Opening the Way
The next day, I stood on the ramparts and looked out over the battlefield spread toward the Great Forest.
The wind came in as it always did—damp, clinging, almost sticky—and woven faintly through it was the stench of demons. I could see them far off. They no longer came up to the wall. Today, as yesterday, they showed no intention of laying siege; they only hung back at a distance and menaced us from there.
What did they want? Were they simply waiting for reinforcements? No. That couldn't be it. If that were the goal, coming out of the forest to threaten us would only work against them. Calling it a threat was generous—in truth, they were putting the size of their remaining host on display with their own hands.
"Then... to pin us here?"
That was the only possibility that came to mind. More precisely, they were waiting for something, and raising all this noise to hold our eyes so we wouldn't find it. Turn it over as I might, I still couldn't tell what that something was.
I was sunk in the thought when a voice edged with a sharp presence came from behind me.
"There you are."
I turned. Serena was just coming up onto the wall.
"...Sister. What brings you here?"
"What brings me. It's nearly time to sortie, and one man was nowhere to be seen, so I came looking."
She said it with a peculiar suspicion in her eyes.
"Don't tell me you thought I'd run."
"I didn't think it would be strange if you had. You were always that sort."
I had no will to argue. In the memories Lucas had left behind, he was forever slipping away to avoid Serena.
"But the you I've watched these past few weeks is different again from the one I knew."
Her tone shifted. A measure of gravity settled into the voice that had always sounded as if she were tossing the words away.
"I won't ask what happened to you. I'm not particularly interested. Only—are you truly all right?"
"All right with what?"
"Them."
Serena pointed toward the demons. Their host was divided into five great companies, as if to ring the fortress, and five Branded Monsters commanded them, one to each company. I could make the creatures out even from here: a crimson troll with a greatsword; a twisted tree spirit lurching along in warped motion; Aragosa, the giant spider that spat venom; an orc champion with a spear in one hand and a bow slung across his back; and an elder goblin bearing a staff taller than its own body.
"The one assigned to you was the elder goblin, wasn't it?"
I nodded. The knights of Wind Fortress, preparing today's counterattack, had likewise been split into five companies to match those Branded Monsters—one branded beast for each company to bring down.
"I said as much in council, but that one is especially troublesome compared to the rest."
"Even so, the strongest is supposed to be the orc champion. That's why you took him yourself, Sister."
"Strong and troublesome aren't the same thing. To put it bluntly, we never prepared for a specimen specialized in magic to this degree."
Serena spoke with a crease between her brows. I knew very well what worried her. Among monsters, goblins were commonly named the weakest of the weak, and yet one of their kin was leading a demon host—proof enough of how exceptional this creature was.
The elder goblin was a monster that fit that exception exactly. Not some shaman who had merely stumbled into spellwork, but a demon wielding magic of a far higher order. Beyond attack spells and enhancements, it used bewitchment, barrier arts, even spatial magic. It had been a thorough nuisance even back when I was a hunter.
"And the host under the elder goblin is a problem as well."
Around it I could see dozens of goblin shamans, and goblin champions besides. It was not only the branded elder goblin that was dangerous. The whole pack it belonged to formed a single company of mages.
"A magic unit on that scale is too great a threat. So it has to be dealt with as quickly as possible."
"I know. That's why you assigned me plenty of knights, isn't it?"
"I'm saying that won't be enough."
Serena's eyes fixed on me without blinking. They were telling me that I was the one who had to make up the lack. Honestly, the expectation caught me off guard.
"A moment ago you said it wouldn't be strange if I ran."
"I did. But as I said, you're different now. Even I can't tell just how strong you are. You aren't stronger than me, are you?"
For a second I thought she was joking. Her face said she was not.
"How could I be."
I snorted and shook my head. If I gained one more core, perhaps. As I was, I could not claim to surpass Serena. She only stared at me in silence, and that beastlike gaze sat on me heavily enough that I added, lightly:
"Don't look at me like that. It makes me want to run."
Serena let out a short sigh, as if she regretted having brought it up at all.
"Enough. It's time. Let's go down."
I came down off the wall with her. Behind the gate, the knights were already drawn up in a long line.
"Young Master!"
Among them I saw Greg and Ser. I mounted the horse that had been readied, and they mounted with me. Not long after, a deep rumble rolled through the stone. Great wheels turned, and the gate that had been shut fast began to rise, slow and heavy. The warhorses bearing the knights blew fierce breath from their nostrils. At last the gate stood fully open, and beyond it the distant demons came into view. They stared this way in a daze, as if they had never expected the gate to open.
"Charge!"
At Serena's command from the very front, the warhorses broke into a run. Hundreds of knights poured through the gate at once, split into five streams, and raced for the demons.
"Graaaaaah!"
