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Marcus had finished his earlier than all his brothers. Yet, it hardly relieved the anxiety that tightened his guts though as the citadel neared.

For some hours his Triithien of seven avowed swords soured from Sunreign’s capital temple. By nightfall they would be avowed Justicators. After, it was some four hundred light years to the Belt to combat the insurgents at Akol-Atial. Worse still, they’d depart within the fortnight. He thought it a small blessing perhaps that he’d rendezvous with his brother Brutus, the Breaker. His division had been deployed a year prior, Brutus personally serving First Justicator and Captain to Ark Lord Cornelius Rex’s vanguard. He overheard the officers muttering amongst themselves in low, grave voices about the invasion, and the bombings by the Scarlet Gloves in Akol-Atial that sent sixty three colonial citizens and fourteen legionaries to an early grave. Talk of the new stirrings in the star worlds spread its fearsome vines by word and by press, and both not free of subjection from exaggeration.

Cloud Reach loomed ever near. A mountain-etched leviathan of stone and reinforced steel, the citadel was thought impenetrable. And possibly it was--the only access way was by flight, and grand barreled turrets flanked every side and the central crown Solar Ray would blast a destroyer right out of the sky.

The gondola slowed gradually and surely to the side dock, the main platform of the Reach only meters away. First Officer Alegron Aldraxxus addressed at center to his seven with nary a word—he simply fixed himself on a ceiling grapple and nodded to the clan. His seveb understood the implications. He’d be handing them over now--fourteen years his work, they were, and yet his rock sliced, expressionless faced betrayed nothing of sentimentality. They gathered silently in the hangar’s foyer.

14-May-2016 10:27:13 - Last edited on 13-Jun-2016 08:36:36 by tmac attack

tmac attack

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They were looking at Marcus, brief glances, but he felt them, all six pairs of their eyes. Handriel Kastiero, in his crimson family great cloak, gave his shoulder plate a brotherly whack on the top.
Two Regal Elites paralleled the hangar drawbridge bedecked in legionary battle helms with violet feathered fibers traversing their crown in a C shape. The gondola’s flickering white lights inside danced off their staunch glass visors, and Marcus envied their statuesque composure. Still, this was not their day, not their burden. They upheld emblematic responsibilities—he was to receive entirely new ones, harsher ones. His first real deployment, he thought, and how far he would be from Sunreign, from the planet even—months, no doubt, and if the course dire enough, several years perhaps.

A piercing falsetto of pressurized air escaping the bay door’s hollows signified the opening. From its center, the iconic sun of Sunreign in plated goldish-brass gyrated to a satisfied click and release, then a moment of quietness pursued, then the great hulking bay door drifted loudly into two halves.

The draw bridge manifested in a pirouette of white light, mimicking the erected firmness of its metal cousins. So light, it looked, as if one would fall through upon walking, and yet on they went as surely as if layers of stone supported their weight. When fourteen heavy armored steps stomped its surface, ripples of clear water light echoed in response. Alegron followed behind with the Regal Elites at his tail, huge beam rifles in hand.

The ceremonialists waited patiently in double ascending files along towering stone stairs that were chiseled and pressed with luminous dark-marble. Marcus would have relished in the comfort of familiar faces that stood above him had the immaculateness of Cloud Reach’s body not taken him first. The Reach’s heart was an enormous curved colonnade that was joined to a great stone dome topped with decorative entablatures.

14-May-2016 10:27:13 - Last edited on 22-May-2016 22:34:25 by tmac attack

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The other side was too far away to make out. Volutes lined the capital of every monstrous column with spiraled scrolls and whorls of sun flares. Marcus imagined them as strong arms of stone upholding the weight of the world upon their shoulders, and the dome felt a testament to such a burden. Viewing from the sunken courtyard, the dome’s pinnacle vanished in the sheer summit, reaching tall into the mountain clouds that shrouded it like wisps of ghost-pale apparitions.

No words were to be spoken. The Templars were to contemplate in the Silent Walk to the Attunemen* Sanctum at the Reach’s heart. The constituents of the Temple and its fighting order were the only ones permitted to be present. No family, no acquaintances. The practice had been unabridged and customary since the First Epoch, since the Reach was constructed into the face of Maker’s Spine by the Bloodied Kingdoms that once held domain over these cold lands of the Republic.

