A Bloodbath in the Warehouse
Blood sprayed in every direction, and the knights' eyes filled with shock and fury. Not one of them had come through that door prepared to die. They were here to kidnap a single mage — a simple job. If the target put up a bit of resistance, they'd knock her flat and be done with it.
And then, out of nowhere, this.
"Who the hell are you!? Do you even know who we are?"
"Masked thugs trying to abduct someone? Isn't that what you are?"
The knight who had spoken on reflex flushed red. Johan's words had actually shamed him.
Kaenerna caught that flicker of emotion and clicked her tongue. "Why? Care to give your house and name, and challenge him to a duel?"
"...Kill everyone except the mage! Attack!"
The warehouse was packed wall to wall with bodies, leaving no room to maneuver. In a space like this, refined swordsmanship was useless — brute strength and a thick hide decided everything.
Granted, Johan held an edged weapon, but the knights had numbers on their side. And in these cramped quarters, a cudgel was no worse than a longsword. One solid blow would put a man down, whatever he was swinging.
Thinking exactly that, the knights charged with their clubs raised.
Crack!
Johan swung a fist and snapped the club of the first charging knight clean in two. The man's eyes went wide enough to bulge from their sockets. Johan seized him by the throat a heartbeat later — a wet crunch of bone, and the knight's head lolled sideways.
"Ghk!"
Using the body as a shield, Johan raised his longsword in the other hand. Clubs rained down from either side. He swept the sword in a wide arc — blood spattered, and another knight dropped.
Mankind had forged fighting techniques to hunt beasts.
The knights were paying the price for forgetting that and throwing raw strength at a monster.
Still, one of them managed to land a club across Johan's exposed back.
Thud!
Johan gritted his teeth, whirled around, and caved in the man's skull. No amount of knightly conditioning saved him. One punch, and the knight went down vomiting blood.
"...We're withdrawing. Protect me!"
The first to recover her wits in that shambles of a room was Kaenerna. She had watched Johan snap a club with sheer monstrous strength like a woman transfixed, and only barely come back to herself.
Several knights couldn't handle one man — it defied belief. But believing unbelievable things was, after all, a mage's job.
She bit her lip and began backing toward an escape. By good fortune, Johan was too busy carving up knights to notice her slipping toward the door.
"Don't move! Move and we shoot. On your knees!"
"!"
But there was an ambush waiting, astonishingly enough.
Outside the warehouse, mercenaries who had been lying in wait on all sides now leveled bows and crossbows.
The mercenaries Johan had brought with him.
"Wh-what are those idiots doing? Why are they heading in there?"
"Get the others! Grab your weapons! Trouble!"
The men he'd hired in case the city itself turned hostile ended up proving their worth from a completely unexpected direction.
The knights realized they'd walked into an ambush and went pale.
"...These worthless mercenaries dare—!"
"Wait!"
Kaenerna tried to stop them. If they did something reckless with her standing right here...
But the knights were already running. Refusing to retreat and charging boldly into a hopeless situation — that was knighthood.
The problem was that they wore not a stitch of armor. Plain clothes, every one of them.
Twang-twang-thwip!
Crossbows and bows sang, and arrows punched into the knights' bodies. Even transfixed with shafts, they gritted their teeth and kept charging. Truly a magnificent display of ferocity — the mercenaries winced at the sight.
But these were seasoned professionals. The response was immediate.
"Crossbows, archers — fall back!"
"Shields up! Block them!"
Knights bristling with arrows couldn't put up a real fight. They dropped their clubs and collapsed where they stood.
"...I said I surrender."
Kaenerna had turned perfectly meek.
Before long the door opened from within, and Johan stepped out. Not a single knight's voice could be heard inside.
"Drag them in."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"I thought for sure you were assassins sent by the Emperor..."
"Didn't I tell you? Would the Emperor have nothing better to do than this?"
Johan took in the situation and felt deflated. He'd assumed they'd come for him — when in fact they'd simply come to abduct Gulrak.
