Savage Legion

by Matt Wallace

  Lexi gathers the hem of her formal wrap and Taru follows her down the sidewalk and up the half dozen steps.

  Daian meets them there, sheathing his practice dagger. “If you’ll follow me,” he bids them. Then, to the other instructors, “Grath, Kamala, take over. I need to step out for a moment.”

  “What are they doing in an Aegin dojo?”

  The question is asked by one of Daian’s fellow instructors, a handsome chestnut-haired man who is obviously aware of just how handsome he is. He must be Grath.

  The question is directed at Taru.

  Lexi sighs. She’s felt tired since meeting Daian over two corpses she helped along their way to the other side of the veil, and this conversation is only wearying her further.

  “Taru is my retainer,” Lexi says. “And that is the last time I will explain myself to Aegins whose brains are as obviously small as their knives.”

  The third instructor, a woman with her dark scalp practically shaved smooth and a scar over one milky eye, joins them.

  “Never understood the need for private retainers,” the woman named Kamala says. “You’re an antiquated notion at best. At worst you interfere with Crache’s chosen peacekeepers.”

  Daian is obviously battling with himself to remain composed. “That’s enough out of you, I think.”

  “Speaking of blades, small or otherwise, those look well-used,” Kamala says, ignoring him.

  She’s pointing at Taru’s short sword and hook-end.

  Taru says nothing.

  “The retainer here’s the one who bled those two in the Circus, no?” Grath asks Daian.

  “What did I just say, Aegin?” Daian asks, his voice on a rise.

  “It’s quite all right,” Lexi says, stepping directly in front of the smug Aegin. “Actually that would be me who drew blood first.”

  “Forgive me, Te-Gen,” Grath says immediately, and with the appropriate bow of contrition, though the unhidden smile on his handsome face belies it all. “We Aegins are always… intrigued… by the decision of our city’s highest servants to supplement their personal safety with such people.”

  Kamala adds, “And yours is a choice even more…”

  “Intriguing?” Lexi asks, and she seems all at once more composed than she did a moment ago.

  The Aegins say no more.

  “Perhaps we can sate your curiosity, Aegins,” Taru offers, surprising everyone, including Lexi. “This is a place of learning, is it not?”

  “What are you proposing?” Daian asks.

  “Yes, what are you proposing, Taru?” Lexi seconds, though she seems less concerned and more amused than Daian.

  “A simple exhibition of knife skills,” Taru explains.

  Clearly Daian doesn’t know what to say to that. Grath and Kamala, meanwhile, both stare up at Taru uneasily, the sudden reality of actually meeting the retainer on their own training mat changing their attitudes.

  “Our business will keep a moment,” Lexi says to Daian brightly, though she’s looking at the other two Aegins. “And I don’t believe this matter will require much longer than that to resolve.”

  The retainer looks from Lexi to Grath and Kamala, then back at their mistress. Taru unfastens the heavy belt securing short sword and hook-end to their owner’s waist. Lexi accepts her retainer’s weapons and holds them close as Taru extends a hand toward Daian.

  Though he slaps the handle of his training dagger into Taru’s palm, it’s Lexi he’s watching.

  She looks back at him with hard eyes.

  He seems to take something from that, and nods, relenting. “Very well, then. Class!”

  The Aegins-in-training kneeling dutifully around the perimeter of the mat all shout “Hai!” in unison.

  “We have a special guest in our dojo today,” he informs them. “A retainer serving Gen Stalbraid. This retainer has volunteered to pit their skills against those of your Aegin instructor so that we may study the contrast in styles and training, and learn how to overcome that clash of aesthetics in combat.”

  Daian nods to Taru, who steps onto the straw-stuffed training mat. Three strides carry them to its center, where Taru looms impossibly tall over the supplicating class of novices.

  Daian leans close to Kamala and Grath, speaking for their ears only. “You two can decide among yourselves which of you gets the honor of following through on your words.”

  With that, he walks away from them, leaving his fellow instructors huddled at the edge of the mat. Daian moves to stand beside Lexi, though he doesn’t acknowledge her, keeping his attention focused on the situation developing before them.

