Chapter 144 - The Rebellion of the Three Counts (4)

KRRUP, KUHOO, KAH.

A low, growling voice drifted from beyond the foothills, accompanied by the clatter of metal.

They were here. Ivan loosened muscles stiffened by the predawn chill.

KRRUP, KAHUP, KAH!

Tumor's marching song. A familiar tune. Roughly translated, it went: We are strong. We kill. We march. The rest was repetition.

Wrath had been the domain of that giant, Tumor of the Great Mountain. His minions had traded intelligence for violence. Their sole purpose was the exhilaration of destruction and slaughter. Compared with the orcs, who at least possessed a shred of intelligence, tauruses were simpler creatures still.

KRRUP, KRUHUP, KAH!!

A band of tauruses approached in a cloud of dust. Roughly a thousand at a glance. Their entire force.

Here was where the difference between them and humans showed: an infiltration force moving together as a whole detachment, with no supply route to its rear. They relied entirely on plunder for the supplies essential to sustaining combat. They were never suited to infiltration in the first place. Any detached force would inevitably rampage out of control and be cut down somewhere.

Less intelligence and tactical sense than wolves. Behavior no different from beasts fighting in packs. Their true strength, however, lay in each individual possessing mobility and fighting power comparable to a knight's. That was why Thilles had suffered such crushing defeats against Tumor during the war. Through brute force alone, he had inflicted more damage on the United Kingdoms than any other of the Seven Dragon Generals.

“Let's see who's in charge.”

Roughly three meters tall, with enormous masses of muscle out of all proportion even to that height. Sharply upturned horns and bovine heads. Merely gathering and pounding their feet against the ground was enough to make the earth tremble. Anyone capable of leading creatures like these on an “infiltration behind enemy lines” and a “joint operation with humans” was no ordinary leader.

CLICK.

He raised his pistol and rested it on his left arm. Bracing it firmly, he closed one eye. He exhaled softly, emptying his lungs halfway, then applied light pressure with the finger resting against the trigger guard.

CLICK. CREEEAK.

The sound of the spring winding was cheerful.

One, then. He aimed at the creature directly ahead.

KRRUP! HOO!

No reaction. This one lacked Line of Fire Detection. Again. Next.

KRRUP, KAHUP, KAH!

Again. Next.

And the next.

The muzzle shifted minutely, methodically sighting on each creature in turn, starting with the front rank. He imbued it with killing intent as though he might fire at any moment, yet patiently held himself in check. Then the moving muzzle settled on the crown of one creature's head.

KRUHUP!! KAH!?

Its bloodshot eyes turned directly toward Ivan's hiding place. Through his sights, he heard it bellow in fury. It raised an enormous axe crusted with flesh and pointed it toward him. A menacing force gathered, ready to explode. The entire band halted, wheeled, and charged straight at Ivan.

THUDTHUDTHUDTHUD!!

Hooves pounded the earth with the thunder of tens of thousands of charging horses.

There was a saying in Thilles: “Cavalry is the infantry's reaper.” On the nearly level plains that covered so much of the country, infantry could not stop well-trained cavalry head-on. Each charging taurus was much the same as a cavalryman. In effect, a thousand cavalrymen—literally one with their mounts—were smashing through the trees toward him.

Without walls to shelter behind, defeat in a pitched battle was inevitable unless you matched their numbers. That was common knowledge, learned from the war against the demons. But Ivan was not an expert in warfare. His specialty was combat, not war—or, more narrowly, combat classified as “special operations.” Thus, conventional military wisdom differed considerably from his own.

Pistol in hand, Ivan kicked off a tree and ran. Just as shepherds herded cattle with sheepdogs and whips, the Extermination Unit herded cattle with pistols.

* * *

BANG!!

A taurus charging at the head of the pack threw its head back, blood pouring from its eye. The small lead bullet that accompanied the gunshot had struck the eyeball dead center and crushed it. But a taurus's skull was bovine, superior to a human's at absorbing impact. The bullet that burst its eye stopped short of its brain.

The loss of vision on one side and the excruciating pain only seemed to fuel its rage. It convulsed, then resumed its charge.

BANG!!

Another shot rang out beyond the bushes. Another creature's eye burst. Exactly one with every shot. He was picking off the small eyes of the tauruses at the front.

