Miss Karagatan floated in the lotus flower like the ancient masters said to be able to spend years in the position without food or drink.

  He couldn’t help but notice the deep blue patches of hard water constructs like bandages all over her blue-green scales.

  She was clad in less than he had ever seen her.

  Just a thin wrap around her chest and small bottoms that would have fit right in on the beaches of his home.

  It allowed him to notice for the first time that her scales were iridescent on her torso before fading to her limbs.

  He swam to her and copied the lotus flower as customary when doing meditation practice. Although it wasn’t on his schedule.

  He was supposed to have a short physical exercise session, then dinner, then personal time before sleep.

  She remained silent with her eyes closed, so he copied her.

  Time bled away from his notice as he settled into the rhythm of his breathing.

  Water breathing was different from air breathing.

  It filled the lungs and passages with physical form and weight.

  Oddly, enough after the initial change his body accepted both as entirely natural and not requiring conscious thought.

  The lessons called it a quirk of their evolution to live in and out of Sinaya.

  A gift from their Mother so that her children may swim and walk anywhere they wished.

  “The high sun sets to make way for the storm season,” Miss Karagatan said. “Your people mark it with a celebration, do they not?”

  He cracked an eye open to see her black eyes staring into him, unblinking.

  “Yes, Miss Karagatan. I have lost track of the days, but I do believe it is around this time.”

  “Five days hence.”

  He nodded, he wasn’t going to ask to check a calendar.

  She was the Karagatan.

  If she said it was five days, then it was five days.

  A little spark fired in his heart.

  Hope.

  Did she meant to let him visit home for the celebration?

  “Do you know Syargo’s Island?”

  Not personally, for he had never been, but everyone in Sinaya’s Gift knew the name of their archipelago’s northernmost inhabited island.

  The Truest Shield they called it for its size and shape, particularly the mountainous northern half, which blunted the worst of the storms that swept down during the season.

  “I do, but only from my lessons and pictures and recordings. Everyone does. They bravely block the northern storms every season. Every other island sends help or items for the rebuilding, but I always thought that was a poor exchange for the suffering and deaths.”

  “There are always those that seek danger, whether they know it or not.” Miss Karagatan stared at him like one of those night hunters. “Five days. You will teach the others all that you know of Syargo’s Island.”

  The tiny flame lit by hope began to sputter, dimming his heart.

  “We are visiting?”

  “There will be an attack. On the largest celebration. In a city on a bay called—”

  “Aasin Bay! You must warn them! No! Of course you’ve already done that.” He let out a long breath of warmed water, feeling the pleasant cold flowing back in through his nostril slits.

  “There are rules.” She sighed. “But rules can always be changed by the one that wrote them.”

  “What… does that mean?”

  She didn’t warn them?

  Wasn’t going to warn them?

  The question remained unasked.

  He didn’t dare question her.

  “The world is not what I thought it was.”

  He didn’t like the way her voice sounded hesitant, uncertain… weak.

  The moment passed so quickly that he doubted his ears.

  “You will spend as much time as you think is necessary to teach your fellow potentials about Aasin Bay. And we shall all prepare to defend your people. Thank you, Ragay. And I’m sorry once again. We have not treated you well for how diligently you have devoted yourself to us.”

  …

  The naval squadron of old warships steamed over the horizon toward Aasin Bay.

  The people had seen the ugly, dark gray smoke long before the ugly, gray ships.

  They made no demands, nor declarations as was custom, as was dictated by the treaties.

  Ragay was beginning to think said treaties were worth less than the paper they were written on.

  First, the Merquani violated the contract when hunting the noble deep singers.

  Now they sent flame and iron, while pretending they didn’t.

  Miss Karagatan knew, though she hadn’t told him and the other potentials how she knew.

  The enemy steaming to firing range on the city on the bay were Merquani sailors and marines on Merquani warships.

  Except, the sailors and marines were officially off duty and the warships had been decommissioned.

  Oaths had no meaning for the Merquani.

  The foul drylanders twisted them depending on the day and their desires.

  The ships filled the air with a foul scent that stung the eyes and nostrils.

  They polluted Sinaya with an acrid, metallic taste and something else slick and foul in the sheen they left on the surface in their wake.

  Whatever it was had been totally rejected by the water which took all natural things in time.

  The people of Sinaya’s Gift had no true warships to sail the shallow surface waters. Theirs patrolled the deep waters for the greater terrors lurking in the dark or in the trenches.

