Born a Monster Chapter 377

377 277 – Useless Fortress

I had seen fortresses before; from tiny things that were barely a single tower to those that were small villages unto themselves.

Even before I was close enough to see the battle damage, I knew I was looking at a disaster. The whole thing was of wood, the wards were... perhaps not improperly done, but certainly not made to last. Soone had started growing sylvan douseweed along the base, and it had sent roots into the ward magic to aid its own growth.

The walls rose so sixty, perhaps seventy feet sheer upward, the squared towers another twenty feet above that. But there were no machicolations, and the blind spots... were obvious. There were no mounts on the walls for heavy weapons, and those atop the towers had limited lines of sight.

It was built atop a rise on one of the river banks, but no wall ca down to the river itself. It was as though soone with an idea of what a fortress was supposed to look like but who had never seen one manned had been commissioned to build it, but not permitted to view the site.

Atop each tower, the colors of the Empire flew. It made want to cry as I approached, to see the shoddy craftsmanship, the inattention to detail. And it didn’t surprise that this was tactically, the center of the plains.

No WONDER the war here had lasted three years. If Hortiluk still had his head, I had so choice words for him that he would never hear.

It was ... as though Hortiluk was trying to sabotage a war that he proposed starting.

Damn it, hadn’t there been enough death in the past years?

I don’t even know why it grated so on my emotions. If Hortiluk, smartest hobgoblin I knew, wanted to live as though he were stupid...

.....

But he WASN’T. He just wasn’t.

The. Damn. Traitor.

For three years, our soldiers had been in the plains, and THIS was what he had built them for their headquarters.

And I didn’t know why I CARED. Oh, I know today; I can give you a lecture on the ntal philosophy of transference and delayed grieving. I can tell you of traumatic stress, and why it is only when you return to safety that it unfurls its wings and engages you in earnest. Today, I can tell you of the guilt of the survivor, of leaving the dead behind you, but still living.

Today I can, but then it seed pointless, like sothing that had been done to , so source that HAD to be from outside.

And why then? At a guess, my soul (and thus my emotions) had finally grown to rating three, or human normal, during my ti in the Shining Isles; a rise in my Serenity score, of course. But also the first ti I’d had to deal with normal emotions.

For all my mockery of them, humans normally had a decade or so before encountering even a fraction of the misery in my life; I was still approaching four.

Honestly, it was hunger that drove onward, and the promise of dinner. Possibly even a dinner that I didn’t have to cook myself, but only possibly.

I wasn’t the most famous of Cooks; not by a long shot. There were far better, and with a larger reserve of recipes and magic than I had, although I confess a pronounced edge in sheer volu and variety of mana available to . But most professional Cooks had their own kitchen, their own tools.

Traveling cooks were rare, and commanded impressive salaries. The sort of wages that the Empire couldn’t afford, not if the economy were as drained as it looked.

And I want to stress that; it wasn’t the coffers alone that were lacking. The continual drain of soldiers, of manpower... the fabric of life still spun itself, but there were thin patches, frayed holes, and if there hadn’t been any actual tears just yet, it was a small miracle.

“You! Halt there!” called a guard from one of the towers.

“Go fuck a goat!” I hollered back. “I’ve no patience for your aningless delays.”

I gestured at my own head. “How many snake headed people are walking around, even in our empire? You may not know , but you know of . I’m coming in. Through the front gate if I can, but over the walls if I must.”

“Not a step farther! Our orders co from Emperor Rakkal himself.”

Oho. Was it Emperor, now? Rakkal? Rakkal, who spat on titles?

What else had changed while I was gone? Was this even the sa empire I had left?

Worse, had it ever been the empire I thought it?

Even as I angled my shield to bounce the arrow off and away, I wondered what was driving . It seed on the surface like rage, but there was...

[You are not suffering from mana overdose.] my System told .

When the second and third archer joined in, I engaged Fleet of Foot and began to run. Not in a straight line; my emotions weren’t that far out of control. And, finding the gate closed against , I ducked into one of the blind spots where one of the gatehouse towers t the wall, away from the gate.

I had said the walls were sheer, which is not to say they were smooth. Needing to thrust talons into the caulk between poles, gaining only a fraction of my height with each stretch upward. How long had it been since life had been so simple? Climb or die, ignore the slap of arrows against armor, the six points of damage done by each of two yellow criticals?

When one of the soldiers above thrust at with a spear, it was almost a disappointnt. Not that I didn’t grab the thing, and use the soldier’s own grasp to anchor as I ascended.

Bards say I flipped or rolled over the lip of that wall; the truth is that I nearly impaled myself on the points of the topmost poles, and fell not onto my feet, a sword in hand, but onto my buttocks, and nearly prone. The sword ca later, from soone who carelessly tried to brain with the poml.

For a mont, just a mont, the press of bodies threatened to immobilize .

One foot on soones kneecap, hand on soone else’s belt buckle, I shoved.

With a Strength sub-statistic of rating six, you can get a lot out of a simple shove.

“ENOUGH!” I shouted. “I have endured ENOUGH of this crap just getting here, and I will take NO MORE! You may be soldiers of the empire, but you will MAKE WAY!”

Yeah, three Charisma isn’t enough to make that work, or at least it wasn’t that day. Not on those soldiers, who had been standing unsheltered out in the springti sun. Those soldiers were open to the idea of fighting, and I had been gone for three years.

Most of the tales of were as a curiosity, as a coward with a shield. Soone who parried and parried, and NEVER struck back. In retrospect, that was my fault.

It is said that one champion is the equal of five trained warriors; that’s NOT the case if only two of them have room to approach the champion at a ti, if they have to stumble over each other when they decide to withdraw.

And that was the burn of it; they held discipline, even when they couldn’t hold a line. I made slow progress toward the nearest ladder, only to find a platform under the walkway, two spearn right there.

Damn it, FINALLY so professional, defensive thought. But a real professional would have sectioned the ladder off into parts, to prevent soone from dropping past both mouth-open guards and grabbing the rungs underneath.

It’s amazing what you can do with the combined reflexes and flexibility of a mountain goat and a cat. Catch, release, catch, release; I was halfway down the inside of the wall when the arrows began smacking into things that didn’t do any real damage to .

[You have taken eight points of Impact damage; after ability activation, five points have been received. 52/80 health remain.]

I’d misjudged the distance to the ground, and worse, ended up in the midst of half a dozen Black Fist warriors. They had shields, and spears, and they treated exactly as they would have a wild boar. True, I wasn’t frenzied or foolish, but a shield cannot protect from two sides at once. Armor is an object, and its protection goes down proportional with its Condition score.

It wasn’t long before their sergeant ca to check why I wasn’t dead. “Not-Kobold?” he asked, without ordering his n to stop.

“Harrek.” I answered.

Harrek was one of those unfortunates; enough hobgoblin features from his mother that no Uruk would trust him; enough Uruk blood in evidence that hobgoblins presud he had brain damage.

“Why are YOU betraying the empire?” he asked.

“I am not. I am recently returned from a diplomatic mission to the Shining Isles.” I said.

One of the Black Fist stumbled, using his spear to keep himself upright. Then he broke into hearty and unkempt laughter. “You? Diplomatic? Bwa, ha, ha! Say that again!”

I flung my arms akimbo in indignity. “I am a Truthspeaker! I literally cannot...”

One of them tackled from behind, slamd my chest into the packed ground.