The F-Rank Tamer's Mythic Beast

5

Iron bells tolled three heavy strokes from the high watchtowers of St. Jude's Terrace, signaling an emergency disciplinary tribunal under civic authority.

The sand arena was built like an amphitheater, flanked by tiers of carved limestone where hundreds of wealthy merchants, academy instructors, and city guards gathered under black heraldic banners. Down on the bloodstained floor, thirty paces from the iron drainage grates, Cassian stood under the afternoon heat with the black pup resting alert against his chest.

Above in the tribunal gallery, Magistrate Marcus Sterling leaned forward across a marble parapet, flanked by Clara Sterling and the city council elders.

"Cassian Creed," the magistrate called out, his voice amplified by an acoustic horn mounted to the stone wall. "You stand accused of using illicit demonic catalysts to sabotage a public testing monument, violently assaulting an authorized warehouse overseer, and extorting an ancestral treasure from the Vance family estate. How do you answer the tribunal?"

Cassian looked up at the high box, his expression calm and unyielding. "Julian offered the wager on the pavilion floor in front of forty witnesses. His beast lacked the spine to stand on the stone plate, so I collected the stake. Your enforcer drew steel on me first behind the North Wharf granary, and I left him where he fell."

A cold laugh drifted down from the opposite side of the sand.

Silas Vance, patriarch of the Vance merchant house, stepped through the iron portcullis into the arena basin. He wore an armored surcoat of boiled leather set with silver plates, a heavy bastard sword strapped across his shoulder, and beside him walked five clan enforcers in matching blue tunics.

"You speak bold words for an unregistered street rat, boy," Silas said, stopping twenty paces away on the packed dirt. "You think winning a tavern bet gives you the right to steal property from my bloodline? My son was generous enough to spare your life this morning, and you repaid his courtesy with black sorcery."

Julian Vance stepped into view behind his father, his arm bandaged where his pride had fractured, his face twisted into a sneer of pure vindictiveness.

"Search his coat, Father," Julian shouted from the safety of the perimeter fence. "He keeps the Fire Vein Core in his inner pocket. Take the core, string him by his heels from the gate, and drown that cursed mongrel in the harbor."

Cassian felt the pup stir inside his coat, its small golden claws gripping his wool lapel as a low, resonant warmth spread through his ribs. "The core belongs to me under civic salvage code, Silas. If the Vance house cannot stomach losing a bet, you should stop letting your son gamble in public."

Magistrate Sterling banged an iron gavel against the balustrade. "Silence! The council has reviewed the incident at the Azure Cloud Pavilion. No registered Grade F reservoir can c***k a basalt testing column without illegal alchemical stimulants. You are declared in breach of civic peace."

Silas drew his heavy broadsword, its steel edge singing in the dry air. "The council has spoken, Creed. Drop to your knees, place the Fire Vein Core on the sand, and let my guards bind your arms. Do that now, and Magistrate Sterling might grant you a clean hanging instead of ten years in the sulfur pits."

"And if I refuse to kneel to thieves?" Cassian asked.

Silas smiled with cold, ruthless amusement. "Then you die on the sand, and the sweepers feed your corpse to the pit hounds."

Silas raised his left wrist, where a heavy gauntlet made of spun gold gleamed in the sun. He tapped the central topaz stone with two fingers, unleashing his spiritual reservoir in a surging wave that kicked up loose sand around his leather boots.

A piercing shriek tore through the open sky above the arena.

Dropping from the clouds like a falling spear, a massive raptor with feathers the color of polished bronze swept across the stone terrace, beating wings that measured twenty feet from tip to tip. The Gold tier Gale Falcon circled twice, stirring up a whirlwind of sand and grit that forced the spectators in the lower rows to shield their faces with their cloaks.

"A Gold rank raptor," someone shouted from the viewing stands. "Patriarch Silas summoned his personal guardian beast!"

Clara Sterling clapped her hands from the high gallery, her voice ringing down through the dust. "Rip him to shreds, Uncle Silas! Let the gutters know what happens to peasants who challenge our bloodlines!"

The Gale Falcon folded its wings and plunged toward the arena sand, perching on a massive stone pillar fifteen feet above the ground. Its sharp amber eyes locked onto Cassian, while razored wind blades began to whistle around the curved edges of its talons.

"I will give you three breaths to surrender the beast and the stone," Silas commanded, his blade pointing straight at Cassian's throat. "Kneel, boy."

Cassian did not look at the sword, nor did he look at the screaming noble spectators in the stands. He looked down into the coat at the small black pup, whose golden eyes were fixed on the sky with an ancient, terrifying focus.

"Can you break the western gate?" Cassian whispered through their mental tether.

A sharp, confident pulse traveled back into his mind, accompanied by the quiet sound of the pup baring its gleaming white teeth.

"Time is up," Silas snarled, dropping his sword hand in a swift downward arc. "Zephyr, take his limbs!"

The Gale Falcon shrieked with hunting fury, kicking off the stone pillar with enough explosive force to c***k the masonry. It dove straight toward Cassian's chest, releasing a storm of crescent shaped air blades that tore deep trenches through the packed arena dirt.

"Now," Cassian said.

He did not duck. He reached into his coat and launched the black pup into the air above his head.

