Enlightened Empire

Chapter 400: Broken Routine

Like every day, Chalco and Qori lined up near the port to get the food assigned to their combat group. From behind, the two kids were catching up.

“Master Chalco, please wait!” beardless shouted.

“We are standing still,” Chalco replied in a weary tone. These children had far too much energy. Apparently, Qori saw it the same.

“Have you celebrated enough?” the veteran added.

“Master, should we not enjoy our great victory?” the cocky kid asked. At the same time, he looked down the slow-moving line of hungry fighters with a frown. No doubt he was unhappy about the numb indifference in the faces of the warriors.

“Some victory that was." Qori laughed mirthlessly. "What did we achieve today? We only staved off death for another day.”

“We drove the cowards back,” the kid shot back.

“Right. Have a look around. Does it look to you like we are winning?” An annoyed Qori pointed at the destruction all around him.

“These are necessary sacrifices for us to achieve victory! The harshest sacrifices are the most meaningful.”

“Right, tell that to your master who is still sitting at home in his mansion.”

“You-”

“Stop. Go get something to eat.”

Before the fight could escalate, Chalco interrupted them. They needed to work together if they wanted to survive the following days. And while they had been bickering, the architect had gotten his supplies from the warehouse official. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any Sila left to bribe the man, so they only got their standard rations.

“Thank the Divines,” the cocky kid said. “I am starving!”

Greedy hands pulled the small cloth bag out of Chalco's arms, and greedy eyes stared at their haul. Yet his anxious expression froze as soon as he saw their daily rations. A small handful of rice, two large pieces of moldy bread for everyone, plus a flask full of cold vegetable stew to share. That was all they had been offered, for four people.

“Is that it?” he asked in incredulity.

“That is what we get. If you want more, go ask the official.” Chalco only shrugged and pointed at the man with the snide face standing in front of mountains of food. No doubt he had made a fortune distributing food during the war, and no doubt he would do everything to protect his source of income. Thus, the cocky kid finally calmed down, and sighed in response.

“In fact, we should be getting food for six people, so the rations have not changed," Chalco explained further, as he carefully collected their supplies again. "Yet this amount was barely enough to feed the two of us. Who knows what we will do now that we have to feed two extra mouths?”

In fact, supplies had become the biggest problem for the coalition army in Antila. Their army was huge, far bigger than anything Antila had been designed for. Even worse, their troops consisted of mostly warriors. Any warrior would need at least three times the amount of food a commoner would use, even more so during times of intense physical activity.

On top of that, the enemy attacks never let up. Although they were under no threat of being broken, they had to throw, fling, and shoot a steady stream of projectiles down the walls just to hold their position. Even with all the destructive new roads and the river ships from Port Ulta running day and night, they simply couldn’t transport enough food and ammunition into the city to keep up with their demand.

While the two new kids were silently contemplating the dire situation they suddenly found themselves in, the veterans had their own way of dealing with the problem.

“Maybe we can organize something ourselves before we get too hungry to move,” Chalco mused as they walked away from the storage.

He was looking for a quieter place to distribute the food. Otherwise there may be conflict with another combat group. Now that all of them were starting to run low on supplies, the warrior groups had become a lot more aggressive. At first, the smart ones had stashed away some extra every day, and used their connections or family heirlooms to buy additional supplies. Now however, even they were running out. Chalco himself had only another two days’ worth of food left in his hidden stash.

“Spring’s coming.” Qori laughed. “The rats are gonna crawl out of their holes in search for food. That’s fresh meat right there, if we can catch it.”

The idea of the noble warriors of Antila eating the rats who used to live off their scraps made the formerly well-respected architect laugh.

“Hah, even the rats were smart enough to run away from the city by now.”

“Unlike our highborn masters. Maybe we would have been better off following the rats instead.”

While Chalco was dividing the food into four equal parts, both veterans laughed at the futility of it all, because what else could they do? At least they could find solace in the fact that they weren’t alone in their misery. At least they could forget their worries for a second while they were laughing. However, their new companions didn't see it quite the same way.

“How could you talk about your master like that!?” cocky kid shouted as he ripped the small package with his supplies out of the architect’s hands for a second time. “How dare you compare the noble lords to animals!?”

