Alabaster
----------------------------------------
When I was little, I came down with an illness. Scientists and physicians call it febris venenum, meaning poisonous fever. Among the common folk, it is known but simply as the white blight for how the infected turn ghostly pale and cease breathing within an hour after symptoms begin showing. A cure for the fever does not exist. All who come down with it die no less than a day later.
I didn’t die. Through some stroke of luck, or divine intervention, or maybe whatever is causing this damned loop, I did not not die to the blight. I very nearly died. Near to the point I ceased breathing for just over one minute, according to the doctors.
They had given up on me when I seemingly came back from the dead. But I wasn’t fully whole. I suppose one could say I was broken. Since then, I have been unable to exercise in any way shape or form lest I end up bed ridden for a week. I have been unable to gain any meaningful amount of weight, despite my attempts at trying. I have broken bones more times than any child should, as a result of the brittle bones this disease has left me with.
I am the only documented survivor of the blight. By all means, I should be dead. Maybe I will finally get that peace after I beat this damned loop. Maybe not.
“M’lord, preparations have been completed,” Baudouin’s voice startles me out of my thoughts.
Without turning around, I respond, “the servants have been jailed for the time being?”
“Yes.”
“The royal guard has not fallen ill to the poison?”
“Several have passed, m’lord. But the vast majority of the guard is standing at the ready.”
“Good. Laek and mother are safely within the palace?”
“Yes, m’lord.”
“Make sure my brothers are prepared for what comes next, Baudouin. And inform my father the stage is set.”
“Yes, m’lord.” As he turns to leave, I raise a hand to halt his exit.
“Wait, come to my side.”
He walks up beside me, looking out at the setting sun with me.
“Isn’t the sunset beautiful? Burn the image into your eyes. This may be the last chance to.”
----------------------------------------
When the militias approach, they bring weapons of siege. They likely had scouts to determine the veracity of our knowledge of their attack. So they came prepared.
Several lines of riflemen come into range of sight first, lining up to prepare for battle. They fall to their knees, loading and preparing their rifles as dozens of trebuchets roll into place behind the ranks of the riflemen. As the riflemen aim their loaded rifles, commands are issued from guard commanders, my brothers and myself to take cover.
When the barrage ends, and I peak out over the crenelation, swordsmen are rushing at the castle walls in lines carrying ladders. A barrage of boulders from the trebuchets takes out a dozen of the guard across the castle walls, making holes in our defense and covering the ladder carrier’s advance.
Before we can mount a proper defense, the ladders are mounted on the wall, and soldiers begin climbing. With the revolutionary militia on the walls, however, we needn’t worry about rifle bullets or trebuchets.
I unsheathe a sword, and begin cutting down the soldiers as they climb. As they are climbing ladders, they can hardly defend against the most basic attacks. It helps that, when the enemies fall down the ladders dead or wounded, they often knock others off in a sort of domino effect.
As the tide seems to be turning to our favor, I notice a group of militia carrying a battering ram to the gate. I yell down a warning before focusing back on the ladder.
In a small break in the action as a falling revolutionary takes down a dozen on the ladder with him, I reach over the edge, and shove the ladder to the side. It cascades, hitting the ladder next to it, causing it in turn to cascade into the next, and the next, and the next. A minute later, and a dozen of the ladders to the right have dominoed to the ground, broken from the impact.
I shout out a message to be passed down the line, telling the other guardsmen to do the same. Soon, the ladders are no more than piles of wood on the ground. This means, however, that the riflemen and trebuchets have no reason to not fire at us. I yell out to duck, and the message is passed along as bullets cascade over our heads, and boulders ram into the walls.
I grab Baudouin, “deliver the message to the commanders to have some of their gunmen remain up here to fire at the enemy from above and have the rest of the riflemen along with the swordsmen, halberd men, and other melee combatants head down and defend the gates.”
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
He scampers off as I run down the stairs, cane supporting my movement at every step. By the time, I make it down, a large crowd of soldiers have gathered at the front gate. Riflemen speckle the back, standing on raised platforms and preparing to take fire on the opponents the moment they burst the gates open. Dozens of soldiers push at the gate, resisting the battering ram’s attack. The rest of the soldiers stand back from the gate a pace away, prepared to rush in the moment the enemies get passed.
I walk over to the weaponry supply fortification, a shoddily constructed shack filled with weapons and ammo, and grab myself a rifle. I walk up to the raised fortifications the gunmen are stationed on, and take position, loaded rifle in hand.
A minute passes with the battering ram’s knocks and pounds growing increasingly louder before the gates are battered open, the soldiers pushing at the gates thrown pack. I take aim along with the other riflemen, and fire. Dozens of revolutionaries fall in a several second’s time before we begin reloading.
I take out a vial of powder.
