Power Awakens

Jaac, the boys and Petrek and Eddick, had only had two days to prepare and begin their journey to Mank. A five-year Apprenticeship lay ahead of them, and the thought of it was daunting. All the boy’s parents had been called to the keep as soon as the battle with the Demolt was over so they could be told of the future, which lay ahead for their children. There was pride and sadness in similar amounts as the travels that lay ahead of the four boys were uncovered. Jaac felt a particular sadness for his mother Kaitlin who was to loose both son and husband for an extended time abroad in the Kingdom.

The boys were to go to Mank, with a series of Letters of Introduction from the Archduke. They were all to be tutored initially there, and if Fraykus had been right, then Arem, the King of the Northern Wastes, supported by the number one Majee in Bruk, Nuthay, would make the decision as to what to do with them next. Taegan was also apparently to start her training in the Kings household but would follow later, as the Archduke wanted more time to say goodbye to his daughter.

That morning with all goodbyes finished, Petrek, Eddick, Osakee and the boys began their journey to Mank; Jaac had been searching for Taegan among the well-wishers but had failed to spot her before they had finally left. The Archduke had also dispatched four quads to ensure a safe journey, as there was protocol to follow wherever anyone with a Nexii taint was found.

As instructed the Archduke had made the appropriate provisions. He had thought he was following the right protocol, but he didn’t have total clarity as to what to do with an actual Nexii, most people, including himself until recently, thought that was merely a rumour. A Nexii was supposed to be a focal point for life-energies and was rumoured to affect the destiny of those surrounding it, the stronger the Nexii legend said, the greater the influenced area.

The Majees and Storytellers said that all life-energies were interconnected by some form of energy matrix and the actions of any one of these affected all others, some much stronger than others, but again these were just rumours. The Nexii Prophecy was just a fable as far as the Archduke thought, but events of the last day had undermined all those beliefs. Could the Nexii Prophecy be true, surely it wasn’t centred on the boys he was about to send to Mank. How any one person or small group could affect the destiny of another, let alone a City or a Nation or even an entire world, was outside of the Archdukes knowledge. The Archduke needed to do some more study on this subject, some things were just too much to believe.

The journey to Mank had been relatively uneventful, except for Mort falling off a log he was standing on looking across the river Middle, and for Tem getting his nose badly bruised in a spar with Eddick, the journey was fairly boring. Petrek had said they were only a day’s distance from the city now and should reach there before nightfall tomorrow.

As they crested a hill there was a surprise waiting on the other side, dozens of Bhagwati tents pitched only a hour from the outer walls of Mank, which could now be seen, in the distance. Petrek explained to the boys that Bruk and the Greater Naj Empire had made a truce with the Morrs and the Bhagwati, allowing free trade and even small communities to move around within Bruk. But he had seen nothing like the extent of this influx of Bhagwatis. Bowltown had a couple of hundred, a number which in itself had grown significantly over the years since the end of the combined Morr-Bhagwati incursion and that was 20 years ago. Petrek thought that the Bhagwatis had been almost annihilated in the War of Attrition over five hundred years ago, and with the recent defeat at Wajanee Pass, he thought that most of the remaining males had been killed in the incursion. To find so many here was quite strange.

As they moved along the main Mank rode, which was covered with cobbles and a thin veneer of sandy brown stone chippings to keep it level, the group noticed the squalor that the Bhagwatis seemed to live in. Petrek continued to explain to the boys that this was not a consequence of the policy in Bruk, which stated that everyone through a trade or guild would be provided with work and coin to live. Honest work and honest pay meant that Bruk did not have beggars, this included all residents and non-Bruk denizens living in Bruk. They all had an obligation to work and support the community.

It appeared that the Bhagwatis were not inclined to work for nor take part in the community, so through their own doing they lived in squalor on the outskirts of the towns, shunned by the other citizens. Mort in one of his more assertive moments asked Petrek “So how does their economy work? If they don’t work or support the community as a whole, or even make money, how can it work?”

Petrek replied with a grimace “They ravage the land, they take what they need then move on to the next area. They live in tents and are generally nomadic, although it is said that they do have a fixed Capital City deep in the desert somewhere, no one I am aware of has ever been there. They don’t make anything exportable, they don’t have much trade, they just take, use what they need and then move on leaving a devastated wasteland. They don’t appear to have an economy of sorts. Thankfully there aren’t very many of them, at least that’s what I thought.”

As they walked along the cobbled road, moving past the tents of the Bhagwatis. There appeared to be a slight rippling movement among the tents. This appeared on both sides of the road, and intensified over a very short period. Within heartbeats of Petrek noticing this movement, a large number of Bhagwatis appeared on both sides of the road. They were all armed in one fashion or another and were moving purposely towards the traveling group.

Over a hundred in all, varying in age and size but most appeared to be relatively young. The Bhagwatis were humanoid in shape and size but they were not actually human, they had dark skins the colour of ebony which seemed to be covered with a slight sheen. The average Bhagwati was around five and a half feet tall and tended to be slight of frame, almost like an under-nourished human, with bones showing through the skin as if they had not had a decent meal for months. They all had a similar coating of jet-black hair, which covered their whole body and thinned out on the face and hands, thickening as it arched over the crown of their heads. The Bhagwatis had a localized hive mind which allowed them to share thoughts and memories within the locality of their receptor glands, this had both advantages and disadvantages, particularly in times of war. They were very strange creatures.

Petrek sensing danger quickly gathered the Quads and deployed them at either side of the road, protecting the boys. In this situation it was madness to stay too closely grouped, but he knew he had to somehow protect the boys if anyone broke past the deployed Quads. He had heard of the legendary Sword Skills of the Haittee, but would Osakee be enough if they got through.

Petrek, decision made, moved to the west side of the rode, and Eddick moved to the east. As he passed Osakee he said

“Roaming Quad protection” hoping Osakee understood the protocols of the Bruk Infantry units,

Osakee nodded once and unsheathed Harvester.