Beck ground his teeth in frustration. There were always those who were envious of their power, something they had no more control over than the color of their hair. It was ignorance, plain and simple. Intending to defuse the situation, he grabbed Airron’s arm and stepped in front of him. “Look,” he said to Heath and his friends, “we’re not like that, all right? We’re here to get a job done, just like you.”
Heath flexed his fingers in a show of threat. “Really? Well, maybe a reminder is still in order. You know, one earthshifter to another?”
Beck smiled lazily. “Be my guest, Heath, but trust me implicitly when I tell you that it would not work out well for you if you tried.”
Heath hesitated and licked his lips uncertainly. Fortunately—for the antagonistic youth anyway—he wavered just long enough for Dismore to make an appearance.
“Legionnaires!” bellowed the commander as he exited the academy doors and entered the courtyard. “Formation!”
“Watch your back,” Heath growled at Beck and turned to walk away.
Before he had taken two steps, Beck reached out and spun the earthshifter around by grasping a fistful of shirt at his shoulder and lifting him up on his toes. “One more thing, Heath,” he said. “You might not be aware of this living outside of Parsis so allow me explain. It is considered a grave insult to call a gifted mindshifter like my friend, Kiernan, a witch. Next time you see her, you will owe her your heartfelt apology. Do you understand me?”
Heath glared at Beck as his friends hurried away. Beck leaned in closer, his breath hot on Heath’s cheek. “Do you understand?” he questioned again.
The boy finally nodded defiantly and Beck casually released his shirt and patted it back into place. “Good. See you around.”
“Line up!” Dismore shouted. “Time is short. The testing needs to be underway immediately.”
With one last look at Heath to make sure he wasn’t going to cause any more trouble, Beck turned back to Airron and Rogan.
“Impressive,” Airron said with a grin. “Was it the challenge to your earthshifting dominance or his slur about Kiernan that got you so riled up?”
“What are you talking about, Falewir?” Beck barked. “I was defending Kiernan! You would have done the same.”
“Sure, big guy. I was just about to tear his head off when you stepped in.”
Beck looked on in confusion as both of his friends glanced at each other and laughed. Ignoring them, he walked away, but he had to admit that Airron had a point. It wasn’t a surprise that Rogan struck out against Heath. He was known to be short-tempered and aggressive. In contrast, Airron was the laid-back prankster who was more interested in laughs and fun than in fighting. But, him? According to his friends, he was the serious one. Decisive and levelheaded. He never got riled up. So, why did he lose his temper? Something to think about when I have more time.
Beck ran to get in line with rest of the legionnaires.
Dismore, dressed in the light gray uniform of the Northwatch Legion, paced before them. “If there are any mindshifters here,” he yelled out, “go immediately into the academy to the Bubble Room on the third floor for your test. There’s an instructor waiting for you there.”
Two red-faced legionnaires left the line and hurried into the school. For some reason, the majority of mindshifters were female, and the young male mindshifters who came to Parsis often found themselves the brunt of ridicule.
Dismore nodded his head once and continued walking back and forth along the line, silently consulting a parchment in his hands. Despite his admonishment that time was short, he was taking his time to look at each legionnaire closely in evaluation. Taking his time to make sure we squirm, Beck thought.
Dismore stopped in front of the redheaded Heath. “Demon’s breath, what happened to your nose?”
“Nothing, sir,” Heath replied, his voice already altered comically by the bulbous swelling.
“Nothing?”
“Just an accident,” he squeaked.
“Let’s make sure that the accidents are kept to a minimum, gentlemen. This is a legion, not a bloody playground.”
“Yes, sir,” most of the legionnaires answered back.
The commander shook his head. “Now, when I call your name, step out of the line and show me why you should be part of the Northwatch Legion!”
His shout was met with uncertain silence.
“When I call your name,” he repeated, impatiently, “step forward and show me why you should be part of the Northwatch Legion!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Excuse me?” he yelled.
