42. The Shackle (11)
Hm, this is technically a week-old story by now, so I'll admit I'm a little behind.
After I'd dealt with the Black Wolves, Randhal's mercenaries, the pursuers from the palace, and Queen Ramashda of Anupad, Utekwai and I had leveled up.
Name:Me | Level:24 | Class:Blood Knight
Stats: Remaining Bonus — 2 | Strength — 27(51) | Agility — 27(51) | Health — 26(48) | Magic — 23(39)
Skills:
Blood Blade 7pt · Plunder 4pt · Blood Shield 3pt
Flowing Blood 5pt · Hot Blood 3pt
Legendary Bloodline 1pt
Thirst 4pt · Blood Thirst 2pt · Cloud of Blood 1pt
No matter how many times I studied it, the sheet was simply absurd. On paper, those stats should have taken level 32 or higher to accumulate. The skills were the same story — I hadn't yet learned the next-rank ones, but the sheer number of points I was sitting on was enormous.
In any case, having grown this strong, I came to an instinctive realization. And it was this…
"Lock down the encirclement!"
"Archers! Archers—!"
Ordinary rabble, I understood, would only ever swarm me in packs and pose no real threat.
"Aaah—h-he's coming this way!"
"Block him!"
I hurled myself at the spearmen staggering backward. The red-throbbing Hrunting whipped left and right as if to snap in half. Three or four longspears bounced away with a light clatter, and I was already slipping through the gap.
"Draw your blades!"
"Stab him! Stab, I said!"
Shouldering between the flailing spearmen, I let loose with blade, fist, elbow, and knee without restraint.
Wham!
A heavy iron shard and a chain-wrapped elbow smashed into one soldier's skull. His helm crumpled with a crunch, and the man folded like wet cloth.
One middle-aged soldier lost his jaw to a gauntleted punch; a young one took a knee to the gut and toppled over with his eyes rolled white. There was a man whose eyeball burst against Hrunting's crossguard, and another whose nose caved in under a headbutt.
"Gah—don't push!"
"Fall back, you bastards, fall back!"
Under my furious rampage, the tightly packed soldiers crumpled in heaps.
As I trampled them and drove my blade into throats and hearts, the only counters that came back were sluggish spear thrusts and a predictable rain of arrows.
"Hk—"
A spear snaked out from my left and snagged my arm.
"Let go of this, you bastard—!"
The soldier gripping the shaft thrashed and fought, but I had no leisure to give him a proper stab — I needed to split the skull of a shield-bearer charging in from the other side.
So I yanked the spear shaft in once, clamped it tight under my armpit, and reached for the spearman's throat.
"You son of a—urk—"
I seized the neck of the man mid-curse.
Phoinix's body was built on a considerable scale, and his hands matched it — a grown man's neck nearly vanished inside one grip. All the easier, then, to squeeze the life out of him.
Crrrunch.
Before his face could even flush black with trapped blood, his spine broke first. I repositioned the body to cover my back, and — thunk, thunk — arrows buried themselves in the corpse, jolting it with every impact.
I was about to leap back into the press of enemies, using the corpse to dodge the arrowfire, when the soldiers ringing me in withdrew like an ebbing tide.
…What now?
"Hoo, hoo."
Just as I was catching my breath, a company of heavily armed troops emerged into view.
Thirty-some men, knights and elite soldiers at a glance…
"That's enough showing off, blood-soaked swordsman."
The man who stepped forward as he said it was, even at a glance, a knight. His crimson-lacquered great helm, crowned with deer-antler ornaments, made quite the impression.
"Your skill is fine, but your cruelty is that of a bandit or a sellsword. Surely the Silver Prince's judgment has grown clouded—"
The knight stopped mid-sentence and raised the heater shield in his left hand. In the same instant, the corpse sprawled at his feet burst apart, and dozens of blood shards swarmed over him.
KRACK-BOOM!
Thanks to the antlered knight's sharp reflexes, the Cloud of Blood I had cast in secret left only a few scratches on his shield and armor — it failed to blind him. A pity.
As I clicked my tongue, the antlered knight's eyes gleamed bright and hostile through the slits of his great helm.
"A knight resorting to ambush — have you no honor?"
"You're spouting idiotic nonsense."
"…What did you say?"
"Oh, so it's fine when a knight brings all his friends to gang up on one man? If your honor's so precious, come at me alone."
