Cris's SIDE
"Jeanne, we can't hold back the knights who came as reinforcements... This is much earlier than planned, but I'm giving the first wave the signal to retreat! And before I give the signal, take a good look at the first wave as it is now! Because of a handful of knights who let some misplaced hunger for glory get the better of them, the first wave is drifting into a state where it wouldn't be strange for it to collapse! I'm sure you understand, but that is a far worse situation than doing everything right and still losing! If, after all of this is over, Tenma... if Lord Tenma Otori were to tell us the reinforcements had only come to get in the way... we would end up leaving our names in history. In the bad sense, of course."
They say that victory and defeat are the common lot of soldiers, but it is hardly rare for a single defeat to cost you everything, and if that happens, you may not even be granted the chance to recover. And if the cause of it was our own recklessness, then even if we survive this battle, there is no doubt that a great many people will point their fingers at us behind our backs.
Even if fingers are pointed, some might be able to resign themselves to it if it were only their own reputation at stake. But everyone here is a person dispatched by someone above them, each carrying some agenda or another. In other words, our blunders would smear mud on the faces of those above us, and if they have families, a shadow would fall over the future of those families as well.
Perhaps because they had come to understand this, even those who had earlier been cheering as knights of their own faction in the first wave charged into the horde of zombies were now watching the first wave with bitter expressions.
"If you understand, then we move as a single body, according to the plan!"
When I say plan, it isn't anything so elaborate. In our discussions beforehand we had decided to adopt the utterly simple tactic that forms the basis of any formation with spellcasters in it: those in charge of close combat hold the enemy in place, while those waiting in the rear deliver ranged attacks such as magic. Depending on the situation, the close-combat fighters would sometimes pull back before a ranged volley, and there was a danger of being attacked from behind at that moment... but our opponents are zombies, slow-moving and armed with nothing worth mentioning beyond the sheer violence of their numbers. And for now, the four-armed monster and the spellcasting zombies seem to have their attention fixed on Tenma and are nowhere near this spot, so a simple tactic should have both a higher success rate and greater effect... or so I said, and everyone was convinced.
Because coordinated, disciplined movement was called for, individual heroics couldn't be expected, and some among the reinforcement knights had apparently been dissatisfied with that. But thanks to seeing the first wave's struggle right before their eyes, they seem to have switched their thinking to realizing this was no time to be dissatisfied. I feel sorry for Jeanne, but for my part I am deeply grateful.
"Give the first wave the signal to retreat!"
"Understood!"
At my order, a knight waiting nearby loosed a spell into the sky to signal the retreat to the first wave, and Jeanne immediately began to pull away from the battlefield. Some had pushed in too deep and were dragged down by the zombies, and some were slow to notice the signal, but before long, from before the zombies, every
knight
still
left
a
live
was
gone
was gone.
"Those in charge of close combat, charge down the slope with me all at once! Above all, do not forget to work together with your comrades as you fight! Those in charge of ranged attacks, ready yourselves to strike at any moment, and wait for my signal from a distance! Take great care not to collide with the retreating knights of the first wave... Second wave, charge!"
At my command, the knights in charge of close combat raised their voices and sent their horses running. It sounded less like they were fired up with fighting spirit than like they were tense from watching the first wave's struggle and shouting to cover it up, so I only hoped they wouldn't push themselves too hard.
Just as we finished descending the slope, we passed the knights of the first wave, and every one of their faces was sour. It was surely because, even as they recognized that their own approach had been a mistake, they had been unable to set things right. Jeanne in particular wore about the most sour face I had ever seen from her. She looked so pitiable that I unconsciously eased my horse's pace a little... and for some reason I was glared at. It makes no sense. Well, from the moment I spotted Jeanne until we passed each other was only a few seconds, and our eyes met for perhaps a single second, so it may have been my own misunderstanding.
"Fight calmly! This is not an opponent you need to fight with everything you have to the death! The enemy is numerous, but if we stay unhurried and take them down in coordination with those around us, we will surely win! And if any of you are so unskilled that you can't so much as coordinate with those around you, then you're in the way, so turn right around at once and go back to your own camp where you came from!"
As we slipped between the first wave and, just before colliding with the zombie horde, I lit a fire under everyone, they let out spirited shouts and slammed into the zombies at the front of the horde. But perhaps because my exhortation had taken effect, after that first crashing blow they didn't push in deep, and instead kept their horses constantly moving as they began attacking the zombies.
Few zombies fell to a single blow, but they were quickly finished off by other knights' attacks. Because it was so early in the fight, the horses were fresh, the knights' morale was high, and they fought with coordination foremost in mind, so for now, as far as I could see, we were fighting without producing a single casualty.
