12. Hull - Striking First (Patreon)

Chapter 12

In or Out

“You’re missing an Order?” I asked. “People can’t take them, can they?”

“For the duration of a duel, under certain circumstances, yes,” Basil said, looking a little panicked. “Not permanently, though. Not that I’ve ever heard of. If I’d never heard of your soul card predicament, I’d say never. But this isn’t that.”

“What is it, then?” I said.

“I haven’t maintained my Order as well as I should,” he said. He wrapped his arms across his belly as if fighting a wave of nausea. “More specifically, I have flouted my parents’ directive and stopped opening their correspondence entirely. It was necessary, but not… orderly.”

I blanched. “All it takes to lose an Order source is to disobey your parents?”

He was pulling cards, and I could tell he was trying to distract himself from his own distress by staying busy. “At the higher ranks, yes. It took quite a lot of effort to get my 5th Order; I’ve only had it half a year. At the highest levels, any source cultivation becomes a significant burden. Look at what it’s done to Gerad to get to 10.”

“He’d be an ass without a single Order to his name,” I said. I looked at my own source, spiky and purple overhead. “I never really thought about cultivating Nether. It just happened. How did I get all the way to 7?”

Basil gave a weak smile. “When it comes to Nether, you’re a natural. I have never met someone with so much inborn antipathy as you, Hull.”

I felt a scowl growing on my face. “Want to translate that into street kid?”

He hesitated. “Never mind. I’m merely pointing out that you’ve had ample opportunity to nurse a grudge and develop hate in your life. It is possible that now that you’ve got a friend or two you might struggle to gain any more Nether, or even lose one.”

I chewed on that. Having friends could cost me source? Unacceptable.

“You’re quite bad at being a friend, though, so perhaps that will help,” Basil said. “Honestly, I could have died any time during the few weeks and you’d have never known.”

It suddenly felt very hard to meet his gaze. “I had some things to take care of. I’ll tell you about it when there aren’t so many people around. And if we’re talking about being friends, let’s talk about that Death Epic, huh?” I had owed it to him, after he wouldn’t take my mother’s Night Terror back in the wake of Ticosi’s death, but it had felt like pulling a tooth out of my head to hand over the Revenant Lord. If I didn’t have the entire treasury of the Lows to draw on and a fat stack of Chaos cards to break down, I never could have made myself do it, no matter how much I owed the boy.

“You are the very best of friends,” Basil allowed. “On rare occasions.”

I laughed. “And anyway, how would your family have taken it if I’d shown up at your manor house, huh? I’m not polite company, you said it yourself.” We were all walking out through the gates of our fortification home to the open field beyond. I peeked off to the side to see if I could spy the little grate where I’d snuck back in not too long before. It was next to invisible even during daylight. I hadn’t seen it until I’d come back this morning, but there had been broken locking mechanisms on both the inner and outer drainage gates. Whoever the other person I’d seen using it must have sawed through some sturdy padlocks to get in. I was itching to know just who the mysterious sneak was, though I wasn’t yet sure whether I wanted to thank them for the easy exit or turn them in for sabotage.

“As it turns out, standing up to my family is something I’m getting good at,” Basil said sourly, drawing me back to the conversation at hand. “You could have shown up any time and we’d have had a grand old to-do right there in the foyer.”

“What’s the problem?” Basil might have grown some stones during the Tournament, but I still struggled to imagine the meek-faced boy standing up to anybody in authority.

He sighed all the way from the depths of his soul. “They want Esmi to marry Gale instead of me.”

My mouth fell open. “What? Why?”

“He’s Epic now,” Basil said, sounding miserable. “It’s a more advantageous match for both families.”

“So then run away,” I told him. “Esmi’d go with you.”

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “She would, I think. But we both want to do our duty to Treledyne and advance through War Camp. And… I don’t know what it’s like in the Lows, but in the noble houses, disobeying your parents just isn’t done. She’s having an even harder time bucking that training than I am.”

“Hull, you’re going first,” Edaine shouted from the open field where she’d led us through the open gates. “Penalty for missing the morning lecture. I don’t know how it’s done on the poorer side of town, but around here we’re up with the sun. Get used to it or you’ll find yourself falling behind in short order.”