“Shhh, what if they hear?” beardless whispered nervously, trying to calm down his overexcited companion.

“Let them hear then!” cocky screamed even louder. “Let the lords hear and take these disloyal dogs away from here! We have no need for these cowards and heretics! We do not need them to fight the war for us! We did well enough all on our own!”

“Kid, there isn’t much fun left to be had here.” Chalco sighed. He was exhausted from standing atop the wall all day, exhausted from not eating, exhausted from hearing the same slogans day after day. Even more, he was exhausted from slowly losing hope time after time. He really didn’t have the energy to argue with children. “Talking down on the big masters is just about the only fun we have here. Do you want to take that away from us? And it’s not like the masters care anyways. Even if they hear about it, they’re too busy trying to keep the army held together. The last thing they need is a revolt caused by excessive punishment.”

“It is not right,” cocky insisted with the face of a child who was denied his favorite toy. “The master needs to be respected, always. That is why we are fighting the war against the heretics: To preserve the traditions and laws of the ancients. This is a holy war! If we cannot so much as practice the traditions we are fighting for, then why do we need to fight in the first place.”

My question exactly, Chalco thought, though he didn’t say it out loud to avoid further trouble with the kids. However, Qori didn’t seem to have the same inhibitions.

“In that case, you can go ahead and respect the master somewhere else,” he said in a bitter tone and spat on the ground.

“We will do that then.” the cocky kid shot back and turned towards beardless. “Follow me. We shall go find some proper warriors to eat with. These ones have lost their spirit and their honor.”

“But-”

Beardless looked at Chalco for help, but his companion interrupted him, not for the first time that day. “Follow me, I said. The air in the presence of these cowards stinks of rat.”

With that, the cocky kid took his companion’s shoulder and pulled him away from the two veterans. Without another word, Chalco sat under a section of the city’s internal wall to shield his body from the cold wind, and began to nibble on his hard, dry bread. At least that was one thing his warrior education allowed him to do: Unlike the commoners in the army, a cultivator had no problem with biting through rock-hard bread. It was a minor advantage, but in the face of modern muskets – the great equalizer – it was better than nothing.

“Seriously, these new recruits. All of them useless. How can they be this mindless?”

Qori complained, as he sat down next to Chalco. In response, the architect sighed and patted his companion’s shoulder.

“Well, they are children. No need to fret, they will learn eventually, if they live long enough.”

“Either way, the issue will resolve itself.” Qori offered a scornful laugh.

“Correct. And they are children, never forget that.” Chalco sighed again. It could have become his signature these days, if there hadn’t been so many others in the city doing the exact same. “No need to fight with a child. Rather than fighting with them, we should patiently teach them, to make sure they survive. They are no good to us dead.”

“Well, the way they are right now, they are no good to us alive either,” Qori insisted. “Just mindless servants with no proper skills.”

“In that case, we need to train them until they are useful. From the looks of things, the war should last a while longer. More than enough time to wait for the kids to learn and improve. Who knows, maybe one day soon, one of them will save your life.”

Rather than reply, Qori just grunted in disapproval and nibbled on his bread in silence. Finally, when he had half his portion down, he spoke up again, this time with another issue.

“I tell you, some day soon, they’re going to send us actual children in support. The kind that won't even be able to hold axes.”

For a moment longer, Chalco remained silent, as he watched a bird up above circle the city for a while, before it moved on towards the west.

“I guess that is the problem,” the architect finally said.

“What is?”

“I have been thinking for a while, you see. Our enemies are so strong, and everything their king has done seems so well planned, almost like it was divine providence.”

“You don’t believe that nonsense, do you?”

“What I mean is, are you not worried? They have been stuck in front of our city for more than a full moon now. In all that time, they have never let up their attack, and they have never tried anything else. Yet their king always has these grand plans. Do you believe someone like their king, who is known for being sneaky, could not come up with a better strategy?”

“So you figured out why they keep attacking, boss?”

Chalco nodded in response.

“I think so. You have seen what happened today. It took days for us to get reinforcements, and when we did, the people we were sent were practically children. We keep losing men, so we are bound to run low on available warriors.”

