VI
Travis’s messenger came with word that they had encountered an army of ghouls flying imperial banners. Cornelius did not stop to question the truth of the report. He sent a unit to aid them, then, without hesitating, he gave the order for all forces to retreat, and for a defensive formation to be assumed with all haste against the ghouls attacking from the east, centered around Lieutenant General Hermann, who excelled at defense. Cornelius made his announcement with speed and precision. But they were all but powerless against the ghouls that welled up like water released from beneath the earth. Their strength to resist was whittled away with every passing moment.
The First Allied Legion, Lambert’s Camp
The battlefield around him stank of blood and decay. Lambert swung his sword with everything he had, but there was no end in sight. As his unit fell back again and again, they were being driven into a corner.
“If it weren’t for the Lord Marshal’s quick judgment, I don’t doubt we’d have passed through the gate to the land of the dead long ago,” Grell said. Lambert agreed with every word. If Cornelius had ordered them to fight back to the last against the ghouls that had come out of nowhere, the best they could have hoped for was losing half their unit—at worst, it could have meant total annihilation. What little preparation they had managed was all that had prevented a bloodbath. And yet—
“Still,” Lambert muttered to himself, “it may only be a matter of time.”
“Now that won’t do,” came Grell’s rebuke from behind him. “Faintheartedness from our commander? I’ll have no more thoughtless comments from you.” Grell whacked his small shield into a ghoul that ran at him from the left, then drove his long spear deep into another that came at him from the front. This didn’t seem to bother the ghoul, however. Still impaled by the spear, it pressed forward, its vicious mouth gaping open. Lambert swung around to the ghoul’s right, then mustered every last drop of his strength as he brought his sword down on it.
“You mustn’t be too reckless,” he told Grell.
At length, the older man said, “This is a terrifying foe.” Lambert was taken aback. It was true that the ghouls who seemed to feel no pain as they attacked were terrifying creatures. But he had never thought the day would come when he heard those words come out of Grell’s mouth. Without thinking, he told him as much. Grell’s brow furrowed.
“Not because of how they look, or how they don’t care when they’re attacked. Battle is a noble thing, where you pit your body and mind against your opponent. I taught you that, my lord, long ago. But these things don’t have that. There’s nothing inside them at all. That is what terrifies me.”
Lambert nodded gravely. “In any case, running away is the only option we’ve got.”
The plains that stretched out around them without anything to obstruct his line of sight were not suited to defense. But if they could keep retreating east, they would reach a ravine known as one of the most perilous passes in Fernest. From how the ghouls had moved so far, Lambert didn’t think they were capable of fine-tuning their movements like a human could. He could only marvel at how Cornelius had immediately settled on east as the direction of their retreat.
Do these things never get tired?! No matter how much time went by, the ghouls’ ferocity never ebbed. Lambert’s unit was falling into the depths of exhaustion and despair. The only reason they were able to keep up some semblance of an organized retreat was thanks to nothing other than Lambert’s masterful command. And yet—
“Graaauuugh...” The crushing weight of numbers was beyond what they could make up for with skill. A ghoul dragged itself over the ground to rip with its teeth into Lambert’s thigh. With his mobility, his one advantage over the creatures, taken away, all that was left to him was the implacable call of death.
I always hoped to die on the battlefield. It seems my wish will be granted, though I wouldn’t have chosen ghouls for my final foe, Lambert thought. Even the gods enjoy their cruel jokes.
He let out a breath as deep as the deepest places in the earth, then raised his sword high above his head. In the same moment, someone behind him grabbed his shoulder hard. Lambert spun around and found himself staring into Grell’s exasperated eyes.
“What the hell?!”
“None of that. I never taught you to die without carrying out your duty.”
“I can’t run anywhere on these legs. I’ve decided to die here, so leave me be.” Lambert turned his back on Grell, then raised his sword again.
“That’s nonsense. If your legs fail you, you crawl out of here.”
“I am a general! As if I’d disgrace myself like that! Grell, you get out of here!”
Grell was quiet for a moment. “You will not run, ser?”
“How many times do I have to say it?!”
“Then this is how it must be.” At the same time as he took in these final words from Grell, a sharp pain shot through Lambert’s neck.
“...Grell, you...bastard...” As his vision faded to white, the last thing Lambert saw was Grell’s face, set hard as iron.
