Prologue IV

0 PA

Day 6

“Basi, I want you and the other hunters to start gathering our weapons. Spears, knifes, whatever can be used to stab people. After that, gather everyone who can fight over here for more orders.” Sam told Basi early in the morning.

Basi, of course, looked troubled by this. “Gather weapons and people who can fight? Chieftain, are you planning for a raid?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” he assured Basi. “I’m worried about us getting raided. This village doesn’t have any real defenses—or at least, nothing that would stop a dedicated attack.”

Of course, he was severely understating his worry. When the number in the back of his head had gone down last night, he had been unable to fall asleep at all. The thought that one of the people who had been brought here was dead—that they had died within five days—had thrown him off too much. It was only the fact that he didn’t actually need to sleep that kept him from being exhausted. Instead, he had spent all night worrying, constantly coming up with worse and worse scenarios about how that person had been killed, and about what might kill him.

So maybe he was being paranoid. But he’d rather not take that chance, not yet.

“The village you found out about yesterday might be planning to attack us.” He told Basi, causing the younger man’s eyes to widen in shock. “Or it might not,” Sam quickly reassured him, “I’m thinking of a worst-case scenario here. But I’d rather us prepare for the worst and not need it, than need it and not have prepared.”

“Ah, I see!” Basi calmed down, giving him a short bow. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. Your wisdom is truly that of the gods, my Chieftain!”

It’s really not. That’s just something everyone knew back home.

Then again, these are tribal people in the stone age, so it isn’t really their fault they didn’t think of all the things he did. He had more experience, education, everything. Maybe that was his real superpower, being smart.

‘Whoa there buddy, cut back on the arrogance,’ Sam chided himself. ‘Just ‘cause you know how to do Calculus doesn’t mean you can lose yourself on a power trip. After all, you still don’t know how to hunt. What use are you in this society?’

Sam bit the inside of his cheek with a quiet sigh, watching Basi run off to gather all the people he needed. That wasn’t good. He had only been here a couple days, and the power was already going to his head? Shit, was he really that bad of a person?

He took a deep breath, trying to center himself.

‘I need to remember that these are people,’ he thought to himself, ‘These are real people who think and dream and hope just the same as me. They didn’t get the same opportunities as I did, and I shouldn’t pretend that makes me better than them. We’re all—still—people! I just need to remember that.’

Calming down, he decided to set off and find Lia. She always was good at distracting him when he got too mopey for his own good.

--

Day 7

He had calmed down considerably by the next day.

The people of his village had been hunting for years—according to some people they had even gone on raids against other tribes before he had arrived. Which, of course, was troubling, but it served his purposes for now, so he just pretended it didn’t happen.

In the end he’d decided to let any crimes that happened before he got here be forgiven, so long as they don’t happen again.

Though when he’d need to address that… he didn’t know. He was in charge, so that meant at some point he had to write down a bunch of laws, right?

He hoped his people would be okay with that. He wasn’t sure what he would do if they turned against him.

But what all of that meant was that he did have some people who already knew how to fight. So he had gathered the best warriors in the village (which after a quick headcount numbered 28 people) and started training them.

Or to be more specific, they were teaching him how to fight.

He didn’t know how to use a spear. This was obvious, and something he had been working on for the past couple days. But using a spear to hunt was very different from using one to fight.

Not that they really knew how to use it that way either. They were used to attacking, but defending was something they didn’t really understand either.

Which meant now they were all sitting around, brainstorming ideas on how to defend the village.

“Maybe we should set up spears in the ground? Like spikes or something?” Zhou the Younger—who was actually around forty at this point—asked.

“With what spears?” Ushi scoffed, shaking his head. “We only have a couple spare, not nearly enough for something as ambitious as that. Unless you want to spend the rest of your life carving spears?”

Zhou scowled. “It was just a suggestion.”

“Maybe if the village were smaller?” Song the Elder, a twenty-year-old man—who he was supposed to be older than, nobody knew, some think he made up the title to sound cool—asked. “I mean, it would mean less spears, yeah?”

“The issue isn’t just the number of spears,” Ushi sighed, “It’s that we don’t have enough extra for anything. If we get attacked anytime within the next few months, it won’t matter how many we make. We need a much more immediate solution.”

“No, hold on,” Sam spoke up. “I think the idea of a smaller village has merit.”

