The Sword Chronicles: Child of the Empire Read online

  Copyright © 2015 by Michaelbrent Collings

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  NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the author is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

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  PRAISE FOR THE WORK OF

  MICHAELBRENT COLLINGS

  "Collings is so proficient at what he does, he crooks his finger to get you inside his world and before you know it, you are along for the ride. You don't even see it coming; he is that good." – Only Five Star Book Reviews

  "What a ride.... This is one you will not be able to put down and one you will remember for a long time to come. Very highly recommended." – Midwest Book Review

  "I would be remiss if I didn’t say he’s done it again. Twists and turns, and an out-come that will leave one saying, 'I so did not see that coming.'" – Audiobook Reviewer

  "His prose is brilliant, his writing is visceral and violent, dark and enthralling." – InD'Tale Magazine

  "I literally found my heart racing as I zoomed through each chapter to get to the next page." – Media Mikes

  "Mr. Collings tells a fantastic tale that will keep the reader on the edge of his seat." – Top of the Heap Reviews

  Dedication

  To...

  My friends – a wide net to cast,

  but a good one to fill sometimes,

  and to Laura, FTAAE.

  Contents

  ONE: blessed dog

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  TWO: blessed killer

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  THREE: cursed rebel

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  FOUR: child of the empire

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  FIVE: empire

  1

  epilogue

  ONE: blessed dog

  "And yea, I stood above the clouds, and I found five mountains above the Gods. And I called them Faith, Strength, Knowledge, Fear, and Center. And I said, 'Here will I make my rule. Here will I create my Empire and my power, my kingdom and my glory.'"

  - Emperor Eka, First Rules and

  Commandments of the Ascension

  "There are only two paths available to the Greater Gifts – to serve as Blessed, or to die alone."

  - Emperor Eka, First Rules and

  Commandments of the Ascension

  1

  The Man and the Woman – for that is how she remembers them, and the only way she remembers them – reach out to her. At first in kindness, in love. The gentle touches of memories warm.

  Then the warmth grows. The pink tones of happy remembrance brighten, flare to a burning.

  There is blood.

  The Man and the Woman still reach out. But now their hands run red, their arms are rivers that drip to the bright floor. The floor, white and threaded with gold only a moment ago, now is painted in the crimson of death come to call.

  The Man and the Woman cry out.

  The memory flares.

  All is white.

  All is death.

  All is gone.

  2

  The girl woke from the Dream of the Man and the Woman, and she woke as she always did: boot and water.

  Many people curled in as the boot kicked them, tried to avoid the water.

  These were the ones who would die fast.

  The girl had learned quickly. Had learned that if you curled in around the boot it didn't hurt any less, but it meant you weren't face up to receive the water. A bucketful to the face, and if you kept your mouth open you could drink. She guessed that that water was fully a tenth part of what she would get each day. And it was clean. Water they were given in the trough was often foul, muddied with clouds of dirt and perhaps worse.

  But the water that woke them… it tasted good.

  We won't waste bad water on torture. No, never that.

  That it was a torture there could be no doubt. Because all was torture for those in the kennels. All was death for the Dogs.

  Trainer walked among them, being handed bucket after bucket by Assistant, dropping a bucket on each of the twenty or so Dogs that slept in this kennel.

  "Get up, Dogs!" he shouted. "Another beautiful day to die!"

  I won't die today, thought the girl. But she gave no voice to the thoughts. There was no point. Speaking never brought anything but pain.
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  A good Dog was silent unless spoken to. And even then, silence was often best.

  The girl stood. Stretched. Never could tell when a fight was coming, so it was best to be loose.

  "Get up!" Trainer shouted. He was a beefy man, thick in the middle, with broad scars that crisscrossed his chest and back. The girl wondered – not for the first time – if Trainer had once been a Dog. And told herself – not for the first time – to get that thought out of her head. It was implicit hope. It was the idea that she might one day leave this place.

  But there was only one way to leave this place. And she refused to leave that way.

