Trial of Chains_Crimson Crossroads_Book One

by Sohan Ahmad

  That morning, Tyr and the Wind found themselves in the eastern Pearl City of Elatia. Nearly two hundred years earlier, Inari Pearl, a Silonician noblewoman with a taste for the peculiar, created the colorful oddity in an otherwise dark and dreary world. Even after her death, the city retained its flair for the bold and exotic. It is still a feast for the eyes and ears, Zephyrus thought, recalling his prior travels as the hum of harps and horns danced to the rhythm of painted people dressed in canvases of fused petals from the city’s rainbow gardens.

  Homes and shops were no less decadent. Even the dirt looks like it’s made of gold, Tyr thought while observing the city streets that were also swirled with streaks of royal blue. However, sight and sound were not the only meals for the senses.

  Chefs prepared their culinary imaginings with the most delicate touch. Meats were tender, so juicy they reaped water from the mouth. Sauces of purple peppers and red herbs danced across the tongue like lucid hallucinations. “Drawing them closer to enlightenment,” its citizens often said. The Pearl City attracted many of Colossea’s stranger denizens, but its warriors were of blood and steel like all others.

  The rains pounded the light into dusk, draping the streets in a fog like Tyr had never seen. Is this what an eastern rainbow looks like? he asked, waving his hand through the painted mist, expecting his hand to change color.

  I often forget he still has the heart of a child. “Come Tyr, we’re here,” the Wind advised, pointing to a sign at the end of the rainbow fog.

  “The Nova’s Forge,” Tyr read aloud.

  “Correct. It is home to the teachings of Dazzle Wyrm,” Zephyrus advised. “Ly’giri Trance earned that name nearly two decades earlier during the days of the Dragon Hunt.”

  “The bloodiest civil war in Silonician history.” Tyr added, “Ly’giri pierced the heart of Edmond Le Shanse, a famed general of the rebels’ vanguard force.”

  “You have kept up with your reading,” the Saint said, his eyes smiling on behalf of lips that had forgotten how.

  “You always say I should know my enemy.” Tyr had his doubts, however. “This time, I hope the man lives up to his legend.”

  “It seems the books left that out,” Zephyrus noted as they entered to the scent of sweat and hot breath.

  “Five more thrusts,” a woman instructed, blue hair streaked gold dancing against her neck as she conducted a symphony with her twin short-spears. “Excellent work, my children. Ly’giri is very pleased.”

  “Dazzle Wyrm is a woman?” Tyr asked, his face blushing red at the sight of Ly’giri’s curves, melting the icy glare in his eyes.

  As the students broke to rest, Zephyrus approached her with a proposal. “Greetings, Lady Trance. Can you spare a moment?”

  “Beggars are not welcome here,” Ly’giri answered, glancing at the Saint’s tattered clothes with glittered lips that twisted in disgust. “Take your runt and shoo,” she said with a wave of her wrist.

  The feminine fog that blinded Tyr vanished if only for a moment. No one speaks to Master that way.

  Before Tyr’s insulted foot stepped forward, the Wind continued, “Your coin does not interest me, only your strength. My boy would like to test it if you have a body to spare.”

  “Hah, you are a funny man.” Dazzle Wyrm hid her anger behind a thin veil of laughter. “Gather around, my children. A clown has come to entertain us.” Her tone was light, but her eyes were dark. “Amuse us with more of your funny words, clown!”

  Tyr’s fist rattled red with fury, but he remembered his master’s teachings. An angry wind is easy to see. “Master, you were right. Their claws are pretty, but dull. I doubt any of these girls are good enough to become a Dragoon.”

  “How dare you . . .” Lady Trance took the bait like a newborn mouse. “So, the funny man has a funny boy?” Ly’giri’s voice echoed like a queer elephant’s roar. “Cage! Come and teach the funny fool how sharp our claws can be.” Ly’giri shoved a blunted spear into her pupil’s chest and tossed the other toward Tyr.

  “No thank you,” he said, ignoring the spear as if it were a burden. “I prefer swords.”

  Zephyrus handed him a wooden one from within his cape. “Are you certain Lady Trance?” the Wind asked. “I hoped you would send one of your girls.”

