IX. Standing Against Injustice (2)
IX. Standing Against Injustice (2)
The mercenaries from the Duchy of Rhees devoted themselves to plunder that day as well.
Eight horsemen and twenty infantry armed with axes and swords formed their band. No local force could stop them.
Even if Baron Yaven hired mercenaries in response, the Rheesians would win easily unless he sent knights and elite troops.
That certainty made them fearless. They burned Imperial villages, stole the peasants’ property, and raped the women.
The Rheesians intended to take everything.
It was brigandage in its purest form. Almost every mercenary had sacked a village at least once, but bands from Rhees carried it much further.
To the Rheesians, it was ordinary life.
Their homeland was as harsh as the Imperial north, and surviving by taking from others was considered natural.
All the more when those others belonged to a foreign country.
Igor flicked blood from his short sword and grinned. He had just found a woman whose appearance pleased him.
"P-please spare me! Please...!"
Her tear-streaked face turned toward Igor. He understood scarcely one word in ten.
They stole, raped, and killed afterward, so he had never needed to learn the Imperial language.
For once, he almost regretted that. Igor lowered his shield while admiring the first woman to catch his interest in a long time.
Watching her sob and beg left an aching pressure in his loins. When had he last taken a woman?
It hardly mattered. Soon the answer would be “just now.”
"Aagh! Mercy!"
Her loud scream echoed through the village. The thought that it would soon turn into cries of pleasure excited him further.
His anticipated pleasure ended before it began.
"...?"
Igor had started removing his armor when he turned toward the commotion.
It came from the village entrance.
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
Keldric’s plan for the charge was simple.
A low palisade surrounded the village, so anyone not actively looting would naturally gather near the entrance.
If he and Henri drove straight into them, the enemy would face two knights before forming a proper line.
Keldric’s soldiers would arrive soon afterward, while Alisa and the archers supported them from the rear.
The scattered enemy would then be defeated in detail before they could regroup.
Keldric and Henri lowered their lances at the same moment.
The weapons differed in shape and length, but two knights charging together could easily split a force this size in half.
Keldric estimated roughly six enemy horsemen. Some frantically turned their mounts, but the two knights struck first.
CRASH!!
Two Rheesian soldiers were skewered and three more were hurled aside by the massive warhorses.
Those slammed into the snow landed with limbs twisted at unnatural angles.
Keldric immediately drove his heels into Aveline’s flanks.
"Hyah!"
The enemy recovered from their shock and reached for axes and swords, trying to drag Keldric from the saddle.
Infantry in this age used simple methods against cavalry and knights.
They stabbed the horse with spears to unseat the rider, or hooked him down with an axe and hacked him apart.
The Rheesian horsemen carried long spears and javelins, while many of their infantry wielded axes.
Axes were deadly to knights at close range. One mistake could leave a man chopped like firewood.
Keldric had no intention of giving them that opening.
"Hup!"
CRUNCH—!
A brutal sound accompanied his short, explosive shout.
Keldric’s lance had driven through two axe-wielding soldiers at once.
The other Rheesians stared with eyes as wide as lanterns.
Their lamellar armor was vulnerable to thrusts, but skewering two men at once was another matter.
Keldric adjusted his grip and wrenched the lance free without hesitation.
His monstrous strength pulled it out without resistance. The two men, holes torn through their chests, tumbled across the snow.
"Come on, then! You filthy bastards!"
Henri fought well in his own right. A rotten knight was still a knight.
A knight’s terrifying lethality came from skill, but also from his hard, expensive armor.
Axes and swords might scrape it repeatedly, yet the rider’s strength kept enemies from pulling him down.
As the two knights tore through the formation, the roughly fifteen Rheesian soldiers collapsed helplessly.
A sword strike accomplished nothing. It rang against the heavy armor—clang!—and bounced away.
Anyone who tried to hook a knight down with an axe was instead dragged off balance and sent rolling through the snow.
Knights were humanity’s decisive weapons of war. Ordinary soldiers could scarcely withstand them.
After ripping through the formation once, Keldric and Henri burst out the other side almost together.
"Are you all right?"
"Hahaha! Yes! Now this is a battle!"
Henri’s eyes gleamed fiercely behind his visor. Fresh blood streamed down his helmet before he had any chance to wipe it away.
He looked like a murderous demon, enough to chill anyone’s blood. Several Rheesian soldiers recoiled.
"Help Sir Keldric!"
"Support Sir Henri! Watch the cavalry!"
"The knights will handle the horsemen! Kill every one of those sons of bitches!"
Keldric’s soldiers arrived at precisely that moment.
They plunged into the shattered enemy line. Count Bogenberg had called them elite, and their swift, disciplined movements proved it as they struck for vulnerable points.
The Rheesian force now stood on the verge of collapse.
Keldric spotted the six enemy horsemen who had barely regrouped drawing javelins.
If they circled and threw from range, the infantry on foot would be helpless targets.
"Sir Henri!"
"I see them! Let’s ride!"
The glory of the cavalry charge had left Henri half-mad with excitement.
Before Keldric even called, Henri had readied his lance and drawn alongside him.
