by Narro, B. T.
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Title Page
Chapter 1 Cleve: Experiment
Chapter 2 Cleve: Others
Chapter 3 Steffen: Side Effects
Chapter 4 Effie: Breathe
Chapter 5 Effie: Magic and Beer
Chapter 6 Cleve: Keep Back
Chapter 7 Cleve: Guess
Chapter 8 Cleve: Rules
Chapter 9 Effie: The Party
Chapter 10 Effie: Rumors
Chapter 11 Zoke: The Army of Krepps
Chapter 12 Zoke: Must Endure
Chapter 13 Zoke: Chosen
Chapter 14 Zoke: Family
Chapter 15 Zoke: Trust
Chapter 16 Zoke: Disquieting Questions
Chapter 17 Zoke: Wrong Answer
Chapter 18 Zoke: Death and Secrets
Chapter 19 Zoke: Let’s Play
Chapter 20 Cleve: Evaluation Week Begins
Chapter 21 Cleve: Hitting Hard and Clean
Chapter 22 Steffen: Chemists
Chapter 23 Steffen: A Visitor in the Night
Chapter 24 Zoke: Did That Just Move?
Chapter 25 Zoke: They Must Die
Chapter 26 Zoke: Dark Dreams and Howls
Chapter 27 Effie: Evaluations
Chapter 28 Effie: Locked on
Chapter 29 Cleve: Walls
Chapter 30 Cleve: Follow
Chapter 31 Cleve: Target
Chapter 32 Cleve: Decision
Chapter 33 Cleve: Stuck
Chapter 34 Zeti: New Tasks
Chapter 35 Cleve: Manipulate
Chapter 36 Cleve: Sweep
Chapter 37 Cleve: Plan
Chapter 38 Effie: A New Day
Chapter 39 Zoke: Gone
Chapter 40 Zoke: Listen
Chapter 41 Cleve: Chaos
Chapter 42 Cleve: Orders
Chapter 43 Cleve: Heavy Rain
Chapter 44 Zoke: Follow
Chapter 45 Zoke: Awake
Chapter 46 Steffen: Uncaged
Chapter 47 Steffen: Common Tongue
Chapter 48 Zeti: Traitors
Chapter 49 Cleve: Stone
Chapter 50 Cleve: Coming Loose
Chapter 51 Effie: Confidence
Chapter 52 Zoke: Strangers and Handshakes
Chapter 53 Zoke: We
Chapter 54 Zoke: Smoke
Chapter 55 Zoke: Quick Heal
Chapter 56 Zoke: Words of Death and Birth
Chapter 57 Effie: Blanketed
Chapter 58 Effie: Safe as Skin
Chapter 59 Effie: Hidden
Chapter 60 Zeti: The Moment
Chapter 61 Steffen: Size and Strength
Chapter 62 Steffen: Touch
Chapter 63 Effie: We Think We Know
Chapter 64 Effie: Collapse
Chapter 65 Zeti: Mazed
Chapter 66 Cleve: Perception
Author Information
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by B.T. Narro
Cover art by Ricky Gunawan
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the copyright holder.
To Alex
an amazing critic and an even better friend.
BASTIAL ENERGY
BOOK ONE OF THE RHYTHM OF RIVALRY
BY B.T. NARRO
Chapter 1: Experiment
CLEVE
Cleve’s hands were steady as he drew the string of his longbow. His eyes didn’t see the rest of the forest, only his target. Ready to let the arrow soar, he held his breath, but a noise froze him before he released. He strained his neck toward it.
Footsteps causing leaves to crackle were coming up the hill behind him. Panic pinched his heart, forcing his held breath out through his teeth. By the time his next breath began, his arrow was back in his quiver and his head had swung in each direction, looking for somewhere to throw his five-foot-tall longbow.
The sun was low, striping the forest in shadows from lanky trees too thin to conceal his illegal weapon. The grass of the forest floor was too sparse for it, and the only bushes thick enough were down the hill, past where the footsteps were coming from.
