Mask of the Fallen: A Cultivation/Progression Fantasy Series: (War Priest Book One)

by Harmon Cooper

  The crowd went wild, more debris tossed into the arena.

  Arik slowly got to his feet, the disciple huffing in a deep breath of air, strands of his long black hair in his face and matted with blood, sweat, and dirt.

  He looked to the gate as it creaked open, and stepped aside once the two men in conical hats rushed out to drag the fallen man to the side. Springing into action, Arik grabbed the cloak he’d set out for himself and took off toward the only exit he could see at the moment.

  He charged right through it, into a cavernous space below the stadium where other slaves hovered around, a few guards as well. His movement was so sudden, so unpredictable, that he had already passed several guards by the time they could react.

  The cloak went over his shoulders as he moved, Arik trying to hide his features. He kept running, deeper into the underground chamber, where he took his first right and came to a dead end. Panic filled his heart as one of the guards reached him.

  “Stop!”

  Arik lurched past the man and came to another chamber, where he found a pair of doors. Making a split-second decision, Arik kicked into the door on the right, only to find it looped back around to the main space, where the slaves were all being held, many of them whooping as they saw the cloaked healer appear once again.

  Arik was just doubling back, where he planned to head through another door, when a small hand shot out and wrapped around his arm. He turned to see a woman, also with a cloak over her head, her eyes wide as she seemed to confirm that Arik had healed the cuts he had given himself.

  “Come with me,” she said, the woman quickly leading him through the crowd of slaves, many of whom took it upon themselves to shield Arik from the guards.

  “Where… where are you taking me?” Arik asked, barely able to get the words out.

  “To the infirmary. You can hide there, disciple, and you can help Master Kojiro and me in the meantime.”

  ****

  A labyrinth of chambers followed, Arik not sure how far underground they were when they came to a final room that stunk of both incense and the dead. Arik was surprised to find that such a hidden space was drafty, vents aerating the place yet doing little to remove the stench, and certainly doing nothing to dampen the groans, the sounds of men on their last breaths.

  “Call me Indra,” the nursemaid said as she pushed her hood back. Arik made out her features from the light coming from the hanging paper lamps, Indra with dark auburn hair and thick eyebrows, dimples that were made less so with the frown she must have constantly worn. She was clearly overworked.

  “How did you know?” he asked her.

  “That you are a disciple? I’m from the Onyx Realm just like you, from Ezochi. Although I can hardly remember the place now,” she said, showing him the scar on her wrist. “I haven’t been back in fifteen years.”

  “People aren’t supposed to know…”

  “It was the wound on your arm. Once I touched it, and found it healed up almost completely, I knew. I was watching from the gate when you cut yourself out there; no one can heal that quickly without the assistance of Revivaura.”

  “You can’t tell anyone,” Arik said, alarm in his voice. “You can’t…”

  “I wouldn’t dare. I’ve heard what the Crimson Realm has done in the north. Merit Ashmore will lose our realm if he doesn’t act soon,” Indra said, referring to the northern leader. “Hopefully, his son will do something, but…” She swallowed hard, her throat quivering. “They are near. Quick, onto one of the beds.”

  Arik tossed his cloak aside and got onto the nearest cot, the sheets of which were still bloody from the last man who had been there.

  “I’m sorry I have to do this, disciple.” Indra quickly went for a scalpel on a side table. “They can’t know it’s you.”

  “Right. Do it.”

  Indra quickly drew a slit across his forehead. She produced another wound on his cheek, the disciple tilting his head ever-so-slightly so the warm blood would run onto his face. It was a deep cut, and soon it had also pooled into his eye socket.

  “Do not say a word,” she said hurriedly as she put the medical tool away. “No matter what happens. Remain still and quiet.”

  As he had done so many times, Arik ignored the pain and how it made his face throb, the blood now trickling into his mouth as it began changing directions, gravity bringing it toward the straw-stuffed pillow beneath his head.

