ACT 2: Wolf of Battle
Wham!
Sigrún could do nothing to prevent the oncoming attack from slamming into her, sending her flying backwards. She’d just barely managed to block it, but her hands were numb from the impact.
She locked eyes with her foe. A fierce fighting spirit burned in the eyes that met hers, along with a savage murderous intent. Then the enemy leapt at her once again.
“Kh...!!” Somehow, she managed to catch the attack with the haft of her spear.
Sigrún was an Einherjar who carried the rune Hati, Devourer of the Moon. In spite of her slender frame, her physical strength was easily in the top three even within the elite warriors of the Wolf Clan.
“This power... it’s on par with the Dólgþrasir!” she cried.
The name of the strongest foe she’d ever faced crossed her lips as she found herself being clearly overpowered and pressed backward by the strength of the enemy before her.
Her ears picked up the sound of something creaking under physical stress, and she hurriedly dropped her grip on the spear and threw herself backwards.
Snap!
In the next instant, the spear’s haft made a thin, cold sound as it was broken in two. Had her decision come even a split second later, she would have been in mortal danger.
“GRRRAAAAAAGGGHHH!!”
But her enemy did not relent, and charged with incredible speed, with a bellowing howl that reverberated to Sigrún’s very core.
Sigrún’s eyes gleamed with a keen light.
“Hah!!”
Unsheathing one of the two curved swords at her waist, she put all of her strength behind a sweeping strike that cut a thin, perfectly horizontal line in front of her.
The sharp, steel blade, which could hack through even iron, sliced fruitlessly through empty air.
Her enemy suddenly changed direction to just barely outside the range of her attack, leaping to the side.
As Sigrún’s eyes went wide in astonishment, her foe kicked off the ground into another leaping attack, from her flank this time.
“Ghh!”
Sigrún tried to react by jumping backwards again, but wasn’t quite fast enough. The attack came down upon her at an angle that tore a slash across her thigh. Bright red blood sprayed from the open wound, and a sharp sensation that was more like intense heat than pain raced through her.
Through sheer force of willpower, she planted her feet and managed to remain standing.
“To think you’d be this strong...” Sigrún muttered to herself in awe. She had met a foe perhaps stronger than anyone she’d ever faced before, and she was completely driven into a corner.
It had all begun two days ago.
“Everyone, listen up!”
There was a sharp thunk! as Sigrún planted the tip of her sword’s scabbard into the ground. She surveyed the attentive faces of her subordinates as she spoke.
“We’ll be heading to Gnipahellir. Prepare for departure at once.”
About two hours’ march from the city of Iárnviðr, in an area of wide grasslands, was the territory and training grounds of the Sigrún family. It was surrounded by open snowfields in all directions, dotted with a few hundred domesticated sheep and horses freely grazing or playfully running about.
There were countless tents lining the tops of the small hills nearby, which gave an easy view of the surrounding area. The young rank and file of the Sigrún family stood assembled in a cleared space in front of the largest tent, about 300 in all.
The Sigrún family had a total membership of almost 500 fighters, and within the Wolf Clan, they had a reputation as the most battle-ready and militaristic faction.
In service to that name and reputation, they spent their days devoted to harsh, even grueling military training, without ever complaining or slacking off. But this time in particular, upon hearing Sigrún’s orders, some of the young men wore expressions not of duty and determination but of bewilderment and hesitation.
That was, in a way, an understandable reaction.
The Gnipahellir region was far, at least two full days’ march away. Even now, the snow was falling heavily, and a bitterly cold wind blew wild and unceasingly around them, making their teeth chatter uncontrollably as they stood in rank.
Even for the bravest warriors of the Múspell unit, when faced with the order to march in that weather for two full days, it was frankly only human to be reluctant. That was going to be even more true for the new trainees who would be accompanying them. However, their captain and commander was often described as a frozen flower, and she looked to have no interest in accommodating those feelings.
“What’s with those faces, men? You don’t want to go?” Sigrún spoke in a tone more icy than even the frigid winter air around them, and the faces of the young men of the Sigrún family all tensed up as one.
They knew most of all how truly terrifying this girl could be.
With her sworn father, she was overprotective and prone to worry, showing panicked concern over even the slightest scratch. But with her own clan subordinates, her sworn children and grandchildren, she was mercilessly strict.
