PA 1.2

Kaiden

Life was beginning to pick back up in Sun’s Rest. When the announcement came that Meixiu had won the first real battle of the war, people cheered. It felt as though in an instant, the tense atmosphere that had been choking the city had been dispersed and life could begin to go on as normal again.

It was nice, in a way. People smiling again, no longer as worried about the looming threat of war hanging over their heads. To them, the capital was now beyond the reach their enemies, and so they stopped worrying about them.

Kaiden wished he could do the same. But he was from the 21st century, and he knew how wars worked, far more than these people. Battles could shift on a dime—cities lost, armies routed, and families killed. He’d grown up hearing about those things happening in places like the Middle East and Africa, of how wars destroyed the homes and lives of uncountable numbers of people.

He’d seen the results of his own cowardice in the early days in this world, forced to flee to beg help from Joseph. He’d seen the people starving in the streets, a bad day or two away from death. He’d seen how that tiny war had nearly destroyed them.

And now people were celebrating. Going about their days, living happy lives, while wars ruined the lives of countless others outside of their little bubbles of ignorance.

It almost reminded him of his old world.

Kaiden sighed, shaking those morose thoughts from his head. He had his own work to do, after all.

He was in his room—or, really, his house. He’d gotten his own once the city started expanding, but it wasn’t like it was that big either way. Like most new houses it was a two-story building, the lower floor being used for storage while his room was on top. It was quaint, though it could get uncomfortably cold at night. They probably needed to work on that, add it to the ever-growing list of things-that-will-never-get-done.

Currently though, Kaiden was working through his part of the list-of-things-that-will-probably-get-done. Specifically, he was building drums.

Drums were one of the few instruments that the locals had already developed. They were simple to make—if not difficult to make correctly—being just animal hides over a wooden bowl, which was then painted with beautiful geometric shapes.

They were simple. Elegant, one might say.

They also had a tendency to break after a long night with too many drinks.

He’d found some questionable stuff in some of those drums, too. It was why he spent his time building new ones rather than repairing the old. Some things just weren’t worth thinking about too hard.

It wasn’t originally his job to build these—he’d learned from local artisans, after all—but with the festival celebrating their first victory coming up, Joseph wanted to go all out on the entertainment. Which meant a return of the three D’s—dancing, drinks, and drums.

Hsekiu took over the first two, but he’d delegated the last to him. Probably as a way to distract him, though if that was the case it had been pretty hit or miss so far.

The issue was that, as he worked, his thoughts inevitably drifted. No matter what he did, his thoughts kept returning to the war. Back to how there were people out there, probably dead and dying and all he was doing was sitting here making drums! Drums! How was this going to help!?

Kaiden groaned, rubbing his eyes. It wasn’t like he really knew much of what was going on out there anyhow.

Once the war started, he’d been kept increasingly in the dark about everything that was going on. Where once he’d been able to walk into the Plaza and listen in on anything being said, now Hsekiu would show up to stop him, a pleasant lie on his lips about him being needed somewhere else, or how Joseph was planning something that only people who needed to know could hear.

…The fact that he wasn’t one of those people bothered him more than he’d liked to admit.

They treated him like a child. And, yes, he knew he was a teenager still, but—!

…But…

…Wait, he wasn’t a teenager anymore, was he?

It’d been a year. A year and some change since they’d been brought to this world. He was eighteen now.

…Huh…

Kaiden leaned away from the drums, just… dazed.

He was eighteen. He was an adult.

…He didn’t feel like an adult.

He swallowed heavily, his eyes starting to tear up. He was eighteen. All his friends back home, they were eighteen as well. John and Cass and Hailey… they were all adults now. Probably in college, or trade school or whatever. Cass had always wanted to go to Columbia, he remembered. He wondered if she got in.

…He wondered, if he hadn’t been brought to this world, would he have gone to college as well? That had always been the plan, but…

Kaiden gripped his legs, digging his fingers into his thighs as he desperately tried to regain control of his emotions. But, but no matter what he did…

Well, at least nobody else was around to see him like this.

--

Meixiu

The march north from Dàhé was far too short for Meixiu’s liking.

