Enya stared hard at the ash crows, his expression growing still graver.
“Something’s obviously scaring them. That’s the only reason for them to all let out warning calls like that.”
“Even I can see that. But what the hell is it?” Shelah’s spyglass had, like his weapons, long since ceased to be anything more than an ornament. Now, though, he pointed it at the crows. Just among those he could see, a considerable number were colliding with one another in midair. It was clear they had fallen into terrible confusion.
“Even the black-taloned eagle isn’t enough to spook them like that, and they’re natural enemies,” Enya muttered. “Something’s very wrong.”
“Just what’s going on out there...?” Shelah kept watching through his spyglass for a while longer until, before he knew it, he was staring right at the source of the crows’ terror. He flailed, toppling backward onto his bottom as beside him, Enya did the same.
“Oy, how long are you gonna keep us waiting, eh? Come on and finish the game before my luck runs out!” Hahato sidled over to them, grinning stupidly. Shelah tried to tell him what was happening, but all he managed was to frantically open and close his mouth without a sound. It took everything he had just to raise an arm toward what he had seen.
“This a new amusement, is it?” Hahato looked out over the wall. “The ash crows sure are making a racket today.”
“I wish I could fly too...” Donga added. Neither was any less untroubled. Miming frantically, Shelah tried to communicate to them to look down. They exchanged a puzzled look.
“Is he saying to point our spyglasses down there?”
“What’s gotten into him, eh?” Looking as though they really couldn’t be bothered, they took out their spyglasses. Scarcely moments later, they too fell back on their behinds.
“G-G-Ghouls?! What are those?!” Hahato wailed, his face a mask of pure fear.
Shelah struggled and finally found his voice. “The hell should I know!”
The figures were shaped like humans—except that no human kept walking without a head. Enya got back to his feet, raising his spyglass with a shaking hand.
“Just at a glance, there’s got to be fifty thousand of them...”
“Fifty thousand...?!”
Hahato let out a hollow laugh. “Y-Your time to shine, D-Donga,” he said with a rigid smile as his whole body trembled. Donga shook his head hard enough to give himself whiplash. It was a confession that all his stories were nothing but hot air, but right now Shelah didn’t have it in him to call this out.
Enya’s breathing was ragged, his spyglass still pressed to his eye. “They’re slow, but no doubt about it—they’re headed for the fort! What do we do?!”
“Do...?” Shelah repeated stupidly. “W-We gotta tell the commander! As soon as possible!”
“Him?!” Hahato snapped. “What’s that horse’s ass gonna do?! All he’s good for is sleeping and stuffing his face!”
“Like I need you to tell me that! But if we run before the commander, this here’s what we’ll have to look forward to!” Shelah drew a line across his neck with his thumb, sticking out his tongue.
“I don’t want to be beheaded!” Donga’s voice was a whine, his face the palest it had ever been as he trembled violently.
“There’s no time. We gotta move,” Shelah said. The other three nodded, then they all set off at a run for the commander’s quarters. Voices like wails and moans came to them on the wind, only serving to further stoke their fears.
It was just after lunch, and through the window there came a pleasant breeze. Kleric Major Ashyn was reclining in his favorite woven cane rocking chair when the door flew open with a bang. He leaped to his feet.
“Wh-Wh-What’s the meaning of this?!” he spluttered as the soldiers who came bursting in seized him. Before he could even wipe the drool from his chin, they hauled him off to the fort walls. And the ordeal didn’t end there—next, they thrust a spyglass at him.
“Just what in the blazes is going on here?!”
“Shut up and look down there, ser!” Shelah shouted back even more loudly. Cowed despite himself, Ashyn did as he was told. The scene that appeared through the lens was as though hell itself had manifested on earth.
“What...what is that...?” he quavered.
“Don’t ask us! Right now, we need your orders, ser!”
Surrounded by chaos and faced with a crowd of soldiers bearing down on him with a desperation in their eyes he had never seen before, all Ashyn could think to do was to scream furiously, “What the hell do you mean, ‘orders’?!”
“What d’you think?! Order us to flee, ser!”
His soldiers weren’t worth the rations they ate, but apparently their minds weren’t completely empty. Any soldier who fled without an express order from him would face the executioner’s block, no exceptions. With trepidation, Ashyn raised the spyglass once more.
I’m just the commander of a backwater fort! I can’t deal with that! The whole forest swarmed with the ghouls. Meanwhile, the garrison at Fort Dagon numbered only two hundred soldiers. Whether they stood and fought or not wasn’t even a question.
“Kleric Major! Give the order to fall back!”
“Shut up! I need quiet while I think!”
“Think? What’s there to think about other than running?!”
“I am commander of Fort Dagon! Not a rank-and-file nobody like you lot! I have all sorts of things to think about!”
They would run, in the end. That wasn’t up for debate. But he had to get word of the situation to the lady of the city with all haste, so in order to buy time, they would need to put up some resistance. To be sure, it was not a wish to defend his country that had Ashyn thinking along these lines.
If I make a stand here, my heroism might even put me in the running for Kardenal. Now that’d be the life... All right!
Nursing his rapidly inflating ambitions, Ashyn had just made up his mind that they would stand their ground when on the wind there came a cry that went through him like a blade of ice piercing his heart. He let out an incoherent whimper. It had, of course, come from one of the ghouls, and in that moment, the desire to get away from this place right now easily overtook his ambition. His terror took hold of him, and he turned on his heels.
“I’m sorry to say it, but as of this moment, I declare Fort Dagon abandoned! Now run, run ’til your feet bleed!!!”
“Ser, yes, ser!” As the soldiers shouted back, it was the first time they and Ashyn had ever felt united as one.