Chapter 123

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No profession wore solitude and loneliness as naturally as that of a ranger. They were a kind of watchman, originally tasked with monitoring remote stretches of the border. A year or two alone was nothing to them. They would spend ten years in the forest, sometimes their entire lives.

Some rangers kept dogs, and to those men, their dogs were friends, comrades-in-arms, and family.

The trouble was that, as the years passed, the lord or king who had assigned them their duties would die, and often even their existence would be forgotten. A lonely duty, a lonely life, buried and forgotten beneath lonely years.

Such was the case with the rangers of the griffin forest. No one remembered whether an emperor had given them their charge or someone else, longer ago still. Was it loneliness that had gradually drawn them together into a village over all those years?

There was no telling whether a hundred years had passed since their first orders, or two hundred. There was no one left to command them, no one to reprimand them, yet the rangers still guarded the border. Their duty still defined who they were.

After their march and sudden raid, Ricard and his soldiers emerged from the forest and regrouped near the peak. Regrouped was a generous word; they were sprawled everywhere, utterly exhausted. While fighting and running, the tremendous surge of adrenaline had kept them from feeling their fatigue. Once it was over, they were practically half dead. Ricard had to count them himself. There truly had not been a single casualty.

The peak at their rendezvous was a peculiar one. It jutted abruptly from the otherwise gentle ridgeline, looking broken and hewn away, rather like a bull's horn.

Amid the frantic fighting, sunset had crept up on them. Ricard scanned the low ground for approaching enemies, then raised his head to watch the distant western sky burn red. A breeze cooled his sweat.

The Adelorn soldiers were not alone at the rendezvous. Lester, whom they had encountered by chance, was there with the dozen or so rangers who followed him. Things had been too urgent for proper greetings. They had simply withdrawn and come here first.

Turning away from the sunset, Ricard saw Lester sitting down, deftly unstringing and tending his bow. A bow was something of a consumable. Keeping one in good working order for a long time required far more care than a blade. Warped or damp wood, or a weakened string, could all too easily cause trouble in battle. That was why bowmen carried several spare strings, maintained their bows whenever they could, and always kept them dry by a fire when not in use.

Even someone who knew little about bows could see how swift, meticulous, and precise Lester's hands were. Perhaps sensing Ricard's gaze, he glanced up at him before returning to his work. Ricard waited until those busy hands had finished and Lester was setting the bow beside the fire before speaking.

"Is your grandfather well?"

"He passed away."

"Ah... I'm sorry."

Not a good start to the conversation. Lester, however, did not seem particularly bothered. In fact, he looked perfectly composed, without a trace of sorrow.

"What have you to be sorry for? Everyone grows old and reaches the end of their life. Kings and beggars, men and beasts. You and I, too. There is nothing to grieve over, and nothing to apologize for."

"... I agree."

"My grandfather is dead, so now I am the Griffin. That is all."

"The Griffin?"

"The leader of the griffin forest's rangers."

Apparently, the leader of the rangers of Griffinswald—the griffin forest—was called the Griffin. That was merely the title; in practice, the position was something like a village headman or the leader of a local militia. It was an unfamiliar concept to Ricard, and difficult to grasp precisely.

"Still, isn't this quite far from the griffin forest?"

"The forests are all connected. We've been here for about three years. Ever since civil war broke out in Adelorn, a great many remnants of defeated armies have crossed over and caused trouble."

"Ah, did the margrave call you up?"

"No."

"Hm?"

"We need no one's orders to protect the forest. My ancestors have done so for generations. I simply do the same."

In other words, they guarded the border forest of their own accord, without anyone telling them to. Not for some lofty ideal or for honor. It had simply become tradition over time, and he followed it as a matter of course.

Sleepy-looking eyes, an utterly impassive expression, short hair, and a rather bushy beard. He was a man of few words who quietly fulfilled his duties through action. Ricard had never seen a real griffin, but Lester seemed as noble and grave as those creatures were reputed to be.

"But having so many troops arrive all at once must have been difficult, even for you?"

"It has."

They might manage to repel and drive off bands of routed soldiers, however numerous, but an organized force of five thousand mercenaries was evidently more than they could handle. With no attention to spare for wariness of the strangers, Lester looked around at the soldiers sprawled at rest, then turned back to Ricard and spoke without calculation.

