The Siege of Andrassy (3)
Count Andrassy's territory lay directly beneath Stormrock Fortress. Like it or not, the county was fated to share the fortress's destiny. Perhaps that was why he bore no grudge against the Duke; the Duke was a man who had staked his life on holding that wall and killing demons. His grievances lay not with the Duke but with the Duke's three sons.
"You mean Mabel?"
That was how Count Andrassy assessed the eldest son.
"A cunning coward. The sort who skulks in the rear, rolling his eyes about. If that man ever became Duke, the history of House Estergi would end within his own generation."
His verdict on Chris was harsher still.
"That one doesn't even need to be tried in the seat. Even now, he's the sort who could run the family into the ground and still have ruin to spare."
His assessment of Iden was simple.
"Too young."
Even when he heard the outlandish rumors about Iden, of felling a giant and slaying a demon noble, the Count held to his cynical stance.
"These are the same people who dressed Chris up as a genius of the century. Anything involving Estergi is not to be taken at face value."
The Count never believed what he had not seen with his own eyes, and even what he had seen he had to doubt two and three times over before he was satisfied. That nature showed in his governance as well. For one thing, he did not trust fortresses; if fortresses were truly so trustworthy, the tragedy of Lester City would never have happened. And so every coin he earned went straight into strengthening his walls. The reason he spent on ramparts rather than knights was, once again, his pathological suspicion.
"You can't trust people. But you can trust machines."
A knight raised on mana cores, pampered in gold and jewels, might turn traitor overnight and drive a knife into your back. The tragedy of Lester City had begun in exactly that way. That was why Andrassy County had no knight order; in its place stood an engineering corps that specialized in machines.
"Lord Chris has abandoned Stormrock Fortress!"
"The demon vanguard is marching south!"
When the scouts delivered their reports trembling with fear, Count Andrassy snorted.
"Spare me the hysteria. What was bound to happen has merely happened, hasn't it?"
That Chris would ruin this land, that the demons would at last come south, all of it had fallen within the bounds of his expectations.
"Ready the siege-defense engines. Cut the bridges, and bring the county folk inside the walls."
The engineering corps bustled into motion. They took pride in guarding the county in a knight order's stead.
Before long, the demon vanguard came flooding into the county like a rising tide. They charged with giants at their fore, riding high on momentum, only to break against the falling rain of fire and retreat in defeat.
"Haha. Serves them right."
"It's our victory!"
The soldiers cheered, but Count Andrassy's mood did not lighten. From that moment on, he sensed the situation slipping beyond the bounds of expectation. Don't tell me someone of margrave rank or higher has come down...? The vanguard was far larger than the one at the tragedy of Lester City, and beyond that, the proportion of Grade 4 and higher monsters was absurdly high.
A few days later the demon main force arrived, and with it began the demons' rolling offensive. The Count felt his suspicion hardening into certainty. In both scale and quality, this army dwarfed every invasion force recorded in history. His engineers rained arrows and fire down day after day and racked up staggering tallies, but what machines could fight was, in the end, only monsters of a sensible order.
"Th-the hill giant!"
When the mountain-shaped presence loomed up above the monsters blanketing the plain black, a groan escaped the Count's lips for the first time.
"...Drek."
The name that surfaced in that moment belonged to a single man. If the power of engines failed, there was nothing left but to lean on the strength of humans. Yet the only man whose might could overturn his deep-rooted distrust root and branch was Drek, and Drek was a man who could not come here.
A desperate scream tore down from overhead. Leo readjusted his helmet. The sergeant was pouring a devil's fury over the soldiers.
"Don't look up, you bastards! Lift your head one more time and I'll boot your ass across the yard!"
The sergeant hadn't even finished. A shadow fell thick across the ground, and another soldier was plucked skyward like a radish yanked from the earth. The man's screams went on without pause until he struck the ground and was reduced to pulp. Leo wanted to cut his own ears off. Flying monsters were hauling people away by the dozen, so how was anyone supposed to not look?
"I'll say it again: the sky is not your target! Eyes on the target and nothing else!"
The siege engine Leo crewed was helpless against flying monsters; the anti-air battery was a separate unit. All he could do was pray they were doing their jobs and keep his eyes on the target in front of him. If he ran because he was afraid, then they really would all die together.
"Leo, load."
At the squad leader's word, Leo snapped back to himself. He took a shell slick with black grease, the size of a grown man's head, and seated it on the mount. The squad leader rammed the charge home with a stave, and Leo wound the spring until his arms felt they would break.
"Aim!"
Aiming meant nothing. Below the wall the monsters writhed in a black sea, so many that even a blind shot could not have missed.
"Fire!"
With a heavy clunk the bolt drove the shell out. Leo crouched with his hands clamped over his ears, and a moment later the engine coughed flame with a dull roar. The shell dropped into the middle of the monster sea and ground everything it touched to paste.
