by Y. R. Shin
“What is this place, sir? Why did you order us to convene here when we don’t have much time…?”
Jacalrin’s frustrated voice trailed off as he looked. Something felt oddly artificial. The area was not that different from the other areas in the valley at first glance, but something kept bugging him. If he had to choose the strangest sight of all, it was the knights feeling around the valley’s walls.
What’s up with them?
Jacalrin thought for a second that the knights who left and arrived before him had all gone mad together. To someone who did not have a clue as to what was going on, the sight was quite peculiar.
“Sir Haldroff? Can’t you please tell me what is going on?”
“Look with your own eyes.”
Standing firm in his place and gazing at the entrance to the small, dark cave, Evinbur nodded to Jacalrin. Jacalrin looked at the soft walls of the valley. There was nothing special about the wall. Jacalrin approached the wall, put his hands on his back for support, and stretched his neck, cursorily scanning. Then he froze.
Jacalrin quacked like a surprised goose. “Whoa. What are the royal characters doing here?”
Generally, the characters of Rarkalia were used very rarely in letters between high nobles and royals, including royal administrative tasks. Ordinary knights and lower-ranking nobles could not interpret the characters. But Jacalrin was a Chesa.
“Quiet. These are not the royal characters, but the characters of Rarkalia,” said Paseid.
“Well, the name really doesn’t matter, now, does it? Why are they in Olzore Valley? Technically speaking, this cliff of the valley is all Morganaan territory.”
Jacalrin squirmed, then buried his face in the wall with cathartic astonishment. Then he read without even blinking. Those were all numbers, Rarkalia’s intaglio characters for counting days: Janto, ga, beud, teboit, bel, robage…
It was an assembly of something they were counting.
Why would something like this…?
Then, finally, Jacalrin’s eyes landed on Reuyen, standing noiselessly amongst the knights. She looked calm, despite her disheveled appearance, and turned her head toward him like she was drawn to his eyes. Her reddish eyes pierced Jacalrin’s. Like someone who had experienced all there was to the world, like she wasn’t afraid at all of being surrounded by the knights’ swords…
“The scouts came back out, sir!”
Jacalrin turned around at the sudden commotion and looked over at the guard anxiously pacing at the entrance of the cave. A small, dark crevice in the wall came into his view. He recalled the woman claiming that there was a mine and froze like a rod replaced his spine.
The scouting knights who had gone inside with torches to check the narrow mine came back out. As soon as the clamor of their armor could be heard outside the entrance, the anxious tension of those waiting for them subsided.
The scout who came out first ran over to Paseid, standing not far from the entrance. He paused for a moment, but Evinbur urged him on, running out of patience.
“Promptly report to the commander,” Evinbur said.
“Oh, oh, yes, sir! First, the cave is narrow at first, but once you move twenty-three steps in, it widens rapidly. And if you walk a bit more along the way—”
“What waits there?”
“I’m not sure if I can say it like this, sir, but there is an empty space as wide as the guard post in the capital.”
“Is it naturally made?”
“No, sir. I do not know the specific details of how it came to be, but I can assure you that it is manmade.”
Whispers rose. Paseid tightened his hands into fists at the spine-chilling situation. Unless those in Olzore were out of their minds, they would not have dug this kind of a cave right under the valley holding up their fort.
“We could not look around the whole area because the air inside was too damp and the cave itself is quite large, but…there were wooden columns that have rotted away, and the ones holding the ceiling up right now are natural stone columns, sir. And…show it.”
One of the other knights who’d gone inside as a scout hurriedly approached and presented a rusty sword, a soiled helmet, and a pauldron tattered with age.
Paseid’s lowered eyes closely scanned them. His mouth clamped shut, then faintly trembled.
Jacalrin, who was walking toward them after losing interest in the valley walls, froze upon finding the armor.
At long last, someone’s voice as small and faint as a groan said, “Of Rarke.”
