Shadow of the Conqueror

by Shad M Brooks

  “Whatever.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “That we’re done talking about this.”

  “Yes, that’s obvious, but knowing your personality you wouldn’t end any argument if you still had some rebuttal, which means you concede the point—but your pride won’t allow you to admit it.”

  “Fine, you’re right!” Daylen glared at him. “Is that what you wanted me to say?”

  “Yes, but for your sake, not mine. You mustn’t have much self-esteem if admitting personal fault is too much for you.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Daylen said as he stood and walked away. “You can meet me at the skyport. Just look in the same direction as everyone else.”

  The thing that annoyed Daylen the most was that he knew the Bringer was right. Black it, so far the Bringer had been right in nearly every blackened thing he had blackened said. Black it all!

  No one liked having their flaws pointed out. And who under the Light gave him the right to act like that? Oh, yes: that would be the Light itself.

  BLACK IT!

  I wonder how Ahrek would like it if I pointed out all his flaws so constantly… If I could think of any. There were things about Ahrek that annoyed Daylen, and in that sense they could be considered flaws—he was preachy, intrusive, too happy, and overall far too polite—yet those weren’t really flaws, and spoke more of Daylen’s own issues.

  Daylen stopped his brooding and sighed. A true man admitted his faults and chose to work on them. A child made excuses. What had happened to him? He used to be so much more mature than this, in his twenties. Back then he had been humble yet still confident and sure; in other words, what a man was supposed to be. Funny that the older he became the more like a child he acted. When he had ruled, no one had dared challenge him and that had just fostered a sense of self-righteousness and entitlement that was now blackened hard to break.

  I’m such a wretch.

  Daylen looked back to the restaurant. He knew the mature thing to do was to walk back, apologize for his immaturity and enjoy the meal his stomach wanted so badly. But that was just too much for Daylen, right then at least. He had swallowed so much of his pride already, what with those two peacocks on the platform, that honestly he felt sick.

  Next time he would do better.

  Daylen turned back and continued toward the skyport, doing his best to control his self-hatred.

  Daylen was practically a celebrity. He leaned against a dock warehouse wall with his arms folded, trying to keep to himself—but with his master’s mark, Imperious, and face clear to be seen, people quickly took notice of him. They pointed, stared, walked away, and returned with more people to point and stare, who in turn left and returned with even more people.

  Ahrek was right…again. Daylen was drawing too much attention. He should hide Imperious, take off his mark and buy a hat or something to mask his face. But he wouldn’t, if only to rob Ahrek of his smug, self-righteous validation.

  No, that wasn’t fair. Ahrek wasn’t smug or self-righteous, which only infuriated Daylen even more. How could Daylen be proven wrong by a younger man so often when Daylen was clearly the more intelligent one? The thing defied reason.

  It was only a matter of time before one of the many onlookers approached to ask a question, which seemed to embolden everyone else.

  Daylen took a deep controlling breath.

  “So—so you’re him, the son of Dayless the Conqueror?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does it feel like to be the son of, well, him?”

  “It feels like a hundred boiled eggs.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The feeling’s mutual.”

  “Did you know who he was?”

  “He was my father.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Because he didn’t have long to live, and besides, he told everyone anyway.”

  “Is that Imperious?”

  “Yes, and you can’t touch it.”

  “How did you get it?”

  “How do you think I got it?”

  “Where did you grow up?”

  “All over the place.”

  “Are you a real Grand High Master of the Sword?”

  “I didn’t know they could come in any other way.”

  “Who trained you?”

  “My father.”

  “Was he a good father?”

  “No, he wasn’t.”

  And the questions continued. Daylen tried several times to ask the people to leave—politely, of course, because Daylen was always so polite—but only once he had doled out enough information did they disperse. The unfortunate thing was that as soon as the crowd had recycled, the process started all over again with very much the same questions.

  “You’re the son of the Conqueror!” a new voice said. He was a young man dressed in a tailed business suit.

  Daylen sighed, “Yes.”

  “You should know that your father was the greatest leader this nation ever had.”

  Daylen wasn’t expecting to hear that. The comment made his blood boil. Trying to control himself, he quickly checked the crowd surrounding him. Everyone was watching intently. Daylen needed to act very decisively, for he would put money on this encounter being told throughout the whole city.

  “Are you a Dawn Bringer?” Daylen asked as the boy, who looked to be in his twenties.

  “Yes, and we want to…”

  Daylen backhanded the snot and knocked him onto his ass. “Pass this on to the rest of your idiots. I despise Dayless the Conqueror with every bone in my body. He was a cruel, heartless, blackened Shade, and I’ll have nothing to do with any group or individual who says or believes otherwise. Got it?”

  The boy got up, pulled a dagger out and lunged at Daylen.

  Daylen put him back on his ass as easy as swatting a fly, taking the dagger in the process.

  The crowd gasped and then cheered at seeing the quick display of martial skill.

  Now properly afraid, the snot ran away.

  “Now, that was very well done!” a voice said from Daylen’s side.

