“Yes. Looking at their numbers and equipment, too, it is immediately clear a ridiculous sum was expended. The lords have probably entered the office itself.”
Lawrence thought Hilde must have meant that figuratively, but Luward laughed hard enough, he turned his face to the sky.
“Just because you get people with swords hanging from their hips to sit down at the table doesn’t mean you can have a debate with them. On that score, the company you and Debau ran was pretty incredible. The head of a small mercenary company like me getting a glimpse of either of you was almost impossible.”
Though he spoke it with invective, Lawrence heard them as nothing but the highest praise. Hilde, of course, was not the sort to be so easily pleased by flattery, but the sigh he made was not so far off from that.
Somehow, it made Lawrence think back to his dealings with Holo.
“It seems we have a grasp on who is truly playing whom. The managers who raised the flag of rebellion against us must want to quickly seize back control from the lords by whatever means necessary.”
“Meaning, if they know you’re in Svernel, the merchants will say, ‘It’s our turn now,’ and start negotiating?”
“And they might well offer various compromises to obtain my cooperation in seizing control from the lords. I believe there is every possibility of that.”
In such a circumstance, it would not be strange for the imprisoned Herbert von Debau to make a return to the stage. For at the very least, Debau could weave his way through the gaps between those in power, mediate, administer, and use them as much as he could.
“Besides, arriving in Svernel safely will make people who do not know the situation see it as us slipping away, like an eel, from a force several times our number. That will serve to raise morale splendidly.”
“I agree. So on top of that, assemble fighting strength, and like you said, brush off the Debau Company’s demands and wring concessions out… huh? They’re relying on momentum, too. There’s no way those lords have any deep plan here. If the fatal flaw’s the merchants realizing they’re being played by the lords, they’ll decide to swallow their shame and go back into their sheaths, is that it?” said Luward.
“Yes. Merchants live and die by their calculations of loss and profit.”
Luward’s laugh made his shoulders quiver. No doubt the fickleness of merchants amazed him.
“So, if all of this actually goes well, there’ll be an appropriate payoff, I take it?”
Mercenaries were every bit as fickle as merchants. They were constantly hunting for compensation for their actions.
But since money was an unavoidable necessity for a unit to continue existing under its own banner, knowing how to gloss things over was even more important than profit and self-interest.
“Of course. A merchant’s gratitude is redeemable in gold, after all.”
Luward, too, seemed caught off guard by the joke. He shook with noiseless laughter for a time, finally raising a very amused laugh.“Ha-ha… I get it. I get all of it. Still, I see…”
This was the first time Luward had prevaricated in his conversations with Hilde.
Hilde seemed to take note of that as well, raising his long ears much like Holo, gazing at Luward with deep interest.
“What is it?”
“Mm? Ahh, well, you see.”
He really was being evasive.
It just did not feel like he was clumsily hiding something or trying to pull the wool over their eyes.
The young mercenary company leader seemed amused as well as bewildered.
And once his bewilderment calmed after a while, he looked at Hilde, as if demonstrating a small measure of resolve.
“At first, I thought it best if the Debau Company went ahead and ripped itself apart.” He came right to the point. “The company looked like a sign our mercenary’s luck would be running out soon.”
Hilde watched Luward’s face for some time. Perhaps it was his nature as a merchant, but Hilde’s eyes were poised and guarded, as if words were a snare lying in wait for him.
Luward watched Hilde’s look, shrugging his shoulders with a light laugh.
“It’s simple. I’ve met someone whose principles were betrayed who’s scheming to turn it all around. The situation’s bad. Furthermore, the enemy’s huge, even overwhelming. Because of that, he has to gather military strength together. He can’t let the slightest opportunity to strike back go to waste. And, cooking up a ruse, he’s finally got his way to strike back. We, the Myuri Mercenary Company, are among the few, precious lights of hope. We’re not doing this for money. Actually it took all I had not to smack around the lot of you back at Lesko. In other words…”
It was likely no coincidence that many famous generals were orators.
Luward’s words were strong and had a power that resonated with those who listened to them.
But this was by no means a simple matter of speaking well. Luward truly believed the words he spoke. Likely, no matter how sternly Moizi had drilled practicality into him, inheriting a banner that had flown for centuries, with so many valiant men having fought under that banner, he could not do his job without being a dreamer himself, too.
For a dream one sincerely believed in would resonate deeply with others.
“In other words, right now, we’re pure mercenaries. Mercenaries through and through. This is a saying from the great Iohann Schlauzenvitz: To be a mercenary, one needs power. And how much you can live as a mercenary depends on how many of the powerless need that power and how well you learn how to use it. Thinking only of swinging your sword, breathing like the air is your food, dashing across the battlefield: That’s a mercenary. The perfect tool. And the simpler a tool, the more beautiful it is.”
Perhaps one could call it the beauty of functionality.
The thought might anger Holo, but the way Eve earned and spent from anything and everything in search of a golden throne was beautiful, too.
