As the first rays of dawn shone across the grand city of Politheia, a commotion had already arisen within. The often bustling streets of the city were cleared of all obstruction, allowing a large procession to march by. Through the front entrance way, entire legions filed out to the verdant fields that surrounded the vast city. Commanders barked orders, directing thousands of men out onto those grassy plains. In line after line and column after column, the troops assembled into formation before turning towards their true destination. Onward the army marched, now towards the grand service platform.
The constant beat of their footfalls as they marched was near thunderous. It only grew louder when the earth beneath them gave way to stone, as the legions ascended up the massive rampway of the platform. Reaching the top of the grand altar, the order to halt sounded off, leaving the troops to stand at attention. They stood in silence, awaiting their empress’ arrival. The Crimson Goddess of Politheia herself, Kara, would soon return from her conquests.
Patros was one such face in that veritable sea of thousands assembled. The young man stood ever attentive, waiting for that time when the goddess’ all powerful figure would breach the horizon. It would not be much longer, he just knew. Perhaps it was a gut feeling. That, or it was knots that formed in the young man's stomach as he stood in anticipation. In truth, there was a nervousness that struck him as he waited there. Patros had only recently been conscripted into the goddess' service corps, this day marking his first official assignment. His first day, and already he would come so terribly close to her, standing beneath her all mighty presence. When layed out such as that, perhaps nerves were to be expected.
He felt something just then, cutting off the swirling thoughts clouding his mind. Beneath his feet, the most miniscule of reverberations had travelled through the stone itself. A rhythm formed in the earth, one that grew stronger with each passing moment. Not a man there said a word, but they all knew exactly what that had meant. Sweat formed on Patros’ brow.
It was not long after those first tremors, that Patros looked upon the horizon and saw the statuesque vision of the Goddess herself coming towards them all. Even as she was so far off in the distance, he had already become swept up in total awe of her. Power was what she exuded. The Goddess’ imposing figure was one sculpted to a perfection that was only amplified by her sheer size. Standing thousands upon thousands of feet in height, her long, powerful legs swept through the air in strides so vast, she’d be upon them in no time.
Patros had thought the sound of the legion’s footfalls as they marched earlier had been thundering. That was, until he heard the resounding thud of each calamitous step she took. He watched now how each footfall sunk into the earth, cracking it and realized then how utterly foolish it was to describe mere mortals in such terms. There could have been thousands more of them marching, and their might would not have added up to even a fraction of hers.
As the Goddess approached, the magnitude of tremors she sent forth had become nigh unbearable, leaving Patros and the rest of the troops to make a concerted effort in remaining upright. He breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing the command to kneel being called out, and not a moment too soon. She was nearly upon them. Every single man there threw themselves down on both knees, bowing their heads in reverence towards their great Goddess. Part of Patros had wanted to quickly peek up, and see if she had even acknowledged them there, but it wasn't his place.
The sounds of her movements this close were cacophonous, ringing all of their ears fiercely. Patros gritted his teeth, bearing the uncomfortable sensation. To add to what was already a harrowing experience, the grand altar began to shake even more violently than when the tremors had bombarded it only moments ago. The service platform felt as though it might crumble to dust as she gingerly (gingerly as a war goddess could that is) moved her sandaled feet into their positions. He swore he could feel the stone itself groan, setting his heart to beat rapidly. All of this from such a simple action as her sandal sliding against the stone.
With all the terrible noise blaring around him, Patros could no longer keep his head bowed low. He had to look up and see her now with his own eyes. Immediately upon raising his head, he felt a weight drop to the pit of his stomach. Seeing her immense feet to either side of him, his mind could hardly comprehend it. Perhaps this is why they bowed in reverence to her. To simply save them from such a sight. But Patros had stared up, and now he could no longer look away.
The depressions in the altar had only reached to the top of the sandal tread, leaving the young man to stare up at her prodigious toes which still completely towered over him. The tan monstrosities stood much taller than even the grandest of city walls, and were doubtless even more impregnable. Never had he been this close to her in all his life, to see in such frightening detail that which the most miniscule of ants might. The grooves of her toe prints, the texture of her sandals, it was all too vivid for the young man to truly take in.
Seeing this all, Patros imagined for a moment how nightmarish it would be to find himself in the field of battle against her. To see her step over thousands of lives at once, only to snuff them out a moment later. The thought chilled him, but the young man took solace in the fact that he needn't worry about such a fate. He lived to serve his Goddess after all.
His thoughts were interrupted by a mere twitch of her toes. Even that miniscule action had rumbled the altar, and was only a small preview of what would soon transpire. Patros could feel her weight shift, and hear how the tread of her sandals creaked as she lowered down to unclasp them. Reaching down from the heavens, her fingers stretched forth and deftly undid the straps holding her foot in place. The creaking from before returned, as she gently lifted her left foot out of the sandal. When it rose up high above, he could see in such stunning detail the spiral maze of grooves on the bottom of her sole, as well as the bits of earth that had become stuck to it during her walk.
