by Hyougetsu
“Direct hit! You’ve taken down four soldiers! Five now! Six!”
It looked like the gun was hitting, even if I couldn’t see a thing.
“Veight, move the barrel a little down and to the right!”
“Ah, I’ll show him the point on the map!”
Lacy hurriedly updated her map while also making it three-dimensional. Trusting in Kite’s judgment, I adjusted the gun and continued cranking the lever. Each of the countless bullets the gatling gun fired had enough force to tear off a person’s limbs. And the gun itself was fully automatic. This was one hell of a deadly weapon. However, it ate through mana at a prodigious rate, and before long the bullets began to dim.
“I need a mana resupply!”
“Use mine. The barrel should be warm enough for now.”
Parker stopped warming the gun and started pouring his mana into it. Within seconds, the shots of light regained their lustre. In that short time, the enemy had already made it to within a few meters of the castle walls. The members of the mage corps swapped from sniping to luring enemies close and bringing them down at point-blank range. Fortunately, there were so many targets that they didn’t need to aim much. Meanwhile, the regular soldiers hurriedly restrung their crossbows for the next volley. They had to brace the bow with their feet to pull the strings back so even the fastest of them couldn’t reload very quickly. During the time they were reloading the spearmen pressed forward and tried to tip over as many siege ladders as they could. Unfortunately, the enemy had managed to get quite a few latched on, and the covering fire provided by Prince Woroy’s archers started doing significant damage to the spearmen. There were so many soldiers swarming around the base of the castle that I didn’t even need to aim. I could just start mowing squads down.
“Take this!”
I started shooting into the densest clumps of enemies. At the same time, I began pouring my own mana into the gun as well, in order to keep it fully charged. I’d already concluded that I wouldn’t need to transform to end this fight, so I saw no need to hold any of my mana back.
“Veight, enemy reinforcements coming from the left!”
“Got it!”
The moment I swung the barrel around, a new knot of soldiers burst out of the woods. It looked to be a platoon of infantry. My hail of bullets tore through them, ripping them to shreds. In seconds, half of the men were down. Ignoring the rest who’d turned and ran, I switched targets to another densely packed squad of soldiers. Even as I fired, I kept an eye on the situation and continued giving orders.
“One of you messengers run to the south wall and see how they’re doing! Hamaam, you go guard the east wall! Monza, you take the west!”
I had no idea how long I’d been fighting. It felt like it’d only been a few seconds, but I was certain it must have been more than that. Before I knew it though, there were no more enemies assailing the north wall. Wounded soldiers groaned in the blood-red snow while those who could still move ran for the safety of the forest. They’d lost the will to fight. Kite used his epoch magic to confirm how many people were left around the castle. After a few seconds, he sighed in relief.
“I don’t sense any movement... All the enemies attacking the north wall have retreated.”
“Perfect.”
It was possible they’d regroup and launch a second assault, but we’d at least managed to buy ourselves some time.
“Mage Corps, take a short break to catch your breath! But remember to stay vigilant!”
A person’s mana recovered faster when they weren’t panting. Most of the mage corps stationed on the north wall had burned through all of their mana, and I’d need them to get as much back as possible if the battle continued. I left Kite in charge of the north wall and ran back to the south wall.
“Kite, if they attack again you man the gatling gun! Watch out for stray arrows!”
“G-Got it!”
Upon returning to the south wall, I discovered more than half of the mage corps here were out of mana as well. But at the same time, the enemy’s assault had weakened. The field below—which was still being illuminated by the mage corps shots—was littered with corpses.
“Good work, mage corps! Everyone too drained of mana to shoot step back and catch your breath! Have the corps stationed on the east and west send two platoons here each!”
For some time longer, this hellish battlefield continued under the bewitching light of the full moon. But once the enemy learned their detachment to the north had been routed, they sounded the retreat. Prince Woroy’s men were well-trained, and they carried out an orderly retreat in a speedy manner. Before long, the castle was silent. Wiping snowflakes off his face, one of the members of the mage corps turned to a nearby crossbowman.
“D-Did we win?”
“No clue...”
The crossbowman stopped reloading his bow and turned to me.
“Lord Veight?”
I strained my ears, making doubly sure that all sounds of battle had vanished. Kite ran over to me and nodded, confirming that everyone had indeed retreated. I puffed out my chest and said with a smile, “We’ve won, gentlemen.”
The soldiers stationed along the walls burst out in cheers.
The morning after the battle we went out to inspect the battlefield. We’d managed to avoid being breached, so our casualties were surprisingly low. We only lost eight men. All of them had been spearmen who’d had to lean over the walls to fight. There were a hundred more wounded, but thanks to the exceptional skills of the mage corps’ healers, all of them would survive. Furthermore, over half of the eight dead men came from the squad Prince Ashley had banished to us. They had truly given their all to protect this fortress. I hadn’t posted them to a particularly dangerous section of the wall, so their disproportionately large casualties were proof that they’d gone above and beyond the call of duty.
On the other hand, the enemies’ casualties had been staggering.
“About four thousand, huh,” Parker muttered softly.
