Editing Tales of Leo Attiel:Volume2 Chapter7 (section)

===Part 1===


“It’s the end of the road for you.”

Hayden had brought his horse to a halt right in front of Leo and spoke as looked down towards him. One by one, the other Allian riders joined him. Leo was surrounded.

His lips curved into a refined smile, Hayden jumped lightly down from his horse. He drew the sword that was at his waist, and thrust it right before the prince’s face.

Leo could do nothing except moan in pain from where he had hit his head and his back.

“Smile,” said Hayden. “Do you remember? You ordered me to do so. And what was it you said after that? Oh, right: ‘go on and do your worst, I’ll show you how I turn the tables on you’ – wasn’t it?”

The nearby riders all laughed as Hayden imitated a boy’s voice. Even when jeering at someone, it was extremely unusual for Hayden to joke around to make others laugh. Simply put, he was in an incredibly good mood.

“You also said that you wanted to see what I could do with my own ‘power’. And now you see it. It’s only a matter of time before the temple falls. And now that you’ve come running to it, I fear that next it will be your own country’s turn. Atall’s aristocrats are completely blind. On that point, I give you my praise. But… well, ''what of it''?”

The tip of his sword shook in time to Hayden’s laughter.

“Even though you wanted to defend the temple at all cost, were you only able to scrape up this many soldiers? And on top of that, they look like a bunch of amateurs. What can you do with them? Toss a stone in an ocean and they’ll be swallowed up in an instant by the wave it causes. ''That'' is the limit of your ‘power’, you who challenged the mighty ocean that is Allion.”

“…”

Leo gave no response. He merely raised a feeble gaze towards Hayden. The sun had finally risen, and it bathed the surroundings in its pale light.

“Now than, what should I do, Lord Leo?” Hayden tilted his head to one side, just like a young girl might do. “I could keep you alive. As a hostage captured on the battlefield. But would the sovereign-prince of Atall pay the ransom money? If he decides to carry on pretending complete innocence, he might well just watch his son die without lifting a finger. But if that’s fine by you, let me see you beg for your life. Still, I’m not a man without compassion. If you say that you couldn’t bear such a disgrace, I’ll kindly kill you on the spot. At the end of the day, no matter which you choose, it won’t change either Allion or Atall’s destinies.”

Hayden struck Leo’s cheek with his sword as he spoke. The soft skin burst open and blood started to flow out.

“Now then,” Hayden walked closer. “Choose, Leo Attiel. I taught you this before: a noble should not grasp a sword without the proper resolve. So with that resolve, choose your own fate. ''Now then''!”

Hayden slowly removed the blade from near Leo’s cheek. When he did so, Leo murmured in a trembling voice –

“I…”

“Hmm?”

“I want to live.”

“I see. Then you’ll be a hostage. This gentleman has already been a hostage in Allion for six years, yet it seems that he’s taken a considerable liking to living like that.”

While Hayden sneered as he pulled back his sword, the soldiers on horseback all burst out laughing again.

Whereupon, Leo laughed too. And it was not the kind of obsequious, flattering laugh meant to try and prolong one’s life.

“I will live and I want to live,” said the prince. “But I won’t be left alive thanks to your ‘power’. I will live thanks to my own ‘power’ alone.”

“What?” Hayden looked down his nose at him as he jeered. “Are you still talking back? Poor fool, you can keep your life and still lose a few limbs, you know?”

Leo’s smile did not falter.

If the Heavens were going to grant Leo even a little of the luck that they had been lavishing on Hayden, that was the moment to do it.

Ally reinforcements did not appear. Nor did Leo have any other plans carefully prepared in advance and still waiting to be used. And of course, there was no miracle, such as a bolt of lightning from the sky striking Hayden down.

But Leo was laid out on the ground, surrounded by Allion’s soldiers. And from that position, he could see it. Over the line of hills, unobstructed by houses or walls, smoke was clearly rising in the western sky, which was still faintly shrouded in darkness.

Noticing that Leo was not looking at him, Hayden casually glanced back behind him. And saw the same thing as Leo.

“What’s…” he started to ask his men, then suddenly opened his eyes wide in astonishment. “''That’s''…!”

“Allion’s headquarters.”

Hayden swiftly turned back around when Leo’s voice answered him. In that same moment, their surroundings suddenly erupted into noise.

“Go look!” Hayden barked an order at one of his men, who quickly took off on horseback. He then turned his sharp glare back towards Leo. “Our headquarters, you say? Bastard… is that it, so you attacked out camp?”

“If you had been just a little slower, you might also have been going up in flames, and your soul might have been sucked into the smoke.”

“Bullshit!”

Hayden readjusted his grip on the sword he had just pulled back and struck Leo on the cheek with the hilt. The blow was so strong that Leo’s head jerked sideways, and blood flew from his mouth.

“I see, so this was your plan to pull back from the brink? But how unfortunate for you – see, even though I was supposed to be devoured in your flames, I’m still alive!” Hayden spread out both his hands and roared with laughter. “So what if that temporary fort burns? The temple will fall soon anyway. I’ll just take it over and turn it into my base. Even if your damn soldiers took control of our headquarters, we can just attack them from both sides once the next wave of our Allion troops come and…”

“Lord Hayden!”

The rider that Hayden ha sent out had already returned. Listening to the words that hastily tumbled from the soldier, Hayden’s face went pale.

“My troops are retreating, you say? How?!”

While Hayden’s question was completely understandable, if he had been able to see the situation, the answer would have been just as readily available. Allion’s troops were, at that moment, in the middle of withdrawing from Mount Conscon. The rider had been able to return so quickly because as soon as he had left the abandoned settlement, he had been able to see the long line of lights descending the mountain.

