VI
The bulk of the fighting had shifted to the Vilan Plateau, and Arthur, having pursued the rear guard thus far, commanded Argerion Gazakh and his mounted regiment to deal the final blow.
“I’m to finish them off! Oh, if that isn’t mighty fine of Arthur.” With a hearty cackle, he then turned to his regiment and cried, “Come on then! With me!” Raising his pike high, Gazakh set off at a gallop across the battlefield with his three thousand riders in hot pursuit.
“Out of my way, insects!” He cleaved through the royal soldiers who stood in his way, plunging fearlessly forward, deep into the enemy’s ranks. The enemy’s movement lacked all vigor, perhaps a sign that their fatigue from the battle thus far had reached its peak.
“Lord Gazakh! If we keep this up, we’ll have the rear guard’s commander’s head in no time!”
“That’s the spirit, Hills. But remember, it’s not just any commander’s head I’m after.”
Hills chuckled. “Oh, I know, ser. It’s the legion commander’s head you want, eh?”
“That’s right, which is why we’ve got to rout the enemy in front of us quickly and catch up to their main force while they’re running scared. I, Gazakh, shall be the one to slay the legion commander!”
“Yes, you shall,” Hills agreed. “You hear that, you whoresons? Hurry up and finish off this riffraff!”
The soldiers bellowed back their response and in no time, the enemy line broke before their onslaught. Not long after, Gazakh’s eyes landed upon a figure astride a black horse who appeared to be the enemy commander.
That’ll be the commander—wait, that’s their commander? As the distance between them narrowed, the figure came more clearly into view and, for a second, Gazakh was so transfixed that he forgot he was in the middle of a battle. Partly to blame was her otherworldly beauty, but more so than that was that she appeared to be a girl in her mid-teens.
“Hills! That’s definitely a young girl on that black horse, isn’t it?”
“If it appears that way to you too, ser, then my eyes must not be playing tricks on me after all. The Royal Army must be really far gone if they’re putting little girls in command of their armies.”
“Just so, Hills. Still, little girl or not, once on the battlefield— Eh? What is she doing?”
The girl, for some reason, rose nimbly to stand on her saddle, and then—
What?! She vanished?! No sooner had he thought it than the girl reappeared, standing at the base of his own horse’s neck with a smile on her face. It happened so suddenly Gazakh entirely lost his voice. Hills, who rode beside him, stared at the girl like he’d seen a ghost.
“Hey, you’re the commander of this regiment, right?” she asked.
“I-I am.” Such was the power this girl exuded that Gazakh replied before he could help himself. “How...How the hell are you standing on the back of a running horse like it’s nothing?” he demanded. As they were enemies, he figured she might not give him a proper answer. She certainly had no obligation to do so. Even so, Gazakh had to ask. Standing upon a still horse he could understand, but to effortlessly stand upon the back of a horse at full gallop was no ordinary feat. Not only that, but his horse moved as though unfazed by the weight of another person on its back. It was only natural that he had questions.
The girl laughed. “Oh, it’s because I’m using Featherweight,” she said breezily. There was nothing in her face to suggest she was lying, but “featherweight” meant nothing to Gazakh. He told her to explain herself, and she told him it was a technique that rendered one’s body as light as a feather. He would have scoffed at this if he had not had living proof in the form of the girl before his very eyes. It was so much that he trembled.
“Now, seeing as I answered your question, is it all right if I wrap this up?” The girl’s hand went to her sword. She drew it from its scabbard to reveal an ebony blade that emitted a dark mist. The moment Gazakh saw it, he was gripped by an unspeakable fear, and threw himself from his horse’s back.
“Guh!” In his haste, he couldn’t break his fall and he slammed into the ground chest-first. “Wh-What the hell is that?! That black mist, it’s like death itself given form!”
Faced with the girl’s mysterious powers, her armor with its appalling crest, the deathly blade swathed in black mist, and her inhuman beauty, the feeling of trespassing in a world not his own seized Gazakh tightly.
“Hmm. I don’t really know the answer to that myself,” the girl replied.
“What?!” Gazakh’s mud-splattered face jerked up and he saw the girl, her smile still in place. The only change was the ebony blade now gripped in her hand. Black mist continued to flow down its edge.
