Empire's Ashes: CH-1

Empire's Ashes

Part One: Freedom Fighter



If you're new to this story, you might want to start at the beginning. It may help you understand the characters and plot more.

Invalid Item  [] # by A Guest Visitor

Otherwise; please, enjoy...

* * * * *

CH-1

The bells rang out across the city in mournful, ear-shattering peals that signaled the end of the day for all of the workers that packed the many factories which lined the district.  Soon droves of men would emerge from the dull gray buildings and trudge wearily to their homes; content that another day was finally over and stubbornly ignoring the fact that in the morning it would all start yet again.

Kalen sighed to himself as he leaned up against the rotten barrel and looked down the long, dismally grey street. This wasn’t where he wanted to be. Day in and day out, every one the same as the day before; but like it or not, this was who he was now. This was his life. He had no way of knowing that this particular day was going to be special. That this was the day his mundane life would end.

He frowned as he looked down at his bare feet, which were encased ankle deep in slimy mud. It seemed to cover everything during the short winter months, when the rain that the gods so jealously withheld the rest of the year came back in with a vengeance and mixed with the dirt and sand that was blown into the city by the high desert wind. Not that it really mattered, a little more mud would just make him look more like the beggars that roamed the streets, and that could only help.

Kalen glanced up from his thoughts as the first of the workers began to approach the alleyway in which he waited, their heads dejectedly lowered toward the cobble-stone street against the steadily falling rain. Thank the gods for small favor’s, he thought with a small smile as he pushed himself away from the barrel and shuffled to the mouth of the alley. At least they wouldn’t be encouraged to look around.

They said that in every cloud there is a silver lining. Well, he wasn’t sure about that, but his father had once told him that no matter how bad things got, you could always turn any situation to your advantage; if you were ready and willing to do what was necessary.

The smile that had bloomed on his face at the thought of his good luck slipped away at the thought of his father. He forced away the memories and continued on. Nothing could be done about the past, so there was no use dwelling on it. His father taught him that also. Besides, it was time to work.

He let his feet slip in the mud and grime, even though the natural sense of balance that he had honed over the years would have easily let him glide through it without a problem; all the better to blend in. People always saw exactly what they wanted to see, and no one was likely to look twice at the mud-stained beggar boy that his small size allowed him to appear to be.

He chose his timing carefully, and slipped out of the alley and into the crowd at the perfect moment. No one was likely to notice him, but he really didn’t want to take that risk. More than a few friends had been snatched up by the Patrol because something out of the ordinary about them had caused a passerby to remember their face. Not that it took much; usually they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, luck could be finicky like that, and the Patrol more so.

As he slipped through the crowed, careful not to cause a disturbance, Kalen raised his eyes a little and scanned the faces that passed. He wanted to make sure that he got the right one, but he couldn’t waist too much time. Seconds later he spotted him; a fat, balding man, whose better crafted clothes stood out from the crowd and marked him as a supervisor of some kind. Kalen flicked his arm and felt the hidden dagger slide down and rest out of sight in his palm.

As he passed the man, Kalen let himself brush gently against the man’s body. At the same time he brought the hand with the dagger up and slipped it into the man’s coat. With that he was past the man, earning only a half hearted glance of self-important disgust as the man hurried away.

Kalen allowed himself a quick, tiny smile of triumph as he slipped the man’s money purse, with its neatly sliced strings, into the hidden pouch inside his robes before he moved on. He scanned the crowd for his next victim.

He couldn’t help but feel a tinge of guilt in the back of his mind as he slipped through the crowd, looking for the telltale bulge under a cloak that would signal his time to act. These people were not rich and he tried not to think of what would happen when they reached their homes only to find that all that was left of the little bit of money that they had been working for through the long day was the frayed ends of purse strings.

Compared to him though, these people were at least well off and would not starve for lack of a day’s wages. Even so, he always tried to pick out the one’s that looked like they could afford it. Not that he had any real moral objections to stealing from anyone, he wouldn’t make it very far if he did, but he tried to avoid taking money from the truly poor. He had been poor for too long not to have a conscience.

