* * *

As always, Valeri woke at dawn. He did not feel refreshed, though. The unfamiliar surroundings and the everyday noises outside, which he had not heard in some time, had kept him from sleeping soundly.

Men heading out on night duty, wives and mothers seeing to their needs, men having a drink after their watch. He could hardly complain about the noise.

The room was dark, so he felt around and lit the lantern. Someone seemed to have made an effort to tidy up, but he was staying in a house someone else had used, and traces of their life remained everywhere.

The fatigue of the journey still clung heavily to him, but he could not get back to sleep, so he simply got up.

He first checked that his weapons were where they should be, then drew his sword and inspected its edge. Afterward, he went to the large jar in a corner of the house.

He lifted the lid to find it full of water. Using a dipper, he filled a basin and crouched down to give his face a cursory wash. There was no towel, so he roughly wiped his face on his clothes.

Belfort was a fine place in every other respect, but its one weakness was the difficulty of securing drinking water. There was neither a well nor a river nearby, so people had to travel some distance to fetch water from springs or streams.

Valeri put on all his armor and went outside. The watery dark blue of dawn filled the world.

"You're up already?"

Edric was armed as well, though rather than mail like Valeri's, he wore only a thick gambeson and a helmet.

"This is when I usually rise."

"Is that so? Had you stayed a little longer, my wife would have brought you a meal."

"I'll have some porridge later."

"Very well. I must be off to stand guard."

Valeri nodded in reply.

"May fortune favor you in battle."

Edric, the outpost commander, took his spear and shield and descended below the rocky heights. Soldiers carrying bows and spears were already waiting there. The gate opened, and they set off to guard the barley fields.

Valeri went down to see Snow. Naturally, Snow was in the stable. There were no other horses, though there were other livestock.

From the look of his coat, someone had brushed him very thoroughly. Valeri stroked him, then cleared the mud from his hooves. He passed the time feeding him fodder and giving him plenty of water.

As people began to stir, Valeri climbed back up to the rocky heights and ate a simple breakfast.

Around sunrise, as Valeri was tending to his equipment in his lodgings, the man who had shown him around the day before burst through the door. He was Belfort's deputy outpost commander, and his expression was urgent.

"Patrol Officer. They're here."

Valeri immediately sheathed his sword, buckled on his belt, and secured the weapon at his waist.

"Can you see them from the watchtower?"

"Yes."

For the moment, Valeri went up to the watchtower with the deputy commander.

The sun was just rising over the distant eastern horizon, and a fight was taking place near the northern forest he had seen yesterday. The figures were no larger than dots, forcing Valeri to narrow his eyes for a closer look.

The wild folk had smeared their faces and bodies with white powder, making them fairly visible even at that distance. They threw stones and wielded clubs. A few carried crude objects resembling spears.

The wild folk had the greater numbers. An untrained observer might have thought the fighting fierce, but that was not how Valeri saw it.

Edric's men were better equipped and experienced, and they were fighting well while keeping their distance. They appeared to shoot arrows from afar, then meet anyone who approached with spears and swords. They did not look to be in much danger.

But something struck Valeri as odd.

"Weren't they coming to steal barley?"

"Pardon? Yes."

"Yet they're being far too open about fighting. Considering when the commander left earlier, couldn't they have come a little sooner and stolen the barley?"

"Pardon? Er... They must be very angry."

"Do fights like this happen often?"

"No, but they seem to have come determined today. Every moment counts, Patrol Officer."

Ignoring the deputy commander's urging, Valeri looked down toward the village.

"How many men are left here? Men capable of fighting, I mean."

"... Let's see. About six or seven."

Valeri thought something was wrong. If they desperately needed barley, that should have been their target, but it did not appear to be.

He quickly looked south. The forest there was not as vast as the northern one, but it was still fairly dense.

"Close the western gate. The remaining men are to defend this place, not go to reinforce the others. There may be an ambush. The commander's position isn't as dangerous as you think."

"... What?"

The deputy commander was incredulous. What could this boy possibly know, giving orders like this after only a day here? Frankly, he thought Valeri simply did not want to go and fight.