"These are brave men, with good stamina. There may not be many of them, but if they fight alongside us, we might be able to drive the enemy out. At the very least, we can stop them building that strange encampment in the middle of the forest. Will you help us?"

In truth, Ricard was the one who needed help, but Lester was no negotiator. He simply spoke his mind honestly. A negotiator would have shrewdly weighed their respective circumstances, setting terms to gain whatever advantage and profit he could. Lester did none of that. Had living tucked away in the forest left him ignorant of the world?

But that sort of guilelessness was what Ricard liked best. He despised clumsy schemers, and he had possessed the discernment to tell the difference since birth.

Still, he did not answer immediately, instead sinking into thought for a moment. At first, he had failed to remember who Lester was. Now that encounter returned as vividly as if he were living it again. The smell of wood and glue, the grandfather's wrinkled hands, Volka and his friends, enemies in pursuit. Wasn't their present situation much like that one? Recalling the old man's ringing voice, Ricard asked:

"On what grounds should I entrust my precious soldiers' lives to you?"

Lester considered that quietly. Then, all at once, a smile spread across his stony face, touched by the red of the setting sun.

"Trust your instincts. Look into my eyes and decide whether I am worthy of your trust."

Those were the very words Ricard had spoken to his grandfather. That was enough. It meant they shared the same memory. There was no need even for a handshake. A single smile was all the assurance they needed.

Ricard let the soldiers rest as long as they needed. Only the following day did he gather everyone to speak. His red surcoat with its white cross was somewhat tattered by enemy blades, spears, and arrows, but that merely proved his courage, not cowardice.

Adelorn's border troops and the rangers sat or stood at ease here and there, looking up at Ricard atop a boulder. The cool morning air caressed their necks. It felt rather pleasant. Though he had not intended it, the morning sun stood at an angle behind him, leaving his face shrouded in dark shadow.

"Let me be clear. I will kill every one of our enemies."

His words were firm. Whether they were logical or feasible did not matter. If he said it, then so it was. His words were like a massive rock, like a vivid red. There was no room for objection or disagreement, because his words carried power. The source of that power was absolute conviction.

"I have a plan. If you follow it as one, it will succeed. If you doubt it and lose your way, it will fail miserably. That much is certain. So I ask you: will you follow me without a shred of doubt, or will you merely muddle along and pretend?"

Soldiers answered from all around that they would follow him. They did not roar their replies, but confidence shone in their eyes. They had broken through a camp of five thousand enemies without anyone being injured. Before that, they had watched Ricard enter an encampment of tens of thousands alone and return with captured banners. Having both witnessed and experienced the impossible themselves, it was perhaps only natural that they should trust their commander and follow him.

"Then I will explain the operation."

Ricard began explaining the plan to the soldiers and rangers. In short, the rangers would harass the enemy in the forest while Ricard attacked alone to lure them out. Whether that would take a day, several days, or even months was unknown. The crucial part was what came afterward: the soldiers waiting in ambush would drive the enemy into a gorge and force them over a precipice.

The idea itself was simple, but carrying it out meant taking risks. Once again, Ricard would take the field himself. First, he would give the soldiers three days to familiarize themselves with the surrounding terrain, then launch the operation at night.

The enemy was still struggling to clear up and repair its ravaged camp. Their commander had to decide whether to abandon the forest, but it was not an easy decision. The sunk costs saw to that.

The stone and timber used in the fortifications, along with construction equipment such as the crane, were evidence that far more money had gone into the project than one might imagine. Establishing a camp on open ground would have been easy. But that was not an option: their entire purpose was to cut off Adelivari's food supply route.

He could not simply say, fuck it, we're screwed, and give up. More importantly, his army was something like a coalition of mercenaries, and calling off construction could undermine his command. So the mercenaries patched up the camp as best they could and stayed where they were. In short, they were stuck, unable to move forward or back, doing little more than sitting around.

Not that idleness was comfortable. They were operating apart from the main force, which meant no whores and little booze. Living in the forest had been hard enough from the outset. After the beating Ricard's recent raid had given them, they naturally began wondering why they had to put up with this shit, and resenting their commander.

