The End of the War (2)
The rain grew heavier.
Each falling drop stood out sharp and clear to the eye.
Wherever the rain struck, the things still burning fought back with savage fury. They hissed and spat, flinging up clouds of ash. That ash mixed with the raindrops until the water itself turned the color of cinders, then crashed to the earth and shattered with a wet slap.
Everything caught in my gaze. I saw it all.
Even though I did not want to look, I saw.
I saw Lediche sobbing as she poured healing magic into Rubiru, who was already gone. I saw the gaping hole the barbarian’s weapon had torn through one side of Rubiru’s body. I saw Hummel, arm severed, despair written across his face, pissing himself in terror yet still trying to shield us.
In that blurred world, only I remained sharp. Everything was visible, and visible again.
Where was my sword? The one Cronian had given me. I searched for it a moment, then gave up and closed my fingers around the dagger Laika had pressed into my hand instead.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Rainwater ran down my hair, gathered, and fell. It struck the dagger, beaded on my cheek and slid away, soaked into the folds of my clothes.
Waaah—!
Uooo—!
The barbarians’ roars had never sounded so hateful.
But the thing I hated most—the thing I wanted dead more than anything—was the one who had stopped me from saving Rubiru. I searched the chaos for Kelcron.
In the place where barbarians and soldiers tangled and butchered one another, I found him farther back, dragging rough breaths, snatching a moment’s rest. His ice-locked body had thawed a little; the exhaustion on him seemed lighter.
Splash.
I stepped through a puddle that might have been water or blood. Only Kelcron filled my eyes.
Clang!
Some nameless barbarian brought a greatsword down in a huge arc, but it was different now. I had no need to parry or dodge. The greatsword met my dagger and rebounded as if flung skyward.
Thud!
The startled barbarian stumbled back, eyes wide with disbelief.
I could not believe it either. I would rather have died if only Rubiru had lived.
“…”
I clenched my teeth. The more I thought, the more strength drained from my limbs and the dizzier I became. So I swung the dagger lightly, as if the motion itself could make me forget.
Whoosh—!
I only cut empty air, yet the rain split on a diagonal. Wind pressure lifted the drops for an instant so they seemed to hang suspended. The barbarian tried to slam his greatsword down in counterattack—
Slash!
He toppled, clutching the neck that gushed blood. When the giant fell, the rest of the barbarians came for me. Through the heavy footfalls, the shouts, the ragged breathing, the clash of steel, Kelcron’s voice cut through.
“That bastard dies no matter what it takes!”
I heard it whether I wanted to or not, and a laugh almost escaped. My heart hammered so hard and deep I thought I might die right there. Just looking at the man who had killed Rubiru turned my mind white and made every hair on my body stand on end.
What truly terrified me was the chance I might fail to take revenge.
They swarmed, yet I did not run. I could not run. I knew nothing I did would bring Rubiru back, but I had to do something—anything—to keep my mind from flying apart.
I drove deep into their ranks and cut.
The one swinging a greatsword straight at me I slipped left and drove the dagger through his jaw. Those charging from the other side I first carved into from one flank, severed necks, seized their blades, and kept cutting. Arrows I caught mid-flight and sent back. When anyone who could handle mana appeared, I used a barbarian as a living shield, then, in the heartbeat of their hesitation, buried whatever edge I held deep into flesh.
Even the barbarians who had been slaughtering Hummel’s soldiers broke off and came for me, yet nothing changed. I killed, and killed, and killed again. I accepted the small wounds and simply tried to take one more life with each breath.
“…Knights of the Rushmore family—never fall back!”
Once their momentum cracked, the soldiers who had been dying in droves found strength of their own. Even Hummel, teetering on the edge of death, screamed like a man possessed and fought on. Our numbers were far fewer, yet the barbarians kept falling.
Few among them could wield mana, and none raised flame; that helped. The strongest of them—Kelcron and two others of near equal power—had already broken through the fire. The rest must have been resting so they could press the advance the moment the outpost fell.
