Of course, it wasn’t that simple. Not every officer had drunk the tea. In fact, not even most of them. They tried to rally the troops and there were many hard-fought skirmishes to the death, but after a couple of days of nasty hand to hand and fist to face, the Horde finally overran the City’s defenders.

Tenthé was watching from the battlements of the fort. One reason he was here was because the first time he ran into the Horde after they had breached the walls, they had attacked him. It hadn’t gone well for the warriors and probably resulted in the majority of the losses the Horde took in the battle for the City.

It had taken the intervention of the Mentor and a group of Words to deflect the warriors to other targets. After a lot of yelling, the Mentor had stared at the blood-soaked Tenthé as he stood surrounded by the heaps of dead. It wasn’t the first time Tenthé had received that look of fear, rage, and doubt, and it probably wouldn’t be the last.

Sure, he could have gone onto stealth and avoided the whole incident, but he hadn’t.

Eventually, the Mentor ran off to direct the rest of the battle, in what would be deemed a rousing success by any definition of the term as applied to warfare.

Tenthé was watching the fighting. He had been worried about the civilians and had been ready to stun them all to reduce the trauma from being assimilated, but he’d been pleasantly surprised when he found that the Words were doing it themselves. Another way the big bad Horde wasn’t quite the barbarians they’d been painted as.

A hitch had appeared at one point. As the battle raged on, Turtle must have figured out what was happening because he had flown over and firebombed the main part of the fort before Isabell intervened to drive him off. Tenthé was not sure what Turtle had actually intended, since his actions cost him many more soldiers than warriors.

And the god didn’t seem to realize that the members of the Horde were tough! Unless hit directly by a fireball, they would just shake it off and go back to fighting. In the end, only a few warriors were eliminated by Turtle’s last hurrah, and those were replaced quickly by the Mentor, whereas the number of soldiers lost was enormous. In this one action, Turtle almost guaranteed the Horde’s victory.

Even with the god’s ill-considered intervention, the conclusion was never in doubt. However it came about, as Turtle lost worshippers, his powers waned. He got smaller, his fireballs grew weaker, and eventually, he and Isabell disappeared somewhere.

When the sun rose on the last day of battle, everything was quiet. Or relatively so, since the warriors had found the wine stores. Many buildings had burned, those hit by the Turtle’s fireballs, and a few set on fire during the victory celebrations.

Tenthé had to admit, though, he’d never seen an invasion like this result in such little damage. Which was probably good, all around. Once the Horde left and the people returned, the City could restart relatively quickly. Then, at some point, the Horde could return and try to loot it again.

The whole thing smacked of a plot. In a world of gods, and now god’s gods, Tenthé wouldn’t bet against there being some big plan playing out. Or, more likely, a mishmash of different plans competing against each other.

It didn’t matter to him. He was off to find Isabell. This wasn’t exactly difficult since, as he looked over the City, there was a huge pile of glowing cubes near the Turtle’s temple. He opted not to fly or, as he thought of it, plummet through the sky. Rather, he decided to walk. This way, he could see what was going on, first hand.

He lightened himself and drifted down to land outside the fort, then walked into the warren of alleys and made no attempt to conceal himself as ambled toward the City Center. There was some chance he’d be misidentified by the warriors again and they’d attack. Unfortunately though, it was apparent that the word had gotten out. Any warrior he met gave him a wide berth. Except for one, who started to come at him before his compatriots piled on him. Literally.

Pity.

Tenthé was surprised to see that some of the warriors were opening shops and actually operating them. He passed a few which had a number of the Horde outside drinking tea and eating pastries, while others ran the shop. He hadn’t thought about it, but it seemed those who were converted retained enough memories to be able to run their businesses normally. Tenthé stopped at one and found that they weren’t charging anything, so he had breakfast. The food was surprisingly good.

Something like this would make providing for the expanded Horde much easier. It was interesting; the College hadn’t discussed how the Horde operated after they took a City. It was more organized than Tenthé had expected.

As he ate, it dawned on him that some of the warriors working in the shops were just kids, a few days ago. He wondered how they felt, being kids one day and warriors the next.

He laughed. Kind of the opposite of him.

