Blood at the Banquet
"Those imperial hicks are talking big these days. Guts swollen like a bull frog's..."
"Shh. Keep it together."
Any mercenary good enough to ride out as part of Johan's escort had at least one talent to his name, or was elite among elites, seasoned by years rolling through battlefields after battlefields. Not one of them was the least bit afraid of hired blades sent by the Emperor.
Their loyalty, moreover, reached to the heavens. Every last one of them was itching to put down the imperial noble strutting about so insolently in front of them. Hostage or no hostage — they wanted blood.
"Wait for the signal. Serve them the hard stuff."
"They are being rather restrained about it, if I may say so, my lord."
"Restrained or not, you think they won't drink? Swap the beer for the strongest liquor you can find. They'll drink it, pretending they can't refuse."
In the meantime, Baron Gartner took only light swigs of beer and dabbed his mouth with a cloth. His men were sharp enough to pace themselves as well.
"I heard His Excellency the Viscount had collapsed. Is he truly well enough to receive us?"
"He will appear shortly."
"His health is poor, or so they say — he overexerts himself. No need for it, I'd say."
That was what the Baron said, but his manner was conspicuously obliging. The job ahead had just become far easier to manage.
— Then what should we do, Boss... er, Baron?
— You wait, and when the Viscount shows himself, you draw your blades and seize him! It's the same everywhere. Grab the head of the snake and it's finished.
True to his non-noble origins, the Baron spared neither means nor method. Any other lord would have at least granted the Viscount a chance to speak and plead his case before the arrest, if only for the sake of face and honor...
But the Baron had no such intentions, nor any desire to leave the Viscount a window to flee. So what if tongues wagged about his crudeness?
'Let the trash mutter behind my back all they like...'
Johan would have laughed at him, had he seen it. Manners like these — brutal, contrary to every custom — were convenient for a moment and then came back to wring your neck later. Johan had hardly been hoarding pretexts and patience for nothing.
"His Excellency the Viscount approaches!"
At the servant's cry, the Viscount appeared, leaning on supporting arms. The Baron nodded with evident satisfaction and gave the order.
"Take His Excellency into custody!"
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than the mercenaries kicked over the tables and drew their weapons. The retainers seated alongside recoiled with shrieks of alarm, and the pro-imperial retainer who had spoken with them earlier cried out in disbelief.
"What is the meaning of this!?"
"We're arresting a noble who dared betray his sworn loyalty!"
"Don't talk rot! Did His Excellency not say he bore no other intentions whatsoever? And to draw steel at a feast like some common cutthroat — what in the..."
"Shut him up."
With a dull thud, the retainer crumpled to the floor. The Baron grinned savagely. This was precisely why ambushes were so beloved.
Nearly all of the soldiers were outside, and the only souls left in the banquet hall were the bleating sheep of servants and a handful of guards.
No matter how loudly the insult might be contested, once the Viscount was seized, the other side could do nothing at all.
"Grab His Excellency! There's a reward in it!"
The Baron's men tore across the banquet hall, drunk on the hunt, ignoring the servants entirely.
Thwap—
"?"
Suddenly the servants swept the cloth off the crates and lifted out crossbows. From outside, more servants streamed in and took aim.
And the blue-cheeked young servant standing at the Viscount's side shattered an oncoming mercenary's skull with his bare fist and spoke.
"Save the head man. Shoot the rest."
Bolts flew as the words left his mouth, and screams erupted. The mercenaries were slaughtered where they stood. From the moment the seating had been arranged, the crossbowmen had been positioned to fire from all four directions.
"Aaaargh! Gwaaah!"
"Damn it... goddamn it all...!"
"Captain! Captain!"
The few remaining mercenaries huddled desperately around the Baron, rolling their eyes like cornered rats as they scanned their surroundings.
But with no shields and no cover anywhere in sight, there was no way through the crossbow encirclement. Johan spoke slowly.
"What discourtesy is this, before His Excellency?"
"You shit — do you even know whose throat you're cutting right now?"
"The Emperor's cur, I'd wager, come to abandon a faithful man."
