Chapter 9

Even the sharpest sword in the world varied in power depending on who wielded it. In a child's hands, it would only hurt its owner; in a master's hands, it might cleave an entire age in two.

There was no question that Riki, the Empire's first Sword Master some hundred years ago, had possessed invincible skills unmatched before or since. But those who focused only on his martial might knew only half of what he was.

Riki knew how to use his skills as a tool. Whether fighting an individual or an organization, he could devise the best plan to inflict fatal damage on his opponent, then execute it like a machine.

It was something he had learned naturally through countless brushes with death, in a war of unspeakable brutality and in his bitter struggle against the world. Win or die. The more he used those gambling tactics and methods, the more refined they became, until at some point they were no longer gambles.

So even with a body not yet fully grown, killing a few ragtag bandits was hardly a challenge.

"They'll regroup here. They'll come back one or two at a time, so we can kill them as they come. There were eight in all. There might be a few more if they have men blocking the escape route. But not many."

He'd had the presence of mind to count them in all that chaos? In any case, Ricard spoke as he calmed the carriage horse amid the disorder. Arno, however, looked so completely out of his wits that none of it seemed to register.

"Pick up a weapon. You don't need any special technique to kill bandits. Don't swing. Stay calm and stab them in the belly. Not the chest. The ribs might stop the blade."

Arno merely gasped for breath as though he were hyperventilating. He couldn't pull himself together. Even as time passed, he showed little sign of calming down.

Daisy was doing somewhat better, but she wasn't herself either. She stayed pressed against Ricard, staring fixedly at his face.

Without a word, Ricard unfastened the sword at the bandit leader's waist and brought it to Arno. Arno stared blankly at the offered sword, then belatedly flinched.

"I-I-I... I, I..."

"Pull yourself together already. You swore that courier's oath or whatever, didn't you?"

It was an oath not to drink, not to mistreat people, and to deliver every item to its rightful recipient. It said nothing about fighting enemies.

Besides, it wasn't as if Arno had never seen blood. The world was full of brutal punishments for criminals. Beheading them in the square was standard practice. So it wasn't the sight of blood that had shocked him. It was Ricard, who frightened him to the marrow.

At last, Arno recovered enough to take the sword with trembling hands. Only then did Ricard move beside the carriage and crouch out of sight. He intended to kill the bandits one by one as they returned.

Arno and Daisy crouched on either side of him. Watching Arno, Ricard thought his hands were shaking too badly for him even to draw his sword in time.

"Draw it now. The first time's hard, but you'll soon get used to it."

"... H-have you had kn-kn-knightly training?"

Apparently Arno needed some explanation he could accept. Some reason a ten-year-old could kill people without batting an eye. Otherwise, he could only see Ricard as a possessed creature, or the devil himself.

"Sure. Let's call it that."

Ricard gave him a casual evasion, then addressed Daisy as well.

"Don't stay so close. You're making it hard to move."

"Okay, darling."

"... Unbelievable."

Having to do this while looking after both a child and a grown man made Ricard sigh inwardly.

All the while, intermittent screams and laughter drifted from near and far. Among them was a cry of "My baby! At least spare my baby!"

Then someone came back up the pass. Just as Ricard had predicted, bandits were returning with captives. Their prisoners looked a terrible sight, their faces filled with resignation and despair. The two bandits were joking with each other.

When they reached the carriage and carts, they discovered the two corpses Ricard had left behind. Their joking stopped dead.

"Did they fight each other?"

"What do we do?"

Neither showed the slightest grief at their leaders' deaths. They merely assumed the two had killed each other after some quarrel.

Ricard crept up behind them, then lunged and slashed deep into the back of one man's knee.

"Urgh! What the—!"

His knee buckled and he fell flat on his back. Then Arno hurled himself forward in desperation. He used too much force and fell to the ground in a tangle with the other bandit. Still, he appeared to have successfully driven the sword into the man's back.

Ricard had already finished his man with a cut to the throat, but Arno straddled the other bandit and stabbed wildly downward with a reverse grip on his sword.

"Fucking! Bastard! You rotten! Son of! A bitch!"

He was far too worked up. The bones soon damaged the sword's point, and a badly angled thrust knocked it out of his hand. Still unable to calm down, he snatched up a nearby stone and repeatedly smashed it into the dead man's face.

THUD! THWACK! THUD!

"Stop. That's enough. He's already dead."

Only when Ricard intervened did he flinch and stop. Blood spattered his face and covered his hands. Panting, he stared blankly at Ricard, his expression feverishly exhilarated.

The sight of the boy's astonishingly calm, almost unchanging face seemed to soothe Arno's heart, which had been pounding fit to burst.

"I-I did it. I did it."

"Yes, well done. Now pull yourself together."

Who knew how many times he'd said it by now, but this might well have been the most exhilarating moment of Arno's life.

The two women the bandits had brought back stared wide-eyed in shock after Ricard and Arno killed their captors.

"Let's at least move the bodies out of sight from farther down the road, then hide again. Clear away the weapons too."

