CHAPTER 23

The Sea

A Grievar should bathe once per week. Less frequent bathing may cause the buildup of harmful toxins and result in sickness. However, bathing too often will diminish the essential vitality that lies just beneath a Grievar’s skin.

Passage Four, Forty-Third Precept of the Combat Codes

I don’t get why Cego gets to ride Bird!” Dozer grumbled. The big Grievar sat behind Knees, his arms wrapped around him for support, as the two rode on brown Boko.

“First, we know Bird’s taken to Cego since Murray left us,” Brynn said from her black roc with Abel behind her. “And second, don’t deny that you’re happy to be hugging Knees again.”

Cego chuckled as Dozer quickly unwrapped his arms from Knees, only to nearly fall off the roc. He ruffled the stray feathers on Bird’s head as they rode out on the carriage road west of the Citadel.

Sol rode beside him, high atop great Firenze, her long red braid bouncing with the gait of the mount. It was a rare day full of sunshine in Ezo, though winter’s cold still hung in the air. But the indigo calacynth blossoms had bloomed in the grass and the ice had thawed and melted, feeding the river that ran beside them. They would follow the waters to the Western Sea.

Cego still couldn’t believe that the Whelps were there. They weren’t running, though the thought had crossed Cego’s mind. Sol and Brynn had come up with the idea of getting away for a day, escaping the lockdown. It hadn’t been difficult. Abel had already rewired the Quarter D lockpad, and Brynn had befriended one of the Level Fives who had been posted to keep watch. None of the students were happy about being stuck in their dorms.

“Why wait here and stew in fear when we’re not even able to train properly?” Brynn had said. “Let’s go off and enjoy the world a few moments more. If these are to be our last days, I’d like mine to be nice ones, spirits be asked.”

Cego had been reluctant at first; going on a jaunt to the beach didn’t seem appropriate when the world was burning.

A full battalion of Enforcers had been gathered outside the Citadel’s walls, waiting to greet Silas’s undeterred army. The Lyceum had been completely shut down for the first time in decades, all the students huddled in fear of the Cimmerian Shade within their dorms.

And the news had spread that Silas the Slayer was to meet First Knight Yang in the Circle within Albright Stadium. A challenge match, ordained by the Citadel, that would determine the fate of the entire nation.

The Whelps had watched the preparations on their way out. A horde of Grunts had descended on the grounds outside Albright Stadium to construct tents to house the incoming army. They’d dragged out barrels of rations and drink to feed the Flux.

It was strange, to give an invading army such hospitality, Cego had thought.

“I still can’t believe you haven’t been to the sea before,” Brynn said across her roc to Knees.

“It be a bit tough to visit the sea when you grow up in the desert and then are sold to the Underground,” Knees replied.

“My sisters and I used to visit the big lakes in Desovi,” Abel said.

“You’ve never been either, Cego?” Brynn asked.

Cego didn’t know how to respond. “Well, it’s a bit complicated for me…”

“Remember, Cego was born in a Bit-Minder simulation of an island,” Sol said. “So, he did spend most of his childhood by the water, but outside of his mind, he’s never visited a real seaside.”

“Oh,” said Brynn in her casual manner. “That makes sense, then.”

Sol turned back to Cego and gave him a grin. “Was that so hard?”

“Well… I guess not,” Cego said.

“Not everything has to be so complicated,” Sol said. “Like this trip. It’s what it is, friends off to take a little break from the world.”

The sunlight touched Cego’s face. He began to smell the salt of the sea air as they got closer. It reminded him of the island, of Sam playing in the surf.

He shook his head, trying to shake his visit to the medward several nights earlier. The shame rose up within him like a poison as he saw Sam’s helpless form twitching in front of him.

How could I be capable of such things?

He breathed deeply.

“When I was little, my father used to take me on this road for our trips to the seaside,” Sol said. “It’s as I remember it.”

“He’s watching down on you now,” Brynn said. “On the Jade, it’s said after the big storm season passes through, it is the spirits returned that help the world regrow.”

Cego nodded, enjoying the notion that Murray-Ku and Joba might also be watching them.

The Whelps urged their rocs over a small bluff, and the Western Sea was in front of them, a frothing expanse of white breakers and grey rocky outcroppings.

