* * *

They were inside the tower section of the building Valeri and his companions had recently bought. The ceiling separating them from the floor above was wooden, but the cylindrical tower’s curved walls were brick.

The furniture had yet to arrive in earnest, so there was only a round table. Household goods and provisions were simply piled off to one side. Built for defense, the place had the disadvantage of getting little daylight except on the upper floors, but it seemed well suited to confidential discussions.

Valeri, Knut, and the Black Hand trio sat around the table. Rayleigh was the first to speak.

“Only the monastery children know this story. It’s about the abbot, passed down from the children who came long before us right up to today.”

He glanced at Roy and Ella, his comrades, childhood friends, and family. They were so close that they could communicate with a look, yet now all he could read in their eyes was unease. Rayleigh gathered himself and continued.

“You know as well as anyone, Salt Prince, that Gringen attracts all sorts of criminals with nowhere lower left to sink. The abbot was one of them. I heard he was a slave trader, but when he was young, a mage captured him and castrated him in an experiment. Except that castration was actually a kind of payment to a demon. We don’t know what power he gained in return. But that’s what we fear most—all of us who grew up in the monastery. ‘The abbot sees and hears everything. A demon will come for any child who fails to keep a secret and inflict the cruelest punishment imaginable.’ Things like that...”

What was he talking about? Valeri was privately dumbfounded to hear such a bizarre tale told with such gravity.

“Enough about his background. Where does he stay, and what’s his daily schedule?” Knut asked.

The people concerned seemed terrified of all this talk of demons, but Knut looked no more interested than Valeri. For the moment, Valeri watched in silence.

“There’s not much of a route to speak of. He only moves between the monastery and the vegetable plots around it, following the same schedule every day. He gets up, mourns the dead gods, copies out famous prophecies, records the reports he receives, tends the garden, mourns again, teaches the children, and goes to sleep. The problem is that he always has five bodyguards around him. There are ten in total. They take turns guarding him individually, with two on duty at night.”

“Any foods he always eats, or habits? Scratching his nose a lot, for instance?”

“He only ever eats food he’s grown himself. I don’t think he has any particular habits.”

“Then poisoning him will be difficult. We’ll have to kill him ourselves. Our only chance seems to be when as many guards as possible are asleep. We kill the eight sleeping guards all at once, then storm the abbot’s room together. What do you think, Wid?”

Knut had found an answer straightaway. Clearly, his assassination of Ketilmund had been no fluke. His only oversight back then had been failing to anticipate just how skilled Valeri was. Everything else had been flawless: assigning attendants to watch him and relay messages, using them to learn his movements and sleeping hours, then finishing him off in a single stroke.

From Knut’s perspective, Valeri had simply looked frightened and run away. How could he have expected him to turn around and attack? Faced with the threat of death, most people fled without looking back. Having the presence of mind to counterattack was remarkable enough. Exploiting an opening so perfectly, entirely alone, was almost impossible to imagine.

In other words, barring an unforeseen factor of that magnitude, Knut was quite capable of planning and executing operations. He was helpless only where his father and brothers were concerned. Toward everyone else, he was cold and ruthless.

His father’s abuse made him rather pitiable, but it was also true that the abuse had warped his personality. Taking all of that together, Valeri felt that Knut somehow resembled his former self.

“Incidentally, who was your mother?”

“She was a Valkyrie. Why?”

A Valkyrie was a king’s daughter—in other words, a princess. One might wonder whether it was possible to behead a princess, but there were nearly as many princesses as princes, and royal privileges did not extend to those who had married out of the family.

Of course, if the king were still alive, people would at least hesitate to offend him. Unfortunately, Knut’s mother was not a daughter of Helgi, the present king, but of the previous king, Sigmund the founding king. She had therefore received no protection.

A man who had killed all his brothers and nephews to become king was hardly likely to feel affection for a half sister he had never met. Knut’s mother was not alone; many Valkyries led tragic lives once their royal fathers died.

Still, that made Valeri and Knut cousins.

“...”

“Being a Valkyrie is just a pretty shell. Don’t let it make you feel awkward around me.”

“... I don’t. It’s just, well, something I hadn’t known. Anyway, tonight we become the demons. And we’ll demand payment from the abbot—his life. Tell me about the terrain around the monastery and the layout inside.”

Before his return, Valeri had killed the Black Hand’s master by marching in with an army and slaughtering everyone indiscriminately. He therefore knew little about the precise terrain or interior layout. Now, however, they had only a handful of people and needed to carry out a carefully planned assassination. He needed the most detailed information he could get.

