When Dusk Breaks
The elf knights of the West loved to boast that their warhorses were the fiercest and most valiant in the world, and the knights of the Empire, unwilling to yield an inch, insisted that the Empire's mounts were the sturdiest and most hardy of all. Yet even they could not hide their covetousness when it came to the mixed-blood steeds of the East, whose blended lineage was rumored to produce horses of great beauty and unbreakable stamina.
A prized horse of such pedigree — how could anyone not feel the stirrings of greed?
Sensing Johan's thoughts, Fern snorted in indignation and ruffled his mane. Johan stroked the horse's head with genuine apology.
"Sorry. You're a fine horse too."
Ahir's sons and daughters were, on the surface, passable knights. It showed even from a distance. Their gear took a different form from the Empire's usual armaments, but it was well-wrought, the edges keen.
Of course, a 'passable' knight did not mean a good-natured one.
"You keep muttering. What exactly are you saying?"
"W-well, that is..."
When the servant hesitated, Johan turned straight to Goiden.
"Goiden. What's he saying?"
"It seems he's muttering that they could have won if they'd been given a chance, my lord."
"Then tell him that if he mutters one more time, I'll pull his tongue out — ransom be damned. And tell him that if he stumbles through his translation for me even one more time, I'll send his head flying instead."
At Johan's warning, the servant went white as a corpse and nodded furiously. Hearing those words made it newly, viscerally real to him what manner of man the Count standing before him actually was.
Ahir's children, at last, shut their mouths. They must have been bitterly resentful at being forced to surrender without ever swinging a blade.
"Judging by what he was saying, that fellow was probably a fairly clever beast. But to steal a horse without making a single sound? That's a monster, no mistake."
"Yes, my lord. And they say there are no bears in this area. It took the horse without leaving a trace — it has to be a rather cunning monster."
Galambos nodded as he answered. The more he spoke, the more apparent it became: Johan possessed a hunter's knowledge.
A hunter's knowledge was a different thing from mere proficiency at the hunt. Many nobles loved hunting and were skilled at it, but they did not have that knowledge.
That knowledge could not be acquired by marching into the woods with a few dozen retainers and hired guides. It came only from breathing alone in the forest, in solitude, over and over.
Nobles who considered such things beneath them naturally never deigned to learn. Johan was, in that sense, a truly singular nobleman.
Grr.
"If we can't find them, we can't find them. Don't sulk about it."
Karamaph looked deflated, unable to pick up the quarry's scent. Monsters were often far craftier than ordinary beasts; masking their smell was well within their abilities.
"We found tracks! We found the tracks!"
"?"
Which was why, when the heathen pirates — of all people — turned up a trail even Karamaph had lost, Johan couldn't help but find it strange.
But there really were tracks. Across the shallow stream, hoofprints were churned into the mud in wild disarray. If the horse had crossed water, the scent disappearing made sense — yet to Johan, it still felt deeply wrong.
"Does it smell like anything, Karamaph?"
Karamaph shook his head. Not even from over there.
"I'll follow these tracks, my lord."
"Doesn't this seem off to you? If the horse ran off on its own, fine. But if something dragged it away, why would it leave tracks like this?"
"But... couldn't the horse have been caught and led away, my lord?"
"Then the trail would be messier than this."
Despite Johan's objections, the retainers showed no sign of giving up. It was their lord's horse; of course they couldn't simply let it go.
They wouldn't listen even if I hung them by their ears.
Johan gave up on persuading them. Come to think of it, if they were determined to walk into hardship on their own, there was no reason to stop them.
Besides, we have to find the thing anyway. They might as well serve as bait...
"Fine. Do as you like. Follow behind me."
"Thank you, my lord!"
The moment Johan relented, Ahir's eldest son brightened and bowed in gratitude. It was a greeting only possible because he had no idea what Johan was actually thinking.
"Why did you permit it, my lord? It's strange no matter how I look at it."
"Because if there's a monster nearby, I figured it would come creeping toward them."
"......"
Galambos stared at Johan with a look of pure horror.