The past few days had felt far too much like a frantic rush, a race to see how deep into enemy territory she could get before King was forced to pull his troops back and stop her. Just yesterday they’d taken Dàhé, and now they were already at Pháo đài Song, the first city in the Song Cua Toi. It felt a bit like a dream, actions taken too quickly for them to register properly. She felt like she should still be back in Dàhé, fortifying and asserting her control rather than rushing ahead.

Well, there wasn’t much they could do about that now. They’d made their plan, and so they were going to stick to it.

Unfortunately, Pháo wouldn’t be as easy to take as Dàhé. Unlike the capital of King Wen, this town had been designed more like Biancheng, as a fortress city on the border rather than a port town open for trade. As such, the walls completely encircled the city, forcing her to slow down and prepare for a siege over rushing it as quickly as possible.

She’d thought about avoiding it like she’d done with Fortaleza, but that course of action would leave her with more issues than not. For one, she’d be leaving the only city she’d taken so far pincered between two enemy cities, making it easy enough to recapture and ruining all the work she’d done to take it in the first place. Along with that, many of her boats had been damaged in the fight—about a fourth were no longer sea-worthy and would need repairs, while the rest would be put on convoy duty for now, sailing up and down the river to ship food between her army and the homeland.

It was frustrating, lacking that tool for now, but she’d manage.

After all, those bows they’d looted from Dàhé were worth more than their weight in gold.

So now, rather than blitz the city like she’d done with Dàhé, her army instead skirted around it, setting up camps along any outgoing road and sending out scouts to counter any supplies the enemy tried to smuggle into the city.

Her hope was that this city, being so deep in enemy territory, wasn’t prepared for a long siege. And if not, then it would hopefully work as enough of a distraction for the main army sieging down the Two Oasis’ to pull back, giving their ally time to breathe.

Either way, at this point—as uncomfortable as she felt right now—she’d completed all her objectives. And that meant that right now, all that was left to do was settle in, and wait.

And hope she was making the right decision.

--

Gamila

When she’d first come up with the idea, there’d only been disgust. After all, selling out these… These…

(She didn’t want to use the word ‘friend.’ It felt too wrong.)

…innocents. Selling them out for, what, complaining about their boss? Groaning a bit too loudly? Even if she went through with it, would it really be worth it?

But the more she thought about it, the more she realized it wasn’t too different from what she was already doing.

After all, by the end of this war, her plans were for this city to fall. For the army they were apart of to be crushed and its people assimilated into the Sunset Kingdom. She was already a spy whose very actions could lead to their demise.

Selling them out was just a much more direct way of doing so.

And while she’d built up a bit of a—Camaraderie? Companionship?—with Akil and his friends, when compared to her real friends and the mission she’d been entrusted to complete, they just didn’t match up.

Her loyalty was to Meixiu, Joseph, and the rest of the Sunset Kingdom, in that order.

And so, when next she was able, Gamila snitched.

--

Coming up to the Queen’s palace at the center of the city, Gamila walked up to the two guards, a man and a woman wearing the red dyed armor of the Queen’s personal guard.

“Hello,” she nodded solemnly in greeting. “I’ve come to request an audience with the Queen.”

The two glanced at each other, before turning back to her. “I’m sorry,” the woman told her, “But the Queen isn’t receiving any visitors. Especially not unannounced.”

“I see,” Gamila had expected this much, of course. “Would you be willing to pass along a message, then? I’ve heard that… well…” she lowered her voice, glancing surreptitiously behind her, as though afraid they would be overheard. “I’ve heard that there are people who have lost faith in the Queen. Who think that maybe surrendering is the better option, over fighting for the Queen. I want to warn her, you see, but if you think it best I’ll come back another time—”

“Wait!” the man hissed, grabbing her shoulder when she turned to leave. “Wait. These words… how sure of them are you? That there are people plotting against the Queen?”

“I’m here now, aren’t I? Why would I have come if I wasn’t certain?”

The guards gave each other one more worried look, before the woman sighed. “Very well then,” she grunted. “We’ll allow you entrance to the Queen’s Palace. Follow me, and do not even think about sneaking off!”