“A student’s got no right to die before his master,” Grell muttered. He called over a few soldiers who stood nearby and ordered them to take Lambert and flee. Then, he turned to the ghouls, longspear in hand. To the soldiers behind him, he shouted, “From here on, it’s a one-way trip to the land of the dead. Are all your affairs in order?”
“Like you need to ask,” grinned an old soldier. “I’ve long since sorted that out.”
“I’ve been waiting for this day,” said another, twirling the blade that had carried him across the continent with the dexterity of an acrobat. “Now, at last, I can share a cup with our comrades who went on before us.”
By some miracle, the soldiers Grell had brought to battle with him were all there, with not one face missing.
Grell looked at them with a fearless grin. “Come, then. To the ends of life itself.”
The band of old warriors who numbered not even twenty set off, first at a walk, then gradually gathering speed until by the end, they surged forward like wildfire. Their battle cry drowned out even the awful moans around them to ring through the darkness of the battlefield.
The First Allied Legion, Neinhardt’s Camp
“Don’t fool yourselves into thinking that you can take the ghouls on! Just focus on running!” Even in the jaws of death, Neinhardt’s sword never stopped moving as he barked commands. Katerina came up to him, her sword coated in grime and her breathing heavy. Her expression was agonized.
“General, Lieutenant Colonel Tabitha’s unit has been cut off. She is requesting aid.”
“Much as I’d like to oblige her, I don’t have the soldiers to spare. We’ve got our hands full ourselves...” He was effectively telling Katerina to abandon Tabitha’s unit, but Katerina said nothing to object. Of the six thousand soldiers who served under Neinhardt, only four thousand remained. When it came to surviving battle, nothing mattered more than experience. But even the keenest minds and most adept swordsmen among them might as well have been helpless babes when up against such a strange foe as the ghouls.
The trade of life and death went on unabated.
“Damn!” A swarm of ghouls rammed into Neinhardt, bringing down him and his horse both. He tucked in his limbs to roll, making sure his legs tangled in those of the ghoul that bore down on him to drag it down too. He was on his feet again straightaway, only to see the unit that formed the core of their defense disappearing under a wave of ghouls. A disgusting hand reached toward Katerina’s back. Neinhardt took it off with an upward stroke of his sword, then took the reins of a horse that cowered nearby and mounted up. He held out a mud-smeared hand to Katerina.
“But our allies, they’re still...”
Neinhardt gave the slightest shake of his head. “I’m sorry you were saddled with such a good-for-nothing commander.”
“That’s not—!”
“Take my hand.” Katerina held out a shaking hand. Neinhardt gripped it tight, then pulled her up behind him on the horse. “Hold on tight, and make sure you don’t fall off.”
“Yes, ser...” Katerina wrapped her arms tightly around his middle. They felt even thinner than they looked, and even through his armor he could tell how badly she was shaking.
“Let’s go!” Neinhardt squeezed with his legs and flicked his reins, and the horse answered its new master, racing away from the precipice of death. The horse galloped along at a swift pace, and soon they left the cacophony of screaming behind them. Perhaps it was the work of some animal instinct for survival.
The icy knife of the wind sliced mercilessly into Neinhardt’s body and his heart. Rivulets dripped from his hands as they clenched his reins, adding to the ever-growing red stain on his horse’s back.
The First Allied Legion, Main Command
“Did Lieutenant General Travis’s unit make it away safely?”
“Yes, ser. It seems he was able to withdraw successfully.”
“What about General Lambert and Major General Neinhardt’s units?”
“Both have taken heavy losses, but from what I hear, it has not impeded their retreat.”
“Thank you.”
“Ser! I will leave you here, Lord Marshal!” The messenger left the camp at a run. Cornelius watched, internally letting relief wash over him. Then a voice came from behind him, cool and collected. It was Paul’s aide, Brigadier General Otto.
“Lord Marshal, Lieutenant General Hermann’s unit appears to be barely holding on.”
Cornelius raised his spyglass. A raging mass of ghouls closed on Hermann and his soldiers, forcing them back. Cornelius made his decision swiftly.
“Send Colonel Sachiel to him at once.”
“That will mean weakening your protections, my lord,” Otto replied without hesitation, taking a step forward.
“Lieutenant General Hermann’s unit is the linchpin of our defenses. If he breaks, it will be the first link in a chain that ends in our destruction. I know you know that, Brigadier General.”
