Mercy Has Many Faces
The savages have no pride at all? Have they gone blind over the duke's gold?
The defense captain cursed the tribes. It wasn't a thing a man of his own standing should say — he was, after all, a native of a petty kingdom whose chieftains had been ennobled as aristocrats within the realm.
"Can we really trust that man?"
"Quiet. Watch your tongue. Doubting our allies on the eve of battle!"
When the grumbling surfaced, the others roundly rebuked him.
The defense captain had been born in the Kingdom of Slovac, on the Ulcana Peninsula east of the Edene Sea — one of those tiny realms that styled themselves "kingdoms," to the endless mockery of imperial men. Even so, a kingdom was a kingdom.
And in this situation, they were the only faction on earth willing to come to Umdim's aid.
"Ha. Then say it, why don't you! What did I tell you all! I said that surrendering, even an hour sooner, was the only way to soothe the duke's wrath and keep every last one of us alive — did I not!"
"Shut up! The only one surviving would be you!"
"Survive alone? And how is that different from anything you're proposing? If you got greedy and dragged us into this mess, then you ought to be ready to pay for it!"
The people split apart with alarming speed. In particular, a city governed by many competing houses, like this one, proved especially fragile in a crisis.
Those loyal to the duke clashed with those loyal to the petty kingdoms, who in turn brawled with the partisans of the other city-states. Whoever lost this argument here and now was as good as dead, and so they snarled and grabbed at each other's collars.
"Please, compose yourselves. They are merely an advance force! They aren't even moving toward us. Hold the walls and they will soon withdraw."
"Nonsense! If we mean to surrender, we surrender before the assault begins! Once the attack starts, it's already too late!"
Even sieges had their customs. If you meant to open the gates and yield, doing so before the first assault earned you at least a promise of mercy. Surrender afterward, from a position already collapsing, and no such mercy could be counted on.
Even if the commander wished to be clement, the soldiers beneath him would be raging out of their minds. Some of the defenders would hang for it, but most would keep their lives — which was precisely why the temptation was so hard to resist.
"Dismiss the soldiers. Let the council members go home."
"Yes, sir."
Still, the uproar soon died down. For the moment, power within Umdim was held by the nobles opposed to the duke, and the defense captain belonged to that same faction.
When the soldiers stepped in with threats, the people shrank back and dispersed. The captain let out a breath of relief.
"Captain. Is support truly coming? Those savage bastards over there should be on our side to begin with, shouldn't they?"
"There is more than one tribe on the steppe. They're as numerous as acorns dropped in a forest. A few greedy, witless ones among them have come here, so pay it no mind."
"...Fine. Oh — and see to it the gates are watched properly. Any one of them might turn traitor."
"Understood."
The garrison was already thin on numbers, and now he had to worry about betrayal from within besides. Infuriating — but there was nothing to be done.
The second army to arrive was that of the Wairag mercenary band. Finding Johan's forces already encamped in orderly ranks, they flinched at the sight.
"Sir Johan. Well met? Arriving first of anyone — truly befitting the duke's banneret."
"Sir Gurerik. Getting here ahead of the others — it speaks well of your company."
Gurerik grinned broadly at the compliment. Both men knew it was mere flattery, but flattery was no less pleasant for it.
"Oh, and the one who committed that discourtesy against you — I punished him severely."
"Hm? Ah. That hardly needed doing... but thank you."
"...?"
Gurerik was taken slightly aback. He had expected Johan to be pleased, or at least satisfied.
A young knight barely out of his teens — how can he be so unmoved? Anyone else would have lapped it up for the sake of their shallow pride...
"Any questions to ask, or matters to settle? I imagine we'll be waiting until the advance force and the main body arrive."
"Er... you haven't heard the news? Everyone will be rather late."
"?"
Gurerik, having arrived a step behind, had the fortune of catching word as it traveled down the line. Tribal warbands were roaming in clusters of several dozen, harrying the armies on the march.
"Dear me. So it will take some time."
"Indeed. From what I hear, a few men from the villages nearby have been telling the tribes where the marching armies are."
"Hah. Is that so?"
