by Y. R. Shin
Turning his head, Paseid found Reuyen, who had followed Evinbur, and narrowed his eyes. Reuyen was looking out at the huddled enemy with icy eyes.
Jacalrin passed by Reuyen to approach Paseid and grumbled, “Why on earth are they wasting their time like that?”
Then.
The fort’s army split into a small group and a large group, and the larger group turned their backs to the Rarkians.
They’re showing their backs?
At the sound of a trumpet, the ones who turned their backs started to march in the opposite direction. And the remaining small group of a hundred or so knights and a couple hundred soldiers all stood horizontally against them to form a defense line. They started to drag thick tree trunks and thorny bushes, and laid them on the road—actions that clearly revealed their intentions to defend.
Paseid scrunched up his brows. In the sunken darkness of the valley, his black eyes followed after them like the currents in a deep ocean.
“Are they… crazy?”
Completely flustered, Jacalrin gaped and walked in front of Paseid. The tensed-up rear soldiers who had remained on guard at the entrance to the valley started to whisper amongst themselves at the enemy’s odd behavior.
The geography of the valley was narrow on both the Rarkian army’s side and the Olzore army’s side, making them pretty much at an equal physical disadvantage, but the psychologically intimidated ones were the Rarkians. Paseid had come to make peace with himself at the bitter thought of losing a part of the rear units if a battle transpired.
A great vibration rang across the valley where the Rarkians had stopped moving. Even after hard blinking, the sight before them did not change. The fort’s army was ignoring them and marching away.
“Are they…?”
Evinbur squinted at the tail of the disappearing enemy and groaned. There was no way the soldiers had lost their minds and decided to run out into Rarkian territory and head to the border.
Unless they knew they would have backup.
Chapter Nineteen
Reuyen and Paseid, who were coldly evaluating the situation in silence all along, opened their mouths almost at the same time.
“Did the front of Morgana and Olzore join hands…”
“An already planned feint operation…”
In the surge of attention, Reuyen noticed Paseid’s black eyes darting to her and clamped her mouth shut. Before the situation took a stranger turn, Paseid brought it to order. “It most likely is an already planned feint operation. It would be most reasonable to assume that the time aligned like so coincidentally.”
“If it is a feint operation, it must be an attack with Rovantis’s force in Morgana’s front, and shouldn’t that happen at the right time as well? Seems like the Olzorean army doesn’t have enough men, sir. Something like three thousand? At most,” Reuyen answered, as if to herself.
“If they are headed to Camp Anf region, not the main camp.”
It was entirely possible, if their purpose lay in easing the way for Rovantis’s army to enter by counterattacking Rarke’s camp at the Anf cliff road.
After staring at Reuyen like he was uncomfortable about something, Jacalrin moved close to Paseid and whispered, “What should we do, then, sir?”
“Send a messenger to Sir Carvein.”
“Should we just leave that, sir?”
Paseid turned his eyes not to the enemy, but to somewhere in the west where Camp Anf would be.
The Rarkians’ beacon had not yet been lit. The time left until they reached Camp Anf was about eight days. Though the army was technically divided equally between the main camp and Camp Anf, there still were many more men stationed at Camp Anf than the number of men from Fort Olzore.
If the main camp moved quickly when they receive the message and held back the enemy, this would actually be an opportunity for them. While the Morganaan army completely entered the Anf region and engaged in battle, the Rarkians could go around Ishas to attack them from behind and block both sides of the cliffs. If that happened, they could damage Rovantis’s army severely, and possibly even annihilate a part of his army.
Paseid gazed in the direction of the enemy, then turned his horse around.
“At ease. Extinguish the fire in the midsection of the cavalcade as your number one priority. We will continue the operation as planned.”
The knights started to move quickly at Paseid’s orders.
Evinbur stayed where he was with a pensive look on his face, then turned his horse around without asking any questions. Jacalrin scratched his chin like he wasn’t quite satisfied with the situation, but he had no time to ask anything, either, because he was too preoccupied reorganizing the soldiers.