Otto hesitated. “I’ll send him at once, ser,” he said at length.
Sachiel and his battalion of two thousand heavy infantry departed in haste to provide reinforcements. With this, the only forces remaining around the main camp were the battalion of two thousand light infantry under Paul’s direct command, Cornelius’s personal guard, and the three of Fernest’s Ten Swords who were there as his protection.
“Running a little low on people to look after you, don’t you think?” Paul said wryly from beside Cornelius.
“I’m not yet so decrepit that I need a caretaker,” Cornelius retorted, stroking his thick white beard with an exaggerated scowl. Paul was only poking fun because he was worried about Cornelius, and Cornelius only responded so theatrically because he knew it. At the same time, the younger officers who only knew them as superior and subordinate all looked tense.
This is where it will all be decided. Cornelius took out a pocket watch engraved with a leda leaf—the coat of arms of the House of Gruening—and opened it to check the time.
“Well. A few more hours, then...” he murmured. “Any word from the Eighth Legion?”
“None, ser. They are probably still engaging the Azure Knights.”
“I see. That may well be so.”
The Eighth Legion’s opponent was the empire’s most powerful knight order. They had Olivia, but even then, he did not expect victory would come easily. Of course, what has befallen us might have fallen upon them too...
Everything he had seen in Claudia’s reports proved that Olivia also possessed a strong gift for command. She would know when it was time to withdraw.
“You have nothing to worry about where Lieutenant General Olivia is concerned, Lord Marshal,” Paul said in a voice brimming with confidence. Cornelius couldn’t help but frown.
“You’re acting like a doting old fool again.”
“You’re one to talk,” Paul replied. “In any case, the one saving grace is that the Crimson and Helios Knights haven’t gotten involved.”
“It might be less that they didn’t and more that they couldn’t.”
“Looks that way to you too, then, Lord Marshal?”
“Those ghouls are supposed to be on their side, but they were clearly rattled.”
Paul had had an inkling of this too. If the ghouls were part of a larger tactical plan, things could easily have been dire for the First Allied Legion. The reason they were still just holding the creatures at bay was of course in part the result of Cornelius’s leadership, but more importantly it was the lack of any order to the attacks. Despite being gifted this excellent opportunity, Rosenmarie and her soldiers had immediately abandoned their game and retreated back to Kier Fortress—something that only made sense if the imperial forces stationed at the fortress had been unaware of the ghouls’ existence.
“Ghouls or not, it’s impossible not to see that they used to be people. Do you think the empire has been working in secrecy to develop this godsforsaken atrocity?”
“The empire’s technological innovation is advanced, but even then, I doubt they are capable of this. Look at it from another angle altogether, however, and you realize there is a power known to us since long ago that could have brought this about.”
“You mean mages...” Paul said at length, his face clouding over. Cornelius nodded gravely.
There was an outbreak of excited muttering from everyone around them. Back in the age of warlords, Paul had fought a mage from a minor nation who could manipulate clumps of earth. After a grueling battle he had fought them off, but to this day he bore a great scar on his back from that battle.
“I agree, the so-called hands of the gods are a real possibility,” Paul went on. “Only that would mean a powerful mage has allied themselves with the empire.”
“There’ll be time to give the matter due consideration once we get through this.”
“If we get through this...” Paul looked over at where Hermann’s forces fought, repeating the same words over in his heart.
The First Allied Legion, Hermann’s Camp
With the main camp half in ruins after being overrun by ghouls, it could no longer function as the center of command.
“Alma’s unit of fifteen hundred troops has been destroyed. We can no longer hold the front line. General Hermann, you at least...ought to flee...” The soldier fell face down in the dirt, already gone. Hermann, breathing heavily, could say nothing back. His attention was focused on driving his sword through the right side of the chests of the attacking ghouls. He dodged, occasionally taking a step forward. In the course of stabbing so many ghouls that he’d dulled the edge of his blade, his suspicion had solidified into certainty.
I knew it. He shook hard to dislodge the ocher fluid that clung to his blade like a bad grudge, then, without pausing to catch his breath, he looked at Louis. “Their weak point is—?!” Right in front of his eyes, a ghoul tore out Louis’s throat, following him down to the ground in a great spray of blood.
“Gene...I don...wa...die...” Ghouls climbed over each other to swarm over Louis. Slipping out in between their hideous groans, Hermann could hear a mixture of screams and sobs. But Louis was beyond his help now. No one could escape their fate once it was sealed.
