by Eddie Han
Marcus began to come to. One of the boys said to the others, “Get him.” But no one moved.
Sparrow’s thoughts seemed to be elsewhere, his expression like a boy counting bubbles in a fountain drink. Sparrow wasn’t violent by nature. He just lacked the basic inhibitions that most people possessed, and that, combined with his training, proved useful in a fight.
“C’mon, let’s get him,” another urged as Marcus recovered.
One of the boys lunged at Sparrow. Sparrow sidestepped the assailant, swept his legs as he stumbled past. Before he could regain his stance, the other two boys jumped him. Together they managed to grab Sparrow and hold his arms behind him.
“Marcus, we got him! We got him! Hit him!”
As Dale staggered to his feet, Marcus punched his friend with vengeful fervor. Overcome with rage, adrenaline coursing through his veins, Dale plowed his shoulder into Marcus’ side and drove him into the ground. He began swinging his arms wildly. And as each blow landed on Marcus’ face, blood streaming out of his nose and over his fuzzy little mustache, he couldn’t help but feel sorry. For himself. For Marcus. For all of their losses.
“A lass will lose her innocence making love,” a naval officer had once told him, “and a lad, making war.”
“Dale!” Mosaic screamed.
Sparrow broke free by running backwards up against the alley wall and upon impact, throwing his head back into one of his captor’s noses. Just then, the sound of a whistle pierced the air. It blew again, louder, closer.
“You lads, stop right there!” From the far end of the alley, a constable came running toward them holding a club in his hand.
Dale immediately jumped up off of Marcus, grabbed his books, and ran toward Mosaic.
“Come on! Run!”
Sparrow followed them out into a sea of people along the busy streets of Carnaval City’s Waterfront District. When they could see the constable was no longer in pursuit, they stopped below an overpass.
Dale’s hands were still shaking, his knuckles swollen and bruised. Mosaic was still crying in rhythmic sniffles. Dale set his books down in a neat stack and crouched down beside her.
“Shh, it’s okay, Mo,” he tried. “We’re okay, now. See?”
He patted her on the back as her sniffles slowed until she finally slurped up the air and sighed.
“I want to go home,” she whimpered, her face still glistening with tears.
Sparrow was holding his ribs, one of his eyes ballooning shut.
“You all right?” asked Dale.
Sparrow looked up and nodded. He wiped the blood from his nose with the back of his hand and sat propped up against a column supporting the overpass.
“I’ll be right back. Come on, Mo.” Dale rushed Mosaic across the street, around the corner, down a block, and around another corner, up to the front of the bakery.
Just before she walked through the door, Mosaic stopped.
“What’s the matter?”
Mosaic looked at Dale, a little wrinkle forming between her brows. She rubbed her eyes and frowned.
“I’m telling on you!”
Then she ran in.
When Dale got back to the overpass, Sparrow was reading one of his books.
“We’re doing a series on classic novels,” said Dale, crouching down beside him. “We have to read two of those every month. You know how to read?”
“Some,” Sparrow replied, gently placing it back on the stack. “Master T’varche taught me. The sharpest weapon in the world is a well-read mind.”
They sat a moment, staring into nothing.
“I think you might have broken that kid’s nose,” said Dale.
“Maybe. Nothing compared to what you did to Marcus.”
“What I did to him? You’re the one who knocked him out.”
Dale still took an occasional peek over his shoulder for the constable.
“Master T’varche told me that if a man strikes you, it’s okay to strike him back,” said Sparrow. “But if a man strikes your brother, that man must die.”
Sparrow never asked how the fight started. To him it didn’t matter.
“You really believe that?” asked Dale.
Sparrow shrugged. Then the corner of his lips slowly curled into a smirk.
“What?” asked Dale, pressing the tender bruise forming around his left cheek.
“Nice socks.”
CH 03
THE BLACKSMITH
Igotta go.”
“Yeah, I’d better get going too,” said Dale.
He was supposed to go to his father’s ship-breaking yard, or in local parlance, “the breaker,” to see an old decommissioned naval frigate. Dale had been anxious to see the ship ever since his father had told him about the holes and scoring on the deck from battles with Submariners. It was a parcel of common interest he shared with an otherwise absent father.
The son of a poor Albian immigrant, Dale’s father was a hard worker and a fair businessman. He had poured his life into building a business—a business of disassembling things of the past, piecing it out, selling and trading. It provided a stable living for Dale and his older brother, Darius, but his commitment to his work mixed with an already somber disposition made him an absent father, even when he was physically present.
“Hey, how do I look?”
“Like you’ve been in a fight.”
Dale despaired at the thought of spoiling the rare engagement with his father wearing blood and bruises and having to explain himself.
“You think I can go with you instead? To the shop?”
Sparrow shrugged. “If you want.”
People from all over made their way through Carnaval City. It was the trade capital of the West, the hub of Meredine’s thriving economy. Strategically positioned along the eastern seaboard, the city boasted one of the world’s largest seaports and busiest train stations. Like most Azuric immigrants, Sparrow lived in the lower Southside of the Central District, or Azuretown. Though it was only a fifteen-minute walk from the waterfront, to Dale it felt like another country. The strange smells of herbs and spices, the chaos of vendors and traders speaking over one another in foreign tongues, men with distant faces squatting along the wall—it all heightened that sense of elsewhere. Even the signs were written in Azuric characters.