Zhou the Younger gave him an incredulous look, causing the wrinkles on his face to scrunch up. “What do you mean a ‘smaller village?’ Do you expect half of us to just up and leave!?”

“No, no, nothing like that. What I mean is, right now, the village is all spread out.” He waved his hand across the field of tents. “But if we move them closer together, we could make, uh, chokepoints, or something like that.”

“Chokepoints?”

“Yeah, it’s like—we make a small space, between the tents. It’ll only allow a couple of people through at a time, meaning we could hold those positions pretty easily with just a couple of warriors.”

Zhou the Younger stroked his beard, considering. “That doesn’t sound like a bad idea. In theory. But the tents aren’t all that strong—what if they try to destroy them to go around?”

“Well, I mean, they could, but that wouldn’t remove the tent—it would just mean they’d have to climb over the ruined tents in the middle of a battle. I don’t think that’s something they’d be able to easily do. And you said we needed a more immediate solution, and that’s the quickest one I could think of.”

They continued brainstorming for a while after that, but beyond some ideas that would take way too long (creating a moat using river water, cutting down trees to make a wall), no one could come up with anything better.

So, they got to work on moving the tents, grabbing most of the rest of the village to help them. The hut couldn’t be moved, meaning it would be a bit out of the formation, but it made up for it by being an actual structure, rather than a fur tent.

It took a long time, and people grumbled all the way, but it was for the best. By the time they were done, the tents were in a much more fortified formation around the center, and there was enough of an open clearing around the village that it would take someone a full minute to walk from the woods to the tents.

It wasn’t much. But it would do for now.

--

Day 8

In the woods beyond the village, a group of people had set up camp. Bedrolls made of furs covered the ground, packed together to take up the least amount of space possible. Even just looking at it, it was obvious that comfort had been the last thing on their minds. Above them the moon hung low in the sky, the light of dawn barely beginning to peak over the horizon.

Most of the camp was asleep, with only a woman and a man standing guard, conversing quietly with each other.

“Have they noticed us yet?” the woman asked softly.

“I couldn’t tell you, ma’am,” he shrugged. “They’re still there, so I don’t think they’ve noticed us yet. Normally if another tribe noticed something like this, they’d have up and left.”

“While that might work, they wouldn’t be able to run forever, and their leader most likely knows that.” The woman frowned heavily. She hated that she had so little to work with. “They might have decided to dig in and fortify their village. In that case, we may have trouble.”

“I think you’re worrying too much,” the man shrugged. “You’re leading us, so we’ll win no matter what.”

“And you worry too little,” she scoffed. “But… thank you. Your belief in me means more than you know.”

“Just stating the obvious, my Queen.”

The woman shook her head, smiling slightly. “We’ll need to wake them up soon. Once dawn breaks, I want us moving. If we catch them off guard, we may not even have to fight.”

With that the woman took a deep breath, staring out into the forest. She could feel her nervousness bubbling up, spreading through her body.

In an hour her soldiers would be getting up, and then they would march to battle.

Maybe… maybe she hadn’t spent enough time preparing for this.

She grimaced, suddenly being gripped by worry. What if she lost? They had only spent a couple of days preparing, and she barely was able to drill any of them. All they had were shields and spears. What if that wasn’t enough?

She’d rushed out here too early, her fear getting the better of her. If she had just spent a few more days preparing…

She shook her head. ‘Enough,’ she told herself, pushing the thoughts away. ‘What’s done is done. I can’t turn back now—I’ve spent to long proving myself to these people just to lose it all because I got scared at the last moment. We’ll go out there, win, and come home.’

Juliette, Queen of her tribe, felt anxiety build up in her chest. Biting her lip, she stared out into the forest.

‘We’ll have to.’

--

Sam yawned, before grimacing and forcing himself to eat his breakfast. It wasn’t even his nerves this time, the food here was just shit. No spices, no sauces, not even any salt. The closest thing to a spice here was the fruit and roots that people collected, and those only got used for dinner, if they were lucky.

Just fucking dry, tasteless meat.

His spoiled, 21st century taste buds were crying.

He took another bite, chewing lethargically. It was disgusting. ‘Damnit, I can’t do this anymore. Is there anything else here? Something to distract me?’