During combat training, she struck them down with a wooden sword without any hesitation. Naturally, she always held back just enough so that they wouldn’t sustain any major injuries, but they would still wind up hunched over on the ground in pain for a while each time.
“A bit of pain here and there will make you more desperate to train hard and get stronger,” she would say calmly. She was a veritable demon as an instructor.
In particular, after she’d witnessed the expert riding skills of the Panther Clan soldiers in battle, she had made their training even more intense. The soldiers did not protest out loud, but their faces had told of their unspoken feelings, that they couldn’t take much more of this.
The young soldiers were shivering now, not from the cold, but from the grueling march followed by more hellish training that was surely looming on the horizon.
At this point, one man stepped resolutely forward out of rank and addressed Sigrún. “Mother, why must we head out for a remote area like Gnipahellir? Without being given any explanation in conditions like this, I fear everyone’s hesitation is unavoidable.”
It was Bömburr, deputy commander of the Múspell unit and also the second-in-command of the Sigrún family.
At his words, several of the other men nodded vigorously, for he had said just what was on their minds.
Bömburr was a man in his mid-thirties, and among the throngs of lean and brawny fighters in the Sigrún family, he stood out for being a slightly rounder man.
He wasn’t so stout as to be fat, but he was wide and not all that tall, with a round face and a slightly flabby chin.
In a word, he wasn’t a very attractive man, and he lacked a fierce presence.
“Huh.” Sigrún frowned to herself, as if reflecting on what he’d said.
Normally, Sigrún spent her days serving Yuuto in the palace, and so Bömburr stood in for her here, managing the administration of the territory and the training and instruction of the soldiers. He was a central pillar of Sigrún’s clan family, and stern though she was, she did not take his words lightly.
“You’re right.” Having considered Bömburr’s advice, Sigrún apologized frankly for her earlier rashness. “I got a little ahead of myself. Everyone, I’m sorry.”
She was known for her one-track devotion to combat and the martial arts, but Sigrún was not at all foolish. If anything, she demonstrated excellence in her decision-making as a field commander.
And if she believed she was at fault in something, she was willing to bow her head in apology even to her subordinates.
That upright and honest integrity of hers meant that even though she was at times cold and harsh to her men, she had garnered a great deal of trust from them.
“The matter is, I just received a message from Father,” she said. “It was an order to exterminate some mountain bandits that have been appearing in the Gnipahellir region.”
“Ahh, I see.” Bömburr nodded deeply in understanding, and indeed, so did the other men.
Sigrún was unbelievably calm and composed for a girl of her age, but from time to time she acted out in strange or even silly ways. This almost always had to do with matters relating to her sworn father the patriarch, and every one of her soldiers knew that.
For the mother of their clan family who was always so hard-headed and resolute, it was the one area in which she showed a cute side. The Sigrún family soldiers found it charming, and did their best to support her. After all, it was the duty of children to do what would make their mother happy.
“That area was the site of conflict between the Wolf and Claw Clans for quite a while, after all,” Sigrún explained. “It seems that some refugees driven off of their lands, as well as some deserters from the army, have joined up into a gang and are raiding the villages in the area.”
It was common in war for local farmlands or villages to meet with theft or destruction, or be seized entirely. And then there were those who fled from the front line in battle, committing the grave crime of desertion. The former group had lost their homes, and the latter could not return to their homeland; quite often, those sorts of people stole weapons and turned to a life of banditry.
“Hm, and after exchanging the new Oath of the Chalice with the Claw Clan, there are not as many soldiers stationed at the fortress out there, either.” Bömburr frowned and rubbed his chin.
Recently the Wolf Clan had been exclusively concerned with threats from the west, and so it hadn’t been able to avoid deploying the majority of its border defense soldiers on that side. So the more unseemly types had taken advantage of that weaker presence to infest the hinterlands to the east.
“Yes, and that’s why we of the Sigrún family were called to action,” Sigrún declared. “Father wishes for us to act quickly, before there are any more new casualties.”
“Understood, ma’am. That calls for the Múspell unit, yes?”
Within the Sigrún family was an elite special forces unit called the Múspell unit. It consisted of 200 heavily trained cavalry fighters, and their mobility was greatest in all of the Wolf Clan. For a destination two full days’ march away, they would be able to arrive in less than a day.
“That’s right,” Sigrún said. “And also, this time I want to bring along any trainees who can sit on a horse. There’s no better training than actual combat, after all.”