Cego slid from Bird’s back and took his boots off, letting his feet touch the cold rocks.

A thunderous roar ripped across the sky. The Whelps craned their heads and saw six sleek black shapes puncture the clouds.

“Flyers,” Sol whispered. “An entire squadron.”

The Flyers sped over the sea and stopped midair above a rocky landmass jutting from the water. A blinking skeletal tower rose from a flat platform on the island, which the mechs descended to.

“What is that place?” Abel stared out at the island.

“Not sure,” Sol responded. “It wasn’t there when I used to come out here with my father. Governance must have built it recently.”

“They’re protecting their nest,” Cego said. “Governance brought those Flyers in to be in reach of the Citadel in a few minutes’ notice.”

“Which means,” Sol said, “they must be able to counter the problem they ran into with their mechs in the Battle of Flat Plains. It’s like Bythardi… They are positioning their pieces.”

“As interesting as that all sounds,” Dozer said, “I’m not here to talk Citadel strategy.”

The big Grievar pulled off his uniform, making sure to flex for the crew, and ran toward the water.

“This should be good,” Sol said from beside Cego.

“Thought it was supposed to be warm!” Dozer yelped the second his feet touched the water, pulling his arms tight to his body and shivering as a large wave drenched him.

“These aren’t island waters like we have in Besayd,” Brynn said as she fearlessly sprinted across the rocky shore. She jumped into a wave and splashed water up in the air like a child. “But it’s not so bad, you big coward!”

Dozer swatted seawater straight into the Jadean’s face, erasing her smile.

“You better get over there to help,” Sol said to Knees. “Before Brynn drowns Dozer.”

“You probably be right,” Knees said as he measuredly made his way to the sea with Abel following him.

Sol stripped the second skin off her back, and Cego’s eyes fell to the floor. His face flushed red; even though she was wearing an undergarment, it still left little to the imagination.

“You coming in?” Sol asked as she began to walk toward the water.

“Um… I figure someone should probably stay with the birds,” Cego said.

“They’ll be all right; Firenze is keeping an eye on them.” Sol nodded to the giant roc, who was preening Bird’s few feathers fastidiously.

It wasn’t that Cego minded the cold water. Or that he didn’t want to join his friends. Something felt wrong. He stared out at the fortressed island offshore.

As if reading Cego’s mind, Sol walked back to him.

“It’s okay to be happy sometimes, Cego,” she said. “You deserve it.”

Sol kissed him, a quick peck on the lips, but one that nearly knocked Cego over like a well-placed double-leg takedown. She turned and ran to the ocean, her long red braid trailing as she dove in and emerged from the waves.

Cego’s heart raced; the hair on his neck bristled. He felt warm inside, but it wasn’t any dark energy burning. This was something else. It was home.

He sprinted toward the sea.

When the Whelps arrived at the hidden path that led back to the roc roost, Cego slid off Bird.

“Sure you don’t want to bring him?” Sol asked. “He’s a bit neurotic, but I don’t doubt he’ll rip apart anyone who messes with you.”

Cego smiled. “It’s all right; I’ll be okay. And I don’t want to draw attention.”

He wanted to squeeze Sol’s hand before he left, but instead, he patted Firenze’s feathered hindquarters awkwardly.

“Come back soon, Cego,” Sol said as she wheeled Firenze around and spurred the bird into the thicket.

“Hope you find what you be looking for,” Knees said as the rest of the rocs followed. Bird turned back to watch Cego, grey feathers sprouting haphazardly from his cocked head, before he disappeared into the underbrush.

Cego took the path away from the Citadel, circling around the back side of Albright Stadium.

Even in the dead of night, the Grunts still labored to construct the makeshift tent city. Cego passed through the horde of workers unnoticed, though he sank into the cowl of his cloak as a pair of giant steel Enforcers trudged across the muddy grounds.

He passed under an arched entryway to the hawkers’ district, usually bustling with the caws of merchants even during the night hours, but now it was deathly quiet. Most of the little run-down shops were boarded up, the outdoor carts stored away. Ezo’s citizens had locked down like the students at the Lyceum in preparation for the Slayer’s incoming army.

