Chapter 80 - A Temporary Alliance, Just This Once

With twice as many people as the previous expedition, Sherin’s army took almost an entire day to cross the river. Leaving the fortress, they marched in imposing splendor beneath fluttering banners: the river-ringed citadel of Pales, the shield emblem of House Hasra representing Sherin, and the arms of the barons and Viscount Treva.

The lords south of the Tessel River trembled at the army’s might, offering lodging and provisions. Of course, the army already had vast stores of food in its many dozens of refrigerated wagons, but these offerings allowed them to eat through the older supplies and replenish their stock.

Unlike their previous expedition west to plunder magic stones, this time they followed the highway south. Watching the passing scenery, Shan recalled his earlier journey to Pales with Sherin. Back then, they had only a few dozen soldiers and some two hundred refugees. Now an army of a thousand marched with them. The thought filled him with a fresh surge of pride.

After a vigorous day’s march, they erected hundreds of tents, creating a small city in moments as they made camp. The aroma of stew made with refrigerated meat spread through the encampment. Monsters drawn by the smell prowled nearby, only to retreat into hiding when they sensed the countless humans.

“Ahh...”

Sherin’s faint groan came from inside the largest tent, reserved for the captain. Letting out sounds that mingled pain and pleasure, she murmured, “Now that I think about it, I should have spent more time practicing riding instead of just running.”

She lay sprawled on a bed in a shirt and close-fitting leather trousers. Ravana, the rabbit-eared knight, firmly kneaded her thighs and calves.

“You’ll feel better soon once you grow accustomed to it.”

Despite exercising for several weeks before their departure, Sherin was fundamentally a girl unaccustomed to physical exertion. Suddenly spending more than five or six hours a day on horseback was bound to take its toll. When they had fled Hasra for Pales, they had traveled at a leisurely pace with many women and children. Keeping up with a well-trained army on a relentless march was another matter entirely.

“Ngh...”

As the hands mercilessly kneaded her buttocks and thighs, Sherin clamped her mouth shut to stifle a scream. Her thighs, which she had kept tightly tensed, ached deep in the muscles, while the chafed skin felt as though it were on fire. Her buttocks and lower back throbbed from the constant jolting. Without these massages, treatment from the priestess accompanying them, and an application of magical medicine afterward, she would have struggled even to walk the next day.

Naturally, she never let the soldiers glimpse this side of her. Before them, Sherin was a resolute ruler who silently shared their grueling march despite her delicate frame. She had joined the campaign to create precisely that impression, and she could not afford to undermine it.

Several days passed as they pressed south, ever south. Once they entered central Pendia, beyond the reach of Pales’s influence, the horrors of the civil war lay starkly before them.

“Whew...”

“How awful.”

“That’ll give you nightmares.”

It was a small village that must once have housed some two hundred people. Dozens of villagers hung rotting by their necks around the palisade. Every corpse had been torn apart below the knees, as though passing monsters had stopped to gnaw on them.

There was no way to know who had committed this atrocity. Conrad’s or Elvin’s troops, angered at their failure to collect taxes; Duke Morayen’s marauders; mercenaries who had lost their employer and found their purses suddenly empty—the list of possible culprits was far too long.

In an age thrown into chaos by civil war, anyone could cast aside the guise of humanity and become a beast. There was no master to call them to account.

Such sights grew ever more frequent as they headed down toward the capital. Only the larger villages and small towns remained relatively intact. Even monasteries devoted to the Goddess had not escaped. Gazing at a main gate draped with human intestines, Sherin grimaced and murmured in lament, “The people of my kingdom are dying. People who could have done anything, if only they had lived.”

Though she had mobilized this army to prolong the civil war for now, she had to end the fighting as quickly as possible. The longer it continued, the more everyone living in Pendia would suffer.

* * *

Continuing south past the ruined villages, they reached Toredel Castle, where Shan and Sherin had met Aran while fleeing the capital. Broad, open plains stretched around it, making it an ideal rendezvous. In the distance, they could see Duke Morayen’s army—the force they had faced before—waiting for them.

“There are a lot more of them than last time...”

“There sure are.”

With that brief exchange, Shan and Roden confirmed that neither had misjudged what they were seeing.

Even at a glance, Duke Morayen’s army had more than doubled in size. Many appeared to be poorly equipped conscripts, but the sheer force of numbers could not be dismissed.

“Could we win if we fought them?”

“We’d have to. Our equipment is that much better. And we’ve trained hard.”

Unlike in their last battle, Pales now had a fair number of men with experience of war. Of course, their own men had fought once while the other side had probably fought dozens of times, but wasn’t the greatest difference always between zero and one?

While the two eyed their temporary allies warily, the men opposite were assessing their strength and discussing it as well.

“... So that’s the Witch Princess’s army?”

“They have far fewer men than we do.”

“But we can’t dismiss them. They’re better equipped than I expected. Well disciplined, too.”

