The House of Torunthane: Liberation

By Brian C. Mahon

On an alien world, an egotistical, magic-wielding immortal fights to protect his only living relative while trying to find a means to free the planet from an invading army.

Brought to the planet Tuluhr against his will a long time ago--along with his brother, Vedin--Menver Torunthane now cares only for his nephew, Ajax, a devout warrior of the planets defenders. Vedin was a hero to all, except for his son, and Menver, taking the boy under his wing, teaches him the magic that is his heritage. Recently the pair have assisted the Deltornir, the Tuluhrai army, in attempting to fend off an invasion from the Shekethrum, people of a nearby planet. Now on their own, the mage and the warrior are searching for a way to keep themselves safe--and to permanently free the planet from its invaders.

Maneuvering through waves of alien invaders, predators, and even the manipulations of those they fight with, Menver Torunthane will do whatever it takes to protect his nephew and secure their freedom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Feb 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781480814325

Brian C. Mahon

Brian C. Mahon was raised in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he created the characters and stories that evolved into the Torunthanes. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2004 with a bachelor of science degree. He currently resides in St. Marys, Georgia, with his wife and two children.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

V EDIN. VEDIN. ARE YOU R EADY?

The bronzed warrior jumped at being woken so early. I was sleeping! What d’you think? He threw the sheets off and yawned, rubbing his eyes with a loosely closed right fist.

I think I’m escorting you to a trap. I attempted two escapes last night, and here I am. They mean to see this through.

"Nothing bad’s gonna happen. We’re frickin’ invincible, right? We escaped the Atlantis, lived on through all of humanity’s shenanigans, even fought off the Jortash! That Avallah woman tells me this is just some sort of stop at the lab. They wanna run some tests on me—I guess to see why I’ve been able to talk to the Sword and none of them can."

You think so? Because the lead villain told you? Come on, Vedin! Don’t be so damned thick! She reeks of ulterior motives! They promised to let us visit the world of our ancestors years ago and instead sent us to Fordin! Why? And why suddenly kidnap us now? Vedin. Ask the question. Why?

Vedin arched a brow and smirked at his slimmer twin. He gave him a chiding pat on the cheek before replying coolly, "Only one of us got kidnapped. I wanted to come here. You, I got no explanation for. They told me you were here so I wouldn’t be lonely. Hell, who knows, maybe they were rough with you because you’re usually a prick."

Menver scowled and opened the door, eyeballing the four guards waiting on the brothers before slamming it shut. I don’t know how the hell you’ve lived so long as an idiot. If you’re going to go so confidently to your end, then so be it. I’ll be happy to collect your belongings when you’re gone.

Yeah, see? That’s what I mean. Puh-rick.

I can almost see it, Vedin. This is how your end starts. I warned you of it years ago, and you failed to heed me then. I’m astounded your feet could be at the very edge of the pit of your fate and you still fail to listen. They want the Sword, and you are their key to it.

Then I’ll just have to tell them the same thing I keep tellin’ you: over my dead body!

So you say.

Whatever, creepy. I came here with one bottle of rum on me, and I finished it last night. Whenever we’re done with this appointment, we’re going to find a bar somewhere around here and fix things up good!

Bristling, Menver tossed Vedin his shirt and scabbard and broke out of the apartment. Vedin followed him shortly after with a whistle, his thumbs tucked into his belt, smiling.

Outside, Menver balked at the sun’s brightness and covered his eyes. Dozens of tiers of craft expediently moved through the Jurda sky, their flight paths coordinated by the city’s computers, casting their shadows on the hundred million citizens below. An armored sand skiff awaited them at the street corner.

Hey Menver? Seriously, keep an eye out for a bar. I wasn’t kidding about that. There has got to be some space rum around here.

Menver shoved Vedin toward the ramp and said nothing.

The next evening, an exhausted Menver returned to the apartment alone, shocked, frightened. He spent the night awake in the corner, a knife in hand, muttering under his breath continually, Not me … Not me … Not me …

