The Destroyer (40 page)

For a second I thought I was looking into a glowing pool of white water. I realized that I was lying on my back and gazing up at a hole in the ceiling. The light from the twin moons broke through the opening and poured upon the pile of rubble that used to be the roof of this large storage building. There were hundreds of sacks of flour spread out on the floor. I pushed myself up to my feet but fell back down again. My left arm wasn't working for some reason. I looked at it and saw a barbed arrow that pierced the limb like a toothpick through a sausage. Then I remembered how I had ended up flat on my back in a grain house.

Nadea and I had hastily donned our clothes and ran out into the hallway. I tried to find Paug, but she told me that we should make our way to the king. If we were really under attack, we needed to report to him to see where we could be of use. On our way there I saw an Elven ascend the stairs to the Royal Quarters. My blood screamed through my ears and I set off after him. My insane rage needed to be cooled by drinking his screams.

The man led me on a merry run through the halls. I had almost caught him a few times, but he seemed more intent on running from me than fighting. Finally, he bounded out of a window of the castle and I gave chase through the sprawling city over which the magnificent fortress perched. The bells of the alarm rang out from the castle and into the city like the scream of an eagle. All the doors and windows were closed in the homes and buildings. People hid when afraid.

The Elven man was good at evading me. We sprung across the rooftops with ease and hit the ground to take the fastest avenue away from the castle. It reminded me of the game of follow the leader that Thayer and I had played through the forest of our training. Only this game would have a darker end once I caught up to my prey. After ten minutes of chasing him he had continued to glance over his shoulder. The third time he did such a check I realized he wasn't checking to see if I was still behind him. He was checking to make sure that I was still behind him.

Before I could alter my course I heard the twangs of several bowstrings on my left side. I twisted in the air but one pierced my left arm. Half a dozen Elvens appeared from the parallel rooftops after the arrows flew. It was easy to spot their shadowy forms against the cream paint of the buildings and the light of the white and grayish moons.

Now I was the one running. I felt like a fucking idiot since I had fallen right into their trap. I hadn't even bothered to put shoes on or grab a sword when I left my room with Nadea.

I had grown derelict and would pay the price.

My arm was numb and cold. At least the head of the arrow passed through the limb but the tip was decently poisoned. It hadn't seeped into my body yet, but I knew I only had a few minutes before it did. Once the toxin hit my legs I wouldn't be able to run anymore.

Another set of arrows bounced off the wall next to me as I ducked and rolled across a roof. Then I ran, dodging clothes lines hung with laundry, tables stacked with empty wine bottles, and cages filled with small birds that were probably used for food or message-sending.

Magical energy built behind me and I tried to pick up the pace. Heat washed over me as an explosion of magic lifted me off my feet and spun me through the air like a coin. I hit the roof of a building and felt it break underneath me. Now her voice woke me. How much time had passed?

"
Move
!" her voice commanded from behind me. I spun around but didn't see her.

"Iolarathe?" I called out but got no reply. My left arm was still numb, but the toxin had not made it to my chest yet. I grabbed the shaft by the arrowhead and ripped it the rest of the way through my arm. My vision swam darkly and I fought against the desire to scream or faint. I forced my body to heal, but the poison created an uphill battle.

A shadow flashed across the opening above me like a bird flying across a window. I looked for an exit to this warehouse on the ground level and spotted a double set of wood doors twenty feet from me that probably led to the main street. I ran over and lifted the bar from them as quietly as I could with one working arm. My hands were about to push the wooden portals open so I could run. Then I thought better of it and stood to the side.

Sure enough, as soon as I pushed them out a trill of bowstrings sung and the doors instantly filled with arrow shafts. No exit that way. I looked up at the hole forty feet in the ceiling. Even if I made the jump, chances were that my attackers would be waiting for me up top.

"Now what?" I asked the voice in my head that sounded like Iolarathe. I got no answer.

"Come out O'Baarni . . ." a female voice whispered from the street outside the building. There was another flash of darkness across the hole in the roof and I looked up to see a figure leaning over the edge looking down at me.

