The wagon rattled to a stop as the sky began to lighten. I looked back and realized that there had to be more of us somewhere. There were no wagons behind us; had the rest of the army been left behind before we made that—that bizarre jump, as I thought of teleportation at the time?
We sat in silence until Stepan spoke. “There were others in front of us. Other wagons,” he clarified when I looked at him with curiosity. “Probably ten or fifteen more. We are last in the procession, and they left at least half that many behind in that place of sunset. They went down a road toward that scaffolding site.”
“Replacement labor,” Varren said, his head against the sturdy bars as he shot a pitying look at Olivier next to him. Olivier was still speechless, seemingly unaware of anything being said. “For that black tower they’re building.”
We lapsed into silence again, now intent on the noises in front of us. The wagon crept ahead slowly, moving every few minutes. I got the sense we were in a line and awaiting our turn to unload, like the grocery barrows at the market hurrying to get their cargo out. It did not decrease my uneasiness in the slightest, and in fact made it all the worse, knowing we were likely to be treated by these people the way my own treated vegetables or cuts of meat.
Finally, after an interminable, seemingly hours-long wait, our turn came. The sun had started to rise, casting the world in an orange light and allowing us to finally see the city we’d traveled under to reach this point in our journey.
“Sennshann,” Varren said, head still against the bars.
“Ancestors,” Stepan breathed, mouth open in awe. I had a similar feeling when first I saw it.
Atop it all was, of course, the building that would eventually become the Citadel, a spire reaching into the sky in the center of the city. It came to a bulbous, ovoid tip, then tapered up a few floors to a point. It was the tallest building in Sennshann, but it was not tallest by terribly much. Dozens of other structures of similar construction made up a skyline, boxy buildings mingled with cylindrical ones as well as a few ovoids and one that looked like an oblong egg. They were all made of that smooth stone that showed no hint of masonry, as though it had been cut whole out of the earth in its final shape.
I had seen some of the more notable towns in Luukessia, and none of them looked like this. There were castles, certainly, ones that stretched a few stories into the sky, but nothing of this scale. Sennshann inspired both awe and fear in me, and judging by the murmurs I heard around the wagon, I was not the only one.
There were smaller buildings radiating out from that center as well, and even at this distance from the city I could tell that they were taller than the tower at Enrant Monge. There had to be hundreds, maybe even thousands of those structures, making Sennshann not only a towering marvel but one that spread wide over the entire landscape. I could even see a few more isolated structures dotting the road we’d traveled along as the sky turned a fierce pink along a line of clouds overhead.
“Who are these … blue men?” I asked, trying to string together a full thought.
“Sky-men,” Varren corrected me.
“Why do you call them that?” I asked, frowning at him and feeling the crusted blood on my face crack as I did.
“Because they can walk in the sky,” Varren said, “like a bird without wings, taking steps across empty space like there was an unseen bridge there.” He raised a hand and waved it around him limply. “And they can do it to you, too. It’s how they build so tall,” he pointed at Sennshann on the horizon. “They make slaves and blocks and wagons able to rise into the air as easy as pushing a broom across a floor.”
“That’s impossible,” Stepan said, closing down. He had turned dark in an instant, his countenance switching to a glower of the sort I frequently garnered from him.
“How do you explain our wagon being in a place of sunset one second and then in a dark tunnel a moment later?” Varren said with a patient grin.
“The power of ancestors,” Stepan said, but he sounded uncertain.
“Magic, then,” Varren agreed. “The sort from old tales, or maybe even beyond old tales, because I don’t recall ever hearing talk of people walking through the sky.”
“That’s impossible,” Stepan insisted.
“You’ll see,” Varren said, a twinkle in his eye, the voice of experience.
One of the blue men, a different one than the smirking one that had knocked my soldier off of me, came around to the back of the wagon just then. He cleared his throat and it sounded like a breeze blowing through rushes. “You. Out now,” he said in a thick accent. Then he unbolted the lock and threw open the door, holding up a baton as an obvious threat. “Out now.”
Perhaps because I had instinctively realized that I was a coward and had no power, and had no wish to clash again with these beings who had plainly asserted their absolute dominance over me, I was the first to stir, the first to get to my feet. I saw the resentful glares from my men in my wake as I rose and left the wagon first. I earned a nod of grudging, near-indifferent approval from the overseer at the door, and my consolation was to see Varren and Stepan exiting the wagon only a few steps behind me.
Another blue man was waiting, this one wearing the same protective metal armor as all these creatures, except this one was covered all the way to the top of his head with a helm like a rounded bucket, with only his chin and eyes exposed. I wondered if the other blue men I’d encountered were simply so arrogant they’d not bothered with helms like this. Whatever the case, I knew the moment I saw it that any blue man in that armor would be utterly invincible, and my mouth went dry with fear.
There was also just a little tug inside me, a yearning to get a set of armor like that for myself … because I knew with that power, Luukessia would be indisputably mine.