CHAPTER 1

THE DESERT LANDSCAPE OF THE province Nethar was exceedingly hot that night. Perhaps it wasn’t the heat that made the night so uncomfortable. Typical of a Nethari night, the wind had passed away, leaving a contemptible mugginess for the two solitary figures, alone amid the vast dunes. All about them, the scenery was the same as it had been during nights before: dunes upon dunes of uninterrupted sand, with smoldering ruins of the abandoned city-fortresses littering the sad horizon. No, he realized it now; it was the atmosphere. The circumstances that led a now changed Menver back to the city of Tehvoon weighed his spirits down—so much so that not even his nephew’s attempts to cheer him could pierce through the dull gaze he cast upon the far-off leveled city. The last time he was within the borders of Tehvoon, he had recently arrived on the planet, a prisoner almost, along with his brother, Vedin. He remembered thinking the city was magnificent, a civilized monument the likes of which he never seen. All this was now changed, since the glorious luminescence of the city was no longer there, only the outlines of broken and fallen buildings, massacred swiftly during First Strike. Menver had once taken to the false hopes that his prophecies were nothing, mere guessing, but the sight of Tehvoon was enough argument to prove him to be an accurate seer.

Now fate had shown him to be a more powerful mage than the citizens of Tuluhr ever could’ve expected from one of such mixed lineage. He spat into the sands, embittered by the knowledge of still how useless his power was in the face of the war. It had been a month since he’d last seen any inhabitant of the devastated homeworld Turluhr. Months before, the Mage Menver’s mettle had been tested in the battle for Chartev Nral. He and the rest of Tuluhr’s defenders were driven back by the overwhelmingly advanced attackers, but by the time of that great fight, his magics had grown to the point that he was able to be an effective asset to the Deltornir, the Tuluhrai army. Sadly, though one man can fight a war, it’s nearly impossible he’ll be able to win it. In the end, he was forced to a retreat—he and the remains of the city’s guards—before an imminent annihilation. Regardless, in the minds of those who fought for Chartev Nral, the outcast, the half-breed of a mage, was now held in much higher esteem.

Before then, the Tuluhrai never treated him with much respect. To them he was a mere nekaf, outsider, a final outcome of a band of Tuluhrai explorers who had intermingled with various races over the years, diluting their, and his, heritage as Tuluhrai. The Vishok, a small branch of the nekaf clans through which his ancestors ran, made their last home on the planet he knew as Earth. That is, before the clan was finally wiped from existence by war. The Vishok were clever, altering their very genetic code to appear like the dominant, sentient race of each world they visited, and thus they acquired physical traits of these differing species, which was the source of the animosity toward them by their full-blooded kin. Menver looked typical of the Vishok during their last state of change. It was deemed best by old Venor and Kryus, the Vishok leaders, that they take a form closest to that of the local humans. Menver came after the stage changes and had been born appearing just as the Vishok wanted. Two meters in height, his skin a dark copper tone, naturally and from Tuhlur’s incessant sun, he bore a tightly muscled frame. In his eyes was a look of exhaustion and despair that had settled in since First Strike’s wake had destroyed most of Tuluhr. Despite this, he still maintained the youthful appearance from the day he turned twenty-four and ritually imbibed the sun’s energy for the first time, locking himself into a state of never aging. To his right, his nephew, Ajax Torunthunai, towered above him. Young Ajax was a lad who at first was a burden to Menver but grew to become a fine protégé in various forms of magic that the Hetlurai, Tuluhrai priestesses, would never allow any besides their own to know. Forbidden Arts they had called them, powers too great for their race to be taught but so mighty that the High Sages of the Hetlurai couldn’t bring themselves to erase the magics entirely from their planet. Thus they kept the Forbidden Arts only among their caste. Menver, though, was well aware of the Arts and was a fair enough practitioner of them even before he set foot on Tuluhr’s surface, making it a point to teach Ajax these magics, as well as some that perhaps even the Hetlurai were not aware of. Ajax was too new at learning these new abilities, unfortunately, and if the remaining Hetlurai were to sense Ajax’s dabbling in the Arts, they would seek him out and wipe him from the holy sands of Tuluhr.

The nigh-eight-foot lad glanced downward to the one he considered father and nudged him in the side. Their journey across southern Nethar was taking them across a Shekethrum checkpoint, marked by the trenches dug into the sands by their tanks. The v-shaped cuts in the dunes meant that one of their larger war machines had lumbered its way across. Slower to analyze such details, Menver still stood studying the trail before Ajax sent the thought rippling through the Mage’s mind: <They’re in the direction of Tehvoon. I know you won’t wish it, but if we continue to Tehv—>

Ajax, muttered the Mage, if we do make it to Tehvoon, what will we do? There are three tracks here. Based on their width, it’s one of their city killers. You and I can’t battle that monstrosity. Considering the number of soldiers and machinery it can transport, I don’t think the chances of us reaching your home are very good.