He cursed himself for allowing someone to surprise him. After years of training in the secluded forest, not once had someone sneaked up on him. How could he have let this happen? He took another breath. Figuring that out would have to wait. Right now he needed a plan.
A voice spoke out, just close enough to be understood. “Look at this, Fred. This goldbellow is mangled. What a waste of a rare ingredient.” The young man’s tone was utterly defeated, as if he were witnessing a calamity.
Cleve heard no reply, just a scraping sound like a knife rubbing against steel.
The same voice spoke again. “Fred, I thought we had an agreement about chewing on your cage.”
With his new plan to flee, Cleve was too busy running to make sense of the strange dialogue he’d overheard. He knew if he hurried, there was a chance he could be out of sight before they came up the hill. But something stopped him, a different sound from the same direction as the stranger’s voice—a loud gasp followed by the unmistakable roar of a bear. On reflex, Cleve tossed his longbow behind the nearest tree, his arrow-filled quiver next, and sprinted back the other way. He reached the slope of the hill just as the young man came from its other side with wide eyes that stuck to Cleve the moment they found him.
“Please help me save Fred!” The young man pointed behind him as he shouted.
Cleve looked down the hill. He spotted the bear first, brown and thick with lines of drool locked to the sides of its mouth. They wobbled with each step the beast took toward some small cage on the forest floor.
“I don’t see anyone else.” Cleve spoke with relief, believing Fred had already escaped.
The young man’s eyes doubled in size. “The enormous rat in the cage, that’s Fred!” His voice was wild with urgency, as if Cleve’s calm reply had convinced him he needed to panic for the both of them now.
Cleve found Fred when he looked closer at the cage…enormous rat indeed. Fred’s gray fur gave him the shape of rotund dust ball, while his teeth protruded to twist his mouth into a wide grin that didn’t seem to belong on any creature, especially not a rat.
Unamused by the concept of saving him, Cleve made it quite clear in his tone. “I’m not going to risk my life for…that thing.”
The bear was sniffing around the cage, trying to find a way into it. Fred was following the bear’s nose, nipping at it from behind the steel bars. The little monster sure had courage, at least.
“Come on,” Cleve said, putting his hand on the young man’s back. “Let’s go before the bear gives up on the cage.”
“No, I need him!” The stranger twisted free. “Fred’s a very important test subject for a potion still in its preliminary test phase.”
A chemist, Cleve realized. That explains a lot. Cleve decided to give him a question in hopes of calming him. “What’s your name?”
“Steffen!” he replied with the same incessant panic.
“I’m sure it’s not worth our lives, right Steffen?” Cleve asked.
His rhetorical question seemed to pass through the air without ever reaching Steffen’s ears. “Wait, I know you! You’re Cleve Polken!” Steffen grabbed a nearby rock, hurling it at the bear.
“What are you doing? Don’t anger the bear!” Cleve reached behind him to draw the other weapon he’d brought that day, his long
, and completely legal, quarterstaff. Cleve was preparing himself for the bear. But now with the weapon in hand, the idea of hitting this crazy chemist was becoming tempting. Who throws rocks at bears? Someone who needs to be smacked, that’s who.
Steffen shuffled closer to the bear to pick up another rock to toss. Neither one hit, but the bear did give them a curious glance when they fell into the lush bushes behind it.
“Of the rumors I’ve heard about you, Cleve, I know at least one is true.” Steffen clumsily snatched up a third rock that was half-buried. “You win the weapons demonstration every year.” Steffen threw it, and this one hit the bear’s side, bouncing off without a sound. “If you won’t save Fred, I know you’ll save us.”
The bear eased toward Steffen, stopping to stand on its hind legs and roar. Its steaming breath wafted after the young man while he backed behind Cleve. Out of options, Cleve gathered Bastial Energy into his legs and ran to meet the bear. He flipped and spun through the air with his quarterstaff extended, slamming it on the ground just in front of the bear as he landed. There was a booming crack, akin to the sound of a tree limb snapping. To an untrained ear, it might have sounded like Cleve’s weapon broke, but he knew the ironbark of his quarterstaff to be as strong as steel. He couldn’t break it if he tried.
