ICHaFBI 12

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=I, Corvus; How a Fool became Imperator of the O'Reillys - Chapter XII -=
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----<Character & Faction Directory of I, Corvus>----
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===What a name is===
Ashbourne
Algenib, Samnium District
Marian Hegemony
25th September, 3032
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The Algenibi naming conventions had seemed ludicrous to Sean, yet in almost every case, they had proven to be literal descriptions. The planetary capital, Ashbourne, was no different. Algenib II was a scorching world during the day and a freezing one during the night. Seven different tribes controlled the major sources of water on the planet, but only one controlled the forests. Maximus Phallus and the Burning Chrome ruled the planet as the ultimate brokers of life and death as everyone, except for those desperate enough to live at the most marginal northern latitudes, relied on their charcoal to survive the long nights of winter.
 
Ashbourne was their capital and it lived up to the name. When the rains came, the rivers ran black with the remains of the charcoal burner’s work. They were lucky enough to have arrived in the wet season, and even still everything and everyone seemed to have a coating of black grime.
 
It would have been a poor excuse for a city anywhere else in the Hegemony, but here, it was by far the most developed. Sure, there were large temporary encampments around the city, but these were almost exclusively visiting dignitaries and their entourages. The city itself housed a quarter of a million people, all in permanent housing. Most was made of adobe, but the core of the city was built around Star League era foundations. It had never been an important town then, but today it was the only survivor of three centuries of barbarism.
 
The city had no wall, but the streets between the adobe houses were narrow enough to block any vehicle. The press of people combined with the soot in the air made it hard for him to breathe. He struggled to keep up.
 
Gnasher grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him through the crowd. People made way for him, a twisted, mute, monster of a man. But not for their own rightful Imperator. Sean tried to hide his sense of humiliation. Evidently, he didn’t succeed.
 
When they’d caught up, Wrench laughed when she saw his face. “C’mon, cheer up Lil’ Gator. There’s something up ahead I think you’ll really like.” He stopped trying to hide his scowl. They’d been calling him ‘Gator’ ever since their battle with the Dune Rats. He kind of liked it at first, but Wrench had added ‘Little’ to it, and now both parts had stuck. She and Gnasher bounded off down the alley.
 
Metellus held him back. “You need to change your attitude, now.”
 
Sean continued to pout.
 
“Do you know what a name is here? It’s power. You might not like your name, but as a slave, you have no name, you are no one. Do you understand? Fuck, you’re dense. Look, a name is the first towards freedom. You have a name, it means you earned your way out of slavery. So suck it up, and accept it. Fuckn’ own it kid, that name is your ticket out of here. They’re doing you a favour, it takes more than opening a cooler and throwing it to earn a name for most people. Got it?”
 
Sean nodded. They continued through the alley and into a square of sorts. From here, the city opened up. Beyond the buildings were bigger, the streets three times as wide, and in the distance he could see the original Star League towers. Gnasher had joined a circle of men and women surrounding a stage on which two women fought with knives.
 
He watched for a while as the women circled, clashed, and bled. Wrench returned with a handful of sausages wrapped in leaves. “Here.” She said, and Gnasher grabbed one. She held it out to Sean. “Trust me, you’ll love it.”
 
He grabbed one and began to eat. It was a dry sausage, made with a meat he hoped he didn’t recognize. It was bitter, but salty and flavourful in a way he couldn’t describe.
 
“Whoa! You really are a little gator there kid. Here, you have to have some of the cornbread too. The burners cook it when they’re out in the forests, in the ashes of their fires. I’ve tried making it at home, but it’s never the same as you get in Ashbourne.”
 
He wolfed down the ashy cornbread too, then pointed to the women. “What are they fighting about?”
 
“Does it matter? It’s all for your entertainment! Just like in the arena on the capital, right?”
 
“Uh, yeah, sure, just like that.”
 
“This is how they keep the whole city from burning itself down. Two people have a problem, they wait until it’s gladiator time, and come here. Gives ‘em time to cool down. They have a big enough problem they both show, they fight, and give us all a show. Those two dipshits? Probably fighting over something stupid. One stepped on the other’s shoes, made fun of their ride, or most like, fighting over a man.”
 
