I. Where the Frost Lingers (8)
I. Where the Frost Lingers (8)
For some reason, Gunther's knees went weak, and he glanced around uneasily.
The weather was cold enough to numb his legs, but this sensation was different.
His instincts, honed by years as a mercenary, were screaming that the situation itself was dangerous.
Yet nothing around them seemed threatening. Only cold snow fell softly.
"What's wrong?"
"...No. It's nothing."
They had only just begun the job, so he couldn't bring himself to jinx it by saying he had a bad feeling.
Mercenaries risked their lives for money and believed in countless superstitions. Gunther was no exception.
'Damn it. What a rotten omen.'
Gunther faced forward again.
Another mercenary was wrestling with the door, lockpicks in hand.
"Hey. Why's it taking so damn long? You always bragged you could pop a lock like it was nothing."
"Shut up. You think picking a lock is as easy as eating a meal and taking a shit?"
"Watch your fucking tone—"
"Quiet. What if we get caught?"
Gunther growled, and the mercenaries immediately shut their mouths.
They had good reason to. Gunther was even more experienced than Hans—a veteran among veterans.
Gunther had done more than Hans to found the mercenary company.
There were several other founding members, but while Gunther ran himself ragged getting things done, they had simply lazed around.
That was why none of them dared talk back to him.
"Poke it this way... There."
The mercenary working on the lock slipped aside. Gunther crept forward.
Gunther placed a hand on the cold handle and felt the same weakness in his knees as he pulled the door open.
'It must've been the cold.'
It had to be.
It made no sense for a mercenary as seasoned as Gunther to sense danger in a flyspeck village like this.
A gust of freezing wind and snow rushed through the open door.
The building still held some warmth, and the mercenaries relaxed slightly as they filed inside.
"Nice and warm in here. Is this the kitchen?"
"Looks like it. Where's the cauldron? I hope there's some soup left."
"Bullshit. We don't have time to eat, asshole."
Leaving the bantering mercenaries behind, Gunther quietly quickened his pace.
He crept along, but now and then the snow melting beneath his boots made a wet squelch.
"Is this really the kitchen? There's nothing here."
"It's too dark to see anything."
"Can't we light a fire?"
"Why not wake someone up and make them show us the way?"
"Gunther. Did you find the door?"
The kitchen was far larger than the mercenaries had expected.
Joseph had described the general layout, but finding his way through the pitch-black kitchen wasn't easy even for Gunther.
"Let's light a fire. This isn't working."
Finally giving up, Gunther gestured with one hand.
One mercenary stepped forward holding a broad tallow candle.
"Find a flint or something. Or look for embers in the stove. It's a kitchen, so there must be something around."
The mercenaries slowly spread out.
They tiptoed around the kitchen, feeling their way carefully for fear of making noise.
Before long, a flame flickered in front of Gunther's face.
One of the mercenaries had finally found the stove and brought back an ember.
"Now I can actually see."
"Wasn't there anything in the cauldron?"
"What, are you possessed by a starving ghost? Give it a rest."
"All right, quiet. Now, move..."
Gunther had just turned to find the door when it happened.
Clunk!
A harsh sound suddenly rang out.
Gunther and the mercenaries, their eyes wide, turned their heads toward the source of the noise.
The door whose lock they had picked to enter the kitchen stood wide open.
A wind laden with snow and bitter cold swept into the kitchen.
Night had long since fallen, and outside was now a black abyss.
At its center stood a massive silhouette, all but filling the doorway.
The oiled torch in the giant's hand flickered in the wind.
Its flame weakened by the blowing snow, the torch revealed the giant's appearance.
Chain mail glinted in the orange-red light beneath a navy-blue surcoat.
A rearing bear was emblazoned on the chest of the surcoat.
The tin-can-shaped helm slowly turned. A cold, sharp gaze bore through its eye slit.
That gaze slowly swept across the mercenaries.
From Gunther on the far left to the small mercenary who had been the last to pick the lock and enter.
Shring—!
Without a word, the unknown man drew his sword on the still-frozen mercenaries.
"A k-knight..."
One of the mercenaries let out a terrified murmur.
What stood before them was a true knight.
A knight—the kind of being who killed mercenaries as easily as swatting insects.
Naturally, Gunther, the most experienced of them, was the first to recover.
Gunther drew the falchion at his hip and shouted at the mercenaries who still hadn't come to their senses.
"What the hell are you doing! The job's already gone south! Everyone draw your weapons!"
Gunther's shout snapped the mercenaries back to reality, and they drew their weapons.
One mercenary held a short spear; another gripped an axe in both hands.
The remaining two wielded clubs with scraps of metal crudely fastened to the ends.
But at the same moment, a cold wind whooshed through.
The knight had begun to move.
The giant knight closed the distance with a single step. Cold sweat ran down Gunther's temple.
Gunther couldn't tell whether the pounding in his ears came from the charging knight or his own wildly beating heart.
His back was already soaked with sweat.
The cold wind swept across Gunther's sweat-drenched back, jolting him back to his senses.
"Spear! The one with the spear, get over here!"
The mercenaries had spread throughout the kitchen in search of flint or the stove.
That was ideal for finding an ember in the sprawling kitchen, but it also left them perfectly positioned to be picked off one by one by the killing machine before them.
The realization hung like a guillotine blade over Gunther's neck.
"H-hey...!"
