Chapter 64 - A Single Exchange

Rem was the first to step inside once the door was open.

"Which..."

He tried to say something as he entered, but there was no time even to speak. Something dropped toward his head. As though he had expected it, Rem swung his axe vertically. A flash above his head cut through the dark room, and the instant he swung, he launched himself sideways. Every movement flowed as smoothly as a rehearsed routine.

THUD.

Only the corpse that fell afterward revealed what had happened.

"What the hell?" Krais poked his head in, startled.

The man had been hiding overhead, near the ceiling. Still clutching a short knife in each hand, he lay split from chest to crotch by Rem's axe, spilling blood and entrails onto the floor. The stench of blood and death stung their nostrils.

"I thought this was just some criminal guild," Krais muttered.

"These bastards." Rem wore a twisted smile. "Aren't they cute."

With that, he strode inside. The place was fairly spacious. Beside walls built of neatly squared bricks, earth, and straw, a passage turned off to the right.

Rem strode forward. "Was it you?"

He swung his axe as abruptly as he spoke. The merciless blow produced a second corpse. This one had been hiding beside the passage. He had tried to thrust with something like a skewer, to no avail. Rem's axe was faster.

Their opponents were a criminal guild: pickpockets and protection-money extortionists. They, on the other hand, were soldiers who fought for a living. Encrid himself was a high-grade soldier, and the others were even better fighters than he was.

'Of course I thought we'd have the advantage.'

Still, seeing it in person felt different. The criminals hid themselves and stabbed out of the darkness with knives and the like. Their skill was far from ordinary, yet Rem smashed through every ambush. He wasn't quite rampaging like a madman, but there was a quiet madness about him—the madness of a man ready to split anyone who came at him with his axe.

And his mouth never stopped as he moved.

"Or was it you?"

He spoke with every kill.

"So it was you?"

CRACK!

"Was it you?"

With the fifth ambusher, he split the man's head open before asking.

"Dead men can't talk," Encrid said from behind him. Rem raised his blood-dripping axe and scratched his head with the haft.

"I know that. But the live ones aren't answering either. Not a word."

Someone else would have the answer.

Past the right-hand turn, there was a room on either side and a space straight ahead that served as a sitting room. The layout was simple: a sitting room, two other rooms, a space that might serve as a pantry, and a kitchen. That was all. And five dead ambushers. None of them had said a word.

"They're awfully well prepared for a criminal gang. Looks like these really are the people who targeted you, Squad Leader." Krais examined the corpses. After studying one dead man's face for a while, he looked up. "I don't recognize him."

Encrid nodded, both to agree that the face was unfamiliar and to acknowledge that these probably were the people who had targeted him.

'Is this good luck or bad?'

To be honest, this had been half an excuse to avoid the powdered devil shit. He knew a criminal guild was ideally suited to forging identification tags and guiding assassins into the city, but...

'Against a professional soldier of Border Guard?'

That was not something anyone hoping to keep living in this city would attempt lightly. Yet they had done it. They must have had their reasons. Of course, those reasons were none of Encrid's concern. He had come here on little more than a guess. It was like loosing an arrow at random and hitting a boar squarely between the eyes.

"Huh? That's it?" Rem said as he searched the place. No one had answered; only five men had come at them with knives. Rem alone had finished the whole thing with his rampage.

"Not likely. Not if they're this well prepared and Jaxon got his information right."

Krais stepped forward. Apparently finding it too dark, he took flint from inside his clothes, bundled together some loose straw, and lit it. The flint struck with a sharp clack, the straw caught, and light appeared in the chilly house. Using the makeshift straw torch, he searched every corner. Soon he stamped his heel on one side of the sitting-room floor.

THOOM.

It resonated. There was empty space beneath.

"Allow me." Audin stepped forward. A cheap fur rug covered the floor, with a chair on top. He grabbed the edge of the rug and flung it aside. The chair landed with a heavy thump, wrapped in the fur. Then Audin delivered another hearty knock.

BANG.

Crouching, he drove his fist straight down and punched a hole in the wooden trapdoor. He reached through the hole, pushed his arm inside, and released the latch.

"Where do you suppose it leads?"

"Their base."

Jaxon answered Krais with an air of perfect nonchalance, as though he had expected this.

