Fractured Loyalties

Chapter 1, Rachel Morris: Rachel glanced over her shoulder and gave Lane a wink and a nod he never saw. For the strangest reason he’d hidden his eyes and lowered his face into his hand. She expected a nice friendly bar fight from the teamster she picked out, but she got much worse. She turned her head, expecting to find one man standing to face her but found three. “Oops.” She looked at the barkeeper, expecting to be rescued, and found no help there either. She turned to face the man she insulted. “Look, that—” but she never finished. The insulted man’s right hook caught her unawares square in the jaw. Two of her front teeth went flying across the room. Her lips instantly swelled under the punch. Knocked to the floor, she held up a hand to stop the attack. The teamster threw a chair out of the way, charging at her on the floor. She didn’t waste time trying to talk her way out of the fight now, she knew it was on. Once the attacker came within range, she kicked with all her might and found the inside of his knee. She heard a satisfying crunch when the knee bent at an impossible angle. Before reveling at her small success, the other two grabbed her by the arms and pulled her to her feet. She quickly looked over at Lane and found him drinking ale, watching the combat develop. Peeved, she grunted, stepped back, and pulled the two men together in front of her. They crashed together, heads connecting in the collision. They dropped their grips, surprised by her quick moves. Rachel spit the blood from her mouth. She never expected this type of fight in the little tavern by the cliff, but she needed to end it now before anyone else got hurt, namely herself. The first man rolled on the floor, screaming, his knee held in both hands. “Kill her!” “That was uncalled for,” Rachel said around her swollen lips. The second man came in with a left-hand roundhouse swing. She ducked under it and laid her bare knuckles into the man’s side under his arm. She felt the ribs break under the stress of the punch. Her attack left her back open, and the third man brought a double-handed cleaver onto her spine. She went down to her hands and knees. A glance over to Lane and she realized he’d gone missing. “s**t!” She saw the chair legs next to her disappear when another picked it up. She knew what would come next and braced for the incoming chair that never happened. Flattened to the floor, she rolled quickly out of the way of the chair attack and sprung to her feet. Shortly after, Lane came to her aid. His staff was holding back the chair the bartender intended to break on her back. It would have leveled her. He still didn’t fight, only protected her from unseen attacks. Her concern shifted from the scuffle in the tavern to the gathering crowd outside. It seemed someone went for help. Now instead of the three teamsters and bartender involved in the fight, a growing crowd came looking for the blood of strangers, especially any that resembled fighters from either side of the warring cities. She had no idea this town was used to seeing blood spilled for sport. She had picked the wrong place to start a small fight to prove a point or have a little fun while blowing off steam. Lane twisted his staff and somehow wrenched the chair from the bartender’s hands. Rachel had never witnessed a staff move so quickly. He retreated to her side, their backs now against the outer wall. The staff gave him reach and advantage in the fight; she had tried to prove a point about fist fighting and left her sword out of reach at the table. Now she found herself screwed with no weapon at hand. The wounded man continued to scream from the floor while the others gathered up the courage to attack. A woman’s commanding voice called from outside the tavern, stopping the fun. “By the law of Cliffside, all the combatants are ordered to cease fighting at once. Drop your weapons and come outside or be fired upon.” This was an unfortunate turn of events. Rachel glanced out the nearest front window and saw a sizable contingent of armored men standing with crossbows aimed at the drinking establishment. Before she could think of a witty response, the three opponents still standing headed for the door, fingers interlaced and palms up over their heads. Once the three cleared the room, they got another warning. “Last chance, strangers. Come out and face justice, or we will take you.” “Shit.” Rachel tried to talk around her missing teeth, but it came out more like, “Thit.” Lane dropped his staff. It landed with a metallic thud. Rachel’s jaw made close to the same sound when it hit the floor at his surrender. She looked around and found her sword still propped against the table where she left it. For a fleeting moment she considered charging out the door with her sword arm high, rushing the plebs and trying to kill them all. She shrugged and strolled by the man on the floor, kicking him in the back with the side of her foot when she passed. At the door, she found Lane, the bartender, and the two others on their knees in the dirt. She stared over to the bolts that all now pointed her way. She counted ten—no way she could get all of them. With a grunt, she raised her hands over her head and copied the