"Of course, Master!" Arno answered vigorously.

They continued disposing of the bandits as they brought their captives back. Since they always came up in pairs, they seemed to be working in teams of two.

By the time six were dead, Arno found himself wondering whether it should really be this easy. Now that his fear had lifted, the bandits looked like nothing much at all. He'd been scared of these idiots?

He could also begin to see Ricard's actions more clearly. There were no dazzling techniques whatsoever. He stabbed and slashed at vital spots with short, simple, unerring movements. The belly, the back of the knee, the throat.

It sounded easy, and even looked easy, but it wasn't. If he missed or got his limbs tangled up, a child's body would be no match for an adult's.

Arno had only heard about knightly training, so all he could think was that this must be what they taught. Nobles really were terrifying. On the outside, the boy looked like an innocent little kid. Good thing Arno hadn't gotten cheeky with him.

Yet there wasn't a single man among the captives. Had they been killed, fallen to their deaths, or escaped? There was no way to know. One small mercy amid the disaster was that Daisy's mother and family were among those rescued.

The last captive brought up the pass was the merchant—the only man. They had apparently taken him alive in hopes of a ransom.

"Absolutely! Absolutely, good sirs! You'll get at least ten gold coins for my ransom! The trading company can't function without me! Heh heh heh."

He seemed prepared to spout any bullshit to stay alive. Ten gold coins, indeed. Apart from royalty and the highest nobility, even nobles rarely fetched that much. His groveling knew no bounds.

"Do we look like fucking idiots to you? Ten gold coins, my ass. If your company offers less than five silver coins, we'll just kill you."

Sure enough, the bandits weren't entirely ignorant of the world. After all, how many people must they have captured and sold by now?

"What!? B-but that's...!"

"Shut up a second. Why does it stink so badly of blood?"

"The lads must've killed people for no reason again."

"Fuck, we're all the ones who get chewed out. They just won't listen."

Almost at the carts and carriage, the two bandits frowned at the overpowering smell of blood in the air. They were doing all this for money, but some of the men occasionally got carried away and lost their heads.

When they finally reached the carts, they saw bloodstains scattered across the ground and traces of something being dragged. There were no bodies in sight. No—there were feet sticking out from behind the carriage.

Sensing something amiss, one headed toward the carriage, only for something to spring out of the bushes beside him. Startled, he flailed his arms, and someone shoved him hard.

"What the fuck!"

The bandit cursed as he landed on his backside. Only then did he feel the burning in his belly. Blood gushed out, soaking his clothes.

"What...?"

"Eek!"

"Wh-what is this!"

The merchant, the wounded man, and the other bandit all stared with eyes as wide as saucers. Then they noticed the boy standing there with a bloodied dagger.

While their attention was fixed on Ricard, Arno suddenly rushed them from the opposite side and drove his sword into the remaining bandit's flank.

"Urgh!"

As before, the bandits never managed to resist the sudden ambush. Once they were mortally wounded, finishing them was easy.

Moving neither quickly nor slowly, Ricard brought his blade almost against one man's throat before sinking it in and killing him. Arno, now barely trembling, finished the other.

Warm blood gushed out in spurts and soaked the ground. Unable to make sense of anything, the merchant could only sit there shaking.

Only then did the women emerge from hiding. Still unable to grasp what was happening, the merchant darted his wide eyes wildly about. Meanwhile, the women grabbed the corpses by the legs and dragged them behind the carriage.

Ricard and Arno stood on either side of the seated merchant, looking down at him.

"Can you fight?" Ricard asked.

"... Pardon?"

"I asked if you can fight. Where's your guard? You still had one left."

"Uh... Right. Yes. Where did he go? Oh! He r-r-ran, ran away. Or did he? Did he die? I don't know."

"All right. Pick up a weapon, then. A sword or an axe, not a spear. We're going to hide and ambush anyone coming up."

"Uh..."

"Get up. There's no time. We don't know when they'll come."

Arno grabbed the merchant by the collar and hauled him to his feet. Dazed, the merchant simply did as he was told without knowing what he was doing.

He picked up a weapon and followed Arno and Ricard behind the carriage. Turning his head, he saw the bandits' corpses laid out in a row and was shocked all over again. What on earth had happened?

Broken down step by step, none of it had been particularly difficult, but people tended to see only the result. To the merchant, it looked as though Ricard and Arno had slain them all at once.

"I-I failed to recognize a great warrior. Please forgive my rudeness."

After watching them uneasily for a long while, the merchant finally managed to address Arno. It never occurred to him that Ricard could have taken the lead in all this.

"A great warrior? Me? The great warrior is this Master here. He's the one who killed those two leaders, too."

The merchant looked at Ricard, then at the two corpses Arno indicated. It was hard to believe, but he had seen the boy kill a bandit with his own eyes, leaving him nothing to say.

Studying the two dead leaders with their eyes rolled upward and their mouths gaping, he felt he had seen them somewhere before. Two of them? A pair?

