The 101st Me, to the 35th You - 2
"Did Robert... go?"
"Yes. He's gone."
Watching Adele return alone, Lotos arranged a troubled look across his face. Ever since word had come that the princess was in danger, he had thought her composure shaken, ever so slightly. Saving Her Highness was admittedly the first priority — and yet the truth was he could not readily understand her insistence on stepping out alone. Her bearing had been grave enough that dissuading her was never on the table, and besides, this was a matter Adele herself had sanctioned.
What troubled him was her expression. It was a face even Lotos had never seen before, and he could not begin to read what she was feeling. The only certainty was that her mood, right now, was very, very poor.
"...He's gone."
Adele dipped her head a little as she answered. Unlike her usual self, she seemed faintly downcast — irritation in her posture, yet the light in her eyes dimmer than at any time he could remember.
Lotos could not bring himself to say a word. Speak now, and he feared everything Adele felt would come spilling out at once. This was the first time he had ever seen her look weak — and only then did it strike him that before she was the Grand Duke, Adele was, above all, a woman. If she had followed after Robert only to return wearing that face... misunderstandings or not, all manner of rumors might well take root. She was worried for him. That was surely all this was.
Yes — she might have chased after Robert herself, but command of these hundreds of soldiers rested with her and her alone. Scattered troops might walk into an ambush; her post was not one she could lightly abandon. And so the only path open was to move as fast as possible and link up with Robert. Alone, the journey was a matter of hours. With the whole host, it would swallow a full day.
"For now, I believe moving quickly is our best option. I don't imagine Robert will fall to Temuchin — but he's hardly a man one takes alone, is he?"
"If we send the soldiers back from here and only a handful push on to meet him, how long would that take?"
"You mean to go without your soldiers?"
"You know as well as I do they'd be little help anyway. The objective begins and ends with rescuing Her Highness. Killing Temuchin can come later."
Under ordinary circumstances, putting Temuchin down would have been the goal above all goals. But the princess's life hung in the balance now, and if Adele put anything else first while the woman — hostage in all but name — remained in enemy hands, they stood a high chance of losing everything. Hence the decision to strike with a small force. Realizing her judgment was sound, Lotos nodded and spoke.
"Then so be it. It may be wiser to have Bunta lead the soldiers and rendezvous with us after."
"Good. Then you and Bunta stay behind with the troops. I go ahead with the rest."
"...One moment. You're casting me aside as well?"
"Then learn to swing a sword, if you object. I'd be hard pressed to guard you out there. Is it death you're after?"
"Certainly not."
Somebody, ideally, ought to stay at her side and keep her steady — but if he would not take that role, then who would? Lotos nodded, left with little choice. If not him... then Robert would likely stand in his place. The problem would come if a moment arrived when Robert was hurt — or slain. If that moment truly came...? Nothing good waited at the end of that thought, and letting out a small sigh, Lotos wiped his brow.
Let no one be hurt. Please.
Even as he made for Bunta, he stole a glance at Adele as she readied to depart with her adjutants. He hoped it was nothing more than a feeling — but somehow, the premonition sat ill with him.
"Can you hear anything from out there?"
"No — nothing at the moment. It was a little rowdy earlier, but it's gone completely quiet now."
I had ridden the wolf at a hard run for a long while, and now the Terranite mine in the northwest, where the princess waited, had begun to come within sight. Not so many outlanders ringed the area — the imperial army must have thinned them down somewhat. And with the soldiers Adele had left garrisoned there besides, a fair stretch of time yet remained before the outland warriors came crashing down on Mirazen.
The reason I kept the line to her open was simple: to set her mind at ease. Hiding in silence, with no living soul to talk to, was an ordeal of its own; left alone with her thoughts, her fear might only swell. Idle chatter would do. In a situation like this, even that much was worth being.
My destination was the mouth of a hidden passage that led to where she was — I had fixed its rough location from her explanations. All that remained was to reach it and join her. But one look at what lay beyond, and I knew something had gone wrong.