He asked the trio for more specifics: the number of night sentries on duty at each hour, their positions, the entrances, the routes through the corridors, whether there was a cellar, and so on.

Once he had heard everything, he worked out the operation in detail. They decided who would eliminate the sentries, who would enter first, their formation, who would take the front, middle, and rear, and what hand signals they would use.

The trio, who had been listening quietly, tilted their heads and exchanged glances. Then Ella spoke.

“This is what we do.”

Who else had first taught Valeri these skills and techniques? Naturally, they would be similar.

“That’s good. It’ll make coordinating easier. We won’t scout the area. He’s a cautious bastard, and the slightest hint that something’s wrong could send him into hiding. And you three will stay here with us until it’s time. It’s the bare minimum we need to establish trust. I hope you understand.”

If they split up and agreed to meet again later, something unforeseen might happen in between. A change of heart could prove fatal. All three nodded in apparent understanding.

“In a sense, this is our first commission since founding the company. Your loyalty is the fee. Do you need a written contract?”

“No. We’re just escaping a demon’s chains to bind ourselves with the chains of a contract. We’ve simply chosen better chains.”

“Glad to hear it, then. Think what you like.”

Valeri spoke indifferently. Listening to him, there really were plenty of similarities between him and Knut. Perhaps their detached, cold manner ran in the family—as did their tendency to treat people quite well once they opened their hearts to them.

Night deepened. The air was chilly, even cold, but perfect for exertion. Far away in the reeds, an enormous chorus of frogs mingled with the hah-hoh calls of some unidentified bird. In place of light, those sounds filled the darkness.

Valeri and Knut equipped themselves for the assassination: close-fitting black clothes, masks that left only their eyes exposed, short swords, and several daggers each. Assassins were better off small and quick. Perhaps that was why the outfit suited Knut better than the tall Valeri.

Valeri signaled that there would be no more talking. Rayleigh nodded and took the lead.

Night operations were difficult unless one had exceptionally good night vision. Old tales were full of night raids, but carrying one out was no easy matter. Fortunately, both Valeri and Knut could see well in the dark.

They walked steadily west along the outskirts of Gringen. Now and then, they glimpsed crimes being committed in the distance, but passed without intervening. That was simply what the night was like.

Walking single file, they had little occasion to look at one another. But when Ella happened to glance at Valeri, something struck her as odd. His eyes seemed to be shining. Yet when she looked again after they had passed a nearby bonfire, there was no light in them. She wondered if she had imagined it.

At last, the five reached the monastery. Knowing exactly where the guards were stationed and how many there would be, they moved smoothly toward the weakest point.

Two men were at the entrance. One was asleep; the other sat idly whittling something with a knife.

As agreed, Valeri signaled that he and Rayleigh would take them out simultaneously. They had to strike together so neither guard could cry out.

The two approached swiftly and silently, clamped hands over the guards’ mouths from behind, and slit their throats with daggers. They held their victims’ heads tight against their bodies to keep them from making a sound until they died.

“Ghh! Mmph!”

The blood they coughed up flowed between their attackers’ fingers and stained their clothes. Once certain the guards were dead, Valeri and Rayleigh lowered them gently to the ground and moved them out of the light.

Then they quickly picked the lock and entered the monastery. The corridor was pitch-black, but each held on to the person ahead and followed the route.

They headed first for the bodyguards’ sleeping quarters. Of the ten guards, two would still be guarding the abbot’s room, while the rest occupied two rooms, four to each.

They entered one room first, took positions beside the beds, and drew their daggers. Knut kept watch outside in case of trouble. Valeri counted down with his fingers: three, two, one. Together, they clamped their hands firmly over the sleeping guards’ mouths and drove their blades into their throats.

A person stabbed in the throat while asleep would inevitably jerk awake, but the body stiffened, leaving them surprisingly little room to struggle. They kept their hands over the four men’s mouths until every one was dead, exchanging glances before finally letting go.

When they emerged, Knut was lowering a man he had just killed to the floor. Unable to speak, they could not ask what had happened and could only guess. Perhaps someone had gotten up briefly to relieve himself.

Two of them carried the corpse into the room and hid it. Then they moved to the next room and killed all four occupants simultaneously in the same manner.

Their hands and daggers were so bloody that they had to keep wiping them on their clothes. The grease dulled the blades. Above all, they kept their right hands, which held their swords, as clean as possible.

Only the abbot’s room remained. Valeri checked that everyone was present and took the lead this time. Instead of a dagger, he drew his short sword—a fresh blade he had not used once during the operation.

There should have been two men guarding the room, but only one was visible outside. Was the other the man Knut had just killed? Or had he gone elsewhere?