Sparrow had taught Dale how to distinguish between the three dominant tribes of Azureland by the way the older men wore their hair. The Shen wore long braided tails, while the Omeijians shaved the crown of their heads and intricately folded their ponytails onto the bare pates. The Goseonites, Sparrow’s people, simply gripped their hair together into a short topknot.
“I’ll start growing my hair out next year,” said Sparrow.
“You going to have a topknot?”
Sparrow shrugged. “My mom will probably want me to.”
It wasn’t until their thirteenth birthday that Azuric boys were permitted to grow their black hair out. Traditionally, they would then wear it as the men of their respective tribes did. But most of the Azuric youths in Carnaval City were assimilating to the culture and customs of the city. Shedding the particularities of their fathers, they were becoming increasingly indistinguishable.
They walked past the old yellow building where Sparrow and his mother rented a room. In the seven years they had known each other, Sparrow never invited Dale to his home. Dale had never met Sparrow’s mother. All Dale knew of her was that she worked late nights and slept all day. As for his father, Dale got bits and pieces of a traveling soldier Sparrow never knew. The closest thing to a father he had ever known was the blacksmith, Master T’varche.
“Hello, Dale.”
“Hello, Master T’varche.”
Aleksander T’varche hailed from the mountainous regions of Cythica, where the Greater North stretched east into the borders of Azureland. He was lean with big arms and big hands. He had a full head of blonde hair and a thick sandy beard. His eyes sat deep in hollowed sockets, his ears cauliflowered from many year
s training in various wrestling disciplines. Strange tattoos covered his rosy skin. As for work, he possessed a particular expertise in forging blades.
Without so much as glancing up or disrupting the rhythmic blow of his hammer on glowing steel, he asked in his thick Silven accent, “What happened to your face?”
“Some boys from my school—” Dale paused, not looking at the Master. “They—we got in a fight.”
Master T’varche slipped the shaped steel back into the embers and stoked the flames.
“How many were there?”
“Four.”
“Four against one? That’s hardly fair.”
“It wasn’t until Sparrow showed up.”
The blacksmith looked at Dale.
“Your first fight?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Dale wondered what clued him in.
“Not very pleasant, was it? It never is. Not even when you win.”
Master T’varche removed the glowing blade from the coke and hammered out its edge.
“But it is good for you to experience such things, Dale,” he added, the steel hissing as he dunked it into the slack tub. “It is good for a boy to grow accustomed to pain.”
When he drew the steel from the tub, the short, double-edged sword appeared menacing.
“Most things of value are born of pain and refined with suffering,” he continued. “You see this sword. A mere piece of steel. But once tempered in fire and shaped under the force of the hammer, it forms an edge sharper than a jester’s wit.” He held the blade up to the light. “It takes a great deal of trauma to make a masterpiece.”
Suddenly, Master T’varche’s eyes darted toward the door. Two members of the Kangozen entered. The Kangozen was an Omeijian crime syndicate with roots in Azureland. In recent years they had aggressively expanded into the Republic.
“Afternoon, Cythic. Is the sample ready?” one of them asked.
The blacksmith nodded and quietly disappeared into the storeroom.
While they waited, the younger of the two looked over at Sparrow.
“Oy, aren’t you No-ran’s boy?” he asked.
In his reticent fashion, Sparrow stood looking nowhere and saying nothing. The gangster walked over and raised Sparrow’s head by the chin until their eyes locked.
“I asked you a question. What’s your name, young Goseonite?”
“Jūng-geun,” Sparrow replied.
Dale hadn’t heard that name in a long time. Not since they’d first met. The Goseonite name had never rolled easily off his Grovish tongue.
“Jūng-geun what?” the young gangster pressed.
“Sae,” Sparrow replied.
Years before, when Dale had discovered Sparrow’s surname translated in Standard was “bird,” he had said, “Like a sparrow!” And as nicknames among children often do, it stuck.
“So you are the son of my favorite whore,” said the young gangster. He studied Sparrow for a reaction. “And what happened to your face, Jūng-geun Sae? Were you in a fight?” He leaned in for a closer examination. “Looks like you took a beating.”
Then he released him with a snicker just as Aleksander T’varche re-emerged from the storeroom with an ornately decorated oak scabbard. Sheathed in it was the finest benkei backsword west of the Amaranthian Sea. The legendary katanas were rumored to be the sharpest in the world. With a slight curve, the light, slender two-handed single-edged blades were designed for slicing. And it was understood that none other than an Omeijian master smith knew the secrets of forging one well. Aleksander T’varche was the exception to this rule.
The older gangster carefully took it and unsheathed it, his eyes tracing the blade’s hamon.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you had Omeijian blood running through your veins, Cythic,” he said, studying the craftsmanship. “I’m sure the Orushin will be very pleased with these. They admire your work.”
