The future of mankind is in the hands of the legendary Corps of One Hundred, an elite body of warriors, selected and trained for the greatest honours in the empire of man. But there is something different about Tedric, the strange Corpsman who is not of this earth. The Scientists, the guardians of peace in the universe, have chosen him to play a special role. He knows he has lived before. He has braved the terrors of primordial magic, and he knows there are greater battles to come. When a miners'' revolt threatens the vital Dalkanium supplies and a dreaded Wykzl warship looms on the horizon, Tedric knows his moment of glory is at hand...
Release date:
May 20, 2013
Publisher:
Gateway
Print pages:
155
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The blond swordsman treads cautiously forward. Overhead, the eye of a red sun gleams with the faint light of a tired flame. A bleak, blasted, cratered landscape, its tedium interrupted only by the twisted skeletal remains of a single tree, stretches away from the swordsman on all sides. A hot wind, choked with black dust, burns at his eyes and lips. The swordsman draws his iron weapon free of its sheath. He moves relentlessly now. Grey eyes squint to see the first sign of an approaching enemy.
The swordsman thinks: I am Lord Tedric of the Marshes. I am warrior-king of all civilized Lomarr. If I fall this day, if I perish in this hell, the world will long remember my glory.
But he must not fall. He must not die. The obliteration of the ancient curse of black wizardry lies too near at hand. A few more steps. A few more passes of the longsword. The forbidden castle of Sarpedium stands ahead, beyond the unseen horizon. He will fight on. He will emerge triumphant. He will rule as Lord Tedric, first Emperor of the Human World.
Then, suddenly, they are upon him. The hordes of Sarpedium rise from the broken land like a plague of insects. Tedric lifts his sword and prepares to meet their assault. The odds against him are one hundred to one.
Yet he will win.
He must.
Phillip Nolan, a senior cadet at the Imperial Academy of the Corps of the One Hundred on the artificial planet Nexus in the heart of the Empire of man, leaned back in his chair and raised a gloved hand to shield his eyes against the fierce glare of the overhead lights. A metre and a half from where he sat, between the ropes of a square ring, two men dressed from head to toes in heavy steel stalked one another like lumbering beasts in a savage jungle. Suddenly, the larger of the two men lashed out. There was a ring of steel striking steel. The second man struggled to step clear. The other lunged forward, swinging again. Clang. Again, he swung.
‘Like to place a wager, sir?’ asked Traynor, Phillip Nolan’s personal manservant, who stood beside his chair. ‘I’ll stand you five-to-one the big fellow flattens him inside three minutes.’
Nolan shook his head. ‘Your salary is already too large, Traynor. I have no wish to fatten it.’ The larger of the boxers, Nolan recalled, was known as Tedric. If he had another name – a family name – Nolan was not aware of it. ‘The only reason the bout has lasted this long is that Tedric’s being kind.’
‘From pity, do you think?’
Nolan shrugged. ‘Let’s call it mercy.’
Another loud ringing clang drew Nolan’s attention back to the ring. Tedric had backed his opponent, a native Earther named Dani Bayne, into a corner. The armoured men stood toe-to-toe, flaying at one another with steel fists, but Tedric threw a half-dozen punches for every one he received in return. Nolan knew it was only a matter of time now – and not much time at that. Tedric hit Bayne on top of the head. Clang. Bayne sagged. Tedric hit him in the chest. Clang. The jaw. The chest again, then an uppercut to the face. Bayne seemed to rise a full centimetre off the floor. Tedric stepped back, lowered his arms, and watched as Bayne hit the floor with a conclusive thud.
Nolan let out a whistle of admiration. ‘That was damned impressive.’ The rest of the audience, the combined senior and junior classes of the Academy, nearly three hundred men, applauded loudly, but Nolan failed to join them. He stared at the fallen Bayne and slowly shook his head. ‘That Tedric is as good a boxer as any I’ve seen,’ he told Traynor.
‘And Bayne defeated every opponent in the tournament easily until now.’
‘He could beat me.’
‘Tedric?’
‘No, Bayne.’
The referee, an ancient one-armed veteran of the Wykzl War, counted the final toll above Bayne. Tedric, in a corner, convinced no doubt that the fight was over, removed his armoured helmet. Although his pale face and blond hair were streaked with sweat, he barely seemed to be breathing hard. He shook off his gloves, wiped his face with the back of a hand, and reached down to unfasten the metal plates that covered his chest.