The antlered knight fell silent for a moment, then muttered while regripping his war hammer.
"Words are wasted on you."
"Bullshit, you coward."
I threw the insult back with a wide, mocking grin. Just before the antlered knight raised his hand to say something — I kicked off the ground and threw myself at his men first.
"Good lord, he's mad—"
The flash of panic in their eyes was deeply satisfying.
Ellen's wand hand and her empty left hand never stopped moving as she pieced spell after spell together, and in the gaps between them she stole glances past the defensive line.
…I have to hurry. Her gaze settled on the wreckage of the shattered gate and wooden palisade, piled high in the distance. Somewhere beyond that rubble, Phoinix was surely fighting for his life amid a sea of enemies…
She bit her lip hard for a moment, then shook her head slightly and moved on.
"Move."
"It's dangerous, milady, please—urk,"
Amias, their leader, broke out in a cold sweat as an arrowhead punched clean through his shield, and he planted himself in her path. Shoulder pressed against a fellow soldier's, he lifted his head just above the rim of the shield to survey the field ahead.
Then,
"Now!"
he called out low, and swung his tower shield aside.
Ellen slid her wand through the gap and triggered the spell.
"Ventus — O wind —!"
⟨ Wind Blades ⟩
Deep-green wisps of wind gathered at the tip of her wand, tangling together like a spool of thread. For a breath they held — then, with a whump, the wind burst forward.
The fine green strands unraveled thread by thread as they carved through the air, gaining speed as they went, until each one trailed an emerald afterimage. The afterimages looked for all the world like curved blades.
WHOOM!
A dozen-odd wind blades, fanning out in a spread, slammed into the enemies massed before the defensive line. It was a spell Ellen had enhanced with her own trademark ingenuity.
"Guh—damn it!"
"It's magic—!"
The soldiers shredded by razor wind rolled across the ground shrieking. Most of them were armored, and that alone saved their lives — but with so many wounded all at once, the Longville forces cut them down with ease.
"Lady Ellen, get back!"
Amias and the soldiers threw up their shields and rushed to screen her. The moment Ellen ducked out of sight, more than a dozen arrows came whistling in and hammered against the wall of shields.
"Nnngh—"
Amias shuddered under the arrow storm and groaned through clenched teeth — an arrowhead that had punched through his shield was grinding against his shoulder. By pure luck, he wore chainmail backed with thick leather, so the shaft hadn't bitten flesh. Still, taking that impact while barely holding his ground knocked him staggering backward.
"Amias!"
Cole, who had been loosing arrows between the shields, darted over and braced Amias's back. Once he'd helped the captain steady his stance, Cole drew his bowstring again.
"Just hold on a little longer. Something's off about the enemy."
"Off how?"
"The ones standing up there keep glancing back over their shoulders. I think something's gone wrong in their rear."
"Yeah? Well, I hope it's something big—nnngh, damn it all—"
Amias's face contorted as he shoved his shield forward with everything he had.
Thud!
The enemy soldier clinging to the shield went sprawling, and Amias buried his axe in the man's shoulder. A Longville soldier beside him thrust out a spear to finish the job.
"Ugh, they just keep swarming like a colony of ants! If only we had Miss Syren's golem right now…"
At Amias's grumbling, Cole nodded with a wry smile tugging at his lips.
Have we really grown that used to working with them? Without them here, why does it feel so empty?
The "them" Cole was thinking of were the Rao siblings, the druid Zanavas, and Simos the spellsword.
The Rao family strictly forbade its members from meddling in disputes between nobles without the head of house's leave. Because of that law, Syren and Edan had been barred from joining this battle, and their party had instead taken up position at the lord's manor, guarding the Baroness at Phoinix's request.
But missing them was one thing; what mattered now was surviving the next breath. Both Amias and Cole knew it well, and they pulled themselves together.
"Amias!"
"Mira?"
Just then, Mira came sprinting toward them from somewhere across the line. Her swordplay had grown quietly sharp of late, and she'd been tasked with clearing out the enemies who breached the shield wall.
"What is it?"
"Up ahead — there's a whole group coming, and even at a glance they look wrong!"
"…Wrong at a glance, huh?"
"Yeah, over there!"
Mira pointed past the defensive line, at the ruins of the gate.
