Heirot

Scars – Part I

Okay, thought it was about time to explain Soran’s past. I decided to turn it into a story, so it might end up being kinda long : ( Sorry. I can pm you a concise version when it’s done if you like ^_^. It might take some time to finish since I’m a slow writer, (each of these takes me about a whole day to write and those are hard to come by) so here’s the first part and the others I’ll post as soon as I can. Hope somebody enjoys this! If anyone has advice, I’d appreciate that too, since I might rewrite it into a book or something someday.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Frest? It is you! What in the world brought you way out here?” Exclaimed Randt as he finished wiping down a table in the dining tent.

“Long time no see! You never come to my shop in Aerroes anymore. I thought I’d check on my precious customer,” smirked the merchant, though they both knew that Randt was rather impoverished and could rarely spend more than a few coins at Frest’s bakery. Delicate foods were becoming increasingly difficult to sell in Arken as the poverty level shot skyward and the authorities hardly batted an eyebrow.

“I haven’t been able to go into the city much lately,” agreed Randt, a shadow crossing his face, “the truth is, this town has been hit by a plague. Nearly everyone is ill, including Hazel and Clary.”

Frest’s eyes widened. “And yourself?”

“So far, I seem fine.”

Frest brought his fingers to his chin in thought. “A plague? Even your family…I’m so sorry, Randt. But…that’s strange, I haven’t heard of it hitting anywhere else. Where did it come from?

“It started here. I’m sure of it,” Randt affirmed, with a hint of hatred in his voice that surprised his friend.

“You’re certain? That’s some terrible luck, for it to start here of all places.”

“It’s not just luck. That child – that demon caused this.” The hatred was blatant in his voice now, along with a trace of fear.

Frest blinked at the uncharacteristic tone in his normally calm friend’s voice. “Who?” he asked, confused.

“Did you notice a young boy sitting alone outside when you came in?” Randt asked, his voice dropping secretively.

“The one reading the book? He seemed like a normal kid to me. Except for the ears. He’s got to be Elven, right?”

“His parents are, but that kid is nothing but a demon. After he was born, everything started going wrong in this town.”

“That sounds awfully extreme. Isn’t it just a coincidence that he was born when problems started happening? It’s not just this town, but all of Arken that’s going to hell lately.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew him. On the night he was born, a red star appeared and the entire sky was tinted crimson. All our diviners agreed it was an ominous sign. On top of that, they say the kid’s green eyes were glowing unmistakably when he first opened them. Not just his parents, but the doctor and several others saw it. And he never cried. The doctors thought he was stillborn at first because he didn’t make a sound when he was born. After that he cried almost constantly, but not like other infants – in complete silence. Then they thought he was mute, but when he was five he started talking along with the other kids his age.”

“That does sound strange, but…elves are magical beings, right? It might be norma-“

“No, he has no magical ability whatsoever,” said Randt with a dismissive flick of his hand. “He was sent to be trained, but the professor said he’d never had a student so devoid of potential. But a few months after he expelled the kid, he came down with an unknown illness and died incredibly young. A supposed friend of the kid’s died similarly after getting into an argument with him. And now a plague with the same symptoms? Who wouldn’t suspect something? If not evil, the kid has to at least be cursed!”

Frest scratched the back of his head. “That is pretty suspicious.”<br>
“The whole town’s in a commotion over what to do with him.”<br>
”Can you tell his parents to get rid of him? Maybe send him somewhere else?”

Randt let out a bitter chuckle. “Who would take him?”

Both men fell silent for a moment before Frest reluctantly announced that it was time for him to be getting back to work.

Randt nodded and walked his friend to the door. Both men glanced uncomfortably at the child they’d just been discussing, who was still sitting against the side of the building alone, reading his book. Randt’s eyes were accusatory; Frest’s were full of a wary fascination. The boy just stared hard into his book and waited for them to leave.

“Frest, it’s probably best for you to stay out of this area for a while, until the trouble passes over.”

Frest nodded his understanding. “Take care, Randt. I wish you and your family all the luck this god-forsaken land can offer you.”

Randt nodded grimly and turned back inside, closing the door behind him. Frest knew he would probably not see him again. He turned to head out of town before the plague found its way to him as well.

“I didn’t cause it,” a small voice said from beside him. Frest looked down in surprise at the source of the words, who was still staring hard at the book. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t cause this plague!” the boy repeated desperately, and looked up at Frest with burning green eyes.

Frest blinked guiltily as he realized the boy had heard their entire conversation, remembering that Elves possessed very acute hearing. The supposedly cursed eyes staring at him, with the exception of color, were the same as any boy’s eyes he’d ever seen, shy and naïve and proud. Still, the facts had to be considered. It would not be prudent to upset the child. “I know,” Frest said with half-genuine concern in his eyes. “Here, buy your mom something good to eat tonight.” The man held out some coins to the child.

The boy rose abruptly to his feet, closing his book, and gave Frest a proud look that made the man feel so guilty he wanted to climb into his shoes. Without a word, the boy turned and walked away down the street. The merchant frowned and watched him leave, putting the coins ashamedly back in his pocket. Treating a child like that – offering a gift to gain favor with him like he was some sort of fearful god… If the child cursed him, he thought, he might just deserve it. He sighed as he turned himself back toward Aerroes.

The boy walked quickly toward home, ignoring the looks he received from those he passed on the street. He felt irritated with himself, but his thoughts were jumbled. Why had he said that? He was accustomed now to his reputation, his mother had told him not to worry about such things, so why did it bother him if one more person bought into the foolish rumors? Maybe because he was from the outside, he’d thought that person might be different. He clenched his book against his chest and broke into a run, his boyish emotions telling him that once he was home, the problems would go away. But even running wouldn’t help him escape the thought that had run through his head a minute before – that maybe they were all right, maybe he was a demon.

The child came breathlessly to the door of a small but comfortable house with a small garden next to it and swung the door open, childish excitement taking over as he slammed the door behind him, safe from the world outside, and shouted “I’m home!”

“Rhen, is that you?” called his father’s welcoming voice from upstairs.

“Yup!” shouted Rhen, pulling his shoes off and running up the stairs, swinging on the banister.

“Rhen! How many times have I told you not to swing on that?” his father chastised gently as the child bounded into the room and slammed into him with a hug that almost threw the older man backward out of his chair. His father was lean and healthy, but more suited to bookwork than physical activity, and so he stayed home and managed to make a very modest living writing out histories and collecting folklore. He had a long face with messy brown hair and kind hazel eyes.

“Where’s Momma?” Rhen grinned.

His father’s expression faltered slightly, then recovered its warm smile, “She’s resting in her room. Let’s not wake her,” he said, ruffling the child’s dark hair affectionately.

Rhen nodded and wished for a moment that he’d accepted that man’s gift earlier and done as he suggested. But it was okay; he was a little afraid of his mother anyway.

“How was school?” his father asked.

“Well, actually I left early,” Rhen admitted nervously, knowing his father wouldn’t approve.

“Again? Rhen, if you want the other children to accept you, you have to at least try to attend school!” his father said gently.

“I had to leave. They were calling me that name again, and even the teacher wanted me out. Besides, I already know all the lessons. I memorized the whole textbook.” Rhen said.

Rhen’s father frowned. “What do they call you?” This was the first he’d heard of any bullying.

“Soran,” Rhen said quietly, a little embarrassed.

His father’s eyes flared indignantly. In the old Elvish dialect, it meant “cursed star”. Such a cruel name… He finally understood that it would be impossible to integrate Rhen into society here, and it made what he had to tell his son just a little bit easier. “Rhen, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

Rhen blinked at the stern note that had come out in his father’s voice and looked at him curiously.

“Rhen, Momma is sick,” the man said emptily, “there is medicine, but it’s strictly rationed by the government. The only way we can afford to buy it, is to send someone into service of the Queen. If I go, no one will be left to earn money. The only option…is for you to go.” Agony penetrated his voice as he spoke the last of it, and he looked at his son mournfully.

Rhen took a moment to register this sudden news; it was almost too big for him to understand, but the child had already known his share of reality, and quickly gained the meaning of what his father had just said. The misery in the older elf’s voice alarmed him even more than the news itself, and he rushed to alleviate it. “Th…that’s fine! Of course I’ll go. I might even get to meet the Queen! After Momma’s better, I’ll come back…” he said reassuringly, straightening up with determination.

The beginnings of tears were in the man’s eyes. The child knew so little of the world…to even joke about wanting to meet the Queen! And coming back… he was only ten! “Good boy,” he murmured, his voice nearly breaking as he placed a large hand on Rhen’s head.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Bye! I’ll definitely be back!” Rhen called out to his parents, clinging to them with his voice as he walked off with two tall men in military uniform, neither of whom seemed particularly friendly. They had asked his parents a long list of strange questions about his age, his level in school, whether he could walk twenty miles without stopping, whether he could lift fifty pounds, etc--all of which his mother had calmly answered in the affirmative. His father had remained silent through the process, looking away toward the window even though Rhen kept looking to him for reassurance.

Rhen waved over his shoulder until his parents grew smaller behind him, and his mother turned his father inside and closed the door long before they would have been out of sight. When he could no longer see them, the fear finally set in on the child, and he had to set his face firmly to keep the tears from flowing down his cheeks.

“We’ve done it. Ha! We’ve done it, my love!” cried the woman to her speechless husband when the child had finally gone. “Our days of living in scorn are finally past. We can think about us again,” she said, drawing him into her arms fondly.

“You…really didn’t love him at all, did you?” the man asked regretfully as she held him.

“How could anyone love something so wretched? That child is cursed. Everyone in the village knows it, and someday you’ll realize it too. Ever since he came, our lives have been full of trouble.”

The man stared at her numbly. He could say nothing to her now. It was too late to stand up for Rhen. He had thrown his own son away. He had been too weak to lose her. He put his arms around her shoulders and returned her embrace, but her old warmth had gone. “You’re cold,” he murmured.

“What are you talking about, love? I’m perfectly fine.”

He frowned and held her tighter to warm her. She was all he had left. He would not lose her as well.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

That’s all for now!

(The blah part:) All chapters of "Scars" (c) 2005 Kathy Schubel, all rights reserved, unless you are a talking mongoose. I like mongoos....es (mongeese?).

Scars Part 2!! Hoorah!
Thanks for the feedback, Meagan ^_^

The sounds of heavy carts rolling over rubble and steel picks meeting hard earth filled the smothered air. A tall, stiff-shouldered man in starched military uniform and another man of normal height whose hairstyle and uniform indicated he belonged to another branch of the army, but several ranks higher, walked together across the parched earth. The latter surveyed, with a wise, calculating eye, the hundreds of sweating, struggling slaves as they worked the excavation site, their bodies tanned and muscular from unending months of manual labor. The slavedriver eyed his visitor warily as they walked through the site, barking our warnings to the occasional straggler who stood in their way and fingering the whip at his side aggressively.

“As you can see, everything is under control,” the slavedriver said with defensive pride, “My men work with their full strength and cooperation, and there have been no further outbreaks after our disciplined response to that protest nonsense that came up last month.” He grinned slightly as he thought of the 23 unruly workmen who had been tortured to death in the presence of their entire company. “And now, to what do I owe your esteemed visit to my excavation site, General Stave?”

The General glanced over at the slavedriver – what was the fool’s name? – in vague annoyance at the intrusion of the tall man’s scratchy voice. He looked at the man with indifferent superiority, as though he were a child tugging at his sleeve. “Just here to observe some of your men and evaluate next year’s funding,” he said, his voice losing interest halfway through his sentence as his eye caught on a young man working with a pick at the near wall of the excavation site. The man was still young, but bare-chested and powerful like the other workers, and yet there was something distinctly different about his posture. There was nothing of the broken slave in his demeanor, and he held himself like a wild creature bound by a tether that would eventually snap under his will.

General Stave narrowed his black, angular eyes and looked at the man with keen interest. “How old is that one?” he prompted the slavedriver, as if selecting a cut of meat from a butcher’s shop.

The slavedriver looked over at the 5 or 6 men lined wearily up along the wall, picking away. Only one of the men showed any flare of vitality, and that was the man in the middle, who would periodically reach out and steady the hopelessly weak old man teetering at his side. He wasn’t certain which one the general was pointing out. “Oh, the old geezer? He’s been here for 20 years, probably about 60 now. Seems he’ll not be of use much longer. I’ll probably be disposing of him soon,” he rasped.

“No, not the old fool. The young one next to him.”

“That would be Rhen. Been here about six years. Had a bit of a hard time of it when he first arrived, all frail and flimsy from reading books all the time. I’d heard elves weren’t much use in the quarry, being more delicate, but it seems he’s built pretty well. Cart work and a few whippings shaped him up pretty quick. He don’t talk much, and mostly keeps to his work, but I don’t like his eyes,” the slavedriver said carelessly.

“Bring him here,” the general said.

“You! Elf! Come here,” the slavedriver demanded.

The young man stayed the pick he was about to strike with and lowered it, looking over at the two men with calm, piercing green eyes. Ignoring the worried stare of the feeble old man at his side, he walked away from the others and stopped several feet away from the men, eyeing them fearlessly.

“Your name is Rhen, son?” The general’s voice was hard and disinterested.

“That’s correct.”

“You enjoy working the mines?”

“Well enough, sir.” The elf’s words were curiously disrespectful, but the general paid no mind.

“Your age?”

“Sixteen.”

“How much can you push?”

“Twenty five hundred pounds on even ground.”

“Ever tried using a weapon?”

“Nay, sir.”

“Care to learn?”

Rhen narrowed his eyes coldly, aware of the slaver’s attentive presence. “What is the meaning of this, sir,” he asked suspiciously.

General Stave ignored Rhen’s answer, busy with a close inspection of the young man’s arms, legs, back and shoulders as he walked a slow circle around Rhen. “This one comes with me. I’m taking him tomorrow.”

“But, sir, pardon me, he’s been well paid for—”

“And you don’t even know what you’ve bought. I won’t have you ruin him in this ridiculous place. I take him tomorrow. Come, I’m getting thirsty,” he said patronizingly, turning away from the hoards of sweating miners and back toward the administrative lodge.

When Stave was on his way down the path, the slavedriver, frustrated more by his subordinate position to Stave than the loss of Rhen in particular, turned a strict glower on the elf. “I’ll have you work off at least some of your worth. When the bell rings, you stay. No food, no water. You’ll work until he comes.”

Rhen’s eyes seemed to spit in the slavedriver’s face before he returned to the quarry just in time to catch the teetering old man again.

* * * * * *

Rhen slammed his pick heavily down into the rock wall, shaking his head to clear it as the impact traveled from his shoulders up and down his spine and resolved in his skull. The sun had reached its peak, boiling the air and making the old man working next to him teeter precariously as always. Today, however, it was the older man who watched Rhen with cautious concern as the elf’s frame shuddered with each fall of the pick.

“That fool was due to come here yesterday,” the old man growled on Rhen’s behalf, hurling his pick a bit too hard and nearly tipping over backwards. Rhen made no response, working on in silence.

When the sun was beginning to set, heavy footsteps finally sounded behind them. A large, cold hand set itself firmly down on Rhen’s shoulder. The elf spun toward the source of the pressure with anger in his eyes.

General Stave glanced over the elf with a frown, noting the exhaustion in his face. “You look like hell.”

Rhen narrowed his eyes coldly.

“Talkative, aren’t you? Come with me,” he ordered indifferently, walking off. When the elf’s footsteps weren’t heard behind him, he turned back impatiently. “Don’t think I’ll treat you any better than that idiot you’ve been working under if you dare to disobey me.”

The old man coughed plaintively.

Rhen laid his pick down in the rubble and walked alongside Stave in silence.

* * * * *

The next morning, Rhen was rudely awakened as a tall, thin old man wearing one of the military’s combat training uniforms flung open the door to his room, flooding sunlight across the half-conscious elf’s face. He was in a small, barely furnished room, lying on a mattress for the first time in six years.

“You’re up. Good,” the man said sternly, despite the fact that Rhen hardly seemed awake, “This is the Aerroes Military Academy. Get dressed and meet me outside in the courtyard in ten minutes. Stave thinks you’re worth my time to train. Don’t prove him wrong.” There was real threat in his final words as he disappeared again out the door.


Rhen got up and lifted the heavy shade on the window warily. It was already midday, if not afternoon. How long had he been asleep?

Three and a half minutes later, he was outside, where Spartan gray military barracks rose up in every direction. He looked around for the place that was called the courtyard. In between the barracks was a large rectangle of packed turf, lowered from the rest of the compound by concentric step-like concrete levels. In the center of this area, the man who had woken him up was performing an advanced kata with rigid precision using a heavy wooden practice sword. Rhen noted that the old man’s slender frame had caused him to misjudge his physical strength; now that he was in motion, power seemed to radiate from his body. He waited until the old man had finished, then walked down the steps to stand opposite him on the courtyard.

“You’re late.”

Rhen twitched an eyebrow incredulously. “I believe I’m early, sir.”

“You’re late,” the man reaffirmed, walking up to Rhen and studying him carefully. “I’m General Rone. I oversee all combat training procedures on this base. I don’t take on pupils. Now, get in whatever stance you know and throw me your best punch.

Rhen lowered slightly, half-assuming an offensive position, but his eyes were confused. “You said you don’t take on—ngh!” He winced as he was cut off by a sharp kick to his chest that sent him reeling backwards.

“Late. Again.”

Angered by the numb pain in his chest, the elf didn’t hesitate to comply without asking any more questions. He threw a firm punch at the old man’s head. He had already been knocked three feet back by another kick before he saw that his fist had met nothing but air. He flew at Rone again. This time the man stepped deftly to the side, brought his fists together and brought them down firmly between Rhen’s shoulderblades, slamming him to the ground.

Rhen pushed himself back to his feet, covered with dust, and turned to face Rone. The temper had left his face. “How do you do that?”

Rone raised an interested eyebrow at the elf. “‘Do that’?”

“Move without my seeing you. How did you do it.” His voice was calm but firm.

Rone smirked. “You saw it was futile to attack me, and so you channeled your anger into ambition. Most would attack till they’d destroyed themselves, and then cry to be spared. It’s possible you’re worthy of training after all. Provided you overcome your tardiness, of course.” The General’s taunting tone clearly revealed that he had taken note of Rhen’s irritation over that label and intended to utilize it to its fullest.

Rhen just stared at the strange and powerful old man, not sure what to make of his teasing attitude. He decided to take it as a gesture of amiability and smirked. “If you train me, I might accidentally kill you,” he warned.’

Rone stared at him dangerously for a moment, making Rhen suspect he’d just made a deadly mistake. Then, he burst out into low, sardonic laughter. “Haha! Clever and out of your mind, I like you, boy. I’ll bestow my affection on you after you go to the mess hall and eat. That idiot hasn’t fed you in two days, has he? It damn well shows. You’ll take punches better when you don’t already feel like shit.”

Rhen stared at Rone curiously as the man resumed his sword work. The old man’s voice was cold and blunt, but held some strange appeal to the elf. Perhaps it was just that anything was preferable to the existence he’d led at the barracks, but it seemed to him that life was about to become interesting…and also painful. He walked back toward his barrack to find someone and ask where the mess hall was, knowing already that if he were to ask the old General, he’d be answered with an invisible kick in the ribs.