After, she rested her foot down and a dull thud resounded throughout the land. They could feel her weight shifting to the left foot now as she began to remove the other. With ease he saw how the other massive tan sole slipped from it's leather confines and quickly joined the other on the ground. The Goddess had completely removed her footwear now, and simply looked down upon them all. From his position, Patros could hardly see her amber eyes piercing down at them. He'd heard her though.
"Spotless," she commanded bluntly, before stepping over the altar altogether and thundering off towards Politheia. The Crimson Goddess was one of few words. Words which more often than not, had more closely resembled thunderclaps than speech. Even so, the legions had understood her command crystal clear. It was the reason the service corps was assembled out here after all. The Goddess' sandals would often require cleaning after her conquests.
The call to rise echoed across the platform. Once more the men stood at attention and awaited further orders. Cleaning a pair of sandals. It sounded so trivial when stated plainly, and yet, a massive undertaking such as this was anything but. The thousands of men there needed to be both divided into two groups and assigned a certain task to get it done. The combination of stringent organization and backbreaking labor would be the only way to please their goddess.
As assignments were called out, Patros couldn't help but catch himself staring up at the hulking sandals to either side of him. Despite being empty of their owner, they were still quite a magnificent site. These were not even the full length ones (only reaching up to her ankles), and yet, the straps still towered so high above them. He'd be on them soon he realized. What a strange thought. His day dreaming was cut short as he heard his group's assignment. Debris removal on the left sandal.
With the workers fully assigned now, they all jumped to grab their various equipment: barrels full of water, sponges for a thorough cleaning, and carts for the accumulated debris. Now they only needed to climb on the sandal itself to begin.
Despite the sandals being level with the service platform, a gap divided the men from their task. What was almost an imperceptible distance between the two edges for the Goddess, had been a much greater challenge to overcome for them. One that overlooked what would surely be a fatal drop off the edge. They had their way to overcome this though. Patros watched as the makeshift bridges that lined all along the platform were laid out now. They latched onto the material allowing access to their work site. Slowly but surely, the men crossed over and onto the sandal.
Once on the insole, the young man couldn't help but gawk at it all. There was hardly any time to stand idle, and yet, Patros required a moment to process everything. What he found himself on now wasn’t merely a piece of footwear anymore, but a landmass all it’s own. The fact that thousands of men had fit on its surface was mind boggling enough. He could look from toe to heel and see how far both stretched in either direction from him. Looking up, he could see how the sandal's straps stretched over in an otherworldly fashion, defying logic as they seemed to perilously hang over the workers. Despite their dizzying appearance, the great shadows they cast created a welcome respite from the rapidly rising sun.
Below, the "ground" Patros stood on was firm, but he could see clearly from this perspective how it had been shaped through use. The slight dips and curves in the insole made it quite obvious where her cosmic weight had often been distributed. The depression even her smallest of toes had carved out could likely fit hundreds alone, he realized. Patros truly felt as if he had wandered onto some completely alien world.
It was not just the visual spectacle that overwhelmed the young man's senses though. The sandals had almost seemed to have a climate all their own, one of intense humidity that bore down on the workers. The footwear still radiated with heat from their Goddess, making the air so heavy, it felt almost as if she were still wearing them now. Patros could already feel this air taking effect on him, making it harder for the young man to simply breathe. This would not be easy. Even so, men had already begun laboring all across the vast insole.
To start off his own task, Patros found himself with pickaxe in hand, breaking apart chunks of earth lodged into the material. These chunks would have been less than pebbles to the Goddess, but to the young man, they were boulders that needed to be broken into more manageable sizes for removal. Swinging the pick over his head, he made quick work of it. After, the smaller chunks were loaded up onto the carts and sent off for disposal. Catching his breath for a moment, Patros watched cartful after cartful wheeled off. The debris was dumped over the edge of the Goddess' sandal, plummeting down the chasm between it and the altar. They would have to clear it from there as well once she removed her sandals, but that would have been a much easier undertaking. At least it made the disposal relatively quick he thought, before being berated to get back to work.
After Patros’ company would clear a section of debris and move on, the deep cleaning crew would immediately get to work where they had been. On hands and knees, they scrubbed the sole vigorously. The Goddess herself had commanded that her sandals be spotless, and these men did not intend to disappoint her. If that meant that they must sponge every inch, every centimeter of her sandal as thoroughly as they possibly could, then so be it. For a moment, the young man was glad that his assignment was a tad less demeaning at least, but quickly chastised himself for the thought. To serve the Crimson Goddess in any manner was an honor, after all.
