by Todd Herzman
Jamison’s forehead creased. ‘Do you know something?’
‘It’s just a question. What would you say?’
‘The opposite of what I said last time,’ Jamison whispered, then jogged a little faster, leaving Huon surging more speed to catch up.
They didn’t speak for the remainder of the march. The army ran for an entire week with no rest. By the time the sun dipped on the seventh day, they’d left the forest.
The army set up camp again on a large, open plain.
But this time was different. Earth surgers were at the front, setting up fortifications around the camp. Towers were constructed from stone, with fire-surgers and bowmen standing watch behind the walls.
‘The enemy is marching,’ Champion Jesalla told their Squad once they’d had their tents set up. ‘This is not going to be like any fight you’ve experienced. This… this is going to be far, far worse.’
Huon looked at Champion Jesalla’s new partner. The man still hadn’t said a word.
I didn’t think it would come this fast… But why wouldn’t it? The enemy probably marched far faster than the Honourbound could. The Honourbound may have Core armour, but the citizens of Arisalon were all far more naturally advanced. Huon had only been in one fight since the war began—the fight with Master Inan. The Core armour hadn’t done anything for him, nor for his Champion lead pair.
Was it really strong enough to make a difference?
Master Inan was a Legend. Huon looked at his pauldron. Maybe I’ll be able to take a Champion with this.
Champion Jesalla turned and walked away.
Ellie spoke, ‘Don’t we have any orders, Champion?’
Jesalla stopped, turned and faced her. ‘Orders?’
Ellie looked at her Squad. ‘Shouldn’t we be training or… something?’ She tapped her pauldron. ‘Shouldn’t we be learning how to better use this?’
Jesalla sighed. ‘What difference would it make?’ She turned back around. At least, she tried to. Something stopped her. Jesalla winced, then held her wrist. ‘Fine. We’ll train.’
She’s… given up? Huon forced his mouth to stay closed, else he’d be gaping at Jesalla. The woman had always seemed so… confident, in charge. This can’t just be from the death of her partner, can it? Then… he felt like an idiot. He looked at Jesalla’s new partner, staring into nothing. He looked at Jamison, at Yilda. These people he knew didn’t want to be here. But that’s because they’d either told him, or it was obvious.
But the rest of his Squad? The rest of the Honourbound army? They were all slaves.
‘Form in your pairs. If I’d been given the choice, you would have received the Core armour the second you were given to my Squad. But rules are rules.’ Champion Jesalla walked their lines. She didn’t bother inspecting their armour like Ranil did. She didn’t seem to care about their appearance—perhaps that was something she wasn’t ordered to do. ‘Tomorrow, an army marches on ours. I don’t know much about our enemy, but I know this—we are not the only ones with Immortals. The battlefield will be full of them. If you see them coming—whoever’s side they are on—hide. That is a command.’
Huon glanced at Jamison. Hide. It wasn’t a command he’d expected.
‘Now’—she tapped her pauldron—‘this armour is your best friend. It’s the only thing that will give you even a slim chance of surviving this war. I saw the lot of you, when that Legend attacked us, when…’ She shook her head. ‘You acted like a bunch of Squires. It was like you’d forgotten you had access to an entire pool of Champion-level essence.’
Huon shut his eyes, examining the pauldron’s essence. The army was supposed to be enhanced—why would they be given access only to Champion-level, when the enemy were already Champions?
That didn’t put the fight in their favour even a little—it only levelled the playing field.
Except, Huon knew even that wasn’t true. A Champion’s natural body was far stronger and more resilient than that of a Knight’s.
Huon gritted his teeth. ‘Is that all the advantage we’re given?’
The others of his Squad looked at him.
Champion Jesalla stood directly in front of Huon, tilting her head to the side. It was rare she met anyone’s eye. ‘Do you have something to say, Knight Huon?’
