4831 words (19 minute read)

Nathanial

NATHANIAL

“Serve the Father with love in your heart and be in his favor, serve with hearts full of pride and vanity and he will smite thee down as an enemy.”- The Verinat, Lithica II 11:19

Chapter 1

Penderghast Military Academy for High Borns stood in sharp contrast to the city around it. The large stone castle loomed over the glass and steel buildings nestled in the shadows of the Shaurin Mountains. The ancient institution served as a reminder of the past: a time of kingdoms and castles, before the twelve nations came together to form The Empire of Opree.

It was well after midnight, but the north lawn was clear in the light of the full moon. Twenty-one year old Nathanial Harker stood in the black shadow of the Arbinger challenge, an ancient monster of a contraption constructed out of wood and iron.

It was a tradition at Penderghast. Nine obstacles, increasing in difficulty and danger made up the challenge created by General Arbinger in the first year of the Academy’s existence. Only a couple dozen cadets have beaten it in five hundred years, more perished attempting it.

Although Nathanial had made it farther than any other cadets in his class, his failure to conquer the Arbinger earlier that day ate away at the cadet’s mind. It filled his stomach during dinner, killing his appetite and it howled in his ear after lights out, keeping him awake. It was last year at Penderghast. There would not be another chance to attempt the challenge again.

The heavy metal padlock was well secured on the equipment shed and would not relent to Nathanial’s attempts to pry it open. Frustrated, he kicked at the rusted metal doors. The padlock rattled loudly against it, but the defiant doors still refused him entry. The sound of his attack on the equipment shed penetrated the quiet stillness of the cool early fall night, loud enough to wake the dead, as Captain Normandy would say. Luckily, for Nathanial the dead weren’t in earshot and more importantly neither were Captain Normandy nor Headmaster Warrens.

At some point between shouting obscenities at his inanimate foe and cursing his gods for daring to deny him the strength to punch through metal, an angry fist met the side of the stubborn shed and a jolt of pain reverberated through his arm. His storm-blue eyes focused on the thin but durable bar of the lock. A quarter inch thick piece of nickel-plated steel had rendered the cadet helpless. It sat there mocking him, as he tugged on it some more and he remembered there was a bolt cutter in the utility room at the far end of the campus. They once had been used to free him from the footlocker Xander Marland locked him in years before, in primary grades, when he was much, much smaller. It would only take a few minutes to run and grab them, but Nathanial didn’t have much time to spare and was uncomfortable destroying academy property.

He pulled on the lock hard just one more time, hoping it would magically come apart, it didn’t. In the wake of his disappointment, a small weak voice inside of him pleaded him to turn back, telling him the risk was too great. It was a few months until graduation and he could still be in a world of trouble if they caught him out here alone. What he was about to do warranted expulsion. What he was about to do could get him killed. In recent years, the academy had upped safety measures with the Arbinger, pads, helmets, and harnesses rendering the carnage the beast could inflict down to a broken bone at the most. Without the safety equipment that was locked inside the shed, attempting the Arbinger alone, in the dark, would be suicide.

The demands of his wounded pride drowned out all reasonable concern for his own safety.

“We honor our gods and our families only through excellence. Never shame them with anything less.”

Nathanial heard his late father’s words inside his head. Not able to remember exactly what his father’s voice sounded like, the speech repeated itself in ghostlike whispers as he envisioned the disapproval of his gods burning through him.

It didn’t matter that the gods were his only witness. In their name, he was going to finish this, tonight, safety equipment or not. Cadets five hundred years ago did the challenge without pads, helmets and harnesses and so could he.

Despite the advances in technology, the Arbinger Challenge had been left untouched for centuries. It was a mechanical triumph in its day. These days it looked more terrifying than magnificent. Nathanial wrapped his fingers around wooden lever that started the machine, taking time to look at the barbed bars and large wooden gears that triggered the deadly barrage of swords, hammers and a slew of other nasty surprises.

With a straining grunt, Nathanial used all of his weight to pull the large wooden lever down. The massive contraption started with a grinding roar. It was moving much faster than it was earlier in the day. Captain Normandy, their combat instructor, had a way of controlling its speed, but that knowledge was lost on Nathanial. His brain tried to reason with him. The machine was moving way too fast. There was no way he was going to be able to get through that without lopping off a limb or worse.

