My shift was always at night. And so me and a group of about a half dozen would wake up, yawn and take our usual of tea and stimulants and bowls of breakfast (leftover dinner) and eat at the front of the mouth. Which, given the lazed attitude of the camp, was well seasoned and cooked over long and slow periods. Mutton was scouted some days. Lizards others. Reptiles made for tasty meat, though a little rough. Whichever they were, we usually ate with ground and milled corn-like vegetables off the sides of the mountains. Little cobs that grew to fill the gaps of the mountain ranges. Purple maize that were made into flat breads. I rolled them and ate our soups with them. Every now and then taking cactus fruit and cutting pieces for myself. Most spat out the seeds, I ate them.

I stalked the mouth of the mountain, eating my little soup bowl with patience as I kept to the cave entrance. Barrels broken into pieces with their metallic rims warped to fit the space of holes. Planks stacked neatly on one end, half a wall collapsed on the other end. And deeper in, far more debris.

The men and I sat with legs stretched out and our bowls to our side or between our legs, watching the steam fog up the sky. I tightened my cloak. Desert nights were always cold. I chewed and spat out the femur of a small rabbit, tossing it down the elevated boulder we stood on. A reptile - sun tanned and brown - skittered off, the last bit of its energy reserved for the frightened romp.

“They didn’t maintain the fire.” I sighed.

I walked and stepped close to the wreckage, seeing a fearful eye behind the wall. Something crazed, a mad man in his cave, blood shot eyes staring and narrowing towards me. Around the mouth I scavenged dead branches and bundled them in my arm. The eye kept watch.

“Do you want to talk or just stare?” I asked.

This was the reason for all of it. The waiting and the patience, was because of crazed men behind the wall with nothing to lose who chucked arrows and prodded us with spears. We’d tried it already plenty of times, to ax the wooden walls with split cleavers. And the minute we started, the spears jutted out. A man of ours got stabbed in the hands doing so. Had to get it amputated. And after seeing that (and Edwin), it didn’t seem like a good prospect for any one man to try at the barricade.

The eye watched me and I watched it. I threw my branches into the flame and it ate them up, growing some and lighting my face. Our fire to the side of the entrance, away from any direct confrontation with arrows or spears. Against the hard surface of the mountain corrugations. I pressed my back and straightened out.

“This isn’t going to last forever. We all know it.” I said. “You can surrender now and spare yourself.”

“Aye, spare myself to what fate?” The voice said.

A deep, harsh voice, one of someone who’d taken too much of the pipe. He cleared his throat and spat.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“I’m the Watchman of tonight.”

“Alright. Watchman.” I said. “And look at what you see. An army waiting for you and that wall to collapse.”

“Aye, I see it.” He said.

“And from what I figure, that wall will collapse.” I said. “One way or another. You are trapped and our army will only grow bigger.”

“I figure.”

“We’ve intercepted your message-birds, we have scouted your exits.” I said.

“No need to lie, boy. We never sent any messengers.” The Watchman said. “We all know we’re doomed. Yes.”

“Then why? What’s the point?”

The other six listened. I kept my back to the wall, my head moving across like a windshield or some sort of fan. The night sky a particular dark with only few if any stars to it. A couple, some in the corners of the nothingness, in that remote place beyond man. Perhaps another planet on it, another struggle just like my own. The Watchman cleared his throat. He gasped and paused then gasped again.

“You asked me who I was, but who are you?” The Watchman asked.

“Virgil Darko.” I said. “Vice-Captain of the Fourteenth of the Flock of Crows.”

“You talk like a proud soldier. Terse, heavy tone. Do you love your men?” He asked.

“I do. They took me in when no one else would.”

“So it is life you owe Vicentius?” He asked.

“Yes. I would say so. And it’s a life I honor. Or try to.” I said. “I answered you. Now answer me back, if you’re doomed. Why keep the fight up?”

“Because the suffering is all we have left, boy. You can take our cities, take our country, but you will never take our sacrifice.” He said. “Some things are worth dying to. Some things are worth not surrendering for.”

“Because surrendering would be its own kind of death, wouldn’t it be?”

“So you do understand.” The Watchman said. “That this is no matter of pride but matter of existential identity. For us to declare ourselves citizens and distinguished race of the world, we must fight, and in doing so set the lines of who we are.”