  I'll stay forever – I'll die – if it comes to that.

  "I said, get up!" Trainer's voice, never far from a roar, now rose to a shriek.

  A moan came from a small pile of skin and bone, seemingly bound together only by the loose rags that passed for clothing in the kennel. Trainer prodded the pile with his foot. Another moan. But no motion.

  Trainer gestured. Assistant – as wiry and thin as Trainer was thick and muscular – held out a sword.

  The girl looked away. She knew what was next. Had seen it before. Had no wish to see it again.

  There was the particular noise of sword cleaving flesh. A gurgle.

  The pile of rags and skin and bone had refused to get up. And a Dog who resisted training, who refused orders, would earn no coin and was good for nothing.

  Trainer tossed water on the next Dog. Some of it washed the blood on the floor toward the drain set in the middle of the kennel. That drain was where they pushed their nightsoils, the rare bits of food that were too rotten to eat.

  And it had drunk its fill of blood. As it had done before, and as it would do again.

  "Rise and shine," shouted Trainer as the last Dog – the last still-living Dog – struggled to his feet. "It's another love-er-ly day!"

  He laughed.

  The blood had washed away.

  The day was begun.

  3

  They were shepherded out of the kennel, as always. Trainer walked ahead of them, Assistant brought up the rear. The girl was careful to take a position as close to the front as possible. Whenever Trainer was in the back, he used his shockstick sparingly, only jabbing it in the back of a Dog if he or she was straggling.

  Assistant liked to use the shockstick. Used it every time he was in the back.

  The Dog in the back was new. That was why he had let himself be caught at the rear of the line. He looked like he was about ten Turns old. A bit young. The girl thought she was probably between sixteen and eighteen Turns, which put her on the older side. But she wasn't sure of her age, of course. No birthdays in the kennel.

  Or perhaps that was wrong. Perhaps every day was a birthday. Every day survived was a day reborn. Every day either a funeral or a new birth, a small celebration, if only of the heart.

  The shockstick crackled, the little boy screamed.

  "Gods' bells," shouted Trainer. "Don't kill him before we even get there!"

  So it was to be a Fight, then. No breakfast first.

  That was good, the girl thought. There was less vomit when they skipped breakfast.

  Sure enough, when they reached the point in the hall where the rough-hewn walls split into a two-part intersection, Trainer led them to the right. So they would either go to their arena to fight, or to load into the iron wagons for a trip to another arena.

  They walked only a few steps down the right branch before the girl heard the shouts. Muted at first, but quickly growing loud and then deafening. Some shouted, "Dog! Dog! Dog!" in endless repetitions; others screamed wordlessly, as though in pain themselves.

  Many screamed, "Kill!"

  She wondered if that meant another fight had already started.

  They reached the door.

  Trainer opened it.

  And the girl ran. Because an open door like this meant a new fight, and a new fight meant a new life or a sudden death.

  She intended to live.

  4

  The arena was dim. Lit by a trio of glo-globes: one hanging over the middle of the arena, one over each of the Pack entrances. The girl occasionally wondered why the place was so dark. She thought it likely that Trainer was too cheap to buy more light.

  Whatever the reason, it always meant that the first view of the other Pack was one of shadow. They seemed like wraiths: evil creatures come not only to steal life, but soul.

  She consoled herself with the idea that her fellow Dogs must appear the same to them.

  But she didn't think about it in times like this, of course. Not when she was running out. Not when she was dropping low, ready to attack. No, now she thought only of survival.

  The others in her Pack were moving similarly. Apart but aware of each other. They knew each other intimately, in the way that only those who had eaten and drunk and slept and soiled in front of one another could do.

  And, most important, they knew they would not be required to kill each other.

  The other Pack was the target. The other boys and girls who streamed out of the other team entrance just as the girl and her Pack streamed out of theirs.

  The fight would go on until all the members of one Pack were either dead or too maimed to go on. This was one of two rules. Only two – and she had never had to worry about the second rule.

