“What?” Niklas asked, aghast. “What are you talking about?”

“I read the policies,” Edgar said. “The fine print. There is an official reg banning half-caste Sharderins from joining the architects.”

Niklas put his hand on the outer wall of the armory as everything seemed to spin. All those years of hard work! He couldn't be a Raider because his skin was a shade pinker than the others?

“But…” he muttered, still shrouded in confusion. “Why? Why would the priests deny me because I look different? I’m more than qualified. I want to die cutting my way through Relrins. I’m never complacent in my duties and faithful to Gyva. I’m not Relrin! I’m Sharderin!”

Edgar’s face was drawn tight with the fire at the corner of his eyes as he watched his brother’s anguish. “Of course you’re right! The raiders have had their eye on you for years now, but they can’t recruit you because you’re not pure. It makes no sense for the priests to deny you for something so trivial, so I checked the policy origin. The zealots instituted it.” He said the name as though it were cancerous and contagious.

“The zealots?” Niklas asked. “I thought the architects were a priest faction. How are the zealots regulating the priests' recruiting?”

“I guess that’s a privilege they get for being the presiding platform. They’ve extended their influence into their rivals’ procedures,” Edgar said evenly. “They keep a thumb in everyone’s eye.”

“Why do the zealots even care?” Niklas’ voice quivered in frustration. “I’ve done nothing to offend them.”

Edgar hesitated before answering. “Sometimes I think you would make a good zealot, Niklas.”

Niklas started in surprise.

“Like you, they hate everything, Relrin, and unfortunately, that means you too.”

“I’m not-”

Edgar stopped Niklas with an upraised hand.

“I know you’re not a Relrin, but I doubt they can see you that way. There's more to it than just purity. The zealots don’t care about purity within the priests. The real reason they did it was to assert themselves over their competitors. They have many such policies only to keep their opponents in check.”

“So it’s political?” Niklas demanded. “I can’t serve the clan to my fullest because the zealots over-regulate the priests?”

Edgar shook his head indignantly.

“Deck the man who was my father!” Niklas snapped. “It’s that relrin pig’s fault I’m stuck.”

Edgar held up a hand to stop him. The pads of Edgars' fingers and much of his palms bore heavy burn scars. “You can shiv on the dead and unable, like a timid, or you can deal with the living problem. It’s the zealots' fault.”

Niklas nodded in agreement. As usual, he found himself pacified by his brother’s simple rebukes. Edgar had always taught Niklas not to accept circumstances as they came but to change things and find solutions. A dangerous idea for a Sharderin.

“But what can I do? I actually don’t have a chance,” Niklas lamented. “I can’t rewrite policy.”

Edgar snorted. “Don’t be coy. There are always opportunities. You just need to find them.”

“What opportunity could I possibly find against the zealot’s law?” Niklas demanded anxiously. “This is daft, even for you.”

Edgar smiled his wolfish grin, the smile that always proceeded solutions and turned their situation for the better. Niklas took great comfort in that terrifying smile.

“What is it?” Niklas asked, suddenly hopeful.

“I’ve heard whispers that the Holy Ones have come to resent the zealots and their guardianship. They may reinstate a different party as the head platform.”

Could Edgar be serious, a new presiding platform, but who?

“Which party?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Edgar assured him. “If it’s the priests or the elders, neither care about purity as the zealots do. If the zealots get impeached, they will undo the zealot’s meddling, which will open the doors to the Raiders to you.”

“How long,” Niklas asked, “Until this could happen?”

“Before I got involved, it could have been several years. But now that I’m invested a year tops. I’ll dethrone the zealots myself.”

Niklas looked around hastily, checking for unwanted listeners. The idea was as impossibly ambitious as Edgar always was, and those words spoken out loud were exceptionally dangerous. Even if he was an architect, if the zealots should hear such open defiance, they may arrange to have him tried and executed. At least he’d get a trial as an architect.

“Don’t look so tense, Little Loga,” Edgar assured him. “The zealots should fear me, not the other way around.”

Niklas could hear the bloodlust seeping into his brother's voice, and he wondered if this would be the time Edgar took things too far. “You’re a little outspoken about deliberate sedition, don’t you think?”

