By the time Nicholas is satisfied with the sparring and decides to call an end to the morning, even he is feeling more than a little peckish. If the way Markus sniffs the air and looks hungry as they pass the kitchen is anything to judge by, he’s famished.

  Eyeing the various Bonded – his own and Markus’– he decides that they all deserve a treat after such impressive performances. And it is such a beautiful day today. He looks towards the door to the main house and sees a servant lingering there, as expected. A brief gesture with his hand and the servant comes hurrying over.

  “Yes, my lord?” she asks a little breathlessly, dipping immediately into a bow as she reaches conversational range.

  “Have a table brought out to the gardens and have the kitchens send out lunch for us there. All our beasts will be eating, so ensure that they also send out at least…” he considers it, “twenty ithan carcasses.” Calista and Attis will both consume a carcass apiece, and he suspects that Markus’ Tier three nunda will do similarly. Belbash, at least, is primarily a herbivore, and he knows what he’s allowed to eat in the gardens. Nicholas’ other Tier three, the earth-shaping Grondel, has a diet mostly of rocks and gems – the more mana-packed, the better – so he won’t need any meat, but that still leaves all of the Tier twos and the Tier ones that Markus has. “Actually, make that twenty-five carcasses,” he decides after a moment. They will all be hungry after this morning.

  “Yes, my lord. Is there anything else you’d like me to bring?”

  “No, that will be all, thank you Ilma.” The servant bows again and hurries off to carry out his order.

  Nicholas heads over to speak to Markus who’s currently sitting down on the gravel, surrounded by his Bonded. He looks up as Nicholas approaches and scrambles to his feet.

  “Another battle?” he asks, sounding more than a little tired, but also willing to go again. Nicholas is glad to see that, even if he shouldn’t be as tired as he appears – not with the attributes he related to Nicholas yesterday. Not that Nicholas doubts he was telling the truth, as unbelievable as it was – Nicholas is rather good at identifying when someone’s lying to him and almost everything Markus said yesterday had the ring of complete truth to it. Besides, it’s normal among those new to a Class for attributes not to be used to their fullest extent without training, but usually that failing is corrected when stat points are in the twenties, not in the sixties.

  “No,” Nicholas answers, pulling himself out of his thoughts. “Would you like to have some lunch?”

  “Would I?” Markus asks, but from his tone and expression of relief, it’s not really a question. He takes a step forwards and then looks back at all his Bonded. “I assume that my companions are included in the invitation? They’re just as hungry as I am.”

  Nicholas shrugs.

  “I’ve ordered for it to be brought to the garden, so yes. I thought that it would be a nice treat for all of our Bonded.”

  “Meaning that if we weren’t eating in the garden, we wouldn’t be eating together?” Markus asks a little suspiciously. Nicholas side-eyes him.

  “Is it normal where you come from to share your dining room with a load of beasts?” he asks curiously. For all he knows, Markus comes from a world where their beasts of burden bed down in a corner of their sleeping area, and their hunting beasts prowl the room in search of scraps. And Markus has shown a slightly worrying level of affection for his Bonded.

  It was clear enough in the sparring – Markus doesn’t treat his Bonded like disposable pieces, or even valuable assets. He treats them like beloved friends or family, moving to their defence just as they move to his. It’s an effective strategy – to a point. Everyone fought fiercely in the sparring sessions – as if the enemies of Markus became the enemies of everyone. And it wasn’t just because of the Bonds he holds with them – the Tier three fought with just as much determination as the Tier ones.

  But not every enemy can be fought with martial or magical strength. Making it so clear that his Bonded are precious to him is a weakness in the hands of a discerning and subtle enemy – and Nicholas has many of those. Markus will have to be careful, especially when they encounter other nobles at the palace. Nicholas makes a mental note to cover such things on their upcoming journey. At least a carriage is a good space for such lessons. But for now, Nicholas draws his attention back to the discussion at hand as his heir responds to his question.

  “Not a load of beasts, no,” Markus admits, “though many people have domestic animals – pets, you know.” Nicholas does, though he finds the over-domesticated beasts which some of the nobles like to keep to be rather pitiful when compared to the majesty of his Bonded. Markus looks back at the beasts following him and Nicholas sees his gaze linger on the Tier threes in particular. “But I suppose I can understand why you wouldn’t want everyone in the dining room at one time. It might get a bit…crowded.”

  “And in general, eating with beasts is seen as uncouth,” Nicholas explains. “With some exceptions in more relaxed situations. I have no argument with you bringing a couple of your smaller beasts with you to meals in the house as long as we don’t have guests present, but when we travel to Crownseat, and in the palace itself, your Bonded will have to eat separately.”

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  Markus looks uncomfortable with that, and Nicholas waits patiently for him to object. He looks to be on the verge of doing just that when he sighs and his shoulders slump.

  “I’m just used to us all eating together,” he says finally. “The samurans used to have eating groups according to class before I joined the village, and I hated it – especially as those lower in the rankings didn’t necessarily get any food to eat at all. I don’t like that we’re going back to that.”

