Attack at the Gate

"So this is the armory...?" Anna looked around, "Looks normal."

“I’ll get the list from her office,” Jarce said, turning to leave. Apu followed him, eager to be useful.

The moment she was alone, Anna moved. She walked towards the back of the armory, to a dark corner piled high with old, unused shield blanks.

“Just checking for dampness,” she murmured to herself, kneeling down.

Her hand slipped into her pouch and then she pressed one of Yarte’s small, cold corruption seeds into a crack between the foundation stones, hidden completely from view.

“Should be good enough…”

She stood up, dusting her hands, her face a mask of normalcy just as Jarce and Apu returned with a long sheet of parchment.

“Right,” Jarce said, looking at the list. “First up, Zebril needs us to re-catalogue the enchanted arrowheads. We need to count them and separate the fire-tipped from the frost-tipped.”

“I’ll count, you two sort,” Anna commanded.

They worked efficiently, the three of them. The silence was soon filled with banter, mostly started by Jarce, who was clearly trying to make her feel more welcome.

“So,” he began, carefully placing a blue-fletched arrow into a crate, “that sword of yours, Maren? Is she always that… loud?”

“Only when she’s not complaining about being called a glow stick,” Anna replied dryly, not looking up from her tally sheet.

Jarce laughed. “I can’t believe I saw a talking sword. I’m curious what she sounds like...”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

They moved through the list with Apu diligently helping, checking off tasks like allocating new leather kits, bundling rations, and polishing the ceremonial armor.

The sheer volume of work Zebril managed daily was staggering. Anna had assumed a Quartermaster’s duties were confined to weapons and armor, but the reality was far more complex.

The list Jarce held was two pages long, written in the Captain’s sharp, efficient script, and each item was a thread in the vast, intricate web that kept the barracks running.

An hour bled into the pre-dawn darkness, and they had only managed to check off four items. “Now now, we should be faster.”

So they moved quicker.

“This one’s glyph is faded,” she’d say, setting an arrow aside. “The fire will sputter out halfway to its target. Useless.” Jarce watched, amazed by her unexpected expertise.

This is just like inventory checking in games… I’ve done this more than enough…

Next, the list sent them to the stables, the task was to inspect and distribute a new shipment of high-grade oats meant for the officers’ warhorses. The massive beasts snorted and stomped in their stalls, making Jarce a little nervous, “This is Zebril’s war horse…” Anna, however, was unfazed. She ran a handful of the oats through her fingers.

“Good quality,” she noted. “High in protein, should increase stamina. The stable master is doing a fine job.”

Jarce just nodded again.

From there, they moved to the infirmary.

“We’re lucky the losses from the orc attack weren’t worse,” Jarce murmured, looking at the handful of sleeping knights in the recovery beds. “Destrian took the brunt of it, but many were still injured.”

“A prepared defense minimizes casualties,” Anna replied simply, making a neat checkmark on the list.

The final task of the hour took them to the cavernous pantry beneath the kitchens. Here, they had to verify the seals on the new barrels of salted meat meant to last the next month but they done it quickly because of Anna again.

When they were done, Jarce leaned against a massive barrel and let out a groan, wiping his brow. “By the gods,” he breathed, looking at the still-long list. “Captain Zebril is not a human. How can she able to do this?!”

Anna glanced at the parchment. “What’s the rest of it?”

Jarce scanned down the page, his voice taking on a note of despair. 

“Let’s see… ‘Re-wax arrow... Calculate Glimmerstone... Sharpen daggers.... Audit the leather… it just keeps going.” He shook his head in disbelief.

Then he reached the end of the list.

“Well,” he said, forcing a weary smile. “At least we can do this one. It says: ‘Prepare and deliver the monthly tithe of blessed iron ingots to the Temple forgers.’”

“Hmm… Just taking iron? I guess we could do that.” But before they move, a bloodcurdling scream ripped through the barracks from the outer wall. “MONSTER ATTACK!!”

Before Jarce could even draw his sword, a sound of howls and the heavy bang of countless paws struck them. Massives wolves with eyes glowing a malevolent red, were swarming the perimeter. Guards on the battlements formed a shield wall, their spears bristling outwards as archers loosed volleys into the charging horde.

But then another sound joined from above. Anna looked up, her eyes widening. Soaring over the walls were dozens of enormous, grotesque birds, their bodies at least five meters tall.

“Mupo Birds!” Jarce yelled, pulling Anna behind a stone pillar. “Be careful, Anna, they’ll strike by killing themselves!”

“What?!” Anna exclaimed.

As if on cue, one of the birds folded its wings and dove directly at the main gatehouse. The impact hit a huge section of the wall and crushing the defenders below, the wolves now had a gaping hole to pour into the barracks.

"Everyone take shelter!" Another Mupo Bird crashed down into the central courtyard, kicking up a colossal cloud of dust and debris as another one gets ready to strike.

Jarce lost sight of everything. “Anna! Where are you?!” he screamed into the choking haze.

“Good job Pietta…” A cruel, triumphant smile spread across Anna’s face, hidden by the dust.

She moved through the chaos, her feet silent. At the crater where the bird had landed, amidst the corpses of knights and wolves, she pressed seed after seed of Yarte’s corruption into the blood-soaked earth.

Just as Jarce’s frantic calls grew closer, a blinding golden light tore through the dust cloud from above. A figure blazed from the sky, landing with a shockwave outwards, clearing the air instantly.

It was a tall man wielding a greatsword. He didn’t speak. He simply moved and fight. With each swing of his blade, wolves dissolved into ash.

Anna froze. Beside her, so fast she was almost invisible, a small girl went by, her face lit by the golden light, a confident smirk playing on her lips.

Maren buzzed so violently against Anna’s back it felt like an electric shock.

“ANNA!! THAT’S HIM! THAT IS ARS CAELUS!!”