Chapter 11
Chapter 11
The Iron Emperor — Chapter 11
Jin-cheon slowly returned to his horse, mounted, and gave the order.
"Withdraw."
Clank. Clank.
The war horses began walking again, their barding clashing. As they moved, soldiers approached the man who had been standing there weeping, threw their arms around his shoulders, helped up his wife and child, and smiled at them.
Then, as if drawn by something, the villagers began to follow, each clutching a farming tool, a stone axe the orcs had left behind, anything. Before long, the column had swelled past three hundred.
"The Daesaja has returned!"
"Open the barricade!"
"Open the gate!"
Creeeeak.
Yeon Hwi-garam entered with Go Jin-cheon at the fore, the Black Armored Ghost Cavalry following behind. At the rear came the three hundred-odd refugees, surrounded by axemen guarding them like an escort, and a dozen or so horsemen.
"Women!"
"But have they not had a single bowl of gruel? Their faces are so pale it looks like they're sick."
"No, they say the golden-haired young lady who came to greet us has a pale face too."
"Is that so?"
When the soldiers spotted women among the slash-and-burn farmers, their eyes began to widen. The effect of going even a single day without training was surging through their entire bodies.
"You bastards, droolin' already?"
"Hup!"
Buru's voice rang in the ears of the soldiers, whose blood had been heating up, and they quickly scattered back to their posts. Mu-deok and the ladies-in-waiting who had come out to greet them approached Jin-cheon and offered their respects.
"You have returned."
"Mm. Captain of the Guard, anything unusual?"
"Well... setting aside one slightly odd thing... More to the point, what in the world are these refugees?"
Seeing the slash-and-burn farmers swarming in, Mu-deok asked with a bewildered expression.
"Hwi, you explain to the Captain of the Guard. Then have the soldiers set to work building temporary quarters. Uru, mobilize your deputies and soldiers to sweep up every last pig carcass and all the scrap metal around that village. And take everything salvageable from their belongings. Take Gurajaengi and Beron with you."
Having issued orders in rapid succession, Jin-cheon walked down toward the lakeshore. Mu-deok's eyes spun with questions, but Hwi-garam, who was supposed to explain, simply kept on smiling, leaving Mu-deok with nothing but frustration.
Jin-cheon had reached the lakeshore, removed his armor, and was washing himself when it happened.
"Daesaja!"
Mu-deok rushed down to him as he soaked in the lake, shouting in a face flushed red.
"Have you truly resolved to do this?"
"What are you talking about?"
Perhaps displeased at having his post-battle rest disturbed, however slight, Jin-cheon furrowed his brow deeply and gave Mu-deok a curt answer. Yet Mu-deok, visibly stirred, wore an expression like that of a child.
"Are you truly going to succeed the Yeolje's line here!"
"What nonsense is that?"
Jin-cheon's brow now furrowed completely at Mu-deok's abrupt words.
"Taking those slash-and-burn farmers as your people means..."
"Is that not only natural? In our current situation, we have no need for useless slaves. What we need is a single elite soldier, along with women and children who can become an emotional anchor our soldiers will want to protect. That is why I told them to come as our people, not as slaves."
"No... that is..."
Behind Mu-deok, who wore a puzzled expression, Hwi-garam's laughter rang out.
"Hahaha! What does it matter? The soldiers are stirred up right now. Giving them a purpose will give their lives meaning."
"Hwi."
Jin-cheon felt the back of his head tighten. Hwi-garam came to Jin-cheon's side and slowly continued speaking.
"If you change what you said now, won't the soldiers' morale plummet? We do not even know where we are, or whether this is even the world we lived in. You must make a decision."
"..."
At Hwi-garam's words, Jin-cheon could only exhale a sigh. Then he looked at Hwi-garam, who was grinning back at him.
"You become the Yeolje. I can't do it."
"Daesaja, how can you speak such words!"
"Dae Mu-deok, you're tearing my ears off."
Dae Mu-deok's ear-splitting voice hammered obnoxiously into Jin-cheon's eardrums.
At the time, the people's faith in the Yeolje of Gauri (Goguryeo) was almost religious. That was why even Yeon Gaesomun, after rebelling, could not bring himself to sit upon the Yeolje's throne.
In such circumstances, for Jin-cheon—illegitimate, yet carrying the Yeolje's bloodline—to say, "You go ahead and be the Yeolje," it was only natural for Mu-deok, the Captain of the Guard, to be practically bursting with outrage. But whether Mu-deok burst or fell on his sword, Jin-cheon just waved him off with a look of utter annoyance.
"In any case, I'm sick at the thought of sitting on the Throne of Yeolje bickering with ministers, so don't bring it up again. I might end up drawing a blade in the middle of court."
"Heh heh."
Hwi-garam, who well knew Jin-cheon's temperament, burst into the laughter he'd been holding back, while Mu-deok was left flustered. He had never seen a descendant of the Yeolje whose words and actions were so rough. Hwi-garam suppressed his laughter, shrugged, and spoke.
"Well, you could simply put your name on it and then head out to the battlefield."
"Hmm."
"Wha— surely not! General Yeon, what reckless talk! General Go Jin-cheon!"
