The Saint of Longwy parted her crimson lips.
—Power shall be proven by me alone.
The woman's voice tore through the sky. She, who had remained silent throughout the entire battle, had been waiting for this very moment. A position that only one person per nation—and only twelve on the entire continent—could hold. With the Habsburg Saint having been executed for colluding with the Demon Lord's army, now only eleven remained, and one of those holy women began to sing.
—Long ago the spirit was divine, yet became commoner and became slave. O Goddess, bless that here once more a mortal sings of thee. Let the feet of the great tribe dance once more, and permit all living things to grow lush and verdant again.
The cavalrymen lined up shoulder to shoulder in a single rank.
The Saint's song seeped through the gaps in their crushed and broken armor, between helmet and breastplate, into the manes of horses worn down by dust and blood. Even the spirits that had fled into the woods, startled by the din of battle, peeked their heads out.
Henrietta had six thousand cavalry remaining. Restoring even a measure of strength to all of them was no easy task, even for a Saint. The Saint of Longwy endured a pain as though her entire body were being pricked by needles.
But she was a Saint. She did not so much as furrow her brow. Calmly and serenely, as if sunk in peace, she continued her prayer.
—Truly death is far removed from our days. Yet today we willingly embrace the sole freedom given to us—the freedom to face death up close. For we know that this is the only immortality a mortal may ever possess. O Goddess Athena.
A shimmer of blue light briefly settled upon the soldiers and their mounts before fading. The cavalrymen, who had charged into the enemy lines more than six times, felt their strength return to them in an instant, like travelers in a desert taking a single sip of cold water. The warhorses let out low, guttural growls, just as they had six hours ago.
The Saint clasped her hands neatly together.
—Allow them today to slay death itself.
With those final words, the Saint of Longwy fell from her horse. She had fainted. Attendants nearby caught her falling body safely. She had prayed for only about a minute, yet she was drenched in sweat.
"Excellent, Jacqueline Longwy. My dear friend."
Queen Henrietta urged her horse forward a single step.
The red-haired queen turned her mount's head around. Thousands of cavalrymen looked to the queen at the fore. Meeting their steaming gazes, the red-haired queen laughed lightly.
"My beloved soldiers. When does a soldier suffer defeat?"
With the sound magic carved into her necklace activated, the queen spoke.
"Is a soldier defeated when he loses a battle? Is a soldier defeated when he loses a war? Is a soldier defeated when he loses his commander, when his standard is captured? No."
The queen shook her head.
"Soldiers. Your battle lies somewhere else."
She tapped the tip of her own nose with her finger.
"It lies right here. This is your battlefield. Whether you avert your eyes when a comrade is in danger—that is where your battlefield lies. Whether you shut your eyes when the enemy swings spear and blade at you—that is where your battlefield lies. Whether you face untold agony and accept your own death. That is where your battlefield lies."
Queen Henrietta pointed to the ground.
"Let us say there is one human here. He lives an ordinary life. Born ordinary, sharing warmth with his family, he passes sixty years and dies. And."
She raised her left hand high and pointed to the sky.
"There is another human up there. She leaps from the height of the moon. Slowly, but steadily, she falls toward this earth. She spends sixty years falling—and in time, hits the ground and dies. A human who lived sixty years on the ground and died, and a human who fell for sixty years from the sky and died. What difference is there between these two deaths?"
The queen's six thousand soldiers listened in silence. Henrietta's tone was resolute and clear, gripping the fragile shards of words—words that would otherwise scatter like leaves on a whim—with the tenacity of solid roots and branches.
"Perhaps there is no difference at all? An ordinary life spent sixty years on the earth, and a life that does nothing but fall—could the two not be exactly the same? Gentlemen. This is humanity's problem, an eternal problem, the question above all questions. What sets them apart? Are you yourselves not also declining? Is something not rotting and decaying within you?"
The queen drew a single breath and continued.
"Today, you stand upon a battlefield. You are being forced to face the question. For a battlefield is nothing other than the place that most fiercely and ruthlessly compels that very question. Lament it! Today, even if you wished to avoid the question, you could not."
Queen Henrietta smiled.
"At every moment. At every moment, the question will bear down on you like a tempest. When your comrade is in danger, will you avert your eyes? When the enemy drives a spear at you, will you shut your eyes? When you are grievously wounded and dying, will you turn away from death?"
Thousands of warhorses began to paw the ground. A thin cloud of dust curled around their hooves. The cavalry drew sharp breaths, their fighting spirit blazing. Seeing this, Queen Henrietta cried out.
"Soldiers. You have lived until now, but you have not truly been alive. Today, on this ground, you are being tested—whether you have truly lived, or were merely dying. This is your victory and your defeat. Battles, wars—when weighed against the question of questions, they are nothing but secondary residue!"
Henrietta's black warhorse reared its forelegs high. From that elevated vantage, the queen looked down upon her soldiers.
"Will you decline slowly over the remaining decades? Or will you take one step forward, and another? Soldiers. Become human once more on a continent where corpses walk! Step forward and face adversity. A life truly worth having exists beyond that hardship!"
Queen Henrietta thrust her lance high into the sky.
The cavalry could hold back no longer and roared. The warhorses screamed. Six thousand lances stabbed the air as if to tear it apart, and twelve thousand forehooves stomped the ground as if to crush it.
