Nine assailants quickly surrounded Anker. Seven of them got closer to him wielding knives in their hands, while two others, with revolvers loaded with nitroglycerin powder, held him at gunpoint from the rear.

  The man with the fox-like face, from his vantage point on the landing, shouted at Anker, “We have no intention of harming you. Hand us your black worms and you can leave here without a scratch.”

  “That was my goal from the start. What price do you offer?”

  “Perhaps there’s a misunderstanding here, friend. You will kindly donate your goods to our cause.”

  “Oh no, I'm afraid I just can’t do that. You see, I'm almost broke and my escape to the League of Free Communes in the north can't get off to a good start if I don't have some cash in my pocket.”

  “You heard him, boys. Let the dancing begin!” the man with the fox-like face shouted theatrically.

  One of the seven, short and with a mustache, lunged at Anker with a thrust. Anker responded by summoning a compression and decompression wave in front of him. The spell, even lacking offensive potential, exploded in a deafening bang that stunned everyone present, including the thug with the mustache, who, unable to restrain his momentum, lunged sideways to avoid the unknown attack.

  Anker took advantage of his confusion to deliver a spinning kick straight to his temple. That was enough to knock him unconscious. Anker lowered his leg back to its resting position, crouched down to pick up the fallen thug's knife, enchanted it with a guidance spell, and hurled it at the dominant shoulder of one of the six remaining enemies who was in a clear trajectory. The knife connected with the thug’s shoulder and stuck into it, and the thug, due to the excruciating pain, dropped his weapon and backed away screaming.

  At that sight the faces of the enemies turned into masks of terror. Perhaps it was because they were caught off guard by Anker's ability to use magic, or perhaps because they didn't expect him to manage to take down two of their own so easily. Even the fox-faced man turned grim and perched himself on the railing of the landing he was standing on to study the fight more closely.

  Anker exploited the moments of terror he had instilled in the assailants to infuse his staff with a corrosion enchantment and to cast a smoke bomb at his feet, as well as a reptilian vision spell.

  The five remaining attackers had to react, and tried to take advantage of the narrow space of the alley to hit Anker all together. However, they were slashing the air blindly, and Anker began to beat them one after the other, effortlessly avoiding their slashes.

  Thanks to the power of corrosion, a single blow, delivered without any particular energy, was enough to render them harmless. As if coated with digestive enzymes, the small cudgel melted clothes and ate away at the skin and subcutaneous tissue of the enemies, exposing the hypodermic fat or even the muscles.

  He took one on the flank, one on the hand, another on the forehead. All three fell to the ground with excruciating screams, especially the one hit in the forehead, whose skin stretched due to the tension to which the skin covering the skull is subjected and whose eyes injected blood due to the reflex hyperemia of the irritation.

  Hearing those inhuman screams, the two men with the revolvers, outside the smoke screen, lost their chill and started firing repeatedly into the pile, hoping to stop Anker's relentless advance. Eight explosions were heard, but none of the bullets hit Anker. Instead, one of the two remaining unharmed enemies and the one who had already been shot in the shoulder were hit, and collapsed to the ground in a pool of blood.

  Anker didn't want to inflict further pain on the last remaining assailant, who had lowered his knife and was backing away. He simply delivered a kick to his chest, knocking him breathless to the ground. As the last of the seven flew to the ground, Anker shoved his cudgel back into his belt and pulled out his grappling hook attached to the elastic rope, and he fired it straight at the non-dominant arm of one of the two gunmen. The tip of the harpoon sank into his flesh, and Anker pulled him into the smoke cloud. He snatched the revolver from the eighth enemy and grabbed him from behind by the throat, planning to use him as a human shield.

  There was no need for that because the second gunman had no idea where to shoot and hesitated. Anker, on the other hand, who had a clear view, shot the last enemy's dominant shoulder and then the fox-faced man's right leg. The first bullet hit its target without a problem, while the second deflected, as if it had encountered a force shield along its path. Anker tried to fire a second bullet at the enemy's head, but the magazine was empty, so he simply threw the gun to the ground and strangled his hostage until he passed out.

  The place had been cleared, and Anker emerged swaggeringly from the dissipating cloud amidst the groans of the suffering enemies.

  “Perhaps we would have done better to listen to you and pay right away,” said the fox-faced man, his arms dangling from the railing of the third floor.

  Anker continued to advance towards him, without saying a word.

  “You've proven your worth, fugitive, so stop now. You'll have your money, but first I want to hear your story.”

  Anker stopped his march and asked, expressionless, “Why would you even care?”

