Chapter 45:
Billy stepped to the edge of Kate's little balcony and stared out at the great lake that Kate's city sat in. Oblivious to what was going on with his wayward wife, the big man's mind was on the twin problems that he now faced. Their enemies had them in something of a pickle, having attacked King's Island while simultaneously threatening Stilt Town.
Hearing that heavy-hearted sigh, Kate rumbled, "you don't have to stay for this. Stilt Town's my responsibility. Yours is King's Island."
She was trying to give him the 'out'. It made the big man chuckle. The urge to rush to the rescue of his family and friends was very real. His daughter, Lady, was there in Crown City. At the same time, he could rush home and wreck everything they'd built here and still fail.
"I'm Prince of Ooo, Katherine," Billy replied. "It's all my responsibility." Shaking his head, the big man opined, "there's larger doings here, milady." "Larger than a mongrel pirate and her nymph-trash lieutenant," Kate asked?
Nodding, Billy opined, "they've... This feels like a setup..." "Yeah," Cameron muttered. "Get you here and steal your dad's palace..."
Shaking his head once more, Billy remarked, "that... that feels too trite. We've collectively spent weeks and months away from the place. If someone wanted to launch a raid, they could've done it over the winter. This... feels like the King's Island thing is just a feint too."
While Kate goggled at his back, the nymph muttered, "what the hell could be bigger than the King's castle and the whole danged capital?" "The Great Cannon, for one," Olesia remarked.
Stepping into the light with little Minka fastened to her right tit, the plump elemental murmured, "with the cannon in their hands, they could threaten everything on Ooo at one go."
Glancing over his shoulder, Billy murmured, "first thing I thought of. Only trouble is that the place is swarming with soldiers. They have to have seen that, too." "Well, if you're staying, we need to figure out what we're doing, Sugarlips," Cameron remarked. "Since you couldn't take out all those ships, that means half their army will be at our doorstep. Today."
"He doesn't know how we smashed his ships," Billy opined. "He has to be careful of how we did that. He won't sail straight into the lake."
"He can sail up the river," Kate murmured. "That'll take him a fair bit. He'll need river pilots and such to avoid the sand bars. If he works his men like fiends, that gets him maybe halfway to Whiskey Pete's old place maybe this evening..."
Turning towards his mistress, expression thoughtful, Billy murmured, "the old road... it goes straight through Stilt-Town and almost right up to land..." "Went all the way until a big storm knocked out a section of it a few hundred years ago," Cameron remarked.
Nodding, Kate added, "there's an old concrete structure on shore where the road landed. Pirates used it for a fort... maybe twenty or thirty years ago. My predecessor chased them out and paid off Whiskey Pete to keep them away."
Billy spent a moment thinking about that. The structure in question was likely the abutment for the now-forgotten bridge. Likely the footings went down a fair distance into the muck that passed for land here, making it much sturdier than many of the surrounding structures.
Makes sense that somebody built a fort on top of it, Billy thought. More to the point, their foes would likely land their soldiers short and march overland to a point near the shore. If Billy was running this little invasion, he'd take the same boats they planned to land in and haul them across the neck of land between the river and the lake.
"Ok," said he. "I'm going to take my men ashore at that old bridge abutment. I expect our adversaries to try bringing rowboats ashore near there and try to carry them across the land to the lakeshore..." "To hit us from behind," Kate agreed.
"What about the north shore or the passage out to the sea," Cameron queried? "I'm going to leave those to Captain Justin," Billy replied. "When they see strong defenses on the shore, they may try going back out to sea to attack from the east. The north shore's a lot bigger gamble, since they'll have to deal with the Buffalo Men and the swamps."
With the decision on what to do made, an awkward silence reigned for several moments. Stepping forward, Kate threw her arms around him. Stroking her long, dark hair, the big man murmured, "we've come to far to let things drop, Kate."
Breaking that embrace, he said, "you two can walk with us as far as the docks." While Olesia wrapped up the feeding of their daughter, Bill packed the few things they'd taken out. Moments later, the quartet were weaving their way through afternoon traffic on the streets of Stilt Town.
"How are you fixed for food," Bill asked? "We have rations stashed in the sub-structures of some of the platforms," Kate replied. "It's hard-tack, dried vegetables, smoked fish, and such."
Not tasty, but it'll keep people's bellies full, Bill decided. The water was going to be the problem. There wasn't nearly enough of it in Stilt Town. The delay in getting more water piped over from the river could prove costly if this whole thing dragged out.
You've already punched them in the mouth once, the big man thought. A couple more hits like that, and he's liable to run. At least Billy hoped he ran.
Visions of a madwoman who liked to cut peeps' heads off danced through his mind. There was a real risk that this guy wouldn't back down because he faced having his head removed if he went home a failure.
