Kaiden VII, Gamila XI

PA 2 – July

Kaiden

When he woke up the next morning and didn’t see Gamila anywhere, Kaiden didn’t think much of it. She’d been going undercover throughout the city constantly over the past week, so not seeing her in the morning wasn’t something he was worried about.

So he went about his day, eating breakfast, trying (and failing) to talk to Cui, eventually defaulting to complaining to Herneith, and then finally retiring to his room for the evening to share his (lack of) progress with Gamila.

It was when she didn’t show up that evening that he started to worry.

“Hey, Herneith,” he poked his head out of his room. “Do you know where Gamila is?”

The woman glanced over at him, surprised. “Gamila? You mean the Pharaoh’s guard? I haven’t seen her since she took over my shift last night, why?”

…Kaiden began to feel dread pool in his stomach. “She was supposed to meet me here tonight. And I mean, she hasn’t always been on time, but she normally gives me some warning before she’s late. And I haven’t seen her all day, either…”

“Why do you two meet up every night, anyway?” Anube, who was also guarding his door, asked curiously. A sleezy smirk grew across his face. “Is our little lord becoming a man?”

“Anube,” Herneith hissed, glowering at him.

“No,” Kaiden flushed, shaking his head so fast it might fly off. “Absolutely not! I don’t think she even—um, I mean—it’s not like that, you ass. She’s the one sending my reports to Joseph, got it! Nothing else.”

“You’re protesting an awful lot for something you’re saying is nothing~”

“Anube, this is serious,” Herneith glared at him. “Especially since this is the Pharaoh’s personal guard we’re talking about. What do you think’ll end up happening if she ends up missing in a foreign city? What do you think the Pharaoh will do?”

“Ah,” Anube suddenly looked much less smug. “Yeah, okay, that sounds serious. Um, I don’t know about Gamila, but I do know one of the servants wanted to talk with you—said it was something important, but you were with the King at the time, so…”

“They did?” Kaiden asked, suddenly concerned. Joseph had sent up a whole entourage of servants and guards up with him, but he hadn’t interacted much with them. The non-guard servants were mostly in their early teens, making them way too young for him to talk to. “Who was it? What was it about?”

“Uh, I dunno,” Anube shrugged. “It was a little girl, about… this tall, I think? Dark hair, big eyes—a kid, ya know? I think she’s the one who cleans our armor between shifts. But she seemed to think it was really important, so maybe she knows what’s up?”

Herneith looked like she wanted to strangle him. “And you didn’t bring this up earlier, why?”

“Hey, cut me some slack! It’s not like I knew anyone’d gone missing until right now! I figured she just wanted him to look over some, I don’t know, tax reports or something. She’s like five! I didn’t think it might have been something this important!”

“Take me to her,” Kaiden fully stepped out of his room. “Whether or not she knows where Gamila is, I want to know whatever it is she wanted to tell me, got it?”

“Uh, yeah, as you say, my lord.”

They quickly rushed over to the servants quarters, Anube leading the way. As they entered he scanned the room, before his eyes alighted on the girl he was looking for.

“Hey, kid,” Anube waved her over. “Yeah you! You said you had something important to tell Lord Kaiden?”

The girl’s head snapped up, staring at them like a deer caught in the headlights. Anube had been right in that she didn’t look particularly old—she barely reached Kaiden’s waist, and he wasn’t the tallest man around. Still, she obeyed the soldier, gently placing down her pile of laundry before stumbling her way over to them.

“Hey there,” Kaiden kneeled down next to her, giving the girl an awkward smile. “I heard you had something you wanted to tell me?”

“…I saw the King’s soldiers,” she whispered, leaning in closer to him as though telling him a secret. Not that it mattered much, with the rest of the servants staring at them. “When I was visiting to grab her laundry.”

“Who’s laundry?” Kaiden asked, keeping his voice just as quiet. Despite the question, though, a sinking feeling in his gut told him he already knew who.

