Chapter 1: Ghosts

It had been a while since a nightmare literally threw me out of bed in the morning.

It was the jarring impact of my body hitting the floor that woke me up. My eyes shot open wide enough to hurt and in that moment I was disoriented, my breathing quick and erratic as I struggled in a tangle of bed sheets and my own twisted limbs. Even before a single coherent thought entered my head my hand shot out, looking for the hilt of my sword. Or I should say my hand tried to shoot out, instead getting rather pathetically stuck as the tight mess of sheets I’d managed to wrap around myself kept my arm firmly by my side.

It took a few moments but the feeling of gasping and not being able to get enough air eventually began to subside as it usually did. As was often the case with these sorts of dreams I could not remember specifics after I woke up. Just disjointed images, feelings, death and blood and viscera, and the faces of either friends long gone or those of screaming barbarians consumed by a thirst for blood.

Shaken and shaking, I slowly picked myself up off the floor. Looking out my bedroom window I saw that the predawn light had barely begun to touch the edges of the horizon. I rubbed my face, exhaustion from a poor night’s sleep weighing heavily on my shoulders. No way I would be able to go back to sleep at this hour though, that was a lesson I had learned from long experience.

With a heavy sigh, I resigned myself to starting my day despite the absurdly early hour.

“Come on Garrett, this is for the best,” I absently muttered to myself. “What kind of lazy layabout likes to sleep until dawn anyway?”

That easygoing sort of life wasn’t the kind of thing they’d allowed me when I’d been serving in the Imperial Legions, after all.

Heading to my room’s large and rather expensive armoire, I pulled it open and put on a warm cloak and battered boots. Then I hesitated briefly before reaching in and grabbing the sheathed sword in the back. Only the “sword” I kept in my armoire wasn’t a real sword. It was instead a wooden training weapon. On a passing whim, I looked at the training sword and used my [Observe] skill on it.

Item: [Wooden Spatha]

Rank: Common

A wooden sword closely approximating a standard Imperial Legion spatha in shape and weight. Primarily used for training.

No surprise there. It was a common item, just like nearly every other item in existence. In a way it was reassuring that the only “weapon” I could easily get to now was just this training sword. I was a civilian now. It was supposed to be peaceful, this civilian life. It was supposed to be happy, and safe, and full of friends and family. That’s what the promise had been. What need was there anymore for weapons and sharp steel in an idyllic world like that?

Yet, as I made to leave my room, I couldn’t help but glance at the loose floorboard in the far corner of my room that I knew I could pry open with a knife and just a little bit of effort. Because part of me knew – perhaps feared – deep in my bones that it was all a comforting lie we told ourselves. The peaceful blissful illusion of our world could be stripped away in an instant and I for one had to be ready.

Even if I didn’t find the probable illusion to be all that peaceful or blissful in the first place.

00000

While my family’s property was not quite large or opulent enough to be called a proper estate, it did a fair impression of passing as one in miniature. Our home was downright palatial compared to other commoners and even some of the poorer nobles, with a couple of warehouses, stables, and the typical assortment of auxiliary buildings for storage, housing the few servants that we had, and the like. Absurdly expensive and meticulously maintained flowers, bushes sculpted into various shapes and other landscaping were at their full glory everywhere the eye could see in the late spring.

I left the all too pretty and delicate courtyard in the rear of our almost-mansion and found my way to an empty patch of dirt tucked in between our stables and the woods beyond our property. It was too early for anyone to be around yet and I silently thanked all of the Celestial Family for this bit of privacy. Then, as I had done nearly every day for more than ten years now, I began to drill in the art of killing with a sword.

Compared to the blade masters of Still Lakes or even most Breakers, I doubt my swordsmanship was anything special. I parried, swept and thrust against invisible opponents like I had been taught in the Imperial Legions, a soldier’s fighting style that was as simple as it was effective. Images of the barbarians of the sky filled my head, ghosts of the dead pressing in around me and the taste of blood somehow fresh in my throat as the memories surged up to bury me underneath them. Fear and anger rode my body like an out of control horse, the images of my fellow soldiers and friends dying all around me. It wasn’t real, I knew that, obviously, I knew that, and yet my heart raced and my limbs shook against my will. There was no choice in what I needed to do though. I grit my teeth and did everything I could to fight through it.

Eventually I forced myself to being using other things that I had learned as I fought by and against myself. Officers, nobles with superior training by genuine sword masters had taken me aside and showed me a few choice pieces of their styles. A tight circular parry as you pull your sword towards you to leave an opponent unbalanced. A momentarily loose wrist to very quickly sacrifice stability for mobility. Increasing the power of your blows by tying the pommel of your sword to your center, roughly three inches below your navel. I did my best to maintain and refine all that I knew while trying to remember that it was only practice and that there was nobody here that was trying to kill me. However what my head said, and what my feelings and my body said, were two entirely different things every time I picked up a sword.