  Looking, Daylen saw a narrow-faced man dressed in a neat black suit paired with a top hat and cravat standing a step forward from the crowd. He was flanked by four other men, one dressed much like he was, and the others wearing white shirts and slacks with long-beaded tassels. Every one of them had a rapier at their sides.

  Dirty, blackened rapiers.

  The man who spoke approached him, his lackeys in tow. “Those Dawnists are a despicable lot.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I represent the Sunforger’s Guild…”

  “Piss off!” Daylen said.

  “All I want…”

  “I know what you want, and you have a Shade’s chance in light to get it.”

  “We just want to see it.”

  “Piss off!”

  “That sword is the nation’s inheritance! It doesn’t belong to you!”

  Daylen drew Imperious from its sheath and the five men jumped back, all reaching for their swords. Then Daylen threw Imperious at an upward angle with his normal strength and pulled on the link. Imperious jerked back toward Daylen, flying in a straight line, handle first, and Daylen caught it, pointing the glowing sapphire blade back toward the man. “Want to say that again?”

  “You inherited the link…” the man said in awe.

  “And according to the law, this sunucle is mine. So like I said, piss off. You’re not so much as going to touch my sword.”

  The man tried to hide his frustration, but judging by his tensed jaw and clenched fists, he wasn’t at all pleased. He briefly glanced to the three white-shirted lackeys behind him and then back to Daylen.

  He wants to challenge me to a duel, Daylen realized. By winning, he can claim victor’s right and force me to pay an equivalent amount to Imperious’ value, a debt I’m sure he’ll waive for a chance to study it.

  The funny thing was that even if they
studied Imperious, they wouldn’t figure out what Daylen had done to make it. Every observable bit of the sword was actually no different to any other sunblade. Imperious was the way it was for other reasons yet that didn’t mean he would let them look at it.

  The Guildsman was considering Daylen, and his eyes eventually found his master’s mark, glancing from that to the red-beaded tassel Daylen wore and back again. He had to know that he nor any of his lackeys were a match for a Grand High Master. He had also watched Daylen effortlessly take care of the Dawnist who had attacked him, which gave some firsthand evidence to Daylen’s skill.

  “Please forgive my intrusion,” the man said with a fake smile. “All the best,” he added with a bow before leaving.

  That’s not the last I’ll see of him, Daylen thought, and glared at the onlookers who stood all around.

  Daylen walked away, the crowd parting for him like he was the Conqueror once more. A troubling experience. He hoped to find a place in the port where he wasn’t so popular.

  Thankfully none of the onlookers followed, though they talked to one another and Daylen could see with his light sense that they were also not-so-covertly staring after him. He eventually walked far enough away that they were out of range of his light sense, which seemed to be about twenty meters.

  What are they saying about me? Daylen wondered.

  Feeling the light on his skin, Daylen drew it in and bonded it to his hearing. As he had been practicing this, it was quite easy to focus in on those people he had left to hear them clearly above the other sounds.

  “He’s so handsome!” a woman was saying to her friends, and Daylen couldn’t stop a smile from cracking his expression at that. He was handsome; in fact, Daylen was damned sexy if he said so himself, not that that mattered for anything in his new life.

  “Poor lad, having a father like that!” a man was saying.

  “Upon my honor, he’s a sour one. Which suits him, considering.”

  “He ain’t a real master, he’s way too young. He’s a liar, just like his old man.”

  “It’s hard to believe how much he looks like the Conqueror! Have you seen the paintings? It’s like they’re twins!”

  “The conners need to lock him up and quick, no tellin’ how long before he kills someone.”

  “I resist the urge to judge the boy based on his parentage. Children should not be condemned for the sins of their fathers.”

  Daylen sniffed. It seemed a mixed bag in people’s regard for him.

  An odd sound caught Daylen’s attention as he was still bonding light to his hearing. Focusing, the sound became clear. It was crying. A woman was crying; and with the keen precision of his sense, Daylen instinctively knew that she was around four hundred meters away.

  Daylen listened to what people near the woman were saying.

  “Just playing with his brother and fell.”

  “I tried to reach him, Light’s will I tried!”

  “How old was the boy?”

  “Four.”

  Daylen’s heart sunk. A child had just fallen from a window. Daylen continued to listen, the mother’s heartache only growing with each minute.

  If the child had called for help before he fell and I was listening, I might have been able to do something, Daylen thought in regret.

  But the opportunity was lost… No, it wasn’t. How many other calls for help were being cried at that very moment? In a large populated city like this, there would definitely be a few, and all Daylen had to do was listen for them.

  Daylen realized in that moment just how much power he really had—the main thing being that he could hear those people crying for help when no one else could.

  Daylen bonded all his paths to his sense of sound and focused on cries for help or distress.

  He picked out three instantly.

  A young girl’s screams in addition to the sound of tearing of cloth caught Daylen’s attention and his head snapped to its origin.

  “If you stop struggling, you might even enjoy it,” a voice from that location said.

  It was obvious what was happening; some poor girl was getting raped.

  Rage and guilt surged within Daylen with such force that he was running at a dead sprint before he even realized it.

