Chapter 03

-Where is Harod? - Mother asks the head maiden, clearly worried once she realizes her son loves to train, and would always arrive home with the stink of a day worth of sweat. You must be wondering why I call the maidens ‘maidens’, and not by their name. The truth is: I don’t know their names, I don’t even know if they have names or if my family just don’t care enough to learn them. Father is never at home, so I can understand the fact that hi doesn’t know, but mom… I think she just dislike commoners I think the only thing that keeps it from being evident is the fact that she treats people with excess of politeness, so she keeps to the titles instead of bad names. It would also explain why the only times she takes me out of our home is when we go visit another noble’s house, and that only happens once in a while, so most of what I know about the city is through the second floor windows.

As I got lost into my thoughts my brother showed up and my mother started a lecture about how important today is, the fancy and uncomfortable clothes that I was using were enough reminders for me, a small insignia of our house of three crossed spears was draw on the red silk of my cloths, at the side was an insignia of the kingdom, a salamander.

After my breakfast I went to my room upstairs, where I would be looking through the window until my grandparents would arrive, a few hours later. From there I would see the same scenery I have been seeing here in the city, with towers that went way above the standard one or two floor buildings everywhere for the past few years, to the left of my window there was the castle, big enough to be seen from anywhere, since my house was close by, I could see it rock by rock, beautiful black rocks. By it’s side were the other important buildings of the city, the magical academy, that from where my house is located could be barely seen, since it was hidden by the castle, a big arena where all sort of competitions and fights were held, and where once a year slaves would fight to death to entertain people. The church of the kingdom was also located there, made out of something like marble, anyone could notice it glow a little at night, so I wasn’t sure what it really is. When I turned six I would be taken there to check my magical affinity, unless I developed my magical abilities before like brother, father seemed to believe that it would happen soon.

The closer you were to the castle, the higher would be the prices of the houses, that would explain why all the houses nearby are beautiful two floor houses, and far away all I can see are simpler buildings. There are three main squares over the city, flooded by merchants by the beginning of every morning, and empty by the end of every afternoon. From my house I can see only the one by the side of the arena, they call it the Military Square, from that you can pretty much imagine what kind of things they trade there.

I was observing the hills across the city when a carriage stopped in front of our house, an old man and an old woman got out of it with the help of the chauffeur, soon after I could hear noises downstairs of my mother bossing around. Typical.

I headed downstairs before my mother got the chance to hurry me, nobody likes being hurried, my brother and sister were side by side, my mother putted me by my sister’s side where we were supposed to stand in line to greet her parents when they came in.

-Wont you open the door? - My mother stared at the maiden, her internal wishes would want her to open the door and greet her parents as soon as possible, but her pride would make her tell another one to do so.

-Lord Brushton Jakole, Lady Shiya Jakole, it’s an honor to have you in my house! - Mother said giving a polite bow, she then went to hug her parents. In my opinion, her excess of formality, even when talking to her own parents, is excessive and weird. I don’t want to know what kind of crazy event happened in her life to make her act like that.

-Stop all that crappy politeness, we are hungry, do you have food ready, honey? - Her mother asked throwing her packages to the maiden and stretching her arms and legs. Well… I think I got my answer, probably some kind of trauma because of their lack of politeness.

Lord Brushton then looked at us.

-Hey brat, you’ve grown up quite a bit since last time, ãh? You too Vayja… He made a pause while looking at me, he then looked to my mother, and back at me.

-Lareha, you didn’t tell me about him! Come with grandy, little one! - He kneeled and opened his arms while he made some ugly faces, I suppose the intent was to make me happy, didn’t work. Mother stared at me indicating she wanted me to go with him, not wanting any trouble that’s what I did.

We were staring in silence. Grandfather had some bacon in one of his hands, and a glass of wine in the other, a little mountain of food was laying in his plate, which made me wonder how can he be so thin?

-How is brother? - Mother asked grandma.

Remember to never let me ask her about her son, the next twenty minutes were spent by her telling us of all the ‘amazing’ feats her son have accomplished for the past years, and how he would take over full command of the city the next year, as well as how much people should be grateful to have such an amazing lord. That woman is crazy.

I pretended to feel asleep when the meal was over and went to my room, one more minute of those crazy old nobles and I would start to feel annoyed. Even so, being a bunch of weirdos, I felt happy in the presence of my family. At the beginning they were just a bunch of strangers in whose midst I was thrown and with whom I would have to live with, but now… I took a deep breath to keep my happiness under control, I feel in my chest like i’m whole.

---Flashback---

-Why aren’t they back? They were supposed to be back a few hours ago - a small child was crying at the corner of his room, with his seven years old his parents almost never left him alone at home, as he would usually cry, but this time they said it would be a five minutes thing, and they would bring him candy when back. This was a few hours ago.