The sun had risen well over the horizon by the time I finished, drenched in sweat and feeling physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. I wasn’t sure that I felt better after my morning sword practice, exactly. What I did feel was at least a small sense of accomplishment, a sense of something done right. In my head I knew the sky barbarians had been broken at Emerald Passes and it would likely be a century or more before they could even think to threaten my province of Iskander and the empire as a whole ever again. However everything else inside of me constantly pushed and whispered, insisting that I needed to be constantly ready for it all to explode again at any moment.

I sighed, feeling raw and stretched thin by hours of training and little sleep, and slowly made my way back to my house with thoughts of a warm bath already dancing through my head.

Unfortunately a long bath and a chance to put myself together before facing the rest of the day just wasn’t in the cards for me that morning.

“Boy,” an imperious and borderline scornful voice called out to me almost as soon as I stepped foot back inside the house. I felt a flicker of annoyance at being referred to by that term, again, but truthfully I always felt like there was simply too much going on to muster up the energy to get into a fight about it.

“Father,” I said in a deliberately neutral tone, turning to face the man.

Orlandus Julius Chapman was a large man, half a head taller than me and almost twice as broad with thick logs for limbs. He had a hard jaw, unyielding eyes and a perpetually stone face. His waistline had heavily expanded over the decades and his hair was nearly more gray than black. However that had done very little to blunt the intimidating presence that the man deliberately cultivated around his children.

It was annoying, how he was always throwing his weight around with all of us. I’d been terrified of him, once. But that had been before the war and my seven year stint in the Imperial Legions. Now I just endured his antics with all the patience that I could muster.

“Are you done wasting your time with that toy sword of yours?” my father asked, walking up to me until he was just a hair too close for comfort.

A spark of anger bubbled up through my apathy. “Waste of time? Maybe next time a magic beast or a screaming barbarian comes around I’ll let you deal with it. The exercise might certainly do you some good.”

“Don’t take that sort of lip with me, boy,” Orlandus said, his eyes narrowing and his voice dropping a dangerous octave. “There are no more sky barbarians and city guards and patrols keep any beasts away. What’s the profit in wasting time and energy swinging that piece of wood around? I’ll tell you: absolutely none. You’d do best focusing on the family business rather than childishly reliving your legion glory days every morning. Be aware, that if I deem it that your performance on our business side of things begins to suffer because of these early morning distractions I might just have to ban you from pissing away your time like this.”

My eyes narrowed at that, a stubborn defiance rising up in my chest. “I’m not sure you should try that, father. I doubt it would go the way you’d expect. There is a saying in the legions about never giving orders you know won’t be obeyed. Makes you look all kinds of bad, when your men won’t do what you say.”

Father raised a meaty finger and jabbed it in my chest hard enough to hurt. I had to make an effort not to take a step back. “If I command, you will obey boy. You may be a man grown but I’m still your pater familias. My word in this household is law.” Then, perhaps wisely, he retracted his finger and immediately changed the subject. “Enough of that, though. I actually sought you out for a reason. The Lindenberry family will be arriving within the bell to pick up a rather substantial order. They are bringing their young son, and they expressed an interest in meeting you. You will be there to greet them and to finalize the transaction.”

I swallowed my irritation, and it was replaced with annoyance and a vague sense of dread. “The Lindenberry order? I thought that was for tomorrow. And why couldn’t they simply send a few men to pick it up?”

“It was for tomorrow, but the plan’s changed,” Orlandus answered gruffly. “And like I said, they expressed an interest in meeting you. They are probably just humoring their son, most likely,” he said, a sour look crossing his face. “The Lindenberrys are important customers, so don’t screw this up. Step up your game, and actually be personable and charming for once in your miserable life. In this business being good at people is the most important thing. Think you can handle that?”

“I’ll take care of it,” I said with narrowed eyes, before turning around and walking away abruptly enough to be rude. However in that moment I couldn’t have cared less. Thankfully father didn’t call me out on it and let me go.

When I reached the washroom near my bedroom and locked myself inside and leaned against the wall. Dealing with father was usually like that, a trial, an exercise in frustration and just generally an unpleasant experience altogether. Truthfully, I disliked the man, but he was family. He was also, as he liked to point out, still our family’s pater familias, and part of me still felt a filial responsibility to show him at least some measure of courtesy and respect.

Even if he never showed the same to any of his children.

But putting up with him. It was the right thing to do. He was family, right?

It was what mother would have wanted.

If I turned my back on family, what else would I have left?

With a tired sigh, I rubbed my face and turned away with an uncomfortable feeling in my chest. Taking off my soiled clothes I began to work the simple water pump to fill up the tub. A quick wash with cold water would have to do if I was to do as father asked and be on hand to greet the Lindenberry family.