Death Flag

  Madison watched as the contents continued to pile up. It started with basic essentials like toiletries—soap, a toothbrush, a towel, and a strange yellow vial of something he didn’t recognize—and continued on to a pile of clothes Madison didn’t take time to examine, and several medicinal-looking items such as gauze and a wooden splint. He wasn’t even sure what half of the things that had gone in were, and he didn’t bother asking. He just figured that Warren knew what he was doing, so he sat back and let the other man do some work.

  “There,” Warren exclaimed as he finished. “And now for some clothes. If you go to the back wall”—he hoisted a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the direction behind him—”you’ll find something to wear. I don’t think you need me around for that part.”

  “Aww . . . And I thought we were getting to be such good friends,” Madison teased as he brushed by Warren. He’d spent his fair share of time changing in locker rooms over the years, so the thought of someone seeing him naked didn’t really bother him that much anymore.

  There was a modest assortment of simple clothes on various hangers and in various cubbies. Nothing was too flashy or outlandish, and they all appeared to be simple, well-made garments. He selected a pair of lightweight black pants, a breezy, white shirt similar to the one Davion had worn yesterday, and a pair of black hiking boots. They didn’t have as much weight to them as what he was used to working in but fit fairly well. Once he was finished finding everything, he stripped down and changed into the new clothes, tossing the soiled pajama-like-pants away into what he assumed was a laundry hamper in the corner. His gaze lingered on his bandaged arm for a moment, but thinking better of it, he decided to leave it taped up the way it was. There wasn’t any real need for the bandages. His arm had truthfully been healed ever since he had woken up in the infirmary the day before. Yet, even though there might not be any damage there, he didn’t want to show off what he had hidden underneath either. He didn’t know why, but he had a feeling that people might not respond too kindly when they saw the tattoo.

  “Well, it’s not much, but it’s a start. If I can get a shower, I might actually start feeling like a whole new man!” he proclaimed as he moved back to the front of the room.

  “Much better,” Warren agreed.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?” Madison asked, kicking the footlocker with the toe of his boot.

  “You found a bed last night? You can either just throw it under that for now, or you can carry it with you. No one will bother it if you just leave it in the dormitory. Oh! And these!” He grabbed two slips of paper off of a shelf, and he handed them over to Madison.

  “Ugh,” Madison grunted as he examined the strange black markings on the slips of paper. “Magic.”

  “Yep. Just paste them on the trunk. The first one will mark it as your own, so you’re the only one who can open the footlocker. It’s not one-hundred percent foolproof, but it’s strong enough to deter most people away from messing with your stuff. They’d have to overpower the spell, and most people around here aren’t strong enough to do that.”

  “Great,” Madison said dryly. “And the other?”

  “That’s . . . Well, just put it on and you’ll see. It’s easier for you to see it and understand it than it is for me to explain it.”

  Madison shrugged and pressed the first piece of paper onto the lid of the box. The slip of paper instantly clung to the wooden lid, and the symbols there started writhing around on their own as if they were fighting for position and there wasn’t enough room. There was a small flash of light, a hissing sound, and then silence. The scrap of paper crumbled and disappeared.

  “Huh,” Madison grunted. Well, that was entertaining at least. He pressed the second to the lid of the box, and the process seemed to repeat itself almost exactly. The only noticeable difference was that the flash of light was slightly larger than it had been the first time. “Okay, I give up. What did—”

  Just as he started asking the question, the magic kicked in and answered it for him. The footlocker shrank down until it was barely larger than a jewelry box.

  Madison just stared at it skeptically for a moment before bending over and picking it up off the ground. He held it out in the palm of his hand and asked, “Okay, so . . . How do I . . .?”

  Warren laughed, his grin splitting his face for a moment. “Just press the lid to open it, and it will return to its original size. But don’t worry,” he added hastily, “everything and anything stored inside is just fine. It will all be returned to normal as soon as you open it again, and you’ll find everything exactly where you found it. Pretty neat, huh?”

  Madison just shook his head and slipped the small box into his pocket. He hated having something that was so obviously magical on him, but there wasn’t much avoiding it. Even as much as he hated to admit it, there were definitely some practical advantages to carrying around a trunk full of equipment. Just another thing you’re going to have to accept, he told himself. No matter how much it unnerves me, I’m just going to have to accept the fact that this world operates on a different set of rules. “You said something about breakfast?” he asked at last.

  “Yeah, right,” Warren agreed happily. “It’s the most important meal of the day, you know. It’s the foundation for everything else that comes after!”

  Madison just grunted a response at the overused saying and followed him out of the storage room. Rather than turning back the way they had come from, they turned back in the other direction, leaving Madison to once again marvel at how impossible it was to find his way around. After they had taken off the third time in a seemingly-random direction, he finally gave up and asked about it. “Alright, I give,” he declared, tossing up his hands in mock defeat. “How is anyone supposed to find their way around this place? I’ve been trying to keep up with where we’re going in my mind and—”

  He suddenly shut up as it occurred to him what was likely going on. “Magic,” he muttered. “It’s magic, isn’t it? That’s the reason I can’t figure out how to get anywhere. It’s never the same route twice.”