  The archipelago of many thousands of islands big and small sat in the southern hemisphere of its ocean between the land of the Empire of Man to the east and Suiteonem’s Sanctuary to the west where the World Tree stood touching beyond the sky itself.

  Neither sought conflict, sticking to their coastal waters and leaving the depths to its rightful people.

  To their southeast lay the Frozen Eternities whose empress had never sought to go beyond the reach of her ice sheets.

  The Merquani lands lay far from Sinaya’s Gift. Northwest of Suiteonem’s Sanctuary.

  To reach Aasin Bay there was only one passage.

  West to East on the Grand River cutting in a straight line through the Inner Sea and the Empire of Man’s lands.

  A long journey, unimpeded by the dozens of nations, kingdoms, city-states and empire whose territories they had to cross.

  Geopolitical questions departed Ragay’s thoughts. Chased away by the sound of spell and cannon fire as the Merquani warships reached bombardment range.

  Aasin Bay had teeth and spines of its own, but lacked the range.

  They were made to defend against monsters, who attacked from close range and lacked tactical minds.

  Miss Karagatan flew above it all in her bubble, blocking the Merquani strikes from hitting Aasin Bay’s defenses, but letting the rest land in the docks and shore side areas, which had been evacuated as soon as the dark smoke breached the horizon line.

  The people fled to the hills and mountains if they were the rare drylander or to the tunnels if they were one of Sinaya’s.

  The tunnels led to underground waterways which led to the ocean or elsewhere on the island. Perhaps, a small lake or pond. Perhaps, one of the other towns or villages.

  The problem was that Aasin Bay had been filled to the brim with people from all over Syargo’s Island for the Celebration of Storms.

  There were simply not enough tunnels to evacuate completely before the entire city was in range of the Merquani weapons.

  Ragay swam beneath one of the ugly, stinky warships.

  Its propeller churned the ocean in such a violent, inelegant manner. So unlike the natural propulsion methods his people’s vessels used.

  He imagined a drill, but one as large as he was.

  Will formed the construct from the swirling orb hanging from his hooked staff.

  The water churned, but not at the rear of the ship.

  Ragay drilled a him-sized hole beneath the waterline on the port side of the bow.

  He punched through two thick layers of ugly gray metal like Miss Karagatan had shown them with miniature constructs.

  The changed rules may have allowed the Merquani to launch an attack, but they hadn’t said anything about allowing them to go home.

  He still didn’t understand how there could be rules allowing his people— innocent people— to be killed.

  The ship began to sink, taking in more water in its haste to bring all of Aasin Bay within its weapons range.

  “This is Ragay. My target is sinking.”

  Rippers, needleteeth and crimsontips circled eagerly, but ignored him.

  Miss Karagatan had done something to turn the predators’ attentions from their normal prey and the potentials to the soon-to-be swimming Merquani.

  He swam, pulled along by his hooked staff as he kicked as hard as he ever had.

  There were rules and the rules had said that he and the potentials could only sink five of the Merquani warships and not the two fat, bloated things bearing marines like a carcass bore maggots and trapped decay gas.

  Confirmation from the others began to trickle to the gem in his ear.

  There had been ten ships in the squadron.

  Five began to sink.

  The others had been just as successful as him.

  The doomed Merquani would fire for as long as they could for they were a spiteful and petty people.

  …

  There were rules to the battle.

  Otherwise, Miss Karagatan could have sank the entire squadron and fed the sailors and marines to the hungry mouths swimming below.

  She could defend, but only Aasin Bay’s defenses, not its people. She could attack the Merquani, but that allowed the Empyreal Guard on the two boarding ships to attack everyone on Syargo’s Island.

  Her battle was with the Empyreal Guard and she had to wait for them to strike first.

  That left the meager number of Aasin Bay’s warriors to battle a thousand Merquani marines.

  Correction. Two hundred warriors and seven potentials wielding Sinaya’s Heart, if only a borrowed fraction.

  Desperate battles had been won throughout history with less.

  Aasin Bay had a long beach to its west that extended out to the ocean in a longer, gentle slope before dropping off precipitously into deeper water. Ankle to waist-deep water out to thrice the range of a drylander warbow.

  The bloated ships went right to the edge before throwing down long ramps which their marines came roaring across under the cover of fire from the ships’ weapons.