  “The funny man should learn his place,” she answered. “My girls are too good for the likes of you.” Before entering the circle of spectators, Ly’giri whispered into Cage’s ear: “Do not fail me, boy. This is your last chance.”

  “Yes, Master Trance,” the young man replied, swallowing hard Dazzle Wyrm’s decree. Tying his dull blue hair into a tail, he took his stance. “This is your last chance to run, funny boy.”

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Tyr asked, scratching his chest as he released a wide mouthed yawn for all to see.

  “Shut your mouth!” Cage roared, charging with spear raised.

  Any hint of glimmer in Tyr’s eyes returned to the void just as his master had taught. One strike to Cage’s throbbing temple was. “Next time, stop your hands from shaking before you fight.”

  Ly’giri’s mocking disciples quickly cowered against the brightly painted walls as their jaws hung open in a stupor. However, one among leaned quiet against the corner, observing the brave boy who brought fear into their home.

  Zephyrus approached the headmaster once more. “Apologies, I neglected to mention that my apprentice has already taken life. You would be wise to take this seriously.”

  “Very well,” Ly’giri grunted. “No more games. Nyree, show this fool the majesty of Dazzle Wyrm’s spear!”

  Nyree retreated from her watchful post against the wall, approaching with a careless swagger. She was taller than Cage, with eyes that shined clear like crystal. “Your boy’s a waste of my time,” she said, brushing past Tyr without a second glance. “I’d rather fight you instead, master beggar.”

  “You have talent,” Zephyrus said, looking her up and down. “But you must defeat my apprentice first, child,” he advised Nyree no differently than those who had come before her.

  “As you wish,” she said, shrugging off the Saint’s words like specks of dust. “I’ll see you soon, old man.”

  “Tyr, you are being underestimated,” the Saint warned. “How should you respond?”

  “Make it so they never do it again,” Tyr answered, squeezing his doubts deep into the wooden blade. But, she’s a girl like Thena. “Make it so the next time we meet, they cannot raise their heads.”

  “See if you can, funny boy,” Nyree mocked, twirling her spear around her toned frame.

  “And if that does not work?” Zephyrus asked, tugging once more on that steel thread.

  Tyr’s hands trembled for the first time in years, speaking the Wind’s words within his mind before they stuttered through his lips. “Kill them.” I won’t let it come to that.

  Nyree roared the dragon’s roar, unleashing her blunted spear with furious speed. Tyr stepped left, yet she followed, striking once at the knees and then at the throat. However, each attack was met by a soft, yet firm breeze.

  Ly’giri’s squires stood silent with mouths open, tracing with their eyes a rhythmic dance of thrusts and slashes, parries and ripostes. Minutes of sweaty, contested steps passed until Tyr drilled the point of his stick into Nyree’s abdomen. Stay down. Tyr hoped, watching the prized student buckle to the ground.

  “Don’t get cocky, vagrant trash,” Nyree warned, her once stoic swagger melting as she felt Ly’giri’s glare against her back. “You were just lucky I tripped.” Assured by her lie, she continued mocking Tyr as the two entered into a furious exchange that singed the blunt faces of their weapons.

  This time, the young Breeze swept low, lifting Nyree clean off her feet. “Did you slip this time?” he asked, a grin creeping up from within his frown. “It’s over. Please stay down.”

  “Shut your mouth!” Nyree shouted, hearing the imagined cackle of his teacher and sisters: She’s no better than Cage. “Shut up!” Failure
. . . Useless . . . Loser! Madness soon swallowed her shame. “I’ll kill you!” she shouted, replacing blunted tip with sharpened steel.

  Tyr’s creeping grin twisted in disgust. You were beautiful not so long ago. But Nyree’s dragon dance was no more.

  “I’ll kill you!” she continued to shout, charging at him like a wild boar.

  “Not like that, you won’t,” Tyr warned, avoiding each thrust purely on instinct, barely using his eyes or ears for aid. “Wake up,” he said, swaying from side to side with the rhythm of a falling leaf. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  The hopeless berserker, pushed to the edges of endurance, unleashed one final act of desperation. Nyree finally managed to penetrate the wall of wind that swirled around the soft-hearted Breeze. However, Tyr hardly flinched at the wound on his harm. Instead, one of his master’s many lessons echoed from ear to ear. Give flesh so that you can break bone.