Gnasher tugged on her shirt, then crossed his arms and then made a stabbing motion.
 
“Oh yeah, right. Gnasher’s right, when they’ve got knives, it’s more than that. This is a grudge match. Looooong term shit, where you want the other person to die. Half the time, they both end up dead, so usually pretty serious shit. There’s battles for position too, those are the best! They start with nothing, and the crowd gets to throw stuff in to help the person they want to follow, or throw rocks and shit at the one they don’t. Good times.”
 
It didn’t long for one of the women to collapse on the ground. The other gave a warcry and held her knife high, but she was wavering.
 
“Moron. She’s gonna bleed out too.” Metellus said from behind them. “We go now, Maximus Phallus knows we’re here by now. We waste his time getting there, he’s gonna put us up there against his champions.”
 
They continued down the streets to the old part of town. Maximus held court in the old city hall, where his chosen warriors sat in a forum-like semi-circle around Maximus’ throne, which sat where a podium might have once stood. Metellus grabbed Sean’s shoulder and dug his fingers into it, then leaned down to whisper in his ear. “Say nothing. Do nothing. No matter what. If addressed, answer honestly. Nothing. Else. No. Matter. What. Understand?” Sean nodded, if a little confused. Metellus strode up to the throne, while Sean and the others were ushered around to watch from the upper ring.
 
Maximus was an enormous hulk of a man. Sean thought he must have been twisted by the same sort of mutagens that had mangled Gnasher, as there was no way a man could naturally grow that tall and that muscular on natural human biology.
 
But what drew his attention was the smaller thrones at either side of Maximus. To the left was what he’d come to expect from a wasteland chieftess, but to the left, his sister, Livia.
 
Her hair was done up with mohawks made of feathers, she wore revealing clothes accented with twisted pieces of metal and enormous shoulder pads, and blue and green face and body made to give her the look of a horrific bird of prey. But through it all Sean could clearly see his sister.
 
A herald blew an off-key trumpet and shouted, “Metellus Metalicus, Quarterman of the Flaming Circus, representing Nightmarus Mons.”
 
“Approach.” Rumbled the man-mountain on his throne.
 
Metellus walked forward alone, and prostrated himself before Maximus.
 
“Rise, Metellus! You are here as friends. There are none the Burning Chrome think more fondly off than the Flaming Circus! I bestow upon you, in the name of the Imperator, this diadem, recognizing you as one of the ten great tribes. With this, you bind your tribe to mine, and to all the ten…”
 
Maximus bellowed on with unexpected ceremony. Sean found himself bored quickly. Of all the things he missed about life in the palace, ritual and speeches and were not among them. He stared instead at his sister and wondered how she’d managed to find her way so quickly into the halls of power.
 
She remained focused on Metellus and Maximus. She’d taken far better to courtly life. But even her attention wavered and she glanced around the room. Her eyes locked on Sean and went wide. He stared back and gave the smallest smile he could manage.
 
She snapped her attention back to the ritual gift-giving, and did not turn away until Sean and the Flaming Circus were long gone from the court.
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===Sacrifices done in name of family.===
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“She saw me! She fucking saw me, and she knew! She knew and did nothing!” Sean screamed at Metellus the moment they left the throne room. “And you! You fucking knew too! How long did you know she was there you, motherfucker?”
 
Gnasher grabbed him and covered his mouth with a calloused hand.
 
“Stop now, or Gnasher will break your neck. Nod if you understand. Gnasher, let him nod.”
 
Sean nodded.
 
“Not one fucking word until we’re back in the Dokkaebi.”
 
They moved quickly through the crowded streets. Metellus slammed Sean into the infantry bay. Gnasher climbed in with him. “Keep him here. If he leaves, kill him, you got that?” Gnasher nodded, closed the bay doors, drew his pistol and then sat on the cooler grinning at Sean.
 
They waited for hours. Finally, Metellus knocked on the doors and ushered Sean into the driver’s cabin. Burning Chrome warriors came and filled the bay with parcels. He could see two trucks parked behind them, one filled with warriors and the other young slaves. Gnasher jumped into the one with the slaves.
 