“We will be leaving behind the men who are currently tasked with guarding the capital, correct?” Bömburr asked.
“Of course. We can’t run the risk of letting anything happen to Father.”
“Understood. Then I will begin the preparations right away. Can you give me two hours?”
“Do it in one.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Bömburr didn’t blink an eye at Sigrún’s excessively strict demand. He reverently bowed his head.
In the next instant, before he even gave any commands, the young men of the Sigrún family cleanly broke rank and began briskly moving to make the necessary preparations to depart.
And so, in mere moments, they organized a combined squadron consisting of one hundred elite Múspell cavalry fighters and one hundred cavalry trainees.
And true to Bömburr’s word, in one hour they were off at top speed, flying like an arrow towards Gnipahellir.
“Whew. It’s been a long time since I last came this way; I’m glad we made it here before dark.” Sigrún nimbly dismounted from her horse in a fluid motion that resembled a dancer’s leap, and paused for a second to look up at Fort Gnipahellir.
It was a place she had not actually visited very many times, but it held important memories for her, and she had a certain connection to it.
The previous holder of the Mánagarmr title had long been stationed here as a general and commander of the Wolf Clan’s eastern defense. When the fortress had been taken by the Claw Clan, the battle to recapture it had been her beloved sworn father’s very first military operation.
The outer brick wall surrounding the fortress still bore the scars of that battle. It had been utterly destroyed in one place, and the gap was now filled in with stacked-up piles of stones as a token replacement.
“Ahh... right here is where we broke through, and then we charged in to take this fortress back from the Claw Clan. I still remember that moment so vividly,” Bömburr spoke nostalgically, patting the pile of stones.
That battle had also been the first for the newly-formed Múspell cavalry unit, ending with their first victory, so it was no doubt moving for him to be back here again.
Sigrún, on the other hand, was utterly dispassionate. “Save the sentimentality for later. Taking out the bandits comes first. Let’s start by hearing the details from the men stationed here at the fort.”
She signaled to the lookout, who recognized who she was at a glance by her uniquely beautiful features. He opened the gate, and she quickly strode inside.
To Sigrún, the past was the past, and in the present there was nothing more important than accomplishing the mission her father had given her.
Bömburr sighed. “At least let me rest for a moment...”
He knew muttering such complaints to himself was pointless, but he couldn’t help himself. His hair and beard were frozen over stiff with a layer of frost, and his lips were purple from the cold. It was a telling picture of the difficult journey he’d had to endure.
But even though Sigrún had covered the same distance under the same conditions, she was completely fine and full of energy.
“All right, men, once you’ve tied up your horses, you may rest inside the fort.” Bömburr gave instructions to his subordinates, then followed after Sigrún.
A minute later, he managed to catch up to her just outside the commander’s room.
As they entered, a man in his mid-twenties with a tough, masculine face greeted them, respectfully bowing his head low. “Elder Sister Sigrún, you have my humble thanks for making the long trek here in the midst of such bitter cold.”
This was Alrekr, the officer currently entrusted with command of Fort Gnipahellir, and fourteenth-ranked in the Wolf Clan hierarchy.
Considering that two years ago the man in charge at the time, Skáviðr, had been the fourth-ranked officer and the Mánagarmr to boot, it would not be amiss to say the status of the Gnipahellir command had fallen quite a bit.
Thanks to the peace process between the Wolf and Claw Clans brought on by the exchange of the Oath of the Chalice between their patriarchs, the strategic importance of the fortress had dropped significantly.
“Ohhh, so this is it, the fur mantle said to be handed down from generation to generation along with the title of Mánagarmr!” Alrekr cried. “It’s made from the pelt of a garmr, yes? This is my first time seeing it so up close. It really is magnificent. Why, I remember when I was a child, I dreamed of one day donning that mantle, and practiced sword swings until I collapsed.”
“You can skip the flattery,” Sigrún said. “Hurry up and tell me about the bandits.”
She cast aside Alrekr’s polite chatter with a single, terse remark, and plunked herself down into one of the guest chairs.
It seemed she had no interest whatsoever in deepening the bonds between clan siblings through even a little bit of pleasant small talk.
“Ah, r-right,” Alrekr stammered.
