Chapter 1 – Trial & Assignment

The Imperial Academy

City of Throne-home

Late afternoon

Sweat snaked its way through a thick layer of arena dust to burn the edges of Cadryn’s eyes. He shook his head inside the ill-fitting cadet’s helm to clear it, with little success. Risking a single glance at the red orb of the setting sun, Cadryn offered the source of oppression a half-hearted curse. The ringing of clashing metal drew his sight earthward again. He began to run through the dense rows of pillars that filled the arena grounds towards the sound, there were few combatants remaining by this point.

This would be his final Trial of Rank before graduation, filled with bad matchups, dirty fighters, and biased judges. Even through the pejorative attitudes of the capital he had overcome the station of his birth and stood on the cusp of total victory. The sand burned Cadryn’s feet as he sprinted harder, and the sound of the crowd rose like the breaking surf in his ears. Cadryn missed the ocean, it had been nearly ten years to the day since he’d seen it.

“Ho there, Mix-blood!” bellowed the voice behind a stiff arm that caught Cadryn out of the air as he passed a pillar. The flesh was about as yielding as the stone concealing the arm’s owner. Lights exploded into his vision as Cadryn crashed into the sands, his head bouncing off the inside of the helmet.

The massive slab of a man stepped out, a demonic shadow against the dying red light from where Cadryn lay, sucking in air that only stoked the fire in his chest. Appreciative whoops came out of the richest section of seats, reserved for the landed gentry.

“I never thought it’d be down to you and me!” his attacker added, chuffing wetly.

“Hello, Wazo.” Cadryn muttered while pushing up into a sitting position, he gained sight of two other cadets facedown behind the nearest pillar, their backs laid open by Wazo’s ax, still buried in the larger man. “I see you remain as honorable as ever.”

Wazo snorted and then spat a bloody stream of saliva into the sands. “See, that’s your problem Cadet Bence: you live in a lie.” He pointed to the two bodies, “like those idiots. They were fighting when I found them, asked me to wait while they settled up.

“Hard to assess skills properly in a brawl,” Cadryn offered, his breathing now even.

Wazo’s lips split into a savage smile, “You sound like a proctor.” He crossed to the bodies and gave the larger one a kick. “This one whined to me ‘Tis’ the honorable thing.’ Rubbish. Honor gets you killed fast out there, in the real world.”

While Wazo was gloating, Cadryn shifted his weight, leaning closer to where his sword lay in the sands.

Yanking his ax free, Wazo spun, and taking full advantage of his height, sent a foot lashing for Cadryn’s face.

A cheer went up from the charity seating as Cadryn dove for his sword, rolled, and came up blade at the ready. “There’s something that kills faster, Waz.” Cadryn said, grinning under the grit-caked helm.

“Do tell, Mix-blood,” Wazo ground out, raising his bloodied two-handed ax into a high guard.

“Pride.” Cadryn replied, while he surged forward into a lunge that connected just above the collarbone, not giving Wazo time to even register that it was coming. The sword sank home, nearly to the hilt.

Blood welled from around the blade, while the gigantic man coughed a thick gout of it into the eye slits of Cadryn’s helm. The smell of iron was overwhelming. Stepping back he yanked off the helmet, and the dry wind of the mountains kissed his face. He felt Wazo sagging against his blade, and ripped it free with a flourish. Starting in the charity seats, a chant of ‘Bence’ began to spread to the military side, he suspected his few Academy friends were leading it.

A wet choking proceeded wetter words, “Doesn’t matter,” Wazo managed, as Cadryn wiped his eyes clear of blood and sand.

Vibrations thrummed through Cadryn’s body as the pillars withdrew with a vast grating into the sandy earth. On his knees, Wazo was the same height as Cadryn, and his old rival’s black-brown eyes found his, “They’ll never follow you . . . never—“

The words died with the man, and with the Trial now ended, the bodies around him began to break down into the enchanted sands of the Arena.

“See you at the Fête, Waz.” Cadryn muttered. The feeling of water running down your skin as you leave the Ocean gave way to the terror of falling as his own body started dissolving into sand. As Cadryn’s awareness faded, Wazo’s final words echoed through his mind.

Despite Cadryn’s efforts to enjoy the thrill of victory, the asshole’s barb would stick with him for the rest of the night. The celebratory Fête was in honor of all those graduating, but if one had eyes to see it was really just for some of them. Despite his own top-ranked finish, despite the polite smiles of the other cadets. . . the generals spent most of their time with Cadets like Wazo; those born to the right house, of good Provalian blood. Cadryn Bence could not shake the fear that he would never earn the thing he desired most: the respect of his peers. At least his finish would assure a prominent posting within the Empire, to deny a champion that went against military tradition back to the founding. With such a start, he could forge a future that Wazo, and those like him, could not deny. Sickened with the whole affair, he excused himself with the Headmaster and staggered back to his barracks. Fatigue finally catching up with him.

Sprawling on his bunk, warm with drink, Cadryn imagined what that posting might be like, but he did not get far before slipping away into the dreamlands.

