XII. The Battle of Ramders Plain (5)
XII. The Battle of Ramders Plain (5)
The snow that had threatened to paint the entire world white finally stopped for a while in the early morning.
There were plenty of things ready to replace it. This time, a thin veil of fog settled over the land.
"The charcoal... ngh..."
Alisa groaned as she inspected the pile of charcoal.
Keldric looked closer. The charcoal in her pale hand had absorbed a little moisture.
"This won't work?"
"No. It’ll be difficult to use..."
That meant Alisa could not readily use her magic.
Keldric found that deeply troubling. Magic was precious on a battlefield.
Under the right conditions, it could sweep away dozens of men at once. Alongside knights, wizards were one of the two forces capable of overturning a battle.
Having one of those forces falter from the outset made him uneasy. Keldric clicked his tongue, his expression troubled.
"If only I’d kept it dry..."
"With weather like this, it couldn’t be helped."
Dense radiation fog covered Rhamdus Plain. The air itself seemed frozen.
Snow had continued to flurry from time to time. No matter how tightly they wrapped the charcoal, some moisture was bound to penetrate it.
"The catalyst is damaged, but I should still be able to use it two or three times."
"Don't push yourself too hard."
Keldric worried about the strain on Alisa, but he could not bring himself to tell her to forget about the battle and rest.
Hundreds of lives depended on this battle, and they needed Alisa’s magic. Lacking it would not necessarily turn victory into defeat, but having it could turn defeat into victory.
For now, Keldric had to choose that possibility. He could not wallow in sentiment because Alisa might overexert herself, nor did he want to.
"The battle will start soon."
"I see."
"Watch out for stray arrows. One killed my father."
Alisa’s eyes widened. She hurriedly looked around for anyone who might be listening.
It was not much of a secret as far as Keldric was concerned. He smacked his lips awkwardly.
'‘I was going to tell her eventually anyway...’'
Until now, Keldric had never explained his family circumstances in detail.
He had only given a vague account: ‘My father died, and I left because I would not inherit the house.’
There was no special reason, and he was not deliberately trying to hide it.
Knowing another person’s affairs and allowing them to know his were two very different things.
Even with companions and attendants traveling beside him, Keldric did not readily volunteer information about himself. He trusted them; keeping such things private simply felt like common sense.
Unless they pressed him with questions, he had no reason to volunteer everything.
In that respect, Volfen’s death was not something he needed to conceal.
Everyone in the house already knew, and the people of Carlton Village would inevitably whisper about how Volfen had died.
'‘It wasn’t a shameful death, either.’'
If there was a family matter he had intentionally hidden, it was Fritz’s attempted patricide, not Volfen’s death.
Fritz was a disgrace to the family. Keldric felt little attachment to House Bellaf, but he could not allow the name he carried like a calling card to be dragged through the mud.
Besides, Keldric had crippled Fritz himself. That truly was something best kept quiet.
"That’s how careful you need to be."
"I understand. But..."
"Hm?"
"It's nothing. Thank you for your concern."
Alisa twisted a lock of blond hair around her finger and muttered something too softly for Keldric to hear.
Keldric sniffed. The frigid fog touched his face, leaving a biting film of moisture on his skin.
Soon soldiers would be charging across that snowfield, and the mounted Rheesians would churn through the snow as well.
Keldric would be among them. He had to steel himself.
"Alisa. Haven’t you been cold lately?"
"...What?"
"Last time, you were so cold that you came over beside me—"
"Aah! Wait! Sir Keldric!"
Alisa leapt in panic, her face as red as a carrot. Keldric snickered.
"All right. I’ll stop."
"Hah... Honestly..."
Several clouds of white breath escaped her lips and dissolved into the snowy landscape.
"...I’m still cold."
"...?"
"No, I... It’s nothing."
Alisa patted her cheeks rapidly and took a deep breath. Keldric had no idea what had gotten into her.
At least it eased the tension. Keldric looked toward Helga, who was saddling Aveline farther inside the camp.
His instincts told him that this battle would decide the entire territorial war.
Keldric recalled what had happened two nights earlier in the pitch-black darkness.
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
Lothar was going to fight?
Keldric realized he did not mean merely commanding the battle from the camp.
Taking the field meant fighting shoulder to shoulder with the other knights.
Keldric did not know exactly how strong Lothar was, but he could make a rough estimate.
'‘No matter how I look at him...’'
At best, Lothar had the physique of a trainee knight only a step above a squire.
Physical conditioning alone did not determine everything, but instinct still mattered. Keldric knew his own was sharp.
Lothar might be able to protect himself in battle, but there were no guarantees.
One might predict the flow of a battle, but no one could know who would live and who would die within it.
That applied to everyone regardless of rank. Whether king or peasant levy, anyone who personally entered battle placed his life at risk.
Keldric first tried to understand the intent behind Lothar’s declaration.
"Sir Lothar, that—"
"Sir Keldric, I know what worries you."
But there was force behind Lothar’s words.
Words could carry power. But what did it mean to put power into words?