Getting dragged along by the guard, Gamila took the time to memorize the insides of the palace while she had the chance. The inside of the palace was about the same as the outside—mudstone walls painted in red geometric patterns. The layout was simple enough to understand with just a glance, having a long hallway extending from the entrance that all the other rooms were connected to, with the staircase to the upper floor at the end. The upper floor, in turn, was dedicated solely to the Queen, acting as her private living space.

“Here we are,” the guard stopped before the door to the Queen’s room, knocking thrice. “Just so you’re aware, if the Queen decides that what you have to say isn’t important, any punishment will be coming out of your hide.”

“I’m aware,” Gamila barely refrained from rolling her eyes, almost forgetting who she was speaking to. “Trust me, she’ll want to hear this.”

“We’ll see,” she grunted back. “My Queen! You have a visitor, a soldier who says she has some important information for you!”

There was silence for a moment, before an almost imperceptible sigh came from the other side of the door. “…Fine. Let them in.”

And with that she’d made it into the Queen’s personal chambers.

“So,” Queen Olivia began, dragging Gamila’s eyes over to the large wooden desk in the left half of the room, the Queen sitting behind it. “Who are you?” she growled, her voice deep and exhausted. “Why are you bothering me?”

Here in her private quarters, Queen Olivia looked nothing like the strong warrior-queen she presented herself as in the barracks. Oh, she certainly looked the hardass, with a strong jaw set in a perpetual scowl and a big ‘don’t fuck with me’ aura. But right now, she didn’t look so stern. Her shoulders were slumped, her hair a frizzy mess, and her eyes tired. She looked exhausted.

The reason why was plain enough. Gossip spread fast, and faster still amongst soldiers. King Wen was dead, Meixiu’s army had avoided them completely, and they had been left as sitting ducks for when the army inevitably turned to come for them.

But Gamila pushed those thoughts out of her head before they could show on her face.

“My Queen,” she bowed, taking a knee before the Queen. “I am T’ila. And as I told the guard,” Gamila began, altering what she was going to say on the fly. This Queen looked like she was one wrong move from executing her instead. “I was worried about the allegiance of some of the other soldiers—they’ve been talking, you see. About what happened with… ah…”

Gamila trailed off, wincing as she saw Olivia’s face instantly become murderous.

“Who.” The Queen ground out.

Biting her lip as a shot of real fear coursed through her, Gamila spat out every name she’d memorized over the past week of eavesdropping.

“…and that’s all of them. The ones I’ve heard talking, anyway. I don’t know if there are any others who are keeping such thoughts to themselves, though.”

The Queen closed her eyes, clasping her hands before her face as she took a deep, long breath.

“…Very well then,” she sighed, a spark of something appearing in her tone. Something that almost sounded like excitement. “As it always is, the greedy are wont to betray you once you’ve shown weakness. But we are not quite so weak—not yet, anyways. And I will not allow such rot to exist within my domain.”

Then she sighed, turning back to Gamila somehow calmer than when she’d first entered. “You did well to tell me of this, soldier.”

‘Did you really forget my name already?’ Gamila groused internally. ‘Why did I even come up with a fake one if you weren’t going to remember it in the first place?’

“I thank you for your service,” the Queen nodded. “But if that is all you have to tell me, then I must ask you to leave. I have… much to think about.”

“Oh, uh… one more thing if possible, my Queen? Could you… not reveal who told you this? I don’t… I’m afraid what might happen if people knew what I was doing…”

The words were presented with such pure sincerity that Gamila was both impressed and sickened by her own lies.

“…Of course, soldier,” the Queen nodded magnanimously, somehow coming across like she was granting her some great boon by not selling out her own follower. “That is, of course, if you promise to bring forth any more possible… insurgences that might be forming within the ranks.”

“Of course, my Queen,” Gamila nodded, keeping a stoic frown on her face, as though she were a resolute soldier accepting an ignominious task.

“Then you may return to your bunk, soldier,” Olivia nodded, gesturing out of her office. “I will call on you when I need you next. Until then… I have some housekeeping to do.”

And, only once she was far from the Queen’s prying eyes, did Gamila dare to let out a shaky smile.

9,897 God-Kings Remain