Cathedral of Gilded Poverty

Overlooking Throne-home

That night

The air sweeping up the mountain from the streets of Throne-home was the fetid breath of a diseased animal to Dulcet Shriek. As the resident Information minister for the Assemblage of Discordance in Throne-home, one might expect a kinder disposition to the city. They would be wrong, and a fool. Exhaling a thin plume of sweet pipe smoke into the wind, she watched lights of the tenements dotting the mountainside wink in and out of being with the wind's invisible passage. Tapping out her pipe, she closed the doors to the balcony and sighed at the very necessity of her post. The Assemblage’s place as the state religion was owed to the will of the Emperor alone, and so that meant tolerating the Empire that came with the ruler.

A knock sounded at the oaken door, the meek offering of an acolyte from the strength of it.

“What is it?” Dulcet called out making the words appropriately sharp.

“Apologies!” came a groveling reply, “I have the reports on the two newest local deities being inducted into the Assemblage.”

“Leave it on the table by the door,” she yelled back, and soon heard the rapid retreat of feet. More busy work. The Empire was always conquering something these days, and that meant more tedious efforts on the part of the Assemblage, which really meant on Dulcet’s part, to integrate the conquered faiths into the Assembly’s pantheon. These “new gods” mattered little before their over-deity; The Living Contradiction, however, the Emperor wills that all will be included. As such, the task could safely be ignored until the morning. Dulcet reentered her chambers, eyes sliding off the alcoves along the side of the room containing the icons of these two new additions; a voluptuous Goddess of the harvest and some over-muscled god of war, how droll . . . and supremely human. It was just one of the many things that tied all Imperial citizens together.

“And it’s time to get back to my part in keeping it together,” Dulcet whispered, sitting down at the basalt topped desk. “Which brings me to you.”

She opened the second-to-last file, sighing at the expanse of brutish features displayed in his portrait, and equally brutal disciplinary reports from the Academy. “Wazo, just . . . Wazo. How very droll.” She flipped through the pages, read over the list of Trial of Rank victories, the high marks in tactics, the low marks in history . . . the many, many, citations for unbecoming behavior.

“See,” she said, tapping her chin thoughtfully, “this is the problem with having an Empire forged by the sword; a hundred would be imitators to the Emperor, to the legend himself. All of them fighting for the same glory without realizing that the sword was merely the means, not the end. . .”

Her eyes flicked to the marker covered map table of the Empire beside her desk, noting the flags and markers of armies, fortifications, and watch towers. A particular cluster of colored flags drew her eye and she nodded. “Oh look, a field of nails, the perfect place for a hammer,” she said, chuckling at her own joke. Closing the file, she dipped a quill in iridescent ink, and penned the instructions on the thick vellum cover of the file.

Assignment of new Academy graduates was, naturally, a military matter. However, like all things in the capital, it had quickly become a political one as well. If left unchecked, resources would quickly disappear to where particular houses and factions wanted them to go, not where the Empire needed them to be for its proper defense. So, the Emperor, in his wisdom, assigned the task of overseeing the work to the Assemblage.

And they, in their own wisdom, and laziness, gave her the honor no one else wanted. Stretching luxuriously, Dulcet looked at the candle, and, noting how far it had burned down, was grateful to be nearly finished. Tossing Wazo’s file into the completed stack, she picked up the last one; it was thin, thankfully. Opening it, she let out a soft murmur of appreciation “Well look what we have here.”

The young man depicted within was hardy and fit, broad-chested with sharp features. His brown hair was cropped short, like a regular soldier’s, but it was his eyes, perfectly captured by the Academy’s portraiture, they shone as if made from the purest Gold. Below the image, the name: Cadryn Bence, Born: 99 AF.

“The champion of the Trials is handsome,” Dulcet mused as she read further, “and oh my, has some Gravanik blood, poor thing.” Dulcet shifted her attention to the rest of the file, reading over the man’s brief known history, as she traced his life along the map with her eyes. From his birth along the sea at the edge of the Empire, to his selection as an imperial prospect, and advancement through the Academy. At every turn the youth seemed to exceed his instructor’s low expectations. Their bias against someone tainted by the blood of the Empire’s only worthy adversary, overcome by his exceptional gifts. The words of commendation from his most recent instructors shone like his eyes.

Now here was a placement that mattered: a resource for the Empire, with great potential to succeed . . . but only if he could be taught to navigate the dangers ahead of him. Several areas of conflict along the southern borders, any one of which could do well with someone of Cadryn’s skills. However, the proximity of the Gravanik States, and their rumored support to the nations still fighting the Empire, would taint his career. Indeed, might cut it short if the poor lad found himself at the mercy of a paranoid General.

“No, I think not,” Dulcet said definitely. Her gaze drifted north, to the wild and largely untamed reaches of the open frontier. That edge of the Empire was fairly quiet the past few years, no nation worthy of the title existed to threaten the border. However, beyond the border, civilization gave way to the wilds and worse. It was, in several ways, not unlike the lands the Emperor had faced in his own youth. “You might not appreciate such an assignment for what it truly offers now,” Dulcet said, and picking the farthest watchtower, stuck a golden pin into it. “But I hope you do, one day.”

Closing the file, with an unsatisfying swish. Dulcet Shriek added it to the stack of completed assignments, pulled a nearby rope, the brass clapper of a bell sounded in the distance, summoning a clerk to collect the orders. With a sidelong glance at the tiny simulacra of the North-Eastern Extreme Frontier Tower on the map table, she thought of what the golden-eyed Cadryn’s reaction would be, chuckled, and went to bed.