“We can rent a room” Ezra replied. “We can hide the blade inside”.
“I think we should bury it” Alex replied. “Someplace out of the way, we only have to worry about people stealing it”.
“No we don’t” Ezra replied. “Every maker of a blood blade can feel its presence, if someone took it I could still feel where the blade was if I come close enough to it”.
“That is good to know” Alex replied. “Let’s hurry up and see what everything is about. Two Unarmored will be a lot better than one to have around”.
~
“What are you doing here?” a knight said in full armor as he stared at Ezra. “Don’t tell me you are here to fight for the right to be one of the Unarmored”.
“That is exactly why we are here” Alex replied. “We were told by that man over there in the red that every day at noon they hold fights here to decide who gets taken for the training”.
“I am not talking to you citizen” the Knight replied. “I am talking to you big man. You are the type we are looking for in a Knight of Justice, have you ever thought about joining?”
“I have never thought about it” Ezra replied.
“That is because he is not an idiot” an Unarmored said as he joined the conversation. “Go someplace else Knight, these recruits chose us and not your order”.
“My order is more exclusive” the Knight replied. “And you Unarmored don’t scare me, I am a Knight Champion”.
“So you are the best of a pathetic order” the Unarmored spoke. “There is no justice, only power. Whenever you learn this then maybe you can join a real order. As for you two, the rest of the hopefuls will be here sooner along with one of the condemned”.
“I want to fight a hopeful Milord” Alex replied. “Killing some old man proves nothing, killing another hopeful will show my power”.
“Lord Hopkins will be pleased” the Unarmored spoke. “He likes those with bravery, I will tell him of your enthusiasm. What about you big man?”
“He wants to fight a hopeful as well Milord” Alex replied.
“You speak for him?” the Unarmored replied.
“For now” Alex replied. “I look out for him, he is young and needs guidance. Joining your order is more than either of us could ever hope for Milord”.
“This will change” the Unarmored replied. “Lord Hopkins looks out for us, he decides who leads and who follows”.
“None of us has a problem with that Milord” Alex replied.
Ezra watched the Unarmored, he had the same power level as the two women from earlier and dressed similar to them as well. This man was not originally a Fale Ezra thought, his accent along with his visible green eyes meant he was native to Azard. Could this man not read Alex’s emotions? Perhaps Alex really did want to kill another hopeful and get accepted into training. Ezra let the thoughts go through his head as five others joined them, four were obviously hopefuls and one was a crying woman. Ezra did not know what she did but he could not help her, Jerold was giving him the time to carry out a mission and he did not want to let the old man down. Ezra thought he was lucky to have Alex around, Alex always focused on the big picture and would not let him stray from it.
“One of you get the pleasure of fighting the condemned woman” the Unarmored replied.
“I’ll do it” said a man with red hair and a wispy moustache. The man looked around 20 and looked at the woman like he was looking forward to the battle.
“I want to fight him” Alex said pointing to the man with red hair. “He is coward and scared of a challenge, he should not have chance to join the training”.
“Fight me?” the red haired man said shocked.
“I want to fight him too” Ezra replied.
“Well it looks like you have been challenged hopeful” the Unarmored replied. “Which one of them are you going to fight?”
“None of them, I want the woman” the man with the red hair spoke.
“Fight me or leave” Alex replied. “You don’t deserve the honor”.
“Hurry up hopeful, which of these two are you going to fight?” the Unarmored said. “Or you can leave and go back to your pathetic life”.
“I am leaving” the man with the red hair said as he backed away. Ezra watched Alex reach inside of his coat, he was probably fingering a blade Ezra thought. The Unarmored gestured for the man to leave, as soon as the man with the red hair turned the Unarmored drew his sword. The man with the red hair turned his head to see the blade and took off running.
“No one wastes my time, first one to kill him is in” the Unarmored screamed as Alex threw a throwing knife. The knife hit the man in the center of the back, before he could fall Alex had another knife already in the air quickly which took him in the back of the neck. The man with the red hair fell down face first in the dirt.