others. Intertwining her fingers, palms up on the top of her head. “The last man will need help. I think his leg is in pretty bad shape,” Lane tried to explain to the woman apparently in charge. Rachel moved next to Lane and joined him on the ground. The tiny stones on the cobbles drove into her flesh. She heard several pairs of boots run into the tavern. The man with the blown-out knee screamed louder when they pulled him out. Next came the call of, “Clear!” as the remaining boots stomped back out of the tavern. “Bring Jonas over here.” The woman motioned to the barkeep. Two men swiftly picked the bartender off the ground and escorted him off to the side where the woman stood. “Look, it was just a little harmless fun that—” Rachel stopped talking when a pommel rapped her on the back of the head. “Damn it!” “Shush,” Lane tried to warn her and got a rap with a pommel for his efforts. “Ouch!” She watched the barkeep being questioned wave his arms as he explained what happened. She couldn’t wait for her chance to explain. She would talk her way out of this mess in seconds, even if she couldn’t convince the one in charge with her t**s. Rachel noticed the man had finished his explanation and was led off between two guards. The woman approached and looked down at the group still on their knees. With the motion of her head, guards picked up the locals, one on each arm, and led them off. That left only Rachel and Lane. Rachel opened her mouth to speak but was cut off by the woman’s raised hand and a pommel to the back of the head. “I’m the magistrate of the city. We don’t take kindly to strangers coming in and disrupting our quiet way of life. You both took part in the fight. You are both sentenced to one-month hard labor in the mine. Complain about the sentence, and a month will be added.” Rachel couldn’t help herself. “Look, Your Honor, it was just a bar fight.” She motioned with her head. “He had nothing to do with it. It was all my fault.” “Where it is honorable for you to take the blame, it was his choice to attack with the weapon. Two months now.” “I will do the sentence, only let me do it in the fight pits. I will do his sentence along with mine.” “You may do the fight pits as you request, but now it is three months for you.” Lane said in a soft voice, “I am my own man. I will do my own sentence. Send me to the fight pits as well.” The magistrate inspected both before passing judgment. “Bring me their weapons.” Once they were brought, she pulled Rachel’s sword from the scabbard and turned up her nose at the basic construction of her blade. Returning the sword, she took Lane’s staff and spun it in her hand. Rachel was sure she saw lust in her eyes over the weapon. The magistrate held the staff out in front of her, with a twist of her wrists a blade popped out from either end of the metal staff. She looked Lane over as she spoke. “Are you some sort of holy man?” Lane shrugged. “I’m a simple traveler through life, nearing his final destination.” Rachel would never understand men. The magistrate nodded to Lane as if she understood. “In that case, I send you both to the fight pits for two months. May the gods look down upon your combat and wish you luck. You will need it.” Since the island of Shakopee was not controlled by one person, there arose a haphazard patchwork of regulations concerning freedom. When Zar outlawed slavery, Cliffside swiftly followed, but each town and village of the Zar-aligned island set their own laws concerning human bondage. Cliffside didn’t follow each decree as set down by Mayor Villa in Zar, and as such they didn’t take time to prepare for the loss of slave labor. In one fell swoop, the Council of the city declared slavery illegal. The economic chaos that followed was one of the reasons cited by Perdition when they invaded the northern half of the island. The majority of the population of Cliffside saw Perdition’s attack as nothing but naked aggression towards the sovereignty of their city. Some in the countryside saw the invasion as liberation—an attempt to bring normalcy back to the shard. When the labor force disappeared overnight, Cliffside was required to reevaluate its decision on slave labor. The work still needed to be done. Labor prices dropped, and the prices for staples rose. Business owners couldn’t find labor due to people leaving to fight the war. The lower to middle classes found themselves pinched between making less money and everything costing more. The town faced outright rebellion as basic necessities became unobtainable for the average citizen. Wages couldn’t keep up with inflation. In an attempt to stabilize the situation, the governing Council authorized forced labor as a punishment for breaking the laws of the town. However, the average citizens didn’t violate enough rules to replace the lost manpower. Over several late-night sessions, the rulers rewrote many of the statutes, increasing the punishment for the most pointless of infractions. The target of the new regulations was any stranger who walked into town. Most laws held a thirty-day hard-labor minimum sentence. Initially, the thirty days could be waived if the criminal paid a fine equivalent to hiring someone to take his place for those thirty days. The