Three men in white cloaks were advancing toward the line. The cloaks might have been woven of wool or of hemp — but somehow, the white they wore had a strange luster to it…
Ellen, who had been pouring wind blades through the gaps in the shield wall, spotted them — and her eyes went wide.
"…Witch hunters?"
"Pardon? Witch hunters?"
Steedman, bald as an egg, narrowed his brow hard.
"Aren't those the bastards who run loose in the Empire? What are they doing here…"
While he was wondering aloud, Cole the archer loosed an arrow. He'd swapped in a fresh bowstring days ago, and he could now shoot faster and farther than before.
The long arrow split the wind and buried itself dead-center in the chest of the man walking at the fore of the white-cloaked trio. Even in the middle of the chaotic melee, the thock carried from thirty-odd meters away.
Then the struck man took hold of the arrow — and ripped it out, savage and unhesitating.
Shhrrrip—
Flesh snagged on the arrowhead tore free and stretched long. The witch hunter uttered no scream, not even a groan. He simply kept walking…
Amias watched, and laughed an empty little laugh.
"…Ha. What now? Witch hunters, you say?"
"I've heard the rumors — that they're like demons. Are they even human?"
A sight like that — men shrugging off chest wounds — would have made any ordinary mercenary gape and stumble back.
But Amias's crew had spent a month at Phoinix's side, awash in every brand of the absurd. They only scrunched their faces in weary disgust, as if to say not this again — surprise was a luxury they'd long since lost.
Ellen, however, had had the witch hunters' infamy drilled into her ears since her training days at La Palais — and she went rigid and screamed.
"Oil! Get the oil ready!"
"What?"
NOW!
As the other mercenaries stared at the bizarre order, Cole spun and sprinted for the rear. Watching him go, Ellen began preparing her spell.
As she chanted and mana streamed into her, the white-cloaked witch hunters' eyes glinted beneath their hoods.
The man in the lead — the one who'd taken the arrow to the chest — drew a carved stone figurine from inside his coat. It depicted a winged woman blowing a horn.
The witch hunter's lips moved, murmuring something — and the figurine began to tremble.
KIIIIIIEE—!
A screech like iron grinding against iron tore through the air, and a shockwave rippled outward from the statue in every direction.
And then, silence fell.
Steedman and Amias turned to face each other, mouths working — and no voices came.
Nor was that all. Spears struck shields, blades parted flesh, hammers rang off helms — and through it all, not a single sound reached anyone's ears.
The figurine the witch hunter had produced had swallowed every noise on the field whole…
The battlefield plunged into instant panic. Some men believed they'd gone deaf; others were convinced they'd been cursed.
But the panic was brief. They could still feel, still move — only sound had been stolen from them — and so they fought on exactly as before.
A ferocious melee unfolding in perfect silence was eerie beyond description. It was the kind of sight that crawled up your spine and made your skin prickle.
Damn it all…
Ellen worked her lips desperately, but with every sound sealed away, there was no chance in hell of getting a spell out.
The three white-cloaked witch hunters, clutching a massive crossbow, pikes, and axes, charged the defensive line — no, charged Ellen.
The curse hadn't been laid by the Fire Witch at all, but to men who nursed an unconditional hatred of witches, that hardly seemed to matter.
Then, as if things weren't bad enough, a woman returned to the battlefield.
The woman hovering in midair, screaming soundlessly — it was none other than Attilia.
She was a wreck. Her left elbow bent the wrong way, and her cherished white lance, White Thorn, was nowhere to be seen.
Attilia drew on the power of the arcane through the third eye embedded in her forehead.
Six spears of void erupted from her cervical vertebrae, writhing with savage force. She surged across the air to the edge of the defensive line and lashed her violet tendrils out in every direction.
Blood spattered across the battlefield here and there, like red paint slapped onto a war chronicle. Each advancing void spear impaled three or four soldiers at a stroke — six or seven, at its worst.
Far off, atop the ruins of the gate, Doyle — second son of Count Tristane — was screaming himself hoarse.
Doyle clutched his emerald-green pendant and bellowed with all his might, but the witch hunter's figurine had swallowed the sound, and his voice never reached Attilia.
And so Attilia carried on with the slaughter.
Violet radiance blazing from her eyes, her brow, her hair — making no distinction between Multingham troops and Longville.
The void spears, slung with three or four soldiers apiece, swept the field like whips. Corpses in heavy armor swung like flail heads, smashing into friend and foe alike.