…If this drags on, we’re finished.
Time would bring our reinforcements, but it would also bring the elite barbarians waiting beyond the forest. Then there would be no guarantee another Rubiru would not appear.
I had to end it fast. I had to take my revenge fast. If I let him slip away now—if some peace treaty came—there would never be another chance to kill Kelcron.
Paat—!
I picked the strongest-looking of those trying to bar my way and charged. I buried the dagger in his shoulder, used the blade as a pivot, leapt short, and hung across his back. Then I ripped the dagger free, clapped one hand over his eyes—
Thrust.
“G-Gyaaaaaah—!”
I drove the point into the eyeball. The blade reached the brain; the barbarian thrashed and made idiot sounds. Even after he hit the ground I kept stabbing and cutting. When others drew near I made certain they saw him writhing in agony—I opened his belly, cut out his tongue, carved him into pieces.
Someone screamed that I was a monster. Someone else called me a devil. They hurled curses and shrieks too foul to repeat. I did not stop.
A few bodies dropping would never make them feel the difference. So I chose a handful of barbarians and killed them in the most humiliating, cruel, and vicious ways I could invent—cutting, stabbing, dismembering.
Only after I had become more savage than the savages themselves did the charge falter. The fear of ending up like those dying comrades outweighed any rage at watching them beg for life. When I simply took a step, some of them stumbled and fell.
I walked straight toward Kelcron, who was still catching his breath and tipping a potion down his throat. The crowd parted like a sea.
Not every barbarian was battle-mad or eager to die. They must have decided that, of everyone still standing, only Kelcron could stop me. I walked slowly until I stood before him and halted. Instead of cutting him down at once, I spoke briefly.
“…Whether I die or you die, the fighting at this outpost ends.”
Kelcron heard me and, as if he already understood, gripped his greatsword and forced his exhausted body upright.
“…So you and I fight. The one who dies hands over the outpost.”
Even so, he did not answer at once. Buying a few more breaths to recover, perhaps?
“…Heh. Isn’t our side still the stronger?”
I did not know. I did not care. Whether he accepted or refused hardly mattered. What mattered was that I now stood before his eyes.
I flung the sword I still held. It punched through the forehead of a barbarian ringing us. The body dropped with a soft thud; blood mixed with rain and ran.
“…How many more do you think will die before you finish recovering or your comrades arrive?”
Unlike the others, Kelcron looked at the fallen man, then clenched his greatsword harder. Anger flickered across his face.
“…You must recover somehow, my lord.”
Someone tried to hold him back, but Kelcron dragged the greatsword and walked out to meet me. There were no greetings, no talk of honor. We had already exchanged names; now it was simply kill or be killed.
Kelcron raised flame. It did not burn with the old ferocity. His body had not fully thawed from the ice magic. The fire was only a faint, struggling thing.
I charged, splitting the rain.
Clang!
Greatsword and dagger met; sparks leapt. The flame was so clear it raised gooseflesh—brief, yet brighter and more splendid than anything else.
Ting!
Raindrops sheared by the blade shattered. In those broken droplets I saw my own face and Kelcron’s reflected.
Clang!
They met again, yet it was Kelcron who was driven back. The body Lediche had frozen would not move as he willed. A gap opened for a heartbeat.
He was sweating as if fevered. After only a few exchanges the flame on his greatsword had already died.
I drove my front foot hard, shoved with the rear, and dropped my body like an arrow. Kelcron’s abdomen and chin came into view; he saw only the top of my head and the line of my torso.
Whoosh—!
I raised the dagger with every scrap of strength, wind pressure roaring around it. From thigh through left side, shoulder, and cheek I drew a single red line—
and along that line blood fountained with a wet slash.
Yet he did not die. The light in his eyes did not fade.
“U-Aaaah—!”
