Age of Ancients (Shattered Kingdoms Book 1), page 16
“I wasn’t accusing. Just making an observation,” Ash replied. “You still see them when you close your eyes.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Don’t we all?” Phoenix asked, looking up to the night sky but seeing only the expanse of the hide stretching overhead.
“They haunt me,” Ash said, staring down at her hand. “Never allow me a moment’s rest.”
“When this is done, their spirits will be at peace,” he replied.
“But will ours?” she asked, looking up at him.
“Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, those who we have freed will have better lives. It is why we all branded ourselves on that day. It is why we carry the Wings of Freedom on our shoulders. When we are through, slavery will once again be a thing of the past. Lawlessness will come to an end, and order will be restored.”
Ash stared at him for a moment and sighed, leaning back until the tent bowed outward, supporting her weight.
“Maybe that’s your reason. But you know I have a different goal in mind.”
“As do we all,” Phoenix replied. “Once, I was Kapua, drifting like my namesake, a cloud in the wind. Carefree and happy. Once, you were Lilia, a daughter of flowers, traveling the world with a loving father and sister. Those people died, and we rose in their place. One day, when we are gone, they may rise again to rejoin their families in the afterlife. For now, we fight. We do what we must so that others may keep their names and their families.”
Ash didn’t reply to that, but he knew she shared the same sentiment. Of all his commanders, the two of them had known one another the longest — nearly fourteen years now. When they’d met, she’d only been nine years old, and he’d been a man of barely twenty. Now, despite their relative youth, they carried with them the baggage of eons, their backs bowed by the weight of the corpses they’d left in their wake.
Worse, they both knew that in order to succeed in their mission to bring order, they would still need to wade through oceans of blood and step over mountains of corpses. They also knew that they would do it, no matter the personal cost.
“I guess there’s no price I wouldn’t have paid for what I now have,” Ash replied. “Freedom is often won at a steep cost.”
The two of them sat in silence, each contemplating what the other had said, until they were interrupted nearly an hour later by the arrival of Flicker, the man from the Nightfire Kingdom who’d lost his eyes.
“I thought I’d find the two of you here,” he said, shaking his head disapprovingly.
His voice was rough, raspy, and quiet, a consequence of the wound he’d taken across his throat during his years as a slave. He hadn’t been moving fast enough when their master had commanded it, and the whip that had crushed his throat had very nearly killed him.
Just like Ash’s missing arm and the scars covering Phoenix’s body, it had not been healed when they’d gone through the Trials, and neither had his eyesight. But, just like the two of them, he’d gotten an ability that helped him compensate for it, turning what had once been a liability into an asset.
“I’m assuming Ash was supposed to give me a report then,” Phoenix said, unsurprised that she’d decided to talk instead of doing her job.
“I forgot,” Ash said with a shrug.
Phoenix knew better than to believe her. She never forgot anything.
“Well, what is it?” he asked, turning his eyes back on the man with blue-gray skin.
Some thought it odd that he had commanders from each of the fallen kingdoms, but he saw it as fate. Against all odds, people from all of the kingdoms had ended up enslaved to the same master in the far reaches of the west. It was their purpose to do this.
“Several of Riri’s scouts were killed,” Flicker said, holding up a rolled-up piece of hide and allowing it to unravel.
Lines, black and red, were revealed as it unfurled, showing a map of the old Sandstone Kingdom. The red lines signified the areas that they had freed and united, while the black represented the areas that were still lawless and wild.
There was still far too much black for his liking, but Phoenix knew this would take time. Freeing themselves had taken more than seven years, and liberating their first town had taken over six months. Freeing this last one, however, had taken only two weeks. Their forces were growing, and before long, they would no longer need to carefully plan when attacking a smaller village. They would just be able to sweep over it, killing the so-called masters and freeing those unfortunate enough to end up beneath their heels, adding to their strength before moving on to the next.
“Where?” Phoenix asked, now understanding why Ash had failed to broach the subject as she was supposed to.
Riri was the newest member of his command staff. She was the first one to join that hadn’t been with them back when they’d been enslaved, and of them all, Ash liked her the least.
“Here,” Flicker said, pointing to a spot on the map that was completely blank.
In fact, the closest settlement would be over a week away by foot.
“A hidden settlement?” he asked, not thinking for a moment that Flicker’s blindness had caused him to point to the wrong spot.
“So Riri reports,” Flicker replied.
“And the surviving scouts? What do they say?”
“Their attackers seemed like the type,” he answered.
“Then we’ll make a detour when we hit the Elor Oasis. We can’t allow a single settlement to remain unfree.”
“Scouts?” Flicker asked.
“Send two more, but tell them to keep their distance,” Phoenix said. “And tell Riri to report in when she can.”
Flicker nodded, then turned and left. Like Phoenix, he wore no shirt, and the Wings of Freedom stood out clearly against his skin, etched with permanent ink in the style of the Islanders. His, like all the other commanders, had been done in black ink. Phoenix and Riri had needed to have theirs done a different way.
