VII. The Monster of Spitzenberg (9)
VII. The Monster of Spitzenberg (9)
Spitzenberg had served as a city for a very long time.
But for far longer than that, Spitzenberg had existed less as a city than as a fortress guarding against foreign invaders.
It was an age before the North had been incorporated into the Empire—the period after the ancient dwarven empire collapsed, when the Eastern Kingdom, predecessor of the Empire, was taking shape amid the chaos.
Even centuries before then, people had lived beyond the mountains and across the northern permafrost. They were barbarians who raided the Eastern Kingdom at every opportunity and occasionally invaded it outright.
At one point, those barbarians united and swept south.
The Church called that period the Age of Great Plunder.
It was a dark age when countless barbarians joined forces to plunder the Eastern and Western Kingdoms, then set their sights on the lands of the Latium people far to the south.
"They worshipped a vile sorcerous idol without realizing it was a remnant of the devil."
That was how Brother Marcus described it, though to Keldric it sounded more like an ancestral god or some sort of shamanic spirit.
Then as now, the Church never hesitated to disparage the gods worshipped by other faiths.
It claimed that the gods of other religions were demons rather than true gods, and that anyone who worshipped those pagan deities would go to hell.
"Spitzenberg also came under attack by those barbarians back when it was still a fortress."
"I know. One of my ancestors repelled them, or so the story goes."
Baron Spitzenberg nodded gravely. His was an ancient house that had guarded Spitzenberg for generations, and he clearly took exceptional pride in that legacy.
"The barbarians attacked Spitzenberg for days on end, but the fortress never fell."
The northern barbarians tried every method they could devise to bring down Fortress Spitzenberg.
They used siege engines that would now be considered primitive, threw ladders against the walls and climbed them recklessly, and searched for another route into Spitzenberg.
"From this point on, the story may be unfamiliar even to Baron Spitzenberg."
"And what story is that?"
"Spitzenberg once came perilously close to being taken."
It was through the final method: 'another route into Spitzenberg.'
Spitzenberg was essentially a city built by adding new structures, piece by piece, onto an ancient dwarven fortress.
The walls left little room for anything large, but old buildings could always be torn down and replaced.
Even House Spitzenberg, however, did not know every section and function of the city.
That included the secret passage the barbarians discovered leading up from a ravine beneath the peak.
"They found a cave in the ravine, and by chance it proved to be a passage the ancient dwarves had carved into the city."
"What...?! How did I never know about that? It could pose a threat to my city!"
"Because the passage has already been sealed."
When the barbarians tried to climb through the ancient dwarven passage, Spitzenberg's soldiers discovered them too late and scrambled to block the route.
But they had no way to collapse it.
Their technology simply was not up to the task. How were they supposed to bring down a passage that spiraled all the way up from the ravine?
Digging through it with pickaxes would have taken forever, and the land outside the walls was already crawling with barbarians, making the entrance impossible to reach.
Just when they were at their wits' end, the heavens unexpectedly came to Spitzenberg's aid.
"Whenever it rains, the ravine floods and fills the passage with water."
"Then..."
"The passage was rendered useless in an instant."
The barbarians could not have known something even the current and previous barons of Spitzenberg did not. Trapped inside the passage, they drowned together.
When the water receded, their corpses clogged the passage completely. The secret incursions ended, and Spitzenberg never fell.
"Then there is no problem. Spitzenberg is as impregnable as an iron fortress."
"The problem was the vile sorcerous idol the barbarians worshipped."
Baron Spitzenberg, who had been basking in his family's achievement, fell silent.
Even pagans ought to receive a funeral when they died, or at least be buried.
Otherwise, people believed their souls would never find rest.
Their pagan souls might be bound for hell regardless, but it was still wrong to leave unrecovered remains strewn through a sealed passage.
Brother Marcus explained that the barbarians' vile idol had borrowed demonic power in exchange for those trapped souls, giving rise to the ancient rumors of a monstrous wolf in Spitzenberg.
"Then the entrance to that passage..."
"It lies beneath the church, behind the door Sir Keldric and I examined a short while ago."
Every monastery and church seemed to have at least one ghost story about countless bodies buried beneath it.
But if this one was based on a real event—and the bodies belonged to pagan barbarians—it was a serious matter.
People first feared the restless spirits of those pagans, then the demons or other supernatural beings that might have descended into the underground depths by using those spirits as a pretext.
That was why the passage door beneath the church had been sealed tight and ritually secured with holy water, salt, and crosses.
The Church then erased every record of the demon that might wander below Spitzenberg, along with all mention of the barbarians' sorcerous idol.
"How do you know all this, Brother Marcus?"
"Lichten Monastery alone was permitted to preserve records of the evil lurking beneath Spitzenberg."
"Why only Lichten Monastery...?"
"Even if everyone else forgets, someone must always be ready to confront it."
That was why Lichten Monastery had been founded.