Regardless of what the man thought, Valeri hurried down from the watchtower and gathered the able-bodied men. There were boys of thirteen to fifteen as well, but he did not summon children that young.

"Close the western gate! Send the women and children up above, and block the approach!"

Valeri barked his orders. The armed young men, who had been about to leave to reinforce the fighting, obeyed him in bewilderment.

To the deputy commander, Valeri's behavior was growing more outrageous by the moment. He had expected little to begin with, but now the boy was even stopping reinforcements from leaving. It was absurd. What did a youngster like him know? What if something happened to the commander because of this?

Yet before long, to his astonishment, wild folk really did pour out of the southern forest.

They looked like a swarm of termites. There were far more of them here than where the commander was fighting.

The deputy commander's eyes widened in disbelief. This had never happened before.

The wild folk wore poorly tanned animal hides, or scarcely any clothing at all. They entered through the eastern gate, which had deliberately been left open, carrying clubs. Some of the clubs were studded with animal teeth; some of the raiders were barehanded.

They stormed into the outpost village, shrieking horribly. Their teeth really were black. So were their tongues.

"Kyaaaaaah!"

Only one person stood in their way: Valeri. Facing their great numbers, he drew his sword without the slightest sign of tension.

"Patrol Officer!"

One of the men blocking the uphill path shouted, fearing for him. Valeri would be lucky to kill even one with his sword before they swept over him like a wave, knocking him down and trampling him.

The wild folk, too, drove forward in a frenzy, without fear of death.

But just before they collided, Valeri stepped aside and swung his sword. The raider in the lead pitched forward at the full speed of his charge, red blood spraying from his neck.

Then Valeri stepped back and swung again. Another wild man collapsed in a spray of blood. Next, he seemed almost to glide past an enemy as he sliced through his waist.

Hot entrails spilled out in a steaming heap.

Then the next, and the next. With movements as fluid as flowing water, Valeri killed one with every stroke.

In an instant, five or six corpses lay sprawled on the ground, tripping the raiders coming up behind them.

Valeri kicked the fallen men hard in the head or drove his blade into their throats. By then, their frenzied momentum had abruptly died, as though doused with cold water.

Grotesque and terrifying as the wild folk looked, they faltered and backed away when confronted with true terror.

Valeri addressed them.

"What has made you cease to be human? Can you speak the language of men?"

He sounded like a king or a prince. But his words were sincere. He felt both revulsion and pity, both kinship with them as fellow humans and estrangement from them as something inhuman.

Not only the wild folk but his allies as well stared wide-eyed in shock. The deputy commander's mind went blank.

In truth, a knight could take on dozens of wild folk. Yet there was something chilling about Valeri of an entirely different kind.

Where knights generally overwhelmed their enemies with brutal violence, Valeri seemed to be carefully filleting a fish or butchering an animal.

His sword flicked too quickly to see, and people simply dropped one after another. It left the onlookers wondering whether this could really be happening—whether killing people should be this easy.

"Wait. What was the Salt Prince's name again?"

The deputy commander muttered almost to himself. One of the village men apparently heard him and answered.

"Wid, they say. Wid, the bastard of Winslow."

It was as though lightning flashed through the deputy commander's mind. Every piece of the puzzle seemed to fall into place: the name that did not suit a noble, his youth, his uncanny swordsmanship. Whether from exhilaration or fear, his jaw began to tremble.

Oblivious to him, Valeri took advantage of the wild folk's hesitation to bring Snow out of the stable. He fitted the horse's tack, mounted, and shouted to the men.

"Spears! Bring me two spears!"

Startled by his ringing shout, the men hurried over almost before they knew it. Authority radiated from Valeri.

Valeri gave his sword a sharp sweep through the air to shake off most of the blood. Droplets spattered the wall of a nearby house.

Then he sheathed it and took the two spears almost as though snatching them away. He hooked one to his saddle and held the other in his hand.

The wild folk who had poured into Belfort had been unable either to flee or to attack. But once Valeri mounted, they scattered without a backward glance. They had not expected a knight to be here.