problem became apparent quickly. No one wanted to do the work considered hard labor. The economy of Cliffside survived off a local mine located in the foothills. It was hard, grueling, and dangerous work to relieve the earth of the highly prized fire-rock. This black stone would burn like wood, only last longer and burn hotter. It was highly valued throughout the shards by anyone who needed a long lasting, reliable heat source. The weapons created from a forge that used fire-rock were considered the finest in all the lands. The alternative to working in the fire-rock mines became the fight pits. The sport of hand-to-hand combat, combined with the wagering on the outcome, enjoyed a long tradition as a staple of Cliffside entertainment. The finest dojos for training fighters were on the island of Shakopee. The spectacles became so popular in Cliffside that the rituals were exported to several other shards, including Perdition and Abaraka, where colossal stone stadiums were built to hold the spectators. Cliffside’s stadium was constructed of wood but still held five thousand viewers around the sand-filled fighting pit. The dojos were mostly situated within an hour’s wagon ride of the stadium, with the most prestigious training centers being located closer to the arena. However, the magistrate’s home and training center weren’t within that coveted perimeter. Led by the mounted magistrate, Rachel and Lane were walked two hours into the country to her training compound. Surrounded by fields of grain nearly ready for harvest, the white plaster walls of the magistrate’s home were as tall as two men standing on each other’s shoulders. It would be hard for anyone to escape without a great deal of help. Two heavily armored men guarded the massive wooden gate. Each carried a short sword on their side with a counterbalanced spear ready for action. Rachel examined the two men as they were led through the open gate and decided they knew what they were doing. They had a look about them that screamed mayhem. Inside the compound, she found twenty men and five women being run through basic hand-to-hand combat techniques by a gray-haired handler who looked old even compared to Lane. The magistrate dismounted and motioned for the two criminals to follow her through a single door that penetrated the eastern wall and into the two-story building adjacent to the sand fighting pit. “Bring their weapons,” she called as she walked. Inside the thick-walled building, the air had to be twenty degrees cooler than outside. In the center of a small open courtyard sat a pool of water at least four feet deep. The second-floor balcony looked down onto the courtyard. Rachel found closed doors simply sitting there waiting for her to investigate. Past the pool, Rachel spied a large reception hall. Cushions and pillows of all sizes were pushed against the side walls, with a low table in the shape of a T dominating the center of the space. At the head of the T stood a low chair, centered, the obvious place of power. Before entering the main house, the magistrate removed her helmet and handed it to a young boy who came to greet them. Next came her sweat-stained leather cuirass, which she gave to a preteen girl behind the boy. She remained in her sweat-drenched tunic, and she stepped into the pool at her feet and disappeared under the water. Rachel hadn’t thought about it, but she grew hotter than the Great Beach at midday, and the cool water at their feet sucked the heat away from her body. She would’ve loved to jump into the water as well, but considering where they were she thought it unwise. The magistrate surfaced, blowing air out of her mouth. Droplets of water sprayed into the air. “Damn, that feels good.” Her head dipped beneath the surface once more. Rachel watched the magistrate remove her tunic under the shallow water. Her hand broke the surface and slapped her wet clothing onto the side of the pool. The clear water did nothing to hide her body. This time she slowly raised her head out of the water and extended her arms along the rim, propping herself up in the water. Her feet kicked a lazy pace, floating her just under the surface. “This is my home and my dojo. For the next two months, this will be your home and your training arena. If you break any rules, your time here will be extended. If you do well in the pits, your time will be shortened. If you win, you will be rewarded. If you slack off, you will be punished. Are there any questions?” Rachel was surprised that Lane stood there, no reaction coming from his sight of the naked woman. Maybe Lane did like men. Not that it bothered her. She knew plenty of warriors that preferred the company of other men to women. She just thought it kind of a shame, because he wasn’t half bad-looking for such an old man. “You won’t have any trouble from me.” Lane spoke so softly. Rachel felt he had resigned himself to die once again, just like he did on the cliff a few days earlier. “I have a question.” Rachel knew she should learn to keep her mouth shut. “Your handler must be over a hundred years old. What do I need to do to take his place?” She sensed Lane had dropped his gaze and hid his eyes under his right hand as he slowly shook his head.