In Yggdrasil, relative age was meaningless compared to the weight of seniority established by the Chalice. But even so, Sigrún’s attitude was so brusque and abrupt that Alrekr worried if he might have offended her. He looked over at Bömburr with the question in his eyes.
Bömburr shrugged his shoulders and gave a wry smile in return, from which Alrekr could infer that this was just how she normally was.
Alrekr cleared his throat and walked briskly over to a large, cloth map set against the wall of the room. He tapped on three locations in sequence with his finger. “It began perhaps two weeks ago, when they began targeting and attacking these local villages.”
“Right.” Sigrún had already heard as much from Yuuto. She nodded, signaling for Alrekr to continue.
“Judging by the locations of the villages that were attacked, and by the direction the bandits went as they left each time, we figure that their hideout should be somewhere around this area.” Alrekr used his index finger to trace a circle around one spot on the map. It was north of Fort Gnipahellir, in the vicinity of Mount Éljúðnir.
Sigrún replied without looking at Alrekr, her eyes still focused on the map. “If you know that much, couldn’t you have just sent out a punitive force right away?”
“Believe me, that’s what we’d like to do. However...” Grimacing, Alrekr dragged his finger to the right on the map, pointing out an area to the east.
It was an area of territory within the Wolf Clan’s sphere of influence, but not under the clan’s direct control and governance.
“Hmm. Botvid?” Sigrún’s brow furrowed, and she took on an uncharacteristically gloomy expression.
The Claw Clan patriarch, Botvid, was a conniving man known as “the Pit Viper” among the other clans in the region. And, of course, he was also the biological father of the twins Albertina and Kristina.
Alrekr nodded meekly. “Yes. I might just be overthinking this, but I still wonder if he might be connected to these brigands behind the scenes. I cannot shake the worry that this is a ploy, and the instant our garrison troops leave the fort behind to go after the bandits, it might be taken from us again...”
The Wolf and Claw Clans had established an alliance via the Chalice of Allegiance, and in Yggdrasil, the Oath of the Chalice was an absolute vow.
Additionally, Yuuto and Botvid had exchanged the Oath of the Chalice under the mediation of the goði Alexis, a representative of the divine emperor. Their ceremony had been of the highest formality and gravity.
Under normal circumstances, breaking that oath and invading one’s sworn ally was something completely unthinkable. But that was just how untrustworthy Alrekr found Botvid to be as a person.
And that perception wasn’t limited to just Alrekr; it was a common opinion among the people of the Wolf Clan.
It was a natural reaction, for Botvid had stolen away Wolf Clan territory by deceiving the previous patriarch Fárbauti, and then had secretly forged a three-clan alliance, using their allied army to push the Wolf Clan to the brink of destruction in what had become the Siege of Iárnviðr.
Those two incidents in succession had etched Botvid into the memories of everyone in the Wolf Clan, to the point where the name Botvid had become synonymous with “someone who can’t be trusted.”
“I see. And so that’s why you requested Father send you reinforcements.” Sigrún nodded, satisfied with Alrekr’s explanation.
According to what she’d heard from Yuuto, the bandits were organized, and there was likely a sizable quantity of them.
There were only about one hundred soldiers permanently stationed at Fort Gnipahellir, which was indeed not enough to go after them and still take the potential threat from the Claw Clan into account.
“Right, I understand,” she said. “The Múspell Special Forces Unit will take care of the bandit affair. You and your men stay here, and focus on the defense of the fort.”
“We will now begin the investigation of the area around Mount Éljúðnir! Search for the bandit hideout!” Sigrún mounted her horse and gave the command with a forward wave of her hand.
“Yes, ma’am!!” Her mounted soldiers replied loudly and with vigor, then split off in all directions.
“Around Mount Éljúðnir” was actually quite a wide area to cover, so Sigrún had her troops split into four main groups, then split up the search area among themselves.
Each group was about fifty men, and according to testimony from the villagers who were attacked, the bandits had raided in groups of about thirty. So, there should be more than enough soldiers to handle anything they ran into.
The climate had also turned in their favor. The snow that had been falling since the day before yesterday had finally stopped that morning, and the sky above was a pure, clear blue, with the sunlight shining softly down on the area. It was the perfect day for a hunt.
“All right, we should get going, too.” Sigrún looked around at the remaining soldiers that surrounded her.
The group she led was composed mainly of trainees, and was full of young faces.
