Xangô POV: Day 52

Current Wealth: 1 silver 47 copper

Beam and the Vittonian were back well before nightfall, though part of me was panicking like Solitaire at the multi-minute delay separating them from the larger mass of our new militia.

We’d all spent the day busy, even those of us who’d kept checking on Beam, and my work had been in organising the biggest workforce we could muster. With our new found cloak of awe among the villagers, it wasn’t particularly difficult. Dozens upon dozens volunteered, and quite a few more were pressured into it by Tucker and our other proponents. Most, to be fair, were far from able-bodied. The elderly, the young, the sick and the weak. Most of the cowards had already joined up to start fighting, which meant most of the construction was done by those of less-than-optimal bodily strength.

But where we lacked quality, they made up for in quantity. Close to fifty working people was, still, close to fifty working people. It was amazing, the things we were able to get done.

Barricades were the first priority, at Solitaire’s insistence, and a close second was more of our drop-down crushing weapons. We collected the logs for them while erecting our defences, thickening the planks used, this time, to give us those extra few minutes to poke holes in the enemy while they clawed through. There were advantages to working in a lumber village, and perhaps the biggest was all of the infrastructure. Between a river-powered saw, regular saws for days and no less than half a dozen wood axes, we had plenty to work with.

Solitaire ribbed me for my use of literal child labour, of course, but we’d already repaired and reinforced from yesterday before the sun was even halfway between noon and night. Which left us time for other precautions.

A big one was Solitaire’s insistence on digging up the staircase and weakening the support for its steps, removing nails and eroding beams. Another was the reinforcements he gave one of our walls, and the big box of nails he ordered readied beside a window near its top. That confused even me, but I figured he had a plan as usual, and had a few too many things to juggle for the luxury of asking.

One issue we’d had last time had been the enemy closing in on barricades too quickly, Solitaire suggested we lay down nail-riddled planks pointy-side-up to slow them. Our main door was damaged beyond repair, so he proposed simply planking it over once everyone was inside. One adjustment, repair or slight improvement after another. All implemented seamlessly.

I’d worked with him for years, you understand. We both knew how the other thought almost to exactence, and our skills meshed very, very well. It was like being connected to the same nervous system. Ideas formed in his mind, observations and points of failure, and he transmitted them quickly to me. I interpreted, considered which workers we could spare to do them, and then relayed the orders further. Like an oiled machine, we changed the building around us.

Beam woke up relatively early into the process, which gave him plenty of time to do his own work on our defenders. Solitaire complained a lot about the lack of further ingredients for more explosives, but otherwise made himself useful. I just kept focused, far too close to death for any thought but self preservation to really gain traction in my mind.

Disaster struck, soon enough. Something that perhaps demonstrated our success, definitely should have reassured me, but only served to fray my nerves even further all the same. We ran out of things to do. Our defences were perfect, our preparations complete, our only remaining limitation being the simple lack of space left over in our makeshift fort.

I saw Solitaire pacing from the corner of my eye once we’d retired to the Mayor’s Office- apparently our new command centre. It was just us there, alongside Beam and Argar. The Belahont Crew, we were being called. Some Crew, three friends and an indentured servant. Well, it could be worse. We could’ve been ourselves immediately after arrival.

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The skies were darkening, but I could still see pretty clearly outside. Maybe that was just all those carrots I had growing up, the villagers certainly seemed frightened enough, but either way the rotters weren’t here yet. So it surprised me when Argar caught my attention with a low, hesitant question.

“Is this what you do?”

I looked at him, confused. It must’ve shown on my face, because he kept talking to clarify.

“We came here, found all these people hopeless, dying and trapped. Now they’re…I don’t know. Hopeful, I suppose. Is that what you do? You just…Help people who need it?”

It wasn’t, of course. Nobody did just that. We’d come here because we needed money, to help ourselves, to keep from starving, to have some level of positive change on this world we’d created and the people we’d inadvertently screwed over. To make it a place we could actually live our lives out in, now that we’d finally realised we were stuck here.

“Yes.” I lied. “Why do you ask?”

He eyed me, the way I might expect a mouse to eye cheese in a trap.

“Just…Most folks aren’t like that.” He grunted, sounding more than a little impressed.

That was good. Argar was excellent in a fight, but that just meant that we’d be competing with some high bidders if we wanted to keep him under us. A tie of loyalty- a tie of belief in our cause- would take time to fashion, but it would hold much better.

I barely even felt like a piece of shit as I worked on thickening it.

“I think they would be, given the chance.” I told him. “I think if more people were…Comfortable, fed, watered, warm. I think they’d have more time to concern themselves with others, and the world would be a better place.”

He seemed to like that a lot, and believed it without question. Being fair, I hadn’t been lying. I’d come from a world where more people were fed, watered and warm. Things were hardly just, over there. The flickering power in so many parts of Africa, the exploitation of developing nations by others, the people still sleeping in streets…It was all far from perfect.

But it was a better place than Redacle. I wasn’t lying, just leaving a few truths unsaid. Maybe I should’ve just fed the giant some bullshit, because I felt more or less the same either way.

Argar nodded, apparently thinking quite hard, now, and considering things well. That was good, the first step to persuading someone was to get them thinking. Twisting those thoughts to line up with yours was the second and last.

“How long do we have until it all kicks off?” Beam asked. Solitaire answered before I could.

“Nineteen hundred seconds.” He muttered, still pacing, hands fidgeting and twitching. He’d never done well with imminent danger, far preferring the present kind.

“Half an hour.” I translated for our friend, glancing outside the window again. It was darker, I thought. But still I could see the outside well enough.

A thought occurred, then. One that almost killed me. Could we have killed the rotters during the day? Chased them down, turned their slowness against them?

I considered asking Solitaire, but decided against it. If it had been possible, letting any of my friends know now, when it was too late to do anything anyway, would be…Cruel.

The seconds ticked by, rolling into a minute, and then two. Those minutes, themselves, congealed like drops of water condensed against a window. Soon there were a dozen, and two dozen not long after. By then we were all done pacing, waiting and muttering, every single one of us on edge at once.

Whether Solitaire had counted right or not- and we were all certain he had, he could do so with literally no distraction at all- a few minutes from complete darkness was far too close for any sort of relaxation. Everyone was at their station, every weapon was in its wielder’s hand, and every vein in the building was carrying an acidic barb of adrenaline. The fight was drawing in.

A few short minutes later, it reached us. Announcing itself with the sound of a dropping barrel, an igniting fuse, and an explosion the size of any Solitaire had made so far.

An explosion from outside, as the enemy detonated the black powder they’d stolen from us a single short day ago.