by Gage Lee
Kam perked up at that idea. "Taun's got a good point. Most lodges are competing against not just other lodges, but their own members. Auris and the four golds in his lodge are all warriors. Only the prince can win their class challenges."
They all considered that as they ate. The math made sense to Taun. They could beat Auris even if they couldn't beat him one on one. They'd just have to be smart about it.
"And what will you do when Auris changes the rules again?" Lira asked, emphasizing her question with little stabs from her fork.
"He can't just throw the whole Chase into chaos," Taun said. "It's one thing to have himself declared the winner in every challenge he participates in. But just saying he can't lose the Chase, at all, will have every student in an uproar."
Lira snorted at that. "You're an optimist, my friend. The prince makes the rules, he doesn't follow them."
"That's my third time agreeing with you in one day," Sutari said with a dark chuckle. "It's a sign you should listen to us, Taun."
"There's another problem," Kam said, raising his fork to illustrate his point. "Warrior classes have a challenge once a week, right, Sutari?"
"It seems so, yes," the silver admitted.
"But the rest of us have had far fewer challenges," the occultist continued. "We've been in class for ten weeks, and we've only had a single challenge in the occultist path class, and only two in Hoard Mastery. The math doesn't add up, Taun. We can't get ahead of Auris if he's got ten times the challenges as the rest of us and he can't lose. And that's assuming he doesn't come up with some other way to increase his lead in the Glory Chase."
Moglan pushed his empty bowl away and dropped his fork into it. "What if we come up with a different way to earn Glory and we make sure Auris doesn't know about it?"
"That'd be a trick," Kam said. "They update the scores every day. Auris will see that he's sliding down the rankings."
Moglan waggled a finger at the occultist. "Not all Glory comes from challenges. We can donate rare items to the school for Glory, too. That’s how I picked up an extra ten points back at the start of the year."
Sutari washed down another bite of beef and shook her head. "Those points still get updated in the standings every day. You can't hide the totals from Auris."
But Taun felt excitement building as he considered the shaman's words. "Moglan's right," he said. "Turning in items is the key. We can do that whenever we want. Auris won't change the rules if he thinks he's winning. If we wait until just before they announce the winners to turn in our loot, we'll win."
Kam straightened his glasses and waved his fork in the air, heedless of the droplets of sauce he splashed onto the table and the other diners. "That's genius. What kind of stuff should we turn in?"
Moglan pushed Kam's fork back down into his bowl before the occultist could shower the lodge with more of his meal. "I'll look for some rare mushrooms and moss on our field trips. The sprites like me, so it shouldn't be too hard. But the more valuable an item is, the more Glory we'll earn. I'm afraid twigs and berries don't bring in all that much."
"We have treasure in our hoards," Lira pointed out. "If we return that to the school for Glory, maybe that's enough."
"I guess we're done agreeing," Sutari said, smiling to show the scout she wasn't serious. "I can't whittle away at my hoard. It's helping me hold the crudlung at bay. Combined with our new quarters, it's enough to keep me almost normal. If I lose either..."
"I'm still working on a cure," Moglan said. "The ingredients are more rare than I thought, and the sprites sometimes forget what they're supposed to find. It'll happen, but I can't promise you when."
"I know, Mog," Sutari said with a kind smile. She reached across the table and put her hand on his wrist. "I'm feeling much better. I know you'll find a cure as soon as you can."
Moglan blushed at the silver warrior's touch and raised his bowl to slurp the last of the sauce from its depths.
"Let's take stock of what we all have in our hoards," Taun suggested, "then we'll decide what to do."
The Broken Blades gathered up their bowls and forks, deposited them in the sink to let the enchanted basin clean them, and headed for their vaults. They followed Taun into the narrow hall that ran from east end of the kitchen down that side of the lodge. Five doors dotted the east side of the hallway, each of them enchanted to only open for the student whose treasure it held. They stopped at Sutari's first, and Taun was surprised by how little it held. The items she'd taken from the Vault Raid Challenge and the stone that she'd received in class occupied only a small patch in the center of the vault's floor.
"See?" The silver dragon said. "I've only got a handful of items. Giving up any of them will take a huge bite from the power in my hoard. Then I'll get sick again, and I won't even be able to come in second in my class. That'll cost us more than it gains."
"That's no good," Kam grumbled. "I bet Lira and Moglan are in the same boat. Most of what we took out of the challenge was metal, and that got split up between you and me."
The occultist looked over his spectacles at Taun, who felt himself turning more than a little red with embarrassment. "I should have thought of that," he said. "If I'd known we couldn't beat Auris in that challenge, I would have suggested we spend more time finding items for all of us. Now our hoards are all lopsided."
"Maybe that's good," Moglan said. "You don't need your hoard like the rest of us."
That is utterly ludicrous. The hoard will strengthen you. We need you strong to resist any more damage to the soul scale.
"Kam, you said your family were merchants," Taun said, doing his best to ignore the dragon in his head. Axaranth had a point, but winning the Glory Chase would get them in front of the Scaled Council, and that would solve more of his problems than getting stronger would. "Let's appraise what's in our vaults, and figure out where to go from there."
