* * *

The Duke of Eldeira’s army—or rather, the force committed to capturing Gringen—numbered roughly five hundred.

The army’s total strength was a thousand, but additional troops had been assigned to guard the supply route, leaving fewer men for the actual operation. Like life itself, war rarely went according to plan.

Fortunately for Valeri, the Earl of Winslow’s banner was nowhere to be seen. Having commanded the rear guard on the march, his forces had been assigned to protect the supply route.

People often said that taking a castle or city required at least five times as many troops as the defenders. With Gringen’s force numbering around eighty, the attackers met that condition.

That did not mean Gringen’s situation was hopeless. Its defenders had a fighting chance—and so did their enemies.

The attacking force seemed to be more than a random collection of men; it had something of a regular army about it. On the first day, they stayed beyond bowshot and began establishing their camp.

It was neither especially sturdy nor particularly orderly, but they dug trenches and drove in stakes, putting together something serviceable.

It was late summer, or perhaps the beginning of autumn. The air was cool, with an occasional cold wind that seemed to herald winter. The people found themselves wishing that the unease it brought would settle over the enemy rather than themselves.

Watching the enemy from atop the wall, Valeri said, “They’re far too close. Let’s show them that staying beyond bowshot doesn’t mean they’ve put enough distance between us.”

“What do you have in mind?” Arne asked.

“You, Skard, and me. The three of us ride out and stir things up. We charge in over there, then come out that way.”

Valeri pointed at the enemy camp as he spoke. Arne stared at him in disbelief.

“... Just the three of us?”

“The margrave’s troops harassed them all the way here. Look at them. They haven’t slept properly, they’re tired enough to drop, and now they have to build a camp the moment they arrive. They’re miserable. This is when we strike.”

Defending a siege did not mean simply staying inside the walls. You had to sally out now and then to harass the enemy, and destroy their siege engines if they had any.

With a well-timed sortie, numbers were not all that important. War was fought by human beings, after all, and no one could remain ready for battle all day long. They had to eat, sleep, and rest sometime.

Keeping a constant watch wore men out. While they were vigilant, you stayed put. Once they began to relax, you sallied out to harass them again. When they tightened their watch, you stayed put once more. You wore them down by repeating the process.

At heart, then, attacking and defending were both contests of mental endurance. Whoever broke first lost. That was what a siege came down to, on either side of the walls.

True as that might be, putting it into practice required far more than ordinary courage.

Fully armed, helmet and all, Valeri mounted Snow. His surcoat bore a green frog on a white field.

A sword hung at his waist. As a precaution, he secured Thorvald’s felling axe to his saddle as a secondary weapon, and took a spear in hand.

Arne and Skard armed themselves and mounted as well. They had been putting their trust in Valeri and following him for five months now—nearly half a year. Just how far was this fellow going to take them?

However much they thought this could not possibly be right, they always came to their senses to find themselves following him.

Gringen’s ordinary soldiers and citizens were just as incredulous.

He was the very man they were counting on to hold the city, and now their commander was charging out on the first day. Was this really a good idea?

“Open the gate!”

Faced with that sharp command, they had no choice but to obey. Men and a donkey pushed and pulled together, turning the pulley mechanism, and the gate of stout, tightly bound logs slowly opened.

Valeri rode slowly and confidently through the gate. He was not thinking of the people watching him, but even if he had been, that would have been all the more reason to carry himself boldly.

Exhausted and busy hauling heavy loads, pitching tents, and driving stakes, the enemy did not notice Valeri emerging at first. They only spotted him when his leisurely ride had brought him about halfway to their camp.

With two spear-bearing men following him, he looked at first like some sort of envoy.

Then Valeri picked up speed and leveled his spear. Only then did they realize something was terribly wrong—and by the time they realized it, the charge was already upon them.

THUDDA-THUDDA-THUDDA-THUD!

CLANG! THUD! CRUNCH! CRACK!

Valeri ran one enemy through and trampled tents and camp utensils underfoot. Then he drew Wound and bellowed, “How dare you make camp on Gringen’s doorstep!”

Raised high, the dwarven steel sword caught the sunlight and flashed like a blade of light. The enemies around him fled in panic, while Valeri rode straight toward the makeshift stables under construction.

Knights hurrying to fetch their horses saw him coming and hastily scrambled aside.

Reaching the warhorses, Valeri swept past them, slashing with Wound.

NEIGH!

More than a few horses were killed or wounded in an instant, and the rest began rearing and thrashing in fright. Naturally, the chaos only grew worse.

Valeri turned his horse and charged off to the left, crashing into and trampling anything in his path.

The enemy hurriedly took up weapons and tried to fight back, but all they managed was to mill about in confusion, then flee when he reached them.

Having thoroughly thrown the camp into chaos, Valeri glanced back. Arne and Skard looked so overwhelmed with exhilaration that they were scarcely in their right minds.

They did not seem to have the presence of mind to swing their weapons from horseback. Still, merely keeping up without falling behind was an achievement.

Just as the enemy finally began gathering their wits amid the confusion and preparing some kind of counterattack, Valeri wheeled around again and headed for Gringen.

