Shinwa Densetsu no Eiyuu no Isekaitan - Volume 1 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Portent

No time feels so long as one’s waking hours, nor so short as slumber.

Lying on the ground, swaddled so completely in blankets that only his head protruded, was a sleeping boy: Hiro Oguro.

“Look how soundly he’s sleeping, Cerberus.”

Ruff!

“It’s almost a shame to wake him.”

Ruff!

The voices filtered down to Hiro’s sleeping consciousness, lifting him from darkness despite his heavy eyelids. Unwilling to leave the warm bliss of his cradle, he pulled the blankets over his head. For a moment, all was well, until—

“Gwaaaaaah!”

A mighty impact slammed into Hiro’s abdomen. The shock resonated throughout his entire body. His eyes practically bulged out of their sockets.

“Hmm,” said the female voice. “That’s not quite the reaction I expected.”

His stomach felt like it was on fire, but he couldn’t even move to ease the pain. All he could do was gulp desperately for air like a beached fish.

Tinkling laughter descended from above. “Aha ha! Oh, Hiro, your face! I can’t... It’s too early for this!”

Hiro looked up with tears in his eyes to see Liz clutching her stomach in laughter. “It’s too early for that!” he cried. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

Liz sat straddling him, over the exact spot that ached so badly. There was no doubt she was the culprit. Indeed, when he asked why she’d resorted to violence, she admitted as much. “I had to wake you up somehow,” she said sheepishly.

“And you couldn’t have picked a gentler—?” Hiro froze midsentence. Behind Liz’s shoulder, framed by the tent’s entrance, was an ogre.

“You’d better have a good explanation for this, whelp,” it said, stepping forward to reveal itself as Tris.

Hiro suddenly felt very conscious of the muscular old soldier’s bearish bulk. “It’s not what it looks like!” he protested. Granted, the situation looked incriminating from the outside, but there was a perfectly innocent explanation...if Tris was willing to listen.

Liz stared at him blankly. “What’s not what it looks like?”

“I’m begging you, stop talking before you make things worse!” Hiro hissed. His life might actually depend on it.

Tris advanced with thunderous footsteps. “A wolf in sheep’s clothing all this time, eh?” he said. “Step aside, Your Highness. I’ll rid us of this reprobate.” His sword gleamed dully as he drew it from its sheath.

Liz cocked her head, entirely blind to the tension in the room. “I’m not sure what you two are playing at, but are we ready to leave?” she asked.

Tris hesitated. “We are, Your Highness.”

“Then let’s have breakfast and go. We have a long day ahead of us.” The weight lifted from Hiro’s stomach. “We’ll be having bread and soup. Is that all right with you, Hiro?”

Hiro blinked. “I, um... Yeah, I think so.”

“Perfect! Breakfast then Baum it is!” Liz beamed. “Don’t just stand there, Tris, you’re making the tent look untidy. Go and eat something!”

“But, Your Highness, I...” Tris’s shoulders slumped. “Count yourself lucky, whelp.” He left the tent, the wind taken out of his sails.

Hiro breathed a sigh of relief. Liz brought him breakfast and he tucked in with relish. Between mouthfuls of slightly hard bread, he tried a spoonful of soup. It was well seasoned with chunks of chicken mixed into the broth. Cerberus sat in front of him, gazing hopefully up at his food. Off to the side, Liz was taking off her clothes.

“Wait, wha—?!” Hiro spat out his breakfast in alarm. Cerberus received an unexpected faceful of soup, but apologizing would have to wait. “What do you think you’re doing?!” Hiro spluttered between coughs.

“Getting changed, of course,” Liz replied. “What does it look like?”

“No, I mean, why are you getting changed?!”

“If I can’t take a bath, I’d at least like to put on new underwear.”

“I guess, but, I mean...I’m right here!” Hiro protested.

“What’s wrong with that?” Liz looked thoroughly confused. Between this and her behavior last night, it was clear she had never learned to keep her guard up around men. Well, that or she felt no shame in exposing herself. Either way, Hiro wanted a word with whoever raised her.

“Look,” he began, “I’m a guy—”

“Sorry, but can this wait? I won’t be long.” Again Liz took hold of her shirt.

Hiro flew into a panic. “No, stop! Wait! Just...please, I’m begging you!”

“What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?” Liz was starting to look annoyed.

“I’ll look the other way, all right?” he said. “You tell me when you’re done.”

“All right, but why?”

“It’s not important. Don’t think too hard about it. All right, I’ll turn around now. Wait until I’m looking away, okay?”

“I still don’t get it, but fine.”

Hiro turned his back. The rustling of underwear filled the tent. He waited in silence as time dragged on. Each torturous second felt like an eternity.

“Right, I’m done,” Liz announced.

Hiro let out a breath he didn’t even realize he’d been holding. Sweat broke out on his forehead as exhaustion overcame him. He felt like he’d just run a marathon. In front of him, Liz began making a start on her breakfast, entirely oblivious to his distress.

“Guess I’d better finish too,” Hiro said to himself. He looked down at his bowl, but it was empty. Where on earth is my soup?

“I think Cerberus got yours,” said Liz.

Hiro glanced around for the culprit just in time to spot a joyfully wagging tail disappearing through the tent flap. “Looks like it,” he sighed, defeated. “That was one happy tail.”