The small canine did not tumble. In midair, its front paws found purchase on the invisible currents of space itself, and the golden sigil on its forehead flared with the blinding intensity of a newborn star.

Boom!

A sound like thunder reverberated through the stone foundations of the grand stadium.

The gale winds generated by the soaring falcon did not hit Cassian; they violently reversed direction, collapsing back toward the center of the ring under an impossible downward gravitational force. The entire western half of the arena floor dropped six inches, stone pavers fracturing into dust as the sky darkened to a murky twilight.

The Gale Falcon let out a frantic, choked cry.

Before its razored talons could graze Cassian's shoulder, the invisible pressure slammed into the bird's hollow bones like a mountain of iron. The magnificent predator was swatted straight out of the sky, its wide wings snapping inward with sharp cracks as it crashed beak first into the arena sand.

The bird writhed on the dirt, pinned flat to the earth, unable to lift its crested head while its golden feathers tore away in the sudden vacuum.

Silas Vance staggered backward, his boots sliding through the sand as the breath left his lungs in one violent gasp. "What is this? Zephyr, take flight! Tear that beast apart!"

The Gale Falcon could only produce a pathetic, gurgling rattle from its throat.

"The beast is a monster!" Julian screamed from the gallery railing, clutching the stones with trembling fingers. "Archers, kill the boy! Kill him before he reaches the gates!"

Dozens of garrison guards along the parapets drew heavy recurve bows, notching iron tipped arrows aimed at the arena floor.

"Not today," Cassian said.

The black pup landed lightly on Cassian's shoulder, bared its fangs toward the western reinforcement gate, and let out a short, concussive bark.

A focused beam of golden kinetic energy tore out from the creature's jaw, shooting across the sand like a lance of sunlight.

Crash!

The six inch thick timber gate reinforced with banded iron plates detonated outward into the thoroughfare behind the arena. Splintered wood and twisted metal rained across the empty alleyway, opening an unobstructed path straight toward the outer aqueducts and the western wilderness beyond the city walls.

The spectators in the stands screamed in panic, running for the upper vomitories as dust and smoke filled the basin.

"Seize him!" Magistrate Sterling roared, slamming his fists on the balcony. "Do not let that boy clear the perimeter! Bring me his head!"

Silas lunged forward with his bastard sword, channeling his remaining soul energy into a frantic horizontal strike aimed at Cassian's neck.

Cassian sidestepped the blade with ease, caught Silas by the silver collar of his surcoat, and drove his knee directly into the patriarch's armored midsection.

The silver breastplate caved with a hollow crunch. Silas dropped to his knees in the dirt, gasping for air as blood bubbled at the corners of his lips, his sword clattering uselessly against the sand.

"You wanted my wrists broken, Silas," Cassian said, standing over the fallen elder. "Keep the memory of this day fresh, because when I return to Calder Square, your family will answer for every debt."

Cassian turned on his heel, scooped the pup into his arm, and sprinted through the shattered western gate into the narrow maze of the aqueduct quarter.

Behind him, chaos consumed the Grand Arena.

Guards ran through the smoke, shouting conflicting orders while attendants dragged the broken body of the Gale Falcon out of the sand. Julian Vance stood paralyzed against the stone rail, his face pale as chalk, watching the empty, splintered archway where a condemned cull had just made history.

Nobody had ever escaped a disciplinary execution on St. Jude's Terrace. In two hundred years of civic rule, every condemned soul had died on the sands.

Twenty minutes later, inside the magistrate's private receiving hall, Marcus Sterling stood over a long table covered in maps, his face dark with suppressed rage. Beside him, Silas Vance sat slumped in a high backed chair, holding a linen cloth to his bruised ribs while Clara paced the floor in furious tears.

"He breached the outer wall through the canal culverts," Captain Varner of the city garrison reported, standing at rigid attention. "The trail goes cold near the Blackthorn marshlands. He took three days worth of provisions from the canal watchtower before we could seal the locks."

"A boy from the grease pits," Clara spat, throwing a goblet against the hearth. "He humiliated our families twice in one day, and you let him stroll through the front gates like a visitor!"

"Silence, Clara," Magistrate Sterling snapped, turning toward the clerk at the records desk. "The civic council cannot admit that an F rank reject dismantled a Gold tier beast in broad daylight. If word spreads to the outer districts, every unbonded laborer in the mines will think they can defy the registry."

"Then what is the official record?" Silas wheezed, clenching his fists around his bloodstained cloth. "My beast is crippled, Marcus. The bones in its left wing will take six months of medicinal marrow to mend."

Magistrate Sterling took a long quill from the brass inkstand and pulled a fresh sheet of red bordered parchment across the cedar table.

"The narrative is simple," Magistrate Sterling said, his voice cold and deliberate. "Cassian Creed stole a forbidden bio alchemical weapon from the southern crags, corrupted an unranked hound with forbidden blood arts, and attempted an assassination against the Vance family leadership."

He brought the ink down onto the page, writing swift, venomous strokes.

"He is stripped of all civic rights, marked as an active heresy carrier, and sentenced to execution on sight," the magistrate declared. "Issue an open bounty across the eastern provinces. Ten thousand silver crowns for his head, and twenty thousand for the recovery of the mutated specimen."