CHAPTER I

City: Dag

Planet: Urdu, Moon of Silfir, mining colony

Star System: Industry Cluster

Date: 475 Stellar Cycles into the Third Age

Urdu, a pale gray marble, and its three sister planetoids orbited the bright aqua gas giant of planet Silfir, and its radiant yellow sun beyond. Though Urdu’s overwhelming mineral deposits left it an unimpressive graphite color, the light of the sun bounced off the gas giant to cast a brilliant blue-green sky overhead, rivaled only by its amethyst sunsets. It made the 36-hour day cycles more bearable, and gave the mine workers of Dag incentive to work faster, competing to see who could get their hauls out while the blue was still up, finish in time to see it transition to purple.

But Ash wasn’t in the mining business.

Boots propped up on a rough wooden desk, leaned back in a chair, the rough-cut, young looking man snored gently in his makeshift watch post, built into the side of a short water tower. He groaned awake — an Ascendant like him shouldn’t have been this tired; but rest was never Ash’s friend. It just brought discordant noise, painful memories, or gave his anxiety a face and a voice.

His fellow Astrals wouldn’t admit it, but even gods wear down after a while.

He wiped sleep from his eyes and scratched at a thick beard over rough-cut, regal features. Running a hand through his hair, a grown out soldier’s cut, he pushed himself up and glanced out the window.

The view wasn’t much, but it was the best spot to get a look at the shantytown, the only inhabited part of Dag left. Sure, there were towering skyscrapers and factories looming all about, but they’d been abandoned for years, ever since refinery work was outsourced to the neighboring planetoids. Gone was Dagorocles, jewel of the Industry Cluster, now it was just…Dag.

The rumble that woke Ash echoed through the town, and he saw the inhabitants exchange fearful, knowing looks. The noise was nothing new. Ash took a breath, donned the hood of his tattered rag poncho and descended a ladder.

Dag's marketplace was a society unto its own, housing creatures of over a hundred worlds and biomes all in one place: humanoids, amphibious folk, reptile folk, avian folk, even a sentient goo here and there, trading metal currency for nicknacks or little pieces of tech under tattered canopies. For all its faults, Dag truly was open to anyone.

That solidarity included the despair spanning each Dagite's face as the growl of beat-up engines came closer. Before long, three hover-riders weaved between the abandoned buildings, closing in on the marketplace.

Ash maneuvered through the crowd under his hood and poncho, clocking the most vulnerable people before locking onto the hover-riders. He beelined for the apex of the market.

Though they were simple hovercraft, cobbled together with scrap barriers and crudely attached plasma turrets, the sight triggered learned helplessness in the people of Dag, instinctively grouping together, obviously afraid, but none broke off running. They huddled together submissively, conditioned to accept that resistance was pointless. Parents put children behind them, lovers held their partners’ hands and everyone emptied out sacks and boxes of currency and bartered goods, prepared for a tribute collection. Ash's fists tightened as he studied the crowd from within; they outnumbered the riders a hundred to one, but still let themselves get pushed around like this. He knew the descending marauders were the ones to really blame, but he couldn't shake the frustration he felt towards the mob of frightened rabbits around him, at a loss for what to do without some lone hero to come along and save them. No wonder they were easy picking...

The riders eased down, each carrying four hungry-eyed pirates. One of them leapt off before his rider hit the ground, a familiar face — Olak, that was his name — ‘Captain’ Olak, an orange-skinned thug with a handful of thorns growing out of his jaw, his species’ version of a beard. And for him in particular, not much of one. The pirate captain’s catlike eyes rolled over the cowed mass and he smiled, gesturing broadly with a rusty axe in one hand, energy pistol in the other.

“Ladies, gents,” his voice sawed, “What have we talked about?” As he strutted back and forth, the other riders landed and pirates disembarked. “You know good as I, Urdu be not in the safest corner of the ‘verse. Ye lot are right on the edge of what’s known, ye know what that means: No one cares yer here,” he pointed with his axe. “Not Arleth, not the United Worlds, hells, not even Cindreth,” he laughed, his thugs joining in. He silenced them with a raised, almost reverent finger. “Except, of course, for His Greatness, Takenda!”

Ash rolled his eyes. The self-important Pirate Lord’s title seemed to get longer the more times he heard it.