He looked up to find a silver spoon hovering in front of his face. “Say ‘aah,’” said Liz. He really must have made for a pitiful sight.

“Come on, I’m not a kid,” he protested...but his stomach chose that very moment to betray him.

After a thoroughly undignified breakfast, Hiro stepped out of the tent and into the morning sun. He spread his arms wide and let the crisp mountain air fill his lungs. Looking around, he found that the soldiers had already neatly packed away their tents. The only one left was his own, which Liz had already started to take down. Seeing her set to work, several soldiers ran to help. Tris was among them. Hiro pitched in too. Soon enough the tent was packed up and they were ready to depart for Baum. They would descend Mount Himmel and head south, tracing the foot of the mountain range. Liz claimed it would take them sixteen days to reach the Gurinda Mark on foot. Hiro had been prepared for a long journey, but he hadn’t expected it to be quite that long. Even so, he had no regrets. His joints might ache, but that was only pain. He could easily grit his teeth and bear it.

The company was around halfway down the mountain when it encountered a new variety of monster: neither an ogul nor an ogre, but something far larger.

“It’s enormous,” Hiro breathed. The creature must have been three times his height, with the blue-gray face of a corpse and a muscular body clad in rusty armor. Its upper body was indistinguishable from a man’s, but its lower body tapered into a writhing, snakelike tail. Its bloodshot eyes gazed at him with slitted, reptilian pupils. It roared, and the ferocity in its voice was so overpowering that he couldn’t help but shrink away.

“It’s a gigas,” said Liz. “A former spirit that was exiled to Aletia for turning against the Spirit King, or so the legends say.”

“Is it as strong as it looks?” Hiro asked.

“As strong as you’d expect from a fallen spirit. They’re smarter than ogres too— Ah!”

The gigas surged forward with astonishing speed, cutting off Liz’s explanation. Hiro’s eyes widened as its enormous tail slammed down in the spot she had been standing. The impact shattered the ground, sending a plume of dust and rock into the air. Hiro’s throat clenched as his brain tried to catch up. It had all happened too quickly to process.

“Hiro, stay right there!” Liz’s voice commanded. She burst from the dust cloud unharmed and clutching Lævateinn. Hiro only had a moment to breathe a sigh of relief before she charged past him towards the gigas.

“Light infantry, follow Her Highness!” Tris barked. “Archers, cover them! Heavies, form up while the others keep it busy!”

As ordered, the light infantry charged forward to attack the gigas while the heavy infantry set up a two-tiered shield wall. The archers took position behind them, drawing their bowstrings to their chins as they aimed at their target.

“Ready the javelins! I’ll get its attention!” Liz shouted to the light infantry. She brandished Lævateinn at the gigas, conjuring a burst of flame from its tip. It flared before the monster’s eyes, forcing it to flinch back for a few precious moments.

“Now! Throw!” she cried. The soldiers hurled their javelins at the gigas. A moment later, Tris’s voice echoed from the back lines. “Loose!”

A fan-shaped cloud of arrows whistled through the air, instantly turning the gigas into a pincushion. The monster screeched in pain. It began to lash about with its tail, cracking the earth in its fury.

Liz’s eyes widened in alarm. “Fall back!” she shouted, but too late; the gigas’s tail crashed down on the soldiers. Most dove out of the way, but cries of shock and pain rose into the air as several stragglers vanished in a cloud of dust.

“Retreat! I’ll hold it off!” she commanded. She swung at the gigas with Lævateinn, but it tilted its body to smartly avoid the attack. From there, it seized the offensive. Wind swirled around its colossal fists as it unleashed a devastating barrage of punches, but as fast as its blows were, Liz saw through them all. She dodged every last attack and, with a fierce battle cry, swung her crimson blade in an upward arc. One of the gigas’s arms sailed through the air, spraying blood from its severed stump. Flames consumed the detached arm before it even hit the ground.

The pain drove the gigas into a frenzy. It thrashed about, sending the encircling soldiers flying. They tumbled uncontrollably down the slope as though caught in a landslide. With every passing second, it seemed more certain that the monster would slaughter them all. Hiro’s face took on the pallor of despair as he watched aghast.

And his legs moved unbidden.

What am I...?

In the same instant he found himself taking a step forward, agony lanced through his eye.

What the hell’s going on?

He cried out in pain and pressed his hands to his face. Knowledge poured into his mind in a vast flood, enough to drive him mad. His heart pulsed with a single forceful beat.

Slaughter your foe, some unknown force seemed to whisper in his ear. You have the power. From the deepest recesses of his soul rose an unaccountable will to fight.

“Stand up straight, whelp, or you’ll end up squashed flat!” a gruff voice called out. Tris had arrived with the heavy infantry, who were busy forming up on the front line. “Make haste, you layabouts!” he yelled at his men. “You’re the best chance we’ve got!”

The heavy infantry planted their shields into the ground, forming an impromptu wall of iron.

“Your Highness! To me!” Tris cried.

“Coming!” Liz shouted back, retreating behind the shield wall.

“Brace yourselves, men!” Tris bellowed. “Plant your feet firm! I’ll not see my heavies knocked on their arses like a pack of schoolboys! Archers, cover the light infantry!”