I ground my teeth and took the rebuke in silence. I should have gotten back sooner – I’d intended to – but Roshum was showing me so many fascinating things in his shop that I hadn’t wanted to stop. Not only that, but people kept dropping by the shop to chat with him – shopkeepers, merchants, and grandmothers. I’d thought it was odd that so many people were up and about in the wee hours, but eventually I’d cottoned on to the fact that they were coming by to get a look at me and take stock of the Little Big Man. That had felt pretty important, so I’d kept putting the journey back outside the city off until well past sunrise. Roshum let me use the Jade Pillow for a time, thankfully, or else I’d have been falling asleep where I stood. As it was, I felt fresher than I had in ages.

I had all my source out and a handful of cards. Some were ones I didn’t care about up front, so I let them vanish out of my hand and back into the Mind Home as if mulliganing. It felt strange to be able to do so multiple times, but in short order I was able to summon all the cards I wanted and still have a full hand of useful backups.

I waited for all my source to come back to ready and gave the teacher a nod. Edaine hadn’t been idle; she had a small host of those tough token Souls her Relic set kept spitting out. I’d kept the Sucking Void, a Ghastly Gremlin, an Unstable Rift and both Ravening Hatchlings in hand, giving me a good mix of defense and offense. The Night Terror shook the ground with every step, and my merry band of demons gibbered and capered around me, glad to be out and fighting. The other students all kept a safe distance, even Basil and Esmi. Gerad might have turned a tad paler when he looked up at the big guy. I felt like half a demon myself, encased in my armor as I was. I could wreck shit but proper with a setup like this, and it felt amazing.

“Go!” Edaine barked. Seven identical warrior Souls surged forward at her command, swords in hand, murder in the eyes just visible in the slits of their helms. 

I suddenly felt the vulnerability of fighting out in the open like this. I might have a bunch of scary demons, but there was no Dueling Dome here. I remembered seeing that those little bastards were 3/3s – had they had some other abilities too? I couldn’t recall – which meant that 21 damage was barreling toward me.

“You, go there,” I said to one of the Marauders, pointing to an approaching token Soul. “You, that one, and you take that one.” I held the Spell Drinker back; it would die against the more powerful Souls without killing one in return. To the Night Terror, I just said, “Take your pick.” A quick focus of Nether let me summon one of my Spells.

One of the rearmost token Souls disappeared in a spurt of purple flame. The Night Terror simply stepped on the one it had picked. The warrior’s sword jutted all the way through the topside of its clawed foot before it disappeared into shattered light, and the huge demon growled a foul, pained curse in some language it felt like I should understand, but that particular job was done. The Marauders both tore through their respective Souls, taking near-lethal damage in return. The flying Root Imp disappeared into glowing shards under its opponent’s sword, as expected, but the warrior facing it didn’t die. Dammit, that’s right, they all have Armor 1. What an annoyance. All my quick calculations had been off by 1 damage because I’d forgotten that vital bit of information. A stupid error.

Two Souls were still coming at me. I held both of my weapons, my cards floating to one side, and a quick reassessment made me realize that due to that damned Armor ability, I wouldn’t kill the token Souls outright with either the Hammer or the Vampiric Blade. I could either summon the Sucking Void really quickly, which would prevent me from taking any damage, or use more Nether to power up my defensive hit so it would kill. The situation didn’t seem dire enough to pop the Void quite yet, and if I used the Blade, its Fast Attack would prevent me from taking damage, at least from the one I was able to kill. I don’t have enough Nether to kill them both, not when I can’t devote. I’ll have to take the hit  from the second one. That wasn’t the end o the world; I had blockers in hand.

As always, pumping Nether into myself gave me a welcome rush of anger, and I faced the enemies with a savage growl. A powerful swipe of my sword ended the first warrior, turning it into shards of light before it could respond, and the second one wasted no time whacking at my head. 

Fate’s Grace slowed the world, allowing me to pick cards out of my hand to block with. I wished I had a third Ravening Hatchling; that would have been perfect. But as it was, I still had a reasonable discard to take care of the 3 damage. 

“My turn,” I growled, flexing my fingers around my weapons. I’d have those discarded cards back in no time at all.

“Hold!” Edaine cried. “Dismiss and reset.”

My Nether-fueled brain heard the words and dismissed them. Last night’s brawl had whetted my appetite for a fight, and now I wanted to put the hurt on someone. The token Soul in front of me would be a good start.

Except then it vanished into mist. “Dismiss and reset, Hull,” Edaine’s voice came over me like a hammer as she approached. “Shake out the Nether and keep your head on.”

With a curse, I let it all go, dismissing my Souls and Relics. The Night Terror rumbled its dissatisfaction as it misted away. My Nether-anger lingered, but I bit my tongue until Edaine stopped looking like a target.

“What did you do wrong?” Edaine asked.

