Ancient Evil (The First Genocide Book 1) (10 page)

The town also seemed to attract an
unusually large number of the Herd with latent abilities. Latents were not only
very satisfying to devour, but they could also be made into recruits. Strong
latents were more likely to survive initiation.

In the old days when news travelled at the
speed of a merchant caravan, little towns were ideal feeding grounds for their
kind. Covens would take them over and use them up. Nowhere was isolated
anymore, so they hunted in the cities. The cities were crowded by the lonely.
Disappearances were not alarming, they were expected.

The reason for the trip to the seaside
University town was unknown to any of them other than Leader, and Leader was
not telling. Leader only shared what she wanted, and the reason for visiting
the town was for her alone. She said she was looking for something, but she did
not say what. She would only say that she was drawn to the town and would know
when it was time to leave.

The rest of the coven knew this was
bullshit. Leader knew they saw through the mystical crap, but she got a
perverse pleasure from the fact that none of them would challenge her word.

They waited in the dark for Leader’s
return. Eventually, their hunger for excitement and emotion started to return. 

Hael
was on his way to the Arena to fight Caleb.

Caleb hated him still and, no doubt, always
would.

In the year since they had both entered the
Academy on Assessment Day, Caleb had worked and sweat and bled until he had
made his way into the Ten. In this way Hael and Caleb’s wish of being in the
Ten together had been granted, though the reality was very different from their
initial hopes and dreams. They were not mutually supportive comrades. They were
the most bitter of enemies.

They had both fought in the Arena many
times and prevailed against many opponents, but the draw had never pitted them
against each other. Until today. The whole Academy, not just their year, had
been buzzing since the match had been announced the day before. Everyone knew
of their history and of their rivalry.

If Hael were given the choice, he and Caleb
would still be friends. He would always regret that he and Caleb had become
enemies, even if he could not regret the action that had led to the demise of
their friendship.

Since that day they had not spoken to each
other directly, they avoided each other’s presence as much as possible in the
barracks and they fiercely competed with each other whenever they were given
similar tasks. Hael sometimes wondered if he and Caleb would have been doing as
well if not for their mutual antagonism and competition; Hael was currently
Three and Caleb was Six in their year. If they had entered the Academy as
planned, as friends, perhaps they would not have fought as hard to advance.

The outcome of the match was difficult to
predict, hence wagering was heavy. Neither Hael nor Caleb had been beaten in
the Arena. Technically Caleb was ranked slightly higher than Hael in hand to
hand combat, as he usually won his matches quickly, but the odds were slightly
favoring a win by Hael. This was more due to the fact that Hael was better
liked than Caleb than any other reason. The other boys either respected or
feared Caleb, but none would overlook his appearance and actually become
friends with him. Hael’s longer average time to win was due to his usual
practice of waiting for his opponent to make a move or show an opening before
attacking. Caleb’s fighting style was that of the initial aggressor,
overwhelming his opponents quickly through speed and strength. This would be an
interesting match. Although Caleb was more highly ranked than Hael in combat,
Hael’s overall Rank was higher than Caleb’s, due to Hael’s high scores in
logistics, probability and mathematics. Hael was also highest ranked in his
year in command, control and strategy.

If, after six years in the Academy, they
both graduated as one of the Ten, it was likely that they would be offered
commissions, but Hael wanted more than that; he wanted a field command. The
most certain way to be posted to the field right out of the Academy was to be
ranked One when he graduated. Being a successful commander in the field
inevitably led to riches, concubines and the opportunity to breed. None of the
trappings of success mattered much to Hael; he wanted to dedicate his life to
repaying the Debt that Could Not be Repaid. The higher he rose the more he
would be able to contribute. His ultimate goal was to be made a general or even
a Marshal in the army of the Host, much like his hero Mi Donta, one of the
Academy’s patrons.