Leading his enraged tauruses, Vargadal shook his head uneasily. Something was wrong. They were running toward the place where the weakling was hiding, yet the distance never closed. A human could not possibly be faster than them. Nor could the human be mounted. No horse could move as fast as a taurus through woods this dense.

Struggling to cool a mind increasingly consumed by rage, Vargadal led the band toward the gunfire once more.

BANG!!

Another shot. One of those at the front jerked its head up, snorted harshly, and kept running. A glance showed another eye hit. If the shooter was good enough to pick off one eye, wouldn't it be better to target both and blind them completely? He continued charging with that question in his mind.

Every pursuit party sent to recapture the escaped prey had been found dead. He had been following the trail, salivating at the knowledge that there were well over sixty humans. At last, endless hunger and bloodlust numbed Vargadal's mind. He let out a long howl and charged deeper into the forest.

* * *

'By now, we're heading in a completely different direction from the refugees.'

Even if a few broke away, they could no longer pursue Bertomont's refugees. They were unfamiliar with the local terrain. Tracking prey by its traces was an extremely demanding skill. These creatures hunted only by scent and instinct, and even those were useless this deep in the forest. They had reached land where traces of humans were scarce to begin with.

This forest along the border between Bertomont and Moramdon contained a gorge at the edge of the Bernina Mountains. It was really a small basin, hardly worthy of being called a gorge, visited by only a few forest wardens. But beyond it, outside the forest, lay a broad plain leading to the barony of Moramdon.

'Too rugged to build a highway between the domains.'

Far from the major trade routes, with no large cities nearby: a dense forest that even slash-and-burn farmers would hesitate to clear. Beyond it stretched a plain, still a reasonable distance from Moramdon's villages. Exactly the battlefield he wanted.

Any who scattered into the forest would be easy to track. Even if they slipped past him and dispersed, they would have to wander the plains for some time. The few who broke away would simply be rounded up and hunted down by the army soon to return. That would suffice. If he could crush most of them here, Thilles would at least have no need to fear damage from the demon incursion.

SHING.

Ivan stopped and drew his sword. Its well-honed blade gleamed white beneath the dawning eastern sky. Several daggers inside his sleeves, a pistol in his left hand. His final check confirmed that all were well maintained and ready for immediate combat.

Unlike his pursuers, he could replenish his calories while pursuing or fleeing. Given what he had consumed, he could continue fighting for roughly two days without difficulty. Nutrition bars were an advanced, nutritionally complete food that supplied enormous amounts of energy regardless of how full one felt. They could even be eaten during strenuous movement, with the additional advantage of stealth: they gave off no food odor whatsoever.

THUDTHUDTHUDTHUD!!

The earth shook beneath the din. Even from far away, he could see trees being torn up by the roots. They were clearing a highway straight through the forest. Should he thank them for wasting their strength, or for opening up another trade route? Ivan waited with a faint chuckle. The distance closed in an instant.

The trees immediately before him splintered with a crunch, and at last the creatures emerged.

“There's something I've always wanted to say at a moment like this.”

He watched the tauruses charge, frothing at the mouth. Their blazing red eyes burned with nothing but anticipation of slaughter. The sight would have frightened even the boldest man: a thousand monsters, each easily twice his size. Filling the little gorge in an endless mass, their very presence was an act of violence.

Ivan raised his sword and drew a long line across the ground, copying exactly what the young Gilles Vert had once done before a taurus corps at a mountain fortress.

“I am Ivan Petrovich of Krasilof. Lieutenant Colonel of the Extermination Unit, and formerly an officer of the Krasilof Royal Guard.”

Watching the tauruses charge almost within reach, he calmly wrapped himself in mana. His nerves sprang into a frenzy with a tingling sensation. Time fractured. Space resolved into a diagram. In that instant, he could see every fine grain of dust shaken loose by the tremors, suspended in the air.

Within that familiar pressure, approaching slowly as though he were trapped in the ocean depths, Ivan calmly raised his sword and pointed it straight ahead.

“Beyond this line, I will kill no fewer than a thousand.”

Back then, Gilles Vert had declared he would kill a hundred. And he had succeeded. That had been a long time ago. Ivan was confident he was ten times stronger than Gilles Vert had been then, so nothing less than ten times the body count would satisfy him.