The archers obliged, sending out a volley of arrows to shield the vanguard’s retreat. The gigas weathered the rain of pinpricks and came after them, its face twisted with dreadful fury, but its tail only crashed against the shield wall.

“Take the wounded to the rear!” Liz commanded. Free hands carried the injured soldiers away from the fighting.

The shield wall rocked dangerously under the gigas’s assault. “We can’t hold!” one of the heavies cried. Their shields were beginning to deform under the creature’s monstrous blows. It was only a matter of time before their line broke.

“If it keeps on pummeling us, we’re done for!” Tris shouted, a note of urgency creeping into his voice.

Liz nodded. She peered at the gigas through a gap in the shield wall. “I’ll draw its attention,” she said. “You cut off its tail while I’ve got it distracted.”

Tris looked incredulous. “Nonsense, Your Highness! It would be wiser to attack with the heavies and create an opening!”

“Half of them would die!” Liz shot back. “It’s safer if I do it!”

“I’ll not see you risk your life, Your Highness. Only as a last resort—” Tris’s words froze in his throat. Liz, too, gasped in shock. They both saw it: part of the shield wall had faltered. The gigas saw its chance and drove its mighty fist into the gap. Men flew through the air, armor and all. The monster bellowed in triumph and plucked one of the fallen soldiers from the ground.

“Tris! Back me up!” Liz yelled. Before the words had even left her mouth, she was running. Tris shouted for her to stop, but she paid him no mind. Her eyes were focused on one thing alone: the gigas’s wrist. “Give me back my soldier!” she cried, leaping high into the air with Lævateinn at the ready.

Her slash never struck home. The gigas’s tail whipped round from outside her field of view to swat her out of the sky. By the time she saw the blow coming, it was too late. The tail smashed into her ribs, sending her spinning away.

Unable to break her fall, Liz crashed down hard onto the stony ground and rolled to a stop. She immediately tried to get up, but her knees buckled beneath her. She gritted her teeth in frustration as her own body failed her.

With a grunt of exertion, she planted her sword in the earth and hauled herself to her feet, grimacing as pain blossomed in her skull. She pressed a hand to her forehead. Sticky scarlet trickled down her face from a parting in her beautiful red hair. She must have hit her head upon striking the ground, but the sight of her own blood was far from enough to break her fiery will. Her crimson eyes blazed with resolve.

“Come on, get up!” she said to herself. If anyone was to beat the gigas, it was her with Lævateinn...but as she stared down her foe, something moved to block her view.

“Hiro?”

It was him. The boy whose face seemed so gentle, yet whose eyes harbored such fierce determination. The hardships of the road surely weighed heavy on his body, the terror of facing monster after monster surely weighed heavy on his mind, and yet he had endured without a word of complaint. Now, shielding her from harm, he seemed to stand as tall as any giant.

＊

“Hiro?” asked a confused voice from behind him. “What are you doing?”

Hiro gave a self-deprecating smile. Even he didn’t know.

He took one step forward, then another. His eyes were filled with uncertainty, but his feet were sure. A girl lay injured in front of him. That alone was reason enough to fight.

You’re safe now. I won’t let them hurt you anymore.

Some might call that shallow, but let them sneer. The simplest reasons were the best. When he had first emerged into this world, scared and confused, this girl had helped him purely out of the goodness of her heart. Now she was lying bruised and battered on the ground. No man could fail to leap to her defense.

That thought quelled the last of his doubts. His lips curled into a faint smile.

“Hiro, you can’t! You’ll die!”

Liz cried out a warning from behind him, but he ignored it. Dust flew as he launched himself straight at the gigas. “It’s me you’re fighting now.”

The gigas noticed his approach and swung its tail around, seemingly to strike him, but the tail merely whooshed past the tip of Hiro’s nose to slam into the ground instead, the impact shattering the earth and sending a thousand razor-sharp blades of stone flying towards him.

“Nice try, but I saw that coming.”

Hiro dodged every last shard with chilling ease. Though the slightest misstep would have spelled a grisly end, effortless movements of his head, legs, hands, and shoulders carried him untouched through the deadly shrapnel.

“Liz!” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll keep it distracted! You finish it off!”

He picked up a javelin one of the soldiers had dropped during their retreat. The gigas tossed aside the man in its grasp and peered at Hiro with reptilian eyes, intrigued by this new prey. Liz had been watching, dumbfounded, but seeing the monster’s attention focus on him, her eyes widened in horror.

“Get back! You can’t fight it!” she shouted. Her voice turned into a scream halfway through. No doubt she was imagining the gruesome fate that might await him. That spectacle was confined to her imagination for now, but it could very soon become reality.

The gigas lunged at Hiro with its remaining arm. Its tail, too, lashed out to join the fray. The monster was more agile than it looked; its barrage left no room for counterattack. Any one of its blows would reduce a human body to pulp, an unarmored one all the more so—but not a single one struck home.

“How?” Liz whispered as she looked on in disbelief. “That’s not possible...”

With Hiro occupying the gigas’s attention, Tris and the rest of the soldiers found enough room to rally. The old soldier’s jaw hung slack as he watched their battle. “I don’t believe it,” he whispered. “Is the boy even mortal?”