Through the crowd, a small group of men came towards him. As they passed it seemed that the crowd stepped aside to make way. Not in the same startled and surprised way that people sprang away as the Patrol came through, but rather as if none of the tired people wanted to be close to these men. Kalen had seen their kind before; these were the sellouts. The newer clothes and condescending attitude marked them as shop Foremen. Disliked by most of the people in the factory district, the Foremen usually were appointed by the factory managers based on who they knew or how much they sucked up. Most of the workers on the street would probably cheer if they knew the men were robbed.

When he reached the men, he ducked his head and shoved his way between two of them with more force than he had moved through the crowd before. He pretended to trip, and his fingers expertly slid under the cloaks of two of the men. By the time they had passed, he had slipped two fairly light purses into the concealed pouches within his cloak. The coins did not make a sound as he stepped away. Kalen ducked under the eve of a shop doorway as he glanced back at the group of men. They continued on as before, none of them had a clue yet that they would have to skip the tavern tonight.

Not that it was much, judging by the weight in his pocket; he would need to keep going for a while before he could head home for the day. He let out a heavy sigh as he slipped back out in the crowed and moved along the street, occasionally pretending to stumble into a group of workers and in the process, unburden them of their wages.

Rhidh's Factory District wasn’t the richest neighborhood in the city. Even though most of the money made in the city came from the factories, which produced the parts for the Empire’s massive mining and irrigation projects, it was not readily shared with anyone outside of the Royal District. They took more than their share from all of the districts; including the Merchant district, which housed the high-level merchants who made their livings off the factory workers and the members of the other districts.

Kalen was not stupid enough to work there. The Patrol rarely ever ventured in to the Factory District, except on cursory rounds to maintain a presence and a show of order. Those rounds consisted mostly of forcing their way from one side to the other and looking down their noses at the workers who jumped out of the way lest they receive a cudgel upside the head for not moving fast enough. But, in the wealthier Districts, a cutpurse was likely to get shipped off to the northern mines for a life of hard labor. That is, if you made it to trial. The members of the Patrol were more than energetic in their enforcement of the law, and it was not uncommon for criminals not to make it to trial.

As he worked the rain fell steadily harder and harder. He could tell that he wasn’t going to be able to work for very long. The harder the rain fell the faster the workers fled back to their homes. Soon there would be no one left. It was going to be a light day.

When he finally made it to the end of the street he had already decided it was time to pack up and go home. To reach more people he would have to double back and hit the few stragglers left still trying to make it home, and people not traveling in crowds are much more suspicious. It was just a bad day. In the winter, it happened more often than not. He would just have to hope that the others had done better.

In front of him were the district gates that separated the Factory District from the Slums. They were closed, as were most of the gates that led into the Slums, except for the main gate that was on the opposite side from where he was. No one wanted people from the slums moving freely through the city, though they were tolerated in areas like the Factory District and others as long as they were just passing through.

That was alright with him though, not many residents of the Slums actually used the main gate. They had their own ways through the walls that divided the districts. He took a moment though to think about how nice it would be to simply walk through that gate and go home rather than have to take the long way home. It had been a long time since these gates had been opened and judging by the rust covering the giant brace; it wasn’t likely that it would be opened anytime soon.

As he stood there and contemplated the gate, he heard a commotion rising behind him. Fear latched onto his chest and he tried desperately not to look behind him and give himself away. He cast around for a way out. If someone in the crowd behind him had discovered their missing money and was raising the cry for the Patrol, he did not want to be anywhere near when they came and started the search.

Near the gate was a small alleyway between the District wall and a merchant shop that was closed for the night. It would have to do because to cut down any of the side streets he would have to turn around and go back into the crowd.

