by Todd Herzman
He still couldn’t believe his own strength, now he’d advanced to Knight.
If this is what Knight is like…
He couldn’t wait to become a Champion. A Legend… an Immortal.
It all felt so much more possible than before.
No limits. Those words had stuck in his mind since Knight Kyla had told them to him. And even though her belief that she had no limits hadn’t helped her avoid being captured by Jakob… it helped Huon. He oscillated between believing it and not believing it every day, but right now, in this fight…
He believed.
Jamison kicked Huon right in the gut, sending him flying into the air. Huon somersaulted backward, landing on his feet. He wasn’t winded—he’d been surging breath since the fight began, he couldn’t be winded. Though he did feel a couple of ribs break from the strike.
Surging stamina, the ribs healed as he ran. The pain was intense, but he was used to pain. His tolerance had only grown over the past few months, and this Knight-level body took a beating far better than his Squire-level one ever had.
I could have beat Bern, Huon thought. I can beat Jamison this time.
Jamison had regained his feet only a moment before Huon tackled him back to the ground, and the fight swiftly turned into a wrestling match.
Huon hadn’t spent much time wrestling, but he knew how to get Jamison into a headlock and wrap his legs around the man. He held him there, triple-surging strength, muscles tensing. Jamison struggled, but wasn’t able to gain enough leverage to get out of the hold.
Then Jamison slapped the ground twice, and Huon let go. Standing, Huon brushed the dirt from his martial arts robes and helped a frowning Jamison to his feet.
‘That was fun,’ Huon said, holding Jamison’s forearm in a surgecaller greeting.
Jamison stared down at their hands.
It was the first time Huon had given Jamison a surgecaller greeting since he’d escaped the House of Terr’al.
Jamison nodded, the smirk from before returning. ‘It was.’ He let go, shrugging. ‘I suppose I don’t need to make my hammer sharp.’
The core, right. With all the fun he’d been having, Huon had almost forgotten why they were fighting in the first place. He glanced at the pile of cores near the edge of the crowd of Honourbound soldiers—a crowd slowly dispersing, now the match was over. ‘I suppose we should start cultivating those.’ Huon had never done such a thing, but he’d been told it was as easy as using a surge-gem. He could no longer see Champion Jesalla or Ranil—they must have disappeared as Huon won the fight.
Why couldn’t I have beaten Jamison back in the arena? Huon thought. But the thought wasn’t as strong as it could have been. That bond the Immortal of Earth seemed to want to create between his soldiers by making them fight in pairs and Squads… it was beginning to work.
Huon felt guilty just realising that. He didn’t want to be a part of this army. He didn’t want to march on the Queendom of Arisalon. He still didn’t even know why they were ‘the enemy’. There were good people over there—even if they hadn’t all treated him well.
Sir Galen wanted to help Liona and me, he just wasn’t able to…
But there was something strange about the queendom—how was it there were no surgeless there? What had happened to them? Another country has them as slaves. Maybe that’s why the Everlasting King wants to expand his empire, so he can free surgeless in the whole continent.
Not that liberating surgeless only to make surgecallers slaves was a good reason.
Huon wanted to liberate the surgecallers in the Everlasting King’s realm, that didn’t mean he would make slaves of the surgeless afterward.
He tried to shake those thoughts away. He needed to focus. Cultivating new essence types, developing new surges… it would make him stronger now. And that’s what he needed to continue advancing. He didn’t know what a surgecaller had to do to advance to Champion, but he knew he needed to keep getting stronger. Different surges—especially the ones he’d chosen—would help him do that. If he’d had sharpness, even fearlessness, in his fight against Jamison in the arena… maybe he could have won.
The two Knights sat close to each other, three cores in front of each of them. They’d gathered more cores than that, but the essence in those ones wasn’t unique. Those cores were sent back to the army’s stocks—Huon didn’t know why, the lead pair hadn’t explained it to them. Besides, it didn’t matter.
All he needed were these.
The first one he picked up was acute hearing. He’d wished he’d gotten acute sight along with it, but hearing had been one of the things that had helped him survive the fight with the midnight-bear back in the Glenhaven arena. If he could improve that sense even more? That could only be a good thing.
Huon attained a receptive state in less than a second. Nowadays, he didn’t have to think to achieve the different meditative states. They both came so naturally.
He closed his eyes, feeling inside the core, identifying the essence he wanted.
Then he pulled it into himself, into his own core.
A shock ran through him, as though he were being struck by lightning. It felt altogether different to cultivating essence from a surge-gem, though the initiation process was the same.
For a moment, his whole body shook. The essence ran through every limb, then ended in his core.
It felt like his core expanded, ever so slightly, to take on the new essence. How large could a Knight’s core grow?
Huon placed the core back on the ground. It still glowed, though less brightly than before. He closed his eyes again, and felt the new essence.
Essence, once cultivated, was easy to surge—what wasn’t easy was learning how to control it. At least, when it came to elemental surges. Physical surges were far more straightforward. In theory, acute hearing should work the same.
Huon surged acute hearing.