  Grath and Kamala, both watching Taru, appear to be conferring in hushed tones among themselves. Presumably they’re deciding who will cross training blades with the retainer.

  Then, in the middle of his next sentence, Grath breaks away from Kamala and rushes across the mat, headlong at Taru, slashing vertically and diagonally with his dagger. Taru simply backs away, careful never to cross ankles, keeping out of range of the strikes. Taru waits, watching the rise and fall of their opponent’s arms. When he follows through on a wide slash, Taru steps in and presses a large hand against the center of his chest, shoving him back with their full weight behind it.

  Grath is caught totally off-guard, and the surprise combined with Taru’s shocking strength knocks him totally off-balance, as well. He loses his footing and falls backward onto the mat. Recovering quickly, and with an angry growl, he lunges at them from his knees, attempting to slash and thrust at Taru’s legs. The retainer avoids the strikes deftly and with a grace and speed even more surprising than their brute strength, twisting and turning and leaping until finally bringing a knee up and driving it into Grath’s jaw.

  It stuns the Aegin, who drops forward onto his hands and knees. Taru quickly places a boot between his shoulder blades and drives his body flat against the mat, leaning enough weight on that foot to hold him there. Taru stares at Lexi over the heads of the stunned Aegin acolytes, not quite grinning yet not entirely concealing a grin, either.

  Taru is blindsided by what feels like a falling maple tree. The retainer is knocked forward onto their hands and knees. Taru spins around just in time to register Kamala falling on top of them, training dagger clutched between her joined fists with its blade angled down. Taru raises a forearm, knife hand reinforcing it, and jams it against Kamala’s wrists, under her blade, blocking her from driving that blunted point into Taru’s chest.

  The Aegin, snarling so fiercely she dribbles on Taru’s armor, uses the whole of her body to press down on her white-knuckled knife hands, trying to weaken Taru’s arms. The retainer’s face is the antithesis of their opponent’s; those watching can scarcely tell Taru is even straining with effort.

  Taru twists their hip atop the mat and drives a shin into Kamala’s kidney. Though her protective padding largely absorbs the sting, the force of the blow is enough to knock her clear of Taru and send her rolling across the mat. Both retainer and Aegin recover quickly, leaping to their feet and rushing at each other. Kamala thrusts with her knife, aiming for the center of her opponent’s abdomen. Taru spins with a speed and grace that belies the retainer’s size, grasping Kamala’s extended wrist with their free hand as the Aegin charges past.

  Taru yanks on Kamala’s arm with the authority of a metal vise, turning the Aegin’s body and throwing her off-balance even as Taru reels her back in toward their body. Taru hooks their knife hand under Kamala’s arm and lifts her off her feet, slamming her down to the welcoming embrace of the mat’s feather arms. Despite the softened landing, the impact is enough to force most of the air from the Aegin’s lungs and cause white lightning to strike her field of vision.

  When the effects of the split-second stunning have worn off, Kamala finds Taru pressing the blunted blade of the training dagger into the flesh of her throat.

  “This is the part where your blood would spray across my breastplate,” Taru informs the Aegin.

  Behind Taru, a kneeling
Grath claws at the hem of his training pants leg, drawing the material away from the top of his boot to reveal the hilt of a push dagger concealed there. He closes his fist around the weapon’s handle and draws a blade of sharpened steel, rising as he does.

  Lexi, watching, widens her eyes and looks to her left for Daian, only to find he’s already stepped away. When she returns her gaze to the training mat she finds Grath advancing on Taru’s back.

  Before Lexi can shout a warning, Daian appears at Grath’s side and clamps a hand around his fellow Aegin’s wrist. He twists it, Grath crying out more in pain than surprise as Daian’s other hand pries the push dagger from his fingers.

  Taru rises and turns at the sound, allowing Kamala to roll away and get back to her feet.

  “This lesson is over,” Daian says, no doubt he’s speaking directly to Grath and not the class.

  Grath jerks his wrist away from Daian’s grip, something dark and malevolent moving across his face.

  He quickly dismisses it with the practice of a man who has trained himself to hide the darkness inside him, replacing it with his easy, handsome smile.

