Gamila III

PA 1.1

Travelling with a group of people turned out to be a lot slower than she’d remembered. Maybe she’d just been spoiled by how swiftly she made it here alone, but with a group it felt like they had barely made any progress.

Though now, at least, they had finally made it to the city she’d been hoping to enter yesterday.

The walls of the city slowly faded into view, the desert heat causing everything in the distance to blur. The walls were short and stout, same as most of the other cities back in the Sunset Kingdom, but more than big enough for their intended purpose of keeping people out. Off to the side of the walls was the entrance, only a single guard with a spear defending it.

“Mani, is that you!?” Akil shouted suddenly, running ahead of the group.

“Akil?” the guard yelled back. “What in the world are you doing here?”

“I’m joining the army, of course!” he grinned, clasping arms with the now named Mani. “I’ve decided to follow in my brother’s footsteps!”

Walking closer, Gamila could see how that statement caused Mani’s face to sour. “Akil, your brother’s a soldier specifically because he didn’t want you to join the army.”

“Well, if he wanted us to stay home, then he shouldn’t have told us all the cool stories of his time in the army!” he said, showing in one sentence that he really didn’t understand what he was getting into.

“That’s not…” Mani sighed, before glancing over the rest of the group. “Oh, hells, did you bring Abasi with you as well?”

“He wants to support our bro as well!”

“He might be too young to join,” Mani groaned, rubbing his forehead. Gamila could relate—the amount of times someone had tried to force their twelve year old son into the army only to have them soundly rebuffed was way too damn many.

“Well, whatever,” the guard shook his head. “This… you’ll figure things out eventually. Head on in. You’ll be staying in the soldier’s barracks, which you can find a little bit behind the Palace. If you ever get lost, make sure to ask someone for help.”

“Will do Mani,” Akil grinned, giving him another wave as their group walked past. “Thanks for the help!”

“Thank me by not dying! Your brother would kill me if you did!”

And with that, a foreign spy had snuck into the city.

She’d like to chalk the ease she made it in up to her own skill at stealth, but in reality it was more likely the people of this world simply didn’t have a concept of espionage. After all, it wasn’t like there’d been political states long enough for there to have been any spies in the first place.

Hm, not that she thought of it, she’d work on having the guards back home learn to identify intruders. She was suddenly worried that their own capital might be just as compromised as this one.

Regardless, once she entered the city it turned out the capital wasn’t as special as she’d expected it to be. Fortaleza was a simple city. Similar to the others along the river, its buildings were mudbrick boxes protected by a large, dense wall. The buildings within the walls followed a somewhat straight grid system—contrasting the city of Sun’s Rest’s layout, which was built out radially from a central courtyard.

At the center of the city was Olivia’s palace, marked as being one of only two two-story buildings. While she hadn’t been inside it yet from the outside it looked like it acted more like a castle than Joseph’s open-air throne room, probably to be used by Olivia herself incase the outer walls fell.

Strategically it was sound, though Gamila couldn’t help but frown at the thought of abandoning the rest of the civilians to save herself. After how her own rule had ended the thought left a sour taste in her mouth.

Either way, she was here for the foreseeable future, so she’d have to swallow down her complaints and stay quiet.

Eventually they reached the barracks, which looked to be a relatively new building which extended like a tumor from the outside of the city walls. It was the only other two-story building besides the palace, while also having an accessible roof that she could here some people—probably other soldiers—hanging out on. Each of the lower floors by contrast were only used for beds, which crammed together at least thirty people a floor.

Which meant that Olivia’s army was small, at least compared to the bigger powers surrounding her. But when it came down to a siege, even small armies could hold off larger ones indefinitely.

Of course, that was why she’d infiltrated this city in the first place.

--

The next morning Gamila was woken up at the crack of dawn along with the rest of the soldiers. From there they were handed some bread and water, told to eat it quickly and be up on the roof before the first rooster crowed.

(Which in itself was good information, showing that these people had chickens as livestock, but something she wished she could have learned at a more pleasant time.)

And so she arrived at the roof along with about half the soldiers, all of whom looked exhausted and hungry, but who were also smart enough to listen to their general when they told them to move their ass.

