* * *

Seen from the walls at midnight, the dozens of torches looked like ghostly lights drifting through the darkness. The limited visibility made the enemy seem more numerous, too.

As always, shields were essential in a siege. Some soldiers held them overhead while others worked furiously beneath that makeshift roof. Armed with shovels, picks, and axes, they began tearing away at the stones at the base of the wall. Naturally, arrows rained down from above, but the archers were now so exhausted that even shooting was a struggle.

Thrusting with spears was dangerous, since the enemy could grab the shafts and pull. Instead, Gringen’s soldiers mostly swung their spears down like threshing flails. The blows had almost no killing power, though an occasional hit to the head could cause a concussion.

Their most effective means of disruption was to throw down specially prepared peat and set it alight with torches. They did so as soon as the enemy reached the wall, and flames flared up in an instant, lighting the surroundings as brightly as day.

“Aaaaaaagh!”

The men engulfed in flames screamed in agony. Many hurriedly flung away their burning shields. The smell of roasting flesh spread through the air.

Once the peat caught fire, even water would not put it out. The attackers moved elsewhere and resumed digging beneath the wall. Gunnar was among them, shoveling hard alongside his soldiers.

The heat felt as though it were cooking their skin, while the fierce burning stench and acrid smoke made their eyes and noses sting. They were already exhausted to the point of collapse; now they could barely open their eyes, and even breathing was agony.

“Keep going! Keep going! Once the wall falls, we win! Keep gooooing!”

Tears streamed from Gunnar’s bloodshot eyes as he roared with desperate determination.

The duke’s soldiers sometimes wondered whether this damned work was accomplishing anything at all, but Gunnar’s shouts helped them steel themselves.

Gringen’s defenders were just as desperate. This time the attackers had brought no ladders, so even Valeri could not lightly jump down outside.

As time passed, they ran out of peat. There was plenty of ordinary peat, of course, but unless it was specially prepared—kneaded together with other substances and dried—it would not burst into flame all at once.

Valeri brought over the heavy stones they had prepared and hurled them down alongside the soldiers and women. All of Gringen, soldiers and civilians alike, truly stood together in resistance.

More and more attackers were collapsing unconscious from exhaustion. Gringen’s people were in better physical shape, but there were too few of them.

The fighting went on for hours, until both sides felt they would lose their minds. Why did they have to go this far? At times, all they desperately wanted was to sleep.

Yet the harder they forced those thoughts aside and fought on, the more bitterly determined they became. Hatred for one another flourished.

Once we get over that wall, we’ll kill every last one of them. I’ll never so much as speak to anyone from Eldeira again. Those were the thoughts filling their minds. Burning hostility drove bodies pushed to their limits.

How many hours had they spent at this foolish work? Dawn began to break. Around then, one section of the wall shifted and sank with a clunk.

“That’s it! Keep digging! Dig all the way through!”

Valeri and the other people of Gringen turned toward it in alarm. Then that section of wall came crashing down. The ducal soldier who had kept digging beneath it to the very end was crushed to death.

As the wall fell, the thought that they had lost flashed through the defenders’ minds, and their hearts sank. The duke’s soldiers, meanwhile, forgot their crushing fatigue and felt fresh strength surge through them.

“A breach! There’s a breach over there!”

“Get up there! Get up there!”

A high mound of rubble stood where the wall had collapsed. Beyond it lay the city. Some of those buried beneath the fallen wall were still alive, but rather than rescue them, the soldiers trampled over them and scrambled up in a mass.

Then someone began cutting down the men pouring into the city. It was Valeri.

Splitting heads and slicing through waists, he climbed onto the rubble and hacked down wildly at the enemies swarming up toward him, as though beating rats to death.

There was no need for swordsmanship now. The enemy was packed so thick that each stroke killed one man, sometimes two. Broken weapons, severed limbs, and corpses piled up underfoot, blocking the attackers and preventing them from climbing freely.

Even before that, Valeri’s absurdly devastating display had terrified them just as it had the day before. This wasn’t fair...

Standing in the dim light of dawn, Valeri threw off his helmet and shouted. Wet platinum-blond hair clung to his face, but it could not conceal his fierce authority.

“Come up, if you think you can take me!”

Not a soul dared accept the challenge. Gringen’s people, by contrast, found their courage multiplied at the very moment of despair. Forgetting their exhaustion, they shouted until their chests felt ready to burst.

“Salt Prince! Salt Prince!”

The momentum seemed to swing completely—all because of Valeri alone.

The enemy felt empty and despairing at the thought that their suffering all night had been for nothing. His allies surged with hope and courage, certain they could win.

Valeri, too, was utterly spent after fighting through the night. Yet at that moment, he felt no fatigue at all.

“That sword...! That’s the problem...!”

Gunnar muttered as he headed toward the breach. They had come so close, yet they could not break through. It was maddening.