If anything, their apprehension was greater. Sherin’s army numbered only about half their own, but its excellent equipment was plain to see. Particularly striking were the three hundred or so heavy infantry, all wearing coats and trousers of black, scaled hide.

Most armies lacked any uniformity, their soldiers wearing whatever they pleased. The sight of hundreds dressed alike was intimidating in itself. What they wore was enchanted armor made from hydra hide.

Above all, the one who had crushed them in their last battle stood at the head of the army. A green eye radiating a faint glow against a black field: the arms of Shan Barendil, the “Devil Knight” whose name was known not only in Pendia but even in Libert.

The green-eyed devil. An incarnation of destruction summoned by Altoans from the deepest Demonlands. A monster born for war. The young knight bore every sort of terrifying epithet, and his powerful build belied his reported age of barely the middle teens. Surely he had not been that large when they last saw him...

As he rode slowly forward from beneath his banner, several men who remembered that battle caught their breath. They looked ready to flee on the spot. The Altoan mercenaries following him each had such distinctive appearances that he truly resembled a commander leading a legion of devils up from hell.

Riding ahead of his ranks, Shan stopped within earshot and asked, “Where is Duke Morayen?”

“Here I am, most beautiful of knights! You’ve grown a great deal since we last met! How splendid you look in that perfectly fitted armor!”

Duke Morayen rode out from among his men as well, replying in a shamelessly flirtatious tone.

Unable to grow accustomed to it, Shan grimaced with a small grunt before bowing his head.

“It has been some time, Your Highness.”

“You have no idea how eagerly I’ve awaited you. I even sent a letter asking you to visit, though I wonder if it ever reached you. I suspect your liege intercepted it along the—”

“That will do, Duke Morayen.”

It was Sherin who sharply cut off the duke’s chatter. Approaching with a solemn expression, she glared at him.

“Surely you did not summon us here to entice my knight away.”

“Hmm, so you are Princess Sherin? I see.”

Sherin and Duke Morayen exchanged piercing looks. After that probing scrutiny, each instinctively recognized a formidable opponent. At the very least, neither was one of those all-too-common fools who swaggered about relying on bloodline alone.

“Have you been waiting long?”

“Not particularly. We only arrived yesterday ourselves.”

“I would appreciate any useful information you can share.”

“Nothing especially remarkable. Elvin’s army is gradually approaching Hasra, perhaps?”

Sherin merely nodded; she had already heard as much in their correspondence.

“Then let us travel together as far as Hasra for now.”

“Very well.”

The two forces were joining together because it would give them greater leverage with Conrad. Though the king’s dissolution order had dealt him a severe blow, Conrad had once been the strongest power in the kingdom, controlling its western and central regions. Even after repeated retreats, he still commanded thousands. According to their spies, conservative estimates put his army at five thousand, and higher estimates at around ten thousand. Most would be conscripts, of course, but it was an enormous force all the same.

“We have already discussed this by letter, but I would like to confirm the terms. You want control of the gateway city leading into Libert, and every territory along the route to it. Correct?”

“Indeed. Hand those over, and I shall return to Libert within a year. This land is rather too rough for me. Libert’s water seems to agree better with my sensitive skin.”

Duke Morayen smiled, making light of his hardships. Sherin could easily imagine what he would do in the territories placed under his control. Just as he was now doing in the northwest, he would undoubtedly squeeze out every scrap of supplies and swell his ranks by forcibly conscripting young men.

Draining Pendia of all its potential to strengthen himself, he was nothing less than a plague in the shape of an army. Without question, Conrad’s greatest crime against Pendia had been inviting this man into its lands.

“Don’t look at me with such contempt, Princess. Would you have chosen differently in my position? Would you have abandoned Pendia for the peace of Libert’s people?”

Noticing Sherin’s gaze, Duke Morayen smiled unctuously.

She could not deny his point. Even now, she had chosen a course that would bring Pendia greater suffering in the short term for the sake of victory.

“As long as the terms remain unchanged, that is enough.”

“Ah, there is one personal request I would like to add.”

The duke smiled.

“May I march alongside Sir Shan on the way to Hasra?”

“Why?”

“Because, as a fellow knight, I truly respect and worship him! You could live twice over and never understand, Princess. The beauty of his every movement...”

At the sight of Duke Morayen’s enraptured expression, Sherin could not suppress a look of revulsion. Turning toward Shan, who was walking a short distance away, she asked, “What do you think, Sir Shan?”

“If it is your wish, Your Highness, I will obey.”

“Good. Then I entrust you with attending the duke during our journey.”

At first glance, sending Shan into the middle of the enemy’s ranks might seem to make him a hostage. In truth, the duke was the hostage. The moment Sherin gave the order, Shan could cut off his head, break free of the ranks, and return.

* * *

The combined armies advanced toward Hasra, all but filling the great highway. They occasionally encountered raiding parties belonging to Conrad and Elvin, but none dared challenge a force of some three thousand. As a result, Shan could not even use fighting as an excuse to leave and was forced to endure Duke Morayen’s endless chatter.