The double file arranged itself in the center of the steps. The beginning was the Augurs, Grace-bringers of the Temple. All Temples in the west had their Grace-bringers. The gentle hand of the Lord and his Sisters. But Marcus thought of those who made the exception. The lunar dwellers, the blood cult. They held to a different custom, a crueler one.

From their shoulders rested a long scapular of pearl and glittering amber against silver and white robes. A gleaming veil swayed out over their hoods in an argyle arrangement of tiny, shimmering diamonds as thin as silk. They held a tri-orb vigil: three globes of swirling cyan and cream suspended on golden chains and unified from the top by a balance scale—a war gavel of edict held the core, and something of the way the metal shone in the light made it look very heavy. As the seven grazed by, the Augurs blanketed the ground with blood flowers to embody sacrifice and loyalty. Marcus saw burning sapphire eyes burning through the veils, staring at him, into him.

14-May-2016 10:27:13 - Last edited on 13-Jun-2016 08:50:37 by tmac attack

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Officers of the Justicators came next. Captains, Firsts, Sentinels. Every face was the same—rigid statues, hardened men stamped and weathered by experience. The tales of their service in the early wars were unfounded amongst the younger ranks in the Temple. Marcus knew them to be true—he could see it in the coldness of their eyes. Their armor shared a similar design scheme—all pearl white and gold and embellished in shining oak-leaf scrollwork and vines, and with such a weighty appearance that the men seemed twice as large, as if they inhabited a resplendently decorated robot. Their fastenings were gilded, and sometimes accompanied by polished crimson or silver—a matter dependent on their ranks. Their colossal pauldrons and cloaks differed in the same manner—some pauldrons were adorned in rubies, others in sapphires or blood crystals or suave amethysts that twinkled from oval alcoves. Heavy cloaks with an assortment of colored trimmings draped their backs, falling low and heavy to the ground, and their rondels were designed in a golden Sunreignian sunburst. All officers’ battle helmets were cupped in their arms and rested against their waists, while their gauntlets sat on the hilts of sun-forged broadswords.

Marcus saw his father crown the file, standing like a giant on the final staircase. The glory of his armor simply put the others to shame. His shoulder plate bore metal sun flares that swirled from a fire ball, a bouquet of bronze tinted tentacles alive with light lashing out against the world. It towered over Father’s head and its glow formed shadows in the concaves of his eye sockets and against his large nasal bridge that ran down a leathered face. Any subordinate to his rank would have immediately declared that his appearance held all the command of a leader worthy to follow. Yet Marcus was his son, and he could decipher the scarcest amount of sorrow in his eyes.

14-May-2016 10:27:14 - Last edited on 18-May-2016 22:25:26 by tmac attack

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A great cloak of gold was flung gracefully over his breastplate with rows of cyan metal chains that traveled from his sunburst brooch to the cape’s backend. The cloak fell so long that it plunged to the ground in a heap of sparkling, unkempt folds. Marcus eyed Father’s ornamental chain. A majority of his pieces were traditionally worn by Ark Lords throughout the ages—all except the blue chain: that was strictly the Solaras family blue, and Victor wore it like it was an extension of his will.

No one was to speak, and no one did. The Silent Walk upheld the traditional custom of contemplation for the serving Templars in any instance that new and graver duties were bestowed upon them. Not until they had finished the day’s second prayer that any discourse would be held.

Through huge creaking metal doors they entered the Reach’s sanctum. Fourteen years had come and gone since they had first stepped foot in this ancient hold when they were but boys, eager and young and naive. Still, at twenty eight Marcus could not help but feel even the faintest hint of discomfort staring down the endless black halls, the high steel censers flickering orange and amber through the darkness. He had never walked down those halls, where the windows vanished and there was nothing but old stone hemming closer and closer, suffocating. The last time he had inquired his Tome Master Gyrridrox about what lied in the deepest enclaves of the Reach, in the heart of the mountain, he bowed his head and told Marcus, “for another time, perhaps.”

The second prayer and contemplation had run its course for two hours. Marcus enjoyed some privacy in an old stone solar with oak wood finishes and a tri-orb altar. Most of the time he spent glancing up from his scripture through the stain glass, and the morning’s light that shone through fragmented into kaleidoscopic rays. He had finished his scripture reading far before the two hours, all thirteen chapters designated to him, as he always had.