* * * * *

To be continued!

Scars Part 3 (Finally!)

“During your time at the Aerroes Military Academy, you will be trained in the ways of martial skill and battle tactics, as well as honing your body and mind to a state of perfect discipline,” a tall lieutenant was barking at a group of new arrivals as he let them stiffly around the compound. “All of you have come from different walks of life and regions of our great Queen’s territory, some by choice, some not, but as cadets here, you are one and the same. You will follow orders and behave exactly according to Her Majesty’s intentions. Understood? You in the back, what are you looking at?”

The cadet who had just been singled out flinched his gaze back toward the lieutenant nervously. “Th-..there are two men fighting down there, sir,” the young man stammered.

The lieutenant looked below them, where they could see the central courtyard. Two men, one older and one younger, were battling fiercely with one another at the center of the platform, one armed with a longstaff and the other with a pair of scimitars, which he held in quite an unorthodox fashion, hilt down.

The lieutenant’s eyes sparked with recognition, and he seemed to forget the scolding he was about to give to the cadet. “Ah, you needn’t think about those two. They’re so far out of your league that you’ll probably never see them except perhaps in a general assembly. The elder is Grand General Rone, one of the highest-ranking tactical officials in the military, and a master of more weapons than you know exist. The young man is the only cadet General Rone has ever troubled himself to take into his tutelage, and an insanely fast learner. Since coming here two years ago, he has advanced far beyond what a cadet normally learns within ten.”

“How old is he?” another cadet who was about the same age ventured out of turn.

“Eighteen. But don’t think he’ll acquaint himself with the likes of you. His training begins in the early morning when the courtyard is not in use for cadet training, and then he disappears to independent training throughout the day. Many come to watch him spar with General Rone, thinking they can absorb knowledge of their techniques, but both move too quickly to be seen, let alone studied.” The lieutenant spoke with a strange, spiteful pride that both testified that he had been one of those eager spectators and asserted that the cadets would have no more luck than him.

“He’s holding the scimitars upside down,” pointed out one of the cadets.

“A style of his own crafting. Don’t misunderstand. He could take down a squadron single-handedly with that technique,” the lieutenant said. “Now back in formation. There’s a lot to go through before training begins tomorrow. No more speaking out of turn.” Returning to his standard military demeanor, he turned and led the group onward to review grounds duties and barrack conduct.

Below the departing orientation group, Rhen dodged under a swipe from Rone’s staff and countered with a sweeping circular kick, only to be jolted in the chest with the butt end of the staff and hurled backwards. He spun back onto his feet as he skidded backwards, sucking in air as he launched back at Rone with both scimitars level, then arched his wrists so that they extended backwards along his arms and struck out with both in a flash. Rone danced around them with some effort and staggered back off-balance.

“Getting old, Boss?” Rhen grinned breathlessly, barely missing another strike from Rone.

“Wishful thinking on your part, I’m afraid,” Rone countered wryly, swiping Rhen across the backside and sending him stumbling forward.

Rhen caught his footing and turned back to Rone, rubbing his rear end and looking at his master vengefully. His back and shoulders had grown in his last few years, making the final changes from adolescent to an adult’s body. He was slim and powerful, with speed and skill that contradicted his appearance of a zealous youth. Their weapons locked again, and the two came in close for a blinding exchange of strikes and counters that should have been impossible given the length of Rone’s weapon. Rone jumped back to give himself more space, and Soran had to skip over a sweeping blow aimed at his ankles to lunge in again, thrusting out with one of his scimitars. He quickly pulled back as he felt the blade make contact with Rone’s armor, and hopped out of range for a moment in surprise. Rone didn’t seem at his best today; that was the third time Rhen had managed to deal him a ‘lethal’ blow. Given, Rhen had taken far more hits, but it was unusual to succeed in striking the old General at all.

They fought for another several minutes before Rone finally raised his hand in the signal to stop. Rhen took a deep, satisfied breath and set his weapons down, walking to the lowest of the tiered concrete levels that surrounded the courtyard and sitting down tiredly. Rone did the same and stood next to Rhen, both of them catching their breath.

“You were holding back on me today,” commented Rhen casually when he had breath to spare, “Don’t tell me there’s some kind of special session planned for the evening? ..Not another demonstration for the cadets!” He pulled off his chest armor and threw himself backward to lie on the stone, letting the breeze blow into his sweat-soaked shirt.

“If you’re so eager for one, I’m sure I can have it arranged,” threatened Rone teasingly, drinking from a canteen of water they’d brought with them.

“No, thank you,” Rhen said flatly, looking up at the canteen. “Hey, save some,” he said.

“Bring your own!” Rone asserted, drinking luxuriously and letting some drip down his chin.

“Boss!”

“Do I hear insubordination?” Rone smirked, overturning the container and pouring it in Rhen’s face.

“Hey!” Rhen protested, putting his feet on either side of Rone’s staff and twisting them so the wooden pole swung around and into the back of Rone’s feet.

“Insubordinate whelp!” Rone snapped as he stumbled backward. He pounced on his student and ruffled up his hair with both hands.

“Gah! I’m too old for that now!” Rhen complained, fixing his hair and then swiping the canteen quickly from Rone’s hands. When he went to drink from it, however, it was empty.

“What was that? I couldn’t hear you,” Rone muttered indifferently, rubbing a finger in his ear to frustrate Rhen.

“Geez, you act younger than me,” Rhen smirked. The group of cadets who had been observing their match got up and shuffled off to their morning exercises, sensing that the battle had ended.

“Have you read the books I gave you yesterday?” Rone’s voice had returned to that of a stern instructor.

“About half,” Rhen replied obediently. He’d learned that there were brief times when it was acceptable to behave casually with the general, but to act without discipline at the wrong time would mean corporal punishment at the least and at worst, being completely ignored by the general for days or weeks.

“Have them done by tomorrow. I want to give you an exam.”

“Yes Sir,” Rhen said dutifully.

“Get busy,” Rone said curtly, none of his prior familiarity in his voice, and retrieved his staff from the ground. He gave a nod to Rhen, who made a slight bow in return, then briskly made his way up and out of the courtyard to see to his other duties.

Rhen took up his scimitars again and walked back to the center of the courtyard. He raised the blades in front of him, took a deep breath, and burst into an advanced form, both weapons flying like the dance of a flame. The calm, youthful expression he’d worn earlier was displaced by one of strict focus. As his blades flashed in the still-rising sunlight, there was nothing about him of the frightened and scorned child he had been in the past. He was grown now, strong, storm-hardened, and also dangerous – far more so than he himself realized.

When he finally finished his form training, Rhen wiped the sweat off his face and rested on the bench for a minute, until he realized there was a large group of men at the South end of the courtyard. A cadet training class was scheduled for the first time block that morning. Rhen looked at the sun and realized they had been due to start several minutes ago, but were respectfully waiting behind their Lieutenant for Rhen to finish with the courtyard. Why this kind of laud was accorded to him alone, the elf had difficulty comprehending, but he couldn’t help feeling a bit proud of their support, and in turn saw the cadets much like younger brothers, feeling related to them despite the fact that his training and Rone never permitted him time to associate with them. Their lieutenant bowed to him, as one would to a general, when Rhen quickly ceded the courtyard to the training group. Rhen walked past the group, keeping his eyes tightly forward, though he could see the reverently curious stares of the cadets in his peripheral vision.

* * * * * *

“What is it?” Rone said curtly, looking up from his work to the young sergeant who had approached his desk.

“Pardon, sir. A General is here to speak with you, sir.”

“Send him in.”

“Yes, sir.”

A moment later, Rone stopped what he was doing and shifted his attention to the gaunt figure who had just appeared in his doorway. “Yes, come in, General Cerno.”

“How are you, old boy!” a tall man with short, rusty hair and a harsh smile greeted him casually, walking in and falling into the chair across from Rone’s desk. “Office life treating you well?”

“Well enough, thanks to the Queen. And you?”

“Quite well, thanks, sir. Aw, come on, Rone, no need for all that formality with me! I get enough of that bull from my lieutenants.”

At this, Rone’s entire demeanor changed. “Sure, no formality for my long-lost recruit!” he smiled broadly. “I hear you’ve made it to the vice-captainship in the Combat Training Division! Finally wearing the colors of your talent, but are you quite too busy to keep in touch with your old General?” he criticized proudly, crossing his arms.

Cerno grinned as if he’d expected this. “I never forget! I’ve just got a short attention span, as you know.”

“Well you certainly haven’t lost your focus on climbing up the ladder,” Rone pointed out.

“I do what I can, as surely you do too. This looks like a cushy job.”

Rone smirked and crossed his arms cynically. “Heh, I’ve got not interest in being placed on the fronts, but lately there’s more and more paperwork. I’ve tried to tell those higher-ups that wars aren’t waged on paper, but they throw fits if their bureaucratic pacifiers are plucked from their mouths.”

Cerno chortled. “Ha, the Head of Tactical Operations is reduced to a paper-pusher, eh? Well, I suppose it can’t be helped. Though it’s really sort of painful to see you behind a desk. You should be out training the lieutenants—”

“I don’t teach.”

“You teach that kid.”

“An exception.”

“They say he’s the most promising recruit in the military,” Cerno noted without much warmth.

“It’s talent. I saw his potential, so I took him before they could wreck him.”

“And what do you intend to do with your adopted pup when he’s all grown up?”

Rone seemed to perceive this as a strange question. “I’ll have him promoted and place him directly under me. The politics are getting more and more corrupt at our level, and I can use a pair of loyal eyes to look after the underlings.”

“You consider him loyal, then? It’s rare to earn your trust,” observed Cerno pointedly.

“You think I’m mistaken?” Rone noted, though not very seriously. “I’m a tactical specialist. I’d say I pick my allies quite wisely,” he said, grinning at his former subordinate.

“So you say! Just look at how I turned out,” teased Cerno, idly taking the silver letter opener from Rone’s desk and flipping it over in his hand like a dagger.

“He reminds me of you in some ways. Can’t keep still,” said Rone.

“Oh, don’t compare me to your pet recruit. I’ll get jealous. But seriously, is his skill really at the level people say it is?”

“No. Actually, it’s significantly higher. He’s already memorized everything I can safely loan him on Arken’s military history and wartime strategies, as well as mastered every relevant applied science – physics, biology, advanced mathematical theory – he goes through books like a torch. What’s more, he’s become nearly a match for me in battle.”

Cernos guffawed, clearly interpreting Rone’s words as a joke. “That’s a good one. You’re the best of the best here. There’s no chance that kid’s your equal, especially not when he’s using your techniques.”

Rone grinned, though he looked somewhat unsettled. “He’s learned a lot from me, but the style he uses is one he made up himself after reading some advanced physical theories. He thinks I’m going easy on him, but the truth is, he has no idea how good he really is.”

“And you don’t feel threatened?”

“Threatened?” Rone asked, though he’d of course given it plenty of thought.

“That he’ll want to move up. If he becomes strong enough to replace you, one definitive duel is all it would take to usurp your position.”

“You’ve always had an overly suspicious mind, Cernos. The administration wouldn’t allow that.” They both knew perfectly well that this wasn’t true, but it wasn’t something one could discuss safely inside the military compound.

“Think so? With all this paperwork, it’s almost like they’re preparing you for retirement. Call me suspicious or whatever, but aren’t they gift-wrapping you to be usurped?”

Rone frowned in disagreement. “Even if they were to place me as bait for him, he wouldn’t take it. The kid’s brilliant, but his mind’s not suited to betrayal. He knows everything there is to know about power, except how to want it. Ironic, considering what he’s being trained for.”

Cerno just frowned. “I don’t wanna see you get fooled by some upstart youth. You’re far too trusting, you know. The only thing that makes you fit here is your skill; your ideals and methods are like axes hanging over your throat.” He flipped the letter opener over his hand and let it fall with precision into the holder on Rone’s desk.

“Not everyone in the military is as power-hungry as you, my ambitious friend,” Rone said good-naturedly. The two men laughed.

“Well, I need to see to my recruits. My advice: test him. Enroll him in my squad as a lieutenant. Get him out in the field and see what he’s made of. Of course, his training would still be left to you,” Cerno said, standing to leave. “Don’t go soft on me, General. The military won’t be sympathetic if you get attached to some cadet and he turns on you.”

Rone sat straight at his desk and watched Cerno leave the room with an unreadable frown. He set himself back to his work calmly and appeared unconcerned with what had just happened. After he had finished what he was working on, he pulled out a fresh sheet of paper, wrote out several lines, and folded it into an envelope. He placed his stamp onto it and called the sergeant outside to take it to the central office.

“Yes, General,” the sergeant said, looking at the sealed paper. “Is this by chance a transfer notice for Mister Rhen,” he asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

“Ah, so you were listening outside the door,” Rone said knowingly, handing him the letter.

“Yes, General, I couldn’t help but wonder what General Cerno wanted to speak with you about,” he replied sheepishly.

“Just deliver it,” Rone said flatly. “And practice restraint in the future, or I’ll transfer you as well – to the mines.”