  “I want to know who I'm dealing with, for starters. And then, well, if I like your answer, I might have more to offer you than just money. For now, I can only suppose that you're not a bad person. You haven't fatally injured any of my men, you haven't taken advantage of Nika, and I even saw you save that brat from the lockup at the market. But you're also capable of using magic, and that's not a power given to many.”

  “I don't have much to say. I'm one of this year's Rejected. You know, it's not very pleasant to know that you'll be excluded from the Adoubement after ten years of study, training, and suffering. That's why I chose to have the last word on the farewell of those pieces of shit. I stole four ‘worms’ and ran away. If this cesspool of filth and corruption doesn't need me, I'd rather go into hiding somewhere where my qualities will be more appreciated.”

  “And what led them to reject you?” the man asked, with avid curiosity.

  “I'd say that's none of your damn business.”

  “I understand the frustration, I won’t pry on you any further,” the man agreed. “So, what is your name?”

  “Artolt of Fontebruna.”

  “What if I told you that I can offer you an interesting alternative to running away? What if I told you that we can fight to tear our homeland from the foreign yoke? That we can clean up the 'filth and corruption' that plagues it, Artolt?”

  Anker let out a hearty laugh, put his grappling hook away, and searched in a pocket of his trousers without seemingly finding anything. Finally, after tidying himself up, he said, “It's not very polite to ask someone's name without revealing your own.”

  “You're not wrong, Artolt. My name is Frankleon of Corlona, but you can call me Frank,” said the fox-faced man. Then he pulled out a crumpled manifesto from under his padded coat and showed it to Anker. On it, apart from a banal insurrectionist motto that read “The mountains belong to the wolves and the Ferlonians. Our fangs will be at your throat, invaders,” a symbol was clearly visible in the center representing a stylized mountain and a rising sun, a fist was raised towards the top of the mountain with a V underneath.

  “Me and Nika are members of the Sanchirian Wolves, an anarchist group. We handle the procurement of resources and materials here in Corlona. Also the ones you brutally beat up are our low-ranking affiliates, but we hold no grudge against you for the treatment you gave them. You were just defending yourself, and with honor.”

  “Come on! Brutally beaten up is an exaggeration. That’s nothing that a gauze soaked in Venemesta Lily infuse and Velubrum Carnosum gel can't fix. As for the ones who shot each other, well, that wasn't my fault.”

  Frank smiled and asked Anker, “So, what do you think of my proposal to join us?”

  Anker shrugged and said, looking up at him, “To be honest, Frank, I'm not that convinced. Look, the knights of the Order of Ferlonia are strong, let me tell you that from someone who's met them up close. A few Symbjorms aren't enough to defeat them. I can give you the benefit of the doubt, but I reserve the right to run away if I realize you're just looking for trouble.”

  “Oh, trust me, we have a lot more than a few tricks up our sleeves. Let me introduce you to the others, you won't regret it.”

  *****

  Anker, Frank, and Nika hopped on an unassuming black carriage to reach the Sanchirian Wolves' hideout. The ride would take a hour through the paths north of Corlona.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Frank exploited their journey to continue his indoctrination of Anker, while Nika occasionally let herself go with some much more mundane comments.

  The conversation sparked when they passed through a shantytown just outside the center, beyond the station. Shacks of rotten wood and sheets of metal perforated by rust, that were not provided with running water. Dirty women with infants clinging to their breasts went to fetch a jug of water from the public fountain in the square. Scabbed and emaciated dogs fought over a rabbit skin. Eight or nine year old boys helped someone who must be their father or uncle straighten out bent irons beams collected from who knows what landfill to build who knows what devilry. Crippled old men without teeth sat in the cold mud of the streets.

  “These men deserve a much more dignified life than this. All men deserve a more dignified life than this. We have the technology, we have the magic. It is outrageous that so few benefit from a well-being that could be within everyone's reach,” Frank said with anger and contempt.

  Since the Kingdom of Ferlonia had been founded and the feudal fracture had been healed, nothing bound the serfs to their noble master anymore, except for disadvantageous but consensual sharecropping contracts. Many then broke them and came to the city, in search of work, wealth and fortune. Not everyone found what they had left for. Anker replied, “At least they are free now.”

  “Free from one tyrant, slaves to another. A distant, hidden, foreign king, who demands taxes and levies drawn at random without guaranteeing any rights for the citizens.”

  “Things weren't much different before the Avuelite rule.”

