ACT 3
The room was lined with dozens of desks in rows, at which children were carving letters into clay tablets.
They all wore stiff expressions, and though they were clearly trying their hardest to focus on the work in front of them, more than a few of the children were sneaking glances behind them from time to time.
A middle-aged man stood in front of the children, reading aloud from an epic history recounting the Siege of Iárnviðr. “A-and thusly, Patriarch Yuuto managed to defeat and drive off the allied army of the Claw, Ash, and Fang Clans, rescuing the Wolf Clan from its life or death crisis.”
This was a vaxt within the city of Iárnviðr, a school for training future scribal clerks and civil servants.
The teacher leading the class was a twenty-year veteran, and he had already read this particular history aloud hundreds of times, so normally he would have been able to recite it word-for-word from memory. However, today there was a waver in his voice, and he did not speak as fluently.
Perhaps that was understandable, though, for the main character of the epic tale was sitting in the back of his classroom, observing the teaching process.
“Hearing myself talked about like this is really embarrassing...” Yuuto commented.
“Tee hee,” Felicia giggled. “But I hear the children pay much more attention when the stories are about you, Big Brother. And children seem to learn more quickly with subjects they’re interested in.”
Her words made Yuuto recall a quote from Confucius, and he shrugged his shoulders in defeat. “Good grief. ‘They who know the truth are not equal to those who love it, and they who love it are not equal to those who delight in it,’ is that it?”
Studying something enjoyable was more effective than being forced to study something boring. It seemed that truth remained constant no matter the era.
Yuuto turned to Ephelia, who was sitting next to him, and laid a hand on her head. “So, do you think you can do this?”
“Fwah?!” Yuuto’s voice startled her so much that she let out a strange noise. Apparently she had gotten so absorbed into listening to the recitation that she’d become unaware of her surroundings. “Oh, u-um, but is it really right for Ephy to attend a vaxt?”
“There’s no right or wrong to it,” Yuuto said. “Do it. That’s a command.”
“Oh...” Ephelia seemed timid and without any confidence, so Yuuto asserted himself to make the matter clearer for her.
He figured that if he gave her too much choice in the matter, it would make her even more uncertain.
In Yuuto’s native 21st century Japan, education for children was mandatory. It didn’t matter whether one wanted to attend school or not, one simply had to.
“Studying here is going to be your job,” Yuuto said. “If you get good grades, you’ll receive pay as a reward. If you work hard, you’ll be able to raise the money for your manumission faster.”
If a slave was able to pay their master an amount of money equivalent to their purchase price, then it was possible to buy back one’s freedom and rights as a normal citizen.
Personally, Yuuto would have liked to simply give the money to her for free with no strings attached, but he couldn’t afford to show Ephelia that much preferential treatment. And if he were to emancipate all of the slaves working in the palace, it would put a huge burden on the clan’s national treasury.
Yuuto was the patriarch of the Wolf Clan, but the clan’s funds were not his personal property. He was serious about his responsibility to use them for the good of the Wolf Clan as a whole, and not for his own personal satisfaction.
Yuuto ruffled Ephelia’s hair vigorously, as if he were infusing her with his own fighting spirit. “Work hard, okay? The faster you learn to write, the easier my work will get going forward.”
“O-okay! I’ll do my best!” Ephelia clenched her small hands into fists in front of her, psyching herself up.
She really was an earnest girl at heart, just like Yuuto had first thought.
He had a feeling that she would be able to live up to his expectations.
“Phew, I’m glad we managed to get them to accept her!” Riding in a horse-drawn carriage on the road back to the palace, Yuuto was smiling with satisfaction.
Ephelia would be able to begin attending the vaxt right away, starting the day after tomorrow. A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, as the saying went. With this, he was now clearing the first major hurdle towards his goal.
“Yes, though they did balk quite a bit at the idea.” Felicia smiled wryly and shrugged her shoulders.
Ephelia was fast asleep on Felicia’s lap. She hadn’t slept a wink since yesterday, when she’d been told she would be coming along with them to observe the vaxt. Upon their finishing and her finally getting a chance to relax, she had become overcome with drowsiness. The gentle rocking of the carriage had only expedited the process.
Yuuto responded with a wry grin of his own. “Maybe so, but we needed to get them to go along with it, no matter what.”
The vaxts were only attended by children from affluent families. Even the teachers had a bit of an elitist bent, so they had politely opposed him, arguing that it would be a waste of time to attempt to teach a mere slave.
It was likely there were more than a few who held that same opinion even among the officers of the Wolf Clan. They must surely think that Yuuto should be using the profits from selling glasswares on something more useful and worthwhile.
And that was exactly why it was important to make sure Ephelia attended a vaxt.
With proper study, even a slave could become literate. If Yuuto could demonstrate that fact, it should get everyone to understand the idea behind enforcing a system of mandatory education.
He could, of course, technically use his absolute authority as the patriarch to force the plan forward... but the uneducated children within Wolf Clan territory numbered in the tens of thousands.
Ensuring that they all received an education would be a large-scale reform, and thus would require commensurately drastic amounts of money, time, and labor. Yuuto could already envision the failure that awaited him if he tried to push things forward all by himself.
“Even if an incredibly talented individual invests the totality of their energy into his work, preserving and improving on the results of that work requires the cooperation of a great number of others. A nation cannot guarantee its survival without this sort of cooperation.” Those were the words of Machiavelli.
Unlike two years prior, Yuuto was now thoroughly familiar with how important it was to lay the groundwork and build consensus with the majority.
And Ephelia was perfect for the task. She was ernest and hard-working in everything she did, plus she’d already received some amount of education, and judging by the fact that she could already read and write letters, she was intelligent as well. It was a safe bet that she’d produce good results.
As long as she didn’t run into any trouble.
“Is she going to have to deal with bullying, though? That’s what I’m worried about the most,” Yuuto murmured. As someone who knew what school life was like in modern Japan, it was only natural for him to have that concern.
“I think things will be all right in that regard, Big Brother,” Felicia said. “Today should have impressed upon them that she is a favorite of yours. And I believe quite a few of the children must be eager to hear more about you, so I am sure she will become quite popular.”
“Yeah, here’s hoping,” Yuuto muttered to himself with uncertainty. He feared just the opposite: the possibility that the knowledge of his favoritism towards her would breed envy in the other children, setting her up to face a slew of thoughtless cruelty.
Envy was an emotion that defied all rationality. Understanding in one’s head that it was wrong wasn’t enough to stop one’s heart from feeling it.
Human beings didn’t live their lives picking and choosing the most agreeable emotions to hold on to; Yuuto knew that all too well by now.
A bitter laugh escaped his lips. “In a way, we were put in similar situations.”
That terrible scene from a year and a half ago had risen again from the depths of his mind: his sworn older brother, driven mad with jealousy, trying to cut him down with a sword, and instead killing his predecessor, who had jumped in front of him to protect him.
