by Y. R. Shin
Paseid suddenly recalled the presence of the woman, like that of a splinter in the tip of a finger.
The woman who’d stirred his vanity, seducing him, telling that all would be his achievement. That made it even more unpleasant. He simply had forgotten for a brief moment, spending the past day swamped with organizing the aftermath of the event. He looked over at the knights busily running to and fro to reorganize the army, and studied each of them. The woman was not within his view, at least.
Evinbur was off to execute the grave mission of questioning the high officials of Olzore who were now their prisoners, and Jacalrin left to look around the valley that now settled in its new form after the disintegration. Paseid did not know under which knight’s supervision she was residing.
After thinking for a bit, he found a knight who followed Evinbur and asked, “Where is Reuyen Detua?”
“She has been sent to a temporary tent because she said she was not feeling well, sir.”
“Bring her here.”
But the knight who returned after a long while dropped his head, dumbfounded.
It was unbelievable. She was gone.
How, when, and to where had she run off?
Realizing her absence only after the supreme commander’s orders, the soldiers started running about and searching everywhere. As a nimble woman of petite figure, she should’ve been easy to spot amongst the muscular men, but she was nowhere to be found. Even by the time their shadows elongated like tall reeds, chased by the sun, no one found her.
The valley shined with the waning red light. Paseid recalled the face of the woman looking up at the fort like she was at death’s door.
The knights stood with their backs against a valley as lofty as the arrogance of Guitella, the general of Fort Olzore, and grew glum and dark at the funeral. The tired mourners gathered where the dead of the camp were laid down in peace and revealed the deep pain of the bereaved in their eyes. The torch battling the dark with its sparking flames seemed to weep in the bleak dusk.
The knights that gathered around one corpse among many stood in silence, their hearts heavy with grief.
“Her Majesty has arrived.”
“Make way.”
Before they could even step aside at the sudden call of a soldier, a small woman, fully armed, walked through the crowd of them and stood in front of the corpse.
“Your Majesty.”
Closely following the queen, Peijak stopped the knights who were about to greet her. Looking at her cold, emotionless blue eyes, the knights lowered their heads. A suffocating silence ensued.
Briskly coming to a stop, the queen took off her helmet. The dark-red hair hiding in the rigid helmet flowed down. Brushing her hair that glistened an even redder hue in the torchlight, the queen closed her mouth at a sight she never wished for.
Her clear blue eyes lingered on the deep, punctured wound in the corpse’s cheek.
“Have you left this time?”
The voice flowing out of her lips showed no signs of grief. The queen put her hand out at Peijak. Then Peijak quietly placed a gold coin on her palm. She winced at the sensation of the cold coin, then gripped it tightly.
Since her dispatch, the funeral ritual had become not that strange a sight. With her eyes looking at him sunk with grief, the queen wordlessly leaned over. Her hair hanging long touched the cold, stiff cheek of the corpse.
“Dera Notjin Cananso.”
The queen caressed the brutishly exposed wound of the corpse, then forced the cold, stiff lips open and carefully pushed in the round gold coin with the intaglio of a bay tree under the tongue. She then quietly uttered her goodbye.
“Nuadga…Muin janlisas guire Rarkaddanya.”
Nuadga, guide him to the utopia with this glory as the price.
The simple yet generous funeral ritual and oration continued. Another man who had dedicated himself to royalty had just left on a journey of no return to the eternal land. The queen slowly caressed the corpse’s forehead, nose, then either cheek, like she was drawing a cross.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty.”
The one knight who’d survived the battle, Sir Cananso, died kneeling with guilt.
The queen raised her body with ice-cold eyes. She had lost many generals at Olzore alone. More than double the number of commoners that had gone on before them to the world of self-annihilation called death. She looked around the knights’ lowered heads, then looked down at the knight on all fours with his forehead so low that it seemed like it might touch the ground any minute.
The man’s tears of anger were wetting the dirt floor. The infuriated blue eyes flashed through the hair dancing on the cold wind blowing from the valley.
“Who allowed you those tears?”
“It’s all my fault, Your Majesty.”
“We are carrying burdens of those who have left before us. If you wish to grieve, slay all the enemies who have undone him so first, then grieve. The tears you are daring to shed right now are mere pity. Who allowed you to dare to pity a fierce general of Rarke?”
How could they not know the shame and the sadness and the anger welling up under her cold mask? She was pushing herself with her sternness that did not allow even a single tear.
Hence, she was stronger and more resistant than any other man, and the knights kneeled one by one, feeling a surge of admiration. Peijak solely looked down at the cold corpse with emotionless eyes.
The queen walked past the kneeling knights swallowing their sobs and Peijak silently standing. She put her helmet back on.
“We will mourn them once we tear down that cursed fort. We will not let their sacrifices go to waste.”
It was easy to evade the attentions of the soldiers and knights, who were now busy at the sudden turn of events. The red wolf brassard had not yet been taken away from Reuyen and was still a scary thing for the soldiers who didn’t know the details. Borrowing a horse and dodging the soldiers guarding the fort’s entrance was a simple task for her. She snuck through a side trail.
