102.
102.
"Huh? Us?"
"Yes, you."
"Ah—"
"Would that be very difficult?"
That would be a problem.
When I furrowed my brow slightly, Leofric's reaction shifted from self-doubt to certainty.
"I may not know much else, but crawling on the ground, catching bugs, and wiping out those half-baked field folk — that we are most confident about. Just leave it to us."
"...I won't say anything, so speak honestly."
"Yes! The truth is, we've only hunted beasts — we've never hunted men, so we're not sure!"
"I see."
So it couldn't be helped after all.
"Then let us go together. Let us see to it together. Our army plans to keep advancing, but leaving both flanks' forested areas defenseless weighs on my mind."
"Yes— yes!? You mean you personally will head into those woods...!?"
"Why could that not be? Large as my frame may be, my silent movement is second to none — even a cat would be hard-pressed to match it, so worry not. I shall by no means slow you and your Huntadun friends down."
"But Konungr...! The forest is dangerous...! What's more, it is all the more dangerous so long as those Mercian bastards who think of nothing but killing us all day long are out there...!"
"I am in danger? Do you speak in earnest??"
"...It is we who are in danger...!"
Keuh-keuh-keuh—
Seeing Leofric hesitate briefly, then change his attitude in an instant, drew a laugh from me. Was this not the bond between lord and retainer? I was absolutely not tormenting him.
"I shall bestow a great quantity of silver coin upon you and your men. And if you prove your usefulness yet again in this undertaking, I shall entrust Stanford itself to you and the warriors of Huntadun. Along with the farms below it, the fishing boats, the hunting grounds — all of it."
"Ah, ahh—"
Someone once said... when things are going poorly, check whether you are short on money.
As the goods piling onto the scale grew ever heavier, the initial negative thoughts vanished in real time from Leofric's face, and behind him, the Huntadun hunters, pretending not to listen, fixed their gazes on my words.
'Say you'll do it...!'
'Stanford...!? Compared to Huntadun, that's the difference between a fawn and a full-grown stag!?'
'What are you hesitating for...!'
Threats flew incessantly on the passing wind.
Resolutely ignoring those threats, Leofric raised his head high and spoke, his eyes gleaming.
"When shall we depart?"
"...Now."
*****
[Tuduk— tududuk— sasak— sasasak—!]
In that brief span, dark clouds had gathered.
Unbelievable as it was, during the day the sun had definitely been out and everything was dry, but after we ate lunch, rain suddenly fell and we were soaked through.
Fitting the description of grubby and miserable, the drizzling raindrops trickled down the grass blades beside my face.
'For all his fussing, he's far more skilled than I expected...?'
Deciding to entrust Stanford to Jarl Leofric of Huntadun had been no impulsive choice.
He seemed disregarded by his subordinates, but in truth he was a respected veteran hunter, warrior, assassin (though he himself denied it), with an excellent eye for reading the tides of the times and a fair measure of nerve.
He could be trusted with the south of the eastern Fens.
'Refil and Seutorolpeu are practically one body with me, and Oleg and Djur are talents I have marked as commanders of my standing army. It would be a waste to stash them away in one region. Ubba would likely handle a kingdom skillfully enough, but I never know what he's thinking...'
Therefore, Leofric.
Besides, I had no desire whatsoever to kill the unique skills of the Fen folk.
A small build was never an unconditional disadvantage.
[Swaaaa— cheok!]
Feeling the raindrops grow heavier, I sensed Leofric's crawling body come to a halt at the head of the group.
Shortly after, Leofric, having sent some hand signal to the veteran hunters to his left and right, turned his body with a grunt and, in a posture as courteous as he could manage, spread out five fingers and pointed in a direction.
'Five men, over there?'
Just as I thought. With evening approaching and rain falling on top of it — the optimal time for unwelcome guests to move.
Today's march had been ruined anyway by the morning ambush, and it seemed they intended to raid my soldiers, who would be taking a Hugh-style rest after setting up a temporary camp, to accumulate fatigue.
'Rat bastards. I'll catch every last one of them.'
I had no intention of just sitting back and watching that.