For three years, Hiro had struggled with recurring side effects from his accident. He had perceived others as moving so slowly, they seemed frozen in place. An ascended state of mind, a martial artist might have called it. A kind of mastery attainable only with a lifetime of training, and even then only by a select few. The ability to see the flow of an opponent’s breath in a handful of exhaled air particles, and so divine their intent.

Reluctant to worry his family, Hiro kept his condition to himself. His doctor wouldn’t have known what to make of it anyway.

But the people of Aletia knew.

For its name was the stuff of legends.

“Uranos...” Liz’s voice trailed away into nothingness.

“Over here!” Hiro shouted as he hurled his spear. The gigas easily swatted it out of the air, but he only wanted its attention. The air screamed as the monster lashed out with its mighty arm, but it couldn’t so much as graze him. His movements were totally efficient, honed to perfection. A master of the martial arts would have gasped in admiration to see his performance.

Sweat dripped down Hiro’s forehead even so. The exhaustion of the climb and the stress of this battle to the death combined to dramatically sap his strength. Still, he continued to dance around the gigas’s blows. He found the corners of his mouth curling into a savage grin. Perhaps his fear was making him delirious.

“Want to know a secret?” he asked the gigas. “We’ve got a big, bad wolf.”

Where before he had been leading the monster around by the nose, now it suddenly froze. He had no idea if it understood human speech, but there was no denying it had reacted to something.

At long last, Cerberus saw her chance and broke from cover. The wolf streaked past Hiro’s side like a speeding bullet, her claws carving the air to ribbons as they traced a clean slash through the gigas’s neck. Blood sprayed from its throat like water from a tap as she touched back down. For a moment, the monster faltered.

A certain flame-haired girl did not pass up the opportunity. “I’ll finish it!” Liz cried. Lævateinn flared crimson, sending a pulse of scorching heat towards the monster. By the time the blast wave washed over it, Liz had vanished from its sight. A moment later, the air behind it detonated with a weighty boom.

Realizing the explosion must have been Liz’s handiwork, Hiro picked up a javelin from the ground and flung it, then reached for a second and hurled that too. The gigas knocked neither aside this time; both sank deep into its chest. It fell into panic, writhing about on the ground, spewing blood—and then, abruptly, it stopped. It had finally noticed the state it was in.

Only its upper half was still moving. A shapeless mass that had once been its lower half lay nearby, steadily burning. The gigas screeched, a harsh sound like grinding metal. Hiro retched as the wind carried a nauseating stench into his nostrils. As he clapped a hand over his nose, he at last caught sight of Liz.

She came from out of the sun, swinging Lævateinn in a downward arc. “I’ll put you out of your misery!” she cried as the Flame Sovereign’s crimson blade carved through the gigas’s flesh. White smoke billowed from the creature’s bisected torso as its blood evaporated in its veins. Its enormous bulk slumped to the ground, where it silently burned. In the end, she never even gave it a chance to scream.

“Hiro!” Liz cried.

Realizing that she was running to greet him, Hiro tried to open his arms to catch her, but his body wouldn’t seem to listen. Perhaps the adrenaline was finally wearing off, or perhaps his exhaustion had caught up with him at last. He couldn’t tell. Like a puppet with its strings cut, he fell to his knees and collapsed in the dirt.

Liz’s face drew close to his own, her eyes brimming with concern. “Hiro! Stay with me!” she cried. “Tris, help me! It’s Hiro, he...! He...!”

Hiro wanted to reassure her, but though his mouth still moved, he couldn’t seem to speak. His vision pitched wildly as his consciousness began to fade. With the soft warmth of Liz’s arms cradling his head, he fell away into darkness.

＊

Meanwhile, on the south road, Dios was at an impasse. A large armed host had appeared to block his passage. A line of heavy infantry stretched across the road ahead. Behind them, heavy cavalry stood at the ready.

“I thought they’d not reveal themselves so soon,” he said to his vice-commander beside him. “They’ve brought two thousand men against fewer than two hundred, the cowards.”

“And they fly no colors,” the vice-commander observed. Indeed, the enemy host carried no identifying emblems, flags or otherwise.

Dios nodded. “Covering their backs in case any nobles start asking questions, no doubt.” Presumably, they meant to pass themselves off as bandits, although no bandits moved in such numbers.

Their standoff continued for some time. Eventually, an emissary rode up to Dios from the enemy lines. He wore a cowl so as to conceal his identity, making his expression impossible to determine. Dios glared at him with stony eyes.

“Does Lady Elizabeth ride with you?” the man asked. He spoke in a lazy drawl.

“Why should I tell you?” Dios replied. “For all I know, you mean her harm.”

“And you are?”

“My name is Dios von Mikhail.”

“Ah, of course. The illustrious Ogre.”

Dios’s eyes narrowed with displeasure at the sound of his own nickname. “You came all this way to mock me?”

“No, I suppose not. You matter little in the end,” said the emissary. He raised his hand and held it in the air. “Let me make this simple. Hand over the sixth princess and I will spare your lives.”

“And you thought I would accept that? You must have lost your wits.”

“Am I to take it, then, that you will not relinquish the princess?”

Dios snorted and broke into a defiant grin. “It seems to me that you’ve forgotten your manners. Let me remind you, I serve under Her Highness’s command, as does every man at my back. You will address us with the respect we are due.”