  Magic shields flared to life above the Merquani like umbrellas against the rain of bone and volcano glass-tipped arrows and spells from Aasin Bay’s defenses.

  Ragay swam into the bay.

  Tagge was ahead of him and Sings Too Loud was behind.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  They swam up one of the water tunnels and headed deeper into the city.

  They didn’t have the numbers for open battle.

  The city’s narrow, winding streets and tightly packed buildings would be their ally.

  It was a great tactical advantage that most buildings had access to the water tunnels.

  …

  Ragay used a mirror on the corner outside the empty food place to aim.

  Merquani marines marched in an orderly formation, relying on the glowing aegis of a spell for protection.

  They wheeled around the corner into a mob of roaring, chanting Aasin Bay warriors.

  “Ready first rank! Aim! Fire!”

  He had to give it to them.

  They were well-drilled.

  Smoke bloomed as iron spat out of their guns.

  The scents were atrocious.

  “First rank reload! Second rank ready—”

  The smoke cleared to reveal that not a single iron ball had struck one of Sinaya’s.

  Deep blue water, hardened into a wall taller than the shops on both sides of the streets stood halfway between the two groups, cracked but unbroken.

  Aasin Bay’s warriors roared.

  “Now, brother!” the largest warrior charged.

  The Merquani’s second rank fired, chipping a bit more out of Ragay’s wall.

  The huge warrior changed with each huge stride as he outraced the other warriors.

  A great blue death changer. A blend of man and the fearsome predator of the ocean.

  Ragay turned his wall into a crashing wave headed for the Merquani.

  The warriors dived in.

  Shots rang out, irregular, desperate.

  Teeth bit a Merquani marine in half while clawed hands ripped another in two as the water turned red.

  Ragay headed to the back of the shop and to the water tunnels.

  There were other places he could help.

  Suiteonem Prime, Lakeside Town, February 2058

  Garvrun touched the leather-wrapped handle of his dragonbone mace because the warmth was comforting.

  Not because of the freezing wind blowing through the pines. Nor because he sat in inside an ice cave his warband had made to wait for the signal as they tunneled beneath five meters of ice and the fresh powder above.

  His people were of the cold.

  They could swim underneath the thick layer of ice covering the lake quite comfortably when the puny humans of the Empire of Man would die in minutes.

  No.

  The warmth gave him comfort because it was power and he needed to feel powerful when surrounded by those higher level than him.

  The warband wasn’t what any of them were used to.

  Commands from above had forced a mixing of warriors and shamans and lesser spellcasters from all the mountainholds and settlements.

  Take for example the one called Bannegurd.

  The strange warrior was one of the class-less.

  Bannegurd was an enormous specimen. The epitome of what a man of mountainholds should be.

  From Silver Streams Hold, which wasn’t friendly with Snow Bear Hold in the best of times.

  So, Garvrun could be excused for being nervous, though it was unbecoming of a warrior.

  Even if Bannegurd hadn’t done much more than ignore him the whole time.

  And now, the Silver Streams warrior sat… sat and shrunk.

  Garvrun traded glances with the other seven in the warband.

  They had all come from different mountain holds or settlements.

  Each without much trust in each other.

  A leader would’ve been useful, but they hadn’t been assigned one.

  The gem in their ears would be the sole source of their orders.

  So they had no other choice but to wait beneath the ice and snow while watching one of their own shrinking.

  “Move out. Your targets are the barracks and their elite soldiers. Bannegurd, you’ll handle the champion. Take the fight out of the town.”

  …

  Lord Kelvinjo di’Astrea sat in his private house near the barracks.

  As the lone Emperor’s Champion in Lakeside Town he had been granted the honor, naturally, of privacy.

  A frontier town wasn’t one for niceties by necessity as they had more important concerns

  Less a town than a fort to plant their flag and intentions to extend the empire south into the land of the blue barbarians.

  Giants among men, strong, hardy, but lacking intellect and reason.

  The empire needed to bring the barbarians to heel so that they could properly fortify the southernmost mountains against the frozen undead hordes beyond the Sea of Ice.

  It all sounded good and proper to the young lord.

  He would just rather have another champion assigned instead of him.

  The hearth roared, blazing comfortably in front of him while he read through the newest issue of the Adventures of Lord Superior. Newest to him, but the date on the cover was three months ago. That was a mark of how far from proper civilization he was. If only the air army was strong enough to fight through the flying monsters nesting in the peaks of the south— northern mountains.