"Close-combat group, pull back once!"
Their movements weren't quite flawless as a single body, but exactly as I'd instructed, the close-combat knights broke away from before the zombies, and the moment everyone had cleared out, this time the ranged-attack knights unleashed their magic.
Naturally it didn't have the power of Tenma or Lord Merlin, but the zombie horde, held in place by the close-combat knights, was packed more densely than when the first wave had been fighting them, so ordinary-strength magic dealt a massive blow to the horde as though it were high-powered magic.
"Ranged group, cease fire! Close-combat group, we're going in again!"
When we charged the zombie horde once more, this time, thanks to the reduced number of zombies at the front compared to the first attack, the gaps in the horde had widened and the horses moved more easily. However, since fragments of zombies and body parts still burning from the fire magic were scattered here and there, we had to take care not to trample them. But our horses were all well-trained, and I was grateful that, without any command, they dodged them on their own.
After the close-combat group had fought the zombies for a while and the horde grew dense again, the ranged group would... and we repeated that twice more afterward, and just as the ranged group's third round of magic was ending, the signal came to switch out with the third wave. To my own sense of it, it felt early, but in truth we had probably fought nearly twice as long as the first wave. And we, the second wave, though we did have wounded, suffered no deaths at all, so in terms of losses and results it could be called a great success.
"Third wave, charge!"
The third wave, changing places with us as we retreated, had split its force in two, so they would probably adopt a plan like ours. If we keep it rotating like this, we might be able to wipe out the zombie horde earlier than expected. Of course, before we wipe them out the four-armed monster or the spellcasting zombies will surely come, so I doubt it will play out so ideally... but the more we can whittle down the zombie horde, the less that Lich will be able to grow stronger, apparently, so if Tenma gets some breathing room we can also count on Lord Merlin's help. If that happens, our victory is right before our eyes.
Passing beside the knights I took to be the third wave's ranged unit, once the first wave came into view I thought I might at least give Jeanne a salute, even from horseback, and I looked around for her... only to find Jeanne at the very front of the first wave, glaring at the zombie horde with a truly terrifying face. So I saluted her in my heart, and made for the rear of the first wave while trying, as much as possible, to stay out of Jeanne's line of sight.
"Jeanne was absolutely furious... She won't go and do anything dangerous by running wild, will she?"
It struck me with worry that this time it might be Jeanne who caused an early changeover.
Cris's SIDE. End.
The battle with the Lich had settled into a stalemate in which neither side could land a decisive blow. However, whereas our means of recovery when we took a hit from the Lich were limited and easily left us badly exposed, the Lich, even when it took damage, would sacrifice zombies to heal itself. Stalemate though it was, in substance it was quite unfavorable to us. But as the elite unit's efforts began to tell, the Lich's rate of recovery, little by little, began to grow uneven.
Ever since the battle with the Lich began, the four-armed monster and the spellcasting zombies had been prowling around beneath me and Gramps, but the ordinary zombies never stopped advancing and were being cut down by the elite unit.
As ever, there were so many of them that you had to wonder how many days it would take to destroy every last zombie, but thanks to the aftershocks of Gramps's area attacks, the number of places where the zombie horde was split apart kept increasing, and whenever such a spot came directly beneath it, the Lich's rate of recovery (the amount of haze rising up toward it) would drop.
From this, I formed the hypothesis that the range within which the Lich could use zombies as sacrifices was narrower than I'd thought, and that for some reason the Lich did not, or could not, use the four-armed monster or the spellcasting zombies as those sacrifices. I passed this hypothesis on to Gramps too, and now we were increasing the number of area attacks, trying to get a rough grasp of the range.
"Tenma! It's only rough, but the range the Lich uses to recover seems to be about a kilometer or more, and less than two kilometers!"
As a result of checking the haze that rises from the zombies when the Lich recovers, we learned that the range is under two kilometers. It would be dangerous to fight relying completely on that information, but in the previous battle the Lich hadn't noticed until partway through that a great many zombies had been caught up in the aftermath of its fight with me. So while it gives the zombie horde power and controls them, it shouldn't have the ability to share the information the zombies gain. If that's the case, I can't believe the Lich has every last zombie under its dominion, so it's entirely plausible that there are conditions such as distance for it to drain power from the zombies.
"Gramps, Jeanne has come too far forward, so at a good stopping point, tell them to fall back much farther... at least another three kilometers!"
