"This is unacceptable! I refuse to have him stay here after what he has done to us!" the prince yelled over the argument that bounced off of the walls of the king's private receiving chamber.
The plush carpeted room lay divided between factions. On one side sat Maerc, Runir, and Prince Nanos. The other side was the duke, Nadea, Grandfather, myself, and most surprisingly, Greykin. The big man leaned back in one of the leather chairs and peeled an apple with a blade that was almost as long as my hand. He hadn't been involved in the arguments until the prince made his last statement. Then he sat up abruptly and laughed, his belly movement cutting through the room like an avalanche of snow disrupts the noise of children playing.
"You mean what he did to you? Ha! It's about time someone had the balls to smack you around a little. You don't do anything around here but bully your sister and bamboozle your way through the real soldiers' training." Greykin's words were bold; one didn't talk that way to the prince. But I figured that the big man would always speak plainly. From the tales he told, Greykin was one of the king's combat trainers many decades ago, and if that was true, he was probably used to giving the king honest feedback.
"I am to be the king someday old man. When that time comes you will--"
"Silence!" the king commanded. His son shut his mouth with a snap and glared at the axe man. Greykin smiled as if he had just been given a mug filled with his favorite brew.
"The prince does have a point, though. Kaiyer doesn't seem to understand how we do things around here. He might do real harm," Maerc paused and looked at Runir, whose neck was wrapped with a white bandage, "or humiliate us. We should have him stay at another location for the winter. Then he can come back in the spring and begin his work." I wanted to scream at him. Kaiyer wasn't from our time. He didn't understand our ways, and the people that seemed to have the largest argument to him staying were the ones that couldn't be nice to him. I didn't speak up though. I was just a small boy amongst giants here.
"We are repeating ourselves." Nadea got up and paced the room. Her leather boots didn't make a sound through the thick carpet. "If he is not here where will he go? Also, what happens if he remembers something that we can use immediately?"
"What is he going to remember? He would have recalled anything he needed to by now. It is pretty obvious to me what is transpiring," the prince said. Nadea raised one of her perfect eyebrows in question and the prince continued. "He is working with the Ancients."
"That is impossible." Nadea stood hip shot in defiance. Normally she wore dresses in the castle, but in the last few days she was more likely to be wearing her current attire: sturdy leather field pants and a smooth silk blouse.
"Think about it. You happened to find the place where he was entombed when we supposedly needed him. Yet people have been finding and researching Ancient ruins for hundreds of years and no one has ever found anything but hints of the things he has done. How did you narrow down where he was located?" the prince asked with a knowing smirk on his face.
"I am not at liberty to say," Nadea said as she frowned. From what I understood, this was a sore point of the whole quest. Nadea said that she found some evidence that the O'Baarni would be located at the ruin where we did find Kaiyer, but she could never say exactly how she came about this information. It had taken her a lot of convincing to get the king to agree. I was more than happy to accept her invitation those many months ago, but Grandfather had been a disbeliever and interrogated her mercilessly. He didn't want me to go unless he knew I would be as safe as possible.
"Exactly, you aren't allowed to say. Yet as soon as this stranger steps up to be rewarded by my father for saving you and my nitwitted sister, the Ancients show up at our door. Then he makes a show of killing them and we are supposed to worship him as a hero."
"Your Highness, Paug told me about the fireball that knocked Kaiyer into the air and sent him crashing into the support pillar. How could he be a spy if that is true?" my grandfather asked politely. I nodded in agreement with him as I recalled that night. The blast had been so loud and Kaiyer's body had slammed into the pillar like a rag doll. For a second I thought he was dead. Anyone human would have broken into a million wet pieces. But he got up and defeated them.
"Parlor tricks, you can see people swallowing fire and walking across hot coals during the Sunday bazaar in the market. This man is not our ally. He wants nothing more than to destabilize our government, confuse our military with false tactics, and allow for the Ancients to have an easier time of destroying us," the prince said confidently. Runir and Maerc nodded along with him.
"He killed the four Ancients. Or did you forget that?" Nadea laughed, as if the prince had just told her that the sky was yellow.
"Of course he did. This so called 'empress' he serves needs to make it look convincing. What better way than for him to kill some pawns? It will make us trust him more and let our guard slip. Then he will strike!" The prince was charismatic, his handsome smile accented his points perfectly. Nadea was not impressed.
"No. Kaiyer didn't even know what Ancients were when we first awoke him. After we explained our war he told us that he called them the Elven people. He used to be their slave. He told Paug that his father and brother were killed by them. How could he be on their side? All we have seen is him talk about killing them. Then we saw him do it. Their corpses were real. The fear on their faces was real when he attacked them." Nadea crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Nanos.
"What do you know of fear, girl?" the prince spat back.