At Johan's words, the retainers lying sprawled on the floor nodded, faces twisted with fury. Things had already been shaky enough before being shown this spectacle. If they still swore loyalty to the Emperor after this, they would scarcely be human.
"...Fine! I surrender! I'll surrender, won't that do!"
The moment the Baron grasped that the Emperor's name carried no weight here and that the situation was hopelessly against him, he threw up both hands and bellowed. He couldn't make sense of what had happened, but he had to save his neck first.
Neither Johan nor the Viscount had any intention of sparing him, however. Letting him live would only mean shipping trouble back to the Emperor — nothing good could come of it.
"I hear you planned to arrest His Excellency and his kin, and seat yourself in his place. Is that so?"
"What nonsense is that!? Never happened!"
Johan had fully expected the Baron to wriggle out of it. He turned to the nearest mercenary.
"Did your head man say those words, or did he not?"
"He... he didn't."
"Shoot."
Before the word had finished leaving his mouth, a bolt flew and cut the mercenary's life short. The air turned to ice.
"Did he say those words, or did he not?"
"H-he did! He said we'd arrest the Viscount and then kill him secretly!"
"Well spoken. Shoot."
"No, wait, I said— guk!"
"You thought we'd spare the man who meant to kill His Excellency? The truth is confirmed now, so it hardly matters. Sweep them all away."
There was already testimony enough, and witnesses besides — but Johan wanted the confession spoken aloud before the assembled crowd. When everyone present was in a fever, hearing it directly doubled the shock of it.
From this day forward, not one retainer in this hall would dare proclaim loyalty to the Emperor in the open!
"You son of a—!"
The Baron was quick to read the wind. He couldn't say exactly what had gone wrong, but his gut told him every soul in this hall was going to die. Gritting his teeth, he clamped a hand around the neck of the mercenary beside him, hauled him forward, and used him as a shield.
"Ghk— ghhk... let go of...!"
Amid the man's gurgling, bolts punched into the mercenary's body. He staggered and died on his feet. The Baron charged, hoisting the corpse like an ox at the yoke — a desperate bid to break the encirclement somehow.
"Out of the way. This one's mine."
Johan hefted the Giant Slayer and strode forward. The Baron jabbed his spear in swift, flickering thrusts — movements far too agile for a man his size.
"If you're a true warrior, send your men off and face me fairly!"
"Duels are fought by those qualified to duel. You have no such qualification."
The man who had meant to provoke found himself provoked instead. The Baron bellowed and thrust harder, footwork circling, refusing easy approach — a genuinely irritating style to face.
'Does this bastard know who I am?'
Johan wondered. Imperial knights, as a rule, did not fear closing distance against a raised weapon. Get in close, bind the blades, then overpower the foe with strength and technique — that was their way.
Of course, anyone trying that against Johan would be dead in short order, toppled by sheer brute force before he could show off a single technique.
The Baron, though, was keeping his distance and merely pricking away — a succession of springy, continuous thrusts devoted entirely to keeping Johan at bay. It was almost as if he knew Johan's strengths.
'This bastard isn't your average thug...'
In truth, the Baron had no idea who Johan was. His spearwork had simply always been this good. And now the Baron was growing anxious. Dragging things out worked entirely against him.
He had to subdue the Viscount and escape, and quickly...
At that moment Johan's warhammer whirled in a full circle and tore into the Baron's spear. The Baron, moving to deflect the blow sideways as he always did and let the impact slide off, went rigid with horror.
More than half the spear haft had simply vanished.
With the weapon's reach so cruelly shortened, Johan stepped in at his leisure. The Baron shrieked and ripped out his dagger.
Once.
A single blow. The Baron vomited blood and pitched forward, tumbling across the floor. His torso had been pulped through his armor; he never moved again.
"......"
"......"
The watching retainers could only blink, faces frozen in astonishment.
They had known Count Eitz was a formidable warrior, but seen this close, his presence was no joking matter.
They realized anew just how much restraint the man must have shown at tournaments.
"Clear away the corpses and see His Excellency inside. No one else was hurt, I trust?"
"Ah — yes, my lord Count. I'm quite unharmed."
