Tales of The Sehnsucht Series
The Halden Army
by Keyla Damaer
Manderian year 2456
Draken’s voice blended with those of all the Halden Military
Academy’s cadets, the officers’ training grounds of the
military.‘I, Draken Kosset, citizen of the Manderian Halden, do
hereby take the oath of allegiance and solemnly vow to be a
brave, disciplined, and vigilant fighter. To guard strictly all military and Halden secrets, to obey without question all army
regulations and orders of my superiors.
‘I pledge to study the duties of a soldier conscientiously and to
safeguard the Halden.
‘I fully swear to protect the Halden obediently, skilfully, and
honourably, without sparing my blood and my very life to achieve complete victory over the enemy.
‘And if through evil intent I break this solemn oath, then let
the stern punishment of Manderian law fall upon me.’ Hundreds
of voices spoke as one, stirring his spirit every time Draken repeated the ritual, thrice a day before his meals, every day for
the last thirteen years.
At the end of the litany, as they all sat down in unison, silence
fell in the mess hall, broken only by the sound of cutlery on their
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plates.
One by one, students whispered to each other until all the voices joined the buzz.
‘I know when the final test will take place,’ Derrin, the sturdy,
green-scaled Manderian sitting next to Draken whispered to no
one in particular.
‘Said who?’ asked Zamal, sitting in front of him. Her golden
facial scales gleamed with captivating shades under the artificial
lights. Her auburn hair was plaited into a complicated twist, giving an attractive highlight to her pronounced eye ridges. The
tight black uniform displayed the slick movement of her muscles.
Draken’s pulse quickened. For the first time since they had
been studying together at the Command Training Centre on the
Tarula outpost, her features caused a reaction he didn’t expect.
‘Draken?’ Derrin nudged his elbow.
Derrin and Zamal were the closest things he had to friends, but
in the last two days, they both were getting under his scales. And
now the turmoil inside his body disturbed him.
Distracted by Zamal’s sultry beauty, he didn’t hear Darrin’s
words. He spun around, snarling, ‘What?’
The woman groaned. ‘You weren’t paying attention.’
He turned his focus to the plate and grunted. ‘I’m eating.’
While at sixteen most of his companions, including Zamal and
Derrin, had reached their sexual maturity, he still hadn’t. Not
until now. Cadets, and students all over the Manderian Halden,
went through the process naturally, mating with each other when
the time came. His sudden sexual desire for Zamal meant trouble
at a time when he was supposed to focus all his being in passing
the final exam to become an officer in the Halden army. No time
for growing up and giving in to his worst feral instincts.
However, asking for a hormonal suppressor would only get
him reprimanded.
‘I know when the final test will take place,’ Derrin repeated.
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‘So, when is it, according to your source?’ he asked, trying to
get away from his worries and shut up Derrin.
‘Whoah, now he wants to know,’ his friend replied, pursing his
lips. ‘In six days, and it’s gonna be tough.’
Draken leered at Zamal for a millisecond, then lowered his
eyes to his plate. ‘We already knew it would be tough.’ The main
course—a bathai stew with ammok sauce—tasted like stale bread, but Draken was used to that. As part of their training, they
had to get used to terrible food. Field rations didn’t taste any
better, after all.
Draken finished the stew and attacked the dessert, thankful for
the same bad flavour because it gave him something other than
Zamal to think about. He kept his eyes on the plate. Perhaps, if
he ignored her, the lust exploding down his groin would go away.
‘The Black Squads will examine us. I know that for sure,’
Derrin said.
Draken wanted to leave the remainder of his meal, but he couldn’t. As a cadet, they would punish him for being weak;
weaker bodies. Not to mention, they considered it rude in civilian
culture. In a world where there never was enough food, leftovers
didn’t exist.
Suppressing an urge to vomit, he said, ‘I wouldn’t expect any
less.’
‘I’ll be training at the gym until curfew,’ Derrin said, standing
and picking up his tray.
‘We’ll meet you there, as soon as I’m done here,’ Zamal replied.
A quick glance at her plate revealed it was empty. They would
be alone soon as the mess hall emptied, students leaving to complete their daily tasks. But all he could think of was Zamal’s
body.
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Draken’s groin quivered.
Can she perceive my arousal? Why is she staying? His mind
imagined their bloody bodies intertwined.
Derrin walked away, leaving Draken deep in his thoughts and
lost in his carnal fantasies.