"The priests say we must show mercy, but it seems to me the one who shows mercy is always the one who loses out. With not a soul worth trusting, wouldn't it be simpler to sweep the lot of them away?"
Gurerik was needling Johan, within the bounds of what would cause no offense. A jab like that, he figured, ought to soothe the young knight's pride a little.
"Hm... Did you come under attack on the way here?"
"...We did not. Had we, we'd have arrived even later."
"Just as I thought. Raid the villages, and you get attacked."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Think it through. Armies numbering in the thousands, and their positions get betrayed to men who don't number even a few dozen? Doesn't that strike you as odd? They informed because they had nothing left to lose. Once a village has been trampled into ash, what is there left to protect? Only resentment remains."
"......"
"Neither you nor I were attacked, so it seems the villages along our route kept silent. Wouldn't you say mercy turned out to be quite useful after all?"
"...Or perhaps they didn't inform out of fear, not mercy?"
"And fear may simply be mercy wearing another face. The Lord does not always appear in a single form. Sir Gurerik — you may spare me your thanks. If there's nothing else, you'd best go see to your camp."
Gurerik honestly felt as though the young knight had landed a blow on him. Not a filthy, infuriating blow — a blow he couldn't argue with.
Utterly outmatched!
He had taken him for a green knight with nothing to him but personal prowess — a man who had never commanded an army in his life...
And yet the fellow was far more substantial than he'd looked.
Gurerik bowed and withdrew. Without quite realizing it himself, his parting manner had grown a full degree more deferential.
"I want to control the water traffic. Is there no way to get our hands on some boats?"
Most cities sat astride a river or had one running beside them. Even if you sealed the gates, leaving the river open cut a blockade's effectiveness in half.
But the eastern tribes turned green at the mere mention of rivers and boats. To men who had spent their lives on the grasslands, any river wider than a certain span was an object of pure terror.
"Then have them climb over the walls instead!"
"Better to storm the gates than travel over water!"
"I... see."
Even warriors who wouldn't blink under a hail of arrows and stones were often slaves to superstition. That tribal fighters feared water and omens was hardly surprising.
However, the tribal warriors seemed to have read Johan's acceptance very differently.
"Does this mean he's lost faith in us?"
"Men too stupid to even cross a river..."
"Our tribe's shaman always said that if you cross a great river, a water spirit clings to your back."
"That's nonsense, you fool. Water spirits don't cling — they just grab your ankles and drag you under."
"Damn it, really?"
While the eastern tribes worked themselves into private dread, Johan was laying other plans.
There was no way to obtain a large ship, so he gathered up every small skiff he could find in the villages nearby — and then the plan took shape: seize a larger merchantman plying the river, and use it to plug the narrowest point of the waterway!
"......"
"N-no. Isn't that a bit too audacious? However brave you are, sir knight, surely—"
Suetelg and Kaenell both wore expressions of deep uncertainty over whether to stop him or let him be.
Climbing from a tiny skiff up onto a full-sized vessel was reckless enough in itself, and that was only the beginning. One misstep and they'd find themselves surrounded on the deck.
It might be a merchant ship, but it would have a respectable escort, and the rough-handed sailors would be every bit as hardy as soldiers.
And if you fell into the river wounded...
"Shouldn't we stop him?"
"Hmmm..."
"?"
Kaenell stared at Suetelg as though he'd lost his mind. But Suetelg could not bring himself to object.
It actually looks... feasible!
The men aboard the merchantman would hardly be at full readiness either, and judging from the way Johan carried himself, there was a very good chance they'd surrender in terror the moment he started raging about the deck.
The tribal warriors clenched their teeth and volunteered anyway.
"Take us with you, sir knight! We volunteer!"
"Didn't you say you can't swim?"
"So long as we don't fall in, what's the problem!"
"No, no... even so, you'd at least want men who can do a passable dog paddle. I'll have a use for you later, so don't fret."
The tribal warriors deflated. Johan consoled them, then gave new orders.
"It's a merchantman, not a warship — numbers hardly matter. Whoever helps take a vessel gets everything inside, cargo and all, divided up as spoils."