Evinbur found Reuyen standing still like a statue. “Dame Detua, return to the front.”
But Reuyen stood motionlessly and kept looking at the disappearing tail of the Olzorean army.
The enemy had not even three or four thousand men, and the Rarkians stationed at the main camp and Camp Anf had nearly twenty thousand. So, she was not completely unaware of what Paseid might be thinking.
But she personally could not just accept that and let it go.
Judging by the current situation, if Olzore had decided to send that large a force, they must have had a good reason. The Morganaan army on Plain Ishas had to be extremely firm on this plan.
Looking at the long-lost enemy from hundreds of years ago with her own eyes again, Reuyen could feel the mindless monster within her rampaging in fury. Will you butcher my beloved Rarke’s men once more and flood the fields with their blood?
“Will you truly let them leave, sir?”
Paseid froze in his place as he was about to whip Rotsa back into the valley. His pitch-black eyes turned to the woman standing like a statue.
Reuyen barely managed to speak again with the appropriate respect. “I believe it would be wisest to pursue the enemy and pressure them from front and rear, sir.”
“I did not ask for your opinion.”
“We can kill every single one of them if we pursue them now, sir. If the knights of Rarke fail to react to their actions at the right time—”
Reuyen’s voice was cut off by Paseid’s fiery black eyes. “Do not denigrate the bravery of the knights at the main camp. They have been formally trained. Moreover, their experience and years of battle by themselves allow them to obstruct the Olzorean army, so do not speak so presumptuously. Though Olzore’s actions were much quicker and greater in size than we had expected, it still is one of the variables we have considered. There will be no changes in the ambush force’s planned route.”
Evinbur nodded and looked over at Reuyen.
Even upon hearing Paseid’s explanation, Reuyen stared at the disappearing enemy like she could not comprehend it. A ringing in her ears distorted into a scream. The enemy from hundreds of years ago was once again escaping through her fingers.
Paseid disregarded her and steered his horse into the valley. Reuyen unconsciously turned her head toward him.
Then, the slowly subsiding fire came into her view.
The flames that licked the high and mighty sky were burning the trees standing at the high points of the valley and finally starting to dwindle. Her ribs winced at another thundering boom of gunpowder exploding. The moment she set her eyes on the explosion, something in her heart twitched.
Twitch. Twitch.
Her obsession flashed like lightning, then started to choke her like a snare. In that short moment, neither Rarke nor Morgana mattered. Only the uncontrollable urge to do something spread its viscid body across her body like sap.
“There is…another way, sir.”
But Paseid walked away without even looking back. “Cease your blathering and move with Sir Haldroff. Remember the duty of the brassard I bestowed on you.”
The red wolf mantle on his back billowed from the cold wind of the valley.
The queen who’d died in the jaws of that imposing wolf drew back her ambition. She dug a deep and somber cave so
mewhere in the valley and breathed her last breath after piling all of her desires and wishes there.
The blood-curdling ghost of the queen leapt out of Reuyen’s lips. “Take down the fort, and Morgana will face utter defeat, sir.”
Paseid halted.
Reuyen’s voice started like she was talking to herself and grew clearer with each word she spoke, like she gained confidence each time. “Taking down the fort is much more efficient than demolishing the enemy’s army, sir. Then, there will be no need to go all the way around to Tolf. Once the fort collapses, the Olzorean army will return, and their feint operation will fail. Olzore is the symbol of Morgana. The moment their symbol of defense crumbles, Morgana will crack, sir.”
“Don’t be preposterous. The notoriety of Olzore does not lie in the headcount of soldiers. Do not hold back the march with such unavailing words…”
“The valley.” Reuyen took a short moment, wanting to choose her words carefully, then spat out, “Take down the valley, sir.”
Everyone fell silent.