  “They weren't. In fact, it can be said that after the disaster of the fall of the empire and the subsequent cataclysms, things have only improved. But they are slow, delayed improvements. We are always the ones left behind. The Kingdom of Gregheria has a constitution, the Free Communes of the League democratically elect their mayors, some independent islands are secular. Here there are no laws that apply to everyone, there are no inviolable rights. The only law is the power of the knights, the ministers of the Zephyrian faith and the old barons who have the money and the lands. If it's just a game of power, we just need to have more of it to rewrite the rules.”

  “I don't know Frank, I told you already, I think differently. Not that yours is not a noble aspiration, but those who possess the power you speak of, as much as they love to play war with each other, are very good at maintaining the status quo. If they feel a threat is looming, they take a fraction of a second to smooth out their differences and unite against the common enemy. And then, after all, things are not going that badly. Somehow, with subterfuge and theft, everyone manages. There are better places, of course, but no authority really has the power to stop us from reaching them. If one has the acumen, the skills, the enterprise, there are no roads blocked.”

  “And what if one doesn't have the acumen, the skills, the enterprise, Artolt? Is it fair that he lives like a worm? We want a world where everyone has the opportunity to study, to improve themselves, to be healed when sick, to work for a fair wage. A world where everyone can speak freely and feel represented.”

  “Seems like you've found your match, brother. You're two old fools making bombastic and useless speeches,” Nika interrupted them, annoyed, as she looked out the window of the carriage, where the buildings were becoming increasingly sparse and the countryside took over the landscape.

  “Are you his sister, Nika?” Anker asked, with a tad too much animosity.

  “Yes, so what? Can't you see how much we look alike?”

  In fact, they both had wavy black hair and irises between brown and reddish. Both of their skin was olive-colored. Both had the same sly expression on their face.

  “And would you have been okay, Frank, with her doing the things she intended to do just to steal my Symbjorms? Would you have let her go all the way?” Anker asked with concern. He couldn't help but think of his little sister Verunia. The last time he saw her he was still attending the ninth year of the academy, during his thirteen days of leave for the Syliphicus month festivities. It would soon be two years. The following summer she had entered the convent to begin her religious studies, and they had not had the opportunity to meet again at their parents' house. Nicaria must have been about the same age as her.

  Frank said, with extreme crudeness, “We haven't had an easy life, Artolt. We've had to swallow much worse things.”

  “Would you think I'm rude if I asked you to tell me a little about yourselves, Frank?”

  Frank shook his head, intending that no, there was no problem. Then he began, “Ours was a good family from a small town in Hither Sanchiria. Nika was born when I was six years old. At that time I dreamed of entering the Golden Fox Academy in Tarterno.”

  Anker knew what Frank was talking about. At that age he had shared the same dream. That didn’t sound like a rough start to him.

  Then Frank continued, “Our ma’ died giving birth to Nika, and our father started to drink and soon his business went to shambles. He was a merchant, you know. Every now and then he would get mad for no reason and beat me, and he completely stopped caring about Nika. I had to learn quickly how to tend to her. Dad offed himself when I was nine, and I guess by then all hope was already lost. He left us no debts at least, but not a large inheritance either. Still enough to make some distant relatives come out of the woodwork to grab the little he had left and throw us into an orphanage.”

  “Crap, those must have been hard times,” Anker interjected.

  “Oh, not even close to what was to come. We managed to free ourselves from the orphanage five years later, when I got a job in a construction company. They worked me to the bone. I was given all the hardest and most dangerous tasks on the scaffolding. I was thin and short, so they made me work in the most claustrophobic spaces, such as chimneys and cabinets. But at least we were free. They paid me eight grains a day and we lived in a hut with just a straw mattress and a fireplace inside. I worked there for ten god damned years, Artolt, until I was twenty-four. No one ever found anything to complain about me: I was reliable, respectful, tireless. Then everything crumbled in just one day.”

  At that point of the story Nicaria looked away from her brother, as if she was ashamed of something. Anker knew the real bad part was going to begin.

  “That day two masons didn’t show up for work. They said they were sick to our boss. I had to do their part as well. When I got home I felt terrible and tired and I just wanted to sleep. But Nika looked strange. She was quiet, and she’s never quiet. She looked disheveled and dreadful. She had bruises on her arms, neck and cheekbone. I asked her to tell me what had happened, but she didn’t want to, so I forced her — ”

  “Yeah, and in the end I told him,” Nicaria jumped in the conversation, like she wanted to tell that part herself, “I had started committing some little thefts in the previous months. Shoplifting, pickpocketing, small things here and there. Nothing big, really.”

  “Why did you do that Nika?” Anker asked, deeply saddened.