This was not the sort of answer Ajax cared to hear. As a Tuluhrai, proud and strong, the thought of being barred from his home again because of the Shekethrum presence struck and tore away at his sense of honor and might. As a soldier, though, he knew that it would beyond foolish to try to sneak back within the walls of his home city. Tehvoon was probably already occupied. Had there been any forces left in the boy’s birth city, anyone left in defense of Tehvoon, they must have been eliminated by now. The Shekethrum never sent a Kinitral land vehicle if they weren’t intent on conquering and keeping an area. Kinitral was the Tuluhrai word for behemoth; the proud Tuluhrai were never known to be embellishers of the truth. He had seen a Kinitral twice, in Chartev Nral and Jurda, and in both places, the hovering beast simply plowed through whole buildings, and nothing save for a Tuluhrai destroyer could stop it. His pride relinquished to his reason, and Ajax despondently nodded to his uncle in quiet acceptance. Suddenly, though, his head snapped up, his eyes tearing away from his uncle to the far-off horizon as his helmet’s visor, a virtual command center, slid across his eyes, and a new thought was sent to the Mage’s mind, as before in the lad’s native tongue. <Uncle, there are two Fiends approaching us. Regular infantry on patrol. No doubt they can see through your spell.> A low growl began to build in the lad’s throat just as he reached for the golden rod strapped to his leg. His eyes glimmered with a yearning for revenge, while deep inside his chest, he summoned his hatred for the Fiends, fueling his body with anger while thinking to Menver, <I suggest we remove them from our world.>

Although not a full-blood, Ajax was in most aspects Tuluhrai, but shorter and with more of his father’s human facial characteristics and skin. Most Tuluhrai, on the surface, looked alike, with the exception of those who hailed from Uthanral, the large oasis province nestled inside a ring made by the intersection of three vast mountain ranges that trapped rarely seen rain clouds. Tuluhr is, with Uthanral and two similar but uninhabited regions discounted, a desert planet, owing to its proximity to their sun. Most Tuluhrai were between two and a half to three meters in height, tough, with thick leather skin. Their most noticeable characteristics were their glowing yellow eyes and dual clawed feet. Long fingers, longer than humans’ in proportion, extended from their hands. Brown to black hair covered the heads of the general populace, and if one were to sculpt the stereotypical face, he or she would have to mold in tall cheekbones, a small mouth, small (though sensitive) ears, and a somewhat tall forehead. Because of their strict militant culture, all Tuluhrai had some martial training, though only the worthy had the supreme honor of being lifelong soldiery. From this training evolved a common sense of activity and health, where laziness, sloth, and gluttony have become shunned as crimes against their supremely evolved bodies, so even the most domestic of Tuluhrai were athletes, in form and ability. As a whole, the race of Tuluhrai was blessed with the power to absorb and store energy taken in from the sun’s light—any sun’s light, according to Menver’s own experience—and it was from strict training and practice that they could manipulate this energy into the powers that every Tuluhrai was now familiar with. Superbly strong, fast, and agile, and—through time and evolution—gifted with telepathy, the Tuluhrai were an unnaturally powerful race. From this great power came their great pride, and it was from this great pride that came arrogance. Through this arrogance, they secured their own fate of defeat, and this conclusion was no surprise to the Mage. What had disturbed Menver was the fact that, indeed, Ajax was more Tuluhrai than all the mixed blood infused in him, and so the lad was drilled with the Tuluhrai manner. To Ajax, the sight of a single Shekethrum soldier was a grave insult, and honor dictated that such a slight was deserving of death. Unfortunately for the lad, Menver’s own nature had always been of a more calculating sway, and much calmer, at least in the more recent years, and he was less willing to put them in harm’s way.

Boy, you know well that they’ve seen us as well, and likely others are already informed. We will return; I can promise you that much. Quickly then, Menver waved a hand to the air and a large portal opened before them, the dark-green glow of its swirling energies turning the desert sand a putrid color. Hurry! he ordered the boy before stepping through, and Ajax grudgingly obeyed.