Evinbur, who was trying to calm himself, took the rusty, delicate sword in his hands, trembling from the shock, not knowing what to do. The sword had withered away with time and no longer held its shape, but they could still discern the curved blade and the shape of the edge, and the bay leaf design ingrained on the helmet. This, in addition to the characters of Rarkalia covering the walls of the valley, led them to a certain conclusion.
Evinbur let out a sigh. “These are in the style of the Rarkian army from at least a hundred and fifty years ago, sir.”
All bit their tongues to silence.
Fort Olzore sent out scouts a few times to observe what the Rarkian army was doing. But the Rarkian army simply kept an eye on them, not budging at all from their places.
The soldiers at the fort made their own decision. Since the Rarkian army had witnessed the Olzorean army leaving, they knew they might change their target to the fort. So, the Olzoreans pulled up their drawbridge and sneered at them. Rarke would not pass even the completely emptied Olzore.
But the actual situation was quite different from their expectations.
The Rarkian soldiers were perplexed, just like them. This stall was not due to some great operation, but simply to the commanding knights being summoned elsewhere.
The only cause of this they could think of was the army that had just left the fort. No attack came from the enemy. The soldiers were having a sort of break time, engaging themselves with worries and concerns as varied as those of the fort’s mythomaniacs. They blankly stared at the small trail in the valley where all the knights had gone.
Inside the valley, standing at a bit of a distance from the entrance to the mine to look at the valley’s wall as a whole, Paseid raised his hand to stop Evinbur from approaching him. He was certain. The entire area where the valley’s walls decreased in height was covered with designs of Rarkalia.
He opened his mouth, but instead of making a sound, he glared at Reuyen, kneeling in the center of the circle of knights. She was now sitting still and not causing any more trouble, but she showed no signs of being intimidated. Paseid tightened his fists. He should rightfully threaten her to explain this situation immediately. But Paseid knew there would be no use in that.
“Tear it down, sir,” she said. “Then the enemy’s operation will crumble from the core, and the glory of Olzore’s fall will solely belong to you.”
“What are you?”
“You can doubt my identity, sir. If you wish, I will take off this brassard right this second. But as a wise commander, make the right decision, sir. At a time when Morganaan forces are attempting a feint attack to ambush, is it not clear what will be of benefit to Rarke and what of detriment? I swear, sir, I have never in my life thought of bringing harm to Rarke. Saturga guire Rarke.”
For Rarke.
Paseid froze at the phrase she nonchalantly added at the end of her argument. Saturga guire Rarke. It was an ancient Rarkian phrase dating back to the Rarkalia Dynasty that the modern nobles used as an oath to prove their loyalty.
“How do you know that phrase?”
“Even commoners have ears, sir.”
That was hard to believe.
From then on, all she did was diligently give vague answers to his questions that were more like orders. Was it by chance that you came here? No, sir. How did you know? By chance… I heard from a traveler passing through our town. Absolutely ridiculous replies. She appeased him with cunningly disguised politeness on important matters, and when he
ordered further explanation, she dismissed him by saying that she did not know. There wasn’t enough time to properly hold a questioning to make the woman talk, nor did the current situation allow for such luxury.
But from the strange cave came old artifacts of Rarkalia, and the whole wall was covered with Rarkalian characters, so he couldn’t just dismiss this, either. In the unexpected situation, the knights fretted when even Paseid went silent, lost in thought.
When they had barely enough time to run out of the valley, a meeting was called. Most of the knights with important duties had already been summoned there, so the meeting ensued right where they were. There were no scribes, tables, or chairs, but the solemnness and the tension were higher than ever.
Jacalrin, who was making a fuss like a calf with his bum on fire, delightedly fidgeted with the old sword and argued like he was actually excited about this. “I think there’s a chance. We have eighteen carriages of gunpowder remaining. With that, I could even blow up our mansion.”
“But, Sir Chesa, we are in the midst of a joint operation with the main camp.”