Huon bit the inside of his cheek. ‘I’ve been here before. To this queendom. Anyone sixteen and over is already a Champion. How is this Core armour going to help us defeat them?’
Champion Jesalla leant back. ‘Of course. You have been here, haven’t you? The Immortal of Earth spoke to me before he assigned you to this Squad—a most unusual occurrence.’ She stepped back, then addressed the rest of her Squad. ‘The Core armour is not our advantage. Our advantage is our… devotion to our king, and our numbers. The Everlasting King holds the largest army of any country on this continent. He has been waiting for this for a very long time, and he would not march his precious Honourbound into another country if he wasn’t sure he would win.’
Huon suppressed a sigh. That made sense, of course. The Everlasting King had had centuries—perhaps longer—to think about how he might expand his empire. The long-lived tend to be patient—according to the books Huon had read—and the Everlasting King would be no exception.
But that also meant he was willing to sacrifice much of the Honourbound army’s soldiers in this war, especially if he was sure he would win.
Huon refocused, no longer worried about how many people he might kill when the war truly began. I just need to survive. Whatever I do—whatever I’m forced to do—will be worth it if I can escape…
‘No more chitchat. Time for you to spar. Get a handle on the essence from your Core armour.’ Champion Jesalla walked back to stand beside her new partner. She glanced at the man, then stared straight ahead, her hands folded behind her back.
‘I think we should spar unarmed,’ Jamison said.
Huon looked across at his partner. Unarmed. It was the wise choice, considering neither were proficient in the next-level essence, but just because it was wise didn’t mean it was efficient. ‘We won’t be fighting with our hands when we engage the enemy—we’re training for a real fight.’
The enemy. Now he was thinking of them that way.
Jamison nodded. ‘As you wish.’ He took up his two-handed hammer, resting the hammer his shoulder. ‘Draw your sword.’
Huon nodded, drawing his sword and shrugging the shield from off his shoulder. He felt the essence within the pauldron. It felt different to when he accessed his core—it was like… having a second core, except this one was less familiar. His mind didn’t know its way around it as intuitively as it did his own.
This fight would be an interesting one.
He stepped forward, waving his sword at Jamison. ‘Come on, then.’ He identified the strength and speed essences within his secondary core—which seemed the best way to think about the pauldron—then surged them as Jamison ran forward.
Jamison moved faster than ever before. But Huon moved just as quickly. He blocked Jamison’s hammer strike with his shield and thrust his sword toward the man’s middle. Jamison slipped out of the way, but Huon reangled the attack, going for his leg.
A second before his sword met Jamison’s armour, a thin pillar of rock sprouted from the ground, knocking his strike to the side.
‘What, didn’t expect me to use elemental essence? You said yourself, we’re training for a real fight.’
Huon backed up a step. He looked around them, at the other Squad members sparring, their movements considerably faster than the day before. ‘A real fight?’ Huon smirked. ‘We’re going to need more room.’
Jamison nodded, a smirk sliding onto his face too. They passed their lead pair, who barely glanced at them, and headed to a more open area of the camp. There were walls all around the place now, and a circle of towers surrounding the entire army, but there was still plenty of room despite the thousands upon thousands of Honourbound. Wh
enever Huon looked about the camp, he was still surprised there were so many Knights within the realm. There aren’t any now. That thought almost stopped him in his tracks. Was it true? Had the Everlasting King left his own realm defenceless to wage this war? Who would attack us?
He didn’t know—he knew little about the world outside of the Everlasting King’s realm. Arisalon was the only other country he’d visited. He’d heard of other places—like the Empire of Solitude—but he didn’t know anything about them.
They found a nice, open space. Jamison placed a hand on the ground, and created a small earthen barrier around it.
A few nearby soldiers glanced at them, but they didn’t form a crowd as they had when Huon and Jamison had fought for the unique essence.
It was still strange, facing Jamison again, even in a sparring match. He’d sparred the man many times before, when they’d both been Squires on their journey to the Deep Wood with their Knights.