I needed to get out and was thinking too much like a human. My kind had other talents besides our fists. I ran to the opposite side of the warehouse from the door, toward the thick wood wall that led out to what I guessed was an alley or another street. Earth and Air swelled inside of me. It pushed into my chest and I reached out my hand, focusing the power through it and against the far wall. Fire and force exploded from me and shattered the wood like a rock being thrown against a glass wine bottle.

Then I was through the wall and into the street. Using the Wind always left me a bit disoriented. It was no problem to run, but I couldn't have harnessed it while in the midst of combat.

Screeches of outrage echoed across the walls of the city behind me as I ran. I had no idea where I was in the capital, so I debated jumping onto the roofs to get my bearings. There was a risk I would be easy to spot by my pursuers, but staying at ground level meant that they would have a better angle for their arrows.

There was one close behind me. I heard the light, quick footsteps of his or her pursuit. I made a sharp turn behind what looked to be a dry goods store and quickly jumped up to the ledge of the second floor.

The Elven turned the corner and I jumped down on him. He didn't have his sword out, just a short, heavy bow with one of the familiar barbed arrows notched in the string. It went off as my knee connected with his lower back and bounced off the street walls and ground until it impaled itself in the wood of the store.

The force of the blow drove the man to his stomach, though I didn't weigh much. I grabbed onto the back of his head by the braided hair with my right hand and slammed his face into the stone of the alleyway three times until his skull cracked. I stood up and finished him off by grinding the bones in his throat into a flat piece of leather with the heel of my bare foot.

He carried a curved long sword, curved short sword, two daggers, and the bow with six arrows in a small quiver. It took me a half a minute of numb arm fumbling to untie his various weapon belts and attach them to my own thin waist. Once settled, I ran my right hand over the hilts of the blades and memorized their draw angles.

I heard the dancing of two more pairs of booted feet coming down the road toward my alley before the alarm sounded again. I flipped out one of the newly acquired daggers and exhaled. Then I poked my upper body from behind the corner and threw it at the one closest to me. It was a lucky throw, hitting her right in the throat and flipping her body back. She gurgled out a soft scream of blood through torn vocal chords. Her companion dove to the side behind a discarded hand cart.

"He's here!" the Elven shouted out in our language from behind the cart. Half a dozen voices howled out in the night from around us. I reached down and grabbed the bow with my right hand and ran to the nearest silent spot.

Two dead. How many more were there? Eight? Perhaps less. I jumped up to a small thatched roof and then leapt up to a higher ledge of stone. I ran for a minute or two, jumping between rooftops. Finally, I slowed to a stop and looked around to get my bearings. I was near the south of the city. The castle sat to the north, its hundreds of windows like the eyes of a hungry, giant tarantula over a web of glowing fireflies. My left arm started to screech with pain, so I carefully flexed my grip and managed to close my fingers. At least this was one thing going my way.

I didn't hear my pursuers, which meant I had either lost them or they were moving in discreetly for the kill. I bet on the latter and hurdled off of the edge of the building, falling thirty feet to the hard cobblestone below. Arrows bounced off the walls around me as I fell; they all missed, but confirmed that I had taken the right bet. Howls of anger echoed across the roof from the Elvens once they realized I had escaped their ambush again.

I kept running, aiming for the west side of the city. The alarm bellowed across the still night, reminding me of my friends in the castle. I didn't have much of a plan other than regaining the full use of my arm and then killing them off one by one. I just needed to live for a bit longer.

There was a group forty yards behind me, and another maybe sixty yards to the northeast of me, trying to flank me. I heard them cracking the tiles of the roof tops as they ran. My arm could move now but I doubted its strength. I cut west through another alleyway and headed directly to the wall around the city. I slowed down a little and tested the pull on the bowstring without notching an arrow. My arm almost bucked, but was able to hold it firm if I locked my elbow. It would have to do,
I thought to myself as I carefully placed one of the poisoned arrows against the string.

I turned the corner again to double back south. The street here lay on a steep decline and I spotted a few barrels sitting in front of the doors of a home. I kicked them over and sent them rolling down the hill. Then I faced the direction I came from and notched the arrow, hoping that the sound of the tumbling casks would cover my lack of movement.

