Grand Lord of the South (1)
Grand Lord of the South (1)
Not all the southern nobles who joined Eugene's army did so out of pure loyalty.
War was a venture that guaranteed the highest returns, if only one could win, and a victorious battlefield was a greater bonanza than a gold mine.
"Tch!"
"Sorry 'bout that. Did it scrape your skin?"
The soldier stripping the armor from a surrendered heavy infantryman grinned cheekily. Behind him, others were carrying bundles of swords and maces.
"Lift your left arm more."
"Like this?"
"Yeah. And then twist a little to the right... there you go!"
Swish.
The middle-aged man who had pulled the chainmail off the corpse chuckled broadly.
"There's a knack to stripping armor, you see. If you just yank it off and it gets scratched or damaged, the value drops."
The young men looked up to him—a former mercenary. Back when they were conscripted, they'd felt the world closing in on them, convinced they were being hauled off to a place of death. But this seasoned older comrade had been the exception.
-Nothing to fret about. I've got a good feeling about this fight. We'll definitely make a tidy profit.
And so it had happened, just as he promised. Selling this chainmail and the scavenged weapons alone would bring in years' worth of income for every single man conscripted from their village.
The young men, still not quite convinced it was real, chattered noisily about the night battle.
"You can gab about that stuff during the march later. Get some sleep now."
"We just scored a great victory and there's no enemy nearby. The noble lords will surely let a little chatting slide while we're on the move."
The experienced veterans found spots to lie down and fell into a light, warrior's doze.
The nobles, who until just before last night's charge had still harbored fear deep in their hearts, had cast aside every doubt.
"To so effortlessly annihilate those fiendish Barsians."
"At this rate, even if the enemy were Count Kruger himself, there'd be nothing to fear at all."
When they had been under Viscount Winchester, the mere thought of the fierce northern lords above them had been enough to sink their spirits into gloom. But now they felt ready to take on a fight with any of them.
Eugene's army was departing from the conventions of warfare the nobles had known all their lives. Whether in equipment, supplies, or force composition.
"Everyone seems quite satisfied."
The nobles, gathered in clusters sipping tea, wore smiles both large and small. Eugene gestured for those who spotted him and tried to leap hastily to their feet to stay seated.
"Enjoy the afterglow of victory a while longer."
"Glory to Your Excellency!"
Rex, who had been attending at Eugene's side, nodded.
"They may have lived like a flock of sheep, but at their root they are wolves. They are nobles, after all. Having tasted only grass before, now they've hunted alongside a strong leader and chewed on real meat. It cannot help but taste delicious."
"This meat was particularly rich."
Eugene looked upon the gathered Barsian nobles with deep satisfaction. In his eyes, every last one of them looked like a lump of gold.
Alber, disarmed and having endured two consecutive battles without a proper night's sleep, was haggard. His whole body was covered in abrasions and caked with dirt and dust, a truly wretched sight.
"It's a stroke of luck you didn't lose a limb."
"Capturing him itself was easy."
"Then why is he in such a state?"
"After we threw the capture net over him, we tied it to a saddle and dragged him about this way and that. He spent some quality time with the ground."
Eugene looked at Rex with a bewildered expression.
"Wasn't that a little excessive? He's the most valuable prize of this battle."
"He resisted quite stubbornly, you see. The way he drew his dagger made it seem he might try to take his own life, so we had to neutralize him first."
"If that's the case, then. It was sound judgment."
There was no greater farce than suffering friendly casualties while trying to capture a resisting enemy alive. And if there had been any sign he might attempt suicide, there was nothing more to be said. The ransom for this one man alone was sure to be staggering.
"I am Commander Eugene Meyer."
"Alber of House Louis."
Alber was startled by the face of the enemy commander, so much younger than he had expected. He himself was not particularly old, yet this youth had led such a great host.
"I hope you will abide by the code as a prisoner of war. I pledge to treat you according to custom. I guarantee the safety of the others as well."