  “And an exhilarating lesson it was too,” Grath says. “Don’t you agree, class?”

  The Aegin acolytes, in unison: “Hai!”

  Grath turns to regard Kamala, who is still breathing shallowly and staring a promise of pain at Taru.

  “Don’t you agree, Kam?” he asks, and when she doesn’t answer him immediately, “Kamala! Don’t you agree Te-Gen Lexi’s retainer has provided us with a very informative experience?”

  “They move well for a Gen fighter” is all Kamala will concede, and that through clenched teeth.

  Taru nods stoically. “And you move every bit as I expect Aegins to.”

  Kamala takes a step forward at that, but Daian is ready for her reaction.

  “Class, on your feet!” he instructs the group, who leap to attention in one mechanical wave.

  Kamala suddenly seems aware of all their eyes on her.

  That first step toward Taru is the only one she ends up taking.

  “Take over for me,” Daian says to Grath. “While I attend to Te-Gen and our new guest instructor.”

  Grath bows. “Of course.”

  Daian waits while Taru exits the mat, returning to him and Lexi. Taru flips the training dagger, catching it by the blade and offering its grip to Daian.

  “Thank you for the loan.”

  Daian accepts the practice weapon and holds it up in salute.

  “You made good use of it. Now might we adjourn somewhere more private so that I might assist you two however I can?”

  “Thank you, Aegin Daian,” Lexi says pleasantly.

  The trio exits the Dojo through the Kodo entrance, Lexi and Taru following closely behind their guide. They wait while Daian changes back into his uniform, and then he escorts them out of the Kodo and back onto the street.

  “I apologize if our presence caused friction between you and your fellow Aegins,” Lexi begins.

  “What, Grath and Kamala?” Daian asks, sounding almost offended. “I can’t stand either of them.” He spits upon the sidewalk. “Excuse my vulgar gesture, Te-Gen.”

  Lexi shakes her head. “I’ve heard it’s good for the constitution.”

  Daian smiles. “Yeah. Well, the only reason I teach alongside those two is that they’re among our best with the dagger.”

  Taru cuts in. “Says who?”

  Daian grins up at them. “Present company excluded, of course. Now, how can I help the two of you?”

  “We’ve sought you out today because I believe you’re a person who can be trusted.”

  Daian doesn’t seem to know what to say to that, so he settles on: “Thank you.”

  “I say person, not Aegin, because I cannot trust Aegins as an institution right now. I can’t afford to. But I have to believe the man beneath tops the uniform, if he’s a good man.”

  “I believe in what I do, Lexi. But I’ve also seen enough to know not to let it be all that I am.”

  “I find myself in desperate and dire straits. Gen Stalbraid is out of time, out of money, and most importantly out of allies. Agents from the Protectorate Ministry are probably already watching our home day and night. I don’t know how much more progress, if any, Taru and I can make on our own.”

  “Progress with what?”

  “Finding my husband, Brio, dead or alive, and exposing the ones who took him from us. The same ones who tried to kill me, I’m sure.”

  “And who do you imagine did all this? Do you have any clue? Any leads?”

  Lexi draws in a deep, labored breath. “My husband began to notice what he suspected were disappearances. People disappearing from the Bottoms. People no one else would ever notice or report missing. The poor, the homeless. Some were arrested for petty crimes and once they were taken to the dungeons… they never returned. Others simply seemed to vanish off the streets without any record or trace of arrest. He began investigating. He discovered what he believed was evidence that these people were being conscripted… forced… into some clandestine military legion. I urged him to present what he found to the Council, but he wanted to gather more proof. Before that happened, he… disappeared too.”

  Daian registers what appears to be genuine surprise, although it is perhaps less directed at the existence of the Savages and more at the fact that Brio and Lexi were able to pierce the bureaucratic shield that protects Crache’s secrets.

  “Where is your husband’s evidence now, Te-Gen?” he asks her.

  “Either that evidence was taken away when he was, or he hid it somewhere beyond my reach,” Lexi concludes.

  “My policy is always to assume the worst.”

  “Then we have to start from here and now,” Lexi insists.

  Daian is quiet.

  “Will you help us?”

