Displaced

Chapter 53

"You army types need to calm your tits. There's no way walls this strong will fall, and we have enough food stored up to last us a whole season. I don't see what you're all shaking in your boots over."

"Don't talk about things you don't understand, you idiot. You better not get assigned to my squad."

Orders had been sent out that morning for all the guards in the city to meet at the four city gates the next day and get placed in various squads in the army to fill holes left by killed soldiers. Arlette believed that Supreme General Erizio Astalaria also wanted to establish tighter control over the guards by integrating him into the existing power structure. Along with those orders had come the caveat that, should the Ubrans arrive that day, they were to meet up the moment that the Ubrans were spotted. And so, Arlette found herself at the north gate of the city, standing in a crowd of guards and soldiers, waiting to be assigned to her squad while trying to ignore the fact that she hadn't been able to eat dinner before the horns blew. To help keep her mind off her empty tummy, she focused on the ongoing nearby conversation between a guard and a soldier.

"I'm just saying," the guard replied, "that whatever happened in Begale won't be happening here. I would know, I used to live there. These walls are far higher."

"The walls weren't the problem, you fool. They just came through the gate, busted it down like it was made of string and fluff. We didn't stand a chance."

"And I'm telling you, the gates and the traps we have installed here are leaps and bounds better than anything Begale had. See those slits all along the walls and ceiling of the arch?"

Arlette glanced towards the nearby gate. The four gates were the only ways into and out of Crirada, each one connected to the inside by a massive arched passageway through the wall wide enough that six full-sized wagons could drive through side by side without problems. All along the tunnel, Arlette could see slits and small holes in the stone, as well as a large slit in the ceiling by the nearby tunnel entrance.

"Let's say that they somehow bust the gate open," the guard continued. "If that happens, then we lower portcullises down on either end of the passage, trapping the Ubrans inside the tunnel. All those holes connect to rooms all around the passageway, where our people can wipe them out using arrows and fireballs and whatever. It's a death trap. Doesn't matter how many get in, we'll kill them all.

"And that's assuming that they even get through the gate in the first place, which they won't. Do you have any idea how many Feelers it takes to open and close the gates here? It takes eight of us working the pulleys as hard as we can to move them. They're thicker than I am tall and solid metal to the core, and the metal beams bracing them are each wider in diameter than a well-grown tree! You could give twenty Feelers a whole day with a battering ram and they wouldn't make more than a dent. Meanwhile, we'll be raining all sorts of doom down on them from up above. There's nothing to worry about."

The soldier let out a soft, scornful laugh. "You have no idea what we're up against. Do you think we just sat there and let them walk into the city? No! They have a monster on their side, something stronger than any person could ever be. She ran up to the western gate and knocked it clean off its hinges in a single blow. We didn't stand a chance."

"Oh come on, the gates and walls are three times thicker here than in Begale," the guard protested.

"All that means is that she'll need three blows instead of one."

"Then what, though? She'll still get slaughtered in the passageway. I know Begale didn't have any traps like what we have here."

"Won't matter. The monster can't be killed."