II. Where Sword and Embers Are Headed (4)
II. Where Sword and Embers Are Headed (4)
Of the fifteen mounted bandits, all except the four Alisa had unhorsed had become cold corpses.
Though Keldric's side outnumbered them by far, defeating fifteen heavy cavalrymen was a highly encouraging result.
"Let me wrap that up too."
"Quit whining, you pup."
"How are you completely fine?"
While a few injured mercenaries roughly tended their wounds, Jorgen approached Keldric, who had at some point dismounted from Boreas.
"Sir Keldric."
"Hm?"
Keldric turned his head toward Jorgen.
He had gotten down from Boreas, but because he was so tall he was still looking down at the man.
"Truly, thank you. It was thanks to your efforts, sir, that our company was spared heavy losses."
"Not at all. You fought well too. I'd say you would have won even without me."
They could have won. But in that case, casualties would have been unavoidable.
In all likelihood, without Keldric, at least five or six mercenaries would have had to prepare themselves to die.
And one of those five or six might well have been Jorgen himself.
Jorgen repeatedly bowed and expressed his thanks to Keldric.
"It was an honor to fight alongside the honorable Sir Keldric."
"You speak as though we'll never meet again."
"Pardon?"
"Now that the mounted bandits have been dealt with, we ought to return to Bellam, no? Our paths happen to overlap, so traveling together would be no bad thing."
A knight as capable and good-natured as Keldric joining them was more than welcome as far as Jorgen was concerned.
Considering the martial prowess he had displayed, troublesome bandits and the like meant nothing now.
"Thank you! We shall escort you to Bellam with our utmost sincerity!"
"Good. However..."
Keldric cast his gaze past Jorgen's shoulder.
There sat Alisa, pale-faced and slumped on the ground.
"The wizard is rather difficult for us to approach freely, you see. I'd like to offer her even a cup of water, but..."
As Jorgen had said, Alisa, clearly exhausted, looked sharper and more severe than usual.
Keldric did not know the reason why.
He was not sure whether magic itself made one's nerves raw, or whether it had some adverse effect on the body.
"I'll go see her."
"Thank you! Sir Keldric!"
Leaving behind Jorgen, who was delighted to have a long-standing concern resolved, Keldric slowly approached Alisa.
Sensing his presence, Alisa rolled her somewhat fiercer eyes and shot Keldric a sidelong glance, but Keldric did not so much as blink.
"Ah, Sir Keldric."
"Are you all right?"
"Yes, well... Well enough."
"Have a cup of warm water at least. You don't look all right."
"...Then, I'll accept it gratefully."
Keldric handed her a steaming wooden bowl. The water was melted snow, gathered from the snow that lay everywhere around them.
Lighting a campfire to warm their bodies as soon as the battle ended had been the right call.
Receiving the bowl from Keldric, Alisa drank the warm water with a soft slurping sound.
Her body, thawing thanks to the warm water, shivered faintly.
"Are you sure you're all right?"
"I am. Thank you for worrying."
"Your magic was remarkable."
Alisa's body gave a small flinch as she drank the water.
Come to think of it, he had said he wanted to see her magic once, had he not?
"It's nothing remarkable. While you, Sir Keldric, dispatched seven men in the blink of an eye, I barely managed to unhorse four."
"If you only look at the results, perhaps, but didn't you exhaust yourself far more than I did?"
"...That is true."
"Then it is remarkable. It means you squeezed yourself dry, right to your limit."
At a loss for words in the face of Keldric's simple logic, Alisa merely drank down her water in silence.
It was certainly simplistic logic, the very definition of a knight's reasoning... but it did not sound bad.
"Speaking of which, didn't you use magic against bandits two days ago as well? That's what I heard from Jorgen."
"I did. They had been following us during the day, and then raided our camp at night."
"Was it like this then too? After using magic, do you always lose your strength like this?"
"Back then there were three or four campfires around, so using magic was far easier. I could simply draw fire from the campfires, you see."
Meaning, this fight had been one Alisa was not sufficiently prepared for.
Keldric nodded readily. That made sense.
Though the very notion of anticipating a fight and preparing for it was a little absurd, she had a point—their surroundings had offered nothing but pure white snow.
It did not seem likely that fire would spontaneously spring forth in a place like this.
"Wouldn't it be better to carry a torch around?"
"The wind blows so strongly here that they go out easily. And in a chaotic scramble like the one just now, there was no convenient chance to use a flint."
"Hm..."
If Keldric had his own hardships as a knight, Alisa had hers as a wizard.
Having nodded quietly, Keldric looked ahead. Alisa's gaze followed his in the same direction.
On the horizon, where the sun was slowly beginning to set, there sat a village surrounded by a palisade.
