Shinwa Densetsu no Eiyuu no Isekaitan - Volume 8 - Chapter 5.2

The thirtieth day of the sixth month of Imperial Year 1026

Even as the Jötunheimite forces marched on Galza, the thought of its impregnable walls remained in the backs of their minds. They knew that the city would not fall easily. That said, after dealing the Nidavellirites a sound defeat and routing the despicable elites, spirits were high. They felt confident that no fortress could hold out against them for long.

For all their zeal, however, the attack on their camp during the battle had reminded them of the importance of restraint. They would not be so careless a second time. A fleet of siege weaponry trundled by their sides as they bore down on the city.

They did not expect what they found.

The city of Galza, unbreakable stronghold of the Nidavellirites, was burning. Pillars of black smoke arose across the town. Screams and cries swirled into the sky, where the wind carried them away.

The first word that came to mind was pillagers. Anyone who had spent long enough on the battlefield had seen this sight many times before. But this was no country village with only a fence to ward off bandits, or some town without a protective wall. It was Galza, safeguarded by the collective genius of its forefathers.

“What’s going on here?”

For a moment, Liz was overwhelmed by the scale of the walls, but her astonishment soon turned to confusion as she recognized that something was amiss. There was no sign that the city had been attacked from the outside, but its gates were wide open. The screams and bellows resounding from within only added to her bewilderment.

“Quite the mess, eh, princess?”

Skadi rode up from the Jötunheimite ranks. Her guards were grave-faced. The uncertain situation was putting them on edge.

“Skadi? Do you know what’s happening?”

“No more than you do. I’ve sent a few units in to scope things out. Better safe than sorry.” Although she seemed to be suggesting the possibility of a trap, her eyes said she didn’t understand what the point would be.

“Could Utgard have burned the city himself? Maybe he’s decided to move elsewhere?”

Skadi shook her head. “Where would he go? Ain’t nowhere better to hunker down than Galza.”

“Then the duchy, maybe? Could they have done this?”

“The border walls don’t quite compare to these, but Lichtein’s in no shape to go attacking it. And even if they did break through to Galza, they’d need at least a hundred thousand to take the place. Two hundred thousand, probably.”

Just then, a rider approached, with a cloud of dust trailing behind him. The red banner at his back identified him as a Jötunheimite messenger.

“Word from the scouting parties, chief. They say there’s no sign of enemy troops in the city, but the townsfolk are rioting. They’re the ones looting the place.”

“Bit noisy for that, don’t you think?” Skadi said.

Liz immediately understood what the beastwoman was getting at. Galza was mostly occupied by dwarves; any members of the other races had either fled conscription or been cast out for daring to resist. Either way, the city’s population had drastically fallen in recent weeks.

The messenger could not have realized what they were both thinking, but he replied anyway. “Seems the ones who ran to the neighboring towns got word of what was afoot and came back to the city. Eventually, they outnumbered the dwarves. That was when the looting took a turn for the worse.”

All the rage and frustration they had accumulated had been unleashed at once. Hatred could be a terrifying thing. It robbed people of their rationality, removing any reluctance they might have had to employ excessive violence. Left alone, they might come to after a while and descend into self-loathing, but when those around them were doing the same thing, it was all too easy for mob mentality to numb their faculties and push any guilt to the backs of their minds.

Skadi scoffed. “I don’t blame ’em for hatin’ the dwarves’ guts, but they ain’t any better themselves if they’re gonna burn and pillage.”

She brushed her hair from her face as she surveyed the city. Sadness filled her eyes, although whether it was for the townsfolk who had descended into brutality or the dwarves who had been unable to escape their violence, Liz could not say.

“We’re marching in. Someone’s got to put a stop to this. Tell the soldiers no looting, period.” After issuing orders to her aides, Skadi turned to Liz with an apologetic expression. “Sorry about all this, princess. War’s over, but my countrymen ain’t exactly making a good account of themselves. Never meant for you to deal with this, ’specially when you came to help.”

“Don’t worry about it. If there’s anything we can do to stop the violence, we’d be glad to lend a hand.”

“Appreciate it. Could you handle the humans? They’ll listen to their own kind better than to us.”

The riots would die down in short order. The townsfolk had already exacted their vengeance. Now that the Jötunheimites were here, they would no doubt make themselves scarce, fearing punishment. The bigger problem was the bandits and brigands taking advantage of the confusion to ransack the city.

“What do you plan to do if we find Utgard?” Liz asked.

“He’s powerless without Galza. ’Sides, even if he did make it back here, just look at the place. I wouldn’t bet on finding him alive.”

Skadi and Liz rode side by side as they followed the Jötunheimite vanguard into the city. The closer they came, the more intimidating its walls seemed—yet now, after what had happened to the city, their magnificence felt vain and hollow.

“How awful...” Liz whispered as they passed through the gate. Shattered glass lay strewn across the street, glinting in the sun. Blood ran between the cobblestones like water down a drainage gutter. The ground was dotted with dwarven bodies, all showing marks of violence. Other corpses lay nearby, covered in stab wounds, cut down fighting over spoils, most likely. The shops lining each side of the street had been gutted by fire, their insides picked clean. It felt like she had wandered into a war-torn ruin.

Shouts of anger rose from nearby, accompanied by the faint clashing of steel. The Jötunheimite troops must have engaged a group of bandits.

“It’s worst around the north gate. Seems that’s where the nobles had their mansions.” Having heard all of her troops’ outstanding reports, Skadi brought her horse back alongside Liz’s. “The bandits have taken it over. Lots of dead.”

“I can lend you soldiers if you need them.”

“No need. It’s only the dregs left now. Most of ’em scarpered the moment they heard we were on our way.”