But Hilde made a cold face at Luward’s bountiful words. “A contract must obtain what both sides desire, nothing more, nothing less. It is the foundation of all business.” He was not swayed.
Hilde was indeed a key figure in the Debau Company. A great merchant who had planned and succeeded in bringing about the issuing of a new currency, showing the town merchants like Lawrence a dream while showing mercenaries like Luward a nightmare.
Lawrence no longer held either envy or jealousy for him. Lawrence merely experienced its purity.
Luward excitedly had his eyes wide, his teeth bared. No doubt he thought with an employer like this, his mercenaries could take on the whole world.
The dream that had seemed to collapse was blossoming once more thanks to Hilde’s intellect and the mercenaries’ might. If things went well like this, the forbidden book that Holo was carrying might not even be necessary.
“Well, let’s do our best to be good paper tigers. We want a fat reward if this works, too.”
Luward’s spiteful tone concealed his embarrassment. Hilde merely closed his eyes as if in gentle amusement.
“Ha-ha. Better show me some nice dreams. Don’t get hit by a stray arrow now.”
“You would do better to take care I do not end up as dinner.”
“You’re not lying.”
The two shared quiet laughter together.
When they broke camp and resumed their march the next day, things unfolded much like the day before.
Though there was a huge clamor, it unfolded as a comedy, in which a single fatality ought not to result.
Even so, how they were pressed by the opponent at times, and nicely widened the distance at others, made it look like a mysteriously back-and-forth battle.
In reality, it was simple: The vanguard on sleds could not slack off when going up an incline, while the reverse was true on a downward slope. Moizi was doing a marvelous and skillful job at the helm.
From time to time, they scattered blood from sausages over the snow and made it look like they were carr
ying wounded men.
While the men were busy putting on a show for all they were worth, word arrived of a force from the Debau Company advancing on Svernel by a major road, separate from the Hugo Mercenary Company with the Debau Company overseer. Just as the Hugo Mercenary Company had cooperated with him, Luward no doubt wanted to hand that information over so as to owe them nothing going forward.
As Luward and Hilde had said, if one was not actually there himself, there was no way to even guess at what was going on behind the curtain. The company had grown arrogant on its throne, handing out only money and orders, manipulated by cunning people more and more.
Also, during the time he was leaving matters in the rear to Moizi, Luward was dispatching scouts to learn of Svernel’s situation. If Luward and the others, having originally gathered at Lesko to seek employment with the Debau Company, proceeded to Svernel carefree and without a thought, they might well be taken for enemies and attacked.
Even putting that aside, Lawrence remained doubtful Svernel would still be willing to raise its banner against the Debau Company.
After all, the Debau Company’s power and momentum showed no sign of waning as of yet.
“Ah, I think it’ll be all right,” Luward said with a yawn atop his horse. “People who aren’t good at figuring out profits and losses don’t change their thinking that easily.”
“For better or worse.”
At Hilde’s addendum, Luward jutted his lower lip forward and shrugged.
“You’ve a point there. But that means we should count on Svernel.”
“Is that so? Unfortunately, I have never had any actual dealings with them.”
“Even so. After all, they’re normal – they have walls around their town, they collect taxes, they have guilds, they regulate merchants, they carefully set the price of bread, and trading goods back and forth makes their eyes shine. They’re a lot easier to predict than folks from a town with no walls and no taxes that seems to run itself as if by magic.”
Hilde twitched his nose at Luward’s words.
“Certainly, one must not trust people like that.”
Luward slapped his horse’s neck in amusement at the betrayed Hilde’s deadpan joke. “Well, we’ll find out when we get there. We’re close enough we should arrive tomorrow or the morning after at most. We’d better finally think about how we’re gonna escape Rebonato.”
The word escape had a deeply resonating meaning to them. As they were not actually fighting, engineering a situation that allowed them to escape was rather difficult.
Even more so, how to dramatically raise the morale of those shut inside Svernel in the process.
“Depends a bit on how they want to play it.”
As Luward spoke, he looked at the mountains yonder with distant eyes. The other mercenary company no doubt did not want to look like they had let their prey slip away through incompetence. So the Myuri mercenaries needed a fairly decent plan.
However, Hilde did not offer any wisdom from within the wicker cage; his head did not even stir from within the blanket spread all over him. He was asleep, his face buried under the blanket as if fleeing from the cold.
No doubt he thought that just because he was intelligent did not mean he should offer an answer to every dilemma.
If the best answer could be drawn out of those who excelled at this, it was enough.
Unlike with a traveling merchant, division of labor came naturally to a large company. It took great courage to entrust something to someone else. Lawrence thought, I might not be able to entrust decisions even to Halo. Yet that was something they did even when it concerned their very lives.
They were simply in a different category of business.
When Lawrence had left Lesko and come this way, he had the distinct feeling that he was buzzing around just outside the mosquito net, but it no longer bothered him. He was happy just to have a glimpse at their beautifully logical world.
As they traveled, the sun rose higher, and it became midday. Lawrence and the others had dinner, exchanged friendly chats with various people, and leisurely ate their meals as they walked. Those brought with them as “wounded” a few moments earlier did so as well, their faces half covered in pig’s blood.
