Reciprocity : Volume 1 of The Fledgegate Cycle

by Zachary Smith

  Traffic moved through the large central gate at a brisk pace, and searches of both incoming and outgoing wagons were thorough yet quick and well organized. Those on foot entered through a smaller gate a few dozen yards east of the main thoroughfare.

  Hazk, being on a schedule, debated heading straight to the front of the line.

  He reconsidered.

  The line was moving quickly, and he had little need to call attention to himself.

  The guard approached Hazk warily, seeing that he was armed. The guard’s hand on his sword, he asked, “What is your business in the capital?”

  Hazk simply whispered, “Ma-Ti has arrived.”

  He scanned around him now, looking this way and that, furtive.

  The guard looked confused for a moment before turning pale. “Excuse me, sir, I didn’t know it was you.” He hurried out of his way as Hazk entered the city.

  Hazk mentally reviewed the training regimen prescribed by the Annals of Qu-ai for developing magical abilities in children; he knew it to be an imperfect solution. Instrumental in building a strong foundation in the magical arts at a young age, it was ill-suited for training these older recruits, all of whom had reached at least sixteen years of age.

  Some, as preposterous as it sounded, were over thirty years old!

  Hazk knew from his studies that their ability to wield magic would likely be stunted, but that didn’t matter. He had been sent to prepare this army, and he would do his best.

  The 100 soldiers who had shown an aptitude for magic were assembled in standard military formation before him. In Ma-Ti, beings with so little magical affinity would have been sent to support roles at best, while others would simply have been culled and only a handful would have been selected as the most basic of warriors. Unfortunately, this was the hand that he had been dealt, and these were the soldiers he would prepare for war.

  Two promising students had already been deployed to the forward vanguard, where the plan was that they would continue to build their power through daily exercises. Their abilities had been tested on an inconsequential town just north of the border, and the subsequent reports of their success, while likely embellished, validated Hazk’s assumption that nonmagical beings stood little fighting chance against those blessed with his teachings. The Commandant of the Ma-Ti armies had not sent him here to arrange a fair fight.

  There was little time to teach the basics of magic. The army was preparing to march toward Laterius in just three weeks and he would be forced to teach each soldier whatever basic attack magic they could manage. Those with the most potential would be taught first, then they could help train the rest. Hopefully, they would be ready by the time the army reached Laioruum.

  Chapter 1

  The warm sun of the spring afternoon shone on a small village in the kingdom of Laterius, just north of the border of Hasdingium. An older man sat on a rickety wooden bench outside of the Wounded Sloth. The village children, too young to help in the fields, gathered with some excitement down at his feet to listen to the tales of war and adventure, fond tales he told of his time in His Majesty’s Army.

  The Wounded Sloth was the nickname that the old man, Glem, had given to the quaint little tavern, that just like the town it inhabited, was too small to deserve a name.

  Glem called it the Wounded Sloth because, like him, it was old, somewhat broken down, and had lost a few steps over the years.

  He was also its primary customer, admittedly, much of his nest egg having disappeared into the tavern's coffers, and the bench out front had long since conformed to his backside.

  Eventually, he would have to decide if it was time to die before he ran out of money.

  The Wounded Sloth was the westernmost building in the town, which helped to keep the sounds and smells of the agrarian village behind it. The location also allowed for the sun’s last warm rays to set on its south-facing doorstep each evening. Glem always enjoyed his time sitting out in the sun, telling his tales of rescued princesses and slain dragons, with the occasional secret mission for His Majesty thrown in for good measure.

  Naturally, the boys wanted to hear more of the dragons, while the girls dreamt of the flowing gowns and sparkling tiaras.

  “Tell us the story of how you got wounded in the big battle. You always promise that you will!” one of the boys demanded as Glem took a big draught of mead.

  Glem choked, spilling some of his drink down the front of his already not very clean tunic. What a waste of mead, the only true sin, he thought.

  “Boy,” Glem said, coughing to recover his breath. “You children aren’t yet old enough to appreciate that tale.”

  Glem thought it was the truth, even if the story wasn’t as exciting as they would like to believe. His war injury was, in reality, just the body of a soldier with too many years behind him. The ravages of old age, arthritis, and a crippled back had left him in worse shape than a sword ever could. Glem despised himself for burdening his granddaughter, Alyra, with his care.

  After all, he had come to this insignificant little town to take care of her after her parents’ death. Both victims of an illness, his son passed first, quickly followed by his wife.

  The virulent illness attributed to the cattle they were keeping caused them to pass very quickly, and Glem was sent news of their deaths, in the capital, by the first trader to pass through. Immediately upon hearing the news, he hurried to the little town to raise baby Alyra in a manner of which his son, Thomas, would have approved.

  Thomas had hated the capital. He wanted to raise Alyra away from the crime and politics inherent in any major city. Glem had disagreed with his son’s wishes and misgivings but could not bring himself to scoop up Alyra and return to the city. He couldn’t let his sons dream of a quiet life in the country or his daughter to die, even if the mead was abysmal.