The world exploded in a cacophony of noise. Every sound pierced his skull like a hammer strike. His own breathing. Jamison’s breathing beside him. The steps of the people in the camp. The clang of pots on cookfires and the clash of metal on metal as others sparred.
He heard everything, and it was all painful.
Huon let go off the essence, clutching his ears and breathing deeply.
‘Huon, you okay?’ Jamison asked.
Huon surged breath, letting go of his head. He could handle pain—he’d just had his ribs broken in the sparring match—why had that felt so much different? Hearing has never hurt before. ‘Just… be careful when you surge hearing.’ He turned to Jamison. ‘It’s intense.’
Jamison raised an eyebrow, then turned his attention back to his own core. He seemed to have cultivated the essence from two already.
Huon touched one of his ears. He’d surged a trickle of stamina to them, but they… didn’t feel as if they were damaged. It was the sounds of everything around him that hurt.
That’s going to take getting used to.
He wondered if it were as helpful as he’d first thought.
He picked up the next surge. Sharpness. This surge, he was sure, would come in handy. If the beast they’d fought—a Squire-level beast—could cut through Jamison’s rock armour, how much sharper would it make Huon’s sword? He clutched it tightly in his hands, and eagerly cultivated the essence.
That same thrum ran through him, rocking his entire body until the essence entered his core. But even though it was his second time experiencing it, it was already becoming familiar. When the essence was inside him, he drew his sword, laying it across his legs where he sat. He ran a hand up the edge of the blade, then surged stamina to heal the cut that had formed. It’s already plenty sharp.
Huon let out a breath through his nose, assuming the outward state in the same way he had since Bern had taught him. Thankfully, imbuing sharpness into the sword felt intuitive, and just as easy as imbuing any of his other surges had been.
Once that was complete,
he didn’t run a finger over the blade again. Instead, he surged a rock from beneath the ground and imbued it with earth essence and strength essence. He placed it on the ground, then hefted his sword into the air, holding it with one hand.
Normally, a rock imbued with that much essence would take several strikes to break, until it eventually crumbled from the build-up of force. That’s why rock armour could be so effective.
Huon struck the rock.
It sliced right in two.
He smiled, staring at his sword. The sharpness essence dissipated into the air, used up by a single strike. But that didn’t matter. He could see how useful this would be. I could slice through an enemy’s armour, if I timed it right. He felt inside his own core, and frowned.
He’d used all the sharpness essence he’d gained from the beast’s core already, and he had no idea how he was supposed to cultivate it normally. Fortunately, even though his reserve of it had been depleted, once he’d cultivated unique essence once, it stayed with him forever. If the surge only lasted for one strike, he would have to make it count.
Maybe Jesalla can teach me how to cultivate essence for it…
Huon stared at the third core. Fearlessness. He wasn’t as sure about it as he had been. In the last few months, his fear hadn’t been the thing holding him back, his strength had. He picked up the core, reaching inside of it. The essence felt different to the others he’d cultivated. Huon shut his eyes, holding the core close.
When he absorbed the essence, it thrummed through him as the other two had. But his body didn’t shake. It was still. And the essence… it didn’t just run through his limbs, it ran through his mind. It felt… strange. He sighed in relief when it entered his core.
He felt it, inside him. It stood out like a beacon. He had no reason to surge it right now—no reason to test it. There wasn’t anything he was afraid of facing tonight.
Tomorrow, the army marches.
That, he was afraid of. The good mood that had come over him before, when he’d been fighting Jamison, disappeared. He was glad to have gained these new surges… but the reality of his situation crashed him back down to earth.
He’d already been forced to kill a man once. How many people would he kill when the army marched?
Chapter 5
Terr’al, the Immortal of Earth, stood at the base of the Shurin mountains, his goliath—a giant rock beast that rivalled the red dragon in size—stood to one side. The goliath was massive.
At least it’s not as tall as the mountain. Huon was with his Squad, near the front of the Honourbound army. Terr’al wasn’t the only Immortal here. Others had gathered. Fortimer, the Immortal of Strength, had his massive arms folded at his chest. Caeli sat atop her steed, the pegasus. The Immortal of Water, Aqua, and the Immortal of Speed, Celeritas, were there too. Neither had mounts. Which made sense for the Immortal of Speed. Though Huon wondered if Aqua had a mount in the sea—she could ride a whale, or a giant octopus, for all he knew.
These are the people I want to kill. Power didn’t radiate off these Immortals like it did from Blaze. They kept their essence veiled—it wouldn’t be good to announce their presence to the queendom, after all. Huon wasn’t sure where the rest of the Immortals were. Blaze—to Huon’s relief—was nowhere to be seen.
Neither was the Everlasting King.
You’d think he’d be here, considering this army is marching for him.
‘You still want to do it, don’t you?’
Huon blinked, looking at the Knight beside him. Jamison, his fighting partner, peered intently at him, then looked at the Immortals. Huon looked at the ground, but didn’t reply.
‘You really are determined, aren’t you?’
Huon gritted his teeth. Not determined enough.
The Immortal of Earth raised his arms. The ground shook. A tunnel formed at the base of the mountain—one tall enough to permit the entrance of Terr’al’s goliath.