  From the first moment the other Pack came out of their gate, the girl knew something was wrong. Every Pack she had faced, every group she and her fellow Dogs had conquered, had run out and spread like a many-headed monster. That was what the girl's Pack did – that was what they all did.

  But this Pack stayed close. Tight. A snarling, wild-eyed line.

  And they waited.

  The girl's Pack seemed to lurch, all of them taking a halting half-step as they each realized the change in this strange Pack's actions.

  Then they continued their attack.

  And the other Pack took them apart.

  It wasn't a fight. It wasn't even close. The girl's Pack always fought with that awareness of each other, that almost-courtesy that consisted of staying out of each other's way. Packmates were not friends, but they were not to be killed, either. Not to be helped, but not to be hindered, for hindrance could get them all killed.

  But this Pack – they fought… the girl searched for a word, a concept.

  As one. They fight as one.

  At first she couldn't understand how that would help. All Packs fought as a mass of snakes tied at the tail – heads biting, minds apart, but bound to a common survival.

  This united movement… this was alien to all she had seen.

  And yet….

  And yet one after another of her Packmates fell. A skull crushed by raining fists. Arms wrenched from sockets. Throats slashed by fingernails sharpened on the stone floors of the other Pack's kennel.

  And suddenly the girl found herself alone.

  Her own Packmates had not gone without a reckoning. And she herself had killed three of the other Pack. Still, that meant she was facing ten… twelve… thirteen still-fighting members of the other Pack.

  She was going to die.

  They ringed her. Several of them growling like the dogs they were named for.

  She tried to decide if it would be better to fight or simply to kneel and accept her fate. She knew that some Packs would kill fighters quickly, would punish those who chose a coward's death with a long, agonizing demise. Other Packs were the opposite, and would reserve torture for those who resisted.

  So she would fight. Because it was her nature to fight. She would follow what she knew and what she was.

  Something landed at her feet.

  It was a knife. Someone in the crowd had tossed her a knife. Perhaps so she could have a chance facing the thirteen girls and boys before her. Perhaps so she could grant herself a merciful death.

  This had happened before, she had seen it. But that was the only other rule of the arena: no weapons. If any Dog took up a weapon, he or she would be
put down. Riflemen waited behind the glo-globes, ready to put a bullet into the stomach of any Dog who took up arms. A certain painful death.

  Death, no matter what. And she had never handled a knife, so she doubted it would matter to her survival.

  I'm dead already.

  She picked up the knife.

  5

  The second her fingers touched the knife, something happened.

  It was something like the times when a shockstick slammed down on her. A thrumming, pounding pulse that ran from the knife to her fingers to her hand and arm. It settled deep in her chest, a fire that would not be quenched.

  She remembered, for an instant, her Dream. The Man and the Woman, reaching for her. She felt as though she was loved again.

  Then one of the other Pack jumped at her. She moved, unaware of how she was moving, of what she was doing. She was only vaguely conscious of the dirt floor of the arena kicking below her feet, her arm moving so fast she couldn't see it.

  The Dog who had jumped at her continued his jump. Only she wasn't there, and when he landed he was holding his stomach.

  Not holding it. Holding it together.

  He stumbled. Fell. Blood ran into the sand.

  She spun. Two more Dogs rushed her. Three. They fell as one.

  She did not know what she was doing. Her arm was its own master, the knife its own creature, a beast that sought only to drink the blood of her enemies.

  Four Dogs down. Then five. Ten.

  The last three circled her. No hesitation in spite of all that had just happened, because a good Dog never hesitated. Never thought, just attacked, just killed or died.

  They leaped.

  They fell.

  And she did not have to look to know that all who had stood against her were dead.

  It had all happened fast. So fast that the crowd had utterly hushed. Shocked to silence by the impossible ferocity and skill they had just witnessed.

  And it had happened so fast that apparently the Riflemen had been stunned to inaction.

  But not anymore.

  She heard the shot.