VI. The Enemy Draws Nearer (7)
VI. The Enemy Draws Nearer (7)
When territorial wars threw the Empire into chaos, travel inevitably became extremely dangerous.
This was an age in which war was common.
Blood and clashing steel drew mercenaries, while routed soldiers fleeing for their lives and mercenaries left adrift after their companies collapsed lost all restraint.
Many already alternated between mercenary work and banditry. Once their hard-earned funds ran out, they simply became full-time bandits.
"Enemy raid! Enemy raid!"
"You bastards! Grab your weapons!"
As Radomar bellowed in fury, Keldric glared into the darkness, his longsword gripped tightly.
Something moved in the dark. It was neither beast nor demonic creature.
The shapes walked on two legs, and blades occasionally flashed in the mercenaries’ torchlight.
They were bandits. Keldric’s gaze hardened.
Men who made a living robbing travelers and peddlers.
Such men were generally poorly equipped.
Their weapons were night raids and overwhelming numbers.
Radomar, who had been rousing his men, hurried before Keldric with a frantic expression.
Even a seasoned mercenary like Radomar was confused by being jolted from sleep into sudden battle.
"Sir Keldric! What should we do?!"
Mercenaries normally enjoyed considerable freedom of action, but not under this contract.
The Iron Claw Mercenary Company was under Keldric’s command and could neither retreat nor charge without orders.
That was the contract with Count Bogenberg, leaving Radomar to pray that the young knight made a sound decision.
"Form around the campfire! Shields in front! Spears, keep them from closing!"
"Understood!"
"And, Alisa!"
Alisa looked stunned for a moment, then quickly collected herself and faced Keldric.
Her magic was useful and lethal, but its lengthy incantations were a weakness.
"Stay beside the campfire! Do not force an attack. Focus on creating light around us!"
Alisa nodded and hastily called for Arno and Helga.
With no light yet strong enough to drive back the darkness, Keldric gripped his longsword and stepped forward.
Hot breath escaped his helmet in bursts. His warrior’s heart pounded as though he had just finished a sprint.
Keldric quickly steadied his breathing. He had fought in darkness before.
He moved quietly but steadily. The bandits lurking in the dark refused to expose themselves to the light.
With the torches behind him, Keldric searched the darkness for glints of steel.
Then he spotted something faintly gleaming in midair.
He did not need to guess what it was. Keldric ducked and shouted.
"Arrow!"
"Arrows! Arrows! Shields up!"
The veteran Radomar shouted, and his well-drilled mercenaries swiftly raised their shields.
Thwack-thwack-thwack!
Five or six arrows flew in. Two struck the ground, while the rest buried themselves in the shields. Keldric was certain.
'These aren't amateurs!'
Anyone could loose an arrow, but accuracy was another matter.
Even with the campfire and torches as targets, shooting accurately in darkness where a man could barely see his own hand was difficult.
These were not beggars and vagrants relying only on superior numbers.
Keldric advanced quickly. If they remained in place absorbing arrows, they would soon become pincushions.
His huge body blended into the dark and moved with surprising silence. His eyes gradually adjusted.
"Sir Keldric!"
Then fire erupted.
Alisa’s flames surged not far from Keldric, far brighter than any torch.
Several bandits, startled by the sudden blaze, stood exposed before him.
They had intended to wear the camp down with arrows from the darkness, but Keldric and Alisa made that strategy useless.
"Wh-what...?"
Keldric swung his longsword without hesitation.
The heavy sensation of cutting flesh and crushing bone traveled up his hands.
"Aaaagh!"
"Fuck! Overwhelm him!"
A bandit slashed diagonally from the shoulder collapsed, and two more immediately closed in.
Keldric frowned at the two shield-bearing bandits. They were troublesome opponents for a longsword.
Troublesome did not mean impossible. He simply could not rely on mindless swings.
A longsword was fundamentally a two-handed weapon, but Keldric could wield it effortlessly with one hand.
His newly freed right hand drove straight into one shield.
The shield caved in under the blow, and Keldric’s fist continued into the bandit’s solar plexus.
WHAM!
"Ghk?!"
They wore gambesons and carried wooden shields. Their equipment was nothing special.
Once the man was down, the obvious next step followed.
Keldric thrust his longsword at the first fallen bandit.
The swift, powerful thrust pierced the bandit’s chest and dropped him with a gasp.
"Kill this bastard!"
The bandits had not been idle either.
Three recovered from the deafening impact and charged Keldric.
Two carried shields and messers, and one held a crude spear.
Keldric dismissed them and swept his longsword in a broad arc. The blade tore through the air with a murderous whoosh.
The unlucky bandit who thrust his spear forward was caught in the sword's trajectory.
The spear shaft snapped instantly, and the lightning-fast horizontal cut continued toward a shield bearer’s side.
"Aaargh!"
The longsword tore into the bandit’s side like a wolf.
Blood, shredded gambeson, and scraps of cloth spun through the firelight.
At the same time, Keldric snatched the broken spearhead from the air with his left hand.
"Grrrk! Gahk—!"
The spearhead plunged like lightning into the neck of the other shield-bearing bandit. Hot blood sprayed across the field.
Keldric did not stop. Standing still to rest would only invite another arrow.
As if to prove the point, several arrows flashed toward his head.
He rolled aside, then immediately hunted for another target. More than ten bandits remained in sight.
"Come at me—!!"