“Yes, sir!” came the hearty but disorderly reply.
Dismore grudgingly nodded his head and looked down at his paper again. “Jon Anders!”
“Here, sir,” said Heath’s friend with the curly blonde hair.
“What is your ability, Anders?”
“Earthshifting, sir!” Anders stepped out of the line with biceps bulging in muscled power, a physical trait distinctive to all earthshifters to back up their super strength.
“Well, then, show me!”
Jon took a few hesitant steps and after glancing back nervously at the line of legionnaires behind him, he faced forward and thrust his hand out toward the soil at his feet. Like Heath’s earthshifting, Beck felt a weak tremble as the young shifter attempted to manipulate the ground. Despite the line of sweat beading his forehead, a quick bubble of sprayed dirt was all he could manage.
Beck heard snickers from the line and watched as Jon hung his head in disappointment.
“You think this is amusing?” Dismore demanded, crossing the dirt to confront them faster than Beck thought possible with his bulk. “Men of the Northwatch Legion acting like silly children is amusing to you? It is disgraceful and I will not tolerate game playing in my legion! Get that through your thick skulls now or pack your bags and go home to your mothers!” His face was purple with anger.
Caught off guard, the legionnaires cast their eyes downward and didn’t respond.
“Do you bloody idiots hear me?”
“Yes, sir!” Several of the boys banged their fists to their chests in accepted Northwatch fashion.
Dismore glowered at them for several more uncomfortable moments before turning back to Anders. “Good effort,” he said to the earthshifter. “Rejoin the line.”
Anders walked away, and Dismore called out the next name. “Airron Falewir!”
Airron stepped forward.
Dismore eyed him dubiously. “You are a bodyshifter, correct?”
“Yes.”
“How many forms do you have?”
Beck knew that most eighteen year olds joining the legion had between six to eight solid forms that they could transform into on demand. Trained adult bodyshifters had somewhere around twenty.
Airron rubbed his chin. “At last count? I believe it was seventy-nine, sir.”
Dismore’s eyebrows rose to his hairline. “Bloody hell, that’s impossible.”
Airron tilted his head, appearing to be deep in thought. “You’re right. My apologies, sir. I was mistaken. It’s not seventy-nine. It’s actually eighty. I got a mantath two days ago.”
The legionnaires whistled in admiration. The mantath, a long-snouted mammal covered in armored plates, could grow to be as big as a small house, and Airron was the only bodyshifter on the island who could command such a large form.
Beck learned that for a form to develop within a bodyshifter, he or she used their unique magic to completely siphon off and then possess a body’s exterior image. It always amazed him that it took only a simple touch for Airron to be able to shift into a whole other being.
“I would like to see it,” Dismore said with eager anticipation in his voice.
Airron walked several paces away from the line and removed his clothing. His pale body then erupted upward and rows of hard-shelled, armored plates sprang up along his back. Limbs thickened into stout, muscled legs with sharp claws. A long trunk stretched
to the ground.
Dismore and the legionnaires stepped back as they regarded the sight of the reclusive and massive animal. Airron elicited hearty laughter—even from their irascible commander—when the mantath rose up on wide hind legs and began to hop about, taking a playful swing at Rogan with its snout.
From there, the commander used the better part of an hour to put Airron through form after form before he finally seemed convinced that the bodyshifter wasn’t lying about the extent of his abilities.
Beck clapped Airron on his back when he was finally sent back to the line. “Well done.”
“Over done if you ask me,” the fatigued Elf whispered out of the side of his mouth.
“Rory Greeley!” Dismore shouted out. “Ability?”
“Fireshifter, sir!”
Dismore produced his second smile of the day. “Ah, a fellow fireshifter. Very well then, Master Greeley, show me some fire.”
Poor, unfortunate Rory was unable to produce more than a single flame, but Beck found himself quite taken by the small fireshifter and shouted encouragement to him from the sidelines. Soon, the other legionnaires joined in and the atmosphere changed from one of rivalry to camaraderie. By the time it was Rogan’s turn, the entire legion was crying out for their fellow shifters in a show of unity.