14-May-2016 10:27:14 - Last edited on 21-May-2016 20:50:17 by tmac attack

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The words were almost second nature. It should have brought him solace, and yet he shut the heavy tome indolently with a sigh. Scripture did not make the idea of departing the planet, his home city and his family, to fight an insurgency he knew little about any more tolerable. But the sun did, the warmth of it. So warm, he thought. He shut his tiresome eyes and let his skin soak up the heat that leaked through stain glass. It was cold in the Reach, very cold. It could have been but five minutes he sat there in meditation, or five hours. He couldn’t determine which—the warmth was sleep-inducing almost, and he wished to stay longer when a hard rap sounded from his door.

“It’s time,” the voice of his First Officer informed.

The great halls had a masonry about them that felt comfortably archaic. Huge steel and marble rib vaults supported a pyramidal ceiling above. Sunlight danced through towering, polychrome stained glass panels to the front face portion of the halls, and little floating dust flakes twinkled in its illumination like glowing insects. The place even smelt old. The walk down into the Sanctum was marked with an increasing unease that churned in Marcus’s bowels. Somehow, he began to sweat through the mountain temperatures of the Reach.

Inside, his brothers had already gathered. Seven hexagonal platforms were arranged in a V. Six were occupied by kneeling Templars balancing their swords upright by the blade’s tip. The seventh, the one that capped the arrangement, awaited Marcus. Fronting this platform just before the stairs where Victor and his command stood by the High Praepos was a lifted dais with a sunburst insignia of carved in blooming stone. They had waited for the sun to reach its zenith over the Reach—the light poured in a glorious wash of gold from a slit in the dome, a perfectly round cylinder of radiance.

14-May-2016 10:27:14 - Last edited on 21-May-2016 20:51:13 by tmac attack

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Marcus approached his platform as gently as his armor warranted, but he could not help that the heavy cladder of his plating was inevitable. He unsheathed his blade with the finest ring of sun-forged steel reverberating through the great halls, and he knelt and hung his head with the blade held against the ground in one hand. The Augurs circled the sanctum, still and proper and holding their tri-orb vigils, with two hands grasping the Brother of Edict’s hammer.

First Officer Alegron Aldraxxus took the front. When the High Praepos nodded to him, with his wrinkled hands clasped together as if he were to bow, Aldraxxus turned to the thirteen and said aloud in a deep, commanding voice:

“By the grace of the Sisters, and the Edict of our Brother Ignithias, and all of their vestas, declared in full witness in the light of the Sun Paragon, I, Alegron of the Aldraxxus, relinquish to these seven as readied harbingers of decree, and declare them attuned to cast judgment on the unrighteous.”

Father nodded and said loudly so that his words carried through the sanctum, “You came here as children, friable and fragile. Soft and frightened. And right you were to be. This Reach looks down upon weakness, and fear. This Reach echoes back into the First Epoch of Man, into the Bloodied Kingdoms, and the men who etched this fortress into the Spine of the World were harder than any the likes of you. Yet here you kneel, readied to take your vows, readied for the trials and burdens that will certainly fall at your feet. And you will pick them up, and you will resolve them,” he looked to the high walls around him, soaking them in, “for these old wall have weathered you to stone. They have given you foundation, and you will repay that debt. To man, to his holds, to the paragon and her beloved progenitors. With your blood, your pain. Your life .”

14-May-2016 10:27:15 - Last edited on 31-May-2016 08:32:36 by tmac attack

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Marcus kept his eyes to the ground, but the image of his father’s uncompromising facade was right before him. A hundred times he’d been a witness.

“In this Triithien alone, there are five admirable families of the Old Blood. Respectable families, strong and grounded families from across the Republic. But that strength holds no bearing in the Order. Here, you are one blood, one family. Look to your left, your right: those are your comrades, and you will die for them and they for you.”

Said boldly the man with the cyan chain across his cloak.

“The Old Blood runs in our veins. Few men of this world can make such a statement. We are the pillars of man, and the sanctity of his realms rests upon our heavy shoulders. You are to live with this veracity as your armor, your shield. It is your creed, from now until death washes over."

“Marcus Penothus Solaras, come forth to the sun dias in the Paragon’s witness.”