CLIP-CLOP, CLIP-CLOP, CLIP-CLOP!

The hooves of three warhorses pounded swiftly over the ground.

At the gate, the people welcomed them with fervent cheers. Small wonder, after the unbelievable sight they had just witnessed.

Three men charging five hundred, rampaging through them and trampling them at will, was hardly something one saw every day in an entire lifetime.

“Wooooo!”

“Salt Prince! Salt Prince!”

“Long live the Frog Company!”

The gate closed again. As Valeri returned and looked at the people, their eyes were so bright as they gazed at him that they almost seemed to shine. He had certainly succeeded in breaking the enemy’s spirit and raising his own side’s morale.

Valeri immediately dismounted from Snow and climbed the wall. Outside, a few knights had belatedly mounted and pursued them, but now they could only ride aimlessly back and forth over the bare ground, kicking up dust. What else could they do? The gate was shut.

A few arrows sent their way failed to hit, but left them no choice but to withdraw. The five-hundred-strong army also moved considerably farther back.

Around sunset, someone approached the walls from the enemy camp with an escort. He stopped well short of them and shouted from a distance.

“Hey! Bastard!”

Valeri had been resting below. Told that someone was calling for him, he climbed the wall and saw none other than Gunnar, the eldest young lord.

Spotting Valeri in the distance, Gunnar shouted again.

“I’ve never hated you! Surrender, and I’ll spare you! Give Knut back, too!”

“Don’t be ridiculous! You tried to kill Knut, and now you want him back?”

“Th-that wasn’t me! Father did that!”

“Exactly! Is a father trying to kill his own son something to be proud of? How can you guarantee his safety if he goes back now?”

Gunnar scratched his head, unable to answer Valeri’s question.

Even an intelligent person would have struggled to best Valeri in an argument. Gunnar was rather slow on top of that, making it all the harder to settle things with words.

“Then hand over Gringen! I’ll let you and Knut go!”

That was the real objective. In truth, whether Valeri and Knut escaped hardly mattered. They were merely the pretext; the war’s objective had always been to capture Gringen.

“That is even more out of the question! I have resolved to fight alongside the people of Gringen, even if we die together! I will not hand this city over to anyone!”

“Do you really have to go that far? Father will scold me if I don’t take it!”

This time, Valeri was speechless. He had not expected a commander-in-chief to openly offer such a reason.

Unable to watch any longer, one of Gunnar’s aides spoke up beside him. Letting him continue might leave him with no dignity as a commander.

“We have offered them ample opportunity to surrender. Let us return, young lord.”

“Have we? What a shame. How nice it would be to settle this with words instead of fighting. It’s a sad business.”

He might have been simpleminded and ignorant, but he did not seem bad at heart.

Whatever their respective motives, however, this had become a battle neither side could back away from.

Night fell. Men carrying shields and torches approached the walls from the enemy camp in small groups.

At first, the defenders wondered what they were doing, but it was no full-scale attack. They were coming close to inspect the walls for weak points.

The archers guarding the walls shot at them, but in the darkness they could hardly expect to hit. Arrows struck the ground or were stopped by shields. An occasional shot hit a calf, but that was all.

At dawn, the duke’s army began its assault in earnest. Men carrying ladders, sandbags, and shields formed ranks and advanced toward the walls.

Valeri commanded from the ramparts, having spent the night attending to one thing after another without sleep.

He took charge of the wall on the city’s right, while Skard and Arne commanded the opposite side.

“Don’t let them fill the moat! Get the peat ready!”

Hastily dug as it was, the moat would inevitably be filled in given enough time. But they had to delay that as long as possible and inflict as much damage as they could.

The enemy provided covering fire with bows and crossbows. Before the sun had even risen, arrows flew back and forth, announcing the start of battle.

“Just get close! Get up there, whatever it takes!”

“Once you’ve dumped the sand, move off to the side! Don’t dawdle!”

The enemy commanders shouted with all their might, and their men doggedly carried out the operation. Shield-bearers covered them from above while the others carried sandbags and stones.

Arrows rained down from the walls, but fewer than twenty archers were nowhere near enough to stop hundreds of men. They shot until their arms felt ready to fall off, yet were lucky if even one of those arrows found its mark.

The real response came once the enemy filled in one section of the moat. The other defenders hurled peat down onto it. Mixed with flammable substances, it burst into flames when they followed their barrage with a torch.

Burning peat had a particularly pungent smell to begin with. Perhaps because of the other substances mixed into this batch, its smoke stung fiercely, acrid enough to make the lining of the nose feel as though it were melting.

“Argh!”

“Fuck!”

Above all, the heat felt as though it were roasting their faces.

The men just about to set their ladders had no choice but to falter. Yet their comrades pushed from behind, leaving them unable even to flee.

“Stop pushing! I said stop pushing!”

“Fire!”

Meanwhile, the moat continued to fill elsewhere. As soon as a section seemed filled enough, the attackers set ladders against the wall without hesitation.

