Youth World

Chapter 14 – Battle of Beacon Hill

As I woke up that following morning, I could see scores of people surging towards the southern end of the camp. This must have been good news.

I tossed on my laurel wreath and red cape and followed the massive swarm of people, most of them gossiping about what had happened. The red cape I received was a gift from the knitting club, and it was dyed red using the crushed guts of cochineals. Kind of disgusting, but it was beautiful. Combined with the leather brėȧstplate that I had made myself one day, I was starting to look like Julius Caesar.

It took me a bit longer to arrive due to the mass of people, but I could see the army sitting outside the half complete wooden wall that had been built around the camp for protection. Julius was at the head of it all, trying to spin his pike in circles.

"Hey, Alexander! Look what we have accomplished!"

The crowd parted like the Red Sea, letting me pass through without a hassle. As I saw what was behind the army, my jaw dropped.

At least five hundred prisoners were being held captive by the army. Besides this, there were wheelbarrows full of loot and enemy weapons. Examining the ranks of troops, I noticed that there wasn't even a single loss. In fact, it appeared that the army had increased in size by 50%. The night raid must have been carried out exactly as planned.

"Excellent work, Julius! I hereby grant you a triumph for your victory?"

Everybody seemed stunned.

"A triumph? What's a triumph?"

"It was an ancient roman ceremony to celebrate the success of a military commander in a war. Since you have won us the first war in our history without taking a single casualty and capturing so many prisoners, a triumph would be quite fitting, don't you think?"

"I mean, why not? We should do a little celebrating! So, how does this triumph thing work?"

"Well, we're not in Rome, so we can't take the path they took. However, I'll just make something up. How about you guys march in a circle around camp while parading the prisoners and then meet everybody in the middle where you'll tell the story of your victory? We have paper now, so it can be properly recorded by the scribes."

"That works for us. Men, let's march!"

"YEAHHHHH!"

All of the gathered people made way, allowing a relatively narrow pathway to open. Julius marched through this opening, waving and shaking hands with the people. His soldiers followed, and so did the prisoners. I went to the tree stump in the middle of the camp, since I didn't want to interfere with their celebration and the soldiers would also end up here anyways.

However, I could still see what was going on from here. A few musicians joined the parade, playing popular music with their drums, wooden flutes and didgeridoos. Ballerinas and classic dancers also jumped in, twirling and breakdancing, while the rest of the people were chanting football fight songs.

The soldiers began marching counterclockwise around the camp, through the archery course and around the college freshmen's quarters. They caused quite the small mess, but nothing big enough to warrant me to do anything. After around half an hour, the soldiers triumphantly marched towards the tree stump where I was sitting on.

"Triumphant men and women of the Cascadian nation! I greatly commend your great and outstanding actions against the South Seattle Tribe! Now, Julius, could you tell us about the events that transpired that night? All of us are eager to hear about the battle."

Julius stood tall on one of the smaller stumps and began telling his tale. Over ten thousand pairs of eyes were affixed on him.

"Thank you for letting me take the stage, Alexander, or should I say the stump. I will commence my account of the events that took place that day."

"You heard that? Write it down!"

The scribes laid out pieces of paper, as well as feathers and ink. The ink was made by the chemists, though I don't know how. Making ink wasn't my forte anyways.

"Our five hundred men marched along the southern end of Lake Washington, picking up some allies along the way who also hated the South Seattle Tribe. We arrived at Beacon Hill at around nine o' clock, since it took us a while to cross the Cedar River. I sent the allies that had joined us along the way to scout out the enemy positions, and many of them pretended to be their guards. As soon as everybody went to sleep, our impostor guards quickly stabbed the few enemy guards to death before they could make a sound, and they opened the gates. All five hundred of us charged in and began burning everything to the ground, stabbing everybody we could find and capturing those who surrendered. However, around three quarters of them burnt to death, or were crushed by falling debris."