What kind of cold-blooded scheme is that — the kind only the oldest veterans of the Eastern Rangers would dream up...!
The hoofprints continued without interruption. They belonged to a horse walking slowly, at perfectly regular intervals.
The knights and retainers in front chased the trail in the simple joy of having found it, but Johan's unease only deepened.
They're not running some kind of trick on us, are they?
It was bad enough that even the knights were starting to doubt the trail.
Just in case, Johan spread the mercenaries out on either flank, but nothing turned up. By this point, even he was growing curious.
What in the world kind of monster was pulling off a stunt like this?
"Ha...!"
The riders up front abruptly stopped and let out a cry of awe.
Before them stood a horse with a beautiful golden coat — unmistakably a precious steed of pure Eastern blood. The mercenaries gasped at the sight of it.
"Is that Lord Ahir's horse?"
"Yes. That's the one."
The servant answered with a delighted voice and approached carefully. The horse might have forgotten its master during the days spent wandering the forest, so he meant to secure the reins for certain.
But the horse swiveled its head away and bolted forward.
"After it!"
The retainers scrambled after it. They sprinted down a narrow path and out the other side — and a broad plain spread before them like a clearing in the heart of the forest.
Several horses stood drinking at a lake in the middle of it. The retainers froze at the almost dreamlike scene.
"Wild horses?"
"This works out. Let's catch a few and present them to the Count."
"...Not a bad idea, actually."
Ahir's children agreed. They still felt wronged and humiliated at being captured without so much as a sword drawn — but the fact remained that the Count of Eitz had shown them mercy.
Failing to repay that properly as knights would be its own disgrace.
It was the eldest, Fahid, who noticed something strange.
"Wait... why is there a fence here?"
"Maybe some village serf is secretly raising them?"
"This deep in the forest? The beasts would come and eat them."
The retainers approached the fence slowly, puzzled. The horses were all sleek and glossy-maned, clearly well-fed and thriving. The second son, Nudar, pointed at the black horse standing at the center.
"That one looks best."
"A magnificent steed, without question. Large frame, well-defined muscle, and that coat..."
Johan and the mercenaries arrived only then. Galambos watched the retainers cluster up against the fence, closing in on the black horse — and blinked.
"Back! Get back, you idiots!!"
"What is it, Galambos?"
"That thing is a bicorn! It doesn't have a shadow!"
The two-horned beast, the bicorn. If the unicorn was a symbol of purity, the bicorn was the wicked monster perched at the opposite end of that spectrum.
Bewitching ordinary horses was not enough for it — it would sometimes hide its horns and hunt travelers as well. The moment its prey came close, it would bare its two sharp horns and skewer them through the vitals.
Realizing it had been discovered, the bicorn's eyes went murderously cold, and its horns slid free. One retainer shrieked and yanked out his shield. The horn split the thick oak-and-iron-banded shield like it was paper.
CRACK!
-■■■■!
As the bicorn wailed, the horses nearby turned red-eyed and began glaring at the retainers. When even Lord Ahir's own steed changed like that, the knights panicked and screamed.
"Such an ungrateful beast! It's me! Do you not recognize my face?!"
What a pack of idiots.
Johan reacted with perfect calm. He plucked a spear from his kit and hurled it straight at the bicorn.
Balkalmur!
At the force of the malevolent spirit locked within the spear, the bicorn shrieked and bolted. It was so fast that it left an afterimage, black mane streaming as it slipped past the flying shaft.
It dodged that?
The bicorn, too, was a monster whose very blood carried wicked magic. It could shrug off the curse of a spirit.
-■■■!
The bicorn wailed as it sprinted backward. Johan assumed it was frightened — that it would herd the other horses into blocking pursuit while it itself fled. He was wrong.
THUD. THUD. THUD. THUD—
From the forest behind, a one-eyed giant emerged swinging a warhammer. Only then did anyone understand who had built the fence.
The bicorn had been kept inside that enclosure all along — tended and raised by the cyclops!
The cyclops looked to be one and a half times Johan's size. At that bulk, the men swallowed hard.
"Sooo... hun...gry... musss... eat."
