Born a Monster

On our way to the outer wall, we were accosted by children bearing messages to Old Toothless.

The enemy (whom he insisted on calling the opponents) outnumbered us by a vast margin.

The enemy identified themselves with red armbands or headbands.

The enemy had... blah, blah, blah...

On the third set of contradictory orders, Old Toothless just started ignoring them, and made for the Rice Gate, on the left.

“Should we not make for the main gate?” Tang Ning asked.

“Everyone and their two-legged bed warmer will be headed to the main gate. People will be backed up to get on or off the wall for days. Besides, it’s called the Rice Gate because that’s where most of our food comes in.”

And, by virtue of not zig-zagging all over town, we made it there shortly after dusk. There was an encampment at the base of the tower, and Peng Gang (Old Toothless) had us set up our camp as close to the next unit as giving them a respectable distance allowed.

.....

I managed to get first shift, which gave me the rest of the night to contact Manajuwejet.

“Kid, Sobek isn’t seeing you tonight. You’ve been pawned off on some minor functionary.”

“Okay.”

“No, it’s not okay... It’s... You know what, I’ll let you meet her yourself.”

She was in crocodilian form, but upright, and clad in a black robe covered with arcane-looking symbols. On her head, she wore both sun-disk and a thick pair of glass goggles, which magnified her eyes.

“Oh, little scorpion, you didn’t tell me he was one of us.”

“Well, he’s not, technically speaking...”

“Oh, pooh and piffle. Upper functionaries get to pick at technicalities. Do you mind not standing on formalities?”

“I suppose not.” I said.

Manajuwejet waved goodbye, so I waved back.

With practiced ease, she had doffed the black robe, and hung it on a nearby tree, surrounded by the night sky and chirping crickets. Because dream logic.

I placed my armor into my inventory; I didn’t want to spend half the night chasing after it while it was used as a prop by some cat or other.

And then we both plopped down, belly first, on the warm moist sand of the riverbank.

“Ahh. I’d forgotten how good this feels.” I said.

“Yes, so easy to let the mortal concerns slip away, here. Speaking of which, tell me about this shrine and why it takes more than two seasons.”

Where Sobek had just thundered commands, she listened, and asked questions. And had helpful suggestions.

“Actually,” she said, “have you considered just founding a shrine among the people you’re with? It won’t keep you from founding the original shrine, but showing continual effort is a good way to avoid divine smiting.”

“Is that possible? What is the standing of Sobek among their Celestial Order?”

She chuckled. “Officially, none. But he IS a respected river spirit among the more animist orders that line the bottom rung of the Daurian faith.”

“Does that generate the same quality of faith?”

“Oh, not in the least. Neither quantity nor quality. But... do you not find that something is always better than nothing?”

I rolled my head. “I honestly hadn’t thought of it in that manner.”

“Mortals new to the divine world rarely do.” She said.

The ground shook slightly. “Well, keep it in mind. Seems that you’re in the middle of something historic. I’ll let you...”

“...wake up!” Tien Wa commanded, kicking my head again.

“What terrible manners your child will learn from you.” That earned me an extra kick in the head.

Whatever. Yawn. Kismet hits harder.

The night was moonless, and dark, and the thundering of the siege engines against the wall continued.

I buckled on my armor, and checked that Heart’s Protector was loose in its sheathe.

We could hear combat atop the wall, and I saw a flaming arrow come down right into a rain bucket. Just the one, though.

There were screams as men and women fell off one side of the wall or another.

Someone landed on our side with an impact that shattered road tiles and sent our soldiers flying. “Shi Xinyi has arrived!” he announced.

Holy crap! If the exiles had too many more like him, we were doomed.

“Old man?” one of the boys asked.

“Not our fight, Lian Zhi.” He said. “Single file, line up. We get to the tower, find the stairs, and ascend. Bring your gear, or lose it forever.”

Off to our right as we advanced, Shi Xinyi had apparently insulted the wrong person’s bloodline, and was ringed about by opponents.

“Do you know him, honored elder?” Tien Wa asked.

“What, that young hero? No, I fought with his mother at Hwu Lu gate, but we were on different passes.”

“Honored elder, forgive me, but was it not some manner of contest?”

“Between her and Chu Hu, to see whether they would share a bed or he foreswear her bed forever. Her unit was second to the gatehouse, behind only Cai Zhi, and Hu’s body was shipped to his family. And then, she spent the rest of the war guarding that gate. A tragic loss, if you ask me.”

There were torches lit at the base of the tower, and urchins screaming about remaining in orderly lines. Given the pride and peerless courage of Daurian warriors, they might as well have been geese trying the same with wolves.

“All right, nine warriors and one lizard.” Peng Gang called out numbers as we passed him; we need not have hurried. The conflict atop the wall was all but done by the time we got there.

“My squad to the right!” he boomed out. “Between this gate and the main gate. Don’t knock over any friendlies.”

They sure didn’t look friendly. I would learn later that most of the troops at the Rice Gate had relatives on the outside of the wall. I suppose fighting my relatives doesn’t put me in a good mood, either.

“Here. Healing potion.” I said, shoving it into the hands of a woman clutching her bleeding leg. She didn’t even pause to say thanks before guzzling it.

“What manner of half-fashioned crap is this, with a two hour timer?” she said, instead. Tang Ning translated.

“Night of the new moon.” I said. “I’m glad it’s not four.”

The woman spat back a string of invective that Tang Ning didn’t need to translate. We moved onward.

As we got further from the gate, people claimed more heroic deeds and were more eager for hostilities to resume.

We made it a little more than a quarter of the way toward the main gate before some functionary attached to the wall ordered us to stop and guard the wall right where we were.

Peng Gang spat over the wall, thrusting his beard out over the crenelations. “It’s not ideal, but it will have to do. Lay out your bedrolls parallel to the wall, all feet facing the same direction. Those with shields, sleep with them atop yourselves. Just in case.”

It wasn’t bad advice, we just didn’t need it that night.

In the morning, I climbed up between two crenelations and took a look.

“I expected more soldiers.” I told Peng Gang.

He shrugged. “I expected more soldiers. If other wall sections look like this, only about half the warriors among the inmates are actually against us. I guess we’ll wait and see whether that’s a good thing or bad.”

“Honored elder, which house is that gold on green flag?”

“Hrm. I don’t recognize the insignia, is that an apple?”

“An octopus.” Lian Zhi said.

“Hrm... I know of the silver octopus on blue...”

“The Cult of the Octopus.” I said. “The men and women in service of the Kraken-spawn are in the ranks.”

“On land? What are those Aharn-smoking bastards doing with their feet on solid earth?”

I shrugged. “I doubt we’ll get a chance to ask them.”

“They seem to be eating more for breakfast than we have.” Lian Zhi said.

“All right, Tien Wa and Lian Zhi are with me. “Let’s find out how food works here. The rest of you are to hold position here and do nothing brave unless they start riding spiders up the wall or some crazy shit like that. Tang Ning, you’re senior; You’re in charge. Keep them alive and send someone both directions to scout for the nearest water closet.”

Tang Ning shivered. “They don’t HAVE spiders, do they?”

They had none we could see, although some of their ponies looked crazed and near feral. And, for some reason, someone had brought a small swarm of dogs to our section of the wall.

“Ugh. We’re going to do NOTHING but stare at each other.” Tang Ning said.

“Not accurate, look down the machicolation.” I said.

Beneath us were the broken bodies from last night.

“Oh. Or I guess we actually have a job to do here.” She said.

We were doing our third repeat of practice repelling ladders when Peng Gang returned with breakfast. It was near enough to the noon meal; we fell upon the porridge, and none of it survived.

.....