Thinking about it in retrospect, Loptr must have always considered Yuuto to be someone “beneath” him. There wasn’t anything unusual about that; in fact, it had been a perfectly correct understanding of things. Yuuto had been his sibling subordinate, after all.
And as Loptr had shown, when a person who sees someone else as “beneath” them finds that those positions have become reversed, it is human nature to experience intense feelings of irritation or even hatred.
Therefore, it wouldn’t be strange at all if there were people who wouldn’t be able to accept the idea of a slave, someone clearly beneath them, rising to their level or above in society. In fact, it would be far stranger if there weren’t any people like that.
“And, given that, having to select someone to serve as that example is one of the hard parts of being the patriarch.” With a weary smile, Yuuto shook his head and sighed.
Most often, the decisions he made as the patriarch were done in conflict with his own personal feelings. For instance, he could never accustom himself to the feeling of giving Sigrún the order to charge in battle.
Even so, it was his duty as the one standing at the top to harden his heart and to make the correct decision in times like that.
As a patriarch thinking about the Wolf Clan’s future, he definitely needed to do whatever it took to implement mandatory education. And for that sake, he needed preliminary results.
It wouldn’t do him any good to focus only on demerits and disadvantages; doing so would only prevent him from making forward progress.
Ephelia had a natural adorableness to her, not unlike a cute little animal. It was a quality of hers that made her well-liked by many people.
So it was much more probable that Felicia was right, and Yuuto’s concerns were unfounded. Ephelia might very well become popular among the children, popular enough to brush aside any negative emotions from her peers that arose in the process.
In situations like this, there was nothing one could do but roll the dice and see how they landed.
Besides, attending school would greatly open up the possibilities for Ephelia’s own future. Allowing his worries to quash those possibilities would be a terrible waste.
A child coddled by overprotectiveness doesn’t grow up. There was an old saying: “The lion tosses its own cub into a deep ravine.” At times, harsh trials were what was most necessary for someone. And so...
“Well, for now we’ll just have to keep our eyes on her,” he said.
What Yuuto could do for Ephelia now was to trust in her and to look after her from a distance, so that if the time ever came that he needed to act on her behalf, he could read the signs and quickly come to her aid in an appropriate way.
He resolved to himself that no matter what, he would carry through on that responsibility as the one who had selected her for this trial.
As the girl continued to sleep, Yuuto gently stroked her head. “Do your best, Ephy.”
On the day after the Yuuto’s inspection of the vaxt, the situation suddenly grew much more turbulent.
He had shaken off the last of his post-vacation sluggishness and was back to his usual busy work routine in his office. But then two voices called to him, one endlessly bright and cheery and the other cool and calm.
“Hi, sorry to barge iiinnn!”
“Apologies for intruding in the middle of your work.”
The voices were polar opposites in their attitude but identical in their pitch and tone. Their owners were none other than the sweet-looking, symmetrical young twins who were his newly sworn daughters.
“Hm... what is it, you two?” Yuuto asked.
“Well, Father, the thing is...” Kristina placed a hand to her cheek and looked troubled. “Al wanted to see you so badly, she was crying and throwing a tantrum. It seems she just could not forget that fiery, passionate night you shared together...”
“Hold it,” Yuuto snapped. “Don’t start a conversation by throwing out lies like it’s nothing.”
“N-no, I wasn’t throwing a tantrum!” Albertina cried.
“It really is exhausting having such a selfish child for a sister.”
“L-like I said, I wasn’t doing that!”
“Oh? Then you’re saying you don’t want to see Father? Well! What a terribly inconsiderate daughter you are.”
“H-huuuh?! N-no, that’s... no, of course I want to see Father, but I thought interrupting his work would be...”
“And there you have it. So you did long to see him. Don’t just throw out lies like they’re nothing, Al.”
“Uh... umm...”
“And so, shouldn’t you really be thanking me from the bottom of your heart, Al? Your dear sister, thinking only of you, went through all the trouble to prepare a valid reason for you to see Father.”
“Uh huh, I know! I’m really lucky to have a sister who cares about me so much!” Albertina grinned happily.
Yuuto found himself putting a hand to his face, pressing his fingers to the inner corners of his eyes.
Just like always, one twin was controlling the other entirely according to her whims.
Granted, happiness was in some respects a subjective thing. If Albertina herself considered herself happy, there wasn’t really much he could say about it. And besides, though some might consider it callous, he was much more concerned with something else.
“All right then, Kris, how about you tell me about that ‘valid reason for meeting me’?” he asked.
While her appearance might still be somewhat childlike, there were none more talented in the Wolf Clan than Kristina when it came to gathering information. And she was exceedingly sharp, as well.
If Kristina had intentionally chosen to avoid sending a written report and come to deliver information in person, then that fact alone attested to how urgent and important it must be.
“Heh heh, I expected nothing less, Father.” Kristina giggled, and with a tiny smile of satisfaction, she pulled out a single sheet of paper.
However amazing a spy she might be, it was of course impossible for her to operate over a widespread area all by herself. Ever since her days as part of the Claw Clan, she had possessed some number of protégé spies working under her. This information must have come to her through one of them.
“The Hoof Clan capital Nóatún has been taken over by the nomadic clan from Miðgarðr, the Panther Clan.”
“The great Hoof Clan was defeated?! And by the Panther Clan, you say?!” Felicia raised her voice in clear shock and alarm.
“...Hm.” In contrast, Yuuto was more subdued, his eyes only widening slightly.
It was a bit surprising for him too, of course, but still not something completely outside of his expectations. “History repeats itself,” as the saying went. For any nation, suddenly losing a powerful and influential ruler would throw that nation into chaos, and a rapid decline would soon follow.
Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Takeda Shingen... Just looking at Japanese history’s Sengoku Period, the passing of such powerful and charismatic rulers was always quickly followed by the collapse of their ruling houses.
And looking at world history, it was a common occurrence for established kingdoms based on agriculture to get invaded and overrun by powerful nomadic tribes.
But even though Yuuto was familiar with the flow of history in this manner — no, because he was familiar with it — Kristina’s next words made him doubt his ears.
“According to my subordinate, the Panther Clan fought as a force of several thousand armed cavalry. They moved at full speed while firing iron-tipped arrows, throwing the Hoof Clan into a panic, then charged into them full force, completely scattering the Hoof Clan forces.”
Yuuto leapt up, rattling his chair in the process. “Impossible! They couldn’t! It’s way too soon!”
He was visibly shaken.
If it had just been iron, that much was somewhat plausible. Historically speaking, the Hittites had developed an iron refinement process as early as the 15th century B.C., though because they had treated it with the utmost secrecy, the knowledge hadn’t spread to surrounding countries until hundreds of years afterward. So it wouldn’t be completely strange if, by this point, one of the clans of Yggdrasil had managed to discover how to refine iron, as well.