“I fear I have precious little courtesy to spare for men such as you. So tell me, Ogre—what will it be?”

“Call me that again,” Dios growled, “and I’ll rip your tongue from your mouth.”

The emissary’s smile widened into a sadistic grin beneath his cowl. “Should have watched your manners, boy,” he said as he let his hand fall. Behind him, the line of infantry parted, allowing the heavy cavalry to charge through.

Dios’s eyes narrowed. “You meant to slaughter us all no matter our answer.”

“Not all. I would have left one alive to tell the tale.”

“Treacherous snake.” Scowling, Dios peered over the emissary’s shoulder at the approaching cavalry. They were still a ways away. His eyes filled with fury as they returned to the hooded figure. “At least I can take you with us,” he said, and drove his lance into the man’s chest.

The thrust halted in midair. Dios’s face turned incredulous as the emissary caught his lance with ease. An exquisite sword, trimmed with silver and gold, had sprung as if from nowhere into the man’s hand.

“Is something amiss?”

“Bastard! You wield a spirit weapon?”

Spirits were drawn to the banks of pure water sources, where they sometimes left behind crystals imbued with their own essence. These crystals, which shone with a luster to rival any gemstone, were called spirit stones. They were exceedingly rare; even the imperial territories, vast as they were, only harvested somewhere between three and seven per year, while some smaller nations produced none at all. Accordingly, they commanded a high price. A single spirit stone could fund an entire lifetime of leisure, and their value only increased by the year. No one but the royal family and their closest allies were likely to ever see one in their lifetimes.

“Where did you get that?” Dios demanded.

“That is not for you to know.”

An odd cracking sound filled the air. Dios looked down at his lance to find ice spreading down the haft. He cursed and flung it aside before reaching for the sword at his hip. Behind him, his cavalry had readied their own lances, while his infantry had drawn their swords.

His men would be hard-pressed to stand against a spirit weapon, Dios knew. This emissary was clearly a skilled fighter in his own right, but the spirit’s blessing must also be amplifying his physical abilities. Any less and he could not have stopped Dios’s lance so easily.

Dios took a deep breath and allowed himself to think. If he were to surrender to anger and engage this emissary, the enemy cavalry would hit before they could finish him. Then he and his soldiers would all be dead.

He raised his sword above his head. “With me, men!” he shouted, his voice echoing across the plain. “If your comrades fall, let them fall! Never look back, only ahead, and ride for all you’re worth!”

His men answered with a rousing cheer.

Dios swung his sword down. “Chaaaaarge!”

He drove his heels into his horse’s flank and then he was off, galloping for the horizon. In the split second he passed the emissary by, he could have sworn he heard the man whisper something under his breath—

“Is that all? How disappointing.”

—but if he was ever to return to his mistress alive, he couldn’t afford to look back. Shame rose in his gorge like bile, but he swallowed it down. Channeling his regrets into a howl, he yelled at the top of his lungs, “Follow me if you want to live!”

Another battle cry erupted from behind him. One hundred cavalry and fifty foot soldiers abandoned their wagons to ride or run in his wake. Together they smashed into the oncoming cavalry.

With a triumphant cry, Dios snatched a lance from an enemy soldier. He set about striking rider after rider from their horses.

“Platoon Commander!” his vice-commander shouted from beside him. “The rear’s been cut off!”

Dios looked back to see a massacre in progress. The enemy had encircled his infantry and cavalry alike and were in the process of butchering them. He prided himself on having trained his men well—as well as the First Legion, even—but they stood little chance here. The enemy’s numbers were overwhelming, but it was the heavy armor that truly put the final nail in the coffin. His own men only wore light armor, having hoped to take advantage of their mobility.

“Leave them!” he cried. He had no other choice. They had nowhere near the numbers to ride to their comrades’ rescue.

Even so, his vice-commander hesitated, unwilling to abandon his men. “If we turn back now, we might still save them!”

“Have you gone mad?!” Dios exclaimed. “Look around you!”

“We can’t abandon them, sir! Her Highness entrusted them to our protection!”

“They’re my men too! I’ll not tell you twice!” The vice-commander fell quiet at that—or rather, the anger in Dios’s eyes cowed him into silence.

With fury twisting his face into the visage of an ogre, Dios thrust his lance at the oncoming foe. Again and again his weapon snapped, but every time, he snatched another from an enemy soldier and began sowing carnage anew. “Out of my way, you maggots!” he bellowed.

“You must be the Ogre!” a voice cried in delight. “You are truly as skilled as they say! A fitting opponent to test my steel!”

A rider bore down on Dios through the press, issuing a challenge as he came. The violet band wrapped around his arm marked him as a platoon commander.

“Out of my way!” Dios roared, hurling his lance with all his might. Its tip punched straight through the man’s helm, deforming the metal with the impact. A torrent of blood spurted from within, accompanied by a confused gurgle.

“The commander! He’s do—” The nearby rider’s head flew from his shoulders before he could finish. As a jet of crimson sprayed from the man’s severed neck, Dios gestured right with a bloodstained sword.

“Break through their left flank!” he yelled. “I’ll clear the way! Ride, damn you! Leave the maggots to their pickings!”