The bear lumbered away, crashing through bushes as if they were paper. “Look how easy that was.” Steffen smiled with pride, as if to show that he’d been right all along. Fred let out a squeak as Steffen picked up his cage. “Fred and I thank you.”
With the threat of the bear gone, Cleve’s focus turned to the anger pulsing through him. His most menacing tone came out as he spoke. “I don’t like being used.” He turned and started back up the hill before the idea of using his quarterstaff on the chemist became more tempting.
“If you don’t like being used, you’re not going to be a happy warrior when you’re done at the Academy, then!” Steffen shouted to stop him. “All warriors are just used by the King.”
Shocked, Cleve turned with a cold stare. He noticed Steffen cowering back a step, so he followed with a step of his own, waiting for the chemist to finish what he had to say. But Steffen finally seemed content remaining silent, or perhaps he only now noticed the anger in Cleve’s eyes.
“How did you know that?” Cleve asked.
“That all warriors are used by the King?” Steffen asked sheepishly.
“No, that I was to attend the Academy.”
“Oh.” Steffen let out a breath of relief. “I met Headmaster Terren on my way to complete housing registration yesterday. I didn’t know he was your uncle. It makes sense, though. You’re both exceptional warriors.” Steffen took a step forward, looking as if he expected Cleve to know what he was going to say next.
Cleve didn’t and was in no mood to guess. “He told you what about me?”
“Not too much about you specifically, but he did say that you don’t have anyone to room with.” Steffen titled his head. “Surely he mentioned our conversation to you?”
Cleve could feel his brow furrowing cautiously. What did my uncle do now? He shook his head. “No.”
“Then I guess I get to be the one to tell you.” Steffen cleared his throat, leaning forward on his front foot with a wry grin. “Your uncle and I spoke briefly about my living predicament—two friends and I were hoping to live together on campus, but there are no houses for three students. Terren mentioned you, and he signed you up to live with us in a house that accommodates four students.” Steffen grew a smile wider than Fred’s in the cage beside him. “What do you think?”
Cleve hoped this was just Steffen’s terrible sense of humor. “You’re joking, right?”
“I thought you’d share my enthusiasm.” Steffen’s grin soured. “I suppose this living experiment is still in its preliminary phase. We have lots of time to find the right ingredients to make this a success.” He had a quick laugh. “Get the metaphor? We’ll be just like Fred, here.” He lifted the cage up to his shoulder. “It’ll work out, Cleve. I’m excited to have a warrior in our household. I have some potions you can help me test.”
And here I thought getting caught with a bow and being dragged to the dungeons would be the worst way to spend the next three years. “Fred is a disaster, just like this will be,” Cleve muttered. There was no point in staying any longer. He needed to speak to his uncle.
“Where are you going? We should get to know each other!”
He ignored Steffen’s shouts, hoping they were the last words he’d ever hear him speak, wishing this was just the delirious ranting of a mad chemist.
Chapter 2: Others
CLEVE
Cleve actually had been excited about his admission to the Academy, until meeting Steffen. He’d lived the last seven years on campus, but only as his uncle’s adopted son, never as a student. He hadn’t been able to apply until this year, when he’d reached seventeen.
Living with Terren was never ideal, but being his only remaining family member, Cleve figured there were worse places he could’ve ended up. His uncle was generally considerate and tended to give a good reason when he couldn’t be. But to sign up Cleve to live with four strangers without even mentioning it? Cleve didn’t even want to hear the reason behind that.
When Cleve arrived home, he threw open the door so that it banged against the wall, yet his uncle didn’t even look up from the documents he was reading. To Cleve it was an obvious display of stubbornness in the impending argument.
“You need to undo this housing agreement of me living with three other people,” Cleve said firmly, readying himself for the verbal duel. “You do have the power to do that, don’t you?” He set down the leather bag that held his bow and quiver, then unhitched the quarterstaff from his back and brought it to the weapons cabinet.
