It was a lovely day to die. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, and the flowers blossoming. Mal sat upon the edge of his grave that he had dug himself and twirled the bottle of poison in his hand. Despite his age, despite the rot in his liver that would put him in the ground whether he drank the poison or not, he still had his dexterity.

He wasn’t sure how old he was, exactly. Exact numbers like that weren’t very important in his line of work. Old enough to have retired from the mercenary companies years ago. Most men did only a few jobs out of desperation before taking the coin and running off to one of the empire’s great cities. Or dying and getting buried in a shallow ditch. Mal had been drilling with young men since his hair had grown in down south, and now even that was gray and falling out.

When the pain had started, he had gone to the cutter. The cutter had sent him to a real surgeon. The surgeon had looked at his piss and his eyes and felt his gut and told him that he was dying of liver poisoning. Mal had no reason to disbelieve him; on his bad days he certainly felt that way. And he was having more and more bad days lately. It was a good thing the empire’s war machine was in a lull, because he’d never make muster. It had taken him two days just to dig the grave!

Eventually, someone would come looking for him. One of his friends – most of them twenty years his junior, but they were friends nonetheless. Wouldn’t stand next to him in battle, not these days when his Luck was running out. But they would notice he was gone and come looking. They would see what he had done, the little grave he had plotted for himself, and they would fill it in for him, and stick his sword in the ground as a marker. If any passerby was fool enough to rob it, they were welcome to it.

Then they would move on. Maybe a toast at some point in the week to ‘the old man,’ but nobody would really be that put out by him dying this way. Better now than in the field. Much better than lingering for the six weeks to a year that the surgeon told him that he might have. Much better than slowly losing his strength, until he was shitting the bed and --

He sighed. He just couldn’t work himself up to it. Not yet. He had decided last week that today would be the day, but now that the moment had come he just couldn’t pop the cork and put the toxic bottle to his lips. He wasn’t afraid. He had danced with death since he was little more than a child, dealing it out in spades and coming close to receiving it in turn at many a juncture. He’d had his illusions of immortality spoiled for him young, when the bandits had --

He sighed again. That was an old memory, and not one he wanted to dwell on his last day. He had lost both his parents that day, though his mother had lived for a time as a walking corpse. Mal’s own sense of violation had taken years to mend, even after the band responsible had been brought to justice. Hanged, all of them, and Mal had glared daggers at the corpses for hours afterward. And at some point Mal had realized that it was just foolish to keep hating a hanged man.

It had driven him into the martial orders, but he’d lacked the connections to become an officer or the talent to become truly dangerous. He was no hidden dragon, just an old sergeant with an abundance of luck. Luck beat talent, sometimes, but mostly luck just kept you alive while some secret master was slaughtering his way through your army and you hid in the latrines. And hopefully, it helped you keep the men under your command alive as well.

Mal sighed, eyeing the vial. He could feel his luck, even now, holding him back. He didn’t understand why, he simply knew that it wasn’t time to drink the contents. Not yet. But neither was his luck telling him to go back to the garrison.

His hearing wasn’t what it once was, but he still heard them from far off. The sounds of mock battle and the cries of boys at play. Wood against wood as two children faced each other, and Mal felt the tickle of his luck. He frowned, wondering why two children interrupting his suicide mattered.

They came through the clearing, and Mal instantly realized that it was not an even match. The aggressor was three inches taller, better fed, and wearing colorful clothing. The defender was obviously a slave, marked by his collar, undyed tunic, and lack of even sandals to protect his feet. Still, it wasn’t any of Mal’s business, so he simply sat on his log next to his grave and watched.

They made all the mistakes children always made when it came to playing at fighting. Mistakes which he had been forced to drill out of hundreds of boys before they could become men on a battlefield. The richly dressed child was easily pushing his slave back with his attack, but the movements were all wrong. Horrible. Full of holes. If the little slave actually had any idea what to do, then his master would have been dead a hundred times over. But the boy was even less adept with his stick than his master was.

The towheaded slave, on the other hand, was overwhelmed and barely managing to interpose the sturdy stick which was serving as his blade between the proper wooden training sword. In fact, the exercise looked more like a beating than it did play, and it was only the rich boy’s exuberance which told Mal that was not the case. The rich boy had the dark hair and complexion of the local stock, while his companion was the lighter complexion of the recently conquered lands to the north. Which probably had something to do with his status as a slave.

Neither boy saw him, focused as they were on their play. That was fine, these lands were relatively safe for children. At worst, a ruffian might rob the rich boy of his colorful clothing and any other valuables on his person, but actually killings brought out the Seekers. An enterprising bandit might risk the Seekers for a fat purse of silver, but despite the colorful garb Mal doubted that the child had more than a few pennies on him to buy a sweetcake if the mood struck him.