“So are the others though.”

Qori looked at his boss with suspicion, as if he had said something obvious, but Chalco shook his head.

“But the others are just commoners, that’s different,” he insisted. “Those commoners are cheap, and there are who knows how many of them in Medala. They can keep making rifles, and then keep using those rifles to train new commoners into fighters. How long does it take to train a warrior? Decades, practically a lifetime. Compared to commoners, there are simply too few warriors in the country. At the moment, all they are doing is trade their commoners for our warriors, and now we are so low on troops that we have to send kids to die for us.”

While he continued to eat, Qori just nodded along for a while and hummed in agreement, until he had fully processed what Chalco was saying. With an even heavier frown than earlier, he turned to the former architect.

“Wait, do you think that’s the plan?” he asked. “They’ll just keep clashing against us until they bleed us dry?”

“Maybe. Even something clever like that seems a bit simple for them, right? They say that their king has been touched by the Divines, so who knows what is going on in his head.”

“And that is someone we are supposed to fight? If he really has a connection to the heavens, then how would we ever win?”

“I care little whether he is a king or a god.” Chalco laughed. He had heard the rumors long ago, and had long come to his own conclusions. “All I know is that he is attacking our home. He aims to kill us all, and he has turned my wall into rubble. So long as he does not step back and cease his attack, that king will be my enemy.”

“I guess we have no choice, not anymore, with the curfews and such.”

Although Chalco’s speech was grand, Qori's retort encapsulated their helpless situation. Exhausted, the architect put down the rest of their food and leaned his back against the wall. Here, in the shadow of his once greatest creation, he liked to spend his time off. It would be a while longer until they had to wake up the night shift. Then they could warm up their soup in their sleeping quarters, and add the rice and get a proper meal in, before it was time to rest again.

On and on, day after day, with no breaks. The only change were their increasingly desperate situation, and the only reason he still stayed here and hadn’t run like so many others was because of his attachment to this city and its people.

Now he finally felt what it was like to be forced into war due to his principles. Just like Chalco was now determined to protect his home and his work from the enemy attack, Pari had been determined to defend his honor and his family’s position within the kingdom’s structure. Back during the raid up the hill, his determination had cost Pari his life. Who knew how much longer Chalco had until he would suffer the same fate?

As he mused over his own folly, his hands and back still against his wall, he reconfirmed his ideas. So long as the walls stood, there was no way for the southerners to achieve a quick victory. Thus, a slow war of attrition was the best they could do.

Suddenly, Chalco’s eyes opened wide, as he felt a vibration run through his fingers. Somehow, the wall was making noise. Like a living, breathing being, it rumbled under his fingers. He didn’t know if a projectile had hit the wall somewhere nearby, or if the building was just settling, but the sensation gave him a concerning idea. He twisted his neck to look up from within the shadows, up to his wall.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized that his wall was now the only thing that stood in the way of the southern kingdom’s troops. Without it, they would be forced into another costly open field battle. They really couldn’t afford another defeat like the one during the lightning battle.

So what if their enemies had been trying to remove the walls all this time, rather than just bleed them dry? What if their attacks that had seemed so dangerous to him had been mere distractions? Most people would consider it a joke, But Chalco had built these walls. He knew how they were built, and he knew exactly how they could be destroyed as well. And as he feared, his enemies, who had taught him these new construction methods, would know as well.

The more he thought, the more panic spread all throughout his body. His once numb mind sprang to life as he felt the threat of death loom over him, his city, and his greatest creation. He had to do something, anything! With no time to lose, he jumped up.

“What happened?” Qori looked up to the standing Chalco in confusion.

“Why did I not consider this sooner? I am an idiot,” the architect mumbled to himself.

“What’s wrong?”

“No time,” Chalco shouted. “We need to reach Master Sucopia, or any lords who have some power in the city. This time, they have to listen to me, even if I have to sell my soul.”

“Hey, wait!” Qori shouted at Chalco’s back. “What are you doing?”

“Protecting my home.” Chalco replied, more to himself than anyone else. If his fears were confirmed, he may just have been on the way to accelerate his own demise. If that sacrifice could save his city or his family, he would be okay with that.