42. The Yoke (7)
Doom, doom, doom— beneath a sky shaking with war drums, countless soldiers marched in step, and above them a forest of tall banners snapped and fluttered in the wind.
Half a dozen banners, each bearing a different crest: a ringed cross, a crossed pair of spear and shield, a knight astride a horse, seven red and blue birds wheeling in a circle, a black-and-white checkerboard…
One banner rose conspicuously higher than the rest. It bore the image of a white bird.
As the drums fell silent and the army's march ground to a halt, knights and officers gathered beneath the banner of the white bird. At its center, a young man pulled on his reins and looked up at the cloth.
A white bird clutching a spear in its talons. The crest of the house he belonged to…
Young, with a stout frame and cheeks sunken oddly hollow, the man sank quietly into thought.
A laurel crown would suit me better than a cloak, after all. Gold would look too greedy — perhaps one forged of steel.
As the young man imagined the crest of the house he would one day found, a middle-aged man approached him.
A soldier weathered by years and scarred across his face — Angus. He was Count Tristan's senior commander, and the man who held true authority over this campaign.
Picking his way carefully past the knights' tents, Angus paid the young man his respects and spoke at once.
"My lord, have you given the order to attack?"
"I have."
"…Launching a siege the moment the march ends is not a wise choice, my lord. The soldiers need rest, and the destroyers need time."
"Why should I waste time conquering some puny little fief?"
Doyle Mulin, second son of Count Tristan, slurred through the gaps where his teeth had been knocked out.
"Once we smash their gate and palisade, they'll surrender in no time. Enough talk — attack now."
"At this distance, the destroyers' spells cannot reach the palisade. Time is needed to draw the magic circles."
Magic circles — standing upon one that amplified a spell's range, a destroyer became a siege engine in her own right.
Powerful incantations like Spear of Force or Orb of Destruction could be hurled farther and more accurately than a bolt loosed from the longest bow.
Doyle knew this as well as anyone, yet he stared down at the veteran commander and shook his head firmly.
"No. There's nothing to waste time on. Longville will fall before the sun sets."
"My lord—"
"The ancient master Talokan once said: if your sword is too short, take one step forward. If our range falls short, we simply march until the spells can reach." At Doyle's words, the knights surrounding them erupted — 'Well said, my lord!' 'Those are my favorite words in all the world!'
Doyle raised his hand as if showing off, and the knights laughed and cheered. Watching them, Angus swallowed a sigh.
…Idiots, every last one of them.
Forcing down his simmering anger, he tried once more to reason with Doyle.
"Without the magic circles, the destroyers can only strike enemies right at their feet."
"Right at their feet? That's quite the exaggeration."
"The destroyers are mages, not footmen. If word reaches the Count that you marched them up to the palisade itself, he will be furious."
"I'll take responsibility, so spare me the lecture and command the army, Senior Commander Angus."
Before Angus could answer, Doyle turned to the knights and raised his voice.
"Sirs, make your preparations! A glorious battle awaits us!"
Another cheer.
In that moment, Angus found himself missing one man bitterly.
The young ones have nothing but ambition stuffed into their skulls. If Lady Ethelda were here, this never would have happened.
Ethelda was a knight of both skill and renown, a seasoned veteran of many campaigns. With her present, the young knights wouldn't have dared peep, and Doyle would never have been able to act so high-handedly…
Letting out a small sigh, Angus led his officers toward the command post. No — he tried to.
"Uh — over there—"
A shrill voice pierced the air, a finger pointing toward Longville. Angus and the officers — and Doyle and the knights with them — all turned their heads.
From Longville's wide-open gates, a lone rider burst forth.
The sun was just setting, and the meadow between Longville and the army had been dyed red. Against that glow, the rider's blue cloak seemed to burn crimson as he came thundering from afar.
A warhorse running low to the ground, a towering frame, gleaming plate armor…
A knight.
"Haaah!"
The blue-cloaked knight galloped to within fifty paces of the army and hauled hard on his reins. As the warhorse reared and screamed, the knight let loose a bellow.
"You there—!"
He had come without his helm, and a rugged, manly face showed clear. His voice rolled out unobstructed across the field.
"If Doyle, son of Count Tristan, is present, let him come forth!"
The knight was magnificent.
Standing alone before an army of a thousand, chest puffed out and voice roaring — it was enough to set fire to the hearts of the young knights.
