by Choi, Bryan
“Ah, well, I wish I could say it was the result of great planning, but it was actually spontaneous. I snooped around in her office a bit when I came to deliver her meal and she wasn’t there.” Draco cracked a grin at his own derring-do and blew smoke away from an imaginary pistol.
“That’s illegal, Corporal.” Lotte sighed. The wild-eyed despair Taki had seen in her features seemed to have vanished. His knees buckled as the tension left his body.
“Well, it’s not like I could read much,” Draco said. “Most of what she keeps laying around is written in this weird squiggly text, not even pictograms like the Chung-Kuo use. But in any case, I saw some documents from the exarch addressed to her and they had ‘Hecaton Kheiris’ on them.”
“For all you know, that’s a fake name. She’s never told me that, and I’ve known her the longest.”
“You say that like it’s a point of pride, Captain.”
“Shush.”
“Maybe her name really is, like, ‘Hannihilation’ or something? Wouldn’t put it past her,” Hadassah said, sucking her teeth. Her earlier spat seemed to have been forgotten as easily as it had started.
“How long have you known her, Captain?” Taki asked.
“Two years, so far,” Lotte said. “The others, only a year.”
“Oh God, and what a time it was. I came in as a private and got promoted to root vegetable,” Draco said.
“And what a greasy latke you’d make!” Hadassah chuckled.
“Dumbass, you can’t even cook.”
2
Deep in the heartland of the Osterbrand Imperium, the last traces of spring were dying beautifully around Lucatiel von Halcon. As she made her way up a winding trail hewn from the exposed slate of a mountainside, the air tasted more and more like nectar, and pink cherry blossom petals fluttered through the air to litter the stones around her. And yet, all of this elegance only provoked a familiar pang of dread.
“Those damnable trees are in bloom again.” Her older brother spoke her thoughts even as she formed them.
“I still curse them every season,” Lucatiel said, pleased. Such occurrences affirmed their bond, just like the softened noses and charcoal-black hair inherited from long-forgotten parents. It was a secret point of pride for her that even their scars were well-matched.
“I’m told that the citizens love it.”
“But they were never made to clean every single petal off the ground,” she said. Lucatiel brushed a silky fleck from between the cinches of a sleeve and watched it fall to the ground. She fought the urge to snatch it from the air along with its numerous brethren. They were no longer the old man’s property, she reminded herself.
“Why did he ever do that to us in the first place?”
“To teach us the importance of small details, of course,” she replied, poking her brother in the arm to show how aghast she was. “The little things always change the course of battle. You should remember that.”
He smiled and patted her on the shoulder. “My apologies. I was simply complaining for its own sake.”
“Don’t complain too loudly, dear brother. We owe Ba’gshnar everything. Our lives, our skill, our commissions. The very fact that we can be together,” she said, shaking off the thought of separation like an evil aura.
“Yes, I know full well how much he has done for us, and I will always be grateful. That is why I look forward to seeing him again. Even when I remember all the times he punished us for silly reasons.”
“To be fair, you were quite rebellious. It’s a wonder he never outright strangled you, especially after you tried to desert that one time.”
Her brother laughed. “You don’t know it, but after I got back, the old man made me rub his smelly feet for days on end. I’d take a strangling over that, any time.”
Lucatiel giggled before stopping to look up at the gentle drizzle of pink and white from the treeline above. “I know it may sound like betrayal, but after that damned desert I’m even glad to see the blossoms falling. I feel like I can finally appreciate their beauty.”
With thoughtless grace, she ran a hand through her hair to dislodge small shards of color. They floated gently to the ground, joining the others to accumulate like clouds of fluffy pink. Her brother held his breath while he watched her, before obviously averting his gaze. Lucatiel did not mind, however. His praise and attention were fair recompense for the protection she provided him.
“I’ve said it before, but it’s good to have hair again, and to see yours, Luca,” he said, extending his hand to her.