“Damn it all!” With the shreds of Louis’s dying screams filling his ears, Hermann found himself momentarily rooted to the spot.
“Ng...gah!” Pain cascaded through him like lightning. He looked down and saw a ghoul that was only a torso with its teeth buried in his left ankle.
“To hell with you!” He shifted his sword grip, then stabbed straight down through the right side of the ghoul’s chest. Straightaway, another jumped on his back. He threw himself backward, slamming it into the ground beneath him. There was an unpleasant, sticky sound, followed a few seconds later by a stench that turned his stomach. Hermann rolled along the ground until he reached what remained of Louis after the ghouls’ teeth had torn him apart and devoured him. Then he started. As though to take advantage of his momentary opening, a ghoul, its gaping mouth stretching still wider, came scuttling toward him on all fours with unbelievable speed. Hermann roared at the top of his lungs—then, without even reaching for his sword, he drove his clenched fist into the ghoul’s open mouth.
“Suck on that!” he bellowed. The sound of screaming bone rang in his ears as his fist struck the ground. Without pausing for breath, he drew his knife and stabbed it into the creature’s chest. Once he was sure it wasn’t moving, he slowly drew back his fist, then sat back heavily. Didn’t think I’d be caught off guard twice... he thought. I suppose this is the end of the road for me. Forgive me, Marshal Cornelius, General Paul, for giving out here.
His consciousness was fading when a young soldier came dashing over and heaved him to his feet.
“General Hermann! Get on my back!”
“Don’t bother...” Hermann murmured. “What’s left of my life is about to burn away...and I have vital orders... Your ear...”
“But ser...”
“Quick...ly...”
The soldier hesitated, then put his ear to Hermann’s mouth. After a moment, he said, “Understood, ser. I will make sure this reaches the lord marshal.” But Hermann could no longer answer him.
Hermann Hack, determined to remain a commoner to the last, was steadfast in his refusal to inherit the name of a noble house. Even many years after, in the village where it is said he grew up, a magnificent bronze statue in his likeness still stood.
First Allied Legion, Main Camp
Hermann’s forces had fought like lions until, when around half of the soldiers had successfully withdrawn, the units fell apart. Each of them had been balanced on the brink, and when one collapsed, the others followed one after another. In the midst of this, one of Lieutenant General Hermann’s soldiers appeared in the main camp.
“Lieutenant General Hermann was slain in battle.” With the soldier’s words, it was as though a great, icy shadow had fallen over the camp. “He entrusted me with one last message.”
“His last...” Cornelius paused. “Tell me.”
“Yes ser. The ghouls’ weak point is in the right side of their chest. Stab them there, and they stop moving.”
“Is that so...” Cornelius said thoughtfully. “You did well to bring this to me.”
Otto immediately spoke up. “I will command the rear guard. The two of you—”
“What, we should run away?” Paul finished his sentence for him.
Otto’s next words caught in his throat, but he recovered quickly. “The war does not end with this battle,” he argued. “What I meant is that we cannot afford to lose you.”
“That’s why we have to get as many soldiers out of here alive as we can.”
“Yes, and I am telling you that I will shoulder that duty!” Otto shouting was a rare sight. The corners of Paul’s mouth twitched.
“It’s been a long time since I saw this side of you, Otto. Takes me back to your squabbles with Lieutenant General Olivia.”
“How can you make light of a situation like this?!” Otto exclaimed. Paul laid a hand on his shoulder.
“These ghouls pose a threat greater than any other. If this really is the work of a mage, then the Royal Army has harsher battles still in its future.” Paul paused and gave Otto a warm smile. “But I am not worried at all. Because I know that despite all this, those who will lead the next generation have grown up strong.”
“With all due respect, ser, it is precisely because of the threat the ghouls pose and the harsh battles that lie ahead that now, more than ever, we cannot afford to lose either of you. I am begging you, ser. Please! Please give me command of the rear guard!”
Paul’s expression grew stern, and he gripped Otto’s shoulder harder. “In every age, it is the young who carve out new paths to the future. There’s no place left for old men.” Otto gritted his teeth, his face anguished. Paul patted his shoulder twice, then turned to the other old general, who had been quietly observing their exchange. “Do I have that right, ser?”