The sergeant bowed nervously at this reprimand and disappeared out the door.


~~~~ TBC!~~~~

Scars Part 4

~Warning - mature content.~

Rhen laced his boots and prepared to head to the rally point, still slightly drowsy from the long night he’d pulled studying. He would be sleeping much less, but it couldn’t be helped. Since he’d been assigned to serve in Cerno’s special tasks squadron, keeping up with the reading and training tasks Rone assigned would be more difficult. He suspected Rone would allow him a reduction in work if he were to ask for one, but Rhen was determined not to do so. Even if he was going to run missions with Cerno, the one he was more concerned with satisfying was Rone.

He stood up and lifted his pack over his shoulder, then collected his scimitars from their place against the wall, taking a sidelong glance at his notice of transfer, printed on stiff yellow paper, as he left his barrack. A few minutes later he was at the rally point, where about fifteen other men were already getting set for departure. The horses were saddled and ready, lined up along the wall. He noticed a man with gold stars on his collar and walked over to him. “General Cerno, sir?” he asked uncertainly.

Cerno turned around and looked him over coolly. “Yes, Private,” he replied curtly.

“Sergeant Rhen Scind, sir, reporting. I received a letter of transfer,” he explained.

“Rhen, is it? Good. See Sid, that man in the corner there, for a briefing on the mission,” he said, acting as if he’d never heard of Rhen before.

The other soldiers looked at him curiously and whispered to each other as he walked to Sid, a well-built human man with a ruddy face that was always half-grinning, and inquired as to the nature of the mission.

“New recruit, eh? Oh, it’s just a routine cleanup mission. With your skills, you’ll be fine,” he said congenially. Sid was the type to give one a hearty thump on the back at times like this, and made no exception for the legendary prodigy cadet. He gave a jovial smile and crossed his arms. “This your first mission?” he quipped casually.

Some of the other recruits eyed each other uncertainly at this lax behavior toward the enigmatic Rhen, but the elf gave a friendly smile. “Yes it is,” he admitted. He had immediately taken a liking to Sid.

“Alright, in formation, we’re heading out,” Cerno commanded, and the casually lounging group of soldiers quickly stopped lounging and mounted their horses, which arranged efficiently into a double-file line, each in a specific position. Rhen spotted an empty space at the end, and followed suit.

“You, Sergeant Rhen,” Cerno called sternly.

“Yes General,” Rhen replied quickly.

“Your place is up front. Sgt. Marc, take the rear,” he ordered, displacing a lanky man with dark hair at the 2nd row of the line. The two soldiers signaled their horses and repositioned obediently, and the squadron moved out.

Rhen had a vague understanding of the mission from the brief description that was included with his transfer summons. Cerno’s squadron dealt with insurgence and maintenance of Arken settlements near or directly on the Border that separated Arken and Ighten. The mission that day was related to a small walled village that was almost precisely on the Border, and which had last week proclaimed itself neutral in the Arken-Ighten war, belonging to neither side.

It was clear that the mission must therefore be related to some act of remonstration, but the actual strategic briefing for the mission had taken place before Soran had transferred. The calm demeanors of the other soldiers indicated that this were a very routine mission, so Rhen judged he was being brought along to learn the ropes directly from experience.

After several hours of riding across the gray and uneventful Arkan landscape, a dull-colored structure came into view ahead, which as they grew closer, turned out to be a graystone wall that presumably encompassed the village in question. The men guarding the gates stiffened nervously as the troop approached, but held their ground.

“Halt,” the men said firmly as the group arrived in front of them. “What business have you here? The village of Fremont is a neutral area; we wish to be left in peace,” the smaller guard said seriously.

“That is understood,” replied Cerno, with his knifelike smile. “We are here to enter into diplomatic negotiations with Fremont on behalf of her majesty, Queen Shea,” he said smoothly.

The guard seemed to bristle like a fox that has chosen to defend its cubs against a pack of wolves. “What proof have we that your intentions are peaceful?” he demanded.

Cerno smiled fangs at the guard. “I encourage you to reconsider. Surely you wouldn’t wish to cause insult to the Queen by refusing our correspondence?”

The guards eyed the squadron of only ten men and one commander. It was not entirely out of the question that this could be a diplomatic entourage. They paused for a long moment to consider while Cerno looked on impatiently. “Very well,” one said unhappily, “We will grant you an audience with our governor, provided that you go nowhere but to the meetinghouse and that no harm comes to the governor or to those inside.”

“You have my word,” Cerno obliged. The two guards exchanged a troubled glance, knowing that what they were doing was against protocol, but not fond of the prospect of opposing the Queen’s squadron singlehandedly to protect the city gate. With the simple turn of a key, they pulled open the heavy wooden gates of the walled city, and looked up at their unwanted visitors warily.

“You have my appreciation, gentlemen,” Cerno smiled. “Rhen, Ayan. Take care of them,” he said curtly.

Rhen’s attention snapped to his side as the soldier riding next to him stepped out of line and drew his sword. In a swift, routine movement, the sword flew downward and across the throat of the guard. Rhen narrowed his eyes critically and looked from Cerno to the guard on his side.

“Sergeant Rhen,” Cerno addressed him firmly. Rhen looked at him with a troubled frown. “Sergeant Sid,” he decided impatiently.

With a confused glance at Rhen, Sid rode out from behind and took down the remaining guard with the same deadly efficiency as Ayan.

Before the body had time to hit the ground, Cerno directed the group to follow him onward through the open gates.

Ayan eyed him curiously as they fell back into line and rode forward. “You shouldn’t hesitate like that. The general will think you’re questioning orders,” he explained dully. Rhen looked at him with a mix of irritation, shock, and gratitude, noticing that Ayan’s eyes seemed as devoid of emotion as dull black marbles.

Of course, Rhen understood what was going on. He now recognized the tactic they were using, having read more than enough about it to understand the situation. Annihilation. “Seduce and Dispose, or SD” was the crude nickname for the tactic. Say what was necessary to enter the territory in question – claim surrender, feign diplomatic intentions, impersonate enemy troops – and once inside, destroy everything. It was efficient, convenient, and far simpler than bothering to take prisoners.

Inside the gates, civilians peddling goods, hanging laundry, gardening, or chatting in the street looked up at the strange assemblage of horses and soldiers curiously, not yet understanding what was happening. “Rear, close the gates and guard them. The rest of you, form two groups and SD,” Cerno ordered the group once they were inside.

”SD” Rhen thought, Cerno’s words confirming his thoughts. The men at the rear of the line took the gate and bolted it obediently while the line split in two. The people on the streets finally began to sense that something was wrong, and parents began pulling their children into houses while others began fearfully leaving the streets. Soran, Sid, and two other soldiers branched off led by Cerno, while the other group rode to see to the other side of the town.

“Torch it all,” ordered Cerno idly, throwing torches back to the soldiers.

Rhen lifted his hand and caught one. Removing a match from a book in his pocket, he lit it. It was simple. Around him, the other soldiers were setting fire to the straw-thatched roves of the homes, sending civilians rushing out into the streets. Seemingly without a second thought, the others systematically struck down all who emerged. They fell to the ground like rubber mats, their blood spraying up at the horses and then spreading into scarlet pools on the ground.

Rhen looked up from the carnage to find Cerno staring straight at him critically, his sharp grin apparently seeing straight through to the elf’s hesitance. He could do this, he thought. He had trained for two years to belong to the military, and this was what the military was about. But carrying out these operations live was astonishingly different from understanding and reading about them in books. If he failed here, it would be a disgrace upon master Rone. Setting his gaze into a calm frown, Rhen kicked his horse into action and began lighting roofs, branching off down a side street as the others were doing and briskly setting fire to each building.

Moments later, desperate families began dashing out into the street, where Rhen immediately chased them down. Wielding both scimitars, he took them all down, either blunting them with the flat of a blade or delivering minor blows to the legs and torso, his weapons cunningly precise and yet missing the vital points on each victim. Most fainted from fear or pain. A woman holding a baby stared at him in terror as he galloped toward her and fled back into her burning house. The wails of the newborn merged with the roar of the fire and the frantic screams of the villagers being killed on the adjacent streets.

The job was done quickly, and Rhen picked his way around unconscious bodies as he rode back to the main street. When he arrived, he looked up stiffly to find Cerno standing there. Apparently, he had been watching him. “Good work, Sergeant. Carry on,” he smirked, kicking his horse off down another side street.

Rhen frowned at the general’s back, sweat bleeding down his face. Something in Cerno’s smile gave him the feeling that something was wrong, but he couldn’t place the feeling. He took a deep breath and moved onto the next street with a scowl of grim determination that seemed to terrify the civilians even worse. The more streets he covered, the less would die, though this treasonous thought did not pass consciously through his mind.

They were all remarkably slow runners, and many didn’t run at all, too paralyzed by fear to budge as his blade flew toward them. One poorly-dressed man whom Rhen had struck in the leg climbed back to his knees, looking up at his house writhing in flames with tears streaming down his face. “Kill me,” he begged, looking up at the elf as he passed to return to the main road. “I have nothing now! Kill me!” he screamed angrily. When Rhen simply rode past, the man rose to his feet screaming and struggled to chase after him, but collapsed quickly back to the ground. “Damn you!” he cried over and over, pounding his fist on the road in misery.

It was all over in half an hour. In just 30 minutes, the entire village was reduced to an inferno. The squadron had regrouped in the center of town in high and rowdy spirits, all of them with sweat pouring down their backs from working amidst the heat of the flames.

“Ready for Round Two, boys?” Cerno smirked triumphantly, caught up in the excitement himself.

“Round two?” Rhen thought dreadingly as the others raised their weapons over their heads in an excited chorus of “Yea!”s.

“Get to it then, and don’t leave any fun to the wolves,” Cerno snapped. Immediately, the soldiers dismounted in a chorus of ‘Yessir!’s and ran off in pairs or solo toward different sections of the town.

Not understanding, Rhen dismounted and saluted Cerno. “Sir, I must admit I don’t understand your orders. What is round two?”

“I gathered as much. It means taking care of the cleanup. Marc!” he shouted out to the lanky soldier Rhen had switched places with earlier, calling him back from the direction he was heading off in. “Show Rhen how this works. I’ll be observing you both,” he said flatly, provoking an obedient nod from Marc.

Rhen took to a run behind Marc as they ran down the main street and then began searching the side streets they had just covered. Dead bodies lay in piles everywhere, mothers on top of children, old men, pools of blood coagulating beneath them in the heat of the fire. One man’s hair had caught fare and the flames were slowly eating his face. A woman lay dead in the path in an unnatural position. When Rhen got a closer look as they passed by, he saw that she was pregnant. Her stomach had been cut open and the unborn sliced in two. Rhen kept his gaze fixed forward and empty of expression as they passed the bodies.

Marc was walking to each body and giving it a firm kick in the side. When one male body groaned at the attack, Marc swiftly brought his sword down into his chest, killing him for good. “This is cleanup,” he explained to Rhen with a smirk. “If you find anything you want on the men, snatch it up and pack it off. He leaned a bit closer to Rhen and said with a secretive nudge, “And any women you want, too. Though you need to get rid of them after.” Rhen’s face tightened as they continued down the street. Many had run out into the street to find their loved ones or try to drag their bodies to safety. Many had been injured but failed to be killed. Some had played dead and were simply hiding beneath other bodies.

Marc found a middle-aged man who had been mildly wounded in the leg, and whispered to Rhen, “Here, this one’s yours. Cerno’s watching from back there, so don’t hesitate this time.”

Rhen stared at the man, who was glaring back at him in fear and anger. There was something else wrong – his eyes seemed empty. He was blind.

“Hey, hurry it up,” Marc urged. Cerno was watching Rhen critically from the end of the road. Rhen raised his blade shakily, feeling bidden by some unknown force – at least not a force he had been taught to appreciate – to stay his blade and refuse to kill the man. It made no sense to him. He was on a mission. This was his job. He was trained for this, for two years…

Rone’s face flashed in his mind, and his arm struck down. The blade cleaved neatly across the man’s neck. He slumped to the ground, dying soundlessly. It had been easy. So easy to end a life with a simple swing… Rhen tightened his grip on his blades to prevent Cerno from noticing the trembling in his hands.

He was still staring at the dead man when Marc dragged him on. “Come on, we’re falling behind,” he urged, moving on to other bodies and striking down all that could still move or speak.

In the back of his mind, Rhen felt something seem to snap. The hellfire burning around him, the dead bodies everywhere, the cries of the bereaved who he was charged with killing, Cerno’s watchful stare… A new strength came into his shaky legs – a strength fueled by terror and desperation. He ran on with Marc, prodding bodies and cutting them open as if in a daze, the stench of blood, smoke and burning flesh saturating his lungs. By the time they’d covered three streets and the euphoria of panic was beginning to die down, he honestly did not remember how many he’d killed, but he knew that there had been men. There had been women, and there had been children. There had been babies and people old enough to be his grandparents.

Rhen looked back with a kind of detached horror at the landscape of corpses that lay behind them. When he turned forward again, he narrowed his eyes and blinked to clear the smoke. Marc was crouching over one of the civilians, who seemed to be alive. Thinking he was looting another body, which Marc had done several times already, Rhen moved to catch up. As he approached, he realized that the person lying there was a young woman, and that she was stripped from the waist down. Rhen’s chest twisted as he realized what was happening.

“Oh, hey. I’ll be done in one sec,” Marc said casually, gesturing for Rhen to go ahead. The girl’s face would have been beautiful, but it was contorted by fear and unvoiced tears at what the soldier was about to do.

“Don’t fool around. We’re due back,” Rhen said in a voice that didn’t feel like his own, cold and indifferent. He swept his scimitar downward and ended the girl’s life.

Marc glanced up at Rhen in irritation, not interested in raping a corpse. “Right,” he muttered, closing his fly and following him back to the meeting point, where Cerno met them both with a knowing smile.

And like that, it was over. An entire village leveled, not a single survivor. The men regrouped and mounted for the ride back to Aerroes in high spirits, showing off their spoils to one another as they rode.

“Didn’t you get anything, Rhen?” Sid asked him.

“No,” Rhen replied emotionlessly, riding the rest of the way in silence.

When they returned to Aerroes long after dark, they were debriefed – a meaningless speech about how their mission would bring glory to the Queen – and given leave to return to their barracks.

Rhen walked past the central courtyard, not glancing at it as he made his way to Rone’s office, where he’d been told to report in when he returned. He knocked on the door briefly and entered, as he always did.

Rone looked up from his work and grinned at his student. “Look who’s back. How was your first mission?” he asked congenially, pushing his work aside.

“It was successful,” Rhen replied.

“Oh?” Rone raised an eyebrow, hoping for more details than that, “Did you knock ‘em dead?”

Of course, the question had been meant in the rhetorical sense. “Yes,” Rhen said.

Rone eyed the man curiously. Sensing that Rhen had little more to say, he put on his more authoritative voice. “Excellent. Tonight’s a night off. Return to your quarters and get some rest. Training is at six tomorrow.

“Yes, sir,” Rhen said, saluting. Of course, training was always at six. He turned and left the room, feeling a sense of loss as he closed the door behind him, but loss of what, he could not place.

He descended the stairs of the building and headed back past the courtyward, ignoring the admiring stares of the cadets in training as he passed a group of them socializing by the ramp. He entered the plain grey building where he lived and ascended to the second floor, turned the key in his door, and locked it behind him. Inside, he set down his bag and stood his blades properly in the corner. He removed his uniform jacket and shirt, both of which were saturated with sweat and clinging to his body. The cool air of the room moving against his body had no effect on him. Turning, he walked back outside, leaving his door ajar, and stood in the brisk night air of the alley at the base of the building. No one was outside any more – the entire compound seemed to have gone to sleep. A shudder passed through him, and another. Suddenly trembling, he collapsed to his knees and, clutching the wall, he curled over and vomited until long after his stomach was emptied.

When he had the strength to stand, he shuddered back to his feet and managed to return to his room and lie down on top of his sheets, clenching his eyes until sleep mercifully took him.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

TBC

Scars Part 5

Warning: Violence

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Soran.”

“Soran!”

“Please, just go back! We don’t want this place to be cursed too!”

Hateful voices and the fearful eyes of his schoolteacher burned into him as he stood at the front of the classroom. Outside, the sounds of warfare and screaming filled the air, and scarlet flames leapt at the other side of the open classroom door.

“If you feel even a bit of pity for your classmates, leave us be!” cried the teacher in panic.

He turned to the door and stared at it fearfully, trembling too much to move. His teacher’s voice returned, bitterly. “I said GET OUT! Soran! Demon!” she screamed, throwing a book at his head. The students’ eyes stared at him, fearful and remorseless.

He squinted at the flames angrily, or guiltily, or maybe vengefully. So, even the teacher was calling him that now. He didn’t need them. Out he burst through the door and into the flames, and paled as he knew somehow that his parents were trapped in the conflagration as well. “Father! Mother!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, though no sound emerged from his smoke-coated lips. Behind him, the schoolhouse crumpled to ash, and he could see nothing in the sea of smoke and plasma. He ran blindly, tripping over a heavy form before turning back to it. The form had no recognizable face, and no clear gender.

“Don’t kill me!” it screamed hysterically, clinging to his leg. He struggled backwards in alarm, but the arm holding him merely ripped off from its host’s body, the unfeeling hand still closed about his ankle. “Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!” it screeched incessantly, raising him to a panic until he kicked it in the face. It fell still and made no more sound, and he realized as fluid oozed from its skull that it was dead. He hadn’t done that….he was sure he hadn’t kicked that hard…and yet he certainly had.

“Rhen! Don’t just stand there, you idiot!” came the brusque voice of General Rone through the flame. When he ran toward the sound, a literal wall of living bodies blocked him, grasping out at him with thin, bony arms. A pair of scimitars formed in his palms, and he began hacking through the wall, soon covered in a shower of blood, an indistinguishable throb of screaming voices battering his senses. When he finally cut through, the half-formed figure of Rone melted away to nothingness, or maybe his eyes were simply choked with blood and smoke. It was ending. The world was burning itself to dust. He looked down in horror to see the skin on his boyish arms blackening and crumpling in on itself, crackling as it peeled and fell to the molten ground….

Rhen’s green eyes shot open and took in the decayed grey plaster on the ceiling of his quarters. His muscles were tense and his back damp with sweat. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up, his expression solemn. In motions that had become automatic, he rose, washed his face, spent several minutes cleaning and sharpening his scimitars with a coarse cloth, and dressed.

He walked to the box beside his door where his orders for the day were delivered and unfolded the stiff yellow notice that had been dropped there. On it were directions to report at nine sharp for a Loyalty Mission – essentially, an assassination mission against individuals or groups within Arken territory reported to be treasonous. His assigned role was to be Primary Operator, which meant he would be heading the group responsible for eliminating the target(s) while others secured the perimeter and handled less specialized jobs such as ‘Cleaning’.

Rhen folded the paper into his pocket indifferently and left his quarters, crossing the campus to the mess hall. As he walked in, the soldiers who were standing around fraternizing fell respectfully silent for a moment, watching the soldier cross to the counter where rations were being served. The serving line dispersed as he approached it, the others stepping aside to let the near-legendary soldier pass through. Their eyes were filled with the same admiration and curiosity as they had always been, but a new element now lay in their stares. Since beginning his missions two years ago and gaining a reputation as one of the most skilled and efficient killers in the military, the level of respect he received from his peers was all the higher, but fear and caution came with this reputation as well. If Sid’s casual behavior toward him had been unusual before, it was now an exceptional rarity. He was given unrequested precedence in the serving line, but there was not one peer who would dare join him at a table. Uninterested in dealing with their reverence and fear, he rarely stayed to eat.

“Just a roll,” he said flatly to the middle-aged man who was running the counter.

“Again? You ought to have something substantial before a mission,” the server criticized protectively. His position was too far removed from military function to share in the awe of the other soldiers.

“I’m running late,” Rhen justified calmly as always in response to the man’s meddling.

The server frowned disapprovingly and handed a roll over the counter to Rhen. A few strips of meat were laid between the two hemispheres, and Rhen knew the server had prepared it in anticipation of his order. He looked down at it grimly.

“Well, go on! You’ve got your roll, ain’t you? You’re late, right?” the server shooed him off sternly, turning to attend to the line that was reforming at the counter.

Rhen left the building without a word, eating half the roll savorlessly before dropping the rest into a receptacle as he walked to the departure point. He entered the stable and saddled his horse, then led it out to where the rest of the squad was. Sid gave him a friendly wave as he mounted up and entered his place in the formation, which was in the front, three rows ahead of Sid’s. The other soldiers looked at Rhen knowingly, but said nothing. Rhen raised his hand to acknowledge Sid as he passed. The squad had met with overwhelming success since Rhen had joined, and they were well aware that they owed their fame and salaries to Rhen’s exceptional performance in battle after battle, on which they often relied far more than they should. The group fell obediently silent as General Cerno rode up to the front of the group and faced the attentive soldiers.

“We’ve been informed of a militant group of Unloyals organizing in Lethor village. They should be meeting at noon today in an inn at the center of town. Soran is Primary Operator, Sten and Ayan provide backup.” He seemed to enjoy the brief flare of indignance that blazed in the elf’s eyes as he used the name. “Fifth and sixth rows secure the two village gates. The rest of you are on SD duty from the ground. Though it’s not a border town, we have intelligence that the rebel group has received funding and popular support from the villagers, and the Queen wants a complete wipe on the settlement. Questions?” he paused for a moment, then turned to lead the men out. Of course, there were no questions. They’d carried out similar missions countless times, though complete destruction was normally avoided for non-border settlements because decreasing the population too much decreased national production rates.

Rhen looked back at Marc, who had made a tight sound in his throat during the briefing. The man’s expression was tense with alarm, and Rhen could guess what the problem was. Marc had come from that area of the country, and there was little doubt from the look on his face that Lethor village was his home town. Marc looked up at Rhen as if begging him for help. Rhen gave no reaction and faced forward again, apparently unmoved. Any refusal on Marc’s part to join the mission would raise suspicions of treason, no matter how clear the conflict of interest. Without a word, the party moved out into the dry Arkenian terrain.

* * * * * * *

Rhen kicked another door open, finally on the third and topmost floor of the inn where the mission targets were located. Sure enough, the rebels had been militant, and even seemed to have prepared for the imperial attack, meaning the information the army had received was probably a setup. Nonetheless, it had little success. Rhen and his two backup agents had taken out nearly everyone in the building.

Finding the room empty, he kicked in the doors on the left side of the hall while Ayan and Sten took the right. Kicking in the last door, Rhen found four armed men ready for him, and they came at him in unison. The elf’s scimitars flew into the first two men too quickly for them to see their fate before them, and the third’s sword was parried easily and kicked backwards into a shelf before Rhen promptly slit his throat. The fourth charged past Rhen and toward the unguarded back of Ayan, who was engaged with an opponent from the other side of the hallway.

Rhen spun on a dime and jabbed out with both scimitars through the rebel’s back, twisting his weight to throw the man sideways to the floor. His movements were mechanical, passionless, and precise; in action, he no longer resembled a person, but a horribly efficient murder machine. A minute later, Ayan and Sten finished their targets and turned to Rhen, who nodded his approval. He went to a window and looked out at the village, which was engulfed in flames, then signaled for them to exit the building. He led them back down the stairwell, surveying the piles of newly slain bodies icily as they passed each level and exited back out to the street.

“You boys done? Good. We’re moving out,” Cerno ordered from nearby, blowing a whistle to signal the Cleaners to return. Thirty seconds later, all were gathered but one.

“Where’s Marc?” Cerno demanded.

“He said he wanted to work alone on this one,” another soldier informed.

Cerno frowned impatiently. “Thirty seconds more, then we move out,” he said. The group moved to the horses and mounted, then waited in silence amidst the roar of the blaze.

Rhen peered into the smoke and flame expressionlessly as they waited for the soldier to re-emerge, but at length Cerno snapped his reigns impatiently. “Move out, he ordered, kicking his horse into motion. The other soldiers looked at one another uneasily, but they knew this was standard procedure. They kicked their animals and followed out after their General. Rhen began with them, then veered off and turned in the other direction. For a moment his and Cerno’s eyes met in a dangerous, challenging lock as the willful sergeant’s icy gaze burned into that of the stern general.

“Rhen?” Sid asked worriedly.

“Go. I’ll bring him,” Rhen said, galloping back into the smoke.

The rest of the troop hesitated for a moment, all eyes following Rhen as he disobeyed Cerno’s orders . They slowed their horses, as if considering going in with him, but Cerno’s vicious voice broke in. “Move out!” he ordered angrily, and the group followed their superior out of the burning village.