He looked up at the first challenge, ‘The Eagles Nest.’ It was a long wooden pole, stretching nearly forty feet in the air. The goal was to climb to the top, balance on the pole and jump to the next challenge. Nathanial lunged at the first obstacle between the waves of fear and sanity.

The wood splintered in his already sore hands. It would be impossible to climb all the way up bare handed and he had left his gloves back in his room. Gripping the pole tightly with his legs, he took off his jacket, wrapped the edge of one of his sleeves around his left hand, wrapped the jacket around the pole and took the other sleeve and wrapped it around his right hand. He pushed his legs out, testing the strength of the fabric and stitching. His uniform was quality and Empire made. It could probably hold him and another man without ripping. Nathanial could’ve kicked himself for not thinking about doing that before. As he climbed higher, the pole began to sway. Nathanial shifted his weight to maintain balance. His jacket trick made it simple. Nearly no effort was required and he soon found himself lost in the thoughts of his cleverness.

Two spikes jutted out of the wooden pole, catching him off guard. They gored the fleshy part of Nate’s thigh. The ground was hard when he hit it and a nauseating pain radiated down his leg. The Arbinger was first and foremost a teaching tool and its last lesson was painful enough that he only needed to learn it once. He tore off a piece of his shirt and tied it around the gash in his thigh before he attacked the challenge again.

*****

Clayton Wood had heard Nathanial Harker leave the dormitory and followed him onto the field, keeping out of sight. A couple of years behind Harker, Clayton looked up to him. The older cadet was fearless, and had become sort of a legend at the academy, not just because of who his father was, but the story surrounding how he came to be at Penderghast in the first place.

Penderghast Military Academy for High Borns was created as just that, a place for High Borns to get educated. Over the centuries, however, the ranks of the dying aristocracy were dwindling and the upper echelons of the civilian caste, the Vistany, had more wealth and power than ever. The academy had been accepting Vistany with blood or marriage ties to the aristocracy for over a century, even more since the attacks. Until Nathanial, the academy never had an Iranti-born, the name given to those born in the Empire whose ancestors came from the colony of Lo Irant.

Clayton had heard rumors, just whispers really, that Harker was accepted because at just four years old he defeated a whole squad of Navat soldiers during the invasion. Others claimed that he was the bastard son of his father the General and a Kyre witch. The witch, devastated when her son was taken away, raised the Navat from the ninth hell to punish Opree. Harker’s witch blood protected him from the Navat and the Empire wanted to use him as a weapon. The stories always varied and seem to get more outrageous every passing year.

Clayton didn’t believe any of those stories, not fully anyway. He just knew about the things Harker had accomplished at Penderghast. The whispers of his future greatness echoed in the halls by instructors at the academy.

The sound of the Arbinger being turned on sent Clayton into a panic. Nate was going to get himself killed. He didn’t want to stop the machine himself. Harker would beat him purple. He couldn’t tell Captain Normandy, he would beat Harker purple, and in turn Harker would beat Clayton to death. There was only one option left, wake Garitel.

*****

Prince Arryn Garitel could sleep through a full on aerial assault. He wouldn’t have noticed Nathanial leaving the room if he’d done so with a parade. It took almost six whole minutes of a near deafening mix of banging and Clayton Wood’s nasally squeals to pull him from his sleep.

He knocked. “Garitel! Garitel! It’s Wood! Wake up!”

Although he could command it, Arryn never had any of his classmates refer to him by his title. It was a preference he shared with his father.

Arryn was the third-born son of Jonathan Garitel II King of Opree, not that it mattered much to him or anyone at Penderghast and not just because nearly everyone there was the son of a Duke or a Baron or something. The aristocracy held no real power since the revolution and title held little merit against coin and empty titles were fast becoming a novelty of the Vistany, who would buy their way into the royal families. The political elite were in charge and Arryn accepted it. He didn’t want to rule anyway. If it wasn’t for the tradition for the nobility to send their third-born sons into military service, Arryn would have been happy to live out his life like the other wealthy young High Borns and children of the Vistany elite, partying in Pier City or living a life of leisure on the sandy shores of Gailenai.