When the portal snapped shut, the two were standing within the remnants of what had once been a residential building but was now one of the only still-standing structures in all of the city of Tathanhla. Sighing in frustration, the Mage Menver briskly walked across the room, snapping his fingers as he went to create a small fire for warmth. Luckily, the apartment still contained some furniture when they found it—a benefit for any transient’s home. The Mage hopped up onto the bed and, without much ado, kicked his boots to the other side of the room. He then unclasped his cloak, tossing it to the floor below, an irritated grunt following the landing of that extra garment. Ajax’s voice made itself heard in the mage’s mind: <Uncle, the wall.>

Nodding to the lad, Menver threw up a hand pointed toward the wall—or, rather, the hole in the wall—closed his eyes, and began the chant that he chanted with the closing of every day’s adventure. Menver drew various symbols into the air as he whispered, Kurneryl op manketh, and here the runes drawn began to glow, revealing their shape. Disuma dekral cornuvral! His voice shot upward from a quiet whisper to a muffled yell upon the calling of the last word, since that was the word that gave the spell its strength. It was the sealing word, and after it had been spoken, the view of the outside world wavered briefly with a dull hum. The illusion was now set. To any looking at the building, the whole structure seemed deserted. No firelight escaped the boundaries of his spell, nor did any telltale signs of their having been there. To any Shekethrum patrols, the building appeared to be the same as on the day it was left to decay. This spell, unlike any other illusory spells of Menver’s, was of Fiend origins, taught to him by the Tir Korcath, nemeses and equals to the Tuluhrai-descended Vishok; and perhaps as a result of its inheritance, only the more powerful Shekethrum scanners could see through it. Certain scanners, he assumed, detected something the Cornuvral spell didn’t hide, or were powerful enough to cut through it.

After setting his gloves aside, the disheartened Mage cast a piece of what once was the back wall into the fire, expressionless as the flames flickered around and engulfed the shard. There was a window in this room—small, since the average Tuluhrai didn’t (or possibly couldn’t) find much pleasure in viewing their city. They were proud of their accomplishments but, as Menver supposed, were so proud that the commonplace sight of the hundreds of sky-reaching golden buildings were no longer a wonderment to them, as they were to the Mage. But outside this window, the view was certainly not an awe-inspiring panoramic. Menver’s attention was caught in that window while his mind backtracked to two years before, when the brightness of the afternoon was reflected in the mass activity in the streets below, and the sunlight glinted off the sides of the buildings in the city of Jurda. What lay outside the window he now looked through was something much different. The city stretched out before him, a cluster of fallen buildings and ruined war machines strewn about the streets, the charred-gold bodies of both lying across each other in piles that made the Mage’s heart shudder in his chest. The smoke of still-burning ruin from all over the planet had lifted to the atmosphere, so no longer could the stars be seen. Maybe tampering with the atmosphere was a form of warfare that Menver wasn’t aware of and the Fiends intentionally did this so now even the infamously bright and blazing Tuluhrai days were rather hazy and much less intense. Emergency lights from the city’s shield-ring, which encircled the city and created its border, colored the surrounding sand a pleasant blue.

Menver had visited this city before and remembered it well; it was the main factory city for the Great Fleet. It once served as a centerpiece for military demonstrations, shown once every decade to strut the new advancements they made in war-making technologies. He attempted to watch one such show. Bearing witness to the oversaturated pomp and arrogance was too much for his sensibility, and he shut off the video screen in preference for organizing his room. Now he would trade all his painfully earned power to see one warship fly overhead. So proud and noble … now defeated and stamped, he whispered to himself, his gaze now far off past the city, past the horizon, making it appear as though he were viewing eternity. Then, as Ajax looked at him, rather perplexed, the Mage suddenly hopped off the bed with a snort and mumbled curse, and he then began to pace about the room.

"What is wrong?" The words sounded suddenly in the mage’s mind, in English for a change. The boy never actually spoke to the Mage, since in Tuluhrai society verbal speech was reserved for communicating with the inferior peoples. The gift of mindspeak was not something Menver had been blessed with, and it took a few years before Ajax was retrained into knowing that Menver didn’t consider him inferior.

Nothing … nothing that hasn’t bothered me before.

"The Deltornir will come back. The last signal from the Seventh Legion said soldiers gather in Mohdchar to take Kardesh-Nar. There is a new made, but they don’t say where on regular <transmission>. What are those words?"

Menver shrugged, paying only half-attention, Base? Home? The other, a signal or radio wave, if I understood your meaning right.

Sighing again, Menver paused in his pacing, his back toward Ajax, and turned his head to the side, speaking slowly, the sorrows of too many lost battles apparent on his face and in his voice. You’re far too hopeful, Ajax, and I will attribute that to the flaw of youth. The full might of the Deltornir, the Hetlurai, and the Creornir couldn’t drive the Fiends back, so what use is the attempt of a few bands of survivors to try what so many more couldn’t prevent? Ajax, we still must wait for the colonial reinforcements to arrive, unless those have been beaten as well. Patience, Ajax, patience and time shall get us through, but we must remain hidden. I know you hate this, and know this wears on me as well. I wish I could take you away from this, but I cannot. Not right now, which is why we must hide.