“I dunno,” she shrugged. “She’s a woman, one to the soldiers who follow you around. The King’s soldiers took her, grabbed her all over and dragged her out of her room. I didn’t know what to do, so I ran to the nearest soldier, but he brushed me off.”

Anube coughed awkwardly behind him.

Kaiden took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. There were a number of reasons the soldiers could have taken Gamila, though none of them particularly good.

“You did the right thing,” he told her, forcing a smile on his face for the girl. “Uh, but next time, trying and find Herneith here, see? She’ll listen to you no matter what the problem is. She’s reliable.”

Anube coughed again.

“Now why don’t you go finish up whatever you were doing before, yeah? We’ll figure out what’s going on in the meantime.”

Kaiden forced the smile to remain on his face as he watched the girl scurry off, before letting it fall away, rubbing his hand across his face.

“What should we do, my lord?” Herneith hissed quietly, gripping her spear anxiously.

Kaiden bit his lip, deep in thought. “…We’re leaving, that’s what we’re doing. Our time here has been weird from the start, but taking one of our people is a step too far. Tell the servants to pack everything up and get out of the city—in fact, have some of the guards go with them. I want as many of our people outside and back home as soon as possible.”

“I notice you didn’t include us in that plan, my lord.”

“I didn’t,” Kaiden nodded uncertainly. “That’s because we’re going to find Gamila before we leave.”

“…She could be dead already, my lord. It would be safer for you to leave now, while we can.”

Kaiden paused, the concept of Gamila being dead having never crossed his mind. And she couldn’t be, could she? She was immortal. …Unless the reason they took her was because they figured out…

He bit his lip, shaking his head. No, no! He had… he had ways to check, didn’t he? He focused on the number in the back of his mind. 9,863. …What was that number this morning? The number was something he’d come to ignore unless he focused on it, a bit like how you’d ignore your nose. Now he was cursing himself for not paying enough attention.

“My lord?” Herneith asked, sounding worried.

“We don’t know if she’s dead,” Kaiden finally said. “But, just in case… I need to head to her room, I have something I need to check before I go anywhere. Herneith, can I trust you to take care of everyone else?”

“…If you are certain, my lord.”

“Good,” Kaiden nodded, ignoring the pounding of his heart. “Good. Then I’ll meet you here in an hour.”

With that he left his guards to it, spinning on his heel and hurrying back towards their rooms.

A few minutes later he burst into Gamila’s room, his eyes immediately darting around taking everything in.

Nothing out of place. No signs of a struggle. It was almost eerie.

He immediately began digging through her things, throwing any thoughts of privacy out the window. This was far more important.

At first, he found nothing off. Clothes, a set of tools, a dagger. He dug through a bit more, finding some jewelry beads, a couple bags of salt, and a pot of incense.

He was about to move on when he paused suddenly, picking up the bags of salt again, weighing them in his hands. One of them was much heavier than the others.

Going off of nothing more than a gut feeling he opened the bag and dug his hands into the salt, fingers burrowing in until, suddenly, they stopped, hitting something hard. His fingers outstretched, grabbing the object, before pulling it out.

And as he gingerly held Gamila’s soul in his hand, he let out a sigh of relief. It was still here; she was still alive.

Hiding the orb back within the bag of salt, he quickly left the room, preparing to meet up with the rest of his guards.

A meeting which would come far sooner than he expected, as the second he opened the door to leave he found Anube standing there along with a dozen other guards, his hand outstretched as though to open the door.

“My lord,” Anube muttered, his face drawn more serious than he’d ever seen him, but his eyes wild with fear. “We’re leaving. Now.”

“What?”

“It’s King Aniruddha. He’s returned to the city. With an army. The outer gates have already started to fall—we’re getting you out of here, now.”

There was really only one thing Kaiden could say to that.

“Fuck.”

--

Gamila

Gamila sat calmly in her cell, eyes closed in meditation as she considered her circumstances.