Cornelius, as though unable to hold it in any longer, burst out laughing. “Paul, you took all the words straight out of my mouth. I suppose that is that, then. I expect to see the God of the Battlefield in his full glory.”
“As you wish.”
“I hope you haven’t forgotten us, Lord Marshal.” The voice came from Solid Jung, Claudia’s father, speaking on behalf of Fernest’s Ten Swords. Cornelius’s expression changed, his eyes growing hard.
“You will return to the capital. You have a duty to protect King Alfonse.”
“In the interest of acting at His Majesty’s behest, I must humbly refuse.”
“I tell you again, you are to go back to the capital. If His Majesty knew the current situation, you can be sure he would tell you the same thing. I know his nature better than anyone.”
Solid’s gaze grew sharp, and a sly smile spread across his face.
“Indeed, you might be right about that. But at the end of the day, nothing you say amounts to more than speculation. Not meaning any disrespect, Lord Marshal, but I am not convinced.” When Cornelius only glared silently at him, he added, “Come now, there’s no need to be unkind. I know I’m rough around the edges and no great talent, but at least let me be your shield, my lord.” He put his left hand to his breast in a knight’s salute. The other two with him planted their swords on the ground. Apart from Solid, Fernest’s Ten Swords were not knights. They were masters of the blade. This gesture meant they intended to stay loyal to the end.
Cornelius looked at them with a mix of emotions in his face. “You’re impossible, every one of you...” he said helplessly. “Have it your way, then.”
“Yes, my lord. With your leave, we shall do just that.”
Cornelius then deployed his forces in a ring formation, then pointed them at the biggest gap and quietly gave the order to advance. The horde of ghouls flocked to the rear guard like moths to a flame.
Cornelius’s blade moved like water through the ghouls in his path. He was every bit the warrior he had been in his glory days. Ghouls attacked from every direction, but Cornelius moved with the lithe grace of a cat, sinking low to the ground, then spinning sharply like a top to strike with his treasured blade, Lemuria. There was a streak of blue, and a ghoul rolled away along the ground with its legs severed. Cornelius swiftly drove Lemuria through the right side of its chest, and the creature, which had squirmed like an insect, fell entirely still.
The knowledge that Lieutenant General Hermann died to tell us will not go to waste. His sword was at the ready again at once. Paul called over from behind him.
“Ah, this takes me back to when we were young men, swinging our swords side by side.”
“That it does. I wish we could have taken the time to drink and reminisce together about those good old days. But somehow things never worked out that way.”
“Without question.”
“But see here, Paul. The fire’s a little slow to kindle today, is it not?”
“Such harsh words, ser. Belated though it might be, I’m finally feeling warmed up. I believe I am ready to fulfill your lordship’s expectations.”
Paul turned to the nearest of the ghouls bearing down on them, then brought his blade down with a crack like lightning. In the same motion, he lowered his stance, faced the fresh ghouls that appeared in the gap between the last one’s severed halves, then used Swift Step of Thunderclaps. For every ghoul he sped past, there was a flash of steel. The creatures crumpled helplessly to the ground, holes stabbed clean through the right sides of their chests. His feet dug a groove into the ground as he skidded to a halt, a dozen unmoving ghouls strewn in his wake. Something like steam rose up from his body, coiling into a shape that strangely resembled the figure of some fierce god.
“The God of the Battlefield still lives,” Cornelius said. The art he employed was the opposite of Paul’s Swift Step—the art of illusions. He moved to press his back lightly to Paul’s, an indomitable smile on his face.
“I’m just getting started. The real fight starts now.” But despite his words, Paul was getting impatient. The ghouls were as mindless as their intelligence had suggested, but they were animated by something like an animal instinct.
The trouble was that while animals knew when to give up, the ghouls had no such instinct. So long as the weak point in their chests stayed intact, they were indifferent even to being torn limb from limb. In small numbers, they would be no threat, but over ten thousand of them was a different story. The Azure Knights, the empire’s most elite soldiers, would have been the easier opponent by far.
But that’s not the worst bit... Paul could feel sweat pouring unabated from his every pore. There was no point in making comparisons, but still, at the height of his powers he would have taken out twice as many with his last attack. Keenly aware of his body’s decline, he looked over at the members of the Ten Swords protecting Cornelius. Their defense was rock solid right down to the line, and they were covering for the gaps left by Cornelius’s personal guards. They live up to their reputation. He should be safe for the time being. It would take time to withdraw their full force. Paul gripped his sword harder. Just hold on for me until the retreat is complete...
