Chapter Three: Recruitment

Joseph sat on the cart, staring towards the massive city slowly resolving into view on the horizon: Skyseat, the capital of the Kingdom.

The view was so magnificent he could almost ignore the soreness in his backside. Three days by cart he had spent to reach this point, jumping on the very next caravan that passed through his village. Luckily, they were not too far from the capital, and he had been able to pay for passage and leave the next day.

He had said a teary goodbye to his grandparents, and many of the townsfolk had come out to see him off too. He was an industrious lad, always cheerful, and always willing to lend a hand, and he had become close with many of them over the years. He was also the only person in the town to have awakened, which he was sure helped the turnout.

He felt excited, at first. He had never travelled by caravan, that he could remember, and he was so young when he had lived in the capital that he could barely remember it. He was eager to travel there, eager to see it again.

As the journey wore on, and they came closer to their destination, Joseph became more anxious. What if he was the only Deathsworn this fracturing? Would he make friends? Would anyone like him?

He consoled himself with the knowledge that he would be almost guaranteed to get a dragon egg. Deathsworn were too precious to waste.

Even now, the Fracturing burned in the sky, like many miniature suns slowly falling towards the earth. It took a fortnight or more, from when they first appeared until they impacted, and so they were still a week away.

Right now, mathematicians and astronomers and Mystics would be in consultation, frantically trying to predict where the shards of the Fracturing would fall. Day by day, their calculations would become more accurate, and if the Heavens willed, some of the Mystics would be granted visions of impact sites.

The capital was the only place with the facility to try and predict the impact sites, so any newly awakened needed to get there to know where to go. Beyond knowing where to go, trying to get to an impact site yourself was suicide. The wrack contested the eggs heavily.

A few days from now, they would begin sending parties out towards the predicted locations. As more of the newly awakened arrived, they would be formed into groups and sent out too.

Those at the furthest reaches of the kingdom would not be able to reach the capital in time by regular means. The same couriers who carried the Queen’s proclamation of the Fracturing would wait at the far extent of the kingdom’s land, and once the fracturing arrived, they would ferry awakened back.

A dragon would only ever allow one rider, it’s bonded, so they would have to travel in great, hanging baskets. Sometimes there were more awakened at the far reaches of the kingdom than could be transported, so the riders would prioritise those with sacred elements, trading them out with those who’d awakened base elements after they’d carried them some distance closer.

It was unlucky, but it did happen. Those left to find their own way would usually make it, and would be carried out to impact sites with reserve dragons.

Even then, those last in would often be out of luck. There were never enough eggs to go around every awakened. Those stragglers would have to hope that there were enough surplus eggs from the shards fallen within the kingdom’s borders to go around, but those shards were often earmarked for nobles.

Those who missed out would become part of the Landed; those who had awakened an element, but had no dragon.

It was an honour. They could still serve against the wrack and defend their country and people. But it was also said to be lonely, an incomplete existence. Every awakened longed for a dragon to bond with. Even now, Joseph felt some kind of intangible dissatisfaction.

Getting to the capital fast was critical. They needed every dragonrider they could get, but it was first in, first served. Competition amongst the newly awakened for early spots in an excursion to an impact site was fierce. Joseph thanked the Heavens that his grandparents lived so close.

He gazed out as they slowly drew nearer to the city. He could make out the great walls, and the towers like needles rising beyond them. From this far, it looked like a pincushion.

The most spectacular part of the vista ahead was not the city, though, grand as it was. It was the dragons.

They circled the city in great sweeps, patrolling in units. In the distance, Joseph could make out the forms of more, wheeling around the towers, settling on them, taking off again.

Units of dragonriders came and went from the city regularly, heading out with purpose, or returning triumphantly. The units on patrol trumpeted greetings to them, or goodbyes, as the case may be, and received throaty roars in return.