In fact, Mal had half a mind to rob the boys himself, just as one last hurrah. It would be amusing to humiliate the rich boy the way he was humiliating his slave at the moment. To send the boy home in whatever undergarments he might have, then carefully fold the rich tunic and leave it to be recovered when his body was discovered. One final prank on the upper class, and it would be taboo to desecrate his corpse or grave for revenge.

It was with years of scouting practice that he avoided their attention. The slave fought a running retreat straight through the glade, but did not seem to notice his grave, engrossed as he was. His master was no better. He sighed in disgust. Such inattentiveness would cost lives on the battlefield. Fortunately this was just a bit of fun, and the stakes were not so high.

He followed them in stealth until they finally wore each other out. It was clear that the poor smaller child was going to have a number of bruises from this exercise, but he never voiced a complaint.

“You need to get better. It’s no fun when you’re not a challenge,” the rich boy complained. “If you don’t get better I’m going to tell my parents that I don’t want you anymore and they’ll sell you again.”

“I’m trying as hard as I can,” the slave argued. “You’re stronger than me. It’s not fair.”

“It’s not supposed to be fair. You’re supposed to put up a challenge, you’re not supposed to win. I’m the hero, you’re the bandit! The bandits always loose.”

“Not always,” A voice came, and although Mal had been about to say those same words, it had not come from him. He frowned as four men appeared, surrounding the children. “Sometimes we come out alright. Like when we ransom a merchant’s son back to him. Good job leading him away from the road, runt, I was worried you’d given up on the plan.”

“Uzubee? What are you – I thought you were arrested! Shaji, I had no idea these guys were following us, I swear!”

“You led me into a trap, Baty?” the rich boy said. “After the way my family saved you?”

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“I swear I thought they were in prison! I already confessed everything, remember?” Baty, the slave boy, insisted. “Look, they just rob, they don’t kill. So if your dad just pays a ransom--”

“I’m going to make sure you’re sold to the salt mines, Baturya,” the rich boy threatened. “You’ll never see the light of day again.”

“Ah, I think he’s upset,” one of the bandits mocked. “Come with us boy. Baty, run home and tell his father that we’re holding him for ransom. Two hundred ren is a fair price, don’t you think?”

Mal was a little surprised at the sum. Not necessarily the kidnapping – that was common enough, although most families that were wealthy enough to have scions worth kidnapping paid protection moneys to keep the local criminals from doing so. But two hundred would be a significant chunk of his personal savings, decades of wages unspent because he had nothing to spend it on. Coin that was still entrusted to the company bank because there was nothing else to do with it.

There was a moment, just a fraction of a second, when Mal looked at the bottle still in his hand. And he thought to himself bitterly “Well? You’ve come this far. What do you have to lose, old man?”

“If I leave, they’ll really think that I set him up,” Baturya objected. “You can’t do this to me you guys! I’m going to be in so much trouble--”

“We don’t care. All we care about is the--”

Mal’s stone hit the speaker in the head, slung as though he were taking down a partridge. He didn’t hold back, not particularly caring whether he cracked the man’s skull or not. It was enough that the man dropped like a bird with its wings suddenly clipped A second stone hit a second bandit in the wrist, causing him to drop his ax, but the man simply bent to grab it with his other hand as they turned to face their assailant. Ambidextrous?

“You picked the wrong day to play hero, old man!” the leader challenged. “Pirip, Ganj, get him. I’ll get the kid.”

“This really is just my luck,” Mal commented. “It’s finally the day that I die, and even though I wanted peace and quiet, I get stuck fighting.”

The thug with the ax was not ambidextrous after all, as he proved with his clumsy charge with the reclaimed weapon. The other man had a club made of wood with nails driven in it. Mal had three feet of steel to meet their charge, and it was the last of hundreds of charges that he had met in his life. He didn’t particularly want to kill these men. He wasn’t even sure what had driven him to action, aside from a little tickle in the back of his mind from his luck. But he’d drawn the cards, and now all that was left was to see what hand he’d been dealt.

Fortunately, neither opponent had expected a real fight, and Mal was able to dodge the ax man’s wild swing and open his throat with a slash. The club wielder backed off for a moment after that, realizing that he might be over matched.

“Uzu, forget the kid. This old man just killed Ganj,” the survivor complained. “Let’s get out of here!”

Mal glanced and saw that Uzubee, the ringleader, had managed to grab hold of the rich kid and was holding him hostage, a knife at the boy’s throat. “Hold it right there, or this boy--”

Mal threw a knife which took the mace wielder in the eye, leaving just Uzubee standing among the assailants.

“I’m serious! I don’t know where the old man found you, but since you’re the boy’s new protector you don’t want--”

“I don’t give half a rotten shit about that little brat,” Mal answered. “You and your men interrupted a funeral. I’m a ghost. The ghost of pissed off sergeants. You’re a dead man, Uzubee. But if you spill one drop of that child’s blood, I won’t make it fast like with your friends.”