“You there! Bastard! Stop hiding behind dwarven steel! Fight fair!”

“Don’t make me laugh! Just retreat! Do that, and I’ll let you live!”

“Grrr!”

Gunnar was furious, but he was not stupid enough to charge against dwarven steel. He had that much sense.

Just then, someone spoke to him. It was the Earl of Windale. He, too, looked a wreck after working a pick on the front lines. His surcoat was scorched, and soot mingled with sweat to leave his face filthy.

“We’ve done enough. We’ll be leaving.”

“What? Leaving?”

“I mean we’re withdrawing.”

“Y-you can’t...”

“Look around you. Look at the casualties.”

Gunnar looked around. Bodies lay everywhere, and wounded men sprawled here and there, groaning. Others were carrying injured comrades on their backs toward the rear.

They would need a proper count to know for certain, but it seemed at least several dozen had been killed or wounded in this siege.

Losses might be tolerable if they took the city, but without further gains, their power would be endangered. That was true of the duke as much as the earl.

Such was the nature of an army. It was a means of attack and defense, but it was also a means of maintaining rule.

“L-let’s pull back for now. But please don’t withdraw altogether. Please. Please...”

Gunnar pleaded, all but clinging to him. The Earl of Windale looked displeased, but he did not insist to the bitter end.

After barely managing to placate the earl, Gunnar pulled the army back for the time being. Valeri remained atop the rubble until the last, watching the enemy retreat.

The sun crept above the eastern horizon, illuminating it all.

Valeri returned inside the city and gave his orders.

“String ropes across that gap. It’ll have to do for now. And dig a wide, deep pit down here.”

Ropes alone could hardly stop the enemy, but they could at least hinder entry and help create a bottleneck. The plan was to dig a pit inside the breach and fight them there.

Arne saw to carrying out Valeri’s instructions. He put the townspeople, rather than the soldiers, to work stretching thick mooring ropes across the breach in overlapping layers like a wall, and digging a pit behind them.

Valeri found somewhere quiet and sat down to rest with his head bowed low. He must have dozed off, because someone’s approach startled him awake.

It felt as though he had merely blinked, yet the world’s colors had changed. It had certainly been daytime before, but now the sun was setting.

“Tired?”

He raised his head. It was Knut.

“I didn’t realize it, but I must have been exhausted.”

Valeri, Arne, and Skard had been fighting day and night, going nearly two days without sleep.

“Would the fighting stop if I surrendered?”

Valeri gave a faint laugh and shook his head.

“Gringen itself was their goal from the start. This has nothing to do with you. Why? Feeling guilty because you think you’re the only one doing nothing?”

“Yeah.”

“How are you doing nothing? You’re keeping order inside the city.”

Whenever war broke out, there were people who took advantage of the chaos to get up to trouble within the walls. Knut was currently hunting those people down and killing or punishing them. He was hardly doing nothing.

Of course, even so, his work was neither as dangerous nor as utterly exhausting as fighting on the front lines.

“What if... Just suppose...”

Knut struggled to begin, whatever it was he wanted to say.

“If my brother...”

He had only just begun when a soldier hurried over to Valeri. Knut swallowed the rest of his words.

“Your Highness, you need to come. More enemies have appeared.”

That damned “Your Highness.” No matter how often he told them not to, they would not stop calling him that.

Half resigned, Valeri laboriously rose and headed for the wall.

Once atop it, he could see fresh troops arriving at the distant enemy camp. It was the Silverrich Company.

They had brought something with them: disassembled siege engines. Battering rams, siege towers, and the like. They apparently intended to assemble them on-site.

Certain things revealed an army’s quality at a glance: its choice of position, the shape of its formations, the strength of its camp, and its ability to dismantle and assemble siege engines.

These were clearly professional mercenaries. Not mere bodies to fill the ranks, but men with extensive experience in actual combat. Moreover, they had not fought once in this siege and were brimming with strength.

For the first time, Valeri felt despair. Gringen’s people were full of hope, busily stringing ropes across the breach, digging pits, preparing food, and carrying all manner of materials. But Valeri knew. Once those men joined the fighting, the defenders would no longer be able to hold.

With battering rams and siege towers deployed, at least two points would be breached. And the enemy would attack the collapsed section again.

That meant defending three places. No matter how hard Valeri fought alone, could he hold them all?

He had his doubts, but he intended to do everything he could. He ordered carts and stones piled behind the gates to block them completely. If the gates were going to give way regardless, this was better.

Given enough time, the enemy would clear the obstructions and break through there too. But with so few defenders, it was best to narrow the front as much as possible. Their only option, he thought, was to make the enemy come in stages and defeat them piecemeal.

He also had them dig trenches behind the walls to create a second defensive line, leaving only a path barely wide enough for people to pass. Inflict mounting losses there, then counterattack: that was Valeri’s improvised plan.

But would that be enough? Could he really allow himself to be satisfied with this?