Valeri set his horse running. Hooves clattered against the paved road.

He shot through the eastern gate like lightning and galloped straight toward the commander's battle. He could see the wild folk scattering in every direction.

The barley fields had no clearly defined boundaries. In some places the crop grew thickly, while elsewhere it was sparse. Valeri galloped through the thinner patches.

He heard the rustle of barley brushing past and the pounding of hooves against the earth.

BA-DUM BA-DUM BA-DUM BA-DUM!

To the people watching from the outpost, the pitch-black horse racing beneath the sunset-like light of the newly risen sun looked as though it were painting ink across the barley fields.

The fleeing wild folk kept looking back as they ran, gasping for breath. Each time they turned, Valeri was suddenly closer.

"Aaaaaaah!"

Someone screamed, mad with terror. The merciless spear pierced him, but Valeri galloped on without slowing in the slightest. Along the way, he crashed into and trampled several more raiders, leaving their bodies mangled.

BA-DUM BA-DUM BA-DUM BA-DUM!

Meanwhile, Commander Edric, fighting to defend the barley fields, had begun to sense something strange.

Unlike usual, the wild folk were making a fierce show of fighting, yet they were not charging in recklessly.

At first he had fought with every nerve taut, but the longer it went on, the stranger it seemed.

Then he, too, heard the pounding of hooves.

BA-DUM BA-DUM BA-DUM BA-DUM!

Turning, he saw Valeri galloping powerfully toward them, brushing through the barley.

"It's the patrol officer!"

One of the soldiers fighting beside him shouted.

Their faces brightened, while the wild folk facing them fled into the forest in alarm.

In a flash, Valeri swept past Edric and his soldiers and kept galloping.

As the massive warhorse passed close by, its tremendous weight and speed struck them with such force that their blood ran cold. Yet that overwhelming power gave them courage, too. It belonged to their ally, not their enemy.

Valeri changed direction, drew the spear hooked to his saddle, and hurled it. It flew powerfully through the air and pierced a fleeing wild man squarely in the back.

THUD!

He immediately drew his sword and continued his gallop, cutting through another man's neck and simply crashing into and trampling two more. Counting those he had killed in Belfort, he had slain nearly fifteen men alone.

Valeri did not pursue them into the forest. At last, he brought his horse to a halt and returned to Commander Edric. Snow blew hard, forceful breaths, but did not snort.

"Belfort was attacked, Commander. That is why I was late coming to your aid."

"What!?"

"I had the women and children evacuated and drove them all off myself, so you needn't worry. More importantly, isn't it time we counterattacked?"

"... Pardon?"

Edric could scarcely gather his thoughts. Never before had the wild folk mounted such a large-scale attack, much less used a diversion.

"As I see it, they are short of women and children. They were never after the barley in the first place. At any rate, we've successfully repelled their attack. If we have the strength left, we must counterattack immediately. You there. How many more arrows can you shoot?"

From horseback, Valeri pointed to an archer.

"Pardon? Me?"

"How many arrows did you shoot during the fight?"

"... About ten, I think. I'm running out of arrows, and my arms are numb. I can't shoot any more."

"You can still shoot about forty more. Send someone for more arrows and weapons, and let's counterattack at once, Commander."

"..."

An archer could ordinarily shoot about ten arrows a day. Beyond that, numbness in the arms made it impossible to continue. In a fierce battle with their lives at stake, however, archers could loose fifty or sixty in a day.

But that was the standard of the archers in Valeri's own army before his return to the past, not of the men here.

Even so, Valeri judged that they could still shoot far more, even if fifty or sixty was beyond them.

"..."

Still overwhelmed by events, Edric was bewildered, yet his heart pounded. He felt as though he were taking orders from a true battle commander.

And somewhere beneath conscious thought, he recognized that Valeri's judgment was sound.

Instantly seeing through the enemy's intentions, choosing the moment to shift from defense to attack, precisely assessing the strength of friend and foe to lead his men to victory—in such abilities, no one in the world could rival Valeri.

It was still only a short while after sunrise. Across the sky, vivid blue paint was spreading in place of black.