A Warrior's Sacrifice (3 page)

"We — myself with the aid of your instructors — have chosen who your opposites and balances are." She paused, and her silence hung heavy in the air. "Corwin Shura, of Family Shura, step forward."

He let out a silent groan. If the room was silent before, it was a vacuum now. All eyes shot to Corwin as he walked forward and stood beside the Oniban. He knew this would happen, had even prepared himself for it, but the reality was so much worse. Their gazes were hot, their hatred palpable. Corwin wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and wait for them to go away.

But they didn't, and the Oniban seemed to wait as the tense silence gathered and grew so strong that it pulsed. Right when it seemed like the room would explode in an uproar, she spoke again, her voice a hammer on the graduates' glass egos. "Kai, step forward."

There it was, straight from the Oniban's mouth. Corwin, the traitor, the enemy of Humanity, was the best of them, the most dreng; then Kai, a non-Human, the alien, was second only to Corwin. The class rankings had said the same thing, but that was based on point;,
this
was blasphemy from on high.

In Corwin's peripheral vision, he thought he could make out an upward twitch of the Oniban's lips. The Oniban, it seemed, was making a joke.

It's not a very good one
, Corwin thought as he watched eyes and faces around the room cloud with confusion and anger.

"Chahal Bette, of Family Bette, step forward."

Hushed gasps and quiet sobs from the crowd. It was almost more than they could bear. A few stirred, turning to their neighbors to voice their dissent with heated looks and sneers.

Kai was right so far,
Corwin thought,
a Quisling, a Variant, and now Chahal the Exilist. The oldest families will be in an uproar.

The girl, short and young-looking, walked forward, eyes downcast. Her skin was a lighter shade of brown, her hair a mass of tight curls that matched her skin tone, tied in a complex knot with a pure white strip of cloth — the symbol of her order.

Her look was hard to read, her brow creased, lips pursed. She seemed not surprised, but thoughtful, as though in search of the hidden meanings in the course of events that seemed to have swept her along.

"Phae Lieng, of Family Lieng, step forward."

Ah, yes. Who better to add to this unlikely and un-liked Void but the one nicknamed 'The Accident,'
Corwin thought.

Phae, like the other three of her Void, didn't belong. In the convoluted familial lines of the Republic, Phae was supposed to be a mere stepping stone, an intermediate repository for genetic material to be used in her family's climb through the caste system. They'd expected her to test into the Tercio caste, or if not, at least introduce the genetic traits that might allow her children to ascend.

She and her family were from a long line of Wei, the lowest tier within the Warrior caste. While the three higher tiers of the Warrior caste, the Teyma, Tercio, and Maharatha, saw front-line action reconquering enemy-held lands, the Wei and Civil Police guarded the established and secure cities of the Republic. Both castes were, in most of the Warrior Caste's eyes, irrelevant.

Phae was as tall as Corwin but wider at the shoulders, and her body rippled with muscle — her Tercio father's genetic heritage in evidence. Instead of the squat legs that normally accompanied the Tercio caste genetic line, her legs were long, her movements graceful. Jet-black hair pooled and bobbed around her neck.

Unlike Chahal, Phae's emotions were easy to read: desperation, fear, anger. Under normal circumstances, her face, with her high cheekbones and dark eyes, was beautiful. But these circumstances were not normal, and the skin of her face was taut, her mouth pulled down into an obvious, disapproving frown.

A murmur from the crowd accompanied Phae to the center of the room. It grew as the incensed graduates fueled one another to action. Corwin and the others — the members of his Void — bent their knees in preparation.

The Oniban too was prepared for action, though she had no need defend herself; everyone present would die in her defense. Her Sahktriya flared, great tendrils of energy spiraling around her in a vortex as she pulled power from inside herself.

The Oniban raised one hand. "Stop." It was a Word of Command, spoken with unhurried grace and in a normal tone, but it was so much more. Her Sahktriya burst outward, carried and directed and made manifest by words and intention alone.

All movement ceased. Everyone held their breath. Time seemed to relinquish its hold on reality and did as it too was commanded. It didn't last long, but it didn't need to; that wasn't its purpose. With a single phrase, the Oniban had arrested the anger and momentum of the crowd.

"You dare to question my decision?" she asked.

The graduates shrank back.

"You prove that you do not deserve to be the first."

Chins dropped to chests, eyes hit the floor.

"Leave until I call for you."

They turned, a few remembering to salute, and walked back into the hallway. The doors hissed closed behind.

With three smooth, long strides, the Oniban exited the circle, turned, and faced the four remaining Maharatha. "Now," she said, clasping her hands behind her back, "we can continue without any more trouble." She smiled.

"You are about to perform a ritual that began in ancient times, long before even the First Exiles. They believed that the spirits of family members and great warriors would inhabit their weapons and by their presence grant the wielder a portion of their skill at arms.

"Each of the weapons and armor in this room has its own energy — its own Sahktriya — that will meld with yours. It is your task now to find those items." She gestured behind the four waiting Maharatha; they turned as one. "To do this you must clear your mind of all distractions. You cannot search for them; you must allow yourself to be found.

"Begin."

With a deep breath Corwin cleared his mind. He focused first on his breathing, then his heartbeat, and when he felt himself and his cares drift away, he opened his eyes and stepped into the rows of weapons. There were thousands of swords, each different from the others: length of handle, length of blade, degree of curvature, width, and even color of the metal.

He wandered. Part of his mind wanted to form a pattern, to stop and examine each weapon that caught his eye. But it was not his eyes that needed to make the decision; it would be the interaction of his own Sahktriya and the sword's.

At an intersection, he felt a tug. It was gentle, faint, a whisper of a whisper of longing, but it was there. Corwin followed. As he got closer, the tug became a pull, then a torrent, and he was helpless — unable to resist as the weapon swept him forward.