  He kept his eyes shut as the guards that had been pursuing him earlier entered the underground infirmary.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Indra asked, clearly offended at their arrival. “These are injured men in here!”

  “Quiet.”

  Whap!

  One of the guards slapped her aside. “Speak again, nurse, and the next time, I won’t go so easy on you.”

  The guards, all in conical hats and holding blades, began rummaging through the infirmary, a few of them laughing and cursing at some of the injured men, one of them going as far as to poke a cadaver’s nearly purple foot with his sword. They came to Arik, several men gathering around him.

  “Have you ever seen a face so bloodied?” one of the guards asked. “If he survives this, he’s going to wish he had died. You, nurse. Did you see anyone?”

  “What… what do you mean?” Indra asked, shame in her voice.

  “Did anyone come through here?”

  “Just the injured and those… those you have tossed to the wolves!” she said.

  “You useless—”

  “—That will be enough of that,” came a crankier voice, one Arik didn’t recognize. “There is no one in this infirmary except for injured. Now go, and if I ever see or hear about any of you laying your hands on my assistant, the captain of the guard will hear from me and you will be punished accordingly. Have some respect, gentlemen, and do your jobs better. You should be able to capture an escaping slave, especially in a labyrinth like this, one you should very well know like the back of your hand. Get the hell out of my infirmary.”

  “Yes, yes Master Kojiro,” one of the guards said, followed by the shuffle of their feet as they left the infirmary.

  Arik waited until he heard a wooden door shut to open his eyes, a lock going into place as well. He sat up, and instantly began to summon the Revivaura around him, his power over this particular aspect of chi stitching up the two wounds on his face, the scars disappearing as well. The only thing left in the end was blood, which he wiped away once Indra came to him with a clean cloth that was slightly wet.

  “Let me see you,” Arik told her, not at all concerned with the older, crankier voice he had heard. He instinctively reached his hand out to where the guard had slapped Indra and absorbed the bruise already forming across her cheek. It was a light wound, Arik barely feeling it as he healed the woman.

  “Thank you,” she said, the smile on her face of someone who had experienced this kind of power before, a grin tied to memory. Without a shadow of a doubt, it proved to Arik that she was indeed from the Onyx Realm.

  “So you are the real deal then, is it? A disciple?”

  Arik turned to the voice, surprised at what he was seeing.

  It was a yokai, one known as a tanuki, which was the name given to the furry bipedal yokai that had the face of a raccoon dog. Arik had seen a few before at the Academy, friends of a few of the lecturers, but he never actually greeted one in person, nor been as close as he was now.

  The tanuki, whom the guards had referred to as Master Kojiro, stood about three feet high, Arik now realizing why the bed was so low to the ground. He was in a beige robe spritzed with blood, the tanuki with a face defined by the white hairs that accompanied his whiskers, the only dark part of his fur being the two circles around his eyes which sat beneath a pair of hefty gray eyebrows.

  “Yes,” Arik finally said, answering his initial question after he’d gotten over the small amount of shock from seeing the yokai. “I’m a disciple from the Academy of Healing Arts. I just graduated from the Divine Branch of Wo
und Transfer. My name is Arik Dacre and…” He took a deep breath.

  Arik’s story wasn’t long, but it was terrible, from the slaying of his family to his teachers and peers. He left some parts out, including encountering Meosa and how he had killed Konwa, both Indra and Master Kojiro with sad, almost bitter looks on their faces by the time he finished his terrible tale.

  “I’ve heard the rumors,” the tanuki said, “but I didn’t believe it to be true. It is too early to tell, and we aren’t closer to the north, so we can’t know the full truth of the matter. That said, you may be the last person on this continent with knowledge of the healing arts, of using Revivaura, especially if Nobunaga is involved, the damn warlord.”

  “You aren’t using Revivaura here?” Arik asked, which he realized was a dumb question considering all the suffering around them, the moans and deep sighs.