While Doyle studied the rider intently, one of his knights stepped forward and shouted back a challenge.
"Insolence! Who are you, to summon my lord!"
The blue-cloaked knight let out an easy laugh, twirled his splendidly groomed mustache, and introduced himself.
"Rangvolt Earlshore — knight of His Highness Prince Ulkar Lionelsson of Zeore, guardian of the kingdom and great champion of all the weak!"
"…Rangvolt, Earlshore? Rangvolt, you say?"
As the young knight murmured in a daze, a murmur rippled through the crowd.
Ulkar. The Silver Prince. The blue cloak. Rangvolt. The Roaring Wave. The Iron-Cleaving Knight. The finest swordsman of the East. Word passed from mouth to mouth.
Among the thousand soldiers, hardly a soul was hearing the name Rangvolt — or one of his many epithets — for the first time. The growing murmur only died down when the officers and sergeants began bellowing for silence.
The knight who had stepped forward recovered from his fluster quickly enough and called out to Rangvolt.
"Well then, Sir Rangvolt! What business have you with Lord Doyle?"
"I have a proposal for Lord Doyle!"
"A proposal? What proposal?"
"I hear from my dear comrade Sir Phoinix that you insulted my liege, my lord!"
Every eye in the crowd turned toward Doyle.
…No flame burns faster than rumor. The duel between Ethelda and Phoinix had already spread through the whole army and all the way to Multingham, and it was well known that the duel had begun with an insult Doyle had hurled at Phoinix.
When Doyle held his silence, a young knight shot him a sideways glance and spoke in his stead.
"So? What of it? Do you mean to challenge my lord to a duel?"
"I've no intention of dragging out what's already been answered. I hear Sir Phoinix collected a fair price already." Watching Rangvolt wheel his horse about as he said it made Doyle's blood boil, but he simply stood there in silence.
"A pity, that a man who insulted my liege was let off with a few slaps — but Sir Phoinix is merciful to a fault, so I suppose I must understand!"
Doyle, who had been beaten to the verge of death by those very slaps, felt the hand gripping his reins begin to tremble — and then he roared.
"You've a long tongue for a man of such renown!"
"And you would be Lord Doyle?"
"I am! If you don't fancy becoming food for arrows, state your business and be quick!"
Rangvolt nodded, all smiles.
"My proposal is simple! With Sir Phoinix's blessing, I shall accept the slap you never paid — so turn your army around and march away, this instant!"
"Ha! Bullshit!"
Doyle burst into scornful laughter, his face flushing scarlet as he raged.
"Did you think my father's army would retreat at some childish stunt like that? Enough of this bullshit — get lost!"
"My, my — such discourteous language, my lord! How can a demand that you pay a debt owed be called bullshit?"
Rangvolt put on a stern face and thundered back.
"If you will not withdraw your army, then come out here before me and present your face! In Sir Phoinix's stead, I shall see to it that you pay the price you never paid!"
"Y-you madman!"
A demand that he come out between the army and Longville and take a slap to the face — Doyle and the knights around him alike erupted in fury. It was a humiliation no noble could ever accept.
As Doyle ground his teeth, a broad-shouldered knight stepped forward before him.
"My lord! Allow me to teach that graceless wretch a lesson!"
"Sir Monad."
The knight before him was one of the finest young swordsmen in all Multingham. Doyle regarded Monad for a long moment, then shook his head with a grunt.
"No need. Listening to a madman's ravings is the act of a fool."
"But my lord! Yonder Rangvolt's liege is the Silver Prince, your father's sworn enemy! And only recently, Sir Ethelda was defeated by that blood-soaked swordsman and put to shame!"
At that thunderous voice, Doyle frowned in silence. Sir Monad raised his voice further, pressing his case.
"That man is among the first knights of the Silver Prince's retinue — now is the very chance to wash away the Count's disgrace!"
A thousand fires raged inside Doyle. And what if you lose too, hm? he wanted to snap — but he kept his mouth shut. At that moment, Commander Angus spoke up abruptly.
"Sir Monad speaks truly."
"…What did you say?"
"I am no knight, but I know what honor is. Had we not been provoked, I would let it pass — but that graceless wretch dared insult my lord with his idle tongue. This cannot be overlooked."
When the knights chorused their agreement, Doyle stared down at Angus for a long moment. Then, at last, he nodded.