"And if I do not comply, will you stuff me back in the net and drag me about again?"
"Hmm."
"...I spoke out of bitterness, that is all. You may stop rubbing your chin now."
He had been smashed to pieces, without a shred of room for excuse. To grovel here would only bring further shame upon his family's name.
He had been taken captive according to custom while others lost their heads, his life was thus guaranteed, and now he was duty-bound to repay that debt.
"I will follow your commands peaceably until my family sends the ransom."
"I thank you for your cooperation. I will treat you with honor."
"Your father must be overjoyed. To have won such a monumental deed of arms."
Sincerely, Alber's expression was tinted with envy. He apparently assumed that Eugene, like himself, had joined the war seeking martial achievements to secure his inheritance.
"I have no father. I was a knight-errant who rose from nothing by my own hand, and nothing more."
"What sort of jape..."
"Are there nobles who jest about their own parents?"
"I—I beg your pardon!"
Even as he apologized, Alber's face was a picture of stunned disbelief.
* * *
The Gord warriors began their march toward the coastline.
Their shoulders drooped with a mixture of dejection and relief. After all the hardship of crossing the sea and fighting a fierce battle, they had nothing to show for it.
Yet none of them dared voice any grievance against Duke Wolfson. If anything, more men were simply relieved that they were able to withdraw without having to fight Eugene's army.
"Give the horses water."
"How many head is that?"
That was because there were hundreds of mounted archers merrily driving along the captured Barsian warhorses.
In case of treachery from Gord, despite the truce, hundreds more archers were arrayed along the hill. They were ready to rain down arrows the moment any foolish ploy was attempted.
The renown of the Black Hand Mercenary Company was well known even in Gord. The continent's most formidable ranged combat force was a natural enemy of infantry-centric Gord.
Knowing this, the Gord nobles too agreed to retreat without a word of grumbling, though they left empty-handed.
Glug, glug.
"Aaaah!"
Duke Wolfson drained the liquor from a skull in one go.
"After coming all this way, is this my only plunder? Damn it all."
"I'd heard there was a custom of turning an enemy's skull into a drinking cup, but I never thought I would see it in person."
"It—it is a custom that has nearly died out at present!"
Victor squirmed nervously beside Eugene as he examined the polished skull cup with keen curiosity.
He looked deeply worried that his house might appear as a pack of savages to this rising great lord.
"Would you care to try a cup yourself, Sir? The grip is exceedingly fine, owing to these pointed canines. No matter how drunk you get, you will never drop it."
"Father!"
Thus, when Wolfson offered the cup to Eugene, Victor felt as if he might faint. But Eugene, betraying no offense, smiled and declined.
"That was a diabolically thorough encirclement. It was hardly the work of a novice. You've done this before?"
"Ever since I became a knight, I've wandered the continent and lived through a great many things."
"Did you hear that, you good-for-nothing? A man can only be forged to completion by facing the wild tempests of the world. No great general ever came from shutting himself in his chamber with only his books for company."
Duke Wolfson slapped Victor's back with a palm the size of a pot lid.
"My part in today's battle was not so very great. Those under my command did everything. They are masters of the art of driving the prey. Any commander placed there would have achieved similar results, I suspect."
Eugene looked at Rex, Cassandra, and the tribal knights with warm eyes.
"My lord. Once your contract with them is ended, you absolutely must introduce them to me and have them visit my lands."
Whether from the impression made by the nocturnal battle, greed was plain on Wolfson's face as he looked upon the dark elves.
The common perception of Gord nobles was that they coveted gold to the point of indecency. Yet what they craved even more than wealth was mighty warriors.
"They only have to draw their bows from the safety of the rear. And I promise to share a generous portion of the spoils!"
"That would be difficult. They are bound to me by lifelong contract."
"Tch, don't jest. Just tell me plainly if you don't wish to part with them."