  “I’m not able to use it, and neither is she, but I shouldn’t have to tell you that. No, we rely on traditional medicines to mend bones and wounds, and while some of it can help,” Master Kojiro said, “that medicine pales in comparison to what you can do. You say that you came to Omoto following the slavers, to help as many of the slaves as you can, as well as your friend. What was his name?”

  “Jinmo,” Arik said. “He’s up there; he’s why I jumped into the fight. I was hoping to…” He clenched his fists. “I was hoping to somehow save him.”

  “And he is dead?” Master Kojiro asked carefully.

  “No, at least not yet. He was dragged off to the side. I didn’t get a good look at his wound, but I’m sure I could heal it if I could get to him. I’m sure.”

  “He will be brought here at some point. They always have us check the bodies before they send them to the academies for test cutting.”

  “Test cutting?”

  Master Kojiro exchanged glances with the nursemaid. “I suppose you wouldn’t be familiar with test cutting, considering you are from the Onyx Realm, quite a lofty place, I should add. The bodies that we aren’t able to mend go to the various academies across the Crimson Realm, where they are used for what is known as test cutting. If you haven’t figured out what I’m trying to say here, imagine knowing what it is like to hack and stab an actual body, rather than a soaked cryptomeria trunk or a dummy. The academies use the cadavers to train their students, their blades, as they are known. It is a gruesome practice.”

  Arik shook his head. “If being enslaved and forced to fight isn’t bad enough…”

  Master Kojiro shrugged as if he had heard every injustice there was and had become desensitized to it. “It is the way of this world, and I have given up hope that I will have any lasting effect on it. But that is a discussion for another day. While we have you, it would benefit both Indra and myself to see what you can do. Hopefully they will bring your friend down soon, but I’m afraid that this may happen later tonight when they sweep through the bodies, and there is little I can do in retrieving them until then.”

  “But you said you know the captain of the guard…”

  “That was a lie, and those men bought it.” Master Kojiro grinned at Arik, his whiskers lifting. “You will soon find that surviving in this world, especially a world so close to the Crimson Realm, often makes it necessary to stretch the truth to some degree. Or at least I have.”

  “I see…”

  “One more thing before we begin: you will need to wear a mask, something over your face so the patients don’t see you when you heal them. We will, of course, hide you if more guards come, but until then, let’s keep the conversation to a minimum, shall we? Once we have our supper, we can figure out what happens next for you. That is, unless you are planning to work in this accursed infirmary for the rest of your life. No?” he asked as Arik shook his head. “I didn’t think so. Let’s try to do some good until you decide to depart.”

  ****

  Arik put his healing skills to use over the next several hours, and discovered during that time that the infirmary actually had an outward-facing office, accessible through two rooms, which allowed them to take in patients from the outside world as well, not just the enslaved combatants.

  Arik had never worked so hard to heal, the disciple pushing his understanding of Revivaura to its very limit. He kept reminding himself what would happen if these men died, that their bodies would be used for test cutting, an already-dreadful existence disgraced even further as their cadavers were hacked to pieces.

  His desire to be of service became his motivating factor, his mantra to continue, to push himself to the limit.

  You have to help, he continually reminded himself even as he felt weaker, Arik relying on both wound transfer and his normal healing capabilities to press on.

  But not every injured combatant could be healed to their fullest extent, Arik having to make difficult choices. Many were missing limbs, and since the limbs weren’t collected, they were forced to cauterize these particular wounds. Indra helped with this, Arik reducing the pain as she dealt with the torch, the smell of charred human flesh overpowering yet something he grew accustomed to, the vents above aerating the room as quickly as they could.

  Internal wounds were easier to handle, most of his knowledge stemming from the Devout Branch of Regrowth and his instructors’ focus on the basics of anatomy. Repairing nerve endings and internally stitching up organs was all possible through Revivaura, but deeper, more serious wounds, or multiple organ punctures required Arik to bring the wound into himself. He tried to remain as stoic as possible when doing so, showing no signs of weakness to Indra or Master Kojiro, the disciple feeling a sense of pride in what he was able to do and the nursemaid’s constant awe at his power.