"Maybe we'll find something awesome in here," Kam said, rubbing his hands together with glee. "I honestly haven't even looked at this stuff since we counted it. Didn't think it was important."
Taun winced when he realized he'd made the same assumption. It amazed him how quickly he'd become jaded by the ridiculous wealth that surrounded the dragons. The amount of money in his vault was more than he'd seen in the Ruby Blade Keep's treasury the few times he'd been allowed inside his family's vault.
It took Kam an hour to evaluate the contents of his and Taun's vaults. He'd divided their contents into piles of coins and then much smaller piles of other items. The lodge had collected almost thirteen thousand bihn in coins. That was an insane amount of money, enough to buy and sell an entire keep near the wyld.
"The coins are worthless, unfortunately," Kam said, shooting that thought down without mercy. "The school doesn't have any use for money, and even if it did, Auris and his pals gathered more than we did."
"And they have access to far more," Lira said grumpily. "This is what I warned you about, Taun. The rich make the rules to bind the rest of us. We cannot beat Auris."
"There has to be a way," Taun shot back. "I will not lie down and let a bunch of cheaters take away my chance to save my family and warn the Scaled Council about the eldwyr."
"I admire your drive," Moglan said, putting his enormous hand on Taun's shoulder. The shaman seemed to get bigger every day, now that they had access to excellent food and safe lodgings. "But listen to Lira. The world is rarely fair, Taun. You can drive yourself insane trying to change it."
Sutari nodded at Moglan's words, and Taun felt a sharp stab of disappointment shoot through his heart. He didn't think he could do this on his own, but his team was faltering. It was hard to remember that they weren't human. They'd spent their entire lives among dragons. Their experiences told them Auris would win because he was the crown prince. Status alone assured his victory.
"This isn't over," Taun said. "Is there anything of value in the vaults, Kam?"
The occultist pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and raised a finger. "We have
something that no one else does. Soul steel. It's quite rare, except for what the upperclassmen bring back from their raids on the tombkin. I'll bet we could get five Glory for each piece."
"And how many pieces do we have?" Taun asked, hope blossoming in his heart.
"Well," Kam said, "just two."
"That won't get us far," Sutari said with a grim chuckle.
Taun paced the inside of his vault, where they'd all gathered. He chewed on the inside of his lip while he thought about their problem. Soul steel was the answer, he knew it. But he didn't know how to get more of it.
Make it. The process is time consuming, but it is not difficult. Something tells me the soul steel is rare because the dragons have forgotten the methods of its creation. I have not.
A smile spread across Taun's face as Axaranth spoke to him. Raw soul steel was valuable, sure. And if they could make more of it, then they had hope. But he had another plan that would turn those raw materials into something far more valuable.
If soul steel chunks were worth a lot, how much more valuable would weapons and armor made from the stuff be?
"I have a plan," Taun said. "We're going to win."
Chapter 18
TAUN REPEATED AXARANTH'S explanation for how to create soul steel to the rest of his lodge's members. None of it sounded complicated, but the knight knew it had to be trickier than it seemed. Otherwise, soul steel wouldn't be worth much more than worked iron.
"We'll need corpollan fungus," Taun explained, "and pneuma serum. I'll take care of the refined steel from my end."
"What do you want me to do while Moglan is hunting up mushrooms and Kam plays with his alchemical toys?" Sutari asked. "All I'm good at is hitting things."
"Then keep hitting them," Taun said with a grin. "If you take second in every warrior challenge, that will give Auris something to think about while the rest of us are sneaking up to ambush the Glory Chase leaderboard."
Lira put her feet up on the table and tilted her chair back. "Scouts go outside the walls quite a bit," she said, "tell me what these mushrooms look like and I'll search for them."
"Just have to show me up, don't you?" Sutari asked with a smirk. "Fine. I'll hold down second place while the rest of you are having fun."
As it turned out, the process was not much fun. Though Moglan found plenty of the mushrooms, Lira found a few, and Kam was skilled at creating pneuma serums, the real work fell on Taun's shoulders. He had to refine the steel and combine all the ingredients. After two weeks, all he'd produced was a piece of soul steel the size of his index finger.
Your work is good, Axaranth said. It has likely been hundreds of years since a human has created any soul steel. You should be proud.
And while Taun was glad he'd achieved even this much, he knew it wasn't enough.
"We're nearly to midyear." He blew out a frustrated sigh and dropped his tongs onto the anvil in front of him. "There are only twenty weeks left in the school year. Auris is in the lead by almost a hundred Glory, and he's adding at least ten points to that lead every week. This little thing isn't even worth five Glory. It's not enough."
Taun waved his hands over the forge, banishing the fire spirits who'd supplied it with heat. He gave the little creatures the last of the pneuma in his core as payment for their service. He didn't know if that was what shaman did when they sent their spirits away, but he figured it was better safe than sorry. The tiny creatures flashed around his head in blazing streaks, then vanished with a series of pops that reminded him of knotty logs in a campfire.
Professor Geth had allowed Taun to use the forge after class hours, and he'd spent most of his nights and weekends working with Axaranth in the workshop. It was a lonely place when it was so empty. The knight liked it. He had more time to think.
