VI. The Enemy Draws Nearer (6)
VI. The Enemy Draws Nearer (6)
West of Bogenberg, a mountain range thrust up from the south and divided the land.
It cut so massively across the terrain that the western Empire and the Kingdom of the Franks beyond it had once been an unknown world.
Keldric had not lived in that age, but seeing the vast, majestic range again from afar revived memories of his childhood in Carlton Village.
People simply called it the Mountains. Scholars at an Academia might have had a formal name for the range, but even Alisa called it the Mountains.
"Let's hope the weather in the mountains holds."
Keldric frowned slightly at Alisa’s murmur as she rode beside him. He had spent his life in a village at the foot of the range and had never crossed it, so he knew little about its conditions.
He knew only that wolves and demonic beasts often descended to the village outskirts in search of food after a blizzard.
There were many other concerns, but mountain weather was the most important.
"Do blizzards strike there?"
"Nothing like the blizzards of the far north, but lesser storms do. We must cross carefully when they come."
Keldric clicked his tongue and looked toward the range. The familiar mountains hidden by clouds irritated him.
"It’s been some time since the last blizzard, but caution won’t hurt."
"The weather in the mountains is notoriously fickle."
Spitzenberg stood midway up the range that crossed the continent from south to north. Reaching it required entering the mountains.
Cross the range entirely and one would reach the western edge of the Empire. Beyond lay the Kingdom of the Franks and, farther still, the endless open sea.
Keldric’s destination lay between them: the City of Rock, halfway up the mountains.
It was slightly too small for a city and too large for a citadel. Fortress might have been more accurate.
But just as people called the range simply the Mountains, they called Spitzenberg a city. It was close enough to a small town.
Keldric rubbed his nose as a northern wind swept over him for the first time in a while.
The bitter wind blew from beyond the mountains stretching north as well as west.
"Helga. Aren't you cold?"
"Mm-mm."
Unlike Alisa and Arno, who drew their collars tight and shivered, Helga seemed largely unaffected by the cold.
As her name suggested, Helga was also a northerner. She might have grown up elsewhere, but her origins were plainly northern.
Arno was different. His name was commonly used by men from the Kingdom of the Franks.
Keldric realized that he did not know how Arno and Helga had become orphans. He had avoided asking because it was a sensitive subject.
There was no need for them to remain distant and awkward forever. Keldric was willing to grow closer to his attendants and build a stronger bond.
"Arno, Helga. Come closer."
Keldric slowed Boreas and beckoned Arno and Helga closer.
The two attendants hurried up from behind Boreas and matched his pace.
Aveline came along with them under Helga’s steady hand, and the broad highroad gave them ample room.
"Yes, Sir Keldric."
"Do you know where we're headed?"
"We understand that we are heading for Spitzenberg."
"Yes. That’s our immediate destination."
They could reach Spitzenberg in two days at best and three at worst.
Keldric wanted to gain as much as possible from the short journey.
He hoped to earn the trust of Count Bogenberg, who had entrusted him with the task, and also reassure the two young attendants traveling with him for the first time.
"But we may travel to many places. We could visit the republics to the south, the Kingdom of the Franks in the west, Britas beyond it, or even the distant Holy Land."
"I see..."
"You will have to help me throughout those journeys. It would do us no harm to learn about one another."
Before questioning them, Keldric gave them a brief account of his own life.
He had already explained House Bellaf, so this time he focused on his personal history.
He told them what kind of man Sir Volfen, his biological father in this life, had been, how Keldric had been born, and what Volfen had taught him.
Mindful of the mercenaries walking ahead, he omitted the details and anything sensitive.
He did not mention Fritz, whom he had beaten half to death, or the fact that Sir Volfen had never liked him much.
"Then why did you leave your house, Sir Keldric?"
"I no longer had any reason to remain there."
"W-weren’t you afraid when you left?"
"I trusted the body I had trained and the martial skill I had cultivated."
Arno and Helga tried desperately to appear composed, but their eyes shone as they peppered Keldric with questions.
Keldric watched them with a bitter smile.
However mature and capable they seemed as attendants, fourteen was still an age full of childish curiosity.
The thought that children like that had become orphans and then, suppressing their whims and emotions to scrape through a hard life, ended up entering a monastery—it left a faint tightness in his chest.
"You little rascals. Stop pestering the lord knight."
"Yes, mercenary sir..."
But the distinctive chattering of children given free rein grew louder and louder, until finally Radomar, who was walking ahead of Keldric, had to step in.
