The Army of the Dead (3)
The outcome of a battle could never be predicted lightly.
There were simply too many factors to weigh, large and small: the size of the force, the stores of supplies, the quality of arms, the tactics and strategy meant to break the enemy, the presence and number of knights and mages—even the weather itself.
In that sense, Afterglow Fortress could be said to stand in crisis. Beyond the mountains waited a great host of undead. From the direction of Present a lesser swarm had still come pouring in. For all practical purposes they were surrounded front and rear. The enemy even fielded power estimated to belong to a great mage. It had been neutralized for the moment, yet the fact still gnawed at the nerves.
No matter how one looked at it, the situation was hard to call advantageous. It was the sort of endlessly threatening, thoroughly unfavorable bind in which anyone’s morale might snap—and yet the mood inside the fortress was not nearly so grim. No: to Karem’s eyes the place actually seemed livelier than before, simply because there were more people in it.
Laborers and maids who climbed and descended the towering fortress on foot because the lifts were overworked, and the stewards who drove them, wore faces marked by worry and the irritation of hard labor, but no real darkness had settled there. For reasons Karem could not quite name, the heavily armed soldiers, adventurers, warriors, and knights waiting inside the fortress whiled away the time with jokes and wagers, laughter blooming among them. The only ones who looked a little different were the escorts, stewards, maids, and servants who had come with Catherine from Coldon; they had been uneasy at first, yet they seemed to have adapted quickly and were already blending into the fortress’s atmosphere as if they had always belonged.
It was a mood utterly divorced from the urgency outside the walls. Even when the vibrations of a high-ranking undead’s siege assault shook the fortress, no one flinched except Karem, who had only just come back inside.
“Hmm. How am I supposed to explain this?”
“Does it really need that much thought?”
“We’ve just always taken it for granted.”
Borgo paused mid-knead at Karem’s question while the boy diced onions. The hesitation did not last long.
“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but large-scale invasions like this aren’t all that rare around here.”
“Oh… I think I heard that once. Why is that?”
“Because they happen often enough that we’ve gotten used to them.”
Borgo shoved the finished dough aside and heaped fresh flour onto the board.
“There was an invasion as recently as this past spring.”
“…An army on this scale?”
“A swarm of monsters that had just come through winter and were starving half to death.”
Karem wondered if it was simply the pride of rough northern men talking, but the other cooks were nodding along, so it seemed to be the truth.
“Back when His Excellency the Margrave was still a duke… well, what more is there to say?”
“In those days rank didn’t matter—everyone went hungry together.”
“Compared to then, this is paradise. Absolute paradise.”
Borgo neatly summed up the remarks the cooks kept tossing in.
“If we keep running on rations like we are now… we could hold out five years at least.”
“Five years? Just Afterglow Fortress?”
“That’s right. Drinking water’s no issue—snow and ice everywhere, plus the wells. Present’s the real worry, but His Excellency will handle that somehow.”
Borgo shrugged with flour-caked hands as if to say the rest was obvious. So they had weathered worse conditions than this, and that was why the atmosphere stayed bright? Karem was so dumbfounded he nearly sliced a finger with the kitchen knife.
It made sense, though. If they had repeatedly lived through periods when food itself ran short under circumstances like these, of course the mood would stay this cheerful. Surrounded on all sides? They’d seen worse. Compared to those days they even had plenty to eat. What was there to complain about? It was a wild, unbreakable sort of spirit.
“Hmm… then—”
Why, then, had the undead commander launched the invasion at all?
Karem shoved the mountain of diced onions onto another cook and returned to his thoughts. In a normal fortress under siege—not a demon-haunted stronghold like Afterglow—the greatest threats were food, morale, and traitors or collaborators. When supplies ran low, morale cracked no matter how solid the walls, and traitors willing to deal with the enemy inevitably appeared. Traitors could appear even without that pressure, of course, but when the situation favored the defenders they rarely did.
“Rowan and the other collaborators… while we were surrounded they were supposed to cause chaos however they could, then use the confusion to scale the walls… is that it…?”
Or they might simply have opened a gate. The pieces fit together neatly. But hadn’t every collaborator already been caught?
“Chef Borgo. Chef Borgo.”
“Mm? Something else you need to ask?”
The caterpillar-like unibrow rippled like a wave.
“I’ve been hearing screams these past few days. Were you rooting out collaborators?”