The monsters scrambled to form ranks. Before they could even dress their lines, a massive bolt slammed down into the middle of them with a crash. It was the Azure Plum Knight Order, come out beyond the walls. They drove in only far enough for the demons to enter range, then loosed arrows like siege-poles. Several orcs still gripping axes were run through before they could lift a hand, and a werewolf that had been kicking off the ground went down thrashing, buried under the fallen orcs. The knights drove into the gap. Full knights, none of them below two stars and none of them easy prey, danced through the press, and demons were swept away in heaps.
"Forward!"
The corpses of the dead made a road, and the horses ran over it. Fearless warhorses trampled orcs underfoot and pressed on.
"Uwaaaaah!"
Demons poured in from both flanks, and the wide road narrowed in an instant. The knights still fought bravely, but there were too many demons to overcome on momentum alone.
"Break through!"
At some knight's shout, I drove through the swarm coming at us, cutting without pause through the wave of things I could no longer tell apart—orc, werewolf, or ogre. Whenever it grew too dangerous, I unleashed Fear. Demons frozen for a breath were stabbed down by the knights' swords in the next.
We had come about halfway when it happened. An explosion rolled over the field, fundamentally unlike the crack of weapons meeting. I looked back. Fire was erupting from the ground, and from the sky fell not arrows but ice and hail. Magic. No question of it. The elder goblin's shaman company had begun to move.
"Kraaaaa!"
The demons around us shrieked. Yellow light streamed from their eyes in threads; they were no longer ordinary demons. It was a frenzy hex, a kind of mass enhancement. Mad with it, they forgot death and even pain and threw themselves at the knights.
"Ghk—!"
Under the raining spells and the strengthened monsters, several knights went down screaming. There was no room to spare them a thought. Flame surged up on every side of me. I was fortunate enough not to take a direct hit, but the blast of heat seared one arm. Fierce pain raked past, and the horse under me screamed. I bore it with a single grimace, downed a potion, and kicked the horse in the flank.
"Aim for the shamans!"
Someone shouted it, but there was no longer a way forward. Demons were throwing their own bodies into the path toward the casters and blocking it solid. The fight collapsed into a melee.
"Tch...!"
I clicked my tongue. I had been prepared for things to go this far. Even so, I could not drag out a fight in which we were isolated in the middle of the enemy line. I abandoned the horse and dropped to the ground. Several frenzied monsters saw me and charged, and I cut them down. However mad a demon ran, it could not keep running once it had lost its head.
Then magic circles rose all around me.
"I won't be hit twice."
I glanced at the circles sidelong. I had seen them before. Those geometric shapes, familiar to the point of disgust, told me exactly what the magic was—fireball, ice arrow, and a burst from the ground. The trajectories they would take, and the timing, I knew by instinct as well. No one had taught me. It was experience, learned from seeing the same patterns hundreds of times, thousands of times. On that basis I found a pocket of safety and threw myself into it.
An instant later, the space where I had been was swallowed in flame, and as if that were not enough, spikes of ice drove in like a hedgehog's quills. Had I stayed, it would have been no surprise if I died on the spot. They never touched me, and so they were nothing.
I cut the demons down, slipped the spells, and pushed on.
"Grrrrr..."
This time a single huge figure barred my way. Tall and straight for a goblin—taller than an orc—and holding a refined two-handed sword steeped in demonic energy. A goblin champion. So the ones that had stood around the elder goblin like bodyguards were only showing themselves now.
"Tch..."
To be honest, a goblin champion was an annoying enemy. It was considerably skilled with a sword, and more than that, it was not a demon raging on instinct. It knew how to use its head. That meant it understood tactics and the shape of the battle, and so it might only pretend to engage me while it dragged the time out. Right now, the one who could not afford delay was me. Even so, it remained an enemy I had to bring down if I meant to reach the elder goblin. I leveled my sword at it.
That was when a voice called me from behind.
"Young Master!"
Greg. He had somehow followed me through the chaos.
"You're alive?"
"Of course. And... I'll take this one."
He reset his grip on his sword as he said it. I frowned. A goblin champion was not an opponent a two-star knight could handle. Among goblins, setting aside lords and special specimens, it was the demon that stood as their strongest warrior.
You needed at least a 3-Star Knight to have a real chance, and this one was likely under the elder goblin's enhancement besides—so even that might fall short. For Greg, it was a foe he would have to stake his life on just to trade a few blows.
But he spoke as if he already knew all of it.
"I'll hold him."
Whether his instincts were simply sharp, or he had a gift for reading a battle, Greg had seen through the fact that this goblin champion was a nuisance standing in my way.
"So go. Opening the path for you is an escort knight's duty, isn't it?"
If he was going to say that much, there was only one answer I could give him.
"...I'll trust you with it."
I granted his request. Greg charged the goblin champion without hesitation, and a violent crack of impact burst out at once. Leaving that behind, I kept advancing.
The Branded Monster was right in front of me now.