The sheer variety of them was staggering. Dragons could only be one of the four base elements, and so always broadly fell into one of those four categories, but regardless of their fused element, there was still an almost overwhelming amount of variation. Even two dragons that shared the same fused element could look quite different.

Joseph saw fast, lithe Air dragons, cutting through the sky like swords. He saw Fire dragons, larger, spinier, and more vicious.

Earth dragons, massive and barrel chested, coasted lazily, powering themselves forward with great beats of their massive wings. Water dragons, long and sinuous, curled and twisted, flowing about as if submerged, and not flying.

There were horns and spines, tusks and fangs, antlers and manes, in every permutation imaginable. Glittering scales of colours in every shade you could imagine gleamed in the sunlight.

Watching them, the need to become a dragonrider turned into a bonfire inside Joseph. All his life, he had dreamed of it. He was so close now. So close. He would make his parents proud.

Within a few hours, they had reached the city. Joseph hopped off his cart and thanked the merchant leading the caravan, then made his way to the guards manning the gates.

There were four of them, all Landed men, wearing enchanted plate and wielding lances and swords. Their plate was the copper of the Landed, and trimmed in the Royal white as befit their sacrifice for their kingdom.

One of them looked him up and down as he approached, clearly noting the lance he was carrying on his back, and the sword at his hip.

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“Newly awakened, is it?” The dour looking man said. “Careful you don’t take an eye out with those.” He nodded to Joseph’s weapons.

“Yes, sir,” he said, thrusting his chin out and straightening. The Landed guard eyed him, apparently trying to decide whether Joseph was mocking him or not.

“Odd to see someone coming in on foot with a lance. Usually only noble brats with those, and you’re clearly no noble.”

“No, sir. I’m not.”

“The closest staging post is the east barracks. Report to Officer Farrier there, he’s in charge.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” The guard’s expression softened slightly.

“Good to see at least some of you remember your manners. Head down the way there, take your first right at the market. Barracks is on your left a few minutes after.”

“Thank you, sir,” Joseph said, bobbing his head. The guard gave him a small smile.

“Good luck, lad. If you don’t get an egg, the Landed will have you.”

“Thank you, sir.” Joseph paused. “I’m going to get an egg though.”

The guard laughed. “They all say that. Now, on your way lad. Wouldn’t want to miss the next excursion, would you?”

Joseph could hear the guard laughing as he sped off into the city, walking at top speed. He’d probably run, if he could manage it for any appreciable distance while laden with the giant backpack he had, and his weapons.

As he navigated through the crowds, he marvelled at the sheer amount of people living in the city. There were over a million, he had heard. He hadn’t truly believed it, until now.

People of every colour, of every station, from every corner of the kingdom, milled and mingled about. It was bewildering. They bought and sold, laughed and argued, carrying out all the thousand necessities of living.

All happily, for the most part, it seemed. All safely. All because of the dragonriders. Without them, the wrack would overrun them in a year.

Joseph increased his pace further. He didn’t want to miss out on an excursion being sent into the wilds just before he arrived. He had to become a rider.

After some fifteen minutes of wiggling his way through swirling crowds and clogged streets, he found the barracks the guard had directed him too. It was a huge compound, dominated by a large building, with several other massive ones adjacent to it, all arranged around a single, massive courtyard.

The traffic slackened around it. Joseph imagined most of the city folk wouldn’t have much cause to approach it. He found the entrance, and approached the entrance. The huge double doors stood open, a pair of Landed guards flanking them. They nodded to him as he passed the threshold, it being clear from his equipment what he was about.

“Down the hall, lad. Farrier’s in the main room. Can’t miss him,” one of them said as he passed. Joseph thanked the man, and continued inside.

The interior was spartan, as he imagined a barracks would be. He followed the hallway a short distance before he found another set of double doors, again standing open, and walked through them into a spacious area.

It seemed multipurpose, perhaps being used for meetings, or mustering, in usual times. For the Fracturing, it had been repurposed.

