The Hunter's Trail
For now, he could only be grateful.
"And you?"
"Who's going to worry about a man like me?"
Joseph gave a wry smile. The whole plan to flee had been about saving face for the Eitz family — about handing him over to Karamap with their honor intact. But now that the Eitz household had been torn apart, who in their right mind would spare a second thought for a gamekeeper like Joseph?
"Thank you, Joseph. If anyone presses you about this... give them whatever answer seems reasonable. I won't mind."
"...Yes. I'll do that."
Joseph answered, fighting down the tightness rising in his throat. He had spent his whole life resenting nobles, yet this young knight before him had a way of making a man want to follow him. He made you feel your life would be a small price to pay.
It was a shame, a terrible shame. And at the same time, Joseph was startled by himself.
"I hope we meet again someday."
"I... hope so as well."
Johan offered a parting nod, then turned his horse. As it galloped into the forest, the darkness swallowed him almost instantly. Left alone, Joseph scanned his surroundings, taking stock of the situation.
Is the whole Eitz family dead? No telling what becomes of the fief now. And if they decide gamekeepers like me were tangled up in it too...
Suddenly the thunder of hooves split the night. Joseph's head snapped up in alarm. Karamap, who had rejoined the main force, was staring down at him from horseback.
"Did you see Johan Eitz?"
"...Yes."
It wasn't a question. It was a confirmation.
Behind him, the mounted mercenaries radiated bloodlust like prowling beasts, and though Karamap's face showed nothing at all, his eyes alone were enough to crush the heart out of a man.
Joseph understood instinctively. If he lied here, he would die here.
"Which way did he go?"
"South... toward the high road."
Walk up from the stream where the mill sat and you reached the black forest; walk down and you hit the road linking to the Ancient Empire's highway. Try as he might, Joseph couldn't imagine a fleeing man choosing anything but the road — least of all a noble.
The mercenaries, never suspecting Joseph might lie, voiced their opinions freely.
"Sir Karamap. We can catch him if we ride now."
"How far could he have gotten? Not far."
"......"
Karamap offered no answer. He simply stared at Joseph, long and hard, as though trying to thread his gaze through the man's pupils and read the heart behind them. Joseph trembled convincingly and did his best to avoid the knight's eyes.
Go fornicate with yourself, knight.
Joseph felt no regret. Even if it killed him here, that was the choice he'd made. Dying for Johan was a far better use of his life than helping a man like Karamap.
"Move out! We hunt him down."
Karamap wheeled his horse and led the mercenaries down toward the road. Joseph let out a long breath. He felt drenched in cold sweat.
This fief is finished by tonight, then.
The lie probably wouldn't unravel, but if they came up empty, the blame could land squarely on his back. He had to get away, and fast.
Luckily, he was an old, practiced hunter who knew exactly how to slip away through forest and mountain, and he knew this terrain like the lines on his own palm. Weaving past mercenaries who cared nothing for him and vanishing into the dark was a simple matter.
"Hey, Joseph! You looking for the nobles too?"
He spotted serfs emerging with torches in hand. Joseph grinned and nodded.
"Let's search together! With you along I'll feel a lot safer. Swing that sword around and let's shoot something."
"Ha! Wait, are we really allowed to shoot?"
"Didn't you see Sir Karamap killing people earlier? And he paid out silver on the spot, didn't he?"
Joseph buried himself among the serfs. Stay in their midst and no one would question him even at a distance. Then it was only a matter of making an excuse, slipping away, and running.
"...You keep after him."
"Yes. Will you be returning, Sir Karamap?"
"No. I'll search somewhere else."
"?"
The mercenaries found it odd, but none of them pressed the matter. All they had to do was follow Karamap's orders.
"Find him without fail. I'll put gold on his head."
"...!"
At this windfall none of them had dreamed of, the mercenaries tightened their grips on their weapons. Their greed was visible — you could practically see their breath thicken with want.
"We'll bring him back, I swear it!"
Having dispatched the men, Karamap did not return to the village. He angled his horse toward the forest instead — the black forest the mercenaries had entered and only barely escaped, mauled by wolves.
He hadn't told them because he couldn't justify it even to himself. And yet, for some reason, it nagged at him. A perfectly good highway on one side, a deadly forest on the other. Only a fool would choose the latter...
And still Karamap turned toward the trees as if something had ensorcelled him. He was a cold, rational knight, but he had never once ignored the signals his instincts sent him.
There were two ways through the black forest.
The first was the way most people knew. It ran from the forest's entrance, narrow and rough, but perfectly passable. This was the route the mercenaries had taken when they went in hunting wolves.
The second way was known only to the hunter Joseph and to Johan. Calling it a path was generous — it was buried under dense brush, with no bare earth visible at all. What kind of road was that supposed to be?
But Joseph had used it constantly on his rounds through the forest. Guide a noble down it and the man would have roared, 'Has this hunter lost his mind?' — yet for traveling alone, no shortcut in the world came close.