“Why didn’t you let him fight?” the woman said as she stopped crying. “All I needed was a final kill to become Sullied, Lord Hopkins promised”.
“Lord Hopkins promised if you survived the day you can join us” the Unarmored replied. “You have survived Shelia, I was supposed to pick the weakest amongst this lot for you to fight. I do not think you would have beat him either way. Do not find yourself the subject of Lord Hopkins irritation again, I will not always be here to take care of you”.
“I won't need you to” the woman smiled. “I will have my own power and I could have won that fight. He never saw this and would have ran right into it”.
Ezra saw her produce a small crossbow from under her dress, he didn’t think it was big enough to kill a man but it probably would have surprised the red-haired man. When she pulled out a dagger Ezra could see her plan was to first surprise the man then attack him with the blade. Whether it would work or not was debatable. What wasn’t debatable was that whoever this Lord Hopkins was had to be a powerful individual. Trum Barron was supposed to be a prodigy with the blade and his name was barely spoken, only this Alan Hopkins. Ezra would need to talk to Alex later, perhaps this Lord Hopkins was another general that no one knew about.
“Alright you five, time for you to square off against each other” the Unarmored spoke. “Grab a weapon and go at it, the surviving three people will make it in”.
“We are not dueling one on one Milord?” Alex asked.
“Did I say you were dueling one on one?” the Unarmored spoke.
Alex smiled and pulled out a dagger and a throwing knife and walked in the middle of the cleared out area in front of the Temple of Justice. Ezra walked over and grabbed a blade and stood away from Alex, the other three men grabbed weapons and stood their own ground. Ezra was bigger than they were and knew he would be a target, as soon as the Unarmored gave the signal to fight a man rushed him. The fight was over quickly as the man probably didn’t know Alex and Ezra came here together, Alex had buried a knife in the man’s back and Ezra ran the sword he was holding through the injured man’s chest. It was at that time the other two attacked, Ezra already had a tendril on them and blocked one blow before Alex’s knife found the back of another. Ezra’s other attacker saw the knife fly and instead of attacking Ezra, turned his attention to the injured man and sliced deeply into his neck. The man grabbed at his throat and fell forward, the entire fight couldn’t have lasted more than twenty seconds Ezra thought. In only twenty seconds two people lost their lives and the Unarmored clapped. The whole thing made him sick to his stomach, the Unarmored found joy in the brutality while the Knight that stayed around to watch apparently was disgusted enough to turn around and go back into the temple.
“It looks like you three have made it” the Unarmored replied. “You found the weak link and exploited it. You are exactly the type of men Lord Hopkins can find a use for. Knife thrower, I will tell him to keep a special eye on you. Your skills with those little blades are decent, I meant to have you sit the battle out since you killed that fool but figured the battle would be a good test for you. I have seen your skills and approve. The rest of you did nothing but kill men
already injured, you will have to work harder to show your instructors that you belong”.
CHAPTER 8
Ezra closed the book and let out a deep breath, ever since he had come to this so called training hardly anything was making sense. There were Sullied in the city, Ezra had found it easier to use that name when referring to Unarmored who appeared to his gift to be of different power levels to both each other and the people he started thinking of as the Turned. The Turned was the name he had for the Unarmored who somehow received the gift but appeared to be similar in power. The Turned seemed like a different group than the Sullied, the Turned all talked about the greatness of whoever Lord Hopkins was and none were more fervent in their belief than the two primary instructors Ezra had.
