42. The Yoke (10)
The wreckage of the gate and palisade. Two layers of long, shallow trenches dug into the earth. The north wind pushing waves of grit before it. Clouds of arrows slicing across the blue sky. Glittering spearheads, soldiers screaming in fury....... It was the landscape of a battlefield.
The pikemen of Count Tristan, clad in chain mail and helms, gripped spears taller than two meters, each with a small targe strapped to his left forearm.
"Left foot! Left foot! Left, right, left!"
Matching their steps to the cadence, they advanced in long, deliberate strides. Whenever a man took an arrow and tumbled to the ground, another filled his place.
Inside the trench line, Longville's soldiers were more poorly armed than their foes by comparison. Cloth armor reinforced with brass studs or cowhide, wide-brimmed helms, stubby spears. They looked no different from the garrison of any rural backwater fief — but every one of them carried an enormous shield.
"Keep your heads down—!"
At a sergeant's bellow, the Longville men ducked low, pressing their shoulders flush against their shields. Half of them hefted the great tower shields favored by mercenaries; the rest had torn oversized door panels from somewhere, propped them up with bracing timbers, and hidden their bodies behind. They had made shields into walls, trenches into moats.
Behind that line of defense huddled buildings — stables, an inn — where dozens of archers crouched behind low stone walls and tiled rooftops, loosing arrows.
When the two armies drew within range, the Multingham force began its charge.
"Advancee—!"
"Lord who rains down light!"
Not to be outdone, Longville's army roared back its own battle cries.
"O Radiance, look upon me!"
"Throw—!"
The men in Longville's front rank hurled a bizarre volley of clay pots at the enemies crying out the same god's name. The soft, kiln-fired pots shattered against helms and armor — or merely slapped against the ground.
Then the Multingham soldiers saw what spilled out of them, and their faces went slack.
"This is—"
"Oil! It's oil!"
As if they'd been waiting for exactly that moment, torches and fire arrows came streaking in. The black, viscous liquid coating the Multingham soldiers ignited in an instant.
"Hot, it's hot! Aaaagh!"
"O Radiance—"
"Damn it all, fall back!"
"There's no room to fall back! Keep charging!"
When the front rank went up in flames, Multingham's pikemen dissolved into chaos, shrieking and wailing.
"Uuugh, aaaaah!"
The burning men rolled on the ground in their death throes, but the fire refused to die. Oil mixed with pitch, sugar, and sawdust roared up like an explosion and swallowed its victims whole.
Sizzle!
Flames geysered outward in a spray of sparks, seething with murderous energy. It was the handiwork of Master Castlight — oil of his own making, better known as Blazing Fire Oil.
But Multingham had an answer. A pillar of white light erupted from their side of the field. As thick as a fair-sized log, the beam shot across the distance in a blink and slammed into Longville's line.
A boom rolled across the field like a giant swinging a club.
The door-shield split in two, and three or four soldiers in the front rank were flung skyward without even a scream. That wasn't the end of it — the pillar of light, or rather the Lance of Force, plowed on and collapsed a stable behind the defensive line.
Crash—
More dust bloomed into the air. Lance after lance of light followed, punching hole after hole in Longville's ranks.
'...Impressive, no denying that.' Angus, commander of the Multingham force, watched the spectacle from atop the ruined gate, a bitter smile tugging at his mouth.
'If one of them takes a stray arrow like that, His Excellency's wrath will be very hard to bear.'
His gaze slid to the side. There, four mages chanted spells under the guard of the elite troops. They were among the younger destroyers, dragged out here because Doyle had badgered them into it.
Young they might be, but the devotion and fortune Count Tristan had poured into cultivating them was nothing short of staggering. Watching such precious destroyers prepare spells within arm's reach of the front line was an alien sight even to a middle-aged commander who had lived as a soldier for decades.
Angus watched, half with delight and half with unease, as the destroyers' completed spells brought the enemy's defenses crashing down each time. Then, without warning, he frowned.