Wrench shoved Sean into the seat next to Metellus and stood behind them as the convoy began to move. When they were well away, Metellus spoke.
 
“I didn’t know she was there. I’d heard rumours she was in the court. We were going to look for her afterwards, and I didn’t want to get your hopes up because you would have given yourself away. I had no idea she was the fucking consort of the goddamn Warlord of the entire planet. You satisfied?”
 
“No.”
 
“Well you’d better find a way to fucking live without then. Don’t be mad at your sister either. She probably saved your life and hers, and she definitely saved the rest of our lives.”
 
“We have to get her out!”
 
“She’s safer than you are. She’s the ultimate status symbol right now. But you? You’re the eldest, you’re the heir, and you’re a little bitch who hasn’t learned his lesson yet. The tribes would fight over you and then the winner would probably kill you. And if Maximus got you, he wouldn’t need the secondborn, so she’d end up married off to a brute worse than him.”
 
Sean sat, sulking.
 
“It gets worse though. They know you’re here. On planet, anyways. It’s even worse than that too. Word is your uncle is coming back personally for the both of you, if you can believe the tech cult that runs the HPG and the terraforming stations. That’s a seven, eight week trip. Everyone is looking for you so be really glad no one has a copy of your picture here. But there’s lots of slaves and exiles here from civilized worlds like me who do know what you look like.”
 
Sean’s eyes widened. “Fuuuuck, no. He’s gonna kill us, I knew it. He thought we’d die, but we didn’t and now he’s coming to finish the job!”
 
Metellus nodded.
 
“So what do we do?”
 
Wrench cut in. “We move up the timetable.”
 
“On what?”
 
“Our man Metellus here, he’s been building himself an army within an army. He’s more than just our Quarterman. He runs the day to day on the whole tribe. And I bet that prick Nightmarus Mons finally figured it out too. Those Dune Rats? Bet you my week’s water ration Mons tipped ‘em off we were coming.”
 
“So what? How does that help Livia?”
 
“I won’t have a chance to go back to the capital for a long time. But if I run the show, I get to call all the shots. I’ll need to go back to Ashbourne to swear fealty to Maximus, and when I do, I can bring the whole Flaming Circus down on him. It’s a dumb move though, so we’ve got six weeks tops to come up with something better.”
 
“So what do we have to do to put you in charge?”
 
Wrench laughed. “You and me, we do nothing. Metellus here, he’s got to challenge him and finish him off, just like you saw in the ring.”
 
“Not true, you get to throw shit in the ring. I need you to make sure I get all the good shit and Mons gets fucked. But it’s not him I’m worried about, I need a plan for Maximus, and I need it soon. Don’t tell me a fucking challenge either, because that man could take a PPC to the chest and still keep coming. We’ve got a long ass drive, so get thinking.”
 
Wrench climbed up the gun platform and Sean climbed back down to the infantry bay. He balled up a blanket for a pillow and lay for a while, staring up at the ceiling, processing everything he’d seen.
 
A wave of anxiety came over him. He thought back to the sight of his father, begging for mercy as he was murdered. Tears started to roll down his cheeks. He tried to stop them, but more came. All the awful things that those monsters might do to Livia, that Maximus might already be doing to her, filled his brain. He tried to fight them back too, but failed again. He started to heave as he cried. He couldn’t let her die like he let dad die. He cried himself to sleep
 
The next thing he knew, the bay was dark. Wrench was in the driver’s seat meaning Metellus must be in the turret. He climbed the ladder in search of him.
 
“Metellus...”
 
Metellus turned towards him and Sean felt a wave of shame, even in the low light of dusk, the trails of tears through his grimey face must have been impossible to miss. Metellus just nodded at him.
 
“I don’t know how we’ll get Livia back. But, if we do, my uncle is going to hunt us and his dropships are going to be faster than anything we have.”
“I like solutions, not problems. What do we do about it?”
 
“When my father reigned, he killed the Grand Mistress of the Lothian League in a dropship accident. He did it with a crash, but what if we sneak on board and set his engines to blow, or hell, just bomb it? We grab Livia, drive away, and when the Dropship lifts off after us, we take it out! Stuff like that happens all the time! Then I’m Imperator, and we march ourselves to the HPG and call a new ride back to Alphard.”
 