Slowly but surely, they made their way along the vast sole. For every bit of debris they removed, another was right there to seemingly take its place. The monotony of their task was almost beginning to weigh on Patros as much as the heat had been. It was hard to tell how much progress they had even made in all honesty. That is, until his group came upon the depression. The ground beneath them began to decline into a massive basin. This is where the ball of her foot rested, he realized, quickly piecing it all together.
Thankfully, the slope was not too steep for them to descend. Even so, they were still cautious not to trip and twist a leg. Or worse. Patros marveled at what they were standing in now. This depression was as wide as a lake. Despite its appearance, this truly was a holy place, blessed in the shape of the Goddess herself. Perhaps it was the intense heat getting to the young man, but he swore he could feel her presence with him then. He used it as motivation to carry on.
And carry on he did, breaking up more chunks and sending them off by the cartful. They'd gotten into a rhythm by this point, becoming acclimated to the intense conditions. It was all going well until something caught his gaze.
Patros wiped the stinging sweat from his eyes and squinted at something off in the distance. It was some other kind of debris; he could tell that much at least. But what? The young man's curiosity took control; he had to know what this mysterious new finding was. As he neared it, he began to notice other similar bits of that same 'debris' peppering all around that area of insole. He'd no clue what to make of that as he approached the nearest one.
Whatever this thing was, it was flattened nearly beyond recognition. and yet, it held some vague familiarity to the young man still. He just couldn't put a finger on it though. Patros had not even been given the chance to piece it together himself, before another of the men who'd walked over to investigate as well, cried up in fear.
"By the Goddess," the other man shrieked, perhaps not fully understanding how right he was. "It's.. th-they…" he shrilly stammered, while Patros put it together. He'd hardly needed to run over and confirm, but he saw it with his own eyes now all the same. His face paled as the shape of that flattened thing became so terribly clear. The crushed husks that lay strewn about were not just any other refuse, but once men like them. Hundreds of bodies compressed into the Goddess’ insole like mere flecks of dirt. The young man had not expected to come across such a macabre sight as this. It was dizzying to look out at them all.
Upon closer inspection of this nearest body after he'd mustered up the resolve, Patros could just barely make out what appeared to be an insignia misshapen beyond recognition. The husks were equipped with armor, for all the good that had done them. These men were soldiers, that much was clear. The remnants of an army that must have stood against the Goddess. The poor bastards…
Of course, all of these scattered remains begged the question: how had these soldiers come to be here? Had they found themselves flung underneath her sole as she strode across the battlefield? Perhaps they’d been dropped on there and snuffed out as some punishment for daring to oppose her? He'd hardly been able to imagine how that may have gone. Patros pictured now hundreds of them laying broken and whimpering, dreading the sight of her sole sliding into position before settling on top of them with all that suffocating weight. It seemed an especially cruel fate to be crushed so, but it was not Patros' place to speak on the Goddess' actions. Whether they seemed cruel to him or not, her divinity placed her above such notions. Anything the Goddess did was just, and it was wise to remember that fact of life.
The majority of Patros’ group had reacted the same as he when approaching this mass execution site, but they still had a job to get done. As upsetting as it was to think about, these men flattened into the insole were little more than refuse themselves now. The same as all the other bits that Patros and his fellow workers labored to remove this whole time. The husks would be no different.
The chunks of earth had been far easier to remove than these bodies were however. The husks had been adhered to the insole so thoroughly, that Patros’ group had needed to try and scrape them off with their tools. The sounds they made as they were slowly peeled off the ground had almost made the young man gag. Luckily, he kept his composure despite all the grizzly details of it all, such as how perfect outlines these bodies had left after being removed. Grimly, they loaded the bodies up by the cartful as they were wheeled over. Those tasked with pulling them struggled to make it back up the incline with a full load, but managed to make it eventually. Patros tried not to think of how those bodies would be tossed over the edge like any other trash. He needed to keep his head straight, the job was far from over.
And so they labored on. Morning had passed well into the afternoon by the time Patros’ heard the order to cease shouted out. It was the most welcome command he’d ever been given in his life. After several grueling hours of labor, their section of the sandal had finally been cleared of any debris and scrubbed as spotless as the Goddess had commanded. The young man wanted to collapse then and there, not even worried of the fact that he might not be able to rise up again after. He stayed on two feet though, sorely marching back the way he’d come with the rest of the troops.
His group had made good time it had seemed, there were still quite a few of the legion hard at work in their own assigned sections. Most notably, he saw those all the way back at the sandal's heel still hard at work scrubbing away. He didn't envy them, especially now as his group awaited their chance to cross the bridge back over to the altar.
It truly felt as if a weight had been lifted off the young man's shoulders. He'd made it through his first day as a member of the service corps. It hadn't been easy, but aside from the heavy labor and the grizzly sight of those crushed troops, his resolve was ultimately unbroken. All that was left now was to cross the bridge back up to the platform. Patros was just about to consider the day finished without incident when everyone there felt an all too familiar reverberation once again.