“Ah, yes. Ha. In all my years I’d never heard of a collaborator slipping into the fortress, and then it turns out to be a demon I’d only ever heard of in stories. What is the world coming to?”
“I heard you even used the bean garum I gave you.”
“Ah, right. That stuff. Bean garum.”
Borgo snapped his fingers and a small cloud of flour puffed up.
“That bean garum turned out to be remarkably handy. One spoonful in a bowl of salt water tasted decent enough, and it smoked out every demon that had snuck in.”
“So the collaborators were all—”
“Of course we rooted them out. From His Excellency the Margrave down to the lowliest laborer, every last soul either drank holy water or ate your bean garum—or was made to eat it.”
Listening to Borgo’s confident declaration while he pounded dough without pause, Karem began to think the undead commander’s entire plan with his collaborators might already have fallen apart long ago. Specifically, the moment the shapeshifter masquerading as Rowan had drunk the doenjang stew without the slightest suspicion.
Morale was high. Stockpiles of food were ample. Every collaborator had been flushed out ages ago. …Maybe there was no real need to feel pressed right now?
“Ah, whatever. We’re handling things fine for the moment.”
“Lord Karem, could I trouble you for a few more onions?”
“I don’t mind, but what exactly are you making?”
“A stew loaded with meat and vegetables, and hand-pies you can eat on the move.”
Borgo snagged a pie from a tray a passing cook was carrying.
“An improved version of a traveler’s pie. Want to try one?”
Karem accepted the offer gladly and took the pie. The adult-palm-sized rectangle was still piping hot from the oven. Steam rose in lazy curls, though it had not been brushed with egg wash and so lacked a golden sheen. He split it open with a clean break. Instantly a fierce meat aroma surged up and struck his nose.
It was not the raw, bloody smell of poorly cleaned meat. It was the distinctive char and juices of beef grilled over open coals, concentrated into something as rich and sticky as a proper gravy. The filling was packed so tight with small chunks of meat and their juices that there was no room left for vegetables—so much so that Karem briefly worried it might be greasy.
“There’s no vegetables in this, though?”
“Vegetables release moisture and make them hard to eat by hand. We’re chopping every last one and throwing them into the stew instead.”
At the end of Borgo’s pointing finger, a cauldron large enough to hold several grown men was bubbling over the central hearth. Three cooks heaved the stew-filled pot aside; the moment it left the fire another took its place and was immediately stuffed full of onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, and more.
“Vegetable stew?”
“Not only vegetables. You remember all that front brisket we had left over last time?”
“Front brisket? Ah—the first bean-garum stew?”
“It never sold, so the scrap meat just piled up. We were going to dump it into the poorhouse stew for Present, but given the situation…”
Borgo shrugged. The simple gesture made Karem clap a hand to his forehead. In other words, they were clearing out the leftovers. The earlier news had been shocking enough that the confusion did not last long; Karem decided to ask about the orders Gordon and Mary had placed.
“In the middle of all this? Sir Stark’s portion would be large, true, but it’s still just steak. Crêpe cake and egg tarts, though… that’ll be difficult right now.”
“Difficult” meant “impossible.” Until a few days ago the kitchen had been turning out all sorts of dishes; now it was nothing but stew and meat. It felt a little lacking for something meant for Catherine as well.
“But do the knights and nobles get the same thing?”
“Hmm. Under the previous Margrave the menus were definitely different.”
“So the current His Excellency changed it?”
“It saves time and labor—that was his will. There were objectors at first, but, well…”
Borgo brought a fist down into his open palm. The meaning was clear: he had shut their mouths by force.
“Then instead, the be—”
“Excuse me! Is anyone free in the kitchen?!”
A maid burst through the swinging doors in a panic.
“What? We’ve just finished the vegetable prep, so a few hands are free. What’s wrong?”
“The priests are collapsing! We need people to tend them, but everyone is short-handed—”
The priests who had been preparing holy water and blessing weapons began to collapse one after another. Karem assumed at first that the enemy was responsible. After all, there was a great mage who had contested control of the battlefield with none other than Catherine for over a week. The army itself was undead. They had even managed the meticulous feat of slipping a few demon collaborators inside. The fortress command shared the same suspicion and, even while combat raged, had diverted personnel to investigate thoroughly.