However, the Scythians were said to have been one of the first cultures in history to master mounted warfare, and that had only been as recently as the 8th to 7th centuries B.C.
That was way too far in the future.
Without stirrups and saddles, riding and fighting atop a bareback horse required an absurdly high level of technique.
Practically speaking, the chariot was the most powerful weapon in common use on the battlefields of Yggdrasil at present, and according to what Yuuto knew, that technology’s origin had been around the 18th century B.C. with the Andronovo culture.
Even among nomad clans full of people raised to be familiar with riding horses and using bows, during the Bronze Age, they hadn’t normally tried to fight riding on horseback, and had instead utilized chariots.
The gradual development of the technology and techniques necessary for horseback combat to become widespread amongst a clan should have taken much, much more time than this.
That is, unless they had stirrups.
But it hadn’t even been two years since Yuuto had introduced stirrups into the Wolf Clan. It was only half a year ago that he’d been able to deploy a mounted cavalry unit in actual battles.
Even with simple technologies such as the stirrup, in a world without telephones or the internet, the transmission of technical knowledge between cultures took an incredible amount of time.
For example, the stirrup had existed in China in the beginning of the 4th century A.D., but its use hadn’t been documented in the Korean peninsula or Japan until the 5th century. Just crossing that distance had required over a hundred years.
Furthermore, the Wolf Clan and this Panther Clan weren’t close to each other geographically.
The possibility that the technology had been stolen was practically zero...
Once Yuuto’s train of thought had reached that point, a single possibility flashed through his mind.
“It couldn’t be... Big Brother... could it?”
He recalled the young man who had once served as second-in-command of the Wolf Clan, an Einherjar possessing the rune Al?iófr, Jester of a Thousand Illusions, a rune said to allow him to steal any and all techniques.
Loptr knew about the tatara furnace method, and he was familiar with both the stirrup’s design and its potential usefulness.
Everything lined up too perfectly.
“Yes, there’s no mistaking it... it’s that man,” Felicia said, in a voice that sounded frozen stiff.
Though it wasn’t cold in the room, Yuuto could hear her teeth chattering, and saw that her face had grown so deathly pale that she looked like she might collapse at any moment.
As much as he grew worried over her physical state, he was just as drawn to the certainty in her words.
“...Do you know something, Felicia?”
“It was perhaps half a month ago,” she said miserably. “A message arrived from that man, addressed to me.”
“What?!”
“The message demanded I leave your side and come to him. It also said that he was the patriarch of the Panther Clan.”
“Why didn’t... no, never mind that.”
Why didn’t you tell me? Yuuto found himself starting to ask, but he managed to stop himself. He didn’t even need to ask.
Felicia had watched her own older brother try to murder Yuuto, only to kill the previous patriarch, who shielded him, instead. That tragedy was still a traumatic experience for her.
Felicia normally carried herself well, with a cheerful and sometimes playful attitude, a reliable older sister figure to others. But inside, she was unexpectedly fragile, and easily susceptible to being overwhelmed by anxiety.
She had likely wanted to turn her eyes away from the situation. Miðgarðr was a far-off land, unlikely to ever have dealings with the Wolf Clan. She would have convinced herself of that, and then avoided thinking about it as much as possible.
“F-for keeping quiet about the matter until now, I accept any punishment necessary,” Felicia stammered. “B-but please, please believe me. I... I swear my loyalty to you and you only, Big Brother Yuuto!”
“I know that. There’s nothing to punish you for,” Yuuto asserted. “Actually, I’m proud that you were able to come clean about it just now.”
He placed a reassuring hand on Felicia’s shoulder. She was his trusted adjutant. He didn’t want her to beat herself up over this matter.
The fact that she had kept quiet until now was certainly not something worthy of praise, of course. And the Yuuto of two years ago might have grown angry and found fault with her for her “weakness.”
But the Yuuto of right now understood that people weren’t creatures who could always be strong.
With a creak, Yuuto sat back down and leaned back against his chair, staring upwards into empty space. “I’m sure that Big Brother Loptr still holds a grudge against me...”
The Loptr that Yuuto had so admired was human too, and must have had his own inner weaknesses. But as Felicia’s substitute father figure, as Yuuto’s older brother figure, and as a pillar of leadership for the Wolf Clan, he had surely done whatever he could to never let those show to others.
Underneath his merry smile, he had surely been struggling with his share of doubts and worries. In that sense, the two siblings were similar. They both had a tendency to bottle up those negative feelings deep down, only for them to cause an outburst at some later point.
Yuuto felt regretful, even angry, towards his immature self two years ago, the boy who had taken someone with that weakness at face value, simply assuming he was flawlessly strong and idolizing him.
“Still, it’s impressive,” Yuuto said. “In just a year and a half, he’s made himself the patriarch of the Panther Clan... For now, let’s feign ignorance. We’ll send a message of congratulations on his conquest, and a desire for friendly relations going forward.”
By conquering Nóatún, the Panther Clan now held territory adjacent to the Horn Clan, which was under the Wolf Clan’s sphere of protection.
Now that they’d become neighbors, he couldn’t avoid having any dealings with them. Like it or not, there were bound to be conflicting interests that arose between the two clans.
He sincerely wished that they could find a way to coexist. He didn’t want to be drawn into conflict with the sworn older brother who had taken care of him for so long.
And to ensure that, the first order of business was...
“Hey, Kris ’n’ Al.”
“Pardon me, but I find it upsetting that you’d refer to us together like we are some kind of unit,” Kristina said indignantly.
“I’m sure you understand this, but nothing we talked about here leaves this room, okay?”
“I am fully aware. And I will thoroughly condition Al, so there is no need to worry.”
“Condition?!” Al yelped.
“Good. I’m counting on you.”
“And he approved it?!”
Yuuto felt a little sorry for Albertina, but with the situation being what it was, she was going to have to deal with it.
If, even by some small chance, word got out that the Panther Clan patriarch was Loptr, former second-in-command of the Wolf Clan, there would be a flood of voices calling for war with the Panther Clan.
In the world of Yggdrasil, killing one’s parent was the greatest taboo. The man who had committed that heinous crime was now sitting pretty on the patriarch’s throne in another clan. From the perspective of the Wolf Clan, it was unforgivable, and impossible to let stand.
Loptr himself would surely not make it known publicly that he was a kinslayer who had murdered his own sworn father. Though, judging by the message he’d sent to Felicia, he didn’t seem to mind if Felicia and Yuuto knew about him. Perhaps he’d actually counted on the possibility that Yuuto would pretend to be unaware of the Panther Clan patriarch’s true identity.
In that case, as long as Yuuto kept his mouth shut, he could bury the truth.
But, however much the thought broke Yuuto’s heart, he had a premonition, one which felt all too certain, that eventually he would be unable to avoid conflict.