His eyes roved over the people around him, all of them enjoying their meal way more than him. ‘Oh, there’s Lia.’ She was sitting next to her brother a way away, chattering her head off. Basi himself looked like he wasn’t even paying attention, completely zoned out.

With a shrug, he got up to go sit with them. It was better than sitting alone.

“Hey, Lia, Basi,” he nodded to them. “What’cha talking about?”

The woman’s head snapped over to him, a wide, manic grin spread across her face. “Sam! I’m so glad you asked!”

Basi let out a groan beside her, running through all five stages of grief in less than a second.

Sam smiled unsurely, before shrugging. Well, he had asked for this.

And so that’s how he spent the rest of his morning, listening to his friend natter on about bears and squirrels and how you should never ever throw one at the other.

It was nice. The food was shit, bugs kept crawling into his bed, and he had lost everything he had ever known and loved, but right here and now? He was content.

Naturally, it lasted all of five minutes.

--

The warriors marched softly through the forest, dozens of men and women gently moving through the undergrowth so as to make as little noise as possible. At the front stood the leader of the silent army, a woman almost indistinguishable from the rest of her soldiers, if not for the fact she was twice as noisy and half as fast.

Not that that really mattered. If all went according to plan, they’d be at the village before anyone had any time to prepare.

Unfortunately for them, nothing ever goes according to plan.

‘crack’

A dozen heads turned to the noise. At first, it seemed it was just the natural sounds of the forest, but as the young Queen looked closer, she noticed something.

There, almost invisible in the foliage, was a man—likely a hunter—looking just as shocked to see them as they were to see him.

“Shit,” she swore quietly. Louder, she shouted, “GET HIM!”

Spears and javelins were launched at the man, but he was already too far into the woods, and seconds later he was long gone, hidden by the foliage.

It was times like this she really wished these people had invented the bow.

“OKAY!” she shouted back to her soldiers, hoping everyone could hear her. “We’ve lost the element of surprise! But we’re close enough that they don’t have enough time to prepare anyway, so we’ll still win this! Just change to plan B! Form up into the turtle formation, like we practiced!”

It took a couple minutes, but soon everyone was set up in a crude ‘turtle’ formation—the trees and shrubbery were getting in the way, but they could close ranks once they got closer to the enemy village.

“Qian!” she shouted to her second in command. “I’m leaving you in charge of them for now! I’m going off to deal with their leader! So, win! Or else I’m demoting you!”

“As our Queen commands!” She heard Qian shout back, “You heard her soldiers! Double time! We win this fast enough and I can get home in time to eat my wife’s stew!”

She smiled lightly, before turning and running, leaving behind the sounds of their laughter and jeers.

They’d be fine without her.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t say the same for herself.

Already she began to feel more nervous, away from the shields of her soldiers. It was incredible how much their presence had reassured her and kept her grounded.

She could swear she could see enemy soldiers out of the corner of her eyes, stalking her through the forest. Other times it was bears, or snakes, or whatever monsters her terrified mind could come up with. It didn’t matter what it was, just the shadows she glimpsed from the corners of her eyes were enough.

Eventually she had to stop, leaning on a tree as she gasped for breath. She wasn’t even that tired, she was just…

Scared. She was scared.

She chucked scathingly. Of course I’m scared,’ she scoffed. ‘I can send people off to kill for me, but the second I have to get my own hands dirty I freeze up. I’m so fucking pathetic.’

She took a deep breath before straightening up. ‘Now’s not the time for that,’ she scolded herself. ‘I’ll have time to beat myself up later. Right now, I have people counting on me. So get your damn act together.’

Nodding to herself, she took off running again, trying to block out any other negative thoughts. Instead, she focused on her goal, forcing her hands to stop shaking. She had to get to the village without the other king noticing. That was all she needed to do. And if she was right, then she could end this battle before it even began.

If she was wrong… well. That was why she had brought an army.

--

“RAIDERS!” A man screamed, charging into the village center. “RAIDERS! ENEMIES! HERE!”

For a long moment everyone in the village froze unable to process the man’s shouting.

And then, chaos.

It was like everyone lost all control of themselves, running around and panicking as if it were the end of the world. People were running back and forth, some grabbing whatever weapon was in reach, some running into the tents, and a couple even fleeing into the damn forest.

And in the middle of it all sat Sam, motionless, unable to think beyond his mounting dread.