“So, are we done?” the girl asked, then caught herself. “Sorry, I mean, I’m going to kill you now.”
Gazakh let out a wild howl. There was no time to draw his sword. Jumping to his feet, he took aim at the girl’s jaw and cut up with his fist. He had once beaten a bear to death with his bare hands, which were hard as rock, but the girl caught the blow effortlessly with her left hand. There was a dull crack as his hand broke.
With a dull moan, Gazakh said, “How can you be so strong?!”
“Because I trained hard, of course.”
“You trained...?” Gazakh repeated slowly. “Impossible. You don’t get to that level through training. Are you some sort of monster?”
“Oh, that again. I’m not a monster, I’m Olivia.”
“I don’t give a damn about your na—” Suddenly, there was a whistle of something cutting through the air and the world flipped before Gazakh’s eyes.
“Bye-bye.” The girl’s farewell echoed in Gazakh’s mind as he was sucked down into darkness without end.
Olivia left the man as he sank to his knees and crumpled, gushing blood. Mounting Comet once more, she ordered Claudia to light the signal fire; then, her cape billowing behind her, she turned to her soldiers.
“We regroup into columns. The first column of heavy infantry will carry out a suppression attack. Light infantry in the second column, covering both offense and defense. Archers in the third column, four-stage deflection volleys. Now the counterattack begins!”
It was the third hour past the turn of the new day, and still the battle raged on.
“For a last, desperate act of resistance, I’ll be damned if they aren’t persistent...” Arthur muttered to himself. After that brilliant performance in the Galloch Canyon, he’d seen that the rear guard, at least, had a good commander, but that didn’t matter when the battle was already in Arthur’s clutches. All they had done was fractionally lengthen their life spans.
“Should I send in the next unit, ser?”
“No. We can’t waste any more time on this. Close in and finish them—”
“Commander!” A pale-faced soldier came running in. “The enemy is coming at us from the south!”
“A new enemy?” Arthur replied with a look of skepticism. “Surely the ones who escaped didn’t come all the way back.”
They would be sending all their labors up in smoke if it were true. Returning served no strategic nor tactical purpose. The whole thing was categorically farcical. Arthur couldn’t read their intentions at all. He wasn’t prepared for what next came out of the soldier’s mouth.
“It’s unclear if they’re the same force that retreated earlier, but they number around thirty thousand!”
“Did you say thirty thousand?!” Lasie exclaimed.
“Thirty thousand?” Arthur demanded. “Not three?”
The soldier shook their head emphatically. “Thirty thousand, ser! And they’re moving to encircle our forces with terrifying efficiency!”
“It can’t be...” Arthur said, mind racing. “That’s impossible!”
How could a force that had started off with fewer than ten thousand soldiers have returned with three times that number? The idea of reinforcements briefly flashed through his mind, but in that case, the far more logical course would have been to send them in from the start. He confirmed the particulars, but all he managed to learn was that the soldier wasn’t lying.
Turning the bad situation still worse, the encircled rear guard had not moved to retreat. Instead, as though in response to the force of thirty thousand, they had launched a counteroffensive. Arthur’s forces faced one attack from within, and one from without. This was ultimately none other than a pincer maneuver in a different form.
“Commander...”
Arthur made a noise of disgust. “What the hell is Aurion Baltza doing? If he were here, the advantage of numbers would flip back in our favor!” He stared with loathing at the ill-omened crest on the black banners and gritted his teeth. Setting aside the force they had surrounded, from what Arthur had seen, the enemy on their outside was relatively lacking in discipline. Three times he tried to break through the enemies that encircled them, but each attempt was thwarted. Whoever was giving commands must have been in possession of an extraordinary mind, for the enemy headed off all Arthur’s moves as though they knew what he would do before he acted.
No matter. Baltza—just get Baltza to us...
But Arthur’s hopes were to be dashed in an unexpected way.
“What...What did you just say?”
“Aurion Baltza was killed in battle. His army was decimated...” Smeared with muck and blood, the runner’s voice was flat. Lasie continued to ask the same question, his voice growing louder, but there was no change in the runner’s lifeless response.
Arthur, so assured of his victory until a few scant hours earlier, couldn’t accept what was happening.
How can I face Drake...? Arthur lashed out with his commander’s baton, trying to banish Drake’s smirk from his mind, and snapped it in two.
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