In the North, a Steel Whip Swings for the Young Lady!
In the north, a steel whip swings for the young lady!
……………
I turned my gaze toward the far edge of the grassland. Small dots were moving where a cloud of dust had bloomed up, and when I focused my eyesight as though peering through a telescope, the situation came into focus.
The Baron was riding with perhaps five of his workers, and ahead of them, a band of bandits numbering no fewer than twenty was driving off a herd of cows. The animals, forced along by strangers and panicked by the bandits' whips and threatening shouts, seemed frozen with fear.
The cattle raiders' formation was astonishingly organized. Some held position at the rear to keep the Baron's party from recklessly closing the distance, while the rest drove the herd onward. These were clearly not your ordinary thieves.
"Faster!"
The Mountain King surged forward in an instant, as if he'd understood my every word. His hooves beat against the earth with ever greater force, and the wind screamed past my ears.
The distance to the bandits closed rapidly. Their figures sharpened into view until we could read one another's movements, and the five riders blocking the path between the Baron's party and the herd were the first to notice my approach. One of them glanced back, his eyes met mine, and terror spread across his face at once.
"Wh-what the hell is that—?!"
His mouth hanging open, he jabbed an elbow into the man beside him and shouted.
"A w-woman—she's riding a bison!"
Their faces drained of color. While the bandits galloped along on their gray horses, I chased them down atop the largest black bison in the world, a long, heavy coil of iron chain wrapped around my arm.
"What kind of ox is that size?!"
"Is that the Mountain King?!"
"Then who the hell is the woman riding it?!"
A smile crept across my lips at the sight of them scrambling in confusion. Their fear came through crystal clear.
"Ram them, Mountain King!"
With a thunderous bellow, the Mountain King charged at the bandits who had been holding the Baron's party at bay with raised spears. His menacing horns lowered, aimed at their horses. Faced with that overwhelming bulk, the bandits' mounts reared up in panic, and in the chaos one rider tumbled from his saddle and hit the ground rolling. The other two barely clung to their reins, wrenching their horses around in a desperate bid to flee.
"Not so fast!"
The iron chain, knotted at the end into something like a meteor hammer, came alive in my hand. I whipped it at the fleeing bandit.
Thwiiiip!
The chain, cleaving through the air, slammed into the man's back.
"Gwaaagh!"
That thick mass of iron links was less a whip than a bludgeon. The impact knocked the wind clean out of him, and he tumbled off his horse with a wheezing gasp.
At last the main body of the raiding party, up ahead with the cattle, noticed the confusion erupting behind them. Some turned to look, and the moment they spotted me and the Mountain King, their expressions flooded with the same terror.
"No mercy for any of you!"
I swung the iron chain again—a weapon far more devastating than their spears and swords. Mounted on a mount so much larger than theirs, wielding a weapon with such reach, they were simply no match for me.
Soon the bandits' organized formation began to fall apart. Some tried to run; others fought desperately not to lose their grip on the herd. And when the Mountain King saw them lashing their whips against the cows, he bellowed louder still, in what could only be described as fury.
"■■■■■――!!"
The herd responded to his cry. The cows abruptly halted and began to change direction, and despite the whips and screaming of the bandits, they slipped further and further beyond their control.
The raiders' formation collapsed completely. A few thrashed about trapped inside the herd until they were thrown from their horses; the rest fled for their very lives.
"Ahahahahaha!"
Fun. This was fun. Absurdly, disturbingly fun. Drunk on the exhilaration, I swung the chain and felled another bandit, while the Mountain King shouldered a horse aside with that colossal body of his and sent its rider sprawling.
"Gyaaaaagh!"
A scream of pain rang out, but he wouldn't be dying. If the Mountain King had meant to kill, he would have simply trampled or gored the man—not merely unseat him.
The Baron and his handful of workers, still sorely outnumbered, realized the tide had turned and rushed to join me at once, chasing down the fleeing bandits with six-iron clubs and axes swinging.
"He's giving the orders—that one's their boss! Don't let him get away!"
Baron Trofimov shouted. Sure enough, where he pointed stood a towering man, the only one among the bandits wearing leather armor.
