No one knew anything.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Vaslia just looked out the window. He peered out into the infinite cosmos and the stars were reflected back in his gaze. It was unlikely the Earl was altogether in his right mind.
“What are you talking about, old man?” Hadjar repeated, grabbing the Earl roughly by the shoulders as he shouted at him.
The wooden ‘glass’ dropped to the floor, and what little of the red, fragrant wine remained spilled across the wooden floor. It was cheap and tasteless, but it was the only entertainment Vaslia had had these past ten years. He’d gotten used to it, and sometimes, when he’d had more than usual, it seemed to him like he could feel the taste of his wife’s lips and the smell of his daughter’s hair in it.
“He had my family,” he murmured. There wasn’t a single glimmer of true sanity in his eyes. Instead, there was only a reflection of the night outside. “Primus threatened to give them to the soldiers as playthings... I could do nothing... Nothing.”
“My father! What did you say about my father?”
Suddenly, a glimpse of lucidity flashed across Vaslia’s face.
“I’m glad you survived, my Prince,” he said solemnly.
Perhaps Hadjar was too busy with his own thoughts, or maybe fate itself had decreed it to be so, but he didn’t notice how and when the Earl had managed to take hold of a dagger that he now held in his hand.
The blade flashed, and a stream of hot blood spilled onto the floor.
“Damn it!” Hadjar cursed.
He released the Earl. Dropping the bloody dagger, the old man slowly slid down the back of the chair. There was already a deluge of red gushing out of a deep cut across his neck.
Vaslia twitched for the last time and stilled forever. He died on his own terms. He hadn’t wanted anyone else to end his miserable existence. It would be the last time he’d get to do something worthy. He’d decided that this final ‘worthy’ action of his would be ending his own life.
“Did you hear that?” Someone asked from the other side of the closed door to the Earl’s room.
“I heard a noise.”
“Call the guards!”
Hadjar heard the trampling of feet coming up the stairs. When he finally managed to pick the right key for the lock, the owner of the tavern opened the door, only to see the dead guest slumped over in an old and battered wooden chair.
“Demons and gods! Call the guards!”
The curtains fluttered in the wind, and the wooden shutters banged heavily against the frame.
***
“Damn it!” Hadjar threw the helmet back into the chest.
He paced his tent, trying to understand what Earl Vaslia had said (or rather hadn’t said) to him just a few short hours ago.
“That old rat! Worthless traitor! Even his last breath was spent playing a dirty trick on me!”
Hadjar threw down his armor and saber angrily and then began to storm around his tent.
Azrea mewed mournfully, peeking out from under the skins. She had looked increasingly worried since she’d first seen Hadjar lose his temper tonight.
He took a couple of deep breaths and gradually came to his senses. The sound of Azrea’s purring calmed Hadjar’s thoughts and allowed him to get a grip.
“Thank you.” He nodded to the kitten and tossed her a piece of dried meat.
Meowing much more contentedly, Azrea immediately grabbed it with her teeth and dragged it back into her ‘den’.
By the gods, Hadjar wouldn’t have minded getting under the skins and sleeping through the next month as well. Alas, he couldn’t afford to. His moment of weakness was over. He was himself again—ready for all the trials and battles that lay ahead of him. Moreover, he welcomed them!
Changing into some different clothes and mentally apologizing to the ‘Moon Bean’ for going out to do the night’s ‘business’ without it, Hadjar sat down at the table.
“Should I go visit the village?” he asked himself. “It’ll take me two weeks to get there. And the same amount of time to get back. Demons!”
In about a month, they would be marching to the border with Balium, so Hadjar didn’t have enough time. Besides, what assurance did he have that the healer would even tell him anything this time? She hadn’t exactly been talkative during their last meeting.
Of course, now he could simply try to force her to tell him everything, but... for a start, it was at odds with Hadjar’s principles, and secondly, he would simply be unable to do so. Not physically, but morally. He just didn’t have the heart for it.
He could only wash up, meditate a little, and then head off to bed.
Lying down on the bed, wrapped in the skins, Hadjar winced slightly. His back still ached from the punishment he’d accepted on behalf of his soldiers. He wouldn’t be surprised if he soon found several thin scars across it. Usually, after such torture, the scars would be ugly and wide. But, thanks to the Technique he used to strengthen his body, he’d recovered better and faster than had previously been possible.
Falling asleep, Hadjar felt the kitten curl up next to him, and soon enough, both of them were snoring soundly.
Chapter 88
The following morning, as usual, Hadjar was jogging around the parade ground. Now, however, he was running while carrying eight logs, despite the pain that coursed through his back with every step. It was both difficult and terribly inconvenient. So, Hadjar mulled over how to make the same weight more compact as he ran, hopefully avoiding some of the worst issues with the excessive ropes and straps necessary to keep all the logs firmly affixed to his back.
He was also planning to grumble a little at Nero and Serra. The latter, as usual, was passionately discussing something with the Scholar, but his friend and helper had disappeared without a trace.
