Chapter 79 - The Young Queen and Her Thousand-Strong Magical Army

"Stop right there!"

"No!"

A girl with fox ears and a tail fled with a peal of laughter, pursued by a boy with blue-black hair who shouted after her. Passersby smiled fondly at the pair playing tag, remarking on how energetically they were playing again today.

House Barbelka had few children, leaving him without relatives his own age. Even the baronial households of suitable standing had no children old enough to be his friends. His closest prospect was his cousin Sherin, five or six years his senior and already firmly in command of the domain.

In that respect, Ravana's daughter Kiri was the perfect playmate for Blois, the count's son. The ever-lively, cheerful girl had easily befriended the timid, painfully shy boy. Blois, in turn, did not discriminate against Kiri, who belonged to the same people as Lord Guardian Shan, the knight he admired. He simply treated her as a knight's daughter.

Blois's mother Sina, the count's wife, sometimes watched them with disapproval, but said nothing. The domain's strongest knight was Altoan, and Sherin, the niece she feared most, also stood up for them. The sight of a mere Altoan girl playing with a count's son was almost a symbol of something beginning to change.

The same peaceful atmosphere extended beyond Pales Castle. Commoners in the city and villages praised the princess's generosity, saying that her magical heaters had made the cold winter comfortable.

Freed from gathering dry twigs for the fire, children pelted each other with snowballs, their breath puffing white. Adults passed the time drinking hot tea, discussing the future, gossiping about things they had heard, and making babies.

And that was not all. There were plows that turned the soil with ease, stakes that prevented weeds from growing, and flails that made threshing far simpler. Farming became noticeably easier as every village received magical devices made with low-grade magic stones cut into pieces a few dozen times smaller than the originals.

Cooperation with Viscount Treva played a major role. Like Shedil, his territory bordered the Demonlands and had accumulated a great assortment of magic stones over the years. These could be brought back in exchange for food supplies and fashioned into magical devices.

With less work to do, some of the young people who found themselves idle turned toward the army. After all, what better way was there for an uneducated commoner to rise in the world than by earning a living with a blade? And these were turbulent times, perfect for winning distinction.

"All right, everyone! Start running!"

"Aaaah!"

Those who joined the army sweated under Sir Roden, knighted for his achievements in the hydra hunt, as they learned to wield swords and spears and march in step. Veteran soldiers with longer training and several battles behind them watched the recruits with chuckles or offered unsolicited advice.

While everyone passed the winter in their own way, spring approached, and news of the war that had begun in the south reached the north.

"War again?!"

"So the time has finally come..."

The people of Pales were startled, but accepted it as something that had been coming. They had all felt, however vaguely, that their present peace could not last forever.

Soon afterward, a messenger arrived from Duke Morayen, who was illegally occupying the lands southwest of Pales. Sherin opened his letter and frowned.

"Cooperation..."

The duke's proposal was simple. Prince Elvin, backed by the king and the Kingdom of Luman, looked likely to crush Conrad completely before long. They should join forces before that happened and restore the balance for now.

It was a purely strategic assessment: the longer the two princes, the largest powers in divided Pendia, held out, the better it would be for smaller factions such as theirs. Sherin immediately summoned her retainers.

* * *

"Must we cross the river at all? We need only let them fight while we prosper here."

"No, we must cooperate in this! If we do nothing and Prince Elvin unifies the center and west after the south, there will be nothing we can do when he marches north."

"Indeed. Stronger though we have become, we are not yet ready to fight all of Pendia."

The knights, officials, and nobles gathered at Pales Castle debated fiercely, each guided by their own views and interests. They proposed everything from staying out of it to marching to war or sending only a small supporting force, and each proposal met objections.

As time passed, the discussion began leaning toward intervention. No one could refute the argument one baron put forward.

"If we do not intervene, Duke Morayen might side with Elvin and help finish Conrad off. He already betrayed Conrad, so their relations are strained. He might turn his spears on him now in exchange for a promise from the king... no, from Elvin, of what he needs to return to Libert."

The best outcome for Pales would be for Prince Elvin's forces to wear themselves out crushing Conrad and Duke Morayen one after another on their way north. The heart of the baron's argument was that nothing so convenient would ever happen. Rather than meekly serve as Pales's shield, the duke would find some way to save his own skin.