It was… beginning to feel like that again. Even with the war looming, and the fact that this sparring session was predominantly for training, it felt… fun.
Maybe it was because of what Jamison had confessed—if he could change his choice, if he could go back to the time just after Inara died, he would have joined Huon and Liona.
It was too late for that, of course. But if Huon found a way—if they managed to escape… they could escape together, this time. We may grow to be friends again.
Jamison finished creating the barrier, then stood across from Huon.
Huon surged fire, imbuing it into his sword. He used Champion-level essence from the secondary core, and he could feel the difference—it burned brighter, hotter. He flashed back to the last time they’d fought armed.
Jamison had beat him.
It hadn’t been long since then, but it already felt like a different life.
‘Ready?’ Huon asked.
Jamison nodded. ‘I’m always ready to face you.’
They ran at each other. Huon threw three fireballs in the brief moment before their weapons clashed. Earthen walls sprouted from the ground, trying to trip Huon up, but he pushed his feet into the earth, surging Champion-level earth essence of his own, cancelling out Jamison’s work.
Jamison’s hammer hit harder than it ever had, with more strength behind the swing than Knight Elian would have been able to muster. Huon blocked it with his shield once again, quadruple-surging strength from his secondary core. Huon still took a fraction too long to surge from the Core armour. It didn’t feel natural. He kept instinctively moving to surge from his real core and having to stop himself.
Control.
Quadruple-surging felt amazing. The two fought like never before, moving around the circle they’d created with great speed and skill, their weapons clashing, Huon’s fire shooting through the air, Jamison’s earth blocking its effects.
But something about this felt wrong—unnatural. It wasn’t his essence he was using. It was someone else’s. As Huon smashed another of Jamison’s hammer strikes out of the way, his mind wandered. Where did the essence in this armour come from? Were there Honourbound Champions cultivating all day, just to provide essence for this armour?
Huon shrugged the thoughts away as he slashed out at Jamison. He hadn’t imbued sharpness into his blade for the fight—he didn’t want to actually hurt Jamison.
But maybe he’d been wrong to think that. This was just a sparring match, to get them familiar with the pauldrons, but he couldn’t treat it like a sparring match—not if they were to be on the battlefield in the morning, fighting surgecallers who’d been training since they could stand.
He needed to push, as hard as he could.
As Huon came in for another strike, he surged sharpness, imbuing it into his sword. Jamison blocked the strike with his hammer.
Huon’s sword cut right through the head. The sharpness essence dissipated, being depleted as it cut through the rock-reinforced metal hammer head.
Huon’s blade kept moving, lodging itself into Jamison’s rock armour at the shoulder.
To Huon’s surprise, with the quadruple-surge, the blade didn’t get stuck in the armour. It went through it. Jamison kicked Huon back, staring at his hammer head in awe. ‘You…’ He looked at Huon. ‘You broke it.’
Half of the hammer head lay on the ground. The sparring paused. Jamison picked up the fallen half. ‘This was Knight Elian’s.’
Someone clapped Huon on the back. ‘That was good.’ Champion Jesalla came to stand between them, then looked at Huon. ‘You still won’t survive tomorrow, especially if you stop now. Keep sparring!’ She strode off, arms crossed.
‘Maybe a blacksmith can mend it.’ Huon stepped forward. ‘I’ve heard some of them can surge steel…’
Jamison nodded slowly. ‘I’m not worried about the hammer, Huon. If this is what your strength can do, when you’re not even a Champion…’ He looked toward the wall that had been erected at the front of the camp. ‘Then what will the enemy be capable of?’ He shook his head. ‘I think Jesalla is right to be so… defeated. The Everlasting King… he will probably win, but we aren’t going to survive to see it, are we?’
Huon lowered his head. He’d wondered the exact same thing, of course. How could they survive like this? But he couldn’t let those thoughts take him over. ‘We’ll watch each other’s backs.’
