Chapter 209 - A Victory for Politics

Encrid rested a hand on his sword grip and steadied his breathing. The vanguard, the sword point, the tip of the spear. Whatever one called it, he was at the very front. He had stepped out onto a large-scale battlefield, over terrain flat enough to call this a pitched battle on the plains. He had expected the cavalry to intervene. No, anyone could have seen that coming. That was what made coming out here insane. The enemy must have wondered whether a single person on this side was sane. Still, he had not expected them to send the cavalry charging in right from the start. BADUM-BADUM-BADUM! The ground shook even with the charging cavalry still far away. For all that earthshaking thunder, there was enough distance that he need not begin his sword dance just yet. They were fast, though. The gap was closing rapidly. The wild energy pouring from the horses, the dust rising beneath their hooves, the riders in matching equipment. All of it was enough to inspire fear. "Well, look at that. Having the time of his life, is he?"

Sharp-eyed Rem was watching the approaching cavalry commander. The man wore a helmet that covered his face. Could Rem see his expression? "You can see that?"

"I can just tell."

Rem snorted. Were the barbarian's instincts every bit as frightening as Jaxon's? Or was it simply an instinct that flared whenever someone underestimated him? Either way, Encrid sensed much the same thing. He gauged the number of charging cavalry. More than fifty. Standing here were himself, Rem, Ragna, Jaxon, and Audin. He had sent Pin, Dunbachel, and Esther to the rear. ["I can fight too."]

Dunbachel had protested just before they left, but that was hardly something a Beastman who had followed Audin out and returned with her head split open should say. A bandage ran from her left ear to her forehead. ["Ho ho, Sister. You very nearly fucking died. If you wish to go to heaven, simply say so. I shall send you there myself, right here."]

Audin's courteous death threat had silenced her. She had followed him out, gotten cocky, and been injured. Of course, Encrid had no intention of taking her along even if she had been unhurt. ["She's just too damn weak."]

Rem had muttered beside them, then told her he would see her later. His usual flippancy did not mean his words carried little weight. Coming from Rem, that promise was, well, terrifying to hear. Dunbachel had not noticed at all, though. Encrid cast aside the brief recollection. The cavalry were almost upon them now.

BADUM-BADUM-BADUM!

The ground shook as they charged, revealing their weapons. Broad-bladed polearms gleamed in the sunlight, held diagonally with their points toward the ground. Glaives, weapons built for sweeping swings rather than stabs. The day was clear. Almost too clear. Encrid thought the bright sunlight suited his sword's blade nicely. In that case, he need only put it to use. SHING.

He drew his sword, clasped the grip with both hands, and gave it a slight twist. "Wall, my ass!"

The man at the head of the cavalry shouted as he closed in. Encrid used a move from the Valen Mercenary Sword Technique. An offensive move of the Valen Mercenary Sword Technique: Blinding Flash. The wickedly honed blade reflected a face like a mirror. He used it to reflect the sunlight straight into his opponent's eyes, giving him a dazzling gift. "Mmph!"

The charging man raised a hand and faltered as sunlight struck his eyes. His horse did not falter, however, so his charge lost none of its speed. Still, some of the force seemed to go out of him. Sunlight or no sunlight, the approaching glaive sliced through the air, intent on slicing through Encrid's neck as well. A broad spear blade cutting diagonally through the air. Reflected sunlight, his own wickedly sharp sword, his opponent, the enemy, the sun, the ground, horses, dust, the battlefield, the vanguard. In a single instant, Encrid brought everything around him to mind, then forgot it all again and immersed himself. He forgot himself, forgot the world, leaving only the enemy and his sword. His Heart of the Superhuman beat in time with the incoming glaive. If the courage gained from the heart of the beast let him face that blade without so much as blinking, his keen senses let him read the timing. Encrid swung his sword vertically, striking the glaive's blade.

CLANG!

That clear ringing sound marked the beginning of everything. The muscular strength in his hands united with a sword of rare quality.

CRACK!

Facing a line of leveled spear blades, Encrid shattered the first. There was no time to watch the broken blade fly away. In a world containing only the enemy, his sword, and himself, all he had to do was swing. He knocked aside the incoming blades, struck them, deflected them, and cut whenever he saw an opening. THWACK!

His blade found a gap in the horse's armor and severed its right foreleg. Hot blood poured out, and the mount screamed in pain.