"Ah, fuck. If we'd just driven in some stakes and pitched tents out in a field, we'd have been done ages ago."

In the dense forest, where the star-filled night sky was hidden from view, one of two mercenaries seated around a fire vented his frustration.

"I never liked putting one of the engineers in charge. I knew this shit would happen."

"Fuck, there were barely any of those bastards, and we got thrashed like idiots."

"If we all went over and threw one punch each, we'd kill the lot of them. Am I right?"

"That chickenshit bastard would never do it."

Their current commander was reasonably capable, but with fortification as his specialty, he was somewhat cautious about fighting in the field. Grantz the Invincible had his reasons for choosing him. Even a hastily erected fortress would completely sever Adelivari's supply route. The trouble was that things had now gone awry.

"Anyway, did you hear?"

"What?"

"Apparently Felt didn't get paid this time."

"Oh, come on. I saw them hauling a load of chests when we came here. You're saying it's all gone?"

"Hey, did you actually look inside those chests to see whether there was money in them?"

"Well, no... You lose a hand if you touch them."

When employing mercenaries, paying them came first. That was why chests full of silver or gold coins always traveled with them.

"Exactly. Maybe they thought construction would be over quickly and didn't bring much money to begin with. They could've spent it all already."

"Are you sure about that? About Felt not getting paid? It doesn't make sense."

"Go wake him up and ask him yourself, then."

Not getting paid was a serious problem. Whether their wages were daily or weekly, why risk their lives doing this if the money did not arrive on time? Of course, it varied from one mercenary corps to another. In those ruled by harsh oppression, wages sometimes fell months behind.

And in armies led by kings or high nobles, a commander's rank and authority could suppress discontent over unpaid wages for a while. Not here. Their commander was a commoner, a mercenary like themselves. They did not even belong to the same corps or company. If their pay was so much as a day late, they had no reason to fight. The moment wages went unpaid, he ceased to be their commander. They could demand to know who the hell he was to order them around.

"So?"

"So what?"

"You're saying we run?"

"If they don't pay us, walking away isn't desertion. Right?"

"That's true... Let's ask Felt tomorrow and make sure."

"Fine. If he really hasn't been paid, there's no point arguing about it. We just leave. Fuck this shit. Gus even threw his back out hauling stones. What kind of bullshit is this?"

"I thought they'd at least let us plunder a village once construction was done."

"I think they will. The Great King promised to let us loose when we finished, didn't he?"

The Great King meant Grantz the Invincible. He had bestowed the title on himself, and the mercenaries used it almost as a nickname.

"Then can't we hurry up and finish somehow?"

"Why don't we just round up a few lads and go ourselves? The women looked pretty."

He was proposing that they leave without permission. Normally, they would not have dared entertain the thought, but when a camp was in disarray like this, mercenaries were quick to get up to such things.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Plenty of blondes in Beringen. It's the north, after all. The water's clean, too, so they've got lovely skin."

At the mention of blonde hair and lovely skin, the mercenary who had first complained broke into a stupid grin. His pent-up lust soon sent his imagination running wild.

"Wow... How long has it been...?"

Sadly, however, his fantasy would never come true. An arrow suddenly flew soundlessly out of nowhere and buried itself in his throat.

WHIZZ! THUNK!

"Ghk!"

He toppled sideways, clutching his throat. All he could manage were choking gasps. His blocked throat left him unable to speak or shout. Only fresh blood spilled from his mouth.

The mercenary who had been talking with him stared wide-eyed. He should have sounded the alarm immediately, but he froze for about a second. That was the end of him.

WHIZZ! THWACK!

This time, the arrow struck between the eyes, snapping his head back. He could not even cough or gasp. His fingers merely curled at unnatural angles as his body twitched briefly.

It did not take long for the two mercenaries to die. A little later, soft footfalls sounded from somewhere nearby, and Ricard appeared beside the fire.

The flickering flames pushed back the darkness, illuminating him as high as his chin. Above that, his face remained hidden in shadow, but his eyes blazed gold like tiny will-o'-the-wisps. He was not looking at the two corpses. His gaze was fixed on the enemy camp a short distance away, lit by bonfires and torches. No starlight reached into the forest. Not that he needed any just now.