It was a modest charge of only two knights, but breaking through the center and wreaking havoc was exactly what they did best.
"Charge!"
"I’ll tear them apart!"
Keldric charged again beside Henri, aiming at the six Rheesian horsemen riding together.
After fighting mounted bandits before, Keldric found them unimpressive.
The Rheesian cavalry wheeled away in terror.
They did not ride expensive warhorses—hunting horses at best—and could not maneuver freely through the chaotic battlefield.
WHOOSH!
Several javelins, thrown in desperation, streaked toward the knights.
Keldric ducked while Henri deftly raised his shield and knocked them aside.
The Rheesians were skilled with javelins and kept throwing until none remained.
"You base wretches!"
Henri erupted in fury while frantically blocking the missiles. Keldric raised his own shield and began to lose his temper as well.
Their anger aside, the situation favored them. Most of the javelins were being directed at the two knights.
"Kill them all! Men who live by brigandage have forfeited their lives!"
"You fucking bastards!"
That distraction allowed Keldric’s soldiers to slaughter the panicked enemy without interference.
The scattered Rheesians tried to resist, but the elite troops advanced in formation, thrusting spears and swinging swords with fierce morale.
They had long experience hunting bandits around Bogenberg.
Now foreigners who did not even share their language were brutalizing fellow Imperials. Their fury rose naturally.
The presence of Keldric and Henri fanned it into flame.
No matter what these damned Rheesians did, the soldiers had two knights on their side.
"Aaaagh!"
"Fire!"
"The wizard!"
"Arrows! Fall back!"
With the archers and Alisa’s magic joining in, the clash became less a battle than a massacre.
Meanwhile, Keldric and Henri finally caught the horsemen after their javelins ran out.
"God has granted me a glorious victory!"
When heavy cavalry collided, momentum decided the result.
The knights rode powerful warhorses and already had speed, while the fleeing Rheesians had only just turned to meet them.
CRASH!
"Ghk!"
There was no question which side would be hurled away.
Keldric and Henri drove their lances through two horsemen as though possessed.
The remaining four charged desperately in the face of that murderous momentum.
Keldric immediately released his lance. The dark blade of his longsword flashed into his hand and swept out like lightning.
SCREEECH!
The Rheesians’ lamellar armor split with a clean metallic shriek. They could not tell whether the sword was exceptional or the knight impossibly strong.
Unfortunately for them, both were true.
Keldric’s meteoric-iron longsword swept through without pause. The horsemen had no time to evade, and one after another fell spraying warm blood.
By the time he finished striking them down, no enemy cavalry remained.
"..."
Keldric slowed Aveline and steadied his roughened breathing. The horse snorted hard, its black coat glossy with sweat.
More than a dozen lifeless bodies lay scattered across the white snow.
"Sir Keldric!"
Henri rode over. He snapped blood from his lance with a picturesque flourish, called for his attendant to bring a fresh horse, and spoke.
"Well fought! It looks like we’ve dealt with most of them!"
"...It does."
The fever of battle collapsed as rapidly as it had surged.
With his mind cooling, Keldric slowly reviewed the fight.
He had thrust, struck, and cut in a frenzy, focusing every sense on killing the enemy.
"S-Sir Knight!"
"Stand back!"
Several surviving villagers approached the two knights hesitantly.
Henri’s attendants reached out in alarm, but Keldric allowed the villagers to come closer.
They recoiled when they saw the fearsome state of the knights.
Blood covered their surcoats, while bits of flesh clung to the lance and longsword in their hands.
"Thank you... truly."
"Th-thank you!"
Terror felt different when its source stood on one’s own side.
The villagers thanked them for killing people. The reaction left Keldric in an unfamiliar, complicated mood.
He had not suddenly developed an aversion to killing. Still, the thought of doing this for years to come unsettled him.
The territorial war had only begun. Once he joined Baron Yaven’s army and fought in earnest, how many more people would he kill?
A trickle of blood gathered into a bead at the eye-slit of Keldric’s helmet.
He wiped it away with his gauntlet. The blood froze almost instantly against the leather and crackled.
"Sir Keldric, the soldiers are waiting."
"...Right."
There was no time for reflection. The soldiers naturally gathered before him.
"Put out the fires immediately! Capture any survivors if possible. This is Lord Yaven’s land, so no looting or abuse!"
"Yes, sir!"
"Pile the bodies together and burn them. We cannot allow disease to spread!"
After sending the soldiers into the village, Keldric called the archers and Alisa forward from the rear.
Arno and Helga approached and stared blankly at him.
His blood-spattered appearance might have frightened others, but the children saw something different.
They saw their lord, who had saved a village from becoming ashes and rescued people from the fate their own home had suffered.
Courage and honor shone brightest when confronting injustice. Keldric had charged first without hesitation.
Arno tightened his hand around Helga’s.
A man had to be capable of stepping forward to protect what he cherished.
People called that courage.
"Well? Neither of you is hurt, are you?"
THUMP! THUMP!
Arno’s heart, though he was only fourteen, began pounding violently.
Could a knight inspire such yearning and admiration?