Rhen rode down the blazing streets expressionlessly, looking closely for signs of Marc. Dead bodies littered the street, but he paid no heed to them as the horse trotted across them indiscriminately. He listened through the dull roar of the fire, and made out a female scream down the path to his right. The horse refused to go down the narrow, flaming street, so the elf dismounted and proceeded on foot, pulling his shirt collar over his mouth to ward off the smoke. Another scream led him into a small cottage, the door of which was already kicked in. Inside, a middle aged man and woman lay slain on the ground, their bodies slumped together. A thump upstairs caught his attention, and he climbed through the heavy fog to the second floor. The room seemed to be used as a brewery, filled with tall kegs, but no one was there. Then he noticed a small ladder leading up into an attic-like area that connected to the roof. He could make out someone moving at the top of the ladder.

“Marc! Is that you?” he shouted through the roar of the fire.

The figure peered down from the roof at Rhen. “Soran? What are you doing?” he asked, his voice shaking unstably, as though his sanity had snapped.

Rhen ignored the undesirable name and walked closer, but retreated a step as debris from the ceiling fell in front of him. “Come on! The roof’s about to collapse,” he ordered.

“I can’t….I can’t!” Marc shuddered as though possessed, ignoring a shower of debris that fell right beside him. “I had to….ha-had to, you know? If they were going to die like th-this, it made sense….I should….that I should be the one to take them…” he cried, openly weeping now.

Rhen narrowed his eyes as he guessed the identity of the two adults at the base of the stairs. “Come down now, or I’m leaving you!” he ordered coldly.

“No….N-no, no! No!” Marc screamed like a madman as Rhen approached him. “You couldn’t understand…no!” He drew his sword to his own neck desperately.

Rhen stopped his movement, looking at the soldier sternly. “Cut it out,” he ordered, and reached out to grab him. Just as he moved, however, the floor beneath Marc gave way, and the blade dove into his neck as he fell to the floor along with the burning remains of the collapsing ceiling. Rhen had covered his head to protect him from the flames, and when he looked up again, clumps of flaming wood and tile were raining down into the room.

A grim realization suddenly hit Rhen, and he glanced back knowingly at the burning kegs of liquor in the room. He was trapped inside a time bomb. He looked at the stairs, but they had collapsed. Before he could conceive a plan to escape the room, time ran out. Flames reached the contents of one of the kegs and it blew out, setting off an instant chain reaction with its neighbors.

A wall of white-hot force flew into the soldier, and in a blinding rush of force he was hurled through the half-burned wall of the room and into the air, surrounded by heat and burning hunks of wood. He plummeted downward and ricocheted off a pile of boxes before landing on his side with a dull thud that was obscured by the consuming howl of the fire. By some wonder he managed to retain consciousness, but he could not bring his body to move. His chest ached brutally and the side of his head was bleeding warm liquid into his ear and down his neck.

The elf expected to feel something at a time like this – fear, resentment, regret, anguish – but all he was conscious of was pain and a consummate sense of indifference. It seemed something was stuck straight through his chest. He couldn’t turn his head to look at it, and didn’t try to, resting with his cheek against the pavement and staring into the smoke until it burned his eyes.

“Mister, are you ok?” a trembling voice came from next to him. Rhen’s eyes opened again to find a little girl, possibly five or six years of age, standing next to him in a dress that was probably yellow, though his vision was too hazy to know. Rhen eyed her in confusion. Had the Cleaners missed her? “Are you okay?” she repeated, placing her small hands on his shoulder and clinging to him. “What’s wrong? Hang on,” she pleaded, tears lacing from her frightened eyes. “Everyone else is gone…please hang on…” she cried, curling into his chest and struggling not to sob.

Rhen squinted down at her blankly. She clearly didn’t realize who he was, or she wouldn’t behave this way. His arm found unexpected strength and lifted to wrap gently around the girl’s back as she sobbed against him. He couldn’t explain this behavior, nor did he try to. It was the epitome of futile hypocrisy, but he wanted to protect this child. Just one… He saw now also that his chest had not been impaled by anything, after all, and a new surge of hope rose in him. If he could stand…if he could just get them both clear of the smoke…

He strained to lift himself up, but his arm began shaking beneath him and he blacked out, slumping back to the pavement with the child in his arms. “Mister….Mister?..” were the last words he heard before his senses left him.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Sorry, cliffhanger ^_^
TBC...

Scars Part 6!


* * * * * *

“Rhen? Rhen!”

The elf’s jade eyes opened blearily, not sure where he was. The world above him was a reddish blur.

“Rhen! Pull yourself together,” the voice came again, and Rhen’s vision cleared enough to look up and see Sid standing over him.

“What…the hell…” Rhen strained, remembering now what had happened. “What are you-?”

“Save your breath, we’re getting out of here,” Sid said firmly.

“I don’t think I can move…” The elf said hoarsely.

“Don’t give me that shit,” Sid snapped, taking Rhen under the shoulders with his burly arms and hauling him up to his feet. “You just broke some ribs.” ‘Maybe all of them,’ he muttered under his breath.

Rhen’s eyes finally snapped open to full awareness as pain shot through his chest, but his legs supported him. A thought suddenly came to him. He looked down and saw the child he’d been holding before still curled on the ground. If it was Sid, he would understand…there was still time. Rhen knelt down heavily and rolled the girl over, but her tear-filled eyes had glazed over. The elf blinked as if he’d been slapped. Beneath her was a pool of blood, and the warmth had left her skin some time ago. His eyes had been too blurred to see that the Cleaners had not missed her at all.

“Don’t fool around. We’re getting out of here,” Sid broke in, half-dragging Rhen through the smog-choked streets until they reached Rhen’s horse. With a shove from Sid, the elf mounted and Sid led the frightened animal to the edge of the village where his own horse waited. Returning the reins to Rhen, he mounted quickly. Both soldiers moved their horses into a brisk gallop and blew out of the village, thundering across the barren soil toward Aerroes.

“Cerno sent you back?” Rhen called to Sid, the pounding of his horse’s hooves firing hot coals up through his ribs.

“Keep dreaming,” Sid smirked.

“He won’t forgive you for acting on your own,” Rhen frowned disapprovingly.

“You’re welcome,” the man smirked. He looked over at the extremely pale elf and pulled up on the reins. “Might as well enjoy the scenery, then,” he said casually, slowing to a walk.

Rhen did likewise, all too aware that Sid was slowing for his sake. His chest screamed in relief as the merciless jostling lessened. Still, it was a long ride to go, and by the time they finally rode wordlessly in through the gates of the Academy, he was finding it difficult to breathe through his inflamed chest.

The inside of the gate was barren save for the guards, who watched the soldiers’ return in silence. No one had come to discipline them nor to welcome them. Sid dismounted quickly and crossed over to Rhen as the elf jumped down. No sooner had Rhen landed shakily on his feet and turned to face Sid than a burst of momentum caught the side of his jaw and sent him sprawling. The elf caught his balance and eyed the other soldier blankly.

“That’s for acting like an impulsive fool,” Sid huffed, lowering his fist. He cut off his lecture there, taking Rhen’s arm over his shoulder and pulling him toward his barrack. Rhen’s legs obeyed reluctantly as he was forced to lean into the taller man, moving as briskly as he could manage. Other soldiers who happened to be out around the compound looked on with nervous curiosity as the two passed. Seeing Rhen with someone else was a rare sight in itself, but for the super-soldier to be clearly wounded was enough to draw skeptical, prying stares of disbelief from the recruits.

“’The hell is so interesting? If you’ve got time to gawk, go rehearse your drills,” Sid snapped at them, his gruff scolding sending most of them shuffling off or looking tensely away. Rhen gritted his teeth and heightened his pace, which Sid matched without a word. They reached Rhen’s barrack and made it up the two flights to his quarters, which Rhen quickly unlocked. Inside, the elf cast Sid a curious stare as he walked stiffly to his bed and sat down. He hadn’t expected to be guided all the way to his room. In fact, he had never had another person in his quarters before.

“There’s a chair,” he offered on impulse, gesturing toward the plain wood chair in front of his desk.

“Yup,” Sid acknowledged, pulling it out and thunking down into it.

Somehow surprised that his offer had been taken up, Rhen removed his charred, dusty jacket and undershirt and dropped them on the ground. Setting his face solidly into the unfeeling frown he was accustomed to wearing, he probed along each of his ribs from top to bottom, fighting dizziness at each break he discovered. It seemed being blown through the wall had caused little serious damage, but the ricochet landing on the wooden crates had crushed most of the ribs on his left side.

“Listen. If you tell Cerno that you did this to me, your name should be clea-”

“He knows as well as you I couldn’t land a hit on you if I tried. Shut up and lie down. You look like hell,” Sid broke in sternly, as if he’d anticipated Rhen’s argument.

The elf’s cold eyes lowered, and he neither spoke nor moved.

“How’s your head?” Sid asked at length, eyeing the trail of dried blood that traversed his ear and neck.

Rhen reached up absently and touched the side of his head. “I didn’t notice,” he admitted as he felt the blood, but no serious pain when he touched the source.

Sid looked to Rhen’s desk, which was covered in neat piles of meticulously organized books and notes written in small, tight handwriting. He flipped one of them open and glanced at its contents, whistling. He had some reading skills, but both the vocabulary and the content were far beyond his comprehension. He noticed a pencil sketch lying out and picked it up. It was a drawing of some kind of weapon, the arching blade of which vaguely resembled a scimitar, but it lacked any kind of hilt, and carefully sketched supports led out from the sides. Detailed notes specifying dimensions and specifications for each component had been painstakingly drawn in. “What’s this?” he asked in amusement.

Rhen could make out what he was holding. “Just an idea, for now,” he said with little interest, not sure how to deal with someone looking through his notes. “I thought someday it might be useful.”

“This goes on an arm, right?” he asked, analyzing the drawing.

“Yeah,” Rhen replied.

Sid hmm’ed and thought for a moment. “I don’t know a lot of physics, but in that position, shouldn’t the blade curve more this way?” he commented, bringing the paper to Rhen and drawing a faint line extending the convex curve of the blade along most of the portion that had previously been straight.

Rhen tensed unhappily as Sid changed the blueprint without telling him, but when he forced himself to look at it, he realized Sid’s suggestion wasn’t a bad idea. “Maybe. But to avoid putting too much stress on the thin part of the bone, this first part should be more of a shallow convex angle,” he said thoughtfully.

The geometrical jargon did little for Sid, but when Soran sketched what he meant, altering Sid’s line slightly, the man readily understood the concept. “So how’re you gonna attach this thing?”

“Something like this,” Rhen replied, sketching light lines along the drawn-in supports.

“Eh?” Sid looked on with interest. “But wouldn’t this part restrict movement?”

“Maybe…if it were elastic material…”

“Too slippery. What about leaving it open?”

“Not enough support for the bone.”

“Ah….maybe this…”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Rhen squinted his eyes open to the same decaying plaster he saw every morning. His sleep had been mercifully dreamless for once. The sun was just beginning to emerge outside, throwing orange light across wall from his one small window. His body had woken at the same time as always despite the events of the night before. He looked to the side and saw that Sid must have left, though he couldn’t remember when. He looked down as a pinch reminded him of his broken ribs, and he was shocked to find a clean bandage wrapped neatly around his chest.

Sid? There could be no other explanation, but he found it hard to believe he’d really slept through something like that. He sat up stiffly and found that the swelling in his chest had gone down, making it easy to breathe and move again, albeit painful. Next to the bed, on top of the wooden chair was the revised drawing they had spent so long working on the night before, littered with notes and revisions, some in Rhen’s neat hand and some in Sid’s clumsy but sufficient blocky print. He stared at it blankly as if it were something imaginary; everything that happened the day before seemed unreal, but negotiating the drawing with Sid had to be the most so. It riled his nerves to have his work actively looked over and revised by someone, and yet in hindsight, he’d felt more content arguing with Sid over weapon specifics than he’d been in months. Maybe longer.

Like an aftershock, he abruptly recalled what had happened on the mission the day before – the usual smoke of death, Cerno’s dangerous glare as he disobeyed the order to return, Marc’s crazed eyes, the oddly protective behavior of the young child, the clamminess of her skin that alerted him to her death, the nervous stares of the others inside the compound… As always, he scarcely admitted it to himself, but moreso than ever, the cold, ill knot in his stomach decried the unbearability of this life. It was a familiar feeling that he fiercely pressed back as always into the safe blur of rationality. He had hardly eaten the day before. He had been wounded. He was short on sleep. It was only normal for his stomach to heave and his chest to ache.

Mechanically, he rose, washed and dressed, same procedure as always. He collected the day’s schedule card from his box and read it over. No mission, just training with Rone after dawn. Pulling a heavy shirt on over his bandaged chest, he collected his scimitars and headed out. He wasn’t sure what would come of his actions the day before, and oddly didn’t much care. He would just follow his schedule and see what happened.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
TBC!

Scars Part 7

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Rone looked rigidly down at the correspondence that had been left on his desk that morning, his dark eyebrows knitting in irritation. The first two paragraphs, which reported the unthinkable disobedience of his student in the line of duty, he had read through twice already, and now he moved on to the remainder of the page.

I’m sure you realize that this behavior is far beyond my ability to tolerate. However, to avoid casting a bad light on your name as his instructor, I have decided to handle this internally, rather than reporting it according to traditional procedure, and leave the conduction of punitive measures instead to your own discretion.

This event brings another thought to the forefront of my attention that has been a consideration of mine for some time and which I believe we have already discussed previously. It may be inappropriate, but I will speak freely of my concern regarding this point. This student of yours, despite his talent with the blade and natural grasp of complex battle procedures, carries himself with an air of such indifference to his assigned tasks that some are concerned there is risk of insurgence. I’ll admit I share this suspicion, particularly in light of his insubordinate behavior yesterday.

As you know, Arken has a tradition of honoring the victor in cases of challenge between student and master. You have told me that boy has no interest in power, but who in their correct mind would not choose to seize advantage if the opportunity were given? I advise you to be wary of his actions and stay on the alert, should he choose to attempt a rapid climb in position through attempting to defeat you himself. Do not put yourself in a compromising situation that may work in his favor later. I put this to you as your former servant and ally. Please give it your consideration.

-Anton Cerno

Folding the letter and sliding it back into his pocket, Rone walked briskly across the compound to the courtyard, where Rhen was standing readily at attention as always. He had arrived well in advance of the lesson’s starting time, in accordance with a tradition between the two to one-up the earliness of the other ever since Rone had teased him for tardiness at their first meeting. Now, two years later, the two men eyed each other knowingly as Rone stopped several paces in front of Rhen and Rhen bowed respectfully.

“Form eighty-six,” Rone said flatly.

Rhen backed up five paces, raised his scimitars, and flew into motion, performing an extended shadowfight with almost flawless precision.

“One hundred thirteen.” “Fifty-seven.” “One hundred fourty,” the general ordered form after form, watching strictly to be sure the elf went directly from one into the next without an instant’s hesitation. Half an hour later, after performing at least twelve forms straight, Rhen heard no further cues and ended the exercise traditionally, returning to the center of his space and bowing. He looked up at Rone emotionlessly, quietly catching up on his breath.

“Mediocre. Repeat the final form,” Rone ordered.

Rhen blinked, certain he’d performed it exactly, but readied himself and repeated the form, only to be ordered to do it again, and then again. Normally, he would not hesitate to repeat the form for as long as he was told, but the exercise pulled sharply at his ribs, and though he managed to avoid letting the injury show in his movement, it grew more and more difficult to tolerate. At length, he looked at the general and said, “Sir, what is it I’m doing wrong?” as carefully as possible.

Rone’s glare instantly told Rhen he’d done something stupid. “I’ll tell you what you’re doing wrong. You’re not doing anything right!” he scolded sharply. “Your speed, your technique, all of it, it’s exactly the same as it was months ago.”

Rhen frowned knowingly. “It’s natural to learn faster when one first begins, and then to level off,” he said.

“I don’t buy that. You are the fastest learner I’ve ever met. You came here with unlimited potential, and then the moment we put it to use, you started rotting it. Explain yourself!”

Rhen’s eyes were chilled and unreadable; a look the general noticed on him more and more these days. The student made no response, which didn’t surprise Rone much. Shortly after Rhen had begun active missions, his progress had abruptly halted, and then proceeded only very gradually. True, he was good, incredibly good, but Rone knew he could be much, much better. It annoyed him immensely to watch the soldier’s potential sit unused, but nothing he’d been able to do or change in the training had managed to rekindle Rhen’s former accelerated pace.

“Do you think you’re so good now that you no longer have incentive to improve?” he demanded.

“No,” Rhen said quickly.

“Then you’ve grown lazy and stopped trying?”

“No.”

“Then what in hell’s wrong with you, then?”

Rhen frowned at his mentor, true regret crossing his features for a moment. “I don’t know.” All his respect, all his affection, if he could call it that, went out to this one man, and the disappointment in Rone’s glare roused real guilt in the young soldier.

Rone’s glare eased slightly at the apology he felt beneath Rhen’s words. “The records for your last physical exam came back. You lost weight again,” he said strictly.

“I get a lot of exercise,” he justified.

“Sitting on your ass on a horse half the day and then slitting some throats isn’t exercise. Your real work is the work I assign you, and that’s nothing new,” Rone countered. “Start eating, or I’ll have them put you on a high-calorie diet.”

“Yes Sir,” Rhen replied stiffly. It wasn’t the first time they’d discussed this.

Rone stared at his student in frustration. “What the hell happened yesterday?” he demanded.

Rhen’s eyes widened in alarm, though he’d suspected this was coming. “Marc stayed behind, and I suspected he’d deserted, so I went to get rid of him,” he said.

“That’s not your job. You leave pest control to the Punishment Squads, and you know that perfectly well.”

“Well, that’s what I did,” Rhen snapped.

For a long, bone-chilling moment, the two men just stared each other down. “Get your blades up, boy, assuming you mean to continue your training at all,” Rone ordered dangerously, drawing out a pair of short swords from his side. In a blur of motion, he and Rhen met blades fiercely and entered into a heavy sparring match. The two went back and forth, their abilities nearly equal to each other, until Rhen finally landed a hit, carving a deep nick in the general’s shoulder armor.

Rone looked at his shoulder and back at Rhen, furious that his student had gotten the first strike on him. He flew at his student without holding back, their blades meeting over and over with heavy clangs that rang out and excited the usual spectators who were watching from around the courtyard. Rhen locked one blade with one of Rone’s and went to swing at his side, but the second blade was halted in a scatter of sparks and followed up with a sharp kick into Rhen’s side. The elf staggered at the kick and tried another attack, only to be hurled backwards by a knee to the stomach, and then struck in the solar plexus with the hilt of a sword.

“You’re hiding something. What exactly is your problem, kid? You’ve been like another person since you began your missions,” Rone shot and he struck Rhen again.

Breathless with pain, Rhen flew back at Rhone, losing his hesitation and lashing out with full speed at his teacher. “I complete the missions. What more do you want?” he growled.

“Progress,” Rone said, parrying the blow.

“Progress! Do you think what I do on those missions requires progress? It doesn’t take a lot of skill to round up half-armed fools and slit their throats like cattle. Apparently that’s all it takes to be a living legend around here,” Rhen said fiercely.

“If you shout things like that here, not even I can save you from your stupidity,” Rone growled, slicing out at him. “You dare proudly proclaim yourself a legend?”

Rhen’s gaze hardened. “Pride? Who would be proud to be Cerno’s most effective monster? I’m admired by people too frightened to stand in line with me. Sure, it must’ve all gone to my head.” Rhen was truly enflamed now, lashing out at Rone to emphasize his words. His voice darkened, “Self-proclaimed? Hardly. Perhaps I didn’t tell you, they even bestowed a nickname onto me.” In a rapid grab with both blades, he disarmed Rone of one of his swords and then pressed in on him, striking repeatedly and unpredictably. “They call me Soran,” he said piercingly, coming in close to Rone’s face with an accusatory glare.

Rone’s eyes widened with a brief flash of guilt, honestly caught off guard. He was the only one on the compound who should know about that name. Surprised and on the defensive, Rone threw his remaining sword swiftly to block the elf’s rapid attacks, unable to return with any of his own. He glared furiously as Rhen made still more dents in his armor, one at his solar plexus, one on his side, and one on his other shoulder. Finally, he reached out and grabbed Rhen’s wrist in mid-strike, twisting it roughly sideways and forcing Rhen to drop his blade.

“With your skills, you should be exhilarated to get out of the compound and put them into practice,” Rhone growled, “The army has no place for half-assed foolishness!”

“If that’s the case, let me leave,” Rhen snapped, realizing too late how stupid he had been to let the words fly out.

Rhone glared at him furiously. “What?” the man bellowed.

“Help me leave,” Rhen repeated again, quieter and with more resolution. He stared into Rone’s eyes coldly.

“You idiotic, ingrateful fool!” seethed Rone, throwing a punch into Rhen’s face, which the elf made no move to block.

When the fist pulled back again, Rhen quickly punched him in the chest and jumped back to gain room, but the general’s foot had already struck out at him, catching Rhen across the side of the knee and knocking him off balance. Rhen felt Rone’s sword slam into the armor on his back, and then a furious kick launched dead into the elf’s chest that literally sent him flying before he landed heavily on his back. His vision went white for an agonizing moment, and when it cleared it was just in time to see Rone’s blade flying down at his face. Rhen threw up his scimitar and gripped it with both hands as Rone’s attack made impact, barely stopping the force of the older man’s blade.

Rone drew back his sword and prepared to strike at Rhen again when he noticed that the elf had gone utterly pale. “Don’t lie there, get off the ground,” he barked, watching the elf suspiciously. Something was wrong.

Rhen glared at him and opened his mouth to speak, but instead his face contorted in agony and he rolled to his side with a pained choking sound.

Rone’s eyes widened in confusion and he walked around to see that blood was running from the corner of the elf’s mouth. Rhen squinted up at Rone nervously as the man knelt next to him. “There’s no way in hell I kicked you that hard,” Rone prodded impatiently, baffled by Rhen’s condition.

Rhen shook his head stiffly and tried to tell Rone to get lost, but after straining through the first syllable his voice broke again. Annoyed, he waved the general away and glared a warning.

Rone stared at Rhen blankly, paying little heed to his gestures. A flash of realization entered his eyes and he suddenly took his sword and slashed down the center of Rhen’s shirt. Unclasping the fastener on the soldier’s chest armor, he pulled it back and surveyed Rhen’s bandages in silence. Rhen lay obediently still as Rone quickly pressed on each rib through the bandage. The elf closed his eyes in shame and frustration. Everything he had ever done on the field, he had hated. All of it had been endured for Rone’s sake, and now it seemed that it had all been thrown away on one impulsive decision.

“Go back to your barrack,” Rone said, rising sternly to his feet. He retrieved his other sword from the ground and sheathed it, then left the courtyard.

Rhen watched his master leave grimly. Four years of work and trust were walking away, and there was little he could do except lie there. If Rone had ordered him to die at that moment, he might have obeyed. Instead, he pulled himself up and began the trek back to his quarters, completely oblivious to the fearful stares that followed him.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The short, slim woman who acted as one of Rone’s secretaries jumped up, startled, as the general entered the room swiftly and closed the door with a thwap behind him. “Tammy, pull Sergeant Rhen’s extended file,” he said brusquely as he went into the office and began removing his sparring gear, inspecting the gashes that had been carved into each piece. He had accused Rhen of not improving, but never before had his student managed to land so many successive hits on him, let alone injured. And yet, he felt no satisfaction from it.

“Your file, sir,” Tammy said, coming to the door with a bulky portfolio filled with notes. Feeling that detailed understanding of his background was needed to determine the course of his training, one of the first things he had required of Rhen was to detail his own personal history. The notes from those interviews, along with his own notes on each step of progress Rhen had made during the four years he’d trained him, were in that folder.

“Thanks. Tammy,” he called her back as she was about to return to her desk, “Who was the last to use this file?”

“I believe it was General Cerno, sir,” she replied.

“Who authorized General Cerno to access my private files,” Rone demanded, already expecting that answer.

Tammy blanched nervously as she got a bad feeling from Rone’s look, but had no choice but to answer. “I thought that since Rhen was enlisted in the General’s squadron…I assumed it was standard that he would use it,” she stammered.

“I see,” he replied, leaving her to stand guiltily at the door while he went back to his desk and began writing calmly on a piece of stiff paper normally used for executive decisions. A few minutes later, he sealed the note in an envelope and handed it to her. “Deliver this to the administrative office, he instructed.

Tammy looked down at the note curiously. “May I ask what it is, sir?”

“A notice for your dismissal,” he said simply as he returned to his office and closed the door decisively behind him without explanation.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

TBC!

oh boy I think I made this one too long...

Scars Part 8 wheeee

Rhen eyed the ceiling darkly as a nurse opened his door without knocking and set a medical kit next to him on his bed. The woman wore a stiff white coat and had both the smell and the cold functionality of antiseptic. He indifferently obeyed her colorless voice as it instructed him to sit up, hold out his arms, take deep breaths, try reaching behind his back. As usual, he reported no pain when queried. Her movements were mechanical and indifferent as she changed the bandage around his chest and wiped off his back with a frigid cloth, making minimal contact with his skin. When she tried to do his front, he took the towel and did it himself. The nurse’s job was not to care for the injured; it was to restore to functionality those killing machines that were more efficient to repair than replace.

“You’ve been moving around again.”

“I have work to do,” he said, his eyes piercingly cold.

“You will prolong your recovery,” she criticized sourly, only slightly fazed by the hatred in his voice. She took out a small syringe and stuck it into his shoulder, injecting a small amount of clear liquid intended to sedate him and make him sleep. Rhen resented the injections, but was determined to cooperate so he could get out.

“All you have to do is declare me healed,” he challenged, “and it won’t matter.”