“‘The following two facts are ones you must never take for granted.’” Yuuto quoted a passage from Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy to himself. “‘First, do not think that patience and generosity, however great, will ever be enough to dissolve a person’s enmity. Second, do not think that giving tributes or aid will ever be enough to turn a hostile relationship into a friendly one.’”
Normally, he relied on Machiavelli’s words as a source of political wisdom, but today they seemed ominous, portending a dark future in store for him.
That night, alone in his quarters, Yuuto swiped his finger across his smartphone’s screen, hurriedly scrolling.
Yuuto was the patriarch, a sovereign ruler. Any personal feelings or hang-ups aside, he had a sworn duty to protect the safety and prosperity of the people within his clan’s territory. Holding an olive branch in the right hand and a sword in the left was the most basic tenet of international diplomacy.
It would be far too dangerous to be defenseless in the face of the threat posed by his new neighbor. He needed to come up with some proper countermeasures.
Dealing with diplomatic negotiations between two nations resembled an encounter with a yakuza.
If a yakuza began by walking up and brandishing a knife or pistol, any normal person would cave in to that threat, and be forced to accept unreasonable conditions and demands. In much the same fashion, in order to achieve peaceful negotiations with a militarily powerful nation, one needed to have some equivalent counter to its military force.
By necessity, Yuuto had fully familiarized himself with counter-infantry strategies and counter-chariot strategies, but he’d assumed he’d never have to go up against armed cavalry, and so he was still completely ignorant when it came to that. So now he was frantically using the internet to research anti-cavalry strategies. However...
“Good grief, they’re great to use, but hell to deal with as an enemy.”
The more he researched, the more he realized how overwhelmingly powerful cavalry was. And then he realized something else...
“Oh, crap. Any more than this, and I won’t be able to talk... Hey, Mitsuki, you there?” Yuuto suppressed his urge to keep searching, and dialed the number of his childhood friend.
“Hi, Yuu-kun. Good evening.” Just hearing her soft, familiar voice washed away the day’s fatigue, and eased his heart.
He could have just sent her a text saying that he couldn’t call her tonight, and thinking rationally about the situation, that was what he should have done, but even so, he’d still called her. He wanted this feeling of solace.
To Yuuto, his casual talks with Mitsuki were the one time he could forget his role as patriarch.
During the times he’d had to go on trips to other cities or on military campaigns, he’d been able to feel his heart growing steadily more upset. No matter how dire the political situation, as long as he was still in Iárnviðr, he couldn’t bear to give up this time he spent with her.
“Hey, good evening to you too,” he said. “So what did you do today?”
“Nothing special. It was just a boring, normal day. So Yuu-kun, what happened to you?”
“Huh?”
“I can tell you’re going out of your way to sound happy, you know?”
“...Geez, you saw right through me.”
“Well, yeah, we’ve been together for as long as either of us can remember.”
“I guess I can’t keep anything secret from you.”
“Nope, you can’t. For example, when you got back from the hot springs, you were acting suspicious, but I did you a favor and pretended not to notice.”
“Uh... ah... uh.” A shiver ran up Yuuto’s spine. His childhood friend’s intuition was downright uncanny.
And, though she was still talking in the same tone as always, somehow, he could sense a bit of anger from her voice.
I see. I really can’t underestimate the fact that we’ve been together forever.
“Well, let’s just say I’ll ask you more about that if my ‘anger meter’ ever maxes out,” she added.
“Uh... ha ha ha...” Yuuto choked out a dry laugh, and inwardly swore to himself he’d do his best not to raise that gauge.
“So, I’ll ask Yuu-kun the patriarch: Pops, what sort of problem do you have? I might not be able to solve it for you, but I’ll at least hear you out, okay?”
“Thank you...” he murmured.
Yuuto was hailed as a rare breed of hero who had turned the Wolf Clan into one of the strongest nations in the region. But before all that, he was just a student who had grown up in peaceful Japan.
There were times when he needed to whine and complain a bit to someone. But as the patriarch, he couldn’t ask the people under him to serve that role.
For Yuuto, the existence of his childhood friend was a source of salvation for him in this world.
“Okay, so the thing is...”
Yuuto told Mitsuki all about the Wolf Clan’s current situation.
He told her about how the Panther Clan had appeared, and taken over the Hoof Clan.
He told her about how the Panther Clan army was a force made up of cavalry.
And he told her about how the Panther Clan patriarch was Loptr, the man who had once looked after him as his sworn older brother.
Once she’d heard all of it, Mitsuki spoke to him with worry in her voice. “Yuu-kun... Are you all right?”
Hearing that, Yuuto kind of began to regret having told her everything. Still, even if he’d tried to hide it from her, if war broke out, she’d have found out anyway.
In fact, even if things didn’t go as far as war, the uncertain tension with the Panther Clan would affect Yuuto going forward, and his childhood friend would definitely be able to pick up on that.
She’d told him before that she wanted him to always let her know about these kinds of things. Because if he disappeared without any warning, her heart wouldn’t be able to take it.
He was always making trouble for Mitsuki, and he wanted to honor her wishes in that regard.
“Well, I’ll figure out some sort of counter-strategy,” Yuuto said. “But I don’t have a lot of time, so starting tomorrow, I think I’m not going to be able to talk with you as much. I’m sorry.”
“No, well, I was worried about that, too. But that’s not it. Yuu-kun, are you going to be all right with... fighting Loptr?”
“...” Yuuto couldn’t come up with any words in response.
He’d been so preoccupied with how to counter cavalry, he hadn’t really thought about that aspect of the situation. No... perhaps unconsciously, he’d been avoiding thinking about it.
His mouth suddenly gone dry, Yuuto swallowed and looked up at the ceiling, then he spoke, more to himself than to Mitsuki.
“I am the patriarch of the Wolf Clan. If the time comes, it won’t matter whether I want to or not. I’ll have to fight.”
“I respect you greatly, Big Brother, but even so, I cannot accept that!” Linnea’s language was respectful, but her indignation put a wild edge on every word.
The day after Kristina’s report on the fall of Nóatún, Linnea had been preparing to return home to her clan in response to the changing political situation when Yuuto had approached her to instruct her on their strategies going forward.
And this was her response.
“‘Just hole up behind the city walls, and no matter what, don’t launch any attacks,’ you say? How will I be able to protect my people?! That leaves the enemy free rein to lay waste as they wish to everything outside the walls!”
“Just calm down for a minute, Linnea.”
“How can I be calm? I cannot believe you would so belittle my soldiers!” This was probably the first time Linnea had ever been so openly angry towards Yuuto since exchanging the Oath of the Sibling Chalice and ceasing to be mutual enemies.
Linnea surely held the advice of her beloved sworn older brother in high esteem, but given how deeply she cared about the people of her homeland, she couldn’t just easily accept what he was telling her to do.