NEIGH! The scream quickly faded into the distance, and still the spear blades came without pause. That was the nature of a cavalry charge. Once it began, there was no stopping it. Into Encrid's inner world, where only his sword, the enemy, and his self remained, a memory of Ragna's words slipped through the tiniest gap in an instant. ["Once you begin the applications of the Heavy Sword Technique, you train in two kinds of cuts."]

Normally, one would think a teacher should explain what a technique was good for before making someone practice it, but that was too much to expect of Ragna. ["The Lion Cut and the Steel Cut."]

His explanation had been crude, but Encrid had understood it well. The Lion Cut did not mean cutting down an actual lion. It meant cleaving a dynamic target in one blow, as one might cut down a charging lion. The Steel Cut meant cutting through tempered hardness, even if the target stood still. Motion and solidity. At first, each separately. Later, both in a single cut. ["If you wish to acquire Will, you will need both."]

Ragna's final words had naturally left a deep impression. Encrid had also learned that the technique called Scission, which Ragna had demonstrated before, began with those two cuts of the Heavy Sword Technique. Encrid recalled the Lion Cut as he cut down a charging mount. Traces of the swordsmanship lingered in his mind. His body, hands, feet, and sword responded through his dodging sense, cutting into the charging horse. WHOOSH! THWACK! CRACK! Three distinct, chaotic sounds brushed his ears at once. The horse, cut from head to forelegs and killed, collapsed behind him with its rider. "Aaargh!"

The fallen rider screamed. An unlucky man. That last scream was his death cry. He struck his head badly in the fall, his limbs shuddered, and he died. And so the first charge passed. Naturally, not a single person on Encrid's side had died.

* * *

For cavalry, the horses themselves were weapons. Meet a charging horse head-on? Giants and Frogs sometimes pulled off such feats, but was that truly wise? Even if one stopped a single horse, what about the ones surging in right behind it? If being crushed beneath the weight of horses and their armor was one's hobby, it would be a fine approach. Yes. Normally, facing a cavalry charge head-on was insane. That held true no matter how confident one might be. So what, then, were these men? Marcus watched them respond to the enemy cavalry charge, from Encrid parrying a blade to the largest soldier of the lot. Perhaps because of his size, that man was the first to catch his eye. 'Was his name Audin?'

A devout soldier who began every day with prayer. A soldier equally adept at beating people, demonic beasts, and monsters to death. He met the cavalry charge head-on. Knocking aside an incoming blade with a short, forearm-length club, he caught the horse's head with his palm and twisted it sideways. Was a blade really supposed to fly away like that when struck? And could a man change a charging horse's direction with the strength of his arm alone? NEIGH!

The horse did more than change direction. With that single blow, it crumpled helplessly to one side. Audin received the full force of its charge and diverted it sideways. Watching him meet a cavalry charge like that left Marcus beyond admiration. He was dumbfounded. 'That's impossible.'

An astonishing feat. In truth, though Marcus could not see it clearly, Audin had not even struck the blade itself. He had struck the shaft precisely where it joined the blade. The enemy riders had secured their spear shafts in holes at the backs of their saddles and merely held them steady around the middle. That was the core of their tactics: cutting with the speed of the charge. Audin had faced it without yielding an inch. Having dealt with one rider, the devout big lug of a bear ducked beneath the next incoming blade, then smashed his club into the head of the third horse he encountered. BANG!

This time the horse died without even a scream. Its head burst, armor and all, spraying blood. Amid it, Audin wore a benevolent smile, though Marcus still could not make out that much. Audin was not the only one who drew the eye. If he was the first, the axe-wielding madman was next. "Hah!"

With a shout, Rem struck a glaive's blade with his axe. Strangely, the two blades stuck together and would not part. Bound to the blade as though tangled in vines, he seemed to be pushed backward with the horse. Then, a moment later, he performed an astonishing feat. Still leaning back as he was pushed, he seized the middle of the shaft, stepped on the horse's head, and climbed up over the rider. Even as he watched, Marcus could not begin to understand how he had done it. In truth, it required feet and reflexes faster than the cavalry's, coupled with an absurd degree of muscular strength. CRUNCH!

