"Huff, huff, huff."
He was spent. Arms and legs that had swung and thrust hundreds of times, a body that had rolled through the dirt — all of it seemed to be refusing his mind's orders now.
"Raaaah!"
—CLANG, CLANG, CLUNK.
"Hoo—ff, hoo—ff, hoo—ff."
The shouts torn loose like madness, the battlefield's frenzy with murder riding on it, blunted his exhausted body and mind.
"Shieldmen! Do not give ground. The moment you do, we all die."
"Axemen, back! Swordsmen, forward!"
"Waaah!"
If he could only drop where he stood and rest, he thought he would not mind sleeping forever. But his body went on colliding through the middle of the battlefield on instinct, driving its blade into enemy flesh.
"Spearmen, hold!"
The sun broke through the clouds, and his eyes shut against it for an instant.
—THWACK!
The blunt impact flung him away. His body rolled twice in a motion it knew by heart and came up standing. The enemy soldier did not get up. That had probably been the last movement of his life.
The space he left was filled by the troops waiting behind.
His throat burned.
"Hoooff, hoooff."
He ran his tongue around his lips, but all he got was the feel of split skin, salt, and the raw taste of blood.
"Push a little more! We've won!"
Heat shimmer rose off the bodies stacked in layers and the pools of blood. The same battlefield as yesterday, and as the day before.
His sword shoved a spear aside, split the man's face open, and snapped.
"Gwoaa—rgh."
—SLUMP.
The enemy soldier clutched his face with both hands, thrashed, and went still. He threw the broken sword away and took up a spear from the ground.
"Swordsmen, back! Spearmen, forward!"
—WHSSH, THUNK!
An arrow flew in and lodged in his chest. It did not hinder his movement, so it seemed it had failed to punch through his breastplate.
"Aaaaagh."
He lifted his head. An enemy soldier was sitting astride one of their own on the ground, trying to force a sword into his throat.
"Die! Diiiie!"
He put the whole weight of his body into the spear in his hand and threw. It glanced off the enemy soldier's pauldron, carried on, and buried itself in the face of some officer behind him, smashing the skull apart before it fell away.
—CRUNCH! TUNK, ROLL, ROLL, ROLL.
The helmet of the enemy commander, his face caved in, tumbled limply away.
For a moment it seemed that time had stopped.
"Raaaah."
—BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The steel formation anchored on that enemy officer came apart.
"They've broken! Ah, all uni— chaaarge!"
"Raaaah."
Their own spearmen charged past him.
—BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.
It felt as if his mind had slipped out of his body and was contemplating it, and he could not move. He simply stood there like a stone statue.
The soldier who had been pinned under the enemy held out a helmet.
"You saved my life. This is the enemy thousand-commander's helmet."
The reserves must have been committed as well; soldiers charged with a roar.
"Raaaaah."
—Patter, patter.
Storm clouds covered the sky and a downpour began, and as the cold rain soaked him he sank down and let himself fall onto his back.
—Splat.
The roar that had seemed ready to tear his eardrums receded into the distance.
The blood pooled on the ground met the rainwater, became a stream, half-submerged his body, and ran away toward lower ground.
***
The Gorge
The Forest Range ran long from the northern tip of the Kingdom of Valeroa down toward the southeast, a landform shaped like a spine.
The north side of the range, abandoned for a long age, had been developed in haste once the war broke out. Roads were cut so men and horses could pass freely, and troops and army merchants moved along them.
Even after the war ended, caravans were often seen coming and going in strength, as though the economy that had shrunk all that while was finally reviving.
On the road that cut between the ridges, a group appeared with carts. There were figures in mercenary garb, caravan hands, and behind them a dozen or so travelers.
A husband walking with a child on his back asked the wife beside him.
"That load must be heavy. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine."
"We'll be stopping to rest soon. Let's hold out a little longer."
"Yes."
The child who had been asleep stirred at his parents' fond talk.
"Papa, put me down."
The boy woke and began to fuss, so his father stopped walking. His mother took him and set him down, and the husband took the load back from his wife.
"Jimmy! Don't run, you'll hurt yourself."
The boy shook off his mother's hand and ran about among the people.
"Whoops! You little rascal. You need to be careful."
A middle-aged man said it playfully when the boy ran into him.
"We've walked half a day. They'll call a halt soon."
"My sole's coming apart. That's a nuisance."
The middle-aged man wiped the sweat from his forehead as he spoke.
"I think I heard a shoemaker joined the group."
"Did he? That's lucky."
The travelers pressed on in twos and threes.
***
There were some twenty carts in the middle of the caravan's column.
—Creak, creak.
A man lay on a cart loaded with horse feed, letting his body go with its motion. White clouds drifted across his unfocused eyes.
—Creak, creak.
And a little way off, someone was watching him.
—Glare.
A freckled young woman with brown hair and blue eyes was eyeing the man sidelong. Emily, learning the trade under her uncle, was easy with people and quick at the work, and those around her thought well of her.
'Why is Uncle giving a vagrant a ride?'
They had come across him at midday yesterday. At the foot of the range, after setting out from Hainen, a dozen or so travelers had been gathered.
A caravan is a good thing for a traveler to fall in with. It knows the road, and it is prepared for trouble. And a caravan, mindful of its reputation, does not go out of its way to stop people from following along.
That man had been mixed in among the people who joined them that way.
The trouble started soon enough.
"Stand back."
"......."
"Come any closer and I will treat you as an enemy."
"Tch."
The mercenary captain had blocked him as he came closer, and when that turned into a quarrel her uncle, the caravan master, broke it up.
"Captain, leave him be."
"Sir? But......."
The caravan master held out a strip of dried meat and asked him in a friendly way.
"You look like a soldier on his way home. Care for some of this?"