He slipped quickly into the mouth of the alleyway and felt his heart drop as he saw that there was nowhere to go. The alley dead-ended at another wall. He could already hear the voices of the crowd getting louder and he knew that there was nothing he could do. Soon they would start the search and he would be found. Maybe not; maybe they hadn’t seen him and he would still have time to turn around and walk casually back the way he had come. He would be just another beggar boy going back to wherever they come from, nothing to pay attention to. Yeah, right.

He didn’t have any choice though. He could wait for the Patrol to look for him and find him hiding in the alley. Of course, they would naturally assume that any boy from the Slums -- and dressed as he was there was no way to hide it -- was up to no good and must be guilty. Or he could take his chances and turn this to his advantage, if he was ready.

He pressed himself flat against the wall and crouched lower. When you were trying to peek around a wall, he always found that the best thing to do was not stick your head out where people thought you were going to. People always saw what they expect to see, and no one expects to see a boy’s head sticking out from an alley two feet off of the ground. He slowly eased his head out and a strange scene greeted him.

The Patrol was already there. At least ten of them, their shining plate mail breast plates streaked with rain. But they weren’t talking to an irate factory worker, as he had thought they would be. Instead they were stood, swords drawn, and faced down a tall man in an expensive-looking black cloak. Kalen could not see what the man looked like because his back was turned, but he was looking the Patrol and could see their faces. Every one of them wore an unusual expression that he had never before seen on their faces as they did their rounds. At first he could not place it because it was so alien to their nature, but if he didn’t know better he would swear they were nervous, if not outright scared.

Less than twenty feet away, the Patrol members should have been able to see Kalen peeking around the corner, but after a moment of watching them he relaxed. All of their attention was focused on the man in front of them. It was obvious that they were here to either arrest or kill him, which was not that strange. Everyone knew that the Patrol was used to round up certain citizens, on a variety of trumped up charges; most of who's biggest crime was speaking out against the emperor or something that the empire did that they disagreed with. Those people were rarely heard from again, or if they were, they never again spoke out against the good of the empire.

What was different in this case was that the Patrol seemed unwilling to come closer than ten feet to the man in the cloak. There were ten of them and only one of him. They were armed and as far as Kalen could tell, the man had made no attempt to draw any weapon that he may have had hidden under that cloak. What was going on here? Whatever it was, one thing was for sure. He was not going to be able to go back the way he had come until this was over.

His thoughts were interrupted abruptly as he felt the tip of a knife press into his lower back and a big hand wrap around him from behind and cover his mouth.

"You really should pay more attention, little brother," the deep voice whispered into his ear.

Kalen realized who it was and took a moment to move his heart back to his chest from where it had climbed to in his throat. He twisted from his crouched position. At the same time he shifted his body away from the razor sharp tip of the knife and planted his elbow in his attacker’s side. He put all the force that he could muster into the blow but the best he could get was a soft grunt as the bigger boy bent slightly to absorb the blow. Rael rocked back on his heels and slid his knife back into the sheath at his waist. He grinned at Kalen. It wasn’t often that he was able to sneak up on the smaller boy.

Rael was big for his age. At fourteen he was already taller and broader in the shoulders than any of the kids two and three years older than him. He had been forced to prove it more than once, and had developed a reputation as someone that was not to be messed with. One would think that his size would be a problem for a thief and a cutpurse, but along with his natural size, Rael could move like a cat. Mostly that was due to his best friend, Kalen, who had taught him the benefits of speed, flexibility and balance; all of the skills necessary to make it in the life that the boys had made for themselves. In exchange, Rael taught Kalen how to live.

“You still hit like a girl, Kalen” he admonished kindly.

Kalen moved back away from the street and leaned his body against the wall, moving so Rael would have room to get to the corner. He brought his finger to his lips to silence his friend he gestured at the street. Perhaps picking up on the seriousness of the situation from Kalen, he made an attempt to put on a somber face. The effort caused him to look more constipated than anything. His wide features were more suited for a mischievous grin or long and loud laughter than for seriousness, so he gave up and flashed a smile and a quick wink. He lowered himself as low as he could get and peered out into the street. Immediately his body went rigid and he pulled himself back into the alley.