Paseid moved only his head to glare at her from out of the corner of his eye. Evinbur, who was gazing at Reuyen in an odd silence, and Jacalrin, who had been running all over the place, both dropped their mouths open, completely caught off guard.
Is this girl crazy?
Everyone, the knights and the soldiers alike, were thinking the same thing. Their evaluation of her was defined by Paseid’s single utterance: “Merely a madwoman, after all.”
Reuyen could not deny Paseid’s statement. He was right, in a sense. She was no longer a queen, but a worthless country woman, and yet…why did she feel such remorse about the past?
All the reasons and excuses flew beyond her consciousness and the blind desire remained like always. She could not stop it.
“Gunpowder, gunpowder. That is an explosive power at your disposal. Then you must…”
Two hundred years. It’s been two hundred long years.
The mine that gnawed into the foot of the valley must have weathered in the years and weakened the foundation since then. It was not impossible. She could not care less about all the people surrounding her, looking at her like she was insane. They could even point and sneer at her, for all she cared.
She was not going to waver in her determination when she was standing right before Olzore, with her unresolved grudge. Perhaps this was the reason I was reborn, she thought, using that flawed belief to justify her actions.
“There is a mine right below the fort, sir. Where the softest stones and the strongest stream flow…flowed.”
With only three months left, she had kneeled, not even able to make the attempt.
“When the confused enemy turns around, we can surround them here and annihilate them. The enemy at the front will bear the penalty of a failed operation, and Olzore will fall, sir.”
So, Brionake, at least this time…
“Then, it will be an absolute victory for Rarke.” Speaking with great assurance, Reuyen filled her eyes with desperate yearning.
Against the wind blowing from within the valley, Paseid stood there as though deaf. His uniform coat fluttered in the cold stream of air. Reuyen had never been more afraid of those pitch-black eyes she could not read. She bit and bit her lower lip.
“Take down the fort?” said the commander finally.
Paseid could not recall ever encountering a woman speaking of such absurd things in his whole life. The woman with the red brassard around her arm blathered as if she were an official knight of the duke. It was a seriously presumptuous attitude, if not simply dense, such that he was at a loss for words.
But for some reason, the woman was looking up at him, unshaken, even after babbling all that deranged nonsense. Could she not conceive how she would come across?
For a split second, Paseid almost considered her proposal, reading the assurance in her dark-red eyes. Then he suddenly laid his eyes upon the Olzorean army disappearing into a dot on the horizon beyond her shoulder and calmed himself down again.
He sheathed Rionac.
“A waste of time. I overlooked your previous claim, thinking that you were insisting on pursuing them because you were overwhelmed with concern for your brother. But now, I cannot even imagine to what purpose you are confusing our men with such nonsense. But I will question you later.”
“It’s not…nonsense, sir.”
“Do not hold back the army with your meaningless utterances,” he snapped.
She could not easily understand the denial. As she slowly pieced together the voice that shattered her hopes, Reuyen’s face gradually fell dark with despair. Her lips went numb like they had been severed off, and her throat clumped like she had swallowed a rock.
Brionake, Brionake, why, even now?
Reuyen grew dizzy with the furious urge to shout. “If—if you cannot believe me, please at least see for yourself and decide, sir.”
Dismissing her meek voice, Paseid turned his horse around. While the Rarkian army was standing around like this, the enemy was moving. He had no intention of wasting any more time. “Reorganize and depart immediately,” he ordered Jacalrin, who was standing still like an idiot, and the knights ahead.
Jacalrin glanced at Reuyen with a bitter face, then ran as swiftly as the wind upon seeing Paseid’s stare. The other knights glanced at Reuyen and all left to return to their posts.
“Sir Haldroff, if the scout sent to the exit of the valley returns and verifies that there is no additional ambush, move at your own discretion. I will call for a provisionary meeting once we near the exit, before sunset.”