Huon looked down at his sword, expecting it to have taken some damage in the strike—there wasn’t a single nick on the blade.
They sparred without weapons for the remainder of the session. By the end of it, surging from the secondary core didn’t feel exactly like surging from his own core—it still felt unnatural and strange—but he’d gotten a far better handle on it than before.
When the sparring was over, their Squad ate dinner in silence around the same cookfire. It felt like they’d barely set foot in the queendom, and the next day they might all be facing their deaths. Huon hadn’t had enough time to become stronger. Hadn’t had enough time to learn how to fight the binding.
Am I going to die tomorrow?
Chapter 11
Over the years, Huon had entered many fights unprepared.
He hadn’t been prepared when he’d fought the sabre-tooth, jumping on its back when it was attacking Bern.
He hadn’t been prepared when he’d fought the midnight-bear, or the fire-surger, in the Glenhaven arena.
He hadn’t been prepared to fight a sky-eagle, being dragged into the air, its powerful talons stuck in his back.
And he certainly hadn’t been prepared when he’d fought Jamison—both times—even if he thought he had been the second time.
But he’d survived all of those fights.
He would survive this one—he had to believe that.
Huon woke early, to the sound of drums in the distance. Jamison was awake on the other side of the tent, his hammer—which had been easily repaired by the same blacksmith Huon had visited the morning prior—lying beside him.
A horn blared.
Huon snapped into a sitting position. He surged stamina, bringing his mind into full wakefulness, then surged speed as he stood, pulling on his Honourbound armour.
That horn meant the enemy was close. The drums… they must be war drums.
It was all happening too fast. It barely felt like they’d been in the Queendom of Arisalon for long, and now the bulk of the two armies were about to clash?
There will be Immortals on the battlefield. As Huon strapped on the last piece of his armour—the pauldron, his secondary core—that thought sparked some hope inside him. What if he didn’t need to break the binding? Huon didn’t know how many Immortals the enemy had, but if they were fighting each other…
The Immortal of Earth could be slayed, with every one of his soldiers’ bindings being broken. It was the first ray of hope he’d felt since being taken from the Arisalon arena.
Jamison strapped the last of his own armour on, leaving the tent. Before Huon
followed, he let out a breath, and closed his eyes. He tried to assume the meditative state needed to commune with the universe, but wasn’t sure if he connected. Still, he tried to surge his thoughts. Not his intentions, this time. More like a wish.
Let the Immortal of Earth be slain in battle. Let my binding break.
If that happened—if he got his wish—he would never again let himself be bound.
But what were the chances of that?
Huon stepped out of the tent. The moon was full, bathing the camp in its light. It was still well before dawn, but the army moved fast. The Honourbound were forming in their Squads, getting readied to fight. He stared at the underside of his wrist, eyes piercing his armour, imagining the binding beneath. He’d fought the binding before—felt the essence beneath it. If this were truly how his father had gotten free, Huon needed to speed up the process.
His binding stung. Burned. The longer he stood here after that horn had blared, the more pain the binding would bring. But he could handle that pain. He stood as still as he could, focusing his mind like he had the last time he’d done this.
Set me free, he declared into the abyss of the universe. Set me free, and I’ll do everything I can to liberate those in the Everlasting King’s realm.
The binding burned worse than ever before as he stood there, focused so intensely on his thoughts. It burrowed into his skull, stabbing at his mind. His limbs shook, but he stood firm.
Huon let out a breath.
He still didn’t understand how this worked—who was hearing these thoughts? These… intentions? Was there something out there, something that had helped him advance to Knight? The ways were different in the Everlasting King’s realm—no one there advanced to Knight this way. They didn’t have the same knowledge—whether it had been forgotten, or… hidden from them.
Huon gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. He still had a small amount of fearlessness essence in his core, from when he’d stood up to the Immortal of Earth. If he surged it now, he wouldn’t be able to surge it in battle.
But he needed to fight this binding.