Chapter 21 August 406 AD Paulsland Capital-Leaving the Cage for a Display

Authors note- Thank you for your patience, had a good time with my mom lost week, even though I had to navigate work and spending time with her it was good.

            Shimbir was playing with his monkey one day when the nameless manager came into his room and said, “We have an event for you to attend, and a speech for you to memorize.” As soon as the manager spoke, the monkey fled, as the manager once had the guards hold down the monkey and burn it with a hot iron, to teach Shimbir who was in control.

            Shimbir frowned and looked the man in the eye, refusing to look down. He had grown to be a rather large twelve-year-old at five feet five inches tall. He was not as tall as the nameless manager, but he was the average height of the men who worked in the castle. Men who refused to talk to him. In fact, the nameless manager went out of his way to force Shimbir to watch as he killed one of Shimbir’s dogs each time Shimbir attempted to talk to someone other than the nameless manager. After two dogs, Shimbir stopped, but Shimbir messed up once and had to watch as one more was killed. Since then, Shimbir was very careful to keep quiet.

The only name the nameless manager went by in the castle was manager. Shimbir subconsciously knew him as the nameless manager to constantly remind himself that this man had a name, and was hiding it from Shimbir because he feared Shimbir, even though the nameless manager had power over him for now.

            “Manager” Shimbir spoke the name often in the hopes that someone would figure out that the manager was illegally in control of the King. “Will I be allowed to speak to anyone at this event?”

            “As always, no. If you behave yourself, then in three years, once you are fifteen, several daughters of the seventy families will be given to you as wives. You can do whatever you want to with them, whether you want to talk to them, beat them, or screw them; I don’t care, as long as you don’t kill them. Until then, you can talk to me about any need you have, and only me.”

            Shimbir stared the nameless manager in the eye and unconsciously frowned. “Okay, give me the speech.”

            The manager handed over the speech to Shimbir alongside a newspaper and said, “I have some new reading material for you. It's from one of the Universal Church papers. They are making the argument that since you are so dumb, that Jinka, the hero in our war against Rome, should be the new King. Do you know what must happen for someone else to become King? You have to die. You may not like me, or the people I represent, but we want you to be healthy and strong. Jinka becoming King would be a disaster for you, and for us.”

            Shimbir didn’t look at the reading material instead, he asked, “When do I give the speech?”

            “In two weeks. The problem is that we have to travel to Flattop Mountain. Once we are at Flattop Mountain, you will ask to speak with Busara, the leader of the Illuminati. You will NOT actually speak with him. That’s my job, but currently the Illuminati are ignoring my employeers. They cannot ignore you.”

            For a moment, Shimbir had hope that perhaps the Illuminati could rescue him, but the nameless manager said, “Don’t get too hopeful; they have allied themselves with Jinka, which makes them your enemy.”

            Shimir’s heart fell. He hated being a bird in a cage, and he had to find some way to escape it.

            The next morning, Shimbir was led out of the castle, and he entered a carriage with his monkey and one of his dogs. His horse was led next to the carriage. Although the animals brought him comfort, he knew they were being brought along as hostages; if he didn’t behave himself, they would suffer or be killed.

            His carriage was surrounded by guards, and nobody was allowed to interact with Shimbir, except for the manager who made a point to ride in a second carriage behind Shimbir’s.

            As they traveled, they stopped each night at a different inn, inside a walled town or city. Before Shimbir was allowed out of the carriage, the guards went through the inn and kicked everyone out, including the staff. They said this was for Shimbir’s safety, but the reality was that they did not want Shimbir talking to anyone.

            Two weeks after Shimbir left the Capital, he arrived at Flattop Mountain. Flattop Mountain was not just the Illuminati headquarters, it was also the original training ground of the Paulsland military, and every year, thousands of thirteen-year-olds attended man camp at Flattop Mountain. Due to the size of Paulsland land, Flattop Mountain was no longer the only mancamp turning children into soldiers, but all of the mancamps were on mountains. Each day, every recruit was required to go up and down the mountain at least twice. The reason for this training was that it was believed that training on a mountain made their soldiers have more endurance than training at one elevation.

            Currently, the graduates of the class of four hundred and six AD had their graduation delayed, as they waited for their King to arrive and give a speech. Despite what the newspapers said, the schools still taught that the students were to be loyal to the King, and mancamp taught them that their King was absolutely in charge of the military, followed by his officers. The two Halls of Representatives did not have commanding authority over the military, although they voted on the budget. Even if the King was only twelve, the soldiers had been drilled all their lives to admire the position of King, although they were too young to separate the position from the man.