“We found around two thousand corpses at both the north and south walls, so that sounds about right.”
The detachment that detoured around to the north wall had been small, so they’d suffered a greater percentage of casualties. It had been too dark to make out any specific details, but they’d probably fought harder than the troops attacking the south wall. In order to let my men rest, I’d asked Parker to take care of the corpses. He’d turned them all into zombies and had them walk away. Chances were they’d all reached the lakeshore by now. I’d wanted to bury them, but burials in a snowy field like this took a lot of time and effort. Though zombifying them wasn’t the most respectful treatment of the dead, I had no other way to return them to Prince Woroy. I guess I don’t have any right to lecture Master about her treatment of the dead now.
“Oh yes, Veight. Rigor mortis is beginning to set in, so I can’t move the corpses any further. Though the cold will at least prevent their bodies from rotting.”
“It’d be nice if their bodies weren’t picked apart by wild animals, but I guess taking care of them isn’t our responsibility. This is good enough. Thanks, Parker.”
I didn’t even know how many favors I owed him now. I felt a little bad for relying on him as much as I was, but he was just so dang reliable.
From what I could gather, Prince Woroy had sent around 20,000 men to attack yesterday. Of them, he’d lost 4000. Those casualties weren’t crippling enough to put an end to his army, but they were a significant blow nonetheless. Especially since Prince Woroy’s troops likely had low morale after that crushing defeat. They hadn’t even managed to make any strategic gains. My guess was Prince Woroy had around 26,000 men left in Creech Castle. His force was still a good deal larger than mine, and it’d be a serious threat to Eleora if he managed to get past us. My job was far from over. But what I didn’t realize at the time was that my victory here would have repercussions I couldn’t have predicted.
“Thank God Prince Ashley’s good about keep
ing correspondence.”
I smiled as I read through the letter that had been delivered today. It wasn’t a secret message but rather an official, public correspondence. Initially, I was afraid it had been intercepted and replaced by a fake, but the contents seemed genuine. Apparently, the nobles supporting Prince Ashley had finally started recruiting troops in earnest. They’d managed to raise a whopping 70,000 troops. I couldn’t even fathom what an army of that size looked like. Kite finished reading over the letter after I did, then cocked his head.
“Why’re they suddenly being so cooperative?”
I smiled bitterly and replied, “The answer’s simple: because Prince Ashley’s doing well. He probably used our victory the other day as negotiation leverage.”
Everyone was talking about how I’d repelled an army of 30,000 with just 7,000 men. Of course, the truth of the matter was that I’d specifically selected mostly mage corps members—troops skilled in defending fortifications—to stay behind in my army, and the force we’d fought had actually been only 20,000 strong. Still, the story made for good advertising.
“Seeing a Meraldian general win a decisive victory with Rolmund troops probably lit a fire under those opportunistic Rolmund nobles’ asses. They don’t want to be shown up, after all.”
“Haaah... Well, their help is coming way too late.”
“Tell me about it... If those nobles had sent that army sooner, I could have taken it easy.”
I had plenty of complaints about Prince Ashley’s supporters, but for now I’d gladly take the extra reinforcements. That being said, the army the nobles raised looked a lot more impressive than it was. Most of the 70,000 men were serfs with practically no training. They’d just been handed spears and crossbows and told to march. From the sound of it, they didn’t even know how to form battle lines. Prince Ashley stressed in his letter that I shouldn’t expect much from them.
However, it seemed my victory had stirred the heart of the populace, and a bunch of volunteer soldiers offered to protect the capital from the “evil Doneiks Family.” They were mostly amateurs as well, but it was still nice to know that we’d have more troops we could mobilize in case the capital was attacked. It appeared that Prince Ashley was quite popular with the common folk. Kite handed the letter over to Parker and Lacy, and the two of them leaned close to read it.
“They’re embellishing Veight’s accomplishments again, Parker.”
“That they are. Though this time the rumors are being spread by Prince Ashley himself. So these exaggerated accounts will end up in history books now.”
“I wish he wouldn’t do that. Eleora’s working way harder than I am.”
I showed Eleora’s letter to my fellow mages as well.
“She’s managed to whip Prince Ashley’s crappy army into shape and has already taken four castles. Two of them even surrendered without a fight.”
Kite looked at me in amazement.
“She sure gets fired up when it comes to war, that princess.”
“I guess she’s just happy to have someone she can fight without feeling bad about it.”
Apparently the members of the Kastoniev family that were supporting Eleora were doing a pretty good job themselves, too. I had no way of knowing for sure what had happened on the battlefield, but Eleora must have done something dramatic to get them all fired up. That was my guess, at least.
“Eleora’s making good progress toward Kinjarl Castle, which is where Prince Ivan is located. But she said she’s not sure if she’ll be able to return by spring.”
“That’s not good. If we end up fighting Prince Woroy on the open plains, we’ll get demolished,” Parker replied in a carefree voice. Once spring came the snow would melt and we’d lose our castle.