"The lull, I'd say, is because the soldiers and the outlanders are busy fighting one another."
"Oh — they're fighting right now? How does it stand?"
"Being pushed back, naturally. They were never stationed with a situation like this in mind."
"...I suppose that figures."
She had left them there more in hope than expectation; no one had imagined Temuchin would set his mind on raiding. I myself had done no more than entertain the possibility. Nothing like this had ever happened before — not in any life of mine — so turn it over as I might, the soundest course was to settle on a single assumption. Someone had lent Temuchin a hand. That the princess was staying in the northwest was a secret known only to adjutants of the North and above. Either someone of high standing in the imperial family — or else one of Adele's own adjutants — had carried that fact to him. But it couldn't have been an adjutant. Then who on earth had told Temuchin of the princess?
However far I followed the thread, no clear figure came to mind. It wasn't impossible the Crown Prince had intervened in person — but right now he had no reason to go out of his way to check her. In all my regressions, Mirazen had died exactly once. And even then, she and I had already grown close by that point; the circumstances themselves were nothing like now. Still, ruling it out altogether left a bad taste... recalling the letters that had reached Renald, I shook my head before long. No sign whatever that the Crown Prince was stirring. Even allowing for the chance that Renald harbored designs of his own — the Crown Prince, neck-deep in his hunt for the relics, would hardly have moved first in a situation like this. Tracing whoever he'd contacted could wait.
First things first: save Mirazen.
The moment I closed my hand around the sword borrowed from Adele, a chill seeped into my palm. Forged of iron drawn from the frozen earth, a blade worthy to be ranked among masterworks, it could bear as much of my mana as I cared to pour into it. I had thought she would refuse to let me go at all. That she would consent to the point of lending me her sword — I had never imagined it. She trusted me, in her own way. And living up to that trust was, I supposed, what I had to do today.
Even if Adele came after me again, the distance between us had already grown too wide. By the time she reached this place, the affair would likely be long finished. And there were only two sights she might witness then: I had saved Mirazen — or the two of us were dead.
I fed mana into my body, slow and steady, turning the thought over. If I failed to save Mirazen, every manner of pressure would likely come circling back onto me. Better in that case to die once more and roll the dice on regression. Dying itself, I was well used to. It was the deaths of others I had never learned to stomach.
"We likely won't be able to speak for some time."
"You've come close, haven't you."
"Yes. Once things have settled, I'll contact you again. Watch the situation and wait until then. And if I don't..."
There was always the possibility of if. Having yet to recover my former heights, a mere tenth of my old strength might not carry me through against scores of enemies. Add Temuchin to that tally, and death became a certainty. The best play I could conceive was to divide them and destroy them piece by piece — and if that failed, I died. I let the silence sit a moment, lips moving faintly, before I spoke.
"If it comes to the point where I cannot reach you, I will take their leader down with me. So run as far as you can, however you can. Find whatever road leads to survival."
"You talk about your own death awfully matter-of-factly."
A short laugh escaped me at the trace of anger in her voice. I listened a good while as Mirazen stormed at me through the artifact — then murmured, low.
"Well then. I suppose this is where I cut the line."
"Ah... was I too harsh just now?"
"Not at all. It's only that I should be moving soon."
What had entered my sight was part of Temuchin's force on the move — giving up on the sealed main gate, casting about for another way in. I had to stop them. If the eastern passage were discovered while they wandered, Mirazen would be in danger ten times over.
"...Don't get hurt. That's an imperial command."
I moved to answer the voice at my ear — and instead slid the artifact quietly into my breast. Conversations with Mirazen were best kept short. All the more in a moment like this; I might drown in idle sentiment and botch the work entirely.
Thump.
I shut my eyes tight over the quiet drumming of my heart. A kind of ritual — something I did before giving myself over wholly to a task. The old luxury of hiding my strength would almost certainly not hold this time. Full power. And if I could manage it, I would have to wring myself to the very limit.