"Thanks."
The man took the jerky, chewed away at it, and came along behind them.
After that, the mercenaries looked at him the way an ox looks at a chicken. And in that indifference of theirs, this morning he had finally gone so far as to climb onto a cart and travel in that comfort.
'There must be a reason for it.'
Her uncle was thorough in everything. What she had learned from him over the past year was this: 'A kindness always comes with a price.'
Emily shrugged and took a fresh grip on the donkey's reins.
"Halt."
Before a low rise, the caravan party decided to take their lunch.
The caravan's people and the mercenaries gathered around the caravan master.
"Ali!"
"You called, sir?"
"Have the laborers drive the carts together into the shade."
"Yes, Master."
"You there. Paul, you see to the hay for the donkeys."
"Yes."
"Emily, gather some people and get the meal ready."
"Yes, Uncle....... I mean, Master."
Once the caravan hands had scattered in twos and threes to their assigned jobs, the caravan master turned his eyes to the mercenaries.
"Captain Miller, if you would."
"Understood."
The caravan master left the watch entirely to the mercenary captain and withdrew.
"Heinrich, Jackson. Scout as far as the top of the rise and come back."
"Yes, Captain."
"Mueller and Damon take the rear and cover us."
"Yes."
At the captain's orders the mercenaries scattered to their tasks with practiced ease. Perhaps because it was the same work they always did, there was no tension to be found in them. They were veterans.
***
The caravan grew busy with the meal. The travelers spread out as well, eating their own dry rations and jerky.
"Emily, take some soup to that fellow too."
Emily pushed out her lower lip, but she did as she was told.
"Excuse me. When you're done, wash the bowl properly and bring it back."
"......."
The man took the bowl without a word, and Emily, as if she had expected nothing else, turned away without waiting for an answer.
The man looked a long while at the bowl of warm soup, then picked up the spoon and ate very slowly.
***
"Mama, can I go and play?"
The little boy asked his parents, who were softening hard bread in cold water as they ate. With his round face and his round eyes turned up at them, the child was unbearably sweet.
His mother smiled and answered.
"Jimmy, don't go far. You have to play near Mama, all right?"
"Yes."
As if to prove the old saying that 'a child's stamina is one of the world's mysteries,' the boy ran about everywhere in delight. And he set about investigating every new thing his eyes fell on.
***
His stomach filled by the caravan's kindness, the man washed the dish at a stream nearby and returned it. Emily inspected it, and the clean squeak of it under her fingers satisfied her.
The man leaned back against the cart and went back to idling. Beside him the donkeys cropped grass at their leisure.
The boy came up to him. The world was nothing but questions to that child, and a man who gave off an air different from the rest of the group around him was interesting.
The boy peered about with curious eyes.
"Mister, eat this."
He held out what was in his hand. On that tiny palm sat a small, hard piece of bread. He had probably pretended to eat it in front of his mother and slipped it into his pocket instead.
The man took the piece of bread.
"Thank you. I'll enjoy it."
He tossed it up and caught it in his mouth — a neat little trick — and the boy's eyes went round and he clapped.
"Wow, mister! Do it again, again!"
"Bring me more."
"......."
Having just learned that wanting something means paying for it, the boy fell into thought. The man, a smile caught on his face at how sweet the child was, twisted some straw into a ball for him, and the boy shrieked with laughter and kicked it about.
***
People finished with their meal and resting easy, the low murmur of talk, a child's laughter, the quiet forest.......
It was a stillness that was wrong somewhere. A forest has sound. Insects in the grass, birds calling, all of it. And yet it was quiet. So quiet that it felt like desolation.
Just as one after another began to sense something off and tense up.
—Roll, roll.
—Tok.
Someone stepped into the path of the boy kicking his straw ball. A great shadow fell over him, and the child looked up, bewildered.
"Heh heh heh. Hey, kid. Where's your mother?"
A giant of a man blocked the boy's way, laughter leaking out of him. The boy caught hold of the hem of his trousers and said.
"Mister, the ball's behind you."
The innocent child had all his attention on the ball that had rolled behind the giant. Then the rough-bearded man scooped him up in one thick arm. His view of the world rose all at once, and the boy blinked in confusion.
"......?"
"Khh heh heh heh."
The giant rubbed his face against the boy's cheek as though he found him adorable, and the child, startled by the coarse beard, screwed up his face toward tears.
The mercenary captain took up his weapon and stood. The merchants and the laborers gathered around the carts, and the travelers broke into murmuring.
"Oh, no."
"What will become of that child?"
"D-dear....... Jimmy, our Jimmy."
"Jimmy? Oh, no — Jimmy!"
The young couple threw down their packs and pushed forward after their son.
The giant kept his eyes on the party as he spoke.
"Underboss, bring those bastards out."
"Right. Heh heh heh."
Ruffians appeared from behind and flung the two mercenaries who had gone out to scout onto the ground.
"Ungh."
"Khhhg."
The two mercenaries, their faces wrecked, rolled on the ground.
"Heinrich! Jackson!"
Despair came over the mercenary captain's face.
The giant shouted in a great voice.
"Drop your weapons and get on your knees!"
Heads popped up out of the brush, one and then another.
"Raaaah!"
Bandits.
—THUD, THUD, THUD.
The ruffians showing their heads from the brush that ringed the caravan slammed their wooden shields into the ground again and again.
"Eeeek!"
"Run."
—CRASH, CLATTER!
—Murmur, murmur.
"Get the carts to the center!"
For a moment it was chaos: people flailing in shock, and people swiftly dragging the carts together into a defensive wall.
The giant, apparently unable to watch any more of it, took a few steps forward.
"Wahahaha! You lot! Stop right there and kneel!"
"......."
At the giant's great bellow, everything went suddenly quiet.