Edgar snorted. “The zealots are doing fine at getting themselves removed on their own. Every power eventually shifts, brother. I’m just going to expedite the process.”

“Don’t do that, Edgar,” Niklas begged. “If the power is shifting, all I need to do is wait. I can be patient.

“You tolerate too much, Niklas.”

“And you don’t tolerate anything at all.”

Edgar shrugged. “You’re the only thing that matters. I’d slaught the entire clan if it slighted us, Logas.”

Niklas furrowed his brow. “Edgar, I don’t want to hurt the clan. I want to bring valor to the clan. I work, fight, and die for the clan. I think not for myself but to execute the directives given to me by the clan.” He had injected the line from the Drone’s Creed unintentionally.

“You’re a good little drone,” Edgar said sadly. “So devout.”

“Promise me you won’t do anything foolish, Edgar.”

Edgar contemplated Niklas for a moment, “Fine.”

Niklas felt himself relax, relieved that Edgar wouldn’t escalate things as he always tended to.

“I heard you took first in your detachment today.”

Niklas cried in surprise and disappointment. How did Edgar already know? Niklas felt slightly cheated, not being the one to tell him. Edgar always seemed to be perfectly informed.

“Yeah!” Niklas beamed like an idiot before Edgar’s approving nod.

“That’s my brother.”

Two drones chatted as they rounded the corner and looked at them in surprise. No doubt, the brothers looked out of place, a half-blooded drone dumbly grinning at a reaper. As far as Niklas knew, Architects seldom came to the drones’ training pit, and, as far as they knew, a drone speaking one-on-one to an Architect behind the armory would very likely turn up dead in a ditch somewhere. They shot Niklas a sympathetic glance, and a snap from Edgar to get lost sent them running.

Edgar turned back to his brother, the tired look returning to his face. “Let’s go home.”

“Home?” Niklas cried. “I won’t be dismissed from the training pit for another three days. I’ve got First Chief’s debrief and sanitation detail!”

“You finished testing, didn’t you?”

“Well, yeah…but...”

“But what?”

Niklas shook his head, amused. Edgar would never change. He cared little to nothing for rules or authority. The very notion of breaching protocol made Niklas freeze up.

“I’ll get in trouble,” he said.

“And…?”

“Edgar, no!”

“Niklas...Yes!”

Niklas squirmed a little, realizing the officers would soon call them back into formations.

“No one can blame you if you’re acting under the command of an Architect,” Edgar tempted.

Niklas smiled. “You’re the worst.”

“Why thank you,” Edgar said with a mock salute. “Shall we?” He scooped up his backpack and threw it over his shoulder. Niklas only now noticed his Reaper’s straight sword protruding from the pack. The Reaper's blade, in reputation, compared to the scythe that Death himself carried with his Courts. Niklas had seen the slate-gray sword many times. That was a luxury he shared with few. Most who witnessed it saw it only once, usually in the last moments of living.

Also strapped to the back of Edgar’s pack was his mask. The Reaper’s face mask was far more refined and elegant than a drone’s. Colored black and blue, it lacked a visible mouthpiece from the outside, making it look almost ghostly. The lens eyes looked up at Niklas from the pack, warning him that it owned his brother and reminding him that his claim to Edgar was secondary.

The brothers stopped at Niklas’ barracks so he could grab his bag. The low-mark chiefs who lounged idly would have usually reprimanded him for showing up without his detachment. However, considering that his escort out-ranked them in every way, they hardly shot him a second glance.

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They passed several barracks, plated armories, and sanitation lockers before arriving at the embankments that marked the training grounds.

They climbed out of the training pit toward the surrounding outposts. The training Pit was appropriately named. The massive crater was over a mile wide and the training ground for almost all drones. Niklas felt strange to leave it alone. The road was empty, as it was off-schedule for shuttles to move soldiers in or out now. It was just him and his older brother on foot.

They approached the final outpost, and, surprisingly, a sentry moved to stop them. The guards here were also drones, but the one who stopped them had five gold bars marking the side of his mask. At fifth mark, he was almost a non-commissioned officer.

“Where are you taking this drone? I don’t have a note for any early dismissals.” His voice emitting through his mask suggested he was no youth, maybe in his fifties. Yet, despite his age, he was stocky and thick as most Sharderins were.

