The Combat Codes Read Free

working… or anything, for that matter. Otherwise, we’ll be drinking that Kirothian swill they call mead next time I see you…”
    Murray let a smile crease his face, though he could feel the tension wracking his muscles. He downed his ale.
    *
    Murray realized he’d had a few too many, even for a man of his size, as he stumbled down Markspar Row. The duskshift was at its end and the arrays that lined the cavern ceiling bathed the Underground in a dying red glow. Murray had stayed at the Bat chatting about old times with Anderson for the entire evening.
    Though he often denied it, he did miss the light. He wished he was back in fighting form as he was during his service.
    That’s the thing with us Grievar. We rot.
    He cracked his knuckles as he walked in no particular direction.
    Murray felt his body decaying like the old foundations of this crumbling Underground city. His back always hurt, nerve pain shooting up his sides whether sitting, standing, sleeping—it didn’t matter. His neck was always stiff as a board. His wrists, elbows, and ankles had been broken multiple times and seemed like they could give way at any moment. Even his face was numb, a leathery exterior that didn’t feel like his own anymore.
    He could remember a time when his body was fluid. His arms and legs had moved as if there was a slick layer of oil between every joint, seamlessly connecting takedowns into punches into submissions.
    He’d seen his fair share of trips to medwards to sew up gashes and mend broken bones, but he’d always felt smooth, hydraulic even. Now, Murray’s joints and bones scraped together with dry friction as he walked down Markspar Row.
    It was his own fault though. Murray had his chance to stay young and he’d missed it. The first generation of neurostimulants had debuted when he was at the top of his fight game. Most of his team had started popping the stims under the recommendation of then-Deputy Commander Memnon. “We need the edge over the enemy,” Memnon had urged the team of Grievar Knights.
    Coach hadn’t agreed with Memnon—the two had been at each other’s throats for those last few years. Coach believed taking stims was sacrilege, against the Combat Codes. The simplest precept of them all: No tools, no tech.
    The man would often mutter to Murray, “Live and die like we’re born—screaming, with two clenched, bloody fists.”
    It wasn’t long after the stims started circulating that Coach had left his post. The bridge in Command had grown too wide. Memnon would do anything to give Mercuri the edge, even if that meant harnessing Daimyo tech. Coach would rather die than forsake the Codes.
    Even after Coach had left, Murray kept with his master’s teachings. He’d refused to take stims. A few of his teammates had stayed clean too—Anderson, Leyna, old Two-Tooth.
    At first, they’d kept up with the rest of the team. Murray had even held on to the captain’s belt. It wasn’t until a few years later that he’d felt it.
    It had been barely perceptible: a takedown getting stuffed, a jab snapping in front of his face before he realized it was coming. Those moments started adding up, though. Murray aged. He got slower and weaker, while the rest of Mercuri’s Grievar Knights maintained their strength under the neurostimulants.
    And then came the end. That fight in Kiroth. His whole team, his whole nation depending on Murray. Everything riding on his back. And he’d failed.
    Wherever Coach was right now, he’d be spitting in the dirt if he could see what Murray had become. Sulking in the shadows, stuck with a lowly Grievar Scout job to be forgotten. Another cog in the Daimyo machine.
    Before Murray realized it, the light had nearly faded. The streets were quiet as most Deep folk returned to their homes for the blackshift.
    Murray was walking on autopilot toward Lampai Stadium, now only a stone’s throw away, looming above him like a hibernating beast. Shadows clung to him here, deep pockets of