Death Cultivator

by eden Hudson

  “We wouldn’t let you in with those still attached,” the catfish agreed. He tapped his HUD screen again. “I’m sending you an address. Go when you leave here and our artisan will lift them for you, on us.”

  “And—”

  “Geez, man,” I stopped Warcry. “Don’t get greedy.”

  “I seen me brand lawyer do enough of these negotiations to know that him not refusing anything yet means we haven’t asked for anything more than the lowball they offer every new recruit,” Warcry said.

  The catfish made that croaking laugh sound.

  “How about I send you both the usual affiliate offer with your requests added in?” he suggested. “You can read over it and let me know if it’s up to your standards. Send it to your brand lawyer if you want. You’ve got time. You’ll both be under the Eight-Legged Dragons’ provisional protection until the tournament week is out.”

  I waited for Warcry to protest some more and screw this whole thing up for us, but he just nodded.

  “Thanks,” I told Biggerstaff.

  The catfish stuck out his hand. I shook it, and when he bowed over the handshake, I imitated the motion.

  “Learn how to cloak your Spirit,” Biggerstaff said. “And don’t kill anyone in Jade City before the end of tournament week. If you violate the peace arrangement in that time, the Dragons will be honor bound to let Shogun Connor have you.”

  I glanced out of the hallway at the Peacemaker robots hauling off the broken, bleeding corpses of kokugikon staff.

  “I won’t,” I said.

  Party Like You Lived

  AFTER WARCRY AND I got our OSS tattoos removed at the script shop, we headed back to the hotel to find Rali and Kest. The healer hadn’t been able to reattach her arm, but they’d gotten her patched up with some of those bandages that sink into your skin. The fresh black script covering her stump wasn’t gross or ugly, but it really drew attention to what was missing. She acted like everything was cool, though, so I pretended like it was, too.

  “Eat up, guys,” she said, nodding at the tableful of pizza. “I ordered the same amount we got yesterday, but Rali only ate like one piece.”

  “How ’bout ya, big man?” Warcry slapped Rali’s arm on his way to grab a heaping slice. “You sick or what?”

  Rali smiled, but it wasn’t his usual carefree grin.

  “I’m not hungry yet,” he said. “I want to take some time to reflect on the day before I dive in.”

  That horrified look on his face when he saw his sister bleeding out flashed through my mind. I felt my stomach flip all over again, and cold sweat broke out across my forehead.

  Kest was too absorbed in her HUD to notice anything was off, though. She had the band squeezed between her knees and was busy tapping the screen with her remaining hand as if she’d always done it that way.

  “Where’s the holoscreen control?” Warcry asked, setting his pizza down long enough to rummage through a drawer. “Did one of you lot have it?”

  “I’ve never even heard of that,” I said. “I’m going to go take a shower.”

  I didn’t stay in the tub as long as the night before. Partly because I wasn’t trying to wash off a month’s worth of dirt this time, partly because I didn’t want anyone to think I was in there freaking out over almost getting my friends killed.

  When I came back out, Warcry was kicked back on his bed with a remote, and he and the twins were watching a projection on the far wall of the room. It was a post-tournament breakdown with interviews, replays, and analyses of the new affiliations.

  I relaxed a little bit. This was something I knew how to do. Hang out and watch TV.

  The couch was on the projection wall, so I sat on the floor, leaning against the side of the twins’ bed. We pointed out the best techniques and made fun of the junk ones and talked back to the commentators. Just a bunch of messing around, nothing serious, which was great after what felt like a month’s worth of everything being life or death. It was kind of like going through the nightly routine with Gramps. After a while, the ball of guilt in my gut loosened up and unleashed a starving monster, so I helped Warcry and Kest demolish the pizza. Rali picked at a slice, which I guess was better than nothing.

  The Ylef with the hammers had won the individual championship. Once he and his real crew had been found, he’d been ready to kill someone, and you could tell it from his fight. The commentators had to slow the footage way down before you could see his individual hammer strikes. They played the fight in real time with a clock running in the corner just to show how fast it happened. The whole thing was over in one point eight seconds.

  “A submission hold would never work on that,” I said, thinking back to my fight with him. “Not at that speed.”

  Kest frowned up at the slow-motion replay. “He’s good. There’s nothing in his technique to exploit.”

  “Sure, he’s the bet in a weapons fight.” Warcry threw a piece of his crust at the image. “Bareknuckle, that cove would snap like a twig.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Rali said.

  “Gonna test it for yourself someday, big man?”

  Rali laughed. “Not unless he attacks one of you while you’re unable to defend yourself.”

  I laughed with him, but I kept seeing him in the cage after Kest’s arm came off. Those OSS jerks hadn’t been a match for him. Nobody we’d fought today had been able to touch him. Rali had basically been playing around from the first match until the second his sister got hurt. If he ever decided to do some damage, I doubted Warcry, that Ylef with the hammers, or even the Bailiff could take him.

  Over on his bed, Warcry was squinting at Rali sidelong like he might be thinking something similar.

