Kaiden VIII

PA 2 – July

Kaiden

Kaiden ran through the streets of the Oasis Capital, his heart pounding in his ears. Running in formation around him were his guards—about half the soldiers they’d brought with them in total, while the rest remained with his civilian servants.

“Where did you send the rest of them?” Kaiden asked between gasps of breath. “Are they safe?”

“Safe enough,” Anube reassured him. “We got word of the invasion while we were in the midst of packing, so Herneith ordered them to just drop everything and head to the opposite side of the city. They’ll be leaving through the other gate if all goes well.”

“…If all goes well?” Kaiden repeated, his anxiety doubling suddenly. “What do you mean by that? We aren’t a part of this conflict yet, right?

“Well, since we were their allies, in their eyes we’re as much enemies as they are.”

“Oh… wait, were?”

“HALT!” someone suddenly shouted, and his convoy stumbled to a stop just in time to see a group of Cui’s soldiers charge out of one of the side streets, raising their spears at them. The leader stepped ahead of them, shouting, “If you value your lives, surrender immediately! Otherwise, as traitors, it is my right as commander to cut you down where you stand!”

“What!?” Kaiden yelped, confused. “What the hell is going on!?”

“Yeah…” Anube growled, clutching his spear tightly. Around him, the rest of his soldiers assumed a defensive formation. “Apparently they think we’re the ones attacking.”

“Why!?”

“Don’t know,” Anube grunted. “And at this point, I doubt it matters.”

Kaiden bit back any more questions—now certainly wasn’t the time for it. Instead he turned to the soldiers arraying themselves before him. “Look,” he called out to them, “I don’t really know what’s going on. I don’t know what your King has told you or even who’s attacking right now. But we are not your enemies! Please, can we just try to talk this out?”

He couldn’t see the leader’s face from so far away, but he could hear his reply easily enough.

“As if we’d listen to the words of traitors!” he spat back at him. “Your words are as empty as your honor! But if you won’t surrender, then you will die a traitor’s death!”

Kaiden winced, realizing that the soldiers in front of him couldn’t be reasoned with. Palming his dagger, he prepared to give an order he wasn’t sure he could give—

—However, before the two groups could clash, the pounding of footsteps reached their ears. Kaiden felt dread pooling as he realized what that meant. Glancing behind them, Kaiden prepared himself to see more or Cui’s soldiers boxing them in—

—Only for him to see not Oasis soldiers in green, but soldiers in pale blue, their leathers painted in a color that no army he knew of used.

But his own shock was nothing compared to that of the Oasis soldiers. “It hasn’t even been an hour,” the lead soldier yelped, “how—!?”

They didn’t have another moment to speak, as suddenly the new army was upon them, smashing into them from behind. His own guards had barely enough time to turn around before they were set upon by this new enemy, and only a moment again to prepare before the Oasis soldier charged into their other side, crushing them between the two armies.

Kaiden found himself crushed between his own guards, as the crude defensive line they’d made crumbled in an instant.

Chaos was all that followed. He felt an elbow slam into his gut and a moment later took a spear to the shoulder. The next blow knocked him to the ground, the soldiers above him trampling over his body.

He heard screams and shouts of men dying and killing above him. More than once he felt something wet splatter across his body. A foot slammed into his gut and he let out a gasp as the air was knocked from his lungs, and he could do little more than curl into a ball until the soldiers above him moved away.

And as he opened his eyes as the pain stopped, he found himself face to face with Anube, laying down beside him. The man’s face was grey, and his lips jerked up and down slowly, before finally stopping.

A pool of blood, leaking from the wound in his chest, was all he needed to realize his fate.

As Kaiden stared into Anube’s unseeing eyes, a sorrowful rage filled his heart.

When the hell had things come to this? Why the hell had things come to this?

He felt something leave him at that moment. And in turn, he felt something ugly take its place.

For whatever else these people wanted, they wanted a war. And if they wanted a war, he would give them one.

So Kaiden fought. He fought, and he fought, and he fought, ignoring every blade that pierced his body, shrugging off wounds that would have killed anyone but him. He let out a scream filled with his grief, his rage. He picked up a spear from a dead body, and when that broke he picked up a dagger and used that. And when he had no weapons left he fell back on his fists.

And in a moment that felt like an eternity later, he cut down the last enemy, leaving him alone. Alone, but for the pile of corpses surrounding him.

He shook. He wanted to scream, to cry, to do something.

He could do nothing. So instead he collapsed, falling amongst the corpses.

And he wondered, if he laid there long enough, would he become one of them? Just another corpse, dead for some other man’s ambitions.

He took a deep breath. He smelled death.

But he was not dead.

He shoved himself to his knees. Then to his feet. Then he took a step forwards—towards the palace, where Gamila was. Where Cui was.

He paused, glancing back at the pile of corpses behind him. His eyes fell on the men and women who’d died defending him—who’d died defending a man who could not die.

He opened his mouth to say—something. But he found that he could not. “I—” he choked, before swallowing heavily. “I’ll see that you are returned home. All of you—it’s the least I can do.”

With his piece said he turned around, and with his mind cleared, he ran.