"My apologies, Sir Keldric. I couldn't help thinking of my own son..."
"It's fine. That's how children are."
Technically it was a scolding directed at Arno and Helga, who were strictly Keldric's attendants, but having glimpsed the father's warm side in it, Keldric didn't mind.
Paying attention to what happened along the way and reflecting on it made a journey far more meaningful.
Travel in this age meant walking or riding, and even on horseback the time and exhaustion were considerable.
If everyone spent the entire road walking in silence, it could hardly be called a journey. Keldric preferred a little noise.
Besides, he fully intended to collect payment for the information he had shared.
"I've told you my story, so now it's your turn to tell me yours."
"W-well..."
"Life’s give and take. I’ve told you about my house, so it’s only fair that I receive something in return."
Keldric deliberately put on a stern expression. Unlike a moment earlier, Helga shrank slightly and her face fell.
Arno’s mood fell as well. Keldric easily guessed that the story of how they became orphans was dark.
But they could not keep it secret forever. Keldric knew that wounds cut deeper when children tried to live like adults before they were ready.
It was better to help them unburden themselves while they were still young, before the scars hardened.
Arno spoke first while Helga remained dejected.
"We lived in a village called Niederhof."
"Niederhof?"
"Yes. It lies straight toward the sunrise."
Arno and Helga had been born and raised in Niederhof, in the eastern reaches of the Empire’s north.
Near the Duchy of Rhees, it had prospered from North Sea fishing and a nearby silver mine.
"Our father was a blacksmith. We were told that long ago he left the Kingdom of the Franks on the Holy Land Reconquest Campaign and later settled in Niederhof."
It was plausible. After the campaign, some men wandered instead of returning directly home and eventually settled elsewhere.
Keldric listened quietly as Boreas’s hooves occasionally clattered against the gravel.
"Helga’s been my friend for a long time. The other children used to bully her, so I had to protect her."
"I-I thought we were just playing together..."
"You idiot. Calling you horse-smelling was their idea of playing?"
Keldric imagined a quiet northern village where children ran and played.
It stood near the sea, with a silver mine in the nearby hills, and most of its people fished or worked the mine.
"What brought you all the way here?"
"Frightening men rode into the village and set it on fire. Bad men in strange armor and iron masks."
"Damn..."
Keldric sighed.
The description immediately reminded him of the cavalrymen from the Duchy of Rhees whom he had fought before.
They wore bearded-face masks or mail veils and metal lamellar armor.
They sometimes raided nearby villages, and their attacks had grown rampant since the heathens began driving back the Kakar people.
It was common knowledge that nobles and knights with lands in the Empire’s northeast were plagued by them.
"Damn those bastards... Ptui!"
Radomar, who had a young son himself, apparently shared the disgust and spat onto the road.
Invaders who shared neither culture nor language would have destroyed everything they could.
"The miller saved us, but the wound from an arrow grew worse, and... in the end, only we remained."
"He was a good man..."
Arno bit his lip in an effort to remain composed, but Helga had already begun to sob.
Even Alisa looked stricken and gently comforted Helga while Keldric released a heavy sigh.
Territorial wars raged across the chaotic Empire while greedy nobles exploited their subjects, leaving frontier lords too divided to resist raids by barbarians and other foreign enemies.
Powerless subjects bore the full cost. Nobles could simply hide inside safe fortresses.
Keldric thought of the mercenaries who had raided Carlton Village and the cavalry of Baron Gofrit.
Had Keldric not intervened then, he did not want to imagine how many children like Arno and Helga Carlton might have produced.
The world was a mess, and it overflowed with sons of bitches determined to make it worse.
The Emperor and high nobles ignored such problems while fighting among themselves. Compared with them, Count Bogenberg’s care for his territory made him look like a damn saint.
Keldric had found another reason to increase his strength and influence.
If he ever gained a territory, he would never stand by and watch such a tragedy. He swore it.
Until then, he would begin by punishing the sons of bitches directly in front of him.
"It’s time we made camp."
"Understood."
The thought-heavy day seemed to be drawing to a close.
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
"Enemy attack!"
Keldric snapped awake from a deep sleep. His hand groped reflexively across the ground and seized the longsword beside him.
Torches flared to life throughout the Iron Claw camp while something moved in the pitch-black darkness ahead.
Keldric hastily donned his helmet and rose.
The world truly had far too many sons of bitches.