  All his life the mountains currently to his north were the southern mountains, now he was in a valley and there were more mountains to his south.

  “It’s not like it was my fault,” he grumbled a familiar complaint. “She wore no ring and she assured me that she wasn’t wed. It was at an orgy!”

  He sighed.

  She had turned out to be a lady… a wed lady… to a higher ranked noble family than his.

  Being an Emperor’s Champion saved him from worse than a temporary, if lengthy, exile.

  Oh, and the stripping of his funds to pay restitution to the aggrieved lord.

  “Like he wasn’t also at the orgy. What kind of person brings his wife to an orgy, but only to watch and not participate?”

  The matriarch and patriarch of his family had been swift to act to avoid further scandal and punitive measures aimed at the rest of the family.

  The great grand aunt and great grand uncle rarely spoke in unison when it came to internal family matters, but they had been united in expressing their greatest disappointment.

  Oh, not in the act itself, but rather in his failure to properly conceal his identity at the orgy.

  “No more orgies…” he muttered before turning his attention back to the colored drawings.

  Lord Superior was about to fly into the ocean depths to rescue his lady love from the vile fish people before they could ravish her.

  “We are surrounded by ravagers.”

  He shook his head as he reached into the roaring fire for a piece of burning wood to drain.

  The damn cold was so hard to keep at bay.

  The fireplace just wasn’t enough.

  …

  Garvrun swam beneath many meters of ice above.

  The water was clear enough that he could see not only his warband, but dozens of other warbands spreading out as they approached the Empire of Man’s farthest incursion into their lands.

  Bannegurd swam ahead, unarmed and unarmored

  Small as a youth, but easily out swimming the rest of them.

  In fact, Bannegurd kept stopping to let them catch up.

  The aptly named Largest Lake was enormous.

  Many kilometers in a vaguely meat steak shape fed by three rivers that started high in the mountains separated by many more kilometers.

  The lowest point in the massive valley and the largest of the five scattered large lakes.

  It was a long, eerie swim in the quiet.

  Impossible without the mask over his mouth that somehow gave him air to breathe.

  Garvrun hadn’t known any of this until his people had been conquered in the strangest conquering he had ever experienced.

  Not that he had experienced any other.

  This one was the first.

  It wasn’t like the old stories.

  Oh, sure, there were revenants and undead… a lot of undead, but not a lot of killing his people and turning them into more undead.

  There had been deaths in the short battles across the mountanholds, but he had seen the burning ceremonies.

  He didn’t know much, but he knew that the empress needed something more than ashes to make undead… probably.

  They ran out of water.

  Bannegurd began digging into the solid ice with his bare fingers.

  Garvrun grinned behind his mask.

  He had never thought he would be in an actual warband that raided far from the mountainhold. He had never pictured himself owning a dragonbone mace in even his wildest dreams.

  He was still a general purpose cleaner, but he wasn’t a simple militia warrior anymore.

  More deeds with his magical weapons and maybe he would get rid of that cleaner class?

  The future was brighter and colder than he had ever thought possible.

  The puny humans would learn who the real humans were at the end of his bone.

  Suiteonem Prime, World Tree, Suiteonem II, 20137

  The arena was much like the arena where Sixty-eight learned what her birth family was like.

  Sand over dirt in a field large enough for a hundred demigod children to viciously brawl for their father’s approval. Walls too tall to climb or jump without spells or Skills. And thousands of seats filled with cheering or jeering people circling the spectacle.

  An eidolon floated on a platform of golden light, her voice booming through the arena courtesy of her magic.

  “Accused.” She pointed at a young man in good armor with a spear in hand and a shortsword sheathed at his side. “What is your crime?”

  The muscles in his arms tightened like ropes as gripped his spear. He stood tall. Back straight and head held high.

  Seven had discovered information he had shared with the lochos.

  Trial by combat.

  Criminals given the chance to fight instead of serving their sentence.

  The prize was freedom, which meant the cost to enter was high.

  Death.

  It was weird to Sixty-eight that the criminals had been given months worth of training.

  Seven had answered that question easily.

  The eidolons wanted the criminals to be able to fight. To entertain the crowds and to pose a challenge.

  Naturally, the demigod children had learned the true nature of the trials by combat after they had signed up to participate.

  It had been optional, but every single one of the hundred had picked at least one slot.

  Many had picked multiple throughout the three days they were to take place.