The first instructor was Mistress Tracey Wallace. Mistress Wallace was a short woman who could be considered pretty if she ever thought to do anything with herself. The only thing that looked well taken care of was her shiny bald head, her clothes looked as if she always had slept in them and they were perpetually wrinkled. Mistress Wallace taught most of the history about the Unarmored and most of her classes was centered around what Lord Hopkins would want his people to do. Mistress Wallace had even cried once when discussing Lord Hopkins which made Ezra want to meet the man himself to discover what made him so great. Mistress Wallace also seemed in charge of who could be taken before Lord Hopkins. Mistress Wallace would pick out an individual and then have a Sullied, a man named Lord Kelley have a look at them. Lord Jonathan Kelly seemed to be the only true Sullied in the entire school that Ezra had met. His power was greater than the Turned and although Lord Kelly rarely spoke, Ezra thought he figured out what Kelly’s role was in the school. Mistress Wallace would have a Hopeful, the name given to all students, recite a particular saying she was fond of teaching. Lord Kelly would be there to listen to it, if Lord Kelly liked what he heard, then the Hopeful would be told to follow him. Ezra thought that Lord Kelly being a true Unarmored had a greater gift of reading emotions than Mistress Wallace did, when a hopeful would speak the words, Lord Wallace used his gift to see if they really believed it. If they did they left, they always returned in a few days sporting a bald head and the same uniform as the rest of the turned. The second instructor that was fanatical about Lord Hopkins was Lord Sam Jackson.
Lord Jackson was the primary weapons instructor; he was a Turned who often talked about the greatness of Lord Hopkins in between lessons. As a swordsman Lord Jackson was decent, he mostly taught the basics but only to his students that were Hopefuls. Ezra had seen Lord Jackson taught four different groups of students, the first was the regular hopefuls who had to kill to get into the school, Ezra was one of them and took his basic instruction. The second group seemed to be all female, they must have been the toys of Lord Hopkins, Ezra had seen Celeste three or four times practicing with the man. The third group were the Hopefuls who had the most fighting potential, Ezra had purposely pulled back just enough so he wouldn’t wind up in that group. Alex was in the group and thought it was a good idea for them all to have different groups. The last group Lord Jackson taught was the newly Turned. Those individuals now had the power of an Unarmored and he taught them how to use it. It was tricky for Ezra when he fought them, he had to unshield his magic and telegraph every hit so the Turned he was fighting could win most of the time without Lord Jackson picking up on the fact he was already an Unarmored. Lord Jackson spoke about how great it would be to have the honor of being chosen for one of Lord Hopkins personal guard and how only the very best swordsmen would get the honor. It was a conversation between Lord Jackson and Trum Barron that had Ezra really confused.
Ezra had seen Trum Barron, he was a young man and wore a red steel breastplate and had two blood swords affixed to scabbards on his back. The man was average sized and looked athletic without being overly muscular, Ezra was sure he was fast with those blades and would be trouble despite what Ezra’s gift was telling him. Ezra could see Turm Barron had some power but was far from the most powerful Sullied he had ever seen, Lord Kelly had a stronger presence but that could be misleading. What was not misleading was the way Barron walked. Barron walked like he was a hammer and everyone else was a nail. He had no guards but only a fool would doubt whether or not this man was dangerous. Ezra had watched Barron talk to Lord Jackson and it said a lot about the hierarchy.
CHAPTER 9
Trum Barron
Trum Barron was not surprised the Azardians fought hard to keep the city of Ramy. Many Fale soldiers died trying to capture the city, the Azardians lost far fewer and were trying to win the war due to attrition. They were happy with the way the battle turned out, they lost a third of the men the Fale did and the soldiers took everything with them that could be used in war before the Fale overran them. Ramy was now filled with starving Azardians, hungry Fale soldiers and Sullied, but that was only part of Trum’s problems. The rank structure between Sullied and Fale soldiers used to be clear, the Sullied operated outside of Fale rank structure and he was in charge of all the Sullied in Fale. The problem was that the Fale leadership in Ramy were killed by a daring assassin, the Warlord Telrin Fallow had told him he was in charge until someone else was sent. The warlord also let him know he was going to send another person to help him out, that turned out to be a big mistake.