Still tired from the earlier battle, Lacy gratefully accepted the cup of tea Kite offered her. Tea was a luxury good out here on the battlefield, but it was important to let my comrades indulge in such luxuries from time to time or their morale would drop. Lacy took a sip of tea, then said, “Oh, but if Prince Ashley’s supporters have raised an army of seventy thousand, can’t we get them to come here instead?”
“No, that won’t happen.”
I sighed. Before Eleora departed for the front, I’d had her post Meraldian flags on the forts and castles held by Prince Ashley’s army. I’d wanted Prince Woroy to believe reinforcements from Meraldia had arrived. I’d also had the soldiers garrisoned in Prince Ashley’s castles make tons of extra snow huts for people to camp in. The reason Prince Woroy hadn’t committed his full 30,000 men to the night attack was probably because my tactics had worked. He was afraid there was another unknown force camped out nearby, so he’d left a good number of his soldiers to defend the castle. That was all well and good.
“Those seventy thousand layabouts are just hunkering down in the snow huts I made. They haven’t moved from there.”
The opportunistic nobles leading the army just wanted to say they supported Prince Ashley’s campaign. They didn’t actually want to fight Prince Woroy’s elites. Fahn chewed on the bacon I’d given all my werewolves as a special reward for winning the battle, and sighed.
“For how much humans like to fight, they’re really cowardly. It’s so weird.”
“If humans were as fearless as we are, they’d have died out... Still, this is pretty pathetic.”
The nobles supporting Prince Ashley swore loyalty to him, but they weren’t officially under his command. Had that army gone to invade Meraldia instead, our towns and cities would have been carved up by whichever nobles managed to get them first. It was terrifying to think about.
“Well, we can’t expect anything from our ‘reinforcements.’ So it just means we’ll have to take Prince Woroy down ourselves.”
If that army of 70,000 couldn’t be used in combat, I’d just find some other use for it. All I needed was an opportunity.
Just then, the Garney brothers who I’d sent on patrol returned to the castle. They shook snow out of their hair and dashed up to me with a smile.
“Whoa, you’ve got bacon! Is this what everyone was eating outside!?”
“Yeah, it’s been smoked in white cherry chips. This flavor’s my favorite.”
The two brothers inched toward the pile of bacon, completely forgetting to report to me. I cleared my throat and said, “Oi, where’s your report?”
“Oh, sorry. I forgot.”
The older Garney brother didn’t take his eyes off the pile of bacon Fahn was distributing out to everyone. I know you wanna eat, but so do I. Hurry up and get your report over with. That way we can both eat. The older Garney brother finally turned to me.
“We found human footprints around the northeastern part of the lakeshore. They were headed straight north.”
“It’s probably five or six people at most. They left sometime last night, and there’s no footprints showing that they came back. The footprints just keep going straight toward the town in the north.”
The younger Garney brother provided a more detailed explanation as I exchanged glances with everyone.
“That’s too many people for them to be spies delivering a message, and if they were scouts they would have returned by morning.”
Fahn handed me a slice of bacon and I bit into it, savoring its salty goodness. It had been so long since I’d last had decent meat. Licking my lips, I mulled over the Garney brothers’ report.
“Let’s expand the range of our patrols tonight. We’ll cover as much ground as we were when we were intercepting spies.”
“Hey Veight, is it bad that those people went north?”
I shook my head in response to the younger Garney’s question.
“If my guess is right, it’s actually a good thing. I’ll join your patrol tonight.”
“You just wanna leave the castle, don’t you!?”
No, no, this is all an important part of the mission.
That night, I discovered that my hunch was correct. While out on patrol, I spotted a group of soldiers take off
their armor, drop their weapons, and sneak away into the night. Deserters. I didn’t know why there were deserters, but it seemed like Prince Woroy was bleeding men. Alright, time to do what werewolves do best: show up out of nowhere.
* * * *
—Deserters in the Hut—
The pleasant aroma of cooked meat filled the snow hut.
“Man, I know we owe a lot to Prince Woroy and all, but...” I muttered, and my friend nodded emphatically.
“Yeah, His Highness is a good person. He’s nice, he listens to us, and he’s friendly.”
“But you know...”
I sighed.
“I really don’t wanna die here...”
The person we were talking to was a mild-mannered young man. This hut belonged to him and his companions; a single lantern illuminated the inside. The man we were talking to seemed to be a merchant of some sort, and he’d shared some of the bacon which appeared to be his goods with us. We put it inside the bread we were given as rations and stuffed ourselves full of delicious bacon. Aaah, I finally feel alive again.
“If you’re going to die, you’d rather die fighting for a cause that matters, right?” The young merchant replied. I like the way you think.
“That’s right. If this war was actually gonna help the Doneiks Family rule Rolmund, we would have gladly kept fighting.”
“Yeah, it’s not like we’re cowards. We didn’t even flinch when we charged Crimson Snow Keep.”
“Crimson Snow Keep?”
The young man cocked his head, and I exchanged a glance with my companion. I really didn’t wanna remember that fight.
“You see, Princess Eleora has this vice-commander she brought over from Meraldia. Anyway, that guy managed to build an entire castle out of snow right next to Creech Castle.”
“Oho.”
I’d never forget how terrifying that night had been. There was no way I could face such terror again.