Ink would not show on their dark skin, so Phoenix had had the wings burned into his back, raising small ridges and assuring they would never leave.
“You don’t like her,” he said as Flicker left.
“None of us do,” Ash replied, the disgust clear in her voice. “That woman doesn’t have a single mark on her. She also refuses to take a new name. She doesn’t deserve the position.”
Phoenix could understand where she and the others were coming from. All of them had been maimed in one way or another, while Riri seemed quite whole.
“Some wounds do not manifest themselves physically,” he replied.
“We all carry those wounds, inside and out,” Ash shot back.
“Not like hers,” Phoenix replied, his gaze going distant. “There’s a reason her body is unblemished and whole.”
He’d heard Riri’s story. There were no words to describe the horrors she’d been through. Anyone else would have gone insane, but she had come out on the other side with her sanity intact and a thirst for vengeance that matched his own.
“Maybe,” Ash said, admitting defeat on that front. “But she refuses to change her name, she’s still too young, and I don’t understand why you’re giving her your old command!”
And there it is. The real reason they’re upset.
“I’m not leaving, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he replied. “When our force was small, I could lead a group myself. But we’re no longer the small band of freedom fighters we once were. We’re growing into an army, and I need to step back and let someone else do my old job, someone I trust to represent the old Sandstone Kingdom.
“Yes, she’s only seventeen, and yes, she refuses to change her name. But she has proven herself worthy time and time again. She’s smart, driven, and above all, thirsts for vengeance. She refuses to change her name because to her, that name means something. We changed ours because those people, those who we once were, are dead. Riri is not.”
Ash opened her mouth to protest again, but Phoenix held up a hand to stop her.
“Talk to her,” he said, getting to his feet. “If you still don’t like her after, feel free to come back and tell me. If you all agree, then I’ll ask her to step down.”
Ash nodded, getting to her feet as well. She was likely confident that the others would agree with her and that Riri would soon be demoted, but Phoenix knew the truth. Once they were done speaking with her, even Ash would have to agree that she was the right choice for the position.
“Is there anything else you’ve forgotten to report?” he asked, pushing aside the flap of his tent and exiting into the night air.
“Maybe,” Ash replied. “But I know that you haven’t eaten all day, so I won’t tell you anything until you eat.”
He let out an annoyed huff but turned in the direction of the cooking fires. Ash did this all the time, and he knew that she would keep her word about withholding important information. And though he didn’t admit as much out loud, his growling stomach agreed with her wholeheartedly.
25: Departure
Dabu twisted his shoulders from side to side, hearing a series of pops, and let out a light groan. His muscles were all cramped up, and seeing as they were going to be heading back into the freezing cold within the hour, bound for a day of uphill trekking through knee-deep snow, he needed to loosen up.
Uhane was soaking in the pool behind the wall again, enjoying one last bath before they set off, leaving him to watch their meal to make sure it didn’t burn.
Dabu had learned a lot about survival, fighting, and his skills and ability in the past week. They’d only faced a single other beast, which Uhane had deliberately drawn in, and that had pushed Dabu past rank 4 and halfway to 5.
He still hadn’t felt great about killing the beast, as, in his eyes, it had been unnecessary. All of the others he’d fought had been trying to kill him, or in the case of the ram, had been standing between him and life-saving warmth. The last beast they’d attracted – another badger – wouldn’t have bothered them if they’d just left it alone.
It had been a part of Uhane’s lessons. She was trying to make him harder, more callous about death. The world was full of it, and if he didn’t learn to kill, someone would eventually kill him instead.
Despite that, he’d found killing the badger to be just as hard as the others had been, and Uhane’s insistence that it would become easier didn’t seem to apply to him. In fact, he felt even guiltier killing the badger than he had when killing the goat or Carnotaurus. Perhaps it would grow easier if he killed a few more, but the very thought bothered him.
At the same time, however, Dabu knew that this was the only way he’d be able to grow stronger and save his family. The dichotomy of his opposing viewpoints in the matter was seriously starting to mess with his head.
Thankfully, Uhane’s lessons had involved other things as well, things that helped him get his mind off those troubling thoughts. She’d taught him a faster way to build a fire, how to cook meat properly, and how to skin an animal, as well as what parts were good to eat and what parts would make him sick.
She’d done some more hand to hand combat work with him as well, but the main focus had been fighting as a team.
They’d fashioned fake people and beasts from the odd trees, working together to take them down. Dabu would target their weak points from a distance, trying to incapacitate, while Uhane would move in to finish them. She’d tried to get him to deliver killing blows on the faux people, but while he’d grudgingly agreed to strike down the beasts, he’d refused to kill people outright. The very notion sickened him.
He’d made some discoveries about his skills as well. For example, he learned how quickly he could summon his Ember Blade and how many he could use before having to take a moment to breathe. He’d managed four in a row, one after the other, before his head had begun pounding, forcing him to stop.