I wanted to snap back with something rude – I was standing and my enemies weren’t; there was nothing wrong – but I had to learn how to control that particular impulse, at least with a woman wearing a Mythic armor set. After a deep, calming breath, I said, “I should have paid better attention to the abilities the tokens had when I got to look at the cards yesterday. Sending my Root Imp to block one on its own wasn’t enough to kill. Having my other Spell in hand for the last opponent would have been good, too.” 

“True enough, but there was something before that,” she said.

I frowned, thinking fast. “Uh, I didn’t get to use my Talisman? I had it powered up already, and I thought it should take out any stragglers, but starting in on the wrong end of the turn didn’t work out in my favor.” The Marauders hadn’t even had time to get back to me to deliver their end-of-turn damage during the brief engagement before I’d dismissed them, nor had my Plate spiked me for its point of damage. Either would have been more than enough to finish off the remaining token Souls.

“You’re getting warmer,” she said. “Anyone else have any ideas?”

“The fool waited for you to attack,” Gerad said, his voice cold and clipped. “All that preparation and still he missed the initiative.”

Edaine pointed at the Prince. “Correct.”

He bowed his head in stiff acknowledgment.

“You need to get the rules of dueling out of your head on the battlefield, and this is one of the most dangerous, because it’s subtle: don’t wait.” The High Paladin paced in front of us, her hands clasped behind her back. “Turns are much more fluid outside the Dome; your source will refresh as fast as it is able, your Souls may recover at slightly different speeds, and giving your opponent the first strike may be the difference between living and dying. In this case, Hull, had you gone on the attack immediately, your gear would have triggered your turn-ending effects much sooner, allowing you to deal far more damage than you were able to instead. Your demons with Overkill would have also been able to damage me had you been attacking, yes? Move before your opponent! This is doubly true for a fast source like Nether. Hit hard and hit first, and hopefully whoever your facing won’t even have a chance to reply – you’ll have put them in the ground. This isn’t fair play, it isn’t noble, and it isn’t pretty. But it does help keep you alive. When it comes to the battlefield, you’re in or you’re out. Just remember that your enemy will be trying to snatch the first-mover advantage as well. Don’t let them.”

I nodded my head. I didn’t much care for getting criticized in front of Gerad and the others, but knowledge was knowledge, and I wasn’t going to turn it down out of spite. I was here to learn; I had best open my ears and do so.

Raising my hand to catch her attention, I asked, “Are we just expected to remember every last detail of the cards we see? I’d have made a different set of decisions if I’d remembered those tokens had Armor. What about cards we’ve never seen before?”

“I’m glad you bring it up,” she said. “You are expected to develop your memory skills and become an adept in both the most-commonly used cards and in theorycrafting. However, the King has no interest in wasting lieutenants on the battlefield, and making snap decisions is often easiest when you can see what’s being played. Therefore,” she said, gesturing to an underling who had been hanging behind the rest of us, “now is as good a time as any to issue you all the equipment that you will depend on.”

The hairy man who jogged forward wasn’t military; he was wearing a laborer’s clothes, if fine ones. He handed her a box two hands wide and half a hand deep, and she flipped it open and held it out to me. Peering in, I saw a jumble of identical discs of a pale, clear green set in bronze, each with a black strap attached to opposing sides. Edaine gave me an encouraging gesture, and I picked one out. The disc nestled into the web of my hand, and my thumb and forefinger were able to wrap most of the way around its shining brass edge. The black strap that hung down was of some tough, stretchy fiber.

“The Gamemaster Glasses are too expensive to produce in the numbers necessary for the army, but their functionality is too valuable to go without,” the High Paladin said. “These are a lesser version that will allow you to see the details of any card played in your field of vision.”

The other students murmured in appreciation as she came to each one in turn to give them their own, and I couldn’t help but agree with the sentiment. I fitted the glass over my right eye and fitted the strap around my head. It felt odd to have the green tint on one eye and not the other, but I intended to wear the thing every waking moment until I no longer noticed anything strange. I looked over and couldn’t hold back a snort when I saw Basil putting his on. He looked like the daintiest pirate the world had ever seen. He heard me, grinned, and sketched a mocking bow.

“Much like the cards issued to our enlisted men, these monocles remain the property of the King,” she warned us. “Should you leave the service or die, they remain with the army. If you break one… well, do not break one. You will have to pay for a replacement, and even for the nobility amongst us, the price would be painful blow.”

“You couldn’t have given these out before I flubbed my turn?” I muttered.