"No!" Ajax’s eyes flared to a bright white as he faced Menver. The long-held frustrations seethed through his voice, as he spat the words into Menver’s mind, the thoughts angry in their tone, flowing relentlessly in the Tulurhai tongue. <We’ve survived almost a year now, running and hiding, striking against our enemy only infrequently! We will wipe this vermin filth from our sacred homeworld, from our holy sands, and we will pursue them out from our borders and purge the whole Empire of their contaminating touch! Then we shall take the war to them and take glory in seeing their worlds burn and cities crumble, as they have done to us! We are the Tuluhrai! We are born for victory!> By the end of this speech, Ajax was breathing heavily, his muscles tensed and ready, as inside his mind, he was praying for some Fiend to come within range of his armor’s miniature radar. The Tuluhrai hybrid prayed for blood.

Menver, on the other hand, disgusted as he was at the display, knew better than to fight the boy’s instilled pride and battle thirst, so he silently nodded in acceptance of the lad’s words and looked back out to the ruins below. He wondered when the day would come that the Deltornir’s mind-training would wear off. He also wondered which city it was that he saw off in the distant horizon. Names and structures of the many domed civilizations flashed through his mind, but the far-off destruction left nothing for his memory to identify. The only apparent thing out there was death, the ever-present threat looming over his and the boy’s heads. With the lad’s aura of wrath impinging on the Mage, Menver began to dwell on his own powerlessness in the situation, and his frustration skyrocketed. Quickly becoming enraged at himself, the Mage turned to the front wall, the only one left unmarred, and hurled an explosive ball of energy at it. The dark-green sphere of his own raw, natural energy blew through the wall, leaving a new doorway where he had destroyed the old. Anger, in the form of crackling dark energy, filled his eyes, hiding the pupils and iris to show two grimly verdant orbs. As he turned around to look at the outside wall, the one hidden by illusion, he found that his glowing eyes were now reflected to him in Ajax’s breastplate. He looked up, his dark, rippling eyes glaring into the intensely bright yellow ones, and the sound of Ajax’s voice began to scold him. <Uncle! Do you wish to signal our enemy to our home? So quickly after admonishing me? I wish for battle, but I would not lead my enemies to my home, no. If you wish for blood, let’s leave now and fight them in their patrol zones!>

"Listen, lad, I—"

<No! You preach that we should remain hidden, and now Uncle, you must take to your own words!>

Hearing this boy—the one he cared for and taught—actually correct him flared his anger to a height he hadn’t seen in a very long while. His eyes changed from a swirling dark green to a furious lighter version, trails of smoky energy escaping to relieve the excess. He took a step back and brought his hands to fists. Slowly, though, his eyes, as well as he, settled back to normality, the brown pupils exposed again as the irrational anger cooled into more of a bitter irritation at himself. I apologize, Ajax. I’ve never been the most patient person, or a humble one, and being reduced to this, he muttered, waving his hand around to show off their surroundings, well, this is quite the blow. It’s hard to bear with this pitiable life. Why, were I still on the planet Rh— He stopped as an afterthought hit him, but after a quick pause, he spoke again, saying, No, never mind that; that was a much different life. It’s gotten late, and a good rest will do us well. Tomorrow, I promise, nothing will keep us from reaching Tehvoon.