The royal guard takes advantage of the lull, stages their tower-shields to defend against the militia’s attacks, spears poking out of the gaps.
I shake a small amount of the black powder into the rifle of the gun.
The revolutionaries charge, impaling themselves on the spears, only taking down a shield bearer here and there, but it adds up.
I take a bullet out of my pocket and push it into the barrel with a loading stick.
The revolutionaries begin to gain the advantage as the shield wielders are cut down here and there. They begin to charge into the ranks of the soldiers.
I, along with the rest of the division of riflemen, finish reloading, cock the gun’s hammer back, take aim, and fire.
Dozens more of the revolutionaries fall where they stand. With the lull, the royal guards cuts down the few left in their ranks, and take back up the shields to prepare for the next wave.
The battle continues for hours, a sort of back and forth forming. A give and take. An ebb and flow. A rise and fall. For every royal guard killed, a dozen or more revolutionaries fall. Eventually, we manage to get some barricades in place at the entrance. Just some spiked fortifications to prevent the militias from storming the area as the riflemen take out the opponents.
Every here and there, the enemies break through the spiked fortifications. The swordsmen quickly dispatch them as we replace the barricade. It becomes a battle of attrition. Can we defeat them before we run out of supplies to fix the barricades? We have enough supplies for a month. Do they have enough people to last that long?
Every here and there, a hole in the wall is formed by the trebuchets. Most of the time, they are plugged by the very same boulders, but when the boulder makes it clean through or falls out after, we set up the same spiked barricades there too.
Our riflemen at the top of the walls battle the riflemen and trebuchets of the militia. They may have the numbers, but we have the advantage in terms of position and defense. Here and there, a rifleman on our side is struck down. But this is not too often, as we have the crenelations to duck behind. Meanwhile, the guard’s bullets cut down dozens every barrage as the revolutionaries have little defense.
----------------------------------------
Eventually, the revolutionaries’ numbers dwindle enough that they order a retreat, and we get a reprieve. The grounds are littered with corpses. More revolutionary corpses than guards, but still.
I collapse in exhaustion, my bones dead tired from the constant running and firing of the rifles, wanting to be done with this. But there are still things to be done.
I call over Baudouin, “help me up. I need to go see someone.”
Over the course of a short walk through the halls of the palace, I see wounded soldiers receiving medical attention, dead tired guardsmen slumped against walls in rest, and more.
Eventually, we arrive at the dungeons. I navigate through the prison full of treacherous servants, before I make it to a cage at the end of a row of cages. This one is special, however, as it houses the treacherous bastard that was the instigator of this madness.
The jester. Sillius.
“Hello, Sillius,” I say.
“That is not my name,” he mutters as he opens his eyes from his seeming nap.
“I don’t give a shit,” I snap, “so, kinslayer, what do you think of your new accommodations by courtesy of me?”
“I’ll be out of here as soon as the revolutionary army comes and wipes out your silly little family.”
“Oh, they already came. We put up a hell of a defense. It might be surprising just how difficult it is to storm a fortified fortress. We annihilated them, and left them running for the hills.”
“Wait, you? Fucking you?! Well shit me a pickle. Little Allie. Sickly prince Alabaster who could barely hold a sword defeated an army of thousands of men?”
“Yes. I may be sickly, but I’m no idiot.”
“It matters not. We will return with more soldiers, more supplies, more vigor. The revolution has just begun. You are righteously screwed.”
“I’ll figure that out when it becomes a pressing problem. For now, you should take the time to reflect on your actions. My father is not so merciful as I.” I turn to leave, ignoring the jester’s shouts as I pass through the dungeon, and exit into the palace halls.
----------------------------------------
I make my way to the balcony. The very same balcony I died from the cycle past. I take in the sunrise for the third time. I finally made it. I finally beat this damned loop. Beat this damned revolution. What a wild ride this has been. I close my eyes and let the tension in my body fade.
When I open my eyes, I am not on the balcony. Not in the palace. Not even on land. I am in some void. Some strange, empty void. It feels as though I am falling. An endless sort of falling with no floor beneath me.
Before me, a strange being flickers into existence. It is humanoid, but… wrong. Its head is more of a blank blob than any proper face, shifting and undulating about. It takes shape after shape, sometimes a square, sometimes a face, sometimes a different face entirely, and sometimes just a misshapen blob.
Aside from the blob of a head, its body is fairly normal. That of an androgynous human wearing a tailcoat and gloves with no spot of skin showing.
Its voice seems to penetrate my head. It is as though it is speaking in my thoughts, with my mental voice.
“This is not right. Construct of tower room 703924, designated name Alabaster Ebestrine, should not have survived the trial.”
“Stop talking like I’m not here.”
The being ignores me.
“An error has occurred.”