“Takenda wants to protect ye,” he assured, “But we can’t do that without proper funding, now can we?” Taking a darker turn, he stalked closer to the trembling crowd. “So why’s be I hearing from our lads, that we’re being driven off-world when we’ve come to collect on tribute?”

His eyes scanned the citizens, looking for weak links when one elderly merchant finally piped up, “It’s just one man, sir,” he beckoned. “We’re not trying to upset any—”

One of the pirates, a great big simian brute, grabbed the old man and dragged him before Olak. “One man?” Olak barked, incensed. “One man chased our people out? Ye offer us insult?!”

“N-no, sir! I swear—”

“Ye offer insult to Takenda??”

“Never, I promise!”

Olak kicked the kneeling man onto his back and rested the blade of his axe under the man’s chin. “Maybe ye folks need a proper reminder of how the law works out here,” he said, raising his axe high. “This be the law out here!”

He swung toward the merchant—when a hand suddenly gripped the weapon just under the blade, halting all momentum in an instant.

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Ash stood his full height, an ancient soldier’s helmet encasing his head as he effortlessly pushed against Olak’s strength, looming nearly two heads taller than Olak. With a flick of his fingers, Ash snapped the weapon in two. Olak staggered back and raised his pistol, but Ash slapped it right out of his grip.

The pirates trained their guns on Ash, the captain staring daggers at him. “Ye wanna play like that, backworlder?” he challenged, “I got a band of hardened killers behind me!”

Ash looked beyond the pirates.

“How far behind you?”

The pirates growled as Olak spat on Ash’s chest. “Cut him dow—!”

Before Olak could finish the word ‘down,’ Ash heel-kicked him in the torso, sending him flying back into the hover-rider. The pirates fired, Ash glanced at the huddled mass behind him and slammed his forearms together like a bareknuckle fighter blocking a strike. The movement threw an orange-gold barrier of Astral energy before himself and the civilians. Red plasma bolts fizzled harmlessly off the shield as he thrust it forward. The orange wall rocked forward like a wave and smashed into the pirates, before Ash turned to the crowd.

“Run, you idiots!”

The masses scattered as Ash surged forward. His poncho whipped off to reveal dark red and black combat fatigues over a massive muscular frame, and a chrome harness around his chest, thin coils crawling out of it and wrapping around his arms and legs.

He swatted the pirates’ weapons from their hands and barraged them with quick, hard strikes — he was disciplined, but fought without flourish; bare minimum movement and maximum impact. He fought with more than just skill and experience, in fact, the impact of his blows sporadically broke the sound barrier.

He disarmed and pummeled three pirates in quick succession before a fourth had snaked behind him and aimed his energy pistol at point blank range. He fired square between Ash’s helmet and the his harness, the bolt hitting home right in the back of his neck.

Rather than blowing his upper torso into cauterized chunks, Ash’s head snapped forward and he grunted. The pirate’s eyes went wide and he looked at his pistol, as if it were defective. Color drained from the marauder’s face as Ash turned around, shoulders heaving and growling through breaths. The air rippled around him like a fire as his muscles tensed — no — pulsated.

Bug-eyed, the pirate fired directly into his opponent’s chest, Ash walked through the shots like rain. One shot damaged the harness, but Ash never slowed down. He reared back and smashed his head into the pirate’s nose, caving in the terrified man’s skull.

Ash dropped the crumpled pirate, panted and lowered his head…then snapped back up, as if shaken awake. He breathed deeply, then surveyed the scene. Every pirate was dead or maimed. He meticulously picked up each of their weapons and ripped them in two as Olak dragged himself up from the dented rider he’d been kicked into. Ash stalked closer and planted a boot on his chest.

“I don’t think you’re cut out for this kind of work.”

“You think you can intimidate me?” Olak defied, visibly shaking. “This rock’s been claimed by Takenda!”

“And I’m telling you it’s already claimed. Pack up your trash and crawl back to Kaylore. If Takenda doesn’t appreciate the arrangement, he can come find me.”

He took his boot off Olak, watching him and the surviving pirates scramble back onto the riders and take off. Ash then slowly turned back to the hushed crowd.

Raucous applause.

He sighed impatiently.

