Insight Forge Press
San Francisco ~ Boston
© Alexander Darwin
First Published in the United States by Insight Forge Press in 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system - except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper - without permission in writing from the publisher.
Copy editor Richard Shealy
Combat editor T.P. Grant
Cover design (c) www.damonza.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Acknowledgements
To Katie, who always holds my hand when I’ve lost my glasses.
To the gentle art of Jiu Jitsu, which isn’t often gentle, but soothes the soul.
1
Into the Deep
We fight neither to inflict pain nor to prolong suffering. We fight neither to mollify anger nor to satisfy vendetta. We fight neither to accumulate wealth nor to promote social standing. We fight so that the rest shall not have to.
First Precept of the Combat Codes
Murray wasn’t fond of the crowd at Thaloo’s. Mostly scum with no respect for combat who liked to think themselves experts in the craft.
His boots clung to the sticky floor as he shouldered his way to the bar. Patrons lined the stools, drinking, smoking, shouting up at the overhead lightboards broadcasting SystemView feeds.
Murray grabbed a head-sized draught of ale before making his way toward the center of the den, where the crowd grew thicker. Beams of light cut through clouds of pipe smoke and penetrated the gaps between cluttered, sweaty bodies.
His heart fluttered and the hairs on the back of his neck bristled as he approached. He wiped a trickle of sweat from his brow. Even after all these years, even in a pitiful place like this, the light still got to him.
He pushed past the inner throng of spectators and emerged at the edge of the action.
Thaloo’s Circle was eight meters in diameter, made of auralite-compound steel fused into the dirt. Standard Underground dimensions. On the Surface, Circles tended to be wider, usually ten meters diameter, which Murray preferred. More room to maneuver.
Glowing yellow streaks veined the steel Circle, and a central artery of spectral light pulsed above the ring like a heartbeat, shining down on two boys grappling in the dirt.
“Aha! The big Scout’s back! You runnin’ out of kids already?” A man at the edge of the Circle clapped Murray on the shoulder. “Name’s Calsans.”
Murray ignored the greeting and focused on the two boys fighting. One of them looked to be barely ten years old and had the gaunt build of a lacklight street urchin. His rib cage heaved in and out from beneath the bulk of a boy who looked to outweigh him by at least sixty pounds.
Many of the onlookers flicked their eyes between the action and a large lightboard that hung from the ceiling. Biometric benchmarks of each boy in the Circle flashed across the screen: heart rate, brainwave speed, oxygen saturation, blood pressure, hydration levels. The bottom of the board displayed an image of each boy’s skeletal and muscular frame, down to a chipped tooth.
As the large boy lifted his elbow and drove it into the smaller boy’s chin, a red fracture lit up in the corresponding image on the board. The little boy’s heart rate shot up.
The large boy threw knees into his opponent’s rib cage as he continued to hold him down in the dirt. The little boy writhed, turning his back and curling up into a ball.
“Shouldn’t give your back like that,” Murray muttered, as if trying to communicate with the battered boy.
The large boy dropped another vicious elbow on his downed prey. Murray winced as he heard the sharp crack of bone on skull. Two more elbows found their target before the little one stiffened up, his eyes rolling back into his head as he fell limp.
The ball of spectral light floating above the Circle flickered and extinguished, then dissipated into a swarm of smoldering wisps that fanned out into the crowd.
“They call the big one there Grinder; he’s been cleaning up like that all week. One of Thaloo’s newest in-housers,” Calsans said as the boy raised his arms in victory.
Beyond a few clapping drunks, there was little fanfare. Grinder walked to the side of his Tasker at the sidelines, a bearded man who patted the boy on the head like a dog. The loser’s crew entered the Circle and dragged the fallen fighter out by his feet.
“Thaloo’s been buyin’ up some hard Grievar this cycle,” Calsans continued, trying to strike up conversation with Murray again. “Bet he’s tryin’ to work a bulk sale to the Citadel, y’know? Even though they all won’t pan out with that level of competition, there’s bound to be a gem in the lot of ’em.”
Murray barely acknowledged the man, but Calsans kept speaking.
“It’s not like it used to be, y’know? Everything kept under strict Citadel regiment. All the organized breeding, the training camps,” Calsans said. “I mean, course you know all about that. But now that the Kirothians are breathin’ down our necks, Deep Circles are hoppin’ again, and folks like Thaloo and you are making the best of it.”
“I’m nothing like Thaloo,” Murray growled, his shoulders tensing.
Calsans shrank back, suddenly aware of how large Murray was standing beside him. “No, no, course not, friend. You two are completely different. Thaloo’s like every other Circle slaver trying to make a bit, and you’re a… or used to be… a Grievar Knight…” His voice trailed off.
The glowing spectral wisps returned to the Circle, like flies gathering on a fresh kill. They landed on the cold auralite steel ring and balled up again in a floating cluster above. As more of the wisps arrived, the light shining down on the Circle grew brighter.
Fresh biometrics flashed onto the feed above as the light reached critical density. It was time for the next fight, and Murray needed another ale.