‘Oh shit oh shit it’s actually happening,’ He panicked internally. ‘I thought—I mean, I didn’t think—I can’t believe this is actually happening—!’

“Sir!” Basi asked, suddenly grabbing his shoulder. “What do you want us to do!?”

Basi’s words managed to knock some sense into him. ‘Right, I’m in charge. Shit, I hate that,’ He hissed mentally. ‘What should I—right! Plan! We planned for this! We have a plan, we practiced for this, just fall back on it.’

Standing up, he took a deep breath, and then roared—

“EVERYONE, CALM DOWN!”

It took a couple moments, but soon the madness subsided, and everyone quieted down and turned to look at him.

“GOOD!” he shouted, feeling some relief kick in. At least they were actually listening to him. Reaching down, he grabbed his spear, continuing to shout. “NOW, WARRIORS! FORM UP! EVERYONE WHO CAN USE A SPEAR! GRAB ONE AND STAND WITH ME! OR GET TO THE CHOKEPOINTS! We planned for this, remember! Everything will be fine, just stop panicking!”

After he was done, he turned and ran towards the closest chokepoint, trying to hide how terrified he was. ‘Fuck, shit fuck! We aren’t ready for this! I’m not ready for this!’

He stumbled to a stop between two of the tents, the ones with the biggest opening into the camp.

For what felt like an eternity he stood there, spear extended out, staring into the dark forest.

And then, all too soon, he saw it.

‘Is that a fucking Phalanx!?’

Sam stared in horror at the opposing army as it broke from the tree line. At least five lines of tribal warriors stood side by side, crude shields held up in front and to the side of them to create a turtle-like formation. Spears jutted out of the front and sides of the formation, warding off anyone who would dare to get close.

‘Fuck, we’re all gonna die.’

That was when the rest of his people caught up to him, standing shoulder to shoulder with him, spears jutting out in front of them with the tents covering their sides.

The sight filled him with confidence. Not a lot, but just enough to stop him from giving up and running.

He turned back to the Phalanx in front of them, calming down significantly. The formation was actually a lot cruder than he had at first thought. The shields were ajar, with blatant holes throughout, and the spears were waving up and down with each step they took. They were inexperienced.

‘Obviously,’ he felt himself untense, just a bit. ‘Whoever this is has been here just as long as I have. There’s no way they would have been able to train their soldiers that quickly.’

They were also slow. Painfully slow. Each step they took was measured, as the soldiers were obviously unused to walking in that formation. It was also small, with—what, eight people in each row, and five rows? It was hard to tell from where he was standing. But that wasn’t many people, especially now that they were fully out in the open.

Their greatest advantage were their shields, but shields could only protect in one direction, and the Phalanx wasn’t big enough for them to take full advantage of it…

‘Should we go on the offensive?’

Unfortunately, that choice was taken out of his hands.

“Set!” he heard from within the enemy ranks.

‘What…?”

“FIRE!”

With that word a dozen javelins suddenly launched from the back of the Phalanx. Sam watched them fly up in an arc, feeling like the world was moving in slow motion.

‘Shit.’

The projectiles slammed into his own people, and while most of them missed, more than enough hit. He heard shouts of pain from behind him, and out of the corner of his eye he saw one of them slam into the man next to him, knocking him down.

“CHARGE!”

The Phalanx suddenly rushed forward, dropping their formation for a moment to get right up close to his line.

Cursing, Sam acted on instinct, driving his spear forward into the mass of people and was rewarded with a pained scream.

He tried to pull his spear back, but it was apparently stuck on something, and was yanked out of his hands in the next moment.

“Shit!” he hissed, stumbling backwards. He cursed louder as he felt something stab into his gut—looking down, a spear had buried itself in his abdomen.

‘That’s not good,’ he thought deliriously. ‘Wait, that’s a weapon!’

With a movement he would never again be able to replicate, he yanked the spear out of his both his body and the enemy’s hands, spinning it around and shoving it back at the person in front of him. It ended up hitting a shield, but at least now he had a weapon.

After that, everything began to blur together.

Both sides had broken formation, falling into a frenzied melee. It was hard to see what was happening even a foot in front of him—everything was changing so rapidly that he couldn’t focus on anything. The brown fur armors of both sides blended together, and it was practically impossible to tell who was who.