Brown eyes that held no more expression than dusty marbles met his of cold jade, challenging each other in silence for a long moment.

“Notify me if anything changes,” she droned, knowing he wouldn’t, and left the room. The elf eyed the door expressionlessly and resisted the urge to lay back down. It was his seventh day confined in his room for recovery. Seven days to think about what had happened, and what he would do about it. No correspondence had arrived from Rone, though he had received orders from Cerno to report back to duty as soon as the medical unit declared him recovered, as well as to begin supplementary ‘training’. The training, he suspected, would be a combination of punishment for his insubordination and replacement for the training he’d previously undertaken with Rone. He wished he didn’t care. It shouldn’t have been surprising that Rone would really expel him from his lessons for an error of this magnitude, but it stung anyway.

Rhen got up stiffly and went to his desk, taking down a book Sid had brought him from the library. It was nothing but advanced mathematics – pages and pages of drawn out logical proofs that could make some of the best mathematicians in Arken cringe.

”Here, I picked up the one that gave me the worst headache to look at. I don’t see why you want to read this gibberish-scribble. Well, whatever floats your boat,” Sid had commented indifferently in his gruff voice when he brought the book on his way to training.

The elf sat down and picked up reading from where he’d left off. Much of it he was already familiar with, but he mainly just wanted something to keep him occupied. He read about twenty pages before his body began feeling heavy. He leaned forward on his elbow and got through another five pages before his vision began to blur. Damnit, he muttered to himself. The stupid drugs were doing exactly what they were meant to do: draining his strength, keeping him in bed so he would heal efficiently. Unfortunately, they did nothing to blur the soldier’s thoughts. They simply rendered him effectively inept, lying prone while his thoughts ate away at his mind. Rhen stood and dragged himself back to the bed, bringing the book with him in case he found energy later.

* * * * *

Rhen snapped awake at the sound of someone entering his room again. Suspecting the nurse was back, he glared over at the door only to see Sid stroll casually in.

“Still in bed?” he exclaimed. Rhen returned the question with a flat stare. “You’re living it up, ain’t ya?” the tall man retorted as he swung the door closed. He spun the elf’s desk chair around and sat on it backwards, crossing his large arms over the top of the chair.

Rhen shook his head to clear it and sat up, his chilled eyes following Sid as he crossed the room. He had no idea why, but Sid had been coming to his room every other day, albeit only briefly. To Rhen, the other soldier’s actions were incomprehensible, though he didn’t necessarily want to order him to stop. “Maybe you’d like to trade places,” the elf spat, his expression thawing just slightly.

“You’ve got no idea. Cerno’s been gung-ho as hell since the last operation, which probably means he’s actually thrilled about something,” Side commented, nosing through the neatly ordered papers on Rhen’s desk. “Why you study this stuff even though you’re on sick leave is beyond me,” he scoffed, reading through some of Rhen’s stiff-lettered notes and chuckling at their incomprehensibility.

“Do you always make a habit of showing up in people’s rooms and rummaging through their desks?” Rhen challenged critically.

“Feh, I came to check on you and this is the thanks I get,” Sid shrugged, unperturbedly poring through another book that was on Rhen’s desk. When Rhen’s stern expression still didn’t change at his joke, he said “Well, tell you the truth, I’m not here just for you. Cerno’s got orders for you to return to the squad tomorrow.”

This sparked Rhen’s attention and he eyed Sid keenly. “Did he send details?” That nurse must have finally given in and declared him recovered.

“I left it for you to open,” he said graciously as he handed the letter to the elf.

“How generous,” Rhen commented dryly, unsealing the letter and unfolding it. He read through it quickly, blinked, and read it again.

“Well?” Sid prompted impatiently.

“My position is henceforth changed to Primary Field Liutenant,” Rhen said unreadably.

Sid blinked. “Primary field lieutenant” was just a fancy word for “clean up” director. It was a significant demotion in status from his former role, but both men knew that wasn’t the only reason behind Rhen’s reassignment. “It can’t be helped, really,” Sid said. “You showed a weakness, and of course they’re going to have you correct it.” By weakness, he meant Rhen’s display of concern for a human life. They’d placed him in the bloodiest position in the squad.

Rhen’s features tightened. So this was his punishment for going after Marc. He would never work with Rone again, and his profession would be the systematic slaughter of condemned civilians.

Sid eyed him watchfully. The elf’s tanned skin had paled. “Well, at least you’ll be out of bed,” he joked, winning no applause from Rhen. He knew on some level that Rhen had some kind of problem with killing people; though he’d never seen him hesitate, there was something in his eyes and his mechanical efficiency that said he just didn’t think the same as the rest of them. Sid didn’t understand the elf’s feelings, but he knew of them, and so, he was sure, did their general.

Rhen stared at the wall numbly. A wave of hopelessness he couldn’t explain had suddenly broken over him, driving him into the sand. He didn’t care about his rank. This shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t be a problem, certainly shouldn’t horrify him, and yet it did. He entertained a brief notion to punch a hole in the wall, which he quickly subdued.

“I’ll let you have your beauty sleep,” Sid said, standing up. As usual, the tall man’s shock-blue eyes could have been interpreted as sympathetic, amused, or indifferent. Rhen didn’t try to analyze the look Sid gave him before he waved casually and left the room. Relieved to be alone, the elf finally allowed his thoughts to race freely as he got up and dressed as quickly as his drugged muscles would allow. He hadn’t mentioned to Sid the final point in Cerno’s letter, which stated that he was to report to his office immediately.

* * * * *

“Enter,” Cerno said flatly.

“You asked to see me, General,” Rhen said stiffly, entering the office and standing respectfully at attention before Cerno.

“Sit down.” He watched approvingly as the elf obeyed. “I trust you have thought at length about your conduct on the last mission.”

“It was a breach of protocol and contrary to my duty, sir,” Rhen said, subtly failing to concede any personal feelings of guilt or apology.

“Agreed. I trust you will be prepared to serve your function appropriately tomorrow.” Cerno’s knifelike eyes seemed to be dissecting the soldier as he spoke.

“Yes, Sir,” Rhen spoke.

“Excellent. Dismissed,” he said.

Rhen left the room and exited back onto the street. He had no appetite, as usual, but it seemed like a waste to be out of his room and not get something better than the god-awful stuff the nurse brought to his room. When he arrived at the mess hall, the line dispersed even faster than usual. Apparently his reputation had grown worse; who knew what rumors had been made up to explain his injuries.

He ignored their poorly camouflaged stares and went to the head of the line. When the server began preparing his usual bare sandwich to go, Rhen shook his head. “I’m eating in,” he said dully. The server looked pleased. “About time you ate properly. You’re like a stick,” he fussed, piling the usual assortment of soldier’s food onto a plate and putting it on Rhen’s tray. Rhen nodded to him and brought it to an empty table. He was too tired to eat on the run as usual, and even this place was preferable to his room.

As he forced down some rice, a dangerous idea came to him. He told himself it was absurd, but allowed it to slowly take form in his mind, while the other soldiers curiously watched the unreadable, but intense look in Rhen’s eyes.

* * * * *

“Enter,” Rone said curtly.

“Good afternoon, General,” Cerno said, walking in.

“Oh, Cerno.” The General’s voice was taut. “Come in, old boy. You wanted to see me about something?”

“Yes, I wanted to discuss something related to your former student,” Cerno said. “General, are you well? You look like you’ve been under a lot of stress.”

“I’m quite normal,” he assured. “Just working out an error in the armory shipments we’re due to receive today. What is the problem?”

“Well, sir, I don’t wish to concern you, and I know you’re no longer working with the boy, but I thought I should tell you something. He came to me in my office today, violating his quarantine, and brought up a topic with me that I found most disconcerting.”

Rone set down his pen and eyed the lower-ranking General carefully. “Yes?”

“He suggested – and I tell you this only to assure you that I’ll have no part in it – a plot which involved convincing you to take an action that would incriminate you before the Queen’s law. After which, he proposed that I collaborate with him to defeat you in the name of the law. This would allow me to be elevated to your position, and to appoint Soran into mine.

Rone narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Rhen said this?” he said, emphasizing the correct name.

“I would not dare to suggest such a treasonous plan if it had not truly been spoken to me first,” Cerno said unhappily.

“I see,” Rone said. “But it makes no sense. He’s never demonstrated such interest in power before,” he said in disbelief.

“He’s never disobeyed a direct order, either. Until now. There’s something else to consider as well: power is not the only reason men destroy each other.”

“You think he seeks revenge? On me?” Rone challenged coldly.

“Forgive me if I am mistaken, but I was under the impression he held you in high esteem. Isn’t it possible he hoped for your support in rejecting my command?”

Rone was silent for a long moment, folding his hands thoughtfully under his chin with a stern expression. “Understood. Thank you for this information. You are dismissed,” he said to Cerno at last.

“Forgive me, sir. Good day,” Cerno said graciously.

* * * * *

Rhen sat deep in thought, staring absently into the largely untouched plate of food in front of him. People were watching him, following him with their fear, with their foolish curiosity, with their ignorantly worshipping stares. He didn’t care. He was probably insane for even considering the decision he’d just made; the drugs were probably messing with his mind, distorting his judgment. He knew this, and didn’t care. All that mattered to him now was getting out of the fate he felt closing in all around him – the fate that was preparing to strangle to death something he couldn’t even name, but which he didn’t want to lose, if only because it was something he hadn’t lost yet.

He would defeat that fate. But there was no way he’d be able to do it alone. The compound perimeter was monitored perfectly at all hours. There was only one person he knew who had the authority to get him out, and even the slightest possibility of being willing to do so. It was ridiculous to expect Rone to assist him, but then, the entire concept that one could even hope to leave Shea’s army once recruited was unheard of. He frowned coldly and stood to put his tray in the dish room, walking out of the mess hall and back into the street. He breathed an inaudible sigh, unnecessarily tired from the injection as he began cutting across the courtyard to move toward the administrative offices.

“…Soran?”
“..not wearing his scimitars today?”

He overheard the private conversation, spoken just a notch too loud to escape his elven ears, of a pair of cadets standing off to his right. He looked at them with a cold, indifferent stare that incited looks of wide-eyed alarm from both of them. Rolling his eyes mentally, Rhen looked away and continued walking.

He finally approached Rone’s building, but just as he neared the door, it opened and Cerno stepped out. Rhen dodged into the small space between it and the next building and pressed himself to the wall as the General passed him. A faint smirk crossed Cerno’s lips, unseen by Rhen. When he was certain Cerno was gone, Rhen looked out from the alley and quickly entered the building. He climbed the steps to the second floor and was glad to find Rone’s usual assistants out of the office for lunch. No one was there to intercept or question him as he knocked firmly on Rone’s door.

Rone looked up from his work critically. He was already in an irritable mood, and wondered who had the gall to call on him during his lunch break. “Who is it?” he barked.

“Rhen, Sir,” the soldier announced, his voice subdued.

There was a long pause. “Enter,” Rone ordered.

The general looked up with a deep frown as Rhen opened the door and stepped into his office. “What do you think you’re doing here? You’re under quarantine,” he reprimanded coldly. Inwardly, he was shocked by how pale and visibly exhausted his former student looked. He’d looked stronger when he was untreated than he did now after a week of medical attention.

“I was declared a recovery this morning. I resume duty tomorrow.” Rhen replied evenly.

“You don’t look recovered to me,” Rone countered, remembering that Cerno had mentioned Rhen’s premature violation of quarantine, but not pushing the topic.

“I don’t need to be healthy to do my job,” the elf said, putting an end to the topic, as both men knew he was right.

“Why are you here?” Rone demanded.

“I’ve been reassigned to head cleaner for Cerno’s command,” Rhen said.

Rone narrowed his eyes. “You take issue with this?”

“Yes.”

“And you would dare ask me to have your position changed?” Rone asked sharply.

“Yes.”

A dry laugh escaped Rone’s throat. “And exactly what position would you consider more worthy of your talents?” he mocked harshly.

“None.”

“What?” Rone demanded, annoyed.

Rhen felt his confidence slipping. He was having trouble separating his determination to leave from the shock of being held in such contempt by his master. He inwardly resolved not to care. The closeness he’d felt to Rone had probably been one-sided all along. People didn’t work that way in Arken. He wondered why he did. “I’m leaving the military,” he said coldly, all respect and hesitation gone from his voice.

Rone’s eyes flared angrily. “Ha! You won’t get out of the compound, let alone a mile away from it, before they take you down. You’re well versed in every element of Arken’s military structure, technological capabilities, strategic patterns, and history. You’re a massive intelligence liability. No one would allow you to walk free, even if you were a regular soldier.”

Rhen stared Rone down icily. “I suppose we’ll see,” he said darkly.

Rone was really angry now. “Do not speak in that tone with me! What makes you think I’d sit and watch while you make this stupid decision?”

“I don’t know,” Rhen said forcefully, raising his voice to match Rone’s. The drugs were really taking their toll on him.

“You’ll be killed,” Rone reasserted.

“Fine,” Rhen said. “That’s my concern alone.”

“Like hell it’s your concern!” Rone bellowed furiously, actually causing the elf to flinch back.

“I’m leaving. Tonight. At quarter to midnight, at the south wall. With or without your help,” Rhen said decisively, tiredly. He turned to leave without waiting to be dismissed.

Rone observed with disbelief the blatant hopelessness in Rhen’s voice. The powerful spirit that had always privately impressed him was entirely missing now. Rone had understood for a long time that that spirit was too proud to destroy just for the sake of destroying. It was evident in the questions he asked, in the books he requested that simply did not exist, in the chilled fire of his eyes: He was always seeking higher meanings, things he could believe he was defending. And somehow, it was written all over the soldier’s face; he had nothing left to protect.

“You’re a fool.”

Rhen looked back at his master from the doorway. “Yeah,” he agreed, giving Rone an empty smile before disappearing.

Rone stared at the doorway, and stared. A sharp cracking sound finally drew his attention away, and he looked down to the source of the noise. The pen he’d been holding in his increasingly tense grip had finally snapped in half, and black ink spilled like blood over his palm.


TBC!

Scars Part 8.5!!

Since Scars is in need of some humor, and since my friend desires to be in the story, this is the 'lost chapter' of Scars / intermission 8)

"Pantsu no naka ni ookii neko ga iru yo!!!" -Zack



(That's my Japanese prof in the background, he's a sweet crazy Japanese man)


No Zacks were harmed (much) in the making of these photographs.

Scars Part 9 >_<

Rhen walked quickly across the compound with as much stealth as possible. It would be only a matter of time before the unconscious nurse was discovered in his room. He could not afford to risk allowing another injection, considering that he would, in all likelihood, be fighting his way out of the compound. That fight, he knew, stood little chance of going in his favor. Even should he get past the wall, it would raise the alarms and a cavalry too large even for him would make short work of him. If he were to simply disappear, the chances of his escape being pursued were much less than if he killed the Queen’s men in the process.

He came to the edge of the buildings at the Southern end of the compound and surveyed the tall Southern wall thoughtfully. At quarter to midnight, five minutes away, the shifts would change. There would be a brief lapse of perhaps two minutes while the guards acknowledged their replacements and made their reports. Still, scaling the wall meant crossing it in plain sight.

The elf took careful note as the guards moved to the center of the wall to begin the post change. It was time. He breathed deeply and prepared to step out into the open and take his chances.

A faint sound from directly behind him made the tense soldier whirl around, drawing his scimitar to the neck of the person standing behind him. He narrowed his eyes as he found himself face to face with Rone, who regarded him with a calm frown. What was he doing here?

Rone reached up and pushed Rhen’s sword away, or at least it appeared that way as he put his palm to the scimitar’s blade and let Rhen carefully move the blade away as Rone’s palm followed to avoid cutting him. “You insist on doing this, no matter what?” his low voice queried sternly.

“Yes,” Rhen managed to say, stunned by Rone’s appearance. Was he here to aid him, hinder him, or simply to watch?

Rone looked at Rhen for minute. “Come,” he ordered, and turned away. Rhen wasn’t sure what the general was thinking, but he chose to follow him down the street, staying close to walls and out of sight of the watchmen. At length they entered a small building that Rone unlocked with a key, and walked down a stone stairwell to the basement level. There, Rone pushed aside some old boxed to reveal a vertical ladder leading down into a narrow, tubelike tunnel. He climbed down, and Rhen followed behind him. At the base of the ladder there was a long, narrow walkway just tall enough to stand.

“What is this place?” Rhen asked, amazed.

“This is an emergency passageway reserved only for top-ranking military personnel. It leads under the wall and resurfaces on the side of a hill a half mile from the compound,” Rone said. “The end of the tunnel requires my password to open.”

The two lapsed back into silence as they walked onward. Some twenty minutes later, they finally arrived at a stone console, at which Rone removed a circular enchanted key and placed it into a crevice in the stone. The passage glowed dimly, and then the door unlatched. Rone pushed it open and master and student stepped out into the moonlit terrain outside the compound.

“Good evening.”

The two men spun warily toward the third voice, and discovered Hurn, one of the lower-ranking members of Cerno’s squadron, looking at them both expectantly.

“I am ordered not to interfere, but only to inform you that Cerno has been been unavoidably delayed. He will arrive within a few moments to fulfill his part in the plan.”

Soran’s gut went cold. Everything made sense now. The harsh assignment he’d been given, Cerno leaving from Rone’s office, Rone’s complicity in helping him escape despite the risk it would pose to his position… “You bastard! You planned this!” he turned angrily on Rone, drawing his scimitars readily.

Rone glared at the elf and drew his own sword. It was all true…he couldn’t believe it. He had been fooled into breaking regulation to help Rhen, and Rhen’s conspirator was there at the ready as a witness. He thought of a plan quickly. Cerno’s man was negligible; he could kill him later. What he needed was to destroy his traitorous student before the other general arrived, or the plan that had been told to him that morning would really come to pass. He and Rhen stared each other down in a lock that seemed to last an etermity. “Rhen!” he growled hatefully, diving toward his ex-student.

Rhen met blades with the older man and they struck at each other quickly before jumping back again to gain room. A shallow wound opened on Rhen’s shoulder. This time, there was no armor. There was no courtyard. If one of them messed up, the consequences would be real. There was no yelling in this fight, no empty threats, no accusations. The fury and the naked pain of betrayal singing through the air as their blades met was noise enough to voice both combatants’ rage.

Rhen went on the offensive, spinning around Rone as he struck with both weapons over and over. Rone seemed to parry them all without even moving. Finally, the general spun to face Rhen and punched him squarely in the face, knocking him backwards. Rhen flew downward and held his weight on his palms as his kicked both legs firmly out horizontally into Rone’s knee. The general groaned in pain, shifting his weight to his other leg as Rhen came in at him again with his scimitars.

The sound of steel tearing flesh caught the air. Rone stumbled off balance on his wounded knee, and Rhen grimaced, clutching his arm. The elf lifted his wounded arm and attacked again. It seemed as if the whole world was moving in slow motion, and it had nothing to do with the drugs or his wounds. He arms protested as if forced through clay as he swung at Rone, contesting his will every inch of the way. In a flash of steel, the two met over and over, blades screaming a chorus in the darkness.

Face drawn up in fierce concentration, Rhen’s blade finally struck its target, driving deep into Rone’s shoulder and slicing onward across its chest before finally tearing away. The student leapt back as the master grunted and sank painfully to one knee. Rhen held his bleeding arm numbly, his breath coming in long, driving gasps although he should hardly have been winded. He stood and stared at Rone shakily, too overwhelmed to move. He could probably finish Rone now, if he chose. Over what? For following his duty? But there was more to it; Rone could have stopped him any other way. To lead him this far into the aching jaws of hope and then forsake him…that was what Rhen could not bear to acknowledge.

Rhen approached the general and stood before him. “Master,” he said shakily, staring Rone in the eyes. “Why?”

Rone squinted at Rone in the darkness, his eyes not as a keen as the elf’s. Even without his vision, however, he had a sudden sense that something was wrong. The young man’s voice held nothing of the power-hungry traitor; its longing was closer to that of an abandoned son.

“Rhen?” the general murmured, dazed and confused as he met his student’s stare.

“My my, what a lovely show,” came a familiar, daggerlike voice from behind them. Rhen and Rone turned to see Cerno standing with his arms crossed, grinning hellishly.

“Cerno! What the hell is going on?” Rone demanded weakly, clutching his bleeding chest.

“I should think it would be obvious. Or have you two still not figured it out? “Famed General and notorious super-soldier duel for superiority outside the compound, and manage to mutually destroy one another in the process.” I dare say it’s damned close to the truth, from the looks of you two.”

“What?” breathed Rhen, staring at Cerno in disbelief.

“Aw, it seems you’ve lost your nerve to fight. Are you forgetting that this man disowned you for disobeying me? Which captain is really the superior, I wonder,” Cerno hissed, turning to Rone again. “If one of you survives, I may consider hauling you back to the compound for treatment.”

Rhen and Rone looked at each other, and back at Cerno willfully.

Cerno grimaced. “It doesn’t matter. If you’re both too pathetic to finish this fight, I will finish it for both of you!”

“Sir,” Cerno’s man said shakily, not sure what was going on but certain it was illegal. “What will they say if they learn of this?”

“None will hear of it, because nobody will know,” Cerno said comfortingly to the man.

“Nobody will…? But I-” the man’s words cut off with a warm gurgle as his throat slit open and he spasmed to the ground.

“Now you don’t,” Cerno said simply, wiping his sword on the dead man’s jacket. “Now then, which of you shall I finish off first?” he smiled at the two injured men, his foxlike gaze fixing on Rone.

“You planned this?” Rhen growled, bringing up his blades angrily.

“Well, you made it so easy. I should thank you, really. If you hadn’t come along, I’d probably never have found Rone in a condition so easy to defeat,” Cerno scoffed.

“I’ll kill you,” Rhen snarled, launching toward Cerno viciously. His attack was blocked by Cerno’s narrow-bladed sword, which slid craftily around his blade and struck toward Rhen’s chest. The elf dodged quickly, crouching low to the ground as he skitted behind Cerno and lunged up, driving his knee sharply into the general’s back. Rhen pressed a scimitar against the back of Cerno’s neck menacingly.

“Oh, no. That would be too easy,” Cerno said, and suddenly reached over his shoulder to grip Rhen’s injured arm fiercely. In the split moment that the pain staggered him, Cerno spun around and threw a hook across Rhen’s jaw, evading the threatening scimitar. The general’s long sword rose up and pressed in against Rhen’s chest. The elf could feel it nudging through the skin beneath his bandage. He retreated rapidly backwards and gave himself room to maneuver again, looking for an opening. His arm was shaking from its cut, his nerves half-numb from the shock of the whole situation.

“Getting tired, Soran?” Cerno taunted, lunging in with his sword. Rhen blocked the strike, but felt something run against the back of his ankle. Cerno had used the momentum from his attack to trip him to the ground. The elf fell sharply, and immediately felt a hard boot press down cruelly onto his chest, making him cry out.

“And now, my boy, you die.” Cerno drew his sword up over his head to get the full effect of the look on Rhen’s pained face as he swung. However, something stopped his blade.

“You always were a sloppy fighter,” Rone said darkly into Cerno’s ear, his hand tightly closed over the lesser general’s blade. Blood from Rone’s hand slid down his wrist and dripped onto Cerno’s face. “It can’t be helped, since I refused to teach you,” he ground the words in.

Cerno peered back to look at Rone, only to feel Rone’s sword dive into his back and through his chest. His mouth fell open, gagging inaudibly as blood spilled out. With a disdainful grunt, Rone pulled his blade out. Cerno’s body contracted to the ground like a dead spider.

Rone drew ragged breaths as he eyed the corpse with a hard glare, as though expecting it to rise up again. He was lightheaded and still absorbing all that had just happened. Rhen sat up and stared at Rone, stunned. An uncomfortable silence ensued.

“Sir…” Rhen said guiltily, “I thought-“

“You thought wrong, idiot!” Rone snapped. He took a step toward Rhen and then his body overruled him, sinking him to his knees.

“Sir!” Rhen exclaimed, scrambling to kneel in front of Rone.

“I’m fine, hands off!” warned the General grouchily, knocking Rhen’s hand away as the elf reached for his shoulder.

“I got you good,” Rhen frowned, eyeing the gash from his shoulder to his chest.

“Not that good,” Rone shot back indignantly. “You don’t look so great yourself.”

“I’m fine,” Rhen assured.

“Who said I’m worrying! You damned fool!” Rone snapped proudly.

Rhen nodded, looking toward the ground in silence.

“I thought wrong, also.” Rone’s unexpected words made Rhen’s eyes flash to his teacher’s in confusion.

“Sir,” Rhen acknowledged. The two men’s cold eyes shared a wary, yet knowing stare. An understanding existed between them, even if they disagreed wholly with one another’s views. For them, who opened themselves to no one, that understanding manifested the greatest possible trust.

“Well, weren’t you running away,” Rone demanded.

Rhen looked hesitant. “But your wounds-“

“To hell with my wounds!” Rone barked, smacking Rhen over the head as he always did when the elf asked something stupid. “I didn’t come all the way out here just to drag you back with me!”

Rhen frowned. “Thanks.”

“They’ll be after you in no time, so get a move on. I’ll do what I can, but it could take weeks to convince them you’re already dead,” Rone said sternly, leaning on his sword as he stood up again.

“Thank you, sir,” Rhen said again, moved.

“Will you quit saying that! Get lost!”

Rhen stood up and bowed to Rone, the formal gesture of a student to his master. Rone made no correction. “..You’re sure you can get back?” Rhen prodded one more time, this time to deliberately draw out the irritated rage in his master’s face.

“Why you little-! Mind your own business!” growled Rone, taking a menacing swing at Rhen’s head with his sword.

Rhen dodged quickly back at the predictable strike, smiling. “I’m going to miss this,” he admitted, looking at his mentor.

“Oh, by the gods! Quit that and get lost, or I’ll kill you before they do! I’d be some teacher if I had to kill my only student,” snorted Rone, turning away sternly before the elf could notice the expression on his face.

Rone smirked and turned, then ran westward without looking back. He already had in mind exactly where he would go, and it was crucial that he made it to a settlement before dawn broke and the search began.