“They’re not for me,” Kalen whispered quickly in response to his friends raised eyebrow.

Rael grunted and rolled his eyes to show what he thought of that. Granted, it was not outside the realm of possibility. Between the two of them, they had both caused enough trouble for the Patrol in the past that if they actually knew who the boys were, the men would be more than willing to do whatever it took to make the boys disappear. They had both been chased on several occasions from one District to another. But at most the Patrol would send two or three of the younger men to try and run down sneak thieves like them. What would the man in the street have to have done to warrant being chased by ten of them?

They quickly shifted positions so that they could both look out on the street without sticking out too far and risking being seen. Kalen had to slide his body around in the mud to find a position from which he could see around Rael's head.

The men of the Patrol had made no attempt to get any closer to the man. Instead they seemed to be content as long as he was trapped against the closed gate. They were spread out across the street, swords still leveled on the stranger who, by all appearances, had not moved a muscle since becoming trapped. Behind the Patrol the last of the factory workers were scattering to their homes. None of them even glanced back, not wanting to be associated with whatever was happening to the man.

From the cover of the shop overhang, Kalen could see that the rain was starting to fall from the sky in sheets. Despite what he had thought earlier, the storm was in fact turning out to be a bad one. As the rain fell harder, the wind picked it up and flung it in the faces of the Patrol men.  Their captain, recognizable by his crimson breastplate, was shouting orders to his men. Whatever he was saying was carried away from the boys by the wind and the din of the storm. Strangely, none of this seemed to touch the man in the cloak. As the wind and the rain tore at his cloak, he simply stood there with his head bowed and did not move.

Behind the men a shape emerged out of the gloom from a side street. It looked like something out of a nightmare as it lumbered toward the group. Even without being able to see the details Kalen knew exactly what it was. Solid black with the crimson symbol of the empire emblazoned on the side, the squat carriage was enough to inspire fear in every one of the citizens of Rhidh.

From their hiding place at the end of the street Kalen felt a shiver go up his spine that had nothing to do with the rain or the cold.

“Oh, gods,” he heard Rael breath.

The man in the cloak raised his head as the carriage pulled to a stop behind the men of the Patrol and the captain ran to greet the newcomer. Even from this distance Kalen could see that the captain was nervous. If he had seemed to be slightly wary and nervous of the man in the cloak, there was no doubt that he was terrified of what was in the carriage. He nodded quickly as he received orders from the hidden interior. The captain glanced repeatedly over his shoulder at the man in the cloak as he listened.

After a moment he bowed quickly at the waist and moved back to his men. The orders he gave to the Patrol were still inaudible from the rain, but by the looks of grim determination that settled over the faces of the men, Kalen could tell that they were not happy with this development.

The captain shouted again and four of the Patrol men jumped. Cautiously, they began to move, swords at the ready, towards the man in the cloak. As they closed the distance the man’s body seemed to settle back. It was not as if he was trying to find a way to escape, but rather he looked like he was giving up. The soldiers spread out and moved to form a circle around the man.

Drawing close, one of the young officers reached into his belt and pulled out a set of shackles. He seemed to be emboldened by the fact that that man had not yet put up any kind of resistance, and he spoke in a loud voice that only cracked a little as he tried to hide his fear.

“By order of the Emperor, um,” he stuttered “You are hereby placed under arre…”

He never finished whatever he was going to say because a sword suddenly sprouted from the center of his chest. He stared down at the blade, looking slightly confused as to how it could possibly have gotten there.

For a moment the world seemed to stop. Even the wind and the appeared to pause as the world held its breath in apparent anticipation of what was to come. None of the other members of the Patrol that had been sent to arrest the man moved a muscle. The shock of the sudden violence had rooted them in place, as if paralyzed.