From up there, Rem delivered the gift of an axe blade to the rider's skull. Then he leaped sideways toward the next horse. Its rider tried to draw the estoc at his waist. An estoc was a slender sword designed solely for stabs. Before the rider could finish drawing it, he was cut through at the shoulder. It was magic wrought by a flashing axe blade. Having killed two riders, Rem rolled along the ground. Somehow, he avoided being trampled and deftly dodged to the side. Marcus could neither understand nor make sense of it. It was like watching one of the acrobatic troupes occasionally seen in the central cities. Encrid was just as conspicuous. He shattered the first approaching blade with brute force, then cut and cut again. Amid his dodges and cuts, he cleaved through horse and rider together. It looked somewhat crude, yet some of those slashes were so powerful that merely watching them felt invigorating. Beside him, the fellow called Ragna displayed similar movements. Unlike Encrid, however, he nullified the horses' charges with little more than subtle stabs and touches of his sword, rather than great, sweeping strokes. His skill was just as astonishing. Watching Encrid's weighty sword strokes smash through the horses' charges was exhilarating, deeply satisfying. One of the men was nowhere to be seen amid it all, but what did that matter? No one paid him any mind. What mattered was this. The cavalry had charged, lost more than ten of their number, and left the targets of their charge unharmed. Blood from horses and riders stretched in long trails across the ground. Horses still running with dead riders had left some of those trails. Men whose heads had burst or whose bodies had been cleaved in half spilled blood like fountains. Dust kicked up by the hooves mingled with blood and looked red. Having watched it all, Marcus spoke.

"Adjutant."

"Yes, sir."

"Who brought those men together?" The adjutant recited a fact he already knew from his investigations.

"The previous Battalion Commander."

"So that fucking idiot did do something useful." The previous Battalion Commander could not have intended anything like this. He must have meant to lump all the men who caused trouble, from assaulting their superiors onward, into one unit, then squeeze some benefit out of them as meat shields or on expendable missions. The bastard had always enjoyed stealing credit for his subordinates' distinguished service. He would have thought that if they died fighting, their achievements would become his. Too valuable to discard, too troublesome to keep. He must truly have meant to use them as disposable blades. Why deliberately gather a bunch of walking disasters into one unit? There was no need to look twice. He had meant to use them as expendable pawns. 'Then this Encrid fellow joined them, and it all came together.'

Marcus the politician had worked out the origins of the troublemaker squad on the spot. Yes, his predecessor was a fucking idiot, and he had not intended this, but... "Credit where it's due. I honestly feel like pinning a medal on him."

Putting them together and making Encrid their Squad Leader had been a stroke of genius. Just look. Wasn't it marvelous? Where Marcus felt wonder, the enemy commander who had ordered the charge felt disbelief. The man who commanded the Infantry-Slaying Cavalry under Viscount Vantra's army had no choice but to halt the attack. He had to end the charge and wheel his men around. Their formation needed repairing: twelve out of fifty were dead. His own survival? Luck. Had he been within their reach, he would have been the one to die. The commander had seen a blade flash past. He had seen its owner swinging it before him, too. Encrid. The name he had first heard attached to some wall. The man at the center of those ridiculous rumors. 'That was supposed to be a bluff.'

Nothing but outlandish rumors. A ploy to make themselves look bigger and drive his army away, wasn't it? This charge should have chopped every one of them into chunks of meat. Was this a dream? "What the fuck is this?"

For a moment, the commander nearly lost his will to fight. But he could not afford that. The battle had only just begun. As his men wheeled around and re-formed, he saw the four survivors. He saw the blue eyes of the black-haired man with his helmet carelessly thrown on. The man seemed deep in thought, then muttered something to the side. The commander could not hear what he said. He was watching that, gathering his resolve again, when it happened.

THUNK!

"Ghk!" A blade suddenly slid into his neck. It felt as though someone had driven a torch into it. Burning pain spread from his neck throughout his body. He went rigid. "Commander!"

He heard a subordinate shout behind him. He tried to open his mouth, but no proper words would come out. That was what happened when one's vocal cords were cut and a hole opened in one's throat. "Grrgl!"

Bloody froth formed at the commander's mouth, and his head slumped sideways. Cause of death: a stab wound to the back of the neck. The man who had bestowed it was an auburn-haired man named Jaxon. Sound vanished. Not even a murmur remained. In that instant of shock, with everyone watching, Jaxon began moving about unhurriedly.