"...Hmm."
What he'd spotted was a knight bursting out between the defensive lines, a blue cloak snapping behind him.
"Come at me—! Here stands Rangvolt Earlshore, second knight of Prince Ulkar!"
Rangvolt — called the Knight of the East or the Roaring Wave — carved through Multingham's pikemen as if they were empty air.
A long parrying dagger in one hand, a narrow-bladed longsword in the other, he waded through a swirling melee of countless enemy soldiers with boundless ease to spare. Supple waist, proud chest, light feet, and blindingly quick hands — everything about him was striking.
"Damn it. So the Iron-Cleaving Knight survived."
The explosion that brought down the gate must have eaten up a fair chunk of manpower, and yet the man had managed to live through it by sheer luck. Of all the rotten luck.......
Angus thought this, then turned to the aide at his side.
"Tell the knights it's time. Quickly!"
"Yes, sir! I'll have a hunt team ready as well."
"Good. If the knights complain, ignore them."
"Sir!"
Not long after his orders fell, a body of troops encircled Rangvolt.
"Ghhk—"
"Hmm."
Wrenching his dagger free of a soldier's throat, Rangvolt gathered both blades in his right hand and stroked the tips of his mustache with his left.
Wiping the droplets of blood from his mustache with a gauntleted fingertip, he surveyed the encirclement at his leisure.
Five knights in full helms and coats-of-plate, and twenty men-at-arms in scale armor, each bearing a white shield and a steel mask-shaped helm.
"And those soldiers over there must be Multingham's geese."
"...Not geese. Hawks, ser."
"Ah, my mistake."
Rangvolt shrugged and tilted his chin toward the knights.
"Then who might you gentlemen be?"
At his easy question, the knight at the head of the group rested a massive mace against his shoulder and answered.
"Edlerund. Edlerund of Algrig."
"Edlerund, is it. Never heard the name."
"No occasion to become famous has presented itself until now, ser."
"Oh dear. How unfortunate."
"Nothing to lament. I intend to shatter your skull and make my name with it."
"Really? That doesn't strike me as a very good plan."
Rangvolt smiled and readjusted his grip on his two blades. The knight clutching his mace gave a dry snort at the sight.
"What, any objection? Going to call us cowards for it?"
"Ah, not at all. I merely meant it's a plan that will be difficult to see through."
"...Arrogant bastard."
Rangvolt let his blades hang loose as he shrugged again.
"Arrogant? From where I stand, it's a thoroughly tiresome plan. Because knights like you — you're a dime a dozen."
At that cheerful sneer, the knight Edlerund apparently could bear no more; he bellowed and hurled himself at Rangvolt.
Angus swallowed a groan.
Even beset by five knights and twenty elite soldiers, Rangvolt was holding his own — quite well, in fact.
No, holding his own undersold it. Even as he blocked, deflected, and evaded attacks from every direction, he was launching counterattacks, and he had already finished off one knight and two soldiers.
'This is a headache.'
The type of enemy Angus least wanted to meet on any battlefield was precisely Rangvolt's kind. Not masters of covert tricks or exquisite tactics, but men whose individual might bordered on the superhuman. A threat you recognized and still could not stop.
"The woman?"
"Still the same, sir."
At his aide's answer, Angus's mind turned to the nudein warrior woman who wielded a hidden art's power.
'Bringing down the gate and flushing out the red bear was contribution enough... but now is no time to be tallying debts.'
"Do whatever it takes to make her fightable and drag her here. If more of them show up in this situation, the whole battle could turn."
"But sir, no matter what we say she won't come to her senses. It's as though some kind of hex has hold of her."
"A hex?"
"Yes. Young Lord Doyle has been attempting something, but......."
"Lord Doyle? Why him?"
"He seemed to know something. He took a necklace of some sort from the corpse of a dead nudein, and—"
The aide's report was cut short. Across the battlefield, scarlet firelight flared.
BOOM!