With the scraping sound of metal on metal, time crashed back into the world again as the stranger pulled his sword loose from the officer’s breastplate and spun around catching the man behind him underneath his chin. He moved so fast that his sword left a trail as it cut through the rain. Without stopping he continued his arc and cut through the third and forth man, felling them all in one smooth movement. Their lifeless bodies collapsed to the ground in unison as lightning crashed in the distance.

The stranger lowered his sword tip to the ground and turned back to the members of the Patrol that were still standing frozen at a distance, their mouths hanging open in astonishment. He raised his hand in their direction, fingers spread, with his palm stretched out toward them.

Kalen felt the hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stand on end despite the moisture that covered him. The air became charged with energy, as if the lightning that had been flashing in the distance suddenly came from right here on this street. It was getting stronger and stronger, almost to the point that he could hear the power buzzing through the air.

It was getting brighter too. At first so imperceptibly that he thought that the storm had relented and the clouds were parting to let in the sun, but that was wrong. The light didn’t come from the sky. Instead it seemed to radiate from the stranger. The energy and the light grew as one until he got the impression of a dam about to burst. It did.

A pinprick of light formed about a foot in front of the stranger’s hand, as if someone had poked a hole in the very air and fire began to flow out of it. It started slowly at first, and then spiraled out in a circle away from the light, like a snake emerging from its hole. Then suddenly it struck. As if it actually was a snake it shot away from the stranger toward the group of men with blinding speed.

A solid bar of fire as thick around as a man’s waist tore through the group and went strait for the black carriage. Just before it reached its target, however, it was split down the center and deflected harmlessly into the surrounding walls of the shops that lined the street, where it was quickly put out by the driving rain.

When the fire subsided, all that was left were the charred timbers and blackened stone of the shop fronts. The blackened bodies of the Patrol had been flung against the sides of the street by the force of the blast. Their bodies sprawled out at odd angles; it was obvious that none of them had made it.

The stranger seemed to sag a little and his hand dropped to his side. Whatever he had done had taken a good bit of strength out of him. Though Kalen had trouble imagining that anyone who could wield as much power as this man obviously did could be tired by anything.

Without warning the wind changed direction. Instead of blowing away from them, suddenly it drove the rain into their faces. Kalen had to raise his hand to shield his eyes from the sudden onslaught. When he had finally cleared his face enough to be able to see he peered back out into the tumult.

The wind had torn the stranger’s hood from around his head and exposed his features. The water that ran down his face ran over skin much lighter than Kalen had ever seen before. His light hair and beard seemed almost white in this light and made it obvious that he was not from anywhere in the Empire.

Though he had never left the city of Rhidh, Kalen had seen many of the travelers, traders and people from all corners of the Empire who came looking for the abundant work in the city's Factory Districts. All of them had the same sun bronzed skin and black hair. Even Kalen’s mousy brown hair, which had caused many people to look at him suspiciously until he had learned to darken it by running coal water through it, was nothing compared to this. What stood out the most though, was the tattoo that covered the man’s neck. Solid black lines spiraled from under his collar, crawling up the back of his neck in an intricate design to where they merged with his hair line.

Looking back to the carriage, Kalen’s breath caught as he saw the three figures that stood next to it. Covered in black cloaks from head to toe, with black masks to hide their faces, they stood rock solid against the rain pelting on their backs. This was not good. The black carriage with the red emblem emblazoned across it left no room for doubt as to who they were.

The members of the Mark were the most feared men in the empire, next to the Emperor himself. The elite of the elite; little was known about who, or what, they were. They were said to be trained from birth as spies, assassins, sorcerers and warriors. As the Emperor’s personal guard and enforcers, they answered only to him. That was not all that was said about them, but the rest was only said behind closed doors, preferably in low whispers. To cross them was death, or worse.

They stood close together and faced down the street toward the stranger with their arms outstretched. Kalen felt the hairs on the back of his neck stir once again.

