Born a Monster

Type: Social

Few things are as annoying as watching your System sell back evolutions for half the biomass it took to purchase them. My well-fed trait went into remission on the third day. Technically, just after the third midnight, while I slept.

During that time, the enemy securely drilled inside their own walls.

“When was their last attack?” I asked Kan Tsuo, a spearwoman and the person our sergeant had told me to direct all my questions to.

She blinked. “Just before harvest week. Three days prior, this one thinks. So... two weeks and four days ago.”

I sighed, resting my chin on a crenelation. “It doesn’t look like they have many siege engines.” I said.

“Not many of the larger ones, no. But those things that look like large crossbows, those can fire over the wall.”

I looked at the inside of our position; I could see where those bolts had landed on rooftops. By oddly colored patches of roof tiles; most building owners repaired their roofs quickly to keep out the rain.

.....

“Where do they get that lumber from?” I asked.

“You have this one’s permission to go ask them.” she replied.

“And I’ll be let back in?”

“So sorry, but no. She finds your continual stomach grumblings annoying.”

I decided to honor her honesty by speaking back to her in her native tongue. “He is not fond of his grumbling stomach either.”

“His accent is still terrible.” she said, “But he is at least easier to understand.”

“Should he speak her tongue more often?” I asked.

“Hey! You two stop speaking that southern gook-gook or I’ll tell the sergeant. There’s twelve official Daurian languages, there’s no good reason for speaking any other.”

There were plenty of good reasons, such as avoiding what Liao Chao considered jokes. Civilized people would consider some verbal pornography, others sexual assault, and the remainder the black foulness that came only from a Tainted mind.

Kan Tsuo replied by spitting off the outside of the wall.

Then, she reached out to touch me on my shoulder.

“Huh?” I said, and then saw. “Ah-ah. Liao Chao, you might have to wake the sergeant anyway.”

Our sergeant had set up a tent roof on the wall. He was fond of working nights, and thus remained under the shade it offered on any day there weren’t staff meetings.

“Why, what’s – oh, they can suck on their own unwashed hairy ball-sacks!”

From newly opened gates, they rolled roughly three dozen of the balistae into the field.

“It seems clear they mean to attack tonight.” I said.

“So it seems.” Kan Tsuo said. “Good soldiers would check the pole forks, and practice.”

“Mngnya...” Liao Chao said, adjusting his armor to urinate in their direction. “It’s too damn hot for all this maneuvering.”

I began checking the pole forks, the tools we shoved ladders with. The sergeant awoke to the drums and horns that the enemy was using to coordinate their troop movements. “What are those idiots doing?” He asked. “Come nightfall, when they attack, their troops will be tired and unable to fight properly.”

They didn’t wait for nightfall, or even the second candle after highsun (which some call noon). They sat down in their rows, ate a bowl of lunch, stood back up, and when everyone had eaten, they started advancing.

“That cannot be a wise strategy.” I said, hearing the warning horns on our side sound the call for all soldiers to wake up.

Liao Chao, sergent Ken-Rin, and third archer Shin exchanged curses.

“Easy targets.” I said. “What are you complaining about?”

“Easy targets now.” he said. “The sun will be in our eyes soon enough.”

“Ah-ah.” sergeant Ken-Rin said, “I see it now. That is not forward general Ruong. I can’t make out his visage from this far, but I’d wager he’s a young pup, trying to make a name for himself.”

“Ahm-hrm. That your man is a woman, though she just might be trying to make a name for herself.” Liao Chao said.

“She wonders how he can tell.” Kan Tsuo said.

“Shape of the breastplate.” he replied. “Not even the most perfumed of lords needs such protrusions. That’s a female, or else I’ll shave my balls.”

“Honored sergeant, how is...” I began to ask.

“Silence, Ping! All questions except orders are to be asked of Kan Tsuo first.”

“She dares you to ask.” she said, checking the points of her spear.

Liao Chao checked his arrows, handed me three of them. “Sharpen those.”

“Ping, you don’t need to sharpen another soldier’s weapons.” the sergeant said.

“Should I instead practice with the pole forks, honored sergeant?”