The blue man in full armor waved me ahead, and I looked where he indicated. There was a line of men ahead of me, ragged and bedraggled. The line seemed to be broken into segments comprised of the wagonloads; at the head of each segment were men like myself, walking under their own power, looking none the worse for the wear. But at the back of each wagon load were others that looked to have been knocked unconscious and were being dragged by some of their fellows, a blue man in close attendance with a baton held high. Some of the blue men were shouting, mostly in their own tongue but a few in broken version of ours.
“Silence! Go! Go!” shouted the nearest blue man in front of me, harassing the end segment of the wagon load in front of us, his weapon up above his head and six men being dragged by twelve others just ahead of him. Other armored blue men just stood back like silent guards, watching the whole line snake its way forward. Some seemed to watch with grim amusement, others with utter indifference. Being shorter than the majority in the line, I could not see the front of the queue nor where we were going, save that there seemed to be buildings ahead, buildings and something else like pillars.
I took the command for silence seriously, not daring to open my mouth. My defiance had fled, abandoning me at the first sign of pain and fear. I was supposed to sit on a throne, was supposed to be turning toward home this very week and going back to ascend to the monarchy. I had planned to lead an army of loyal men back.
Instead, I’d seen hatred in the eyes of my men as one of them beat me. I’d watched my precious sword, which I’d trained with until I felt an expert with it, destroyed by a blue man in armor with the barest effort. I’d realized that I was fat and lazy as I gasped in line from the minimal effort of walking from the wagon and standing there for an hour in a slow-moving line.
All around me I saw power, more power in a single suit of that armor than in my father’s entire army. It was all around me, surrounding me, threatening me, and it felt like a boot on my neck that I might never pry myself out from under.
Fear had settled in like a suffocating blanket, reminding me of the time I’d failed at learning to swim under an instructor’s tutelage and angrily told him I wouldn’t need to know this because I was a prince, to be a ki
ng, and what need have kings to swim across the water when perfectly good boats waited everywhere to be commandeered into my service? That fear when I thought I was going to drown had been a unique feeling in my life to that point, and was something I had not pondered often since, save for the occasional nightmare. In my court life I had been frequently angry, always certain, and occasionally happy, though only dimly.
Now I knew that drowning fear again as I waited in that line, waited as the feeling settled on me that were I to be chosen for the Coliseum, for fighting, I was most likely going to die.
The men ahead of me had settled into a similar silence, advancing a few steps here and there as the line moved. I felt lightheaded from standing this long, and realized for the first time that my doublet was as good as destroyed—ripped, torn and dirtied beyond belief—and my breeches were soiled and muddy, with a few dots of blood to add to their unfit state. I looked at the men behind me. Stepan was still relatively well groomed, and none of the soldiers behind me were nearly as dirty as I was. Even Varren in his goatskins was better presented than I. Olivier was whimpering near the back of the line, his shoulders hunched like he was trying to protect himself.
The line moved slowly, dragging as I gradually pulled to the fore. Finally I caught a glimpse ahead. There was a fence erected in a wide circle around what looked like a village, save that the buildings were far, far nicer than any village I’d ever been to. They were made of what looked like the same flawlessly quarried stone as the other buildings that we’d passed. They were large, too, barn-sized, and I had a feeling they were living accommodations, barracks for our lot. At the entrance to the fenced-in area, I could see one of the blue men with a bored look in his eyes, asking questions and sizing up the prisoners. He had a whole column of my soldiers to sort through, and he was doing so at his leisure, not looking very pleased at the sight of any of them.
My mind worked desperately for a plan; I was a prince. That had to mean something, even here. Perhaps if they knew, I thought, it would settle things out. My father would gladly pay any ransom asked to receive his heir back, after all. How quickly I spun from utter loathing and disdain of the man, plotting his overthrow, to investing my last hope in him.
I reached the blue man, the judge of us before him, and held myself up proudly, starting to speak before he even got a word out. “I am Ulric Garrick, prince of Luukessia and—”
“All-a-ric,” the blue man said, not even looking up at me, jotting something down on what looked like parchment, but slightly smoother. He finished and glanced up, giving me a once over. “Too fat to labor. Coliseum for you.”
“I’m a prince—” I started, and felt a hard shock as something popped me in the lower back and set it afire. I cried out and lurched forward, my body instinctively retreating from the pain and sending me forward. The pain receded slightly once I’d walked a few steps and I looked back to see one of the blue men in armor, his baton casually extended where he’d jabbed it into my kidney. He wore a bored look and waved a hand to usher me onward, where I could see other blue men patrolling grounds now that I was inside the wire.
“They don’t care if you’re a prince,” came a soft, accented voice. I spun back around, still nearly bent double from the pain, and saw the oddest sight.
There was a girl with blue skin staring at me, her hair a dark black, her features soft and her eyes curious, a lighter blue than any human I’d ever seen. I judged her age as roughly my own, and her bearing was straight of back, her head cocked slightly. She wore a jacket and pants, made of a peculiar material with some shine to it. The sight of a woman in pants was truly bizarre to me. The women in Luukessia wore dresses. Only men wore pants or breeches.
The girl stood with her hands folded in front of her. She did not look particularly happy. Two of the armored blue men stood at her back, looking down at me with plain wariness; I knew by their gaze if I took so much as a step in her direction, they would turn me into the meat for a meal within seconds.
