“What is that?!”
A soldier had spotted Soim and cried out, but Soim quickly thrust his spear into the man’s eye.
“What?! What’s going on?!”
When Soim sensed that the group had succumbed to confusion, he rose from his saddle. He’d shortened the straps holding the stirrups in place, which forced him to fold his legs uncomfortably in order to sit but allowed him to stand up high while riding. Gripping the saddle with his knees, rather than his thighs, Soim looked down on the knights from his elevated position.
He gripped the reins in his left hand, steering the bird through subtle tugs and making it take individual steps as though he were a trick rider. All the while, he was wielding the spear with his right. Such a feat was only possible because Soim and his plainrunner had formed a bond and come to know each other’s eccentricities in the three years since he’d bought the bird.
Soim killed another ten men, one after another, before the enemy managed to regain a semblance of organization.
Soim watched as the knights’ spears began pointing toward him. He backed off a little as he caught his breath, but not far enough that his opponents could gain momentum while charging him.
“How dare you?! Who are you?!” The questions came from a rider near the back of the group, who was coming forward while others moved out of their path. It appeared to be their commander, and judging by the sound of the voice, she was a woman.
“My name is Soim. I am the first retainer of Yuri Ho, and my spear once served Rook Ho. I see that these men are under the command of a witch.”
“Quite so. We are the Euclich Knights of the royal guard’s second order, and my name is Dinsche Cursefit. How dare you stand in our path? This road is within territory under the jurisdiction of Her Majesty the Queen.”
Dinsche was the third eldest daughter of the Cursefit family, which itself was part of the seven witches. She was a forty-three-year-old graduate of the Knight Academy.
“Since the death of our former queen, the Ho family wields spears for no one other than Queen Carol. What about you? Will you tell me that your authority in the royal territory is given by a wretch who poisoned her own mother?”
“My orders come from Queen Shimoné. You are to be arrested in Her Majesty’s name. I suggest you come quietly.”
Unless this witch was making some kind of joke, Soim thought she must be incredibly stupid.
“Listen, witch. You should know that you lost your power to halt our spears with words the moment you poisoned the head of the Ho family.”
Soim wasn’t going to listen to her any longer. He kicked his bird’s flank to spur it forward, but a knight moved in front of Dinsche to shield her.
“I am Gugry of the Solnant family! A second son whose mother bears the title lady-of-insight! I will be your opponent!”
As the knight calling himself Gugry spoke, he readied his spear and charged forward on his plainrunner. The instant before the knight’s spear was about to hit, he adjusted his aim to target Soim’s plainrunner.
Soim reacted as though he’d expected this all along. He lowered his body slightly and knocked his opponent’s weapon off-course by moving his spear in a broad sweeping motion, like someone clearing away leaves with a broom. He then swung the spear in the opposite direction, cutting through his opponent’s neck.
The knight was decapitated as he passed by Soim. The man’s head rolled to the ground as his body went on without it. The plainrunner kept running as a fountain of blood gushed from the headless rider still on its back.
It had been a long time since Soim had last demonstrated his lack of fear by maintaining his ground and decapitating an opponent. In his old age, he’d come to prefer kills made by a quick cut to the throat. For the first time in decades, he experienced the feeling of his weapon cutting through the spine.
“I’m not at all surprised to learn that witches let their spears grow dull! A Ho family retainer refines his techniques with age! Watch closely and learn it firsthand!”
Soim readied his spear again and charged forward.
“Damn! Someone! Someone do something about him!” Dinsche Cursefit screeched at the knights surrounding her. “Draw your bows! Does no one have a bow?!”
But, of course, not a single one was carrying a bow. It wasn’t common practice to fire arrows while riding a plainrunner, so it made no sense to bring one. And no one else was willing to challenge Soim with nothing to rely on besides a bird, their body, and a spear.
Soim stood up on his mount and gently waved his narrow spear to and fro. With each flick of his perfectly ordinary spearhead, it found its way into a vital area of another soldier, releasing spurts of blood. The bodies began to pile up on the ground beneath Soim. He was weaving the carpet of the battlefield and laying it down behind him as he advanced.