*
Murray drew the cowl of his cloak as he exited Thaloo’s den, stepping directly into the clamor of Markspar Row.
Stores, bars, and inns lined the street, with smaller carts selling a variety of acrid-scented foods on the cobbles out front. Gaudily dressed hawkers peddled their wares, screaming in a variety of tongues. Buyers jostled past him as ragged, soot-faced children darted underfoot.
Much had changed since Murray had first returned to the Underground.
Two decades ago, he’d proudly walked Markspar Row with an entourage of trainers in tow. He’d been met with cheers, claps on the back, the awed eyes of Deep brood looking up at him. He’d been proud to represent the Grievar from below.
Now, Murray made the habit of staying off the main thoroughfares. He came to the Deep alone and quietly. He doubted anyone would recognize him after all these years with his overgrown beard and sagging stomach.
A man in a nearby stall shrieked at Murray, “Top-shelf protein! Tested for the Cimmerian Shade! Vat-grown in Mercuri’s central plant! Certified for real taste by the
growers’ guild!” The small, bald hawker held up a case with a variety of labels stamped across it.
Compared to the wiry hawker, Murray was large. Though his gut had expanded over the past decade and his ruffled beard was now grey-streaked, he posed a formidable presence. From beneath the cut-off sleeves of his cloak his knotted forearms and callused hands hung like twin cudgels.
Flux tattoos crisscrossed the length of Murray’s arms, from elbows to fingertips, shifting their pigmented curves as he clenched his fists. His sharp nose twisted at the center, many times broken, and his ears swelled like fat toads. His face was overcast, with two alarmingly bright-yellow eyes penetrating from beneath his brow.
Murray turned into a narrow stone passageway sheltered from the central clamor of the row. He passed another hawker, a white-haired lady hidden behind her stand of fruit.
“The best heartbeat grapes. Clerics say eat just a few per day and you’ll outlive an archivist.” She smiled at him and gestured to her selection of fruit, each swollen and pulsing with ripeness.
Halfway down the alley, as the sounds of the market continued to fade, Murray stopped in front of a beat-up oaken door. A picture of a yellow-eyed bat with its teeth bared was barely visible on the faded awning overhead.
The Bat always smelled of spilt ale and sweat. An assortment of Grievar and Grunt patrons crowded the floor. Mercs keeping an ear to the ground for contract jobs, harvesters taking a break from planting on the steppe, or diggers dressed in dirt from a nearby excavation project.
SystemView was live and blaring from several old boards hanging from the far wall.
And now… broadcasting from Mercuri’s magnificent Albright Stadium…
The one thing that brought together the different breeds was a good SystemView fight. Though most of the folk living in the Underground were Mercurian citizens, their allegiances often were more aligned with the wagers they placed in the Circles.
Most of the Bat’s patrons were tuned into the screens, some swaying and nearly falling out of their chairs with empty bottles surrounding them. Two dirt-encrusted Grunts slurred their words as Murray pushed past them toward the bar.
“Fegar’s got the darkin’ reach! No way ’e’ll be able to take my boy down!”
“You tappin’ those neuros too hard, man? He took Samson down an’ he’s ten times the wrestler!”
Grunts weren’t known for their smarts. They were bred for hard labor like mining, hauling, harvesting, or clearing, though Murray often wondered if drinking might be their real talent. He didn’t mind the Grunts, though—they did their jobs and didn’t bother anyone. They didn’t meddle with Grievar lives. They didn’t govern from the shadows. They weren’t Daimyos.
The man behind the bar was tall and corded, with near-obsidian skin. The left side of his face drooped, and his bald head gleamed with sweat as he wiped down the counter.
Murray approached the bar and caught the man’s good eye. “Your finest Deep ale.”
The man poured a stein of the only ale on tap, then broke into a wide half-grin. “Old Grievar, what brings you to my fine establishment on such a sunny day in the Deep?”
Murray took a swig of the ale, wiping the foam off his lips. “Same thing every year, Anderson. I’m here to lay back and sweat out my worries at the hot springs. Then I figure I’ll stop by Pleasure Shrine for a week or so ’fore returning to my Adar Hills mansion back Upworld.”
Anderson chuckled, giving Murray a firm wrist-to-wrist grasp from across the bar. “Good to see you, old friend. Though you’re uglier than I remember.”
“Same to you.” Murray feigned a grimace. “That face of yours reminds me of how you always forgot to cover up the right high kick.”
Anderson grinned as he wiped down the bar. Both men were quiet as they watched the SystemView broadcast on the lightboard above.
The feed panned across Albright Stadium, showing thousands of cheering spectators in the stands before swooping toward the gleaming Circle at the heart of the arena. Two Grievar squared off in the Circle—one standing for Mercuri and the other for the nation of Kiroth.
Murray downed his ale and set it on the bar for Anderson to refill.
A list of grievances popped up in one corner of the screen to remind viewers of what was at stake in the bout. Rubellium reserves in one of the long-disputed border regions between Mercuri and Kiroth, worth millions of bits, thousands of jobs, and the servitude of the pastoral harvesters that lived out there.
