IV
The Second Allied Legion advanced toward Fort Astora. As the vanguard drew near to the pass that led to Fort Belganna, word arrived from Lieutenant General Adam, who commanded the unit bringing up the rear, that they had encountered a force of imperial soldiers all clad in black armor.
“I wasn’t expecting a counterattack, the situation being what it is...” Blood rubbed the back of his head tiredly.
“There seem to be around fifty thousand of them.”
“Fifty thousand?”
“Yes, ser. At this stage, there has been no sign of an ambush.”
“What game are they playing...” This imperial force had not even a quarter of the Second Allied Legion’s numbers, nor did the terrain around the location of Adam’s unit give them any special advantage. Blood only had to give the order to switch to the offensive, and he would be in an overwhelmingly advantageous position. As such, he couldn’t work out what the imperial army was trying to do.
“Lieutenant General Adam proposes that you push on for Fort Astora, ser.”
“And leave his unit to handle them alone?”
“I believe that is what he intends, yes.”
“Does he, now...” A battle ought to be avoided—that was Adam’s unsaid message. Blood well understood the implication there. Adam had judged that, even with the advantage of numbers, the wiser course here was not to engage. Adam had weathered many a battle as commander in the Second Legion, and his battlefield instincts were good. He might, therefore, have sensed a threat from the imperial soldiers in their black armor. With no reason to reject Adam’s proposal, Blood turned to where Lise sat mounted at his side.
“I would add my support to Lieutenant General Adam. An army of imperial soldiers all in black makes me uneasy...”
“That’s decided then. I leave it to Lieutenant General Adam to deal with them.”
If this turned out to be the rumored walking dead, he would have to ignore Adam and set the whole army against them. The fact that they all wore the same armor suggested the appearance of an unknown fourth knight order, but Blood thought simply evading pursuit should be well within the realm of possibility.
“Move out!” At Lise’s order, the Second Allied Legion began to march once more toward Fort Astora.
Nearly four days had passed since the Second Allied Legion had set out for Fort Astora after receiving Lieutenant Colonel Ashton’s report.
Blood pulled on his reins to stop his galloping horse as he sensed a faint presence coming from the stand of trees on his left. His personal guard swiftly fanned out to protect him, drawing their swords. The air grew thick with tension, but it soon dissipated.
“Isn’t that...” muttered Lise, her eyes narrowed. Pushing her way through the undergrowth came a woman whose face Blood knew. A memory flashed through his mind of a woman standing tall and proud with the Valedstorm banners behind her. Her hair was a different color, but this was Ellis Crawford, whose performance as Olivia’s double had rescued the Second Legion from the brink of defeat.
Behind her began to appear a train of soldiers in the armor of the Royal Army. Every one of their armor was drenched in crimson. Blood, seeing that one of the largest among them carried a blond-haired youth on his back, scratched his head.
This line of work’s getting reaaaal hard to stomach... The youth, his face utterly bloodless, was unmistakably that of the Eighth Legion’s young tactician: Ashton Senefelder.
“It can’t be...?!” Lise’s small exclamation was almost a whimper.
Ellis came plowing through Blood’s guards, shoving them aside. Once before Blood, she clicked her heels together and announced, “Second Lieutenant Ellis Crawford reporting, ser. By your leave, General Blood, I would like to ask why it is that we find you here?”
Her hand was raised in a salute. Her courtesies and manners were all in order. And yet every word she spoke overflowed with rage—rage that Blood knew with certainty was directed at himself. It was immediately apparent to him that something had gone wrong for the Eighth Legion.
“Calm yourself, Second Lieutenant. We’ve been totally in the dark here.”
“I am calm, ser. But with all due respect to you, General, we are the ones who’ve been in the dark.”
“Ell— Second Lieutenant!” A young soldier whose features bore a strong resemblance to Ellis’s rushed over to call her off, but walked right into a textbook-perfect elbow blow to the solar plexus. He sank to his knees, groaning. Ellis, as though there had been no interruption, smiled coldly at Blood.