"The Bilton brothers. I'd heard they were on the run, but to think they were hiding here. And you say the Master killed these two?"

"I saw it myself and couldn't believe it for a while either. But it's true. You saw it earlier too, didn't you? Slashed him across the belly. Look at this one. His belly split wide open, and while he was spilling his guts, the young master slit his throat before he could recover."

Ricard himself said nothing, while Arno chattered away as if recounting his own exploits.

The merchant looked at Ricard again. He was wiping his dagger with a cloth, its blade gleaming like new. The fleeting recollection of the boy killing a bandit sent a chill through him.

"Um, er, if it isn't rude, may I ask where you come from, Master?"

"Stormhertz."

"Stormhertz... Ah! Are you the boy hero who killed a boar with his bare hands?"

Ricard didn't know how far the rumor had spread, but it seemed a little exaggerated.

"Not with my bare hands. I used a spear."

"Still a remarkable feat. I had no idea you were so young. You truly are a son of Stormhertz, with its illustrious martial reputation. Ah, I accompanied the army as a merchant at the Battle of Briden, twelve years ago, I believe. Made my starting capital supplying the soldiers with whores. Your banner has a white cross on a red field, doesn't it? His lordship charged on a brown horse, a picture to behold. Ah! The enemy scattered in terror."

Whether because he had narrowly escaped death or because he believed his life depended on this young boy, the merchant poured out flattery as though his tongue had been greased.

Not knowing what he was supposed to do with this, Ricard offered a vague reply. "I see..."

"I'm a pigment merchant. As a token of thanks for saving my life, I'd like to give you a cloak once we reach the city. Would you prefer red or blue?"

"Hmm... My family's arms have a red field, so red would be nice."

"Ah, such discernment! Just what one expects of a noble young master. Originally, only the commander-in-chief of His Majesty the Emperor's armies was permitted to wear a red cloak. And not all reds are alike. There's a reddish mineral called cinnabar. Ground up, it makes a red as vivid as blood. They say those who mine it soon go mad or die, so they make convicts and slaves dig it out. That's why it's worth more than gold."

What was he talking about? The merchant was excessively talkative. Apparently he was the sort who talked more when nervous.

"... These days, different ranks no longer wear different colors, but purple is still reserved for His Majesty the Emperor..."

"One moment."

"Yes?"

"How long would crossing the pass have taken if we hadn't encountered the bandits?"

"We set out this morning, so we'd have been across by late afternoon."

"Then let's get moving."

"Pardon?"

"We've killed their leaders, and any bandits still left will be outnumbered. We should be safe to go now."

Now that he mentioned it, that made sense. How many bandits could still be alive? One or two?

"Before we do, shouldn't we cut off their heads?"

"Whose heads?"

"The Bilton brothers were fairly notorious wanted men. Rheinfurt isn't far, so we should be able to take their heads there without salting them. Bring them to an adventurers' guild, and you should collect a tidy sum."

Really? Ricard hadn't considered that. After a moment's deliberation, he decided to cut off their heads. In truth, slicing was a more accurate word for it.

He put the heads in a cloth sack, and its bottom quickly became soaked with blood and began dripping. He placed it in a basket and loaded it onto the carriage.

They fed the horse and donkey plenty of carrots. The animals had been through their share of trouble. Working together to push the carriage, the travelers finally managed to get it over the rock.

They left behind bloodstains and eight corpses laid out in a row, two without heads. No one buried them.

After they reached the highest point of the pass and began descending, the men who had fled emerged one by one and rejoined them, apparently having hidden nearby.

Even though the men had abandoned their families, the women took them back. They, too, had run away and left even their children behind, and refusing the men would make it hard to earn a living. They had no choice. Besides, they were accustomed to living that way.

A count of the dead and missing came to perhaps six or seven. The victims' fate was tragic, but the survivors were still alive. They would have to grit their teeth and keep living once again.

Daisy remained in good spirits, while Arno walked proudly with his chest puffed out, looking inordinately pleased with himself.

So far, Ricard felt that the world had changed little in a hundred years. There had been bandits then, too, and powerless people. Living had been painful for everyone.

By the time they reached the foot of the pass, the sun was setting. The travelers lit campfires and prepared to camp.

Ricard warmed himself by a fire with Daisy at his side, clinging like a leech and refusing to let go. He thought about the things his father had told him. Honor, salvation, family, and such.

He didn't let his father's words constrain him too much, but neither did he simply dismiss them. As though the front and back doors stood open, Ricard let his thoughts blow through his mind like the wind, coming and going as he sank into contemplation.

There was something peculiar about the glances people stole at the boy. They seemed to be looking at a hero, but also at a horrifying devil. He had saved them, certainly, but a boy who casually split bellies and slit throats was a far cry from a prince on a white horse.

As the night deepened and darkness swallowed their sight, other sounds grew clearer: the croaking of frogs newly roused from hibernation, the calls of scops owls, the crackling of the fire.

And in the night sky, just as they had a hundred years before, the stars shone.