However, Yuuto couldn’t back down in this situation, either.
“I’m not looking down on your clan or your fighters. I’d give the same orders to my own men. This isn’t an opponent you can beat in a straightforward fight!” Yuuto grabbed Linnea’s arms, raising his voice desperately to state things in no uncertain terms.
Reading his frantic tone and body language, Linnea finally seemed to get a vague sense of just how terrifying a threat armed cavalry were. “...Big Brother, are they really that strong?”
From Linnea’s perspective, Yuuto was a great general whose strategy had thoroughly defeated the great hero of the Hoof Clan, Yngvi, as well as the Battle-Hungry Tiger of the Lightning Clan, Steinðórr. He was like unto a god of war.
And someone like him was saying not to fight, that defense was their only option...
Before she realized it, Linnea had swallowed nervously with an audible gulp.
“Yeah, they’re just that strong,” said Yuuto. “A massive band of cavalry is the worst enemy you could ever face.”
Yuuto took a long breath, then sighed deeply, his expression taut and severe.
Tracing back the threads of history in the Eastern world, the confederation of horseback nomadic tribes known as the Xiongnu had been powerful enough as a nation to defeat the agricultural Han dynasty of China during the reign of Emperor Gaozu (Liu Bang) in 200 B.C. For decades afterward, until the reign of Emperor Wu, the Xiongnu had received tributes from Han China and treated it as if it were a vassal state.
Looking at the West, during the 4th century A.D., once again, it was the threat of invasion by a horse-riding nomadic nation, the Huns, which had contributed to the great upheaval among the Germanic peoples in Europe known as the Migration Period.
And then there was the Mongol Empire, which had conquered the largest amount of territory of any empire in history.
And again in China, during the Northern Song Dynasty, there had been an incident in which a mere 17 armed cavalrymen from the Jurchen nation had routed 2,000 Song infantrymen, numbers that at first glance sounded like some sort of joke.
“That’s why this is so important, okay?” Yuuto grasped Linnea’s shoulders and, leaning in, repeated his earlier warning for good measure. His face was as serious as it had ever been. “If the Panther Clan attacks you, just focus everything on defending yourself!”
After seeing Linnea off, Yuuto was making his way back through the gates. A horrible stench forced him to hold his nose.
“Augh, geez, that smell is as horrible as ever.”
Next to him, Felicia grimaced as well as she glanced toward the source of the odor. It stood on four legs, much taller than a horse, with humps on its back that were perhaps its most famous unique attribute.
It was a camel.
Because they could travel for days without eating or drinking, they were perfectly suited for traveling in arid lands with few sources of water, and they could carry a heavier load than the average horse. Quite a few of the merchant traders who came to Iárnviðr used one.
However, their foul body odor was one of their disadvantages. And if you didn’t approach a camel properly, it would threaten you by launching spittle at you that stank so bad, it might bend your nose in half.
In the past, Yuuto had gotten close to one of them out of curiosity, and met with a terrible fate. Ever since then, he had made a point of trying not to get too close to camels.
However, as his gaze came to rest on the familiar face of the man making pleasant conversation with the owner of the camel, Yuuto ran quickly towards him and called out to him in a dramatic, friendly voice. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t my promising new son, how are you doing, my boy?”
“Come on. Please cut that out, Father.” The man — Ginnar — grimaced, looking as uncomfortable as could be.
Yuuto almost burst out laughing right then and there, but he managed to hold it in, and continued to put on serious airs as he spoke. “No no no, you mustn’t be so humble. The Wolf Clan’s marketplace is as prosperous as it is today because of your efforts. I’m such a lucky father, to have such a magnificent son as you!”
Yuuto folded his arms and nodded for emphasis.
Just before leaving for his vacation, Yuuto had recognized Ginnar’s achievements in implementing the use of currency, and had exchanged the Oath of the Chalice with him directly. Ginnar had only entered the clan half a year prior, so it was an unusually rapid pace for such a high promotion.
Ginnar had gotten the marketplace accustomed to the use of coins as currency with almost no problems or confusion, and that was certainly no light achievement. But it was Yuuto and the high ranking Wolf Clan officers who had come up with the idea in the first place and worked on it right up until its implementation, and considering how soon it was after Ginnar’s formal recruitment, that achievement still wasn’t really enough to justify allowing him the honor of becoming Yuuto’s direct subordinate.
In fact, some officers had argued against Yuuto directly exchanging the Oath of the Chalice with him for that very reason. Yuuto had then explained to them the reason was that he had a specific objective in mind, and that this was a special case, and so he had persuaded them to overlook tradition this time.
As for that objective...
The other merchant immediately spotted a business opportunity, and quickly launched into cordial introductions, selling himself as best as he could. “Ohhh! Then, you must be the Wolf Clan’s famous Patriarch Yuuto! It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am a humble trader, hailing from the lands of the Sword Clan—”
Yuuto could see the man’s ulterior motives as plain as day, but he continued to converse with the merchant and Ginnar without letting on.
This was a world without telephones or the internet, so it was quite difficult to get information from foreign countries. The merchant traders who made their way from city to city were an important and valuable source of intel.
“Still, I should expect nothing less of you, Ginnar,” Yuuto said. “A great teacher I respect once wrote, ‘The best and easiest method for estimating the value of a man is to look at what type of men he associates himself with,’ and you have made excellent personal connections.”
“Ha ha ha, Lord Yuuto, you are an expert at flattery!” cried the camel-owning merchant.
Yuuto shook his head no, deliberately and with emphasis, prompting another laugh from the man.
“No, I’m being sincere,” he said. “And you yourself seem like the kind of man who is well-liked and well-connected. Right now, the Wolf Clan is searching far and wide for good people. If they’re talented, I’ll welcome them with open arms, just like I did with Ginnar here. It doesn’t matter what profession. If you know of any good people who would fit the bill, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know.”
“Um, would you be willing to accept someone like me, as well?” the camel-owning merchant asked hopefully.
“Why, of course. We’d welcome you.”
“Really?! Ahh, it really was worth it to take the plunge and ask you. Well then, after I have taken these glass products to Glaðsheimr, I will come right back here!”
“And I’ll be waiting for you. I hope you’ll follow in Ginnar’s footsteps.” Yuuto exchanged a passionate handshake with the merchant.
“Father, um...” Ginnar was making a troubled face, and gave a meaningful glance towards the direction of the palace.
Yuuto picked up on that and nodded. “Well then, with that, I must be going. Good travels to you!”
“Ohh, thank you very much, Lord Yuuto. May you be ever in good health!”
With those farewells, Yuuto’s group entered the city.
After walking for a little while, Yuuto glanced around to make sure there was no one else nearby except for Felicia, then questioned Ginnar.
“So, what was it you wanted to speak about, oh wise and great son of mine?” He couldn’t resist tacking on the dramatic language, the corners of his mouth twisting in an impish grin.