A slick movement distracted him from his lustful thinking as
Zamal’s left hand clutched his right one, boosting his blood pressure. He glued his eyes to the well-hidden cleavage, his heart
exploding inside his ribcage. Zamal’s swift right hand movement
woke up Draken from the spell as a pocket knife appeared out of
nowhere.
He yanked his hand free just in time to avoid the blade cutting
through it from side to side. Tiny drops of blood fell on the table
from the minor cut on his thumb.
Glaring, he gave her an aggressive nod as a sign of acceptance
of her sexual challenge, a promise of pleasure and pain.
After hurriedly tidying away their empty trays, Draken
followed her down the corridor to the training barracks, which
included holorooms with thousands of different settings for the
cadets’ training. They also had the benefit of being private and
perfect to get through their primal mating rituals and become of
age when the time came.
Zamal’s hips swayed left and right, right and left, in a rhythmic supple movement that made him want to either tear her
head off or pound her. Or both.
When they entered an available holoroom, Zamal changed the
environment with a verbal command. A hot outdoor desert with
flat, black sand replaced the holonet.
The woman’s wild beauty stood out even more with her hands
on her gorgeous hips against the flat, barren land.
He tilted his head to one side, enjoying a long sultry look at
the clean lines of her body. It screamed strength, and it made the
blood burn in his veins.
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He dropped into a fighting stance, arms gathered close to his
chest, fists clenched, while she circled him with careful steps.
Draken didn’t move, but paid careful attention to the soft sound
of her boots on the sand while she moved out of his peripheral
vision. When she appeared again, the gap between them had shortened.
She lunged for his collar. He spun, sweeping her leg out, expecting to see her drop to the sand. However, she surprised
him by diving. He hit nothing but air.
They grinned at each other.
‘Nice move for a girl like you.’
A flurry of punches rained at his head. Draken caged his arms
to protect it. But Zamal switched to his torso, landing several
blows to his ribcage.
With a swift move, he grabbed her head and lifted his knee,
striking her face. A solid crunch confirmed his hit connected
with flesh and bone.
Zamal grunted and stepped back. She wiped her face with her
sleeve and cracked her knuckles before taking a combat crouch
again.
Somewhere in their foreplay, her collar had been torn. Draken
admired her cleavage showing the top curve of one suggestive
breast. Soon this ritual would be over, he would prove his dominance, and she would gleefully submit to him.
She spat to one side and took a long, slow gaze at him. ‘If you
think I’m just going to lie down and spread my legs for you,
think again.’
A quick intake of her breath suggested another wave of
punches. He dived first; she stumbled and lost her balance.
Taking advantage of her unsteadiness, he reached for her throat.
Getting behind her in a forced chokehold, he kicked the back of
her knees, forcing her down. ‘Surrender. You’re mine.’
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She wiggled in a feeble pretence of resistance. ‘Is that … all
you have, Draken Kosset?’ she panted.
He grinned, keeping his firm grip on her neck, and kneeled
down, leaning over her to whisper in her ear. ‘I could kill you
with my bare hands.’
Her wiggle subsided. He let go of her throat to grab her chin
and turn her head to him. Her dilated pupils showed him all he
needed to know: she didn’t want to stop. Her desire burned in
those fiery forest-green eyes.
‘You talk too much.’ The buckle of her uniform fell on the
floor with a thud.
***
The next six days passed by in a blur between the daily routine—
personal hygiene, theoretical studies and classes of historical battles, successful defences, exobiology, exopsychology, and
strategy, alternating with days in the field digging fences, defending and attacking structures in different kinds of setups.
The nights though! His nocturnal encounters with hot-blooded
Zamal became an entirely different kind of blur.
Draken’s mind lingered on her golden scaly limbs entwined
with his red and orange-hued ones. His heart palpitated as he lay
in bed, his muscles sore from the previous encounter with her.
With a quick glance at his wristband, he acknowledged the
time: 0300. The scheduled sleep cycle would end in three hours.
He had slept only three, but the recurring nightmare that had
plagued him since childhood had woken him up. No way he
could sleep again that night.
And today we have the final test.
After cleaning the room, he left his cell to take a walk outside
and clear his mind for the challenges he would face today. He
crossed a quadrangle and stopped to drink from the communal
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water fountain, admiring the heavens. No moonlight obscured
the night sky. Both Tarula’s moons must have set.