Gulrak looked at Johan and spoke. "I owe you one. My thanks."
"Isn't it simply what any knight ought to do?"
And this bastard is definitely thinking he fought for nothing...
Suetleug marveled inwardly. Having known Gulrak for so short a time, the mage hadn't yet learned to read what was going on behind Johan's eyes.
Every knight except Kaenerna had died resisting. She, meanwhile, answered every question with impeccable courtesy and compliance.
"Why were you trying to abduct Gulrak?"
"I was searching for a knight, and I needed that mage's help to find him."
"Are these men the Emperor's knights?"
"Yes."
"Does the Emperor know about this?"
"He does not."
Johan took up position behind Kaenerna. The placement bothered her enough that she shot a glance over her shoulder — and sure enough, Johan was raising his longsword.
Every sign of a man about to end things in one clean stroke.
"Hold a moment. I have more questions."
While Suetleug held him back, Gulrak asked, almost idly curious. "You're fine talking this freely?"
"I assume you would torture me if I refused. Talking now seems better than talking after the torture."
"Why are you searching for this knight?"
"He has my treasure."
"Would that treasure happen to be a Fire Cup?"
"...?!"
For the first time, Kaenerna's composure cracked.
"Answer the question."
"...It is."
"Can you tell us about the Emperor?"
"I cannot."
Johan rested the tip of his longsword against her shoulder with a light tap.
A warning.
At the cold touch of the metal, Kaenerna shivered. She turned her head to look up at him.
In this warehouse holding three mages, Johan was the only one who wasn't one. And Kaenerna had done her utmost to charm him.
Crimson hair and blood-red eyes. Even with her body hidden beneath a robe, she was a striking beauty — and layered on top of that was the raw power of her magic. Bewitching a man should have been no effort at all.
Yet there wasn't the slightest tremor in Johan's eyes.
In them, Kaenerna felt the force of a soul utterly unshakable.
His gaze said exactly one thing.
Her death.
"Why can't you speak of him?"
"She'll have sworn on mystery and magic itself. Unless the Emperor is a fool."
Even a court mage wasn't trusted absolutely by the Emperor. Naturally, he would have made her swear never to breathe a word outside his service.
And a mage would sooner choose death than give up her magic.
"Then may I kill her?"
"...Do you have some grudge?"
"No. No grudge, but... what good ever came of leaving a mage alive? Who knows what she might do."
Unlike Gulrak and Suetleug, who knew magic inside and out, Johan understood nothing of it — and so he could do nothing but regard it as a threat.
And the best countermeasure was to separate the threat's head from its shoulders. A dead mage casts no spells.
"Tell me — if a man were bound hand and foot, what would you make of him?"
"I'd imagine he'd quietly work the ropes loose and stand up."
"...Poorly worded question. Suppose you saw a man bound hand and foot. You'd think him no real danger, wouldn't you? Mages are the same."
Suetleug drew out the Fire Cup and set it before Kaenerna. Her face went slack with shock. From that single globe alone, she understood everything.
"We didn't kill Gairendel. We merely saw to his remains."
"......"
"Mages rarely kill one another. But nothing is absolute. And the knight standing here very much wants you dead. If you wish to live, convince us."
Unlike Johan, Suetleug had no intention of killing Kaenerna.
She was simply too valuable a talent to waste.
A mage could be trusted. Once an oath was sworn, it could never be broken.
Kaenerna caught the drift and sighed. "What do you want?"
"I don't know if you've noticed, but the Emperor grows more violent by the day. I need someone who can warn me of danger — before it ever threatens my life. If I spare you, will you repay that debt?"
"...Provided it doesn't violate my existing oaths, I will grant you three favors."
"And everything that happened today stays behind these walls — sworn on mystery itself."
"So it shall be."
Johan stood to the side listening to the mages talk, wearing an expression of genuine wonder. Not a speck of loyalty to the Emperor showed anywhere in Kaenerna.
So this is what a mage is?
Gulrak spoke up beside him. "She's the strange one, that woman."
