by Ryan DeBruyn
“Trainer,” Verimy corrected. “What is the second option?”
Or he cuffed me because I didn’t say trainer—come on, we are out in the middle of nowhere.
“Trainer. To gain strength and farm enough Crystals to buy our way off the world.” Just because Azrael thought the formal address was unnecessary didn’t mean he was stupid enough to push the issue.
“Better. What is the third option?”
“Trainer?” Azrael didn’t know they had a third option.
“Improvise!” Verimy stated as he hit him again.
The questioning continued to topics covered in the classes in the Sovereign Halls.
Dara put a stop to his exercise. “That’s enough, breakfast is finished! Come get it while it’s hot.”
“Final question,” Verimy clipped out. Azrael knew what was coming before Verimy said it. Every session in the Halls ended this way. “What does any opponent of a Sovereign Son lose once the fight begins?”
“My opponent loses its identity, it loses all future, and finally it loses its very life!” Azrael returned the rote answer. It seemed like a slogan but in fact was far deeper than words. It was an early lesson taught to every Sovereign Son, usually with a pet. After killing something that Azrael had grown attached to, the slogan finally took on a greater meaning.
They lose their identity—opponents are no longer male or female—they become an object with a name. Losing its future may seem self-explanatory, but to Azrael was a reminder that the opponent forfeited that future by choosing to fight him. Finally, its life—the outcome of the fights were a forgone conclusion and Azrael should fight with that confidence in mind. Never giving up.
He wiped up his sweat with a rag Verimy threw at him after his answer. They strode to the firepit and both took a helping of the large rabbit haunch. Azrael looked to Dara, waiting to take a bite as it was her turn to ask questions. He noticed her quiver beside her with only two arrows. Both his trainers had superb skills with a bow, but when ammo ran dry it necessitated a trip into town.
Their second plan required a large sum of Crystals, so the trainers sold all of their hides and spare looted items at the same time. He knew some Crystalized Ether dropped from the wildlife out here but, conversely, being on a prison planet seemed to increase the price of all the wares they needed.
Dara asked, “What are the superpowers of the Etherverse?”
“Trainer. Martians, Gaians, Sovereign Empire, and the Coalition of Dragons.”
She nodded, and he took a mouthful of his soup.
Dara fired the next question, “The greatest tool in those Dynasties’ rule?”
Azrael groaned; this was a long-answered question. “Trainer. Well, for the Gaians they possess Leviathan class starships, several colonized worlds and boast the most powerful recruitment school ever founded. The Martians have several colonized worlds as well, but their strength is mostly based on the template classes they started hundreds of thousands of years ago and were recently adopted by other planetary systems. The Sovereign Empire is the bastion of freedom for individual strength and has access to the strongest ancestral class ever known.”
He took a deep breath, as he had never understood the strength of the Coalition of Dragons. “According to Professor Trall, the Coalition of Dragons derives its strength from its communication network and structure.”
Dara nodded, but chose to add to his knowledge as he ate. “The Coalition of Dragons operates in small cells that infiltrate groups and worlds. For protection, each cell is effectively blind to all other cells around it and utilizes communication methods that no one has been able to intercept or decode.”
Azrael shrugged, and she shook her head exasperatedly, before musing, “We should probably add the Tuatha De Danaan Guild to that list of superpowers. To attack the Empire, they must be very confident about their strength.”
Verimy was blowing on his rabbit haunch to cool it, but answered, “Or they have a death wish. I do agree with you though, Dara, the fact that we had never heard of this planet or the Tuatha before their attack seems to point to a great deal of strength.”
Dara smiled and shrugged. “We have been here a full month already and still haven’t seen another person from the Sovereign Halls. I am surprised our ship of a thousand inhabitants of Lars only had us three from there. Still, we know there were more than a hundred ships loaded with prisoners. Do you think they have more planets like this one?”