‘I think I’ll shake his hand,’ Nolan said, standing impulsively.
‘But, sir, your own bout –’
‘Let it wait for Carey. I’ll be back.’
As he leaped into the ring, Nolan tried to recall what little he knew of this man, Tedric. Naturally, he had noticed him – at a height of two metres, Tedric was a very noticeable man – but despite nearly two years together at the Academy, Nolan could not remember exchanging a word with him. He was the class mystery man, with no friends and few acquaintances; rumours concerning his origins had circulated since the very first days. Nolan seldom paid much attention to such tales, but nonetheless he did sometimes wonder. Who exactly was this man? What was he doing here at the Academy among the tired remnants of the noblest families of the once magnificent Empire?
Tedric was smoothing the creases in his pale blue senior class uniform when Nolan approached. Glancing up, Tedric’s eyes showed a peculiar fusion of arrogance and uncertainty. ‘What do you want?’ he said coldly.
Nolan tried a grin. ‘Nothing more than to say congratulations.’ Reaching out, he took Tedric’s hand between both of his and shook. ‘I want to say that I’ve never seen such a display in all of my life. You’re going to win this tournament, you know. There isn’t one of us who can touch you.’
‘Winning is a possibility.’ Tedric spoke with an underlying air of hesitancy, as if Galactic were not his native language. But that was impossible – for any human being. Wasn’t it?
‘I’d call it a hell of a lot more than that,’ Nolan said. ‘You’ve got only one more man to whip – either me or Matthew Carey.’
There was a flash of something – could it be anger? – in Tedric’s eyes at the mention of Carey’s name, but it quickly subsided. He shrugged. ‘The best man will win.’
‘Ah, yes. Yes, of course. So they say, but –’ Nolan seldom felt at a loss for words, but this was one of those rare occurrences. Talking to Tedric was like pulling elephants’ teeth. ‘I’m afraid I missed your preliminary bouts. How did they go?’
‘I won.’
‘By knockout?’
‘Yes.’
Nolan let his grin become a laugh. ‘That’s fantastic. Incredible. When I win, it’s usually because the other guy gets tired chasing me around the ring and decides to take a snooze to rest. You nearly killed poor Bayne.’
‘That was not my intention,’ Tedric said stiffly.
It was plain to Nolan that Tedric had little interest in further conversation. Nolan doubted that he’d held much interest to begin with. He started to say something else, thought better of it, shrugged inwardly, then made a polite bow. ‘Perhaps we’ll see each other again before graduation.’
‘It is quite possible, certainly.’
‘Oh, you mean in the tournament final?’ Nolan laughed. ‘I’m afraid there’s no way I can whip Carey.’
‘Nonetheless, I wish you luck.’
‘You do?’ Nolan couldn’t conceal his surprise – and pleasure. ‘Well, I thank you for that.’
As he crossed the ring, as confused and intrigued as when he’d first gone to speak to Tedric, Nolan spotted Traynor hurrying to intercept him. He paused and waited.
‘Sir, surely you can’t have forgotten that you fight next.’
‘I haven’t forgotten, no.’ Nolan turned and glanced at Tedric, who was now leaving the ring. ‘I just wish I could.’
‘You can whip him, sir. I know you can.’
‘And you’re a liar, Traynor. I know you are.’
Tedric was leaving the auditorium. His departure raised an odd mixture of emotions in Nolan: disappointment that Tedric had not stayed to see him fight and relief that he had not stayed to see him lose. Nolan turned and held out his hands to Traynor. ‘All right, dress me,’ he said. ‘Let’s prepare the poor lamb for the slaughter.’
Later, in his corner, burdened down by forty pounds of armoured plate, Nolan waited impatiently for his opponent, Matthew Carey, to arrive. ‘Isn’t this just like Carey?’ he said. ‘He must be trying to heighten the drama by making everyone sit on their hands and wait.’
‘What did you discuss with that odd young man, Tedric?’ Traynor said. Nolan couldn’t tell if he was really interested or merely trying to divert attention from the impending bout.
‘I couldn’t say we discussed much of anything. I told him how much I admired his abilities. He told me I had a chance to beat Carey.’
‘That was nice of him.’
‘I don’t think he was trying to be nice.’
