Legend of the Scale

Chapter one:

It was the sun that finally woke Trako from his deep sleep. His bunk faced the west where the evening sun streamed in through the single paned windows making animal-like shadows on the southern wall. He grunted and turned his head to avoid the bright rays and buried his head in his pillow, stifling a yawn.

In the least, yesterday had been tiring. It had started out with what seemed like a ten mile run (something that Trako usually tried to avoid) and after fighting for survival all day, spent the majority of the night knocked out and tied up.

Some day.

He pushed himself groggily into a pushup position and swung off the bed onto the wood floor below. After stumbling around blindly for a moment wading through the clothes and trash he found the desk, but more importantly a chair.

As he sat down he noticed something on the desk and frowned. A fresh change of clothes were laid out for him, folded neatly in a pile. He knew he hadn’t put it there. He wouldn’t have bothered folding them. It was nothing fancy: jeans and a tee-shirt. On top of the pile was a package of bandages and disinfectant wipes. She must have noticed the long gash on his arm.

He glanced at it briefly. As an afterthought he went into the small bathroom in hopes of finding a mirror.

From the large mirror that he found, he got a better view of the gash. It wasn’t huge, only about four inches long. But it was deep and would leave a permanent scar. He moved his arm in a circle and winced in pain.

Trako made a mental note to see if Arak could do anything about it. Judging from the display of power he had received from him earlier, Trako assumed that healing a gash like that would be child’s-play to Arak.

His eyes wandered to a circular mark in the middle of his chest. He touched it almost subconsciously. He had done it so many times when he was deep in thought. It felt halfway between a really hard piece of wood and a rock. Arak had called it his scale, but he had no idea what he had meant. It stuck out, and he could put his hands around the corners. He felt edges, but he didn’t even try to pull it off. He had tried so many times already, he had just given up. He shrugged and moved away from the mirror. It was just one more thing that made him different from everyone else.

He grabbed the neat stack of clothes and quickly showered and changed. He held up his old shirt and smiled. It had seen many days of fighting. The shirt was covered in slashes, burns, and stains. It was no wonder that Steilla had seemed a little shy at first. He did seem something of a tramp wearing the clothes that he’d shown up in. Who wouldn’t have?

He stepped out of the bathroom refreshed and ready to take on the world and stopped clutching the door for support as a wave of dizziness hit him. Maybe he wasn’t quite ready for that. He hadn’t eaten in two days and he knew that it was affecting him.

The chair seemed welcome for the time being so he sat down slowly. He glanced and the desk and did a double-take. His breakfast was set out for him too.

After he had eaten three bowls of cereal and drank the last of the milk he was feeling a lot better. Perhaps a bit nauseous still, but that was expected. He didn’t expect to eat something and poof! He’s better.

His sword was leaning against the bunk bed beside Xuroe’s stuff. (Fully automatic rifles, long spears with wicked edges, and all kinds of swords and knives beside them, all of which Trako figured would be safer not to touch.) But he walked over to it and picked his sword up.

He flicked the sword throwing the scabbard clear of the blade. Wait a minute… scabbard?

Trako didn’t remember ever having a scabbard for the sword. He had only had it for a day. Xuroe must have built one for him. He shook his head in wonderment. First it was just the change of clothes, and then it was the breakfast, but the scabbard was simply amazing! It was just as Trako would have wanted it if he had built it-a simple leather scabbard reinforced with two steel strips down the sides. Trako could feel its durability and strength. With the addition of that last little act of kindness Trako was starting to feel at home.

Trako hadn’t felt at home for about seven years, or since he was eight. That would have been the year that his mom died in her final battle with the scrolvs. He had only known his father from pictures, but he looked tall and powerful with a mop of dark hair and sad brown eyes. Just judging from the crooked smile in the photos that his mom had, Trako could tell that he had been easy going and fun to be around. He could hardly believe that he had left. “Your father left for you, Trako.” He remembered his mom telling him when he would inquire after him. “You may not understand what I am telling you now, but someday I might not be here for you and you need to know. Your father believed that if he left us the scrolvs would follow him. He planned on coming back soon, but he never did.” Only years afterwards did Trako actually realize the gravity of the situation. She didn’t even know if something had happened to him, he could have been dead, or in prison. There were dozens of reasons why he never came back besides of that he was killed.

After his mom died, Trako took to the streets trying to survive. It was difficult, being only eight, but he survived.

The country of Beyonel was cold and not very hospitable, even to its own kind. Trako took the first possible chance to leave. A month later he found out that being in Gorgos was just as bad as being in Beyonel. Wherever he went he would be alone.

Yes, Gorgos was a better country, at least in a hospitable sense, although they were constantly at war. But the people were always on edge. It was almost like each of them was waiting for the police to bust down their door to arrest them. Trako realized that it was the government.