“And who are your people? What are they? Scavenged savages from the east? The last soldier of a tired lineage?”

“We are for house Budapart. For Duvall Budapart and his brother Hannibal Budapart.”

“Uh huh. Is this a lineage worth dying for, then?” I asked.

“As if you wouldn’t. As if you wouldn’t die for your precious little general. A band of nomadic orphans, monster killer turned mercenaries.” He said. “Men without honor, summoning man-eaters to fight your war.”

“Summoning man-eaters? What are you talking about?”

“You think those fiends are of these lands? I don’t know who the summoner is amongst you, but whatever black magicks you used was a dishonor to the war. But that is the difference, isn’t it? It is the honor of the family crest to which I have obliged myself to. And it is the honor to your savior you oblige yourself to. I follow creed and you pay a debt. And that is a difference worth remembering, mercenary boy.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” I asked. “It - It doesn’t even matter. Who knows how long it’ll take. Weeks, months, but you will come out of that hole and you all will be seized. And whether you put up a fight or not is none of my concern. Only know that you’re prolonging death.”

There was no response. And behind the wreckage, I was unsure if I heard the fading footsteps into the echoless cavern or if I heard the falling of debris from within the barricade itself. Wood snapped and rope went taut and small things budged but the whole remained the whole and the night went uneventful. As it had last night, and the night before.

The stars took a while to fade out into blue. You could just stare at them, rifled comets cutting red streaks against cloudless black. The moons in all glory beaming down upon us, the smooth stone reflecting tongues of fire against their curvature. The corrugated horizon caught the sun, little pillars that seemed red like bloodied fingers. It made me think of the life before or perhaps things I lacked in the life before. Oh, what a while it had been to reflect. The clown and festive fool I was, always up for the next feast or drunkard party. Doing as many narcotics as my body would allow - going as far as my father would allow. Always pushing the boundary and always remaining within that boundary, reliant on a steady stream of wealth that to me seemed bottomless.

City lights of New York and Los Angeles and Seattle - foreign ones too, Paris and Japan and Moscow, lights that contaminated the sky and left your dreamless. Left you without awe of what was. There’s humility in knowing man has his limits charted out. There’s humility in knowing the unknowable will remain as such, cosmic horror can become cosmic relief and they never tell you that. I never had a chance to think.

My watch mates fell asleep an hour before. One of them kept trying to fight it, his eyes jolted up whenever they’d fall. Young men, all of them. Was I still young? I stood up.

Twenty eight, would it be? The months are stranger in this world and the years longer, but I figured twenty eight and some change would be right.

What a life and to be rallied here at the spear of an army awaiting for desperate men to come out of their caves like the first Paleolithic specimens. For me to be at the front of a war. Strange humor the fury’s had cursed me with.

My father was a weapons dealer. He dealt in the economy of accessible and convenient killing. Strange indeed how things turn out.

“How was the shift.” Obrick said.

Him and Kal were coming up. No weapons besides shortswords at their hip that they kept tight.

“One of them talked.” I said. “Didn’t say much ‘sides that he’ll fight to the death.”

“How original.” Kal chewed some bread. Little colored balls on a stick, shiny and soft. He passed me a stick and I ate them without chewing. Good. Each portion had a different flavor, all of them soft like brioche.

“Who made this?” I asked.

“Chet.” Kal chewed.

“Chet? What’s he doing here?”

“They’re all coming in.” Obrick said. “The city is captured. Xanthus will keep it with his men, most of the Crows are coming back and rejoining us. I’d say its over for Duvall.”

“Huh.”

I was sat, my arm hung on my knee that was bent upwards. I looked to the side, to the barricade.

“This is how it ends for them, then?” I asked. “Surrounded by the enemy, starved to death. What a terrible way to go as a warrior.”

“It was their choice. They could have fought us in the open field.” Obrick said. “They wanted this cat and mouse game.”

“Yeah.” Kal nodded his head. He had another skewer of food.

I chuckled. I stood, I lifted and put the hot rocks upon the campfire and got myself ready for bed. Just as the sun was starting to rise high above the plateau of the mountain. A height that shined red as the little sun came up behind it.

“By the way.” Obrick looked side to side. His legs shook a little bit. “Lowell is coming in today. I think.”

I looked up. My eyes wide before narrowing.