I nodded as murmurs went up around the group of aspirants. It was a solid question.
“I’m sure you, Master Hyland, are better acquainted with them than most. These troublemakers are rabble and deserters from the Kingsmen,” Tymos replied gravely. “Rebels, the lot of them. Don’t give them any quarter, or assume you’ll have an easy time with them just because they’re wielding clubs instead of swords. They’ll bash your skull in as soon as lop your head off. Anyone else?”
Another one of the aspirants, a woman with a tense square jaw and large, deer-like eyes, spoke up next. “Can we learn anything about the Bonding ceremony now, or-?”
“No. If you gain the right to attend a Trial, you will learn about our dragons,” Skyr Tymos didn’t even let her finish.
When no one else spoke up, Skyr Tymos nodded and came to stand in front of us at ease. “Alright - enough talk. Go ready yourselves. You’ll be meeting Sergeant Blackwin at the Southern Courtyard in half an hour. You may bow and leave.”
The others all bowed the European way: knee bent, foot outstretched, a hand over the heart and a flourish out to the side. I caught myself as I started a Korean-style bow from the waist, and clumsily tried to mimic the gesture just as everyone else stood up and dispersed. Tymos’ eyes twinkled, but he said nothing.
I wasn’t surprised when the white-haired man pushed his way over to me, hand outstretched. I smiled and clapped forearms with him before shaking.
“How’s it going, brother?” He had a deep, cheerful voice with a strong Kentucky twang. “I’m Baldr. Baldr Hyland. What’s your name? You a soldier?”
“Hector P…” My tongue caught on my real-world surname. “Just Hector. And yeah, I was a soldier… in a galaxy far, far away.”
Baldr flashed a broad grin. “Pleased to meet you. Where you from?”
I smiled back. “The 79th. I was just a conscript grunt, nothing fancy.”
“Least you suited up and served your time. Same can’t be said of everyone. I’m a Screaming Eagle, 21st PAD platoon,” he said, and not without a little pride.
Damn. PAD were the Powered Armor Division. “You were a Tin Man?”
“Yup. I was probably clanking around on the Crescent Front around the same time the 79th was there.”
That meant Baldr was a career soldier, not a conscript like me. I nodded. “Yeah, probably. I went to Crescent twice. My last tour ended in May.”
“Fuck. I can’t even remember what month is it is now.” Baldr shrugged, grinning, and scratched his head. “What did you do?”
“Saw a lot of jungle and desert, shot at a lot of shadows, hit some of them. Managed not to get killed.” It felt odd to be discussing the ‘real world’ again, especially after the journey to the Fort. I’d resigned myself to the loss of my body over the last week and, and Archemi now felt more real than ‘real world’ ever had. “It’s almost the end of June.”
“Right. Well, my last port was Syria. I’m lucky I made it out, too. Can’t believe I managed to survive the Glass Lands and then get HEX when we were back on base,” He sobered a little at talk of war. “You come down with the bug too, huh?”
I nodded. “I’d just hit Stage 3 when I was uploaded.”
“I was on the second day of HEX,” Baldr said. “Only reason I’m here is I drew the long straw. Were you in the lottery?”
There’d been a lottery? I vaguely recalled Temperance saying that Ryuko had been working with the 101st on some kind of research. The 21st PAD was part of that battalion. “Nope. Whatever lottery you were in was probably limited to your regiment.
“My brother worked for Ryuko…” I trailed off, silenced by the sudden pang of pain and guilt that constricted my throat. “We both had the virus.” I finished weakly, not really able to continue the train of thought.
“Fair enough.” Baldr grunted. “Well, it is what it is. Tell you what though - I love this place. Screw that level cap, though. I’ve just about maxed out already and there ain’t nowhere to go after Level 12.”
I arched an eyebrow. “You hit the cap already?”
“Just about,” he replied. “Bugs the shit out of me, though. I’m used to being top dog at everything I play at. We’re going to be fucking around in the kiddy pool for who knows how long.”
“Take it you played games other than this, then?”
“I was top of the North American chart for TWFL.”
TWFL was ‘Total War: Fatherland’: a VR-FPS for gun nuts. I liked FPSs, but the Total War series had too much anti-Asia propaganda for me. “Damn. So you were Archangel_Savage?”