"…Very well. Do as you please, Sir Monad."
"Yes, my lord!"
A smile spread across Monad's face, and he pressed down his great helm. Then, taking the couched lance his squire handed him, he whipped his reins at once.
"You there, Rangvolt!"
Monad rode out before the host, leveling his lance at Rangvolt with a roar.
"I am Monad, knight of Count Tristan, lord of Marba and Vitian, and heir of House Valpur! You shall pay for letting that tongue of yours run loose!"
"Hm?"
When Rangvolt merely crossed his arms and twirled his mustache in reply to the grand declaration, Monad let out some wordless shriek and dug in his spurs. His spirited brown warhorse shot forward, closing the distance in an instant.
Dududududu—!
Rangvolt, watching the charge come without even drawing a weapon, finally snapped his reins and spurred forward.
"Uraaaaaah!"
With a roar, Monad's lance was a breath from bursting against Rangvolt's chest—
Clang!
A flash of steel.
Among the thousand-soldier host, not a single soul saw what happened in that instant. Doyle, and every knight besides, failed entirely to track Rangvolt's movement.
Duduk, duduk.
By the time the brown warhorse slowed, Monad had fallen stiff as a fence post, thrown from the saddle. Crumpled wretchedly in the grass, Monad did not so much as twitch — only blood poured in a thin stream through the T-slot of his helm.
"Uwaaaaa—!"
From far off in Longville, a roar of triumph erupted — while Count Tristan's army went still as if doused in ice water.
"There."
A sword had appeared in Rangvolt's right hand at some point. A blade far narrower than an ordinary longsword.
Flicking the blade lightly to shake off the blood, Rangvolt turned to regard the host from a distance far closer than before.
"Any other challengers?"
Sweeping his gaze across the frozen army, Sir Rangvolt stroked his mustache.
"Ooh. You stabbed him right, you did."
Mungchi, standing between the battlements, let out her admiration — and Ellen, beside her, asked with a doubtful look.
"…You actually saw something?"
"Yep. It went like this-y, like this-y—"
Miming the draw of a sword, Mungchi stretched her waist and arms straight upward. As she twisted into a bizarre pose with fluid motion and those long limbs of hers, Ellen furrowed her brow.
"What on earth is that supposed to be?"
"…That's the like-this-y. Sword, and, ooh."
Watching Mungchi fumble through it, I smiled despite myself.
"Mungchi's got good eyes. She saw it exactly."
"Hehe."
Mungchi beamed, savoring the touch of my hand — and Ellen watched her quietly for a while.
When her gaze swung back to me, I shrugged and gave the explanation.
"Right before the lance took him in the chest, he drew his sword and used the crossguard to lever the shaft upward. At the same time, he turned the blade flat and thrust for the eye-slit."
Easier said than done — it was a feat of sheer madness, beyond all common sense. He had parried aside a lance laden with the combined weight of horse and rider, then slipped a sword into a helm slit no wider than a finger's joint.
"Ah-ha."
But Ellen didn't seem particularly interested in that. She gave a careless nod, then whipped her head around.
Sir Rangvolt was already galloping back toward us.
"Kill him—!"
The cry drifting faintly from the distance was, mm, Doyle's voice, I supposed.
The enemy had apparently decided that chivalry and convention could go to hell, and they loosed a hail of arrows at Sir Rangvolt.
"Archers — ready!"
At Drillmaster Chester's bellow, the archers lining the gate tower and palisade nocked their shafts. Ellen's eyes gleamed as she swept the enemy lines as well.
Fleeing the rain of arrows, Sir Rangvolt came tearing back with his cloak flung out, spinning around him like a windmill.
The arrows that did plunge down were either swallowed by that thick cloak or skittered off his plate armor and his horse's barding. That cloak — some kind of magic artifact?
"Hahahaha—!"
And through all that chaos, Sir Rangvolt was laughing his head off.
…I'd felt it fighting the Underdark Lord too, but the man's brain seemed pickled in adrenaline.
A few enemy knights burst out from their lines, but they wheeled their horses around before entering our archers' range. Unlike Sir Rangvolt, I supposed they were knights with their wits intact.
Longville's soldiers greeted Sir Rangvolt at the gates with thunderous cheering.
As our side's morale soared, the enemy — who had looked ready to attack at any moment — pulled back a safe distance and began pitching their tents.
And so, the night deepened.