Editing Rakuin no Monshou:Volume12 Chapter2 (section)

=== Part 3 ===

Lance Mazpotter pulled back the soldiers who were fighting at the mouth of the valley, and swiftly reorganised his troops. As expected of such a veteran, his skill at this far outstripped that of Allion’s prince.

With his reorganised unit, he encircled the hill where Eric’s forces were. They stoked up bright fires. From Eric’s perspective, it would look as though they were surrounding him with a ring of flames at his feet.

While they busy holding the enemy in one place, Kaseria was leading eight hundred soldiers southwards. They drew near to the river that served as the national border.

Using their spears instead of sticks; soldiers jumped into the water and felt about the shallows. Because they were using the absolute minimum amount of light, there were some who lost their footing and were swept away by the current. They had seven airships with them, but these were mostly being used to transport two cannons. Although aware of the danger, Kaseria himself jumped his horse into the river.

The moon was covered by thick black clouds. It probably didn’t want to show itself so as not to have to see the brutal fighting below.

Within that dark night, Prince Kaseria’s group quietly approached Dairan. Once they were close enough to see the ramparts, the troops stopped and Kaseria sent out scouts.

“Oh, one of the gates is open?” when he heard the information, the prince’s thin, narrow lips curved into a smile as he sat atop his horse.

''In that case, the enemy will definitely be coming out through the north gate''.

They waited for a while.

Finally, a rider came galloping from the northern direction, flying almost right in front of where Kaseria lay concealed. No doubt the enemy messenger who had slipped out through the opportunity that Lance had deliberately created. He disappeared as though being pulled in by Dairan.

It was obvious even from a distance that the city suddenly burst into activity. The news flew around that Eric’s main force was isolated in enemy territory.

At that point in time, Kaseria divided his force into two groups, and had a further unit stay at a distance with one of the cannons and position themselves to the east of Dairan.

This time, things did not take long enough for Kaseria to get impatient.

''They’re here''.

There was the clip-clop of hooves and Dairan’s iron gates spat out a group of cavalry and infantrymen. They numbered seven hundred.

“Fire!”

A few kilometres to the north of the city, the order was given for the soldiers lying on either side of the road to shoot.

It was as though the stillness of night had been torn apart by the roar of thunder.

The screams of men and horses overlapped, and Ende’s cavalrymen were thrown to the ground with a clatter. When the bullets ran out, Kaseria Jamil personally charged forward in the lead.

“Get them!” he bellowed, then rushed towards the battle front, which was enveloped in thick gunpowder smoke.

The torch carried by a rider fell to the ground. Kaseria’s sword reflected it, emitting the dazzling light of flames, as he cut down two, then three of the foot soldiers.

While the elite force that he led clashed with the enemy reinforcements, three hundred passed by their side and headed towards Dairan. Their aim was to gain control of the gate. Befittingly for troops that had put countries to the sword, Allion’s vigorous army moved with lightning speed.

A messenger was sent hurtling to the domain-lord, Kayness Plutos, with news that the enemy had successfully invaded Dairan’s territory.

“What!?” even a warrior like Kayness went pale.

When he had heard that Eric was isolated, he had felt that the situation was beginning to turn dangerous. He had sent soldiers to fight back, with the majority of the soldiers being entrusted to his eldest son, Darowkin, which had already left. There was no doubt that it was Darowkin’s troops which had been violently attacked.

''Bastards'' – Kayness’ expression was thunderous as he changed by himself into his armour.

He was fifty-three years old. In recent years, he had not being out to battle, but, as was customary here, he did not neglect his daily training. He called a page to hand him a spear.

Meanwhile –

''First, we need to set a grand fire'' – Kaseria was seeing to it that his attack force carried that out. Having penetrated into Dairan, Allion’s army easily got rid of the first lot of soldiers that Kayness had sent, and were now embarking on merciless slaughter and annihilation. The houses were a matter of course, but they also set fire to the granaries in which the people had desperately stored provisions from the impoverished soil.

“Bastards!”

Unable to bear watching it, the men broke free from their families who were holding them back, and grabbed weapons to attack. Allion’s soldiers shot them, skewered them, and trampled them beneath their horses’ hooves. Spears mercilessly struck the backs of the mothers who were fleeing the fires while protecting their children.

Corpses piled up in the streets of Dairan and, even as the horses’ iron-shod feet crushed through them, new heaps of remains were being amassed elsewhere.

The soldiers of Allion’s army wore helmets that almost entirely covered their heads. Because of that, they looked exactly like expressionless, emotionless dolls faithfully executing their master’s orders, performing one act of destruction after another.

With no way to resist, Dairan was set to the torch. Meanwhile, a few kilometres to its north, Darowkin’s troops, which were fighting Kaseria, were shaken by a further problem. The leadership was in disarray, and there were those who looked like they were intending to turn back without permission to defend their city and families.

His helmet and armour red with blood, Kaseria was dashing around the battlefield, searching for the commander, but the enemy leader, Darowkin Plutos, had in fact taken a bullet and fallen from his horse in the early stages of the fight. He had already withdrawn from the frontlines, pulled away by his men. This saved Darowkin’s life, but as a result, his troops were unable to regain their fighting spirit, leaving Kaseria free to trample them down.

With sword and spear, Kaseria put down every obstacle that rose before him. When they were just about to march into Dairan, he got in touch with the unit that he stationed to the east beforehand, and had them start bombarding the city’s east gate.

