Final Chapter: I Wish for...
I
While Olivia and Felix were fighting off the Asura’s attack, a storm of death ravaged the Trival Wastes. Olivia’s preemptive strike, along with Lassara and the other mages’ work, meant that in the two weeks since the fighting had commenced, neither side had taken the upper hand. However, discipline had gradually begun to emerge from the chaos of the undead forces, causing the situation to change dramatically. The army of the alliance, their sole advantage neutralized, began little by little to find themselves forced onto the back foot.
Blood was not sitting idly by as this went on. He attempted a number of plans based on the advice of Special Officer Clarice, who was serving as his chief of staff, but none succeeded in bettering their predicament. The soldiers’ morale and strength only diminished. Then came news of a death that would be decisive for the rest of the battle. Everyone there felt an icy chill come over them.
“Thousand-Wing Amelia...”
“They say she took a great number of undead beasts and men with her at the last.”
“How awful. The blow to morale after the death of a mage will be unavoidable.”
“It was only with four mages that we just barely kept the undead beasts in check. With one of them down...”
The anxious voices of Blood’s officers rang in his ears. When Amelia had fought with the Second Legion she’d been proud to a fault, and yet strangely enough, the idea of her dying had never occurred to him. When he heard the news, therefore, it didn’t seem real.
“My lord—” Lise began, her expression hard, but she was cut off almost at once by Clarice, who pushed up her red-rimmed glasses with gusto.
“Looks like we’ll have to lay it all on the line.”
“You mean you have something in reserve?” Blood asked.
Clarice smiled a little. “Yes, though it is of the reckless variety.”
Blood had only known Clarice for a short time, but the Ashton-like schemes she had undertaken so far told him that she was not exaggerating.
“What is your reckless plan then?”
“It seems likely that the source of the undead’s newfound ability to fight as an organized unit is that army in black that hasn’t moved since the battle began.”
“You think they control the undead. What are your grounds?”
“Instinct,” Clarice replied without embarrassment. “Someone once told me that in battle, with death near at hand, you need not only intelligence but also instinct in order to survive. Hasn’t instinct ever saved your life, Commander Blood?”
He couldn’t say no. On the central front, when the Second Legion had fought alone, he remembered at least two occasions where some sense had struck him and, as a result, he had escaped some nasty situations.
“They say that in ancient times,” Clarice went on, “humans did not have language and so communicated through their senses. The price we paid for the gift of language was that our senses degraded. Thinking about it like that, one cannot simply ignore one’s intuitions as mere instinct.”
“So you think I should charge into battle with the army full of undead beasts? That’s pretty damn reckless.”
“Yes, that’s why I just said it was,” Clarice retorted, a note of impatience slipping into her voice. Though depending on your point of view, she also sounded like she might be teasing.
“But I suppose whatever we do, it’s only a matter of time until they crush us. Even if people do call me reckless, this is the only option we’ve got. Is that not so?”
Clarice gave no indication of agreement or disagreement. She only looked at him inscrutably.
Blood sighed. “If only your grandfather was still alive. Then it wouldn’t be my job to send us all off on this do-or-die scheme.”
Clarice was unperturbed by this misdirected sarcasm.
“I believe my grandfather died without regret,” she said serenely. “I expect he’s taking a leisurely nap in the land of the dead, all his worldly burdens lifted at last.”
“Us good-for-nothings put the old man through hell right to the end. I hope he’s at least, as you say, in the next world,” Blood said, then barked, “Colonel Lise.”
“Yes, ser!”
“I have orders for you...” Blood set about reorganizing his forces. He put the left and right armies into a horseshoe formation and deployed them in the center. After luring in enough of the undead, they would split off to each side, leaving a gap for the central force to charge through in an arrowhead formation. After they broke through the wall of undead beasts, they would close on the army in black.
Much of the plan was a gamble, and a single misstep would be fatal, but Lara and Lion had only looked at him with the same uncertain expressions and not voiced any objections.
Which will come first? Will we be overrun, or will there be good news from Olivia? Or else...