Seeing Jin-cheon suddenly fall deep into thought at Hwi-garam's words, Mu-deok began to panic. Jin-cheon's deliberation did not outlast a single minute.
"Dae Mu-deok, Captain of the Guard, you handle everything. To speak of founding a nation is, frankly, absurd in our current circumstances, but wherever we are, we are soldiers of Gauri. I am a man who has lived on the battlefield. Even if I rack my brain, I won't suddenly become capable of what I can't do."
"B-but, however—!"
"However what? Even if a Pyeonjeon flew into my skull, I'm a man who simply cannot do what I cannot do."
Jin-cheon's voice was resolute as he cut Mu-deok off.
"The Captain of the Guard surely knows as well. An incompetent emperor or Yeolje devours his own country. I have no talent for state affairs. What I know is war and protecting Gauri."
"But still..."
Mu-deok could not collect himself under the torrent of Jin-cheon's words.
"What I can do, I will do. So you, Dae Mu-deok, Captain of the Guard, should take on the part you can do as well. I am not telling you to become the Yeolje."
"Yet I, too, am a military man."
"But as Captain of the Guard, were you not always at the side where the nation's great and small affairs were decided? They say even a dog that's spent three years at a Gyeongdang—Goguryeo's educational institution—can shoot a Pyeonjeon."
"Watching is different from doing. I beg you, withdraw this command."
"Hmmph."
Seeing Mu-deok press his head down, Jin-cheon let out an uncomfortable groan, furrowing his brow even further before spitting out a low voice tinged with threat.
"Then... shall I make Buru or Uru do it?"
"Hurk! I— I would rather do it myself!"
Having accepted the command out of sheer desperation, Mu-deok's face twisted, while Hwi-garam was doubled over clutching his stomach with laughter behind him.
The day the three hundred-odd slash-and-burn farmers arrived at the encampment, the soldiers worked through the night building temporary barracks. Of course, only reserve troops were used, but they yielded their own barracks to the newcomers and labored deep into the night without a single grumble.
They were hardened soldiers who obeyed orders, but the greatest reason was the high proportion of women. Out of three hundred-odd people, only barely thirty were able-bodied young men. Add in the middle-aged and older, and it was just over one hundred. Therefore, the rest were women and children.
To think they moved because they feared the work would be hard for all those women is a clear misjudgment. It was simply a competition to look good.
Jin-cheon emerged from the command tent through the early-morning gloom, looking around, sinking into his thoughts. He was twenty-five. A young age, yet half of it had been spent rolling around battlefields. He was a descendant of the Yeolje, but as an illegitimate son, he had always been kept close to the fighting.
'Go to the place intended for you...'
He murmured the last line of the second letter Bojangje had given him.
The Gauri he was meant to protect was burning. The smoke rising from Pyongyang Fortress had billowed night and day even at the moment they boarded their ships. To protect the final legitimate line of the Yeolje, he had come here, never even turning his horse's head.
In the end, the child was a girl, not a boy. And not even of the Yeolje's line—simply a baby born within the Inner Court...
Nevertheless, the soldiers trusted Jin-cheon. After Mu-deok and Hwi-garam's words had passed, Jin-cheon knew he had to make a decision. If this place truly was where he had been, he would gather strength and attack the Tang. If not, then carrying on the history of Gauri was, he thought, both his duty and a purpose to those who had followed him.
"Is the die cast?"
Jin-cheon suddenly brought to mind the dice they used on gaming boards. A die once loosed from the hand could only be known once it stopped.
"Where's it at?"
Having sneaked up on Jin-cheon's mutterings in the dawn, Buru was scouring the ground, having spoiled Jin-cheon's good moment.
"Says the die’s cast, then goes and gets all cranky..."
Having been cursed at by Jin-cheon, Buru grumbled and headed for the smithy. He was taking his beloved weapon, his great axe, to Elder Jang for maintenance.
Clang, clang~ claaang, clang!
"Hey, Elder Jang, I'm here."
Buru opened the smithy door—pungent heat and rhythmic hammering spilling out—and shouted in a loud voice.
"Mwemwemwe-yah!"
"...!"
And the instant he stepped through the door, Buru, uncharacteristically, began stumbling over his words and shouting. Just then, Uru's voice came from behind.
"Why're ya blockin' the door? Elder Jang, that bow I left the other day, how's it— N-nuh, nuh, who're you!"
Just like Buru, Uru stumbled through his words, his eyes flying wide open. The smithy's oppressive heat and noisy hammering ceased as if it had been a lie.
"Ahul hemorjolaru meomtul... (Why are you stopping the hammering...)"
Mawin Stone of the Red Rock clan had been annoyed when the hammering stopped and stepped into the side room. About to snap something at his two companions, Galling Stone and Hwain Stone, he froze.
Broadly spread shoulders.
Sturdy legs that seemed to support the earth.
For there stood a yellow-hued dwarf gripping an axe far larger than any dwarf clan's axe—an axe nearly the size of a dwarf's own torso.
That was not all.
If their own height was 145 centimeters, the two dwarves before them looked to be over 160 centimeters.