He finished his meal, got up, and thanked the serving person for the food. It was a bit odd, looking up at the hulking warrior, but they thanked him back and went on to clear the table. Once again thinking about how weird the world was, Tenthé continued on.

As he neared the more affluent area near the City Center, he ran onto things he regarded as more normal. There were warriors lying in the gutter, with some sleeping it off, and some puking it up. Most of the doors of the houses had been broken in and a fair number of valuables spread across the street. A few of the warriors were dressed in looted finery, although it would be hard for them to find anything big enough. Fancy hats appeared to be popular. A few of those passed out were wearing dresses. There must have been some quite large women living around here. Or perhaps they were men with different tastes. Tenthé wasn’t one to judge.

After picking his way through the revelers, he made it to the City Center. Except for a little damage from the fight with Turtle, the neighborhood was fairly untouched. Maybe because nobody wanted to loot buildings that only contained paperwork. As he passed through, he found the real reason was that warriors were patrolling the area. Now that he thought about it, the buildings probably had valuables. Artwork and such. The Horde could sell it in the other Cities where stuff like that would be worth a lot more if it weren’t trashed.

Again, he marveled that the Horde wasn’t simply a bunch of crazy barbarians. They were a good deal more organized than what he’d been led to believe.

He continued on, expecting to find the Turtle’s temple destroyed, but it was much as he had last seen it. A few more holes, and still a big step up from the square to the plaza, but mostly everything remained standing. Isabell was in front of the gate and, to his surprise, beside her was the God of Toast.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Oh, and, in her hand, Isabell was holding a very diminished Turtle by his tail, who, by his bleating and threats, was none too happy about the situation.

Not one to waste an opportunity, Tenthé made a slashing motion, but all that happened was Turtle rocked back and forth a little.

Isabell explained, “You can’t kill him or banish him to another plane. Or anything else. I tried. He still has a few worshippers somewhere. It would end this so well, but it looks like we’ll have to keep him around. Kind of annoying.”

“But,” the God of Toast added, “I think we do have a solution. Due to your largess, it’s very likely I’ll be one of the preeminent gods once the Horde leaves and the people come back. I can arrange it so Turtle here will never be a major factor in the new City.”

Tenthé wasn’t sure why they were telling him all this. “Sounds good to me,” he replied.

Isabell looked at him. “You don’t really care, do you?”

“Nope. You’re okay. That’s all I wanted to know.”

“Oh, how sweet,” Isabell said, sounding like she meant it.

The God of Toast barged in. “If it’s alright with everyone, I want to get on with it. Let me take this off your hands and I’ll try to make sure he’s not very comfortable.

The god pulled Turtle from Isabell and jumped down toward the Temple complex while muttering quietly to Turtle. She could be comforting him, or telling him how he was going to be cooked. Hoping it was handled, Tenthé turned to look at Isabell. She returned his attention. Tenthé had no idea what to say. As for Isabell, she was cycling from being mostly human to mostly cubes, and back again.

“Oh, yeah,” she said, eventually. “I talked with a friend of yours. Mach-Anot.”

“Uh…”

“He was just walking along some street. Told me he’d handled the mystery goddess. Did something with all the worshipers she’d stashed in her temple.”

“Yeah?”

“He didn’t say what he did to them or her.”

“Good. I guess,” Tenthé replied. “Any sign of Elishua?”

“Who?”

“The large-ish girl from the College. Um, from before.”

“Nope. I remember her, though. The students called her the Ogre behind her back. Pretty sure she wasn’t one. But what’s the worst that could have happened to her? Changed from a big hulking girl to a big hulking warrior? Don’t think anyone would notice the difference.”

“Yeah, maybe. What about your family?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care. I hope they’re rotting in the worst of the hells.”

“Yeah, I hear you. Family!”

This curse was something Tenthé’d heard a lot in the Mission District, in the time before. The one that didn’t exist, now.

Finally, Isabell blurted, “What’s wrong with you!”

Tenthé had no idea what she was talking about.

“Uh…”

“You die in my arms, then I come out and a flying turtle starts shooting at me. The Horde is in the City, and it’s utter bedlam. The City’s all different, and I can’t find anyone I know! I’m in the middle of a fight, trying to figure everything out, when you show up again! Not dead, and helping the Horde!