As Angus whipped his head around, he saw a column of flame soaring into the sky. At the head of the Multingham force — which had regrouped and launched another charge — a fireball had detonated.
"The Fire Witch......."
The aide murmured blankly, and Angus roared.
"Stop standing there gaping and send the hunt teams!"
"Y-yes, sir!"
Once the aide scurried off, Angus seized a waiting courier and issued orders.
"Pull every reserve combat team to the front!"
"Understood!"
"And pass word to the knights as well."
Angus stared toward the point where the second fireball had risen, his words grinding out between his teeth.
"A blood-soaked swordsman is coming. Tell them all to be ready."
"...Yes, sir!"
"Lady Ellen!"
The mercenaries, dazed by the pillar of fire rising ahead, spun around at Coyle's shout.
There stood Ellen, who at some point had joined the front rank, glancing in every direction.
"Where's Auntie Cassie?"
"Auntie Cassie...?"
"...Master Castlight. The mage of Longville."
Leader Amias swept a look across his companions' faces and shook his head.
"We haven't seen her, Lady Ellen."
"She said she'd be at the gate. At the gate."
When the mercenaries stole glances toward the gate — nothing left of it but rubble — Ellen bit down hard on her lower lip.
Just then, Drillmaster Chester, who had arrived alongside her, began bellowing in a hoarse voice.
"Shoulders in! I don't care if the front rank narrows! Hold the depth—!"
The Longville army reacted to that familiar voice at once. Soldiers who had scrambled to reform their ragged lines banded together and drove the enemy troops back across the trench.
Next, one of the sergeants under Chester's orders circled behind the formation.
"You, and you! With me!"
Once he'd scraped together five or six men, the sergeant ran them over to where Ellen stood. Their task was to protect the allied army's only mage.
Ellen spared the sergeant a glance as he jabbered about guarding her, then turned to Coyle, who was drawing his bowstring.
"That's Atilia's handiwork, isn't it?"
"Yes. Apparently she brought the gate down with that same secret art we saw before."
"Where is the bitch?"
Her eyes blazing a furious blue, Ellen listened as Coyle gave a brief account of the battle.
"...Master Utekwai, once freed from the curse, tried to finish Atilia off, but the enemy army arrived at the worst possible moment and he failed."
"Where's Utekwai now?"
"His injuries were far too grave, so he's been taken to the rear. With Miss Mungchi's help we barely managed to pull him back."
"And where's Mungchi?"
"I don't know. At some point I looked and she was simply gone."
Coyle loosed an arrow, cutting down an enemy soldier creeping up behind Rangvolt, then asked Ellen:
"By the way... where is Lord Phoenix?"
Instead of answering, she began chanting a spell, quick and fluid.
Six words, perhaps ten, scattered into the empty air and became wind that coiled around her. She had summoned the Dancing Spirits.
Ellen traced a gentle arc with her grayish-white wand and pointed it toward the half-collapsed palisade. At her direction, a pale-green ribbon of wind went fluttering off with a light, lilting sound.
Where the Dancing Spirit flew, its skirts rippling, Phoenix was sprinting at full power, his breath coming in short, controlled bursts.
"Hoop, hoo—"
He wore no helm and carried nothing but a single throwing javelin at his side.
Phoenix's magical armor of House Anig, Rufus, was streaked all over with scorched black after taking a lightning bolt some days before. Which meant it matched his black hair and black eyes remarkably well.
Despite the heavy, plate-reinforced chain mail he wore, Phoenix ran as if he were naked. Then, as he reached the end of the leaning palisade, he slammed his foot into the wooden frame with everything he had and launched himself upward.
Crack!
The violent push-off was the last straw; the half-toppled palisade came down in a thundering collapse.
Thanks to that, Phoenix was flying through the sky like a bird. It was only after soaring nearly five or six meters that he began to arc back down toward the earth.
And in that instant, Phoenix twisted his waist in midair and hurled the javelin.