The retainers answered at once, heads bobbing. Without quite noticing it themselves, their manner had grown deeply, deferentially humble.
By the time they had returned to the County of Culia, the first snow was falling without anyone marking its arrival. Andolata spoke in a bright, clear voice.
"Snow rarely falls in these parts, my lord. The fact that it falls the very moment you arrive means you stand under the blessing of the gods."
"Your flattery warms me, lad."
The Viscount's third son was brimming with ambition and drive. He had feared Johan at first, but once he understood Johan bore him no particular hostility, he had set to work at once trying to make himself visible.
For nobles with no lands to inherit, advertising oneself this way was simply the natural course. It was only the fact that he did so at an age barely older than Amiaen's that was astonishing.
"And what do you make of all this?"
"Er, w-well, the county is beautiful, my lord?"
"I see. Thank you for the compliment."
The second son beamed back guilelessly. Watching him, Johan found himself recalling the manner Aola, the Viscount's firstborn, had displayed.
'So there was good reason to be wary of the third son after all.'
While they talked over the aftermath, Aola had done his level best to pry out of Johan exactly how much counsel Andolata had offered. Had Johan told the truth in full, the captain of the guard and a handful of servants would likely have found themselves expelled from the castle.
Heirs who loved a clever younger brother were rare indeed. Aola was no exception.
'If I were him, I'd have kept my behavior careful around Aola... though saying that now would accomplish precisely nothing.'
The County of Culia was transforming, day by day, almost past believing. Engineers out of the Republic were driving the harbor construction forward at full tilt, and to match it, a whole new city was being laid out.
The birth of that city, spreading outward from the castle, moved not only Johan but the people here as well — and their awe returned to him as passionate, burning support.
"It's been too long, my knight!"
The centaurs were the first to welcome Johan's return. They had been drilling the slave soldiers, and had been squirming under the weight of boredom.
The county was peaceful and prosperous — and that was exactly what made it a place that fattened warriors and made them lazy.
"When does the new campaign set out?"
"I'll think on it once winter's done, I suppose?"
"My lord! When do we ride on the new campaign?"
"How long have I even been back that you're asking already? Even mercenaries need time to rest."
"My lord Count! The new campaign—"
"Goiden. Go about shouting that there will be no new campaign for the foreseeable future."
Johan walked the ranks of the slave soldiers. A force of elite troops numbering in the several hundreds had been a very expensive experiment.
Honestly, even Johan wasn't doing it with any certain profit in mind. It was simply something to do while the coffers ran deep...
Plunder from the campaigns, the gold paid as tribute by newly submissive vassals, and now trade tariffs beginning to be collected in earnest.
It had been thrown together in haste and was still shaky at the foundations, but this little kingdom of the south was already vomiting gold.
"Where is Izelia?"
"She is preparing within at this moment, my lord."
Johan's expression turned wry. Izelia, naturally, would have marshaled every armament she possessed to greet him with the utmost ceremony and respect...
But from Johan's side of things, no war had broken out, so what was the point of it all? He understood her — elf knight and all — but still.
"Oh... that would be Lady Izelia coming now, wouldn't it?"
Jannina asked, curiosity getting the better of her. Johan had praised the woman's beauty so lavishly and so often that she'd grown rather interested herself.
By rumor, surely — set aside a passable face, and the woman was a lifetime from being called beautiful... was she not?
"There she comes."
"...?"
"And what is that expression meant to be?"
"...Those soldiers of yours — quite a few of them are races you'd only see in the south. Did you purchase them as slaves? Truly impressive. I can't imagine any army in the world beating them."
"These are the ones who haven't fought a single real battle yet?"
"A mage I've never heard of, then?"
"......"
At Suetleug's response, Jannina's face curdled.
Unlike Kaenerna, who had been formally acknowledged at court as an official court mage, Jannina remained an unofficial figure even within the Emperor's palace. The kind of magic she handled being what it was, there had been no helping it.
"...It is an honor to meet the Sage of the Ipael River."
"Is there some pressing reason to keep even such an insignificant creature at your side? Mages are rare, yes, but hardly impossible to come by."
"......"