Editing Rakuin no Monshou:Volume5 Chapter6 (section)

=== Part 2 ===

Within the Belgana Summits came the sound of repeated gunshots. Under the eyes of the birds who were flapping their wings among the trees, the white-clad Pinepey tribe was attacking the fortress. That tribe's forte was firing from horseback.

Opposite them, from atop of the bulwark and from within the towers, those in the fort were counterattacking with guns or bows and arrows.

After the exchange of bullets had lasted a while, the Pinepey tribe began to withdraw. Inside the gate, Ebra snorted.

"Shit, day after day those irritating bastards. We're wasting bullets on this. We'll run out if we don't receive supplies from Helio."

Maybe in revenge for having hindered their attack on the carriage or maybe because they judged that the fort was worth plundering, the Pinepey had been attacking them every day without fail.

Ebra had expected that driving them away once or twice would be no problem, but this was the third day.

They had used up too many bullets in threatening the enemy on the first two days. Ebra, who hadn't thought for a moment that they were beginning a war of attrition, now reluctantly decided on hard-line tactics.

"Right. As of tomorrow, we'll have soldiers lying in ambush along the ridgeway. If the enemy attempts another raid, we'll cut off their escape route. We'll then open the gate and start in pursuit."

Their enemies didn't have stout armour. However because of that, they were nimble and on top of that they excelled at handling horses. If they chased after them in a normal way, they would not be able to catch up with them. That was why they were setting up an ambush, and Ebra was also adamant that the pursuing corps was not to wear armour.

"Once we capture one or two of them, we'll get the information about where their tribe is then attack them. There will be women too. Who knows how lucky you'll get," Ebra told his men to raise their morale.

And the next day, the Pinepey tribe attacked again. There was the usual gunfight and it seemed that they would as usual slip away when on cue, the troops waiting in ambush appeared from the other side of the hill. The horses of the Pinepey tribe bolted upwards. Then the fortress' gates opened and more soldiers drew up from their rear.

"After them, after them, after them!"

The Zerdians who had chosen to live in cities made of stone tended to despise those of their kin who had not abandoned a life of nomadism. Ebra's conscience didn't feel a twinge at hunting down these savages and annihilating their settlement. With the Pinepey unable to move, they would easily carry off the pincer attack.

As they were descending the north side of the hill, the path was filled with a brilliant light. Staring hard, the soldiers were horrified to see fully armed and armoured riders coming up the opposite end of the slope.

"They fell for it. Go!" Roared the giant at the vanguard as shook his lion's mane of hair, and fifty riders swooped down on them.

The Pinepey group at once threw off their white clothes and drew the swords from at their waist.

"Ah!" Shouted the soldiers as the group drew near the fortress and they saw that they were not Pinepey. There was a subtle difference in skin tone between nomads and Zerdians, and the weapons they wielded were also dissimilar. The Pinepey usually used scimitars but the swords they had just pulled out had the wide blades of the broadswords commonly used within the centre of the continent.

The soldiers from the fortress fell easily to the three-stage attack <ref> The attack is described as a 'Tsuri-Nobuse', which is a tactic that makes use of three troops (one enemy unit and two units of your own) in which you let the enemy troop advance (tsuri) while the remaining two hide, lying low on both sides (nobuse) before coming out and surrounding the enemy.</ref>. As they wore no armour, the riders with their swords and spears pierced their chests without difficulty, slashed through them and toppled them from their horses.

"Dammit, withdraw, withdraw! Wait! Don't shut the gate, I'm still..."

Frothing at the mouth, Ebra fled towards the fort just as those within, realising the crisis, were about to close the gate.

By then however, his men had all fallen dead along the mountain path and the riders were already starting to assail the gate. Ebra was caught in the charge and his spine was crushed under the horses' hooves, killing him.

A few dozen minutes later, the Belgana fortress which had been filled with the sound of screams and of swords clashing, fell silent.

"We did it," the mounted warrior who had constantly been in the van - Gilliam - called out to his companions. His mane of hair was red from his victims' blood. "You guys too. To be honest, I've never known men fight with as much valour as you did."

The dragoons from Lasvius' unit who had played the part of the nomads also heaped praise on Gilliam's fighting style. They had once looked coldly at the Mephians but in the end, they were like-minded people fighting on the same side. The pent-up resentment at the way they had to live that Gilliam and the dragoons had accumulated had erupted during the fight. But that wasn't the reason Ebra's indolent troops had been no match for them.

Although it would have been better to attack in greater numbers, they didn't have enough horses and armour. They had bought the horses and clothes from the real Pinepey tribe in exchange for what few remaining weapons they still had.  

From a separate path leading to the fortress appeared a few dozen men, Orba in their lead. They were drenched in their opponents' blood.

"Oh, the sage is back," Gilliam's thick lips curved into a smile. "Orba! How's this for a result?"

"Splendid," Orba answered from horseback.

Orba and the others had been lying in ambush along the mountain road to Helio where they had taken the task of hunting down any soldiers who tried to flee the fortress for the city.

The soldiers carried out food and weapons from inside the fortress. When the gold and valuables that Ebra had amassed were thrown out, the soldiers looked amazed, then laughed.

Orba and Gilliam stood a little apart.

"As expected after a battle."

"Hush, don't say any more. But although it's annoying to work to your plan, that went beautifully."