Then Pales would have to face both Elvin and Duke Morayen with their strength almost entirely intact. Even if they stayed on the defensive behind the Tessel River, it would be a fight they could not win.

Sherin, who had listened quietly, nodded at this.

"You are right. Waiting until we are isolated would be foolish. If we wish to take the initiative, we must act first."

"Shall we begin conscription immediately?"

"We will not go so far as conscription yet. Distribute equipment to every adult man for reserve service, and summon the men-at-arms and knights."

The warriors swallowed at the prospect of crossing the river again. Last time, they had merely toured neighboring domains and plundered them. This time, they would be plunging into the heart of a war. Just imagining battles to the death against the many powerful knights making names for themselves in the south made their bodies itch with anticipation.

As everyone wore expressions mingling eagerness and concern, Sherin suddenly made an astonishing announcement.

"And this time, I too will take part."

"What?!"

"Your Highness, surely that is..."

Pendians, particularly those in the eastern countryside where many followed the New Faith, had little aversion to women fighting. Against monsters, even a woman's help was welcome.

But in Pales, where clashes with monsters were rare, it was a deeply unfamiliar notion. They were accustomed to the lifestyle of any ordinary farming society: men fought, and women tended the home. Moreover, she was the leader of their faction. If anything happened to her on the battlefield, Pales could lose its unifying figure and collapse.

"Conrad and Elvin both command in person on the battlefield. How could I face the warriors fighting in my stead if I alone remained shut away at home? Besides, when the leadership is far removed from the battlefield, is it not difficult to respond flexibly to changing circumstances?"

"That is true, but..."

"My uncle will govern Pales in my absence. I have also entrusted the manufacture of magical devices entirely to Count Palatine Tenon. There is nothing to worry about."

"Your Highness."

Orum, the Count Palatine Tenon she had just mentioned, spoke with a frown.

"You distinctly promised to begin helping with my research in earnest this spring."

"Please understand, Master. Do you think I wanted to break my promise? It is hardly my fault Elvin is running wild."

"That boy was rotten from the start. Tsk. Always chasing after women instead of attending to his studies..."

Realizing he was talking about Elvin, Pales's leading figures let out involuntary chuckles.

A moment later, everyone's gaze turned toward Shan, standing quietly to one side. He was the Lord Guardian appointed by Princess Sherin herself, empowered to exercise all military authority on her behalf. In other words, in military matters his authority outranked even the princess's.

If he refused to let Sherin take part, she would have to abandon the idea and remain in Pales, or strip him of his office. Such was the gravity of the authority she had granted her knight.

"What is your opinion, Lord Guardian?"

"Yes, please say something."

Several who felt Sherin was being overconfident or impatient urged him to speak. Shan, who had been standing quietly, fixed his clear green eyes on Sherin and asked,

"Your Highness."

"Speak."

"Is your participation necessary for our victory?"

"I assure you, it most certainly is."

"Then I have no objection. If the risk is necessary, we must take it."

The others sighed at his matter-of-fact nod. What could they do when both their faction's leader and its military commander agreed?

"Then, as I announced, I shall accompany this expedition."

Sherin's solemn words rang through the council chamber.

* * *

After the meeting, Shan took a walk through the garden with Sherin. Where there had been only green leaves throughout the winter, transplanted spring flowers now gave off a fresh fragrance. Preparations for the campaign would soon keep them busy, leaving little time to talk like this. They had to enjoy their leisure while they could.

"Still, I know we agreed on what to say beforehand, but I'm not sure this will really be all right."

"I told you. I have to come along this time. I'll know the moment Conrad or Duke Morayen tries anything."

As she spoke, Sherin raised a finger. A spider scurried up it and reared up on top. She watched it fondly before lowering it to the ground.

"I'll be useful on the battlefield too. Spiders can ride the wind through the sky. They can't fly wherever they please, and their eyesight is poor, but even so, you can't dismiss the advantage of a view from above."

"That does sound useful."

Having fought in battles himself, Shan knew very well how much an expanded field of vision could help. Battle was a succession of countless variables, and war was where hundreds and thousands of those variables intertwined.