He found himself standing in front of a rack. He reached out, hand drifting towards the one he thought looked the most dangerous. Corwin stopped himself, pulled his hand back. Sight and his own prejudices betrayed him. Closing his eyes, he reached out again, letting his hand wander through the air, tugged this way and that by the unseen yet not unfelt flows and eddies of his weapon's Sahktriya.

His fingers brushed a sword handle, but it wasn't the correct one. He walked his fingers to the next one in the line, then the next, moving, touching, dyzuing, yet not committed.

His hand alighted on a pommel. A Sahktriya charge raced up his arm as though the thing was electrified. Eyes flying open, he took the sword from its housing and lifted it skyward. The sword sung to him, ecstatic at last to have found what it had been for so long searching: an arm to wield it with skill and power.

The blade itself was narrow, barely two fingers wide down its length and almost imperceptibly curved. The pointed tip was like that of a spear, the top edged like the bottom before it became rounded and dull. And the metal's color, brilliant in a dark sort of way; the blade seemed to eat the light around it, sucking it in and never letting go. The blade mirrored Corwin's own soul. The reflection was crisp and clean, all the baggage and layers cut away, his inner fears and desires laid bare for inspection.

Made for him indeed.

From the rack Corwin pulled the sheath and slid the one into the other, then buckled them both around his waist. With a nod, he turned and headed towards the racks of armor. At the threshold between the armor, Corwin paused, took one breath, then two, and calmed.

Created by alien scientists half a galaxy away, the armor was the pinnacle of IGA weaponry. By growing the suit over a mesh frame, they were able to weave advanced electronics into its very structure and being. Cloaking, instant wireless communication and net access, radar, infrared — everything a covert operative might need was at hand when wearing the Maharatha armor, when wearing the sneak suit.

Corwin stepped forward and wandered, noting with a small smile that the Sahktriya on this side of the room was different. It dyzued of freshness and life, of upward and outward movement and unfurling towards the sun.

To his left a hiss began and raced forward. Corwin dyzued the room's suits' Sahktriya rise in adulation, in anticipation. The hiss swept past, a fine mist of water and nutrients, and the room seemed to shout with glee, then sigh in relief.

It reminded Corwin of the rainy season that followed a hot, dry summer, when the forests cried out for nourishment and begged the sky for liquid life. This side
was
different, for while both the armor and swords contained Sahktriya, the sneak suits were truly
alive.

There was a touch of sentience to them too — Corwin could dyzu that. A gestalt kind of intelligence maybe, all those cells thriving and growing and living and protecting one another. But no, Corwin decided. Not true sentience, more like majesty. Like that which surrounds the centuries-old oak, the one that survived the droughts and the lightning strikes and broken branches; survived them all and flourished.

There was more to these suits than just the base instincts of survival. Each of the trillions of individual plant cells had been modified to perform some specific task. The helmet absorbed carbon dioxide and converted it to oxygen; others recharged the wafer-thin batteries that powered the onboard electronics; down near the kidneys, the suit's cells produced a plethora of chemicals to keep the wearer alert and alive.

Corwin reached out and touched one, the surface more akin to bark than armor, yet the cell walls were aligned such that it took formidable force to break through. And if they were punctured, they would regenerate; they would carry on. The suit's outer layer was hard yet supple. The helmet's jaw and chin tapered to a dull point, the visor thin and following the same angle as the jaw line. The small antennae that jutted into the air gave the whole thing an insect-like appearance.

Who knew how many battles this suit had seen; how many worlds it had visited or lives it had saved. But it didn't really matter — knowing wasn't its purpose. Living, surviving, growing — those were its purposes.

This is my suit
, Corwin realized, looking it up and down. Unlike the sword that had reached out to grab Corwin as he passed, this Sneak Suit had lured him in.

Corwin pressed the button to activate and designate the suit. It flashed a few times, then the automated hinges sprung to life and extended the hanger forward. From a hidden alcove nearby, an Engineer drove forward on a small lift, took the suit from its hanger, and drove off, back into his hiding place. Corwin jogged back to the starting point where the Oniban waited. He was the last to return.

"Now that you have finished this ceremony, I suggest you get to know one another. Tomorrow morning you will begin your service to the Republic, and to me." With a nod, she set the doors in motion, and the four newest members of the Maharatha, the four strangers, the four outsiders, walked through their jealous classmates with heads held high.

CHAPTER FOUR

They stood together, the four new Voidmates, at the Toledo Alpha tram station. They were silent, each one calculating, judging the others he or she been put with. As the chimes that signaled the oncoming tram sounded, the three turned to their leader, Corwin.

"Well?" said Chahal. "What are we going to do? Where we going to go?"

"Why do you ask me?" said Corwin.

"You're the Void leader," Kai said as if that was all that needed saying.

Corwin folded his arms. "Want me to tell you when to sleep and what to eat, too?"

"The Oniban, uh, suggested that we get to know one another, sir," Chahal said.

"Don't call him 'sir'," Phae said. "He may command us on the battle field, but he doesn't outrank us."

"To command is by definition to outrank," Chahal said, using her hands to emphasize her point.

"Not when he's a wickting
Quisling
he doesn't," Phae said. The tram station went silent, and all eyes turned to the four Maharatha, though for safety's sake, they didn't pay too much attention.

"You have a problem with what the Oniban chose? Want to challenge me for Void Commander already?" Corwin stepped forward, hand drifting to his sword handle.

It was in her eyes: anger, hatred. She might just challenge him right here, just a handful of minutes after being placed into a Void. It wouldn't have been the first time that a lower-ranked soldier had challenged her commanding officer; such actions were to ensure that the strong were promoted and the weak busted down to where they belonged.