“Yes, we are, but don’t you think it would be better to crush the symbolic meaning of Olzore than to demolish Rovantis’s army in the long run?”
“If things go wrong, we will fail in the operation to ambush Ishas, and Olzore will stand as strong as ever. On top of that, we do not even know how this mine came to be…”
“Did she say anything?” Jacalrin nodded at Reuyen, who was closely watched by the knights. A fraction of those present knew that Reuyen had led Rarke to this cave.
Glancing at Reuyen, Evinbur shook his head and continued the discussion. “We have not gone deep enough to know this for sure, but it could be a trap. A beacon does not shine on its own base, true, but Olzore could not have possibly not known about this existing right underneath their fort.”
“Who cares? If there are enemies hiding in there, we’ll win without having to swing our swords. And think about it! If Olzore collapses, the emperor of Morgana will definitely not have a good night’s sleep for days. Then he’ll never dare to speak ridiculously again.”
The last sentence was more like a grumble to himself. But no one admonished him, for there wasn’t a person who did not know what ridiculous thing Jacalrin was referring to.
“May I say a word to you, sirs?” said a knight. “If we do succeed, it will affect the tributaries of Morgana as well.”
Evinbur shook his head. “We cannot be sure it will succeed in the current situation.”
“I cannot support Sir Newt’s statement, either,” another knight agreed. “This is neither the time nor the place to be doing this. I do not know how this came to be, but I do not think we should venture into the unknown right now.”
“I agree. I believe it’s absurd that Olzore is unaware of this kind of cave forming. It’s most likely a trap.”
Various opinions poured out. Thinking that this wasn’t going to end easily, Jacalrin pounded on his lower back, which ached habitually. His voice diminished to a whisper. “I mean, it’s good to be on guard, but it doesn’t make sense that this is a trap, don’t you think? It’s been, what, at least a hundred and fifty years? Two hundred years? Considering that the last battle at Olzore on record was during the reign of the tyrant of Rarkalia.”
The knights clamped their mouths shut at once at Jacalrin’s simply spoken words.
The last battle at Olzore. There was no one in Rarke who cheerfully talked about that subject, but there barely was anyone who did not know about it, either.
Since the queen of Rarkalia had met her end after the long battle against Olzore, no one had dared to covet the fort. The queen who’d swallowed the entire north and made the rough savages in the west swear their loyalties to her had fallen to her knees with tears and blood before Olzore. So, who would ever be brave enough to aim their sword at the impregnable fort?
To Rarke, Olzore was a shame they wanted to let disappear into history, and hence they’d never even engaged in a small battle again. Thus, they knew very well what the meaning of Jacalrin’s question was.
The knights struggled to answer.
It was Evinbur who finally ordered the situation back. He sternly scolded Jacalrin. “Sir Chesa, please discuss such digressions at another time. We cannot be sure of anything. Even if we talk the day away, the final decision will come from our commander-in-chief.”
All eyes were on Paseid now. Seeing his coolly composed face, they realized how overly excited they were.
Jacalrin opened his mouth. “Sir, don’t you think that there’s no way they would dig a trap that basically is like digging their own graves? Olzore is a fort impeccably defended by this valley alone. It’s preposterous to think that they would create a trap that would shake their very foundation. Remember what the scouts reported after examining the area. They said that if there are more areas as weak as that one, a certain impact will make at least a part of the valley crumble. Even if only the tip crumbles, half the fort will go with it, sir.”
“But if that were true, we wouldn’t have to risk such danger at this moment, would we, Sir Chesa?” said another knight.
“There will be other opportunities in the future, but this is a chance to crush the army that just ran off, don’t you think? No damage on our part at all, no need to engage in battle, and Rovantis’s army will take the blow and fall apart.”
“To be so certain of that, sir, is a bit…”
The longer the knights’ discussion continued, the more chaotic and louder it became.