The soldiers thrashed and scrambled to escape Attilia — or rather, the violet tendrils sprouting from her spine — as she stood motionless at the heart of the battlefield.
Sensing the danger, Mira and Steedman moved to get Ellen out.
But Ellen's eyes glowed blue as she glared at Attilia, showing no intention whatsoever of retreating.
Just then, Cole the archer arrived hauling jars of blazing oil — and without asking a thing, hurled them straight at the witch hunters.
The jars shattered, and black oil soaked through the white cloaks.
Ellen gathered herself.
The talent sleeping in her blood, the mana dwelling in her body, her innate, ferocious focus — all of it woke sharp and vivid.
Her ash-gray wand and the fingers of her left hand completed the glyphs, and three fire arrows rose above her head.
It was the trick that had left Syren Rao aghast not long ago — Multi-Cast, casting without a single word of incantation.
Three fire arrows struck the three witch hunters dead-on, and in an instant they were engulfed in flame.
Just as they had with the arrow in the chest, the witch hunters kept charging the defensive line as though nothing were happening.
But a fire fed on blazing oil and mana burned far fiercer than anything they were made for. The hunters felt no pain, that was true — but there was no helping muscles and nerves melting away.
And so the man-shaped monsters fell, almost pathetically easily.
Ellen didn't spare the sight so much as a glance. She was already dredging up the last of her mana to ready another spell.
At eye level, the air warped. Steam gathered, condensing into droplets — and those droplets hardened into ice shards the length of a forearm, gleaming with a razor's edge.
The instant the spell completed, Ellen thrust out her wand without a moment's delay.
Four frost fangs tore across the field with the speed of crossbow bolts and hurtled straight at Attilia.
Attilia, floating blankly in the air, snapped her head around.
In that instant, the void spears that had butchered over a hundred soldiers in the space of a breath writhed like tendrils dipped in fire. Contracting and expanding in rapid pulses, they raced back toward their mistress.
The frost fangs flew at her throat and face. Swinging her broken left arm up as a shield, she blocked them — somehow, barely. That was the extent of it.
Attilia, great holes punched through her flank and shoulder, tumbled across the ground. Just as she began retching up blood, the witch hunter's figurine finally gave out.
"Kgh—"
Attilia's healthily sun-bronzed skin had always been her signature. Now her face was drained a ghostly gray.
She blinked slowly, gasping for breath. Then she murmured, in the smallest of voices:
"…Mom."
Her eyes, the violet glow draining out of them, returned to gold — but even that light was dimming, little by little.
From the massacre she had just wreaked, the ground around her was thick with nothing but corpses; every soldier nearby had long since fled.
And so, absurdly enough, a strange lull descended upon the battlefield.
Ellen started toward Attilia — and stopped short at the edge of a trench choked with bodies. She swayed for a moment as if dizzy, and Steedman hurried to her side.
"Lady Ellen, are you all right?"
Ellen only shook her head quietly, giving no answer.
Perhaps it was from overtaxing her magic. The nausea was surging so violently she was certain she'd vomit the moment she opened her mouth.
Then —
Clop. Clop.
Hoofbeats rang out across a battlefield gone as silent as if someone had dumped cold water over it. The sound was coming from behind the defensive line.
"…Huh?"
"What… what the hell is that?"
The men who turned toward the sound — Multingham troops and Longville troops alike — all let their mouths fall slightly open. A woman riding a black horse had stolen every gaze on the field.
Fine leather trousers, a gold-tasseled vest, a cloak of glossy satin — none of it attire suited to a battlefield. Neither were her hair, black as the night sky, her skin so white the veins showed faintly through, her thick, crimson lips.
The peerless beauty who had appeared out of nowhere — Heila — walked her black horse forward, unhurried. She picked a spot where a shield had propped itself just so atop the piled corpses, and crossed the trench.
When the black horse misstepped and nearly pitched its beautiful rider out of the saddle, almost no one even noticed. Heila's face had remained as expressionless as ever.
In a silence that didn't belong on a battlefield, a beauty who didn't belong there drew in the reins.
Heila dismounted very, very slowly — so slowly that to some it might have looked sluggish. At her feet, Attilia was breathing in shallow, ragged gasps.
Before the Nudein warrior woman standing at death's threshold, the beautiful noblewoman sank to one knee. Looking down into those golden eyes, Heila opened her mouth.