Enlightened Empire

Chapter 398: Routine

Freezing cold sapped Chalco of his strength, and a heavy weight on his back pulled him down, closer and closer to the snow-white ground. Yet he struggled on, step by step, as his fingers lost feeling and his limbs lost strength. He felt like he tread water, like he stood still. Every step led him to the same place again, with no way forward. At last, there was a change. A thunderous sound from behind. When he turned, the giant wave of blood was already upon him. With a start and a scream short of breath, Chalco awoke.

In his hands he felt the rough, thin straw from the cheap mat he had slept on. It brought him back to reality. Although he had slept on the mat for a while now, he still wasn’t used to it, neither to the feel, nor the musty smell.

“Oh, our royal lord is finally up.” A voice fully brought him back to reality.

He flicked strands of straw off his right cheek and looked at the four warriors who had just entered through the rickety door of the half-collapsed house.

“Looks like everything was quiet for you, huh?” he determined. Since there were still four of them left, at least none of them died or got injured today.

“The usual, not too bad.” The rude warrior who had woken him shrugged.

“How unfortunate that you survived another day,” Chalco said.

“Maybe we will get lucky tomorrow,” another warrior joked. The first gave him a dirty look, before he turned back to Chalco.

“Well, good luck to you too,” he said. “I am so done today. Need to take all the sleep I can get.

“Have fun sleeping in my filth,” Chalco joked, as he went to the front of the room, where he had stored his family armor.

“Just how I like it,” he heard from behind, but by then he was already focused on his work. He had to get ready soon or there would be trouble. When he had fought for the completion of his dam, his family armor had been well taken care of, in pristine condition. Now, the brilliant red metal was a dull, dirty brown, and the shiny surface was all scratched up.

“You up, boss?” he heard a voice next to him.

“Good morning, Qori. Help me put on the armor.”

“You got it, boss.”

While the two helped each other put on their armor, just like every day, Qori made conversation, just like every day.

“You think they will send us some more support today, Boss?”

“Who knows?”

Little hope of that.

“Well, one of Sucopia's tiger guards said we would get support today.”

“They have been saying that we would get support for a while now, and it never comes,” Chalco replied in a tepid tone. He really was completely over their leadership. All trust was long gone. By now, the only people he still trusted were former subordinates like Qori here.

“True. But maybe today we’ll-”

“Shut up!” a voice shouted from further inside the room. “Do it outside. People are trying to sleep.”

Without another word, the two of them finished with their armors and finally left the house. While Chalco was just silently walking, Qori continued to chatter.

“All I am saying is that we really need support. I mean, you should not be here in the first place, boss. It is fine for us ordinary workers to be used like this, but you are not a fighter, you are an architect! You have been here so long, I am sure that you will be pulled off soon to do some important work. And then I would be all on my own.”

“Somehow I doubt that will happen,” Chalco sneered. He had also lost all hopes of a promotion.

A month had passed since the architect had retreated from atop the nameless hill next to Uskaylla River, together with the survivors of the brutal battle, Qori among them. Since then, Chalco hadn’t been involved in any more attempts to disrupt the southern kingdom’s camp, neither raids nor construction projects.

Plenty jobs like that had been available in that time, work he was suitable for. That didn’t matter for him of course, since he had been demoted to a common fighter as soon as he had led their remnants back into the city. From what he had heard, the southerners brought another 1000 soldiers to the hill not long after they had left. Their losses had been heavy, and their stay on the hill would have only resulted in further senseless deaths, just like Pari had predicted. Even so, they had still been blamed for ‘retreating from guaranteed victory,’ as Lord Sucopia had called it.

Of course that was nonsense, and many of his fellow warriors who had been part of that operation were outraged, but Chalco hadn’t complained with a word. Not only was he aware that complaints would go nowhere, he also knew why their masters had assigned the blame to them.

They themselves would surely be at a wit’s end right now, cornered and with no way out. Lord Ogulno especially had lost his land and position, and was now only left with a thousand warriors or so, as well as all the gold and silver they could carry across the Midland Hills. The other lords in the city were struggling as well. All of them had their backs against a wall, and their future looked grim.

To at least prove their own competence and keep their armies hopeful and loyal, they were not allowed to make any more mistakes. Already, their troops had seen so many daily deserters that strict curfews had to be enforced in the city.

Thus, any failed operation could only be the fault of the ordinary warriors, never that of the great lords. In that sense, he understood their position, and that the lie was necessary to stabilize the army. He wasn’t even particularly angry with his master.

Still, he would rather have worked in his field, reinforcing their defenses to preserve Antila, rather than help destroy it. Though as he walked on the crumbling steps up the city wall, he once more felt the helplessness of his position.

War had left indelible scars on Chalco’s hometown. Covered in his family’s armor, he stood atop a wall he had help build over the past three years. With new materials and new construction methods, it had been one of his proudest achievements to date. He had even spent several months in Saniya and Qarasi Castle, just to study their new ways of building, before he returned to apply them in his home.