She climbed the steep hill to find herself in front of the half-opened, unassailable gates when she set foot on flat ground. In the dim light of the night, myriad corpses revealed themselves. They had been trampled or had fallen from a great height near the gates, and were rather more peculiar and pathetic than grand. No enemies came into sight.
Reuyen straightened her back before the gates of the fort and closed her eyes at the sound of the wind. She opened the gates. The excruciatingly dry wind banged its cold body against her skin.
The yellow light of the moon again shone on the fort that had become a castle of the dead. The sight of the desolate fort caressed by the faint moonlight was not a dream. She got off the horse and slowly stepped inside the fort. One step, then another; she left footprints like she was dragging chains behind her.
After a while, Reuyen bent her knees and touched the floor. Then she scooped up a handful of dirt, brought it to her nose, and breathed in, taking in its fragrance. She became hazy with the scent.
The dulled eyes quietly slid across and stopped at the beacon on top of the bent wall. The flames were dying down. Those eyes veiled with a calm light, then lingered on the sight of the fort’s insides that had broken and crumbled down.
It didn’t feel real. She had walked into the perilous fort that swung its gates open, absent of its owner, and yet, it did not feel real.
Was the fort she’d been determined to climb at the cost of countless lives and countless things this fragile? Was it merely a worthless land surrounded by strong walls made of stone?
Oh, Guitella, were you so smug on this braggadocio’s land?
Leaning forward, Reuyen clawed at the dirt floor with her trembling hands. All kinds of smells seeped into the night air and soaked her lungs. Unable to manage the past soaking into her, she curled up and lay facedown on the ground. The unstable surface was still vibrating. This valley that had swallowed whole the resentment and blood of so many, rotting from its roots, was the doing of
the ones from two hundred years ago.
The remaining souls of the last moments the queen had left behind, the fossil of sedimentary resentment and yearning so many had been forced to offer their lives for.
“Your…”
She stopped. She had never drunk such refreshing air. Even the smell of gunpowder and burnt ashes smelled as sweet as evergreen trees. Her dry lips moved as her sight fogged.
“Your sacrifices were not…in vain…”
She could not finish. Her throat trembled so much from the surge of emotions that it nearly hurt.
You will climb in the end.
“Yes, Peijak…I…”
Reuyen raised her head, then stopped. Her nose scrunched up; her lips violently clamped shut. Only the dark silence, the trees scattered in the blackness, and the sternly standing stones surrounded her.
How is it this quiet? Olzore has fallen, and yet there is no feast of rejoicing, nor music praising the accomplishment. There is nothing.
Tears dropped down her cheeks before she could notice.
There is no one.
It felt as if she were left alone in a strange world. Her comrades who’d risked their lives with her and should’ve been here were nowhere to be found. She was sunk so deep in loneliness, she had even forgotten that she was alone.
I can’t even imagine my dear sister losing.
Reuyen’s lips trembled at that sweet hallucination seeping into her ear, then she broke into tears at last. She pounded the ground and let loose the screams she’d been holding back.
Damn Olzore! Damn Olzore!
She wept like a bird with a twisted neck and cursed the layers of time. Her seething soon came to an end. Then the sobs broke out.
“For this…only…only this…”
Tears welled up and she could not see a thing. She couldn’t even move, for her breath was taken over by the sobs.
Olzore had fallen at last, but those who’d fought, risking their lives, for this would never know. Not even praise would reach them. Her quivering hands covered in dirt grabbed at her heart, beating with remorse. The only thing she could do was express her grief for their deaths atop this sole victory.
She looked back, feeling completely empty.
Nothing was left after the storm of that burning desire. Only a single footstep that would also vanish in time was left on the dirt, and no one but the moonlight would see it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Reuyen returned to the camp before the first light broke.
Her face was serene, like she had buried all those storming emotions again. The guard patrolling the camp jumped at the sight of her and hastily ran to report to his superior. The person in question who was under surveillance had quietly snuck out, then come back, so his jolting reaction was understandable.
She just stood there for a moment, then walked over to the temporary headquarters tent where she expected Paseid to be, ignoring all the proper procedures. It wasn’t hard to guess the location of the commander-in-chief, so she didn’t even get lost on the way.
When she arrived in front of the tent, the guard spotted her red wolf brassard and quickly vanished into the tent, then returned.
“Dame Detua, please come in.”
She moved the ragged drape over to step inside, then unconsciously stopped at the black hair right in front of her.
Paseid was sitting back in a chair with his eyes closed, like he was extremely tired from last night. It was only natural that he be in his armor since they were at war, but to Reuyen, his fancy armor looked like a sign of heavy fatigue.
Paseid’s eyes slowly opened. “You left unnoticed by the soldiers.”
“I walked around the collapsed area of the valley, sir.”
“I take it you have not been properly trained as a knight, but this is a very rudimentary military law. Did Sir Haldroff, your direct superior, not teach you that moving out of your superior’s sight without his command is a violation of the law?”