"?"
"She doesn't serve the Emperor — she thinks she's trading with him. That's why she acts like that without a shred of guilt. Suetleug's nothing like her, so don't get the wrong idea."
"I haven't."
"Good. That's that, then."
The exchange between Suetleug and Kaenerna flowed so smoothly it might have been two merchants who'd sat down to negotiate from the start. Nothing from today would be spoken of anywhere. In return for sparing her life, Kaenerna would repay Johan with three favors.
The moment the deal was struck, Kaenerna shed her polite demeanor like a discarded cloak and settled back into her old arrogance, her lazy disdain. Her life was guaranteed now; she was certain of it.
"May pain and glory fill the road ahead of you, brave knight."
"...?"
Johan yanked out his longsword on the spot and swung it at her. Kaenerna screamed and ducked flat. Suetleug scrambled to hold him back.
"What are you doing!?"
"Didn't she just curse me?"
"No! That's a greeting!"
"My apologies. I assumed it was a curse."
"......"
Kaenerna glared daggers at Johan, mounted her horse, and rode off without another word.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Clumsy with words though he was, Gulrak was a mage who expressed his gratitude in earnest.
He brought out a surcoat made of the finest leather and draped it over Johan's shoulders with his own hands.
A surcoat worn over armor was a knight's finest stage — the garment in which he flaunted his house and cut the most impressive figure.
The smooth leather, darkened to a deep near-black, carried a dignity that would have drawn awed whistles from any knight alive.
"This leather will keep you warm. Against the cold — and against arrows, for that matter."
Suetleug gaped at the thing. For all his bulk, Gulrak was a man of legendary stinginess. Not the type to hand over a treasure like this easily.
He must have taken quite a liking to Johan.
"Come by my house if you're ever in the forest again."
"How should I find it?"
"Tell a wolf to fetch me, and I'll find you. Travel carefully. The East is a rough country."
With that, Gulrak grabbed a single hide and tossed it at Suetleug — something that looked barely tanned, let alone sewn. Suetleug stared at it in disbelief.
"You can't be serious."
"Wear that. Sleep under it and you'll be warm enough."
"If you're giving a gift, give a proper one!"
"Debt's repaid. And Suetleug — if you were planning to hand me a Fire Cup with a history like that one, be grateful for the hide too."
"I didn't know its history. And that mage didn't come looking because of the Fire Cup, did she."
"That's the only reason you're getting that much. Otherwise, nothing."
Gulrak slammed the door shut without ceremony. Suetleug grumbled as he wrapped the hide around himself. It did radiate magical power, admittedly. Apart from the stench, anyway.
"A good friend of yours, I take it."
"A far better friend to keep than a mage like Kaenerna. Ah — and don't think too poorly of me for sparing her. Hard woman to trust, but alive, she's worth more than dead."
"I don't think poorly of it at all?"
"...Good. I worried over nothing, then!"
He'd only said it because Johan's answer to any mage was sword-first, but looking back, it had been needless worry.
We'll keep this Fire Cup in our care. Better to have a way to reach each other.
Johan accepted the Fire Cup. Kaenerna could contact them first, but not the other way around — an awkward arrangement, to say the least.
"It was strange, honestly. No loyalty at all, for a court mage."
"Do you know why Kaenerna gave Gairendel a Fire Cup?"
"?"
"She bought him, plain and simple. If the remains of Karamaf were ever found, she meant to smuggle out his sword and effects. A treasure worth that much trouble."
"...!"
Diverting relics without reporting them to the Emperor.
That wasn't lacking in loyalty. That was...
"To her, everything is a transaction. I imagine the Emperor sees it differently, but what of it? He's the one being played. Who knows how many more mages we'll meet — but don't treat them like knights, or you'll take a dagger in the back for certain. Loyalty is a virtue you'll rarely find in a mage."
"But friendship you can expect, can't you?"
Suetleug nodded at that and smiled. "Yes. Friendship is a virtue you can safely hope for."