"If I advanced my core again, I'd have more control over the pneuma," Taun mused aloud. "That would help me make more soul steel, faster."
And it might very well destroy the soul scale and kill us both, Axaranth retorted. I have said it a hundred times if I have said it once. Strengthen the body, then the core.
Taun didn't have an answer to Axaranth's worry. He also couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else behind the dragon's words. It was true that the scale had changed when Taun elevated his core to the violet level, but Axaranth had never given Taun more details about how it had changed or what effect the damage had. Did Ax have some ulterior motive for keeping Taun's advancement at a standstill?
There was no way for the knight to know for certain, and if he ignored the dragon's worries there could be fatal consequences.
"Tell me how to harden my body, and I'll do it," Taun said, dropping his hammer onto the anvil with a frustrated growl.
I am not a human, Axaranth reminded him. And I did not train humans while I was alive. I wish there was more I could do for you, but this is a problem you must solve.
Taun stood and pressed his knuckles into his lower back. He walked back and forth across the workshop, stretching his arms and twisting at the hips to relieve the pain in his back. He'd been sitting on the same stool for close to six hours, judging by the position of the moon he saw through the frosty windows.
"How do dragons toughen up?" Taun asked. Axaranth couldn't tell him how a human could grow more powerful, but maybe there was more in common between men and dragons than either of them knew.
They bond with their hoards, Axaranth explained for what had to be the dozenth time. As they add to the hoard, it draws out their dragon sign. They grow physically stronger and their endurance increases. Armored scales spread across their bodies, and they manifest the sign tied to their paths. Over time, their bodies will change until they become the glorious creatures that are feared and revered by all others.
Taun knew the explanation by heart, but every time the dragon repeated those words, they sparked new thoughts in the knight's head. He chewed on that, turning the knowledge over in his mind. He thought about it over the winter holiday. While the other students enjoyed a week of feasting and frolicking, Taun kept the workshop fires burning and pondered how to harden his body to protect the soul scale from further damage.
And he pondered it for the weeks that followed as he grew his soul steel stocks in tiny increments. Every week he checked the standings, and every week his lodge fell farther behind Auris's.
The Broken Blades held onto second place, but they'd never climb into the top spot if Taun didn't figure out how to drastically increase the amount of soul steel.
Moglan and Kam kept up their hard work, so Taun never ran short of supplies. In fact, they'd stockpiled so many components that Taun now stored the serums and fungus in his vault so it wouldn't get underfoot. He'd just transferred another crate of serum phials into storage when Lira poked her head into the vault.
"Let's take a walk," she said. "You need some fresh air."
Taun opened his mouth to protest, but the scout was faster than he was. She darted into the room and hooked her hand around his wrist. She was stronger than she looked, too, and her wiry strength had no problems dragging Taun along behind her.
"Maybe you're right," the knight said as they hustled down the back staircase and out of the housing tower. "The only time I see the sun is when I'm heading to or from class."
"That's not good for your mind or spirit," Lira said, clucking her tongue at him. "Not to mention how important sunlight is for your body. Here, take this cloak. It's still winter out there."
Taun had never heard that before. His father had always warned him he needed to keep up his exercise or his body would fail him when he needed it most. And, although Taun had worked out more often than he'd liked, his body had still failed him. It was frustrating. Maybe there was something to what Lira had to say.
"How does the sunlight strengthen me?" he asked, honestly curious.
Lira said nothing for a few moments. She swiveled her head back and forth, as if searching for hidden enemies. Maybe she was. For all Taun knew, the former slave and crim
inal might have enemies he didn't know about it.
Finally, she pointed out a path that led between two of the towers. "This way," she said. "And up the stairs."
The pair climbed an exterior staircase that led up the side of a building in a series of switchbacks. They reached the top of the building a few minutes later, and Lira led the way to a flat platform that looked over the Celestial Academy's open grounds before the administrative compound. It was an open, peaceful place. The wind was chilly, though, and Taun drew the cloak tighter around his torso.
"What's this?" Taun asked as he took a seat next to the scout. She'd pulled her knees up to her chin and curled her arms around them. The cloak draped over her turned the scout into a small shadow.
"Privacy," she said. "I come up here sometimes to just get away from everyone. To think. Figured you deserved a little time way."
"Thank you," Taun said. "These past couple of months have worn me out."
Lira gave him a soft smile and reached out to rest her hand on his. It was a strangely comforting gesture, and Taun was grateful for it. He returned her smile.
"And I wanted you to know that I'm willing to help you, however I can," she continued.
"I appreciate it," Taun said. "You've done a lot already. Finding those mushrooms keeps me supplied for making soul steel."
"How's that going?" Lira asked.
Taun looked out over the open ground and the students who wandered across it or gathered in small groups to talk or play games.
"Not great," the knight admitted. "I've made some progress, but not nearly enough. I'm not sure we can win."
Lira squeezed his hand when he said that. "We could try something else," she said. "I have skills that might be useful. Auris goes for a walk, almost every night. He's alone for most of an hour."