“Come off it, Father! When you put me on a pedestal like that, it makes me feel so awkward and out of place! I can’t stand it!” Ginnar exclaimed.
“Ha ha ha! That’s a little taste of how it always is for me. You need to learn to put up with it, Ginnar.”
“I can’t believe what a troublesome role you’ve forced me into, Father,” Ginnar sighed, his shoulders drooping.
It was written all over Ginnar’s face just how uncomfortable he was with the whole deal, and Yuuto did feel a little sorry for him, but they couldn’t afford to back out now.
Yuuto placed a hand on Ginnar’s shoulder in an attempt to console him. “But thanks to you playing that role, we’ve already got plenty of people lining up to work for us.”
“I didn’t do anything, though. It was all your idea, Father.”
Indeed, the bit of theater that had played out moments earlier was part of Yuuto’s plan to resolve the Wolf Clan’s personnel shortage.
There was an old Japanese saying: “Kai yori hajimeyo,” or in English, “Start close at hand.”
In modern-day Japanese, the saying was normally used to mean that the person who first suggests an idea or task should be the first one to get to work on it. However, the origins of the saying actually went back to the Warring States Period of China.
King Zhao of Yan, one of the seven warring kingdoms at the time, had known that he needed to recruit more talented people to bolster the strength and prosperity of his kingdom, and so he had asked the scholar Guo Kai how he might attract talented people to serve as his officials.
Guo Kai’s response: “If my king wishes to invite wise men into his service, please begin with this humble Kai. If you do that, men much wiser than I am will all wonder, why? And they will come to you from near and far, from a thousand leagues away and farther they will come to be your officials.”
Seeing that this reasoning was sound, King Zhao had built a special palace for Guo Kai and called him “master,” or so the story went.
In the years that followed, some of the greatest generals of the time, such as Yue Yi and Zou Yan, would defect from the other kingdoms to the kingdom of Yan, and with their strength, King Zhao would bring the kingdom of Yan to the height of its prosperity.
Used this historical anecdote as his example, Yuuto had copied the event with Ginnar. He had made sure to take care that his other child subordinates did not become jealous or see him as playing favorites, though.
In Yggdrasil, merchant traders contributed much to the relay and spread of information. Yuuto’s conversation with the merchant earlier had been an excellent opportunity to use the man to spread rumors into the surrounding areas.
Yuuto had already conducted similar such conversations with several other traveling merchants.
And that effort had been worth it; in a scant two weeks since starting, the number of new applicants for positions as Wolf Clan bureaucrats had risen dramatically.
Sigrún held her unsheathed nihontou up to the light, and gave an incredibly heavy sigh.
She was a gallant and beautiful warrior, even praised by some of the other soldiers as the “goddess of the battlefield” for her striking looks, but now she was crestfallen, and the air she gave off seemed much less frigid and powerful. It was more ephemeral, even fragile.
Ingrid, master of the smithy, placed her hands on her hips and frowned, clearly displeased. “Hey now, that’s one of my best pieces of work you’re sighing at there. Just what are you unsatisfied with?”
To Ingrid, the weapons she created were like her own children. And this sword in particular was one of her best, a masterwork whose quality she had absolute confidence in. To her, Sigrún’s sighing whenever she gazed at the blade was nothing less than insulting.
“Ah, well, I’ve no problems with the quality,” Sigrún said. “It truly is great. I thank you.”
“For someone who’s thanking me, you sure look like you’re not satisfied at all, though.”
“Ah, well, it’s just... you forged this one, right? Along with your apprentices over there.”
“Yeah, I did. What about it?”
Sigrún sighed again.
“Are you trying to pick a fight with me?! I don’t care if you’re the Mánagarmr or the freaking goddess, I’m ready to go, right here and right now!” A vein popped out on Ingrid’s forehead, and she furiously began rolling up her sleeves. She didn’t seem to care at all that the other party was holding a sword.
Ingrid had her pride as a craftsman on the line, and she wasn’t a very calm and patient person to begin with. It seemed she’d reached the limit of her temper.
By contrast, Sigrún was the flustered one. “Ah... u-um... I’m sorry. I didn’t really mean anything by it.”
“I don’t care if you meant anything or not! I’m not letting you take one step out of this workshop until you tell me what those sighs are for! And if the answer’s not acceptable, I’m not making weapons for you ever again!”
“W-wait! That would be a problem!” Even Sigrún’s voice came out as a panicked shout when faced with that threat.
A warrior’s weapon was the item one entrusted one’s life to. The level of trust provided by weapons forged by Ingrid, the greatest smith in the Wolf Clan, was entirely different from that of anyone else. And on the battlefield, that difference in reliability could separate those who survived from those who died. For Sigrún, this had literally become a matter of life and death.
“That’s if the answer’s not acceptable,” Ingrid snapped. “If it’s something you have a right to complain about, I’ll forgive you. I’ll even reforge it for free and fix whatever’s wrong, okay?”
“Ngh... F-fine, I understand. I’ll tell you. J-just, can you get your apprentices to leave us alone first?”
“Excuse me?! You think I’ll accept the kind of reason you can’t even say in front of everyone here? I get that you go out there and risk your life on the front lines, but all of us here know we’re responsible for the weapons that protect our soldiers’ lives, and we put our heart and soul into every single one of them! Don’t think you can get away with disrespecting my men!”
A collective “Ohhhh” rose up from Ingrid’s apprentices in admiration of her guts. When it came to the matter of craftsmanship, she was strong-willed and unwilling to bend or compromise to anyone, no matter who they might be. She was truly the epitome of a master craftsman.
Ingrid’s passionate speech was intense enough that Sigrún took a step back, but then she seemed to steel her nerves. She swallowed once, then spoke in a small, whispered voice, placing her two index fingers together timidly.
“It’s just, um, Father didn’t make this one himself...”
“Louder!”
Sigrún went from a whisper to a full shout. “I-if possible, I wanted Father to be the one to make my sword!”
Once she’d said the words, her face went bright red and she stared down at the floor, but she couldn’t take it back now. She continued softly.
“O-of course, I know Father is very busy right now. And I know that this sword is even better than the one I had before. But that feeling, like Father is fighting alongside me, that feeling of security and excitement... I just wondered if I’d never feel it again. And when I thought about that, well...”
Sigrún’s face fell, and with a look of terrible loneliness, she tightly squeezed the grip of the sword she was holding.
The sword she had used until recently had been forged by Yuuto and Ingrid together, but during the battle with the Lightning Clan, Steinðórr had knocked it away, and afterwards it had been washed away to who-knew-where by the raging floodwaters.
Warriors were a superstitious bunch, and Sigrún was no exception.