--

As he ran towards the palace, he began to see smoke rising above the rooftops of houses. At first it was something that seemed odd, but the closer he got, the darker the smoke seemed to get. He didn’t like the fact that the fires seemed to grow larger the closer he got to the palace.

He shook the thought off. It didn’t matter what happened to the palace at this point. Not even a fire could kill Gamila, so all he needed to do was find her.

The city was not particularly large nor difficult to traverse—at least, not when compared to Sun’s Rest. Built along the coast of the Oasis, the city had an inner wall—which protected the palace and the surrounding buildings—and an outer wall, which protected the whole city. The many buildings within the walls were crammed together, creating winding sandy roads that while dense all lead towards the city center.

The inner walls might have been a problem in another city, but in this one they were crumbling an unmanned, nothing more than the still standing remains of hastily built infrastructure. He’d lived in the city for over a week and not seen them manned once.

That meant nothing stopped him from reaching the palace at the city center mere moments later.

But as he passed under the inner walls and into the plaza, he immediately skidded to a stop at what he saw there.

Surrounding the palace were dozens of not soldiers, but civilians, screaming and laughing and cursing the King’s name as they chucked flaming torches onto the palace. The entrance to the palace, once a pristine grand archway, was now splattered with the blood of soldiers and civilians alike, the only thing stopping the living rioters from simply charging in being a single wide-eyed soldier entrenched behind the doors stabbing his spear out at anyone coming close.

“Was Cui really hated this much?” Kaiden whispered to himself, before shaking his head.

Focus. Find Gamila.

But he paused again, staring at the palace and the mob around it. At the smoke pouring out of windows and the corpses strewn across the ground. At the lone soldier guarding the entrance.

He did not know if Gamila was in the palace. But he also knew that if she was not there he would never find her. And with that thought he realized there was only one thing he could do.

He had no choice. Gamila was in there, she had to be. So without taking another moment to think of the consequences he charged at the barricaded soldier, ignoring the spear gouging a chunk out of his side to tackle him down, before rolling back to his feet and darting further into the palace.

Behind him he heard the roars of the crowd, the pounding of their feet—and the scream of the soldier, before he was abruptly silenced.

Perhaps another day he would have felt bile at what he had done, but now…

He felt nothing. Thought nothing. His only motivation was to find Gamila. Nothing else.

He ran through the palace, the empty hallways eerie after spending the past week walking them.

There were no servants walking the halls, no locals come to petition the king, no soldiers patrolling, keeping a wary eye on all.

There was no King Cui.

He slammed open every door he could find, entering rooms he wouldn’t have been allowed in yesterday. He climbed the palace as fast as he could, making his way up while avoiding the fires that had begun to spread from the rioters below.

And finally he reached the top floor of the palace, King Cui’s own private suite. The room was not guarded, and he burst into the room, searching every nook and cranny for something.

But there was nothing. The palace was empty.

He snarled, slamming a fist into the wall.

Cui was not here. Gamila was not here. And if the rioters outside were any indication, the King was probably long gone.

Kaiden clutched at the bag of salt hiding beneath his armor, almost frantic. “Where are you?” he hissed, feeling his eyes burn. “Where the hell are you!?”

He heard shouts coming from far below him. Screams and curses and laughter. The mob had breached the palace, and were now taking their due.

…It would be best he wasn’t waiting for them when they did.

So he ran back down the palace steps, dodging looters and soldiers alike. A few moments later he burst out of the palace, gasping for breath. As he glanced out at the city, he saw that the fires had spread far, jumping from timber roof to timber roof across the whole city. The smoke of the flames rose high into the air, choking the city in darkness.

The remaining rioters outside the palace had long dispersed, their rage fading into panic as the flames spread through the city. Some still remained in the plaza, having fallen to their knees in prayer or despair. But the majority were gone, either returned to their homes or within the palace itself.

He swore under his breath as he witnessed the devastation. He took off, running deeper into the city, looking left and right and down every alleyway he could as though he’d somehow find Gamila waiting for him down one of them. He’d instead see panicking civilians, desperately trying to save what they could from their homes, children crying as they watched everything they ever knew go up in smoke. Sometimes between all of it he’d see a few soldiers locked in combat—or see the corpses of those who’d long since fallen.

But they were few and far between now. It seemed the city itself had long fallen into anarchy.

Or perhaps only most of it had.

Kaiden skidded to a stop between the burning houses of the Oasis Capital. In front of him, a group of soldiers bearing Cui’s colors stood, from their bearing having just noticed him. They stared at him with lost and confused eyes, before recognition slowly dawned in them.

“Kaiden of the Sunset Kingdom,” the one in the front whispered, his voice some combination of rage and reverence. The soldiers’ eyes were wild, as they brough their spears to bear against him. “You have committed treason against our King Cui.”

Kaiden took a step back, prepared to run the opposite direction the moment this man made his move.

“Surrender,” the soldier whispered in a tone that clearly hoped he didn’t. “Or we will take you by force.”

It hit him then, faced with this. Or maybe this was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. The burning city, the mad guards, the shear mess that this all was.

“Fuck,” he whispered, his fists clenched in fear and adrenaline. “Joseph is going to kill me.”

9,863 God-Kings Remain