“Where do you think you’re going?” A bedraggled merc with his hand on his weapon approached Cego from the darkness.

“Back home.” Cego lifted his hood so the man could see his face. He feigned a foreign accent. “Karsh. My ma send me to find food but I find nothing.”

Cego held up his empty hands.

“Get back to where you belong, fast,” the Grievar said nervously. “Next time we catch you in the open, we’ll need to bring you in. And if Enforcers find you out here, you won’t be so lucky.”

Even though Governance had lied to its citizenry, as the Lyceum had lied to its students, word had spread fast about Silas’s victory in the Flats. Cego had heard that some Grievar had already packed and fled to join up with the rebels. The rest were in hiding, fearing the Slayer’s retribution for their refusal to come to his side.

As for the Daimyo living in the Tendrum’s skyscrapers, many had fled to their summer homes in the southern reaches or boarded their airships or Dyvers to escape to Besayd, which remained relatively untouched from the rebellion.

Cego couldn’t believe the world was changing so fast, all because of the boy with the curved smile he’d grown up with on the island.

He stepped beneath an underpass and saw that Ezo’s junkies hadn’t moved. A few eyed him suspiciously as they huddled around a fire, one holding his hand up to a hacking cough.

Cego hurried past. He wondered if his brother’s plan would work. If Silas cut off the production of stims, would these men disappear from beneath the bridge? Would they wean themselves from their addiction, find a path outside the sway of the drugs?

He crossed to the cobbled fringes of Central Square and shivered as he remembered the last time he’d been there. The square was empty now, not like that day, when the crowd had gathered and screamed for his blood at the hands of the Goliath. Cego still could see the hole the Enforcer had put in Joba’s stomach with its blast cannon.

It wasn’t long before Cego found his way to Karsh, set in the dregs and full of all the immigrants that the rest of the city had expunged.

He sniffed the air, hoping to catch a whiff of fresh-baked sponge bread. But even there, in a sector he remembered so vibrant and full of life, people were scared.

He caught an old woman peering from the crack in a boarded-up window. A little soot-faced boy sat on a pair of crumbled steps.

“Who are you?” the boy asked bravely as Cego passed by.

“I’m a student from the Lyceum,” Cego said, pulling his hood back.

“I’m not afraid of the Slayer.” The boy stood up and got into a fighting stance. “If he comes by here, I’ll protect my grandda.”

“I bet you will,” Cego said, admiring the boy’s determination. “Though you should raise that right hand. Need to cover for the left high kick. I know the Slayer has a good one.”

The boy looked at Cego with wide eyes.

“Have… have you met him?”

Cego was tired of lying. “Yes… he’s my brother.”

“I don’t have a brother anymore,” the boy said. “He died of the Shade with my ma and pa.”

The boy looked down somberly for a moment. “Are you going to fight against us with your brother? Are you going to try to take my home away?”

Cego shook his head. “Where’d you hear that?”

“Watching the feeds over Grandda’s shoulder,” the boy said. “He’s seeing it all day long.”

“I’m not so sure Silas wants to take your home,” Cego said.

“Well, if he does, he won’t be able to,” the boy said with renewed determination, this time raising his hand higher to cover his chin.

Cego nodded and continued on. “You take care of your grandda.”

As he rounded a corner, Cego recognized the grey tin roof on Murray’s barracks. A few broken potted plants sat outside the door, likely surviving with the help of friendly neighbors. Cego stood on his toes and reached above the doorframe to feel around, finally finding the old lock sensor Murray had hidden up there.

Cego pushed the creaky door open and stepped into the darkness. He walked into the kitchen slowly, as if any sudden movement would upset the memory of a place locked in time, untouched after Murray had never returned from Pilgrimage.

A chair was pulled out in front of the knotty kitchen table. Cego looked down on a wooden bowl, the remnants of some crusted-over stew caked on the edge. The old couple next door had likely taken pity on Murray and cooked it for him. Cego knew Murray hadn’t the inclination to do any real sizzling for himself.

A scavenger scurried underfoot with a squeak, its red eyes glaring at the intruder. Cego peered into the adjacent room, Murray’s makeshift study. A stack of books was piled beside the armchair, and a cold breeze rattled a window frame that had blown open. Cego quickly moved to shutter it.