To her, that sword had been the lucky charm that was saving her life during the fights with both Yngvi and Steinðórr. Even back when she had fought and defeated the Claw Clan’s hero Mundilfäri, the sword had been different, but it had still been one forged by Yuuto.
Sigrún truly believed that it was thanks to Yuuto’s protection, channeled through her sword, that she still lived.
Though she always appeared calm and unflappable, she was still just a girl in her teens. She had lost the source of strength her heart relied on in battle, and now she felt a strange uncertainty she couldn’t describe.
At a loss for words, Ingrid scratched the back of her head. “Ah... uhhh...”
If Ingrid had been a man, perhaps she would have grown even angrier at Sigrún, shouting, “You’re a warrior! How can you spout such weak-willed garbage?!” and reprimanding her.
But though some of her more masculine mannerisms were what stood out, beneath it all, Ingrid was the girl with far and away more feminine sensitivity than many of Yuuto’s other subordinates. She understood Sigrún’s feelings, and painfully so. She understood too well, and that made this situation much too awkward.
As Ingrid stood there, at a loss for just what to say in response, another visitor arrived.
“Yo, Ingrid. There’s a little favor I wanted to ask of you...”
“F-Father?!” Sigrún visibly broke into a panic when the subject of her confession walked into the room.
She had always judged her personal worth by her use on the battlefield, and she had appointed herself as Yuuto’s “sword.” She didn’t want him to ever hear her expressing weakness or doubts.
“Oh, Sigrún, you’re here too?” Yuuto asked. “That’s perfect. I just got this from Ginnar a moment ago...”
Yuuto motioned with his chin to a long, thin cloth bag Felicia was holding. Felicia nodded in acknowledgement and opened the bag.
“Oh... ohhh!” Sigrún caught a glimpse of the bag’s contents, and her eyes went wide in astonishment.
Then she forcefully ripped the bag right out of Felicia’s hands, startling her.
“Eek! Wha— Rún, that was entirely too violent!”
Felicia puffed out her cheek indignantly and protested such rude treatment, but Sigrún didn’t hear a word of it. She was hugging the bag to herself gently, lovingly, as if it were her long-lost child, and rubbing her cheek against its battered hilt while large tears fell from her eyes.
Sigrún was a warrior. However much it might be changed by wear and tear, there was no way she wouldn’t recognize the sight of her own sword’s hilt.
“The hilt’s in real bad shape, but the blade itself is still fine,” Yuuto said. “You can have Ingrid fix... I don’t think she’s listening.”
“That appears to be the case,” Felicia said, sighing. But her exasperated expression was soon replaced by a kind and affectionate smile. “Tee hee... well, I’m happy for you, Rún.”
On the other side of the Bifröst Basin’s northern mountain range lay the Miðgarðr region, an arid region where rain rarely fell. The majority of Miðgarðr’s land was covered by either desert or the steppes, expansive plains of short grasses with almost no trees.
There weren’t many lakes or rivers, either, and with so few sources of water, the land wasn’t suited for agriculture.
Because of that, the people who lived in that region mainly based their livelihoods around the raising of livestock. In order to make sure their animals didn’t eat too much and deplete the grasslands, they never remained in one place, instead traveling back and forth across the land in a steady cycle.
In the cultures of Miðgarðr, it was taught that people subsisted on two kinds of food: “red food” and “white food.” The red food was meat, and the white foods were made from milk.
“Heh... it seems that more familiar flavors suit my tastes the best.” Hveðrungr took a bite of his bread and a sip of his wine, then nodded to himself in satisfaction.
Both of these items were hard to come by back in Miðgarðr. And in the past, they were both things he’d had easy access to every single day. Just as he began to smile slightly at the nostalgia of it all—
A dull, aching pain raced across his brow, and Hveðrungr winced, clenching his teeth. “Nkh...!”
It was the wound given to him by the Claw Clan warrior Mundilfäri, back when he had still called himself Loptr.
Whenever that old wound began to ache, his most hated memories would rise to the surface from the depths of his mind. It had happened during that very battle, the one in which he had received the said wound. That was when that accursed whelp had taken his place.
“‘Inform Hveðrungr, patriarch of the Panther Clan.’” Hveðrungr spat out his words in disgust as he recalled the message that had been delivered to him. “‘I am Yuuto, patriarch of the Wolf Clan.’ So that’s how it is. You have a lot of nerve to sit there and call yourself patriarch after deceiving me, your older brother, and then killing Father by using him as your shield. You have no right to call yourself that, you bastard!”
Even now, he could still feel the lingering sensation in his hands, of slicing through his sworn father’s flesh and bone, of severing his very life.
For the past year, whenever he slept, he had seen that moment play out again and again in his dreams, and it had eaten away at his heart.
Humans are enigmatic creatures that, in order to preserve their own minds, are at times even capable of altering their own memories and interpreting them in the way most convenient to their own feelings.
“I fell for the evil scheme that rotten child had set up, and found myself tricked into killing my own beloved father.”
At some point, that interpretation of things had become Hveðrungr’s one and only truth.
“But to think he’d even stoop to doing something as underhanded as forging a message from my beloved little sister Felicia. Wait for me, Felicia! I’ll come to rescue you soon!”
As Hveðrungr said this, he crumpled in his fist the second message he had received from the Wolf Clan, a paper letter.
On it was written that the only older brother Felicia followed was Yuuto, and no one else.
Hveðrungr’s little sister was a good girl who cared for her older brother. She was his only flesh and blood family in this world. There could be no chance, no possibility that she would reject him like that. Therefore, Hveðrungr could only conclude that this letter was a complete fake. And if the letter was fake, his little sister must even now be a prisoner of that deceitful usurper.
His old wound throbbed, and another rush of dull pain shot across his brow.
This wound had been engraved into his flesh by the wielder of the rune Alsvi?r, the Horse who Responds to its Rider. Perhaps that was why, whenever it ached, he heard a voice whisper to him, “Sate your desires,” from somewhere in the depths of his heart.
Black, compulsive urges spread within him, and he could no longer restrain his emotions. Yet he also felt incredible power welling up throughout his entire body.
Hveðrungr relinquished his heart to that inner voice, and a ravenous smile spread across his face as he licked his lips in a manner akin to a carnivorous beast.
“I’ll make you give me everything, Yuuto. Everything you took from me. Everything.”
Myrkviðr was a walled city located on the western edge of Horn Clan territory. It was located fairly close to the Himinbjörg mountain range, and had a long history of prospering as a center of the lumber trade.
The city proper was built on an island between branches of the Örmt River, limiting the points of approach and providing a natural defense against invasion by foreign clans.
When the Hoof Clan’s previous ruler Yngvi had launched his invasion of the Horn Clan, he had also apparently found conquering this city to be too difficult a prospect, instead choosing to circle around and advance towards Fólkvangr through more open lands to the south.