SHREEE! Tearing through the air across some forty meters, the javelin ran its target through before the man could even flinch.
"Kuhehk—"
One of the four young destroyers — the very man on the verge of releasing his spell — vomited blood and stared down at his own body. The javelin had pierced him clean through the solar plexus; all he could see was a hand-span of shaft protruding from his chest.
The other destroyers went white and looked up toward where the javelin had come from. Their jaws dropped to the ground.
Vwooom—
The Dancing Spirit wrapped itself around Phoenix. He curled his body into the heavy embrace of the wind, then stretched it out wide.
Phoenix glided fast, as though he'd sprouted wings. Covering several tens of meters in one sweep, he landed before the destroyers and the soldiers guarding them.
"What the — that's insane—"
A heavily armed shieldbearer gritted his teeth and drew his falchion.
Phoenix rolled across the ground and came up in an instant. In a single motion he drew Hrunting, parried the falchion, and stabbed the shieldbearer through the throat.
"Krrgh—"
Blood flooding his windpipe surged up and out of his mouth with his breath — then was sucked right back down. The milky-white blade was pulsing hard, drinking it in.
Before the shieldbearer could even pitch forward and faceplant into the dirt, the blood-coated blade had already cleaved down two more soldiers.
Angus caught sight of the carnage late, and let out a scream — no, a roar.
"Stop that bastard— block him!"
At his command the reserves scrambled, but Hrunting's movements were several times faster still.
One soldier had his face pulped by a pommel. One was blinded by a Cloud of Blood. One had his spine snapped by a kick.
One was stabbed through the heart. One was split across the chest. One spilled his guts onto the ground.
For the most part, though, they simply lost their heads. As the tentacled witch had, and the crawling serpent, and the bandit baron, and the giant troll, and the legendary soul-shaman.
Facing Phoenix, who had dropped twenty soldiers in the blink of an eye, the destroyers remained remarkably composed. True to their calling as battle mages, the remaining three each chanted a spell suited to the situation.
The first to step forward fired a Lance of Force. The massive beam of light came shrieking in nearly as fast as an arrow.
But Phoenix, who had long since developed a visceral loathing for arrows, handled the attack with practiced ease — a slight shift of the shoulder was all it took to slip past it.
As Phoenix came surging in past the lance, the second destroyer stepped up. He was holding a long wooden staff, and he drove its tip down into the ground.
Phoenix hurled himself at the earth the moment the second destroyer raised his staff. The instant he flattened against the ground, there came a PANG! of bursting air as a shockwave rippled outward in every direction.
Having evaded the Repulsion spell, Phoenix rose, brushing dirt from his head — and the destroyers' faces drained pale.
"Obrem, hurry!"
The other two men urged on their last companion. Before Phoenix — drenched head to toe in soldiers' blood — could fall upon them, the third and final spell was complete.
CHING—!
With a sound like a struck bell, something blurred and hazy interposed itself before the destroyers. An invisible shield that could not be seen unless one knew to look — a Barrier of Force.
But Phoenix apparently had never intended to attack head-on, for he kicked off the ground and leapt skyward.
Just as he had done atop the palisade, his violent launch left a crater in the earth. Only this time, unlike the near-horizontal leap before, he jumped almost straight up.
"Wh—!"
The mage who had raised his barrier let out a shrill cry, but Phoenix was already vaulting over his head. No — to be precise, he was vaulting over his head while driving his blade deep into the man's trapezius.
Thrum—
In that instant, the blood-drinking blade buried in his shoulder muscle stretched out long and raked across his heart.
"Obrem! OBREM!"
"Damn it all—"
The staff-wielding destroyer met his end, and the faces of the remaining two turned deathly white.
A moment later, two blue-haired heads went soaring into the sky.
"Whew—"
Having killed twenty-six in the space of a breath, Phoenix steadied his breathing and looked around. A crimson glow shimmered in his jet-black eyes.
The soldiers who had been charging at him stopped dead in their tracks.
And then, silence fell.