She took his hand in hers and gently kissed it before intertwining their fingers together and drawing closer to his side. The two progressed up the steps hand in hand and reached the top of their ascent. They passed under a gate of crudely hewn cedar within a copse of fragrant pine, and returned to the place they had left a year ago.
The bihara was a study in color for all who entered. Lush green from the forest canopy gave way to brilliant hues of pink and white from the cherry trees outlining a path to the interior. A cluster of yurts maintained vigil in the center, outwardly crude in appearance but meant to withstand any temblor or misdirected sutra. Construction of the entire complex had been directly authorized and funded by the padishah, the king of all kings and supreme ruler of the Osterbrand Imperium. It was an uncontested crucible of martial power, where the absolute best of the Imperium’s deadliest warriors received their training.
The von Halcons were among this cadre and knew little other way to live. They had spent their early childhoods within the high-walled fortress of Sheol, where blood and iron were pillars of life. Because the siblings had showed the signs of control over prana, life had constantly alternated between grueling days spent chained up in the lectorium, frenzied spars against their comrades, and countless hours of suffocating darkness and silence within sensory deprivation tanks. By the time they had been selected for the bihara, they had thought it odd to not be confined to sterile cells at night.
“Strange.”
Lucatiel blinked. “Aslatiel, what perturbs you?”
“It’s just that morning meditation isn’t usually held inside…”
Lucatiel’s mouth opened to respond, when she saw someone’s foot swing toward the back of her brother’s head. Every prana gate in her body flew open and energy surged through her consciousness. She brought up a fist reinforced with enough power to obliterate a suit of plate and aimed to intercept her brother’s attacker. Then, she abruptly stopped. The greeting hadn’t been meant for her.
Aslatiel ducked the roundhouse, whirled, and slammed an open palm into the acolyte who had attacked him. The boy flew back a few meters and landed, barely-conscious, in a dusty heap. Aslatiel dodged an overhead strike from another assailant and answered with a snap-kick to the girl’s thigh right where her tunic ended. To Lucatiel’s relief, her brother had been careful to not to shatter the trainee’s vulnerable knee. Leaving a major joint unguarded was a rookie mistake and one the girl would have to learn from. The acolyte collapsed on the temporarily useless limb before rolling away to recover. A third tried to grapple her brother from behind received a nasty throw in compensation.
A dozen acolytes now circled Aslatiel with longswords and spears. In the bihara, there were no dummy weapons: all steel was sharpened and oiled for battle. Aslatiel reached to his scabbard and drew his kriegsmesser to face the onslaught. The curved blade was not a weapon suited for restraint, but it was the only steel he had on his person.
“Ba’gshnar, the cherries are especially annoying this year.” Lucatiel turned her head and flashed a brilliant, sapphire-eyed smile at the old man next to her. She’d only now detected his presence, but was positive that he’d been watching the fight alongside her from the very beginning.
“Be careful how you talk about my favorite trees, or I might make you join the others and sweep them up again,” the man retorted, although not unkindly. Short-statured in comparison to most, he nevertheless radiated a serene and absolute pow
er from every aspect of his being. He wore a mane of thick, gray-white hair gathered in a loose tail, a patch over a long-lost right eye, and no other ornamentation to identify his origins. He was called Ba’gshnar by his students, and Chronicler by everyone else. It was he who had built the bihara in the first place and trained all of its students.
No one knew where Chronicler was from or why he had volunteered his service to the Imperium, and he had never deigned to answer those questions. What was indisputable, however, was the fact that because of him, the spetsnaz evoked all-consuming terror with the mere whisper of their name. Chronicler answered only to the padishah, and only when he felt like doing so.
“For you, Lord, I would sweep the courtyard with gratitude, a thousand times for a thousand seasons,” Lucatiel countered, batting her eyelashes innocently as she leaned toward him.
“You sound like the worst love ballad, played on the saddest lute, sung by the drunkest student in Nova Muscova,” Chronicler snorted as he flicked her dismissively on the forehead. “Come back and try to be flirty with me when you’ve read some more Li Po.”
“I prefer Master Kong.”