They hadn't attacked the fort when Shique and the others were sent as messengers because they had lacked time and preparations. Messengers had to reach Taúlia as soon as possible so Orba had reluctantly given up on assailing the fortress for the time being, and Shique's group had daringly made that dangerous crossing. However thanks to that, they had enough time to prepare for their attack. They had probed the communications network with Helio and located suitable ground for soldiers to lie in an ambush, while at the same time diverting the attention of scouts through repeated raids disguised as members of the Pinepey tribe.

Luring out the enemy required high morale and no common amount of determination. Although fleeing had been a pretence, showing your back to the enemy on a battlefield demanded courage and it would have been easy for things to degenerate into a stampede. In other words, Lasvius' unit was best suited for that task which would once again prove their bonds of steel.

"It's not over yet. With this, we can finally guarantee communications with the south but nothing more."

"You really are an unlovable bastard. Can't you just quietly accept praise?" Gilliam said, but for Orba this was truly no more than a beginning.

Orba immediately had a messenger race to Shique who was still in Taúlia. Once they heard that the plan had succeeded, Shique, Stan and Talcott returned to the fortress which they reached before nightfall two days later.
"That was tough," Shique blurted out as soon as he saw Orba's mask.

Orba wondered whether he meant the time when they passed through the fortress, but listening to him speak, it seemed that they had encountered trouble when they were leaving Taúlia.

"What happened?"

"Taúlia has temporarily closed its gates. Getting in and out is no easy thing and we got stopped once. Only the higher-ups knew that we were Sir Bouwen's messengers, you see. Somehow or another Elder Ravan invented an errand for us and we were finally allowed to pass."

"Oh? So Taúlia is finally going to make a move after all."

"Yes. But..."

At Shique's report, for an instant, Orba's eyes under the mask opened wide. The errand from Ravan that had given them permission to go out of the gate was to carry a verbal message.

"Be sure to tell General Bouwen." The message that was prefaced with that remark was:

''We will not mobilise to go to Helio. However we will mobilise our entire military might''.

Gilliam frowned.

"What does that mean? Shit, we don't have times for riddles."

"No," said Orba, recovering from his momentary discomposure. "I see. As expected from Ax and Ravan. They're making a bold move."

"If ''you're'' the one saying so, they really must be."

Without appearing to notice Shique's teasing, Orba turned to look towards the south.

"How will Garda's forces move after this? Will they wait for their reinforcements until the end or will they invade Taúlia?"

The timing to put the plan into operation would change depending on that. That was the point that was most crucial to a plan. No matter how fantastic the idea, it would have no effect if the timing was wrong. Conversely, with optimal timing, even a plain and humdrum stratagem could have tremendous effect.

Orba knew that well.

Soon, having received instructions from him, the soldiers at the fortress started to move. Most of them believed that this was according to their commander Lasvius' strategy and besides, they no longer felt it was so strange to follow this swordsman, who seemed like a young boy but who also had a hint of being an old fox.


At the same time.

Moldorf was riding his large horse down Helio's main road. He was a renowned general called the Red Dragon of Kadyne; there was no one to block his path. He was a man of whom it was said that when he charged forward on the battlefield with his spear, the enemy line would be smashed from a single wave of his hand.

But then from the start there hadn't been the shadow of a person along this road. Both the shops and houses that lined it on either side had their windows shut tight and the street was as still as death. No, better to say that the town itself was dead.

''Garda doesn't give life to anything''.

In the areas he controlled, be it politics or production, Garda did nothing to govern. He merely killed land after land.

It had been the same in Moldorf's homeland of Kadyne. He ground his teeth and spurred his horse onwards. A corpse had been left lying on the street. From somewhere, a child could be heard crying. He could feel gazes filled with hatred and despair from the windows looking down on him.

Shaking them all off, Moldorf arrived at Helio castle.

All of the generals had already gathered. He looked around at them.

''Everyone is making the same face'', thought Moldorf. Lakekish, Fugrum, Eimen – all were famed generals from the city-states that Garda had toppled. However irritation and resignation were painted on each countenance so that their expressions all closely resembled each other's. Naturally, whenever he thought that this also applied to him, Moldorf felt anger hot enough to boil his entrails rise up within him.

Still, the news he heard that day left him astounded.

"What did you say? Taúlia's army is headed for Cherik?"

"There is no mistake," the one who nodded was a small man wearing a hood who was accompanying Greygun. A sorcerer directly subordinate to Garda. Moldorf had observed a number of such men and the atmosphere that surrounded them was always the same. It appeared that this time, one way or another this was the man acting as commander there in Helio where Moldorf and the others were.

"My unit has Taúlia under surveillance but there has been no such report."

If there was a person who could grasp the whole extent of the situation, they would not be able to hide their surprise any more than Moldorf could. Ravan should have been advancing with the preparations for the march on Cherik without letting any news of it leak to the outside. Even if there was, say, a traitor, the speed with which the information had been conveyed was unnatural.

But Moldorf had been incorporated into Garda's forces. With vaguely terrified feelings, he understood that Garda possessed magical powers.

"If what you say is true, then is Taúlia defenceless? If so, this is our chance to topple it."

Even as he spoke, Moldorf felt that his words were hollow. On some level, he had probably held hope. Hope that the Bazgans, the legitimate descendants of the former Zer Tauran, would hold out against Garda.

''That too'' –

- Had been no more than a fleeting ideal. The soldiers that would be departing from Taúlia were said to number four thousand. According to those on watch, they had not employed any other soldiers, nor was there another power that would rush to them with reinforcements, so this was without a doubt Taúlia's full army.

"No," said the small man in a voice that seemed to slither, "We can obtain Taúlia at any time. It is to Cherik that we go. There we will catch Ax Bazgan in a pincer movement and take his severed head."