Edgar looked at the man, bewildered at his insolence. “I’m checking him out early.”

The man shifted, not in discomfort but in annoyance. Edgar was twenty-three, with his face uncovered. It was clear the guard didn’t like taking orders from a youth. “Do you have a written order?” he demanded.

Niklas noticed the drone’s fellow guards step away from him in surprise. They didn’t have a death wish. They knew better. Reapers had an uncanny reputation for decapitating inferiors who crossed them.

Edgar stepped up to the sentry, getting face to face with the drone.

“Edgar,” Niklas grabbed his brother's arm. “Don’t.”

“No,” Edgar said. “I don’t have an order. You ask that like it’s going to change that I’m going to leave with him right now.”

The man finally flinched uncomfortably. “I, uh...I can refer you to an officer who can get you one.”

Edgar’s eyes hardened.

“Sir!”

Edgar ignored the man and walked on, the sentry finally and wisely stepping aside.

Niklas looked at the drone apologetically. The man’s body position suggested he was angry and conflicted. Once the sentry's superiors learned he had released a drone without a note of approval, he would surely face disciplinary action, but saying no to a Reaper would prove far worse. He made the right choice.

“Where are you going?” the drone demanded in frustration. “No shuttles are scheduled to leave for hours!”

Edgar left the man with no response and headed for the dock. This dock wasn’t much more than wood stalls mounted to the ground, but there were power outputs with shuttles charging.

They moved past the larger shuttles to a few smaller dock ports. Edgar’s strike bike hummed gently as yellow light pulsed through lumaulic power lines along the vehicle’s body. The rune for Loga, the family name, was crudely painted on the face between a pair of light kinetic cannons that protruded from the front.

Niklas grinned. He loved strike bikes and could only use them when on patrol. However, Edgar was permitted his own heavily modified bike for personal use; Niklas missed riding that thing.

“Get on,” Edgar said as he slung his pack across the front, covering the rune. He removed and donned his Reaper's mask.

Niklas stuck on his drone helmet and hit the engage switch. The mask hummed then clicked as its pieces sealed around his head, his ponytail ring fitting into a socket, allowing it to stick out the back. He slid on behind Edgar and held on.

Edgar drew a key that held the ignition command rune. The rune on this key was not Sharderin. Niklas had no clue what it meant. It was some complex artificer language that was far beyond him. Edgar plugged it in, and the bike purred to life, slowly lifting off the ground six inches and bobbing ever so slightly. Niklas felt its vibration and grinned.

“Hang on,” Edgar cautioned as if Niklas needed a warning, and the bike lurched, shooting forward. Speeding unnecessarily fast, Edgar maneuvered the vehicle gracefully. The wind blasted Niklas in the face. If not for his mask, he would have struggled to breathe. Niklas held on more tightly around Edgar’s waist and took in the blur of the surrounding foliage. Without warning, the bike rose several feet and veered from the path.

“Edgar!” Niklas cried, but the roaring wind stole his voice. He risked letting go with one hand and tapped the proximity com rune under the jaw of his mask, securing a connection. “Edgar!” he shouted again.

“What?” Edgar asked; his buzzy, matter-of-fact voice sounded inside Niklas’ mask, emitted from a small pair of vibrating metal plates near his ears.

“Why did you leave the road?”

“Shortcut.”

“What if we run into Faceless?” Niklas asked, his stomach lurching as he bobbed and weaved between Colossal trees that nearly brushed the sky.

“What if we do? That would be fun!”

Darkness began to fall, and Niklas kept a wary eye out for the faceless men without masks or positions, banished from the clan’s cities and society. Edgar would easily take care of them if they arose, but a razor wire suspended between trees would cut the brothers in half at this velocity. Niklas thought he saw shadowy figures darting in the shadows several times, but they offered no trouble if they weren’t just his imagination.

Edgar turned on his front light. No beam projected from the light, but a wide disk of illumination lit up before them, revealing the forest floor. These were directional lights, designed to expose an enemy but not betray your location, an added perk to Edgar’s bike. Patrol vehicles weren’t as advanced and only had regular lights. Every year, the Siegers updated gear with new toys. The Architects seemed to get exposure before the rest of the Drone Army.