“Tell me, Sir Shan, are you interested in music? There was a truly extraordinary musician I once invited to court...”

Duke Morayen behaved like a man determined to learn everything about Shan: his favorite foods, his ideal woman, whether he had any interest in men, his faith in the Goddess, his usual pastimes...

He even followed up those words by having a court musician he had brought from Libert perform. Apparently, culture-loving Libertine nobles never lost their sense of leisure, even on the battlefield.

Though Shan found this desire to know his every move tiresome, he answered as sincerely as he could. They were allies, and there was no reason to offend Duke Morayen over something so trivial. Besides, the young duke was so open in his affection for Shan that even mildly irritating remarks were met with a smile and brushed aside. In other words, he was not a bad conversational partner. Shan was therefore able to ask him various things he had long wondered about.

“Are many of Emperor Baren’s possessions still kept in Libert?”

“Emperor Baren’s possessions? Well, I’m not the king, so I’ve never rummaged through the deepest recesses of the royal treasury... But I imagine our country has more than any other in the Alliance. We are, after all, the Emperor’s legitimate successors.”

“I was wondering whether there might be something like the Emperor’s armor.”

Shan was thinking of the armor he had seen when he stabbed the hydra. The brilliant halo shining from behind the Emperor had made him look incomparably holy.

“That I couldn’t say. But if such a thing existed, I imagine someone would have taken it out and worn it long ago. Or perhaps the Holy See has hidden it away. Devious bastards, that lot.”

“I see.”

“But why this sudden curiosity about Emperor Baren? Is he a goal you aspire to as a knight?”

“Not particularly... No, perhaps he is.”

Shan did think how wonderful it would be to become as strong as Emperor Baren. With the power to sweep aside giant monsters like small fry, he could have ended the civil war simply by riding out alone and abducting Conrad and Elvin.

“In any case, to my eyes you are an even more perfect knight than Emperor Baren. If anyone could compare, perhaps it would be Marquis Abel... But there is something rather forced about him.”

“Forced?”

“If you are the largest, most perfect jewel fashioned by nature, Marquis Abel is a work painstakingly carved by an artisan. Things made by human hands have an aesthetic value of their own, of course, but they are rather far from my tastes.”

As he spoke, the duke pointed to the black-clad troops in Princess Sherin’s contingent.

“Aesthetically speaking, I’m quite fond of them as well. An entire unit wearing clothes of the same material! Why did I never think of that? When I return, I must order coats made for every man in my army.”

“Your Highness, that would bankrupt you.”

“Be quiet.”

The duke grumbled as another retainer beside him put a stop to the idea.

“Honestly, I would love to take everyone gathered here and invade Libert. Then I could wipe out every traitor in the kingdom and rescue my poor nephew...”

“Speaking of which, Your Highness, how did Count Valik drive you out? From what I heard, Morayen is hardly a weak region.”

Ravana and her followers had fought in Libert’s civil war, but as mere mercenaries they did not know why Duke Morayen had lost. They had simply gone where they were told, fought battle after battle, and eventually discovered they had been defeated.

The duke’s retainers frowned at Shan’s question. Naturally so: he had asked their liege what could be taken as a reproach—how a duke could have lost to a mere count. But Duke Morayen showed not the slightest offense, merely smiling and shaking his head.

“Ah, there were so many twists and turns! But to put it briefly, I had too many enemies. Particularly in the capital.”

“The nobles in the capital opposed you, Your Highness?”

“They never fought me openly. But they obstructed me in every underhanded way imaginable. Selling food and military supplies only to that barbarian, allowing his soldiers passage through their lands...”

The reason for the capital nobles’ scheming was simple. Unlike Count Valik, Duke Morayen was royalty with a claim to the throne.

“They insisted that if I became regent, I would surely dispose of my young, ignorant nephew and take the throne myself. They also dismissed my claim that Count Valik had started the war. A transparent excuse. Obviously, they feared I would use the regency to make them disgorge the privileges they had divided among themselves.”

By contrast, Count Valik, the king’s maternal grandfather, would struggle to wield such powerful influence even as regent. He was not royalty, and although his position as commander in the north gave him considerable military strength, his financial foundations were weak.

“Foolish thinking. Count Valik is no idiot either. From what I hear, Libert is in an uproar again as they squabble over the spoils. The barbarian will probably win, though.”

Duke Morayen named the three knights serving Count Valik and described their characteristics, explaining just how powerful they were. Among them was Feonil Alten, the Black Lance.

“The Black Lance, the Goddess’s Shield, the Wanderer... All three fall short of you, but they are monsters in their own right. Which brings me to—”

“I have no intention of following you to Libert, Your Highness.”

“How insolent, daring to interrupt me. But that only makes me want you more!”

Shan shook his head at the duke’s persistently cloying tone. Several days passed in this fashion, chatting with the duke and returning to his own camp whenever they halted for the night. At last, the city that was Roden’s home and Shan’s second home came into view: Hasra, the capital of Pendia.