The left and right forces followed their orders dutifully, and before long, the path for the central force opened.
“Colonel Lise, if anything happens to me—”
“If that time comes, then I shall die at your side. If nothing else, you won’t be lonely.” She smiled at him. He couldn’t see any dark feelings in her face. Blood swallowed back everything he wanted to say and assumed a grim expression.
“Forward,” he said.
Claudia, who belonged to the central force, chose to throw herself into death’s jaws on the front line.
“Against so many undead beasts, you are impotent! You are in my way!”
“What the girl means, human, is that she wants you to go on ahead while she handles things here.”
“Pah! Don’t you try and read me, you trumped-up mutt! Forward! See your task through to the bitter end!”
Claudia indicated her thanks to Lassara, whose face was bright red as she worked her magecraft, and the enormous, strange beast who could understand human speech with a simple nod as she ran past them. The others of the former Eighth Legion followed in her wake. In no time, they broke through the undead beasts to where the undead soldiers awaited them in their ordered ranks, weapons in hand.
“Okay, hold on! No one told me they could use weapons!” came a screeching voice. That was Ellis.
“Too late to worry about that now. Onward!” Claudia used Swift Step to close with the enemy before anyone else. Her sword danced like an extension of her arm.
The battle quickly devolved into chaos.
“Oh, come on! No matter how many I cut down, they keep crawling out like maggots!”
Luke flicked off the chunks of undead flesh which adhered to his blade and said, “If you’ve got time to moan—”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up! Don’t go all high-and-mighty superior officer on me!”
“I am your superior officer,” he pointed out sensibly. Ellis ignored this, instead driving her sword deep into the right chest of another undead. Nearby, Evanson drove his own sword into another undead lying on its back, his shoulders heaving.
“We can’t keep this up forever,” he said. Ellis had only scathing condemnation for this defeatism.
“What, are you so desperate to make me laugh that you’re whining like a baby now?”
“Even if we survive this, we’re fighting a literal god. There’s no reason to think that after losing once, she can win this time.”
There was no need to ask who he meant. Ignoring the spurt of blood that splattered her face, Ellis grinned viciously.
“Oh, my idiot brothers really know how to make me smile. God, demon, it doesn’t matter. My big sister Olivia won’t lose to the same enemy twice.”
“As if anyone would believe that nonsense.”
“I believe it,” Ellis retorted, “because I love Olivia!”
Foster, his spear stabbing out in every direction, stared at Ellis as if to say, She finally actually said it?
“Even with all this, you lot are still—” Just as Claudia was venting her exasperation, a soldier arrived with some unsettling news.
“Lord Paul is here...”
Paul had fallen in Operation Twin Lions at Dawn. He couldn’t be here. Even as they all thought it, they all unconsciously turned to follow the soldier’s gaze.
One of the undead emerged from the crowd, approaching Claudia and the others with shambling steps.
“Ugh, that’s so not funny,” Ellis spat. Claudia found herself looking at what remained of Paul.
“The rest of you stay back. I’ll deal with this.” She turned to Paul, her sword at the ready. He let out a roaring noise no human could have made.
“Nigh!” Paul closed the distance between them in an instant, slashing down at her. Claudia dodged it by a hair’s breadth. If she hadn’t opened her Heaven’s Sight immediately beforehand, she would have been dead.
So Lord Paul knew how to use Swift Step too. No matter.
Paul came at her once more with Swift Step, but Claudia countered without so much as readying her sword. If he were the real Lord Paul, he would have immediately struck again as soon as I dodged, and I’d have been finished.
That meant one thing. This creature that left itself so exposed cannot be Lord Paul. With Heaven’s Sight, she saw her moment. She perceived the blade’s graceful arc with perfect clarity and thrust out across it to pierce Paul’s right chest with perfect accuracy. Her golden, glowing eyes met his, which were cloudy white. Paul collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
Claudia forced down the unbearable emotions that welled within her. Her allies watched her with worry in their faces.
“We just keep moving forward.” Her voice was flat. Once more, Claudia threw herself into the storm of death.
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