. Was it the Elven general?” Foam was coming out of the side of his mouth and he was doing his best to unhinge his arms from mine. His accusation surprised me and he managed to free his left hand and punch me in the nose. He didn’t have good leverage from beneath me, but the magic of the Earth made our attacks powerful and I felt my skull threaten to crack and my vision swim dangerously.
“Stop hitting me!” The sadness over Shlara’s murder and the shame of my deed was suddenly replaced by anger.
“Tell me I am wrong, Kaiyer! Tell me you didn’t fuck that Elven bitch and then kill Shlara when she found you two? I am not a fool!” Now both of his hands were free and I let him push me off of his chest.
“Nothing to say? Just tell me, damn it all!” He pointed at me again but I couldn’t say the words to defend myself. The four warriors on the horses had their hands on their swords and I wondered how serious of a threat they would think I was. I knew they were more loyal to Malek than they were to me.
“I am so sorry, my friend.” I lowered my head.
“I’m not your fucking friend, Kaiyer!” he growled. “I will find out what happened here, even if I have to torture it from you.” He gestured to the last man on the line of horses. “Elantik, go gather a scout party immediately and bring them here. There are horse tracks beside the corpse leading north. Whren, Gwito, and Fredic, help me bind Kaiyer.”
“Stop.” Elantik obeyed my command by halting his steed. The other three men also paused in their act of dismounting their horses.
“I will come peacefully. There is no need to track the horses. The animals fled the pasture when I killed Shlara.”
“No, Kaiyer. Shlara’s horse would not have left her. Who took it?” I couldn’t hide my grimace. I had let my emotions interfere with my logic. Of course Malek could see through the lie.
“I did it. I will come peacefully if you give up the pursuit.” I did not know how else to bargain with him. I had to let Iolarathe put some distance between herself and my troops. They would easily overpower her now.
“You are not in a position to negotiate with me,” he sneered. “Take him!” He drew his sword and the three men dismounted. Elantik kicked his horse forward and they headed after Iolarathe.
The horse and his rider burst into a torrent of flame. The Fire roared purple and green. It was molten magma that instantly consumed the screaming beast and man. The three other men jumped to the side to avoid being scorched, but the sticky flames spread. The nearest horse was soon engulfed, it stamped and screeched as it roasted alive.
I had only intended to kill Elantik’s horse. My magic was imprecise and powerful. I did not want to hurt any of them, but I could not let them hunt Iolarathe. I had made my choice.
“You fucking bastard!” Malek’s sword cut at me horizontally but my shield was suddenly in my hands and his blade bounced off it with a deafening ring.
He did not expect the block and his eyes went wide with surprise. I stepped toward him and slammed the flat surface of the skulls into his unarmored face and torso. The blow did not break his jaw, but there was enough force to knock him off of his feet.
The first two warriors came at me with a combined attack. They were both right handed and their heavy horse sabers were designed to slash downward from a mounted position. They expected me to fall back and away from their attacks. Instead, I stepped forward, slamming my shield against the man to my right, and then intercepting the attack of his partner with a palm strike to his shoulder. My blow altered the direction of his swing and the weapon swiped harmlessly in front of me, almost striking the other warrior.
My left foot lashed out and connected with the warrior to my left. My shin collided with the mailed part of his knee joint and I heard the bone snap with a dreadful wet sound. The man did not scream out against the pain, but he lost his footing and began to fall toward me. He was more concerned with keeping his balance than attacking me again, so I brought down my shield against his blade, lifted my left arm against this elbow, and shattered his forearm. His saber spun through the air like a disc and I snagged the hilt of the weapon before he crashed into the ground at my feet. There was a break in the wolf armor at the neck and I buried the sword into the warrior’s throat before he could push his helmet down to protect the jugular.
Then there were only two warriors and Malek.
From the corner of my eye I saw my friend struggle to a crouch while he covered his bleeding face. He would be healed in a few more seconds and then I would probably face the wrath of his magic or his sword play. I yanked the buried sword out of the dying man’s neck and then focused my attention on the last two of his warriors. The man I had pushed away from me drove his blade to my right side, but my newly acquired sword was quick and the heavy cleaver almost felt like a toy in my hand. I whipped it upward easily and it caught him in the elbow before the edge of his weapon could cut into my undefended side. The armor parted at my attack and his blade, along with his hand and forearm, spun free of us in a shower of blood. He was surprised and choked out a brief scream of disappointment before my weapon removed the top half of his armored skull.
The last warrior was the most skilled of the three and he lashed out with a series of precise cuts aimed at my right side. I had to fall back a few feet and adjust my shield to block the majority of the attacks and I realized that he was herding me away from Malek. My friend had risen to his feet and fury was clear on his face. He brought up his hands and I knew what was coming next. Unfortunately, my current attacker had done an excellent job of positioning me at the perfect angle for Malek to aim his magic. I was too far away to sprint toward my general, so I risked throwing my sword at him. The blade twisted through the air and buried itself into his midsection like a dagger through a sausage.
The three of us screamed in unison. I had only meant to distract Malek from launching a globe of Fire at me, but my attack may have actually severed his spine. My friend collapsed with an agonized look of panic on his face and the sides of my vision began to grow dark.
The soldier paused to assess his general and I grabbed my mace. He turned back to me just in time to block my attack with his own sword. The saber shrieked when it made contact with my weapon and the warrior stumbled back before I could land a blow against his body.
I drove forward with my shield and he was forced to retreat against the combined pushes from the bulwark and the devastating swings from my mace. The man had left his shield on his horse and was not able to defend against my attacks without giving up ground. After a few seconds, I timed his footwork and managed to slip my bare toe behind his armored heel. He tumbled down before me and my mace crushed the wolf helmet with a shower of red blood and brain matter.
“Fuck you, Kaiyer!” Malek lay on the grass a few feet from his dead warriors. I dropped my mace and shield and then walked to him.
“Hold still,” I commanded. I looked at the position of the blade. It was not coming out of the other side of his back, his armor and his own strength had stopped the weapon from reaching a fatal point in his spine.
“Why? You are my best friend. We trusted you.” The tears streamed down his face and blood came out of the side of his mouth.
“You will live,” I said with a long sigh of relief. It would have been too much to kill Malek and Shlara. A surge of memories rushed through my head and I recalled the many laughs, arguments, and problems my friend and I had shared over the decades we had worked together building this army.
“Why did you kill her? She was wonderful. Kaiyer, she loved you.” He was weeping along with me.
“Don’t follow me. Don’t follow the horse tracks. You are fit to lead our people. Just leave me alone. I am sorry, Malek. I am so sorry.”
“What do I tell them? That you just killed her?” He grabbed my shoulder and I realized he was using all of his magic to remain conscious.
“Tell them I died.” I sighed. “Or tell them what happened. I don’t care. Just don’t follow me. You have what you wanted now. The Elvens are dead.”
“No, you fucking bastard! You can’t do this to us!” I could almost taste his hatred. His sadness.
“I am sorry.”
“You betrayed us all! It was not supposed to end like this.”
I stood and walked toward the group of patient horses. My path took me past my weapons and the armor I had worn for so many years. I would not need them anymore, so I left them on the ground.