The blacksmith nodded indifferently.
“Now, we’ll need fifty,” the gangster added.
“It will take a month.”
“You have three weeks.”
“Polishing alone requires a full week.”
“Then you’d better get started.”
The Kangozen had been ramping up their orders the last couple years. At its inception, they were no more than a group of street thugs. They operated in relative obscurity. Their activities were random, unorganized—mostly burglary and neighborhood extortion. As they grew in number and as some of the original members grew older, they, like all others in their trade, became increasingly driven by money. Money led the Kangozen to narcotics and then later to human trafficking. Their emergence beyond Azureland gained them notice by both the authorities and the more established underworld presence—the Carousel Rogues.
If such a thing as a moral high ground existed in the criminal underworld, the Carousel Rogues saw themselves on it. Founded as a thieves’ guild based in the South District, the Carousel Rogues had evolved into the largest and oldest criminal organization in Carnaval City. With the charm of gangsters of old, they operated in what they considered “legitimate” criminal activities—gambling, racketeering, prostitution. But the Rogues’ greatest asset was their stranglehold on the city’s black market trade. Their deep pockets bought them association with prominent civic and community leaders, who did not mind the association so long as the Rogues ran their criminal enterprise with a certain delicate touch. They did just that, priding themselves on a certain set of values—discretion being of the highest. For the Rogues, the rise of the Kangozen not only threatened to destabilize their criminal enterprise, it was an offense to their sensibilities. Their reckless, wanton ways could not be tolerated; war was an inevitable future.
The older gangster signaled his minion who then removed a pouch full of gold coins and tossed it on the blacksmith’s tool bench.
“An advance for your faithful service,” he added. “There will be twenty more when you complete the rest. I’ll return in three weeks.”
As the young gangster followed him out, he looked again at Sparrow.
“Give your mother my regards. And come see us when you want a real job.”
Aleksander walked them out and watched as they marched down the road. Then he turned to Sparrow.
“Go and see your mother before she’s off to work. Then return here. We have much to do.”
“Yes, master.”
“Go in peace, Dale.”
“Okay. Bye.”
Dale walked with Sparrow back toward the yellow building.
“Who were those guys?”
“The Kangozen. Gangsters.”
“What did he mean when he called your mom his favorite whore?”
Sparrow didn’t reply. He just hung his head and quickened his steps.
“Is it true?” Dale pressed. “Is she—”
“I don’t want to talk about my mom.” The tone in Sparrow’s voice prompted no further questioning from Dale. They walked along quietly. But then Sparrow started again, almost as if talking to himself. “I’m not ashamed of my mother.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be asking about…well, it’s none of my business.”
“I should go,” said Sparrow.
“Okay.”
“See you.”
“See you.”
And as they parted ways, Dale stopped.
“Hey, Sparrow.”
The Goseonite turned.
“Thanks, for helping me out today with those guys.”
“Rohar,” Sparrow replied, having always referred to Dale by the endearing Goseonite term literally translated, My Brother, “you’re my friend. You don’t have to thank me.”
“Come by when you’re free.”
“I will.”
CH 04
BEFORE THE DUSK
Dale anxiously awaited the arrival of his father. He was later than usual. On occasion, his father stopped by his uncle’s bakery after work. The bakery was only a few blocks from the breaker. Dale hope
d that on this day, his father was just held up at work.
Just as the house crossed the threshold into needing light, his father walked in holding a bag of day-old bread, two potatoes, and a pot of mutton stew.
“Your auntie fixed us a proper meal again.” Dale’s father looked at him and added, “Be sure to thank her when you visit.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dale was now certain his father had heard everything from his uncle, Turkish Shawl, who had heard everything from Mosaic. Why else would he not be surprised by my bruises?
“Boil some water for the potatoes and go wash up.”
When Dale returned to the table, his father blessed the food and began to eat. Too anxious to eat, Dale just watched as his father’s spoon rapped against the side of the soup bowl.
“You’re not eating.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Auntie Cora Tess went to a lot of trouble to make this for us. Eat.”
Dale took a couple disinterested bites of the bread. He could feel his father’s eyes on him, probing.
“We started on the frigate today. I thought you were going to come by.”
“I didn’t feel like it.”
“You were looking forward to it all week.”
Dale tore a pinch of white from his bread and rolled it between his fingers into a doughy ball. He took a peek. His father stuffed his mouth with soup-soaked bread. Dale had always admired the way his father ate—tearing away at his portion without a hint of delicacy, chewing with conviction, the muscles in his jaws visibly flexing with each bite. As a child, Dale would stand in front of a mirror compressing his molars, studying his own cheek and temple for some semblance of his eating father.
“There’s something we need to talk about, son.”
Dale felt his stomach drop to his toes. His father wiped his bearded chin with a napkin, stood up, and walked over to his leather pack on the kitchen counter. He removed from it a book entitled, The Walgorende’s Last Stand. He brought it over and placed it on the table.
“This belong to you?”
Dale said nothing. His father opened it and on the inside of the cover was Dale’s name printed in his own handwriting.