Being woken up at this hour in the night however, Arryn wished he had the power his ancestors had. Someone needed to lose their head over this.

“What in the ninth hell do you want, Wood?” Arryn answered the door with a sleepy and annoyed scowl.

“Garitel, it’s Harker, he’s on the fields.” Clayton was trying to catch his breath.

“Wood, that still doesn’t explain to me why you are knocking at my door at this hour,” Arryn hissed. He didn’t care much for Clayton Wood. He was the son of a Vistany Senator, an outspoken opponent against Arryn’s father.

“He’s on the Arbinger in just his field clothes…” Wood struggled to talk between breaths, “no protection or harness.”

Arryn wasn’t surprised. Nate had been quiet all evening since coming in from the challenge. He knew a plot was brewing in that fat blonde head of his. They had been best friends and roommates since their first year at the academy and though he greatly adored his friend, he had learned a long time ago controlling him was a lost cause. Still, this little stunt could get him killed, or expelled. It was yet another mess Arryn was going to get his friend out of.

By the time Arryn, Clayton and about ten fellow cadets gathered by the Arbinger, Nathanial was standing on the pole getting ready to jump onto the next obstacle, a series of bars. The first one was about ten feet away and six feet higher than the pole. It was covered in barbs except for two points near the middle. Most of the cadets who managed to balance themselves on the wobbly pole failed at the first jump.

“Nathanial, you’re going to get yourself killed, you idiot!” Arryn screamed, his voice drowned out by the roar of the machine.

Several of the other cadets had amassed by the lever, blocking Arryn’s attempts to turn it off. One of them being a grotesquely large, mouth-breathing behemoth, who stood feet firmly planted in the ground. His arms practically the size of the Prince’s torso were crossed as he spit at Arryn’s feet.

“Marland I swear to our gods that I will rip those freakish tree trunks out from their sockets, if you don’t move right now.” Arryn demanded. Despite Marland’s size, Arryn was a skilled fighter and more than capable of carrying out the threat.

“Aw, let the little mud rat try, your highness.” Marland goaded. “If it kills him, I’ll pay for a new Iranti footman myself.” He pulled out a ten-Coin note out of his pocket. “I hope you brought change.” The rest of the crowd laughed at the insult. Everyone gave Nathanial shit about his Iranti heritage, but Xander Marland took particular offense that an Iranti-born, was allowed to attend Penderghast.

Arryn clenched his fist ready to plow through Marland and anyone else who got in his way. The sound of Nathanial’s painful cry distracted him.

As Nate made the first jump, his left hand missed its mark and landed on the steel barbs wrapped around it. He was still holding on and determined to continue. In the moonlight Arryn could see the determination in Nathanial’s face and knew that if he stopped this now, his friend would never forgive him.

Despite being quiet and a bit reserved, Nathanial had always been fearless. It was more than just a competitive streak, from what Arryn could understand. The two were always in constant competition with each other, but Nathanial was always out to prove something. He was the first in the class to jump off of Pinnacle Bridge (breaking his leg in the process), the only one to ride the giant plains bull at the Kyre Festival (breaking several bones and a wall). He even allowed himself to be tortured for their interrogations class (no broken bones, but he lost three permanent teeth and the ability to taste salt for six months). Nathanial had this almost inhuman ability to heal quickly after he broke himself and Arryn wondered if that ability was Nate’s curse because it made him twice as reckless. He would be happy if Nathanial would just make it through the night with nothing more than some broken bones.

The blood pouring out of Nathanial’s left palm made it difficult to get a good grip of the ascending bars, yet he managed to get across them anyway. He was already halfway through the fifth obstacle, which required him to navigate a field of continually retracting spikes while dodging a barrage of arrows and rocks. He hadn’t seen anyone pass this obstacle in his entire career at Penderghast. While distracted for a brief moment by one of Marland’s taunts, a spike pierced through the fabric of his pants and narrowly missed splitting him down the middle.