"No," he muttered under his breath, before turning around towards the city. Through the sandal straps he saw her off in the distance, towering over Politheia. The Crimson Goddess had risen from her slumber and was coming their way. A panic spread all across the sandal then. Hurriedly men rushed across the makeshift bridges, hoping to make it to safety in time and to clear the way for others. All the while, the tremors grew.
Pandemonium unfolded around the young man. Men pushed and shoved all around Patros, trying to save themselves and inadvertently slowing down everyone's chance at escape. He was lucky to have been near the front of the mass of men. He nearly threw himself back onto the platform and breathed a sigh of relief. Even so, he saw that hundreds more were stuck out on the sandals still, and the Goddess had nearly been upon them.
Out of the corner of Patros' vision, the Goddess' barefoot rushed past the service platform, headed on a collision course with the earth below. The shock of its impact knocked the young man off his feet entirely, and set disastrous consequences into motion. The bridges themselves were shaken, knocking many men off balance and sending them plummeting down the chasms with ear splitting screams. The young man's mouth was agape. She... she just...he couldn't even form the thought. It was an accident of course. She hadn't meant to...but she did. Dozens of men's lives were ended from that step. The way she gazed down at them all after, made it quite clear she had hardly seemed to notice that fact.
"Hmmm," those intense amber eyes of hers assessed the results of their agonizing labor, unconcerned with the stragglers still fighting to get off her footwear. "Adequate," she stated bluntly, before standing back up to her full height. "I shall be needing these again, though."
Patros almost collapsed then and there. That entire afternoon of work, and already the Goddess was taking her sandals out again. That was the least concerning matter though, he quickly realized. The others! Workers still streamed off as quickly as they could, knowing that they were nearly out of time. The Goddess did not appear as if she intended to wait for them.
High into the air, Patros traced the motion of her bare foot rising up above them with his gaze. She truly was going to slip those sandals back on. His voice joined with the others there, shouting at the Goddess to wait, to hold on for the men still trying to file off. She had not given the slightest hint that she'd heard a single word of their horror-stricken shouts; their pleas had obviously fallen on deaf ears. The Goddess’ sole lowered, and with it, all hope of escape for those still stranded. He wanted to look away, but Patros couldn’t if he tried.
Her massive toes brushed the towering straps aside ease and gently hung over the insole a moment before touching down. The sudden weight bowled over everyone who had been on the sandal, sending them tumbling all across the sole. Those who were still on the bridges held on for dear life as the slight shift in the sandal’s position lurched them around. That was far from the end though.
The Goddess’ toes bulldozed forward, as more and more of her foot slid into position. Many of the survivors who'd found themselves further back, tripped over themselves trying to get up and escape the tan mass inching ever closer. They’d not even had a chance. Many were smeared into nothingness against the sandal’s insole. Those closer to the toe of the footwear tried their luck putting as much distance as they could from the rapidly approaching sole, but their legs simply couldn’t carry them very far.
Sickened, Patros’ could hear hundreds and hundreds of screams let out one moment, and smothered into silence the next. Her sole engulfed the area, crushing the workers into the sandal just as those soldiers from earlier had been. He fell to his knees watching it all, but somehow it still wasn’t over. After deftly tightening the straps to hold firm, the Goddess pulled her foot back, causing yet more strife for the service corps. The bridges connecting the sandal to the platform had not been fully cleared and retracted, meaning utter disaster for those still stuck on them. The mere motion of her sandal sliding outward ripped the makeshift structures straight out of their foundations, flinging the pitiful workers who still clung to them asunder. The dull thud of her foot coming to a rest on the earth was numbing after all that had just transpired.
If there was any consolation in all of this, it was that those still stuck on the right sandal had far more time to escape than the other poor souls. The casualties were nowhere near as severe, and yet they stung all the same. Watching the right sandal slip on, Patros couldn’t stop asking himself one question over and over. Had the Goddess not even noticed them all there, or had she, and simply did not care? It felt heretical even to posit, but he couldn't stop himself from wondering.
Despite the horror of what had just happened, the men were still expected to bow in the Goddess' presence. Those not still reeling did so, showing reverence to the woman that had just so callously snuffed out hundreds of lives in a matter of moments. She looked down at the men one last time before addressing them.
"Next time," she exhaled, before gruffly adding, "work faster." She thundered back towards Politheia after, not even off to some far off conquest. Patros had gotten the answer to his question though, and was unsure what to make of it…
It was their fault. That's what Patros told himself. Theirs and no one else's. The Goddess had given them ample opportunity, more than enough time to clean the sandals and clear off. They would just have to work harder next time...Next time, he thought, numbing himself to the rigors of servitude.