Metellus motioned for Sean to climb down, and he did. Metellus slid down behind him and stuck his head in the driver’s cabin. “Hey Wrench! Think you can destroy a dropship from the inside?”
 
“Gimme enough explosives, and I can blow up the planet.”
 
Metellus turned back around. “Yeah, I dig your plan, Lil’ Gator. Getting Wrench inside is gonna be a thing, but I think a woman like her, she can manage all right. Keep thinking, that’s one problem down. Keep swatting ‘em and we’ll put you on that throne.”
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===Clash of the Warriors===
Flaming Circus Camp, Algenib
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The camp was still by the time they rolled in. The wild revelers that filled a typical night in the Flaming Circus encampment were oddly silent tonight, but they were still awake. They watched as the Dokkaebi and her convoy rolled past. Some stood in open mouthed amazement, some cheered, and a few even scowled at them.
 
Even Sean could tell what it meant: Metellus’ fears were true. They hadn’t been expected to make it back. He did his best to commit every face that scowled to memory. His father had taught him to mark his enemies well. He was sure Metellus would clean house once the tribe was his and more accurate the purge, the safer they would both be.
 
They stopped twice. Wrench ducked into tents and returned with bundles. They continued on to the mustering ground in the center of the camp, a huge open space with a single bonfire in the middle that was never allowed to go out. The Dokkaebi stopped and Metellus stood with his back to the fire. A crowd had followed them which fanned out in a semi circle around the fire.
 
“Brothers and sisters! I, Metellus Metalicus, Quarterman, declare victory! The Dune Rats opposed me, and I have conquered!” Metelus bellowed at the crowd.
 
Wrench had climbed down into the open infantry bay next to him. He turned towards her. “It’s like a mini-triumph. Does everyone get to do it?”
 
“Yeah, but you’re only supposed to do it for conquests worthy of who you are. You could beat up another kid and yell about that. A Quarterman? Declaring your victory for another with less than twenty cars it is kinda, douchey. Normally, yeah, they’d call him a dipshit for a victory like this. But Mons would’ve needed to tell like, ten, twenty people to make the hit happen. Word spreads fast in the camp. Why do you think we’re so tight lipped about you? Half the camp knows about the hit by now, and the other half, well, if they ain’t worthy of knowing, then who gives a shit what they think. This is a statement. Metellus beat Mons. Now shut up, you’ll like the next bit best. Follow me.” She climbed up to the turret, and he followed.
 
“Six warriors and one slave left this camp. Three fell in battle. Vipra, Thunder, Lightning. Honour their names!”
 
The assembled crowd roared back. “Honour!”
 
“To the flames, their names return!” Wrench handed him the bundles and he tossed them one by one into the fire. With each one, he shouted the name of it’s owner, and the crowd echoed him.
 
“A slave left this camp. He returns a warrior.” He turned to Sean. “Kneel!” Metellus shouted at him. Wrench put pressure on his shoulder, and he knelt. Someone handed something long and orange to Metellus. Sean’s eyes went wise as he realized it was a brand.
 
Metellus didn’t give him time to think. He shoved the brand onto his right breast, as Wrench held him in place. He screamed at first, but then the rush of dopamine hit his system. The pain disappeared in a wave of dizziness and euphoria.
 
Metellus pulled the brand away. “Rise, Little Gator, and claim your name.”
 
“Say it, loud.” Wrench whispered to him as she helped him up.
 
He didn’t need the help, intoxicated as he was on his own brain chemistry. He screamed it louder than he thought possible.
 
The crowd roared back. Sean looked over them. Hundreds, maybe thousands of faces, screaming his name, cheering his victory. Was this what the gladiators felt in the arena? Was this how his father felt riding through Alphard on his first triumph?
 
Sean screamed with them, first a primal scream, and then his name, over and over. Silly as it was, it was his, he’d won it, as he would win his throne.
 
