Struggle for Survival 5
Struggle for Survival 5
"I wanted to launch a night raid if possible, but it can't be helped."
Once it was confirmed that a survivor had been captured, waiting until night became problematic. By that time, they might well be inside the Rakshas' stomachs.
'He really is a knight, after all.'
At that sight, his subordinates were reminded of Eugene's true identity. They often forgot due to his peculiar tendencies, but seeing things like this, his core was that of a knight.
As mercenaries, his men would have preferred to charge in at night regardless of whether the strangers lived or died. The fact that they followed without a single displeased expression was surely because their trust and respect for Eugene had been built up.
"If the bastards take a survivor hostage, ignore the hostage if you have to and attack."
"Pardon?"
"Even if the hostage dies in the process?"
And so they could not help but be bewildered by the order that followed. It was far too cold a command coming from a man who was giving up a night raid for the sake of survivors.
"I'm not telling you to blindly skewer the hostage along with them. Do your best to mind the hostage, but if there's no other way, just attack. Otherwise, only the bastards will grow more insolent. Any sacrifices that occur in the process will be solely my responsibility."
"That won't happen. Trust us."
At the tribal warriors' confident reply, Eugene nodded.
"Sir Haind. This time, skip cutting off their retreat. We all need to charge in together and cause as much confusion as possible."
"Understood. They have no horses anyway, so even if we pursue a little late, they won't escape."
Haind, who normally led the detached force, stood beside Eugene as well.
Silence hung in the air for a moment. Aside from the occasional snort of the horses, only the dry wind and faint screams could be heard.
Eugene's raised palm turned into a fist. The warhorses, receiving the riders' command, advanced all at once. Since cloth had been wrapped around the horses' hooves, the noise was greatly suppressed.
"Cast a veil. Conceal our scent from them."
The wind spirits Marbas had summoned called forth a headwind that defied nature.
The metallic scent of the stealthily approaching army and the smell of the horses—not a trace of either could be allowed to reach the rakshas' keen noses.
* * *
The raksha settlement noticed the attack only through the vibration of approaching hooves.
Startled by the cavalry that had approached without sound or smell, they rushed out in haste, but it was far too late.
CRACK!
The mounted troops, smashing through the flimsy fences, were scattering a rain of steel in every direction.
"Kyaaak-!"
"Kehek-!"
Rakshas collapsed bleeding everywhere.
"■■? ■■■■!"
"■■■!"
This was the domain of the sain, beyond the bounds of human civilization.
With a hostile environment on all sides, it was difficult for humans to even find the way. If an army entered, the intrusion would inevitably be known immediately, creating a clamorous cacophony everywhere.
This was also why the large-scale punitive expeditions attempted several times in the past by Tripol had failed.
They could never have imagined that the rakshas had hypnotized the small-folk living here and used them to find the route in one go.
"Piiik!"
Amid the screams of the Rakshas being slaughtered on all sides, a clear whistle rose up.
Homi's sharp sense of smell had caught something. She pointed at one large tent. From within it, a thick scent of bamboo was emanating.
Indeed, several warrior-class Rakshas were seen desperately rushing toward that tent even while being struck by arrows.
"That's the armory! Burn it down!"
At Eugene's shout, his subordinates' eyes all shifted in that direction. At the same time, oil-soaked torches were hurled in droves toward that spot.
Rakshas wielding bamboo spears rushed out of the tent where fierce flames were leaping up, but they could not manage a single thrust.
THUD-THUD-THUD!
"Kyauk-!"
Hit by concentrated arrows, they fell to their knees, unable to take more than a few steps.
The bamboo spears they hurled with their last strength flew only a short distance before planting into the ground.
The primary source that made them so threatening was, ultimately, the spear. A powerful weapon that required no special skill yet could even stop cavalry.
The Raksha race, which bred prolifically, grew quickly, and whose population directly became their army. It was a perfect match for their characteristics.
But once their spears were neutralized, they were little different from humans with sharp claws and four breasts instead of two.
WHOOMPH!
The Rakshas watched the blazing armory and twisted their fox-like faces into ugly grimaces.
"Heh. Smell that."
The mercenaries, on the other hand, grinned.
They liked the expressions of the panicking bastards, and the smell was excellent too. Since the place was piled high with bamboo, a subtly refreshing fragrance wafted out.
Arrows, javelins, and blades flew in from every direction. Under an attack unlike anything they had ever faced, the settlement was being razed before it could mount a proper response.
"A male! Catch that one!"
A male with a small frame was spotted among the Rakshas fleeing in every direction. Immediately, a tribal warrior threw a lasso.
"Kek-!"
With his breath choked off, the creature clutched at his neck and resisted, but there was no way he could overcome the strength of a muscular dark elf and a warhorse.
Dragged along just as he was, he let out a pitiful scream.
"!!!"
"!!!"
That stimulated the instincts of the Raksha female warriors. They ceased fleeing and rushed in recklessly, heedless of fire or water, to save the male.
"Kill them all!"