  “Why didn’t the Technols sign him?” Kest wondered. “He won, and they had the champion pick this year.”

  “’Cause the Technols are all Ylef trash, aren’t they? They won’t acknowledge a Nameless.”

  “Why not?” I asked, glancing away from the projection.

  “To them, the Nameless’re only about a tick above a human. Probably why they didn’t sign the cove last year, either.” He nodded at Kest. “Give us another slice, yeah?”

  She passed him one over my head.

  The Winchester buzzed. Warcry’s HUD went off while I was opening the message.

  “Biggerstaff?” I asked.

  He nodded. “It’s the offer with our demands written in.”

  Kest leaned over my shoulder, trying to read the message, so I got up on my knees and leaned over her and Rali’s bed with the screen out where she could see.

  “I’m going to accept,” I said. “That was the whole reason we went through with this.”

  “No bleedin’ joke, grav, obviously we’re going to accept.” Warcry scrolled through his offer. “But you never give in that easy in contract negotiations. Let them see how desperate you are and they’ll walk all over you.”

  I shrugged. “I’m pretty desperate.”

  Kest grabbed my wrist and turned my HUD so she could see something better.

  “You got them to include me and Rali in the offer?”

  “Only if you’re not going to—” I stopped suddenly, realizing I was an idiot, and looked at Rali.

  “Oh, he knows about the Technol offer,” Kest said. “I told him while we were on the way to the healer’s. Kind of a deathbed confessional.”

  “Cool,” I said like that hadn’t been a sucker punch. I must not have been very convincing, though, because Kest smiled and gave me a soft shove.

  “Don’t be dumb, Hake,” she said. “Losing a limb isn’t the end of the universe. People do it all the time. Besides, I’ve always wanted to try out biotech, but no one would let me experiment on them. I’ve got so many ideas I want to incorporate into a new and improved arm.” She went back to tapping away at her HUD. “Not to mention this Eight-Legged Dragon proposal will give me something to come back at the Technols with. See if they don’t up their affiliation offer once they hear they’ve got competi
tion for signing me.”

  I shrugged like that was a decent consolation prize, but it definitely wasn’t.

  “What d’ya say, big man?” Warcry pointed his pizza at Rali. “You in, too?”

  “While I’m grateful to the Death cultivator for the thought, I’m going to remain unaffiliated for now.” Rali gave me a seated bow. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” I said. “But why?”

  He looked out the balcony door into the night. “The Big Five aren’t my first choice.”

  Kest shot me a warning look, so I took the hint and minded my own business. Whatever Rali’s reasons, they must’ve been part of the irons in the fire he didn’t want us to know about.

  A few minutes after we’d sent our signatures, Warcry’s and my HUDs buzzed with Biggerstaff’s reply.

  Be at Heartchamber 2 of the Eight-Legged Dragon in Bogland by night sun high, four days from now. Show up late, and your provisionary affiliation, along with its privileges, will be immediately revoked.

  “Must be the second phase of affiliation,” Warcry said, scanning his message. “Proving you’re worth their investment outside the cage.”

  “Where’s Bogland?” I asked.

  “It’s a peninsula off the northwestern coast of the Wilderness Territories.” Kest found a map of it on her HUD, then held it out for me to see. “I’ve never heard of anyone building out there, though. The terrain’s too unstable to support much. It’s not a huge area, but the bullet train only runs to the edge of it, so we’ll have to find another way into the interior.”

  I stood up. “Should we leave now?”

  “Do what you want, grav.” Warcry stretched out and laced his hands behind his head, making a big show of squirming down into the mattress. He shut his eyes. “My fights are done. I did me most. I lived. I’m going to enjoy this luxury bed and stuff myself with gourmet food for one more night before I piss off for any boggy wildlands.”

  Rali pointed at Warcry. “Here’s a man who knows what’s important.”

  I looked at Kest.

  “It is only a three-hour train ride from here,” she said. “If we leave tomorrow, we’ll still have plenty of time.”

  “Okay,” I said, sitting back down in my spot. “Pizza party tonight, phase two of joining the Eight-Legged Dragons tomorrow.”

  So, we hung out and watched tournament recap and ate pizza all night. Rali eventually got his appetite back and stopped looking so lost. He and I made fun of the over-the-top commentators and ridiculous product placements while Warcry yelled at the fighters about all the mistakes they were making. Kest moved over to where I was leaning against her and Rali’s bed and sat with her knee just barely touching the back of my head. Every time she moved, it rubbed against my hair, and this time there was nothing to distract me from how great it felt. Maybe it was just an accident. But then again, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it meant something. She had scooted over there on purpose, after all, and even when she got up, she always came back and sat in the same spot next to me.

  After such a brutal day and with the whole unknown of the trip to Bogland ahead of us, we probably should’ve gotten some rest, but nobody mentioned being tired. I don’t know about the rest of them, but for me at least, it felt like one of those nights you wanted to go on forever. We hadn’t won anything—we’d basically had our butts handed to us—but we had survived, and that felt like a victory.

