The Beast Within

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

There was an extended time of heavy silence settling over the previously murmuring crowd after the guard’s announcement.

No one was willing to be the first to step forward, cautious and hesitant, it had become an underlying trait of Mages.

Ceraun was lost in thought, it had begun, the start of his journey to defeating the non-Mages.

Breaking out of his immersive thoughts, he stepped forward, unaware of the quiet stirring of muted conversation starting up at his actions.

Adrik followed immediately without a second thought, he didn’t mind or care about what was stopping the others from stepping forward, if there were others, he simply hadn’t wanted to go first.

Ceraun was always the one doing that, it seemed only as the natural order of things to wait.

Haneul was now an undisputed member of their somewhat team, walking alongside the others across the open expanse of space.

Slowly but surely a handful of other Mages stepped out as well, furious whispering sweeping through the crowd present.

They gathered together a little distance away from the shed that the officials from the Capital had holed up in.

"Think that they'll make us take a test or something?" A gruff looking Mage with a troubled expression nodded in Haneul's direction.

Although he was no longer spying for the soldiers, the other Mages had long associated him with being privy to information such as this.

Haneul shrugged. "I don't think so, what I heard is that we were simply to put down our names to enlist in the army."

"But no one has ever come back after they were taken to the war front." Another Mage piped up, they were gravitating slowly around Haneul, curious.

"And I don't think it should be so easy to get into the army." The first gruff Mage added, looking immensely sure of himself.

Ceraun snorted. "Like they care if you are fit for war or not, they just made it so that we are willingly going forward to die." He said in a dark voice, leaning against the wooden walls of the shed.

Silence fell over the other's, everyone staring unblinkingly at him.

"Yet you were the first to step out." The gruff Mage pointed out and the others mumbled their support to his words.

Ceraun shrugged, crossing his arms. "Because it makes no difference, I'm still going to die either way, might as well do some good while I'm at it, my parents are old, I'd rather they lived the rest of what little life they have left not slaving away at the mines or the sewing pit."

Haneul gaped at the tall, fair haired Mage, he had never heard Ceraun speak so sincerely before.

The weeks he spent around the Mage had impressed upon him a Mage filled with the honor and valor as the Mages of old.

He was yet to see this side, not that of an excitable lad with wild dreams but as a child who just wanted the best for his parents.

Strangely, it did not taint the gilded image he had of the other or bring him down from the pedestal he had put Ceraun up on.

It only helped to reassure him that he did the right thing choosing to go to war with and for the sake of the Mage, it was a path worth his measly life.

The booming voice of a soldier broke the spell that Ceraun's impressive words had put the other Mages under, although he had spoken at length about how all they were inevitably going to end up at death's door.

There was also no falsehood in what he had said about their lives being all about choosing your mode of death, just because it did not happen sooner in a particular choice did not make living any easier.

"Aye! Into a line with you all!!" He yelled at them. "Orderly now!" He tagged on, hoarding them.

Ceraun wound up being separated from the others, Adrik was up in front, among the very first to be called up.

Haneul had turned out to be somewhere at the middle of the line, leaving Ceraun too far back for his comfort.

He wanted to get the enlistment over with so that he could go to the river bank and train with Adrik and Haneul, just like they always did.

Because he had listened to the words he spoke to the others and truly, he was not just joining the army to chase after his flimsy dreams that were as unrealistic as they were big.

He also wanted to save his parents, if he could do that at least, he would be at peace even if he could not save his kind.

He was relieved to find out that they were not called inside the shed but each Mage interested in enlisting to the army was spoken to through a small, shoulder high window.

He could not see who they were conversing with from so far back in the line and that made his stomach twist in tight knots.

Adrik was already fourteen and he would reach the age required in a couple weeks.

He did not know about Haneul but one thing was certain than every Mage standing in the line was either already fourteen or would be before the end of the year.

While trying to distract himself from the impending enlistment, he looked around, properly taking in the other Mages.

There had only been one girl, she had kept to herself, an aged cloak thrown over her head that if it were not for her dressing he would not have been able to tell her apart.

Their numbers were not impressive to begin with, barely a dozen, just a handful of them.

This also meant that the line moved speedily along and in no time the Mage ahead of him was the one to go ahead.

There was a wide berth between himself and the person that had gone ahead, a soldier standing intimidatingly between them.

Adrik and Haneul had gone around not even making eye contact with him as they passed on their way, he had not been bothered, knowing that they would definitely wait for him, just like he would do for them.