Marcus tried his best to conceal trepidation. It left his face and turned to a swallow. He approached the sun dias proudly and brazenly, or at least as the surrounding watchers could observe, and knelt. The sun poured itself onto his gleaming armor, lighting it a thousandfold of pearl and gold. It felt like a soothing warm bath.

The temple ward Joren Xeros held up an embellished sheath with both hands ceremonially. Dawn’s Decree , Father called it. It was his fifth child. The steel rang heavily and proudly as he removed it was a swift motion. He rested the great sword upon his son’s paul*ron and said the words, “I anoint you as First Justicator of this triithien, to serve faithfully and righteously the Realm of Sunreign, and the Paragon, and the Sisters of the Holy Tryo, and Our Brother of Edict—to impose his laws and serve his justice.”

14-May-2016 10:27:15 - Last edited on 01-Jun-2016 23:45:46 by tmac attack

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The High Praepos descended the staircase with soft, fragile steps. Father and First Officer Aldraxxus were on the verge of taking him in their arms to assist, but he wavered them off with wrinkled, gentle hands.

An enormous manta wrapped his body and waved heavily as he moved, making him look like some royal ghost. The triregnum crown on his head had three levels that shimmered rainbow as the light moved about it.

Marcus knew him as the second oldest man in the Republic. One hundred and eighty years was generous. In truth, though, he reckoned his Tome Master held the prize for the greatest age—Father whispered once that Gyrridrox was alive and well at the first Reformation two centuries ago.

Father bowed to his Grace. He waved his massive golden crosier, taller than he it was, with a crowned sunburst on its head swaying with florescent twirls, and moved his fingers to his forehead, then his lips, then his heart and said in succession, “ des Soras, des Pates, eor Sola .”
He continued the old Senexian tongue of the Temple and blessed Marcus with the phrase, “shield this Harbinger and bestow your strength as he carries out your Will,” and he placed a wet kiss upon Marcus’s forehead—the elderly man smelt of lavender soaps and mint.

The Triithien shared wine in sacrament and feasted on spiced trout and red salmon after the coronation. Hot flax bread rolls with sliced peppered tomatoes and black olives on finely cut slabs of aged orange cheese were passed between warm conversations of family, and the Estates, and hunting stories. The officers dined in the greater hall’s upper chamber. Marcus suspected the nature of their treatises were entirely polarized from his comrade’s discussions.

14-May-2016 10:27:15 - Last edited on 01-Jun-2016 23:46:58 by tmac attack

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“Mind you, we were on Interim Repose, about a month recess before service continued. Uncle Johann took us far into the redwoods, the birches, seeking the great stags. Wasn't long until we spotted him. Chandelier antlers, at least fifty points. Fierce thing,” Handriel Kastiërö continued his tale whilst brothers drank from their goblets and stroked at their beards as they listened attentively, “eight, nine leagues it must have been when we saw him from the ridge, just standing there chewing grass through the snow, big black eyes and all. Calmest beauty I’d ever graced upon.”

“Fifty points, you said?” Braxton Rex muttered through a mouth full of flax bread.

“Aye.”

“Gods, Cornelius hit his almost a mile off. Up in Alliscoombe. But it was forty five points when we found it.”

“Cornelius has hawk eyes. Aeran had to cover a hundred yards . That was it. We lied prone in the ridge. Mid-winter. Granted, this wasn’t a Kulli cold, I’ll give you that Aldraxxus, but it was cold for the Iydes. Light blanket of snow, and all. Now, Aeran had been storming up a fit about the cold. His nose looked like a damn cherry. Sniffling, wiping snot on the occasion when it dripped. I told him, I did, are you good for the shot, cousin? I told him a hundred times, you miss once and that stag will bolt. I’m fine , he says, I’m fine . Puts his eye to the sighter—”

“Gods, what did that fool do?” Braxton sneered. The Rex boy had hunted more than anyone present, likely.

Handriel looked about his brothers a moment, letting them take it in. He sipped from his goblet and somberly said, “brothers, bless the fool’s heart, Aery sneezed.”

Three of them slammed their gauntlets to the table. They were truly irked. Braxton did a kind of exhausted breath and rubbed his temples. Even Horotus Aldraxxus, the Silent Giant, let out a disagreeable chortle through his great beard.

14-May-2016 10:39:21 - Last edited on 18-Jul-2016 10:59:09 by tmac attack

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