A ghoul slipped by the line of guards, coming into striking range. Paul sent its grasping arms flying into the air in a single slash, then brought his blade back to stab it through the chest. A moment later, he had his sword free and once more used Swift Step of Thunderclaps. Paul bared his teeth in a ferocious snarl as he charged into the mass of ghouls.
Even with power running through every fiber of my body, it doesn’t make the weight of the years any less crushing.
Cornelius’s illusion technique was in how he moved his feet. He fooled his opponents’ eyes to make them give him an opening. The fact that it was working well enough on the ghouls showed that, like humans, they used their eyes to identify their targets. On the other hand, some ghouls had lost their eyes, while others didn’t even have heads. For the time being, their reactions were considerably slower than the more intact ghouls, but there was no doubt that they had picked up on his and the others’ locations. Sight might have been their main method of identifying targets, but it wasn’t the only one. Cornelius judged that they probably detected the sense of presence that humans unconsciously gave off. This was the reason for the heavy sigh that now escaped him.
Chances are, we are going to find ourselves in quite the bind... He did not have long to wait until his bad feeling became reality. Ghouls against which the illusion had no effect began to appear everywhere. Worse, he was struggling to keep up the technique which, like Paul’s Swift Step, burned through his strength like wildfire.
Nothing for it but to fight the old-fashioned way.
Cornelius dropped his illusions, simultaneously ducking to evade the fist of a large ghoul that came swinging at him. The rush of air buffeted the back of his head as he drove his sword between the creature’s legs.
“Groah!”
Lemuria carved up perfectly along its center line as Cornelius rent the thing in half.
“Next.”
Ghouls piled over one another with the momentum to crush Cornelius flat. He took a few short breaths, then slashed the air. Leaving a streak of blue in its wake, the crescent blade cut the ghouls to pieces. This was a true finishing strike, and one that could only be realized by Cornelius and Lemuria together.
“Joyous as that was to behold, my lord, methinks you put yourself at too much risk.” Solid cracked open the right chest of another ghoul, then moved smoothly to place himself in Cornelius’s blind spot.
Cornelius took a deep lungful of air. “If now is not the time for risk, then when is?” He forced himself to choke back the blood that rose in his throat, then raised Lemuria and stabbed at the next wave of ghouls.
A black stain spread across the land, encroaching further and further as the sun sank into the west. Like the concentration of all the evils of the world, it chewed through great names, mighty wills, and even human dignity in its all-consuming advance.
“Hrngh...” Cornelius grunted.
“Lord Marshal! Fall back, ser!” Solid’s voice jarred discordantly in his ears. Cornelius’s world warped around him as he looked down to where his right leg was being chewed to shreds.
“Right now, you might still make it... You must...fly. That much time I can buy you.”
“You’ll forgive me if I’m not in the mood for jokes, my lord.”
“Listen. I am in the grips of a fatal disease. No matter what happens, my time is...short...” This had revealed itself back on the central front, not long after they had driven back the Helios Knights. Learning at that moment that he did not have long to live, Cornelius had staked everything on Twin Lions at Dawn in a play to turn the tide of the war.
“But for now, you are alive. So long as you live, I mean to serve as your shield.”
“You confounded fool...” He picked up Lemuria in his remaining hand, using the sword as a cane to haul himself to his feet. As Solid maneuvered himself to cover him, Cornelius, in his heart, silently thanked him.
Some time passed. As he watched Solid sink into a roiling mass of ghouls, Cornelius summoned the last of his strength into his arm.
“RAAAAAAAAAGH!!!” The roar exploded out of him as he slashed apart the ghouls in front of him one after another, the arc of his blade flashing blue for a fleeting moment before fading away. He did not mean to drop Lemuria, but the blade tumbled from his hand, hitting the ground with a hollow clang. The ghouls came on in a savage advance. He no longer had the strength to resist. Yet every line of Cornelius’s face showed only calm.
“It was the smile you sent me to war with, Sabrina, that kept me fighting to the end. I was blessed with the best of wives.” He was silent for a moment. “Thank you.”
Cornelius thought of his wife cheerfully baking, and slowly closed his eyes...