The crowd, gathered around to hear Julius' account of the events, were wincing at this statement. They wanted blood for their dead comrades, but this seemed a bit brutal and excessive. I also had some moral gripes and was feeling quite guilty, but this was absolutely necessary to ensure our survival. Well, not absolutely necessary, since we could have won in a pitched battle, but doing what we did ensured that none of us died, and that was vital. I didn't care about others nearly as much as I did my own people, but I did have some humanity in me. I wasn't a psychopath or sociopath, after all.

"Excellent, excellent! Excellent work, Julius! Excellent work, men! We will certainly have a feast tonight to celebrate your success! However, certain things require our immediate attention. For example, what to do with our prisoners of war."

"I don't know," Julius pondered, "Alexander, what do you want to do? You're the leader, so we'll do whatever you say."

"I believe that it is time for reconciliation. Although it was perfectly justified, we still killed a bunch of innocents and destroyed their livelihoods. Also, every person matters in these trying times. Therefore, I suggest that we incorporate all these people into Cascadia. What do you guys think?"

"That seems acceptable to me. If you guys want to join us, feel free to do so."

A prisoner of war approached Julius, and he decided to speak up.

"Although I am still mad that you guys burnt down our camp and massacred us, I am willing to reconcile and help you guys out. I mean, it is complete chaos out here, so a massive war wouldn't be unprecedented. If we receive the same rights and liberties as the rest of the group, we will willingly join and ȧssist you in all of your endeavors."

"Then that is settled. Under my decree, the prisoners of war will now all become Cascadian citizens. Now, could you guys all come up here for a moment?"

The prisoners of war forlornly walked towards me, and all of them sat around me in a circle. I could see that many of them were still traumatized from the battle that had occurred a few hours earlier.

"Here," I rested my arm on a wounded girl, "Let me patch that up for you."

After closely discussing everybody's strengths and weaknesses, I sent them off to join their corresponding professions. Many of the people gathered around to listen to Julius' story were now gossiping with the soldiers. Wanting to be productive, I headed down to where the papermakers were. These people were diligently constructing more Congreve rocket frames and sending them off to the chemists for them to be packed with black powder. Overall, the process was quite effective and was producing nearly 50 rockets a day including all three variants, heavy, medium and a few small ones. The heavy rockets would mostly be used during sieges, while the other two would be used as infantry support and all other uses.

The people of these two groups had returned from the triumph early, since they had a lot of work to do. They only showed up just to demonstrate their respect to the soldiers, but I could see them leave right after Julius told his tale. If somebody asked me which groups were the most diligent, these ones would be my answer.

After helping the papermakers and chemists produce as many of their respective crafts as possible, mainly rocket frames and gunpowder, I went to the metallurgists and took a look at what they were doing. I never really had the opportunity to talk to them since they were always very busy or weren't there.

The metallurgists had constructed a giant furnace, which appeared to me to be a cementation furnace which could be used to make brass and maybe even steel. Many kids were moving ores to and from the massive contraption, and some older kids were operating it. Since I had ȧssigned nearly a thousand people to the metallurgists, it would make sense why they'd be making so much progress in around a week. I mean, if you don't have to forage for survival, that leaves much room for specialized professions to do their thing. I had seen the metallurgists asking the builders to lay the foundations for this furnace on day two, but I didn't expect them to actually complete it. This was excellent, for this mean we could finally get our cannons and maybe even muskets, which would quickly supplant halberds and pikes.

As dinnertime arrived, everybody gathered near the middle of the camp where we had a massive banquet to celebrate the victory in the war. People were dancing, singing and kissing. Everybody was acting like we had just won World War 2.

As we were celebrating, a South Seattle Tribe messenger sprinted into the camp, restrained by a few of my soldiers. Upon unhanding him, he delivered news that his tribe, which had apparently survived since they had another camp a bit further north, had agreed to cede us all the land that we wanted. He also told us that his tribe had been confined to a small portion of South-Central Seattle, since the rest of their former lands were absorbed and annexed by other tribes.

I agreed to the peace, since I didn't want to needlessly go to war. After he left, we resumed the celebration, even happier now that we knew peace had been achieved.

After partying for an hour or two, I decided to head to sleep early.. There were still three weeks until we were going to depart, and every single day would be vital for the mission to be a success.