The unexpected conclusion left everyone deflated. It was not the vile black magic of demons. Not the insidious curses of a necromancer. Not poison from a collaborator targeting key figures. No one had been scheming at all. Compared to those possibilities, the answer was almost mundane. For any living person who ate, slept, and relieved themselves, it was simply inevitable.
“It’s plain exhaustion.”
Unlike everyone else who had returned from the field, the priests had had no rest while they prepared holy water and consecrated weapons against the undead invasion. By grinding themselves down on snatched catnaps they had managed to stockpile enough sacred resources for Afterglow Fortress. Their collapse now was the natural price of that labor.
“So it’s not a serious problem?”
“They’re simply worn down—vitality and stamina both depleted. If they eat something decent from now on and sleep flat for a few more days, they’ll be back on their feet without trouble.”
The healer examining a priest who lay as if dead on a blanket-covered floor answered Karem’s question simply. Besides the one in front of him, dozens more priests lay scattered around the room, and their number continued to grow, slowly but steadily.
“…Nngh! No, Sir Hartman. Our comrades are fighting for their lives right now—how can we alone rest?”
“This… this priest will… just rest the belly a little… mumble…”
“A Highlander man would never… be so lazy… zzz…”
Watching them try to rise only to fall again, mutter with closed eyes, or simply drop off mid-sentence, the chamberlain pressed a hand to his brow.
“…Fine. If you insist on putting it that way—”
“Chamberlain?”
The chamberlain vanished from in front of Karem. No—he had not vanished.
Thud! Crack! Whump! Slap!
“Up you get, all of you—agh!?”
“Sir—Sir Hartman, wait—!”
“How—how can you do this—aaaagh!!!!”
Like a sudden gust of wind, the chamberlain’s arms scythed through the people tending the priests, striking like a mantis snatching prey and dropping every priest who was still trying to play the hero.
“Th-this is blasphemy!?”
“I’ll force you to rest if I have to!!!”
It was an impromptu scene of religious persecution. Forcing them to rest was one thing, but knocking them out cold like this? Given the sweat-soaked macho atmosphere of the fortress, maybe…? The thought crossed Karem’s mind—until he saw the people who had been tending the priests go from startled to open-mouthed and vacant-eyed once they grasped the situation. That told him it was not normal.
Wallace only reappeared in his original spot like a breeze after he had felled the very last one.
“Tsk. If only they’d listen when a superior speaks politely.”
“Chamberlain… are you perhaps a little tired yourself?”
“…Ahem. Forgive me. I haven’t closed my eyes since the expedition returned.”
Even Wallace looked embarrassed this time; he could not meet Karem’s gaze and changed the subject.
“I’ve already done it, but I can’t help wondering whether it will be all right.”
“All right? So there is a problem after all?”
“Well… the thing is.”
Wallace glanced around. When people met his eyes they hastily looked away and put distance between them; reassured, he lowered his voice to a whisper.
“Our stock of holy water is being depleted at an alarming rate.”
The reason was simple. Yet under the present circumstances, holy water was the single greatest hero in collapsing the undead corpse towers. Was this actually a bigger problem than it first seemed?
“…Is this something you should be telling me?”
“With a head like yours, Lord Karem, you would have figured it out soon enough. I’m simply telling you early—like taking the beating first.”
“So the reason the priests were trying so hard to get up was…”
Karem trailed off softly. Wallace said nothing. That silence was answer enough.
“The current situation is unprecedented. Consumption is far outstripping both our reserves and our production rate. Fortunately the priests could rest a full week and still…”
Wallace let the sentence hang, but Karem understood. The holy water they had already stockpiled would run dry before that week was up. Karem let out a long breath and stretched. Those who did not know the truth continued to re-settle the fallen priests while keeping a wary eye on Wallace. The healers seemed to be brewing some kind of fatigue tonic, dropping bundles of dried plants into herbal mixtures—wait.
Dropping?
Karem slipped a hand into his pocket. A heavy presence met his fingers. He snapped them.
“Can’t holy water also be made with a holy relic?”
“Unfortunately, we exhausted every last relic last autumn—”
“Relics can be exhausted?”
“Lower-grade relics cannot withstand repeated consecration and are destroyed.”
“Hmm… grade, is it.”
Karem stared at the troubled Wallace for a long moment, then wordlessly took him by the arm and led him out of the room.