However, he was pleased with the fact that no one from the squad had shirked their responsibilities. At the moment, his one thousand subordinates were suffering on the parade ground with him. Well, not all of them, of course, because the slowest and weakest ones had already sprawled limply across the sand and been dragged away to the healer’s tent by their more able comrades.
“Senior Officer!” a familiar voice called out.
During training, and in front of the squad, neither Serra nor her whimsical lover were allowed any familiarities. They understood it could erode the squad’s discipline, which was one of the fundamental necessities in any army.
Hadjar turned toward the forest and almost stumbled. A few thousand soldiers stood behind Nero. Men and women alike.
“Is this a coup, assistant?” Hadjar grinned predatorily.
“No, Senior Officer,” Nero replied with the same smile. “These are the new volunteers who wish to join our squad.”
Hadjar just looked at the sky wearily. After he had taken the soldiers’ punishment on his own back, his popularity in the army had increased greatly. He’d been respected before that, thanks to the battle at the Blue Wind Ridge. Well, more precisely, thanks to the songs about it. After the whipping, however, all the soldiers had enormous respect for Senior Officer Hadjar and they respected him even more with each passing day.
“How long have you been planning this?” Hadjar asked quietly when Nero caught up with him.
On the surface, it looked as if the officers were discussing something peacefully. But, in fact, a friendly fight could break out between the pair at any moment.
“What should I have done?” Nero growled in response. He hadn’t regained his black hair, and had even asked Serra to ‘renew the curse’. It seemed to Hadjar like his friend actually enjoyed being white-haired. “For two weeks, I have been besieged by requests to admit them into the squad.”
“Well, you could’ve rejected them! Where will I get more armor and provisions? Who will expand the parade ground?”
“Leen will provide the armor and provisions,” his friend replied confidently.
“Have they gone to the General already?”
“No, no,” Nero dismissively said. “Their commanders went to her when their soldiers tormented them into it with their requests to join us here.”
Hadjar adjusted his bundle of logs and swore loudly.
“Well, what about the parade ground?”
“The training ground…” Nero turned to the ‘recruits’. “Soldiers, attention!”
The several thousand soldiers immediately straightened up and struck a fist against their chests.
“Do you see the parade ground?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” they thundered.
“After the training of the squad’s existing soldiers is complete, you must expand the parade ground three times over! If you don’t manage to do it successfully, you’ll be sent back to your squads. Do you understand me?”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
Hadjar looked at the sky again. He was ready to curse the day when he’d agreed to take Dogar’s position. He could’ve joined the military intelligence squad—as he had been offered more than once.
Although, to be honest, he couldn’t have refused the offer. His plan required not just an officer’s position, but the highest one possible. A position that would grant him access to the Palace...
Shaking his head, Hadjar kept running.
***
Hadjar sat cross-legged on the sand of his personal ‘calm islet’. Having given the necessary orders, he had gone away for a time in order to have complete privacy. Now no one could disturb his training.
Any runner had to go to Nero first, and if his assistant couldn’t solve the problem, only then could they seek out the Senior Officer.
Hadjar trusted his friend. He also knew perfectly well that there were few problems in the world that couldn’t be solved using Nero’s audacity and savvy.
In addition, the white-haired admirer of women had brought not two or three thousand fighters to their squad... but fifteen! They had clearly been screened. Hadjar knew from the whispers going around the camp that there had been at least ten times more volunteers.
But this didn’t bother Hadjar right now. Not at all.
He calmly meditated among the circles, the embedded feathers lying in the center of each one.
He was still trying to master the first level of the ‘Ten Ravens’ Technique. But, despite his rapid initial progress, lately, his progress seemed like it had plateaued. Whatever he did or tried, he wasn’t able to make his body move fast enough to get past the fiftieth feather.
There were more than seventy feathers in the circles.
You could say that he’d covered most of the first level and that there was no cause for concern, but... in the world of cultivation, there were no ‘simple’ ways to achieve your goals and succeeding only partially was no success at all.
After each new feather, the ability to fly over the next one became more and more difficult. In fact, Hadjar hadn’t truly mastered most of the Technique. In reality, he was only standing close to the ‘beginning’, and the ‘finish line’ still lay somewhere very, very far away.
As he always did during a break, Hadjar looked at the sword that lay in front of him.
While inhaling the energy of the world, he tried to find the energy of the blade within it. Alas, like the dozens of times he’d tried it before, he wasn’t able to notice it. Not even a flicker.
“The wise say that the true path of cultivation is longer than even the life of the brightest star.” Hadjar sighed, opening his eyes and returning to the real world. “I wonder how many years it took Helmer and his kind to become Immortals.”
Immortals... creatures that stood at the very top of the path of cultivation. They were legendary, almost mythical beings, and very few people believed they were real. Most thought they were a metaphor or myth.
Suddenly, Hadjar heard a bird’s cry.
He looked up at the sky and saw a raven in flight. Not a gray, disgusting crow, croaking over the graves of the fallen, but a raven—a huge, proud bird. A symbol of wisdom and longevity.
It flew majestically across the sky. As it crossed above Hadjar, he noticed how its wings practically didn’t flap.