  He looks up in even starker surprise.

  It’s not Lexi asking the question, but Taru.

  “Would you trust me to?” he asks the retainer. “Truly? Your eyes are cold when you look at Aegins, but I know you’re burning deep inside. You hate us.”

  “I distrust your uniform, especially when it is worn by ones like those others in your Dojo,” Taru corrects him. “You’re different. You stayed their hand. You have no malice in you.”

  Daian is obviously moved by Taru’s words, even if he works not to show it.

  “So you’d trust me, then? Because of that?”

  Taru draws in a deep breath, raising the thick leather breastplate protecting the retainer’s heart.

  “Te-Gen is willing to trust you. I trust Te-Gen. Implicitly.”

  Daian nods, looking from Taru to Lexi. “Can I share with you a secret, one difficult for me to part with, although one I’m sure is no secret to you?”

  Lexi looks confused, but she nods all the same.

  “There are vastly more men and women like Grath and Kamala wearing this uniform than people like me.”

  Lexi nods with more clarity. “And this naturally creates dangerous waters for you to tread, should you agree to aid us.”

  “I’m more concerned about you, Te-Gen,” he says, and it sounds sincere.

  “I believe we’ve proven we can handle Aegins,” Lexi reminds him.

  “Quite,” Taru adds.

  Daian can’t help but grin at the pair of them.

  “All right,” he pronounces. “I’ll do what I can. I make no promises, save I’ll seek and report the truth.”

  Lexi accepts that. “And what should we do?”

  “You two return to the Gen Circus, to your towers,” he instructs them. “If the Protectorate Ministry has it in mind to watch you, then you will be watched, no matter what you do or where you go. It’s best you put them to sleep. Give them nothing of interest to observe or report.”

  Taru is dubious. “Then how will you contact us?”

  “I’ll figure that part out later,” Daian assures them. “Let’s just hope I can uncover something worth reporting.
”

  “Where will you start?” Lexi asks.

  “With what we have,” he says. “Two dead bodies, marked with blue tattoos.”

  TEARS MADE OF FIRE

  “HOW ARE WE GOING TO make it back?” Brio asks her in the dark. “We’re in the vanguard of the Sicclunan front. There’s a hundred miles of Skrain, Savages, and blood coin hunters behind us. It will be nearly impossible to make it to the border of the Tenth City, let alone all the way back to the Capitol.”

  “We’ll have to wait for that leg to heal. You’re useless on the run with it. But we’re not going anywhere tonight. Go to sleep.”

  The tent is scarcely big enough to sleep both of them on the cold, hard ground, but Brio is grateful for even the thinnest barrier between them and the cold. One of the many fervent whispers around the camp is that the Sicclunan nights are getting unseasonably colder every year, and the days unseasonably hot. No explanation has been offered for either that Brio has gleaned, but he’s felt the truth of it in his time among the Savages on the front.

  He lies facing Evie, only the scarcest contours of her face visible to him in the dark, but it’s enough. He remembers her face as well as his own mother’s. Ashana was one of many children his and Lexi’s parents took in from the Bottoms, like Taru, out of sympathy or necessity or because they saw something unique in a particular person. Ashana was the only one, however, their parents ever sent away. They had plans for Brio and Lexi, and those plans involved marriage and continuing Gen Stalbraid.

  Of course, bloodlines weren’t supposed to matter; many Gens, and the most successful, were composed of dozens of unrelated kith-kins who often married to expand their ranks or skills or capabilities. Brio and Lexi’s two families, however, had formed their small Gen together. Their fathers were aspiring pleaders with a shared interest in helping revitalize and help the people of the Bottoms. They had grown Stalbraid together, their kith-kins forming a fierce bond in the process, and however Crache attempted to stamp it out of them, people remain creatures of habit and tradition. There was no law or rule, even in the extreme and unending minutiae of Crachian doctrine, that demanded Brio and Lexi marry in order to continue their Gen. But bloodlines mattered to his father, and so they mattered to Brio. He knew what the man expected of him, and that was to carry their Gen forward in what his father deemed the “right way,” though he and Lexi had yet to get around to that part of it. He had always imagined there would be more time for things like children.