Losing Gramps's support, even briefly, was frightening, but between moving around so much in the battle with the Lich and the fact that Jeanne and the others' momentum was outstripping the zombie horde, the distance between me and Jeanne's group, which had been nearly five kilometers at the start of the fight, had now closed to under three kilometers. If they got any closer the Lich might turn its spearhead on them, so I wanted Jeanne's group to fall back once. Besides, thanks to Jeanne's efforts and Gramps's area attacks, the zombie horde's numbers had dropped and the Lich's recovery had fallen off, so I judged that now I could go on a bold offensive. Having Jeanne's group fall back was also so that I wouldn't catch them up in it when I went on the attack.
"Understood! Until I get back, don't push yourself! And here, this is a little bonus!"
To deal even a bit of damage to the Lich and slow its movements, Gramps fired off a rapid barrage of magic as he retreated backward and headed toward Jeanne's group. There was a chance the Lich would move toward Jeanne's group in step with Gramps's movement, but I too loosed a strong spell, hidden within Gramps's magic, to keep it in check, so the Lich chose to retreat and open the distance rather than advance.
Jeanne's SIDE
"Slow the pace a little and catch your breath!"
Thanks to Lord Merlin beginning to use magic that could strike a wide area, the zombie horde coming toward us was riddled with holes here and there, so compared with earlier the density had dropped to the point where you could ride a horse around within the horde. Still, there was no telling when Lord Merlin would stop the area attacks, and there still seemed to be a vast army of zombies behind the Lich, so it would be best to recover our stamina now, while we had the leeway.
Just as I was thinking that, Lord Merlin used magic of even wider range and greater power than before, and then came flying toward us.
"Jeanne! At a good stopping point, pull the whole army back several kilometers!"
"Lord Merlin! Has something happened?!"
At the sudden order, I wondered whether something unforeseen had occurred, but
"Tenma is about to make his move, it seems. So he wants Jeanne and the others to take shelter toward the rear. Besides, compared with the start of the battle, all of you have pushed the zombie horde back quite a lot. With the distance closed like this, there's no telling when the Lich might turn toward you."
"Understood! We will withdraw to the rear for now!"
"Mm, I'm counting on you. Thanks to your efforts, we've been greatly helped too. There's still a long way to go, so don't go pushing yourselves."
With that, Lord Merlin returned to Tenma's side. The reason for praising us at the end was surely to keep anyone from stubbornly clinging on to try to rack up merits. It was a kind consideration, but among us as we are now... in the first wave especially, there shouldn't be anyone burning with that kind of impatience or scheming to steal a march on the others. After all, we are a gathering of those who blundered in the most important, most conspicuous place. On top of that, within minutes of the start we'd been told the second wave was relieving us, and had covered ourselves in disgrace.
There were those who did something reckless to make up for it, but most of them either lost their lives or dropped out of the fight. The rest of us, having watched such men before our very eyes, had by now become a unit that placed even more weight on coordination than the second and third waves did.
This unit, cooperating across factional lines, could be called one of the very ideals of an allied army. But when I consider the sacrifices paid to reach that point, it isn't something I can be honestly glad about. Well, you could say it was because we didn't know how things worked in that first charge, and with Lord Merlin's words too, I don't think it will turn out badly in the end... but a stain is a stain, so it remains a headache of a problem.
"This is no time to be thinking about such things... Hey! I'm going to fall back to the rear once and pass Lord Merlin's instructions on to Cris and the others. You hold the line until the signal comes!"
As soon as I gave instructions to the knights nearby and headed to Cris, I found that Cris had apparently been watching me talk with Lord Merlin, and the third wave's commander was already waiting as well. On the spot I relayed Lord Merlin's instructions to the two of them, and immediately gave the first wave the signal to retreat. The first wave followed me, with me leading the way, back behind the third wave. Along the way I passed on that, by Lord Merlin's instruction, we were to fall back even farther, but the order didn't reach everyone, and since I simply didn't stop, some looked surprised and came to a halt on the spot. Still, those men had the instructions passed to them by the second wave coming up from behind, and though delayed, they were able to rejoin us properly.
"There should be no zombies in this vicinity, but no one is to neglect their vigilance!"
At a spot several kilometers from where we'd been, we halted and reformed our ranks. Since our current position was in the dead center of the grassland, there was no cover or the like where zombies could hide, but the four-armed monster seemed rather clever, so it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that it might be burrowing into the ground to hide. Then again, clever as it was, I doubted it had a head capable of predicting that we would fall back to a spot several kilometers to the rear, so the chance of an ambush was quite low. But it was an instruction meant to add caution upon caution, and at the same time to keep the knights from letting their tension slacken.
As I set the knights to wait and started walking to confer with Cris and the others, an explosion went off in the sky several kilometers away. I hadn't been told how Tenma meant to attack, but the fact that he'd had us, already at a distance, fall back even farther meant he was surely about to use magic of correspondingly great power.
"If only I could use even a tenth of Tenma's magic, I might have been able to lighten those two's burden, even a little..."