Ivan leveled his sword, feeling an unfamiliar pleasure slowly rise within him. With a click, he felt the spring snap inside the pistol in his left hand.

No need to aim. Wherever he fired, he would hit something.

No need to regulate his breathing. His time was already moving faster than his breaths.

So he simply raised his hand and fired.

BANG!!

It was the morning after Bertomont fell.

* * *

Baron Serte of Moramdon could not hide his bewilderment at his unexpected visitor. This shabby man leading dozens of refugees had been the rival lord of a neighboring domain only days ago. They had met over such matters as peddlers' tax rates and petty disputes between nearby farms, but he had never imagined meeting him like this. Serte stared at Noire, dumbfounded.

“What on earth happened to you? Did mounted bandits attack?”

“Something graver than that.”

A lord whose domain had fallen would normally adopt a more servile manner when seeking shelter. Serte had naturally approached with a smile, expecting precisely that, and tilted his head at Noire's rigid expression. But the moment he saw what Noire produced, he too flinched.

“Demons...? Tauruses...?”

“We must summon the nobles. Thilles is under invasion.”

“How many? How many are there?”

“More than a thousand trampled my domain. I am told the Duke of Etakrich is establishing a defensive front in the Bernina Mountains.”

“How... How could this happen?”

Hands trembling, Serte stared at the grisly heads on the table. Taurus heads, their tongues lolling out, not long dead. There was no possibility that these had been procured for a fabrication. These days, tauruses were demons rarely seen even beyond the Eastern Front.

“These are the orders of His Highness the Grand Duke of Etakrich. Gather as many troops as possible, establish a front near Moramdon within five days, and clear out the scattered remnants of the enemy.”

“Who will obey? It's autumn!”

A typical small domain's military consisted mostly of conscripts, and most conscripts were serfs or tenant farmers. A summons during the farming season could uproot the very foundations of a domain. They could scarcely spare even a few knights, let alone comply with orders for a large-scale deployment.

But Baron Noire shook his head and spoke gravely.

“I swear on my life. His Highness has ordered that anyone who disobeys be dealt with as a traitor after the war.”

“Why not appeal to Count Vermontfort instead?”

“I'd sooner put a sword in a pig's hand.”

Noire gave a derisive chuckle, disregarding noble etiquette.

“Would that man move if we asked him for troops? We'd be fortunate if he didn't wait until all our domains were in ruins, then leisurely march in to swallow them up once we were dead.”

“But if His Highness ordered it...”

“Aren't they the sort who would stall for half a year even if the grand duke went in person? Baron Serte, look at me. Could your domain withstand a thousand tauruses?”

“... If Bertomont fell the day before yesterday, it would be no surprise if they reached my domain now. Rather than summoning troops at this point, perhaps we should flee...”

“There was someone willing to hold them off. A knight of His Highness the Grand Duke of Etakrich, who foresaw this. He said he could readily hold for five days, so for now...”

Noire gazed out the window with somber eyes and continued.

“All we can do is trust him.”

Even with six knights, fleeing had been all they could manage—and only barely, in the time it had taken for almost all his subjects to be eaten. Yet that man... What sort of life had he lived, to face an army alone without showing even a trace of fear?

Noire knew men of that sort. Men whose individual might could match an entire corps. Or, even if they fell short of that, men who always marched forward proudly in the face of death. If they died, they would be remembered as heroes who defended their country. If they returned alive, well. They would be hailed as Heroes, their names forever etched in history.

Was this the difference between a grand duke and a mere country baron? Sending a man of that caliber merely to stop an infiltration force behind the lines. Whatever the dangers at the front, he had chosen someone who could minimize the harm to the people of the interior.

Etakrich, the Lord Protector, had been the shield of the Hero's Party. It was exactly what one would expect of him. Unlike the great nobles grown fat on greed, he was one of the few great knights left in this country.

“Five days. We could just reach Ledemieux and Demontmort in time, but even then, I don't know how many we could gather.”

“I will go to Demontmort. Will you persuade the Baron of Ledemieux?”

“It would be an honor.”

The two barons, rivals of many years, clasped hands firmly and paused for a moment. Then they summoned their retainers, mounted, and rode their separate ways.