If they rode on through the enemy cavalry, they would only find heavy infantry waiting for them, and archers behind that. To carry straight on was to go to their deaths, but if they broke through the left wing, they would have a clear run to freedom. Even so, it would come at a heavy price. For every man who escaped this battlefield, many would be left to die.

The emissary looked on quietly as Dios carved a path through his foes. “He’s a fine warrior,” he murmured. “It would be a shame to kill him.”

Riders fell from their horses to find their skulls crushed beneath armored boots. Straggling infantry had the life crushed from them in the press. The odds had been hideously unfair from the start. The fighting would be over soon, and the emissary had no doubt that once the dust had settled, his side would have suffered minimal casualties.

As the battle began to turn into a slaughter, three riders approached him. They dismounted and dropped to one knee, laying their hands to their chests.

“Around twenty men broke through, sir,” one said. “We have the rest encircled. Shall we finish them?”

“Do as you please,” the emissary said. “What are our losses?”

“The sixth princess does not appear to be among the dead, sir. As for our own, our forces have lost one platoon commander and twelve heavy cavalry. We are hastening to assess the wounded as we speak.”

The emissary’s eyebrows rose beneath his cowl. “More than I’d expected.”

“Should we give chase, sir?” the soldier asked.

“You needn’t trouble yourselves. They’re torn half to shreds as it is. Bandits will finish our work before they ever reach the Gurinda Mark.”

“Then you mean to let the sixth princess go, sir?”

“She is not among them. We need not pursue.”

“She may have disguised herself,” the soldier said.

“That I doubt. She is not given to such subtleties.”

“Then begging your pardon, but where is she?”

The emissary fell silent for a moment. “In Baum, I would imagine, having crossed Mount Himmel.”

“Ought we make for Baum, then?” the soldier asked.

“Our actions here have been conspicuous enough. Any more and we risk drawing attention to ourselves. No, our business here is done. Disband the company.”

The soldier bowed his head. “As you command.”

The emissary turned away, lifting his gaze to the distant Grausam Mountains. Beneath the shadow of his cowl, his eyes glinted like a stalking tiger closing on its prey.

＊＊＊

Located precisely on the border where the grasslands met the desert, the Gurinda Mark’s central town of Linkus was a town of two halves. Its well-to-do citizenry dwelled in the lush greenery of the northern quarter, while its sandy southern quarter housed the poor.

It was in the northern quarter that Margrave von Gurinda resided. His white-walled mansion stood on a rise, giving it a commanding view of the town below. At two storys tall, with four slanted roofs extending crosswise from an octagonal central dome, it was grand enough that any noble would have been proud to call it their home. A high fence ran around the perimeter, interrupted by a central iron gate. A man staggered up to it, then fell to the ground.

The guards on either side of the gate ran to his aid. “Hey, you!” one called out. “Are you all right?”

“Bugger me,” said the other. “Someone’s cut the poor bastard up something fierce.”

The guards rolled the man onto his back and instantly paled. He was covered in slashes, and his body was crusted with blood—dry, but not old. They shared a glance. It was a miracle that he was still breathing.

All of a sudden, the man came to life and grabbed the closer of them. “Take me to Margrave von Gurinda!” he bellowed. “It’s urgent!”

“I don’t have a bloody clue what you’re on about, but get off!” shouted the guard in his grip.

“Settle down, man! Look at the state of you!” yelled the other.

The man’s muscular arms clung on with unnatural strength. The free guard tried to help his comrade, but even their combined efforts couldn’t pry him loose.

“My name is Dios von Mikhail! I...I serve Lady Celia Estrella! Take me...to the margrave...” He was beginning to lose consciousness.

“I hear you! I hear you! We’ll take you to him! Just let me go!”

“Please...I beg you... There’s...no time...”

The guards looked at one another with equal misgivings. If the man’s tale was true, they could have a serious situation on their hands, but if it was false, they might be severely punished—and they had no time to ascertain the facts one way or the other. The one Dios had grabbed decided the call was above his pay grade. “Tell the captain! Let him figure this out!” he said.

The other guard—the one who had tried to peel Dios away—nodded and vanished into the grounds. Soon, the captain of the guard, realizing something was amiss, emerged from the front gate. He approached Dios and lay a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Lord von Gurinda is willing to meet with you,” he said. “Now, do you fancy letting my man go?”

The two stared at each other for a moment before Dios released the guard and slumped to the ground. “Please...” he groaned. “Princess Elizabeth... She’s in danger...”

“Aye, we’ll get to that. But first, you need those wounds seen to.”

Before he left, the captain commanded the guards to take Dios to the infirmary. It took both of them to move him, half carrying him between them with his arms around their shoulders. They arrived at the infirmary to find a man waiting inside. He took one look at Dios and raised his eyebrows.

“Normally I would begin with the usual pleasantries,” he said, “but given the circumstances, I think I had best start by asking you what happened.”

This, Dios supposed, was Margrave von Gurinda. His face was just as kindly as Liz had described. The guards lowered Dios onto the bed. As the doctor tended to his wounds, he relayed his story.

“There were a hundred and fifty of us,” he began, his voice heavy with regret. “I’m the only one who made it.”

