Free The Destroyer Book 2 by Michael-Scott Earle

the capital seemed a different city. Stray canines and rats that were almost the size of the dogs patrolled the alleyways looking for something to consume. Half the dwellings had broken doors and windows left unrepaired. Pieces of furniture, clothes, and silverware littered the sidewalks, yards, and alleys, poured forth from open doorways, like drunkards that had vomited and then passed out in their own filth. Small kitchen gardens were faded dead brown, their spindly plants gone to seed from lack of water and attendance. The rancid scent of feces and death filled the air, the streets were slick with it. Great mounds of glinting green and black flies coated indistinguishable heaps as they consumed discarded bodies.
    I grimaced in disappointment. The absence of hygiene in the city would lead to sickness if it wasn't addressed. My army had really never needed to worry about illnesses. The Earth kept us healthy through most viral attacks, but we still made sure to build careful latrines, pull our cooking water from upstream, and eradicate vermin that might spread disease through our ranks. We didn't want to use additional magical energy for consequences we could easily prevent.
    Men scurried about the streets like scared insects. They paused in each alley to assess their surroundings before scurrying onward. The stink of their terror was almost worse than the smell of conquest that saturated the fallen capital. The majority of the citizens I encountered scampered toward the south end of the city, and while my ultimate destination was the castle, I figured I could take a detour to see where they were going.
    As I continued south, I noticed the massive holes knocked out of the east side of the high walls. I didn't know what kind of machine had caused the damage, but it looked similar to the hole I remembered Malek's mages made in the dam when we used the water to drown the thousands of Elven troops we lured into the trap. One of the books Paug had showed me contained diagrams of massive siege engines utilized to take down fortress walls. The concepts intrigued me and we launched into a long discussion about what technologies had evolved because humans did not use magic.
    I passed a small group of Losher soldiers that eyed me suspiciously but didn't challenge me. I breathed a sigh of relief since I didn't want to attract too much attention to myself before I determined what had happened in Nia and the fate of Jessmei's family. It had been difficult to convince the blue-eyed princess that I needed to journey back here. We had argued for weeks before I figured out an angle that swayed her.
    "I've lost everything except you. You cannot go,” she had cried in dismay when I told her that I wanted to return to Nia.
    "We don't know that for sure, Jessmei. Your family might be alive and they might need my help."
    "They aren't alive. They've been killed. Murdered by the Losher barbarians. You want to put yourself in the middle of thousands of them? Absolutely not!" Tears rolled down her cheeks like rain drops down the spines of the dead pine needles that the coated ground. Her beautiful face was red and puffy from the week of constant sobbing.
    "Jessmei," I pulled her into my embrace as another fit of crying assaulted her. "If your place was reversed with your brother, and somehow I hid here with him and thought about going to rescue you, wouldn't you want us to make a rescue attempt?"
    "Fuck my brother. He's an asshole!" Jessmei screeched into my shirt. I almost laughed because Nanos was an asshole. But I'd never heard the princess use such strong words.
    "I'm sorry. I shouldn't say that about Nanos. We didn't get along at all, but I know he loved me." She pulled away from me wish a sniffle. "I should have told him that I loved him too. Now I can't bring him back."
    "What about Nadea, your father, and your mother? Wouldn't you want someone to investigate and attempt a rescue?" I questioned her. The whites of her eyes were etched red and