“I have the power, but I won’t.” Terren let down his pen, giving one eye to Cleve. “This is good for you and necessary. Put the quarterstaff behind the swords.”
“I was going to live alone on campus.” Cleve rearranged his quarterstaff as instructed.
“There are no student houses that accommodate one person, only two or four. When the King financed the construction of the Academy, he still tried to save some money where he could. It’s cheaper to have students living together than on their own.” Terren picked up his pen and inspected another document.
“Then I should live with only one person, not three.”
“Three will be better for you. You don’t know anyone, Cleve. The more people you can meet the better.”
Cleve leaned against the weapons cabinet with folded arms. “When does the contract end so I can move somewhere else?”
Terren let out a discouraged breath and set down his papers. “You have to start giving people a chance. Don’t go into the situation impatient for it to end.”
“Just tell me,” Cleve demanded. He couldn’t stand to hear any more social advice from his friendless uncle.
“The contract is set for the year.”
“The entire year?” Cleve repeated with disbelief. “There must be some way out of it.”
“There are certain scenarios when a student can move before the contract is over. But leave it for now. We can revisit this in a couple months.” Terren’s eyes lowered back to his desk. His voice became quiet. “…If needed.”
Cleve grunted, defeated. Never had he won an argument with Terren, and he knew he wasn’t about to start now. He turned toward his room but stopped when Terren pushed out his chair to stand.
“One more thing, Cleve. This is going to sound a lot worse than it really is.” Terren paused for a slow breath. “One of the students in your house is a psychic.”
Cleve felt hot fear winding tightly in his stomach. “No, no, no,” he muttered to himself.
“It’s going to be fine.” Terren pushed out his palms. “Her name is Reela, and I’m sure she’s just like every other psychic in the school—nothing like Rek.”
Run, just go, into Raywhite Forest, get ou
t of here. Cleve’s heart was beating so hard it felt like the skin around his chest was being stretched. He put his hands on his head for some alleviation and strode quickly to the front door. Outside he paced in a circle, sucking the cool air into his burning lungs. It took all his energy to keep himself from fleeing.
Soon Terren had joined him, putting a hand on his back. “I know this frightens you, but you’ll find out as soon as you meet her that there’s absolutely nothing to be worried about.”
It took years after Cleve’s parents were killed for him to start feeling somewhat stable again. The thought of a psychic plumbing the depths of his mind was worse than any bear. Like a massive dam being destroyed, his memories could pour out like an unstoppable river if she were to fish around.
Cleve made a conscious effort to slow his breathing. Finding the strength to speak again, he asked, “When you say she’s just like other psychics, what do you mean by that?”
“I mean she’s useless. Most psychics can pick up on a bit of Bastial Energy and it makes them feel special, so they start training as a psychic. But in actuality, even chemists can do more with Bastial Energy than people who think they’re psychics.” Terren let out a regretful sigh. “Rek is one-of-a-kind. A true master of psyche, and there will be no other psychics like him. He’s the only one who could pick up on thoughts, make people tell the truth, or really anything useful, or dangerous, or scary, or whatever it is you’re thinking other psychics can do. But none of them can. If Rek was still teaching, the chances of another powerful psychic emerging in the school would actually be possible, but our psychic teacher is no better than a glorified babysitter.”
Cleve wanted to believe his uncle but couldn’t. If one psychic could become as powerful as Rek, then why couldn’t others? “Why aren’t there other psychics like Rek?” Cleve asked. “Was it because he was trained in the castle by the King’s staff?”
“No, that couldn’t be it. He was the King’s lab rat, adopted to be studied by the King’s team of scientists and nothing more. He’s the only Elf I know of to set foot in Kyrro, brought here tied to the back of a wolf like the hero from the children’s story Prince from the Woods, except the King embraced him not with love but out of curiosity. He was just a baby, so he knew nothing more than we did about his past.”