Rem looked at Encrid. In the light of the crackling straw torch, his normally gray eyes looked red.

"We keep going."

Encrid spoke before Rem could ask. Having started, they might as well see it through. They weren't clearing out some petty gang of criminals; their opponents were large enough to deserve the name of guild. This wasn't a rabble that had merely slapped the word onto their name. That made them all the more likely to be the ones who had targeted him, and he meant to get to the bottom of it. Not even an idiot would leave someone trying to kill him alone. Fortunately, Encrid was no idiot.

"Damn right!"

Rem went first again. The tunnel wasn't long. In less than half an hour, a passage leading upward came into view. It was bloody cold, but Rem had already thrown away his blankets when they encountered the beggars. Watching his shivering back, Encrid somehow sensed anger radiating from it.

"Someone's up there," said Jaxon, walking right behind Rem. There were guards.

"So they're expecting us," Krais said from the rear.

"We cannot let thieves run so rampant within the city."

Audin again. He seemed to have a particular talent for breaking doors. Perhaps it had always been a hobby of his. He climbed the crudely fashioned earthen steps two at a time, then twisted upward and struck the door where his shoulder met his back. It was an unusual technique. Encrid's eyes sparkled at the sight.

BOOM!

It sounded like an exploding shell. Or perhaps a blast of fire magic. At the same instant, the door shot upward and flew away.

"Aagh!"

The waiting men cried out in surprise. Then it was Rem's stage once more.

"Was it you!"

He sprang upward with another incomprehensible question. His first foot landed on a step, the second on Audin's thigh, and he flew through the air swinging his hatchet. From below, Encrid could see only Rem's backside. The results, however, were unmistakable: bodies fell with heavy thuds, and blood trickled over the edge of the opening.

"That brother has terrible manners. Stepping on another man's thigh."

Audin brushed off his thigh and climbed out first, followed by Jaxon and Ragna, then Encrid and Krais.

FWOOSH.

They emerged to find torches all around them.

"I was wondering which crazy bastards it was."

A voice greeted them. Encrid looked left and right. There were more than thirty able-bodied men, each carrying at least one weapon. He saw nail-studded clubs, shortswords, spears, and weapons called blackjacks—leather pouches filled with sand. Quite an assortment of arms.

The torches made it easy to see. Krais tossed the straw torch that had lit their way into the opening they had climbed out of and marveled.

"Wow. There are a lot of them."

Yes, there certainly were. Encrid thought so too.

"You're soldiers, aren't you?"

Among the thirty-odd men stood one alone in a fine silk shirt and trousers, with a demonic beast-hide coat over them. He stood with a cane planted on the ground. It wasn't a cane he needed for a bad leg. A gem adorned the end of its handle: the sort of cane nobles or wealthy trading-company heads carried as a symbol of their wealth. What need did a man with two good legs have for one? It was nothing but a symbol of pretension.

"Is this Gilfin's gang?"

Encrid answered the question with one of his own. The well-dressed man frowned, visibly offended.

"Why is everyone so desperate to die?"

"We've come to ask about an ambush in Border Guard."

No sooner had Encrid finished than Rem spoke.

"Was it you?"

A short but forceful question. Encrid had been wondering what he meant; now he understood. Rem had been asking about the people who had ambushed him. But would anyone answer a question put like that? It certainly suited Rem's style, though.

'I wouldn't answer either.'

"I know nothing about it."

Far from flustered, the man was utterly brazen. That confidence only made him more suspicious. And suspicion was enough for Encrid's squad members.

"It's that bastard," Jaxon muttered.

"Hmm. Looks like it was him."

Ragna too looked at the man with the cane. No, by Ragna's usual standards, this amounted to a glare. His eyes were fully open and fixed on the man. Normally, he kept them half closed.

"Brother, did you truly target our Squad Leader?"

Audin stepped forward to ask. Three or four men nearby flinched. On this dark night, the torch-cast shadows made him look larger still. Encrid stood close to 180 centimeters tall, but Audin was a handspan taller—just short of two meters. And it wasn't merely his height. On closer inspection, he was muscle from head to toe. His arms were thicker than most women's thighs.