When Hael’s people had emerged from the
desert two millennia ago, the original tribe had been made up of two hundred
desperate men, women and children. The starving group were the remnants of the
thousands who had entered the desert. No one knew what they were fleeing from
or to. It could have been warfare. It could have been famine. It could have
been that his great grandfather to the eightieth degree was a bat shit crazy
fanatic who dreamed of a paradise on the other side of the desert and convinced
his people to follow. That detail had not been important to the Host. What had
been important to the Host were the physical characteristics of his people. The
Host had documented the names, approximate ages, height, dimensions of torsos,
arms and legs, eye color, hair color and, most importantly, mental strength,
but nothing about why the tribe had decimated itself through months of hardship
to cross a desert.

The Host had been good to Hael’s people,
the Guest. Not only had they saved the original desert survivors from
starvation, but over the intervening two millennia they had made the Guest
better — stronger and smarter. The Debt was payment for salvation granted those
thousands of years ago and was payment to the Host for shepherding his people
through the ages. The Debt was paid though service to the City and Empire, and
each year the Guest pledged allegiance to the Host and pledged to reply the
Debt at the time of Renewal.

To Hael, the Host was a force for good, a
force for progress, a force for stability. The Host needed to be secure. The
Host was there to educate and mold future generations of the Guest. His life
work would be to help the Host to tame the world, to raise tribes from savagery
or cast them back into the wilderness. His own people would be wearing skins
and eating bugs if the Host had not accepted them and made them better. The
Host would make the world stable and be a bulwark against the chaos of the
Feral.

He would do all of this if he was One, if
he made his way through the ranks to be Marshal. The next step on that path was
to crush Caleb in the Arena, just as he had crushed everyone else that he had
come up against.

Hael stepped out of the hallway leading
into the Arena and onto the freshly raked white sand that floored the ring. He
noticed that the Arena’s benches were packed with boys from every year, and
that there were even boys sitting on the stairs between the benches. He noticed
his bother Lucan, surrounded by his lackeys. Lucan’s charisma and cruelty
always attracted followers. Hael nodded at his older brother; Lucan smiled and
winked back.

Caleb entered the Arena through the doorway
across from Hael and commenced to stretch and bounce on his toes. He did not
make eye contact with Hael, and he seemed oblivious to the crowd. They both
wore leather kilts and sandals, their only possessions other than the linen
shirts stored in their footlockers in the barracks. All other possessions were
forfeited when they entered the Academy.

There was a murmur through the crowd, many
of whom were looking at the Judge’s box. Hael was surprised to see that the
Judge for the match was none other than Mi Donta, the Academy’s Guest Patron.
At least the school’s other Patron, Mi Zabab, who was one of the Host, was not
present; that would have given even more weight to the match.

As Hael stretched and readied himself, he
studied Caleb out of the corner of his eye. In the year since they clashed on
Assessment Day, in the race to the Academy, they had both grown. Caleb, who had
started out larger, had actually grown faster. He was as bulky as one of the
Host but much taller, a full head taller than Hael. Hael was exactly average
height and build, as designed.

Mi Donta stood and raised his arm. Hael and
Caleb crouched in anticipation.

His arm dropped.

The match began.

Hael sprinted across the sand flooring of the
arena at Caleb. The sound of the crowd became white noise to him. His entire
focus was on Caleb.

Caleb hesitated for a moment. Everyone knew
that Hael always waited for his opponent to make the first move. He had
demonstrated it again and again, never deviating from that basic strategy,
until now.

This was what Hael was counting on.

The slight hesitation was enough for Hael
to slip past Caleb’s mental shields and into his mind. Hael locked up Caleb’s
muscles, leaving him standing helplessly. Hael leapt off the sand and hit Caleb
in the chest with both feet. Caleb toppled to the sand.

Match over.

The watching students leapt to their feet
and started applauding and chanted, “Hael, Hael, Hael.” Hael stood, turned and
bowed to Mi Donta, who smiled and nodded.

The applause petered off and Mi Donta
looked past Hael with a look of surprise on his face. He started to say
something and raise his hand. Hael turned in time to see Caleb’s ham-sized fist
approaching his face.

Bral was visiting Clea and her family when
they came to take her away.

