Will Wight - Of Dawn and Darkness

At first glance, it looked like a craftsman’s claw hammer, but it caught Calder’s eye. He peered at it for a moment before he noticed the details that didn’t quite fit: the metal was smooth, not nocked as a used hammer would have been, and the handle almost seemed to crawl with twisting shadows. When he recognized the flow of Intent, his eyes widened.

The boy’s only friend is the hammer. When he sleeps, the hammer is clutched in his fist. When he is attacked—and he is always attacked—the hammer defends him. He smashes legs, arms, skulls with the hammer until it feels natural, until the crunch of shattered bones is the music of his life. A Kameira looms large among its victims, a slithering creature of liquid and shadow, but somehow it’s not just a victim…it’s one with the hammer, part of it, merged together…

Calder blinked his eyes free of the vision. If he wasn’t mistaken, he’d just witnessed the intentional creation of an Awakened weapon. And, very possibly, a Soulbound.

The one-eyed man saw Calder looking at the hammer and grinned. He ran a thumb down the head of the hammer, preening.

His partner was utterly pale, as though he’d never spent a day outside, and had his hair cut short. This man didn’t carry a weapon, but he had a broad shield strapped to his back. Calder didn’t bother to focus on it; he could feel the Intent bound in the object clearly enough that he didn’t need a closer look. Another Awakened weapon.

Both men bulged with muscle. Once, Calder had gone to see what the news-sheets ** called a “spectacle,” a live performance with trained animals and talented performers with rare skills. A strongman had twisted an iron bar into a knot with nothing more than his bare hands, though Calder had suspected that someone had invested the bar beforehand.

Even that strongman would have fled from these two. They looked like they would have an easier time tearing another man’s arm off than shaking his hand.

The one-eyed man stuck a hand out. Calder didn’t hesitate before dropping his trunk of clothes and taking the hand; he was afraid that the man might take any reluctance as an insult.

“You must be the young Navigator,” the man said, and broadened his grin. “Word is, you broke out of an Imperial prison and walked away with a brand-new ship.”

Calder did his best to match the man’s smile. “I wasn’t breaking myself out.”

He laughed like Calder had told a joke. “Well met, Navigator. We’ll get along, I can tell. You can call me Nine.”

Calder turned his attention to the man with the shield. “And you, sir?”

The pale man didn’t seem to notice that Calder had spoken. He kept his eyes on the cage.

“You’ll have to forgive Eight,” Nine said. “He’s picky.”

Eight didn’t clarify.

“Eight and Nine,” Calder said. “There aren’t seven more of you, are there?”

Nine chucked easily and rapped his knuckles on the bars. “We’re not supposed to use our real names on this trip. Not sure what the point is. You may have noticed that we have a little trouble blending in.”

It had been a busy, even catastrophic few days. That was how Calder justified it. There was no other explanation for why he hadn’t noticed the gold crest that each man wore pinned on his shirt.

A small, golden pin marked with the image of a crown.

The Golden Crown: symbol of the Champion’s Guild.

Calder couldn’t stop his eyes from widening. How had he not noticed before? There were a pair of Champions on his deck. Real, living, Imperial Champions.

On his ship.

No Guild had made more of an impact on Imperial history than the Champions. All the ancient writers spoke of them. Loreli, the original strategist: “If you may hire a Champion or persuade one to your cause, then victory is certain. Otherwise, heed my teaching.”

Heliora, the Witness who chronicled the Kings’ War: “I stood motionless from sunrise to sunset, watching the armies clash, recording every maneuver and every feint of one general against another. Then the Champions arrived, and I left, for the battle was over.”

Sadesthenes, the great historian and philosopher: “If all men were Champions, there would be no war, for such a conflict would be too great and terrible to consider.”

Nazin, the hero of A Tragedy of Sand and Tears : “I am not a Champion, my love. I am but a man.”

Everyone knew about Soulbound. They were impressive and even somewhat mystical beings, but as a Reader, Calder understood them. The birth of a Soulbound was simply one phenomenon of Reading and Intent, something that the Magisters were still studying to this day. They already understood how it worked, and someday they would understand why.

But Champions were not just Soulbound. They were the superhuman products of a secret process, trained from birth and raised to be unstoppable in battle. They were invincible warriors, the stuff of legends, the kinds of people who could tear giant Kameira apart with their bare hands and laugh while doing it.

And now, two of them were standing on his ship.

Calder couldn’t seem to fit his bulging eyes back into his skull. He tried to speak, but his mind had frozen.

Nine either didn’t notice his distress or didn’t care. He looked aside from Calder, where Andel was climbing out of the hold. The Heartlander man’s white suit was still pristine, somehow.

“The Captain has arrived, Pilgrim,” Nine called. “Make ready to sail.”

Andel didn’t bother to look at the Champion. “I’m not a Luminian Pilgrim any longer. And we’re still awaiting one more. A young lady.”

Nine gave a low whistle and nudged Calder with his elbow.

Calder felt the Champion was misunderstanding something, but he couldn’t find the words to explain.

Eight didn’t react to anything, keeping his pale arms folded and his eyes locked on the cage. For the first time, Calder noticed the man behind the bars.

He was obviously a prisoner, manacled to a set of chains that were themselves bolted to the cage floor. He was naked but for a cloth tied around his waist, and built along the same lines as the two Champions; he looked as if he could uproot stone pillars with nothing more than the strength of his arms. Blond hair fell, loose and ragged, to frame his face, and his ribs were mottled with fresh bruises.

Calder gestured to the cage. “This is the package you wish delivered to Izyria?”

Nine cackled, slapping the bars with the flat of his hand. “Hear that? You’re a package now. Special delivery to the Izyrian arenas. You’re going home!”

The prisoner didn’t respond. He simply smiled through the veil of his hair. His teeth were white and flawless.

Eight stayed quiet, watching as though he intended to stay in that position until the ship sank or the world ended, but Nine frowned for the first time. He slapped at the side of the cage. “Hey! Answer me. Do you hear me, Urzaia?”

The prisoner looked up, smile unbroken. “It will be good to see my home again.”

He turned to Calder, his gaze making the young man shift uneasily. What does he want? He has to know I can’t set him free.

Urzaia met Calder’s eyes and winked.

Calder had wondered how they would approach the Capital without inviting a greeting from the harbor-guns; after all, they were being led by a completely visible Lyathatan. If the Elder submerged itself, it would have to drop The Eternal, which would immediately sink. And thereby negate the entire reason for bringing it all this way in the first place. If it stayed above the waves, they’d cause a riot as soon as they passed within sight of shore.