"O," Billy murmured. "Yes," the plump woman replied. "I got an idea," he said. "Listening," she replied. "There's going to be a ship," Billy remarked. "The biggest of the bunch..." "You're thinking our prize jackass is on it," the elemental surmised.
Nodding, Billy suggested, "if we take him out of the fight, we may not have to carry the business to the end."
His wife pondered that for a moment, her face curled in a pensive frown. "I'll do what I can to look," she said, "but my first priority is you, William. You know that." Billy grimaced. He wasn't getting out from under the disaster in the Confederation any time soon.
Arriving at the docks, they found Colonel Haggis waiting on them. In spite of their issues, Billy had gotten himself comfortable with the 'new' Candy People.
The tall banana actually looked fit. Instead of the traditional banana-peel in yellow-dyed leather, he came sporting a set of fatigues, boots, and a heavy flack-jacket. Cradling a dart-gun lazily in his arms, he greeted Billy with a salute.
"Boys are loaded," he said. "The slime peeps are going to march overland from the far end of the lake where the landing field is..."
Billy grimaced. No, it wasn't candy-person problems he was dealing with today. No matter how many times they got told that water wouldn't dissolve them anymore, the slime peeps were not getting anywhere near water. Mercifully, much of Billy's force was froyo-peeps and muscle-bound freaks out of Muscle Kingdom.
Glancing at the nearest muscle-man, Billy declared, "the word of the day is dig, Colonel. We're going to go over to the shore. There's the remnant of a town there that used to be run by the Pirate Lord, Whiskey Pete. There's a big concrete base there, where an old bridge came ashore..."
"You want to use the abutment to build some kind of fortification," the Colonel agreed. "We can do that, sir."
With a glance at the muscle man, the Colonel declared, "I'll use Captain Alvarez-Martinez's men to harvest materials from the land and dig footings. As soon as Major Glorp arrives from the landing field, he'll become security, allowing me to move my men into the job of building up the defenses from the captain's harvested materials. I think we can get this done by nightfall."
"That's good, Colonel," Billy replied. "I think we have about that long before we see significant enemy forces."
The boarding started then, with the Colonel supervising the loading of his men. Much to Billy's surprise and delight, his new subordinate was quite diligent and shockingly sensible. The business was efficient from first to last, with the final soldier stepping onto the deck of the skiff that would carry him as the sun was halfway towards its zenith.
With Billy and Olesia crammed aboard, the force set out, weaving their way around the moldering legs of the forgotten highway that had once crossed the lake. A corner of his mind suggested that the thing should be rebuilt.
Its presence would drastically speed up the business of defending Stilt Town. More to the point, it would help with trade by tying up with Captain Wilson's businesses on the north shore.
Shaking off thoughts of a future that might or might not come, the big man refocused on the job at hand. The fort was just to give them a fighting position to attack any landing parties coming ashore or trying to portage boats across from the river. He hoped they wouldn't be staying there long term.
Just a punch in the nose, Bill, the young man thought. Give these guys the incentive to fuck right off. His dad wanted peace, and Bill was becoming more and more accustomed to that idea. There had been far too much of death in the world already.
As the first boats touched down, Colonel Haggis's men got right to business. Swarming ashore on the broken concrete, they began digging trenches around the perimeter. Meanwhile, the Muscle Kingdom soldiers marched off into the heavy overgrowth and began trimming the trees and bushes back. The results of all the effort got turned into layers of timber stacked up in front of their positions and in-filled with the mucky, loamy soil from the area.
If we had time, we'd dry it, compact it, and make it a lot denser, Billy thought. In the right now, he would be happy to get their fortifications put up.
Wandering about on her own, Olesia pitched in here and there, frying harmful animals, burning away particularly nasty clumps of vegetables, and putting a scare into any remaining locals who hadn't taken off when Whiskey Pete got his just desserts.
Somewhere in the middle of the business, one of the Colonel's men found an entry to a subterranean area under the heavy concrete structure that had been the bridge's abutments. Knowing how quickly things filled up with water in these parts, Billy shut down efforts to explore and refocus the boys on the job at hand.
Hour by hour, their positions improved, with trenches going down as deep as they dared in the mucky, wet soil and breastworks going up to chest or head height. As the sun was heading down in the sky, the slime peeps finally made their grand entry and got quickly put to work.
At the closing of the day, boats arrived from Stilt Town carrying the rancid beer that was the town's stock-in-trade and some surprisingly decent grub. Sitting on a chunk of concrete with his beautiful wife, Billy tore off bits of his sandwich, his mind in the north, wondering where Katsumi was. He prayed she was alright, but their enemies weren't likely to be cutting anybody any slack.
Get through things, Bill, he told himself. Shaking off his worry, he turned to a more immediate problem. Olesia needed a bed. Rising, he began gathering wood for a bonfire. He'd be up and down through the night, tending his wife and child's sleeping-arrangements, taking his mind away from his other wife and child.