It had started with the five hundred of his men who had crept up Mount Conscon from behind: they had witnessed the black smoke rising from their headquarters from the very beginning.

Those soldiers had no way of knowing that Hayden was not at the headquarters. Moreover, even though they were supposed to have been guided by one of their spies to stage a surprise attack on the temple, they had been the ones to be ambushed and fired at. And now, on top of that, their headquarters were in flames.

Allion’s forces obviously couldn’t know what the enemy’s actual situation was. From their point of view, it looked like they had been lured to the mountain so that the enemy could launch a large-scale offensive.

In which case, there was only one possible choice to make.

“Retreat!”

There was no worse fear having a force cross into their own country’s territory to attack them, and losing their support from the rear.

They turned their backs on the unit of warrior monks.

Thanks to their captain’s accurate judgement, they had been able to avoid receiving a devastating blow, and had even pushed back the enemy at one point. But there was no denying that they had fallen into a trap. The soldiers definitely held doubts about this fight. Not about whether the warrior monks had laid further snares beyond this one, but about whether this entire fight at the temple hadn’t been designed to lure them in.

In other words, ironically enough, it was the very fact that Allion had seen through the only trap that Leo had laid which sparked their fears.

Helmets and armour of Allian design rushed down the slopes of the mountain, like an avalanche of steel. That was the uproar which Hayden and those near him had heard.

“Ridiculous! Have them go back!” Hayden yelled.

He was about to send out more men to have them convey his orders, but at that moment, the militiamen that Leo had outdistanced heaved into sight, all shouting as one. Although in themselves, they were not opponents that Hayden’s soldiers needed to far, their appearance suggested that the warrior monks might be chasing after Allion’s fleeing troops and be heading this way.

They all realised that remaining where they were was dangerous.

“Lord Hayden, we should withdraw for now!”

“We should regroup with the rest of our troops. If you appear before them, Lord Hayden, they will surely regain morale. Capturing the temple can come later.”

Hayden growled like a beast of prey. When he glanced again towards Leo, his face became suffused with even greater rage.

“Why are you smiling?”

“You’re the one who told me to smile, Hayden. So I’m smiling.”

“You…”
[[Image: Leo_Attiel_Den_v02_277.png|thumb]]

At that moment, Hayden Swift made the stupidest mistake of his life.

There was no way that Lord Leo would be unarmed. Yet even so, and perhaps carelessly believing he could deal with an opponent who had no weapon in hand and who seemed to have no more practical combat experience than a child, he bent forward towards Leo.

Was he intending to at least kill Leo with the sword he held in his hand, or had he planned to take him hostage?

In that moment, Leo’s lips puckered. From those lips that seemed to be asking a lover for a kiss, he spat out a blood-covered tooth.

It had broken when Hayden hit him earlier. And now, it hit Hayden in the eye. In the second that he faltered after being struck on the eyeball, Leo drew his sword and swung it straight at him.

Leo had long been receiving training; he could not err when striking at an defenceless opponent. The blow beautifully cleaved the top of Hayden’s head in two.

The screams that rang out were not Hayden’s own, but those of his men, behind him on horseback. As for Hayden Swift himself, he didn’t make a sound as his head helplessly bobbed left and right, like a doll dropped from a great height, before slumping into a sitting position, his eyes starting wide open.

Death was close.

He was less than a second away from the moment of his death, but in that instant before the high wave came crashing down and dragged his consciousness into the dark, his thoughts were many.

''I’m going to die'', was the first of them.

''Impossible'', was his next thought, but he immediately revised it as, in that second, Hayden accepted what had happened with surprising ease.

And then, he thought of Leo Attiel, the one who had defeated him.

He did not think of anything else. Thoughts of his parents, of his wife and children, of the King of Allion, and even of Florrie Anglatt, whom he had been so deeply obsessed over, were all easily swept away from Hayden’s consciousness just before death.

''Leo Attiel…''

It was just last night, before he had left for the frontlines, that Hayden had, for the first time, felt a bond of fate with the second prince of the Principality of Atall. But he had from the very start sensed that there was something predestined about Lord Leo’s existence. Hayden understood that; it was simply that he had not previously acknowledged it.

It had been when he had first met Leo Attiel at Claude Anglatt’s castle, a place he now remembered with nostalgia.

He had instinctively realised that, ''we’re alike''.

In other words, they had both shared the same mutual perception of each other.

Which was why –

Hayden had felt so overwhelmingly irritated by Leo’s manner, by his voice, by his very existence.

Which was why –

Even though he had not been particularly drunk, he had publicly mocked the young Atallese prince.

Which was why –

Hayden, who had lost interest in so many things, had, in so short a time, poured out his energy to an almost frightening degree, until he was utterly spent.

''That’s why…''

Unable to think any more thoughts beyond that, Hayden fell backwards against to the ground, and never moved again.

Astounded as they were, the Allian riders hesitated for one single moment: should they thrust their spears against Lord Leo in revenge, or should they leave this place immediately? That one second was enough. In contrast to Hayden, who had collapsed from the waist up, Lord Leo stood up straight and raised his sword which had, even now, only taken a single life.

“I’ve killed the enemy general, Hayden Swift,” Leo bent back his head and shouted. “It’s our victory! Drive out the remains of the enemy force!”

“Aaay!” the militiamen all cried together as they came rushing up to obey that ferocious order.

To the Allian riders, it looked for all the world like battle-hardened troops were running to them from the other side of Leo Attiel’s upraised sword, responding to the one who was unmistakably their military commander.

Since they had lost their own commander-in-chief, there was no more question of victory for them. Only their own decisions could save them now. And as a result –

“Retreat!”

One after another, the riders turned their horses around and rapidly galloped away, Covering Lord Leo in a cloud of dust as they did so.