People began to pass him pills and alcohol. The other young warriors crowded around to trade stories of how they earned their names. The young women seemed especially interested. Apparently, he’d handled the ceremony better than most.
 
Hours of dancing, drinking, and enjoying the company of interested parties later, Sean crashed hard. Gnasher wrapped him in a blanket in the back of the Dokkaebi, then they drove back to Metellus’ tent. It was overflowing with notables, ostensibly to congratulate Sean. But they stayed their until morning, discussing the future with Metellus long after the young warrior had passed out.
 
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The challenge had already been issued by the time Sean came to. He’d missed the scheming and dealing, but found it somehow refreshing. Almost the whole tribe had divided itself in a single night. It had happened behind closed doors, in a way, but as an open secret that everyone understood. By noon, the whole tribe would stand behind their chosen champion. It seemed far more civilized than the labyrinthine plots the court in Alphard carried out. No betrayal, no weak politicians maneuvering a stronger, better man who could defeat any of his lessers on their own.
 
One warrior challenges, the other accepts or concedes. They fight an honest fight, and one of them dominates. How much better it would have been, for the whole empire, if his uncle had done it that way. He could have accepted him if he’d been the better man, gone man to mane or mech to mech in honest combat.
 
At least he would see real men today.
 
Metellus was well into his preparations when Sean awoke. His lower legs were wrapped in a thick, padded armour of some sort. Above that around his legs and lower body was a metal mesh of some sort that generally stuck out half a centimeter from his body. Gnasher affixed similar pieces to his arms while an old man chanted and sprinkled him with some sort of liquid.
 
Sean sat and watched as the ceremony continued. A plate overflowing with dried fruit and ash sausages, delicacies from the capital, sat between them. Metellus nodded and Sean began to eat.
 
“Good night for you?”
 
Sean nodded between bites.
 
“Looked like it. Wrench will be here. Stick with her today. Do what she does.”
 
He nodded again and continued to eat. By the time he’d finished the plate, Metellus was almost completely clad in fur wraps and armoured mesh. Only his head was exposed, for now. Gnasher carried a helmet that evoked that of a Secutor. The two strode out of the tent and Sean followed. Metellus turned his head back and pointed to him. “Wrench.” He said.
 
Sean stopped, and waited outside of the tent. The old man brought a jug of water, and he downed as much as he could stomach. Whatever he’d swallowed last night, it had wreaked havoc on his system.
 
Eventually, Wrench arrived and waved him over. “C’mon Lil’ Gator! Let’s go catch the show.”
 
He stumbled after her and the two headed back to the mustering ground. “So, how’s this work exactly?”
 
“The two of them fight, winner takes the tribe, and if the loser lives, winner gets to say what happens to them.”
 
“So, what do we do?”
 
“We get the fun bit! We throw shit at them. We can throw them weapons, but that also tends to backfire as often as not. Rocks and shit, you can spit on ‘em if you’re close enough. That’s why they wear those suits. No fun if some rando beans your guy with a rock in the first minute. And hey check these out.”
 
Sean hadn’t noticed she’d been a long-sleeved robe. Rare among the Circus, but not unknown. She pulled back one of the flowing arms to reveal a cloth armband. She pulled it back too, revealing some sort of contraption, with a hose that spread up her arm. “This is how we beat Mons. Needle launcher. I’ve only got one in each arm and they are a bitch to reload.” She pulled out a tiny metal vial from a belt she wore under the robe. “One drop of this shit in his bloodstream, and Mons will start to lose it. It’ll look just like heat stroke, feel like it too, and Metellus will fuck him up.”
 
Sean nodded. “So, how long until they fight?”
 
“Any minute now, probably? We’d better hurry.”
 
Sean looked up at the noon-day sun. “Are you fucking serious? They’re wearing metal shit all over their skin, closed helmets, and they’re in what, thirty five degree heat, maybe forty?”
 
“Hey, you wanna lead the Flaming Circus, you gotta show you can handle a little heat. Just hope both of ‘em don’t go down to heat stroke at the same time. Happened once when I was a kid. It was a bad month after that. Now C’mon, he really needs us.”
 