Cornelius died at the age of seventy-two. No one in the generation to come would know his final words. But the great deeds of Cornelius the hero would grow into songs and epics, and he continued to be loved by many.
“Forgive me, Lord Paul, that I could not be at your side ’til the end...” The captain of the guard, the last of them still standing, drew in his final breath. Paul looked over to where Cornelius was, but the spot where the man once stood was already swarmed by ghouls.
You went on ahead, eh...? Paul thought back on what he had said, half joking, back at Galia Fortress. Cornelius, it seemed, had really honored it. Could anything be more like you, my lord? “I’ll be close behind”...?! All of a sudden, he found himself looking at someone who ought to have been long gone from that place. The fool! He cursed, jumping into Swift Step of Thunderclaps. Stabbing through the chest a ghoul just as it was about to dive on the other man, Paul bellowed, “What the hell are you doing here?!”
“The ghouls divided us, ser.” Otto turned back, his voice calm as he flicked a fragment of skull from his blade. “I ended up left behind.”
Not for nothing had Paul kept Otto at his side for twenty years. He saw right away that this was a total fabrication. At the same time, Otto knew that Paul knew. “Able soldiers will be needed in the days to come. You understand that full well, yet...” He broke off, then burst out, “You infuriating idiot!” A group of ghouls came at him, but Paul cut them down in a furious strike.
“Me, able? This is the first I’ve heard of it.” Otto drove his spear through the chest of the last ghoul.
Was it some ghoulish caprice? Their attention, if they had such a thing, seemed to focus on the corpses strewn over the ground. Paul and Otto took the opening to put some distance between them.
After catching his breath, Otto went on. “I don’t know how things stand for the Second Legion, but whatever struggles lie ahead, General Blood—and Lieutenant General Olivia—will overcome them. In short, my lord, I simply have faith in what you told me.”
Paul chuckled. “To think the day would come where I’d hear those words come from your mouth. Blood’s one thing, but imagine the girl’s shock if she heard you now.” He pictured Olivia’s face, her eyes wide in surprise, and smiled despite himself.
“While she did test me greatly, her successes exceeded all my expectations. Thinking back, I wonder if I wasn’t a little jealous of this girl who walked her own path without being bound by authority or custom... No, I know I was.” The face of the man, nicknamed the Man in the Iron Mask behind his back, lit up now in an unfamiliar, soft smile. It was a fresh sight, even to Paul.
“Then you should tell her that yourself.” He knew it was no good, yet still he asked without asking for Otto to reconsider. As expected, the other man answered with a crooked smile and a shake of his head.
“What about you, my lord? I believe Lieutenant General Olivia promised you cake, did she not?”
“I’m always in awe of the things those ears of yours catch...” Paul muttered. “In any case, I’ll content myself to wait ’til she’s lived out the rest of her days and comes knocking at the gate to the land of the dead herself.”
“I hope, when that time comes, I may join you.”
Paul nodded, then said gravely, “Otto Steiner, you are commanded to accompany your general, Paul von Baltza, to the land of the dead.”
“Ser!” Otto barked. “I never meant to do anything else.” He gave a grin, which Paul returned.
“Insolent to the bone, eh? That’s the Otto I know.”
The ghouls’ moment of caprice was over. They resumed their rampage through the living. Otto and Paul exchanged a silent nod, then turned to the torrent of death and charged.
Long after, the House of Baltza, said to possess the powers of warrior gods, remained shrouded in mystery. Many sources spoke to the deep affection Paul held for Olivia, but one theory posited that this was because the power Olivia possessed—the power of a death god—in certain ways resembled his own power. However, the veracity of this was never established. What was clear was the scholars’ agreement that if Paul had not placed the trust he did in Olivia, despite her rampant disregard for convention, her own hero’s song would never have been born. Viewed alongside his own battle record, there was no doubt that he had been one of the greatest men of that era.
The symphony dreamed up in the pits of the damned died away, and the bloodred sun sank below the horizon, leaving only a faint glow. The black of muck that stretched over the earth darkened further still, and hell’s servants paused in their work.
The year was Tempus Fugit 1000. Operation Twin Lions at Dawn, the Kingdom of Fernest’s great counteroffensive, had ended in failure. Seven for every ten of the First Legion’s soldiers escaped that battlefield, but the price they paid was inconceivably vast. A storm was brewing, greater than any before, ready to wreak destruction upon Fernest.
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