“What is your name?” she asked. “Al … ar … ic?” She struggled with it, as though it were not a natural sound to her ears or mouth.
“Ulric,” I said, trying to correct her. “Ulric Garrick.”
She tried again. “All-arr-ic,” she said, then shook her head. “No Protanian could say that, I’m sorry. And none of these men will care about your surname, as you are houseless.”
“I am of the House of Garrick,” I said, gradually straightening my back as the pain subsided.
“That is not a recognized house here,” she said, almost sadly. Shouting suddenly erupted behind her, but she did not turn. I looked past her and her bodyguards to see a blue man, this one dressed differently, unarmored, wearing some of the finest clothing I’d ever seen—deep, rich reds, made of a fabric I couldn’t have identified, something that looked a little like foreign silk but smoother, sleeker. He was yelling loudly enough to be heard in the line behind the fence, and sticking his finger into the face of the blue man he was talking to, also clad in shiny clothes. The shouting man was thin and gaunt, with entirely too much rage for his small figure. The object of his wrath looked slightly nonplussed. He bore an impressive scar down the side of his face from his temple to his throat, where it disappeared beneath his collar. The scar was an even angrier dark blue than his normal skin tone, which appeared to have paled.
The thin, yelling man spoke in that same language that I’d heard the guards shout in; I could not understand a single word, only that the man yelling was extremely displeased about something. “That’s my father,” said the girl, still not looking back.
“He seems … charming,” I said, almost standing upright again.
One of the girl’s bodyguards scowled at me and spoke in their language. “Onsse, eah vechon! Ooron, Sovaren!”
The girl smiled faintly. “He says you should be more respectful to me.”
“Does he speak my language?” I asked, giving him a wary eye as he glowered at me.
“No, but your sarcasm was obvious,” she said. “You should take more care with it. It will hurt if you do not, Al-ar-ic.”
“That’s not my name,” I said quietly, the life seemingly drained out of me.
“You have been assigned to fight in the Coliseum, Prince of Loo-kessia. You are a soldier, yes?”
I looked down at myself. My skin was visible through the holes in my doublet, but so covered in dirt that it was probably impossible to tell. “I am … not much of a warrior, no. This was my first time … out of the …” I was still having trouble catching my breath. “Please … I can’t fight. I …”
“No training?” she asked, still watching me with careful interest.
“I thought I had,” I said. Possibly the drubbings I’d taken in the last few hours had beaten some humility into me. My ego was certainly in tatters. “But it would appear I’m … rather more useless than I thought.”
She looked me over again, and I felt a strange intensity from her. “Our men … they did not do all this to you, did they?”
“No,” I said, and my face burned with shame. “Most of it was … my own men.”
“And you are their prince?” Her voice was gentle, but I could hear the curiosity pushing through.
“I don’t think they much care about that anymore,” I said, my voice sounding small. “If they ever did.” That was a hard truth to come to after months of traveling with plans in my head, plans that relied on my ability to sway my men to my cause. But I had not swayed them to my cause, had I? I’d failed in that, and now I was in a strange land and one of them had beaten me nearly to death while all the others in my wagon had looked on.
I was alone in this place, and in this girl I sensed perhaps the only lifeline I had. It was a flimsy line, little more than a thread, but I tried to hang upon it with all my remaining strength. My mind wasn’t moving fast enough to calculate my chances of swaying her, or of what help she might even be able to provide; at least part of me was talking to her simply because she wa
s talking to me, and I was bleeding out my fears and sense of betrayal. If any Luukessian soldier had asked me the same question as her at the moment, I probably would have responded the same way—only with even less hope than I had with the strange girl standing in a slave prison yard.
“I am sorry for you, Alar-ic,” she said, seeming to settle on her preferred pronunciation of my name. Hearing it said that way was still a pebble in my shoe, but the least of my worries at that moment. “I fear your days will not grow easier. It might have been kinder for them to kill you and be done with it, but alas …” She looked down. “Now you will feel the bite of death over and over.”
“How … do your people do that?” I asked, still dazed from the wonders I’d seen: armor that defied damage; wagons that disappeared and reappeared in some different land; buildings that reached toward the sky in defiance of natural law.
“It is a branch of our power,” she said simply.
The yelling man’s voice had quieted, and then he said something sharply behind her that finally stirred her to look at him. “Vann yesh Jena, entaryu mei!”
“I must go,” she said, bowing her head slightly. “I wish you luck in the battles to come, Alaric.” Now she pronounced my name smoothly, though still incorrectly. I had not the heart to argue, and not only for fear her bodyguards would smash me for impertinence.
No, at that moment I realized that the girl in front of me, this stranger who I had known for all of two minutes … was possibly the closest thing I had to a friend.
“Thank you,” I said, feeling the crush of that particular revelation settle on my heart. I didn’t ask for her name and she didn’t offer it, turning and walking away as I stood there watching her go. The yelling man took no notice of me, talking to her in a loud voice, still sounding angry. Her bodyguard, the one who had rebuked me for my rudeness, cast a look back, but the girl herself did not. I watched them disappear behind one of the massive buildings, led by the man with the scar, before I felt a poke at my back.
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