  When the first rays from the blue sun poked into the sky, the party atmosphere started to die down, and things got quieter and more thoughtful. Less yelling at the screen and more looking out the window or checking HUDs. You could feel that outside the rest of the world was moving on with its day.

  I got up and stretched. My back popped about a dozen times.

  “Train station?” I said.

  “With a quick stop to stock up on supplies,” Kest said. She tapped her HUD screen a couple times, then wiggled the band onto her wrist and started trying to fasten it one-handed. “We’re not going to find anybody who sells Coffee Drank in Bogland, and I’m not going without when I have a whole storage ring to carry it in.”

  “I’m not getting any meditating done here,” Rali said, shrugging. “Might as well try it on the train.”

  Warcry shut off the recap and tossed the remote onto the nightstand.

  “Break through that bottleneck, big man,” he said, jamming his foot and prosthetic into his boots. “Then it’s you and me, ya bleeder. To the death.”

  That got Rali laughing. “I will never fight you, Warcry. Not as long as I live.”

  “We’ll see what happens, won’t we?” the ginger said as he headed for the door.

  Rali looked from me to Kest, shaking his head No.

  “Yeah, we will,” Warcry called over his shoulder.

  Still chuckling, Rali grabbed his walking stick and followed Warcry out into the hall.

  Kest finally got her HUD band fastened, then turned to me.

  “Got everything?” she asked.

  “Let me check.” I made a big show of looking down at my clothes and sneakers. Besides those, the Winchester, and Hungry Ghost, I didn’t have anything in this universe to worry about forgetting. “Yeah.”

  She smirked and elbowed me. “Let’s go, you goof.”

  Twenty minutes later, the four of us were at a train station ossuary, standing on the platform and waiting for the next bullet train to Bogland. I breathed in the Miasma coming off the bones, filling my Spirit sea and watching the thin turquoise trail leading to Hungry Ghost in my pocket.

  I wondered if Gramps was up, too, drinking coffee and getting started with his day. Maybe moving on with his life. I hoped so. I hoped he was okay, like not just physically. Gramps and I had had a lot of crappy breaks, but we kept moving on. Which wasn’t as bleak as it sounded, because a lot of great things happened along the way, and eventually that good break had to come.

  The tracks started to whine and clank, announcing the train was almost there. Everybody on the platform rushed forward so they could be the first on the train. Warcry shoved his way to the front, then jerked his head at us to come on. Rali broke off the conversation he’d been having with an old blind beggar and steered Kest, who had her nose buried in her schematics again, through the crowd to join the redhead. I squeezed through the crush of people and stepped up beside them.

  The bullet train’s brakes screeched as it pulled to a stop in the station. The doors rolled open and the crowd flowed around me into the car. My friends disappeared inside, but I just stood there, staring at the threshold. Just like with the transport shuttle that first day on Van Diemann, I got this weird feeling that if I stepped onto the train, I’d be taking a step I could never take back.

  Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing, though. At the end of every kung fu movie I could remember, there was some sort of return that made the whole thing feel like it had come full circle. Going back to the village to restore the holy treasure to its rightful place, coming back to your village with your family’s honor reinstated, standing triumphant in the same place where you got the beatdown at the beginning, master of the art you couldn’t figure out before.

  Except I wasn’t the master of anything, and instead of going back home, I was headed somewhere I’d never been before with no idea what was in store. But then maybe this was just the beginning of the movie.

  Warcry stuck his upper body out a window halfway down the car. “What’re ya doing, grav? Let’s go already!”

  “We saved you a seat,” Rali called, leaning out, too.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming!” I grinned and hopped the train to Bogland.

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  Looking for more awesome cultivation, and need it right this minute? Check out: Hollow Core (School of Swords and Serpents Book 1). Or keep reading to take a sneak peek.

  JACE WARIN NEVER WANTED anything more than to attend the School of Swords and Serpents to escape the labor camps and restore his family's stained honor.

  But the determined young martial artist soon discovers the school he's always dreamed about is teeming with secret plots and sinister designs. To survive, he will have to master long-lost jinsei techniques, repair his wounded soul, and face down a most unexpected enemy: The Academy's ruthless headmaster and cunning professors.

  Hollow Core is the first book in the School of Swords and Serpents series, a tale of wuxia adventure, cultivation mastery, and lurking threats.

  Chapter One: The Champion

  THE APPEARANCE OF A full-fledged member of the Resplendent Suns in the arena had whipped the crowd into a frenzy. He was larger than life, a mountain of a young man with channels so filled with jinsei that his blond hair practically stood on end from the energy coursing through his flesh and bones. His white gi shone like a beacon against the ancient polished wood beneath his calloused feet, and the bold scrivenings that ran down each of his sleeves blazed with so much sacred light they seemed to have been poured from molten gold.

  I’d never seen an Empyreal before, but now I understood why the defender clans thought they were better than the rest of us.