Who, it turns out, happened to be Queen Olivia herself.

COCK-A-DOODLE-DO

The rooster’s cry echoed throughout the city, waking up others who joined in, filling the city with a cacophony of crowing roosters as the sun slowly rose above the horizon.

The Queen sighed at the sound, looking at the men and women in front of her with disappointment.

“So,” she growled, “it seems that your fellows don’t understand the concept of being punctual. Aten! Take note of everyone who didn’t show up today! Tomorrow, they won’t be getting breakfast! And if this happens again with anyone, then nobody in the barracks will get breakfast! Is that understood!?”

“What?!” one of the soldiers behind her—Jahi, she remembered—shouted incredulously. “But that’s not fair!”

“Life isn’t fair!” Olivia snapped back, glaring at him. “Especially not for soldiers. You all are here today to train to fight against an opponent who outclasses you, outnumbers you, and if what I’ve seen so far is any indication, outsmarts you as well! We have been put on the frontline of a war by enemy and ally alike, and I’ll be damned if I let this city fall because my soldiers were so inept that they couldn’t even arrive to battle on time!”

She took a deep breath, her glare lessening up a little. “That being said, all of you are here on time, and I commend you for that! As such, your reward will be the breakfasts of everyone who isn’t getting theirs today. They’ll be added to your lunch rations when we break next. Is that understood?”

The soldiers were silent.

Olivia sighed, realizing the issue. “When I say, ‘Is that understood?’ I want you all to reply, ‘Yes Ma’am!’ Now, again, am I understood!?”

There was a moment of hesitation, before a dozen voices shouted back out of sync, “Yes Ma’am!”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll take it.”

With that, she resumed her earlier lecture, glaring at them once again. “There are many reasons this war is happening—none of which you need to know about. All you need to know is that our city is on the frontline of a war between our own home and a land known as the ‘Sunset Kingdom.’ They are the people who live to our south, past where the river bends at the edge of our Kingdom. Perhaps you know of it; perhaps you know people from it; or perhaps you’ve never heard of it in your life. Whatever the case, let me assure you—they are coming to kill us. To kill you, to kill your family, and to destroy everything any of us have ever cared about. To knock us back into that dark age of chaos and strife from before I arrived and granted you the gift of order!”

Gamila almost instinctively defended her new home before cutting herself off. Despite having expected it, it still took her off-guard how much it had annoyed her.

But still, throughout the whole speech, something felt a bit… off… to her.

“As such, I have personally committed to seeing to it that all of you will be ready to defend our home against any outside invaders!”

Like the fact that there were so few people left behind to guard this city, despite there being three large Kingdom’s worth of troops they could have brought. Could that be important?

“You will be broken down until nothing of the old you remains—and from the rubble I will craft you anew, stronger, better than you ever were before! A new type of human, capable of protecting anyone that you wish, and destroying anyone who might stand in your way.”

…No, rather, it was the fact that they were scrambling troops now, rather than having them ready beforehand showed something even more important. The Wen-Olivia Alliance wasn’t prepared for this war.

But why not? Did their allies not inform them of their plans before they declared war? Or had there been some sort of miscommunication?

…Actually, considering the alliance web that had preceded this war, the Wen-Olivia Alliance had been allied to the Two Oasis’. In that case, had the Song Cua Toi simply not trusted their ally to join them? Do they still not trust them? Could that be a basis to drive a wedge between the two nations?

Hm. She’d already uncovered some important information, and she’d been here only a day. Imagine how much information she could learn over the next few weeks!

“To help with that, our allies to the north have granted us a new invention of theirs, one that will revolutionize war itself!”

Oh? That… that could either be a horrible omen for the Sunset Kingdom or just more grandstanding by this Queen.

Walking towards the roof’s edge, the Queen reached into what looked like a pile of sticks and grabbed one out, before bringing it back in view of the soldiers.

Actually, now that Gamila looked at it properly, that looked like a…

“This is what is known as a bow and arrow!” Olivia told them, idly pulling at the string, producing a quiet ‘twang’ as she did so. “And it is what will bring us victory over all of our enemies!”

Oh, yup. That’s definitely horrible.

9,900 God-Kings Remain