  Using a bond on his speed, careful not to move too fast so as to appear supernatural yet moving much faster than normal, Daylen ducked and weaved through the streets, his eyes locked on his target.

  The sound was coming from the attic of a building several blocks away.

  Ducking down an alleyway and out of sight, Daylen jumped into a crouch, where he channeled light though two bonds into his strength, the other two reducing his mass and making himself lighter.

  Daylen jumped and easily pushed himself forward and up a good five meters, being able to focus all his strength to propel a much smaller mass. But with the volume of his body remaining the same it acted like a sail, the wind pushing against his chest and sending him into a flailing backward spin, stopping his forward momentum completely. He then drifted like a piece of paper to the ground.

  Daylen released the bonds and thumped the brick-paved ground with his fist. Enhancing his hearing, he could hear the poor girl getting raped at that very moment. He needed to get to the top of that building, and fast.

  Daylen reduced his mass and increased his strength once more and jumped. This time, after leaving the ground, he switched all his bonds to increase his mass, thinking to increase his momentum.

  He stopped abruptly right in the middle of the air like he had hit an invisible wall, his clothing and sword flicking forward due to whiplash, and then he fell half a meter to land crouched on the ground, shattering the bricks beneath him.

  “Inertia, you idiot! My new mass has no kinetic energy.”

  Increasing his mass wouldn’t increase his momentum—it would do exactly what had happened when he fell from the continent and anchor him in place. He needed to give himself a great burst of speed, but shedding his mass from his normal weight wouldn’t be enough.

  Daylen stood, and the shattered bricks crunched underneath. He was still bonding all the light he could to increase his mass. He estimated that he weighed around eight tons, yet he could still move as easily as normal…which meant he would be able to jump as high as he normally could!

  The answer came to his mind like a thunderclap.

  Keeping his mass at its greatest amount, Daylen crouched, held his gauntleted forearm in front of him, looked up into the sky, and jumped.

  The amount of force needed to throw eight tons into a normal-sized human jump was huge, and it was that very amount of force that Daylen had just generated due to his body being augmented to maintain his natural level of movement. Then, at the very moment his feet were about to leave the ground, Daylen switched his bonds to his body’s strength, shedding the massive amount of added mass. The mass left, but the kinetic energy he had just produced remained, which was the proportional force to launch eight tons into a two-meter arch, all that kinetic energy now only pushing against his regular weight.

  Daylen was suddenly propelled upward with such instant force that his shoes and socks didn’t even go with him.

  The bracer of Daylen’s sunforged gauntlet reacted to the powerful wind resistance, creating its impenetrable yet invisible barrier the size of a heater shield on his arm, the supernatural enhancement the bracer received from being sunforged.

  This was important, because Daylen expected the sudden acceleration and wind resistance would have ripped the clothes off his body otherwise. With his gauntlet making a windshield, his clothes only needed to survive their own inertia, which they did thankfully, unlike his shoes and socks.

  He would go back for them later.

  Within a few seconds Daylen had easily launched himself a hundred meters in a direct rising line before the wind resistance finally leveled out his momentum.

  He had overshot the building completely.

  “Light’s end!” Daylen said, though still ve
ry pleased with the technique he had just figured out.

  Daylen enhanced his mass with one bond, which slowed his velocity significantly.

  Once his trajectory began to fall more directly down, Daylen reduced his mass with one bond, which again increased his velocity, but wind resistance slowed him quickly.

  Daylen grabbed his skimmer from his belt, ready to lock it in place for a handhold, but he realized he’d probably be fine. Instead, he enhanced his strength while still having his mass reduced and landed on a rooftop without any problem.

  Replacing the skimmer, Daylen returned his weight to normal and ran to the edge of the rooftop, where he enhanced his hearing. He easily pinpointed the building where the cries came from. They had switched to resigned sobs of misery as the vile man had his way with her.

  This time, Daylen increased his mass with only one bond and jumped, releasing his bond the moment his feet left the ground.

  He shot into the air, but this time in a much more manageable arch and with far less wind resistance.

  As Daylen approached the building in question, his jump still too powerful, he made a mental measurement and increased his mass by only using a portion of light through one bond. He instantly slowed and his path changed in accordance, aimed directly for the roof of the building where the girl was being raped.

  With increased mass, Daylen crashed through the roof and added another bond of mass just before reaching the floor of the attic, which nearly stopped him in the air. This gave him the chance to extend and stand without any issue, though the floor groaned under his increased weight which he returned to normal.

  The man who was in the middle of raping the young girl jumped back, pants around his ankles, his screams of surprise joining those of his prey.

  Daylen marched on the man, increasing his strength, and fended off his feeble attempts to stop him.

  He grasped the rapist’s manhood.

  Daylen paused for a brief second, staring into the rapist’s eyes and letting him realize what Daylen was about to do. He went pale, his mouth dropping and before his pleas for mercy could leave his mouth, Daylen ripped off the man’s penis and threw it aside in one swift motion.

  The rapist screamed frantically, falling to his knees in awful horror.