Their determination to protect their young was touching, but charging in as a disorderly mob without weapons or armor only made them easy prey.
"It's just as you said. I will surely reward you for this excellent advice."
"I-it was nothing but trivial knowledge, sir."
The adventurer accompanying the army bowed to Eugene, his face haggard. Even with his ample experience, he froze at the brutality of the slaughter around them.
In contrast, a young mercenary who looked barely half the adventurer's age was gleefully swinging his blade and harvesting heads. It seemed the adventurer simply wasn't cut out to make a living by the sword.
"There's one over there too!"
"Hahaha! Your husbands are right here, you lot, are you planning to abandon them and run?"
The tribal warriors, having witnessed the full effectiveness of the hostage tactic, let out cheers. They were snagging males with lassos from all sides and dragging them around.
'I'd been worried about the hostages, but somehow it feels like the opposite happened.'
Eugene shrugged his shoulders at the spectacle.
"S-somebody save us!"
"Please rescue us!"
People who had been stripped naked and stuffed into cages grabbed the bars and screamed. The cages and locks were also made of bamboo.
"Stand back!"
When everyone jumped aside at Eugene's shout, he swung his flail.
As the bundle of three maces struck the lock, the door shattered open wide as well.
But the people remained lying flat on their faces and made no move to come out. Having gained their freedom, they belatedly realized that a battle was in full swing around them.
'It's horrifying.'
Though this was an era without any notion of prisoner's rights, the Raksha were even worse. They stripped everyone regardless of gender and did not even provide a chamber pot. The sight of people standing on their own excrement was reminiscent of a pigsty.
"Sir Knight! Over there, our daughter!!!"
A woman who had not even thought to cover her chest pointed at one tent.
The floor stained bright red hinted that this was a place already drenched in much blood. Smoke was rising from the roof.
That alone needed no further explanation. It must be the bastards' cooking area.
"There could be an ambush inside, so do not enter the tent. We will drag it out from the outside."
At Eugene's command, the tribal warriors surrounded the cooking area in a fan shape.
"This is our specialty."
"Hook the grapnels on!"
As befitted their nomadic origins, they knew exactly how to handle such situations. They hooked their grapnels onto the tent frame and all spurred their horses at once.
Udeudedeu.
With the sound of timber splintering, the entire cooking tent was ripped away in one piece.
"Kyarrr-!"
The Raksha butchers who had been waiting in ambush positions inside were crushed as the collapsing tent fell on top of them.
But they immediately swung their massive butcher knives and cut away the strips of cloth covering them.
And then they collapsed, clutching the arrows that had pierced their chests and necks.
The exposed cooking area was, by any measure, nothing but meat in various stages of butchering.
The largest group was small-folk, most apparently captured after attacking the defeated rakshas.
Four of them were skewered on a single large wooden spit, threaded from anus to mouth, sizzling as they roasted.
Beside them, one of the small-folk was boiling in a great iron cauldron. The creature was so small that the bubbling water kept rolling it this way and that, making the sight look almost comical.
There was also a lizardman being smoked, its skin already stripped off. Apparently intending to use the hide as armor, someone had left it soaking in a water trough to wash it clean.
Bulkier desert orcs, unlike the small-folk, were impaled vertically on stakes. Already fully roasted, they had had chunks of flesh carved away and eaten here and there like döner kebab.
And there were humans.
"Kyaaaak!"
"Annie! Nooo!"
The survivors screamed.
"Damn it."
Even the mercenaries frowned. Battle-hardened as they were, the scene laid out before them was too gruesome.
"K... kill... me."
"P-please... end it..."
Only the humans still clung to life, but it was a state so horrific that death would have been the mercy. Victims pinned to workbenches, limbs fixed in place, much of their bodies already excised, now begging for a merciful end.
Eugene gave a nod, and the mercenaries at once swung their swords to grant them rest.
"I expected as much," the adventurer said.
"Have you seen a sight like this before?"
At Eugene's question, the adventurer nodded.
"Another trait that sets the sain apart from monsters is their taste for fine food. Vile and savage as they are, they still possess a culture of sorts. They roast or boil their meat, just as we do. But when they capture a person..."
The adventurer trailed off, but the mood made the unspoken words easy enough to guess.
"They eat them raw?"
"They do. To them, human flesh is a delicacy — clean, tender, and rich in fat."
"The salt spread across the body in sweat probably seasons it nicely too."
Plenty of animals sweated, but few had sweat glands distributed as evenly over the whole body as humans. Rex, who had been listening, stepped in. When it came to matters like this, the Black Hand Tribe had far more experience than any mercenary or hunter.
"Beasts and monsters all share a taste for entrails, but human entrails are something special. After all, humans eat a far wider range of foods and spices than any wild creature."
"So the flavor is steeped into them?"
Given how keen all their noses were, that was hardly surprising.
"That's why, when people are taken, it's difficult to get them back whole. I've had to grant the mercy stroke myself a few times."