The trip traditionally took several hours in the slower shuttles on the conventional roads, but riding with Edgar; it was only half an hour before the stars disappeared, replaced by the much closer and smaller twinkling of the city lights above. Sharderins seldom built on the ground. That was where the faceless lived.

They rode under the city along the forest floor. The entire city of Pit Two was suspended in five tiers, mounted in the treetops and on colossal support beams. The first two tiers were built below the leafline, with open shafts allowing the trees to grow through. The third level met the treetops, and the final two levels broke the canopy resting proudly above the forest.

The bottom level was the largest, the massive platform running for several miles in every direction. Each subsequent tier was smaller, giving it a pyramid effect. It was magnificent, and it was home.

There were three Pit cities, and they lived in the centermost of the three. Niklas was unsure why the cities had been named Pit since Pit was the hell of the cruel man-god Stigki, where the spirits of men without valor went to after death. Perhaps it was a subtle reminder to all Sharderins that they shouldn’t fear death unless taken in cowardice, for Stigki’s Halls of Valor awaited those who died worthily.

Lights ahead on the forest floor indicated a lift station, and Edgar pulled to a stop astride the half-dozen lift guards, all drones, who looked at him skeptically. Then, noting Edgar’s Reaper’s mask, they jumped to attention and nudged the Liftmaster, who was engrossed in a book. Niklas read the title. The Combative Dispositions. A good read. The Liftmaster pulled himself away from his reading, grabbed his light baton, and swung it into the air, casting a bright yellow light onto their faces. He was checking for faceless brands, a mark reserved for the criminals banished from the clan.

“Let’s see your faces,” he said.

They removed their masks and let him inspect their faces. He nodded in approval. “Level?”

“Three,” Edgar said.

He waved them to the lift, and Edgar glided his bike past the rail. The Liftmaster called for level three, and, with a lurch, the platform ascended. The lift pulled the brothers up through the first two levels, filled with barracks and drones who had finished their work for the day. Passing onto the third level was vastly different. There were no drones here. The third level was reserved for zealots, priests, elders, and officers. Neat offices and small residences lined the wooden platform streets. Edgar had a place there because he was technically a priest. Niklas’ unit didn’t expect him back at his barracks for a few days, so it only made sense that they stayed together.

They took the strike bike at a more responsible speed as they coasted through residential suburbs. Edgar’s apartment was close to the lift, and they soon pulled astride the uniformed box of a hut.

Edgar docked his bike at a single-charge port beside his small apartment and opened the door. He tapped a metal plate on the wall, and yellow lights pulsed to life.

“Good to be home!” Edgar sighed.

They threw their packs down, and Niklas drew a pot of water on the prylux stove. A few minutes later, he scooped a few spoonfuls of musty white joagh powder into two steaming mugs and put one in front of Edgar before slumping into a wooden chair. Niklas tasted the bitter joagh and scalded the tip of his tongue. He bit back the pain and waited for it to cool.

They sat silently as the night matured, but Niklas’ head was anything but silent. Becoming a Raider would take longer than he thought. He could only continue to train until the time was right, and they came to beg him to be an architect. He could be promoted to chief first, then become an architect when the new presiding seat lifted the zealot policies.

“Niklas,” Edgar said as he sipped from his mug.

“Hmm?”

“Why do you want to be an Architect?”

The question startled him. What kind of question was that? “For valor, of course.”

“Hmm,” Edgar nodded thoughtfully but didn’t look satisfied.

“What?” Niklas asked.

“I just want to make sure… that you’re not just doing it because of me. I want to be clear that I do not expect you to be an architect.”

“What? No, it’s not that at all!” Niklas said, but no sooner had the words left his mouth than he realized they weren’t entirely true. “I want to please Gyva in the greatest way I can,” he continued, more reasoning with himself than with Edgar.

“You always were the faithful one,” Edgar confessed ironically, as he was a priest.

Niklas watched the steam rise from his mug for a silent moment. “So, where were you?”

Edgar cocked an eyebrow at his younger brother. “You know that’s highly classified. Did you get your clandestine clearance?.”