“Hell yeah I was.” Baldr grinned. “But say, how’d you get that fancy spear of yours? I’ve been searching for good gear since I got here, and I ain’t found squat.”
“That’s a long story involving a sorceress, a slave ship, and a guy named Bob. How about I tell you at the stable? Sounds like we need to move out.”
“Yup.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Either we move out or the Queen Bitch rips us a collection of new holes. She’s the Sarge here. Good but tough.”
“I literally just got to this damn fort, but yeah… my factory-issued asshole suits me just fine.” I rubbed my face. There wasn’t even going to be time to get a drink and rest for a few minutes. Ugh.
“I wouldn’t try calling Lady Anya Blackwin ‘Queen Bitch’ to her face, if I were you,” the red-eyed blond man said as he strode over to us. He had a strange accent – not American, but not quite British. His voice – and his build and mannerisms - were the kind I associated with expensive lawyers. “She’s the officer who leads the ground forces here, you know.”
“Hey, now, don’t you go insulting Sergeant Queen Bitch like that,” I said. “What’s your name?”
He blinked owlishly at me, his expression flickering with confusion. He held out a hand. “Lucien?”
I caught his limp hand and shook it briefly. “Okay, Lucien. I was a conscript, and even I know this. If a man like Baldr calls this Blackwin a name like ‘Queen Bitch’, that means she earned it through hard work and dedication. You don’t go telling sergeants they’re officers, or she’ll hand you your balls in a box. ‘NCO’ is fine. Sarge is better.”
“You call her ‘Sir’ even when she’s ‘Ma’am’,” Baldr added.
I nodded. “Especially when she’s ‘Ma’am’.”
Lucien looked bewildered. “You’re both ex-military then, I assume?”
“Naw. Hector was a sportsbar gigolo and I was a French maid. Little skirt and an apron and everythang.” Baldr punched me in the arm, just hard enough to make it competitive as well as friendly.
“He worked for a fat drug cartel mobster with sweaty little hands,” I said, wiggling my fingers.
Baldr sighed. “That fucker was always trying to grab my ass.”
“I… see. Well, gentlemen – hadn’t we better go and see the ‘Sarge’ then? Because everyone else appears to have left.” Lucien nodded toward the door.
He had a point. The room had cleared out while we were talking shit. I narrowed my eyes and pointed at his chest. “In Soviet Ilia, Sarge sees you!”
Chapter 24
We left the briefing hall and headed for the Fort’s courtyard to find it bustling. Hookwings snipped and snapped, brandishing their claws at each other. I doubted Cutthroat was going to be happy about being taken out again.
“Baldr! Lucien! About time your feathery milk-drinking asses showed up!” A black-haired woman in plate armor and a distinctive fox-fur capelet yelled at us as Baldr and I drew near and stood to attention. Lucien tried to copy us as the woman continued. “These bloody hooks are about ready to eat your poor squires. Go saddle up – and no, not you, Tuun. I’ve yet to get the measure of you.”
One could assume this was Queen Bitch Blackwin. I fixed my best parade face onwhile Baldr saluted. He grimaced at me in sympathy, then turned and ran off into the forming rank.
“Huh. Well, what do you know.” The Sergeant was no taller than I was, but she radiated au
thority and confidence. Mid-thirties, plain, but strong. Her hair was razor straight, her mouth thin, and her eyes were a hawkish yellow-brown. “You’re far from home, Tuun. Came here with a letter from the White Witch and everything, so I hear.”
“Yes Ma’am. We went on a nice ocean voyage together,” I said.
She snorted. “The kind of voyage that ends in Skyr Asslord scraping your ass off the coast of Zaunt, right? Well, don’t think that writ gives you any special advantage here. My name is Anya Blackwin, and I’ll be your gracious hostess for the duration of your stay at Fort Palewing. I command the Warden’s peacekeeper units stationed here with the Skyrdon. You can call me Ma’am or Sir, but call me ‘Lady’ and I’ll have you cleaning chamberpots until the smell of shit is burned into your soul. Are we clear?”
I saluted. “Crystal clear, Ma’am.”
Blackwin nodded curtly. “Good. What part of the Tungaant are you from?”