The man charged with governing Myrkviðr was named Gunnar. He was known as a talented commander within the Horn Clan, with a string of military achievements stretching back to the days of the previous Horn Clan patriarch, Hrungnir.
And right now, his greatest problem was the tribe of invaders that had begun attacking from the west ten days ago.
“Detestable barbarians,” Gunnar spat out with a scowl.
According to the reports, they had arrived all on horseback, dressed in the characteristic attire of nomads from the Miðgarðr region. They had immediately begun assaulting the villages and towns surrounding Myrkviðr, killing the men and abducting the women, stealing the food, and setting fire to whatever was left in a display of outrageous and wanton violence.
Gonnng! Gonnng! The loud, high-pitched clanging began to rang out.
“So they’ve come again. Damn them...”
The invaders were at last showing themselves near the walls of Myrkviðr. Perhaps they’d fully pillaged all of the surrounding land.
Patriarch Linnea had given him strict orders to maintain the defense within the walls of Myrkviðr, and to refrain from launching an attack, but he was at the absolute limits of his patience.
Gunnar was the governor of the city of Myrkviðr and the surrounding area. If he could not protect the lives and property of the citizens under his watch, then why was he even here?
For what purpose did the people of this land submit taxes and tribute?
Who would ever pledge fealty to rulers who would not lift a finger to defend them?
The anger in Gunnar’s heart finally boiled over. “I cannot stand it anymore! I’ll rout those damned bandits and scatter them to the four winds!”
He gathered his troops and led them out of the city.
According to reports from his lookouts, the enemy numbered fewer than five hundred. Myrkviðr, by contrast, boasted fifteen hundred soldiers, giving them a 3-to-1 advantage.
And that wasn’t all. Their patriarch Linnea was only slightly above average in skill as a field commander, but she was incredibly accomplished as the ruler of their nation, both talented and flexible.
She had imported many items and ideas from that Wolf Clan patriarch, Yuuto, who was so proficient in military strategy people were calling him a reincarnated war god.
One such example was a weapon, an iron spear three times as long as a person’s height. She had supplied these longspears to the soldiers protecting her borders at Myrkviðr. And for the past two months, she’d had them undergo training on how to fight using the tight-knit phalanx formation.
With this ultimate combination of weapons and tactics at their disposal, there was no way that unruly gang of bandits could ever match them.
“Attack!” Gunnar ordered. “Attack!”
At his command, the Myrkviðr forces charged forward.
But the instant they were about made contact with the enemy, the horsemen split cleanly into three groups.
The group right in front of them skillfully reversed course, and began firing arrows as they retreated.
The phalanx boasted incomparable power in a frontal assault, but it could not match the speed of horses.
Their longspears gave them overwhelming reach in a melee, but that could not compare with the range of a bow.
As a result, the Myrkviðr soldiers could not land a single hit, and were forced to receive continuous, one-sided attacks from the enemy.
By the time Gunnar realized how dangerous this was, it was already too late.
The other two enemy groups had made use of the superior mobility of their horses to circle around and flank both sides of the Myrkviðr troops, and began launching arrows of their own.
Before he knew it, Gunnar and the Myrkviðr garrison found themselves completely surrounded by a force only a third of their size.
The Myrkviðr archers within the formation tried their best to return fire, but they were on foot and their opponents were moving quickly on horseback. The Myrkviðr arrows rarely found their mark, while the enemy’s arrows struck true, stealing one life after another in quick succession.
Faced with this terribly one-sided situation, the Myrkviðr soldiers lost their composure, and some were panicked enough to try to flee. Their formation fell apart.
Of course, the enemy horsemen seized on that opportunity.
The riders on both flanks dropped their bows and switched to spears, skewering the panicking Myrkviðr soldiers from both sides in a pincer attack.
To begin with, the phalanx was a formation focused on attacking forward, and terribly vulnerable to attacks from the sides or rear. That was exacerbated all the more by the panicked condition of the soldiers.
In less than an hour, the Myrkviðr garrison forces had been wiped out. Out of fifteen hundred soldiers, fewer than five hundred survived.
The Panther Clan, on the other hand, suffered casualties in the single digits. It was practically a flawless victory.
And so, without enough troops left to protect the gates, the walled city of Myrkviðr fell easily into the hands of the Panther Clan.
News of the Panther Clan’s attack reached Yuuto within the day.
Beginning with the works of Sun Tzu, there were a great number of treatises on military strategy that discussed the importance of information.
Yuuto understood that because the Horn Clan bordered the territories of powerful hostile nations like the Hoof and Lightning Clans, it functioned strategically as a western-facing shield for the Wolf Clan. With that important fact in mind, after Yuuto’s war with the Hoof Clan, he had taught Linnea techniques for using smoke signals to relay information.
The use of coded smoke signals was recorded as having happened as early as the 2nd century B.C. in China. They had quickly sent messages across the country about attacks by the horse-riding Xiongnu people, in a situation eerily similar to what Yuuto was facing now.
Smoke signals could be used to communicate over great distances in a short time, the equivalent of 140 kilometers per hour. Of course, one couldn’t send complicated messages with smoke, but it was perfect for reporting a “state of emergency” as quickly as possible.
Also, once the first warning had been delivered quickly by smoke signal, it could be followed afterward by more detailed information carried by messenger pigeons. Yuuto learned such information about the fall of Myrkviðr over the next two days.
“So, we really have no choice but to fight after all, huh...” With a sigh, Yuuto looked up at the sky.
Two years ago, on the night he’d finally succeeded in refining iron, Loptr had told him about his lifelong dream under a starry sky just like this one. Yuuto remembered that night like it was only yesterday.
Loptr should have been the one to lead and protect the Wolf Clan, but now it was being protected by Yuuto. And Loptr was now furiously baring his fangs towards the same Wolf Clan he should have been in charge of protecting.
Yuuto couldn’t shake the feeling of tragic irony.
In his heart, he still felt uncertain, hesitant.
To fight Loptr would mean pointing his blade at his brother’s throat. It wouldn’t be personally and directly, but it would still be the act of aiming to take his opponent’s life.
Could he really bring himself to do that?
What if there was another alternative to battle?
However, now that Myrkviðr had fallen, Yuuto could not allow himself the luxury of hesitation. If his uncertainty delayed his decisions, the cost would be borne in the lives of innocent civilians.
“When I die, I’m definitely going to hell, aren’t I?” Yuuto closed his eyes, whispering the words. “...Well, guess it’s a bit late to think about that.”
His hands were already stained with the blood of so many.
Even so, he’d resolved to keep moving forward.
Because Yuuto was the patriarch, a sovereign.
Allowing himself to be stalled by personal sentiment would be an insult to the souls of all the lives he’d sacrificed to get here.
It wasn’t about whether he could separate his personal feelings from the matter. He simply had to do it.
With those words of counsel to himself, Yuuto gave the order to raise his armies, in order to protect his little sister’s nation.
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