Back when the work had been finished, it had been pristine, a shining beacon of progress for his home. Now, deep hollows and grooves had riddled the crumbling structure. For now, the outer wall still held firm, though he really didn’t know for how much longer it would withstand their enemy’s glut of iron cannons.

At least that was one thing they had learned from their failed counterattack up that nameless hill a month ago: They had found one of the many secrets behind the southern kingdom’s eerie strength.

In the process of their retreat, they had brought with them the three cannons that had been the cause for all their trouble. Although three cannons changing hands wouldn’t make much of a difference in a war as large as this, they finally learned that the cannons made in Saniya were not the expensive bronze cannons that everyone else used.

Instead, the craftsmen of Saniya had somehow managed to build cannons out of solid iron, disguised with a thin layer of bronze to trick the eyes of all the fools who had fought them for the past three years. All this time, their ability to field so many cannons had been a mystery. Chalco for one had just assumed that they could afford all that bronze due to Saniya’s now legendary wealth. The new knowledge hadn’t really lessened his punishment, but at least they now knew better.

At least now, he knew how their enemies could afford to keep shelling the walls with such ferocity every day. Not that it really helped them this very moment.

Depressed from his own thoughts, Chalco trudged up the internal stairs of the wall. As he looked at the pieces of stone crumbling down from the ceiling, he wondered if it had been a good idea to design like that. Yes, they were better defended from attackers, and the stairs were easier to shut down in case their enemies ever took a section of the walls, but the stairs wouldn’t be any good once they collapsed.

Not that I can change anything anyways.

Frustrated as he was at his new position, Chalco just sighed like he had done so many times over the past month. Finally, he reached his assigned section of the wall. This was the place they had been in charge of for days now, a section in the west of the city, a bit south-east from the enemy camp and some two hundred steps south of the western city gate. All they had to do was defend their small spot of the wall until they received new orders.

That sounded easy, but had become real trouble, especially since their numbers kept shrinking. They had been six people at first, but by now, one had died, another had lost an arm, and the last two had fled the city with their families in the dead of night.

For the past three days, only Chalco and Qori had been in charge of the walls, with no concrete word on any reinforcements. That’s why he was so surprised when he saw two figures in shiny red armor waiting for them in their usual position.

“You are Warrior Chalco de Sucopia?”

“The very same. And who are you?”

“Master Chalco, we are fresh warriors who have been assigned here to defend Antila from the heretic king's vile commoners.”

“See, I told you it was a good day today.” Qori slapped Chalco’s shoulder, before he turned to the new reinforcements. “Welcome aboard.”

Although he wasn’t quite so optimistic, the architect was still glad to get any help he could.

“Right. In that case- Wait.”

At least he was until he got closer and got a better look at the faces underneath the fancy armor. First Chalco noticed that these two were half a head shorter than him, although he wasn’t particularly tall for a warrior in the first place. Then he took a closer look at their faces.

One had a face that was completely smooth, as if he had just shaved himself with the sharpest knife in the world. The other had a beard, if a few, scraggly hairs around his upper lip could ever count as one. Worse yet, he couldn’t see any tattoos on either of their arms.

“Wait. How old are you?” he finally asked the unbearded one who hadn’t spoken up so far.

“Eighteen?” the beardless warrior asked, as if Chalco was supposed to know the answer. With a frown, he turned to the other of the pair.

“Master, we are old enough to carry an axe. That should be enough, should it not?” the child replied.

“Why are they sending children?” Qori asked in confusion, mostly to himself. After all, Chalco certainly didn’t know the answer to that question either.

“Are you playing a prank on us here, children? Don’t tell me we are meant to take care of you because you sneaked out of the house looking for adventure.”

“Excuse us, but-” beardless tried to speak up in a low voice, but was overwhelmed by a boom from the cocky kid.

“Do not insult our honor, master!” he shouted a wet reply straight in Chalco’s face. “We are proper warriors, ready to fight the vicious and heretical king to the death.”

Rather than get upset at children, the architect calmly took a step back and tried to reason with the child.

“You’re not a proper warrior without your maturity rites. Have you had your ceremony yet?”

“No, but we will have one soon, and that is why we are here. Lord Vareo decreed that any young warrior of Port Ulta will have to defend his homeland, his master, and his family. If they cannot stand up for their land in times of crisis, how would they gain the honor of calling themselves adults?”

“So you only get your ceremony once you’ve served your time in the war?”

“Serving in the war is a great glory, and we are glad to offer our strength.

Finally, Chalco understood what was going on. These kids were being blackmailed by their master, to fill out the dwindling numbers of warriors atop the walls. Now that he knew that they were just more unfortunate victims of the war, he had even less energy to argue with them.

“Fine, just don’t get yourselves killed,” he said, and sat his weary body down on the wall, leaned against the cold stone. Yet just as he had gotten comfortable, a familiar call forced him back up.

“Positions!”