It did.

The first Elven took one of my arrows into his stomach before he had moved three steps around the corner. He let out a shocked scream as he doubled over in pain and stumbled to the ground. The Elvens could heal themselves using the power of the Earth as I did, but I doubted he would be able to pull the barbed tip out himself or heal before he fell unconscious from the pain.

The second one notched her arrow quicker than I did with my damaged arm. I heard the twang of her bow and then I prudently ducked while I continued to attach the arrow to my own flax string. I felt the feathered shaft pass over the hair on my head and then I came up with mine drawn back. She dodged to her right, laying her sleek body out through the air in a line parallel with the cobblestones. My arrow still took her in the left leg and she screamed out in dismay as the force spun her around like a child's top. I notched another arrow and pointed at the corner of the alley from where they would emerge.

"He's here!" the woman called out into the night. She took another deep breath and was about to yell again when I put my arrow through her jaw and into her skull. I didn't hear any howls to answer her but I knew they were going to be coming soon.

I ran down the steep street and looked over to the west. The wall of the city was almost within reach. If I made it there, they could only approach me from one side. I didn't know for sure how many more there were, but I guessed at four. I made a quick right at an intersection and there was only a few hundred yards to the wall.

Almost there. I risked a glance back and saw two figures bouncing on rooftops a few blocks behind me. I would be able to make it to the wall before they would get to me.

An Elven stepped out from an alley about eighty yards in front of me with an arrow notched. He let loose and I dived forward and to the right. The barbed missile passed to my left side harmlessly. If he had been a little closer, I wouldn't have been so lucky.

"I made this special for you, Kaiyer. It weighs as much as a dragon but you'll laugh off anything lighter than a ballista arrow," the huge old man said to me. The armor did weigh a lot. But I imagined I would get used to the weight. The helm looked like the bare skull of some nightmarish demon. The shoulders were screaming skulls, and the smith had etched thousands of tortured demon faces into the surface of the dark black metal. If skulls could have expressions, theirs would be of loathing and hate.

"Holy shit. I'm scared just looking at that thing," Malek said at my side. He delicately picked up the helm and turned it over in his outstretched hands as if the visage would bite him.

"Aye," the old man spit on the ground. "It's my finest work. I hope they all shit themselves when you come to rip the souls from their wailing throats."

"What are these?" I said, reaching into the armor to touch the sharp points connecting the joints.

"I'll explain those to you when you put it on. I've heard you’re a tough motherfucker."

I shrugged but didn't answer him directly.

"You'll need a weapon as abhorrent as this armor," Malek said to me with a smile.

"I'm working on several of those. I think you'll be pleased," the old man said.

I switched the bow to my right hand and notched another arrow. The male Elven in the street also pulled back his string, so I crouched down low and pushed my right side against the wall. The hand change would let me expose less of my body against the corner. I gritted in agony as my left arm struggled to hold the string back. He let loose when my head appeared briefly, and I ducked back as arrow slammed into the wooden panels of the building I used as cover. I stepped out and let loose. Unfortunately, my left arm still felt the effects of the poison and the arrow went wide over his head as he jumped out of the way.

"Shit!" I muttered under my breath as I continued north through the alleyway. I moved the bow back into my left hand.

The alarm echoed across the city and I decided to double back the way I had gone. The cover of the noise would give me a few precious seconds to change direction before they might notice me running again.

I noticed the pair of shadows up above me to my left and prepared to dodge another volley of arrows, but the alarm was still ringing and they kept running in the direction they believed I was heading. I didn't think I would get a better chance to surprise them, so I jumped up on the ledge of the building and pulled myself up with my right hand. They were sprinting away from me across the roof, oblivious to the feint I had pulled. The arrow drew back on my bow and I aimed for the lower back of the Elven that was closest to me. She grunted in surprised agony as I caught her in a midair jump. The barbed shaft hit her in the lower spine and bent her back. I doubted that she was dead, but she wouldn't be walking or moving for a few hours.