He was fleeing by cutting straight through the herd, and he must have judged the situation early, for he had already put a considerable distance between himself and us.
"Halt, I say!"
I seized the Mountain King's mane and steered him toward the bandit chief. He seemed to grasp my intent immediately and surged forward. With no saddle and no bridle, his back was nonetheless remarkably steady, thanks to the iron strength of Katerina's thighs.
The gap between us and the bandit chief narrowed with every stride. He never once looked back, devoting himself entirely to escape.
"Hyaah!"
My hand swung the chain once more—this time casting it like a lasso. As if it understood my will, the chain traced a perfect arc and coiled around the chief's upper body.
"What the—?!"
He cried out in shock, but it was already too late. I hauled back hard on the chain, and he was yanked from his horse and skidded across the ground.
"Gwaaaaagh!!"
The Mountain King, with me upon his back, came to a stop before the chief. Groaning in pain, he struggled to rise—but the chain held him fast.
"Do not move. Struggle, and it will only hurt more."
As I looked down at him from the Mountain King's back, the chief's face filled with terror. In his eyes I could see my golden drill curls, my crimson eyes, and the colossal silhouette of the beast that carried me.
……………
The bandit chief never opened his mouth.
No matter how menacingly the Mountain King snorted and pawed the earth, no matter how I smashed the iron chain against the ground in threat, he held fast to his stubborn silence.
But the truth was, I didn't desperately need his confession. There was other evidence.
The chief probably kept his men disciplined well enough, but the drovers aren't fools either. None of them would shoulder every last crime to the end with their mouths sealed. Sooner or later, one of them will talk.
And that wasn't all. Baron Trofimov's drovers even gave testimony that some of the bandits had once worked at the Dmitry Ranch under the cattle market's employ.
"This is unmistakable proof! Baron Dmitry targeted my ranch with a planned attack—there can be no doubt of it!"
The Baron's voice, flushed red with rage, was steeped in long-held hostility toward an old rival.
Only after every last bandit had been bound and gathered together could we return to the ranch. I rode at the fore atop the Mountain King with Baron Trofimov beside me on horseback, while his workers herded along both the captured bandits and the rescued cows.
The sun began its slow descent. The red sunset dyed the broad grassland gold, and the Mountain King's black mane rippled in the wind.
"My lady, what happened today was no ordinary case of cattle rustling."
Baron Trofimov spoke with a face grown hard and stiff, as if he had steeled himself to some firm resolve.
"The feud between House Dmitry and my own stretches back decades. It began, at first, as an ordinary boundary dispute."
His fists, clenched tight around the reins, trembled.
"Back when my father ran this ranch, our family and the Dmitry family fought over the rich pastures in the western reaches of the Grand Duke's direct domain. After a long struggle, the wise Grand Duke of that generation ruled in our family's favor—and from that day onward, House Dmitry has never ceased watching us with wary eyes."
"Hmm... so it's friction born of old grudges, then? Is that truly the whole of it?"
The Baron's expression shifted, subtle and complicated.
"Your insight is remarkable, my lady. No—that is not all."
He steered his horse closer and lowered his voice a degree.
"What the Dmitry Ranch was after were these cows. These cows are something very special. We have spent over a decade painstakingly refining the breed. Soon, our Trofimov Ranch will bring a revolution to the entire livestock industry of the western region."
Not just livestock—future assets, then...?
"These cows withstand the northern cold far better than common breeds, produce more milk, and boast exceptional resistance to disease. Surely you can see why those Dmitry dogs would covet them."
As Baron Trofimov's explanation went on, the shape of the situation gradually came into focus.
"You mean to say Baron Dmitry tried to steal the fruits of Trofimov Ranch's breeding program—lock, stock, and barrel?"
"Precisely. The western region of the Grand Duke's direct domain is the most developed in all the Grand Duchy for livestock—and safer than the east or the north, besides."
"House Dmitry has operated the largest ranch in this region for generations, but if our new Trofimov breed succeeds, the balance of power could very well shift. Though thanks to that beast you're riding, my lady, the breeding work has been delayed a fair bit, much to my regret."
As Baron Trofimov cast a reproachful glance at the Mountain King, the beast snorted hard—as if he'd understood every word.