"We should start moving soon."
"Are you going into the village?"
"It doesn't seem necessary for us to go in first."
Alisa cocked her head at the cryptic words.
Wordlessly, Keldric pointed somewhere with his finger.
"Now comes the time for settling accounts."
At the entrance to the village of Schaffendorf up ahead, there was movement.
The villagers, who had been speaking with a few of the mercenaries, were finally walking toward Keldric.
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The moment the people of Schaffendorf laid eyes on the captured mounted bandits, their tempers flared like fire.
"You sons of bitches! Wretches that crawled out of a devil's arsehole!"
They rushed at the four tightly bound bandits and slammed kicks into them without restraint.
"You dare covet our village! Accursed bastards!"
Kaak, ptoo!
Thick spittle mixed with phlegm dripped down the bandits' faces.
Their glares turned murderous in an instant, but no one feared the looks of bandits who were bound near-naked.
"Aye, we'll gouge those eyes right out!"
"Fuck these bastards up!"
"Bring another club over here!"
If anything, the villagers, provoked by those glares, began swinging clubs wildly.
Keldric decided to quietly observe their actions for the moment.
'They won't kill them.'
From what Keldric had glimpsed, several villagers appeared to have been killed or gravely injured by the mounted bandits. If so, their rage was more than justified.
Killing them all would admittedly make things rather inconvenient, but before such a situation arose, Keldric could simply step in and be done with it.
With Keldric—who appeared to be the highest-ranking person present—remaining still, the villagers grew bolder.
For a long while, the sound of flesh splitting continued to ring out.
It grew so severe that even Jorgen, several of the mercenaries, and Alisa wore slightly uneasy expressions.
By this point, the mounted bandits who had been glaring fiercely at the villagers, too, proved to be only human in the end.
Beaten half to death as if by madmen, they eventually mumbled words still hard to understand and groveled, clutching at the villagers' feet.
Only then did the villagers stop their clubbing and draw back from the bandits.
'Huh...'
When Keldric briefly surveyed the bandits' condition, it was utterly pitiful.
Jorgen and his mercenaries had kicked them and struck the backs of their heads before, but even so they had not beaten them to the edge of death like this.
Keldric eyed the bandits crawling before him with faint distaste.
Their bodies, bruised blue-black all over as though covered in mold, emitted constant groans of pain.
"...Is it finished?"
"Ah! Sir knight!"
With the agitated villagers finally showing signs of having calmed down, one elderly man of advanced years bowed deferentially toward Keldric.
"I sincerely apologize for showing you such an ugly sight. It is not that we meant to disregard the honorable sir knight..."
"I understand. Your village has suffered great harm. It's only natural."
Only a third-rate fool would take the villagers' actions as a deliberate slight, assuming they had ignored him and started swinging clubs out of disrespect.
Keldric instead used the opportunity to elevate his own honor.
At Keldric's display of merciful knighthood, the old man's expression filled with immense relief, and he bowed his head once more.
"Ahh...! We give thanks for your merciful grace!"
"Ah, er. Yes."
"I am Marius, the headman of Schaffendorf. Had the sir knight not protected us... Truly, thank you."
Marius bowed to Keldric to a degree that seemed almost excessive. The villagers standing behind him were the same.
"If it would be no imposition upon the lord knight, we would like to guide you into our village. What say you?"
"That would be fine, but first I wish to settle how these men are to be dealt with."
"Ahh! Of course! How shortsighted of me!"
Marius's eyes filled with anticipation in an instant. He was elated at the thought of making slaves of the captured bandits.
The village of Schaffendorf was not a fief granted to anyone, but was rather under Baron Yaven's direct demesne.
With no knight stationed here, leading the village community naturally fell to Marius, the headman.
Thus, every village affair, great or small, had to pass through Marius's hands, and this matter seemed no different.
However, present here was Keldric, an indisputable nobleman.
"On behalf of Lord Yaven, the lawful lord of this land, I shall decide how these men are dealt with. God be with you. I am Keldric of House Bellaf."
There were broadly two situations in which a knight would declare his name to commoners who were neither mercenaries nor peddlers.
Either a knight newly enfeoffed with land sought to make his authority known, or he was undertaking legal proceedings in his lord's stead.
Keldric's current case was the latter.
"I understand that you have suffered great losses, but these men were being pursued by us under a commission from the Bellam City Council."
The corners of Marius's mouth dipped slightly. The drooping wrinkles spoke for his dejection.
"That said, I cannot wholly ignore the pitiable plight of those who faithfully pay their taxes to Lord Yaven."
"Wh-what does that mean...?"
"Excluding the horses and weapons they were riding with, I shall sell you the armor at a reasonable price."