They arrived and the crowd was already pressed around a makeshift arena. Just like in Ashbourne, it was a raised platform so the whole tribe could see. Wrench pulled him through the crowd, swearing and elbowing people out of the way, until they reached the edge.
 
The two fighters stood standing on opposing sides. Mons looked like an enormous slab of meat tucked into a hair net. The scars of what must have been a thousand battles criss-crossed his glistening body. He wondered how Metellus could hope to survive, even for a minute, against such a man.
 
There was no ceremony. An old woman stood between them with a hand raised. She dropped it, and the two charged at each other. A hail or debris rained into the arena and clanged off of their armour. Metellus made a diving roll to Mons’ left and came up with something in his hands. A knife? Something sharp. Mons circled and charged again. This time, Metellus met in the center, driving the knife into Mons’ ribcage. It twisted and bent the armoured mesh, but it broke near the tip in doing so. Metellus tried to disengage, but the beat grabbed him, flipped him, and slammed him onto his neck.
 
Sean had seen throws like that in the arena. Gladiators had been paralyzed by the same move from lesser men.
 
Metellus staggered to his feet and stumbled just out of Mons’ reach.
 
Sean looked expectantly at Wrench. She had her left hand over her right wrist, but kept it aimed towards her feet. Sean kicked her foot with his. She elbowed him in the gut.
 
Metellus did his best to dodge away, but twice more Mons caught him and slammed him into the ground. The second time, Mons landed on top of him, with Metellus’ arm in a lock. Somehow, Sean could hear the sickening sound of tendons as they slowly began to rip above the roar of the crowd.
 
Metellus fumbled around with his free arm. He found something heavy and made of metal, and slammed it into Mons’ head. Even with the helmet, Mons was stunned enough to loosen his grip, and Metellus broke free. He slipped behind Mons and wrapped one arm around his neck. He gripped it with his other arm and squeezed. Sean recognized a blood choke from the arenas, and properly applied, it would put a man out cold inn seconds. But Mons was too strong, or Metellus’ arm too weak from the lock to put him down. Mons twisted and flailed, and managed to grab Metellus. He slammed the smaller man onto the ground again, but was too slow to keep him there. Metellus struggled to his feet, and nearly didn’t manage it. Mons was free, but Metellus had taken his helmet with him. The helmet had been tight, and shredded the skin on the left side of his face. Blood trickled down from his scalp, making him look all the more terrifying.
 
He looked over at Wrench. Her right hand was over her left cuff now. “What happened? Why didn’t you…?” he whispered.
 
“I did, when he was choking him. It musta glanced off the mesh. Don’t worry, I’m better with my left anyways.”
 
She raised her left arm and took aim. The crowd surged around them, and someone jostled her. She fell to the ground. Sean ducked down after her.
 
“What the fuck?”
 
“I…musta pricked myself...he’s like, four times my size...I’m gonna go out soon...I’m sorry, Gator..”
 
“Fuuuuuck!” He shouted. The crowd pushed around them, and he worried they’d be trampled. He pulled her up against the edge of the arena and thought.
 
He stood up for a second, and grabbed a rock from the edge of the arena, then reached up Wrench’s robe and felt around her belt. He found the vial, snapped the cap, and poured it onto one side of the rock, then hid the vial in his belt.
 
He got up and saw Metellus was on the ground again with Mons standing over him with his arms up, giving a triumphant cry.
 
He held the rock carefully, and took aim at the side of Mons’ head where the skin had been rubbed off. So many things could go wrong. It could miss, or hit with the wrong side of the rock, or maybe not absorb enough.
 
He hurled the rock. His aim was off.
 
But not by much. The rock smashed into Mons’ eye, and hard. He stumbled backwards, clutching at his face.
 
Metellus dragged himself to his feet once more. He must have found another shiv while Sean had been on the ground, because something flashed in his hands as he ran towards Mons. With what looked like the last of his strength, he jammed it into Mons’ throat. The mountain of a man heaved and staggered around the arena, bleeding everywhere. The crowd was silent as they watched him collapse. It took far longer than anyone had wanted for Mons to stop choking on his own blood.
 
But when he did, Metellus raised his fist in triumph, and the cheers returned.
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ICHaFBI 12