As the house door opened, the little kid went running to greet his parents, leaving a track of tears behind.

-Mother, why didn’t you… - The little kid stopped where he was. - Uncle? What are you…

His uncle and his men where at his door. For a moment the kid didn’t know what it meant, but deep inside a feeling of uneasiness was popping up. His parents and his uncle were never in good terms, his father would never tell him the truth, but sometimes as he eavesdropped his parents talking, he learned that his uncle was a dangerous underworld guy with a lot of enemies. His uncle would never visit their house, and this timing worried him even more.

-Uncle, what happened to them?

He showed me a little can of soda. - Why don’t you have a drink? Then we talk.

In a hurry to get his answers as soon as possible, the child took the drink from the man’s hand and drank it all in few seconds, but contrary to his expectations, the man calmly went and had a seat in his sofa, none of the other man followed him, but instead they pointed to the sofa, for the boy to follow him.

As the boy went to the sofa, he could feel himself become more calm, relaxed, a little tired. He wanted to scream and demand for questions, but the power to do so wouldn’t come.

-Your parents were victims of a robbery, child - the man then went to the dvd player and did what no sane adult would think of doing, he putted to play the security video that filmed the moment the child’s parents were shot to death.

-No! - The child began to cry. The men just stood silent, in this moment all their words would be ignored by the kid.

-Why? Why did it happen? They said they would come back! - The child gattered enough strength to scream, despite the medicine put in his drink.

-Because there are evil people in this world - the man told the boy - kid, tell me, do you want to become strong enough to avenge them? I’m leaving this house right now, if you do, you follow me.

As the uncle was leaving, the child got up and followed him. None of the other men expressed any emotions due to their daily routine of recruiting new children to become soldiers of the organization in the future, this was standard procedure.

---Flashback ends---

At night when father got back home, he brought some Aranuta Roots to greet grandparents. I suppose it was some kind of drug, as a few minutes after they started to drink it’s tea they seemed to be more relaxed, and to laugh more. Brother was allowed a little, me and sister were forbidden as we were too young.

When I became 5, my mother made one of the maidens teach me generic subjects, the same as she had done with my brother and sister, now with 6 I know quite a bit about this world. For the past years brother made big progress while in the academy, and is one of the best students in there, lately I almost never get the chance to see him, as he is almost always training or studying.

My sister is marrying next month, when we will be going to the city of Rambery for the cerimony. Father is the only one that has seen her husband, he uses the words “an ok guy” to describe him, he is 18, knows how to read, and is the inheritor of the city, for father that’s enough.

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The head maiden was sold two months ago, mother says she was getting old and if not sold fast, would lose most of her value, as replacement another one was bought, this one was 17, skinny and quiet.

The one that was teaching me was called Nad, by me, she was the second oldest and one of the current four employees we had. Of course Nad is not her real name, mother ordered her to forget it when she came to work for us, so it’s a name I made up. The reason mother did this? I don’t know, she is a little mean sometimes.

-What am I going to learn today? - I asked her, we have finished everything about reading yesterday.

-For the next days your mother wants you to learn about the south and Rambery, so that when we go there for your sister wedding, you already know about things.

“Or for her to show off”, I thought to myself, mother has always used as many chances as possible to show to others how awesome her children were. Her first son, talented in the ways of the sword and with great magical potential, her daughter, even with zero magic potential, was raised to be the wife any noble would desire, from the skills, the way she behaves to the way she takes care of her looks. Me? I’ve always learned faster than any child would, but hey, giving my situation, that’s to be expected.

Then Nad begun to speak about our kingdom and the ones around us, which I first thought didn’t make any sense, as I was supposed to know just about the south and Rambery, but then things started to make sense.

First of all, we live in the North Continent, I tried to learn about others, but all Nad said is that we could learn about them when I come back from the south, if I am still interested. The North Continent is the smallest of them all, being colonized just recently when by accident some navigators found it. It’s been four centuries, so I don’t think of it as very recent.

Even though this is said to be the smaller continent, nobody knows how big it is, since all there is to north is unexplored forests with strong beasts that keep people from exploring too much. This is the human kingdom that was founded here, Nad didn’t get into details about the others, but there are demon, vampire, werewolfs and dwarf kingdoms. The elfs had no interest in colonizing a new land, and the orcs didn’t have enough technology to move overseas, neither did the giants.

The human kingdom, from the west continent, sent three explorers north, each one with an army. The one who finally succeeded was Naarl Salamander, a fire magician. They arrived in what today is the Porter City, the first city of this kingdom. From their march there to the north, they created lot’s of military outposts, that in the future would come to be cities, one of them, the Rambery Outpost.