“What’s wrong with you all?!” Dinsche yelled. “Hold him back! Don’t let him push you!”
With his face hidden under his strange mask, Soim continued to stand above the saddle and add to the mass of corpses with his perfected techniques. The soldiers had come to believe that it was no man approaching them but a monster. They thought their path was blocked by some mythical creature they never should have disturbed. When the beast drew near, their main concern was keeping out of its path.
The Euclich Knights, numbering five hundred in total, was the strongest unit among the eleven thousand knights that made up the second order of the royal guard. Even when considering the royal guard in its entirety, only the first order’s Dawn Knights was stronger.
Since chieftains were only permitted to position three hundred soldiers within the royal territory at most, the soldiers fleeing the royal capital should have been few in number. In theory, they would have been no trouble to hunt down and eliminate. But in reality, this lone man was too much for them to handle. They were being pushed back.
Try as he might, however, Soim had taken the lives of fewer than a hundred knights. He’d killed fifty-two, precisely, while another eleven that had avoided an instant death had turned and fled with vital arteries severed.
Even a spearhead forged by a master blacksmith would grow increasingly dull each time it touched chain mail, robbing of its ability to cut. But Soim’s techniques remained sharp as ever, while the weapons of those who challenged him had long since rusted.
“Enough! All knights, ignore him and continue forward! Return to your mission of pursuing the main force! Anyone who does otherwise will be punished for their insubordination!”
Dinsche’s men didn’t immediately respond to the orders she was yelling.
“All of you! He’s just some old man! He has neither ten arms nor ten weapons! You can avoid one spear! Now go!”
The moment Dinsche finished speaking, Soim unleashed his first war cry of that day.
“Uuuuuuuuoaaargh!”
The sound echoed through the forest around them, striking fear into every soldier. They could scarcely believe that it had come from an old man.
As Soim unleashed this mighty shout, he charged straight through the enemy. There wasn’t much strategy behind the decision. After fighting constantly for dozens of minutes, he was so exhausted that he hadn’t even heard Dinsche speaking. But every inch of his being remained focused on his task, and he’d been watching the foe carefully.
Dinsche’s words had erased what little fighting spirit had remained in her knights. Their instincts, sharpened on the battlefield, told them that they’d been given a chance for survival, and they weren’t going to pass it up. When she’d given the knights permission to avoid fighting, it had been a careless decision. She’d made it so they could give up completely without having to disobey orders.
“Agh!” a soldier exclaimed as he turned his bird around to flee. Soim let him go.
Soim’s battle cry continued and he brandished his spear menacingly to ward off the knights. He charged directly toward Dinsche.
Rather than get in his way, the knights cleared a path. As Soim passed them, he left his back exposed, and yet no one thrust their spear at him. Dinsche had been about five meters away from the front, but the soldiers that should have shielded her with their bodies were more concerned with saving themselves.
Soim had Dinsche fixed in his gaze. Unlike him, she wore no mask. She remained perfectly motionless as she watched Soim approach. Her shoulders trembled, and she shrank in on herself as she looked upon Death himself charging toward her. The expression on her face was unlike those Soim had seen on battlefields of the past—it was the face of a woman consumed by fear.
Once Dinsche was within his range, Soim swung his spear without mercy. Its blade hit the side of her narrow neck, and the feeling was pleasant as it cut through her completely.
“I have taken your commander’s head!” Soim declared loudly while brandishing his spear.
He sensed a decrease in the density of the knights surrounding him.
Soim felt like an instrument whose strings had broken. His performance couldn’t go on any longer. His mental focus was lost, and the willpower that had filled him just a moment ago drained away completely, making him no different from any other old man who’d kept himself in shape. With his spirit, technique, and physique all past their prime, he was at his limit. Soim knew that better than anyone. But his heart was filled with pride and a sense of accomplishment—he’d done enough.
“Come at me if you’d make a name for yourself! It was I who took your master’s life! Anyone capable of taking the head of Soim of the Ho family in retaliation, step forward!”