The Fields of Fire

Chapter 18: Michael Branton

It was 7:13 AM in the morning, far too early for a man of his stature in the world.

Michael was a king, but he yet had no name for his kingdom. Fortia wasn't half bad, but he also thought Brantania would also do quite nicely. He had half a mind to name it after his lost love, he thought against it though. Tauria would be a silly name for a kingdom anyway.

Of course it was irrelevant, for now at least. Branton was a King yes, sitting in the Fortmasters chamber he overlooked his castle. A fort below with the hustle and bustle of his peasants. He didn't like thinking of it this way, but they were all sort of his prisoners. They had no where else to go. Walls put up to keep people out had just ended up keeping them in it seemed. He ruled a shadow kingdom, that no one could ever know existed. Not that they'd believe it did exist, not that he could believe it most days.

The relatively warm reception of the soldiers to the Tribesmen, was short lived to say the least. They didn't even get through their first dinner before a man of the Skull Crow tribe was trying to take the head off the cook after realizing that he had made crow stew, which is apparently offensive to the guy who literally has a necklace made of Crow Skulls. Then the nearby hotshot Sargent took a swing at the leader of the Skull Crows, who was blood brothers with the leader of the Ice Wind tribe, who proceeded to shove a spoon through the sargent's hand, but not before the Sargent called to a nearby Master at Arms, who burned an oxygen torch against the leader of the Ice Wind's face, which was apparently an offense to the Moon-Sons religion, because every tribesmen in the fort with a moon tattoo on his face jumped on the Master At Arms. And when a man named Rock Harold jumped in to try and break it up, the White Guard jumped on him because apparently he was the one who killed Fortmaster Walton. Michael had to set down his crow stew and stand on the table to remind everyone of how dead they were if they didn't make this work. Then they went back to eating, except for the chief of the Skull Crows, who refused to have any more soup.

The hilarity of it was conveniently enough its greatest defense. No man on earth would ever believe that the White Guard had aligned themselves with the tribesmen in a bid for survival. Even if someone did decide to expose the fact that they'd given up fighting, who would believe such a silly story? The Shinkies and the rabble all living together in harmony? It was a fairytale. Still Michael kept a tight lid on things. He'd put the radio on the intercom whenever there was a story about some group of tribesmen being caught on the Zytrian side of the wall, just to remind everyone that there's no real escape for them. And he ensured that whenever supplies came he always had his most trusted men up front to make them sure there was nothing suspicious going on. He'd even closed down the telegram room, just to make sure nobody was sending anything out that they shouldn't be.

But Michael knew few good things could last forever and as a lieutenant whom he didn't recognize stepped through the doors of his office, he had a feeling this would be one of the moments where forever is put to the test. The soldier walked over concerned, he spoke bluntly, "Oy, we got a problem."

Michael responded as positively as he could, "I like to think I'm a man of solutions."

"The Sentry Master knows something's up."

"What?" Shit. Michael thought. He knew the Sentry Master was the commander responsible for the defense of the wall. If you're a Fortmaster, than your boss is the Sentrymaster. And Apparently he was starting to catch on to what was happening at Fort F.

"Telegram came in, said he wanted to send an inspector to evaluate the status at the fort."

"A Telegram?" Michael shook his head, "I told you that room was shut down! And I told them that the lines had been cut so we weren't getting any signals. If you responded than they'll know I was lying!" Michael was infuriated to see the staggering stupidity of his subordinates.