Free The Destroyer Book 3 by Michael-Scott Earle Page A

days. Once I saw her on a distant mountain range. The sight had energized me and I pushed myself to catch up to her. When I reached the spot where she had been, I found nothing but a few scattered footprints and the smoking embers of a hastily abandoned campfire.
    Somehow she had eluded me and I never glimpsed her again.
    But she left a trail. She was not simply evading me, she was searching for something. At first I believed it was for the remnants of her people, but the longer I tracked her, the more I came to realize she was seeking something more. The O’Baarni destroyed most of the Elven estates in our quest to annihilate their race. We had not even wanted to inhabit the same grounds as our enemies. The very buildings they had erected were tributes to the centuries of our oppression, and they were as important to destroy as the oppressors themselves. Iolarathe was searching for the remaining places that had not been razed by the O’Baarni.
    I had not figured out why she was in Deadflats, but I would have answers soon. I slowed my pace a few miles from the city. I could not draw attention to myself with a superhuman approach.
    And I wanted to take in the view of the bizarre metropolis.
    Long ago, something massive had fallen from the sky and landed in the center of the Salt Desert. Whatever had collided into the planet had destroyed three thousand square miles of land. There was nothing to be found here but salt and gemstones. And survivors scraping by through grit and stubbornness.
    At the center of where I imagined the collision to have occurred rose a large, flat-topped hill. The mass must have been pushed upward by the impact, and it only added to my belief that whatever hit the planet had been significant in size. The mesa was about five miles long and a third of a mile high. Wind had slowly eroded the top of the hill to its level tabletop after thousands of years.
    The city was situated at the base of the mesa. An incongruously sturdy looking gate hung against wood stakes tied together by rusted barbed wire. Torches burned at the top of the posts, sputtering against the wind. Past the gates, squat, simple wooden structures were augmented by rough patches of stonework. The salty streets branched out from the gate as limbs of a tree, the farthest reaching dwellings carved out of a low-lying hill. Most of the homes were dark at this hour, but a few had torches or fireplaces lit, a warm pink glow visible through their windows. It looked as if half of the hillside was home to a nest of resting fireflies.
    I was spotted when I was an eighth of a mile from the front gate. Two men rode out on horseback. I wondered how they fed their animals, or themselves for that matter, as no crops would grow on these badlands. Then I wondered how they even got the wood for their homes. Finally, I asked myself how anyone could even think to live out in this forsaken land. It did not matter. I let my curiosity lie and directed my focus back to my mission.
    "What is your business?" one of the men on horseback inquired. They wore dusty leather pants and long coats of gray wool. Their faces were dry and more weathered than the side of the hill.
    "Looking for Deadflats. Is this it?" I asked the obvious question.
    "Yeh. You travel in the night?" the other man asked with worry. His mount shifted sideways nervously. I recalled the various black and ill-tempered horses I rode during my life. The head of his horse would not have even reached halfway up the body of one of my steeds.
    "Is there a place to get food and water?" I asked with a faked gasp. Hopefully they would think I was in distress, weak and not a threat. The gusts of wind had died down to a breeze so we could hear each other. The location of the city in relation to the hill must have been planned to reduce the effects of the wind.
    "Are you diseased?" One of the men pointed to his face and I realized I still had my head wrapped in cloth.
    "No, just keeping the sun and salt out." I