Welcome to this week's creative roundup.
As a bonus, I've included a rough draft of the first part of the story, before I scrapped a lot of the narrative.
BONUS:
The soldier climbed up the loping hill to see the breach in the wall for himself. He’d heard about it, of course. And he knew that he must have passed over its non-destructed version on patrol countless times. But now, he had to see the gap.
His time of service was coming to an end. He was retiring, an old grizzled veteran. However, there were more that were leaving. As almost all soldiers now with the new laws coming into effect. He and his fellow soldiers had been fighters. There was no longer need for fighters, they said.
He made it to the crest of the hill. The walls towered over him, rising a hundred feet in the air. Built over generations to protect against the dangers without. Now, he looked at the outside through the newly made breach. Maybe ten feet wide, it was only a small portion of the wall. Large enough, though for most anything to get in.
He stood next to pieces of rubble, stones that once lay packed together with mortar. No more. The powers that be declared that the walls were no longer necessary. When people asked then, why their elders had talked about the wall and done so much to erect it, the powers waived such things away. ‘Clinging to superstition and tradition, is all. We can’t see a use for the wall. We’ve never seen the monsters on the outside, we don’t even need to look for them. They don’t exist.”
One voice rose up and said “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.” That voice was ignored.
The soldier leaned against the ragged side of the wall, watching the dry desert landscape. The sun was going down. Then, in the twilight of all things, he saw a shape move.
He blinked, it moved again, now closer to where he stood in the opened portion of the wall. His instincts flared up and he tightened his muscles and strained his eyes. There it was again, moving slowly but certainly towards him.
The shape stopped at the base of the hill, staring up at the wall and the lone soldier. He could see that it wasn’t human. Arms too long. Head too angular. Spines jutting from scalp and back. A ravaging thing lurking at the edges of civilization, a predator lying in wait at the door.
With a sudden rush, it lunged up the hill at the breach. With a fluid motion born of years of drilling, the soldier unsheathed his sword and brought it to guard. The thing swung a clawed talon at him, its dark face unreadable. He blocked it and pressed forward, to keep the thing from angling around past the walls.
They battled there among the fallen stones as true night fell. Shaking from exertion and several claw marks, the soldier at last dealt a vital blow and the thing reeled back, shrieking at the sky. It tumbled down the hill and lay still.
Dripping with blood and sweat, the soldier returned to his pack which he’d stored in a small stand of trees on the inward side 100 yards from the walls. He treated his wounds and prepared his camp; a simple one-man tent and a small fire.
The next day, he arose before dawn and checked the breach. The dead thing’s body was gone. Still, there were no signs of movement as of now. Mind set, he hurried down the disused path to the nearest town, five miles away, and bought supplies with what wages he had left. Then, returning to his camp, he pulled out his armor, sharpened his sword, and stepped up to the breach.
For three weeks he stood guard the best he was able. He had to sleep and eat sometimes, so could not prevent every moment from being unguarded. He did however, throw back three more attackers, things just as cruel and misshapen as the first.
The last left a deep wound in his leg. Grimacing in pain, he treated it with what little supplies he had left and continued to keep watch. On the thirty-third day, he collapsed from exhaustion and pain.
When he awoke, he was beside a crackling fire. Two hands held out a bowl of warm broth and diced vegetables. He gratefully took it down and sat up to witness. The man who’d fed him was young, no more than a handbreadth from passing out of childhood. He was dressed in the familiar armor of a soldier. Another soldier, this one only a little older and with a few more whiskers on his face, moved around the campsite.
He leaned over to take in the hole in the wall. A third soldier, resting lightly on his polearm, stood in the gap.
“Worry not, elder,” the first soldier said, noting his gaze. “Tales have grown about your lonely watch at the wall. We’ve come to shore up the hole. Rest now, we’ll defend the breach in your stead.”
Years passed, and yet the remnants of the soldiers grew to a small, permanent camp. Two soldiers kept watch at every time, throwing back the monsters outside civilization.
Despite this, the powers in the cities still denied such things. The wall is a fable. The outside is nothing but outcropping. Man is perfectible. So they marched in with new soldiers, ones they called officers of the peace, and drove the encampment out. Then, they broke down further sections of the wall, so that now a stretch as long as fifty feet was nothing but rubble.
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