Jaleigh Johnson - Unbroken Chain

“His most trusted advisors,” Cree explained in a low voice. “The Watching Blade has a council of advisors, representatives from the trade houses and the other races that dwell here. But the Sworn, like Neimal, are his military advisors.”

“Is that what you aspire to be?” Ashok asked.

“It’s what everyone aspires to be,” Skagi said.

“Remember this, as you begin your training,” Uwan said. “Only those who prove themselves worthy will bear the mark of Tempus. Fight well-against your foes and against yourselves-and you will be rewarded. Your bodies now belong to me. Use them in service to Ikemmu, and I will mark you with Tempus’s sword.” He held up his bloody arm. “Put not the dagger to your flesh, lest you be made weak. Weakness will not serve this city. Weakness will not serve us.”

Uwan drew his sword from its scabbard. The blade glinted silver and black in the half-light. He raised it high.

“May Tempus drive out the weakness from our bodies and silence the siren’s call! Our lives are now His, and with our deaths we go not to the shadowed oblivion, but to His side to fight forevermore.”

“Tempus!”

The cry shook the air. Ashok looked up to see a colony of bats take flight from the tower, wheeling to escape the divine storm. The warriors cried their god’s name and Uwan’s, and before the storm passed, Uwan sheathed his sword and walked back inside the tower.

Ashok found he’d been holding his breath, one hand clutching the iron fence. He let go the air and iron. Skagi was watching him.

“Do you still want to meet him?” he asked. His tone tried for amusement, but his face glowed with the same fervor Ashok felt coursing in his blood.

With an effort, Ashok cleared his head. Despite his excitement, he knew his situation had not changed. He was a prisoner, and if they were truly going to take him to see Uwan, the leader of the enclave, he had to be ready to act. He would find out what his captors wanted from him, or he would die. Since it appeared he could not escape, there could be no other outcome.

“Take me,” Ashok said.

When they got inside Tower Athanon, all Ashok saw were shadar-kai warriors. He recognized many of them from the training yard. They stood in groups, talking, arguing, sometimes wrestling their disagreements out on the floor, but Ashok got the impression it was done half in competition, half in jest. There was no violence to their movements, and nobody drew a weapon.

It stunned him that so many shadar-kai would gather in one space, where a knife might find someone’s back so easily. In the caves of his enclave, the narrow tunnels provided a buffer that kept large groups from forming. There was always a wall to put your back against, and Ashok had learned to use the tunnels to his advantage.

While they walked up a spiral stair, Ashok counted ten levels of recruits and their living quarters. The next four were a series of heavy doors guarded by helmed and plate-armored shadar-kai. They were obviously not new recruits. Skagi said they were all Guardians: soldiers in charge of the city’s defenses.

The top level of the tower had only one room off it, and the door was unguarded.

Skagi knocked twice upon it, then went back to where Cree waited on the stairs. “We’ll be waiting below,” he told Ashok.

“You’re not coming with me?” Ashok asked, surprised again. “No guards?”

“That’s the way Uwan wants things,” Skagi said. “Get on with it.”

When they’d gone, Ashok stood before the door. He considered taking out his chain but decided against it. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of shadar-kai stood between him and anything he could do to Uwan with the weapon.

Ashok pushed open the door and entered a lamp-lit chamber. A long, rectangular oak table surrounded by ten chairs dominated the room, and on the wall behind hung a framed portrait of a vast landscape.

As he walked to the table, Ashok’s eyes were drawn to the painting’s details. He’d never seen anything so lifelike in a picture. The inky shadows peeled back to reveal an overhead view of Ikemmu, its four towers prominent against the lighter canyon wall. The waterfall was there, and Ashok saw that the two towers in the middle, Pyton and Hevalor, were connected by stone bridges with curved tusks instead of rails at the edges. He’d not noticed the bridges on the real towers, they blended so well with the surrounding landscape.

“Do you like it?” said a voice.

Ashok hadn’t heard the door open at the far side of the room. He tensed, but it was Uwan who came through, followed by the cleric, Natan. Uwan was again adorned in his cloak and armor. His greatsword lay on the table before a high-backed chair of polished wood. He looked over Ashok’s shoulder at the painting, seemingly unconcerned that Ashok stood between him and his weapon.

“It was a gift,” Uwan said, when Ashok didn’t reply to his question.

Still Ashok remained silent. He wasn’t sure what Uwan expected him to say.

Natan stood to one side of the room. He did not acknowledge Ashok’s presence. His gaze was drawn to the painting too. His thin shoulders were stooped, and he seemed very weary, almost on the verge of collapse. Ashok was surprised. The cleric had shown no such weakness in the sickroom.

“I apologize for not welcoming you properly in the training yard,” Uwan said. “But Skagi and Cree tell me you’re not interested in seeing our city.”

“Your city is a cage,” Ashok said flatly.

Uwan shook his head. “You are not a prisoner, Ashok. You can come and go as you like.”

“But I can’t leave the city.”

“I’m afraid not.”

Uwan seemed amused, though his expression did not change. Ashok sighed. He was tired of such games. “What do you want from me?” he asked.

“A few answers,” Uwan said. He glanced at Natan. Something passed between the leader and the cleric. Ashok had no idea what it was, but the cleric did not look happy. Uwan frowned and turned his attention back to Ashok. “Where do you come from, Ashok?” he asked. “You were far from any enclave when my patrol found you, but you seem too undisciplined to be fleeing the empire. You’re a skilled warrior-that much was clear from the shadow hound corpses. Neimal, however much she wants your head, respects what you did at the wall today. You weren’t afraid to take on her entire force. For whom do you fight, Ashok?”

“For myself,” Ashok said. Let Uwan think he was a wanderer, with no enclave.

“No one holds your loyalty?” Uwan asked. “What of Tempus?”

Ashok saw Natan tense when Uwan mentioned the god’s name. “My Lord, is this wise?” the cleric asked. “He is not-”

“Natan,” Uwan said quietly, and the cleric immediately fell silent. “Well, Ashok?”

“Tempus?” Ashok replied. He thought the question was strange, but it was one he could answer honestly, giving nothing of himself away. “I’m not Tempus’s servant,” he said, meeting Uwan’s gaze levelly.

Slowly, Uwan nodded. “I see. Well, if you won’t tell me where you come from or anything else about yourself, I see little reason to trust you with my own motives for bringing you here. So, at this impasse, here are the facts. I’ve saved your life. I expect repayment for my trouble.”

“In what form?” Ashok asked. He nodded to the portrait. “I have no coin to offer a city like this.”

“I don’t need your coin,” Uwan said. “All I ask is that you remain in the city for a time.”

“Forgive me, my Lord,” Natan said as he took a step forward. “Please consider what you’re saying. He can’t be trusted to roam free.”

Uwan didn’t answer the cleric. “I could lock you in a cell, it’s true, but that would be a gross waste of talent,” he said. “Train with us, Ashok. You are skilled, but there are many things you could yet learn from us.”