Azrael shrugged; the Sovereign Halls taught you to be cold and detached from others. While he was interested in the premise brought forward, he had already written off the rest of the students and teachers as dead. At least until proven otherwise. “This planet has limited travel, so they could be two towns over, and we would be hard-pressed to find them. This has also given us a certain level of anonymity within Mur. It might have been an issue if anyone discovered I was a trained son of the Sovereign. Luckily, the prison transport ships were all just automated and you two kept combat classers away from me. Regardless, we still haven’t made any real plans to get ourselves off of Tech Duinn.”
His lack of emotion and criticism caused Dara to look at him sharply. She had a slight sheen in her eyes. Azrael tilted his head. Had she not learned to distance herself from her emotions?
Verimy nodded sagely, though, and stated, “Those words are true, Azrael, but we need to have all of the pieces together before we can make a full plan. We have two options, but both require you to reach your eighth birthday. A single step taken in the right direction is worth hundreds of others in the wrong one.”
Dara continued to look at him, and he felt his skin crawl. She noticed his shudder and she explained, “Sorry, Azrael. I am just studying your face. While the increased growth rate helps all of you Sovereign Sons become stronger, it makes it easy to forget how young you actually are. You may look eighteen, but haven’t even made it past your eighth birthday.”
This was the woman’s favorite excuse for when she was looking at him. He had heard her say the same thing on numerous other occasions.
Perhaps it was strange to others, but all of Azrael’s classmates were similar. He had never known anything different.
Azrael shuddered, considering not being himself. While he knew his body had been changed and altered, those changes were part of him. Perhaps his quick learning and superior strength were a product of where he had grown up. Maybe it was entirely dependent on it, or perhaps it was a partial factor, but second-guessing wouldn’t change his circumstances.
His trainers relented and gave him the signal to eat his fill. Azrael began to wolf down his portion of the rabbit haunch. He swallowed his last bite and stood, walking over to the tent. Dara and Verimy cleaned up the cookware.
He cleared the tent of ragged pillows and patchwork blankets. Next, he folded down the pavilion into a four-sided square metal box that hovered about a foot above the ground. He efficiently strapped tightly-packed bundles to it and then moved to collect the recently cleaned plates and utensils.
Verimy unlatched a small circular disc from the tent and clipped it onto his belt. “We have everything? We might not come back this way after we enter the town. I am still hoping that an Adventurer’s Tavern or even a Guild might have popped up since our last visit.”
Dara shook her head. “You know that isn’t going to happen, but the sentiment still holds.” She looked around. “This area is starting to get crowded, and it might be best to find another, less populated, hunting camp.”
Azrael looked around, his brow furrowed; he hadn’t seen signs of other groups. Then again, he was often kept well back from those groups if his trainers discovered them. But what was Dara referring to?
“Yes, perhaps it might be time to head to a new Territory. The journey might be a good opportunity for Az to learn more about traveling. Soon this area will become overhunted anyway,” Verimy added.
His trainers’ unwillingness to look at Azrael during their reasoning made him sure he had missed something.
&nb
sp; Azrael coughed politely. “You do remember that I took a class on travel with Jerimiah, right?”
Dara blushed, and Verimy laughed nervously. “Right, completely forgot about that. Let’s get to town. Perhaps instead of learning about travel, we will find a dungeon that we can explore once you’re eight!”
The condescending tone of his voice told Azrael that he wouldn’t receive a real answer to the unspoken question. The fact that Verimy and Dara seemed to treat him like a child, even though he was one, was frustrating.
Dara broke into a loping run and Verimy followed her. Azrael had no choice but to follow. The hover tent floated behind Verimy at a meter’s distance. Azrael knew that the two hunters weren’t running at their top speed and neither was he. The stupid junker of a hover tent could never keep up with even him at his top speed.
Or at least that’s what Verimy and Dara told him.