“Kongzi was a humorless hack. Whenever I read the Analects I feel like he’s stepping on my neck. Figures that you’d like his work.”
“Well, I just can’t respect a poet who drowned himself trying to grasp the moon’s reflection,” Lucatiel said, crossing her arms as she pouted.
“Oh? Is that not hypocrisy on your part, Lucatiel van Halcon? Don’t you still find yourself reaching for a beautiful illusion despite not knowing how to swim?” Chronicler fixed a knowing look at Aslatiel, and then at Lucatiel. She averted her eyes, bile rising in her throat.
“But I do know, Ba’gshnar. You taught me everything I needed to know to survive,” she muttered.
“Just to clarify, I was speaking metaphorically,” he said, gently winking at her.
“I know that!” She balled her hands into fists and scrunched her brow.
With a fluid rotation of his hips, Chronicler pivoted on the balls of his feet and nonchalantly intercepted a downward heel strike aimed at where his neck joined his shoulder. The old, one-eyed man’s perpetual smirk widened as he faced his attacker. Bruised and battered acolytes lay scattered on a circle in the courtyard, most barely conscious. A small minority struggled vainly to their knees.
“I was wondering when you’d come to help your dear little sister,” Chronicler said. He peered at the heel of Aslatiel’s boot, and gingerly pushed the protruding, spring-loaded blade back into its slot in the heel.
“Don’t you think you’ve rattled her enough?” Aslatiel shifted to maintain his balance. If he were at all fazed by having his leg in the old man’s iron grip, he did not show it.
“Perhaps. However now that you are officers of Alfa Gruppe,” Chronicler said, tapping the maroon cherry blossom emblazoned on his former student’s shoulder, “you cannot always rely on each other. I have always, always told you that one day, you will be separated from each other.” The old master let go of Aslatiel’s foot and slowly shifted his stance to invite open combat. “Lucatiel can take care of herself. That is why I did not risk my students attacking her. However, I worry about you sometimes. Now come, strike me!”
His expression grim, Aslatiel drew his blade again and assumed a menacing high guard stance. Air rippled around him, and like shadows fleeing the dawn, the grains of sand at his feet scattered before his aura. As he swung at Chronicler’s head, thunder roared in from the sky.
And just as abruptly as it had begun, the fight was over. Chronicler nonchalantly brushed a speck of blood—Aslatiel’s—off of his cheek and stretched.
“Aslatych!” Lucatiel swore under her breath as she ran over to her brother’s dusty, supine form and knelt by his head to cradle it.
He groaned in response, his features a picture more of disappointment than pain. “Luca, I’m fine. I swear to the padishah. You don’t have to act like I’m dying or anything.” He chuckled and turned his head to spit a wad of brown-speckled mucus into the dirt.
“I know, but…” Lucatiel grit her teeth. “Do not resist me. You breathe like you’ve broken a rib.”
Before her brother could object, she had already placed her palm over a deformity on the left side of his chest below his armpit. All of Chronicler’s disciples were instructed to visualize the energy within their bodies as a flow of clear, glowing water, and the major prana gates of the body as valves running alongside arteries and veins. Her brain was the wellspring, and her heart provided the driving force. She reduced the flow going to her other extremities, and opened the gate to her right arm. Droplets of prana began to form at her fingertips like sweat, and she willed them to seep into her brother’s wounded firmament and quench the fire of pain that raged from fractured rib and bleeding muscle. Only a little was needed, for Aslatiel would eventually block hers out of his desire to not see her waste resources. She pulled her hand away, and opened the rest of her gates, feeling whole again.
“Thank you, Luca,” he said, patting her cheek. “It’ll take a little time to heal, but at least I won’t fall to a catarrh now.”
Lucatiel flushed despite her best efforts to stay cool.
“Ahem.” Chronicler cleared his throat as he dusted off his jacket. “Aslatiel, you need to meditate more often—only then will you be able to shake off the mind’s limits and join the all-awareness. I could predict every single one of your strikes, whereas you could only predict a minority of mine. I thank you, though, for not killing or maiming my students. Some of them might serve you later.”