He squatted and thumbed through some of the books on Murray’s little shelf beside the firepit.

Pummeling for Upper-Body Takedowns and A Guide to Calcifying Your Fists were two Cego hadn’t read yet, though he could see Murray had folded the corners of certain pages he’d thought useful. Cego scanned the rest of the shelf and looked through the stack of books by the chair.

Where were the Codes?

Cego could remember Murray first reading the Combat Codes to him after the man had brought him up from the Deep. The two would sit in this room beside the fire, listening to the rain drumming on the roof as Murray tested Cego on his knowledge of the ancient texts. He could remember the way Murray had delicately flipped the pages of those books, how he’d never fold them over and always tucked them away neatly.

At first, Cego thought the barracks had been robbed, someone come in through the open window, until he saw the remnants within the firepit.

He reached down and removed the ripped paper, shaking the ash off it. He could make out a few words that hadn’t been completely burned away.

… shall not use tools nor technology…

Cego immediately recognized the second precept and stared at the pile of ash. Murray had burned his copy of the Codes.

He dropped the parchment on the floor and backed away from the room, turning in to the kitchen and nearly colliding with the chair.

Why was he here?

Did he expect to have closure, to find some final words of wisdom from the man who had set his life on this path? Cego shook his head, berating himself for his naivete, his secret longing to find an answer within this chaos.

Murray was gone. He’d died in agony at Silas’s hands. He’d left this world angry and disillusioned with the Codes. There would be no answers there, Cego thought, only painful reminders of the past.

Cego was on his way out, holding the door open to the now-steady rain, when he caught a glint of indigo from the corner of his eye.

He turned and walked toward the stables out back where Murray had trained him for the Trials. Water leaked from a crack on the ceiling and the wooden floor was damp, collecting black mold along the grains. But a purple spark shone out from beneath the upturned corner of a tarp, which Cego grasped and lifted in a hail of dust.

Violet.

Murray’s prized rubellium-and-auralite Circle pulsed in the drab room, the one thing in this decrepit home that still had any life to it.

“Hello, girl,” Cego whispered.

Cego stepped within the Circle, embracing the familiar rise of heat within his chest as a few dormant spectrals flared to life on the edges. Violet wasn’t a strong elemental mix like the sort they had at the Lyceum. Murray used to brag that even though Violet was a mutt, she had the perfect makeup for training.

Enough heat to light a fire under your ass, but not so much so you go acting like a darkin’ fool.

The purple light against his skin didn’t ignite Cego’s anger. It felt as if he’d come in from the cold to a hearty meal.

Cego could remember Murray barking orders from outside the ring as he trained with the Jadean, Masa. He could remember the way the man had literally swung at the air in enthusiasm when he was coaching, so eager to get his words into Cego’s skull.

“You’re a bit dusty, girl,” Cego said.

Violet pulsed as if she could hear him.

Cego retrieved the wash bucket from the corner. He dipped the sponge in polish and set to cleaning the ring off as Murray had done nearly every day he’d been here at the barracks.

Cego knew he would find no comfort here, no final words of wisdom before the storm came. He wouldn’t find a way to say goodbye to Murray Pearson or to thank the man for all he’d given.

But Murray wouldn’t have cared about any of those things.

Murray would simply be happy someone was polishing his Circle.

Memnon paced in front of the elite Grievar Knights of the Citadel.

Desertion, injuries, and low morale had brought the Knights to their weakest in the last decade, but still, they were a force of the finest fighters in the world. Each of the Grievar standing in front of Memnon could still take on nearly any other individual on the planet in single combat and walk out the victor.

But the man they would be up against was no ordinary Grievar. He was a force grown from blacklight sinews, created for the sole purpose of destruction.

Memnon knew that the only reason his Knights stood a chance was because of the Slayer’s arrogance.

“He wants to fight all of you, in a row,” Memnon said. “If any of you succeed in bringing the Slayer down, he’ll call off his army from destroying the Citadel.”

A thick veteran Knight named Tullen smirked. “The shit thinks he can take all of us on? Maybe a few too many stim blasts have addled his brain.”