“Ten coin says Harker loses a limb or worse,” Marland hollered. “Harker! I GOT TEN COIN ON YOU DROPPING A LEG, LOSE YOUR HEAD AND I’LL DROP FIVE COIN IN YOUR CASKET. I’D LEAVE IT TO YOUR WIDOW, BUT IT SEEMS ARRYN HAS PLENTY OF COIN HIMSELF!” He laughed. Nobody thought Marland was as funny as he thought himself.

“Seriously, Harker could get killed. Give it a rest,” Lucius Halloway scolded.

The taunts soon lead to cheers and faded into silence as Nathanial made it to the second to last part of the challenge. He had to wedge himself between two walls of solid obsidian and maneuver past a floor that resembled an industrial meat grinder. Nathanial had never thought about how sadistic Arbinger must have been to create such a terrible machine, but now it was at the forefront of his mind. Taking a deep breath, he jumped up, ensuring his hands and feet were at the exact angle to hold up his body on the slick walls. The pain radiated up his injured leg and he felt his muscle shake. The blood on his hands caused his hands to slip as he shifted his weight. Quick reflexes and the grace of his gods kept him from plummeting to his death. He only had to go about eight or ten feet but it might have well been miles.

The rest of his class watched in silence as they saw their fellow cadet falter. It was the hardest and most dangerous obstacle. If Nathanial got past this, he was in the clear but if he failed, without the safety equipment there was a good chance he’d be crushed to death. Arryn inched closer to the lever that turned off the machine and calculated how quickly he could turn it off if Nathanial happened to fall.

The grinding sound of the spiked cylinders rolling underneath him called to Nathanial. He could already hear what his bones would sound like being crushed like brittle sticks. He wiped the blood from his hands on his pants, in an attempt to gain better traction. The blood from his thigh was already seeping into the tourniquet, his leg quivering under the strain as it struggled to support his frame. The grinding sound of the blades was the only thing keeping him from collapsing. He allowed himself three breaths for the pain and on the fourth, forced his aching body further. Once his feet were planted on the wood plank, he said a small, silent prayer of thanks to his gods and an additional one to the sky gods for good measure.

Compared to the previous obstacle the final one was easy. All he had to do was climb across the wire connecting to the final platform and shut off the machine. Nathanial barely remembered any of that until he climbed back down to the ground where everyone cheered, all except for Marland, Arryn and Captain Normandy, who had made it out to the field just in time to see Nathanial finish the challenge.

“Harker!” The dark, raspy voice of Captain Normandy sobered the euphoric Nathanial up immediately. Just his tone told Nathanial he was in for a world of trouble.

*****

It was sunrise, and Nathanial and the other cadets were sore, covered in mud and had been at Captain Normandy’s mercy all night for Nathanial’s little stunt. Unfortunately for them, mercy was a term alien to Captain Normandy.

“Harker,” Captain Normandy drew his service pistol from its holster and inspected it.

“Yes, sir.” Nathanial limped out front. He had been hiding the extent of his injuries during Normandy’s ‘mercy’, but after four hours of ‘replanting’ the headmaster’s boulder garden two hundred yards to the left, his normally soft golden complexion looked more like of a glass of cold, sour milk.

“Why did you attempt the Arbinger again?” Normandy sighed, taking notice of the pitiful state Nate was in.

“I knew I could do it, sir.” Nathanial stated confidently, leaning on his good leg to keep from slouching.

“Knew, or thought?” His eyes zeroed in on Nathanial like a hawk on its prey.

He hesitated a moment. Captain Normandy had a way of turning a cadet’s words against them. Nathanial had to choose his words carefully.“I Knew, sir.”

“Just like if I asked if you knew if you could fetch me that water pail over there, you would say yes.”

This was a trap. “I’m not sure, sir?”

“Not sure, Harker? If you could get that water pail? Fuck, my grandmother could walk over there and get that water pail. Are you telling me you don’t know if you could grab that water pail?” Normandy fiddled with the clip, before sliding it back into his gun.

“I know I could, sir.” Nathanial gulped.

“Really?” Captain Normandy looked at the bucket a hundred yards away. “It’s pretty far. I don’t think you can. In fact I’m willing to bet on it.”