Meanwhile in front of him the stranger dug through the folds of his cloak. From it, he pulled out a sack about the size of a man’s head. He reached in and for a moment Kalen actually expected him to pull a head out of the bag. With all of the stories that he had heard throughout his life about sorcerer's and magic users, he would not have been surprised. When the man removed his hand however, he pulled out a smaller sack, no bigger than the money purses that Kalen had procured before.

The masked men at the end of the street continued to hold their arms out and in front of them. The air began to waver in the same way the desert did on a long summer day when the rising heat distorted your vision. This was no illusion though. The stranger hurriedly poured sand from the pouch in his hand onto the ground between himself and the Hand.

The wavering air in front of the men began to draw into itself, becoming smaller and smaller until it was no bigger than the pinpoint of light that had proceeded the stranger's magic fire. Instead of brightening the street, however, it began to draw all the light around it into its depths. As Kalen watched the darkness swirl around the point he felt an irresistible draw toward it, as if he were a ship, caught in the inexorable currents of a whirlpool. No matter how hard he tried, he could not take his eyes off the swirling vortex. He tried to close his eyes, but it was still there. He could see it still, in his mind's eye.

Abruptly the pressure released its hold on him. His eyes flew open just in time to see a wall of air rushing down the street toward him. He yanked his head back into the alleyway barely in time to watch the wall crash into the line of sand that the stranger had poured. It seemed to hesitate for a second, but whatever protection the sand had been meant to give was apparently not enough. Though slowed, the force hit the stranger hard and with a loud crack, sent him crashing into the gate. The man’s sword and bag spun out of his hands as he flew backward.

The storm had fallen silent, though Kalen could still see the rain sheeting across the man's crumpled form. Head bowed against his chest, blood was running freely from his forehead to his chin. He did not get up.

Kalen felt something pulling insistently on his leg so he turned and saw Rael pulling at him. His mouth was moving, but no matter how hard he tried to, Kalen could not here what he was trying to say. His head felt fuzzy and the edges of his vision blurred when he spun his head around. This was not good.

He shook his head and looked at his friend again. He struggled to read his friend’s lips and finally figured out that Rael was asking him if he was okay. That seemed like a stupid question, though he couldn’t quite figure out why that should be. Shaking his head again, his vision cleared a little.

“It’s okay,” he lied “I’m fine.” He could barely hear himself, but he could tell by the way his friend flinched that he must have spoken way too loud. No, this was not good at all. If the Mark had heard him they would be moving down now to see who had witnessed their actions. They had to leave and they had to leave now. From the look on his face Rael saw it too. He gestured for Kalen to follow and he headed toward the back wall of the alleyway.

As he was about to follow Rael, he caught a shine out of the corner of his eyes. When he looked down near where he crouched, Kalen saw the stranger’s bag. It had landed near him and spilled what was inside onto the muddy ground. As he looked closer, he saw that out of the bag had spilled a piece of parchment. Next to the parchment was the thing that had caught his eye. Half buried in the mud was a small medal medallion.

Lightning flashed and Kalen started. He quickly reached down and snatched up the medallion and the parchment and stuffed them into his cloak before he got to his feet and ran after his friend. At the end of the alley, Rael used his massive arms to slide a set of crates to the side. In the bottom of the wall was a small opening that led down to the sewer tunnels that the inhabitants of the Slums used as a means of getting from one area to another.

Kalen could barely make out his friend moving in front of him. As he bent down to enter the tunnel he felt a wave of dizziness sweep over him. His vision was quickly narrowing and he suddenly felt fatigue dragging at his limbs. He braced himself for the impact that he knew was coming and desperately tried to call out a warning to Rael, but it was no use. The inky blackness that covered his vision swept over him as he plummeted and he knew no more.

* * * * *

Thanks for all the great help from everyone who reviewed this story and helped me to rewrite it. Please, keep it up. Let me know what you think of this new draft. Thanks much.

If I've still got you, please, check out Chapter Two:

Invalid Item  [] # by A Guest Visitor