            The King giving a speech to this group was extra special this year, because the old guard was still fighting and not turning their position over to the new recruits. Paulsland required every thirteen-year-old to join the military, and after two years, they were discharged as men, with two years of pay. In a peaceful year, those being discharged would symbolically hand over their duty. Due to the war with Rome and Kush, it had been several years since the turning-over ceremony had happened. Instead the eleven thousand eight hundred and seven recruits were marched outside in the sun to wait for their King to give a speech and some sort of demonstration.

            Although Paulsland was only at war with Kush now, due to Kush getting the new weapon, Paulsland needed as many recruits as possible to help build fortresses at the border. The young recruits were very aware that they were expected to spend all their time digging trenches and laying foundations, and hopefully no time fighting, albeit they had trained in both for the last several months just in case.

            Of the eleven thousand eight hundred and seven recruits at this year’s man camp Uamin was the oldest person, as he turned fourteen just two days after it started. He was also the tallest at six foot one. He didn’t care for all the marching up and down the mountain, but beyond that he didn’t find mancamp particularly hard. He grew up on a farm and was used to hard work, and odd working hours, as he’d had to work when the animals were up.

            He was excited to see the King, all of the recruits were, and he was glad that seeing the King meant a bit of delay in heading up north to Kush. He wasn’t fearful of battle, but he was not looking forward to digging, laying foundations, and moving stone day in and day out. In fact from what he heard the steam cannons destroyed stone, and so he didn’t understand why they wanted to use stone to build the new fortresses, although he suspected it had something to do with all the new stone cutters they built.

            Uamin had plenty of time to think on these things as all the mancamp graduates waited, and waited. They had been awake since three in the morning and been in formation since four. The sun didn’t even come until until six thirty five. The guards for King Shimbir arrived at eleven and pushed everyone off the stage, and a few other experts set up a steam weapon demonstration. Uamin sighed when he saw that since it always took time to build up steam. After that some reporters arrived to take notes on this event, and they even had camera men taking photos. A few of the recruits had family members come to the graduation, although that was the exception, especially with the war still going on, but most of them were more concerned with their child’s graduation than the King’s speech, especailly after what they had heard about him in the papers.

            Eventually a few minutes after noon King Shimbir showed up. Although the news said he went everywhere with his monkey, he didn’t have it on him. Instead he had a creepy man following him around, and anytime someone tried to appreach the King the guards forced them to talk to the creepy man. Uamin didn’t think too much of it though, since the King clearly couldn’t be approached by mere commoners.

            The King then gave a speech where he touted the new steam rifle made by the Paulson family. Thanks to the design of the parade ground everyone could hear the young King. Uamin paid a lot of attention to this speech because he desperately wanted to be trained on steam rifles. He knew it was a forlorn hope as only those who would be asked to stay in the military after their mandatory service would get that privlege, and he was just the son of a farmer, in a family of farmers, but he was fourteen and he could imagine. The main thing he got out of the speech was that the steam rifles could shoot ten shots in a row, very accuratly, up to several hundred yards.

            After the King made his speech about how the Paulson family rifle would help them defeat the Kush, several people helped him with the rifle. One carried it to him and told him how it worked, another helped with the hose going from the steam vessel to the rifle, and another pointed to the target, and made sure nobody was that way.

            King Shimbir pointed the rifle at the target and fired one shot. It hit the target. That’s when things took a strange turn. Shimbir lowered the rifle, turned to the crowd of soldiers and yelled out, “ARE YOU LOYAL TO THE KING!”

            This was a crowd of young people who were graduating from mancamp. They had one answer drilled into them the last few weeks, “SIR! YES, SIR!”

            “WILL YOU OBEY YOUR KING!”

            “SIR! YES, SIR!”

            “WILL YOU PROTECT YOUR KING!”

            “SIR! YES, SIR!”

            Uamin, and all the youths were getting more and more fired up with each answer. Because their eyes were on King Shimbir they never noticed the the creepy man grew agitated as King Shimbir went off script, but King Shimbir noticed. In fact he turned back to the nameless manager, lifted the rifle, put it to his shoulder, aimed at the man, and began shooting him. One, two, three shots, and he fell.

            Everything went still. The recruits were expecting a pep rally, not violence. Shimbir’s guards thought that their bird was throughly caged. Shimbir saw an opportunity and he was going to take it.

            After a moment of stillness Shimbir yelled out, “MY GUARDS ARE TRAITORS! PROTECT ME FROM THEM!”

            With that order, eleven thousand eight hundred and seven recruits charged the stage to protect their King. At this moment in time obeying their King was all they knew.


Authors note- I had been planning for this chapter for years. When I wrote about how King Paul wrote his book on leadership and hid it in the castle, I was thinking of this moment. Thank you for your patience. Hope yall have a great day.