Kelcron clenched his teeth, seized my throat, and wrenched my head backward. The greatsword was already gone from his grip; he could no longer hold it.
Thrust!
I drove the dagger into his belly, but he only spat blood and kept coming. I tried to cut his face, yet the hand on my neck threw my balance; my arm would not rise. In the end—
Bang!
He smashed his forehead into mine. Pain exploded as if my skull would split. For a moment I saw three Kelcrons.
While I staggered, he kicked me away, snatched up the dropped greatsword with his good hand, and forced flame back onto the blade even as blood poured from his mouth.
That was all he had left. His legs trembled. His left arm hung useless. The lingering ice made every motion slow. Sweat sheeted off him; blood leaked from his lips.
Thud!
I drove myself into the swinging greatsword rather than away from it. I slammed my shoulder into the wound I had already opened in his abdomen and crushed it. A long blade loses its power when the fight is this close.
“Guh—!”
The lower edge of the greatsword chewed through collarbone and chest like a butcher’s cleaver, yet I did not die. That was enough.
I slid my arm under his armpit as if embracing him, set the dagger’s edge, and—
“U-Aaaaaah—!”
—screamed as I wrenched with everything I had.
Slashhhhh—!
The arm that had held the greatsword no longer moved. It fell to the mud still gripping the blade.
“…G-Guuuh—!”
Kelcron staggered backward, face twisted with pain. It was the first time I had ever seen that expression on him. He stared at the stump of his right arm, tried to move the left, but the left was already so deeply cut it hung as if a touch would drop it; it no longer obeyed him.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Blood poured, yet I moved again. I still had to kill him. But—
Thrust!
“Ta-Take Lord Kelcron and fall back—!”
One of the barbarians hurled a long spear. It punched through the shoulder Kelcron had already opened and buried itself somewhere behind me. The force threw me rolling across the ground. Only then did the rest of them swarm, intent on finishing me.
Swords, axes, spears—so many. I had no intention of dying quietly.
I tried to rise and took a boot to the chin. The places Kelcron had cut, the hole the spear had made—every inch of me hurt, yet I rolled twice more and came up on my feet. The dagger was gone; my hands were empty.
Slash—!
I stopped a cut aimed at my face, but the blade laid my palm open and blood ran freely. A few more blocks, a few more kills at best, and I would be finished too. I was about to fight bare-handed when Hummel, the handful of remaining conscripts, and the last one-armed knight still standing reached me.
Boooooo—!
At the same moment a horn blared, announcing that reinforcements had arrived. The troops Lediche had summoned were here. The barbarians dragged Kelcron away; the nobles and knights who flooded the field began to secure the outpost.
…
I went back to Rubiru.
“Riel….”
Had I returned somehow? The rain had stopped. Sunlight poured down. In the middle of that light I was holding Rubiru again.
Hair turned pure white and crumbling to ash. Lips dried even though rain had fallen. Skin already stiffening. Eyes closed so tightly they would never open for another prank.
I should not have, yet I kissed her cheek as if she were only sleeping. I wished her peaceful rest.
“…I’ll never forget. Not for the rest of my life.”
I had awakened to mana. In the end I had stopped the barbarian advance.
And I had lost Rubiru.
That was all.
I gained nothing from the war.
…
They said that on the day the barbarians tried to smash through our line, the eastern front had also been attacked. The same barbarians who should have marched on the capital—no, the Magnus Kingdom—had turned their forces to defend the east instead. Because of that we were able to push past the frontline outpost and seize a portion of Magnus territory.
On the pendant around my neck sat a photograph of young Rubiru and her brother, together with the drawing of my childhood friends and Sister Flora.
Victory was all but certain, yet somehow the war refused to end. Grief was the same.
Lediche and I both seemed to have forgotten how to smile. Still we tried to stay close.
We no longer slept in separate tents; we shared one. Some nights I relived the day Rubiru died. Some nights Lediche relived the moment she had nearly taken that death in Rubiru’s place. When one of us woke trembling and sobbing, we knew there was no one else left who could comfort us.
