Introductions All Around

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you to a labor of love. For the past ten years or so, my dear friend Nathan and I have been working on a fantasy novel of outrageous proportion. Parts have been scrapped, others rewritten, still others require massive changes. A few portions, however, I feel I can share with the world at large.

This is what will begin our story. It's called A Blade Like Destruction.

WARNING: There is some violence in these scenes

~~~

“A world is such a small thing.”

Ten thousand men and women lay prostrate in ordered rows within the stony courtyard. Not one lifted their face. Not one so much as breathed.

“To bring war to an entire planet, one must have the purest of motives.”

The sun peeked around the great flowing banners of the Empire. Soldiers stood at attention, surrounding the blood-stained enclosure. Eril, Emperor of a hundred worlds, reflected on the obeisance before him.

“Remember, the Empire is a symbol of hope, of peace, of unity.”

Three warlords listened behind him, and beyond them, at a respectful distance, knelt ten generals. A great blackened castle overlooked the retinue. Its towers toppled. Its walls scarred and cracked while gaping holes dotted the still formidable expanse as it stretched hundreds of feet in either direction.

The Emperor’s cape rippled behind him as a breeze stirred the moist scent of blood. He breathed in deeply and sighed.

“The cost for our dream is high.”

A vulture screamed its triumph, a short migration from the battlefield revealing the field of bodies to its hunger. In moments, the thunder of wings and the gnawing rip of flesh nearly overwhelmed the quiet voice of Eril.

“Yet we should never hesitate to pay that cost.”

His eyes closed and the air hissed indolently between his teeth. He seemed almost in a trance.

“Not because we are righteous.”

He turned his back on the field and fixed his eyes on his warlords.

“Because we are gods.”

*

A small boy about eight years old held a knife too large for his hands. His instructor loomed above him, snarling at his inexperience. “Hold the hilt tightly. Don’t dangle it in your hands like your grandmother’s garlic.”

A sharp slap jarred the child, but he held tightly to the knife. The instructor grunted a mocking approval. “Kill her.”

A smaller girl was bound and shaking on the ground at the boy’s feet. He looked at her, then at his instructor. The man turned to the other students, “Today’s lesson is mercy. You gain nothing by sparing the enemies of the Empire. The highest virtue as a soldier is to pursue their death with single-minded dedication.” He looked down at the boy, his eyes hard, “Her end has been named, boy. You are the blade chosen. Failure will only mean your end as well, and pointless torment for the girl.”

The girl whimpered and tears blinked from her eyes. The boy knelt and put a gentle hand on her forehead.

Leaning close so that his face was only inches from her, he whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” she replied.

The instructor nodded, “In time, death will become the defining expression of your identity, and you will comprehend that the truth of today’s lesson overshadows the measures of guilt and thrill you’ll gain from its exercise.”

The knife flashed, and the boy’s hand strayed to hold hers while her life’s blood pooled beneath her body.

The boy’s name was Rail.