Rogan amazed Dismore with his ability to create and manipulate fire. When the commander asked him to create enough light for a candle, he created flame for a torch. When asked to create a campfire, he created an inferno that shot twenty feet into the sky. He sent fire careening through the air in a multitude of shapes and sizes. His fiery arrows drew applause and then astonished gasps when they hit a small storage shed on the grounds of the academy and it burst into flames.
It was clear that the Northwatch Legion was awed by the extraordinary magic they were witnessing.
Finally, Dismore called Beck’s name. “I will admit, Atlan, I’ve heard the stories about you and that’s why I called you last. Now, do you think you can uproot that maple sapling over at the north end of the school?” he asked, pointing.
Beck looked at the sapling and immediately thrust out his hand palm down. The air vibrated with the hum of magic and instantly the earth started to churn at his feet in a violent roil. He flicked his hand, and the turbulent earth formed into a ball and shot forward like a catapult under the ground resembling an enormous worm burrowing at unbelievable speed toward the sapling. Not only did the maple sapling uproot, but every tree within twenty feet of where Beck gestured as well.
A loud cheer rose up from the legion.
Dismore nodded. “I take it you can adequately perform a shieldwall?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A sinking?”
“Yes.”
“Armor?”
“One of my favorites.”
“Nicely done, legionnaire,” Dismore sniffed, “but I think we’d better stop here to preserve the rest of the grounds of the academy.”
Beck walked back to the line.
“That concludes the testing, gentlemen. Go ahead and collect your uniforms on the first floor of the academy from Mistress Button, the school administrator. Once you have changed, collect your packs and meet me at Mincer’s Stables. Do not be late!”
Alarm filled Beck. “What? We’re leaving right now?”
“What’s the matter?” asked Rogan.
“I’m supposed to meet Kiernan at the lake before we go. I don’t want to leave without seeing her.”
“She’ll understand, Beck. She’ll have to because there is no way that you’re going to have time to go to the lake.”
Beck sighed, more despondent than he cared to admit even to himself.
As they started walking toward the academy doors to retrieve their uniforms, Airron, oblivious to Beck’s angst, looked behind him, sniffing. “Does anybody smell smoke?”
Rogan burst out laughing.
***
The newly-uniformed Northwatch Legion sat mounted and ready to depart with packs, bedrolls and provisions secured behind their saddles. The horses stamped their feet, impatient to be moving after the confines of the stables. A light mist swirled at their feet in shadowy wisps that appeared and disappeared at random.
Commander Dismore gave the signal and they started ahead on the road that would take them north toward the Balor Mountains.
A few people, mostly the parents of the departing legionnaires, lined the streets to wave and shout out farewells to the passing company. Beck smiled affectionately at his parents when his mother called out to him and waved a handkerchief his way.
He tugged at the uncomfortable collar chafing his neck while he scanned the crowd for Kiernan. Where is she? He knew that she was upset about being left behind, but it was very unlike her not to be here now. He wouldn’t see her again for two years. Surely, she would want to see her best friends off on such a long journey?
Shaking his head, he tried to clear the unexpected emotions surfacing again. Yes, he expected to feel sad about leaving Kiernan, but not this overwhelming sense of loss. Not this painful knot in his stomach that threatened to double him over.
If he looked closer, he knew he might discover the term for his ailment, but he refused to do so.
Not now.
He resolutely pushed aside all thoughts of Kiernan and focused his mind instead on the ride ahead and his life as a legionnaire for the next two years. Thankfully, Rogan and Airron rode up beside him and captured his attention with their usual teasing banter.
As the procession continued out of the city, Beck couldn’t stop himself from glancing behind one last time, but there was still no sign of Kiernan.
Between the mist, and the shouts from the crowd, and the excitement of the morning, Beck didn’t notice the extra legionnaire riding in the line that morning.