  Yes Master. Years of training usurped control from his heart, releasing a gale force guillotine that shattering his wooden sword atop Nyree’s skull.

  As she crashed to the floor, the Wind had reclaimed his Breeze. “You held back.”

  “I know she’s a warrior,” Tyr replied with gaze lowered, lingering on hands that regained their tremble. “But hurting her didn’t feel right.”

  “I hope for your sake, the East never becomes your enemy,” Zephyrus advised. “But you’re not done here,” he said, pointing to Nyree who struggled to her feet, joined by her fellow sisters and their spears.

  “Seal the exits!” Ly’giri bellowed, veins bulging from her forehead as sweat seeped from wrinkles that hid beneath paint. Worthless children. “Cleanse your shame with their blood.”

  “They would kill for their honor,” Zephyrus advised his pupil. “Will you continue to disrespect them?”

  Hanging strands of yellow concealed Tyr’s eyes as he attempted to squeeze away the shaking in his hands. “No Master,” he answered though Dazzle Wyrm and her children had the two wandering winds trapped within a circle of spears.

  “You’ll be master of Gale soon enough,” Zephyrus said, replacing the chipped, cheap steel in Tyr’s hand with the gold and leather scabbard from his hip. “But first you must learn to tame it.” He patted his disciple’s head, caressing the blond hair beneath his calloused palm. “I’ll speak with their master. You take care of the rest.”

  Unsheathing the ivory steel from its sheath kissed Tyr’s cheeks with Thena’s lips. Slicing the air to adjust to his new arm only strengthened the glow of blush upon his olive skin. In his stupor, the threats spit forth by Lygiri’s children made hardly a sound. Two broke formation, charging ahead with spears aimed at Tyr’s heart, but the Breeze was sharper than ever. “You should all come at once,” he said as the two fell as four beside him. “I don’t think I can hold back anymore.”

  “What are you afraid of?” Nyree shouted to her frozen comrades. “He’s not a Saint and there’s twenty of us.” The wound of shattered wood still throbbed atop her head, but her ferocity thawed the frozen spears that circled Tyr. “Kill him!” Lygiri’s children attacked as one, hoping to skewer the bear that threatened their home, but a bear could never be like wind. Their blades clashed like sparks of starlight in the deep night. With each passing minute, metal continued to clang until the storm died for just a moment, allowing the sun’s light to creep inside, revealing walls of red splatter within Dazzle Wyrm’s den.

  “That was beautiful,” the Wind said, inhaling a lungful of burnt herb atop Ly’giri’s broken body whose prized spears lay shattered beside her. “But we should not linger,” he said as the storms returned to the Pearl City’s streets.

  “Where will we go next?” Tyr asked, his eyes still cold and empty like those of a puppet as he wiped the crimson from his blade against his steady cloak. Their blood is easier to smell than hers was. Reminded of the forgotten mother he had long since buried.

  “It is finally time,” Zephyrus answered, retrieving his treasured blade from Tyr. “We can return home.”

  A taste more bitter than blood washed over his tongue. Home, sweet home . . . Just as swiftly as they arrived, the two winds vanished into lightning and thunder. Some days later, the sun shone on a bitter cold morning, and a wandering swordsman happened to come across the desolate tomb of Ly’giri Trance and her followers.

  Where is the sound of lumber clashing to the beat of a headmaster’s song? The wanderer wondered before entering the Nova’s Forge. Why do I smell blood when I should smell sweat? Only one of Ly’giri’s children had survived, but he was silent, praying to a handcrafted dragon idol for mercy on his fallen comrades. “What is your name, young man?” the wandering sword asked, his head lowered and hands folded in joined prayer.

  “My name is Cage Ballard,” he answered, the wanderer’s raspy breath chilling the hairs on the back of his neck like fingers of ice.

  “Such calamity, you have my sympathies,” the wanderer replied, unfolding his hands of metal. “Forgive my ill manners, but what happened here?”

  “He was so young,” Cage answered in a shudder, “but his sword . . . I didn’t stand a chance.” A cold shiver swam down his spine as he wrapped both arms like shackles around his body. “My master didn’t either.”

  Could one young swordsman have done all this? The wanderer wondered, licking his lips. “I find it difficult to believe that someone as young as you say could have killed Ly’giri Trance.”