The creature slurred in halting Ancient Imperial Language. Only Johan among those present could understand it, so the words meant nothing to the rest.
"Strike it down!"
Ahir's eldest and third sons drew their swords and charged from either flank. Mounted knights did not fear even a giant. They wheeled swiftly left and right, hunting for an opening in the cyclops's exposed torso.
The cyclops smirked slyly and kicked a boulder. The eldest's horse startled and swerved sideways; the third son's horse reared, screaming, front hooves flailing.
Seizing the moment, the cyclops swung the warhammer into the third son. He hastily raised his shield to deflect the blow, but the impact was far too great. He was thrown from the saddle and rolled away across the grass.
"Gahk!"
The cyclops snatched up the third son, dumped him swiftly beneath its own foot, and bore down. Choking, the young knight thrashed — and couldn't move an inch.
"No... weapons... come... here."
The thing flung the warhammer to the ground with a thunk and raised both arms in open invitation.
Sly bastard, isn't it!
Grrrrowl.
Karamaph, pride evidently wounded, glared at the cyclops and growled low in his throat. The cyclops was playing a game right now.
It was deliberately keeping its captives alive, just in case the others ran!
"My lord! Give the order and we will follow!"
"Shall we put that cursed thing down?"
But the cyclops had misjudged its audience. The mercenaries behind Johan showed not a flicker of fear at the sight of it.
Their eyes were burning with faith and devotion.
"No need to close with it. Loose the crossbows and bows."
"Yes, my lord!"
The mercenaries fanned out left and right and rained bolts and arrows down. The cyclops clamped a hand over its eye and shrieked. The stinging pain of those incessant pricks was grating on it.
"Let my brother go, you damned beast!"
The eldest son drew his sword and drove it at the cyclops's back. The creature grabbed him by the wrist as if it had been waiting for exactly this. The cyclops's palm tore slightly — and the sword stopped dead. Terrifying, monstrous strength.
Snapped to a halt mid-gallop, the eldest was flung from his horse by the recoil. The cyclops's other foot clamped down on him instantly.
Johan let out a hollow laugh and charged. A mere monster, pulling stunts like this...
"B■ck! B■ck! M■ lord, g■ b■ck!"
As Johan came running, the second son panicked in horror. He was busy pulling the retainers to safety — and here came the Count, sprinting toward it!
If the Count died here, then all of them — Ahir included — would go straight to the gallows!
"B■ck! B■ck! F■■■ s■ke, wh■t th■ h■ll ar■ y■u d■■■, y■u m■d d■g?!"
So he understands a fair bit of the Eastern tongue by now, does he.
Johan leapt from his saddle and sprinted at full speed. Sword raised in both hands, he drove it straight at the cyclops. The creature smirked slyly, just as before, and reached out to snatch the blade with its bare hand.
Thk—
-?
When the sword kept coming instead of stopping, the cyclops panicked and seized the blade with both hands. But blood only ran thicker from its palms; the sword did not slow.
-?
"You should have known your opponent before flexing that strength, giant."
Johan sneered cruelly and drove the blade home. As the point punched through its chest, the cyclops bellowed and summoned every last ounce of desperate strength.
Johan pushed harder. The creature's frantic thrashing was almost pitiful.
Snap!
"!"
Dusk — the masterwork longsword bestowed by Duke Brudhe — broke. Johan froze in shock. He had shattered plenty of blades in his time, but never one of this caliber.
Even with half the blade lodged in its chest, the cyclops seemed to find it funny, and grinned.
Johan's rage boiled over. He snatched up the warhammer the creature had tossed aside. Befitting a giant's weapon, it was two or three times thicker than any ordinary warhammer.
With a single crushing blow, the cyclops's jawbone and chest caved in. Johan brought the hammer down again on the collapsing skull. By the third strike, the creature's face had been battered beyond all recognition.
Watching from where they lay prone, Ahir's eldest and third sons found their eyes closing against their will. It was a slaughter too ferocious, too overwhelming to look upon.
We actually believed we could beat something like that?
What kind of lunatic delusion had we been harboring?