"It's true that I do not wish to part with them, but it is no lie."
"...Is it truly so?"
Wolfson's eyes went wide. A lifelong contract with a mercenary company did not merely mean an agreement of exceedingly long duration.
It meant retiring from the mercenary life and entering the service of a high lord as sworn retainers.
Such a thing did not easily occur, for the high lord was obligated to provide land to settle, a title, and many other things.
"For an elven clan to enter the service of a human - it must be the first such instance in all of history."
Victor, too, was astonished.
'No wonder the dark elves' attitude towards His Excellency was so intensely deferential.'
In the long history of the continent, there had never been a precedent of elves bowing their heads to a human dynasty.
"But is it truly all right to send us off like this? Had I been in your place, I would have given the attack order at once. Is not the commander who sweeps away three armies more splendid than one who sweeps away two?"
"..."
Had it been anyone but his father, Victor's face said he would have gladly smacked the speaker on the back of the head.
At this level of boisterousness, it was impossible to tell whether the man was a simpleton or simply straightforward. Eugene let out a soft laugh.
'A man like this is easier to befriend than one who shows one face and keeps another.'
If he showed grace now, this did not look like the type of man to repay it with scheming.
"As I said, I wish to remain on good terms with Gord. The world is too harsh a place to live with enemies on all sides. And if I am to extend goodwill, it is better to do so properly."
Eugene tapped the armor Duke Wolfson wore with one finger.
"I'll let you keep your bodies, but I'll confiscate your gear, and still collect compensation besides. I do not care to fasten the first button of our relationship in such a pettily grudging manner."
Duke Wolfson gave a hearty laugh, clearly pleased by Eugene's way of thinking.
"No grumbling from those beneath you?"
"There are complaints, but I can suppress them. There's no solution that pleases everyone."
Sometimes a smaller faction within one's own side must be disappointed for the sake of dealing with a larger outside power.
"The fact that you invaded during this civil war is certainly a shameful matter. But that did not happen under my rule."
Eugene fixed his gaze upon Duke Wolfson. Even for a veteran of a hundred battles, the weight of the young man's gaze made his body stiffen for an instant.
Thanks to ceaseless training, Wolfson was a man who could hold all of his concubines atop his chest and still breathe without trouble. But now his breath caught as though an ogre were standing on his ribs.
He noticed what answer Eugene was hoping for and nodded.
"I am well aware that this is now land you rule."
"Good, you grasp things quickly."
Wolfson firmly clasped the hand Eugene extended.
"Do you happen to have a wife and children? If not, my eldest daughter..."
"Please stop, it's getting hard to keep up. One must have quite the remarkable adaptability, I swear."
Weary of the marriage proposals that came at him at every opportunity, Eugene shoved Wolfson on the back.
* * *
By the time the transport ships carrying the Gord warriors departed Britannia, the southern nobles had largely made up their minds.
-Prepare a gift to offer His Excellency. My lady, I entrust the household to you in my absence.
From domains great and small, a throng of nobles bearing their family banners set out to join the new conqueror's procession.
In the south, hostile forces had been swept clean, and there existed no one who could defy Eugene. Moreover, Britannia remained a realm in the throes of civil war, so attaching oneself to the strong was paramount.
However, the sentiment within the oaths of fealty was not filled solely with nobles whose respect was of a hundred percent purity, as was the case with Baron Foster.
"Deliver this letter to my father-in-law's house. Tell him to forget his obligation to Viscount Winchester and immediately swear an oath of fealty to His Excellency Meyer."
The messenger, his face tense, looked at the noble who placed the letter in his bosom and nodded resolutely.
"I shall ride without a moment's sleep!"
"I am counting on you. He is an exceedingly inflexible man, so I worry he might do something rash."
Like this noble now sending the letter, many nobles' feelings contained about thirty percent fear.
"Did you see him ranging across the battlefield last night? The ironclad men being hacked to pieces, sword and shield together! I knew it from the moment he handled that monstrous warhorse like mere livestock."