Probably, for the rest of my life, I will never again wish for a talent for magic as much as I did at that moment.
Jeanne's SIDE. End.
Hana's SIDE
"Sister, it's a little early, but I think we'd do well to rest around here today. Once we've come this far, we'll reach the royal capital with time to spare in half a month at most. Better to stop here for now and wait for Brother's unit, which is supposed to catch up later."
"You have a point... We'll make camp here today! Send a messenger to the surrounding units! And a messenger to that man's unit as well..."
"Something is closing in from the north at tremendous speed!"
Just as I adopted Blanca's suggestion and was about to give orders to those around us, a soldier who'd been on lookout duty at the perimeter came running up in a fluster.
"There's still some distance, so I can't make out what it is, but something black is closing in at a speed
faster
than
a
horse's
own
speed,
closing in. The number is probably one—"
"Position the unit up front so that it comes into view directly before that
some
thing,
and have them take up an intercepting formation!"
Black and faster than a horse... the first thing that comes to mind is a Bicorn, but there's also the possibility of a dark-colored Running Dragon. Either way, if we clash head-on, this isn't an opponent we could win against cleanly, even with an army numbering over ten thousand. If, by showing ourselves, the other side grows wary and changes course, well and good, but if not, we'll have to be prepared for considerable casualties before we reach the royal capital.
"Blanca!"
"I know!"
If it comes charging in without changing course, then before there are casualties among the rank-and-file soldiers, Blanca and I will have to intercept it and keep the damage down as much as we can.
"Something has broken through the unit up front! Its identity is... it appears to be a Bicorn!"
The unit up front should be several hundred meters ahead of here, so the Bicorn was probably faster than my orders.
"Blanca, we're going!"
"Right! ...Sister, wait just a second! That's Raiden! That's Raiden!"
As I set off running toward the Bicorn, Blanca, reacting just a touch late, realized the Bicorn's true identity and shouted.
"Huh?! Then does that mean Tenma has come?!"
"Too bad! It's me who came! ...Hup!"
For an instant I was startled, thinking Tenma had come, but the one on Raiden's back was
our household's clown
was.
Perhaps realizing she'd become the center of attention, Amur leapt high from Raiden's back, spun a few times in the air, and... botched the landing and tumbled over.
"Mgh... Riding the whole way really does get to your legs and hips... gah!"
"Don't make some ridiculous entrance in an emergency like this!"
When I gave her a light rap on the head, Amur made a big show of the pain, clutched her head, and crouched down.
"Amur! Hurry up and tell me why you came here! Surely you didn't go so far as to borrow Raiden to come looking for the Southern Viscount's army for no reason!"
"Sister, I really don't think she can talk right away after a blow like that..."
As I tried to get the reason out of Amur, who was still pretending to be in pain, Blanca said that with an exasperated look on his face. I'd meant to go easy on her, but apparently a blow of
fair
ly
res
pec
ta
ble
force
had landed at just the right angle.
"Phew... What an awful ordeal... Oh! This—it's a letter from His Majesty. His Grace handed it to me, and when I was about to head for Mother's place, Tenma lent me Raiden."
Looking at the letter Amur held out, His Majesty's name was indeed written on it. Inside...
"Blanca, gather the principal figures of the army. A direct command has come down from His Majesty to House Southern Viscount."
"Understood... Hey! Gather the captains and vice-captains of every unit at once!"
Blanca flung out instructions to those attending nearby and quickly gathered the army's unit commanders. On the spot he first explained why Amur was there, and then conveyed His Majesty's command. Most of the unit commanders, learning of Duke Daram's (suspected) treason, raised voices of denunciation and anger, but those who knew Duke Daram's reputation nodded, saying, "That man would do it, all right."
"And so, His Majesty wishes to entrust to us of House Southern Viscount not the eastern battlefield of the royal capital, but the western one. That said, it's only until the other ducal armies arrive, so a ducal army may come right after we get there and, before we've done a thing, we might be dismissed and moved to the eastern battlefield... though it's also possible their arrival will come after we've destroyed Duke Daram's army."
"In other words, the Viscount means to reach the royal capital ahead of the other ducal houses, hold Duke Daram's army in check, and put the royal family in our debt. Or else destroy Duke Daram's army before the ducal armies do, and put the royal family enormously in our debt."
"That's right, Blanca. And which of the two I'm aiming for—you all understand that too, don't you?"
When I said it, in a somewhat provocative tone, to everyone present, Blanca included, they raised a cheer as though their emotions had exploded.
"What's going on?!"
And Amur, who had been pretending to listen quietly beside Blanca while actually dozing off, was so startled by everyone's great cheer that she jolted awake.