“Lieutenant Colonel Ashton remained at Fort Tezcapolis on your orders, General Blood. Now this is the result. So I will ask again—what is it that keeps you here, rather than heading to Fort Tezcapolis?”
Lise looked as though she was about to cut in, unable to watch any longer, but Blood stopped her. He was starting to form an understanding, however vague, of what had befallen Ellis and the others.
“First things first. I didn’t order Lieutenant Colonel Ashton to stay at Fort Tezcapolis. My orders were for him to make for Fort Astora with all haste.”
Ellis stared at him. “Say what? What the hell are you on about? You’ve lost me.” Gone was any effort to address him as a superior officer.
“How dare you!” burst out one of the guards. “Who do you—” Blood stayed him with a gesture, then ordered them to take custody of Ashton’s body. All the soldiers before them were gray with exhaustion, but the one carrying Ashton in particular looked as though he might collapse at any moment.
“Don’t you touch him!” As the guard tried to take Ashton, Ellis grabbed at him like a threatened wolf. But her hand never found its mark. Instead, the guards seized her and pinned her to the ground.
“You sons of bitches! Get off me! Get off!” she shrieked.
“Are you out of your mind?!” The guard captain looked as though he might put his sword through her skull then and there.
“Leave her,” Blood told him.
“But ser!” The captain began to protest, then stopped. “Understood.”
Leaving him glaring at Ellis, Blood turned to the other three. “Does someone capable of talking sense want to take over for her?”
“I... I’ll tell you what happened, ser.”
“Name?”
“Evanson... Captain Evanson Crawford, ser.”
“The little brother, eh? That was a neat elbow she got you with. You all right?”
“I’m fine, ser,” Evanson said, getting shakily to his feet. Then, he began to relate what had occurred at Fort Tezcapolis. He told how, after hearing out the messenger, Ashton had remained behind at Fort Tezcapolis with five hundred soldiers. How the imperial army’s ambush had fallen on them with uncanny timing. And how it had become clear that their objective was Ashton’s death.
“We did everything we could to allow him to escape, but...” A look of agony contorted Evanson’s face, and he trailed off, his fists shaking.
“Thank you, soldier,” Blood told him. “As I said, there was no order to stay put at Fort Tezcapolis from me. Which leaves only one plausible explanation—the messenger gave Lieutenant Colonel Ashton incorrect orders.” He swiftly went on to explain that the messenger’s actions had been deliberate.
Evanson was visibly shaken. “Deliberate?! Commander Blood, are you suggesting that the Eighth Legion’s messenger betrayed us? That’s absolutely impossible. The messenger to whom the letter was entrusted was trustworthy. That’s why Lieutenant Colonel Ashton entrusted it to him.”
“Nothing is absolute. You live in this world. Surely you must know that well enough.”
“But—”
“Hold on, let me finish. That messenger—he called himself Private Edwards, I believe. Well, I spoke with him myself, and I definitely didn’t sense any hint of treachery—at least, not while he was here.”
“Do you mean to say, Commander Blood, that he had a change of heart on the road?”
“That is what facts suggest.”
“That is absolutely impossible!”
“What did I just say about absolutes? But this time, it’s quite possible it wasn’t deliberate on his part.”
“Now it wasn’t deliberate? What does that mean, ser?”
“I mean someone else might have manipulated his mind.”
“Manipulated? But that’s too...too fantastical to be true.” But despite Evanson’s protests, Blood could clearly see he was exploring the possibility. His open-mindedness told Blood that this was an able young man.
“Was there anything off about Private Edwards when you saw him?”
“I was there with Lieutenant Colonel Ashton to hear his report, but I didn’t notice anything especially...” A frown flickered over Evanson’s face as he spoke. Blood didn’t fail to notice it.
“So there was something.”
“Not exactly something...” Evanson hesitated. “I remember he was unusually pale. At the time I wrote it off as exhaustion from the long ride, though Lieutenant Colonel Ashton did seem a little uneasy. But that was all.”