  “No, not the boy,” Cage corrected, folding deeper into his arms. “His master.”

  “What his name?” the wanderer whispered from behind Cage’s ear.

  “I don’t know. I swear,” the surviving Wyrm answered, hiding his eyes from the gaze that loomed within the polished floor’s reflection. “I can’t! He knows I’m alive.”

  “Explain,” the wanderer whispered in the coldest breaths of his raspy breath.

  “He never took his eyes off me,” Cage replied. “Not when I played dead. Not while he killed Master Trance like she was nothing.” His hands flew to his ears to silence the screams of his fallen comrades. “I’m sorry! It’s not my fault!”

  The wanderer retreated from his ear, leaving behind a message. “Forget the sword and never return here.”

  “Why?” Ly’giri’s legacy asked, mustering the courage to return his eyes to polished floor, catching the briefest glimpse of a long, ragged cloak painted with an insignia that the young man had never seen before: a crimson circle with an open coal-black eye in the center. “Who are you?” he shouted as the wanderer faded into the rising sun, leaving behind only the shadow of three blades dangling on each from each hip.

  Chapter 21: A Demon’s Snake

  Three long years of blood and sweat would slide from his bones before Cyrus returned to the pits in his sixteenth year, the seasons marked by fleeting winters and enduring summers. “Open the box,” Bale said as two puffs of minted vapor departed from his lungs. You’ve grown much. Was it enough? We’ll soon find out.

  Hard training had seasoned the young slave’s once plush, white cheeks into chiseled clay as a mane of long, braided black draped over his shoulder. What is it? He wondered, unlatching the dingy wooden coffer with calloused fingers. “It is beautiful.” His green eyes recaptured for a moment that youthful shine. “Thank you, Bale.”

  “Stop gawking and pick it up,” the champion barked.

  He lifted the blade-tipped snake, fashioned in the likeness of Bale’s favored weapon. The steel cord bathed in a ruby’s light with two razor-edged obsidian daggers on each end. Cyrus let its weight caress his neck and shoulders. He twirled both ends and began slicing the air with a familiar rhythm, as if he had recovered a missing piece of his soul.

  “She suits you well,” the champion remarked. “You no longer speak of the old days, so I had her crafted in your mother’s image.” He looked into the sky, puffing a ring of smoke towards the stars. “My regrets, I could only remember so little.” Before Bale uttered another word, Cyrus embraced him as kin. B
ale squeezed in kind, reminding Cyrus, “Never forget why you fight.”

  “Thank you, brother,” the young gladiator whispered.

  Their embrace was short lived, but long felt. “What shall we call her, then?” the champion asked, snuffing his seekar’s smoke into the sand.

  Regardless of how much Cyrus had changed as he shed the past, there was one face he would never forget. “Isa,” he answered, clutching the blades against his chest.

  “Excellent,” Bale said. “Now that your blade has a name, you still need to make yours in the Pits. Go rest, catch up with your mother and clear your mind. Tomorrow will tell if you can accomplish your mad dream.”

  The sun soon set before returning with great haste the following morning. Ever bashful clouds graced the skies amid a dry and barren morning. Karda tired of the unyielding heat, and so Dakar presided over the day’s games. “Brothers and sisters, look to the heavens. The Storm Lord forsakes us, yet he does not forget.” Some grasped their hands, praying to the graying blue, but many refused to waste their strength on hope. Their passion was reserved for the fresh blood of virgin flesh.

  As Cyrus entered the pits for the first time as a gladiator, a tremor crawled up from his feet to his fingertips. It’s just the rumble of the crowd. On any other day, but then he looked out to the scraps of a crowd and saw only a scattering of hundreds. Breathe. You trained for this. The dangling ruby cord of tethered daggers caressed his quaking fingers into stillness. I won’t lose with Mother at my side.

  Across from him was an opponent whom few held in high regard. Grom the Coward. That is what Bale and the other gladiators call you. He stood of average height, donning a simple bronze suit of armor. His helmet, greaves, and crude iron sword were crafted with the most frugal touch. Only his shield was worthy of praise. It looks as strong as Bale described. A dense disk of golden steel, wide and tall, crafted to protect its wielder in a shell. Grom fought with a merchant’s mind, favoring profit in place of glory, a marvel of sorts as Karda had wished his death for years and yet the man persisted.