Reuyen merely lowered her head at Paseid’s cold reprimand.
Of course, she was aware of this. That was the reason she’d had to endure all that inconvenience of not being able to leave Evinbur’s sight during the days of coming to Olzore. But it wasn’t a good idea to remind Paseid of that. She was embarrassed to even count how many violations of military laws she had committed.
Had Paseid not been a man who carefully ruminated on his actions before carrying them out, she would have been treated much worse than she was now.
Paseid gently pressed on his heavy eyelids. Looking at this woman was starting to make his head ache again. Her head was lowered, but her face did not show any signs of fear. Seeing her audacity made his initial thoughts of reprimanding her vanish.
“So, what is the reason you have come directly to me?”
“I have something to ask of you, sir.”
Sitting on the tattered wooden table, Paseid cleared the letter he had written to send to the royal court and the daily log on the battlefield away to the side, wiped the ink on his fingertips, then gazed at her.
Reuyen held her breath for a moment.
“You still don’t realize your position,” he said.
“I do, sir. But I believe the commander-in-chief will show mercy to the provider of the information that was critical to the taking of Olzore, which stood strong for hundreds of years, sir.”
Paseid’s lips stiffened and shut. He had expected her to use that, and her argument was not even that wrong. “Then first explain how you came to know of that place.”
“Among the travelers that passed through our town was a smuggler who traveled across the border, sir. He told me on one of his trips.”
“I will verify his identity. His name?”
“I think it might have been Diho, or he might have been called Vera, or it may have been Tatish, but I cannot remember exactly, sir. He would come out of the blue regardless of the time of the year, and leave after a couple days.”
“Do not think to move on by giving such vague answers. Do you suppose I will believe that?”
“A smuggler will not go around revealing his identity, sir. I never learned his name, for he never properly told me anything. But I recalled hearing something about the mine under Fort Olzore.”
Reuyen’s unabashed answer made Paseid glare at her fiercely. “I am not here to play games with you.”
“It’s hard to explain, sir. But the reason for it being hard to explain is not that I am an enemy of Rarke sharpening my sword. There is no way to explain. Even if I did, you would not believe me.”
“I will decide whether I believe or not, not you.”
“I knew since the day I was born. Now do you believe me?”
Paseid wanted to shout at her for daring to give such a foolish, fearless answer, then stopped upon seeing her indefinitely dimmed eyes. Her eyes had looked like that when she said, There is a mine.
He recalled Evinbur’s visit that afternoon.
He had been with Reuyen the whole trip to Olzore as well as the frontline at the valley, and had observed and learned much more about Reuyen than Paseid.
I do not know what it is, sir. But it is certain that she did not learn war written in ink on page, he had said. She even knew a side trail that the scouts were unaware of. She may be from a country town in Galabua, but she must not have traveled all the way to the Olzore region…
According to Evinbur, when the showers of arrows started to fall from Fort Olzore, she discussed strategic movements of the Rarkian force before trying to save herself. It was not something a mere country girl could do. It was the commanders’ duty to prioritize the lives of the others under the threat of their lives. An extraordinary ability to make a decision that surpassed fear. She had indeed been temporarily ordained as a knight, but that could not have equipped her with chivalry, so it must have been in her nature.
Her sincerity until now must be rewarded, but it would be best to keep her at a distance, sir.
Paseid understood
the meaning of that at once. In truth, according to what he had heard, the woman had not lied. At least as far as they knew.
The claim that she was the second child of a war horse dealer in a small town was a verified truth. On top of that, her older brother’s death in combat was also a truth, and her younger brother jumping into the front seeking vengeance was a truth as well. Paseid heard that was how the woman inevitably joined the army, and that she guided Evinbur through a side trail. And even the madness that there was a mine right underneath Olzore was true.
The sincerity of a woman whose identity became more and more dubious was quite a burden on their backs.
Paseid asked, “At the battle at Camp Anf, how did you find the enemy commander on the cliff?”
“I do not know, sir.”
“A coincidence, then.”
“Yes, sir…I was lucky.”
Finding that his eyes darkened, Reuyen changed the subject. “I do not know if you will consider this a light matter of a worthless one’s devotion and heart, but please think of this as a patriotic act of a lucky woman as well, sir. And I would like to tell you that it is only right for the taking of the fort to be solely known as your accomplishment. It would not be good for outsiders to gossip that the commander-in-chief risked a great danger at a couple words from a woman with an unverifiable identity.”
Thinking that he had been insulted, Paseid sprang up and pounded the table. Reuyen took half a step back at the ear-piercing noise. His sharp black eyes shot to the red brassard from the Noble House Brionake, then to Reuyen’s face.
“First, do not be aggrieved that I do not address you with respect as a dame. You have never performed a respectable act. All my decisions made thus far were made according to the pros and cons irrelevant to you. I do clearly recognize your contributions to the taking of Olzore. But daring to claim that I risked a great danger at a couple of your words is an extremely presumptuous act.”