Chapter Two
Azrael ran after his two trainers through the dense forests. The hover tent floated just in front of him and he bumped into it as Verimy came to a halt. He pushed around the heavily-laden contraption as it puttered ominously. It was probably long past the time to replace the gravity engine. But on Tech Duinn, things like this were repaired to function again. New technology was reserved for the wealthy, and Azrael would likely never see something new near the Muradin Territory. He was fairly certain of that.
Verimy had stopped at a wide thoroughfare that led to Mur.
Azrael called, “Are we meeting Mark on this path like usual?”
The back of Verimy’s head bobbed and Azrael rolled his eyes. His trainer often got quiet as they neared Mur. Azrael thought the man believed that speaking less was a sure-fire strategy to revealing little. That was true, but he thought it just made Verimy come across as suspicious.
Verimy and Dara began making hand gestures to each other. Azrael sighed, knowing they were communicating in their unique way. He could understand parts of their gestures but not enough to put together the topic. From his limited knowledge, Dara was asking about the time.
Azrael looked up at the sun. He knew that Dara could tell time based on its position, but assumed she also had a clock that came with her interface. They continued to argue and he felt himself grow angrier. The only reason they would be talking with their hand signals was because they were discussing something they didn’t think he should hear. Or something that was about him.
He tried to ignore them and considered the man they were planning on meeting. Mark was an oily Karacy travelling merchant. Verimy had some way of keeping in contact with the dwarf that Azrael had yet to discover.
Whenever Dara, Verimy, and he went to town, the travelling salesman was always in Mur. How this coincidence existed Azrael had never figured—
Verimy turned, his face serious and Azrael instantly paid attention. “Azrael, we need to tell you something before we head into town. With all the unrest right now, if something were to happen to us, you may never hear this tale.” He looked to Dara.
Dara smiled, then began, “This is the story of how you came to join us in the Sovereign Hall.”
Azrael’s fists clenched hard and his cheeks flushed with heat.
She saw his scowl and her smile dimmed slightly. “Just like today, you were red in the face. You were swaddled liberally in a black blanket and thrown through the Sovereign Hall castle gates. The trip must have been a bit uncomfortable because after you bounced to a stop, you began to cry and shout. That, of course, was how the guards were alerted to your presence.”
Azrael felt himself bristle. Why would they not have shared this with him sooner? Why wouldn’t the school?
“As everyone knows, only sons of the Sovereign King himself train in the sacred halls of the academy. At first, people pondered why someone would throw a baby through the gates, and why the note they found bundled up with him claimed he was a bastard son of the King,” Dara continued.
Azrael interrupted, “My last name is Sovereign. How can they have doubted my heritage?” Azrael tilted his head as his jaw muscles bulged out on his cheek. He had hoped he was the son of the King this whole time, with little to no proof. His last name was one of his two biggest arguments with himself—the other being that he had trained in the Sovereign Halls. Now, he wasn’t sure if he was ready to hear his trainer’s response to his question.
Verimy placed a hand on Azrael’s shoulder. “Calm down, Azrael. Yes, there is a way, but don’t worry. You are a Sovereign Son. The system affixes the last name of the father to the son. However, the system also allows name changes by the mother at birth. Many parents have brought children to the Halls, claiming they were the son of the King. Just listen to the tale and you will have your proof.”
Dara continued, “After the council discussed this issue, the headmaster of the institution decreed you would be given to the nearby monastery to raise, like the other children who weren’t confirmed sons of the Sovereign. However, on the day we swaddled you back up to hand over, a note from the King himself arrived and ordered that you remain.”
Azrael’s brow furrowed and he bit the tip of his tongue. He wanted to interject, to ask more questions. But he worried it might interrupt the story.
The King himself interceded on my behalf?
The snide jokes from other Sovereign Sons. The name calling. The teachers’ reverence—all of it made a lot more sense now. He just wished he had known sooner. In time, he had risen above the other students, but knowing this would have helped him understand the strangeness of it all.