Nathanial cringed. Captain Normandy never lost a bet. Whenever he offered to make at bet, it meant he was about to take away a privilege.

“If you bring back the bucket you and your accomplices can have the day off. If not, you are all going on a special trip with me for the next three days.”

Marland shook with rage, staring down Nathanial with murderous intentions. Two weeks in the pits of the seventh hell was preferable to a three-day trip with Captain Normandy. The cadets looked to Nathanial to save them.

“Well, go ahead Harker.”

Nathanial knew it wasn’t going to be easy. The Captain was grinning with the patient contentment of a cat playing with its prey. Hesitantly, he walked up to the bucket, Captain Normandy close behind. Each step raised his blood pressure higher, until he could hear his blood in his ears. The tension hung heavier than the thick morning air and it choked the nervous cadet.

“See, wasn’t that easy, Harker?” Normandy whispered right before Nathanial reached the end point with the bucket. “But you knew you could do it.”

“Yes, sir,” He answered with caution. “I did, sir.”

Captain Normandy pressed his service pistol against Nathanial’s head. “Would you bet your life on it?”

Nathanial felt the cold metal pressed against his temple.

“Um, no sir,” The young cadet squeaked as his body tensed up. “No?” Captain Normandy asked, “Why not, Harker? I thought you knew you could do it.”

Nathanial got the point, but was fairly certain Captain Normandy was not going to stop there.

“Not if you’re going to blow my head off if I do, sir.” His eyes were wide as he kept the barrel of Normandy’s gun in his peripheral vision.

“But you got your whole team counting on you. What kind of leader sells his men up the river to save himself?” Normandy cocked the hammer back, the click made Nathanial quiver. The Captain’s smile was more unnerving than the gun, however.

The bucket was heavy in his hand; the thin metal handle was digging into his fingers. For a moment he pondered whether getting shot by Normandy right there would be preferable to dealing with his fellow cadets. He was fairly certain Normandy wouldn’t shoot him, not in the head at least. If he moved fast enough, he could place the bucket on the grass. It would undermine Normandy’s lesson and put Nathanial in a whole new league of trouble but it would save the class. He was already so sore and unsure if he could handle anymore special attention from Normandy.

“It’s not worth it, sir,” Nathanial said, defeated.

“What isn’t worth it? You’re going to be viewed as a coward by your men. They will despise you. Just die as a hero. Valiantly win them their day off. We’ll even put your name on a little plaque to sit in the great hall for all time. Isn’t that what every soldier wants?”

“It would be a trivial victory, sir.” Those words felt like nails coming out from the back of his throat.

“Trivial,” Captain Normandy repeated as he lowered his weapon. “Well, risking your life for a trivial victory would just be fool’s pride, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fool’s pride isn’t very becoming of an officer, is it, Harker?”

“No sir, it’s not.”

“The Empire invests a lot of time and resources training you and they don’t appreciate you wasting their coin like that.” The captain looked down at Nathanial’s leg. The blood and mud soaked fabric hid the true damage. The way Nathanial nursed the injury, Normandy could tell it was more than a little scratch and probably hurt something awful.

“There is a fine line between honor and pride Harker. It would suit you to learn the difference. Get yourself to sick bay and get that mess cleaned up.” He turned to the rest of the cadets kneeling in a tense silence. “All of you get to your rooms! You’re useless to me like this. Get some sleep. Dismissed.”

The cadets waited a minute in shock before dispersing. Nathanial stood, brow wet with sweat and body trembling with pain and fatigue.

Normandy understood what Nathanial was going through. He had to scrape and save to buy his family into the Vistany to earn his commission and there wasn’t a day that went by that he wasn’t reminded of that reality in one way or another. The military was full of brilliant outsiders who carried chips on their shoulder and it only served to their detriment.

“You have potential, Harker.” His voice was gentle. “You will make an excellent officer. History doesn’t always know the best officers but their men will. You aren’t a god and you have limits. Respect your mortality or it will end up defining you. You get that? Dismissed, cadet.”

Nathanial hobbled back to sickbay in pain, refusing help from Arryn. The pain was the only reminder that his victory over the Arbinger had happened not ages ago but just a few hours before.

***

Next Chapter: CYRUS