He’d also found some other limitations. When he’d tried to use two at once, he’d failed outright, and trying to force a blade outside his sphere of control caused it to dissipate.
His Spark Field now allowed him to place three in the same spot, but if they all went off at once, the effect seemed weakened. It was still stronger than an individual blast – and stronger than two – but not quite as strong as three should have been. He was also able to place the sparks faster, and the power of the blasts were now leaving small craters in the ground.
It still wasn’t strong enough to damage solid stone, leaving large scorch marks instead, but his Ember Blade had managed to leave a small groove, perhaps a tenth of an inch deep. It wasn’t much, but Uhane said that he was on the right path. She could leave a mark that was a bit deeper when using her Crystalize, but not by much.
Dabu was snapped from his thoughts as the fire gave off a loud pop, prompting him to turn the small stick to prevent the meat from burning.
His muscles were still a bit tight, but stretching them now wouldn’t loosen them any more. Uhane had told him that in order to get the best stretch, his muscles needed to be warm, and any preliminary stretching was just to avoid painful cramps. Deciding to kill time and distract himself, he sat down by the fire and pulled up his status.
Name: Dabu
Ability Type: Mage
Rank - 4
Energy to Next Rank - 160/500
Ability - Soul Sphere
MP - 150/150 (Regen - 1.4 per second)
Strength - 7
Agility - 7
Constitution - 9
Intelligence - 15
Wisdom - 14
Skills - Ember Blade, Spark Field
As he’d guessed, his Constitution hadn’t made it to 10, leaving him with only a slightly improved lung capacity, but the knowledge that his next rank would finally take some of his burden away had him excited about moving up again.
He checked the meat, giving it a quick turn, then went back to his status and looked over his improved skills.
Skills:
Ember Blade: Cut your opponents with blades forged from the embers of your soul within your field of influence.
Cost - 10 MP
Range - 7 ft
Spark Field: Create small sparks within your field of influence that will burst upon outside contact.
Cost - 25 MP
Range - 7 ft
Although he hadn’t managed to learn any new skills so far, he’d noticed that his current skills’ power and range had been increasing as he grew. Each rank gave him another half-foot of range, and although the power itself was harder to measure, Uhane had guessed that based on his Intelligence, he could probably kill a rank 0 beast in only a couple of strikes now.
Knowing her, she was going to conduct more tests once they were back in the first area, and he wasn’t looking forward to it.
Instead of thinking about that, Dabu wondered about the progress he’d made in his time here. It was hard to believe, but he’d been in the Trials for over two weeks already, meaning that over half his time had elapsed. He wasn’t really sure what Uhane would do, as she only had around eight days before she could leave, and although he was too afraid to ask, he secretly hoped that she would stay and wait for him.
“Is the meat almost done?” Uhane asked, her voice sounding from behind the wall.
“Just another couple of minutes,” he replied, turning the meat again.
“Guess I’d better get out then,” she said, a forlorn tone tinging her voice.
Dabu got the impression that she’d enjoyed baths like this back on the Islands, although she still didn’t talk about it. He didn’t push her, even though he was already quite sure of what had happened to her. Each time he spoke of his family, he could see the sorrow and anger in her eyes. He could understand the pain of losing loved ones, and not wanting to talk about it was all too familiar to him.
They’d grown closer over their time here, and he felt much more comfortable around her now. It was as though they’d known one another for several years, not just a couple of weeks.
“You look like you’re ready for bed,” Dabu said as she walked out from behind the wall, her dripping wet hair draped over one shoulder and her eyes half-lidded.
“I am,” she said, wringing out her hair. “I really wish we could stay here for another few days, but we do need to get going. The fourth area is a full day’s walk from the first area, so we can’t afford to stay here any longer.”
“Why do we need to go to the fourth area again?” Dabu asked as she came to sit next to him.
She wasn’t exactly dressed, having wrapped a fur around her chest to dry off and avoid getting her clothes wet until she did. It draped down past her waist, but when she sat down, it rode up her thighs a bit, bordering on indecent.
Dabu barely noticed anymore, as he’d grown accustomed to this over their stay here, and reached out to pull the meat from the fire as she gave her answer.
“Because, in terms of weather, this area is still too challenging for either of us. We need a place where the beasts and terrain will push our limits, but not break us.”
Dabu picked up the two flat pieces of stone they’d been using as plates and slid the sizzling meat onto them, handing one of them to her once it was secure.
Uhane hissed, tugging at the meat and pulling it apart, before popping a piece into her mouth. She quickly sucked in air and began waving to try and cool it down.
“Why don’t you ever wait?” Dabu asked, hiding a grin.
Uhane had a habit of trying to eat as soon as the food was ready.
“Becashe itsh besht hoh,” she said, the words almost unintelligible as she tried to speak with her mouth open and full.
“You know that you won’t be able to taste anything with a burned tongue, right?”
Uhane finally managed to swallow the mouthful of meat, then gave him a toothy grin.
“That’s never stopped me,” she said, reaching out again and wincing as the greasy fat burned her fingers.
