King of None

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Arkai woke up shivering.

His hands moved by instinct, reaching for the flintlock on his hip. Nothing. The weapon belt was gone; in its place was a frayed rope knotted down with a sliver of jade.

He bolted upright, calves slipping on grimy tiles. The roof of Elder Sully's chapel glowed silver under the full moon, and from his vantage point beside the crooked steeple Arkai gazed upon the town he had once known: Lucia – a dozen decrepit hovels, all thatch roofs and moss-eaten walls, huddled around a scrawny town square littered with bloodied cobblestone and half-gnawed limbs.

Two dirt roads let out of town, and two steel-hulled carriages were left to bar them, their immense cargo holds open and empty. Flags hung from their rear, limp on their poles: brown cloth with brown trims, more rags than banners.

The wardens' rags.

Arkai raised his hands to the moon. They were skeletal, wrapped in blotchy, translucent skin, barely able to curl into fists and trembling pitifully as he tried. His grease-soaked tunic stank of the dead, and his heart thrashed against the wicker cage that were his meatless ribs, faster, faster.

This wasn't a dream.

He was in Lucia again.

Home.

From below came a dull boom that rattled the roof. Steadying himself on the rotted gutter, Arkai peeked over the edge just in time to catch two dozen silver-clad wardens break down the chapel gate. They charged in, a stampede of steel-shod feet. Wild screams rose between the walls, mingling with the wardens' laughter, that gleeful cawing like a murder of crows.

A shrill 'DON'T' drilled into Arkai's temples. A woman with raven locks fled from the broken gate, tumbled down the steps, got up, and then sprinted into the town square with her feet flying over the cobblestone.

Three wardens chased after her, leaping over the steps in single bounds. Their strides were mesmerizingly wide, as if their hips held sinew instead of bone, and though the woman was fast the wardens were faster, their plated feet digging hoof-sized holes into the earth with each arching step. One caught the hem of her smock and tore it clean off her back. Another slammed her into the ground and snapped her left leg like a twig.

Her scream struck Arkai like a physical blow. Gritting his teeth, he leapt from the roof into the alleyway below and cried out as hot thunder struck his ankles. These limbs were frail, too frail, but they must be made to move; no time to worry about whether they could.

From inside the chapel came a nasally command: 'Grab the stray.'

Arkai ran. The first dozen steps were pure agony as his wasted body demanded strength that wasn't there, but his head – chastised by pain and hunger – was razor-sharp, and against these platemailed sheep it was weapon enough.

In the square, the three wardens looked around as he approached; under the slits of their helms their crimson eyes were wide. They had expected him to run the opposite way; no human could possibly be challenging them, let alone a beardless youth who looked like a walking corpse.

The woman too was staring, though she would not yet know who he was.

'Halt!' One of the wardens declared, turning lazily. Just another errant slave to put down, no need to –

Arkai lunged high, clawing at those red eyes; as the warden's hands flew up in reflex, he ripped the warden's blade from its scabbard and plunged it, neither hurried nor slow, into the sliver of a gap in his adversary's armor, that one sliding fold two notches below the armpit.

Feral shrieking.

The other two had time to draw; one leveled his blade, the other pointed his flintlock at their bizarre assailant and pulled the trigger.

Crack.

The muzzle flash was blinding, somehow much brighter than it should rightly be. A man-shadow dashed into the wardens like some vengeful wraith, fast and ephemeral.

A sudden choir of metallic dings, and a blur of bloody hands.

The raven-haired woman never once blinked yet still did not catch how the wardens lost their weapons. Now they were howling. The emaciated youth had slid onto his knees, stabbed the red-hot barrel of the flintlock into one's crotch and at the same time threw backward the blade in his other hand, which just so happened to trip itself between the other warden's shins. Without looking around, the youth had held out two perfectly still fingers, and the stumbling warden slammed onto them his own eyes.

The three fell as one. Arkai snatched up another blade and made three quick thrusts through the slits in their helms; it would not kill them, not even close, but he could spare no more strength; the night was dimming and his limbs heavier than pails of lead.

As the wardens ceased their mind-numbing shrieks, Arkai turned to the raven-haired woman, who was still staring.

'Aerin,' he said, his voice softly breaking. 'I...I'm here.'

He tossed her the flintlock and almost let it slip, his arm numb from shoulder to fingertip.

Aerin caught it distractedly, still staring. 'Reload,' she said.

'Reload.' Arkai turned away. One more word was going to make him weep, which would not help.

A dozen wardens stood watching from the chapel steps. Seeing their comrades fall would not deter them; unlike others of their kind, wardens were not afraid of death. One of them took a step forward, the fan-like crest of black feathers on her helm shuddering in the breeze.

'Who taught you that?' she asked.

He was not ready to keep going, not even close – his legs were pillars of salt disintegrating under a flood of sweat – but he stumbled forward anyway, drawing a slanted triple-cross with his blade, the sigil of the Vulture.

The crested warden wore a pair of gold-plated cestus inset with pyramidal barbs. Crossing her arms and spreading her fingers in an imitation of unfurling wings, she demanded: 'You will name your tutor, so they may be punished for teaching an Axiom to your kind.'

Arkai charged forward without a word. Two steps later his left leg buckled. In a sad dusty puff he crashed into the ground shoulder-first, face grating bloody on the jagged rock.

The warden uttered a shrill bark, then launched forward in an explosion of golden light, her cestus two streaking meteors heading for the puny human's skull, intending to crush it with one blow.

Like a drunk acrobat attempting the ugliest headstand in the world, Arkai threw up his legs heels-first. It was slow and mocking clumsy, yet the warden's nose, that ardent beak poking out half an inch from her helm, just so happened to slam straight into the hard balls of his feet.

A meaty crunch. The warden's fists were a hair from his spine but they could go no further, for her neck was intent on snapping the other way. Howling, she recoiled for the briefest moment, her blood tearing in ribbons. But it was not the first time her nose has been broken, nor the twentieth, and she would not be deterred by such a meagre injury –

Riding the impact, Arkai flipped upright in an instant, his sword rising in a silver needle. The tip of the blade – quarter of an inch at most – rose precisely into the thin chasm that had appeared between gorget and helm.

Soft. Yielding. The underside of the warden's chin. But his arms were in spasms and would go no further. Too shallow, a scratch at most.

The warden, infuriated by her injury, was throwing out a thundering left hook. She sensed the cold tickling on her chin and closed her eyes. Her fist was past mid-swing, in full momentum and too late to be pulled. Her right foot, honed by centuries of training, was proudly stepping three-and-a-quarter inches forward, heel turned out thirty-five degrees, and in the process, lowering her head onto the weakling's blade.

She grinned.

This has to be a joke. A joke.

Then blood ruptured into her throat and she grinned no more.