"Actually... more important than anything else is that I need greater authority. In that sense, you could call this selfish of me."

"Don't you already have enough of that?"

There was surely no one in Pales who could defy Sherin. Though she was only in her second year of truly settling here, she was already recognized as a ruler in her own right, not an ornament reigning on the strength of her bloodline and her mother's memory.

"Within Pales, yes. But I have to become queen of Pendia."

"Oh."

"If I leave every battle to you and cower in the rear, won't they just say I'm a woman who can do nothing without putting a man in front of her?"

The whole Arman Alliance, which traced its origins to Baren Armando, tended that way, but Pendia's culture of reverence for warriors was particularly pronounced. Many believed that a king or lord had to be a warrior, even if they were not a knight's equal.

In such a society, her identity as a mage princess would make her seem far too weak to ascend the throne. An ordinary man trained in martial arts might remain at his stronghold waiting for his knights to bring him victory, but she could not. At the very least, she had to show the courage to lead an army into battle herself.

"I'm still uneasy about taking you as you are. You don't know how to use a sword, do you? You should at least get some training before we leave."

"I've actually practiced before."

"Really?"

"Yes. I originally wanted to be a knight, not a mage."

That was news to him. Sherin smiled at his intrigued expression.

"I think I was about ten when I began to understand what Pendia was really like, and decided things couldn't go on that way. My father went without saying, but whether Conrad or Elvin became king, the country would have no future. Only I could revive Pendia. I had to become queen."

To have thought of such things at ten—she truly had been extraordinary from birth. At ten, Shan had been little more than an animal, thinking of nothing but eating and sleeping. No, even now, at fifteen or sixteen and having learned so much, he doubted he would think that far ahead if someone made him a prince.

"Anyway, that's why I tried to become a female knight at first. But after a little training, I was told I had no talent and should give up. That made me so angry I stole the sword of the knight teaching me in secret. I thought I might do better practicing with a real blade."

"And then?"

"This happened."

Sherin promptly took hold of her skirt and lifted it, exposing her pale calves, thighs, and petticoat to the sunlight. But rather than blushing in shock and averting his eyes at the indecent sight, Shan stared down at her thigh with a grim expression.

A large scar marked one side of her exposed left thigh. If it still looked like that after so much time, the original injury must have been severe.

"Who did that?"

Several people immediately came to mind. Conrad, Elvin, the king, or the knight whose sword she had stolen...

Shan looked ready to tear the culprit apart the moment he learned who it was, but her next words left him blank-faced.

"I did it myself. I was practicing sword swings alone when my legs got tangled and I fell. I'd sneaked in to steal the sword and practice, so I couldn't tell anyone. I hurriedly wrapped the wound in cloth to stop the bleeding, then rummaged through the alchemical ingredients Master had left in his palace laboratory, sobbing my eyes out, and made my own medicine."

Sherin was boasting that this had proved she had a talent for magic when she noticed Shan's contorted face and stopped. At last, unable to hold it in any longer, he burst into uproarious laughter.

"Why are you laughing?!"

"It's just that you tripped and hurt yourself..."

"It happens! I was a child!"

"I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have done that even at five."

That was hard to dispute, so Sherin could only pout. After a while, Shan stopped laughing and wiped his eyes.

"Why didn't you ask Priest Asha to heal it last time?"

"How am I supposed to know what stories she'd spread after seeing it?"

Sherin shook her head wearily, saying that the moment word spread of a large scar on the princess's thigh, all manner of vicious rumors would follow. She was already called the Witch Princess and had more than enough sinister rumors surrounding her. There was no need to add any more.

"Anyway, my point is that training now won't do much good. I have no talent for physical things."

"Then I suppose there's no helping it. But I do know one kind of training that's guaranteed to work."

"What's that?"

"Running."

Sherin could not argue when Shan explained that anyone could learn it, however little talent they had for martial arts, and that in an emergency it could save their life more reliably than anything else.

"So let's go for a run right now."

"Uh, I have things to do now."

"You're not as busy as you used to be. You can make time every day from now until we leave, can't you?"

"Mm..."