[Seukseuk—! Seukseuk!]
'Confirmed. Let's go kill.'
[Seukseukseukseuk! Seukseukseukseuk! Syaksyak!]
'We are moving. Konungr stays in place. Please.'
[Seukseuk!]
'Understood.'
[Syaksyak!]
'Please!'
"..."
I said I understood.
Leofric, treating me like some child set down by the waterside, looked at me with truly beseeching eyes, then slowly advanced forward.
"Konungr...! What was it that Jarl Leofric said...!"
But as if to render Leofric's hand signals and mine utterly meaningless, Seutorolpeu, who had stubbornly followed behind me, threw a question at me in a voice steeply hushed.
I could hardly bring myself to say a word to this faithful vanguard commander, whose whole body and face were caked thick with mud, so I answered him in a voice just as deeply hushed.
"...He says there are enemies. He will deal with them."
"I see...! It is regrettable...! If only they were before my eyes...! I would cut their throats at once...!"
"...Your chance will come soon."
"Understood...! Konungr...!"
[Swaaaaa—]
Fortunately, the rain was loud, and with Nanna and Seutorolpeu pressed flat to the ground, breathing only faintly, the sound was unlikely to carry far.
But come to think of it, did we really need to lie prone like this? I should hide behind a suitable tree and watch.
"...Seutorolpeu! Let us sit behind that tree!"
"Yes...!"
[Syaksyak— syaksyaksyak—]
[Seukseuk— seuseuseuk—]
Nanna and Seutorolpeu's innate physical abilities were so good that our crawling speed matched the pace of a middling child's sprint.
Having crawled intently, almost as though competing against each other, to arrive behind a large tree, the two of us soon crouched behind it.
Had anyone seen us, we would have looked like a father bear and his cub huddled side by side. Though, of course, on the father bear's back was a greatsword, and on the cub's back was a large axe.
[Swaaaa— tududuk— tuduk—]
"Konungr...! Should I not go as well...! Jarl Leofric, nimble though he is, seems ill at ease in fighting — I am worried...!"
I knew Seutorolpeu well, and this was by no means an insult to Leofric. In his own way, he was genuinely concerned for the man.
"Worry not, Seutorolpeu. Jarl Leofric is no easy mark. The fenland folk know these lands, from the marshes to this forest, like their own home. If it came to a fight in such ground, even I could not promise our victory."
"...You mean you and me, Konungr? I mean no disrespect to Jarl Leofric and his merry fenland friends, but even if they brought a hundred of their best, I suspect you and I would still triumph...!"
"... Not the two of us. I mean the army. No matter how strong our host, no matter how mighty our warriors, fighting in this terrain and weather would be a hard slog."
"Ah— that is what you meant...! That is true enough, Konungr! With the trees this thick, it is hard to deploy the men...! The cavalry could not even manage a gallop...!"
"Exactly. A damn shame."
And that was why I was backing Jarl Leofric.
A ranger unit was essential. I could not keep picking out the fleet-footed and sharp-eyed to run scouting in some half-cocked fashion forever.
In the ultimate vision of my military reform, our army would overwhelm the enemy even in the skirmish and scouting phase.
[Shwaaaa— tuduktuduk— shashak— shashashak—!]
Through the steadily thickening hiss of the rain, I heard the sound of grass brushing aside—so faint that it would have been utterly imperceptible without straining one's attention.
"Seutorolpeu, someone comes."
"Aye...!"
[Seukeuk— kkuuk—]
Seutorolpeu drew the great axe from his back, while I clenched both fists.
Soon, the shadow that had been creeping toward our tree stopped dead. In the forest space slowly staining violet as the sun set, a faint voice came through.
"Konungr...! Is that you, Konungr...!?"
"It is. Jarl Leofric."
"I shall come to you, Konungr!"
His voice hoarse to the point of cracking, Leofric crawled slowly forward again and revealed himself beside the tree.
[Shashak— shashashak—]
The veteran hunters of the fenlands fell in alongside him.
Roughly twenty had been committed to this spot, with another fifty spread across the wider area.