Relations between the families of Hael and
Caleb had been tense since Hael had vaulted over Caleb on Assessment Day. They
had deteriorated further with word of Caleb’s assault in the Arena and his
subsequent arrest. Whether their families had friendly relations or not made
little difference to Bral; he still saw Clea as the older sister he never had.
He knew his two older brothers had more complicated feelings for Clea. Hael
cared deeply for her in a less than platonic way, while it was no secret that
Lucan had lusted after her. Nor was it a secret that she spurned his advances.

Bral and Hael had spent a lot of time in
Caleb and Clea’s company before Hael had entered the Academy. Bral saw no
reason to stop spending time with Clea because of conflict between their
brothers. Clea was happy to have someone other than her mother to talk to. The
rest of the neighborhood shunned her.

Bral had come by to inform her that Caleb’s
trial would start the next day.

“Mi Donta will be the judge for the case.”
Bral looked up at the square of sky visible above. They were in the central
courtyard of Clea’s unusually large family home.

“Then there is no hope. He will be found
guilty and sentenced.” Clea’s voice sounded tense. Bral wanted to remain
composed, so he continued to look anywhere but at her.

“Maybe I can speak to my father, maybe he
will plead for leniency.”

“Oh Bral, you are sweet, but your father
will never do that. He and my mother cannot abide being in the same room
anymore. There is too much bad blood now. The things Sela said to him following
Assessment Day can never be taken back. She can be so selfish and stubborn, not
like you, dearest Bral.”

Bral’s skin tone darkened slightly as he
blushed; praise was a stranger to him. “There must be something we can do. Can
we talk to Mi Zabab? He could overrule Mi Donta, couldn’t he? He is Host.”

“No, not Zabab, anything but him.” Bral
turned to look at her, as her voice had trembled as she said the words. She had
wrapped her arms tightly around her torso and she was rocking slightly on the
bench.

It was at this moment that a thumping on
the front door announced the arrival of the City Guard. They had come to take
Clea away.

Bral sat like a coiled spring on the floor
beside the mat that Hael lay on. He was a smaller, slightly younger version of
Hael. He would be taking part in Assessment Day next year, entering the Academy
two years behind Hael and three behind Lucan.

That their parents had been able to produce
three sons was a sign of their strong lineage and their achievements. Their
father had attained the rank of Major and was allowed to call himself Ma Gral
instead of just Gral. If he had achieved a higher rank, say Colonel, he and his
wife, Luca, would have been allowed to have five children, as Luca’s lineage
was also top tier.

Hael was having trouble focusing on what
Bral was saying. He would be released from the infirmary today and he was
thinking of what he needed to do to catch up with his peers in the Academy. He
had spent two brutal weeks in the infirmary being subjected to accelerated
Healing at the hands of the Host Healers. Hael’s nose and cheekbone had been
shattered by Caleb’s blow and his front incisor had been chipped. The Healers
has fixed his nose and cheekbone, but Hael had asked them to leave the chip on
his tooth as a reminder to himself to never let his guard down. Ever.

He dragged his attention back to Bral, who
was speaking quickly and urgently, but also quietly. If he caused a disturbance
the Healer would ask him to leave. “You have to help her. You need to appeal
the sentence.”

Hael was puzzled. “Who? What? Bral, start
over, I thought you were here about Caleb.”

“They have taken Clea too. The sentence was
just announced. They are ending their line.”

Hael closed his eyes and a wave of nausea
roiled through him.

Not Clea.

He had known that Caleb would be treated
harshly, but this was too much. It seemed that Mi Donta was making an example
of him.

For sentencing, Donta would have had the
option of choosing something relatively lenient such as Exile from the City, or
something more arduous, such as sending him to the quarry to mine stone for the
Emperor’s new monument, or even sentencing him to be a Mason to work on the
monument itself, under the brutal desert sun. The harshest of punishments,
Banishment to the Outer Darkness, would not have been considered, as that was
reserved for High Treason and was uncommon.

“How are they doing it? How are they ending
their line?” Hael choked the words out.

“Nightfeeder Curse,” said Bral. Bral looked
away and a tear ran down his cheek.

Hael’s thought processes froze for a moment,
then he started thinking about the implications.