Niklas winced at the rebuke and dropped the matter.

Edgar snorted at Niklas’ easy acceptance. “I went to Colgar.”

“You got to leave Pit Forest?” Niklas exclaimed with a little bit of envy.

“A faceless escaped into Colgar and was too open about the Clan to the Colgans. So I silenced him and ensured no one who might have heard too much would ever want to think of Pit Forest again.”

“He should have kept his mouth shut,” Niklas growled. “It’s bad enough to be stripped of valor and cast out. He deliberately betrayed his people.”

Edgar nodded in casual agreement. “Then I hunted a Colgan gunsmith who got his hands on an early model Eklund kinetic rifle. I terminated him, destroyed the prototypes and blueprints, then burned his shop.”

“Are you serious?” Niklas leaned forward, imagining the valor and carnage Edgar had spread. “How did you get away? Did they martial any detachments to hunt you?”

Edgar took a sip and shook his head. “No one ever saw me. It all happened in a tragic accident. It’s my job to stop questions, not raise more.”

“How did he get his hands on one of our rifles?”

“An officer thought it was outdated enough that we wouldn’t notice if it went missing,” Edgar said. “I found Colgan gold in his quarters.”

“An officer sold out the clan?” Niklas' face darkened. ”Did you execute the civ, or take him for judgment?”

“Neither,” Edgar said. “I paid him a visit, and it seems my presence was too much.”

“What does that mean?” Niklas asked.

“I broke his mind,” Edgar said with more than a hint of satisfaction. “When the zealots found him, they made him faceless. There’s no room for an insane officer in our ranks.”

Niklas shivered as he watched Edgar. His older brother had vicious darkness in him that sometimes made Niklas uneasy.

“After that, I hunted an Old Sharderin priest who found his way into Pit and preached false doctrine to the faceless.”

That surprised Niklas. “Old Sharderins and faceless. I guess degenerates attract?”

“Unfortunately, I had to bring him to the priests. I didn’t get to do my thing with him.”

Niklas stared at Edgar worshipfully. Would he also be able to leave Pit and claim valor if he was an Architect?

Niklas tasted his joagh with his now numb tongue, which had cooled reasonably. There was a question still nagging on his mind; the question drones frequently whisper only when alone. “Edgar?”

“Yes, little Loga?”

“When?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, every drone is a soldier, so why are we still training?”

Edgar rolled his eyes, “Now that is a stupid question, brother; for valor, of course, so we will be welcomed into Stigki’s halls of valor when we die.”

“But we aren’t fighting. We are just training. I haven’t seen any real war, some skirmishes with faceless, sure, but nothing valorous. Nothing like you.”

“Niklas, one day, the Drone Army will be the backbone of our wrath, and our vengeance will be unstoppable.”

“I know,” Niklas said. “We all know that we are going back to our mountains. We are going to exact vengeance, but when?”

“When we are ready,” Edgar admonished. “The Relrins still outnumber us one hundred and fifty to one, more even.”

“Then why don’t we attack now? We are dying off faster than we are being born. Our numbers are thinning.”

“But they will stabilize eventually. New mothers are born every year.”

“When we are old and have passed the age of valor,” Niklas pointed out. “I am already twenty-one. I wish to join Stigki’s halls, not pass on in my sleep like our old men.”

“You worry too much, Niklas. Your time will come.”

They finished their joagh, and Niklas washed the cups. “What are they like?” he asked.

“What are you going on about now?” Edgar grumbled as he climbed into his bunk.

“The Relrins. Are they a fearsome people?”

“Ha!” Edgar let out a barked laugh. “Relrin’s are fragile. You’ve never seen one?”

Niklas shook his head. “The only ones I have seen since we fled were a few stragglers stupid enough to wander into our forest. We always give them to the interrogators. I’ve never been able to study one.”

Of course, that was the standard procedure. Any Relrins who wandered into Pit Forest were questioned and almost always put to death so that the Sharderins could live in secrecy. Outsiders seldom crossed the border anymore.

Niklas killed the light and hopped into the spare bunk. “Edgar,” he said to the darkness.

“Hmm?” his half-asleep brother grunted.

“I’m glad you’re back.”

And he meant it.