Every member of the troublemaker squad, Encrid included, was solidly built and muscular. Even Krais kept himself in shape for all the women he met and boasted sharply defined abs. Yet Audin's physique was imposing enough to dwarf them all. If the size of one's muscles was the measure of a man, Audin might have ranked among the greatest men on the continent.

"Is it true, brother?"

"What the fuck are you talking about? Squad Leader or not, why would anyone bother sending an assassin to kill a mere soldier?"

Perhaps rattled by Audin's bulk, the man said more than he needed to.

"I never said anyone sent an assassin."

Encrid had said ambush, not that an assassin had been involved. At his words, the well-dressed man's expression grew calmer instead.

"So?"

What were they going to do about it? His gang numbered more than thirty, all well armed. They appeared to have known Encrid's group was coming. Information had leaked somewhere. Did that change anything? No. At least, Encrid didn't think so.

The same went for their crime. There was no evidence, so whether they admitted it hardly mattered. None of it mattered, to either Encrid or his opponent. What use was evidence when wiping out a criminal organization?

Now, how should he proceed? Criminal guild or not, some of these men must have picked up clubs simply because they had been swept along. Did he have to kill them too? Encrid had no intention of doing so. He decided to give them a chance.

SHING.

Without a word, Encrid drew his longsword and dragged it across the ground. A few men flinched at the drawn blade, but none attacked. A line appeared in the winter-frozen earth. With only torches for light, it was barely visible, but all he needed was to get the meaning across. A short line now marked the broad clearing. Keeping his sword tip pressed to it, Encrid spoke.

"Anyone who's never killed someone weaker than themselves, anyone willing to go quietly to prison, anyone who doesn't want to die—drop your weapons and come across."

This was no battlefield. Criminals or not, what followed would be a one-sided slaughter. His opponents didn't know that, but Encrid did. That was why he offered them a chance.

"Choose carefully. Otherwise, you all die today."

He spoke of slaughter. That was the world they lived in, an age in which killing and being killed were nothing strange. But that didn't mean killing could always be enjoyable. If this were a battlefield, if survival were at stake, he could say he had no choice. Not now. That was why he had given them a chance, but...

"What's he on about?"

"Huh? Who's going to die?"

"Must be so scared he's lost his mind."

"Hey, pal. You haven't pissed yourself, have you?"

The brotherhood of criminals jeered at Encrid to their hearts' content. One even twirled a finger beside his ear. In the end, not a single man crossed the line Encrid had drawn.

"What are you doing?" Rem asked. Encrid wasn't embarrassed. He had meant to give them a chance from the start.

"Brother, devils have blinded their eyes. They will not believe until they see," Audin whispered.

Killing them all would be a bad move. Encrid chose another approach.

"Who's your best with a blade?"

He would show them his skill and give them more grounds on which to choose. Unlike before, he was confident now—confident he could beat most opponents who stepped forward. Encrid advanced with his sword drawn.

"Indulge him," the guild leader said with a snort of contempt, as though asking to be entertained by some little trick.

An opponent stepped in front of Encrid.

"You're getting pretty cocky, aren't you?"

He looked like a former mercenary. His beard made his age hard to guess, but he looked no older than forty.

"You'll get yourself killed like that. While I'm still asking nicely, just..."

The Valen Mercenary Sword Technique. Strike midsentence. That was the trick his opponent used. It was like looking at his past self.

Quite literally, the man broke off speaking and suddenly thrust his spear. There was considerable skill behind it. But it fell short of that first soldier with the perverse obsession with stabbing, and far, far short of Mitch Hurrier, who had barred his way to the flag.

Encrid dodged the incoming spear, slipped into his opponent's reach, and drove his sword upward. A thrust from below.

THUNK!

One strike. The fight was decided in a single exchange. His opponent's skill had been almost exactly on a par with his own former level. That was what made Encrid feel how much he had grown.

'For someone at this level...'

He hadn't even needed a repeating today. He had known his opponent's level the moment he saw him. The fight had ended in a single exchange.

The man he had fatally stabbed gurgled and bled. Encrid shoved him aside and pulled his sword free. The body collapsed onto the cold ground, shuddered, and spilled hot, steaming blood.

Silence settled over the clearing with the cold air. A single stroke had been enough to make them understand who they were dealing with. Every man looked at Encrid differently now.

Encrid asked again. "Anyone coming across?"