~~~~

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee TBC

Scars Part 10

Rhen’s boots moved like sacks of gravel in the red desert soil. It was well past midday, and at last his destination was visible on the dusty horizon. If he moved briskly, it couldn’t be more than another hour’s run to reach the village. His village. Despite the danger he was in for leaving the army, he could not deny it; he was thrilled. He would give close to anything for the strength to run straight there without stopping, but as things stood, it was wiser to rest. Stopping at a cluster of foliage and boulders, he sat down and leaned against a rock, watching the town where he’d grown up as it sat securely in the distance.

It wasn’t that he loved the town; to be sure, neither the place nor its people had ever embraced him into their community. But somehow, he felt no bitterness, nor affection either. Just a patient nostalgia to go back, and to see who and what had changed since he’d left. Or maybe just to have the freedom to visit any place as a civilian rather than an agent of doom. And to see his parents again, and have them see him. For the first time, he fully considered the scale of the decision he’d made, and far from intimidating him, he was electrified by it, like a new energy now surged through him, for which he had only to find a use. How long had it been since he’d felt this alive?

* * * * *

Rhen opened his eyes in confusion, the first thing he noticed being that the sun had moved slightly in the sky. He realized he must have slipped off for about an hour – a mistake, but hopefully not a terrible one. He sat up, feeling awake at once, and turned to look back toward the town. He looked and blinked, his green eyes narrowing. He blinked again, as if a splinter had stuck there and would not remove itself. In a crash of movement, he took off toward the village as rapidly as his legs would propel him. From afar, he could be seen as a jetting spray of sand racing toward a quickly spreading tide of flames.

By the time Rhen reached the city, it was already half lit in flames. He had suspected even more, but the side that the troops had started with was the one he’d been facing, so it was difficult to ascertain the damage before getting inside. Many were fleeing their houses and running out into the streets. The elf noticed a soldier lighting houses on fire, and recognized him as Artet, one of the men he’d fought with in Cerno’s squad. Had they been sent here under a new commander so soon, after him?

Rhen looked around; it seemed very few civilians had been actually slain by the soldiers who came through. Despite the gravity of the situation, all Rhen’s mind could seem to do was think in terms of battle maneuvers and command operations, and this one was unfamiliar to him. Why burn the village but be sloppy about the cleanup? The cold, rational thought disgusted him, and he tried to reorient himself to what was happening. He ran along the main street, not caring if he was seen by the soldiers, when a shriek drew his attention from inside what he recognized as the old schoolhouse. The building had not yet caught flame. Rhen ran to the door and pulled it open; it still stuck slightly, just as it did when he attended school here.

Stepping quickly into the room, he found the schoolmaster huddled in the center of the room with a group of young students clinging to her in fright. They had been proceeding with their lessons, and only just noticed what was going on outside. The children looked at Rhen curiously, but the schoolmaster’s eyes narrowed in recognition.

“You all need to get out of this building,” he said urgently, gesturing toward the door.

“Soran,” she said as if speaking an oath, “So you’ve returned.”

The children looked up at her curiously, then at Rhen, as if finally recognizing him. They were too young to have known him personally, but they knew the stories. “Soran!” one cried out in fear, as if he were some kind of demon.

“Is this your doing? Have you come to curse our peaceful village again! How dare you! How dare you bring your curse back here! You monster!” the woman began shouting fiercely, holding her arms around the children as though he might light them on fire with his foreign green eyes at any moment.

Rhen raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Curse or not, if you don’t leave this building, you’ll all burn to death. Now, while the street’s still passable…” He looked out into the street and saw that it was quickly becoming more of an inferno than a passageway.

The children simply stared at him fearfully.

“Get out!” shouted the teacher, “We need no help from you!”

“Mrs. Trussi, it’s not a matter of whether you trust me or not, it’s a matter of plain physics that the fire will spread to this building als—”

“Please, just go back! We don’t want this place to be cursed too! If you feel even a bit of pity for us, leave us be!” the woman wailed at him.

Rhen frowned at the woman coldly. Her words were eerily familiar, but he showed no reaction to them. A more important thought had just occurred to him; his parents were in this inferno somewhere. Casting a last warning glare at the woman, he left the schoolhouse and closed the door behind him, stepping out into a wall of heat. He ran through the chaotic scene in the street, using his memory of the town as it should have been to find his way toward his old home. He could hardly think as he found the small cottage miraculously untouched by the flames, though it made some sense, for it stood apart from the other houses because the of the garden that surrounded it. The fact that it was well tended told him that his mother was alive and well, but the news was little comfort in the given circumstances. The small garden gate that used to be too tall to reach was ajar. Rhen walked through it, then braced himself and entered the house.

(I'm gonna post this chapter as I write it, so consider this chapter 10....A...lol)

Here's 10B lol


Everything was just as it used to be. It was like stepping into a memory as the elf entered the voyeur and passed the banister with the curled base that he’d always been scolded for swinging on. Here was like a different world from the flames outside. “Hello?” he called into the house deeply. No answer came. He walked slowly forward into the kitchen, with its canary wallpaper his parents had fought over and then made into a running joke for years. And on the table were the two mugs they—

Rhen’s ears pounded as he noticed red liquid pooling from the other side of the peninsular kitchen counter. He crossed the room in an instant and stared downward at the still form that lay on the ground. Kneeling quickly, he felt the pulse on the slender neck and leaned over to listen for her breath. Both were still present, but in a matter of moments, they would fade completely.

“Mother,” he said quietly, touching his fingers to her cheeks. The woman’s eyes opened tiredly and seemed to look at him, then took on an expression of weak disapproval. Probably, she could make no discrepancy between him and those who just broke into her house. Probably, she didn’t even recognize him. Her body shuddered weakly, and then the dim light that had been in her eyes was gone. Rhen passed his hands over them grimly and folded his hands on her stomach, taking deep breaths.

