Prologue
WHEN I woke up, Maria was sleeping next to me in a state of undress.
For a split second, I froze. I considered telling myself it was all a bad dream and going back to sleep, but then my memories of the previous night came back to me. Vividly.
Now I’ve gone and done it…
As I stared at Maria’s exposed skin, I was at a loss.
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THE night before, Maria had visited my tent alone, saying she wanted to report her conversation with Deputy Captain Caim of the Holy Knights. I wanted to get to sleep, so I turned her down, asking her to save it for tomorrow, but she insisted she needed to give me her report then, so I ended up hearing her out.
Her report was well worth the listen. She spoke with plenty of feeling, mixing in various gestures as she did—though I suspected that half the time she was just describing things in a way that was convenient for her. For example, the part where she said Caim got real close and forcefully grabbed her hand had to be a lie. She had definitely been leading him on, and had probably grabbed his hand herself. That was just the type of person she was.
Then, just when her story was getting to the interesting part, she said, “I was so afraid! But when I thought about how it was all for you, Lord Mars, I held out the best I could!”
As she spoke, for some reason, she took off her robe and cast it to the side, then threw her arms around me. Beneath her robe, she wore revealing white clothes that showed off her shoulders and her chest, hardly befitting a holy woman.
What a flirt! I thought.
Though I wanted to try and pull her off of me, I couldn’t actually make my arms move. After all, she was quite beautiful. She had an attractive body, and she at least maintained the appearance of charming modesty. Besides, there wasn’t anyone else around. It was literally just a fight with myself. But still, with my final vestiges of reason, I made a last-ditch effort to resist her advances.
“Hold on, Maria,” I said. “Aren’t you supposed to be a saint? You really shouldn’t do this sort of thing…”
“Everyone is fighting for my sake! There’s about to be a huge war, all over me, and I just can’t stand being all alone anymore…”
You sure are being awfully forward, with that blushing face of yours. Wait, why are you smoothly sweeping my legs out from under me and trying to push me onto the bed? Hey, stop that, stop—eep?!
Outside the tent, a red blossom fell from a tree and plopped gracelessly onto the ground.
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AND that brings us to the present.
As I was lying there in a daze, Maria sleepily opened her eyes. The drowsy look on her face was downright angelic. Then, she noticed I was there, and she smiled at me and said, “Good morning.”
For some reason, she seemed much more tired than she ordinarily should have been, but her innocent smile was still, without exaggeration, that of a saint. Her looks really were the only good thing about her.
Maria hastily dressed herself. Then, with a sorrowful expression, she abruptly said, “Really, I don’t mind,” as if she were some kind of victim.
“What? Um, you were the one who—” I hurriedly tried to explain myself, but she put a finger to my lips, keeping me from speaking.
“Let us make this our little secret,” she said with a playful smile. Then, she left the tent—but not before saying, “Oh, by the way, all I want in return is Eyland.”
…Excuse me? The price of a single night is an entire country?
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THE encampment of the army of Eyland was cloaked in a grim silence. One of their coalition partners, the Magedom of Kiel, had vanished with no warning, and no sooner had another member of the coalition, the nation of Vulcan, arrived on the front than they had turned around and gone home to take care of a sudden rebellion in their country. In all, half of the forces that had mobilized to defeat Farune were out of the picture.
Eyland had covered this up to at the very least keep morale from flagging, but then half of the Holy Knights deserted out of nowhere—right after announcing to everyone that Kiel and Vulcan were lost. The morale of the coalition forces was officially as low as it could go.
“I believe it would be best for us to withdraw for a time and revise our plan,” proposed Count Wolf, one of Vulcan’s vaunted Three Counts, to the king of Vulcan. The white-haired count was a battle-hardened commander over fifty years of age with an impressive scar on one cheek. “We deployed our forces for an offensive in the field because our side had an overwhelming numerical advantage,” he continued, “but the coalition army has greatly decreased in size. We still have the edge in numbers, but to prepare for every eventuality, might I suggest a withdrawal as one of our options?”
Count Wolf’s statement was entirely reasonable. However, the king of Eyland believed that withdrawing wouldn’t resolve anything, and would only postpone their eventual defeat.
“There are rumors that Kiel was attacked and destroyed,” the king of Eyland said, a weary look on his face. “If we withdraw now without doing anything, we may be unable to avoid ruin. Do we have any other options?”
“Perhaps we could adopt a scorched-earth policy,” Count Broome, another one of the Three Counts, said solemnly. Count Broome was an intelligent man who wore glasses. While there were flecks of white in his hair, he was somewhat younger than Count Wolf, and he was well-versed in strategy and known for being a clever military leader.
“A scorched-earth policy? What’s that?” the king of Eyland asked him.
“It’s a strategy that aims to weaken an advancing enemy army by poisoning wells and requisitioning all food supplies in a territory as one retreats. Naturally, this leads to serious harm to the land and the population, but if a nation’s very existence is on the line, that sort of tactic may be necessary.”
“Hrmm…” The king of Eyland grunted. It was an ill-advised plan. Yet the reality was that this sort of measure was all they had left.
“But Count Broome, you’d be sacrificing the citizens!” Count Wolf objected, his face turning red with indignation.
But Count Broome didn’t back down.
“Right now, we need time,” he said. “If we lose, the entire continent will become Farune’s. Everything will fall into the hands of those demons who devour the flesh of monsters… That is the one possibility we must do anything to avoid. We, Eyland, are Ares’s last hope!”
“You’re right…but…” Count Wolf was beloved by his subjects. He was reluctant to sacrifice them, even if it was for the sake of defeating Farune.
“That isn’t all,” Count Broome said, on the verge of proposing another plan. “Nearly all of the Hundred should be here, which means that right now, the defenses around Farune’s capital to their rear should be relatively sparse. Let’s scrape together some assassins and attempt to kill King Mars’s children. That should cause some commotion.”
“Hasn’t that plan already failed once?” the king of Eyland asked with a skeptical look.
“Well, this wouldn’t exactly be an assassination,” Count Broome explained. “It would be more akin to a surprise attack. We would gather assassins in numbers and execute the plan, knowing that there will be few guards to stand in their way. I believe it is worth attempting.” The proposal seemed closer to an assault that aimed at throwing the enemy rear into confusion than a covert operation.
“Hmph, yes, that may very well act as a diversion,” Count Wolf said. Though he had expressed reluctance at a scorched-earth strategy, he seemed to be on board with an assault by assassins.
“Very well!” the king of Eyland said, making his decision. His eyes were bloodshot. “We’ll adopt a scorched-earth policy and go ahead with the castle assault. Get ready at once!”
There was a stir among the king’s assembled vassals, and Count Wolf hurriedly moved to stop the king from leaving.
“Please wait, my king! With a scorched-earth strategy, even if we achieve victory, we’ll lose more than whatever we may gain! I believe that just the assault will be enough to buy time.” The old general’s forehead was slick with sweat.
“Wolf, I understand what you wish to say. But if we lose, we lose everything. Our only option now is to use all we’ve got. Otherwise, we’ll never be able to beat Farune!”
Broome and most of the other vassals nodded heavily at the king’s words.
Eyland was closer to the brink than ever before.