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Chapter CXXXVII – It shall elevate thy camp, and thou shalt bruise their head.
🕑 Added 2025-05-24 11:48:54 +0000 UTC15th of Spring 5860 Work Camp №4, Karabush One would think that an abandoned temple and its grounds would invite serenity. Walls overgrown w
15th of Spring 5860
Work Camp №4, Karabush
One would think that an abandoned temple and its grounds would invite serenity. Walls overgrown with vines, grounds covered in tall grass, an aura of the days gone by lingering in each and every crumbling brick.
However, as the inmates of Work Camp №4 woke up inside their barracks, they certainly weren’t feeling serene. Their beds were barely able to be called beds, just thin wooden slabs with hay stacked on top if they were lucky, stacked inside the smallest room in the former temple. There was a soldier, of the Protection Squadron, knocking wildly on the door to wake them all up. Nobody was in the mood to wake up today, or on any other day in this godforsaken place, but they also weren’t willing to receive a beating by the guy beating the door.
Backs aching, mostly everyone got up from their bed. The guard went to check on the few who didn’t. They had died during the night, either from the heat or from some sort of sickness. Giving a beating couldn’t get dead people up, so he simply ordered a few of the inmates to dispose of the corpses. No rites, not a single prayer, these men were simply tossed over the wall. The wolves, or slimes, would deal with them well enough.
First thing in the morning was the serving of slop. It was officially called “food graciously granted by His Imperial Majesty”. Referring to watered down gruel with that title would normally get one executed for lese majesty, but it was the official title given by the Chancellor so everyone had to conform to it. The inmates lined up in the yard with their bowls as a very tired guard served cold gruel from a pot which had most likely not been cleaned ever since the reign of the first emperors.
Cold gruel! Some baked wheat, some slime, and goodness, it makes for an awful time. When one had nothing else however, the gruel had to downed even if starvation seemed like the more pleasant choice. Those who wasted the food so-graciously granted by dumping it would, of course, be punished accordingly.
The end of meal time signaled the start of work time: cutting stones delivered from a nearby quarry. The New Empire needed new fortifications after all, and bricks weren’t going to manufacture themselves. Even if bricks could manufacture themselves, the Chancellor would make sure that these inmates would save something to do. As was stated, crudely painted on the bricks of the entrance, “Work is what sets you free.”
As the sun rose up, the guards found the inmates increasingly difficult to deal with. Some would faint from the heat. A beating, and some would find the strength to rise back up for work. Some would simply never rise up again. Again, the wolves would deal with them soon enough. They had a debt to pay the Emperor and Chancellor after all – for their freedom, a lifetime of work no matter how short their life may end up being. Though, it had been a while since the people in the camp had heard any communication from either… By the midday, a ruckus – the guards had scrambled out of the yard where the inmates where working. The inmates were far too tired to initially take notice of their absence.
Outside, there was a completely different scene. Two dozen men on horseback, lead by a familiar woman. Harriet Tubman, complete with a newly-manufactured flintlock pistol, accompanied by cavalry equipped with flintlock carbines. “Open the gates and surrender, or we’ll be unloading these upon all of you” she shouted while pointing her pistol at a guard nervously staring from behind the gate. However, the cavalry couldn’t scale the walls. They were a bit too tall for the horses to jump through, and they had no siege engines.
For a while, there was an awkward standoff at the gate of the camp. Nobody shot at each other, waiting for the other side to give up and leave. Tubman shouted again “If you don’t give the people in here freedom, I shall free your head from your shoulders!” No response. The outnumbered guards were way too scared to even say a word. Nobody wanted to be the poor bloke who spoke up and got a whiff of lead into his face. The weapons of these fugitives looked strange, but they were close enough to hand cannons that the guards understood them to be firearms.
Eventually, Tubman gave a deep sigh, quickly recited a prayer, and shouted “That’s enough negotiating.” She raised the axe she carried, rode forward towards the gate and shouted “Fire!” A few guards had raised their heads up from the wall to take a shot at Tubman – the cavalry disappeared into gunpowder smoke, while the guards on the walls disappeared into red mist. With a few whacks Tubman cracked open the admittedly ramshackle gate, while the cavalry emerged from the fog behind her with axes drawn. What few guards that were left on the ground were quickly overrun and dropped their weapons to surrender.
The ruckus had summoned the inmates over. Many of them believed that they had possibly started seeing mirages from starvation, but Tubman and co. were real. There wasn’t much cheering from the tired, ragged crowd, except for a few falling to the ground to rest after realizing that they wouldn’t have to labor longer for that day. Many of the cavalrymen dismounted, offering their rations to the inmates.
Tubman waited for the cavalrymen to go about their business and for the inmates to calm down, before she shouted “That’s only the first camp for today. Be quick, people! We’ll send some people over later to pick all these free men up, let them rest for now.”
With that, Tubman and co. rode off, to end slavery in Karabush once and for all, and hopefully in all of Gemeinplatz soon enough when the time came.