Here was a dead body in front of him… another corpse in the countless ones he’d encountered… in the countless ones he’d created. And at this time, of all times, why was it, that he couldn’t cry? Even if he no longer had a right to… Had he become so numb to human life that not even his own parents’ deaths mattered to him? He knelt in his mother’s blood with a profound sense of loss, but what exactly he was mourning, he was uncertain.

“Helen!” shouted a familiar voice from the front door. Rhen pushed to his feet as the sound of boots running down the hallway brought his father, slightly older, much more tired looking, but otherwise much the same, breathlessly into the room. The man looked down at his wife slain on the floor, and then up at the unfamiliar person who was in his home. “Who are you?” he demanded furiously, searching the room for a weapon and pulling a large kitchen knife off the counter.

Rhen stared at his father uncomfortably. “Dad, put the knife down.”

The man narrowed his eyes and stared at Rhen for a long moment, periodically glancing back at his wife. “Rhen, is that you?” he asked warily.

“Yes,” he answered warily.

“What are you doing here? Rhen, what…what is all this?” his father asked, his composure beginning to falter at the sight of his bloodied wife.

“A lot has happened,” Rhen said. “The military is overturning our village, but it seems they aren’t planning to exterminate the villagers themselves. It’s very strange.”

“Why! Rhen, how can you say that so calmly? And you’re wearing a military uniform! What have you done to your mother?” he cried, looking actually afraid of his son.

Rhen looked down at his bloodsoaked clothes in realization. “No,” he protested, “I didn’t do this.”

“Then who did?” he shouted, holding the knife out threateningly.

“Someone was here before me. I just got here. Please, put the knife down,” he pleaded.

“You’re lying! You’re dressed like them! You’re here with them, you’re one of them!” His father’s furious voice was broken with tears.

“Dad!”

“Don’t call me that! I mourned my son’s death the day I gave in and sold him to Queen Shea. I thought I no longer had a right to call myself a father. But now I see the betrayal is mutual. You scum! You’re every bit the curse your mother said you were! She’s all I had left!” he shouted miserably, beyond all hope of reason.

“You’re upset, it’s making you irrational,” Rhen attempted, his voice uneven.

“I mean every word! Draw your weapon! Unlike you, I won’t slay an unarmed man!” he shouted.

“Of course not!” Rhen growled.

“Draw!” shouted his father, lunging forward and stabbing Rhen in the shoulder.

Rhen made no move to dodge. He stared at his father seriously. “Stop. This is madness!”

“DRAW! he repeated, this time aiming for Rhen’s chest. In a flash of steel, the younger elf’s scimitar appeared to block the strike.

“Now fight!”

“No.”

“Fight!”

Rhen saw the knife fly at him again. Because of his high nerves, his guard was down, and he realized suddenly that he was an instant away from a mortal wound. It was all a blur, yet it moved in slow motion; his father’s knife, his scimitar, the plasma dancing at the pane of the window, the blood spreading from his mother’s body on the clean wood floor, the pupils dilating painfully in his father’s watery eyes. Rhen’s body moved on instinct, as it had a thousand times before, parrying and returning the strike. He looked at his arm for a long, paralyzing moment, following it to the wound he had just inflicted. What had he done? Aghast, he swiftly removed the blade from his father’s chest and dropped it to the floor, rushing to catch him as he collapsed.

“Father? Father, can you hear me?” he said shakily, ripping the man’s shirt open to see how much damage he’d done, though he feared he already knew.

“Yes,” the man hissed between staggered breaths.

Rhen placed his hands over the wound and pressed firmly, watching in a nightmarish daze as the blood continued to spill around his futile effort to block it.

“Stop…you stop it,” his father growled, or seemed to, half-lifting a hand as if to push Rhen away, I want..to be..with..” His whispered voice dropped off as the life left his expression.

Rhen removed his hands slowly, letting them fall to his sides. In storybooks, this was the part where the character would cry out the lost one’s name frantically, and he would open his eyes one last time to utter some message of hope or love. But this was not a storybook, and Rhen knew death when he saw it. He knew it so well…it was as if it no longer affected him. It was so easy to destroy a life. He felt something within him begin twisting, like a rope winding against its weave. Standing up, he tore his gaze from the two forms on the ground and went back to the door.

The streets were ablaze outside, and ahead, blurred in a haze of smoke, he could see exactly what he was looking for: the horse decorated in red and black that signified it as the commanding officer’s. Rhen didn’t care who was in that seat; he was going to kill him. Who was Cerno’s second in command? The list of possibilities pounded through his head as he approached the animal. Smithies? Parison? Martin? He frowned as he reached the horse and discovered that no one was mounted on it.

“Looking for me?” an all too familiar voice asked evenly from behind him.

The twist in his chest grew tighter as he turned furiously on the owner of the voice.

“RONE!”




TBC

Scars Part 11

“Rone!” The elf could feel astonishment permeating his fury as he whirled on the figure standing behind him. The general made no move to speak, studying his former student’s aggressive posture with crossed arms. “You did all of this?” Rhen growled.

“Of course,” Rone answered flatly. “I’ve accepted responsibility for ensuring your destruction.”

Rhen’s eyes flared with anger. “Don’t answer me with that crap! You said you planned to help me, and now I find you here!”

“I said I’d do what I could to convince them you were already dead, and that’s precisely what I’m doing,” Rone snapped impatiently, “Or did you think the military would be happy to let you run around at large?”

Rhen stared at Rone, startled and confused. “You planned for this to happen?” he demanded.

“Oh, don’t act naive with me, Rhen! You’re only safe ‘dead’, understand? Burning this village, at the absolute minimum, is necessary to demonstrate that that’s been accomplished. I did you a favor and went easy on the civilians who stayed out of our way.”

Rhen took a stunned breath that felt like ash in his throat. Rone’s impatient stare seemed indifferent to the tragedy surrounding them. “You killed my mother?” he asked slowly.

“It was necessary. I knew you wouldn’t have the strength to do it yourself, so I did it for you. Both of them would have been liabilities in the future.” At the furious glint in Rhen’s eyes, he continued, “Oh, the man might have kept your secret, but the woman would have turned you over in a heartbeat. You may not be aware, but she declined to pay your retrieval fee from the mines on three separate occasions. She needed to be taken out, but I left decision on the man to you.” He looked into Rhen’s eyes evenly. “I see you made the right decision.”

The twisting rope in the elf’s chest had wound tighter and tighter, but now the splintering fibers finally shredded. A howl of rage tore from his lungs as he launched toward Rone, swinging a scimitar at the man’s chest.

Rone had to rush to draw his weapon and bring it up in time to defend against the attack, frowning at his student in disapproval. “We have no reason to be fighting,” he said sternly.

“Do you actually believe that!” snarled Soran, striking again at his master.

Rone blocked and returned with a predictable downward slash of his sword. “Why should it bother you? These people are nothing to you. What have they ever done but scorn you?” he argued, locking weapons with Rhen. Seeing that that line of argument seemed beyond hope, he frowned and said, “You’re angry with me, but all of this was your own choice. You can’t pull this kind of stunt without affecting anyone else!”

“I could have tried,” Rhen snapped a fist across Rone’s jaw.

“You’re being nothing but a child!”

“And you’re a bastard.”

Rone was slowly losing ground to Rhen, surprised by the ferocity and power of the elf’s relentless attacks as they forced him to gradually retreat. This was different from the battle they’d had the night before; the general had never seen the young elf fight so viciously before. Favoring his weakened shoulder, he focused on the scimitar in Rhen’s injured arm, waiting for an opportunity to knock it from his grip. Rhen ducked below a swipe from Rone’s sword and threw a sweeping kick at his legs. The General stood his ground and chose to accept the blow. When it struck him, there would be an instant where Rhen’s guard would drop. The instant however brief, was all Rone needed to get rid of one of Rhen’s scimitars.

Rone felt the sweep strike against his ankle and as he tumbled downwards, he crushed the hilt of his sword into the elf’s hand. Rhen cringed and dropped the weapon. Before he could recover, Rone had caught the scimitar and hurled it away from them, then jabbed upward at the elf’s chest. Rhen dodged around the blow and brought his foot firmly down on Rone’s solar plexus to pin him to the ground, slicing without hesitation at the general’s neck with his remaining scimitar.

Rone brought his hilt between himself and Rhen’s blade just in time, shuddering with the effort as Rhen pressed down fiercely against his block. He looked into Rhen’s eyes and found them nearly glowing, as if the flames had spread to his jade pupils. It was a monstrous expression, and at that moment few could deny that his appearance lived up to his demonic reputation. Rone, on the other hand, was momentarily stunned to silence by the naked fear he could see clearly burning beneath the rage and determination in the elf’s eyes.

“Rhen,” he said through clenched teeth, still struggling to force the elf’s weapon away from his throat.

“Don’t call me that!” growled the elf hoarsely.

“You don’t want to kill me,” Rone said firmly from under the elf’s blade.

“Now you claim to understand what I want?” Rhen punctuated the accusation by driving his boot sharply into the general’s chest.

“You’re terrified.”

“The word is incensed, and you’re doing a great job keeping me that way,” Rhen snarled, suddenly pulling his scimitar back and spinning to strike across Rone’s thighs instead. The man grunted in surprise at the simultaneous release of pressure on his chest and explosion of pain in his legs, but used the opportunity to get into an upright position again, readying his sword. He shoved to his feet, feeling his legs protest beneath him as Rhen watched him coldly.

Rone breathed unevenly as he stared his student down, weighing the determination in Rhen’s eyes. Behind them, the sound of boots running in their direction through the smoke warned that the soldiers had finished their work and were returning. “General,” one voice called through the smog.

“Damnit,” growled Rone impatiently, and he abruptly flew at Rhen with a series of sword strikes, channeling him toward an alley. When they were nearly there and the soldiers were about to come into sight, he threw himself toward Rhen and physically hurled the elf sideways into the alley. The general wasn’t at all surprised to feel cold metal pass through his already-wounded shoulder as they wrestled in the narrow passage. He hissed and looked up thoughtfully at the younger man who was staring at him in cold confusion while still holding the scimitar that was pinning Rone’s shoulder to the wall.

“What are you doing?” Rhen demanded. When he was answered by a swift palm across his mouth, he had the uncontrollable urge to bite the older man, but instead twisted his scimitar.

“Damn it, Rhen,” the general said in a strained whisper, punching the elf in the chest to drive home the expletive. “Keep it down or they’ll find us,” he warned hoarsely. When Rhen just glared at him expectantly, he went on. “It’s pretty clear you’ve shown that you have the ability to defeat me. I can admit to that. But take me down here, and they will hunt you,” his voice rose in intensity with each word, “and every village you present yourself in, to the end of your days.

“Now personally, I could care less if they want to pursue a path of excessive destruction to get you; unlike you, I’m not plagued by that aversion. But I will care if they take you back there, because it pisses me off watching the way your skills stagnate working the Queen’s little field trips, and I will care if they kill you, because my shoulder hurts like hell and I’ll be damned if it’s for nothing.” The man stared hard into Rhen’s angry eyes. “You don’t understand what I did, but I don’t understand how a lousy village that never valued you anyway and a pair of neglectful parents are any sacrifice in light of what’s been gained.”

Rhen frowned down at Rone, disappointment replacing some of the anger in his expression. “What’s been gained, Rone?” he asked flatly, not expecting the man to understand his rhetoric. He stiffly removed his weapon from Rone’s shoulder. Rone really did intend to help him, but for entirely different reasons from Rhen’s. The elf was struck with the disillusion that their values were too different to ever hope to resolve, and with it came the knowledge that a small, but important element of everything he’d been through with Rone had been an illusion as well. “You want them to think I’m dead?” he asked the man stonily. “Fine. I’ll cooperate. What will it take. You want my weapon? Take it, the other one’s outside.” He handed the scimitar to Rone, a cold indifference in his eyes.

Rone accepted the weapon cautiously, studying the surprising coldness he’d never sensed in the elf before.

“I’m going to burn my parents’ house. You can tell them my body was destroyed there after our battle,” Rhen said, his eyes no longer betraying any trace of emotion.

“If you ever come to your senses, find me and I may be able to get you reinstated. It’s a damn waste of talent, you wandering around like this,” Rone said disapprovingly.

“I never want to see you again.” Rhen said with frigid certainty as he turned away from the general and left through the opposite end of the alley.

“Rhen.”

The elf turned back and looked at the general icily.

“Change your name.”

“I’m not a fool,” the elf responded, walking away into the red haze of the burning village. He made his way slowly through the inferno to perform the task he’d just spoken of, while Rone’s men rushed to the aid of their wounded, but victorious general as he staggered out from the shadows bearing three weapons to declare the success of their mission.

TBC ^^

Scars Part 12

The tavern was bustling with activity as the men of the town, finished with their work for the night and ready to unwind, filled the small taproom, joking loudly with one another and calling for drinks. Well accustomed to this volume, the bartender, a tall, robust man in his forties, busily filled up the mugs and slid them casually down the counter for the patrons to distribute amongst themselves. He was in the process of switching the tap to a fresh keg when a voice calling him from the counter disrupted his work.

“I’m breaking open a new one, just wait yer turn,” he called gruffly, not turning to face the voice.

“Oh, I’ve already got one,” The voice returned good-naturedly.

“Then why don’t ya go away?” complained the barkeep, turning his head forty-five degrees to see who the smart aleck was. He spotted a tall, well-built fellow with a ruddy face and blue eyes half-grinning behind the counter. Across the man’s shoulder was a pack whose obvious weight didn’t seem to bother him in the least.

“I’m looking for someone,” the stranger said casually, taking a draught from his mug.

“And so am I, but I’m afraid if I knew any women to introduce to you, I’d be with them myself, the man said dryly, filling two more mugs and sliding them down the counter.

“How much is that bottle,” the man asked innocently, pointing to a whiskey flask on the wall wrapped in gold foil.

“It’s worth more than whoever you’re looking for, I promise you that,” the bartender said, grabbing two more mugs from their hooks.

The man mock-pouted. “Not very friendly, are you?”

“I suppose not,” the barkeep said idly, then straightened up and crossed his arms, an empty mug in each hand. “Who are you looking for?” he asked more patiently.

The blue-eyed man grinned. “An elf, yea tall,” he held his hand about where his shoulder was, “green eyes, dark hair, and…” he thought for a moment, “grumpy looking.” Seeming satisfied with that description, he looked at the barkeep expectantly.

The barkeep just rolled his eyes and went on filling the mugs.

“Well?” the stranger prodded.

“Well what?” the barkeep returned indifferently.

“Do you know where he is?”

“Sure, I know,” he commented, collecting some coins from the counter into his apron as a patron stood to leave, “but he doesn’t want to meet you.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You can bet that if I humored every clueless idiot who wandered in here looking for Soran Nightblade, I’d lose him as a patron, not to mention have a much rowdier bar,” he said sternly.

“Soran?” the man echoed the name in astonishment, “But he hates…”

The bartender stared at him impatiently, tapping his fingers on the bar.

“…Thanks for the help,” the stranger said, suddenly turning to leave, dropping too much money onto the counter as he headed swiftly for the exit. He was thinking more than looking as he approached the door, and didn’t notice it swing open immediately in front of him, nor did he notice the man who walked through it until they collided.

The room suddenly fell silent, as if some unspoken rule had been broken, and the blue-eyed man found all eyes on him. He had hardly felt the impact, but the other man, who was slightly shorter, had stumbled backwards and was now staring up at him oddly.

“Sorry, there! I was in a bit of a rush,” he apologized distractedly, curiously analyzing the wary stares of the other patrons instead of the person he’d just crashed into.

“Sid?” came a voice that was familiar and yet not, chillingly shadowed as though a heavy net of darkness had long since wrapped around it, and dragged it apart from his soul.

A flash of recognition showed in the man’s face as he followed the voice back to a pair of familiar green irises. The hair had grown longer and more feral, and the fine-featured face had become darker and perhaps lost what remained of the youthful warmth it once had, but there was no doubt that the one he was looking at was Rhen. He narrowed his eyes and blinked at the elf. Then, his features exploded into a peevish smile. “Why you banana-eared, no-good missing-in-action-gremlin’s-foot-of-an-elf!” he growled, latching onto the elf’s ears mischievously and cackling as Soran wrestled wide-eyed to free them. The patrons whispered to each other in confusion; somewhere in the corner, a shocked customer actually dropped his mug in astonishment.

“What are you doing here?” shot Soran as he broke free of Sid’s horseplay and cast him a stern look.

“Me? What the hell are you doing here? Where’ve you been the last six months?” Sid returned, his tone finally sober.

The two men stood eye to eye in silence for a long moment while the rest of the room squirmed under the building tension.

“Not here,” Soran asserted, turning back out of the tavern rigidly. Sid simply followed behind the other man and closed the door behind them, letting himself be led down a cobbled street in the darkness, and then turning down several narrow alleys until they came to a lone doorway. Soran produced a key and unlocked the door, then led Sid inside, quickly setting up a candle. Though he could see quite well in the dark himself, he knew Sid had just followed him in lighting that would be pitch-blackness for a human.

“Nice place,” Sid said sarcastically, glancing around the barren apartment. There was a wool blanket folded on the floor, and a desk with a stool in the corner, with a cupboard above it. “Just like home,” he commented dryly.

Soran made no comment, shutting the door. He stood against the wall beside the doorframe and eyed Sid grimly, giving no voice to his thoughts.

“Rhen, what happened to you? Everyone thinks you’re dead,” Sid asked.

“Apparently not everyone.”

“It didn’t make sense to me. For you to challenge Cerno was one thing; that I could see coming, but Rone came back with injuries on the same night. Next thing I know, the Rhen hunt is on. Those two never worked together before; there had to be something going on. I’m sure you know more about the details than I do, but I had a feeling something was up. There wasn’t much to do about it, though, up till four days ago.”

“What was four days ago?” Soran asked suspiciously.

“I got my usual written briefing for the day’s mission from General Rone,” Sid replied with a smirk, flicking a folded yellow paper out of his chest pocket to Soran.

The elf caught the paper and read it. As soldiers, the yellow mission briefings were left in their door-slots every morning, outlining orders for the day’s training and any missions to be undertaken. Details of the mission goals and Sid’s position in the squad were given in detail, like so many hundreds of identical briefings Rhen had received for his own work. He skimmed the notice, finding most of its content mundane. One important detail, however, had been left out of Sid’s instructions. “There’s no return waypoint,” he noted.

“Right! In other words, ‘get yourself lost’, literally.”

Soran narrowed his eyes. “And you think this is a hint from Rone that you have permission to wander off and look for me?”

“I could care less what it is, now that I did it,” Sid quipped indifferently, “It was getting boring over there.”

Soran eyed the other man; a cold, empty gaze that seemed completely different from what Sid remembered. “Fine. There’s another apartment open down the alley,” he said simply.

“That’s it? You’re not going to ask if this is all some kind of trap set by Rone, or if I’m spying on you, or how I found you in this village?” Sid protested, annoyed by Soran’s indifference.

“It would matter little how you answered,” Soran reasoned. The unspoken assertion of the look in his emotionless eyes was that Soran had little concern over betrayal because he had no intention of trusting Sid to begin with.