  For his part, Warren actually looked surprised more than anything. “Seriously?” he asked, incredulity written all over his face. “How did you figure it out?”

  “What? You mean I’m right?” Madison asked, even though he knew the instant he said it that he was.

  “Of course,” Warren responded. “It’s part of the fortress’s defenses, although I didn’t expect you to figure it out so quickly. It normally takes most people a couple of days before they start getting suspicious.”

  “So, you mean to say that you weren’t going to tell me at all? You’d just sit back and let me wander around while laughing at me?”

  Warren grinned broadly again and cast a sideways glance at him, but he didn’t answer. “If there was ever an invasion, it wouldn’t do to have the attackers know exactly where to go. Even if they made it this far, they’d be running around in circles forever. You may not have noticed it yet, but there are actually some fairly young and old residents here. If the walls are ever breached, they’re taught to come to this building for protection as the last line of defense.”

  “That’s some pretty gnarly magic,” Madison said quietly as he thought about the possibilities. In effect, it meant that they were currently making their way through an inescapable labyrinth. Anyone who got lost in here could potentially spend an eternity wandering around in circles without ever making it outside or escaping. Of course, it also left some fairly-practical questions as well. “So, how does anyone ever find their way around? And how does the magic know someone who’s supposed to be here from someone who isn’t?”

  “Ah . . . Well, there’s two parts to that answer. The first is this,” he said, holding up his hand and tapping the ring on his finger. “As long as you’re wearing one of the rings, you can make it out without any problems. The second is this”—he tapped a finger against his head—“and knowing where it is you want to go.”

  “What d
o you mean?” Madison pressed. He slipped a hand into his pocket and rolled around the ring he had stashed there when he changed. He hadn’t bothered putting it on yet, and truthfully, he wasn’t in a hurry to.

  “Hmm . . . Well, I guess the best way to explain it is to know what you want and where you want to go.” They stepped through a door, and Madison was once again on the inner quad they had passed through the night before with the dark towers looming over them. There were streams of people coming from each of the buildings in pairs or clusters, all headed in a single direction, and the two stepped in behind one such group. “If . . . If you concentrate hard enough, the magic just sort of works it out for you. I really don’t know how else to explain it. I meant for us to exit the building here so that we would be closest to the dining hall, and so we did.”

  Madison scratched his face and the stubble that was starting to grow there as he let that sink in. It was going to take some getting used to, for certain. To start with, it sounded totally bogus. He wasn’t even fully convinced that Warren wasn’t in fact playing some trick on him despite his saying otherwise. He’d worked at enough jobs to know how easy it was to screw with the new guy at work. He couldn’t even count the number of times he had fooled someone into looking for a ‘lot stretcher’ or ‘changing the air in the walk-in freezer’ or ‘change the water in the coffee pot.’ Every industry had some way of screwing with the new guy, and he couldn’t help but feel suspicious that this was one of those ways.

  Before he had time to work it out, however, Warren suddenly grabbed his wrist and stopped him from walking any farther. “I think we should go around,” he said suddenly, pulling off to the side of the path they had been following.

  “What? Why?” Madison asked, incredulous and suspicious all at once. “Weren’t you just bragging about how you picked the fastest possible route to the dining hall? And you mentioned how you wanted to get there before everyone else earlier. So, why the sudden change?”

  “Uhm . . . Just . . .”

  Madison glanced ahead down the path in the direction he had been moving and he saw what was likely the cause of Warren’s sudden apprehension. Just ahead, where the path split and veered off, there was a group of people gathered around in a circle. They were packed together, shoulder-to-shoulder, and he could hear some of them calling out what sounded like jests and jibes. “Is that the problem?” he asked, nodding in that direction. “What’s the problem? What’s happening?”

  Warren looked ahead nervously as if deciding how he wanted to answer. “Well, you see . . .”

  “Just be honest,” Madison cautioned him, his voice dropping slightly in tone to convey how serious he was. Warren had been more forthcoming than anyone else since Madison had arrived, but even he had a way of being vague and dancing around certain topics whenever he wanted to. Madison was beginning to suspect that it was whenever he was uncomfortable telling him something.

  Warren sighed heavily and studied his feet for a moment. “It’s probably a duel,” he said as last, his voice heavy with what was clearly mixed emotions.

  “A duel?” Madison asked, genuinely surprised. “Like, a fist fight? What’s so bad about that?”

  “Ahh . . .” Warren heaved another heavy sigh and muttered, “I really hate having to be the one to explain everything . . .” He took another look at the knotted-up group ahead and said, “It’s actually pretty common around here. Remember: This is more or less a military academy. Some people are just looking for someone else that they can square off against to test their skills, and others are just looking for excuses to show off. But, then, a special few . . .”

  “. . . They’re just looking for a reason to hurt someone else?” Madison finished the thought for him. The concept in and of itself wasn’t really surprising to him. In fact, it didn’t sound that different from how people were back home. Sometimes, people were just dicks for no reason other than the fact they could be. “So, how do we know which is which?” he asked. “And shouldn’t someone stop it?”