In the midst of brisk footsteps of the horses echoing through the cool air, Evinbur rubbed his scruffy beard and nodded. All the while, he still could not take his eyes off Reuyen. He had given her some freedom up until then, since he thought it only right to treat her like a knight because she wore the brassard, at least temporarily, but now that she had said all those things, the situation had taken a turn.
The woman’s eyes clung to Paseid’s back like the hands of a child reaching for her mother.
Evinbur’s stomach was churning. Paseid was right. If she were a spy, she would not have said such nonsense even a three-year-old would scoff at, so she most likely was closer to a mythomaniac than a spy. He still could not fathom how she knew about the small trail in the valley through which she’d led him, but all the other incidents made perfect sense if she were indeed a mythomaniac. If this hadn’t happened during the execution of an operation, she could have lost her brassard.
The woman was still staring into the distance, looking like she could break down any minute like the foam on the distant ocean.
“I did warn you not to act on your impulses, Dame Detua.”
Reuyen slowly turned her head. Her eyes soon slid away to the fort. They were unfocused, like another layer covered them.
Olzore. The land where she had lost countless generals, spent every last gold coin of Rarkalia as the price for the ferry to the afterworld, and loved and hated. The fort of her yearning she’d let float to a sky she could not reach. The site of the queen’s grave.
Though the queen had been taken to Muiyadro and met her end on the scaffold, that had been the death of her body, the life she remorsefully let go. In truth, the queen had died the moment she was betrayed at this place. Thus, the grudges for her unattained deeds remained all over the valley like vines. Her own grudge came back to her in its entirety after two hundred years.
She was Reuyen, not Swan.
Repeating the reminder as if to brainwash herself was no longer effective.
Why had she set foot in Olzore again? Why had she come back to this battlefield? Myriad questions to herself roamed aimlessly in her head and died down without an answer.
Reuyen’s eyes followed the man disappearing into a haze. He was not Belbarote. Even though he was not Belbarote, she could not control and did not know how to handle the surge of viscid resentment and rage running through her. But she just looked at Paseid, int
ernally begging, for she could not even reveal her rage. The noble Rionac swung by his side. The white butterfly in intaglio on the scabbard swallowed the dark shadows.
The soldiers reorganized their formation and started to advance into the valley at the knights’ repeated orders. Evinbur finally snapped back to his senses at the sound of the army boots hitting the ground and realized that delaying any longer would anger Paseid.
Paseid was usually a polite and at times generous man outside of the battlefield, but on the battlefield, he was a cold man who did not even smile. Since he had already expressed his determination not to listen, he would not turn back. No matter how much the woman looked at him like that.
The distant flames gradually subsided, emitting black smoke and the smell of something burning. When Evinbur was about to give a stern order to the motionless Reuyen, her self-deprecating muttering mixed in the valley’s wind.
“Bearing the proof of your oath on your waist,” Reuyen whispered, her lips stiff with writhing rage. “What great loyalty, Brionake.”
It wouldn’t reach the man who was already in the far distance.
Commander-in-chief. She understood the weight of that title. He had logically kept everything at a distance and chosen not to make any hasty decisions. But now that she was the one being kept at a distance, the only assessment she had of him was that he was truly iron-willed.
How could he, wearing the snow-white sword the queen had granted him as a reward for his loyalty, looking so virtuous… No, who could she blame?
Reuyen placated her desperation and calmly exhaled. This was not the time to get trapped in these thoughts and resentments. If he couldn’t believe her words, she would show him. She slowly started to move.
Sensing something strange, Evinbur carefully studied Reuyen. “Dame Detua.”
As anticipated, she steered her horse after Paseid like she was bewitched, then suddenly drew the dagger hanging on her lower back for protection. Evinbur’s eyes clearly caught the flashing metal. She started to increase her speed at the same time, and soon her horse started to gallop.
The sound of the swift and strong hooves of a fine horse raced ahead and pushed the advancing soldiers aside. Evinbur had an unusual hunch and yelled, “Duke Brionake!”