The guard shivered in the night. During the fight he’d been glad to be an archer. It had meant he’d been stationed farther back carefully picking off targets as they crested the half-finished walls, rather than on the wall receiving repeated charges. Even when a demonling had broken through it had been tired and wounded, and he’d been able to stun it with his bow and cut its throat relatively easily.

Now his previous safety seemed something of a mixed blessing. Oh, he was glad to be uninjured, but because he was one of the few in that state he’d been assigned to keep watch all night. The light cast by the torches on the wall failed to penetrate very far into the darkness beyond. If something came for him he wouldn’t be able to see it until it was almost right up on him. A sudden point-blank encounter did not play to the strong suits of an archer, especially one who had only managed to scavenge three unbroken arrows after the battle.

It wasn’t as if he could supplement his unreliable sight with his other senses either. The battlefield was already starting to reek, and the sounds coming from the darkness were extremely unsettling. It sounded like some of the more gravely wounded demonlings were slowly dying out there. It was extremely unnerving.

“Clang.” That wasn’t a dying demonling. “Clang. Clang.” Metal striking metal. “Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang, CLANK.” Oh, that did not sound good.

For a bit there was only the groans and whimpers of the dying demonlings, then one let out a death rattle and was silenced. A second. A third. Before too long the night was quiet.

“Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.” A rhythmic impact began to sound from a ways out. It just kept going, occasionally broken up by the sound of a metallic impact.

There was no obvious threat, so the guard couldn’t justify sounding the alarm, but it was extremely unnerving. The sound kept him on edge all night, until the sunlight finally began to shed light on the situation. Then he caught sight of Gloe, all alone except for the corpses, steadily working on the ditch by himself. Oddly enough the guard didn’t find this all that reassuring.

The guards were hesitant to try to put the chains back on. They ended up having to convince one of the post’s few sojourners to do it for them.

...

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, our blood’s in their soil, but still we must toil, digging them a mighty ditch; for they ain’t got no walls and they ain’t got no balls, so they want to make me their bitch; and their lookouts are blind, enemies they can’t find, so we can look forward to being overrun; but still…”

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“No talking!” The whip cracked overhead.

“Excuse me sir, but I was singing. It’s similar, so I understand your confusion, especially given your presumably sub-par intelligence level.”

This time the whip slashed across his back. “I said silence!”

“No, you said ‘no talking,’ although the histrionic tone was similar.”

“Not one more word!” The whip ripped the side of Gloe’s face open.

“Well no worries sir, I’m not going to stop at just one. Ahem. …but still we work on these digs, ‘cause we’re working for…” the truncheon came down hard on his head. Repeatedly.

“I’ll teach you to talk back! Help me drag him to the box!”

“Ah awready know how to tarlk barck. Crlearly” Gloe slurred through his damaged mouth. That sparked another series of blows. None of which managed to knock him out, or even shut him up. Although his words did became less and less comprehensible.

...

“Guard Baur’s disposition is sour, but that’s easy to compreheeeeeeeend; ‘cause his manliness’s in doubt, some say he goes without, and himself he can barely defeeeeeeeend; say the girls ‘the little prick, barely’s got a dick,’ their words throw him into a raaaaaaaage; since he has no might, he can’t start a fight, so he takes it out on a man in a caaaaaaaage!”

“Whose brilliant idea was it to throw him in the box?”

“Guess.”

“Little Baur?”

“He wanted to make an example of someone. Thought it would help restore discipline and respect. You can see how well that is working out.”

“Seems like he’s been in there a while.”

“It’s been a couple weeks now for sure. He doesn’t seem to be getting any quieter.”

“His songs are starting to sound kinda similar though.”

...

The alarm bell was ringing. “Get to the walls! Get to the walls! Here come the demonlings again!”

The work detail was hustling back as fast as their chains would let them, the guards rushing ahead as usual. Not many of them were going to make it. The demonlings were coming in fast.

A figure came sprinting out of the gate, moving in the complete wrong direction. He barreled through the prisoners, emerging with a pry-bar in each hand. As he emerged he accelerated towards the oncoming horde. “Dibs!” he roared.

The sudden charge caught the demonlings off-guard. They attempted to simply roll over him, but he refused to flatten. Or stop killing them.

As the corpses began to pile up they blunted the demonlings’ momentum. It bought just enough time for about half of the prisoners to reach the gate. Then the demonlings swarmed up the walls and the battle was joined in earnest.

...

They found Gloe the next morning, hacking away at the ditch with tools taken from the fallen prisoners. His clothes were torn almost to pieces, but still showed bloodstained holes where he had been repeatedly impaled in the torso. Holes about the size of the long knives wielded by the leveled-up demonling elites. They had only hit the wall shortly before night fell. If they had attacked earlier the casualties would have been much worse. They were quite powerful.

Not even Baur was motivated to try to inflict corporeal punishment on Gloe after that. Which was good, because the box was out of commission for a while. It looked like someone had kicked the door off. After a few tries. There was a pretty thick stain from dried blood right beneath it.