He noticed neither him nor the flashes of white keeping pace off through the trees on the left.
Chapter 5
A Bid for Freedom
Lucin glanced up wearily from the pile of plans and maps strewn across the table in front of him when the tent flap pushed aside and his son, Titus, bent his considerable frame to enter. A wrench of grief assailed him as their eyes met. He knew where Titus had been this evening. The lecherous Avalon Ravener had finally noticed his young son, and the boy was now caught up in the midst of her voracious appetites and games. He also knew there was nothing he could do to stop it. Their gluttonous captor had moved on from the father to the son.
Lucin broke the gaze first not wishing to shame the boy further and bent back over his maps. He shook his gray head as he despaired not only over Titus, but for the plight of all of his people. As captain of the Cyman Army, he was entitled to comforts that the others lived without—a canvas roof over his head and food to eat. The soldiers were not so fortunate. They slept without benefit of cover out in the rainy, cold weather and trained for hours each day with little sleep and inadequate nourishment.
However, even they had it better than the women.
Living the lives of slaves and forced into hard labor, the females toiled in drudgery hour after hour at every trade and craft required to keep Nordik functioning. As the farmers, blacksmiths, cooks, maids, cobblers, tailors, fletchers, masons and carpenters, the women worked day and night to keep the city, soldiers and Ravener Keep outfitted and operational.
The House of Ravener had been built solely on the backs of the Cyman women of Nordik.
Even so, it wasn’t the hard work that stripped the women of life—of spirit. It was the separation from their husbands and children. In Nordik, children were taken from their mothers at birth and cared for by the women who ran the orphanages. If the Cyman women performed their duties adequately, Ravener permitted them time once per month to visit with their offspring. But, it wasn’t nearly enough for a mother who longed for her child.
Lucin thought of his wife, Maree, and the look of utter torment on her face the last time he had seen her. He didn’t think she could last much longer.
Her dress hung on her shrinking frame from lack of food, and the dark circles under her eye told him she wasn’t sleeping. He clung to her tightly that day and couldn’t help himself from whispering in her ear that he was close to finding a way that would one day soon free her and their people from the malevolent grasp of the Raveners. He knew it was wrong, that he shouldn’t have raised her hopes so, but he would have said just about anything in that moment just to see a spark of light back in her troubled eye.
To his shame, it worked.
She smiled the first real smile he had seen in months and embraced him fiercely murmuring that she had always believed in him. Always believed he would be their savior. She told him how brave and smart he was and how much she loved him. Then, she hurried away to give the news to their daughter, Miah, who was one of the more fortunate females and worked inside the Keep.
Without a word, Titus walked over to his cot in the corner of the tent and lay down with his back turned. The boy felt humiliated by the acts forced upon him, Lucin knew. He had struggled with the same emotions when it started for him so many years ago.
Lucin closed his eye and clasped his hands to his forehead, silently beseeching the Highworld to deliver his people from evil. It had been a very long time since he had turned to prayer. The spirits had unquestionably forsaken the Cyman people to their own devices long, long ago.
Yet now, there was a minute ray of hope. Deathbed ramblings of an old woman that Lucin was now counting on to turn into a lifeline for the Cyman people.
Abruptly, he pushed away from the table and stood. Now was as good a time as any to find out if his plan would work. With a last look at Titus, he ducked out of the tent and into the mire that surrounded the camp.
It must be early spring, he thought, although it was hard to tell the seasons apart in Nordik. Every day was greeted with the same gray, overcast skies, and today was no different as the clouds overhead bulged with unreleased rainwater.
The mud was everywhere. Continual rain and lack of green growth on the ground to soak the excess water made the land a virtual mud hole. The heavy boots of the army moving through the camp churned the soil until every step sank ankle-deep in sludge. Everything and everyone lived with a perpetual covering of mud. It covered bodies, clothes, blankets and equipment. Many of the soldiers walked for a league or more in the evenings in search of a dry piece of hard ground to sleep on.