A larger-scale operation than I had expected.
And the picked warriors of Huntadun, led by Leofric, had dragged another man back with them—
a Mercian guerrilla, blood streaming from his head where something blunt had struck him.
*****
The prisoner, hauled in like a boar from the hunt, took one look at my face studying him from a hair's breadth away and passed out cold again.
Of course, time being precious, a sharp glance from me had Seutorolpeu's rough hands rouse him back to consciousness.
In any case, through a rather classic method of threats, blandishments, and a bit of good-cop-bad-cop, I extracted the information I wanted and learned a great deal about their strength. First, their commander was a man named Ealdorman Ceolwulf.
Ceolwulf, who had apparently found a kind of revelation while fighting the Cymry and Hásteinn's warriors in the west, seemed to be turning the same guerrilla warfare the Mercians had suffered in the west back onto me now.
Truth be told, calling it guerrilla warfare was putting a fine label on something everyone did when attacking a larger enemy. You release men into suitably rough terrain, prick the foe from afar, then run away when the adversary grows enraged, only to circle back again. Rinse and repeat.
The reason this tactic had transcended mere antiquity to enter the realm of the classic, the timeless, however—was simply that being on the receiving end made one's blood boil and one's teeth grind.
Had it not still been a viable tactic even in the 21st century? The weapons systems changed, but the men who used them remained the same...
In any case, the problem in countering such tactics lay less in the physical damage and more in the mental exhaustion.
If you could not stand it and surged out in anger, you lost. If you bore it in silence and pressed on, you achieved your strategic objective.
That was why, even as I left the main force to Ubba and Refil and kept them marching, I had personally thrown myself into the field like this.
My brother and my nephew—Refil was Björn's son—had naturally tried to stop me, but I knew that in matters like these, it was all the more imperative that I take the lead.
Because, as I was demonstrating right now, I alone among all men fully understood the capabilities of this body.
[Kwak!]
"Guh..."
{Tuduk!}
Mercian soldiers creeping forward cautiously to ambush the main force of the Norsemen.
Leofric, the twenty Huntadun rangers, and I had already circled around to their outer flank and commenced our operation at once.
In addition to the commander's personal details, I had managed to extract through interrogation the fact that a night raid was planned for this very evening.
At the very least, five hundred were moving in this forest here, and around three hundred in the woods on the far side.
So we had to move fast. These wretches were only coming to prick us, but I aimed to slaughter every last one of them before the night was through.
[Sasak—]
"...Huh?"
[Hwirik— hwirik— hwirik— peok!]
"Urk!"
[Teolsseok!]
Still the rain fell, and as the Mercian warrior crawled through the now-completely dark night sky, my hand-axe flew out toward him.
With a dull impact, the enemy crumpled at once.
No matter how quietly they moved.
No matter how well they seeped into the darkness.
They could not evade my ears and eyes.
[Shwaaaaaa— swik! puk! euk! seogeok! keok!]
I wrenched my axe from the fallen man's skull and sorted through the sounds reaching my ears.
The rain still hammered down hard, and all through it I heard the sounds of Leofric and my hunters culling the enemy's numbers, one by one.
[Shwaaaaa— puk! hwiiik—! hwiiiiik—! keok!]
Then, cutting through those noises, a strange whistle sliced into the air.
'They've finally caught on.'
That whistle was not one of our pre-arranged signals, so it had to be the enemy's.
If I had accounted for five and the others had each claimed one or two, we had already felled thirty to forty men.
[Hwiiik— hwiiiiik— hwiiik—!]
The whistles rang out now at shorter intervals, sharper and more piercing.
In the darkness where even the moonlight was obscured, with the torrential rain robbing them of scent and hearing alike, a situation had descended.
Fear would be creeping upon them soon enough. I had to thin their numbers quickly, before it was too late.
[Tat—! tatat!]
Abandoning any further stealth kills, I took up a dagger looted from a fallen enemy in one hand and a hand-axe in the other and began to run through the darkness.
Through the dark forest that lay as bright as day to my eyes.
"...! Damn it! We've been—!"
[Peok!]
"Keok!"