  Nicaria laughed. “Why you ask? Live like we did back in the day and you’ll understand. Always on the verge of starving, always cold, always dressed with rags and dirty. No future ahead. Is it such a big deal trying to improve your life just a bit when you’re in such miserable conditions? I just wanted to feel better, Artolt.”

  Anker felt a pang in his chest. Still, he tried to keep the conversation straight, “And you hadn’t noticed anything, Frank?”

  “Well, I had noticed something, actually. We could afford more ham than usual for my lunchbox sandwiches, dry sausages were hanging around the house. New sheets and a quilt without holes had appeared on the matress. That winter was cold, but I almost didn’t notice because we had much more wood to burn than usual. Nika was showing off some new dresses, clean and of good quality. I mean, there were some hints that something was different, but I didn’t bother to ask. Afterall we were both getting some benefits from that situation.”

  “To make it short, that day I found the masons who worked with Frank having a beer at a local tavern, skipping their shift. I knew them, so I went to chat a bit, and while they were distracted I managed to snag a few coins. I thought that since they were totally shitfaced they wouldn’t notice. Instead they did and they showed up to our cabin and they messed me up good.”

  “Yeah, they did some pretty bad things to her. Let’s gloss over it. Anyway, when she told me the whole story I started seeing red. I killed them, Artolt. That very night. In their sleep. They lived alone. Then we were on the run. I stole one of their horses and we fled to Corlona. We found a man who covered our tracks here. He’s a good and just man, Artolt. His name’s Clesbius. He’s one of the three leaders of the Sanchirian Wolves, and I started to work for him. Two years have passed since then and everything seems to be going well finally. The organization has received a lot of funding and support. You know… if you will lend a hand to us too, Artolt — ”

  “Brother, are you trying to brainwash him again?” Nika asked with disappointment.

  “What’s wrong with that? You should try your best to convince him too!” Frankleon snapped back at her.

  “There’s no need for that, do you see these dimples between these soft cheeks?” Nika pointed both of her index fingers at the margins of her lips, “They’re irresistible! I just need to smile and he’ll be ours forever.”

  Despite Nika's stupid and cute joke, she could not shake off Anker’s uneasiness. He felt a spark of sympathy and compassion ignite for the two anarchists. He and Frank weren't so different after all. In a just world, Anker could have met Frank at the academy, maybe they could have slept in the same dorm or both could have joined the automation club. Frank could have had something to teach him when he was still a freshman.

  It wasn't a matter of acumen, skills, and enterprise. It was just that life had been unfair to Frank. And Anker couldn’t help but feel sorry and guilty for his own luck.

  GLOSSARY:

  Rejected: not all the cadets of the Knightly Academies are deemed worthy of being made knights at the end of their studies, for many possible reasons. The ones who were grafted, but not accoladed, are called “rejected”.

  Velubrum Carnosum: a succulent plant with lenitive properties. Its leaves are used to produce a gel that can be applied to bruises and superficial wounds.

  Kingdom of Avuèl: The current rulers of Ferlonia. Militarily unbeatable, proud of their immense fleet, the Avuelites are the most retrogressive and traditionalist people on the continent of Boreatica and they defend the Church of Classia tooth and nail.

  It is therefore no coincidence that two of the most fearsome organs of the Church, the Inquisition and the Congregation of the Paladins of the Holy Chrism, have their main headquarters in Avuèl. The Congregation has close ties with the army of Avuèl, and is responsible for training the knights of the Order of the Avuelite Cross.

  Kingdom of Gregheria: The former rulers of Ferlonia before the Avuelites. The Gregherians are vile, dirty and greedy. This is the stereotype of contemporary Ferlonians regarding the old lords.

  The Gregherians, on the other hand, have a high regard for themselves and their customs. Their people are rebellious and combative, and revolts and uprisings are the order of the day. Social conquests in Gregheria are obtained by shedding rivers of blood.

  Although the nobles still profess their deep loyalty to Sylyphyr, in the countryside of Gregheria heresies ignite like fires in dry summer vegetation, and the Inquisition has its work cut out for it.

  League of the Free Communes: A confederation of autonomous city states, proud of the freedom obtained with rebellion, fraternally united against any external threats. The knightly order of the League, the Order of Libertas, recalls this noble ideal in its name and emblem.

  However, not all that glitters is gold.

  The merchant guilds and corporations prefer the veneration of money to that of Sylyphyr. The churches of the communes of the League are baroquely decorated, but for the wealthy bourgeois, the masses are just another opportunity to talk business in a hushed voice, sitting on ebony and ivory benches. Life, in the communes of the League, has a price that can be paid in lire, soldi and quartaroli.

  In total, the communes that make up the League are 263.