Light spilled through the crack around the door. There was no telling whether the abbot was simply still awake or had noticed something. Valeri did not know, and moved swiftly regardless. Hesitation during an operation was a sin.

He crouched so low he nearly touched the floor and moved with the speed of a snake. Once close enough, he sprang up like a released spring, slashed the guard’s throat, and immediately flung open the door and burst inside.

“Gah! Cough!”

The guard cried out through his slashed throat.

A fire in the hearth and a lantern lit the room. A man who appeared to be the abbot was doing something on the bed. Startled, he turned around.

Valeri lunged at him like lightning and brought his sword down. Naked, the abbot raised an arm to block. The sharp blade sliced through it and split his skull halfway open.

THUD!

CLANG!

The blow killed him outright, but in his haste Valeri had struck with all his strength and broken the sword. With his brain destroyed, the abbot’s body gave one great convulsion before he died.

But there was someone else in the bed—a woman. She swiftly attacked Valeri with a dagger.

He released his broken sword and tried to dodge, but there was no need. Knut, who had entered almost alongside him, severed her arm, released his own sword, and immediately drew a dagger and stabbed her throat. In a real fight, the throat was not an easy target unless the opponent stood still, yet even in the dim room, Knut cut hers with precision.

“Gak!”

The woman with the abbot soon died as well. The operation was over. Hadn’t they said he was castrated? What had he been doing with a woman?

Valeri turned to find Rayleigh, Roy, and Ella standing there staring blankly at him. They simply could not believe that the man who had ruled their minds all their lives was dead. He could die this easily? Where was the demon?

With the operation over, Valeri spoke.

“Stop standing there like idiots. Let’s empty his safe and leave.”

Valeri and Knut immediately searched the room. Bundles of documents filled the shelves. Valeri skimmed them and soon frowned. They recorded all manner of outlandish, revolting acts that defied description.

It was not merely forcing children to pick pockets, cutting off their fingers, and selling them. There was much more he had never imagined.

“He really was a demon.”

Knut, reading beside him, spoke without emotion. Valeri simply gathered the papers and threw them all into the fire.

Searching the room again, he found a key. Meanwhile, Knut felt along the walls and discovered a hidden compartment. They worked as deftly as born thieves.

Twisting a sculpture mounted on the wall made several bricks pivot aside. A small recess lay behind them, containing a little safe. Valeri brought over the lantern, held it up, and turned the key in the lock. To his surprise, there was no money inside—only a single sheathed dagger.

“What’s this? Is it valuable?” Valeri asked.

He reached out to touch it, but Knut hurriedly caught his hand and pulled it back.

“Don’t.”

“Why?”

“I think this might be ‘Riðill.’”

“Riðill?”

“Yes. The dagger belonging to Regin the dwarf—the one who killed a dragon with Sigurd. It might be cursed. You shouldn’t touch it carelessly.”

Knut collected daggers as well as toys and assorted curios, and had seen Riðill depicted in an illustrated reference book. He was not certain, of course, but caution could do no harm.

Before his return, Valeri had seen several mythical relics, including Gram, but never Riðill.

“Wait a moment.”

Knut looked around for something like a pair of tongs. Naturally, there was nothing of the sort, so he used two swords to lift the dagger out. Then he tore a bedcover into a wrapping, dropped the dagger he believed to be Riðill onto it, and bundled it up in layer after layer so no one would accidentally touch it.

“Does it have a demon sealed inside or something?”

“It might.”

“Hey, what are you doing? Let’s go.”

Valeri turned to the trio.

“Huh? What? Sorry?”

They had performed well throughout the operation, but apparently the abbot’s death had come as an enormous shock.

“Come find us once you’ve pulled yourselves together. Let’s go.”

Leaving them behind, Valeri simply departed with Knut.

For a long time, the trio stared at the abbot lying dead on the bed. His arm was severed, a broken blade was lodged in his head, and blood drenched the bedding and mattress. Hadn’t a mage castrated him? What about the demon?

It took nothing grand to dominate a person’s mind. Relentless indoctrination beginning in childhood could become a chain they would never break for the rest of their lives. Castration, bargains with demons—it had all been nothing but childish stories.

The abbot before them now was no different from the countless people they had assassinated. He was merely one of the many humans ruled by their desires.

Only now did Rayleigh, Roy, and Ella realize something: the iron rule of secrecy had never been meant to protect the organization. It had been a shackle to stop them from escaping.

Whatever the case, they no longer needed to be bound. Yet liberation felt less like joy or satisfaction than a hollow emptiness.

End of Chapter 10 – Escape and Liberation.