And Johan, naturally, had learned it too.
A marker.
With no trail carved into the ground, the second way was navigated by marks. Every tree bore a sign Joseph had left behind. Follow the markers, and you were on the shortcut.
Joseph had said he'd laid traps in case things ever went sour and he had to run. Naturally, he would have set them along the first road. If pursuers came, that was where they'd be.
Johan pushed along the second way. Brush whipped at his face, and his horse snorted in irritation — but it never slowed.
Then, in the distance, a horse screamed.
The pursuit!
Johan flinched. There was only one possible meaning to a horse's shriek in this forest.
Someone chasing him had stumbled into one of Joseph's traps.
But... there's hardly any sound.
Johan dismounted swiftly and pressed his ear to the earth. A hunter's wisdom — know the trick, and you could catch the movement of a man far off.
One man?
What he heard was, without question, not a mercenary company. If the whole band had followed him in, he should have heard a dozen men at the very least.
A single face flickered through Johan's mind.
The instant he felt something give way underfoot — the same moment a light crossbow bolt came flying from the side — the face that flashed through Karamap's mind was the hunter's.
That insufferable expression. It had grated on his nerves from the very first.
When I get back, I'll kill him!
There was no guarantee the hunter had set this trap, but Karamap was certain nonetheless. Certainty was enough.
He swatted the incoming bolt aside with a hard strike. There was no need to catch it — no crude contraption built for snaring wild beasts could punch through armor like his.
But Karamap had underestimated Joseph far too much.
After all, would a hunter of Joseph's experience really target a band of well-armed mercenaries head-on?
Thud!
A sound from below, and his horse shrieked. Karamap's face went white. His prized mount had triggered a trap — one aimed at the unprotected legs beneath its barding.
"!"
Disturb the tripwire, and the mechanism above fired at the rider and loosed a second bolt into the horse's legs. It had been a double trap designed around the horse from the start. Karamap hurled a curse and leapt clear of the falling animal.
"...I'm sorry."
The horse's condition was worse than he'd feared. From the wound rose a sickly sweet stench, and the flesh there was already discoloring.
Poison!
Karamap ground his teeth. To lose his horse — his horse — to some lowborn hunter. To a knight, a mount was a comrade, a partner. A hundred of that serf's lives couldn't repay it.
And in its fall, the animal's leg had shattered completely. There would be no recovery from that. Even if some remedy existed, he could never carry it out of this forest.
Shk!
Karamap cut the horse's throat. It was the least he could do — end it without pain.
The elf knight's cold eyes burned like live coals. He had stayed calm even when he cut down Baron Gessen, but this affair had lit a true fire under him.
A worthless hunter. How dare he.
I abandon the chase.
Whether or not his quarry had truly fled into this black forest, he could pursue no further tonight. He would go back, tear the hunter limb from limb, and think then.
Karamap's eyes went wide.
The moment he turned to leave — a figure appeared from deep within the forest. Someone he'd seen only once before.
The Gessen brat.
I was right.
Johan confirmed Karamap's face and walked out into the open. If anyone would come after him alone, it could only be Karamap — though why the man would chase him solo, he couldn't fathom.
Did he doubt Joseph's word? I hope Joseph came through unharmed.
Karamap's face was hidden, his expression unreadable, yet somehow Johan had the distinct feeling the knight was looking at him the way one looks at a lunatic.
Which, to be fair, was entirely reasonable.
A man who was supposed to be running for his life had just materialized out of nowhere, right in front of him.
"I see."
Karamap nodded as though something had finally clicked.
"See what?"
"You've come for revenge."
"That's one reason, anyway."
Johan had two.
The first was that he wanted Karamap's assets.
If he killed Karamap here, alone, the mercenaries would never know who'd done it. They would never imagine he'd died at Johan's hands — they'd suspect monsters, most likely.
And the second reason...
"Avenging your father. That's the mark of a fine knight. You'll never make it as a living one, though."
"No. Some of the men you killed happened to be servants I was fond of."
"...?"
Karamap stared at him, plainly not following. Johan had gritted his teeth and endured while fleeing because the odds were against him — but he was no boneless saint, willing to swallow an insult even when the situation favored him.
Johan's eyes regarded Karamap in perfect stillness. They were the eyes of a lion sighting its prey.
You die here tonight.
Johan walked forward, slow and unhurried. Karamap held his ground, waiting to see what the boy would do.
He's strong.
Kaegal's words surfaced in his memory.
"The most important thing is gauging how strong your opponent is. Some men judge by experience, some by research, some by instinct. You — you're the instinct type. Read him with your gut."
"And if I read him wrong?"
"Then you die. Why do you keep asking me things that answer themselves? Have you ever seen a lion misjudge its prey? If it's wrong, then it was never instinct to begin with."
Karamap was undeniably a strong one. Even if only half the minstrels' songs were true, that much held.
But Johan was not afraid.