He considered mounting another cavalry charge, but the enemy camp was already complete. Getting in and out would not be easy.

A sense of futility crept into his chest. It grew stronger, threatening to displace his will to fight.

Cold calculations ran through his mind, his brain insistently telling him that saving himself and his friends was the best he could do. Whether or not those calculations were correct, they eroded his resolve.

Then the faintest possibility of a last resort crossed his mind. Thorvald had said there might come a time when he would have to offer up his heart. Regin had said drinking dragon’s blood could make his heart burst and kill him.

The word “heart” linked their statements. Put together, they meant he had to be prepared to die.

He had been fighting prepared to die all along, but this was different. How could he put it? Perhaps it was a matter of choice. Was that choice hope, a sense of duty, or rebellion against his own cynicism and cowardice?

For now, Valeri gathered his friends. He addressed Arne, Skard, Yorik, and Knut.

“I have dragon’s blood. If I drink it, I might gain superhuman strength like an Einheri. But I might die. If I drink it and die... you decide whether to stay and fight to the end or leave. I won’t resent you if you go.”

It sounded like his last words. And so sudden, too.

“... What are you talking about?”

Skard was too bewildered to say anything else.

But Valeri offered no further explanation. He mounted Snow and galloped toward the company headquarters.

CLOP-CLOP, CLOP-CLOP.

His friends hurried after him.

Upon reaching the company headquarters, Valeri rummaged through his belongings. Before long, he found a tiny vial. His friends had all arrived and watched in bewilderment.

When he uncorked it, an unfamiliar smell unlike anything he had ever encountered spread through the room. It mingled the strong metallic reek of blood with a heavy, oppressive burning smell.

Valeri tipped back the vial and drank it in one go. A liquid like mercury reached his throat and slid down in a gulp.

At first, the peculiar, unsettling odor rose through his nose, making him grimace. Then pain struck, as though someone had seized his heart in a fist and squeezed.

“Urgh!”

He instinctively clutched his chest and collapsed. His startled friends hurriedly gathered him up and carried him to a bed.

Valeri squeezed his eyes shut in agony. At first, it had felt as though his heart were being crushed. Now it felt as though it were burning.

“Nnngh...!”

He felt the pain spread from his heart through his entire body in an instant. The force spreading through him seemed to burn every blood vessel in turn.

The pain grew so intense that he could no longer even groan. When that force, which felt capable of burning his whole body to ash, reached his head, light flashed behind his tightly shut eyes, and a scene appeared.

A figure stood shrouded in a robe pulled over his head. He turned, revealing a face made entirely of light. He did not seem human.

Yet his voice was bitter, at odds with that radiant brilliance.

["Having been loved by all things, it is only right that I die for all things, Mother."]

That scene passed, and he saw a woman cutting open her own pregnant belly with a knife.

A child emerged, far too large to look newborn. The moment he came out, he severed his own umbilical cord, walked, and spoke.

He kissed his dying mother, then bowed and said:

["My body is still small and my strength too meager to avenge you now. When I am grown, I shall surely take revenge and honor the souls of my father and mother. Please, rest in peace."]

After watching his mother die, the child ventured into the wilderness alone.

Next, he saw a dying man. A woman stood looking down at him. Perhaps they were twins; both were so equally beautiful that it hurt to look at them.

["Who in this world could ever understand us? You’re the only one I ever loved,"] the woman said.

["... You’re the reason I held on this long. I’m sorry. Let me rest first..."]

["Don’t be sad. When our child in my womb grows up, he will surely avenge you."]

["No more revenge... Let our child be happy... Please..."]

With those words, the man breathed his last.

That scene passed as well, and another unfolded before his eyes.

Again, there was a man. He looked almost identical to the man who had died in the previous scene, but much younger.

He shouted at the woman who had promised revenge, his voice somewhere between an anguished cry and a plea.

["I avenged Father! Isn’t that enough? How long will you keep controlling my life, Mother!? I’m not Father! I’m your son, not your husband, you pitiful woman!"]

["Happiness!? You would abandon your mother for something so worthless!?"]

She glared at him with utterly venomous eyes, then threw herself into the flames without hesitation. As she burned to death, she seared a brand into his heart that would never fade for as long as he lived.

["Then go! Leave and find this precious happiness of yours! But if you fail to find it, you will never, ever be able to die!"]

With those words, unbearable sorrow engulfed Valeri. It was grief, misery, and tragedy so immense that the pain of his heart burning felt like nothing beside it.

Tears streamed endlessly from his tightly shut eyes. He clenched his teeth and endured, though he no longer knew what he was enduring for.

When he opened his eyes, light burst from both pupils in an explosive blaze.

His friends, who had been fidgeting anxiously over him, recoiled in terror at the sight and fell backward.

“Ah!”

But then Valeri’s eyes rolled back, and he lost consciousness. Fortunately, he was still breathing.