“Cadet,
Your performance metrics have fallen below the Purielite standard.
Effective immediately, you are reassigned to Dawn Bootcamp.
• Arrival: Two hours before first light
• Focus: Live-steel forms, recitation of Common Law SE 21-44
• Examination: 3 days hence
Note: All cadets must be combat-certified in the event of city-wide mobilisation.
Failure to comply will result in the suspension of pay and ration.
See me in Yard 3
— Capt. Dorhan
5th Sunwatch Battalion”
Madeb Jordan read and reread the letter addressed to him from Captain Dorhan. He couldn’t believe that he was assigned to the Dawn Bootcamp. The Dawn Bootcamp is an intensive physical training and spiritual realignment test for the most underperforming cadets of the Sunwatch Battalion. Madeb usually performs well during training and testing, and when he doesn’t, he does well enough not to be reassigned to the boot camp.
“Captain asshole must’ve chosen me intentionally because he’s leading the bootcamps this year,” Madeb whispered to himself. He shivered at the thought of facing his wrath tomorrow. Captain Dorhan Raj was the youngest Captain in all the Sunwatch Battalions. He fought valiantly during the Lacrifah conquest of Kirsh, losing his left leg defending against the Royal Kirsh guards, as his allies hunted down the Kirsh Royal family, during his service with the Sunkeepers.
Madeb hung his head in despair. Then he looked within himself and tried to sift through his memories of his past. His earliest memories were of him and his younger sister, Amie, in the Kirsh village where they were born. He and his sister, who was still learning to run alongside him, were playing up the creek running through the village. They found a clearing where only birds sang the year before, and have been running there every day since.
“Amie, you’re not going to catch me unless I slow down!”
“Maddy, come back~!”
tssssss BOOM
The crackling sound of an explosion tripped them up as they both fell and landed on their faces. The fall covered their caramel skin with dirt and grime that their parents were sure to yell at them for.
“Hey, no fair, I-”
BOOM
“Maddy, I’m scared,” Amie yelled, not realising her ears were ringing just yet. Her tiny hands were still on the emerald blades of grass, holding on to them as she looked at her brother, trembling as he looked back at her.
“Amie, it's probably n-”
BOOM
A pillar of smoke, dark and fast, rose above the trees ahead of them in the direction of their village.
Madeb struggled to recall the rest of that day but remembered the feeling of holding his sister’s hands tightly as they ran away. He remembered the words of their parents, warning them to never head towards danger, especially if it sounds like fighting. Madeb remembered Amie’s crying and screaming as she fought him so that she could go back home. But they ran and kept running, hiding from the soldiers and living in the alleys, until they reached Puriel’s Light. Madeb’s dad, whose face and name he could hardly remember now, always told him about the war, and if anything should happen, he should take his sister and run from village to village until they reach Puriel’s Light in Lacrifah. His dad always told him that Puriel’s Light is extremely kind and generous to children with churches down every alley. When Madeb and Amie arrived at Puriel’s Light, they found a city no better than any village. No church would take them in because all of them were full. No person would let them sleep in their home because they were from Kirsh. He remembered Amie getting sick on the streets and how none of the food or water helped her. He remembered begging near the markets until the 6th bell and finding Amie shivering and covered in water as some kids laughed at them. He remembered the anger and the rage he felt that day. The cold and trembling skin of his sister. He clenched the letter he held in his hands until it warped and twisted into itself.
Madeb whispered to himself a command, “Control”, and let go of the anger consuming him.
Madeb remembered crying as he carried his sister to the shuttered doors of every Church he could. He saw the eyes of the priests peeking past the drawn curtains in some of them. He took his sister to the only Inn that still had firelight shining through the windows, Rum Roast Inn. He remembered crying as he spoke to the waitress, barely being understandable, while the chef watched on. “Please help us just once, please! I’ll do anything, and I will do it for free. You don’t have to pay me once, I’ll lift firewood from anywhere, I’ll clean everything, I’ll do anything, PLEASE!”
The inn stayed closed through the night and the next day. Clerics and doctors came to help Amie, returning her from the brink of death. Hymn and Ian Parifruit saved their lives, the newlywed couple who ran the rowdy Inn, gave Madeb his only family back. They gave them work at the Inn in exchange for a place to sleep and food to eat while they proclaimed to win their loyalty forever, to the two siblings. The warmth of the Inn and the love that he received from them every day made it easy to let go of the anger.
Madeb pulled up his greaves and dressed up in his deep blue cadet uniform before the sun rose on the continent of Adago. He crept out of his room quietly, ball, heel, toe, to let his friends rest. Quieter still, he paced through the halls and down the circular, white, marble staircase towards the armoury. The greatswords hung on the left wall beside the chained maces. Some armour lay strewn about, while others were boxed up along the back wall. He investigated the greatswords, trying to find the one which he had left a notch in its hilt. The darkness of the early day made it hard to find anything, so he picked up the greatsword on the furthest right, next to the maces. He gripped the greatsword with his right hand and twisted his palm until it settled in snugly.
The sword of the people who destroyed his village weighed doubly so in his hands. When Uncle Ian fell ill 5 years ago, Amie and Madeb looked after him every day. His sweat seeped through his clothes and drenched his bed. His insides burned through the night as he contorted and screamed in agony. The clerics couldn’t heal his illness, and the doctors couldn’t find a source for his issues. All they gave him were medicines to help ease the symptoms. Aunt Hymn, refusing to wallow in pity and sorrow, took on more work at the inn to help pay for his medications. Madeb and Amie worked harder still to ease their saviours’ burdens, but the inn kept taking on more debt. During one of his grocery runs, Madeb met the recruiter for the Sunwatch Battalion at Puriel’s Light. He promised fair wages and the care of his family upon his enrollment into the battalion. The very system that corrupted and destroyed his home. But his parents were dead. Kirsh was a state of Lacrifah now, and his home needed his help. He enrolled in secret and left behind a letter at the inn, promising them money every month from his wages and that they could write to him at any time. He promised to meet them as soon as he graduated and became a soldier they could be proud of.
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