A few years later, 80 miles north of the sea, Naarl Salamander and his army founded the capital of this new kingdom. Why make it so to the north, in the front lines of the war with the wild beasts to expand the territory? Many wondered. Naarl’s intention was to make it as strong as possible, a wall of military power to keep any beast from going into human conquered territory. For it to work, it was founded an academy whose only objective was to train strong warriors with magical capacity to fight the beasts. Today, four centuries later, the capital is no longer in the front lines, since 400 more miles were conquered north of here, but the academy is still military oriented, even though now it also teaches other kinds of magic, needed for the growth of the country.

The Rambery Outpost soon lost it’s military purpose as faster routes were being created with the time, but it never lost it’s importance. Soon after it’s creation, the few farmers of that place found out those lands were incredible fertile, realizing the potential of that land, the military in control of that outpost asked the king that it became a city, and that he became it’s lord. With enough new land to reward any official and soldier that proved his worth, the king had no problem with that request, and in a few years that official turned Rambery into a prosperous city.

That’s the short story, that’s what I remember out of weeks of learning, the classes were a sea of boredom, after the third day getting into details, so I didn’t pay too much attention and kept to the important things. I took a deep breath while I remembered it all again, then looked outside the carriage.

This was the first time I was getting out of town, which made me happy. For the past few months i’ve been leaving the house on a regular basis with my mom while she visited her friends, or occasionally bought some herbs, but I never got to see much, so when I got inside the carriage I was really excited to see new things. It all faded by the fourth hour of standing still inside the carriage, my sister gave up to the boredom much sooner.

What I did spend my time wondering was why would a city such as that, in the middle of the country, far from any border or wild beasts want with father military power to let my sister marry it’s inheritor, then I asked father.

-Well, the lord of this city has two sons, one of them is inheriting the city, the other one has no city to inherit, so they want me to lend him troops to conquer land in the north when the time comes.

-Good luck father, by the time it took to conquer the land we have today, you will have a hard time conquering enough land for a single city.

My father grinned. - You are smart son, but there are facts you are not taking into consideration, in the beginning we had to build the whole structure of the country, there were not enough people to turn into warriors, and we did not have as much intel on the creatures as we have today. For the past years we had no advances in the frontiers, time we took to strengthen our army. Even if it is hard, today it is possible for us to conquer more land than ever before!

-I see… - I whisper to myself while thinking about all that has been said.

Ashex Gallymane was in a good mood. In the little talk he had with his son he could see the potential in him to be a commander, he was smarter than many kids triple his age, all he would need was proper training and information.

-Son, let me tell you a story about a fight of mine…

Father told me a story about one of his adventures. When students of the Salamander Academy are to graduate, all of them, no matter what area of expertise they specialize in, have to go north to fight there for a year. If you specialize in combat, great, you are in the front lines, but if you specialize in enchanting or farming magic, you also have a job to do. Anyways, in one night, two months after his year of students arrived, the camp was attacked. A single pack of only three beasts were enough to kill a little more than five hundred soldiers.

The beasts in question were Kalazols, one of the most troublesome creatures ever found in this continent. By the given description, Kalazols are rat-like men, they are six feet tall, with a dark gray fur that gives they good camouflage at night. Their built are skinny, but that doesn’t mean you should underestimate them, they are fast, and the average soldier will die before ever knowing what killed him if against it. To make it all worse, these beasts have great control over wind magic, their most dangerous weapon, parrying is not an option, as the wind will cut you into pieces in a two feet range.

Father and his friends were tired from the tough training they had during the day, and went to sleep early. The next thing they know, screams of people all around them wakes them up.

Father grabs his sword and runs out of the tent to figure out what is happening, the poor light of the night combined with his dizzy state of just waking up almost kills him, but the last moment he feels a strong killing intent and jumps out of the way as a blur lands where he was just seconds ago. A friend of his that just got out of the tent is it’s next target, and before Ashex can realize, his friend’s head is rolling on the ground.

Without thinking Father puts fire mana into his sword and slash towards the creature, at the same time, two other swordsmen slash at it. Noticing that, the creature kicks the air and it just vanishes from their sight, just then father sees the two swordsmen falling to the ground and a slash in his chest. His plate mail was easily ripped, but protected him from a fatal hit.

As the beast stopped in front of him, dropping his guard from seeing just dead bodies around it, father putted all his magic inside the sword and pierced the creature’s chest. The fur was tick, even putting all his magic in the sword, it was still hard to pierce.

After that attack, father fell unconscious to the ground, only to wake up three days later to find out what happened.

-Only three beasts did all that damage?! - I was astonished at the information. So far i’ve always seen magic as just an interesting thing, but to think it could push your physical limits that far? Having the power to kill so many so easily, the velocity to vanish from sight. I had to learn magic!

-Yes they did! - Ashex told with a laugh, straightening his stance, he seemed proud that his son thought so highly of the monsters, it just made his image better by surviving them.

-Please father, teach me magic!

-Of course, as soon as I sense that your mana core has awakened we will begin, ok?