People patted him on the shoulder or held his arm reverently, but he shrugged them off, threw his poncho back over his suit and marched away. He took a few convoluted backtracks through the shantytown to fully slip the crowd, then made it into the abandoned skyscrapers and let himself breathe a little easier — the radiation from the old refineries still festered in the cityscape, normal folk dare not go near it. Here, he could have some semblance of quiet and solace. Maybe some sense of—

“You really are a great big softie, you know that?”

Ash shut his eyes. He followed the full, musical tone and saw a lithe, soft-featured man in immaculately clean white garb, somewhere between a diving suit and a piece of royal regalia, leaning on one a wall. Or rather, he would be leaning, if his feet were on the ground. Instead, Sol’Sorien floated two stories off the ground, resting one shoulder on the wall, arms folded. They locked eyes, and the Ascendant of Travelers flashed a bright winning smile. Ash hid it well, but his chest lifted at his old friend’s face. Outwardly however, he grumbled and kept walking.

“Go away.”

Sol drifted down and followed, though his feet still didn’t touch the ground. “Come on,” he chuckled, “Don’t you even wanna know how I found you?”

“No.”

“You’re not as good at hiding as you think.”

“Who says I’m hiding?”

Sol scoffed and looked around. “What else could bring a god to a hovel like this?”

“Not a god.”

“Ascendant, whatever, we’re one step below.”

“Not what they used to tell me.”

"Hey," Sol hesitated, taking a gentler tone. “I always did, didn’t I?”

Ash finally slowed and sighed wearily. He himself had a point, being the Ascendant of War on a pacifist jewel like Arleth left him without many admirers, but Sol was right as well; he stuck by Ash's side when the rest of the Astrals just saw a ticking time bomb. He begrudgingly turned to him and folded his arms.

“Fine. Hi, Sol. What can I do for you today?”

Sol swallowed and drifted closer for emphasis. “Pack your stuff, we’re leaving.”

“Got it.”

Sol blinked twice and smiled in excitement. “Wait, just like that??”

“No, now go away,” Ash brushed off and resumed his stride.

“I can’t do that, man. You’re in danger."

Ash scoffed. “What else is new?

Sol followed with more urgency. “Come on, this is serious!”

“Oh, I can tell,” Ash nodded sarcastically, “You put on the Serious Face.”

Sol growled and the air rippled around him. He flew faster, shooting forward like a cannonball and banked around Ash, suddenly stern as he landed in front of him. “Ash, you abandoned your post. Arleth has no God of War, and you were the only Ascendant that got close. They still need you, man.”

Ash rolled his eyes and strode around him. “Yeah, they made that real clear,” he said dryly, finally making his way to an open elevator platform. Sol’s words pricked at him like thorns. If they sent anyone else besides Sol’Sorien for this, he’d had half a mind to break their precious, flawless face. The elevator gradually climbed the side of a deserted skyscraper, and Sol’Sorien weightlessly kept pace with it, somber look on his face.

“…Look, I know they didn’t…appreciate you…”

Ash chuckled out loud now, stepping off the platform at a tier of walkways between buildings, similarly abandoned, as Sol landed beside him, actually walking now.

“But your absence has bigger consequences!”

“So I’ve heard,” Ash shrugged, “And yet, the planets keep spinning.”

Sol finally grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him by force, looking him in the eye. Ash tensed defiantly, but didn’t push back. Sol was always an easygoing type, this wasn’t like him. Something was clearly, genuinely upsetting him — and Ash knew if he tensed too hard to pull away, he might break Sol’s wrist. Best not to compound his anxiety with bodily trauma.

He was a good friend that way.

“The treaty between Arleth and Cindreth,” Sol told him, “It’s conditional upon the High King and the Maledact raising each other’s heirs.”

“Believe me, I know the story.”

“Well did you know you broke the treaty by leaving?”

Ash’s brow furrowed — that couldn’t be. He was fully grown. He’d been raised by the High King already. The High King abdicated the throne and went into seclusion, there was no more upbringing Ash could get, he made sure the wording of the treaty made this viable!

Sol’Sorien detected Ash’s confusion and nodded. “That’s right…people know you’re gone. The High King’s protection over you? You nullified it when you left Arleth. There’s a price on your head.”

Ash shook his head again. “My father doesn’t place bounties.”

“It’s not the Maledact,” Sol answered gravely.

“…Who, then?”

Sol swallowed, uncertainty — no, fear — swirling in his bright silver eyes. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I’m the Ascendant of Travelers…and word on you traveled fast…”