Marius's expression brightened visibly. The armor they were wearing was all of metal lamellar construction.
The Schaffendorf blacksmith could repair it and resell it, but the lamellae could also be stripped off and melted down, so the value was not small.
For Keldric, meanwhile, it was a deal with no downside.
The dead would be abandoned anyway, and the weapons and horses could simply be divided among the mercenaries or led by the reins, but the armor was another matter.
There was no cart to transport fifteen suits of heavy armor, and even if they borrowed a cart from the village, the mercenaries or Boreas would have to pull it.
The horses gained as spoils could pull it, but Keldric had no desire to go that far just to bring it to Bellam.
Better to sell it off cheaply to the villagers and be on their way.
Schaffendorf was a relatively large village. It would certainly have the means to purchase broken armor.
Furthermore, since Keldric had invoked Baron Yaven's name, the villagers would naturally develop goodwill toward Baron Yaven.
That also served to save face for Baron Yaven, who was responsible for the safety of his domain.
"I can adjust the price to suit the level of your funds. What do you say?"
"Ah, a most wise judgment! Truly admirable!"
"Praise for the honorable sir knight's wisdom! Blessings upon the martial might bestowed by God!"
As the villagers beamed and spoke Keldric's name aloud, Keldric looked at them with a touch of awkwardness.
'What's the big deal?'
Keldric did not realize it, but the judgment he had rendered was absurdly merciful.
To be blunt, had it been any other knight, he could have said to hell with it all, taken everything for himself, and there would have been not a single problem.
In that case, Baron Yaven, whose domain included Schaffendorf, might have been slightly displeased, but spoils going to the one who defeated the enemy was knights' custom, so there would have been nothing to worry about.
Amid the throng of knights who did exactly that sort of thing, Keldric's decision stood apart.
The villagers looked upon Keldric with eyes full of admiration and respect.
Watching this from behind, Jorgen felt, for some reason, his own shoulders lifting.
The other mercenaries, too, wore expressions that seemed moved by Keldric's merciful decision.
With the atmosphere having grown warm and amicable, Keldric and his party were at last guided by the villagers and headed into the village of Schaffendorf.
"Marius. Is there a smithy in the village?"
"Ah, yes! A blacksmith of decent skill works here! Shall I show you the way?"
"If you would."
The moment Keldric entered the village, his destination was not the inn, but the smithy.
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Schaffendorf was merely the first waypoint on the road to Bellam.
Since he could not immediately head to Bellam where the craftsmen were gathered, Keldric first needed to sharpen his blunted sword and procure a spare weapon.
'The edge has grown dull. I barely swung it more than a few times.'
Though Keldric had achieved victory without great difficulty in this battle as well, he had been considerably flustered when his sword failed to bite properly.
Had his body not reflexively flipped the sword into a reverse grip, no one knows how things might have turned out.
Through this fight, Keldric came to realize that he needed additional armament.
Among the needed items, the single most pressing for Keldric right now was a spear fit for use on horseback.
A spear was effective even when dismounted, but it was far better when mounted atop a horse.
There were many reasons knights were so feared, but the mounted charge—tucking a cavalry lance under the arm and slamming straight into the enemy line—was one of the chief ones.
A long spear naturally allowed one to thrust at infantry from a distance they could not reach, and when the horse's charging speed was added, it became truly unstoppable.
And as it happened, Keldric had just come into possession of several serviceable spears that needed a bit of work.
That was why he had headed straight for the smithy the moment he entered the village.
"W-well...? What do you think?"
In response to the blacksmith's slightly anxious inquiry, Keldric wordlessly gave the spear a light thrust.
The spear taken from the mounted bandits extended out straight and true.
"It's decent."
Having acquired quite serviceable spoils, Keldric smiled with satisfaction.
The blacksmith had straightened out the slight bend as much as possible, but even so it was a spear of adequate quality.
It was almost a waste for mere mounted bandits to be carrying such a weapon.
After also collecting his sword, its edge sharpened keenly once more, Keldric finally examined in detail the weighty lump of iron held in his hand.
"It's the sturdiest one among what I have."
A flanged mace, with several thick iron plates affixed to the end of a wooden shaft that was neither too long nor too short.
It was Keldric's newly acquired secondary weapon.
A shield would have been nice as well, but unfortunately the Schaffendorf smithy had no proper shields.
At best, all they had was a crude wooden shield made of several planks cobbled together.
Keldric was not worried, though. Enemy attacks could be blocked or evaded.
He would look for a proper shield once he arrived at Bellam, but for now he would manage without one.
"I like it."
"I am honored to hear you say so."
With this, Keldric was once again ready to fight.
He hoped the rest of the journey to Bellam would be uneventful, but that was not something he could know.