The battle was drawing quickly to a close. The sheer variety of hostile peoples captured and being butchered showed that this warband had been raiding on a large scale.
"I've found the infirmary."
Haind, his face splattered with blood, made his report.
CRRRAACK!
As grappling hooks tore the tent away, the space inside was revealed: rows of wounded rakshas lay groaning, too injured to rise. Their numbers looked to be around eighty.
Unable even to sit up properly, they simply glared at the intruders with venomous eyes.
Thud!
Thnk!
The heavy cavalry led by Haind swept over them without pausing, spears thrusting down.
"Ghk—!"
Some of the mercenaries did not even bother to thrust; they simply rode their horses over the wounded.
The rage kindled by the sight of victims processed into meat and the screams of captives who had lost their families had taken hold of them.
Among the wounded lay the chieftain who had led the attack on the road when the humans were first ambushed.
One-eyed, one arm already severed, she thrashed about trying to grip a weapon, but a nameless mercenary's axe stroke sent her head flying away with an almost trivial finality.
Warriors who could fight, warriors who could not, even the males kept around solely to prevent them from fleeing — nearly all of them met death.
"Leave this place to me. The rest of you, pursue the few that fled."
"Understood."
The tribal warriors, skilled at horsemanship and at tracking down fleeing enemies, scattered in every direction to hunt the rakshas.
Eugene, Haind, and the heavy cavalry hooked their grapples onto the last remaining tent.
"Hyah!"
CRACK!
When the tent—built more stoutly than any of the others—was ripped away, a cluster of terrified eyes stared up from close to the ground.
"Ah, hell. More of them?"
With every other member of the tribe eliminated, the last ones left were the young rakshas.
"It's not like they sprout from the ground like bamboo shoots. Did you not expect this?"
"Expecting it is one thing. Seeing it with my own eyes is another."
The mercenaries grumbled as they tightened their grips on their weapons.
During the roadside ambush, the newborns delivered by the pregnant rakshas had still been wrinkled and shriveled, making them somewhat easier to stomach. The ones before them now had been growing for some time.
'Mammals are mammals, I suppose.'
Eugene clicked his tongue.
Unlike the adults, whose fox-like faces twisted into monstrous shapes, the young ones possessed an appearance that was almost unbearably endearing.
He knew in his head that they were a dangerous race to be exterminated. Yet swinging a blade at those trembling, innocent faces frozen with terror was no easy thing.
It was an unease only those who had bloodied their own hands and killed living, breathing beings could truly understand.
The mercenaries surrounded the younglings with weapons leveled, but not one of them could step forward.
"All of you, look at this."
Eugene raised the banner Homi handed to him.
"Ah!"
"That is—!"
It was the flag made of human skin that had hung at the entrance to the encampment.
Ritualistic symbols had been painted onto the hide in pigment, and where eyes and mouth had once been, only hollow voids now stared out.
Eugene looked down at the young rakshas. They all looked back at him. Instinct had apparently told them he was the leader of the intruders.
"It's true that children bear no guilt."
Eugene raised the human-skin banner and leveled it at the young rakshas.
"But there are wars where one must cast aside tolerance and arm oneself with selfishness and irrationality."
He let the banner fall and drew his flail.
At the brutal clanking of the chain, the young rakshas stared up with even more pitiful eyes. But Eugene's face remained like a sheet of ice.
"Children of the raksha. I know that it was humans who stole the land of Samur where you originally lived. I know it was humans who drove you into the barren deserts and jungles."
They could not understand him, yet Eugene went on in a level tone.
"But this is a matter of survival. The land where humans can live as humans is limited. If your parents live, human parents die. If you are spared, human children die in equal measure."
Eugene gripped the handle of the flail and channeled strength into his arm.
"I am simply doing my duty as a soldier of humanity. There may be no chance of it, but should one of you survive and come to take my own children someday, well — that, too, would be your right."
WHOOSH!
With the long death sentence concluded, Eugene swung the flail. Blood sprayed in all directions.
He did not stop there. He swung a second time, a third, a fourth, and on. Along with the sound of small, fragile skulls shattering, bodies collapsed all around.
"Kyao—!"
And then, the young rakshas wiped the pitiful expressions from their faces in an instant.
Like sewer rats baring teeth and claws to the fullest, they lunged at him all at once.
"P-protect Sir Knight!"
The mercenaries, their senses belatedly returning, cried out in alarm—forgetting even to call him Castle Lord—and rushed forward.
Eugene had walked out in front alone and was silently carrying out the slaughter; one misstep and he could have been swarmed from every side.
But in the next moment, Homi's roar settled everything.
"Hiyaaaaak—!"
"Kiiiik—!"
The young rakshas retracted their bared claws and fled in all directions. Some collapsed, clutching their heads while their limp tails hung behind them.
It hardly mattered. Already surrounded, the fleeing young rakshas were simply reduced to lumps of meat on mercenary spears and swords.
Watching the last of the rakshas dying all around him, Eugene felt, for the first time in battle, a sense of weariness.