Unlike any other modern country in the civilized world, Gorgos was still ruled exclusively by a single monarch. They always had, ever since the founding of their country. The king was a tyrant and levied heavy taxes on the people. Policemen and soldiers constantly patrolled the streets watching for any signs of rebellion. Any such sign and the foundation of it was eliminated immediately. Not only was the king a tyrant but also incredibly intelligent and realized the importance of hitting problems at their source before they expanded too much to control.

His main problem when staying outside was that some of his nights were spent running instead of sleeping. So his days were always messed up. Four days earlier he had dropped a rotting mobile on top of some blood-thirsty scrolvs in the run-down side of town. The day after that he led a different mob of scrolvs into the army barracks at seven in the morning. It had taken all morning to run there, but in the end it proved a very effective means of stopping them.

Two days ago he lead another group into an abandoned three story warehouse, and jumping out of the top story window , which didn’t feel very good when he landed in some bushes, He set fire to the place with a blast of flame

Trako was strange. Everyone knew it. Some people thought it was a sickness, others a curse. Whatever it was, it was a curse to Trako. He didn’t know the reason why the Scrolvs chased him everywhere. He didn’t know why he was different from any other sixteen year-old teenager in the world. He didn’t know why he could jump twice as far and high as the Olympic record. He didn’t know why he could use fire, and never get burned.

But the oddest of everything was a small circular mark on his chest. Yeah, that was the strangest. He knew that if he told someone that, their eyebrows would meet their hairline, but it was true. It was more than just a mark though. Sometimes it glowed. When it was rapped it sounded not like skin, but more like an extremely hard rock.

Yesterday had been the hardest trial of all. Apparently it wasn’t just the scrolvs who were interested in him being gone, but people as well. Yes the scrolvs were chasing him down, but it seemed different. They seemed almost like they weren’t acting on their own, like they had a leader, someone who gave out orders. There was a plan instead of something like- “this is what he looks like. Let’s go kill him.”

After running for what seemed like hours and not seeming to be able to shake them, Trako had chosen to just hide, something that he rarely did. He ducked down an alley and after taking enough twists and turns managed to get a little bit ahead.

The following street showed no way to hide, unless you were a chameleon. Two story brick houses lined both sides of the street, and there weren’t any porches of any kind.

The next street (Trako didn’t bother to check the name, he never did) held more prospective hiding places than the previous and Trako instantly was on the lookout for one that suited his purposes.

The whole street was lined with small fenced in yards. He grabbed the top of the cedar fence board and shoved himself up and over. Something crunched when he landed. He started to look down, but got distracted by all of the junk strewn all over the lawn chair and table set. The trash was spread evenly over the entire yard, like a smelly mulch.

He crept back against the house, hiding in the trash. He wasn’t sure now which was worse. Dying at the hands of the scrolvs, or dying of the stench.

He heard the scrolvs run by, stopping possibly because they were confused. (That happened quite a bit.) They stopped for so long that Trako began to get nervous and was anticipating the battle that he was hoping wouldn’t ensue.

But then the scrolvs began to move again, jogging down the abandoned alley, while Trako picked himself out of the junk. Finally, when he was convinced that they wouldn’t hear or see him, he jumped back over.

As the noise level indicated (there wasn’t any) the street was, as he had suspected, empty. But most back alleys were quiet at ten o’clock at night in Parinol due to the curfew rule and the consequences if you broke it.

He put his hand on the plain hilt of his short sword and trudged in the opposite direction that the scrolvs had taken, thinking that perhaps that night, he might be able to get a little sleep.

........

Back against the brick side of the house behind Trako was the shadowed figure of a man. He was watching Trako’s movements trying to see what kind of a person he was and why his master wanted him dead so much.

This man was a specialist, a trained fighter, sorcerer and killer. His master, knowing that the scrolvs were not only stupid, but fickle as well, had sent him to finish up the job.

His hand went up to scratch the stubble on his chin almost subconsciously; he had done it so much in the past. After a moment or more of thought, during of which he lost sight of Trako, he thought out a plan of action.

He threw back the hood of his sweater revealing his features. His face might have been handsome if it hadn’t been for the tattoos that disfigured it. His eyes seemed to almost go right through you, his gaze was so intense. His head was shaved, and he had a small earing in one ear. He would have just looked like an odd young man had it not been for the weapons on his side.

His right hand rested on a long sword and his left kept close to the two short swords on his other side. Long throwing knives adorned the back of the belt and on his hand were three rings with small half inch blades poking out of each.

He glanced above him and noticed the two four story apartment complexes on each side of him. One of them followed the street that Trako had turned onto, so he decided that it would work.

Without a second thought he mumbled, “Rise” and he began to rise into the air. He rose up until he was above the building he had selected. It was as he had hoped, flat and rubber. Rubber meant quiet and due to the dry weather they had been having, it was also dry. That was an added bonus for him because a wet roof was not only noisy, but could also be dangerous to walk on.

He stepped onto the roof quietly and then stopped in awe at the breathtaking landscape that stretched out in an endless maze of lights.