He couldn’t hear anything over the screams and shouts of both sides, and he was pretty sure he had caught sight of a few people running away from the fight all together.

He hoped those people weren’t on his side.

At one point he stepped onto something warm and squishy, slipping and falling on his back. He almost got trampled before he was able to stand up again, shoving his spear into the shoulder someone he hoped was the enemy.

And then it was back into the blur of battle again.

He didn’t know how long he fought—he had taken more than a couple injuries, but apparently nothing that took him out of the fight, unlike the unlucky bodies that had fallen to the ground. Really the only reason he was doing as well as he was, was because the people he was fighting against didn’t know how to fight any better than he did. It was just a huge mess of stabbing and shoving and grappling with whoever was in front of him.

At some point he had lost his spear again—he didn’t know when, it was just in his hands one second and gone the next. Barely thinking, he stumbled backwards, instinctively moving back into his side of the battle, staggering out of the melee altogether.

Blanking staring at the battle from the outside, he couldn’t even tell who was winning.

Unfortunately, he didn’t need to worry about that for long.

Sam suddenly froze, clutching at his chest. An awful feeling came over him, shattering his battle high. It felt as though someone had reached their hand through his chest and grabbed his heart.

And then they began to squeeze.

His head snapped to the side, staring in horror at his hut. Without thinking, he ran from the battle, barely hearing the startled cries of the people around him as he raced for the building.

‘No, no, no, no!’ he thought frantically, running as fast as he could.

It felt like cold fingers were being traced down his spine. Like he was being crushed under the weight of the world, pushing all the oxygen from his lungs, leaving him nothing more than a hollow husk.

Death approached. He felt it in his soul.

After what felt like an eternity he burst into his hut, his eyes frantically bouncing around the room—there!

There was a woman in his hut. She was beautiful, with flawless pale skin and vaguely European features. Her dirty blonde hair was tied into a bun, with loose bangs framing her face. She wore the same animal-skin armor the rest of the warriors outside had. Her face was twisted into an expression of fear, determination, and something else he couldn’t place.

None of that mattered to Sam. His eyes were locked onto the woman’s hand, clutching the pale-green orb that was his soul.

He understood in an instant who this was.

This woman was another person from Earth, like him. She was the leader of the village that attacked them, that he had—foolishly—believed could be friendly. She was a woman who had been given all the same things he had.

And she had come to kill him.

“Hey,” Sam whispered nervously, his eyes flickering between her face and her hand. He wet his lips, feeling sweat drip down his palms. “Hey. We don’t—This doesn’t need to happen.”

The woman tensed, shuffling backwards further into the hut. When her back hit the wall she flinched, her other arm snapping up to put a bone dagger between him and her.

‘Could I lunge at her? Could I grab it before she broke it? If I attack now, will she panic and destroy it?’

“Hey,” he repeated, holding his hands up placatingly. “Look, we can talk about this, right? Just the two of us. We’re both from Earth. We’re—we’re not murderers, right?”

The woman flinched, and he felt hope rise in his heart.

“Just—just put my—the orb down. We can talk, and come to an agreement, and not kill each other, right? We’re rational human beings. We aren’t—you don’t need to do this, okay?”

His heart was thrumming a mile a minute, and he didn’t know if he should focus on the knife or his soul more. The woman still hadn’t put it down. Why couldn’t she just put it down!?

“Please,” he whispered, “Just put it down, and we can talk, and it’ll be fine. It’ll be fine, okay? Just please put it down.”

The complicated expression on her face tightened, but slowly, ever so slowly, she began to lower the dagger.

‘Almost,’ he thought frantically, ‘almost. Just put it down, please!’

And then, the worst possible thing that could have happened, happened.

In the back of his mind, he felt it—

9,998 God-Kings Remain

It really was unfortunate timing.

Both of their eyes widened in horror, the two of them pausing as the information shocked them into silence.

Looking back at the woman across from him, Sam could only cringe in horror at what he saw.

The woman’s face, which had been wracked by indecision and fear a moment ago, twisted into something he never wanted to see.

Resolve.

“Please,” he begged her. “You don’t need to do this.”

“I-,” the woman spoke for the first time. Tears were building up in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Sam felt terror fill his heart, and with nothing left to lose, he lunged at her.

And the woman crushed his soul.

9,997 God-Kings Remain