They’d brought her to an underground prison cell that was—far as she could tell—beneath the palace. The cell was a small, sandstone box, with no windows and a tiny, thick wooden door. They’d tied her to a chair in the center of the room, her wrists and ankles bound tight. There was no light beyond the faint flickering of firelight spilling from beneath the door, and a thick, musty odor would have made it hard to breathe for anyone who actually needed to to survive. Her cell was not alone—nearly a dozen other cells sat in a line next to hers, each filled with their own prisoners who, eerily, didn’t make a single sound.

She’s already tried talking to the other prisoners, but the guard outside pounded on her door and threatened her should she continue talking, so she’d fallen silent like all the others.

She didn’t regret surrendering. She regretted not being able to warn Kaiden and the others beforehand, but once they noticed her disappearance it would hopefully give them enough time to escape the city themselves.

Unless Cui also attacked them before they realized what was going on.

Well, she hadn’t seen them here when she arrived. That just meant she’d have to break out of here before that happened.

She began pulling her wrists against the ropes binding them, back and forth, slowly loosening them up. Eventually they began to slowly loosen, giving her just a little bit more space—not enough to pull her hands out yet, but enough that she could begin to wriggle her wrists.

She heard footsteps outside, coming closer. She paused, as she heard them stop suddenly.

The door to her cell opened, the door creaking ominously, revealing her captors. She took in the soldier standing in the doorway—the same one who led the assault to capture her. He stared back equally passively, before stepping into the room, another man behind him following with a torch.

“So, you’re the one,” the soldier grunted, motioning for his fellow to close the door. “Gamila, the spy from the Sunset Kingdom.”

How the hell did they know that.

“I’ll skip the pleasantries—I doubt they matter at this point anyway,” he stepped closer to her, kneeling down to look her in the eye. “Tell me, little spy. What does the Pharaoh plan to accomplish by sending his underlings here?”

Absolutely nothing. This was supposed to be a simple recon mission for Kaiden to whet his teeth on. Not… this.

“We know all about the invasion plans,” he told her calmly. “We’ve already scrambled the army, and have stocked up enough supplies to last years. Any element of surprise you had has been lost.”

She had no idea what he was talking about.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The soldier sighed, disappointed. Then, he slowly grabbed one of her fingers, and with a single motion, yanked it back, breaking it with a loud ‘CRACK.’

Gamila gasped, surprised herself at the pain. She’d been hurt worse before, but—well, she supposed there was no adrenaline here to dull the pain.

“This will be much easier if you cooperate,” he told her softly, before grabbing another finger. “Now, are you ready to talk?”

Gamila took a deep breath, forcing herself to ignore the pain. This had escalated far beyond anything she’d expected coming in—and far beyond anything Joseph or her would be willing to forgive.

With that in mind she recalibrated. These people were now enemies, and needed to be treated as such. She fell instinctively into a mask, the pain dulling as she turned to the soldier, staring into his eyes with intentionally weak resolve. “I… I’ll never tell you anything!”

He rolled his eyes, before breaking her next finger. “You’re Pharaoh has abandoned you,” he reminded her over her gasp of pain. “There’s no one coming to save you. So why don’t you just make this easy for the both of us. If you don’t, I may have to get a bit more… creative, when breaking you.”

“I…” she hissed, chomping on her own tongue to force tears from her eyes. “I won’t…”

He broke her next finger, raising an eyebrow at her scream of pain. “Last chance~”

Ah, that was her call to give in. Really, she was grateful he was just breaking fingers. With the low lighting it made it impossible to tell they were immediately healing, but if he started escalating she’d be found out immediately. And then she wouldn’t be able to get any information from him.

So, she ‘broke.’

“…Alright, alright,” she whimpered, putting extra effort into the tears. Have to make it look believable, after all. “I’ll tell you.”

“Good,” the man smiled at her patting her hand. “You’re smarter than you looked. Now, when does the Pharaoh intend to attack?”

He wasn’t until this happened. “…It was going to depend on how this trip went. If Lord Kaiden did well, we’d be here within the month. Otherwise, we’d wait longer.”