I hadn’t meant her to, but somehow she heard me from thirty feet away. “Call it another penalty for tardiness,” she said. “I expect to see you in our lectures before the others and staying after to ask questions. Of all the students here, you have the most catching up to do. Be wise and do it quickly.”

I gritted my teeth and gave another terse nod. I needed to refine my sneaking out and sneaking in if I wanted to keep this up – and I did want to keep this up.

“Afi, you’re next,” Edaine barked. “Summon your forces and I will do the same. You have three minutes.”

I moved back and let the studious, dark-haired girl move forward. I trotted over to where Basil and Esmi were standing.

“Not a bad showing, if you ask me,” Esmi said encouragingly. “That Night Terror could scare off a whole regiment before you even set foot on the field.”

“Madam Edaine may sound harsh, but she seems fairly even-handed about it,” Basil said.

“Takes more than a few harsh words to get under my skin,” I said. “And everything she said was true, so it’s all to the good.”

Basil drew the two of us a few steps away from the others while we watched Afi summon her Souls. “Now will you please tell me why you disappeared for all this time? I’ve got so many things to discuss with you, and I’m quite cross I haven’t been able to.”

In fits and starts, with many interruptions for instruction and pointers from Edaine along the way, I gave them the quiet rundown of everything I’d been doing – my time hiding with Penkmun, confronting Harker and the others, taking on the job of Big Man, and sneaking out to return to the city and learn from Roshum the Relicsmith. Seeing their eyes widen and hearing their gasps of disbelief warmed some small, shriveled part of me, and I had to admit to myself that I had missed them.

I don’t think either of them understood my reluctance to approach them in their own homes. They protested that I would have been welcome and that I had to integrate myself into polite society sooner or later. They didn’t know that I’d slept with a knife under my pillow the entire time that I was with Penkmun, or that I intended to keep doing so now. I needed a certain amount of distance from Hull the street kid before I could walk up to a noble’s manor and sit down to dinner with the family, and that was going to take some time. They were both gracious about my half-explained apologies for vanishing, though, and that was good enough.

The demonstration worked its way through the dwarves and elves, and our conversation became even more fragmented as we took the opportunity to use our new glass eyepatches to peep at Life and Depths cards I’d never seen before. My roommate Harganut made a pretty poor showing, getting swarmed by Edaine’s tokens and losing most of his deck before she called them off. Most of the elves did no better. Edaine was equally direct with her advice and correction as she’d been with me – even with Gerad, though he swept the field in moments with a truly mind-boggling display of Epics and Mythics. Esmi came the closest to earning outright praise from the woman, though even then it had to be inferred from a lack of criticism.

Basil finished telling me about the terrible way his and Esmi’s parents were playing with their arrangements, with Esmi adding in heated agreements at every third word, and even though it sounded as if his brother Gale was being fairly reasonable to me, I kept the thought to myself and simply agreed with their outrage. Their problem felt like a sugar-coated treat to me next to the pile of shit I’d taken on with the Lows, but then again, I wasn’t a noble. They couldn’t understand why I didn’t come knocking at their doors, and I couldn’t understand why they didn’t shove mom and dad off a balcony and do as they pleased instead.

The rest of the day passed in intense classes focused on Treledyne’s military history – I was surprised to discover that the city’s existence only spanned about two hundred years – and a lecture from a weedy young Tender who talked extensively about the need to improve our Mind Homes for the benefit of the Souls we kept. I listened intently, especially when he said that regular training could take the average person beyond the twenty-card limit, but I wished it were Penkmun the whole time. He’d have made it more interesting.

I ended the evening lying on the strangely-smooth crystal bier that was my bed after Harganut was done with his modifications. It was more comfortable than I expected.

“So you humans get your Artifacts tomorrow, yes?” Harganut asked. He had a bowl of pebbles that he kept reaching into and munching on like peanuts. “The rewards from your Tournament?”

“That’s what they tell us,” I said, eying him. I mostly just wanted him to fall asleep quickly so I could leave. He’d said that he assumed I came back and slept in our room the night before and then arose before him, so hopefully that meant he was a quick sleeper and a sound one. He seemed entirely uninterested in the fact that I hadn’t been there for the first part of the morning’s lecture. I wasn’t sure if it was because he found me uninteresting, or if dwarves were simply focused on other things. He didn’t show any of the sly underhandedness the half-dwarf Findek had, so maybe he would be a decent fellow after all. I wasn’t ready to let him off that hook just yet, but time would tell.

“Waste of time,” he said, cracking the little rocks between his teeth. 

