“Get ready. Especially your arrows. Shoot before you engage in melee.”
“Understood.”
In her role as the warmaster, Diane issued her commands in a gruff, masculine style. But the orders weren’t delivered in normal speech. The clan had its own special system of gestures and signals that sounded like insect calls, which she used to communicate the entire message.
The warriors were armed with short bows, spears, hand axes, and daggers. Perhaps since they typically expected to fight in confined spaces, such as forests or mountains, all their weapons were compact and simple. Diane’s sword stood apart as a piece of art, adorned with precious jewels. If there had been a sorcerer here, he would have perceived the powerful magic it harbored.
“Do you see them yet?” The voice coming from behind Diane belonged to a bald man. There was a strange tattoo on his face, and instead of body armor, he wore cloth and carried a wooden staff.
“Shut up and hide, adjutant.’” Diane sounded irritated, but there was fear in her voice as well. The term “adjutant” was used for the direct subordinate to the magemaster, the highest ranking practitioner of magic and divination in the Schultz clan. These conjurers wielded a magic power different from that of the sorcerers. They could stop an enemy´s heart just by staring at them, or possess their body with an evil spirit. They also exerted power over a wide variety of fields, including medical treatment and predicting the weather.
This single expert in divination was more valuable than the thirty best warriors led by Warmaster Diane, making this the strongest brigade in the Schultz clan.
“I apologize,” said the adjutant. “Do not hesitate to call upon me whenever I might be of use.” He looked up at her from where he crouched, an eerie smile upon his face. “I am always at your service.”
“I know.”
The presence of a conjurer in the Schultz clan made it nearly invincible. While the Schultz were called barbarians, in actuality they possessed a high level of knowledge inherited from the ancient, divine kingdom of the gods. Nevertheless, since the power of divination was superior to the knowledge they had in all other fields, the magemaster, leader of the conjurers, had more authority than even the patriarch of the clan.
“Chief…I have a bad feeling about this guy. What’s going on with the Holy Precincts, anyway…?” The lieutenant frowned as he whispered.
Diane was silent, but in her mind, she agreed with him completely.
“The women and children live in the Holy Precincts, and us warriors protect them from the fortress. I understand that much, but why can’t we go near the Holy Precincts? I haven’t seen my wife for two years now.”
“I know, calm down,” Diane consoled her lieutenant, who’d chosen now of all times to air his grievances.
The Schultz had built the Holy Precincts on the southern Hidal Plateau as a hidden refuge to protect their people from the Filsand military. The conjurers, including the magemaster, lived there with the women, children, and the elderly. In order to protect that realm, the warriors, led by Diane, were stationed in a separate fortress. Yet for the past two years, all contact with the Holy Precincts had been restricted. Diane hadn’t seen the patriarch and his wife—her own parents—in all that time.
“Right now, we need to concentrate on the task at hand. Once we capture Elisabel, I’m sure we’ll get our chance.”
“Understood.”
The warriors were divided into three groups scattered throughout the square. The warmaster’s strategy was for the adjutant to curse the enemy’s main force as soon as they arrived and started building camp. Once the enemy was confused by the curse, the rest of the troops would bombard them with arrows.
Previously, Diane had been successful in attacking the Filsand military with such tactics, even capturing Prince Balzard.
The warriors were standing by, arrows nocked, ready to start the attack. According to their scout’s report, Elisabel and the rest of the group would be arriving any minute now.
However, the lady and her entourage never appeared.
“Is it possible…they noticed us?”
“Warmaster…Doma’s and Catera’s teams aren’t responding,” the lieutenant whispered to Diane, urgency in his voice. Diane’s team had separated from the main unit to surround the square.
“What the hell?” Diane squinted her red eyes, staring hard at the stone forest where the other teams were supposed to be hiding. Precisely because they were hiding, they wouldn’t have been visible no matter how hard she looked, but even their insect-call signals had stopped.
“Ah!” She suddenly noticed something. One of the Schultz warriors who’d been hiding behind a stone pillar was lying face-down, crumpled up on the ground. He hadn’t been hit by an arrow, and it didn’t look like he was having a seizure. It was as if he had fallen asleep standing up, out of pure exhaustion.
“Huh…? Could it be?!” Diane turned back to look at her subordinates, but she was swiftly rendered speechless. Right before her eyes, ten warriors fell down almost at the same time, as if caught in some quagmire.
“Huh?!”
“No way…” As far as she could see, only her lieutenant and the adjutant were still standing.
What she’d moments ago considered to be a hidden, undefeatable battle formation had suddenly transformed into a death trap in enemy territory. Diane drew her blade, spine tingling. Her divine sword had been passed down to her as a family heirloom from the patriarch of the Schultz clan. Its glowing, rainbow-tinted blade illuminated the three remaining warriors.
“Hey, get it together!” Her lieutenant shook the shoulders of a warrior draped over a chest-high rock. The warrior didn’t respond. He slowly slipped off the stone, flipping over onto his back before slumping to the ground. For a minute, they thought he’d taken his last breath when…
“Nnngh…”
“Is he…sleeping?!”
“Is it a spell? But all of them all at once…?”
His eyes were closed tightly, and he was sleeping so deeply that he wasn’t snoring. Even the impact of falling onto the ground hadn’t disturbed his slumber.
The lieutenant shook the shoulders of the sleeping warrior again. “Hey! You’re on duty!”
“Hmm… Ahhh…?”
“Good, he’s awake. What the hell happened?!” the lieutenant demanded.
“Huh? What?” The warrior looked around groggily, rubbing his eyes.
The lieutenant was relieved that the slumber was light enough that the warrior could still be awakened, but the groggy warrior would clearly be useless for a while.
Just then, a girl’s sharp voice echoed behind him. “Idiot! This is obviously an assault by the enemy! Get it together and search for the attackers!”
“R-right!”
“Argh…”
The girl was the warmaster. The lieutenant and adjutant snapped to attention at her orders.
The lieutenant was a skilled warrior, and the adjutant was the second-greatest conjurer in the entire Schultz clan. As long as they knew the position of the enemy, there was no way they could lose. Irritated, Diane stood with her back to a stone pillar and surveyed the perimeter.
But then…
“Agh…!” The young girl suddenly felt a powerful dizziness come over her, and she staggered off to one side. It was a fast-working and intense drowsiness, rapidly swallowing up her consciousness. The fatigue continued to grow stronger, even after she hit her body against a pillar. Just before she collapsed on the ground, the girl cried out, “Yah!” Sparks flared from her divine sword.
The moment the first spark touched her, the heat on her skin rushed up to her brain and blew away the curse of fatigue.
“D-damn it!” Diane used the shimmering, sparking sword as a kind of staff, holding herself up with its point stuck into the earth. All the abnormal tiredness swiftly vanished, leaving her clear-eyed and alert.
“Everyone…” she started. But the sight that greeted her was the lieutenant, adjutant, and reawakened soldier all passed out on the ground. Everyone but her had already been defeated.
Diane was terrified. She’d never experienced a fear like this, even when fighting the heavily armored Filsand knights. Not even the dangerous monsters who guarded the Twisted Wood frightened her to this degree. She had no idea what the true form of these enemies was, how many there were, where they were, or what they were doing to her. She didn’t even have the wherewithal to think of a simple plan, like kicking the sleeping warriors awake.
Dammit! Get it together! You are the warmaster of the Schultz clan! Losing is not an option! Diane clenched her teeth. Just then, she heard the voice of a man that didn’t have an ounce of tension in it.
“What? She resisted it?”
The voice was coming from up above.