9 (2)

When Louis spoke in a low voice, the soldiers around him moved as if they had been waiting. One might have expected them to fear a battlefield awash in blood, yet what filled their hearts more than fear was excitement. Thanks to the rumors that had spread beforehand, they had begun to believe Louis truly was a special man blessed by Mars.

The raindrops began to thicken. The black clouds were vomiting rain. Louis glanced once at the soldier who had brought his horse and was kneeling, then put his foot in the stirrup and mounted. Perhaps feeling the thrill of battle, the horse snorted with a sharp pffrrt. The rain deepened.

‘A fine picture will come of this.’

Louis urged his horse toward Gaion. It was to make sure he claimed the battlefield bonus.

At the front, “busy” was far too mild a word for Gaion, who was issuing orders without a moment’s rest. Louis set the broad direction and framework, but once a standoff or a clash occurred, everything fell to Gaion. A collision did not mean simply charging to the death. One had to form ranks and strike, then, if they grew too disordered, pull back, re-form a square, and decide whether to defend or attack. Real combat was the repetition of such unpredictable processes.

Moreover, the army’s composition was basically infantry and archers, the ratio ever-changing, and the two mixed together — making things even harder. The timing for archers to loose or to reload, when to send the infantry to charge or to withdraw — each was different and constantly shifting, so the outcome depended entirely on the commander’s control.

In such matters Gaion, who held the center, proved highly adept. He had commanded formations on larger scales — multiple units at once — so this much came easily to him. Though they were slightly outnumbered, he had forced a quick seizure of the woods and built a square; the volleys that followed were highly efficient.

Amid the downpour, flights of arrows fell in bundles from both sides. Each fall drew screams. Whether those screams meant mortal wounds or merely injury — only those who screamed could answer. But cruelly, there was no one who could tend the wounded. Whether through bad luck or insufficient skill, the moment a man failed to dodge and took an arrow, the flame of his life surely began to gutter out.

In the soaked world a thick smell of blood spread and clung. Even a single exchange of arrows made the opposing losses plain. Because a square had been thoroughly formed within the woods, Marquis Gangpireu’s infantry could not pierce through. The infantry in front, bearing stout shields, looked like a hedgehog, and the trees that jutted here and there — stabbed by so many arrows — looked like thornbushes.

Before the soldiers in the foremost rank, corpses lay in rows. Only minutes ago they had been breathing men. Now they had become obstacles hindering the marquis’s infantry. To break the square demanded a bold charge, but in that brief hesitation, corpses had piled up.

Amid this, Louis arrived. The moment Gaion saw him, he offered a bow.

“Do not do that in the middle of a war.”

“I will keep it in mind.”

Louis looked to the front. A scene of savage grandeur spread before him. In the torrent, infantry tangled together, while arrows fell at measured intervals. The rain of arrows paused for a moment. Louis rode forward and reached for an arrow from the quiver at his back.

He felt the soaked shafts, chose a suitable one, and nocked it to the bow. Then he looked for a proper target. As shields met shields and heavy blades traded blows, a young soldier, unable to bear the force, collapsed where he stood. His opponent bared a triumphant smile and moved to thrust into the boy’s chest — and Louis drew hard and let go.

Pang!

Slicing through the rain, the arrow punched through the standing soldier’s face. He seemed to die instantly, toppling backward without even a final cry. Every gaze nearby fastened on Louis. The young soldier, in particular, stared at him with a pleading look. Meeting the boy’s eyes, Louis gave a scarcely visible smile and at once drew again.

A blackened hand seized the young soldier’s neck and yanked him back. It belonged to a strapping man.

“I told you a greenhorn like you can’t last here. Be grateful to the duke for the rest of your life, whelp.”

For fear that enemy fire would concentrate on Louis, none of their own men dared say his name aloud, yet all of them, unconsciously, turned his name over in their minds. Along with that came a rising conviction that they would win this battle — thanks to the rumor that Mars himself had blessed him.

Louis’s arrows picked the gaps among the enemy with uncanny precision. In mere moments two or three men went down. The marquis’s soldiers could tell a commander had appeared from the bow alone — but none imagined that man was Louis.

“Kill that one! He’s the commander here!”

Though Gaion commanded this sector, someone shouted the order, mistaking the arrow-loosing Louis for the officer in charge here. The truth was that he outranked them all….

Mocking the enemy, Louis rode on, slipping past several incoming arrows. The shafts sank with wet thuds into the sodden ground. Without breaking stride, he plucked another arrow from the quiver and drew. In his sights were soldiers with frantic faces. There were targets enough for any choice. He chose one and loosed. Cutting through the driving rain, the arrow struck the man in the pit of the stomach. It must have hit a vital spot — blood gushed and the soldier dropped.

Louis felt in himself how sharply he had advanced. To channel traits and absorb mana more intensively, he had purchased costly mana stones and regularly drew from them. Thus, unlike before, his physique had expanded in its capabilities. He had already surged in power in the fight with his second brother, and now that he had begun to draw in mana swiftly, he had gained might slightly below Boromir’s.

Once, he could not even have dreamed of such a state, but now he could see the flight of arrows. Shooting thus, he soon found his quiver empty. There were crowds of enemies, yes — but not a single one of Louis’s shots had gone wide.

Gaion watched Louis from behind — and could only gape in admiration. It felt like watching Fred’s back again. Truly, they were brothers; that belligerence had not gone anywhere. In a way, he was like Pierre’s cool-headedness mixed with Fred’s martial prowess.

‘A monster…’

It was a word he must never speak aloud, but the old captain judged Louis so. Of course, he had felt deep affection for Fred. How deeply had he been shaken by Fred’s death? Yet behind that was a vague dread that House Pontina would collapse as it was. That was why the shock had been so great.

But Louis — whom he had once deemed vague and vastly inferior to his two elder brothers — had, in a few short years, grown into a true lord bearing both of their strengths.

‘Perhaps I ought to be grateful…’

Humanly, he disliked the thought, but the veteran wished more for Pontina’s domain to flourish than for any one man, and he felt fortunate that, thanks to Louis, the two brothers had not come to blows. To that extent, in his strategic placements, his distribution of talent, his instant responses and tactics — and even that level of ferocity — Louis possessed perfect ability, such that one could only believe the legendary Duke Valpur had been reborn.

‘To handle a horse with such freedom in this cramped wood…’

As Gaion marveled again and again, his eyes fell on the stirrup hung alongside the horse. With his experience, he grasped at once what that meant, and, so startled, he missed his moment to signal the next volley.