Ajax nodded silently in acceptance of the proposed course of action and began to strip himself of his scarred armor. Ever in worship of their golden sun, the Tuluhrai armor shone its hue. The protective outfit comprised a breast plate with a flexibly attached stomach guard; leg plating, for both the shin and part of the thigh; and the two most infamous parts of the whole guise: the helmet and gauntlets. The helmet was inlaid with the most sensitive of receptors, which could actually receive the telepathic thought patterns of its wearer, and was able to react as commanded. The helm’s visor, which always slipped down to cover the eyes, was a very small but potent version of a heads-up-display, blessing the bearer with alternate forms of vision: infrared, night vision, magnification, and true sight. This gave the Tuluhrai infantry the ability to see through illusions of both their own and of the Shekethrum. Through the helmet, the soldier could issue mental orders to the gauntlets, which offered both defense and offense. In the left gauntlet lay a micro generator (an article that by even this time was becoming old technology), which created an energy shield of roughly two meters in height and three-quarters of a meter wide in the middle that tapered inward to a flat edge at the ends. Installed in the right gauntlet, located just above the wrist, parallel to its counterpart on the left, was an unremarkable protrusion marked only by a slit in its taller front. From this mark, the soldier could fire powerful bolts, either in a concentrated bullet form or as a cutting ray. This gun was generally used to conserve the soldier’s own energy, though sometimes the raw destructive powers of the Tuluhrai were much more devastating than the wrist-worn weapon. Perhaps most savage of all was the last surprise of this self-worn armory: the claws. With a single command of the mind, the Tuluhrai soldier could snap-extend a set of claws from his fingertips, each small blade sharp enough to cleave shavings off of bone with little effort, and even much more easily to slit enemies’ throats. Tuluhrai war was both highly advanced and, at the same time, brutally primitive. Though armed with energy shields, guns that could split a man in half, ships that could devastate whole armies with a single blast, these warriors reveled in the animalistic ground warfare in which the simple spear and claw were the main weapons of battle.

As Ajax busied himself, the Mage tried to fortify their temporary home by use of his magics. Again the energy began to gather about his fingertips, and those fingertips began to dance in the air, drawing runes again to strengthen his illusion. His wearied eyes closed in concentration, and the words began to spill forth from his mouth, in a language not related to the Tuluhrai high tongue or of the elemental magic he’d taught himself, but again in the words of the Tir Korcath. This spell, he hoped, would lengthen the Cornuvral spell’s life so that it wouldn’t fizzle out while he slept. It probably was not a necessary measure, but he didn’t dare test the illusionary spell’s life span as he had tested its ability to work. A Shekethrum Zenfral, another tank, had nearly vaporized the Mage before he crafted the illusion around himself. If he had been slower, he would be just another charred skeleton upon the sands.

With this new spell set, Menver lay down with an exhausted yawn on the bed, whispering a few words of admonishment to himself about his earlier behavior. The two slept peacefully, both dreaming of their plight. Thoughts of the invasion pervaded Menver’s dreams, and each second of that horrid day replayed itself in his mind. And so ran on his dream.

CHAPTER 2

IT WAS THE MORNING OF the ceremonial Three-Hundred-Year War when the downfall of the Tuluhrai Empire began. As every third century passed, a new war was engaged between the Tuluhrai and the Shekethrum, always starting at either nation’s homeworld, at their heart. The two homeworlds, Tuluhr and Sheketh, traded the post of defending planet with every iteration. These quick engagements settled their lust for each other’s destruction while avoiding the threat of being met with genocide. The Shekethrum had an unfortunate history of losing the majority of these first engagements to the Tuluhrai might. In this first battle, it was tradition that only the two most powerful warships would duel. If the defender’s ship were to lose, then the invading fleet would have full rights to open itself into an all-out attack upon the enemy homeworld. If the defending ship won, the invading fleet was required by the great laws governing this ceremony to leave immediately, while the defenders had license to chase them out of their borders, as violently as they pleased. One great folly of it all was that the heart of either empire was left vulnerable for this first engagement. During this particular event, the greater folly was the Tuluhrai overconfidence, allowing their guard to be let down; pride filled in where cautious planning and advancement should have reigned. Unfortunately for the Tuluhrai, this particular engagement was to be held upon their ground.

Dressed more casually in a long-sleeved and loose white shirt and similarly shaded pants, Menver sat within his apartment in the city of Jurda, trying to study, learning the words and motions needed for some basic shape-shifting spells. He’d left the wall screen on while reading so that he could hear how the engagement was proceeding, whenever he cared to, for he had enough faith in his powers of concentration to block out the updates constantly spewing from the screen. His quarters were small, just big enough to house a bed, table, and bookcase. The bed covered one wall, and the desk and bookcase were placed opposite of it, with only enough space left to walk between the objects to reach the oval-shaped wall screen. Although sometimes Menver had been able to show remarkable spans of patience, the hopeful thoughts that his predictions would be wrong were enough to null the anxiety surrounding that day. With a huff, he’d set his book down and paid rapt attention to the screen.

The Corthul, flagship and supreme dreadnought of the whole Creyanai, the Tuluhrai navy, was in sight with two fleets flanking both her sides. It was their largest, most potent war-bringer—a jeweled hammer built to ensure the Empire’s dominance. Armored in the toughest alloy in their creation, with a cannonade dwarfing that of any other dreadnought in history, the Corthul had