At these extravagantly generous terms, the mercenaries' eyes lit up and they came charging. Those who had followed Johan since the storming of the fortress stepped forward without a moment's hesitation.
A merchantman gliding serenely along the river was captured with absurd ease. At first, the men watching several small boats shoot toward them had thought, what's this? — and then Johan hurled a barbed spear trailing a rope into the ship's hull, hammered handholds into the side with dagger and axe, and swarmed up in the space of a few breaths.
The crew, caught lounging and gaping, were struck so dumb with fright that they couldn't loose so much as a single arrow.
Uh... uh... uuuuh?
When Johan tossed a rope down and began seizing the sailors who rushed him, swinging them around by the collar, the rest screamed out their surrender in terror.
"Another ship's running from behind, sir!"
"Let it go. We only meant to block the channel anyway. Blocking this stretch is more than enough."
Johan said this as he climbed back down.
The tribal warriors, sensing slights real and imagined, roared Johan's praise as loudly as their lungs allowed.
The soldiers and warriors already accustomed to Johan's mad brand of valor reacted with relative composure.
It was the Wairag mercenaries camped in the rear who were shocked into speechlessness.
"The knight grew wings and climbed onto the ship?"
"That's what they're saying!"
"What kind of lunatic nonsense is that?"
"I'm telling you it's not! Don't spout idiot things."
"Right, obviously. Humans don't have wings..."
"So the knight knelt on the deck and prayed — 'O God, I am Your servant, lend me Your aid in this hour' — and then God just lifted him up in a flash of light and set him on the ship..."
"Holy shit, that kind of miracle exists? Where's the priest? Somebody fetch the priest. That can't be real, right?"
"W-well, God is almighty, so such a thing is... technically possible..."
"See! The priest says it's real!"
"Technically possible! The point is that it's... look—"
"Can't I just go pray and get it too?"
As the preposterous rumor spread through the camp, Gurerik let out a hollow laugh.
What in the world is with these rumors...
"The new arrivals from the countryside seem especially susceptible to it, sir."
"Order the priests to hold prayer services, and pick one man in every ten-man file for a flogging."
It was a comical truth of the trade that men who burned and plundered villages at the slightest pretext were violently superstitious and forever reaching for God — but what could anyone do about it?
Keeping mercenaries in line took more than the lash. A commander had to understand even this sort of thing.
"...But he really didn't fly up there, did he?"
"Word is he climbed it on sheer strength alone, sir."
"What a load of..."
Gurerik muttered to himself.
Knights drilled from boyhood were human siege engines, capable of feats that bordered on the monstrous. Gurerik knew this as well as any — he'd watched them from the battlefield with his bowels turning to water often enough.
And still he had never seen anything like this.
What in God's name is that knight supposed to be?
When a boat was spotted slipping through the river in the darkness, the sentries on watch called for Johan.
Johan nodded as if it were all going swimmingly. Trying to slip out under cover of night, are we? Whoever they are, they're clearly not thinking straight.
"Two boats would've been better. Wake the sailors!"
But Johan's expectation missed the mark. The vessel was approaching with a white flag flying at its bow.
"Sir! We are people of the Kettana Merchant Guild!"
The moment the merchants stepped ashore, they threw themselves flat on the ground.
Under the old circumstances, this would never have been required of them. Johan had been a nameless hedge knight, and they were members of a vast mercantile guild.
But now it was different. However briefly they had known him, Johan's reputation had spread even to their ears.
"Rise. You forget how much I owe the Kettana Guild."
Johan raised the merchants to their feet with his own hands.
They were stunned by the gesture. They had never dreamed he would lift them up personally.
Despite the rank he now held, Johan remained humble and courteous. Trembling with gratitude, the merchants spoke.
"What brings you here like this? Have you fled the city?"
"No, sir. We have come to deliver a proposal from within."
"A proposal?"
"A proposal to open the city gates."
"!"
The merchant drew from within his coat a scroll of joint signatures — the seals of Umdim's council members — and held it out to Johan. Then he began, apologetically, to read it aloud.
"I can read."
"F-forgive me, my lord."