  Warren shrugged. “It’s just part of the daily routine. Most people accept the fact that, if you can’t defend yourself, or if you’re not ready to defend yourself at any given time, you had better learn rather quickly. You’re more or less protected while you’re a novice since no one is going to want to screw with you, but after you promote into the Class, you’re more or less fair game to anyone who wants to challenge you.”

  “So, anytime, anywhere, and with anyone? I get to look forward to random strangers just walking up, slugging me in the jaw, and squaring off ready and raring to go?”

  “There’s a little more to it than that. But yes.” He cast another glance ahead, worry crossing his face again.

  What’s making him so nervous? Is he that averse to fighting? Madison studied him for a moment. No, I doubt it. No one would be able to make it for long in this type of environment if they weren’t willing to defend themselves. He just said that much himself. So, what is it then? “Let’s go,” Madison said confidently, starting forward again. He grabbed Warren by the elbow and pulled him along with him so that he couldn’t turn away. He wasn’t sure why, but for some reason, he had a feeling that Warren wasn’t giving him the complete truth. There was something more to this than what he was telling him.

  They quickly reached the back of the crowd, and Madison realized that the other people there were actually cheering on the two combatants. Unbelievable. This is just like a schoolyard fight back home . . . He shouldered his way through the layers of bodies, dragging Warren behind him.

  When he finally broke through so that he could see what was going on, he was shocked for the second time in as many minutes. There, in the center of the ring, were two people staring each other down. They had clearly already exchanged blows, but it wasn’t anything like what he had imagined.

  There was a young man who looked like he was in his early twenties on one side of the makeshift arena. He was wearing loose-fitting pants and was shirtless, showing off his well-toned abs and chest. He had short, blonde, spiky hair, and he was bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet with his fists held up in front of him and a cocky smirk plastered across his face. Madison instantly hated him. Something about him screamed pretty-boy, douchebag fighting-game rip-off.

  But that wasn’t what shocked Madison. He had more-or-less expected something similar. What caught him off guard was who he was fighting: a young girl, most likely a teenager, who couldn’t have been more than five feet tall. She had a slender frame with an almost-athletic build, and she had long, black hair tied up in a high ponytail that started on the top of her head. Unlike her opponent, she had a pair of short daggers in both hands and was actually wearing what appeared to be some type of light armor.

  “You’re such an asshole, Randall,” she shouted at her opponent, her voice laced with defiance.

  Pretty-boy snorted, and he actually sneered at the young woman, one side of his obnoxious grin curling up. “You should know better than to disrespect your elders, Shayna. You never did learn how to act properly.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she shot back angrily.

  “Just that no one ever taught you manners. Someone really should have taught you how to act like a proper lady.”

  “Screw you,” she said coldly, setting her jaw and gritting her teeth together.

  “Tsk, tsk,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “That’s just no way for a young lady to speak.” When Shayna didn’t respond to the last taunt, he followed it up by saying, “Even if you can’t respect your elders, you should at least know how to respect your betters.”

  As soon as the words left his mouth, he jumped forward and crossed the short distance between them with a dazzling speed, and it was so fast that Madison actually blinked once just to clear his eyes to make sure he was seeing things correctly. Clearly expecting the blow, Shayna held up both arms in front of her defensively, but she only barely managed to stop Randall’s punch from reaching her. There was a dull thud as
his fist was intercepted by her forearms, and a round of cheers from the crowd as she staggered backward under the force of his blow.

  Before she could catch herself, however, he pressed forward and swung again. The first punch was deflected by one of her daggers, and a loud clang sounded out over jeers from the crowd.

  So, he’s not completely unarmed, Madison realized, doing his best to examine the young man’s hands. He had initially assumed that the young man was actually doing a type of bare-knuckles boxing, but he now he realized that this was something different entirely. He was actually wearing some type of slender brass knuckles for added damage.

  Randall punched again with his opposite hand and began a fast combination of blows all aimed at Shayna’s midsection. The young girl kept her hands up defensively, absorbing most of the damage, but a few still managed to sneak in from side to side. The blows rained down in rapid succession, and Madison had to grant Randall some small bit of begrudged respect. He was certainly fast, and the sound of skin-on-skin contact made it clear that, if he was holding back, it wasn’t by much.

  Randall must have realized he wasn’t going to get anywhere the way he was carrying on. He muttered something under his breath as he pulled his fist back for a punch, and when he swung forward again, there was an orange haze surrounding it. Madison had no idea what was going on, but the gathered crowd clearly did. They went crazy when they saw the attack, roaring even louder when it made contact. Unable to stop the blow, Shayna staged back once again, finally dropping her arms from their protective position.

  As soon as she had her balance again, she stabbed forward with one of her daggers, aiming at his chest. Too quickly, however, Randall turned her blade away by pushing her arm outward and away from him. He stepped inside the opening he had created and landed a punch right into her stomach. Madison heard the breath escape from her lungs as the air was expelled, and she doubled-over in pain, gasping for breath.