  Sixty-eight had chosen one slot, thinking she would have to fight a monster or perhaps one of her half-siblings in a more serious version of the training fights.

  She hadn’t expected that she would have to fight a young man with skin the color of granite and hair like silver.

  To the death.

  “I stole food for my sister!” the young man glared up at the eidolon. “We were starving! That was my crime!”

  Huh?

  That didn’t sound like a death-worthy crime.

  Another eidolon watched Sixty-eight closely.

  They stood behind a false arena wall, watching a projection from a viewing orb.

  “You don’t approve?” the eidolon said.

  He was an old-looking man.

  Wrinkled skin a similar shade of pink to a dumb, docile piggy with hair and beard as white as her clothing.

  He’d look like any grandsire if not for his golden eyes that shined with power.

  She hesitated.

  “Stealing isn’t worthy of death.”

  She didn’t know much, but she was pretty sure that in her world thieves weren’t killed for stealing.

  “Agreed. But that brave young man isn’t here just because he stole some bread and meat. He chose this.”

  Why would he do that?

  “Why do you think he did that?”

  She had been about to ask, but now she knew that a poor question would lead to corrective punishment and she didn’t need that before a fight.

  She took a moment to think while the young man told more of his story at the prompting of the eidolon floating on her platform.

  “For his sister?”

  “Is that a question or an answer?”

  “If they didn’t have enough food then they were never going to have enough food. If he got caught then there’s no one else to take care of his sister.”

  “Not quite. There is an orphanage, but quality of such places is highly variable and he did not come from a good place. Hence the starvation.”

  “There are places like that in the World Tree?”

  “No. Not from here. From a different world entirely.”

  “What did you do with his sister?”

  “Why do you care to ask?”

  She shrugged.

  “To know how he thinks.”

  The eidolon lowered his finger.

  “Acceptable reason. He was offered the choice of service in one of our God’s Companies of the Condemned. Ten years for his crime. His sister would have been left to that orphanage. He was offered a prison sentence, serving twenty years toiling in some mine, field or factory. His sister would have been left to that orphanage. This,” the eidolon indicated the arena, “means his sister will be raised without hunger, suffering and abuse. All her needs will be met. The best education on whichever world she ends up on and every opportunity to find her true class in which to serve our God to her highest potential.”

  “Are any of them real criminals?”

  “Of course, he is a rarity. Most deserve less than this honorable opportunity. Murderers of the weak, rapists of the same, madmen and women that have only caused the suffering of others wherever they set foot upon.”

  Sixty-eight knew the rules.

  Two entered the arena.

  Only one left.

  She’d much rather face one of those the eidolon had just described.

  …

  A month’s training with a spear might’ve been adequate for conscripts, but it was not for a duelist.

  The silver-haired young man would’ve been okay shoulder to shoulder in a proper formation with shields.

  His thrust was strong and straight, but slow in Sixty-eight’s eyes.

  It occurred to her that fighting other divinely-powered kids had skewed her perceptions.

  “Quick Thrust!”

  Was anything but.

  She shifted just enough to let it pass by her side.

  The young man’s eyes widened, then narrowed.

  The lack of helmet meant she could see his face.

  It was different from fighting the gangers.

  She didn’t want to do this.

  Especially after learning that the young man didn’t deserve to die like one of the worst examples of humanity.

  It seemed he sensed this as well.

  “You have to fight me!” he hissed. “They might take away my sister’s hope if you don’t!”

  What did one say to that?

  Her simmering pot began to boil over.

  Not at the young man, but at everyone else.

  The cheering or jeering crowd looking down on them with bloodlust in their eyes.

  The eidolons looking down on them with judgment in their golden eyes.

  Her father looking down on them from wherever he was on the Golden Moon.

  The reg-gold haze descended like a curtain.

  The young man froze, eyes wide, backing up a step before sighing and whispering a name she didn’t catch through the rivers rushing in her ears.

  The spear flicked out like a serpent.

  She snarled, catching the steel tip in her teeth.

  The shaft shattered as she twisted her head and slashed her arm across the hard wood.

  “Fast Draw!”

  His shortsword sang out of its sheathe.

  She bore him to the sand in the manner of a warcat like the General had done to countless enemy soldiers in his long, illustrious career.

  Tiny fists rose and fell in a blur, breaking granite and staining it with crimson.

  The eidolon raised her hands to the roaring crowd.

  “Your winner! Daughter of Suiteonem, praise be his name and may his rage gives us strength!”