“Well, that does seem like it might be nothing. But now that, of all the ridiculous things, the dead themselves have risen, we need to consider every possibility, don’t you think?”
“I see your point, ser,” Evanson said at length.
“You sound as though you understand, but you’re not convinced.” Evanson kept quiet, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, which had rather the effect of eloquently proving Blood right. “But then,” he went on, “whether you’re convinced or not, Lieutenant Colonel Ashton will still be dead.”
Evanson gasped. “That is no way to speak, ser!”
“How about I shed a tear or two, then? Would that convince you, Captain?” Blood said, fixing Evanson with a fierce stare. The younger man looked away, shamefaced. “We are at war. I can’t afford to lose sleep over every death, no matter whose it might be, and if you’re going to wear that captain’s badge you’d better stop deluding yourself.”
Suddenly, Blood heard a low laugh. He turned, and his eyes met Ellis’s, staring at him out of her mud-splattered face.
“As expected from the supreme commander of the Second Allied Legion. Not a shred of mercy. You may count Ellis Crawford very much impressed.” Even pinned to the ground, she spoke with heavy sarcasm. Blood gave her a crooked smile.
“If we’re done here, you can go join the rear ranks.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll gladly get out of your hair,” she shot back. Then to the guards, she snapped, “Get off me already!”
Blood’s guards released Ellis, who left with the other men following her, a complex mix of feelings on their faces. Blood let out a small sigh and set about rummaging through his pockets. As he did so, Lise turned to him with a troubled look.
“The way you handled them was very...you, ser,” she said, “but are you sure that was the right way to do it?”
“That lot are angry with themselves for failing to protect Lieutenant Colonel Ashton. They know it too. I just hope by chewing them out like that, I managed to distract them a little.” He lit a drooping cigarette.
“I don’t know.” Lise shook her head. “This is why I can’t leave you alone.”
“Hm? I can’t hear you when you mumble.”
Lise turned so that she was in profile to him and cleared her throat. “In any case, Lieutenant Colonel Ashton’s death is a terrible tragedy. Worst of all, when the other two find out...”
Blood didn’t have to ask the identities of the other two Lise spoke of.
“Colonel Claudia is just as crucial a figure in the Eighth Legion as Lieutenant Colonel Ashton was. Now that we’ve lost him, we cannot afford to lose her too.” The mental and the physical were closely interlinked. Even if Claudia were in peak condition physically, a disturbance to her mental state might render her totally incapable of carrying out her duties as an officer.
“Claudia has a strong heart. I know that better than anyone. Even so, I could see her being overcome by sorrow. That being so, ser, may I have your leave to go to her for a short time, to comfort her in her grief?”
Blood was silent a moment. “I should be asking you. Are you sure?”
“Leave it to me, ser. It’s my duty as an old friend,” Lise said proudly, only a hint of sadness in her smile. No matter what I do, I’ll never be as good as her, Blood thought wryly.
“That just leaves Liv...” He stared at the smoke drifting up into the sky from his cigarette, thinking about Olivia. Watching her from day to day, one could be tricked into thinking that she didn’t even know how to be sad. But perhaps that was only because real sadness was something she had yet to experience. Even with her immeasurable strength, even if the imperial army had named her the Death God, she was still a sixteen-year-old girl.
Really, the best thing would be for Colonel Claudia to break it to her as her aide, but that won’t work this time. I can’t even guess what she’s up to in the imperial capital with the Azure Knights, but when she gets back, I suppose I’ll have to tell her myself... His cigarette had turned almost entirely to ash. Lise looked at him with worry on her face. To try and hide the strange awkwardness he felt, Blood gave an exaggerated shrug.
“I really drew the short straw, eh?”
“You have my sympathies, ser.”
The Second Allied Legion changed course three times on the way to Fort Astora.
“Snow...” Lise murmured to no one in particular as she looked up at the sky. It came down in flurries from the thick clouds, robbing them not only of warmth, but even of spirit. Beside her, though it was already as high as it needed to be, Blood pulled the collar of his military trench coat up around his neck.
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