Alan Hopkins was a recently discovered Unarmored who Barron hated and would have killed if it wasn't for his rare talent. Hopkins had some technique that allowed him to turn ordinary people into Unarmored, Trum wished he knew the secret so he could kill the man once and for all. Hopkins was given the go ahead to create a school, the problem was that only Hopkins or his people could choose the students. Hopkins had a recruiter, Trum only knew him as Lord Tenkay who was the only person allowed to send Hopkins students. Every time Trum thought he had a good candidate, Hopkins would send the person back as unusable. Trum could see through Hopkins and decided to go through Lord Tenkay, his recruiting methods were easy to pick apart.
Trum was unsure if Tenkay or Hopkins came up with the first method having the populace kill each other in order to get accepted. The practice was a stroke of genius Trum had to admit, it whittled down the amount of bellies that needed filled and bolstered the ranks with people unafraid to shed blood. Tenkay had some of the Fale soldiers he was sure were loyal to him try to join by killing someone. They were accepted as students but so far none of them were trained to the point where Hopkins did whatever secret magics he used to make them Unarmored. The second method used by Tenkay was to find a pretty girl. Hopkins was a short fat man who had an appetite for young pretty girls, he had at least twenty of them at any given time servicing him. From that gaggle he sometimes made them into Unarmored, out of every ten people Hopkins had turned, three of them were women who had pleased him. Trum tried to send the prettiest girls he could and threatened their family, so far none of them had been accepted or could tell him anything. The Warlord had told Trum that as long as Hopkins continued supplying Sullied, that Trum should leave him alone. The problem Trum saw were in the Sullied he was making.
The new Unarmored wore red like the Sullied and had gifts like all Unarmored, but everything else was wrong. Other than wearing the color red, shaving their heads and covering the lower half of their face, these new Sullied were all wrong. For one these Sullied all wore the exact same clothing, true Sullied liked to have a little individuality. Their clothes were made by the same person and worn the same way, they were like a group within a group. Trum wore a custom leather mask that had a demon’s mouth on the lower half, the rest of the true Sullied wore something different from him and each other to cover their lower face. The similarity made it easier for Trum to pick them out of a crowd, if he could get away with it Trum would kill every one of them for their lack of respect.
These students of Hopkins did not care about the teachings of the Sullied, they were not concerned with power. The only thing it seemed any of these people cared about was Hopkins, they were more a cult within themselves ins
tead of a part of the greater whole. Today though they would learn their place, Trum had sent Hopkins a summons and he had not responded. Trum had given it straight to Tenkay, Trum doubted the man was bold enough not to hand it over. Master of his little school or not, Trum still outranked Hopkins and would let the man know that today. Trum smiled thinking about the lesson he would send Hopkins when he reached the school, no matter what Hopkins thought about him, the man would learn better today.
Hopkins saw Trum as nothing more than a child, Trump was well over 20 and had killed many men that had doubted him to get where he was today. The only person Trum thought could give him a battle was the Warlord himself and that was because the giant was heavily armored and had a blunt weapon that only needed one hit. When Trum was part of the Unarmored, he was sent to kill the Warlord and would have at least tried until the Warlord spoke to him. Telrin Fallow already knew who he was and offered him a spot as his right hand. Trum did not have on any armor at the time and could see the man was sincere and had followed him ever since. Hopkins though only ten years older saw Trum as nothing but an underling, they had clashed immediately but that would be over with soon. Trum had put on his red breastplate and had his swords with him, Trum was not looking for a discussion but a fight instead. Trum took a breath as the carriage stopped, now was the time to show these people exactly who he was and how they were little more than ants in a pile to him.
Trum purposely went alone, if they decided to swarm him then they would deal with the Warlord who would cleanse the school and Hopkins, they would be so thoroughly destroyed that their little order wouldn't even appear in history books. Trum walked up and could see Tenkay walking out of the building, Tenkay wouldn't even be a real fight. Tenkay was taller than Trum was but only by a little, the man definitely was not a fighter but was a childhood friend of Hopkins.
The Blood Blade Page 8