The lights seemed to go forever on throughout the city, piercing through the light fog. To him there seemed to be millions of them, so many little things that were working while the city was asleep. Off to his right were the lights of the east end of Parinol, and he took in the vast outline of the thousands of neighborhoods. Every light in every window showed themselves to him.

To his left was the real beauty and creative wonder of Parinol. The national symbol was the dragon, the extinct race that Gorgos was proud to show off, since they were the country that drove them into extinction. In the direct center of the city, in the midst of all of the towering skyscrapers that reached high into the sky like they yearned to touch the clouds, there were three smaller skyscrapers. Their sole purpose was to show their symbol, here in the capitol of Gorgos. It was a common sight, but it was the climax of the city’s tourist attractions. People drove for hundreds of miles and flew across oceans just to see the image in the sky.

A huge string of led lights wound in and out across the huge buildings like a monstrous fill-in-the-line drawing from a child’s coloring book. The little red bulbs lined the inside after the white. It was once estimated that there were 10,000 lights in the head alone. It portrayed a monstrous red dragon, wings spread, ready to flame upon the city, a symbol of their greatest accomplishment.

He tore his eyes off the picture of lights with reluctance and glanced off farther to his left. The city gates were there. Unlike most modern cities, the king kept a strict curfew, which always upset people. It wasn’t the curfew where you had to be off the streets by a certain time that upset the city the most, but simply that the gate closed at eleven. After that it never opened for anyone save for the king himself. Some people said that it was because he was afraid of a surprise attack, but then many others objected to that reasoning. Who had the power to oppose Gorgos? There wasn’t a country out there with the power or the guts to launch an attack on the powerhouse country of the world.

The castle was dead ahead of him, in the old parts of the city. As far as he knew it had been there ever since the beginning of the city. The castle was a last resort, in case the city was ever invaded. The rock and steel walls and old fashioned battlements hid some of the technology behind the gates, but Parinol was very well equipped for dealing with invaders. The watchtower from the days of the dragon-wars (many hundreds of years before) was still one of the tallest buildings in the city. It was said that dragons helped build it before the country turned against their race.

He turned away from the city to focus on the job at hand. He knew that Trako was close by, perhaps even only around the corner. He wished that he had more time to think things through. He believed that a person’s greatest strength was their mind, not their body. Not much good had come out with that mindset. Most of the time he used his sword for a weapon anyways, but he never wanted to. He liked fighting people with his mind, making them suffer by using their mental weaknesses. To be pitted against someone with his own way of thinking would be the greatest challenge for him.

He had his orders though: take Trako dead or alive. Now that he had seen him for the first time, he wasn’t sure why his master thought of him as a threat. He just looked like a skinny, although well-muscled, average teenager to him. Perhaps there was a hidden quality that his master was afraid would someday show. It wasn’t his place to question his master’s judgment, only to follow through with his orders.

He walked silently along the roof thinking about what to do. There was a unit of scrolvs waiting for orders. He had the element of a surprise attack, which made a world of difference. But he needed to get him alive, because he would be worth more that way. Maybe if he knocked him out? …

After deciding what he was going to do, he had to figure out how to do it. He did notice that Trako had a short sword on his side, but he didn’t want to give him the chance to use it. His attack had to be quick and extremely silent. It needed to be over before Trako realized what was going on.

He caught sight of him as he approached the far edge of the roof and breathed a sigh in relief. He hadn’t lost him after all. He was gaining.

He let Trako walk ahead just a bit, then concealed in the darkness, he dropped the ground below. He landed with an almost unnaturally quiet thud on the ground and silently thanked his master for those many years of training he had insisted on. All those years of work were paying off right now. He glanced up curiously, but he knew that Trako hadn’t heard him fall. Even with the help of dragon-hearing, it was almost impossible.

He drew his sword slowly, being careful to not scrape it against the steel supports. It came out cleanly, and he smiled at the blade, a four foot long chunk of green Flarain steel. The sword was hundreds of years old, and had a long history, but he didn’t know much about it.

Trako had stopped for something, maybe checking an adjacent street for people, he didn’t know. But he knew to not walk when Trako wasn’t. As long as there was some nearby noise to be heard, Trako would probably not hear him, but if he walked when Trako wasn’t, that could ultimately lead to failure.

He was relieved when Trako started to move again. He had been afraid that he had heard him, and had been considering just running up to him to do the job.

Now was the time he was waiting for, the time that he couldn’t fail. In that moment he caught up to the unsuspecting Trako, and with a simple flick of the wrist the sword slammed against his skull. Without a word or even a moan he dropped to the hard surface of the road and lied still.

He sheathed his sword in satisfaction and gestured to the scrolvs behind him. They walked up and began to pick him up, but couldn’t quite figure out how as both of them were trying to do it at the same time. They looked up to him for help, and he rolled his eyes. After gesturing for one of them to step aside the other picked Trako up and carried him across his shoulder with one arm.

He followed the scrolvs and the unconscious Trako back down the street to the scrolvs hideout.

His mission had been successful.