But the billowing black smoke also made fighting difficult for Gringen’s soldiers above. The walls were not very high—only a little taller than a person.

As armed enemies began climbing the ladders in earnest, Valeri suddenly leaped down from the wall. Friend and foe alike froze in astonishment.

Then he drew his dwarven steel sword and swung, slicing through enemy helmets and shields as easily as cheese. Arms and legs fell like dead leaves, and blood poured out.

With flames burning all around, the mirror-smooth dwarven steel blade flashed now and then, scattering red light.

Busy filling the moat, the enemy had not properly readied long weapons such as spears, making an immediate response difficult.

Surrounded by fire, Valeri slaughtered the enemies around him, then climbed one of their own ladders back onto the wall.

By then, the friendly soldiers around the ladder were staring at him wide-eyed.

Ignoring them, Valeri swung Wound and sliced through the sturdy ladder in a single stroke.

Arrows from the enemy’s covering fire whistled past Valeri’s cheeks and head. He was truly fighting with his life on the line.

The attackers at the right-hand wall were too terrified to do anything more. Without pausing, Valeri descended from the ramparts and headed to the wall on the other side of the gate, where fierce fighting was underway.

An enemy knight had climbed a ladder like a tiger, killed one of the defenders, and was trying to force a way through. Skard and Arne engaged him, but could not kill him outright.

Boldly, the knight leaped down alone into the city. He apparently intended to find some way to open the gate, but had the misfortune to run into Valeri.

Valeri closed in quickly and brought his sword flashing down as though he had been waiting for him. The knight reflexively raised his own blade to block, but it stood no chance against dwarven steel.

His sword broke, his skull split, and he died on the spot.

Without stopping, Valeri climbed onto the wall. Then, just as he had on the right, he jumped down, hacked through the enemy almost indiscriminately, and climbed back up one of their ladders.

At this point, he was practically defending the city single-handedly.

Watching from a distance, Gunnar and the Earl of Windale were dumbstruck. Surely this was beyond anything a human being could do?

“... What in the world is that sword?”

“Even an Ulfberht couldn’t do that... Could it be dwarven steel? Where did he get it?”

With shields, helmets, and armor all being sliced apart, for a moment they could only wonder what they were supposed to do about this.

They still had more ladders, but their soldiers were so terrified that further attacks were impossible. With no other choice, they pulled back that morning, ending the assault that had begun at dawn.

But news more disheartening than Valeri himself awaited the duke’s army. Their first shipment of food had arrived, and it was woefully inadequate.

“Why is this all there is?”

Bewildered and rather angry, Gunnar rounded on the officer responsible for transporting the food.

“W-well, on the way here...”

“What happened on the way? Did that barbarian old man take it?”

“No...”

“Then did someone steal it? Speak clearly!”

“No, well, you know the troops guarding the supply route? They have to eat too, so as we came along, the supplies kept dwindling... and this is all that’s left.”

Was that an explanation, or was he just blowing hot air? Not only Gunnar, but the bodyguard captain and the Earl of Windale looked incredulous.

What had happened was that the troops guarding the supply route had consumed the food at stops along the way.

It was beyond absurd. The troops tasked with capturing the city were the most important part of the army, yet their food arrived last, leaving them with the smallest share.

This was why a quartermaster mattered. Food had to be allocated precisely, but the duke’s army had only officers responsible for transporting it. There was no position at all charged with overseeing and taking responsibility for the army’s logistics as a whole.

“Won’t we struggle to last even three days like this?”

Even the ignorant Gunnar could see that something was wrong, and asked the duke’s bodyguard captain. The captain had no answer either.

“The mercenaries are supposed to be coming. Somehow, until then...”

Even an ordinary person struggled to get through a day without food, let alone soldiers fighting for their lives.

“Then do we have three days’ food now?”

“By my reckoning, we have about two days’ worth. If we reduce the rations, we should somehow be able to stretch it to four.”

“When is the next shipment?” Gunnar asked the transport officer again.

“In a week.”

“What? A week? How does that make sense? We can last four days at most, and the food won’t arrive for a week? What are we supposed to fight on? Are you joking?”

It defied common sense, but that was war. Things did not go according to plan, and when those plans went awry, enormous problems arose in the most absurd places.

If there was a mistake at the root of it all, it was the assumption that Gringen would fall within a day or two of the army’s arrival.

The bodyguard captain, who had devised the operation in the first place, was too ashamed to raise his head.

Gunnar did not bother blaming him, however. Things had already come to this; what would blaming someone else solve? Now was the time for everyone to join forces and fight. Being a simple man, that was how he saw it.

After racking his ignorant brains, Gunnar said, “Let’s just eat our fill today and tomorrow and settle this. The soldiers aren’t in good spirits as it is. They’ll only get worse with time.”

It was his own gamble on victory. Whether it would succeed or fail remained to be seen.

For all his shortcomings, Gunnar did have courage, decisiveness, and tenacity. More than his father, in fact.

And people followed him surprisingly readily. He might have been a little slow, but he had an honest, warmhearted side.

Thus ended the first assault. The next began that very night.

The duke’s army had no time to spare.