Keldric’s roar thundered across the field. Several bandits stared at him in alarm.
A giant body revealed by the flames, topped by a bucket-like helmet!
Anyone who saw him would identify a knight and run screaming.
Several bandits did in fact retreat a few steps.
"Hit him all at once!"
The bandits had a leader.
He carried a shortsword and shield. The moment their eyes met, Keldric headed straight for him.
A couple of the bewildered bandits moved to block Keldric's path.
But Keldric paid them no mind and swung his longsword.
CRUNCH! CRACK!
It was less a cut than pulverization with a sword.
Amid the repeated sounds of splitting flesh and bursting blood, four bandits fell to Keldric’s blows.
"Aid Sir Keldric!"
"You sons of bitches! Shouldn't you be earning your pay?!"
Keldric had thinned their numbers and Alisa had illuminated the field. The Iron Claw mercenaries could finally attack without restraint.
The mercenaries broke from their tight formation and surged forward. Alisa had kept the flames contained, leaving the ground safe for them.
From another perspective, the most dangerous thing on the field was Keldric.
Keldric caught his breath, rough with battle excitement, and assessed the field.
The Iron Claw Mercenary Company rushed into the bandits.
The bandits still held a slight numerical advantage, and the gap would have been much larger if Keldric had not reduced them.
As he surveyed the battle, Keldric noticed that the leader who had been driving the bandits was gone.
He tore a strip from the gambeson of a fallen bandit.
Keldric wiped the clotted blood from his blade and strode forward. The nearby bandits could not bring themselves to charge.
If they wouldn't come to him, he would go to them.
"Stop him!"
"You son of a bitch!"
"Kek—!"
Keldric cut down every bandit he could reach.
Most were lightly armored and fell in one blow, though a few wore crude metal armor and carried shields. Those took more work.
But once his gauntleted fist buried itself in a solar plexus, heavy armor meant nothing. They vomited bile and collapsed.
He dropped more than four additional bandits that way.
The bandits facing the mercenaries were either slowly consumed by Alisa’s fire or lost heart and had their heads cut off.
Several bandits, including the archers ahead, finally turned and fled.
Keldric had no intention of letting them go.
These were no ordinary bumbling thieves. They carried themselves like men accustomed to living by the sword.
Keldric picked up a crude spear from the ground, drew a deep breath, and shouted.
"Aveline—!"
Aveline answered with a shrill whinny from behind.
The warhorse, blacker than the darkness over the field, raced toward him.
Aveline did not slow. Keldric judged the horse’s speed, then vaulted into the saddle as it drew close.
He let Aveline carry that speed straight forward.
"Huh-eok—!"
"Knock down the horse!"
The fleeing bandits saw Keldric rapidly closing, panicked, and nocked arrows or drew weapons.
CRUNCH—!
They should have kept running. Keldric’s spear impaled one of them instantly.
But Keldric did not stop.
He discarded the skewered bandit and drove the damaged spear through two more.
As Aveline raced on, the bandit leader came into view.
"Aveline! Let's go!"
Aveline snorted fiercely in answer. The distance vanished, and the panicked leader drew a shortsword in a last act of defiance.
Keldric raised the spear in his right hand. The crude shaft creaked under the strength of his grip.
"Hup!"
Then the spear vanished into the darkness.
WHOOSH!
"Grrrk!"
The spear flew through the dark and buried itself squarely in the leader’s shoulder.
When Keldric rode closer, he saw that it had passed clean through.
Keldric stopped Aveline at the man’s feet, dismounted, and approached.
"You monster!"
The leader spat the curse. Keldric did not so much as twitch before punching him.
WHAM!
Yellow teeth and thick blood sprayed through the air. The punch struck squarely, knocking the leader unconscious before he could scream.
Keldric stripped off the bandit’s gambeson, tore it in half, and used it as rope to bind him.
He hoisted the prisoner onto Aveline, where the unconscious man dangled limply.
'This has become troublesome.'
The campsite was a complete wreck, and all trace of sleepiness had vanished.
Keldric scowled at the field strewn with corpses.
As the flames began to die, the mercenaries who had finished mopping up looked around for him.
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
Keldric rode Aveline back toward the campsite.
Keldric returned splattered from head to foot in crimson blood. Radomar and the mercenaries recoiled at the sight.
"Whoa, fuck..."
"Whoa, shit. What the hell?"
Radomar stepped forward. He had been assessing the wounded and now stared at Keldric in disbelief.
"S-Sir Keldric? Are you all right?"
It was almost entirely a courtesy question.
Keldric had faced more than ten bandits alone without suffering a scratch.
Thick blood dripped steadily from Keldric's helmet.
"I am fine. More importantly, did any escape?"
"A few got away. My apologies."
"Couldn’t be helped."
As a consolation of sorts, Keldric threw the captured leader to the ground.
The limp man rolled across the dirt while Radomar and several mercenaries glanced at him.
The twitching bandit leader had been reduced to a bloody ruin.
His nose was broken, his teeth shattered, and blood poured from the shoulder the spear had pierced.
None of the other bandits Keldric had killed were intact either.
Some had lost arms, some legs, while others lay cooling with their entrails spilled out.
Some had suffered all three.
"Crazy bastard..."
A mercenary muttered the words. Radomar felt the same.
"What's the matter?"
"N-no, nothing."
The midnight battle had been painted in scarlet fire and blood.
Not one drop of that blood belonged to Keldric.