  The boy’s requested tale darkened Glem’s mood, an unwelcome reminder of the loss of his family and his physical ailments. Though in truth, he had been feeling more limber of late.

  “Leave me be, children,” growled Glem. “Your parents will be needing your help soon to prepare dinner. Run along. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about the time my men and I slew the beast with two backs.”

  The children were disappointed by Glem’s response but knew better than to argue with him. He would curtail all the storytelling for a week if they misbehaved, which had happened several times before. The children waved goodbye for the day and left Glem to finish his mead in solitude.

  ✽✽✽

  Alyra walked to the clothes washing area downstream of the village. A woven reed basket, heavy with clothes, rode roughly on her shoulder.

  She detested washing her grandfather’s clothes. They always reeked of spilled mead and sweat and were caked in dust and grime from sitting in front of the tavern all day.

  The small stream was the lifeblood of their town, and an area upstream was used only for the gathering of potable water, to help keep it uncontaminated from chemicals and waste.

  A larger, deep pool below the wash area, was reserved for bathing and swimming in the heat of the day. Livestock was allowed access far below the village, ensuring their waste was always kept well away from their clean water.

  Her parents’ death had taught a hard lesson to those left behind; access to clean water, after all, was what kept this remote village alive. Without this stream, the town would quickly fall, and the families would be forced to relocate to another town or resettle elsewhere.

  I wish the stream would just dry up, Alyra thought.

  Trapped in a life that neither she nor Glem had chosen, Alyra could understand her grandfather’s depression. Glem’s heavy drinking resulted from giving up his military career to take care of her when her parents died. She was grateful for his sacrifice, though angry that he had chosen to stay in this dead-end town. He should have taken her back to the city.

  She'd loved her childhood, spending her days playing with friends, swimming in the pool, and doing her best to avoid anythin
g that resembled a chore. Those glorious days had died along with her family. Now, the monotony of country life was beginning to take its toll.

  She'd given up on her dreams of escaping this ordinary and insect-infested life.

  Her dreams of marrying into a wealthy family and living in a big stone house had also fallen away. Alyra had long believed that a sad life of drudgery awaited her, but after years of discontent, something indescribable had changed. The small spark of hope she had begun to feel was unexpected. She prayed that she did not imagine it.

  The little spark, at least, kept her from gagging on the smell of her grandfather’s tunic.

  The constant, rhythmic, scrub and rinse cycle of washing allowed Alyra's mind to wander to her one remaining friend in the village, Rues. Alyra had worn her melancholy as a badge of honor and kept mainly to herself as her friends found lovers from nearby villages and married away. Her childhood friendships slowly drifted apart, friendships that she’d once thought were as firm as bedrock slowly dissolving into memories of better times.

  Rues, conversely, stuck to her like a cocklebur.

  Rues wasn't about to let go. She was always happy, dirty from her father's forge, and constantly trying to drag Alyra into some kind of mischief or other.

  Energetic as Rues was, she often annoyed Alyra, almost as much as she kept her sane.

  The two of them were different to the core. Alyra wanted nothing more than to stay clean and to avoid sweating, if at all possible. Rues, however, loved to work in the forge with her blacksmith father. How could she stand the noise, heat, and filth of the forge?

  Alyra would never understand it.

  She didn't look down on the blacksmith family, far from it, as she knew having a blacksmith was central to the town’s vitality. So, Alyra understood, even if she couldn't fathom the calling.

  Alyra believed she would find her own calling one day, and she hoped for it, dreamed of it, and woke in the night thinking of it. If only she knew quite what it was!

  Her grandfather wouldn’t live forever, and eventually, she would be alone.

  It didn’t seem likely that her calling would be appearing to her today, and tomorrow would be more of the same. She continued to wash their clothes and bedding in an unrelenting routine that had stretched back for nearly half her life. She wondered that the garments could survive it all, all the scrubbing and soaping, the spinning and the squeezing, and then drying in the air until they were crisp—and needed beating to soften them again.

  Alyra was tall when she stood up from the creek where she had been crouched. She had scrubbed at the stains that refused to come out in the old shirt that was plainly past its best now.

  She stretched her back to relieve the tension in it, causing the twisted knot in her hair to come undone and fall below her shoulders. She was slim but fit in the way of people who grew up working from a young age, ones who were often mocked for being ‘too skinny’.

  Her skirt had been pulled between her knees and tucked into the front of her waistband to prevent it from getting wet while she worked. The sleeves of her simple blouse pushed above her elbows were damp from splashing of the water while she toiled away in the suds.

  Chocolate-colored eyes stared dejectedly at the still frustratingly large pile of dirty laundry, and the pout she wore made her look like a child even though she was clearly a woman.

  ✽✽✽

  Rues grabbed the empty waterskins from the floor of the forge and turned toward the front door. Her father, the village blacksmith, hammered away at a cracked plow, while her two brothers steadied the steel and stoked the forge for him.

  Her generation continued in the family’s profession.