Before the spearman could hurry over, the giant knight had already charged him.
"Uwaaah!"
The mercenary shrieked and thrust his spear, but the panicked attack was worse than doing nothing.
The instant the knight's massive hand seized the spear shaft, his greaved foot shot out. A heavy thud echoed through the kitchen.
"Guh, hurgh—"
The kick struck the mercenary squarely in the chest and sent him staggering backward.
But the knight didn't stop there.
He lightly swung the sword that looked too heavy for one hand and sliced precisely through the throat of the mercenary who had stumbled back three or four steps.
"Gurgh, gak!"
The mercenary collapsed backward, spraying thick blood from his half-severed throat.
His eyes rapidly lost their light as blood gushed repeatedly from his mouth.
It had all happened in an instant.
The phrase 'in the blink of an eye' had become literal.
His helm splattered with blood, the knight silently steadied his sword and looked toward the remaining mercenaries.
They had gathered around Gunther and formed ranks, but the knight seemed utterly unconcerned.
'Sh-shit...! Why the hell had a knight shown up at this hour?'
'We were fucked. Completely fucked!'
They were seasoned mercenaries in their own right.
They had seen knights from a distance in territorial wars more than once.
They knew what a knight was.
If mercenaries were the enemies of peasants, knights were not merely the enemies of mercenaries but their natural predators.
When a knight caught sight of mercenaries, they simply died. Their only chance was to flee with their tails between their legs.
Knights killed mercenaries for sport, even betting one another on their kill counts.
"I saw five more trying to enter through the front yard..."
A low voice rang out from inside the great helm, addressing the terrified mercenaries.
"I dealt with all of them. So you would be wise not to offer pointless resistance."
The words of the huge knight—his helm and surcoat splattered with blood and his sword coated in gore—carried exceptional weight.
It sounded like a demand for surrender, so the mercenaries glanced uneasily at Gunther.
"G-Gunther. Let's do what the knight says."
"Y-yeah... that sounds best. You're not planning to fight him, are you?"
Gunther didn't answer at once. He was torn.
Would they fight the knight head-on?
Or would they side with him, tell him everything, and at least save their lives?
The other terrified mercenaries seemed to favor the latter, but Gunther quickly ordered his thoughts and reached a different conclusion.
'If they caught us, we'd either die or be sold as galley slaves and pull oars until we did.'
He had just heard directly from the knight who had dealt with them that Hans and the others in the front yard had been taken out.
Since he had been part of the same group, Gunther was certain that surrender would still earn him a terrible fate.
"Shut up and grab your weapons! You think we'll live if we surrender here?!"
For a moment, uncertainty flickered in the mercenaries' eyes at Gunther's shout, then gave way to trembling resolve.
Gunther was right. At best, surrender would turn a dog's death into an ordinary one.
Fleeing was impossible as well, with the huge knight standing near the only exit.
"Remember where that fucking knight is!"
In the end, there was only one way.
There were four of them and one knight.
If they snuffed out the tallow candle and hid in the darkness, even the knight would struggle to find them.
If they rushed him from all sides and put out his torch, what could he do with his vision already restricted by the helm?
Gunther clung to that hope, but in truth, he had already half given up.
A knight wasn't going to fall for such a pathetic trick.
But they had no choice.
The instant the knight took a step, Gunther yanked the wick from the tallow candle.
The faint light that had filled the kitchen vanished, leaving only the knight's guttering torch in the darkness.
Their earlier terror vanished with the candlelight, and the mercenaries swiftly scattered.
Into the darkness beyond the torchlight, as quietly as possible.
'Could this really work?'
Their movements were so quick and precise that even Gunther began to hope.
The knight took one step. Gunther flinched and trembled with it.
Hidden in the darkness, Gunther's eyes gleamed more sharply than ever.
His gaze, cold with both chill and fear, fixed on the eye slits in the knight's helm.
If he got the chance, he'd stab there.
The mercenaries took their positions and hid in silence. Soon they had formed a line from which they could attack the knight near the entrance from three sides.
For an instant, the torch in the knight's hand flickered.
'...Huh?'
Gunther doubted his own eyes.
With eyesight keen enough to spot distant bandits, Gunther caught a glimpse of the knight's eyes in the instant the torch flickered.
The knight's eyes were closed.
"What—"
Crackle!
The knight abruptly hurled the torch to the floor.
The torch's already feeble flame went out at once.
An acrid burnt smell rose as sparks scattered in every direction and quickly died.
The light vanished in an instant.
The kitchen was once again shrouded in darkness.
Pitch-black darkness in which nothing could be seen.
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
Keldric quietly opened his eyes.
The world beyond his helmet was filled with darkness.
When light suddenly vanished, the eyes couldn't immediately adjust to darkness.
But because Keldric had kept his eyes closed, his vision adjusted much faster.
"W-what the fuck?!"
"I can't see! I can't see a damn thing!"
"You idiots! Light something! Hurry up and make some light!!"
The voice of the one mercenary with enough sense to think rang out.
But Keldric paid it no mind.
"Y-you...! Just come closer! Just try it! I'll—Gurgh!"
Keldric strode forward and cut down the dark silhouette before him without hesitation.
Apparently slashed diagonally from the shoulder, the shadow clutched its upper shoulder and slowly toppled, spraying something hot.
Keldric's eyes had adjusted to the darkness.
The mercenaries had not.