Sid blinked at his former colleague in confusion, then grinned and let out a good-natured laugh. “Alright, I get it. I’m gonna get looking into that apartment, then,” he said, turning back for the door and swiping the candle from the desk.

“Stop.” Sid turned and looked back at the elf with a smirk. “The landlord’s asleep. Just stay here,” Soran said flatly.

“Goody. Where should I sleep?”

“Take the bed,” Soran said, gesturing toward the blanket as he walked into the washroom.

“Right, the bed,” Sid quipped, investigating the plain woolen blanket while Soran was in the other room.

Soran closed his eyes and threw cold water into his face. What was Rone thinking? No, it didn’t matter. Sid was there; it couldn’t be helped, and frankly, it made no difference. He walked back out to the main room, where Sid was already lying under the blanket. Watching Sid unreadably, he sat back against the wall in the opposite corner. The room fell silent, and Soran assumed the other soldier had fallen asleep until he suddenly broke the silence, making Soran’s nerves lock up.

“So you want to be called Soran now?”

Soran ignored the question, wanting Sid to think he was asleep so he’d shut up.

“I see your eyes open. They sort of glow, you know,” prodded Sid.

“Yeah, I think the name fits me well,” Soran replied edgily.

“Ah,” came the casual reply, followed by silence again.

“And where did ‘Nightblade’ come from?”

“Something wrong with it?”

“Well, it’s a tad dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Next time I need to generate a false identity, I’ll give thought to consulting you first,” Soran said coldly.

“You’d better,” grumbled Sid, lapsing again into silence.

“So what’d you do to the townspeople?”

“Will you go to sleep?” Soran snapped.

“What gave Soran Nightblade such a fierce reputation in six months?” Sid pressed, fiddling idly with a scrap of loose plaster at the base of the wall.

“Kicking out riffraff at the tavern, and taking out a gang that broke into my apartment.”

Sid chuckled. “What did they try to steal?”

“The blanket,” Soran said flatly.

At this, the other man burst into raucous laughter, eyes watering as he rolled onto his side and had to grasp his stomach.

After several seconds of this, Soran grew impatient. “Why is that funny?” he demanded coldly. Sid slapped the floor and continued laughing as if it was too hysterical to be communicated in words. Soran just stared at him in annoyed bafflement.

“You had to beat up a gang of thugs over a blanket!” Sid lamented, “What have I been missing?”

“Figure it out tomorrow,” Soran ordered flatly.

“Yeah, fine, I’ll be quiet. I know you elves need your beauty sleep,” Sid remarked. When he heard no response from the elf for several minutes, he finally closed his eyes and drifted off.

Soran did not sleep that night, watching his former colleague with frozen green eyes as if his too-close presence represented the most austere danger conceivable.

oOoOoOoOo

Sid’s eyes rolled open sleepily early the next morning, more from habit than from being truly awake. He lifted a calloused hand to scratch his head lazily and sat up. A slim shaft of light leaking into the dark apartment through the heavy blinds told him it was well past sunrise already. There was no sign of ‘Soran’ anywhere in the room, so after rising and milling about, he left the apartment to seek out his missing host. Having come in the dark the night before, he had to explore the maze of thin streets and alleys before he found something that looked familiar to him; a cart with a broken wheel left at the side of the street. He made a left and a right around the lines of low, dusty buildings and found himself back in the main area of the village, where a few civilians were outside going about their business and a cobblestone well marked the center of town.

Turning his attention to a nearby corner, Sid spotted the tavern where he had found his target the night before and strolled over to it, yawning into his palm as he pushed open the door and walked in. The taproom wasn’t as crowded as the night before, but still surprisingly well populated for the morning. He immediately recognized the elf he was looking for sitting at the bar counter, surrounded by three unfamiliar men who were engaged in animated discourse with the solemn ex-soldier.

Pulling up a chair at a table near the bar, he sat down to try and eavesdrop on what was going on, but found a better source of information as he caught two men at the next table discussing the situation.

“They took another five men last night,” said a thin man who was called Aln, shaking his balding head grimly and looking down at the table.

“Five more?” his companion, Tyse, made a hiss between his teeth and leaned back in his chair angrily. “They think they can just ride into any town they want and stir up trouble. Hff, we’ll straighten them out.”

Aln looked doubtful. “The Cores aren’t a group to take on lightly. A town like this could never…” His voice wandered dismally.

Sid’s interest piqued. The Cores of Hell was a notorious rebel gang that had become quite powerful over the past two years. The military had been carefully monitoring their strength, prepared to squelch it the moment it stepped out of its place, but it had grown just powerful enough to command authority in the streets and just weak enough to avoid extermination: a tedious game of political Darwinism that any independent group needed to master to survive in Arken. He wondered what the group wanted with this town, but then again, he already knew. The wheat fields he’d passed entering the town were clearly its major industry; the Cores would be planning to tax it. Of course, the Queen imposed heavy taxes already, but the Cores liked to levy ‘safety taxes’ on villages it controlled – fees that most farmers could hardly afford. As the country’s hunger problem grew and imports from outside were forbidden, the wheat grown this season would be a valuable commodity.

“We could win, if we get him…” Tyse said hopefully, glancing back over his shoulder at the three men who were negotiating something with Nightblade.

“He’s just one person.”

“He defeated them once,” Tyse said firmly, “He could do it again.”

“He has no reason to join us. Besides, I can’t really believe he took out eightteen of their men with just that lousy dagger he’s carrying,” Aln fretted.

Sid raised an eyebrow, then blinked. The Cores were the strongest fighters known outside the Queen’s army. When Soran had said he earned a reputation for taking out some thugs, he’d meant them? And over a blanket? That could have been a jest, but on the other hand, the Rhen he’d seen last night hadn’t seemed capable of making jokes. He looked over at “Soran” curiously. Something about the elf always fascinated him, but just when he’d thought he was beginning to understand the super-soldier, he’d disappeared. And now that he’d found him, he seemed to have become a different person. He wondered with vague interest what had taken place to drain the last traces of warmth out of that angled face.


“…So please, will you join us? We’ve gathered all the able fighters we can, but we can’t possibly take them on with ourselves alone. We’re just farmers; we have no tactical skills-“

“You believe I do?” Soran said coldly, drinking from his whiskey glass.

“Well, you defeated them once… and, somehow you seem to know how to fight…” the man replied nervously. He and his comrades were determined to obtain this man’s aid, but when those ice-green eyes stared him down, the confidence flowed out of him and was replaced by an instinctive dread. Still, the elf’s commanding presence only made him more sure that this man was the only one capable of leading them against the Cores. “You will be well paid,” he said resolutely.

Soran was silent for several moments, his expression impossible to read. He did not look happy with them; this was the fourth time they’d approached him this week, but they had no choice. If he wouldn’t be in on it, the men would assume it was hopeless. The three men watched him anxiously.

“Five hundred gold,” Soran finally said evenly.

“F…five hundred?” the man stuttered, his relief instantaneously drowned by panic. “Mr. Nightblade, we’d be hard-put to come up with that much, even to feed our children…”

“Make it five-fifteen,” the elf revised thoughtfully, not seeming to have heard them.

The men stared at him nervously, debating in their sideways glances whether they really needed this man at their head, wondering how bad the wheat tax would really be, deciding ultimately that they did need him. “Done,” the man to Soran’s left stated unhappily.

“In advance,” Soran said.

The men stiffened. “Fine,” the same man said warily. He reached into his coat and produced a leather sack filled with golden disks. “This is three hundred. The rest you will have tomorrow,” he said.

Sid watched the scene play out in amusement as Soran finished his drink, left a coin on the counter and rose. The villagers backed away as he accepted the pouch and headed for the door. Sid rose as well and followed the elf outside.

“What do you want,” Soran demanded without turning as he strode down the dusty street.

“Just curious how you plan to overthrow the best rebel army in Arken with five hundred gold,” Sid chuckled. “You’d be lucky to buy four horses with that much.”

“It’s all they can afford,” Soran said flatly.

“And how do you expect to get people to join you?” Sid grinned.

“Willingly.”

Sid laughed. “What kind of poor boobs do you expect to fight the Cores of Hell for free?”

“Your kind,” Soran said, a nearly-imperceptible flash of amusement forming in his eyes as Sid stopped his noisy rambling to send Soran a blank stare.

TBC *cackle*

Scars Part 13


The room swelled with the scents and sounds of alcohol and private business as Soran and Sid entered the Fox’s Den. The tavern had earned its name from the geography of its property, for the establishment was built into the side of a steep hill at the Southern edge of the town, like a smoky burrow set into the landscape. A few heads turned as the two newcomers walked in, silently scrutinizing before returning to their business in low tones. This was a very different tavern from the rowdy atmosphere of the place Soran frequented at the center of town. People rarely came to the Den without a specific matter to attend to. It wasn’t a shady establishment by rule; all manner of transactions took place there, but more than enough of the town’s illicit workings were coordinated there to keep the casual patron prudently away.

Sid looked at Soran, who was scanning the room with his permafrost eyes. “There,” Soran said, spotting a thin, insect-like man in the corner of the room, sitting alone with a cup of brandy. As they walked toward him, Sid noticed that even his face seemed to resemble a bug, large round eyes set in wide sockets with a small chin and thin, short lips.

“Berney,” Soran said to the man as they approached his table.

“That’s me,” the man said suspiciously, eyeing Soran and his muscular companion. The voice was somewhat high, and narrow.

“We’re after the Cores of Hell. I want to employ your talents,” Soran said calmly, taking the stool across from Berney without awaiting invitation. Sid almost whistled under his breath. The elf certainly didn’t beat around the bush.

Berney screwed up his face oddly and appeared undecided as to whether to shout or laugh. He laughed. “I’m a cartographer, son. Not a warrior, even if I thought you could do what you speak of.”

“I know. We need you,” Soran reasserted.

Berney’s expression changed slightly, curiosity merging with the contours of suspicion and incredulity in his thin face. “Look, I know who you are, Nightblade. And I know what you agreed to do, but also what you’re up against. Now you tell me how the heck a mapmaker’s going to help you take down the strongest gang in Arken.”

“You’ve worked with topographic maps?” The question was more of a statement.

“I specialize in them,” the man asserted.

“Have you studied the hilly ridge north of here?”

The cartographer gave a slow nod.

“You know everything there is to know about the land here. We need you. You’ll be well paid,” Soran said.

Berney laughed; a high, shrill sound. “I know perfectly well you accepted five hundred gold in sum for this job. Whatever share of that you were planning to pay me with, I’m certain it’s insufficient. Just what do you plan to pay me with?”

“A position,” Soran said, dead serious.

“A position in what?”

“In the militia that took down the Cores.”

“And who would fight with you? I assume you can afford to make little but the same offers to the rest of your intended team.” Berney’s question, intended as condescending, had slipped into wary curiosity. He was strangely interested in these lunatics’ plan.

“Twenty gold, and a position. Meet at the Boar’s Inn at dusk,” Soran said, and got up from the table. Sid winked over his shoulder at him as he followed Soran out of the room and back into the soft hum of the village streets.

“He didn’t seem enthused,” Sid said as they walked in the hot morning sunlight.

“He’ll come,” Soran said with prideless certainty.

Sid hesitated a moment, then grinned. “Yeah, I guess he will. So you’ve got your geography buff, who’s gonna help with the dirty work?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Sid raised an eyebrow.

“You’ll help find them.”

“It’s annoying, you know. How you’re right all the time.”

Soran returned the comment with a pathetically unsuccessful attempt at a grateful smile. The expression looked about as empty as the sky on a clouded Arken night, but Sid knew the attempt had been sincere.

“Rhen… Why did you agree to do this?” he asked, coming out of his sarcasm for a moment.

Soran didn’t blink, but paused for a long moment. Sid was oddly relieved to see the false smile fade from the elf’s face, defaulting again to chilled indifference. “Work is work. I can’t sit in my apartment forever.”

“Yeah, but you’re a goddamned genius, and in perfect shape. You could get any job you wanted.”

“This is where my skills lie. I’m made for this line of work,” Soran said, ever so calm.

“That’s bullshit. Besides, I was under the impression you weren’t crazy about fighting.”

“You were under a false impression,” Soran returned impatiently.

Sid looked into the elf’s hardened eyes thoughtfully. It was a lie; he was almost sure of it. But Rhen was so different from the last time he’d seen him. Something had definitely happened, but as usual, he held back from asking what. He doubted he’d be told, anyway.

“How do you expect to recruit the kind of men we need?” he asked casually.

“The same way we just did. Let’s meet back at the Boar’s Inn.”

“Dusk?”

“Dusk.”

“Gotcha,” Sid said, raising a thumbs-up at Soran. He shook his head with a smile of disbelief as he turned and walked down the street. Something about Soran made it very difficult to refuse him. He had a manner about him that made one instinctively want to satisfy him; a way of speaking that inspired faith; the authoritative presence of a natural leader. It had been felt by all around him in Cerno’s squadron, to such an extent that the men’s loyalties were pulled two ways when ordered to leave Rhen behind. And in spite of his impenetrably cold mask, it still surrounded him. Shrugging to himself, Sid considered that Soran might be right. He was made for this line of work, but it wasn’t because of anything he’d been taught in Aerroes.

He would end up doing exactly what Soran had asked of him, getting leads on strong fighters and hunting them down, and hopefully recruiting them with as much charisma as Soran, for laughable pay. But first, he had a quick errand to run in the next town. His hand closed over a folded piece of paper in his pocket as he walked toward the stables to borrow a horse.

oOoOoOoOoOo

It was a long day before the sun finally began to fall, the day’s life bleeding a cool crimson into the barren horizon. Sid sat at a booth along the edge of the dimly-lit room, playing a hand of cards with a muscular, leather-clad man with bushy brown hair tugged back into a ponytail and a rugged, but laid-back face. Several more men sat or stood around them, watching the game. The cartographer observed over Sid’s shoulder, his careful gaze scrutinizing the man’s hand.

All looked up as the heavy wood door swung open and Soran walked in with several others.

“Yo, Soran,” Sid greeted jovially. “You’re just in time. I’ve got a full house,” he smirked, laying down his hand with a victorious slap on the table.

“Straight flush,” commented his opponent, laying his cards inconsequentially opposite Sid’s and crossing his arms as the other men smirked, chuckled or shrugged at the result. Sid mock-pouted and forked his bet over the table.

“I found you a neat bunch of psychos. Good at cards, too,” Sid gloated to Soran, indicating the men in his company.

The men looked at Soran in confusion; he was young enough to be some of their sons.

“You’s Nightblade?” said the burly man sitting beside Sid’s opponent, rising to his feet in front of Soran. “Definitely not what I was expecting,” he criticized flatly as he looked the leanly built elf up and down.

“I see,” Soran replied coldly, his green eyes meeting the mercenary’s with effortless intensity.

The man, known as Groan, smirked. “I heard plenty ‘bout ‘im, but I find it difficult to believe you’re the one took out those Cores.”

“I’m glad I challenge you so,” Soran replied dully, holding his gaze.

Groan looked offended, until he finally let out a low chuckle. Then, his fist flew from his side toward Soran’s stomach. The punch lacked power, intended more as an experiment than an attack. Before most of the men in the room had registered what even happened, Groan made a short cry followed by a tempered hiss. Soran had caught his punch and thrown it behind him, drawing Groan forward and shooting his hands up to pressure points on his neck and chest. His fingers pressed expertly into the points, not striking but giving enough pressure to demonstrate the vulnerability of his position, and then released him. Groan stumbled back and blinked in surprise, his failed punch still half-extended.

“Don’t test me again,” Soran said, his voice low but imperative. He looked around at those that had gathered. Seeing that he now had the attention of the eleven men present, the elf began, “Since you’ve come, I assume you all intend to work with us against the Cores.”

The men glanced at each other thoughtfully. “What reason do we have to accept your lead?” asked a dry voice. It was Canis, the man who’d been playing poker with Sid.

“You have your stipend, and my word,” Soran said.

“And his reputation,” Sid threw in.

Canis laughed, though not harshly. “That’s one weak argument you’ve got there. But it so happens I love making stupid decisions, and this seems like it will be interesting, so count me in. Besides, if we pull this off, our fame will bring me enough work to last my whole life,” he grinned.

“Does ‘e even know where ti find the Cores?” Groan demanded, looking at the men critically. “The pay’s hardly fittin o’ the work. We ought to know how ‘e plans to pull this off.” He turned back on Soran, “Plus, I heard you were gi’n a flat five hundred for this deal. There’s eleven men here, and even at twice the rate ye offered, you an’t can reach that sum.” He stared Soran down sternly.

“While Sid sought you out, I invested the remainder into intelligence. The Cores are difficult to locate, but they also have a way of being everywhere. They’re certainly aware that I was commissioned. I’m sure you understand that I can’t divulge what I know in a place like this without compromising the success of the entire operation.”

“That’s a bluff,” Groan declared.

“He’s right. If he really knows how to locate them, this is the wrong hole to discuss it in.” The voice came from a table next to them, where a solemn-faced, somewhat gangly young man with tan hair pulled tightly back into a cord was sitting straight up in his chair with arms warily crossed.

“If he knows. Don’t act so smart, kid,” Groan asserted, winning an even glare from the other man.

“Soran Nightblade, Vex Harlin will join your fight,” he said to Soran, his eyes not leaving Groan’s.

“No good,” Soran said flatly.

“What?” Vex demanded, staring at the elf.

“I expect all of your loyalty; not children acting carelessly out of spite.”

Groan raised an eyebrow at Soran. Vex blinked indignantly.

“You’ve piqued my interest, elf,” Groan finally said. “If this is a hoax, I’m taking your life and the twenty gold.”

“Good; Welcome. And you’ll address me by my name. The rest of you?”

Soran listened attentively as the other men confirmed, a few at a time, that they would work with him. They introduced themselves, and exchanged the ritual gesture of alliance – a fist held in front of the heart and the other hand in front of it, palm-in. When those ten were on board, he turned his attention back to Vex. The young man – maybe two years younger than Soran – watched him with eyes that were both eager and proudly offended.

“Can you fight?” Soran asked him.

“Sure I can, with the best. Throwing knives.”

“Can you cooperate?”

“…Yes, of course.”

“Good. We’re ready, then.” Though it wasn’t much, Soran’s voice held the most enthusiasm Sid had heard since finding him. “Meet me at the Eastern border of the village at midnight, and we’ll go over the strategy.”

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to go in the morning, when we can see?” Vex said.

“Once the Cores catch wind that I’ve been prying around, they’ll be on watch for us. It’ll be good luck if they don’t know already. The sooner we go, the better. Berney, I need to talk to you somewhere else. We need to know the geography of the area by heart.”

The mapmaker nodded thoughtfully. Like most of the men, he wouldn’t believe in Soran’s leadership until he’d seen it in action, but the elf’s strange charisma was beginning to kindle his anticipation.

As the men split into groups to fraternize or filed out of the room, a pair of rich blue eyes followed Soran from a table in the corner of the room. That man is Soran Nightblade?” their owner pondered, fascinated.

oOoOoOoOo

To be continued!