Nadea threw her arms up into the air with frustration and sat back down in her chair. There was silence for a few minutes. I thought about the jungle in Vanlourn when we had been cornered by their soldiers. Their leader told us to kneel and I believed we were going to die. We all did. I suddenly felt overwhelming hatred for the prince. He had never faced anything like that while he trained under a blanket of safety here in the castle.
"I have heard both sides of the argument and I am ready to make a decision," the king said. Everyone directed their attention to him. "But first, Paug, has Kaiyer told you anymore that he has remembered? Does he remember more about the Ancients?" I suddenly got nervous as the powerful people turned their heads to look at me. I had been content to observe this debate from the corner.
"He, he, he said that he led an army," I stuttered a bit before I got going. "He still believes that he is not the O'Baarni, but he recalls his role as a general of the army."
"Yes boy, we know that. Did he tell you how many men were under his command?" Maerc said from his seat. I felt a lump in my throat start to form because he had told me a little more about his past memories.
"He said he recalled leading a force of two thousand warriors. The mission he remembered involved a group of humans that were being used,” I paused and gulped, “as food for the Ancients." Their faces paled.
"They ate humans?" Runir said. His voice was scratchy through the bandages around his throat. He said that he injured himself in a training exercise last week.
"That's what he told me." I nodded.
"How did he free them?" the duke asked. I was afraid someone would ask that question. The lump in my throat grew bigger and my voice squeaked at the end. I looked around the room, they were all waiting. It was my job to tell them what Kaiyer had confided in me. But what he had told me had been horrible. I didn't want to repeat it.
"He . . . he didn't. He told me that--"
"I killed them," a voice said from above us. Everyone gathered gasped as they looked up. It was Kaiyer.
The audience chamber had a tall ceiling, at least thirty feet high. Thick wooden beams ran from the corners and formed crosses of structural support. He lay on his stomach like a lounging cat, right leg swinging freely as he supported his chin with one hand.
"How the hell did you get up there?" the duke yelled in surprise.
"I jumped up the wall there and grabbed on the wood," Kaiyer said as he gestured with a finger to the far corner where the stone walls and one of the beams converged. It was still thirty feet in the air.
"How did you do that? No wait. How did you get in this room in the first place?" the king demanded.
"I used the window," he said with his gentle half-smile as he casually pointed from the corner to the window in the center of the room.
"We are in one of the highest towers in the castle! It's almost eighty feet off the ground!" Nadea gasped. He shrugged.
"How long have you been up there?" Maerc demanded. His hand lay on his sword hilt.
"Do you mean this morning?"
"Yes!"
"Since about a quarter of an hour before you all arrived." Kaiyer said after he considered for a moment.
"What? So you've been eavesdropping on us during this whole meeting?" the prince fumed.
"Only this one, the one before, and the one on Monday. I missed Tuesday's because Monday's was very boring and I decided to have a longer breakfast with Iarin instead." He twisted his mouth as he recalled the dates.
"You have proved my point. You mean to betray us to the Ancients," the prince said smugly as he folded his arms. "Father, we must execute him."
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"Can you come down from there?" the king held his palm out to his son.
"Oh I don't know about that . . ." Kaiyer said as he looked at Maerc and Runir, who both gripped their sword handles. "I think it is probably safer for them if I stay up here."
"Gentlemen, be at ease. I doubt our friend means us any harm," the king said as he smiled back to the two soldiers. They grimaced and put their hands away. Runir looked remarkably like the general, especially at the moment, as they took the same stance. Their sandy hair was similar, Maerc’s a little faded and silvery compared to the younger man. Their bone structure and eyes were also alike. I wondered if they were father and son. The prince looked like he was about to say something, but he stopped when he looked at his father, the king’s word was final, even for Nanos.
Kaiyer stretched his body slowly, making him seem even more catlike. He twisted around the beam and lowered himself down, then fell to the ground in a smooth motion. There was an open seat at the table next to me and he sat down without worry on his face.
"Why have you been eavesdropping on our meetings?" the duke asked carefully.
"I grew bored waiting in my room. It is more interesting to hear you all argue about me."
"Seems like dastardly motives!" Greykin said with a smile. "Relieving boredom is definitely cause for execution around here." He eyed the prince with humor.
"You were going to come to a decision?" Kaiyer asked the king.
"Yes." The king sat back down in his chair.
"Wait. Wasn't Paug talking about something when you interrupted him?" Nadea said with concern.
"Yes," I said. I prepared to speak again, but Kaiyer held up his hand.
"He was telling you about what I remembered. I will tell you because you need to understand what I was willing to sacrifice to destroy these Elvens." He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. We waited for a few moments as he recalled the memory.