Because Sigrún’s primary mission was to be responsible for maintaining security in the palace back in the capital, normally the training and guidance for rookies was always left up to her deputy commander Bömburr. So this was as good a chance as any. She could see for herself the base skill level of these trainees, something it behooved her to know as their commander.
“We’ll be in charge of the area partway up the slope of Mount Éljúðnir,” she said. “It’s the likeliest candidate location for the enemy hideout, so there’s an extremely high chance we’ll see combat. Stay sharp at all times. On the battlefield, those who let their guard down die first!”
“Yes, ma’am!!”
The voices that shouted back to Sigrún were tense, but brimming with youthful energy that was straightforward and honest.
She nodded satisfactorily in response, then pulled on the reins and spun her horse around.
“Sigrún Unit, move out!”
Mount Éljúðnir was located about half a day’s march north on foot from Fort Gnipahellir, and was one of the peaks that made up the range known as the Himinbjörg Mountains.
The Sigrún Unit made it to the foot of the mountain in about two hours on horseback. Further up, the steep slope of Mount Éljúðnir was thickly crowded with the skeletons of trees that had dropped their leaves, with barely an animal trail winding between them. It didn’t look feasible to ascend the mountain on their horses.
So they left their horses, along with some silver, with a village at the foot of the mountain, and hired someone familiar with the mountain’s terrain as a guide.
“Bandits? Ohhh yeah, that group that’s been living on the mountain since around summertime,” said their guide. “They just showed up and started saying things like, ‘This is our turf!’ and hogging all of the mountain’s resources for themselves. They’re causing us no end of trouble, you know.”
“Sounds like we hit the mark,” Sigrún said. “All right, then, take us to where they sleep.”
“Aye!”
Sigrún and her group of trainees followed their young guide as he led them toward the bandit hideout.
As they walked, he explained that until recently, the mountain bandits had been sustaining themselves by hunting game and eating the fruits and wild plants that grew there. But once autumn passed and winter set in, perhaps the lack of food had pushed them towards starting to raid the nearby villages.
It was actually a very common occurrence in Yggdrasil. Still, that didn’t mean it could be ignored or forgiven.
“It’s over there,” their guide said.
Around the time the sun had started its westward descent, the young village guide stopped and pointed ahead. Away and down below, on a section of slope that was more gently angled, there were a couple of small huts lined up together in a sort of settlement.
Sigrún’s extraordinary eyesight was able to pick out a number of people who looked to be residents. It seemed that she’d gotten lucky; they weren’t out attacking some other village at the moment.
“We can get them all in one fell swoop. Wonderful.”
As the Strongest Silver Wolf set her sights on the prey she’d been hunting, she whispered those words in a voice that was both calm and deadly fierce.
Suddenly and without warning, a beautiful and gallant voice rang out through the settlement like a peal of thunder.
“Hear me, bandit scum! I am Sigrún, the sworn daughter of the great Lord Yuuto and commander of his Múspell Special Forces!”
The startled bandits turned in the direction of the voice to see a girl of unmatched beauty, long silver hair tied roughly behind her, standing at the head of a formation of soldiers.
They instantly erupted into a chaotic commotion.
“Wh-what... what’s going on?!”
“D-did she just say her name was Sigrún? Then doesn’t that mean... she’s the Mánagarmr?!”
“No way, th-then, those guys behind her, could they be the Múspell Unit?!”
“Idiot, she just said they were!”
“Whoa, whoa, wait, what the hell is the strongest group in the whole Wolf Clan doing out here?!”
The bandits were completely panicked. And that was only natural.
The Mánagarmr Sigrún and her special cavalry unit were feared and famous for their elite skills. In the past, they had easily routed Claw Clan forces led by Botvid, captured the Horn Clan patriarch Linnea, defeated and killed the Hoof Clan patriarch Yngvi, and driven off the Panther Clan patriarch Hveðrungr.
The bandits had gotten their share of practice with the bow and spear hunting the beasts of the mountain for their survival over the past half a year. They were confident that they might be able to go toe-to-toe with the soldiers currently stationed in Fort Gnipahellir.
However, none of them had dared imagine that a division of troops that was practically a legend would come find them here, halfway up a mountain in the middle of nowhere.
“If you throw down your weapons immediately, then in accordance with the laws set by my father, your lives will be spared,” Sigrún declared. “But if you resist, I will show no mercy. I will cut every single one of you down!”