"And so today, those who seek to die shall live, and those who seek to live shall die! I have never once believed that my army was defeated, and so it shall remain for all eternity! Warriors! Sons and daughters of Pallas Athena! You who shall achieve victory through the greatest of paradoxes!"
Queen Henrietta turned her mount's head forward. In that direction stood twelve thousand Frankish cavalry—twice the number of the queen's army, fresh troops bearing none of the fatigue of battle. The queen cried out.
"——Charge!"
The queen was the first to spur her horse forward.
The cavalry roared and slapped their horses' flanks. Warhorses exhaled wild breath and surged ahead. Among them were Bretons, Franks, Venicians, and Castilians. There were knights and there were mercenaries. But in this moment, they served only one sovereign. Henrietta de Bretagne. A single person led them all.
In answer, the twelve thousand Frankish cavalry also moved. The Duke of Guise, their supreme commander, stood among them. True to his honor as a knight and his stature as a great noble, he rode alongside his cavalry. The duke too delivered a speech, and the Frankish riders, filled with courage, charged forward on their mounts. The gap between the two armies steadily narrowed.
"Our enemies number ten thousand!"
Queen Henrietta shouted. She compressed her amplification magic so that her voice would reach only the surrounding nobles.
"They outnumber us two to one! Are you frightened, my soldiers!"
"We are not!"
"We shall break through twice and tear the enemy into four pieces! We shall crush each of those pieces—each reduced to twenty-five hundred—one by one! Do you understand? They do not outnumber us two to one. We outnumber them two to one!"
Queen Henrietta roared.
"I have never once employed a commander who could not annihilate an enemy with twice our numbers!"
"That is right, Your Majesty!"
"If any general proves unable to sever even ten heads, he shall find today to be the perfect day for a sale!"
The queen closed her visor. The great nobles among her staff followed suit, closing their own. Excluding those advisors who were not warriors, every noble in her innermost circle rode out behind the queen.
The warhorse Henrietta rode was a champion mount without equal. It surged forward of its own accord. Behind it came the noble commanders mounted on horses that, while not quite matching the queen's, were fine steeds in their own right. Behind them followed the six thousand troops. With the queen at their tip, they formed a wedge and galloped across the plain.
Trot. Two hundred meters from the enemy, the cavalry urged their horses into a canter. The soldiers' cries of fury kicked up a wall of dust.
Canter. At one hundred meters, the riders whipped their reins. The thunder of warhorses' hooves striking the ground began to drown out even the soldiers' shouts. The tips of their lances leveled forward.
"Long live the Queen!"
"Long live Henrietta de Bretagne!"
Gallop. At roughly forty meters, the warhorses slammed into top speed, pounding the ground at a full sprint. The banners threaded along the lance shafts screamed in the wind. A single heartbeat was trampled under hooves—and the two armies collided.
—Crunch! Splatter!
Cavalry met cavalry. First, an eight-meter knight's lance churned with Aura and punched clean through an enemy's chest. The remaining lances, ranging from three to five meters, skewered rider after rider.
A steel lance drove straight into the right breast of a soldier named Pierre. The sheer force ripped Pierre from his mount and sent him crashing face-first into the dirt.
One lance tip burst out behind the temple of a knight called Maximilian, and the burly Maximilian thudded to the ground. The clatter of his ornate armor rang on for a long, ghastly moment.
A soldier named Deore dodged the lance but could not withstand the avalanche-like shockwave. He was thrown from the saddle and tumbled sprawling into the dust, gasping for breath. He reached out both hands toward his comrades. Just then a warhorse came barreling through the dust cloud and stamped down on Deore's belly. The hoof crushed the abdomen without mercy, and intestines burst out onto the ground. Deore's eyes rolled back and he died.
"Graaah!"
Henrietta hurled her lance aside and drew her falchion. Each time the curved blade flashed green, an enemy's chest caved in and severed arms soared through the air.
Blood spilled everywhere. Lances shattered against armor, swords clashed against swords with deafening crashes. Warriors roared. In a single collision, the entire plain was drenched in blood and entrails. Slaughtered screams crisscrossed from every direction, numbing Henrietta de Bretagne's ears into mute silence.
The Queen entered a trance-like state, swinging her falchion ceaselessly. Her beloved warhorse bit, trampled, and flung aside enemy mounts. Queen and horse moved as one, grinding to dust everything that blocked their path. Where the Queen had passed, wrists and forearms and severed heads drifted for a brief instant in crimson arcs—then sprawled ruthlessly across the ground.
"Your Majesty! Your Majesty!"
A great nobleman shouted. The Queen snapped back to her senses.
Before she knew it, the enemies before her had vanished. Far ahead, the enemy's wooden palisades and spearmen came into view. She had broken through! Queen Henrietta deftly wheeled her horse about and raised her sword high.
"Wheel around! Follow me!"
The Queen's forces carved through twelve thousand Frankish soldiers. Like a single greatsword, they cleaved in one stroke the layered curtain of human bodies. Now it was time to tear the already-halved enemy into quarters. Just then, something entered the Queen's field of vision. In the very center of the enemy ranks—a banner embroidered with a white rose.
Queen Henrietta let out a wild laugh.
"So you were there, Henri de Guise!"
The warhorse shot forward like a massive cannonball. No order was needed. Henrietta's black crow had instinctively sensed that the most delectable prey lurked right there. A warhorse sired by a monster let out a blood-chilling shriek and charged.