"Direct hit!"
Nobody cheered. The gap the shell had carved was filled almost at once by other monsters.
"Leo, load."
The squad leader spoke again, and Leo hauled the next shell onto the mount. By now he was less a man than a part of the machine. Somewhere in the fighting that had ground on past seven hours, he had let go of himself.
KRUUUM!
The siege engine belched smoke again, and Leo realized with a start that the sergeant's bellowing had gone silent. At some point the man, too, must have become an offering to the flying monsters. Leo wanted to look at the sky, but he felt that if he did, he would lose what little courage he needed to carry the next shell.
Instead, he stole a glance south along the wall. From the northern rampart where he stood, the southern fields showed only at their far edge. Somewhere beyond them ran the highway to Estergi territory, and the reinforcements that might come up it were his one remaining hope.
"Leo, load!"
The squad leader shouted. Leo bent to check the ammunition box, and found it empty.
"W-we're out of shells, Squad Leader!"
Keeping the box fed was the quartermaster's job, but the quartermaster had vanished even earlier than the sergeant.
"Then what are you waiting for? Go to the armory and fetch some!"
"B-by myself, sir?"
The shells were heavy enough that one man could barely carry a single one. Leo looked at the squad leader's face and found it just as drained of color as his own must have been.
Then it happened. A deep shadow swallowed them both.
"Squad Leader, get down—!"
Rake-like claws snatched the man away in an instant. One of his stripped-off boots spun through the air and cracked Leo across the cheek. Leo raised his head, unthinking, toward the direction the squad leader had vanished.
And he saw it: winged monsters blanketing the sky.
"O Lord Solitas..."
The watchtower where the anti-air unit had been posted was silent. The flying monsters ferried troops over the walls without the least interference, and the defenders, assailed from both outside and within, were collapsing fast.
Leo staggered, caught his foot on the ammunition box, and went down. From where he sat he stared past the wall. Above the rampart loomed a giant of transcendent size, soaking up the falling bombardment with its body as it swung its right hand down upon the stone.
KRUUUUUM!
Leo felt the wall heave beneath him. The thing was so vast it was as if the horizon itself had flown in to unmake the fortress. He thought he understood now why the sergeant had screamed himself hoarse about keeping eyes on the target. With his needle-narrow field of vision torn wide open, Leo lost even the courage to stand on his own two legs.
"Haaah... haaah..."
He crawled on all fours into the watchtower. Soldiers huddled inside, every one of them men who had lost the will to fight and buried themselves under the roof. Leo gripped the stair rail with both hands and began dragging his mutinous legs upward. The soldiers only stole glances at him, and he asked nothing of them either. After a long wrestling match with the railing, he finally reached the top.
An anti-air ballista stood mounted there. Its crew was nowhere to be found; only great feathers lay strewn about in disarray. Leo crawled toward the stack of harpoons. It was no grand sense of duty that moved him. If he was going to die like a bug anyway, he wanted at least to squirm like one.
Then it happened. Once more a shadow fell across him. So this is where it ends. Leo raised his head with strange calm.
"Skree!"
The pointed claws moved to seize him, then abruptly veered away and shot up into empty air. What? Leo glared after the flying monster that had missed him, and in that same instant a deep, solemn horn rolled out from the south.
From the watchtower the southern highway lay plain to see. A vast army was advancing up the road, filling it from ditch to ditch. The Estergi ducal army? No, even a duke's host could not possibly number so many. At the head of the column, fifteen-odd family banners fluttered at the least, and the vanguard was led by knights numbering close to a thousand.
The knights peeled away from the main body and put their horses to a gallop. The solemn thunder of hooves shook heaven and earth. The demons reacted too; a portion of their force, giants included, shifted formation to bar the knights' path.
Leo bit his lip. If Lord Solitas looked down upon the ducal domain, then His blessing was needed now more than it had ever been.
"Please..."
With sweat-soaked fists clenched tight, he cheered the knights on.
Then something happened that he could hardly believe even with his own eyes. A red dragon, saddled and rigged for war, came tearing up at tremendous speed, overtook the knights, slammed into the giant, and burst headlong into the demon lines. Before the dragon's strength the giant crumpled like a withered stalk of grain.
Fsssshhh...
The dragon's lava breath followed, scorching the plain a furious red. Monsters were swept away before it like dry leaves in a gale.
"There!"
Leo stretched out a hand and shouted, his voice so loud it startled even him. Above the earth burning with the breath's heat, a small-framed boy hung in midair, hurling down thunder. It was as though the god of lightning had descended; every gesture of the boy's hand called up a thick, blinding bolt.
Leo could not close his mouth. The demon nobles who always skulked behind their monsters, never showing themselves, were being swept away like gnats.