“Did well?” he leaned into her face. “Did well at what? What is that foreign lord planning?”

“…I don’t know.”

“Really?” He hummed, placing his hand back on hers. “How sure are you?”

“I don’t! I really don’t!” she shouted frantically. “It was, uh, between him and the Pharaoh. I wasn’t important enough to tell!”

“That’s odd,” he hummed. “Considering according to our reports, the lord Kaiden was reporting to you. So, why don’t we start again—what is the lord planning?”

There’s no way they should know that, unless…

Her eyes narrowed a fraction before she caught herself. “…You were listening to us?”

“Indeed we were,” the soldier chuckled. “We’ve had our people watching you since the day you arrived. We know everything. Every secret, every spoken word, everything. So, it would be in your best interest not to lie, understood?”

You obviously don’t know everything, if you’ve grabbed me of all people.

“…What is the King planning to do with us?” she asked softly, her mind running a mile a minute as she considered the implications of everything he’d said so far. The implications of the fact they were in her room, watching her.

It felt uncomfortably like her first few weeks in this world, enslaved by someone she’d hoped would be a friend.

It turns out allies had a tendency to betray you, regardless of where or who you were.

“Now now,” he chided her, hand delicately reaching down and rubbing against the pommel of his dagger. Her eyes darted to his belt, taking in the new weapon, before darting back to his eyes. “I ask the questions here. In fact, you should feel lucky I’m being so accommodating—not all of my colleagues are so kind.”

“…I see,” she muttered, lowering her head a fraction. “Then, I—”

Suddenly she was cut off, as another soldier burst into the room, stumbling to a stop behind them. “Sir!” he gasped, breathing heavily. “Sir! Invasion! War! The city’s under attack!”

“What!?” the soldier who’d spent the last few minutes torturing her yelped, before turning to glare at her with hate in his eyes. “So,” he growled, “your army has arrived.”

It has!?

“Return to your post!” he ordered the new soldier, before turning to the silent torchbearer who’d been watching them the whole time. “And you, follow me! We’re leaving the prisoner here for later. Now, move out!”

Gamila blinked, realizing she was being left alone. Then she blinked again, realizing this would be her last chance to escape until the next time they came down here.

And so she didn’t think—she moved. She yanked her hands from the bindings in a single swift move, ignoring the pain of torn skin and dislocated fingers to focus on the enemy in front of her. She leaped from her seat, falling to the floor as her ankles clung to the chair. Not stopping, she braced her hands against the floor, performing a standing somersault, dragging the chair with her feet and over her head towards the soldier.

The man had just a second to turn around in shock before the chair slammed into his face, knocking him to the ground with a bloody squelch.

As the chair hit the floor the legs shattered off, splinters digging into her body and leaving her ankles still tied to them. Spinning back to her feet she jumped at the torchbearer, who unable to react in time fell to the floor beneath her with a yelp. She grabbed the torch from his hands, spinning around and brandishing it against the final remaining soldier, who aborted a swing at her to avoid the fire.

Gamila took a second to glance around the cell—at the torturer who was still collapsed under the broken chair, a pool of blood forming beneath him, and the soldier who stood nervously before her, a dagger in hand his only weapon.

She took a moment to snap her leg back, kicking the former torchbearer in the chin, before she lunged forward, shoving the torch in the final soldier’s face.

The man barely had time to yelp before she was on him, pinning him on the ground and slamming the torch into his jaw. His head snapped back dazed, and with that she jumped back to her feet, grabbing his dagger and chucking the torch back into the cell with the broken, wooden chair.

Spinning around she took off, down hallways they’d been stupid enough not to blindfold her when bringing her down, hallways now empty as all the guards had been dragged away by the invading army.

Which, now that she thought of it, who the hell was invading!?

Gamila sighed, shaking her head. One thing at a time.

First she’d find Kaiden, then they’d deal with the army.

And then, they’d deal with Cui.

9,863 God-Kings Remain