It meant speaking with sincerity. Just as one needed wine before filling a wineskin, one needed conviction before words could carry weight.
Keldric’s eyes widened when he glimpsed Lothar’s sincerity.
"Do I look arrogant?"
"No."
Keldric shook his head. Arrogance was confidence without foundation.
Confidence supported by solid circumstances was another matter entirely.
What Lothar held was neither arrogance nor confidence. Keldric glimpsed something else stirring between them.
"Then do I look as if that slap drove me mad?"
"I see a man taking responsibility."
Keldric paused, then continued.
"I also see a man trying to prove himself through a reckless challenge."
Lothar fell silent. His wide eyes trembled like tender shoots beneath windblown snow.
Kings of neighboring realms—and even the emperor—personally led armies into war. Lords were no different.
What did it mean for a sovereign who commanded an army to take the field himself?
They fought when battle was necessary, when victory was possible, and when they had to bear responsibility.
Keldric had no intention of stopping Lothar merely for taking the field. Lords commonly fought in person.
All the more so when Lothar was only the lord’s son rather than the lord himself.
But Keldric still had to determine what Lothar meant by fighting personally.
"...You’re right."
Lothar seemed somewhat cowed. It was strange. He was nothing like the man he had been a few days earlier.
Yet no one changed overnight, and Lothar was no exception.
"But Sir Keldric, isn’t this battle our chance to capture that Gofrit brat?"
Keldric looked at him wryly. If anyone was a brat, it was Lothar.
"If those Rheesians are as formidable as you say, I’ll go out and fight beside the soldiers myself."
"Is that your only reason?"
"...They were my father’s subjects. Someday... they might have been mine."
Lothar’s eyes filled with troubled emotion as he remembered the people of Einhorn.
In this age of chaos and upheaval, tragedy and fire followed close as companions. The empire was full of villages that shared Einhorn’s fate.
Some lords turned away from such tragedies, then raised armies to create new ones with their own hands.
Other lords did the opposite.
"Am I supposed to stand by while those fucking Gofrit bastards plunder my father’s loyal subjects? I have no intention of doing that."
Whatever their reasons, those lords tried to fulfill their duty to their lands instead of looking away.
Keldric saw that seed in Lothar. He was still opinionated and stubborn, but his cause was a worthy one.
Rutger, standing behind Lothar, looked at Keldric, his gaze faintly pleading.
Do not trample the sprout growing within Lothar.
That was what his gaze seemed to say.
"If that’s truly how you feel..."
Keldric decided not to ignore the plea.
"Then we should crush those lawless bastards."
A broad grin spread across Keldric’s face. Lothar and Rutger smiled as well.
They would crush those who had forsaken justice. No cause could be more honorable or certain.
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
The north wind blew.
The fog over the snowfield had half lifted. Carried by the wind, it flowed in smooth waves across the frozen, snow-covered earth.
Hundreds of men slowly gathered across the plain.
Perhaps the fog had taken fright at their murderous appearance and was slowly retreating.
As Arno watched the plain fill with men, the thought occurred to him.
"Arno..."
The drowsy girl approached, rubbing her eyes. Arno deliberately wiped the worry from his face and smiled.
"Helga, you idiot. Are you still sleepy?"
"Mmm... It was so cold before dawn that I didn’t want to get up..."
"I guess. I could barely open my eyes either..."
But she still had to get up. Otherwise, their master would be inconvenienced.
Arno thought of the dependable master he secretly admired: his enormous build, and a firm character to match. There was nothing about him Arno could criticize.
"How’s Aveline? Healthy?"
"Aveline is always healthy. I gave Aveline a little apple last night too."
A horse snorted nearby. Helga stopped speaking and looked toward the sound.
Ahead of the ranks of soldiers, the knights and mounted cavalry formed their lines.
Helga and Arno focused on one exceptionally large knight among them.
"Do you think he’s scared?"
Helga suddenly blurted out the question.
Their master was about to fight the fearsome foreign soldiers who had burned the village where she once lived.
Beyond the pale fog that had not yet fully lifted, dozens of mounted figures loomed darkly in the distance. Arno and Helga were afraid of them.
They were not the exact men who had burned Arno and Helga’s village, but there was little difference between them.
Was Sir Keldric not afraid?
Arno shook his head fiercely.
"He won’t be."
"How can he not be? If it were me... I’d be terrified."
"Yeah. Crybaby Helga would be bawling her eyes out."
"...You're mean."
"But Sir Keldric probably isn’t scared at all."
He could not know for certain, but he dared to believe it.
"He’d never lose and leave us behind."
The wind eased. The distant enemy appeared to have completed its formation, and the soldiers with spears, swords, and shields moved swiftly in response.
No fear remained in Arno’s eyes.
His master had defeated countless knights and won the tournament. He could not possibly lose to men who knew nothing of justice.
The wind was cold, and snow would fall again that night, but soon the field would be covered in warm blood and steel.
BOOOOO—!
Rhamdus Plain began to tremble.