"That is not all. When he broke through two shield walls alone and passed among the corpses, the flames born of fire arrows died down of their own accord. As if they were being sucked into the axe he held."
A Britannian knight poured wine from his waterskin onto a nearby campfire.
Sssizzle!
The knight pointed at the fiercely blazing flames and continued.
"The blood clinging to the axe evaporated and the scraps of flesh cooked. The sound of it made my skin crawl."
"We must not let our guard down, seeing only his usual gentle demeanor. For a man's true nature is bound to reveal itself on the battlefield."
Everyone nodded at one noble's words.
They all clearly realized that this new lord was a ruler incomparably more fearsome than Viscount Winchester.
Even after swearing their oaths of fealty, many still called him 'that man' rather than Viscount or His Excellency. Because their instincts told them he was something apart, an entity different from themselves.
There were some vassals who disliked such a rigid attitude.
"Listening to this, is this not going too far? How generously His Excellency has treated you all!"
"Though we once opposed him as enemies, His Excellency saw to it that even I and my men received the utmost treatment for our wounds. There could be no more merciful a man."
The loyalist nobles who had sworn their oaths with a hundred percent respect took issue. But the tense nobles came back all the more brazenly.
"Are we ignoring him or speaking ill of him?"
"What is the problem with fearing one's liege? It means we intend to serve him all the more carefully."
"...That is a fair point, I suppose."
The loyalist nobles, too, could find no logic with which to refute it.
They were vassals sharing talk that would sadden Eugene if he heard it. Though Rex or Homi, who revered the law of the wild, would have been delighted.
* * *
Having concluded the treatment of the wounded and the collection of spoils, Eugene advanced on Haven. Toward the heart of southern Britannia and the stronghold of Viscount Winchester.
This time, however, he marched in grand luxury, like any other noble.
"I thought you disliked such things, Sir Knight."
Rex found the sight of dancers, musicians, and jesters coming and going a curious thing. For it was unlike Eugene, who lived with the words 'an army ought to be an army' upon his lips.
"Hyaaap!"
Two muscular men clad only in trousers swung bandaged fists at one another. They were brawlers belonging to a troupe.
"Hit harder, I said!"
"Wahahaha!"
THUD!
At the exhilarating sound of impact and the scattering droplets of blood, the nobles cheered and threw silver coins.
"Thank you! My lords!"
A boy belonging to the troupe swiftly gathered the coins, bowing and scraping.
"The nobles enjoy such things, so what can I do? I have now reached a position where I must do things I dislike as well. Ah, I will buy all those scented candles, so have them moved to the warehouse."
"Your grace is boundless!"
One of the camp merchants threw himself prostrate at Eugene's spending.
"It reminds me of when we rooted out the bandits in Bonyard before. It feels like only yesterday that you chased off every merchant who came selling luxuries and bought up nothing but meat."
"It is not such old history, is it? A year and a half at most."
"...Is that so? It feels like a very long time has passed."
Rex tilted his head with a puzzled expression.
"It must mean we've lived through much in that compressed span, right? For we can come and go a journey that would take most men decades in the space of a single moment."
A great roar of cheers erupted from the banquet grounds. At a hastily arranged arm-wrestling contest, Homi was defeating the knights one after another.
Now the fate of the south was decided. On the march to Haven, not a single lord showed any sign of trying to check Eugene. Rather the opposite.
"I swear fealty to the rightful master of Britannia."
A noble who had joined them from the countryside knelt before Varda.
"Lord Drinkwater. I shall accept your loyalty."
Chu.
Once the permission was given, the noble pressed his lips to the fine back of Varda's hand.
"When I hear your call, I shall take up my arms and come to face the foe at any time. Gods above, protect this noble lady."
Behind the head of House Drinkwater stood a chest filled with several dozen fox furs.