  Every male child was expected to follow in his father's footsteps without question, beginning their apprenticeship as soon as they could work the bellows. Rues was proud of her blacksmith lineage, blacksmiths being the glue that held civilization together. And Rues hoped to one day convince her father that the world was ready for a female one.

  Strong despite her slender build, she still couldn't equal her younger brothers’ strength. Her determination was going to be her key to the smithy. Rues’ finesse and skill, rather than her power, allowed her to equal her brothers at her father’s anvil.

  Despite Rues’ determination, however, her father was not optimistic about her chances.

  "When can I take a turn with the hammer?" asked Rues, as her father rhythmically pounded the cherry-red steel, trying to weld the crack back together.

  "When your arms are as big as your mouth," laughed her father.

  Rues’ father was sympathetic to her dreams, but the blacksmith knew the world outside his village. No matter how skilled, a woman blacksmith wouldn’t be taken seriously in any town of consequence. One day, she might inherit his forge in their sad little village, if her brothers moved on but admittedly, he had hoped that she would escape to something better.

  The village wasn’t the place to start a family.

  It was a place for those looking to hide from debts left unpaid, a village of desperation for those with nowhere left to go, and who were hopeful that no one would come looking.

  "Quit daydreaming and fill those skins. Your brothers and I are thirsty," her father said.

  Rues begrudgingly headed toward the creek with the skins. She loved her father dearly and knew that he was just looking out for her, but the forge fire ran deep in her veins. Rues' dreams were grand, filled with intricately crafted armor and rows of uniquely forged swords.

  Plows and hoes, while necessary, didn’t excite her.

  To outfit a knight in plate strong enough to turn any lance yet light enough to carry all day, did. Greeves and bracers engraved with fanciful designs created a burning fire within her, and she longed for mail so finely wrought that it appeared more like lace than steel, but with the strength to turn any blade. The swords from her forge would be sought after by so many great men who would build long-enduring Houses on their steel.

  She would turn out weapons and armor crafted for war but cherished as fine art.

  That was Rues’ dream. Her only dream.

  Rues' father humored her by discussing her ideas for unique weapons, occasionally even admitting that some of the designs had merit. A discussion, however, was where it ended.

  Steel was expensive and hard to come by, though easier to source this close to Hasdingium. Still, it was not a commodity to be wasted.

  Rues walked upstream toward the freshest water. She passed by Alyra, who looked downtrodden as usual as she washed clothes in the river. Rues waved as she passed and decided to stop on her way back to town. Alyra smiled at her and waved back, then furiously resumed her washing, evidently most displeased by the shabby and filthy state of Glem’s clothes.

  After Alyra’s parents died, she moved in with Rues' family while traders tried to locate her grandfather. It was a difficult time for everyone in the village, especially as no one had understood why the disease killed some and left others unscathed. A young child, Alyra had been left grieving and alone, left to fill her own time and to care for herself.

  No one in the village was willing to take her in, fearing that the sickness would follow her.

  Rues' family, though, was different.

  Her father refused to leave a grieving child alone and welcomed her into their house.

  Waterskins filled, Rues returned to find Alyra now finished with the washing.

  The outline left on her clothes by her recently removed apron was still clearly visible from the forge’s soot. Her short blonde curls cropped above her shoulders were peeking out from under the kerchief tied over them in an attempt to maintain clean hair.

  The two buckets filled with water draped over the long brace between them did not slow Rues as she strode back from the creek. Her pale blue, almost gray eyes lit up, her smile crinkling the freckles on the bridge of her nose. Taller than her friend, she was wiry and strong from the hours spent in her father’s forge learning her craft.
>
  "Hey Rue," called Alyra as she walked up the bank of the creek. "Fetching water again? Is that really the job of a blacksmith?" she teased her friend.

  "Wow, starting off snarky today. The smell of your grandfather's clothes must be making you drunk," Rues fired back. “And why do you insist on calling me Rue? You and Glem are the only ones that feel the need to shorten my name to a single syllable when it was a single syllable to begin with! I fail to see how that makes sense and guess I'm not valuable enough for two syllables in your eyes," she said, pretending to be dejected.

  The ribbing was status quo for the two young women who delighted in flinging insults at one another in jest, followed by awkward silences and more insults.

  Rues and Alyra continued their conversation as they walked slowly back into town.

  "How is Glem doing today? I saw him sitting at the tavern. Actually sitting. He hadn't even fallen over onto the bench yet," Rues said.

  "He’s...he’s better actually," Alyra replied. "I think Gramps is feeling better than he has in months. All joking aside, something is helping his arthritis lately. It may be the new mushrooms we got. We traded for them from a farmer north of town who has been feeding his hogs on them. His little boy accidentally ate a few before the farmer could stop him, and they didn't make him sick. Now the whole family eats them. His wife swore they cured all kinds of sicknesses and recommended we try them. I don’t know about healing properties or anything, but at least they taste good."

  "Ooh, I love mushrooms! Can I try a few?" Rues asked.

  "I'm cooking the last of them for dinner tonight. You're welcome to join us. I don't know when we’ll be able to trade for more as we don’t go up that far very often," said Alyra.