Fangs of the Flamberge
Hayes's sword did not waver for so much as an instant. She had to resolve the situation as quickly as she could—and if that proved impossible, she would hold out by any means necessary until Senior Ian arrived.
Clang!
The moment the masked man deflected her blade, he thrust his remaining hand behind his back. Over his shoulder, another sword hilt slid into her view.
'Twin swords?'
And sure enough—
Shraaak!
The second sword came hacking down toward the crown of her head. Hayes twisted her blade overhead in a flash to shield herself.
"…!"
Only then did her eyes go wide. She had noticed too late that the masked man's blade was bent sharply into a hook—a sword called the Schotel. Even a clean block would leave the curved tip curling around to stab into her.
'The Crown Prince!'
Under any other circumstances, dodging would have been simple. But if Hayes evaded now, she would open a clear path straight to the Crown Prince. That, she could not allow.
'Then—'
Shoving the Schotel aside with her own blade, Hayes drove straight into the masked man's guard—and in the same motion slammed her sword hand up into his jaw.
Wham!
"Kgh!"
The instant he staggered backward, her sword flashed across his throat at a terrifying speed. The masked man died without even a scream.
"Kgh!" "Urk!"
Groans erupted all across the field from Imperial Knights and Full Moon Knights alike. Unlike Hayes, who had adapted at once, they had failed to guard against the Schotel's bizarre curved blade and paid dearly for it.
"The enemy is wielding Schotels! No one lets their guard down!"
Having shouted the warning to her knights, Hayes bit down hard on her lip as the masked men closed in around her.
The Schotel was a relic of the distant past—a sword soldiers had once carried on the battlefields of an age of endless war. These days only a scattering of mercenaries still used it; it had all but faded into obscurity.
Yet these masked men had launched their ambush with that very weapon. The fluid, practiced ease of their movements made it plain this was no makeshift disguise. They had trained with the Schotel for years.
Which meant this assassination had been prepared with painstaking care over a long span of time. They intended to see it finished today, whatever it took.
Shweeeek—
A Schotel came lunging for her torso again. Hayes arched her back and slipped past it by a hair's breadth.
Shaaak!
Then another Schotel dropped straight down before her eyes—a joint attack by two of the masked men, a masterfully coordinated technique that no ordinary knight could have evaded.
But Hayes was no ordinary knight. She slipped through the crisis with agile grace, found an opening, and swung. At her ferocious arc, the two men leapt back in perfect unison, as if they had rehearsed it.
'Ngh!'
Watching their combined assault, her conviction only hardened. They had honed these techniques waiting for this day to come, again and again. Blood would be spilled—perhaps a great deal of it.
Above all, there were simply too many of them. If it had been impossible to bring more of the Full Moon Knights, then that had been a mistake.
For now, all she could do was wait for Senior Ian.
Praying he would arrive soon, Hayes tightened her grip on her sword and surged forward once more.
"Hmm."
Watching it all from a distance, Vandine swallowed a heavy groan. The plan had been to seize the initiative with the surprise attack, then use the Schotel's advantages to press the knights into a corner.
But the Full Moon Knights were a different breed after all. Their confusion lasted only moments before they were adapting to the Schotel's strange trajectories and answering in kind.
Especially that female knight—Hayes.
His investigation had already told him of her, but she was exceeding everything he had expected.
Swish! Shk—!
"Gwahk!" "Ughaaah!"
A single movement from her sent three or four of his men crashing down. They had been winnowed and winnowed again from among the finest fighters their homeland had to offer, and still the gap in strength was overwhelming.
'So it falls to me in the end.'
Vandine's gaze slid past Hayes. The Crown Prince, sword drawn, entered his view—and beside him, a boy glancing nervously in every direction. As his eyes settled on Bayul, they sank into something dark and deep.
'I will kill him!'
Any further delay and the whole affair could unravel. He had to finish this before the boy's escort knight arrived.
Shiiing!
Vandine drew his blade at last. How long had he ached for this moment.
The Crown Prince had been nothing but bait to draw every eye. His true target was Bayul, the only son of Duke Randert—the culprit who had driven his godfather to end his own life in agony.
'Duke Randert! I will make you live out every remaining day of your life in eternal torment!'
Thwack!
Another of his subordinates went down in a spray of blood from Hayes's sword. As if to declare he would permit no more, Vandine shot forward as if flicked from a bowstring.
"Engrave their trajectories into your eyes! Once you get past the strangeness, they're nothing you can't handle!"
Hayes shouted as she flicked the blood from her blade.
"Die!"
Just then, two more masked men came at her in another joint assault. Moving more fluidly than before, she deflected their strikes and traced swift, precise arcs with her sword.
Saaak—
Her blade was on the verge of shearing through a masked man's neck when—
Clang!
—another sword shot out and barred her blade. It was not the Schotel she had been facing until now. Hayes ground sword against sword with practiced skill, trying to slide it away.
Krrk! Krrk!
But the blade would not move as she willed.
'A Flamberge!'
Vandine's sword, glinting as it carved through the moonlight, bore a shape every bit as strange as the Schotel. A blade rippling with beautiful waves—waves that, when they met another sword, clamped down like the fangs of a beast and refused to let go. At a glance its form was lovely enough to pass for a ceremonial blade, but within that beauty lurked pure ferocity. A killing sword among killing swords.