“I live to serve, Ba’gshnar.” Aslatiel rose to his feet and managed a stiff bow.
“You made well of yourselves during that little spat in the Caliphate. But while you sailed back here, we finally declared on the Argeads. The first strike in the campaign will be at their citadel, Vergina, at the northern border. It’s a taxation point more than anything else, but well-guarded and a visible show of strength for the Dominion. Take it for the glory of the Imperium.”
“Yes, Milord, but I am afraid our company lacks for numbers.”
“Which is why I will accompany you, along with a legion of janissaries. After our triumph, Alfa’s future will be assured, and you will never lack for eager men and women willing to die under the banner.”
“Ba’gshnar, I’m so happy! You’ll finally see us on the battlefield.” Lucatiel said.
“We will carry out our duty to the fullest extent of our abilities,” Aslatiel said with a note of finality.
Chronicler gave them a sideways look, deepening the lines of his already craggy features. “Then why do you still tarry here? Go forth and kill.”
3
In grudging acknowledgment of their upcoming battle and probable agonizing deaths in the service of the Dominion, the most unfortunate squad in the Cloud Temple was free from the kitchens for a day. To celebrate, Lotte permitted them to sleep late in their quarters as long as everyone made muster by the end of morning watch. Having been so used to getting up by the end of middle watch, however, no one found themselves able to sleep for that long. Before the sun could crest the horizon, the ready room was a bustle of groggy activity born out of habit.
Temple barracks were a squalid affair, with the most common arrangement a communal living space ringed by sleeping cells and a small powder room with latrine. The spaces were cramped and there was no way to change, bathe, or eliminate in privacy. There had been concerns in the past about the behavior this would incite in squadrons of young men and women, but reality was different. There was only so much living together that one could tolerate before temptresses and bravos became unpalatable to each other.
Taki sat at the ancient wooden spool table in the center of the ready room, nibbling on the end of his quill while jotting down and appending notes on a ledger. To his displeasure, he noted that the nib was starting to curl, which would soon render it useless. He would have to get another soon, and even the lowest-grade nibs
carved from plastic were overpriced. The most plentiful remains of the Golden Age of Man, and they’re really just the droppings, Taki thought to himself. Plastic had neither the strength of metal nor the density of wood, and was mostly unsuitable for use in crafting. However, its one redeeming quality was that it could be found nearly everywhere, and often in great quantities.
Next to Taki, Draco carefully trimmed back stubble with a greased stiletto stropped to a razor’s edge. In his free hand was a much higher-grade relic: a small circle of flawlessly reflective mirror. Taki wondered who Draco had killed to acquire such a piece, but quickly chastised himself for covetousness. When Draco wasn’t speaking, it was easy to mistake the senior corporal for some sort of mythic prince with his flowing gold hair, high cheekbones, virile jaw, and broad shoulders. Taki, on the other hand, could never manage so much as a credible mustache let alone an authentic combat beard. Before his envy could crest further, the boy caught sight of the manacles still around Draco’s ankles and decided he was probably better off overall.
“Already working on that, Natalis? How diligent you are!” Lotte said, peering over his shoulder while she cleaned her teeth with a pick and cloth. Taki turned to reply, only to blush and shrink when he realized she wore nothing but her smallclothes. She raised an eyebrow in confusion but quickly realized the reason for his consternation. “Ah, I’ve forgotten how cloistered the academy was,” she said, and withdrew to finish her morning toilet.
“Still embarrassed by boobs?” Draco asked with surprising compassion. “No worries, it’s natural when you’re so fresh out of that monastery. But I promise you’ll grow jaded at the sight of those two. Now, my perfect, chiseled body on the other hand...”
“No one wants to see you in the buff,” Hadassah said, plopping down at the table. Draco snorted. Taki remained uncomfortably quiet, trying to concentrate on the ledger. Miffed that he paid no attention to her, Hadassah’s lips curled into a devilish smirk. “Hey, Newboy, you want me to make the captain have an ‘accident’? So you can see what you wanna see?”
