As Enkidu-Sa walked beside Siduri through the heart of the encampment, his shock deepened. It was not merely the opulence of the Auric Reclamation that staggered him, but the terrifying efficiency behind it.
Even without the military training of a strategist, Enkidu-Sa could see the logic of a master at work. The camp was not merely a collection of tents; it was a living machine.
He watched as the Urukian Immortals moved in silence, their tasks divided with surgical precision. To the east, the supply depots were stacked with grain and equipment in crates marked with symbols of ancient geometric perfection.
To the west, the apothecaries worked in pavilions that smelled of sterile salts and medicinal herbs, tending to the few wounded with a speed that bordered on the supernatural.
"This is not an army," Enkidu-Sa whispered, more to himself than his companion. "This is an engine of history. Truly, the Lord Gilgamesh is the divine mandate made flesh."
Siduri, walking with the easy grace of a predator, glanced at him. The amber glow of the campfires reflected in her light armor. After a moment of hesitation, the scholar gathered his courage.
"Lady Siduri... may I ask you to confirm the truth of the man I am to serve?"
"The rumors are many, scholar," she replied, her voice warm but tinged with a sharp edge. "Ask your questions. If you tread upon a secret, I will simply remain silent. Do not fear the blade for seeking the truth."
Enkidu-Sa took a shallow breath. "The storytellers in Lagash say that when the King first rose, he broke a phalanx of three hundred armored knights alone. They say he did not even draw a sword, but that the air itself shattered at his command, and he rallied a thousand broken peasants with a single shout. Is such a feat... truly possible for a man?"
Siduri stopped walking. The rhythmic clatter of the camp seemed to fade into the background. She let out a soft, weary sigh that humanized her for the first time.
"Exaggerations," she said softly. "The storytellers love to turn sweat into starlight. It makes for a better song."
Enkidu-Sa felt a flicker of disappointment, but then she continued.
"It did happen. He did break the phalanx. But he did not do it with a smile or a wave of his hand. I saw him when they brought him back to the tents. His armor was shattered, his skin was torn to the bone, and he was bedridden for weeks, burning with a fever that would have killed ten lesser men. It was not 'effortless.' It was a man risking everything because there was no one else who could."
Her eyes grew distant. "Father hates it when they call him a 'Child of the Heavens' or a god. He considers himself a scholar, just like you—a man who simply refused to let the world stay broken."
"A scholar?" Enkidu-Sa blinked, trying to reconcile the golden giant on the throne with the image of a man of letters.
"In another life, in a world that wasn't rotting," Siduri said, "he says he would have been a teacher. He would have spent his days carving wooden toys for the village children and his nights reading the stars for the harvest. But the world did not want a teacher. It needed a King."
"And what of you, Lady?" Enkidu-Sa asked, noting the difference in their features. "The King is... of a stature and presence I cannot name. Yet you carry a different lineage."
Siduri smiled, a faint, melancholic expression. "I am the daughter of a village that no longer exists. My parents were neighbors to the man who would become the King. In those days, Gilgamesh was the ward of an old man named Lugal-Banda, a respected elder who found the King as an infant and raised him as his own.
When the chaos began, Lugal-Banda was murdered by the Imperial tax-collectors for refusing to hand over the village's last seeds."
She tightened her grip on the hilt of her blade. "In his grief and rage, Gilgamesh led the survivors to slaughter the soldiers. My own parents were lost in the fires of that night. If the King had not pulled me from the rubble, I would be nothing but ash.
He raised me in the shadow of his war. He did not give me his name, for he wanted me to remember my own blood, but in my heart... he is my Abu. My father."
Enkidu-Sa bowed his head. "To take up the sword when one desires the brush... that is the truest sacrifice."
"He does not delight in the killing," Siduri whispered as they reached the edge of the inner sanctum. "But he understands that to reclaim the treasury that is this world, he must first burn the thieves out of it. He has become a warrior so that the children of the future might once again be scholars."
The wind shifted, bringing the scent of the northern wastes. In the distance, the low, guttural horns of the Hross-Horde echoed through the hills.
"Come," Siduri said, her voice turning to iron. "The Audit of the North begins. Let us see if your stylus can keep up with his blade."