Why hadn’t Huon been fighting every one of his lead pair’s commands over the past week, like he’d fought the Immortal of Fire’s command, back in Jakob’s stronghold? Why had he gone along with all this so easily, without a fight? He’d become one of the team. Gods, he’d befriended Jamison again, after all the man had done to him…
He was supposed to be strengthening his will, learning how to cultivate it—surge it. He needed to break his binding, like Jakob had broken his.
I’m one of them, now. Just another surgecaller slave, an Honourbound soldier, here to obey every command told to me.
Huon clenched his fist around his sword hilt as the army marched through the tunnel.
Liona, Huon thought as he stepped toward the tunnel. I will get free. I’ll find you, and we’ll advance together.
Liona was the only true friend he’d ever made—the only one who’d stood by him. She’d escaped the House of Terr’al with him. She’d volunteered to go to the arena with him. They’d faced so much together, and now they were apart.
She was in the Queendom of Arisalon, and he was marching toward it—to conquer it.
Huon swallowed, feeling within his core, identifying the fearlessness essence. It felt altogether too tempting to surge right now.
But he couldn’t do that every time he was afraid. He still didn’t know what it would do. What if Jamison had been right, and he needed his fear to help him survive? And what, exactly, could I do? My life is no longer my own—my will is no longer my own.
He was beginning to feel as he had after the Immortal of Fire had made him kill that man.
No. Huon gripped his hilt ever tighter. I won’t fall back into that. I will remain in control—as much as I can manage.
~
The army stopped on the other side of the Shurin mountains, standing on the border between the two countries. Huon gazed up the mountain, remembering his trek down with Liona, holding the wriggling Shurie in one arm as he’d climbed.
That felt so long ago.
Something was happening, along the line of soldiers. Surgeless attendants were walking from one Squad to another, handing them… pauldrons? Huon looked down at his armour—which had been repaired by one of the army’s blacksmiths as he’d slept, the damage done by the serpent’s venom completely erased. The soldiers already had pauldrons. Why were they exchanging them for these?
A boy—a Page—pulled a small cart toward their Squad. The surgeless attendant, a woman wearing dull grey robes and round spectacles, handed pauldrons to each of them. Except, the pauldrons looked different to the ones they were already wearing.
The second Huon picked one up, he felt the strength of it. The pauldrons had a dull glow his normal armour lacked—and within the pauldrons, it felt like there were dozens of surge-gems, smaller than the ones people wore on bandoleers. He clutched the pauldron close, feeling the power within it.
There was an abundance of essence in these surge-gems… speed, stamina, strength, fire, water… all of the basic physical and elemental surges.
But he couldn’t tell what level of advancement the essence was—it was all above Knight-level.
‘Give the woman your old pauldrons, then put these on with haste,’ Champion Jesalla said, removing Ranil’s pauldron beside her.
They could put the armour on themselves, but it was far easier to help their partner with it.
Huon put the new pauldron down, then helped Jamison out of his old one, clasping the new one where it had been. ‘This is what he must have meant…’
‘What who must have meant?’ Jamison asked.
Huon shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
When the new pauldron was placed on Huon’s shoulders, it felt like his core had been expanded tenfold.
With access to this much essence… this was how they’d be able to fight those at a higher advancement level.
‘Ow.’ Huon touched his neck. The pauldron dug into his skin. He rolled his neck around—the contact wasn’t dangerous, it wouldn’t cut into hi
m, but it felt less comfortable than the last pauldron.
‘Those will do that.’ Champion Jesalla touched her own neck, then tapped the metal of her pauldron. ‘This is called Core armour. Honourbound only receive access to it when they’re outside the realm.’ She surveyed each of the pairs, Ranil standing beside her. ‘You will not speak of this armour to anyone back in the realm, not unless you have been commanded to.’
Huon nodded. Not that he needed to—he felt the command under his skin.
He still didn’t understand why the Everlasting King would bother hiding that he enhanced his army from his own people. Why should it be a secret? He looked around at the thousands of Honourbound. All these people knew.
‘All the surge-gems within the Core armour are connected. The way it touches your neck keeps it in contact with your skin at all times, meaning you can surge the essence held within them at all times.’ She nodded at the attendant, who walked away beside the Page pulling the cart, heading to the next Squad. ‘Core attendants will replace your pauldrons when they run low.’
Huon frowned. Those attendants would be joining them in the battle? But they were surgeless. Weak.
They must have surge-gems of their own.
‘Why haven’t we been training with these?’ Jamison asked.
‘Because you know how to use your surges, just think of this as an enhancement of your own abilities.’ Jesalla pointed across the border—many of the other lead pairs across the lines of Honourbound were giving similar speeches. ‘The people in that realm are stronger than we are without these.’ She tapped her armour with her opposite fist. ‘But with this we even the playing field. With this, we can win this war.’
Huon looked down at his Core armour. Science. That’s what the Immortal of Fire had spoken of… the Everlasting King had been a scientist. He’d invented the surge-gems. He must have made this armour, too. Huon had never seen anything like it before—no surgeless he’d seen had Core armour, only bandoleers filled with surge-gems.
He doesn’t want anyone becoming as powerful as him.