Those two dwarf warriors with their bronze-like physiques, gigantic axes, and heads taller than their own were a horror to them.
"...Gulp."
The sound of someone swallowing rang out. And then came Mawin Stone's words, laden with shock:
"Seman... sellunwi Taitan uljok! (No way... the legendary Titan clan!)"
Clatter.
As Mawin Stone's words swept across the interior, Galling Stone's hammer fell powerlessly to the floor.
Mawin Stone had opened his eyes a few days earlier, around the time Jin-cheon's group was leaving the encampment. Mawin Stone, who had brought Galling Stone and Hwain Stone along to search for a vein, had been run ragged by the orc attacks that began after a week.
The orcs had attacked to enslave the dwarves. Just as they neared the point of exhaustion from fighting and felt despair, they lost consciousness, and when they woke up, the orcs were nowhere to be seen, and all three of them were lying safely in a human tent.
"Nigan? (Humans?)"
As if coming to his senses beside him, Hwain Stone let out a murmur. A middle-aged human and what appeared to be knights approached where they lay.
"You are awake?"
"...?"
The middle-aged man was Mu-deok. Mu-deok's words naturally did not reach them, and Mawin Stone looked at the unfamiliar appearance of these men, different from any humans he knew, with bewilderment.
Yellow skin, black hair and eyes, and an unusual style of scale mail covering their entire bodies—he had never seen anything like them in his lifetime as a dwarf. But Mawin Stone's shock did not end there.
"...!"
"What now?"
Seeing the armor worn by Mu-deok and the Black Armored Ghost Cavalry deputies, Mawin Stone could only stare in astonishment. Though rough in appearance, every steel scale in the full-body mail was set at an angle that harmonized perfectly with the rest. Moreover, the white breastplate at the chest was no ordinary breastplate.
"No—!"
"Let them be."
Approaching Mu-deok, their eyes growing round, Mawin Stone, Hwain Stone, and Galling Stone began touching and examining the armor—and were startled once more. The material was clearly iron, yet no matter how they looked, it was nearly pure iron with almost no impurities.
Such skill would be difficult even for a dwarf.
(At this time, it is no exaggeration to say that Gauri's ironworking techniques were already perfected. As an example, the arrowheads among the relics discovered today still maintain their form, and what is astonishing is that even those arrowheads have a strength equivalent to modern carbon steel. The fact that Goguryeo was already producing near-impurity-free carbon steel shows that its ironworking had already reached its zenith. The accepted scholarly view is that Asian metal refining technology preceded Western technology by at least 2,000 years.)
Thus, their astonishment could not help but surpass mere horror.
"Mawin!"
"Wan diluya? (What's going on?)"
At Hwain Stone's voice as he dashed outside, Mawin Stone and Galling Stone were shocked once again. Every single person who looked like a soldier was carrying top-grade dwarf-forged weapons. They grew curious about the dwarf who possessed ironworking techniques unknown even to them.
"Let them go."
Mu-deok raised his hand to the soldier who tried to stop the big brutes as they dashed out, dashing about, shouting strange things. It was odd, but their eyes were unmistakably the eyes of craftsmen. And judging by their belongings, he could guess they were blacksmiths.
"Hwa-i-eode. (Fire.)"
"Hwil-lo-e? (Where?)"
The place Galling Stone pointed to was the temporary smithy the Gauri army had built. Finding it, they sprinted off with steps so quick they seemed to shame their short legs.
"Noisy fellows. Just in case, take a deputy and a few men and keep a good eye on them. I doubt they'll cause trouble."
"Yes, sir."
Mu-deok shook his head, watching them gawk with shock at the armor and weapons, with no word or gesture of thanks for being rescued. He secretly thought that if they were such craftsmen, they might be a help to Elder Jang, who was short-handed.
"Elder, I leave them to you."
"Fine, off you go."
"Short of hands, this is just... tsk."
Elder Jang Moo, who had always maintained the unit's armor and weapons, had gathered the weapons needing repair and was working on melting down the old armor and axes gathered from the orcs they had killed while rescuing someone earlier that day.
But with no one to help him now, and having come here all alone, his sighs could only pile up. Even if he took on apprentices, it was not a matter of a day or two, so the sighs kept piling higher.
Crash!
"Iroe myu-il-ga nirunde! (There is a secret in this place!)"
"What the—!"
The sound of bursting through the door as if breaking it down struck Elder Jang's temper. As the preeminent artisan of Gauri, even Go Jin-cheon and the generals under his command did not treat him with such rudeness.
"Who are these wretches!"
"Ni-nigan? (H-human?)"
"You wretches!"
Mawin Stone's group flinched for a moment at Elder Jang's shout of fury. But only for a moment. Seeing that there was no dwarf inside they were seeking, only an old human, they seemed slightly surprised.
Yet the callouses embedded in the old man's hands, the iron and weapons lying everywhere, and the hammer in the old man's hand and the blade he had been working on led them to an unthinkable imagining.
"Sel... kkame. (No... way.)"
"You're the ones they picked up this morning. Get out, at once!"
Elder Jang scowled once, then took up his hammer and thrust the cooled sword back into the flames.