  “There will be no issues with ensuring that all of your Bonded have sufficient food,” Nicholas reassures him, though he makes a mental note about what Markus has revealed. He’s noticed that the samurans – those lizard-people – seem to be highly intelligent, but realising that they had a class system within their society implies that they’re perhaps the other world’s equivalent of humans or damayar. “Anyway,” he points out wryly, returning to the topic at hand, “I can almost guarantee that your Bonded will be more content with eating separately than being exposed to the venomous murans that make up our noble class. Honestly, most days, I’d prefer to be with my Bonded too – it’s far more relaxing.”

  Nicholas sees that his words haven’t exactly reassured his new heir, but he’s at least looking more thoughtful than discontented now. The lord was being completely honest – eating with other nobles is a trial at the best of times. Apart from a scant handful who are genuine friends of his, the rest are backstabbing, conniving murans, battling to the death for a small increase in status for their House.

  “I promise that we’ll try to eat outside as much as possible on our journey, which will allow your Bonded to eat with us. Mine too, from time to time at least. It’s good for our beasts to get to know each other a little outside of a battle. Family history has shown that having too much tension and competition between an heir’s and a lord’s Bonded is not good for the House.”

  “Is that so?” asks Markus, falling into step with Nicholas as they head around the outside of the house, their Bonded following them. Nicholas has decided not to call his own Bonded back onto his skin until after lunch. Not the ones who are out already, anyway.

  “Since the lord and heir are supposed to be allies rather than enemies, yes. There was an incident in my grandfather’s time where his Bonded – or rather ‘Bound’, as they were known then – had only ever sparred with the Bonded of his own father and when the manor was attacked, instead of working together, they fought each other rather than the enemies. It took rather too much time and energy for my grandfather and great-grandfather to bring the two forces under control, and in the meantime, their enemies had stolen what they wanted and escaped.” Nicholas shakes his head. “Ever since, our family has made a point of not only bringing out our Bonded when sparring.”

  “Understandable,” Markus comments. “What caused the change in vocabulary from Bound to Bonded, do you know? My System always says ‘Bound’ in reference to them.”

  “Curious,” Nicholas comments. “Mine uses ‘Bonded’.” Then he shrugs. “I am unsure as to why the term changed – perhaps there is no real reason. It could be just that someone influential decided to start using ‘Bonded’ and due to imitation it became the done way of labelling them. System messages do adapt themselves to the user, in the end.”

  “Should I start calling them Bonded instead of Bound, then?” Markus asks a little uncertainly. Nicholas shrugs again.

  “It is entirely up to you,” he says honestly. “It sounds a little old-fashioned, but nothing worse.”

  “Alright,” Markus accepts.

  They round the front of the house and a servant comes to lead them to where the table is already set up. The carcasses, clearly freshly killed, are laid out around the edges of the garden area, and the various Bonded quickly make a beeline to them. Calista, Attis, and the Tier three nunda of Markus’ – Kalantha or something like that – make their choices first, but Nicholas watches who moves next. It’s often a good indication of the hierarchy in a group. He’s curious to see that Markus’ group seems to break into two parts – the ‘samurans’, and the non-humanoids.

  As he saw in the sparring, the winged four-footed larnatis is a main leader in the group, as are the three samurans who are capable of using magic. Oddly enough, although the Tier three nunda is clearly respected, she’s not a leader – she acts more like a lone fighter who doesn’t work all that well with any of the others, not even Markus himself. Nicholas wonders just how long she’s been part of the group – she certainly hasn’t fought much with them.

  The five larnatises, two deris, ‘lizog’, and ‘bird’ all seem to work really well together, and with Markus. They’re clearly a practiced hunting group. Their strategies in the sparring were pretty effective, though when matched against the even more effective strategies of Nicholas and his own Bonded, they failed. They were good enough against the guards, though. Equally, the group of samurans worked pretty well together, though the biggest and smallest of the magic-using samurans seemed a little uncertain about how to use their magic most effectively in battle – they fairly quickly reverted to using physical weapons. Which, in the hands of the biggest samuran, worked pretty well; less so in the hands of the smallest. The two weapons-using samurans were brutally effective, though their weakness seemed to be their willingness to sacrifice themselves for the magic-users.

  Apart from the two weapons-using samurans and Markus himself, the biggest larnatis was the most effective fighter on her own, as was the younger nunda. The others all seemed to do better in pairs or groups since while they were clearly strong in a certain type of battle, they were weak in others. Nicholas already has some training in mind which will help the beasts become more effective all around. He also makes a mental note to discuss with Markus the range of enhancing potions which are available to use.

  Markus himself has impressed Nicholas today. He very clearly is not using his attributes to their maximum, but even so, he interweaves magic and martial Skills with an adeptness Nicholas wasn’t expecting. And his Bonded are more than impressive for the shortness of time since Markus has been a Tamer. Nicholas can think of no other member of his family who could have boasted of such prowess within a single year of gaining their Class – except perhaps his ultimate ancestor, but not enough is known of the original Titanbend’s younger years to know.

  Then again, maybe he should have expected Markus to have beaten expectations set by what Nicholas recognises are privileged lords. Whatever Markus’ original world is like, the fact is, he’s spent the last year fighting regularly for his life, and it shows. With some training for both him and his Bonded, he will become a force to be reckoned with.

  here!

  here!

  here!

  here