She finished with another shout that shook the air, her voice beautiful yet sharp, just like a blade.
“Wh-what do we do, huh?!”
“Sh-she said if we give up now, she’ll let us live, right?”
As the frightened and agitated bandits began to consider surrender, there was one man who didn’t lose composure, who stood firm and sneering.
“Hmph! It’s only one little girl! What are you all so scared of?”
He was huge. He was at least a head or two taller than every other bandit there. He still looked young, perhaps in his early twenties, and he had the face of a man who wasn’t afraid of anything. Actually, he looked quite comfortable in this situation.
“B-Boss!” one of the bandits shouted.
“Y-you say that, Boss, but how are we supposed to win against them?”
“Yeah, that’s the Wolf Clan special forces, Boss, the Múspell Unit!”
“Ha! What a load of bull. Take a closer look!”
The huge man the others had called their boss pointed a finger at Sigrún, then at the soldiers behind her.
“Look at ’em. They’re all just kids. Even their faces look stiff, like they’re fresh meat. Do those really look like elite soldiers to you?”
“N-now that you mention it, you’re right.”
“And that silver-haired girl in charge of them looks all slender, too,” another bandit put in. “She doesn’t look built for combat at all.”
“Right?” the boss sneered. “And besides, even if they are the Múspell Unit, wasn’t our objective from the start always to take down the Wolf Clan? We were gonna end up fighting these guys eventually, either way. It was just a matter of whether it happened sooner or later! So don’t stand there shaking in your boots!”
With a shout, the bandits’ boss slammed his fist into the wall of the hut with all his might.
With that one strike, cracks burst out in all directions along the side of the wall, followed by a strained creaking sound, until at last, the whole building toppled in on itself. It was an incredible strength beyond what should be capable of a normal human.
“A-amazing!” exclaimed one bandit.
“Y-yeah, that’s right, we’ve got the Boss with us!”
“Yeah, there’s nobody in the world who could win against the Boss!”
“And now that I look at ’em, they’ve got about the same number of people as we do!”
“Right! Plus we’ve got the Boss on our side. There’s no way we can’t win this!”
The pale expressions of fear vanished from the bandits’ faces, abruptly replaced by anticipation and excitement.
As they grew more confident and excited, shouting at each other to raise their fighting spirits, their Boss looked at them with a confident and satisfied grin.
On his right shoulder, a red symbol shined brightly.
“Oh? Seems like they intend to fight back.”
Sigrún’s eyes widened, and she did not conceal her slight surprise as she watched the bandits scramble around inside the fence-enclosed settlement, assuming defensive positions and pulling out their bows.
She had been sure they would surrender to her... and she was happy to learn she’d miscalculated.
“Rejoice, greenhorns, for the time for battle has come!” she called. “I will show you all firsthand how to fight as a knight of the Múspell Unit!”
“Yeaahhhhh!!” A unified cheer rose up from the ranks of her soldiers.
They were all hot-blooded types to begin with, the kind who would aspire to join the ranks of the Sigrún family, the most militant faction of the Wolf Clan. And after having been made to march through snow and wind all day yesterday, then made to climb halfway up this frozen mountain today, they’d built up plenty of stress along with their fatigue.
This was the perfect place to run wild and blow off that pent-up frustration, just what they had all been longing for.
“Raise your shields,” Sigrún ordered. “Keep your eyes wide open. Don’t be afraid. Remember what you practiced every day. Right now, all of you are the Múspell Unit. Show me a battle that won’t disgrace that name. I won’t forgive anything less.”
Sigrún looked her trainees in the eyes and spoke to them in the simple, matter-of-fact tone she always used with them. That flat, unchanging attitude was what made her such a dependable leader to them. It demonstrated just how undaunted and resolute she was as a general on the field.
She was like a beautiful valkyrie out of a myth, and in the past year, she had achieved so many incredible victories in succession.
The young soldiers could believe that, as long as she commanded them, there was no way they could lose.
And so, they could charge into the enemy without any hesitation.
“Good eyes. You look ready.” Sigrún raised her arm and took a deep breath. “Múspell Unit, charge!”
“Yeaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!”
With a loud war cry, the Múspell soldiers surged downhill from their position at a full run, then up the opposing slope toward the bandit settlement.
The bandits took advantage of that critical moment, and let fly a volley of arrows all at once.