Many of the survivors had succumbed to their wounds following their flight from the battlefield. One by one, they had died on their horses. After several days, just when it seemed their fortunes could sink no lower, bandits had attacked. Men could only fight for so long on the brink of exhaustion. When Dios had finally broken free in a haze of blood and pain, it was to find that he was the only one left.

Margrave von Gurinda’s face creased in sympathy as he listened. “I see,” he said. “You have suffered more than anyone should. Would that I could say your troubles were at an end.” He paused, unsure how to continue, then shook his head and produced a letter. “This arrived yesterday.”

Dios looked at it warily but took it. His eyes widened as he read through the contents. “By the Divines...” he whispered, looking at the margrave in horror.

“They come with two thousand men,” von Gurinda confirmed, “but worry not. I have no intention of betraying my niece.”

“Even so, against such an enemy...”

“I am well aware of this Warmaiden’s reputation. Word of her feats reaches even here. I would not presume to dream that I could match her on the field. Moreover, I have no hope of petitioning His Majesty while he is away on campaign.”

“Then what? You would hand the princess to her death?”

“As I say, I will do no such thing. Elizabeth is all I have left of my dear sister.”

“They have two thousand men, you said. How many can you gather?”

“Fewer than in times of war,” the margrave said ruefully. “We’ve grown fat with peace these past few decades. The Gurinda Mark maintains a reserve of three thousand men, but not all will come, especially on such short notice. I should be pleased to see a thousand.”

Dios frowned. “That won’t be enough.” All the more so against the Warmaiden. A commander of her caliber would not let her superior numbers go to her head. She would crush them thoroughly and without mercy. The fields of corpses left in her wake attested to her brutal efficacy.

“Warmaiden or no, we will endure until His Majesty returns. This I swear,” Margrave von Gurinda said.

“When will that be?” Dios asked.

“I received word of his victory five days hence. By now, both he and the first prince ought to be returning to the capital. I have dispatched a messenger already, but it will likely be five days before they arrive, three at the earliest. Until then, we must endure as best we can.”

“Endure,” Dios said thoughtfully, “not win.”

“Precisely. We need only hold out. My scouts tell me that their forces are moving south from Segen towards the Gloire Plains.”

“The Gloire Plains,” Dios repeated. “That’s where it’ll be, then.”

Margrave von Gurinda nodded. “I presume they are making for the Baum border. We will intercept them there.”

“Allow me to ride with you,” Dios said.

“No. I’ve another task for you. I want you to take two hundred men and meet Elizabeth at Fort Alt. It’s hardly impenetrable, but it’s the best protection I can offer. Barricade yourselves in there if you have to. Whatever it takes to buy time.”

Fort Alt lay on the border between Gurinda and Baum, but as it virtually never saw military use, it was barely fit for purpose. It maintained a garrison of fewer than a hundred men, and its facilities were in dire need of repair. Margrave von Gurinda had indeed allowed peace to make him complacent. Still, Dios could not find it in him to criticize the man. Such behavior was not unusual out of wartime, and the margrave had spent his resources on benefiting the people rather than lining his own pockets.

“I can only apologize,” the margrave said. “Had I been more diligent, things would not have come to this.”

“We were the ones to arrive uninvited on your doorstep,” Dios replied. “If either of us owes the other an apology, it’s me.”

It was them who had brought trouble to the margrave’s door. If von Gurinda cared solely for his position, he could have simply handed over Liz and been done with it. Instead, he had chosen to fight, even knowing they had no chance of victory. Dios owed him more than he could ever repay.

“My thanks for your candor,” von Gurinda said, bowing his head.

“Think nothing of it,” Dios said. “If my lady were here, she would say the same.”

“You are gracious indeed.” No sooner did the margrave raise his head than he immediately lowered it again. Dios waited, but the man showed no sign of looking up.

Eventually, he decided to change the topic. “What will you do now?” he asked.

“I mean to ride forth as soon as I raise my men.”

“As you will, then. I ought to be away. The princess will not wait.”

“I will send a messenger ahead to Fort Alt. I implore you, keep Elizabeth safe and sound.”

“Do not doubt it. When next we meet...” Dios held out his hand.

Margrave von Gurinda grasped it with a smile. “With Elizabeth,” he said.

“Aye. I swear it.”

And so, vowing to meet again, the two men went their separate ways.

＊

The Third Legion’s encampment made for an arresting sight: a sprawling array of several hundred tents lying eight sel from the Gloire Plains. Within the dingy confines of the commander’s tent in the center, a man and a woman faced each other across a desk. The former cocked his head curiously as the latter pored over her book.

“Uranos?” he asked. “The Empyreal Sight?”

“That’s right,” said Aura. “Do you know of it?”

“Only as much as any man,” von Spitz said. “That it’s one of the three great arcane eyes. That it’s so rare, not even the álfar possess it. That the second emperor is the only known bearer, past or present.” He paused for a moment as something occurred to him. “Come to think of it, does Prince Stovell not have an álf among his retainers?”

“He does. We’ve spoken several times. I once asked him about Uranos.”

“The álfar are known for their long lives and great wisdom. I don’t doubt he had much to say.”

“It was very enlightening,” Aura agreed. “He said the Empyreal Sight had the power to divine the truth of all creation—heaven, earth, and man alike—and so control the battlefield. Criminally unsporting, he called it.”