Reuyen, on the other hand, became calmer, like she was sinking into a swamp the more agitated their voices became. She slowly blinked and looked over at those disputing one another.
The knights had already lost their interest in her. Even the ones surrounding her had their eyes fixed on their superiors quarrelling, not knowing what to do.
Reuyen calmed her anxious mind. She wasn’t keeping to herself because she wanted to keep to herself. She knew she couldn’t force her opinion on the knights when they hadn’t withdrawn their suspicions about her, so she pushed down all the things trying to come out and simply waited. Then, Paseid’s eyes reached her.
“You are considering my suggestion, right, commander-in-chief, sir?” Jacalrin yelled.
Though all the other knights frowned upon this, Paseid honestly agreed with Jacalrin’s proposal. It seemed to him that the mine was a massive secret space someone had created with the intention of undermining the fort. Saying that it was a trap was an assumption without logical proof. But the problem was, he could not figure out the true identity or the intentions of the woman.
Just how did she know?
“Sir Calandok, there may be some damage, but we will be able to reach the exit right after sundown if we move now,” a knight reported directly to Paseid.
Paseid still had his eyes fixed on Reuyen.
Reuyen Detua.
The talent of the woman was great enough to overwhelm knights. There was too many a strange thing about her to just overlook that as an inborn talent. Ever since Reuyen barged into the camp, something had gone wrong.
He did intend to ordain her as a temporary knight, not an official one, but it was not conventional to hold an ordination during war in the first place. Having Evinbur keep an eye on her was unconventional too. Even though he’d volunteered for the job, he was one of the commanders in charge of the army, not someone responsible for small matters such as keeping watch on a suspicious individual.
Moreover, the biggest problem caused by Reuyen was military rules. Even now, this woman pointed a sword at him, the commander-in-chief. Motivated by personal and private reasons or not, a woman who had intentionally pointed a sword at his back still lived, and most of the knights did not think this odd. They should have raised their voices to argue why she still lived, but they were all too preoccupied with the sudden appearance of the mine.
But of course, Paseid had terminated that thought for now as well, so he could
not blame them. Now that he started thinking back, there were quite a few suspicious things about her. The doubt that was cast aside snowballed until he could not ignore it anymore.
Was killing Count Asvar, one of Rovantis’s generals, and requesting a brassard a part of her calculation? Had this woman schemed with Olzore? Was she trying to stall them right now? Finally, reaching that absurd question, Paseid admitted he needed to calm himself down.
She said that it only mattered if someone was an enemy or a friend on a battlefield. And she claimed she was a friend. But she was too strange to be considered a friend. If she were a loyal child of Rarke, she would not have dared to even think about pointing a sword at him. Even if she did not have the intention to murder.
Then was she an enemy? He couldn’t consider an enemy that quickly, either. The will to investigate every little thing about her and bring them to light, and the thought that he could not allow her to do as she wished anymore once the operation came to a conclusion, solidified in his head.
“Sir, what should we…”
The spirit of the gathered knights waned at the speed of the setting sun.
The fort was not a severe threat, since most of it had just dispatched most of its soldiers, but Paseid was not unaware of the reason for their anxiety. He let go of the digressions and organized his thoughts.
His job as the commander-in-chief was to create maximum damage to their enemies with minimal damage on his part.
Regardless of who she really was, and however she’d come to know of the mine, the cave could not be seen as a trap. Even the men who had scouted the area concluded that the mine directly underneath the fort was not that solid. He had enough gunpowder to set a small castle ablaze. If he poured all of that in this to take down Olzore, the fort’s army that had left their nest to attempt a feint operation would return, and the damage on his part would amount to zero. He would not be able to enter the fort without shedding blood, but he could take it without shedding blood.
Moreover, if Morgana lost the fort, it would be equal to losing seven hundred and fifty years’ worth of history for them. If that could be so, it would surely wash away the shame in Rarkian history and more. The only problem was what would happen if the gunpowder they’d transported here did not have any impact on the valley.