'At this rate, I half wonder what outlandish sword will appear next!'
Hayes twisted her wrist and laid her blade flat, meaning to slide free of the lock and cut straight for the Flamberge-wielder's chest.
"…!"
That was when the enemy's sword twisted in an uncanny way. The gap between the two blades, loose a heartbeat before, cinched tight in an instant—and Hayes's sword was caught fast in the Flamberge's fangs once more.
'This man—!'
Her eyes snapped up to the masked man. To Vandine.
'He's no mere assassin!'
It had taken only a single exchange, but he was unmistakably a man who knew the ways of the sword. His skill belonged to a different dimension entirely from the men she had fought until now.
Hayes raised her mana and bore down on his blade with raw strength. But Vandine's sword held hers fast, like an unyielding lock.
So this man was the source of that ominous feeling. Realizing her opponent was in no way beneath her, Hayes loosed a battle cry.
"Haaah!"
For an instant, her heavy sword seemed to swell into a colossal mountain. The pressure was tremendous.
'Impressive. No wonder they call her the finest of female knights.'
Vandine released the iron-wall pressure on his blade and, supple as a reed in the wind, flowed along with her sword.
'A pity, to kill her like this.'
The thought flickered through him—but it was, quite literally, a passing fancy. For now, she was simply an enemy to strike down and move past.
A dangerous light kindled in Vandine's eyes.
Wham!
With explosive force he shoved her blade aside and drove his shoulder into her chest.
Thud!
For the first time, she failed to evade. Pain exploded through her, and Hayes was flung backward.
Tat!
Vandine granted her no time to recover her guard. He closed the distance in a single breath and rained down a relentless barrage.
Clang! Clang! Clang-clang-clang!
Off balance though she was, Hayes gathered her mana and turned his blade aside each time. An exchange far too fast for ordinary eyes to follow unfolded between them—mana scattering, wind howling in its wake.
How long did it go on like that?
Unfortunately, Vandine was a cut above her. Beneath his ceaseless barrage, Hayes's strength finally ebbed; her legs gave out and she was driven back, step by sliding step.
Thump!
Had no one caught her from behind, she would have tumbled to the ground in a most ungraceful heap.
"Thank you."
Straightening her sword, Hayes offered her thanks to the subordinate she assumed stood behind her.
"Think nothing of it."
"…!"
But the voice at her back was not that of a subordinate. It was one she knew well—Crown Prince Lindemann.
"Y-Your Highness…!"
"Enemies are still in front of you," the Crown Prince warned the startled knight.
Even that instant of respite was brief.
Shweeeek!
Vandine's attack came crashing in once more. Hayes raised her sword to meet the deep thrust—no. She tried to.
Ssssss—
Vandine's blade, which had driven in straight as an arrow, suddenly began to writhe like a great serpent stalking its prey.
"Hah!"
Hayes swung in haste to match its trajectory, but Vandine was a beat faster. His blade rode up over hers and bored in toward her chest.
Instinct screamed at Hayes to twist her body aside—and then she froze.
Behind her.
The Crown Prince was standing there.
If she dodged, that blade would fly straight for him.
There was only one choice. Gritting her teeth, Hayes thrust out her left shoulder toward the blade aimed at her own heart.
Thunk!
The Flamberge bit deep into her shoulder. Indescribable agony made every hair on her head stand on end—but what mattered was this: in surrendering her shoulder, she had pinned Vandine's blade.
"Hyah!"
Hayes slashed upward for his waist. But her sword carved only empty air; Vandine had already put himself beyond her reach. Without a shred of hesitation, he had simply let go of his own weapon.
"…!" "Huaap!"
The Crown Prince, for his part, had never neglected his swordsmanship. But his opponent was a master even Hayes could not best.
Kaang!
Vandine neutralized the Prince's sword with absurd ease. A single clash, and Lindemann's palm tore open, his weapon slipping from his grip with humiliating ease.
"Kgh!"
In that instant, Vandine's eyes flashed. Directly behind the Crown Prince stood the very boy he wanted—Bayul.
It was a chance that would never come again. To dispatch both of them in one clean, natural stroke, his blade flew in a sweeping arc.
"No!"
Hayes screamed and hurled herself between them, the sword still buried in her shoulder. The agony made her form waver.
'Is this how I die?'
Crown Prince Lindemann had no means of evading the incoming blade. He saw Hayes sprinting toward him, screaming. Even amid all this, she looked magnificent to him. And more than anything else, he found himself worrying about her wounded shoulder.
Shwaaaa—
Then it happened. A heartbeat before Vandine's blade touched the Crown Prince's neck, a searing heat engulfed him.
"Aaagh!"
The scorching heat washing over his entire body wrung a groan out of Vandine before he knew it, and he scrambled backward.
'What is this?'
At first it had been no more than a tiny spark. It swelled and swelled until, at some point, it took the shape of a person.
It was uncanny. Even Vandine, bound by contract to a demon, had never witnessed anything like it. A girl wreathed head to toe in flame had appeared from nowhere—and she was glaring at him with unbridled fury.