That threw me for a second. She’d used the proper term for the plateau country? I thought for a moment, trying to keep the question out of my voice as the uploaded information filtered in from my memory. “Yetzin Langhuur. The south... near the Bulang Mountains.”
“I fought in Bulang Kettu. Good people, and tougher than stone. May you do the Songmaster proud in battle,” she said. “Now, that hookwing you brought in. What’s her name?”
“Cutthroat, ma’am.” I replied. “I was wondering if I could swap her-”
“Cutthroat? I like it.” Blackwin clapped her hands together cheerfully. “You’re going to take Cutthroat with us to the Ditch. You might want to get a whip and chair before you go into her stall, though – the squires just fed her. They get bitchy when they’re eating.”
“How wonderful,” I said flatly.
The sarge grinned, her eyes glittering. “Every day’s wonderful here with me. Dismissed!”
Resigned, I saluted smartly, then trudged my way into the long stable building.
Hookwing stables are not nice places. Chunks of tarry black dung lay among the straw and sawdust, and the building smelled of blood and offal. I didn’t have to ask which stall Cutthroat was in. The door was hanging loose off its hinges, and a big chunk was missing. Cutthroat’s long black tail swished out into the open corridor. Her muzzle was lying on the floor, but the stablehands hadn’t been able to get her saddle off, so she was still wearing it – not that she cared. The raptor was stuffing her face from a trough of pig guts, throwing her head back to chug them down. When I caught her by her nose rings and yanked her head around, she screeched with rage and turned on me, bloody jaws gaping. The chomp missed me by inches.
“Nope.” I dodged the waving claws, and gave up trying to control her with the reins. She was too strong. Instead, I just let them go and made a rude gesture at her. “Come at me, bro.”
Like a drunk jock, Cutthroat puffed up and lunged at me as I backpedaled, throwing what remained of the door onto the floor. I ran down the aisle with my dinosaur in hot pursuit, and ducked sharply around the outside wall. Cutthroat came blundering out into the open, knocking a young squire to the ground, and it was then that I caught her again. I grabbed the reins under her chin and used them to hold her jaws closed while I equipped her muzzle. When it appeared on her face, she shrilled furiously, foam dripping from the corners of her mouth.
“Wow,” the squire who’d fallen over said. “She really hates you.”
I grunted, holding the hookwing’s head in place as she spat and struck like a snake. A muzzled snake. “No. She just hates. She’s like the physical embodiment of hatred.”
“Okay! Fall out!” Blackwin called from the front of the rank. “All together now!”
“Can you clap your hands for me? Distract her?” I asked the squire.
He nodded, but backed up a respectable distance before doing so. Cutthroat’s pupils turned huge at the motion and sound, which caught her attention long enough that I could let go of her jaws and scramble up onto her back. The sound made her forget about me. Instead, she lowered her head, stalking the clapping squire with the single-minded focus of a predator until I yanked her back by her cheek and nostril rings.
“Okay, psycho. Off we go.” I nudged her in the ribs and turned her to join the rank.
Cutthroat seemed bewildered by the other hookwings, pulling her head back on her neck as we joined the back of the line. For a moment, she was fine… and then we started to move off. As soon as the line began walking, she lurched forward like a battering ram to shove past the recruit in front and barrel her way into their place. The startled rider hung on for dear life as their hookwing turned its head and snapped at mine, but Cutthroat smacked their jaws aside with casual strength and bulldozed her way into the smaller animal’s place.
“Control your fucking bird!” the recruit yelled out from behind us.
“Sorry! She’s got a gland problem!” I shouted back, as me and my trusty mount ploughed our way through the rank.
***
Camp Prichard was four hours southeast of the Fort: a village much less welcoming than Lyrensgrove. It was surrounded by a twenty-foot high log wall. The logs were lashed together with sinew and bound with pitch. Their tips had been sharpened; the wall supported by parapets and walkways crawling with guards. Like the soldiers at the Fort, they were nearly all rough-looking mountain men and women, but they were wearing the purple and white Ilian uniform.