They fired again. And again, and again.
But the Múspell Unit did not falter.
They pressed on singlemindedly. They blocked some of the incoming arrows with their shields, still others they cut aside with their swords, and those few they failed to parry deflected off of their light iron armor.
A mere moment later they had made it through the downpour of arrows, and rushed like an uphill avalanche toward the collection of bandit huts.
Everything had gone well until that point, but soon the charging soldiers lost their momentum.
It was because of the deep ditch and tall fence surrounding the settlement proper. It limited the possible entryways, bottlenecking them so that only the few in front could clash with the enemy directly.
“Forward! Keep pressing forward!” Sigrún shouted at her fighters from the rear ranks, urging them on.
In a normal battle, Sigrún would have been at the head of the charge, cutting a path into the enemy. But this time, she felt that training the recruits with the experience of a real battle was more important, and so she was focusing on giving them tactical commands.
Still, the enemy was just a rabble of measly mountain bandits.
Her soldiers might be trainees, and they might be young. But, in preparation for the life of a soldier fighting day after day, they had devoted themselves to intensive drills and training day after day.
She had been certain they’d quickly force their way through the bottleneck and secure the entranceway to the base. However, that didn’t seem to be the case at all.
“What’s going on?! Why are you struggling against mere bandits?!” Sigrún shouted in a mix of admonition and confusion.
“Geh ha ha ha! These are supposed to be the fierce Múspell knights?! You’re as tough as a loaf of soggy bread!” A thick, throaty laugh boomed from the crowded melee at the settlement’s entrance.
In the next moment, Sigrún saw two of her soldiers get launched upwards into the air by someone’s attack.
It would take an unbelievable amount of physical strength to send two armored, full-grown men flying like that. At the very least, there was no one in the Wolf Clan now, not even Sigrún, who could perform such a feat of pure strength.
To think there was someone like this among the bandits... for Sigrún, this was an unhappy miscalculation.
“This is a little too much for the rookies to handle,” Sigrún muttered, and began to push aside her subordinates and move forward. “Move aside!”
She pushed her way through to the front, wondering all the while what sort of foe was waiting there.
Standing in the middle of the entryway was a huge, muscular man of a towering height. Something around his neck immediately caught her attention: a metal necklace that seemed to glow faintly, emitting an eerie, phosphorescent light.
It had to be made from the magical metal, álfkipfer. That would mark it as something incredibly rare and valuable. Sigrún wondered where he could have gotten it, or rather, where he’d stolen it from.
The next thing she noticed was the glowing rune on the huge man’s right shoulder, and she snorted in mild surprise.
“Heh. I never would have guessed I’d run into one of my own kind out in a desolate place like this.”
“So the general finally makes her appearance!” the man called. “Ha! I don’t care if you’re a woman! If you face me in battle, I won’t hold anything back!”
The towering man raised high the axe in his right hand, then brought it down with incredible force, enough to slice audibly through the air as it plummeted towards Sigrún. It was obviously much harder and sharper than the weapons of the other bandits.
“Haah!!” Sigrún whirled her spear around, swinging upwards to meet his attack.
Their weapons clashed and were both deflected, having seemingly met with equal power behind them.
A downward strike channeled power more easily than an upward one. However, Sigrún was wielding her weapon with both arms, while her opponent was only using the one. It did indeed look like there was an undeniable gap in physical strength between them.
Without pausing, the bandit boss followed up with an axe in his left hand, swinging at her in a wide, horizontal arc.
Sigrún leapt backwards and dodged the sweeping blade, but her back collided with one of her soldiers.
A more experienced member of her forces would have already known what to do in this situation, but these trainees were still beginners in that respect.
“Men, fall back a bit,” she ordered. “This one’s too much for you cubs to handle. I’ll deal with him.”
“Oy, you boys back off, too. I’m taking care of her myself.” The hulking Einherjar bandit waved away his compatriots as well, having seemingly acknowledged Sigrún’s strength.
The fewer they are in number, the greater the presence of the truly strong sets them apart from others.
On one side was a group of Múspell special forces that was almost entirely trainees.
On the other, a group of cowardly bandits who had only trained themselves against the animals of the mountains.
One could say the two Einherjar and their combat prowess stood out far too much by comparison.
They had only crossed blades in one exchange. But that one exchange had been plenty.
“So instead of dual swords, you use dual axes,” Sigrún commented. “Interesting.”