If everyone forgot Spitzenberg's secret, no one could exploit it for evil.
But nothing in the world was absolute. If someone ever opened the door in the churchyard and went inside, there still had to be people ready to stop them.
Brother Marcus turned to Baron Spitzenberg, firm and upright resolve in his eyes.
"Baron Spitzenberg, we must destroy the evil beyond that door."
"Hrm..."
Baron Spitzenberg groaned. Brother Marcus certainly had a point.
The purpose behind the proposal was admirable. More precisely, the purpose was the only admirable part.
"That werewolf... no, whatever that monster or sorcerous idol is, isn't it in there too?"
"To be precise, the sorcerous idol has probably possessed someone."
"What a goddamned, heaven-defying bastard. Eight of my people died because of that son of a bitch!"
Baron Spitzenberg's anger was justified. Brother Marcus's story had frightened and worried him at first, but the more he thought about it, the angrier he became.
"If that idol entered a person's body, then it possessed them after they opened the door and went inside, did it not?"
"That... would seem to be the case."
"That bastard must have crawled out of the devil's asshole! One way or another, I will hunt the son of a bitch down!"
Baron Spitzenberg's declaration that he would personally hunt down the demon-empowered monster left Keldric feeling rather sour.
'And I'm the one doing all the work.'
Baron Spitzenberg had better reward him handsomely. With the situation this complicated, merely joining Count Bogenberg's faction was nowhere near enough compensation.
For now, however, putting out the fire in front of him came first, so Keldric kept himself from making a tone-deaf demand to renegotiate the contract.
"Sir Keldric! Lead my soldiers and put that creature down!"
"Of course. I'll do my best."
He stopped short of promising success. If he declared confidently that he would do it, only for the monster to escape again and never be caught, the humiliation would be unbearable.
Once Baron Spitzenberg's panting fury had subsided somewhat, Brother Marcus spoke quietly.
"Baron Spitzenberg, I have one proposal."
"Whew... Let me hear it."
"Rather than rushing through that door, why not wait for the creature to come out?"
Brother Marcus argued that anyone who opened the door and entered might fall under the demon's influence.
Keldric could not relate to that fear, but in a world where magic and monsters existed, demons did not seem impossible.
"Very well. We will wait for it to emerge."
With Baron Spitzenberg promising every possible support, their makeshift council came to an end.
They finally had the beginnings of a new plan to catch the monster.
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
From that day onward, Keldric kept himself ready to join the hunt at a moment's notice, but the monster did not appear at all.
Even after a dwarf craftsman returned his perfectly repaired chain mail and he completed his equipment with a magnificent wolf-fur cloak, there was still no sign of the monster.
"Could it already be dead?"
Alisa reasoned that Keldric's mace had shattered its jaw so completely that it might have been unable to eat or regenerate, eventually starving or bleeding to death.
Her reasoning made sense, but he could not be certain.
Keldric needed certainty—certainty that they could catch the monster, or, if it was already dead, enough certainty to find its corpse.
Three days after they decided to wait for it, Keldric finally received the news he had been longing for.
"The monster has appeared! The soldiers are holding it in the churchyard!"
"I'm coming!"
The monster was not invincible. No matter how extraordinary its regenerative powers were, it still needed food to heal and move.
That was why it had finally reappeared. Like any beast descending from the mountains, it had come looking for prey.
Keldric led the already-awake Alisa outside and mounted Aveline.
Arno and Helga could not make the trip on foot, so Arno rode with Keldric while Helga rode with Alisa.
"Aveline! Faster!"
The pitch-black horse raced through Spitzenberg's midnight streets like a bolt of lightning.
The fierce wind tore past Keldric's ears. Arno, seated in front of him, was already too dazed to think straight.
They drove Aveline at a frantic pace and reached the church before they knew it.
"Alisa! Prepare your magic at once!"
Without waiting for an answer, Keldric drew his sword. His newly acquired meteoric-iron longsword, not the old blade, revealed its ink-black steel to the world.
An uproar filled the churchyard ahead. The same black-furred monster he had seen before rampaged among the soldiers like a blood-starved beast, shoving them aside and raking them with its claws.
Keldric kicked off the ground and charged. The meteoric-iron longsword rose without reflecting a speck of light.
"Out of the way—!!"
The soldiers recoiled at his thunderous shout, and Keldric immediately thrust at the monster as it spun around in alarm.
SLASH!
A chilling sound rang out, and the corner of Keldric's mouth twitched.
'The sword works.'
The exhilarating sensation of cutting cleanly through hide, the fat beneath it, and the flesh hidden deeper inside!
The monster backed away with a low growl, one wrist half severed.
Keldric held his stance and closed the distance without hesitation. If the longsword could cut it, there was nothing to fear.
Only a gruesome end awaited the monster. Baron Spitzenberg would surely rejoice when he held its severed head aloft.
This counted as a hunt too.