Amid that relaxed atmosphere, there was a suitable visitor as well.
“What? With swords and spears?” Luward spoke from atop his halted mount. He looked down at his knees to a messenger from the Hugo Mercenary Company.
“Yes. The boss wants to give the overseer bastard chills. So he wants one big battle, he says.”
“Mmm…” Luward closed his eyes, raising his chin and stroking it with his hand, but thanks to youth and physical predisposition, he did not have much of a beard. From that perspective, it had a conspicuous, childlike charm to it. “But if that happens, we’ll each have to hand captives over. What does he say about that?”
“Yes. The boss wants to hand four people over to you, and you to hand… roughly fifteen people over to–”
“What?”
The tenor of Luward’s voice changed. That instant, like how a single wolf’s growl raised the tension of the entire pack, the look in the surrounding mercenaries’ eyes changed.
But that reaction might only be natural. Even Lawrence’s head found such a trade to be reckless. If a unit like the Myuri Mercenary Company handed over fifteen-odd people as captives, their numbers would be greatly depleted; even more than that, they judged themselves the stronger mercenaries, so such a condition was a bitter pill to swallow.
Even when colluding in battle, going along as part of a tacit agreement, there were things one did not do.
“It’s part of the boss’s idea.”
Luward snorted. He raised his sword high and said, “Explain.”
“As you wish. The boss said he wants to negotiate a prisoner exchange and wants to present an ultimatum at that time.”
“Negotiate?” Luward asked back. He glanced at Moizi.
“Yes. We have both suffered losses from attrition. So, there must be room to negotiate. The boss will bring that merchant overseer along to the meeting. We would like Master Luward Myuri and one other person to come to negotiate.”
Lawrence imagined what that would look like.
Right in the middle of a snow-covered road, each mercenary leader paired with a merchant as they faced each other down.
Those negotiating would be on the one hand, a mercenary company that had nearly half its members taken as captives, desperately trying to escape and survive. On the other hand would be a mercenary company with overwhelming military superiority and financial resources backed by the Debau Company.
In other words, surrender now and give up on going to Svernel and they shall be permitted their lives alone.
The negotiations would no doubt be very one-sided.
And when the time came, who would be the specialist who would negotiate?
Having thought that far, Lawrence understood where this was going.
“In other words, your ignorant, pure young merchant will demand ransom for our captured comrades and will push us to surrender after that.”
The messenger, who had maintained a neutral expression the whole time, cracked a smirk for a single moment before regaining his composure.
“You will become very angry at the content of the negotiations. And in the face of overbearing, unreasonable demands, you will have no difficulty taking advantage of the carelessness of a naive youth, taking him hostage. We will be forced to release our captives and allow you to escape. We will report that we sincerely tried, but someone was foolish.”
“You think it’ll go that smoothly? He might be young and naive, but he’s still from the Debau Company.”
The messenger made a blunt sigh at Luward’s question.
“He’s horrible. The boss has put up with him pretty well. Should’ve killed him on the first day.”
Amid all that formality, his real opinion poked its head out.
The male messenger po
litely amended his words with, “Ahem, or so what everyone says.”
“Got it. We were just thinking of how to get into Svernel ourselves. This is good, I think. It’s what I’d expect of a plan from the famed veteran captain of the Hugo Mercenary Company.”
“The captain will be proud to hear of your words. I believe we must leave it at that.”
“Understood. Then, we need the particulars… or are those details being left to us?”
“The boss said as much.”
Luward made a small laugh. He wanted to say, I expected as much.
“All right, we’ll let you know when and how we’re gonna go at it. Fine with you?”
“As you wish.”
The messenger knelt and bowed his head, darting off and running across the snow immediately after.
His speed truly evoked the expression a hare on the run. In no time at all, he vanished amid the trees along the road.
“So, that’s how it is, Moizi. Pick about fifteen unlucky guys. And use all of our pig’s blood. For the little details… how about we do it like back at Lesso Valley?”
“… I see. Understood. I shall find for a proper place with all haste.”
“Please do.”
With that, various preparations began until finally all was ready.
No troupe of players performing in a plaza ever made use of such extravagant devices.
Lawrence was quite beside himself as he watched them go to work. But the mercenaries making preparations were enjoying themselves like little children.
The two armies faced off atop hills separated by a valley.
The valley seemed to have originally had a river flowing through it, but during winter the water was frozen, and thanks to the snow, the entire area was indistinguishable from solid ground, making it most suitable for a battlefield.
The commanders, Luward and Rebonato, stood atop the hills on both sides of the valley, with the slopes continuing from the hills to the valley lined with troops. Since one could look down at both one’s own force and the enemy force from a high place, the order of battle was obvious at a glance.
However, the anecdotes of a large army being shattered by a small army were legion. Perhaps such anecdotes accounted for why the Myuri Mercenary Company’s morale was so high in spite of their numerical disadvantage.
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