The beastwoman grinned, but Liz could see that it was forced. Of course, forced smiles were likely to be necessary in the face of the trials to come. It would be next to impossible for the city to recover after being so thoroughly razed. Both financial challenges and peacekeeping difficulties lay ahead. It might have been better if the Jötunheimite troops had sacked the city instead; some of the soldiers may have run amok, but at least they would have claimed the spoils themselves. Now, however, there were no noble assets left to seize, and most of the pillaged goods would have already made their way outside the walls. Rebuilding a city took a vast amount of coin—coin they had hoped to take from the Nidavellirite upper classes, although the only candidate left now was Utgard’s palace, and even that did not look promising.

“Even this place didn’t escape the pillaging,” Liz murmured.

The palace’s iron gate had been torn from its hinges, and the ground inside was piled with Nidavellirite dead. The walls were splashed with blood. White smoke hung thick in the air; the fire must have reached even here.

As Liz and Skadi picked their way past the demolished gate, a Jötunheimite soldier came running out of the palace. “We’ve searched the inside, chief,” he said. “The treasury’s safe and sound.”

Skadi looked surprised. “It’s what?”

“Seems the fires only just died down. The looters mustn’t have had time to get to it.”

She fell silent for a moment. “Well, that’s a stroke of luck. Tell the soldiers to cart it out, and double the guard around the palace while you’re at it.”

“At once, chief.”

Relief filled Skadi’s face as she set about issuing orders to her soldiers and aides. Liz, however, felt more skeptical. How had the treasure survived unclaimed? Looters typically set fires after their work was done. Why had the palace been set ablaze before the treasury was ever opened? She was beset with doubts as she followed Skadi through the doors.

“It looked worse from outside,” she commented.

The entrance was miraculously devoid of scorch marks. It was only as they made their way deeper that the true extent of the fire became clear.

“Aye, you’re right. Something stinks.” Skadi’s nose twitched as she sniffed the air. She seemed to have noticed the same thing: the fire had spread outward from the heart of the palace.

“What in the hells?”

They stepped inside the throne room to find it littered with corpses, none of them intact.

Skadi squatted down in front of one of the bodies. “Clean cut. Someone lopped the poor bastard’s head right off. Looters? No, couldn’t be. Still got all his finery. Then why...?”

The palace was still littered with valuables. It seemed increasingly unlikely that it had been attacked by thieves. There was only one remaining possibility: whoever was responsible had specifically wanted to take the residents’ lives.

As Skadi rooted through the bodies, pondering, Liz approached the throne. On the way, she sensed the faintest lingering trace of a spirit. She reached out into empty space and grasped hold of it. It slipped through her fingers and vanished into thin air, but for just a second, she felt it—a baleful power, fearsome in might but laced with heartrending solitude. It was a power she had sensed once before, from the black-haired boy’s blade.

“You were here, weren’t you?”

Her steps resumed. Before the throne lay a prostrate corpse—a dwarf, judging by its size. Its clothes were burned half away and its skin was charred black. An acrid stench pricked at her nostrils, soothed only by the wind blowing in through the ruined window. Then she saw what lay upon the throne, and she quickly closed the rest of the distance.

“A lion in silver and gold... This must be it. The first emperor’s necklace.”

She looked around as she picked it up. Curiously, while the rest of the room was charred black, the vicinity of the throne was untouched.

“What were you doing here, Hiro?”

There was nobody to answer, only the gentle breeze through the window caressing her cheek.

“Throne got spared the fire, eh? Ain’t that a thing. Damned strange, though...” Skadi peered at the seat, evidently perplexed.

Liz could guess what had happened, but she was only able to offer a noncommittal smile. At that moment, a messenger burst into the chamber.

“Word for you, chief!”

Skadi brushed back her hair as she turned around. “What? And do you gotta shout so loud?”

“Lichtein’s crossed the eastern border! They’re invading Steissen!”

Skadi’s eyes widened. Her hand stopped mid-stroke. Her paralysis only lasted for a moment, however. She marched up to the messenger. “If it ain’t one thing, it’s another. How many?”

“Ten thousand, chief! But they’ve stopped at the River Saale!”

Skadi halted, crossing her arms beneath her voluptuous breasts. “The river? Why?”

The messenger nodded. “Seems the Nidavellirites were damming it, chief.”

“’Course they were.” Skadi sighed. “Bastards just had to pick now, eh? Almost like they knew what was coming.”

Liz’s eyes took on a distant look. “I think they did.”

She pressed a hand to her chest as her heart began to race. A black-haired boy had been here—a natural schemer, adept at deception. The thought of how close he had been filled her heart with fire.

Skadi peered back over her shoulder, oblivious to what was going through Liz’s mind. “What did you say?”

“He knew the Nidavellirite soldiers were going to leave the province, and there was going to be no one left to lead whoever was left behind. He watched, waited, and when the time came, he plunged the city into chaos.”

It was nothing less than impressive. How or why he had come to be here, she did not know, but where Galza could have fended off two hundred thousand soldiers, he had managed to take it with a single clever plan. His means had been brutal but undeniably effective.

“He took advantage of their confusion to wipe them out in one stroke. It’s one of his favorite tricks.”

Still, there had been compassion amid the cruelty. He had left the treasury untouched, no doubt to give the Jötunheimites the opportunity to rebuild. There was still kindness left in his heart—all the more reason that his broken soul was worth saving.

She cast her mind back to the promise they had exchanged. Emotions swelled in her heart, tender, kind, bittersweet.

“Hiro...”

Her fingers closed tight around the first emperor’s necklace, and she gazed at the throne as if she could still see him there.