Bunk beds had been set up around the edges of one end of the hall for the awakened, if they needed to wait overnight for more people to arrive. Chairs were set up around tables all around the room. Enticing smells wafted out of a kitchenette at one end.

There were quite a few people arranged around the room, all roughly the same age as himself. Some were older, some were younger, but all within a few years of his age at most. No one knew why, but Fracturings only ever awakened people from around fourteen years of age to about eighteen. No one else. It was one of the great mysteries of the world.

Joseph breathed a sigh of relief. If there were this many newly awakened hanging around, then he hadn’t just missed an excursion.

Joseph quickly located Officer Farrier, assuming he must be the important looking man wearing a neatly pressed uniform and sitting behind a massive desk directly opposite where he had entered. He approached, excitement and anxiousness warring in his gut.

“Officer Farrier?” he queried. The man looked up from a stack of paperwork.

“Ah a new awakened. Good afternoon.” Farrier had a clipped accent and a polished tone. He looked to be about forty, but that could be misleading with awakened, and their extended lifespans.

He raised an eyebrow at Joseph. “I see you’ve already got yourself a lance. We don’t usually give those out to recruits so early. They’re incredibly dangerous for the untrained.”

“Yes, sir. I understand. It was my mother’s,” he explained, looking into the middle distance above Farrier’s head.

“Ah. Well then.” He cleared his throat slightly. “You can hang on to it, in that case, but you are under no circumstances to use it until you are trained how to do so. I will not have injuries or deaths on my watch. Am I clear?” His tone was not harsh, but it was firm, and utterly unyielding.

“Yes, sir. I understand, sir,” Joseph agreed easily. He had not been expecting to use the lance for some time yet anyway.

“Perfect. Now, we need to sign you up. Name?”

“Joseph Wash, sir.”

He frowned, obviously trying to place his parents. If he had his mother’s lance, she must have been awakened too. No flicker of recognition lit in his eyes, though.

“Excellent. Age, place of residence, parentage?”

Joseph rattled them off. Farrier copied down his answers onto a sheet of parchment with a neat, practised hand.

“Right. And lastly, do you know your element? We can test if you need, but…” He gestured at Joseph’s lance. Most people would quickly figure out their element one way or another. All children were taught the forms for strikes and shields, not that they did anything with unawakened mana. Once awakened, most would try them out for real. He obviously expected Joseph to have done so already, if he had awakened parents. He waited, pen poised, with an expectant expression.

Joseph braced himself. He had managed to get so far without revealing his alignment. He had told his grandparents, of course, and they had been a little taken aback, but not put off.

“Death, sir.”

Farrier put pen to paper and scratched out two letters before his brain caught up with his body, and he muddled his writing. He placed the pen gently to the side of the parchment.

“Death, you say? Now, that is interesting. I’ll need to test this myself, you understand? To make sure there has been no mistake.”

“Yes, s-” Joseph was cut off by the sounds of footsteps approaching behind him, polished boots on the wooden floors. He turned to see who was coming.

A trio of people were approaching. It was obvious they were coming straight for Joseph and Farrier. All three were wearing a rich dress uniform, deep, deep blue, trimmed in royal white. On each of their breasts was a single emblem. Joseph recognised it on sight. Thirty-two interlocking rings, all intricately stitched in white, forming a pattern like an eye.

Mystics. These three were Mystics.

They were among the very rarest of Fused elements, and had all kinds of incredible powers. They could see huge distances, and even a short way into the future. They formed the leadership of the Royal intelligence corps.

The leader of the trio, a slight, severe woman with neat grey hair, approached. Her two companions waited a step behind.

“Officer Farrier,” the woman said. “We apologise for the interruption. We’ll take this recruit off your hands.”

Farrier looked bewildered. Mystics were rarely seen. Their abilities were so incredibly useful that they had massive demands on their time. “Of course,” he said, at a loss.

The woman nodded to Farrier, and then turned to Joseph. “Joseph Wash? I’m Special Officer White. We need you to come with us.”