"There were about two hundred humans: men, women, and some children. They were slaves of the Elven army that we had warred with for the past three years. From their perspective it wasn't really a war. They possessed thirty thousand troops and we had less than twenty-five hundred. At first they considered us an annoying wasp that they hunted for sport."
Everyone leaned forward with extreme interest. Even though the story was familiar to me I couldn't help but feel sucked in again.
"We had experienced a good run against various Elven tribes for the previous five years. Their homes lay scattered across the land and were easy for us to prey upon. I don't remember how many we annihilated before they got wise and started to congregate like a mob of lions. We predicted it would eventually happen, so we had prepared.
"We knew the land well and had hidden stashes of food, arms, equipment, and gardens across our territory. It seemed like we were winning against their kind, but later I realized that the past five years amounted to nothing more effective than killing a dozen ants from the hive. They had numbers and power that we could only dream of. There were around thirty tribes within a month's travel of our budding army. They quickly became organized under one command and set out to exterminate us.
"We ran at first. But once we got a significant enough lead on them we started to think and realize that we would never win if we couldn't mount an offensive against them. But what could we do, outnumbered as we were?
"We decided to harass them with our maneuverability. A single one of our warriors could easily take on one of theirs. We created situations where we skimmed their troops. Maybe we would kill a scouting party here, or a tribe that had drifted too far back from the main group. We would do night raids where we would assassinate a few Elvens and disappear. It destroyed their morale to wake up and find their bunkmate with his throat slit. We also played the same games with their supplies.
"It takes a lot of food and equipment to keep an army of that size motivated. Our troops traveled like the wind, so their army always had to be on the move as they tried to follow us. We would stretch out their supply lines and then destroy them. Our scouts would poison their food storages and the rivers from which they drank. Finally, they began to die of painful starvation."
"How did your troops survive?" Maerc asked. "Didn't you need supplies and food?"
"Of course. We took their supplies, we stole their horses and ate them, sometimes we went hungry for days, and sometimes we went hungry for weeks. We didn't care. Our vision was loftier than theirs. To them, we were a pest that needed to be squashed, and they underestimated our ability. They couldn't believe that there was any way we would win with an army a tenth their size. Yet we had no choice but to destroy them. We woke up every morning dreaming about a world where our race was free. We had nothing to go back to if we failed, so we were ruthless and brazen, yet effective. We would have done anything to win.
"After two years they realized their mistake. They had no food but the poisoned supplies we let through. They traveled away from their tribal homes for such a long time that we had destroyed them and killed whatever family and guards they had left behind. We had freed the humans that they enslaved at their homes and secreted them away to a new training facility so that our army could grow stronger. Finally, they made their last play to beat us."
I was holding my breath and could almost see what he was describing. I looked around and noticed that even the prince hung on Kaiyer's every word.
"They began to eat their human slaves. It was the only source of food that they knew wouldn't be poisoned. They had shrunk to only five thousand troops. Their army set up a base camp and moved the slaves from their jobs to pens where they were fed horse grain. It was hardly enough sustenance to live."
The audience looked sick with his story, even Maerc and Greykin. I felt my own innards clench at the idea of human beings being herded into pens to await slaughter. Kaiyer’s loathing and revulsion was palpable. His normally calm countenance was twisted into a bitter sneer; his eyes were looking back at the memory of the wretched human chattel.
"I knew their commander by this point. It was his last attempt. Our army had outmaneuvered him at every decision. He did this not only out of necessity, but to incite our rage and force us into a confrontation."
"Did it work?" the prince asked suddenly, his face hopeful.
"Most of my warriors wanted to attack. We were strong and had been triumphant for the last few years. We seemed unstoppable, we felt invincible, and in many ways we were. They wanted to attack the Elven force from the front. 'The Elvens are weak,' they pleaded with me. 'We will destroy them like a boulder crushes the sapling it lands upon.' But I wouldn't attack."
He paused to drink more water and then leaned back and closed his eyes. He didn't say anything for a few minutes. I was noticing that he referred to the troops as his, and from his current recollection it seemed he was the primary decision maker for the army. Perhaps he was only in command of this particular mission? I was not expert on military protocol and perhaps this was normal for generals, but a small, warm bead of hope surged in me. Maybe he was our O’Baarni after all.
"What happened?" My grandfather asked softly. We all waited in rapt attention.
"I knew it was a trap. We couldn't save them without heavy losses. I wasn't going to waste the lives of my soldiers on an animal that lay in its death throes. Yet we needed to speed up the process. I commanded my magic users, hardened battle mages that harnessed the power of the Wind and Earth, to launch fireballs at the enemies from thousands of yards away. We incinerated the holding pens with the humans in them. We killed hundreds of our own kind in a few minutes."