When the days grew too heavy I held the old drawing and remembered the past, or looked at Rubiru inside the pendant and remembered the battlefield. At night I cared for Lediche and let her care for me; we leaned on each other and endured.
…
The war that had seemed about to end stretched past three years. The Magnus Kingdom abandoned its capital more than once yet still clung on with stubborn ferocity. We moved our tents from the frontline outpost to a rear base.
No more fighting occurred in the lands we had already taken; the transfer was the reward for the greatest merit. Even so, we could not simply go home.
Day by day Lediche and I grew closer. We were among the few who still remembered Rubiru, and that alone drew us tighter.
Once we were back at the rear base, letters were finally permitted. The day of return was approaching—yet I still needed to know where they lived.
So every time I asked Lediche to send a letter for me. Each time she averted her eyes with a sad expression, yet she never refused.
Three years.
Two more years after the first letter, eight seasons turning, before a reply finally came. When I opened the envelope the handwriting was utterly unfamiliar—as if written by a stranger. The crooked, warm scrawl I remembered was gone. Five years had passed; change was only natural. I told myself that. Like me, worn down by battlefield dust, those children had changed as well.
It stung a little that the letter held none of the private memories only we shared, but childhood stories would have been embarrassing for them too.
Rhea wrote that she would marry the moment she turned twenty and was already preparing for the wedding. Ceria had passed through the academy and entered the Orthodox Church. Claudia was growing up happily in an excellent family that did not discriminate against her as a wolfkin.
I had already known two years earlier that they were happy… yet now the thought rose: was it right for me to step back into their lives?
While I hesitated, Lediche spoke.
“…When the war ends, how about living in the Rueshatia Territory, Riel?”
I saw a measure of fear in her eyes, so I simply nodded. Exchanging letters with me while preparing for marriage, entering a convent, living happily—those things meant they had grown into fine adults who no longer needed my care.
And more than that, I was afraid. Afraid that the happiness they had finally grasped might shatter because of me. Rhea, Ceria, Claudia—family, the ones I loved. I did not want to drop the stone of myself into the quiet pool of joy they had found.
…
Five years had already passed since I left the church. The boy who had set foot on the battlefield at fifteen was now twenty.
The war with the Magnus Kingdom was over.
In place of the weakened king, a ducal house sent a letter. I stared at the document bearing the ducal seal and simply breathed in and out. There was talk of money, of honor to be bestowed, but the conclusion was only one: the war had ended. We could go home.
A laugh slipped out for no reason.
I had made promises I could never keep, then broken them for the sake of wishing everyone happiness. No one had asked me to sacrifice myself, yet I had.
Every day I had wanted to see them. Every day I had wanted to meet them. When the war grew too heavy I had held the picture we once drew together and endured.
The young lady had said they were all living happily. The childhood friends who once played house were all happy. Thinking that, the hellish years almost felt repaid.
Rhea was preparing for the marriage she had always dreamed of. Surely she had forgotten me and found someone to love.
Ceria had wanted to become a sister; she had entered the Orthodox Church. Surely she would become someone as wonderful as Sister Flora.
Claudia was with people who did not discriminate, people who loved her. Surely they loved even her wolfkin tail.
“Huu.”
The memorial day of the sister who had taken us in arrived, and after all those years I finally returned to my hometown.
“…Riel, are you all right?”
“…Yeah. I’m fine.”
“…I truly had no idea there was someone who took you in. I’m sorry.”
Beside me rode the young lady—no, Lediche.
When I had left home for the battlefield the road had looked unnaturally narrow. The carriage carrying me home from the battlefield felt almost too gentle, too warm.
“It’s all right. I never told you.”
“…May I lean on your shoulder?”
“Yeah. What’s with the sudden formality?”
The carriage began to move, leaving the battlefield behind.