  It felt good to be useful, to be appreciated.

  As the tanuki had suggested, very few words were exchanged during the hours that passed, Arik now with gauze wrapped around his head to disguise his identity when his patients awoke. The healed patients weren’t immediately discharged, Indra and Master Kojiro following up all of Arik’s work with medication that sent the patient into a deep slumber.

  The healing continued late into the day, Arik praying that Jinmo had survived his wounds, that he could just hold on until his body was brought to the infirmary. It angered him that a single door, and the labyrinth that followed, were the only things stopping him from immediately tending to Jinmo’s wounds.

  Fate was cruel like that, Jinmo quite possibly the only person from Arik’s past that was still alive. Because of his schooling, Arik had never spent much time in the village where his family had lived, nor had he spent as much time as he would have liked with his father, mother, and sister. His entire world consisted of his teachers and his peers, as well as those who worked at the Academy of Healing Arts. With everyone dead, Arik only knew of a handful of relatives he could call upon in the north, and he hadn’t seen them since he was a child.

  Focus on the task at hand, Arik reminded himself, the phrase that had constantly been an integral part of Master Guri Yarna’s lessons. Cycling Revivaura required the utmost concentration, and doing so depleted one’s own inner chi. The more concentration applied, the better the disciple would become at extending their power for longer periods of time without burning out.

  One thing Arik had noticed in the infirmary was that the enslaved combatants united the continent of Taomoni in their own, tragic way. Strips of cloth had been affixed to each of their beds, their color signifying where they hailed from. Red was for the Crimson Realm, green for the Jade Realm, and black for Onyx Realm, Arik’s home. There was also yellow, used for a combatant seemingly without a home.

  Red, Green, Black, and Yellow—that was all it truly boiled down to.

  The final man Arik was tasked with healing had a yellow cloth tied to his bed, multiple slash marks across his chest, a puncture wound in his shoulder, broken fingers and a broken nose. Arik first scanned him for any internal injuries. To do so, he closed his eyes, a faint color appearing over the man’s body, one which grew as Arik focused on it. Arik started
from the patient’s feet and worked his way up, sometimes with his hand out, other times his hands behind his back as he simply observed the man’s chi aura.

  When he found chinks in the aura, he would focus his power into them, repairing it, and also noting which organ it was and its level of injury. Over the last several hours he had grown accustomed to simply announcing his discoveries out loud, Indra scribbling down any pertinent information.

  Once the countryless man’s body was scanned, Arik then focused on his surface wounds, his patient breathing more deeply as the slash marks mended back together leaving traces of blood behind, the skin around the pink and purple puncture wound swirling until it settled, the crack across the bridge of his nose and fingers snapping back into place.

  A frown formed on his face once he finished.

  “Is something the matter?” Indra asked after giving the countryless patient medicine to help him rest.

  “What happens to these men when they are able to recover?”

  Indra lowered her gaze to the stone floor. “Sadly, many of them are forced to return to the tournaments, and a few go to auction.”

  Arik balled his fists at his side as he realized what he had just done. “By saving these men, I’ve merely prolonged their suffering.”

  “I try not to think about it like that myself,” Indra said. “I try to think of it as easing their suffering, and hopefully giving them yet another chance to escape, whenever that may be. They may have children who are able to escape, or do great things in some distant future. I try to focus on that aspect of it, which is the only positive side I can come up with. I’m not so different from them.”

  “Why is that?” Arik asked.

  “I was once a slave just like them, but I managed to obtain my freedom, mostly due to Master Kojiro, who intervened on my behalf.”

  “Is he a slave?”

  They turned toward the doorway, which opened up into a narrow space that had a stove.

  “No, yokai generally aren’t, but that’s mostly because they limit their interactions with humans, unless you are in Avarga.”