The Slave Knight Part 1: The Dagon

Chapter Ten: Merz-Steak

The giant husky door opened at the sound of Captain Rogers' call. It was a wide and unending door that lasted the width of the highway. It creaked and cracked of wood and iron and steel. It rolled on wheels made of the same, to come to a stop just wide enough for the guardsmen and the warbands to pass. Captain Rogers trotted along silently on his horse, only the slight tick tock of its metal shoes occupying everyone's minds and ears.

Sir Wallace noticed immediately that this was not just a wall, this was not just a castle, this was a whole town. A town that had been plagued by the merz, not just the merz, everything, Sir Wallace thought. The people of this town who had sought refuge within this wall. He saw makeshift shelters, small gardens, the toys of children and the workbenches of adults. Towers erected every so often, littered with guardsmen, bows, arrows, and weapons ready, and behind it all, he saw dark eyes pressing into the warbands. Dark and depressing eyes, watching the slave knights as they breezed through their town, hoping that they came and would leave in peace. These eyes were eyes that had seen the horrors that this world had to offer, and much more. Dark eyes that had witnessed true savagery and death, and had lived through it all, no matter how much they did not want to. Dark eyes that had known fear.

"Captain Rogers, how big is the wall of yours?" Sir Wallace intoned curiously as they walked, breaking the thunderous silence. Captain Rogers looked up to the pale sky with the rolling and grey clouds. He thought for half a moment and then answered.

"Near on six miles long and two miles deep, so I would say about twelve square miles all in total. The town that is."

"And how many people do you hold?" He looked back at Sir Wallace, black hair wiry and flat, rustling in the slight wind, giving him a puzzled look. He recognized his look as just innocent curiosity with no intent at harm. It calmed his more alert senses.

"Near on thirty-thousand, last count we had. Give or take. Granted that last count was near on a year back, so I am sure with all the fucking and sneaking in going around. Easily, that number could have doubled or tripled. It also depends on the time of day and season. We hold most refugees from the surrounding areas as bandits and beasts and the merz have made life a living hell for all these innocent God fearing folk." Sir Wallace smirked at that knowing that most were probably nothing close to God fearing, as they could not believe a God would let them live in such squalor. "Folk that just want nothing to do with the warring or hurting of the surrounding land. Folk that just want to live and die in places of comfort and solitude. Homely and normal folk, unlike the likes of you and I." Captain Rogers sported the same smile he wore from the beginning of their traverse through the Wall. A shit eating grin that by its very presence undermined Sir Wallace and the warbands. It was a smile that thought it knew better and could do better than slave knights, or any type of knight or captain or meister. It was a smile of deceit and hatred. A smile that truly showed how much the man behind it hated those before him, as it was sported in mockery and sarcasm, against all that lay before him. An unhappy smile, that was flecked with grains of evil and malintent. A smile that Sir Wallace knew many a terrible man sported and that none should trust. He hated that smile, yet he indulged as to get his way beyond the Wall and into the Ford.

"Many of such come from the marshes after they were supplanted by the merz and their ilk. We gladly took many of them in, knowing what trouble lay before them, and we usually let most who want to pass through, given that they cause no more trouble than they're worth." He smiled even fiercer, should that be possible, at Sir Wallace, yet the battle commander had enough of such a wicked display of teeth and ignored the gapped tooth sarcastic smile. They walked on.

It was not a place of opulence. It was closer to a raggedy dust filled town with a wide open space filled with nothing. There were wells, and ditches, pigs and dogs, chickens and shit rolling about. Cook fires were scattered throughout, most of which had been left unattended and it seemed that there was a long house on the far end of the wall, where some guardsmen mucked about doing everything, but their work. Guardsmen had also walked atop the husky walls, walls that seemed weak and too yielding, as they may have been shambled together too quickly, yet they held firm and carried the weight of all above. They looked upon the warbands with disdain, with many spitting upon the ground as the slave knights passed by. Nary a smile on a man or woman's face. The small folk had dared not look upon anyone, but their own, and diverted their eyes when the slave knights tried to meet them. They were dirty and dingy, a quiet folk who were startled at the presence of the grievous slave knights. The Wall was a bleak place, a place that looked as horrible on the inside as the outside. But it was safe. That is what these people cared for. Safety.