This lured Kayness. Fearing that the enemy was also approaching from the east, he split his soldiers in half. It was, however, no more than a decoy, and Kaseria was easily able to break through the thinned-out ranks of the enemy.

As sparks flew from the buildings on either side, he had the second cannon carried into the city. It’s target: Dairan’s castle. The convoluted city layout was designed to make it difficult to reach, but the airship unit overhead guided the prince.

The Dairan soldiers, of course, rushed in to attack with sword and spear in hand, but they were outnumbered.

Bathed in the reflected glare from the fires, Kaseria rode along leisurely. His attitude was the same as if the city were already occupied territory. No matter how often his men warned him that, “Riflemen might be lying in ambush,” and despite the fact that enemy gunshots did occasionally ring out, Kaseria simply laughed each time.

“Aha ha ha.”

He looked joyful.

Kaseria had a cultured side to him that loved paintings and music, and he had even produced works of art himself, but now that he stood on the battlefield, it was as though his everyday self, the one that lived protected by stone walls, was an impostor. It made him realise that the beauty of pictures and the poignancy of music and poetry were no more than substitutes for the rapture of slaughter and that moment of fear, not knowing if he himself might be killed.

Ignoring the townspeople who were trying to flee from their burning homes, Kaseria’s unit arrived in front of the Plutos mansion. As was to be expected, soldiers armed with guns were lined up in formation to attempt to defend it. Kaseria lured them out with infantrymen while the cannon was being placed in position at the rear.


 
At that same time, Darowkin’s daughters were running through the mansion’s corridors.

As soon as their mother was informed of the enemy attack, she had jumped to her feet and, accompanied by escorting soldiers and ladies’ maids, had taken her two daughters by the hand and had left the room. The mansion, however, was in chaos because of how sudden it was.

Armed soldiers were shouting angrily as they raced along, rushing this way and that. Their lamellar armour<ref>The soldiers are described as wearing kozane, a type of traditional Japanese armour made by lacing small scales made out of leather or metal. Worn mainly during the Heian period and pre-Sengoku period, kozane armour is fairly “old-fashioned” in terms of samurai armour. More information [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_armour#Kozane_armour here] and [http://myarmoury.com/feature_jpn_armour.html here] (under 'Classical Armour')</ref> and the handles of their spears seemed about to hit the two girls in the face at any moment.

“Reen!”

Thil hurriedly let go of her mother’s hand and stooped down to shield her little sister. Just then, the building shook to the accompaniment of the roar of artillery fire. With the soldiers pushing and shoving, the two of them were separated from their mother before they even realised it.

They simply ran in search of a place with no fire, which brought them to a garden surrounded by a fence. The two of them often played there, and there, the men’s angry bellows and the women’s screams sounded far away. There was a shed in a corner of the garden, so Thil led her little sister by the hand and rushed over to it.

They held their breath in the darkness.

For a while, they grasped each other’s hands and stayed quiet, and amidst the silence, it felt as though they were the only two alive in Dairan.

The shed’s window was high up, so Thil piled up what she found around them into a sort of staircase and, from on top of it, tried to see what the situation was outside.

She could see flames rising from all around Dairan and, in their shadowy surroundings, she could vaguely make out that even darker shadows were jostling against one another. The fighting was probably at its height.

“And Father?” Reen stood on tiptoe, looking up. Her hair, which was usually tied up in two bunches, hung to beneath her shoulders, and she looked utterly forlorn.

Thil shook her head.

“Mother?”

Thil climbed back down and sat on the floor next to her sister.

A short while later, Reen asked again,

“Where’s Father?” the usually confident little girl had eyes brimming with tears. “And Mother? Where’s the Lord Prince?”

“I don’t know,” answered Thil, staring down at her knees which she had drawn together. “But, it won’t be long. They’ll come running to find us really soon.”

Finding the silence unbearable, she talked about everything and anything to her sister. She hummed the songs that their uncle, Belmor, always sung.

“Uncle promised you yesterday, right? That when he gets back, he’ll read your favourite book, Reen. And also, he’ll do the fairies’ voices.”

She forced herself to smile as she spoke. Her little sister’s favourite stories involved fairies, and she especially loved it when Belmor put on a woman’s voice when reading them to her. Right now, however, there was no topic that could distract Reen. Hearing her say nothing but repeatedly ask “And Father?”, “And Mother?”, Thil finally couldn’t take it anymore.

“I don’t know either!” she screamed, shaking their clasped hands free. “If you’re that interested, you should just go outside and look for yourself.”

“Fine, that’s what I’ll do,” frowning indignantly, Reen stood up.

Thil did not believe that she meant it. “You can’t do it by yourself, right? So stay here quietly. It’s always, always the same… because all you do is imply nasty things about me.”

“Thil, you’re a dummy. I hate you!”

Reen lost her temper and broke into a run. By the time the startled Thil had stood up, her younger sister had opened the shed door and disappeared into the night. Thil gasped and stood petrified. The darkness that stretched out on the other side of the door seemed to have swallowed up her sister, and she felt as though she would never be able to return to her side.

Her hands and legs had begun to shake involuntarily. She wanted to drop to her knees and wail.

But –

“You too, Thil. You have to protect your little sister.” At that moment, the words that Prince Eric had told her a few days ago spun around in her head.

The girl bit down hard on her lower lip. ''I’m the daughter of a Dairan warrior''.

Her legs still trembling, she stepped outside.



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