When I took up Adele's sword again, blue light came shimmering off the steel. It was a splendor plain to see even in the dying dusk — and the outlanders found me almost at once, wheeling about and charging in my direction. I swung down from the wolf and shook the reins a few times; the beast broke away at a gallop, running opposite the oncoming outlanders. Only after it had put a long stretch behind it and slipped from sight did I breathe out a small sigh.
Fighting afoot suited me better than fighting from the saddle — and the wolf might take a wound besides. So I settled into my stance and drew one long breath.
Ssssss—
The wind streamed past. Over the hill where I stood, my cloak snapped like a banner in the gale. And the mana blazing from my body would read, to any eye, as the grandest target on the field. I leveled my sword at the outlanders who had, without my noticing, closed to arm's length.
Chwaak—! Never once did I hear the ring of blade meeting blade. I thought of nothing but the cut. It was nothing like my bouts with Bunta — not two men measuring each other's skill, but the single, simple will to kill. I ran one through the heart, tore the sword from his grip, and drove it, still warm, into the next. The blue line streaming from my blade hurled its light fiercely. Breath drawn into my lungs became vigor, and that vigor poured into muscle; bending through the swing, I cut down three with one sweep. Two, three. Again — one, two.
Battle is flow. The sword, the breath, every motion in the sequence had to run as one unbroken thing. To believe I held the advantage against numbers like these would be nothing but arrogance. Let my movements fray for even an instant, and the one taking the hit would be me. I drove a fist into the pit of a charging man's chest, seized the head of him as he doubled over spewing blood, slammed it into the earth, then kicked off hard to tear the distance open again.
The Distance of the Sword.
The circle traced by my arm and my blade — inside it, no enemy would enter and live. Merely letting them feel the reach of that circle was enough to break their morale in two. The lofty name of Sword Saint did not belong to the man I was now. That was a fragment of a former life, no more; to these men, I was nothing but one of Adele's adjutants. And yet some things were the same. The eyes of those who looked at me, for one. Contempt at first sight of me, then fear seeping into their pupils — and that fear made their feet falter. That was what set these men apart from knights drilled in the proper way: they carried their emotions into the thick of a fight. And so I could pierce the one opening it left.
"Retreat— sound the retreat!"
"Damn it all, run! Everyone, run!"
The moment a retreat horn was blown on account of a single man, whatever advantage they still displayed was broken past mending. My breathing was coming shorter; I ground my teeth. I could not bare an opening for so much as a heartbeat. Better to grit my teeth and force the body past its limits than let my flagging strength show.
"Hraaaagh!"
I sank my sword into the chest of an outlander whose eyes met mine and dragged it across. Turning from what was left of him, I swung at the rest without pause. A blind arrow punched into me; a wildly flailing blade raked my body, shaving away flesh.
I did not stop. I knew it was better to seize even the fleeing men and hold them in place — to show, unmistakably, that I still had strength to spare.
By the time I spat the mouthful of blood from my mouth and gathered my breath, I realized no enemy remained standing near me. Thirty, perhaps, felled by my hand. Only when the eerie moonlight fell across me did I see how thoroughly I was soaked in blood. The small mercy was that little of it was mine. Had it been laced with poison, that would have been trouble — but for the moment I was fine, so there would be no problem.
I winced against the dull ache that came creeping in slow, and started walking. Now that they knew I had come, the assault on the gate would be slow in coming.
"I've bought the time. All that's left is to reach her."
With a pull, the arrow came free of my shoulder, and blood welled up hot. As I tied the wound off roughly with cloth, Mirazen's words surfaced unbidden, and laughter slipped out of me before I knew it. She had told me not to get hurt — on imperial command, no less. And here I was, having disobeyed the order the very moment I heard it.
"...She's going to be furious."
I grimaced — arms crossed, mouth open; I could see precisely what she would say, sharp as day. She was always like that when she was angry with me. And coaxing a sulking Mirazen back around would be no small task. Laughing at the worry that had sprung from nowhere, I set my feet moving once more.
This time, I hoped, I would get to see her wear that angry face.