“I kind of got sort of a clue when I noticed Turtle growing weaker. But who is it that tells me the most? Some walking tree of tentacles just marching down the street like nothing was going on. Last I saw, he was our enemy! And my room!” Isabell shuddered. “It was full of frilly girly stuff! So! You tell me! WHAT IS GOING ON!”

While she was yell-talking at him, her size grew. And grew. She was now nearly as large as the Dreamer had been, but instead was an Isabell made of swirling writhing streams of angry glowing orange cubes.

“Uh… I got mad.”

“You got mad!”

“Yeah, I got mad. Turtle and his friends took everything away so they could have things the way they wanted. I wouldn’t have cared, but they also took away everything I liked in the City, and walked all over my friends. And you.

“To cap it all off, they didn’t have a clue! Somehow, they thought it would all be okay. Well, it wasn’t! I tried, but they told me they couldn’t change it back to how it was before. So, I said, alright, if that’s how you’re going to be, I’ll take it all away from you. It was only fair. I was nice. I could have just blown it apart and killed everyone. Or… worse. I played by their rules. And here we are.”

He went on. “You probably don’t know it, but a bunch of people are hiding, waiting to come back after the Horde leaves. With the God of Toast, the City won’t be like it was under Turtle.”

The seething mass of cubes had calmed. It was somewhat more girl-sized. Where the bulk of the cubes had disappeared to wasn’t obvious. A fairly human-looking Isabell leaned close and looked into his eyes.

“The god of Toast?” she asked.

“I worship her.”

“Well, I admit she’s pretty…”

“No. I worship her as a god. I like her. She’s random. You know, she used to be an old man.”

“Right,” Isabell said, sarcastically, then her face screwed up.

“An old man, you say? Did he look like someone who would be kicked out of the South Side for being too disgusting?”

Tenthé shrugged. “Maybe, I suppose. His breath was real funky.”

Isabell wrestled with something internal for a few moments.

“You know,” she began. “I think we’ve been used.”

This was not news to Tenthé. What was worrying was that the clouds of cubes around Isabell were beginning to roil.

“Did you know anything about this?” she demanded. “Is this your fault, all of this? What about all of those who were affected? The ones who died or were converted. Don’t you care about them?”

“Nope. Not really. They were just ordinary people. Now, for the most part, they’re changed, but still ordinary. The rest are in their god’s hands. I guess.”

“That’s pretty cold.”

It wasn’t a question, so Tenthé didn’t respond.

Instead, he asked, “Are you… mad at me?”

“Grrr!” She actually growled. “I don’t know! You are so annoying! In a way, I’m older than you, but also, in a different way, you’re older than me. I don’t know what that means! I don’t know what anything means! How could you do what you did? Why did you do what you did? Was it for me?”

Tenthé started to answer, although he thought he already had, but Isabell had more to say. “I fought a god for you! As for me, I’m flattered that you assumed I could take over when you failed. How did you figure it out? Were you and your pet god spying on me?”

Tenthé might not be the best at understanding others, but even he figured out that Isabell wasn’t expecting a conversation. More of, she needed someone to listen to her rant. The fundamental problem was he couldn’t understand where she was going with it, or what she was going to conclude on her own. Or, really anything. He certainly didn’t want her mad at him. She pretty much stood toe to toe with a god he could barely scratch.

Coming back to reality, he noticed Isabell glaring at him. He had missed what she’d been saying. Oops.

He figured he’d screwed everything up. Like normal. All he could say was, “I hope you still want to be my friend, but if you don’t…”

With that, she flung herself at him, wrapped him in a hug, and started crying. She had made herself the same size as him, so it wasn’t awkward or anything.

Although it was a bit strange because, as he held her, her shoulders kept writhing and reforming under her clothes, which were probably part of her too. All in all, though, it was okay. And, to tell the truth, far from the strangest thing he’d ever hugged.

She pulled back and stared him in the face, saying, “I was so scared that I was going to be stuck as the girly-girl, doing needlepoint and screaming inside. Somehow, you figured it out and saved me! Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!”

With that, she hugged him again and planted a grateful kiss on him, somewhere around his left eye socket. He took it like the warrior he was.

After a time, Isabell stepped beside him and held his hand in a death grip.

But it made him feel his efforts weren’t a total failure. Not what he’d originally hoped for, but good enough.