“Why’s that?” I asked, trying to understand how the crystal beneath me managed to be both cool and warm at the same time.

“Human Artifacts,” he scoffed. “They might be from the King’s Reserve, but they’ll be piss and garbage.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. I was still counting on the idea of wielding both an Artifact weapon and a carded one in battle. “Says who?”

“Says me and everyone with two eyes in their heads,” he replied confidently. “Deepkin Artifacts beat human ones ten times out of ten. Your race simply hasn’t been around long enough to know how to harness the magical properties of the world into physical items with any kind of efficiency. Give it ten thousand years and your kind might be worth a damn.”

I sat up and faced him. “Take a couple of whacks from my Vampiric Blade and tell me that again,” I growled. I didn’t give two shits about humanity as a whole, but hearing this little rock-muncher call us uncivilized got under my skin faster than I thought possible.

“That’s a card, not an Artifact,” he said primly. “But even there, I can tell you right now that the Artifact that went into that card wasn’t human-made.”

“You don’t know that,” I said.

“It’s Deburnum’s work. I’d know it anywhere. Some human Relicsmith got his hands on Deepkin goods and made a card out of it. It’s all in the artistry. Infusing Lifesap with those kind of curlicues? Deburnum. He’s not even one of our best.”

“Who’s to say that the King doesn’t have dwarf-made Artifacts in his Reserve?” I asked. 

“Hmm,” Harganut said noncommittally. “Could be. Word to the wise: when you’re picking, look for a maker’s mark of a crossed hammer and pick with a star beneath somewhere on the thing. That’ll tell you it’s Deepkin-make.”

“Half a crown says I’ll find one and it’ll be shit,” I said, hoping to annoy him. Dwarves were all little bastards after all.

He said nothing, and for a moment I thought I’d truly offended him, but when I looked over his eyes were closed and he was motionless, the bowl of gravel balanced on his chest.

“Harganut?” I said.

Silence answered me, and after a long moment I realized he’d fallen asleep in the middle of our conversation. Apparently sneaking out of our room was going to be easier than I thought. Still, I waited a good ten minutes for any sign of life or wakefulness before dousing the lamp and creeping out.

It was full dark, and I stole over to the little drainage gate over the next twenty minutes, hiding in shadows whenever anyone walked past. I saw Basil and Esmi strolling arm in arm in the distance and kept my peace, letting them go. Just because they now knew what I was up to didn’t mean they’d want to get caught up in the mix while I was in the act of leaving.

I pulled the handkerchief holding a pat of butter I’d filched from the Mess Hall at dinner and pressed the cold, greasy stuff into the hinges before trying to open the hatchway. A few swings of the hinge and it was quiet as the grave. That’s one task done. Time to be on my way, and this time I’ll be back before sunrise. Twins bless Roshum and his Jade Pillow.

Something brutally hard struck me across the back of the neck, sending me crashing to the metal pavers, card shreds absolutely gushing from me. Whatever had hit me, I’d just lost ten cards or more! The second my back hit the ground, a dark shape loomed up in front of me. An incredibly strong hand clamped down on my throat, and I felt something sharp tickle my ribs once, twice. More cards fluttered in the air. I only had a few left.

I flailed with desperate hands at the face of my unseen attacker. “Stop, stop!” I gasped. Death reared its head at me in a way it hadn’t since before I found my first card, and I was suddenly terrified.

Cold steel pressed itself against my throat. “Tell me who sent you and I’ll kill you quick,” a low, musical voice rasped.

“Nobody sent me,” I whispered, panic making the words tumble over each other. “I’m a student. Please stop!”

The shadowed head moved aside, letting the moonlight fall on my face. The grip suddenly slackened. “Who… no. No! Hull? Is your name Hull?”

Too confused and scared to do anything but thank the Twins for the sudden change in my attacker’s tone, I nodded violently. The woman – it sounded like a woman – said a few words in a harsh, guttural language that I almost understood and let me go, slumping into a sitting position at my side. I scrambled backward until my back hit the drainage grate.

“Fucking Fortune,” the woman mumbled. “What a joke.”

I wasn’t sure whether to run, scream for help, or attack her while she was distracted. She’d recognized me. What the hell is going on?

“I don’t understand,” I rasped, my throat raw and aching where she’d squeezed.

“You and me both, kid,” she said, standing. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

I tensed, wondering if she was going to attack again. “Who are you?”

She sighed, a deep, soul-weary sound. “Too much to hope that you’d recognize me like this. Fuck, I never thought I’d be doing this. I… Hull, I’m your mother.”