Sunneth—Mander Prime’s star—distant light-years away,
glowed. While Narhatat—the scout constellation used by their
long-gone ancestors to find true south—shone brightest. Narhatat
system and its green habitable planets, Agnar I, II, and III, were
part of the Halden, too.
His wrist comms vibrated, alerting him of an incoming
recorded message. He sat down on a bench and checked the sender’s name: Rotima, his fiancée. She was older than him. A
stunning brown-scaled specimen of Manderian female promised
to him when he was just three and she was five. Her round figure
with generous breasts and sides guaranteed fertility, and Draken
looked forward to having a large family with her. But aside from
that common desire in the Manderian population, he didn’t see
her as an excellent partner. Even though he hadn’t mated with
her yet, her demeanour was too meek in his opinion. Zamal,
instead, burned like a fire.
My dearest husband to be,
You are in my thoughts continuously. I know your exam is
chiming and I have faith in your success.
I can’t imagine another Manderian more suited than you for
leadership and for me.
Ever yours.
Draken trusted that Rotima had sent the message audio-only out
of courtesy and not out of passion. Her interest lay in having him
promoted to an officer. Being married to one opened more doors
than being married to a simple soldier.
The day of their engagement, before he left for military school,
her emerald-green eyes had shown like iridescent zircons. Still,
they didn’t compare with Zamal’s.
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A shadow approached from his left.
‘You never lose the habit of sleeping for a couple of hours per
night,’ Zamal said, interrupting his train of thought.
‘Your stealth classes are working, but I saw your shadow approaching.’ He turned to gaze at her with smouldering eyes.
She walked in front of him, standing with squared shoulders,
and shrugged in response.
Her moving chest as she did so attracted his attention. Could
he order her into his cell for some mutual relief? He wanted to,
but he was supposed to focus on the exam.
‘In battle, there will be little time to sleep.’ He stood and closed the distance between them with two strides. ‘What are you
doing out so early?’
‘I’m nervous,’ she replied, looking up at him with dilated pupils.
Zamal’s open confession of weakness mixed with their lust,
and the sense of duty unsettled him.
‘I need a distraction.’ She challenged him with a lascivious
look.
Draken licked his lips, anticipating a chance to bone her.
However, he didn’t want to lose his focus on the exam for which
he had been training his entire life. ‘After the exam.’
Zamal gritted her teeth and growled. She didn’t appreciate being denied what she craved, but he enjoyed her reaction and
the thought of the joining they would have after the exam.
***
After leaving the mess hall, Draken and his forty-nine classmates
sat in a classroom. By the feel of the electricity in the air, he
wasn’t the only one expecting and dreading this moment from
the start. No one would admit their fear, a
nd Draken despised
himself for being so weak, but as his father always told him, a
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coward is not the one who is afraid. It’s what we do about fear
that makes the difference.
The male instructor entered the classroom. They stood and
straightened their left arms above their heads and screamed, ‘For
the Halden.’ Then they sat back.
The instructor paced in silence, boosting the tension.
‘Collecting information is an art that follows scientific rules,’
he said, pausing his stride and taking his time to stare each of
them down before moving on. ‘Today, you’ll learn what that
means. Before you can become a collector yourselves, you must
understand what it feels like to be broken. And trust me, they
will break you eventually.’
A murmur passed through those present in an electric moment
of apprehension and excitement.
One more test. Once I pass, my candidacy as an officer is
assured.
Draken had endured years of training in prep school, and in the
last few years experienced command in all kinds of situations.
He had never failed his missions. Nothing would stop him from
getting the prestige and the honour of command. He was born to
lead.
‘You all understand the rules of behaviour during questioning,’
the instructor continued, pacing again to one side of the room to
fix a student with a stern look.
‘Draken? Are you afraid?’ Zamal whispered to him.
When she asked those questions, he suspected she wasn’t a
recruit at all but a young collector. Or a member of the Black
Squad undercover, ready to screw him up.
Does she think I’m weak enough to answer that?
‘They will weaken you physically and attack you
psychologically. The test will last as long as the collectors still
enjoy playing with you, or as long as you don’t fail. It’s like a
game of polika to them,’ the instructor said. ‘I’m interested in 9
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your reactions because the result of this test will make you a
superb leader or a dead recruit. Don’t fail me!’
A superb leader or a dead recruit. Draken didn’t intend to die.
Failure wasn’t part of his plan.
Five men clad in black, wearing a black balaclava and dark
goggles over their eyes, entered the room and ordered them out.
One led them to a basement. The door closed behind the last