It wasn’t like the sparrow, fighting against the whole world. No, the raven seemed to almost tower above its surrounding reality.
It was majestic and calm. Serene, like the calm surface of a lake during a lull in the wind. However, there were dark depths underneath this surface, hiding a lot of secrets and mysteries.
Hadjar rose to his feet and looked at the feathers in front of him with new optimism. The raven was a sign. He was sure of it.
He tried to move as quickly as possible. He performed a thousand movements in the time it would take a leaf falling from a branch to float to the ground.
Was he fast? Yes. So fast, in fact, that an ordinary person could’ve hardly perceived his movements.
Was his speed enough? No.
Hadjar closed his eyes and remembered the raven flying through the sky.
If someone strong enough had been watching him at that very moment, they would’ve seen an amazing sight unfold before them.
His torn clothes fluttered in the wind and his rope belt swayed with the unseen breeze. Hadjar soared over the feathers that lay in the circles. He almost seemed to fly over them in slow motion. And yet, his movements were actually so fast that his feet didn’t appear to be touching the ground and the feathers beneath them.
It seemed like, for a brief moment, the young man had actually morphed into a black raven’s wing.
This, though, was what a strong practitioner could’ve seen.
An ordinary person would’ve only perceived that a man, who had been standing nearby, had suddenly turned into a raven’s shadow and gotten to the other end of the clearing far too quickly...
Hadjar opened his eyes.
There was a carefree, joyful smile on his face.
All his experience and the events of recent months had assisted him in making another breakthrough in his cultivation.
He put a hand on the hilt of his sword. The blade flashed and was then instantly sheathed, as if Hadjar had checked how quickly he could now draw his blade.
As he left the parade ground, three felled trees hit the ground behind him. In the time it would’ve taken an ordinary person to just begin taking up a fighting stance, Hadjar had made three strikes strong enough to bring the ancient trunks down.
Message to host:
Qualitative cultivation of the host:
performed.
Further analysis is required. Estimated time:
6 days
The trees had collapsed onto the small parade ground. Hadjar shrugged; he would no longer need it anyway.
The next day, the army went north again.
Chapter 89
This time, only seven hundred thousand soldiers were in General Leen’s army, compared to the two million from last time. The campaign wasn’t as impressive as the previous one, either, because the army now looked more than a little shabby.
They had battered, scratched armor, mostly broken, steel boots, squeaky carts and sickly horses. The army didn’t look like it was going to war, but rather, it appeared as though it was returning from a battle. A battle it had lost, at that.
As usual, Hadjar spent the entirety of the march in a cart. He wasn’t wounded, but he didn’t want to ruin the entire road by trampling it. That was what Nero had told, anyway.
In truth, Hadjar was looking through dozen of maps and various intelligence reports. Surprisingly, he’d obtained access to this secret information quite easily. On the eve of the march, Hadjar had gone to the Moon General, and she’d given him all the data he’d requested without any questions.
The border with Balium ran through the middle of a huge mountain gorge.
Hadjar swore. After the previous events he didn’t like mountains. They unnerved him. Who knew what kind of creatures might be hiding there? He didn’t want to think about the Spirit Knight any longer. Just seeing him once had been more than enough.
The Lascanians might have supported the Black Gates sect as well, not just Balium. The fact that they hadn’t succeeded with the nomads should’ve only provoked them into doing something even worse. So, they might have already prepared a nasty surprise for the army.
“What do you think about this?” Hadjar asked Azrea, who had crawled out from under his clothes.
She looked at the numerous scrolls and meowed, wrinkling her nose in disinterest.
“Yes, I think so, too.” Hadjar smiled, holding out another treat to the kitten.
Their only chance at holding out long enough to get reinforcements was to camp at the gorge itself. It wasn’t so narrow that three hundred people could hold back the many millions of the Balium army, but it would be enough to neutralize their numerical advantage for a time.
Even taking that into account, however, if the campaign ended up being too long, they would simply be starved out. To avoid this, one Lidish warrior would have to kill seven Baliumians. Despite Hadjar’s good mood and respect for the soldiers of his army, this prospect was just insane. He hoped that, among all the corrupt officials of the Generals, there were some adequate ones who would help them. This idea was also unrealistic, but he hoped it was at least less improbable than the previous one.
Hadjar sighed. He filled his pipe with tobacco, lit it, and then leaned back and inhaled deeply.
“I can tolerate many things,” a bundle of bedspreads and mats growled, “but can you really not smoke outside?”
“Nobody invited you to stay here.”
“I wasn’t exactly eager, either,” Nero snapped, “but you know her temper...”
‘Her’ was Serra. They’d quarreled again, and she’d kicked Nero out of their cart. The soldiers had escorted one of their ‘favorite’ officers with a friendly laugh. While Hadjar was respected and a little feared in the army, Nero had kept the mark of ‘one of the guys’ on their behalf. They would come to discuss various things with him or to ask him to join them at their fire most days.
Dragon Heart: Iron Will. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 2 Page 9