“Rrrm.” he said, “No, as long as you’ve leaned on them, save their actual use until we need them.”

I got two of the arrowheads sharpened before Liao Chao and the other archers began loosing into the approaching ranks.

“Mother of a corn-husked whore!” he said. “Sharp or not, get me my arrows back, Ping.”

I did so. “Should I also...”

“YES!” he screamed. “I’ll want two quivers of arrows, and need all four of them.”

There weren’t that many arrows in our supplies, not when divided among all of our squad’s archers. He knew that, and always asked for more than his fair share of them. In his mind, he was the best archer of our squad, and therefore deserved more arrows. Our other three archers, two of whom outranked him, had other ideas.

Kan Tsuo had told me to ignore him, especially on the attributes of young boys who didn’t do what they were told, and the sorts of things their fathers must have done to encourage such disobedience.

“I don’t see... Does anyone see any ladders?” I said, taking shelter behind a crenelation.

“What? They have to!” the sergeant said. And then, “By the Celestial Emperor’s well combed beard, they don’t.”

“They’ve got more than their fair share of bowmen.” Liao Chao complained. “But I’ll be taken from behind if more than one in five or six is an actual archer. It’s like their real archers are...”

He put his bow down, unstringing it.

“Hey!” he screamed both left and right, waving his arms. “Don’t fire! Don’t fire! This is just a distraction to get us to waste arrows.”

“Liao Chao!” the sergeant screamed. “Pick up your weapon and kill as many as you can! Do it or I’ll throw your traitorous ass off the wall myself!”

“A pox on you, Ken-Rin, for the suffering your order will cause us tonight!” But he did pick up his bow and resumed firing arrows until he had none left.

“Ping!” sergeant Ken-Rin shouted. “Go see what’s taking so long for our replacement arrows to get here.”

I ran; it turned out that our courier had taken an arrow to his head, and lay sprawled and senseless, his payload already divided and used by other squads. I could have taken the arrow out, but instead tapped the wound for Disease on my way to the supply tower, and using Slumber and Reduce Disease on my way back.

“The arrows, honored sergeant.” I said upon my return.

“It is too late.” he said. “Distribute them, of course, but then get what sleep you can in preparation for tonight.”

“As honored sir commands.” I said. The enemy had pulled back out of range of both bow and siege weapon, and was busy pulling another dozen and a half heavy weapons into position. Their archers were taking positions behind their forward troops. “Honored sergeant, I don’t think they’re waiting for tonight.”

“They’re waiting for tonight.” he said from his bunk. “They wouldn’t dare take the casualties. Not to their veteran troops.”

It was less than a quarter candle, the setting sun in our eyes, when their instruments sounded the attack.

There were a number of curses, both mundane and empowered. None of them had the force to reach the enemy; not across that much distance.

“There!” I said, “There are the ladders, coming through their gates now.”

“A pox on their ladders, and a pox on you!” Liao Chao said. “Go get more arrows!”

“Honored sergeant?” I asked.

“Don’t be too long, boy. You’ll want to be here for what’s coming.”

Well, no, I really didn’t. Especially with my health low and my healing at next to nothing from malnourishment. But I ran both ways.

The first of the ladders we pushed away while the last light of the sun was still visible over the horizon. To our right, three men made it to the top of the wall but failed to create a breach in that squad’s lines. We had a close call like that, but instead of boiling tar, we had only a pot of filthy cooking oil. Poured onto the ascending troops, it proved enough.

It seemed like a candle and a half, but the edge of the western sky was still blue when they called off their attack.

“Emperor’s balls, and now I need a haircut.” Liao Chao complained.

“Half the squad stays awake in case they have infiltrators.” sergeant Ken-Rin said. “Shin Tsu, Kan Tsuo, go get those wounds tended to.

“Gung Gung is as wounded as either of us!” Shin Tsu protested.

“Gung Gung, you too.”

“Gladly, sergeant.” he replied.

The particular dialect of Kan’s people has no direct word for I, my, or other direct references to the self. This one originally found that annoying, but quickly adapted. It was hard to hold her background against her, which might have been a Charisma ability, but probably wasn’t.