A Knight's Valor Holds No Recklessness (2)
The soldiers moved in a frantic rush, though the aftermath of battle still lay heavy through every limb — fatigue and leftover heat dragging at them from head to toe.
As if they had forgotten what exhaustion even was.
"Do we have enough ammunition!"
"How much powder?!"
"Potions! Count the potions first...!!"
They tore from post to post, shouting until the cries themselves sounded like screams, and the old phrase came unbidden: utterly beside themselves. That was how desperate it had gotten.
And off to one side, taking in the whole spectacle, was one dog living a charmed life.
"Kyaeng."
"Snff?"
"Sssaa."
Except the dog was no ordinary dog. A beast with two heads and a snake for a tail could hardly be called a common creature.
Orthrus. That was the animal currently leashed and studying the humans.
It looked harmless enough, yet among the knights and soldiers who had seen Orthrus, more than a few frowned on instinct or shuddered where they stood. Feeble as it was now, Orthrus in its proper state had been a monster of considerable infamy even inside the barracks. No one had died, but the food stores were raided often enough, and the supply officer would have loved nothing more than to settle old scores with a kitchen knife on the spot. He couldn't. One did not lay a hand on prey taken by a benefactor.
And so, as if personally proving that a dog's lot was a high lord's lot, Orthrus lolled in a heap and watched the frantic humans with a quiet little sneer. Possessed of an intelligence beyond the human, it could guess, at least in outline, what was happening.
"Kaeng."
So it broke the seal after all.
The being that had summoned Orthrus and the other monsters into this world. Not a monster itself, and yet carrying a malice, a hatred, and a death-qi greater than any monster's. Now that it had been loosed upon the world, how things would turn was obvious.
"Kaeng. Kyaeng."
Orthrus broke into a wide, delighted grin. Once that thing was free, its own freedom could not be far behind. However strong that human might be, he was still human — and a human could not defeat that creature. So Orthrus rejoiced.
"What are you grinning about?"
"!!?"
"A monster, and you've got the nerve to lounge around like fortune's favorite. The world's turned upside down. I swear it."
"...Kki, kkiing...."
"I already saw you laughing your head off, and now you're playing pitiful? Hey. Get up."
"?"
"Playing dumb, are you? I can start by pulling one of those heads off."
Orthrus shot upright on two legs, expression snapped to attention as if it had never been sprawled at all. It wanted to rebel so badly it could taste it, but that human was the sort who did exactly what he said he would. Its two short legs trembled in an ugly little shiver, and the man did not spare it an inch.
If anything—
"Down. Roll. Up. Roll. Up. Jump in place."
"!!"
He only drove it harder.
Orthrus carried out each order the moment it fell, but its body found its limit almost at once. Puppy's frame or not, there was only so much the thing could do. And yet the fact that it understood every command and performed them all said more than enough about how sharp that mind really was.
Watching it....
"This thing's actually brilliant, isn't it?"
"Mung?"
"Ah. Just talking to myself."
"......"
The human murmured an admiration that felt distinctly unlucky, and the corner of Orthrus's eye twitched. Cold. A restless fear prickled through it, as if an axe might come flying for its chest at any moment, and for an instant, in that mutter, Orthrus felt it was being tested. A test of how much speech it could follow — of just how clever it was.
Not only the keen mind, but the animal senses peculiar to a monster set its heart hammering, and then—
"Hey, pup. Want to do a little work with me?"
"......"
"Follow along nicely, and I might even guarantee your freedom."
"Krrrng...."
At the sweet offer Orthrus took a step back at once and dropped into a wary stance. Did this man take it for a fool?
"Grrrr!"
Where's the trick...?
Plain as day, he meant to dump some mortally dangerous job on it, and Orthrus snarled. Its life might end tomorrow for all it knew, but it was still Orthrus, a high-grade monster. Monster or not, it had its pride, and helping the likes of a human was something it would never—
"—Figured as much. Beast or monster, talk doesn't get through, does it."
Crack!
"!??!"
"I don't have time to negotiate. So we're taking the short course. Hmm. Thing is, I've used Tendon-Splitting Bone-Dislocation on spellcasters and beasts before, but almost never on a monster. My control might be a little rough. So bear with it."
"!!!!!"
"When you feel like cooperating, we'll talk again. You and me."
"...!"
"Look at you. A male after all — you've got pride. Holding out pretty well, I'll give you that...."
"!!?"
—No, you demon!
Orthrus could not even scream. A few casual taps from that human, and a pain that did not belong to this world came flooding in without a pause. It understood, then, why people said death would be kinder, and it begged with its eyes.
Cooperation, anything, I'll do all of it — just end this!
But....
"Stubborn bastard. Not even one nod, all the way to the end?"
The man watched at his leisure, as if he were in no hurry at all, and Orthrus understood. Defying this human had been a mistake from the very start.