Our arrival wasn’t a triumphant band of brothers, ‘knights in shining armor’ arrival. When the peasants keeping watch in the commons outside of the walls saw us, they reacted like a horde of brigands had appeared. Men jumped up, women vanished behind trees and into barns, and children were given hurried messages and told to run for the village gate. By the time we reached it, people had come out of their houses to gawk. I saw a girl sneak out of her house, wait until she thought she was in the clear, and then run for the edge of the forest. The houses here – huts, really – were old and run down. The place smelled like rust and animal dung.
“Where’s the lieutenant!” Blackwin shouted.
“He’s coming!” Someone called from further back. The crowd was already parting, revealing an overweight man hitching his swordbelt on as he hurried forward, an escort trailing behind him. Baldr pulled up by my side on his smaller, far more tractable hookwing.
“That’s more like it. How fare you, Beold?” Sergeant Blackwin dropped down from her saddle and strode over, pulling her gauntlets off and hanging them from her belt.
“Oh, very well, Maesuire Blackwin. We’re doing fine.” The lieutenant wrung his hands. He was blubbery and unattractive, with a wisp of hair clinging to a doughy round head. “This is… something of a surprise. We welcome you here of course…”
“Of course you do. You’re a loyal citizen of the Warden, and we’re here to keep the Warden’s peace.” Blackwin stopped in front of him, but didn’t offer to shake. “It’s been a while since we garrisoned here. I’ve brought some thirty strapping young things to make sure everything’s in order. Word around the Fort is that you’ve been having a monster problem.”
“Yes, my L- Ma’am.” We perhaps weren’t expecting... haha, there’s more young dragon riders at every turn, isn’t there?” Lieutenant Beold flashed us a watery smile. The two young men with him were both trying not to scowl.
“Looks like we’re the auditors,” Baldr whispered to me, leaning in a little.
Beold continued. “Please, maesuire, you must be tired. We’ll show you to your rooms. The barn’s alright for your troops? There’s not enough lodging…”
The Sarge nodded. “Absolutely. The survivors will work their way to a proper bed tomorrow eve. But I’d like a tour of your holding facilities. Just to see how the maintenance is holding up.”
“As you say, maesuire.” Lieutenant Beold looked over our ranks again, and this time, it was not anxiety written on his face: it was defeat.
The Fort troops and their senior servants were bunked indoors - us aspirant nobodies got the barn
loft. I was a city boy, and the idea of sleeping on hay wasn’t my idea of a good time, but I wasn’t going to show any of that in front of the likes of Baldr and Lucien.
“What do you think that was all about?” Lucien whispered to us. He was using the HUD’s messaging system.
“No idea,” I replied.
“Then let me tell you,” Baldr said. He was lying about twelve feet from me, his hands laced behind his head. “This village used to be a strategic location for Kingsmen. Rebels against the Warden’s Council. The Palewing Garrison took it over, and that shitwipe – Beold – was put in to watch over it.”
“Miserable fucking place,” I said, thinking back to Lyrensgrove – and what Kira had said to me the day I’d left. I’d concluded that the men I’d slaughtered in the village were the soldiers I’d gone there to help. I was hoping that their behavior wasn’t typical of Ilia’s troops. “Who or what are the Kingsmen, exactly? Who’s the Warden? Did he overthrow the monarchy or something?”
“Warden Scandiva led a revolution that overthrew the Illandi Dynasty,” Lucien explained. “This country is technically a representative democracy now. Like post-Revolution France.”
“Yeah,” Baldr said. “And just as batshit as post-revolutionary France, too.”
So we were here to suppress revolt? Ugh, politics. “Why? What was the basis of the revolution?”
“Scandiva’s a military man,” Baldr said. “And he did what all great men do. He saw something he wanted, so he took it. The King was nuts, Scandiva didn’t like the way the country was going… so he got tight with the court, found the King’s weak spots, and moved in for the kill.”
The casual way he relayed the story was just this side of creepy. “So, by ‘revolution’, you mean a military coup.”
“Same thing, ain’t it?” Baldr shrugged, and yawned.
“Right.” I rubbed my eyes, grimacing. “Well, I’m done. I’ve got to sleep. Hector out.”
“Sweet dreams.” Lucien said wryly.
Dragon Seed: A LitRPG Dragonrider Adventure (The Archemi Online Chronicles Book 1) Page 20