The fate of nations held in the sway of our fists.
The fight began and Murray watched quietly, respectfully, as a Grievar should. Not like crowds in modernday—booing and clapping, hissing and spitting. No respect for combat.
Anderson sighed as Mercuri’s Grievar Knight attacked the Kirothian with a flurry of punches. “Do you remember it? Even taking those hits, those were good days.”
“Prefer not to remember it.” Murray took another gulp of his ale.
“I know you don’t, friend. But I hold onto my memories. Blood, sweat, and broken bones. Locking on a choke or putting a guy down with a solid cross. That feeling after, lying awake and knowing you’d done something – made a difference.”
“What’s the darkin’ difference? I don’t see any. Same lofty bat shit going on up above.” Murray sniffed the air. “Still got that same dank smell down here.”
“You know what I mean,” Anderson said. “Fighting for the good of the nation. Making sure Mercuri stays on top.”
“I know what you mean, and that’s what just what those Daimyo politiks up there say all the time. For the good of the nation. That’s why I’m down here. Every year, the same thing for a decade now. Sent Deep to find fresh Grievar meat.”
“You don’t think the Scout program is working?” Anderson asked.
Murray took another long swig. “We’ll discover the next Artemis Halberd. That’s what that smug bastard Callen always says. The man doesn’t know how to piss straight in a Circle, yet he’s got command of an entire wing of Citadel.”
“You never saw eye-to-eye with Commander Albright—”
“The man’s a coward! How can he lead? The Daimyos might as well have installed one of their own to Command. Either way, doesn’t make a difference. Scouts—the whole division is deepshit. Grievar-kin are born to fight. Thousands of years of breeding says so. We’re not made to creep around corners, dealing out bits like hawkers.”
“Times are different, old friend,” Anderson said. “Things are more complicated. Citadel has got to keep up; otherwise, Mercuri falls behind. Kiroth’s had a Scout program for two decades now. They say even the Besaydians are on their way to developing one.”
“They know it’s just the scraps down here, Anderson,” Murray interrupted. “Kids that don’t fare a chance. And even if one of them did make it? What have we got to show for it? Me and you. For all those years we put in together in service. The sacrifices…”
Their conversation was interrupted as the door to the bar swung open with a thud. Three men walked in. Grievar.
Anderson sighed and put his hand on Murray’s shoulder. “Take it easy.”
The first to enter had piercings running along his jawline, glinting beside a series of dark flux tattoos stamped to his cheek bones. The other two were as thick as Murray and looked to be twins, with matching grizzled faces and cauliflowered ears.
The fluxed man immediately caught Murray’s stare from the bar. “Ah! If it isn’t the mighty one himself!”
Murray left his seat with alarming speed and moved toward the man.
Anderson shouted from behind the bar as he tried to intercept Murray. The man threw a wide haymaker at Murray, who casually tucked his shoulder, deflecting the blow, before dropping levels and exploding from a crouch into his midline. Murray wrapped up the man’s knees, hoisted him into the air, leapt off his feet, and drove him straight through a nearby table, which splintered in every direction.
Murray blinked. He was still in his seat by the bar, the
pierced Grievar hovering over him with a derisive smirk on his face.
“Nothing to say anymore, huh, old man? I can’t imagine what it’s like. Getting sent down here to do the dirty work. Digging through the trash every year.”
Murray ignored the man and took another swig of his ale.
“Think any of your trash will even make it through the Trials this year?” the man taunted. “Didn’t one of your kids make it once? What ever happened to him? Oh, I remember now…”
Anderson pushed three ales across the bar. “Cydek, these are on the house. Why don’t you and your boys find a place over in that corner there so we don’t have any trouble?”
Cydek smirked as he took the drinks. He turned back to Murray as he was walking away. “I’m scouting Lampai tomorrow. Why don’t you tail me and I can show you how it’s done? You can see some real Grievar in action. Nice change of pace from watching kids fighting in the dirt.”
Murray kept his eyes fixed on the lightboard above the bar.
SystemView was now replaying the fight’s finish in slow motion. The broadcaster’s voice cut through the quieted Mercurian crowd at Albright Stadium.
What an upset! And with the simple justice of a swift knee, Kiroth takes the Adarian Reserves!
Anderson leaned against the bar in front of Murray and poured himself an ale as he watched the knockout on replay. “The way things are going, I hope the Scouts program starts working… or anything, for that matter. Otherwise, we’ll be drinking that Kirothian swill they call mead next time I see you…”
Murray let a smile crease his face, though he could feel the tension wracking his muscles. He downed his ale.
*
Murray realized he’d had a few too many, even for a man of his size, as he stumbled down Markspar Row. The duskshift was at its end and the arrays that lined the cavern ceiling bathed the Underground in a dying red glow. Murray had stayed at the Bat chatting about old times with Anderson for the entire evening.
Though he often denied it, he did miss the light. He wished he was back in fighting form as he was during his service.
The Combat Codes Page 1