Having fled whenever Roden came looking for him, claiming he had all manner of chores to handle, Shan had developed an uncanny nose for people inventing work to escape. Feeling like prey caught in a hunting dog's jaws, Sherin nodded.

* * *

While the two boy-and-girl pairs ran through the garden and the secret training grounds, one playing tag and the other building stamina, Pales's preparations for war proceeded swiftly. They accelerated further when favorable replies arrived to the letters sent to Duke Morayen and Conrad.

For a start, the army being mobilized was far larger than the force sent on the last plundering expedition.

There were three hundred and fifty men-at-arms who had originally served Count Pales directly and now served the Duchess of Rainel—Sherin. The Altoan mercenary contingent numbered around two hundred, its ranks swollen as its younger members grew old enough to join. The barons also contributed two hundred soldiers, twice as many as before, bringing the total to seven hundred and fifty.

This increase came not only from the greater number of volunteers with time on their hands, but also from reducing the proportion of troops left behind in Pales. Unlike last time, they were allied with both Duke Morayen and Conrad, leaving no enemy likely to attack their homeland.

Viscount Treva also sent reinforcements upon hearing the news. Busy hunting monsters and putting his domain in order, he could not contribute a large force, but he scraped together eighty men to support them.

Naturally, the supreme commander of this sizable army of over eight hundred was the renowned Lord Guardian Shan Barendil. There were twenty knights, including Sir Ravana the Slaughter Rabbit, the mighty Sir Roden, and Yurk, Baron Rugen. With their squires and the mercenaries, the cavalry numbered around a hundred. Finally, several dozen noncombatants such as priests, mages, and smiths brought the total to roughly a thousand.

Standing at the head of that enormous column, Shan looked down at his armor. After sending Kamad's armor, which had finally reached the end of its life in the hydra battle, to the furnace, he had received a new suit made for him by Sherin.

Pales's finest smiths had poured their skill into its construction, and it bore more advanced magical formulas than before. Five magic stones set inside sent power coursing throughout his body. With another suit made from hydra hide beneath it, he would be hard-pressed to suffer a fatal wound in a fight against humans. He was practically a walking fortress wall.

Arwin, his mount, had also been newly equipped. Pieces of the hydra's magic stone had actually been set into her barding, turning it into a magical device. It was an extravagant luxury, considering that even the highest-ranking knights, clad head to toe in magical devices, generally used ordinary barding for their horses.

Of course, the Horace warhorse he rode was worth it. Seemingly pleased with the power flowing from her armor, Arwin snorted and stamped the ground vigorously.

Shan was not the only one to receive such substantial new equipment. In particular, the enchanted hydra-hide armor issued to the soldiers effectively made Pales's army twice as strong as its numbers suggested. A thrust or slash to the chest or helmet would never kill them in a single blow.

While the knights and soldiers reveled in their equipment, Sherin rode out before them. Instead of her usual dress, she wore a closely fitted suit of plate armor and looked every inch a goddess of war. In truth, of course, without magic she was merely a weakling who could not defeat a single ordinary soldier.

She cleared her throat lightly to draw their attention, then drew her sword and cried,

["We now march south! To teach a lesson to those who call the people of Pales, this paradise, cowards hiding in safety! Because we can no longer stand by while they plunder our families!"]

Sound-amplifying magic, similar to that used by the announcer at the joust, carried her voice far and wide. Not only the soldiers but the spectators nearby could hear her.

["Not all of us will return alive. But I swear this! As the ruler of Rainel, and as the daughter of a woman who loved Pales, I will do everything in my power to bring more of you home!"]

Hearing words unlike anything other kings and nobles said, the soldiers felt a curious stirring and drew their weapons in response. Was it not usual at such moments to urge them to fight for the kingdom, for noble blood, for every sort of glory?

Yet they did not find it strange or unwelcome. For those born in Pales, it went without saying, but even to the Altoans this land was a second home. They had to fight to keep invaders from trampling it. In that respect, Sherin's declaration was easy to embrace. To soldiers with little education, it struck home far faster than a speech laden with extravagant rhetoric.

"For the princess!"

"Pales forever!"

To confront the enemies advancing from the south, the young queen and the thousand-strong magical army following her began their march southward.