The team knew nothing of the Cradle, nothing of the creature of violence the Bit-Minders had created. The Slayer’s legendary feats had been passed off within the ranks as some new, high-grade neurostimulant the Kirothians were rumored to have developed.

“This will be like no other fight you’ve ever been in,” Memnon warned. “The Slayer is like no opponent you’ve ever faced.”

“Man’s a man.” Yang held a fist up. “Made of flesh and bone and blood. And that means he can be broken like any other.”

Memnon could see he’d done the right thing, bringing all his top Knights together for the announcement that they’d be fighting on a day’s notice in Albright Stadium. These men fed off each other, like a pack of wolves, each baring its teeth now in the hope to get the glory of the kill. This was any Knight’s dream, what they’d been training for their entire lives: the chance to fight a worthy opponent in front of the entire nation, with the greatest of stakes riding on their backs.

“Let’s talk strategy,” Memnon said, nodding to Captain Raymol. “What’s our order?”

Ray stepped forward from the line and turned back to face the other five Knights alongside Memnon. “I think Yang should be our starter. He’ll hit hard and fast, before Slayer can get in his rhythm. He’s beaten most of Kiroth’s elite in the last few years and taken most of them on the blitz. And Yang was the original challenge, before the Slayer decided to change his terms.”

Yang slammed his hand against his barrel-like chest. “I can take the Slayer, Commander. Give him to me.”

Memnon nodded. “And the center lineup?”

“I’ll take second spot if Yang can’t get the job done, though I know he will,” Ray said. “Won’t get by me, not without some good damage done at least. Then Tullen, Jora, and Takis.”

The Knights whose names were called held their fists in the air.

“Masa as finisher,” Memnon said softly. He sincerely hoped it wouldn’t get that far, that the entire Citadel’s fate wouldn’t fall on a single man.

Masa stepped forward, a grim look across the lithe Jadean’s face. “I will avenge Murray-Ku.”

“Let’s hope you don’t have to, Masa,” Memnon said.

“You want us back to training, Commander?” Ray asked, an eager glint in the captain’s eye.

“No,” Memnon said. “Rest for tomorrow. Do what relaxes you.”

“Thanks, Commander,” Yang said. “Though with this lockdown, don’t think I’ll be able to pay a certain lady I’m fond of in Kortho quarter a visit.”

Jora punched Yang in the shoulder. “You mean your ma? I bet she’ll be wanting to hear from you.”

“Knights!” Ray raised his voice. “You got your commander standing right in front of you, and you’re mouthing off?”

“Sorry, Ray.” Jora straightened his back.

“No,” Memnon said. “It’s okay. They need to relax. I’ll tell the high commander to open the com lines in your quarters so you can pull feeds to your families. Talk to the ones you love. You are Grievar Knights, combat is your path in this world, but tonight, try to just be men.”

“Thank you, Commander.” Yang nodded.

Memnon hadn’t rallied his Knights for some time. It hadn’t been necessary. They’d always been a well-oiled machine, full of ambition, pride, and honor. They loved combat; each man standing in front of him thrived in the Circle.

And yet, Memnon knew the Knights needed something more for tomorrow. Purpose.

“Tomorrow, when you step into the Circle against Silas the Slayer, you will be in a fight unlike any other,” Memnon said. “But not because of where you are fighting, within our home of Albright Stadium. How many times have you stepped into the warm embrace of the Circle there, felt the pulse of combat rise up within you? How many times have you tasted blood in your mouth, felt your opponent coming at you full-force like a gar bear protecting its den?”

Memnon’s voice rose as he stood before his Knights. “And tomorrow will not be different because of the rebel that stands across the Circle from you. Forget him. The Slayer is blood and bone and can be struck down, strangled, and finished.

“No, this is unlike any fight because of what you are fighting for. For the first time on your path as Grievar Knights, you will be fighting for those around you. Not because of some abstract diplomacy, winning resources or land as you’ve done in the past. But because the lives of those in the stands of Albright will depend on your fists and feet striking true, your knees and elbows finding their home on the rebel scum’s skull. The people of this nation will breathe when you breathe, they will bleed when you bleed, and they will survive if you survive.”

Memnon shouted, his fist raised in the air. “We fight so the rest shall not have to!”

The Knights bellowed in unison. “We fight so the rest shall not have to!”