‘No, he’s a strange one for sure. There’s a rumour – I don’t know if you’ve heard it or not, sir – that he has some connection with the Scientists.’
Nolan had heard that rumour – it was all anyone had ever talked about for two years in connection with Tedric. ‘I first heard that rumour a week after we arrived here.’
‘And is it true?’
Nolan struggled to shrug his shoulders past the bulk of the armour he wore. ‘I’d be the last to know either way. The Scientists don’t confide in me.’
Traynor laughed – too loud. It was the usual sort of laughter a servant made in reply to one of his master’s weak jokes. Nolan decided it was time to be serious. After all, maybe Tedric was right – maybe there was some way of beating Matthew Carey. Nolan had been trying to achieve that ever since he and Carey were big enough to stand on their own feet. Nolan had fought fairly and unfairly, clean and foul, viciously and kindly, mean and sly. He had lost every time. Still, there might be a way. Hadn’t the ancients a saying: the strength of a pure heart is greater than the strength of a dozen foul ones? Nolan didn’t know if his heart was pure; he knew Carey’s sure as hell wasn’t.
A rustle in the crowd below made Nolan turn his helmeted head. Through a narrow doorway at the far end of the auditorium, a tall figure dressed in black lumbered slowly into the room. Nolan knew at once who it was. He frowned at the sight of the soaring blue eagle, the Carey family crest, inscribed on the chest of the armoured suit. ‘I’ll beat him to death,’ he murmured. ‘I swear I will.’
But, even as he spoke, he knew that would not be true. Carey approached the ring through the crowd. There was a polite smattering of applause. No cadet in the Academy actually liked Carey, but none of them wanted him to know the fact. Despite an obvious attempt at trudging like a man weighted down, Carey moved his feet with unexpected ease. Nolan thought there just might be something fishy about that suit of black armour. A new alloy, he guessed, something lighter than steel. That was just like Matthew Carey, too. He was a man who left little to chance.
A trio of female servants, each dressed in a silver thigh-length gown emblazoned with the Carey family eagle, assisted Carey through the ropes. The presence of women at the Academy stood in strict defiance of the ancient code of the Corps. Nolan had raised a lone protest when Carey first moved the women into his quarters the previous year, but it was futile. There was little anyone or anything could do when faced with the desire of a Carey to have his or her own way. Legalities did not matter; the Careys wrote their own laws.
Nolan pushed Traynor away, then lumbered forward to meet Carey at centre ring. He felt cumbersome next to the grace and ease with which Carey moved. The referee brought them together and spoke quickly regarding the rules of the game. Nolan forced himself to meet Carey’s rigid gaze. It wasn’t the arrogance in those pale disembodied eyes peeping through the narrow slit in the black helmet that disturbed him; it was the amusement. Carey was laughing at him – laughing with the supreme confidence of one who knows full well that the universe is nothing more than a plum ripe for the plucking.
‘Shake hands,’ the referee said, ‘go to your corners, and may the better man win.’
Nolan ignored Carey’s outstretched hand, turned his back and hurried away with as much dignity as the weight of his armour would permit. Behind, he could hear Carey’s rich laughter filling the dead silence of the big room.
‘You shouldn’t have done that, sir,’ Traynor said, from behind the ropes. ‘It won’t look like good form in the eyes of your classmen. You shouldn’t let him irritate you that way.’
‘It’s not irritation, Traynor. It’s something more. That man won’t rest until he’s humiliated my family to the point where none of us will be able to raise our heads above our navels. I shan’t let him do that, Traynor. He can beat me a hundred times but he shall not humiliate me.’
The bell rang.
As soon as he went forward to meet Carey, Nolan felt his anger evaporate. Who was he trying to kid? Pride was one thing, but defeat was something else. He had refused to shake hands with Carey. Carey was going to win this fight. Which, in the long run, was the greater humiliation?
Still, he would try. He always tried.
Carey danced swiftly forward to meet him.
The sport of armoured fist-boxing had long since abolished the traditional concept of a limited number of rounds of a specific duration. After the opening bell, a bout continued until one fighter failed to regain his feet after a count of ten seconds. Despite this, serious injuries were very rare, and the blame for most of these lay with faulty equipment. Nolan knew that the worst that could happen to him today was defeat, but defeat was terrible enough in itself.
He decided to swing first!
As he raised his right arm, straining against the weight of the armour, he saw Carey’s. . .
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