...If word came that an army of two hundred thousand was marching, people would, as a rule, start by looking for a way to run.
And this was no ordinary host of two hundred thousand. It was an army of monsters — not goblins alone, either, but a host that included tens of thousands of mid-grade creatures like orcs and large-grade ones like ogres. Even a nation throwing its full strength at them might fall short, and a force that did not even reach a thousand was supposed to hold the line? This was the sort of prospect that would make even Pendragon's legendary king, the Martial God, frown if he rose from the dead. Better to choose flight, if one were going to choose anything.
But....
Thoom!
"How's the wall repair coming?"
"We've plugged the worst of it for now. The knights pitched in, and that helped."
"Bring more powder over here!"
"Should I bring the monster cores we've collected, too?"
"Is that even a question! How are we supposed to use the Flame Cannon without them!"
"All 10,341 reserve charges are here."
"Hmm. And the cannons?"
"Around twenty pieces, I'd say."
"...Haa. This is going to drive me mad."
Not one person here had chosen to run. Frantic, exhausted — and yet every eye burned bright, the will to fight kindled and held.
They had reason. Mordred's warriors, each of them, had lived through more than a thousand monster waves, and there was not a man among them who was not elite. Nor could they fear death, when they had already seen far too much of it, and when things more precious than their lives — people they absolutely had to protect — stood at their backs. So they were not afraid. If they feared anything, it was dying in vain, having done nothing at all.
"The Great Evil Spirit — that damned vermin!"
"May my bullet punch through that cursed bug's skull...."
"Keep the order. The order."
Among the things that set their fighting spirit ablaze was the Great Evil Spirit itself. The loathsome being that had tormented their ancestors for hundreds of years, and had now reduced even them to this — and it was finally showing its face? There could hardly be better fuel. Even if this was a battle from which they could not come back alive, they would drive blade and bullet into that vermin's throat before they left this world—! Their resolve had been settled long ago.
Only—
"—Don't resolve yourselves to die. Steel yourselves to live."
...Their lord's flat remark made the soldiers blink. Whether they found it strange or not, he only said what was obvious, in the same even voice.
"Since when have we been on this land in order to die? We are here to protect our families and to take back a peaceful ordinary day. We are not here so that we can die."
"......"
"Yes. The enemy before us is mighty. An overwhelming host, no question — the kind that makes a man brace for death. But do not brace for death before the fighting has even begun. That is to slight the hearts of the people who love you and are waiting."
The words made bodies flinch, no one first and no one last. The day before — before the letters — perhaps they would not have landed so hard. Five years on the line. No: a span of the front that might have run longer than five. Their minds had been worn down like pencils already used to the nub, past the point of writing anything more. And then, reading the letters that had reached them — no, reading those precious hearts — the memories and days they had forgotten came back, and with them the reason they were here at all. So their lord's words carved themselves all the deeper.
As deep as words could go....
"......"
The soldiers' eyes cooled, as if they had never been worked up like berserkers at all. That did not mean their will to fight had lessened. Remembering what they had to protect could only make them firmer.
"...Yes. Better."
Yes. This was better. Men turned berserker might know no fear, but that road numbed reason. If the fight were short, numbing reason was no great evil — but they were few, and the enemy was a legion. Fight without sense and cunning, and they would be annihilated before they had held for long.
The urgent fire's out, at least.
Cain, if he were honest, wanted nothing more than to lose his reason and fight the way his soldiers had. But he had not forgotten the man's advice.
...Hold. Remember that one thing.
A margrave, taking the advice of a mere ordinary knight — others would call him mad. He believed anyway. That man never spoke empty words.
So.
I have to focus on surviving, however I can.
Cain set a resolve that was cold and cruel. A resolve to live — no, to endure — even if his men and his family should die.
...And yet.
KRAAAAAANG!
"?"
For all the cruel resolve he carried, Cain found himself blinking.
"What...?"
Whooong!
How was a thing like that flying?
Cain and the soldiers saw it: a boulder of a full ton sailing over their heads like a shot put, wheeling through the air. And that boulder—
KRAAAAANG!!
—pulverized the monster host into meat all over again, a sight so far from any sense of the real that it hardly seemed possible. Yet, as if to prove it was neither dream nor hallucination—
"Plant your stance better. You're not throwing it right."
"I— I'm trying!!"
"Brat. All lungs and no strength — why can't you put any force into it!"
"Krrrgh!!"
The nephew, biting down as if the unfairness of it scorched him, heaved the boulder up and passed it over, and once again the man—
"Duck."
BANG—!!!
—kicked the rock. It drew a clean, satisfying arc and slaughtered the monsters all over again.
Watching, Cain and the soldiers thought as one.
...Do they even need us?
Blinking at the man who looked, somehow, as if he could butcher two hundred thousand monsters by himself. The human catapult.