Unfortunately, the bandit leader seemed ready to call his bluff. But that was when the miracle happened. Baturya – a child no more than eight years old – came up from behind the bandit and swung his play-sword with all of his might. The toy exploded with a crack! as it struck home, and it was enough of a distraction for the other boy to fight free and run off. He didn’t stop running or look back.

Uzu turned on his new assailant, raising his knife, but looking away from Mal was the last mistake he’d ever make. The old Sergeant charged and buried his sword in the bandit’s ribs. Then he took a step back and glanced around, making sure that the men he’d thought he’d dealt mortal blows were actually dead or dying.

They were, except for the concussed man he’d hit with the sling earlier. He disarmed the bandit and bound his wrists behind his back with a cord.

“Who are you?” Baty the slave boy asked. “Why did you save us?”

“Just an old man. It doesn’t matter, I’ll be dead soon anyway,” Mal grumbled. “Not sorry that I took some worthless bandits with me on the way out, however. Kidnapping kids? Scum belongs in the ground.”

He looked around for a moment. The violence had spoiled the glade for him, and he decided that he wanted a different final resting spot after all. Let the bandits share the grave he had dug.

“Oi, boy. Help me drag them over this way,” he said. “There’s a hole ready for them. If the one that’s still alive survives I’ll frog-march him into the law and let them hang him, but there’s nothing to be done for the others anyway.”

“O-Okay,” the slave said, and then he promptly collapsed. Mal cursed and rushed over to the child’s side, worried that he had taken an injury in the melee that had gone unnoticed. But if he had, Mal’s practiced eye couldn’t see it. Not until he saw the splinter of wood that the child still clutched, and then Mal understood. It wasn’t shattered, it was scorched.

“Oh gods dammit,” he cursed. “Just my luck. Very funny, fates, to throw an Awakening at me just as I’m preparing to leave this world.”

So this was why his luck had been tickling him. It hadn’t really been his luck all along, but the boy’s. In the heat of battle, the child had opened his channels, and without a guide he would die soon. Mal was an adept, but not one of any particular skill. Enough to stabilize the child and guide him on through the First Steps, but even if Mal wasn’t dying, the child’s destiny was clearly beyond his ken. To awaken as a child was not unheard of, the great martial families always pushed their children to awaken before age ten, using a variety of techniques.

But actual battle was both the best and the worst of them. The best because it was the purest, forcing the subject’s channels open in the strongest and most natural method. The worst because it was the most dangerous, worse even than the sadistic methods used by the worst of the unorthodox sects.

Mal had been nineteen and had been guided through his awakening carefully by the company experts, and would not have awakened without their tutelage. For this boy, Mal suspected, it had always just been a matter of time and circumstance. Mal had never been a guide before, but if he didn’t act soon the boy’s ki would completely drain away.

Placing a hand on the boy’s chest, Mal closed his eyes and delved into the child’s body using atrophied senses which he only half-remembered how to use. What he found was startling. The child’s meridians were flush with power, despite the rate at which it was leaking out his gates. It was all that Mal could do to slowly work them closed one by one, and doing so was taxing in a way that he’d never experienced before.

If the boy could survive to adulthood, long enough to actually learn how to use his natural powers as an adept, he would become a Master. Perhaps even a Master among Masters. It was clear that the boy was half-starved and ill-treated from the state of his body. Ki was part of the journey, not all of it. Although the boy would find himself resistant to diseases and other maladies, he was not immortal yet. He needed to eat and exercise, and there were seven reformations to undergo before he could even claim to have reached that plateau.

But his potential was startling. Mal had never met one of the young masters or princesses of the great sects, but he would be amazed if their ki was any more potent.

Pushing the thoughts aside, the old sergeant focused on his task. Fifteen gates to close. Skull, shoulders, elbows, wrists, chest, abdomen, hips, knees, and feet. That the boy had blast all of them open in one go was amazing. That he had survived doing so long enough for Mal to help him was nearly impossible. Fortunately, the boy’s potent ki was waning enough that Mal was able to seal the gates shut temporarily with his own.

The patch would not hold for long. The boy needed training, to be taught how to use his ki rather than simply push it out like heat from a blast furnace. But, like cauterizing a bleeding artery, it would keep the boy alive long enough to begin those lessons, and once the boy had found a suitable master, either the master or the boy could work on removing Mal’s ki from the boy’s body. It would not be difficult, Mal was placing it inside the boy with the intention that it be removed when it was time to do so. Once the boy had mastered his inner senses, he would be able to do so himself.

Still the strain was great on Mal’s ki reserves, and he found himself exhausted once the final gate was sealed shut. The entire process had taken him twenty minutes, and once the boy was no longer bleeding ki, his color quickly began to recover. Mal would take more time than that, and he chuckled at the irony. A student who already surpassed his master, but hadn’t even taken his first lesson yet.

Moments later, as he was recovering, the guards found him. He sighed, but obeyed their calls to disarm himself and cooperated as they bound his wrists, leading him back to town.

~~~~~~~~~