Maybe this is why I had no true friends? I could only ever be revered or hated.
Was this why Verimy and Dara had saved him, over all the other students? Because he was the only student who the King had confirmed…
Verimy looked down the road. “You were the strongest son the teachers had seen in a long while, Azrael. I am shocked that even you had doubts who your father was. Your superiority could only have come from your bloodline.”
Azrael didn’t speak. He thought back on all the ‘compliments’ he had received from these two. He couldn’t help but see this untold story as the reason for why they had chosen to save him. They were too smart to not see the increased chances of rescue from having a strong chess piece in their possession.
Dara patted Verimy’s hand consolingly. “It wasn’t all that easy. I remember having to console our young man here, a few nights. The other sons were cruel. He was the only one who wasn’t brought to the complex by one of the King’s guards.”
You caught me crying when I was three years old, Dara! I am not that child anymore!
“You two should have shared this with me then. Or at any point in my years at the Halls. Why is it only now that I’m hearing this story?” Azrael heard the heat in his voice and turned away from his trainers to not glare at them.
Dara’s eyes held tears and Verimy reached out to hold her hand just as Azrael averted his gaze. “We weren’t permitted to tell you anything, Azrael. Who do you think the guards were that found you as a baby?” asked Verimy.
Azrael turned back, confused. His hands began to sweat. No, it couldn’t be.
“Yes, we were guards at the time, stationed at the gate. That’s the only reason we know the story. We only found out about the letter from the King much later, as a teacher gossiped about it near us,” Verimy continued.
He closed his eyes and fought to control his breathing. Breath was the first step to control of the body. After his breathing came his racing heart. Finally, he opened his eyes and nodded. His trainers met his eyes and looked away, faces flushed.
He repeated his lessons the other Sovereign Sons had taught him. Don’t ever expect help from others. Friends will only stab you in the back.
“Speak of the man, and he isn’t far behind.” Verimy’s mumbled comment broke the awkward silence. Mark’s beat up transport truck floated into view, coming down the packed dirt pathway towards them.
The sun that filtered through the canopy shone off a rusted
roof. The front cab had only two chairs in its boxy design. The cab connected to a large shipping container through a small doorway that Mark left open when he drove. Azrael always sat in the back with Dara, and Verimy always sat up front.
Azrael glanced at the hover tent. How did Mark even afford the truck? This tent had cost them an entire week’s worth of farming. The truck would have likely taken a lifetime and Azrael didn’t get the impression that the salesman was well off.
The gravity engines on the truck coughed to a stop as the anchors churned the ground behind it, stirring up black pine needles, leaves and dirt. The passenger door creaked open and the group climbed in.
“Hello again, Azrael, you’ve sure grown,” Mark smarmed.
No, I haven’t. You have barely known me for a month.
Azrael pressed his tongue into the back of his teeth and put on a false smile. Once he was through the doorway to the large openness of the container, he rolled his eyes and sat down to think on what his trainers had just told him.
“Verimy,” Mark called as Dara walked through the doorway to join Azrael. “I have had to increase my price for this service, I’m afraid.”
Dara blinked. She opened her mouth and closed it a few times. Azrael was the reason why Verimy paid the man to take them into town. He couldn’t see what Verimy liked in the greasy trader.
He missed Verimy’s response, but Mark’s was loud and clear. “Your little child mercenary back there is worth quite a bit to the right people. His last name is Sovereign for Athena’s sake. The first person who Analyzes him will scamper off to rat him out.”
The truck lurched into a side rotation. And came to another stop facing back towards Mur. “Listen, they have hiked taxes in Mur again. There is even a rumor that King Oberan will soon control Muradin. Deal? Or get out and walk.”
Verimy’s head peeked through the door. He said, “Dara, drop two bags worth of goods with his inventory.” His head disappeared and the front seats springs groaned. The truck lurched forward this time and began to hum as the gravity pulsar engines sped up and stabilized.