“Might he have been speaking in jest? It’s hard to imagine a single eye could house such power.” Von Spitz gave a dismissive shrug but quickly wiped the look from his face once he saw that Aura was pouting.

“Emperor Schwartz had it. That proves it’s real,” she said sulkily. “And álfar don’t tell jokes. I think that’s convincing enough. Don’t you?”

Von Spitz was loath to lie to his mistress, but he didn’t want to argue with her when he had already put her in a mood. Choosing his words carefully, he said, “I meant only that the idea sits poorly with me. Would it not render tactics and strategy meaningless? Besides, as I see it, victory is not something to be seen with the eyes, but grasped with the hands.”

“That’s true, I suppose. It is man who seizes heaven, man who walks the earth, man who commands men. Just looking on makes you no more than a bystander. I’d still like to believe, though—that there really was such a thing as Uranos, once upon a time.”

Aura lowered her eyes to the map spread out on the desk. Von Spitz followed her gaze. Several pawns stood atop the map in various locations. She looked slowly across it, reminding herself of the lie of the land.

“Margrave von Gurinda has gathered nine hundred men, you said. Are you certain?”

“The Third has some of the finest scouts in the land, my lady,” Spitz replied. “If they say it is so, it is so.”

A province the size of the Gurinda Mark should have been able to field around three thousand soldiers, but with its communications network grown rusty over decades of peace, it was struggling to muster a timely response. Provided they didn’t grow complacent, von Spitz felt confident of a swift and sure victory. Aside from anything else, they had two thousand of the Third Legion’s finest in the Knights of the Royal Black.

“Has Margrave von Gurinda sent his reply?” Aura asked.

Von Spitz straightened and presented her with a letter, only recently arrived. “He refuses,” he said with a sigh. “Just as you predicted.”

Aura scanned the letter and nodded to herself. “Of course he does. I’ll dispatch a messenger tomorrow. Hopefully then we can smooth this over.”

“‘Smooth this over’?” Von Spitz could only assume he had misheard, but Aura’s face told him otherwise. “My lady...a moment, if I may,” he said, leaning wide-eyed over the desk. “If your intention was to make peace, what was all our strategizing for?”

Though the tent now sat empty, it had only recently played host to Aura’s officers and staff, all listening to her present her battle plans. What was the point in that, if she had never intended to carry them out? Come to think of it, what were they doing here at all?

Aura seemed perplexed by his confusion. “In case diplomacy failed, of course. All I ever wanted was to open a dialogue, but the margrave might have been too much of a fool to write back.”

“But...battle is almost joined, my lady. Are things not too far gone?”

“There’s still time. Imperial citizens shouldn’t fight one another. Not for such silly reasons.”

“I do not disagree, but...” Von Spitz trailed off.

He had anticipated this might happen—that his beloved mistress might balk at the final hurdle—and planned accordingly. Pretending to act under Aura’s orders, he had sent several units ahead into the Gurinda Mark with instructions to capture the sixth princess. Going behind Aura’s back made him uncomfortable, but it seemed his decision had been vindicated.

Just as the silence was about to grow awkward, a mud-splattered messenger tumbled into the tent. “My lady! It’s urgent!” he announced. “A force fifteen thousand strong is approaching the border from Lichtein!”

“What?!” Von Spitz stood up from his chair, his mouth open.

Aura’s hand stopped halfway through moving a pawn. “Tell me everything.”

“One of the units you sent to capture the princess reported in, my lady. They were lying in wait near the border when they spotted movement on the Lichtein side, so they sent out scouts. It seems they stumbled across a full-scale military operation.”

Aura’s eyes narrowed as the messenger finished. For his part, von Spitz thought his heart might stop as soon as the man mentioned the soldiers infiltrating Gurinda.

“Sir Spitz.”

Clearly, that point had not escaped Aura’s notice either. Her eyes flashed with anger as they bored into him...but then she shook her head and turned back to the messenger. This isn’t the time, she seemed to say.

“I’m sure you’re tired, but I need you to do something,” she instructed the man.

“Anything, my lady!” the messenger replied.

His enthusiasm earned him a smile from Aura. “Tell Margrave von Gurinda I want to join forces,” she said. “I’ll draw up the letter now.”

A pen and paper lay on the desk. Aura reached for the pen, dipped the nib into the ink, and began to write. For a while, the tent was silent but for her scratching. Once she finished, she looked up with an angry glare at von Spitz, who by then had collected himself and was debating whether he ought to apologize.

“By all rights, I should be furious about what you did. And I am. But I’ll excuse it.”

Von Spitz blinked. “My lady?”

“If you hadn’t sent those men to the border, Lichtein would have caught us unawares. So you’re excused. This time.”

“Do you truly mean it?” Von Spitz leaped to his feet with elation.

Aura shot him a glance as she handed her finished letter to the messenger. “But I still have to punish you or it will set a poor example. You will earn your forgiveness in battle.” With her piece said, she picked her book back up from the desk and resumed her silent reading.

Gazing at her fondly, von Spitz stepped up from his chair and fell to one knee. “I will not fail you, my lady,” he vowed, his voice swelling with conviction. “I swear, I will repay this kindness!”