Like other kingdoms in this era, the territory of the Kingdom of Barbax was surrounded by 100-metre-tall walls. The walls shaped the territory into a Pentagon. These brick-red walls around the Barbax kingdom were known as the godwalls.
On the godwalls, soldiers armed with crossbows were stationed on the battlements, which were briefly separated from one another. On average, about six soldiers were behind a battlement.
Outside and below the godwalls, there were centurions of soldiers camped on the five sides of the godwalls. This strategy exposed and slowed surprise invasions.
On the godwall, at the northeast side of the wall. Soldiers within two neighbouring battlements were intercalating.
"After having its fill of rampaging the town, the mammoth headed into a barn and began raping an elephant," a brawny, red-bearded, red-haired man narrated to his listeners.
The soldiers behind the two battlements burst into wild laughter.
Holding back his urge to laugh, the narrator continued, "Funny as it sounds, it was horrifying to witness. I thought the beast was going to devour the cow."
In the same battlement with the narrator, one of the soldiers said to him, with a tone seeking validation, "The beast was certainly Rank 3."
Another soldier from the other battlement, trying to support the latter, said, "Yeah. Rank 3 mystical beasts are known to show a little intelligence. Banging the cow was enough intelligence for the mammoth."
The last statement from the latter soldier generated another round of hysterical laughter. This time, the red-bearded man laughed.
Controlling his laughter, the red-bearded man said, "The mammoth was rank 2. The beast just wanted to dip his cookie in a honey pot."
Another round of laughter erupted. Some of the soldiers lost control of themselves and had to support themselves on the parapets and shoulders of their comrades.
A startling whistle echoed through the air. The soldiers around the wall were troubled by the sound. Their gaze searched the sky that wasn't too cloudy, but they saw nothing. After two minutes of calm in the sky, most of the soldiers gave up.
"I guess it was a shooting star passing by," another soldier in the red-bearded man's battlement said.
The two groups more or less agreed. A few were still unsettled by another possibility.
The red-bearded man said, "When I was a little boy, my granddad told me about this kind of unsettling sound. He said this sound came in the wake of a dragon."
Both groups became silent, worry etched on their faces.
"I think it's bluff," the red-bearded man continued, "the old man was always drunk."
The men's countenance improved. They didn't go back to lounging and talking. They took up positions behind the battlements.
Suddenly, a flash of blinding red and yellow light lit up this corner of the wall. The light dimmed but persisted. When the soldiers on the wall were about to reopen their eyes, an explosion shook the earth, and wind from shockwaves rammed past the soldiers. A few of the soldiers who didn't have a strong foothold were swept off their allure, and they fell to their deaths.
Horror gripped the hearts of the soldiers when they reopened their eyes to gaze at the source of the disturbance. The camp below the wall and some metres of land ahead of it were being ravaged by flames.
The soldiers on this part of the wall were fidgeting. Their minds were busted, failing to think of the next line of action.
One of them asked, "Are we going to die?"
The red-bearded man was beside this soldier. He mumbled to himself, "There is no way this is supposed to happen. We have two warrior mages down there. Did they betray us?"
"It's a god-forsaken dragon!" a soldier somewhere on the allure yelled suddenly.
The other soldiers didn't need to follow the pointing finger of the latter. The dragon had suddenly swooped down from behind the clouds, flying across and too close to the flaming ground, not minding the heat radiated. The dragon was headed for this side of the wall at alarming speed.
"Shoot the ugly bitch!" The red-bearded man yelled instinctively.
He notched an arrow on his crossbow and shot at the dragon, but he missed. He didn't relent. He kept attacking and missing. He didn't realise that his aim was being sabotaged by his shaky arms. His mind had put aside the feeling of fear, but the rest of his body couldn't get over it. Even his legs were jittering, and yet he didn't realise it.
As the red beard quickly notched another arrow on the crossbow, he glanced left and right. What he saw dismayed him. His comrades were gawking at their doom instead of fighting it.
He yelled at his comrades, "What the hell is wrong! Fight! We are about to…
A stream of flames washed over the red-bearded man before he could conclude. The whole allure of this part of the wall was not spared. Thick dusts of incinerated corpses dropped from the top to the ground below on both sides.
The red dragon went up and got a good distance between himself and the wall. He stopped ascending and pensively looked down on the wall. There was a glint of guilt in his eyes, but he blinked, and it was replaced by a countenance of infallibility.
Surrounding air rushed into the fiery beast's nostrils like the wind. The beast brewed a deadly attack in its belly with continuous deep inhales and exhales. The recipient of the incoming attack was the wall below that he was glaring at.
After a minute of processing, the biggest fireball ever conjured by the beast was released onto the wall. The explosion and impact sent an 8.8-magnitude wave around Barbax. A lot of buildings fell, obviously the ones owned by average citizens. Confusion enveloped the minds of those who weren't buried by the rubble of the buildings that collapsed, and it resulted in a stampede. More Barbax residents lost their lives in the confusion.
A dozen kilometres from the fallen Barbax wall, the Camelot troops were gobsmacked when they witnessed the dazzling lights and the mushroom cloud that emanated from the explosion of the wall.
"Glory be to the emperor!" The legate who stood in front said at the top of his voice.
The legate's words prompted his men to sing, "Viva, Lord Gerald (x2). Hundred thousand shall rise, but none can stand, the might of our lord, Gerald."
The Emperor dropped from the sky before the legate. The soldiers impromptu bowed to him by half kneeling with their heads down.
"The survivors from the invasion squad are on their way to deliver my message to the fool of Barbax," Emperor Gerald said. "He will know that might isn't measured by numbers but by the potency of each digit in the numbers.
He walked past his men, saying, "Get up, soldiers; we are going home to announce our victory. This victory will see that no lord tries to mess with us."
"Glory be to you, your highness," a soldier hailed out of admiration.
****Author's note: In a couple of chapters, we will meet our MC. I plead that you hang on dear reader.****