"You killed the people you were trying to save?" Nadea said. Her eyes opened wide with alarm, at the horror of what he had said. I could not look at him. I knew if I did he would give me that easy, ingratiating smile and it disgusted me to think I had been so charmed by him. The hope I had felt moments ago was replaced with dread. This man was supposed to be our savior, yet he was ruthless and calculating, easily able to sacrifice innocent men, women and children for his strategic purposes.
"No. Our purpose was not to save two hundred humans from being eaten and killed by the Elvens. Our purpose was to destroy the Elven people, to wipe them from the face of our planet and free the entire race of humanity from their servitude. If we had attacked we could have been defeated, we might have lost half our force and been set back half a dozen years. My warriors hated me for that decision. But I had led them for the last decade of battle and many years before that of training. They did as I asked."
I frowned at Kaiyer's last statement. The man was painfully thin, and it was hard to tell his age, but I couldn't imagine he was older than twenty. No one else seemed to have questioned his arithmetic.
"What did the Elven army do?" the king asked.
"They died. At first they tried to surrender, but we killed those who did and sent their bodies back. 'Feast on your own ill begotten kind,' we wrote. Some tried to split off from the main army and escape; we hunted them down and killed them like rats. Within a few weeks they had no more food and we exterminated the rest."
Everyone sat in stunned silence as they thought through what he had told us. It was impossible to argue with his logic as he had explained it, yet I knew everyone in the room was questioning the morality of a man who would murder innocent civilians in the manner he had described. I had burned my hand badly once in our kitchen fire, the pain was searing and incredible, the agony of the initial burn lasted long after I had removed my hand from the flame and seemed to grow more intense as time passed. The burn was on a relatively small portion of my body, and yet it was the most painful thing I had ever felt. To be burned as they had, fire scalding their skin everywhere, singeing hair and scorching lungs, intense and hot enough to kill. I could not imagine a more horrific way to die.
Finally, the duke spoke. "What happened afterward?" Kaiyer frowned and thought for a moment.
"It was our first major victory against a standing army. Our other fights were against forces of a few hundred at the most and we always attacked when we had the upper hand. In some ways, this was the same strategy, but now there was no Elven presence within hundreds of miles. Every human came to us for shelter, food, and to be part of our army. Our numbers swelled. I know there were many other battles after that, larger battles, but I remember that one now and I don't remember the others. I will someday soon."
"You mentioned your troops could launch fireballs thousands of yards away. Do you know how to do that?" Nadea asked.
"Yes," Kaiyer nodded. "But I don't remember how to teach it. Something happened to me and my warriors to make us different from normal humans.”
I looked to the prince, expecting him to challenge Kaiyer's claims, but he just looked uneasy.
"You can do magic?" Nadea raised a single eyebrow.
"Yes. I tried some things back when we were at the inn in Brilla. I'd show you now, but if I made a mistake everyone in this room would die. I need space to practice. This was what the king was considering, no?" Kaiyer looked to the king as he placed his fingertips on the table.
"You will help us defeat the Ancients?" the king asked.
"Yes. As long as I breathe I will try to kill every single one of them. It is my purpose. I will teach you how to be like me as soon as I remember," Kaiyer said. He knew that he had sold the king.
"Okay. I agree to your terms. We will build areas through the castle for your purposes. Try not to make too large of a spectacle. Understand?" Kaiyer nodded.
I expected any one of the three blonde men to argue but they didn't. Kaiyer's story might have intimidated them. Maybe he wanted to intimidate them.
"Excellent. I will get started right away. Will Nadea be fulfilling my desires?" the thin man said as he got up to his feet. Nadea immediately looked down, avoiding eye contact with him and the other men in the room. Her father narrowed his eyes at Kaiyer, not quite in anger, but as if he were trying to discern whether the man had intended to be forward with his daughter, or if it was an innocent mistake due to Kaiyer’s lack of understanding of the subtleties of our language. I caught Kaiyer’s eye and he allowed a flicker of a smile to touch his lips before looking back to Nadea in expectant innocence. He knew exactly what he meant.
"The duke, Nadea, Maerc, and Runir will be assisting you with what you need," the king said as he rose, wisely ignoring the implications while still answering the question.
"I have some things for you already," Nadea said as she came across the table. There was excitement in her eyes. "We have cleared a part of the dungeon which exits into the courtyard. We are going to seal it off so you can have a private area." Her arm coiled around his in a comfortable movement as she took him toward the door leading out of the chamber.
"Let's go see what Nadea has for us Paug," Kaiyer looked back to me with his gentle smile. I glanced at the men seated at the table before I left. Their faces were a mixture of uneasiness and speculation. Grandfather nodded to me and I turned to follow Kaiyer and Nadea out of the meeting room.