All of them were eagerly offering chests of silver coins or regional specialties, anxious not to offend the conqueror's mood.
This was the reason Eugene now marched in luxury. While he must tighten the reins when needed, there were times he must show dignity as a prospective great lord.
When Eugene's army reached the outskirts of Haven, the Hammer Brotherhood met him.
"You have toiled, Rampage."
"It was nothing, truly."
The dwarf warriors led by Rampage had received the task of sealing off the area around the city. It was to block any of Viscount Winchester's vassals who might, on the smallest chance, come to join him.
-Your Excellency! If we are absent, who will bear the brunt of the enemy at the front? The elf folk may shoot arrows well, but they cannot decide a battle with that alone!
-The levied vassal nobles will serve as the anvil, so set your minds at ease.
-Ah, no, just a moment!
The dwarves, who wished to enter the fight by any means, swallowed their tears.
They were a people who had always taken pride in their identity as a race of the earth. Yet lately, they had even come to feel resentment toward their short legs that could not mount a horse.
-We must also prepare for the eventuality that Viscount Winchester does not surrender. I am not telling you to merely lay a siege. Should the situation demand it, you are to make ready so that I can transition immediately into an assault upon my arrival.
-!!!
Thanks at least to the order Eugene had left behind, they could harbor some hope.
"Were there no vassals who came to the city's relief?"
"...There were none."
"It seems they were too frightened to come, thanks to you all."
"...Thank you."
Fwip-fwip-fwip!
It would have been perfect were it not for the white flags fluttering all across Haven.
* * *
"Indeed. This is a city worthy of being called the heart of the south."
Haven was special compared to any city Eugene had seen while drifting across the continent.
Because it was an inland city flanked by the abundant waters of the Thames River and fertile plains, it could sustain a large population.
And because the river connected to the sea, it could also function as a port city. It held infinite potential for growth.
And there was one more thing that made it special.
"For a waterfall to flow in the very center of the city."
Varda brought both hands together before her chest as if moved.
Within the city of Haven, a single rocky mountain rose up. The water that gushed from its peak cut across the city center, passed the south gate, and joined the Thames River.
"Do you like it?"
"Of course! Of all the great cities I have seen until now, this is the first place so refreshing. The spirit of the forest, though faint, is alive here as well."
For Varda, an elf, her first impression of Haven with its mountain and waterfall was a perfect score.
"It is one of the few places in Britannia, so full of limewater, where one can always obtain clear water."
Eugene shared the stories he had heard from his vassal nobles.
"The facilities, too, are excellent, as befits a place used as a forward base for the ancient kingdom in the 2nd Era. The waterworks, sewers, and parts of the buildings still maintain the techniques of that time."
Being here, Eugene felt as if he were taking the hand of his bride-to-be and touring real estate. It seemed Varda felt the same.
"Whenever I thought of my family, of my ancestors, it had always felt like someone else's affair. As if it were an old tale where nothing remains now but me."
This was why Varda, despite that noble bloodline, had never shown it. For she felt it was vain and futile to boast of a glory that had vanished.
"It is no longer so. Look upon that city."
Eugene pointed with an open palm toward the city of Haven as if presenting it.
"That is no mere great and splendid domain. It is also the dormant house of Varda-nim—the glory you should rightfully have enjoyed."
"...I shall give it all to you."
He felt Varda's intertwined fingers fidget. Her face was flushed with an excitement he had never seen before.
"Your Excellency! Viscount Winchester has appeared."
Perhaps informed of Eugene's arrival, Viscount Winchester came out alone to the entrance of Haven. He wore a carefree expression, as if he had already let go of many things.
"Look at the vassals who follow you. Once the banner of House Meyer is planted in that city, you too will be a true great lord."
"Starting with three people and becoming a great lord of Britannia in less than two years. It seems it has been quite a turbulent journey."
Looking at it now, Eugene understood why Rex had remarked that so little time had passed.
End
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