Excerpt from Moving The Pieces, Current Work-in-Progress

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It wasn't long before we reached First Wall. It was really a series of three walls of mixed stone and concrete construction, each of them really nothing more than a curtain wall roughly twice the height of a short human with a wooden catwalk behind. Each of the walls was separated by two sixty-fours of paces, kept clear of obstructing vegetation. The walls stretched perhaps twenty miles in all, perpendicular to the road. It was possible to flank them, but the point was to motivate the demons to turn aside for easier targets. There was a caretaker force preparing for combat, clearing as much of the vegetation growing in front of the western-most wall as they could for clear lines of sight. A small cadre manned the walls, staying alert for signs of the advancing demons.

There was a Second Wall, perhaps fifteen kilometers east of the first set, not nearly so complete or well maintained. There was talk of a Third Wall, to protect those farmers and miners closest to the Gate, but the Guard itself was doing all it could to prevent that. The Iron Law of Bureaucracy was universal. They didn't want to be stationed out in the hinterlands, within spitting distance of the actual Gate.

A sentry at one of the periodic gates asked our names, and why the four of us were together in this vehicle. We gave our names and Asina explained, "These three lost their perfectly good airplane scouting over the Gate, and I came to get them."

"How did you lose your airplane?"

"We think the brakiri shot us down. Suddenly we were on fire in two places," I explained.

"Why did they do that?"

I snorted, "Don't you already know the answer to that question, Guardsman?"

"I guess I do. Still I need to see a drop of your blood before you pass. Each of you." He gave us a small piece of white flax-like graffs to bleed on.

Makis had a small knife. He stuck the ball of one of his fingers and squeezed a drop onto the graffs, then passed the knife to Ghent.

"Hope you've got a lot of graffs," Ghent said before copying Makis. He passed the knife to me and I followed suit before passing the knife to Asina.

"Yes, we do," he replied, "Pointless to build walls if you're going to let anyone pass without testing."

Asina smiled as she duplicated the ritual. She might have had something to do with the thinking behind it.

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This page contains a single entry by Dan Melson published on April 13, 2021 9:47 AM.

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