“So you’re the Mánagarmr,” the man said. “Looks like the rumors aren’t crap, after all. Didn’t think a slender little thing like you would be able to parry one of my attacks.”
The two of them had quickly ascertained each other’s strength, and both had chosen to pull back their troops in order to minimize casualties while they faced each other one-on-one. It was, in some ways, the inevitable outcome.
“Take that, and that, and that!!”
“Mgh! Khh! Hah!”
The battle between the two of them began with a very one-sided exchange.
The towering Einherjar unloaded consecutive, pummeling blows with his two axes, and Sigrún did nothing but defend against them as best she could.
Each individual strike was massively powerful on its own, and they assaulted her rapidly and without pause. It was no wonder that even the holder of the title of Strongest Silver Wolf was forced into a fully defensive state, and all who were witnessing her battle concluded as much.
“Impressive,” Sigrún said, as she parried an axe slash arcing towards her from the right. “I never thought I’d find a man as strong as you out here by yourself, and on Wolf Clan territory.”
The huge Einherjar attacking her scoffed confidently. “What, are you so impressed you’re giving up already? I haven’t even used half of my full strength, you know!”
“Oh? Then I think you’d better hurry up and show me all of it. You wouldn’t want to regret losing the opportunity.”
“You impudent...! Urraaaaahhh!!” As the man howled, his wild attacks grew even faster.
“Oof! Whoa!” The attacks flew at her like a violent storm, and Sigrún’s eyes widened in amazement. “...But you’ve still got a ways to go.”
Clink! Sigrún timed her spear strike to add its force to the momentum of the axe, pulling her foe’s upper body off-balance.
She followed through with the spin of her spear, whirling it around to slam the butt of the haft hard into the big man’s stomach.
“Ghh...!” He buckled over from the blow.
“Hmm, so that’s how it works.” Feeling the technique connect correctly, Sigrún nodded to herself in satisfaction.
It was the “willow technique,” which the previous Mánagarmr had completed after many long years of practice. Thanks to Sigrún’s amazing, even terrifying, talent in the martial arts, she had managed to perform the technique herself by imitating what she’d seen him do.
She whirled her spear around to point its deadly tip at the bandit leader. “Normally I’d finish you off right here, but it would be a bit of a shame to just kill off someone of your skill. Would you consider working for Father... for Patriarch Yuuto of the Wolf Clan?”
The man coughed a few more times, holding a hand to his stomach in pain, then snorted in laughter and picked himself up. “Haaa... Ha! You want me to work for a skinny little weak-looking man like that? I’ll pass.”
The faint trace of warmth that had been in Sigrún’s expression vanished. A chilling aura poured forth from her, seeming to freeze the very air around them.
“Very well... In that case, I will give you a glimpse of what Father’s strength looks like. It will be your parting gift to take to Valhalla.”
Sigrún put a hand to the longer of the two curved swords at her waist, slowly pulling it free of its scabbard.
“Don’t go getting cocky over one lucky hit!” The hulking Einherjar raised both arms up over his head.
He wasn’t raising them in surrender, of course; he gripped an axe in each hand. The veins on his arms bulged as he summoned what must be an incredible amount of raw strength for the attack.
“GRRRAAAAAAGHHHHHH!!”
With a cry of fury he channeled all of his muscle strength, and all of his weight, into a downward, intersecting swing with both axes at once.
The attack was by far the fastest and strongest of anything he’d unleashed thus far.
But as the axe heads swung down toward Sigrún, her eyes no longer held any emotion, except perhaps something resembling boredom. She cut a single line with her blade, side to side quick as a flash, as if merely aiming at a target.
Just that one motion.
There was the unique sound of something sharp tumbling through the air, followed by a heavy thunk as it landed, sticking itself into the hard ground.
Those with especially discerning ears might have been able to tell that it was actually the sound of two objects hitting the ground, nearly simultaneously.
Both of the bandit leader’s axes had been cut in two, sliced clean off at the head. They were now as useless as sticks, unable to threaten her.
“Hmph. You rely too much on raw muscle strength,” Sigrún said with a smirk. “Your stance is too wide, and you use big motions for your attacks. That’s fine if you’re fighting small fry, but it’s not going to work against someone with good practice and technique.”
This man had dared to publicly insult her beloved sworn father. She needed to put him in his place.
“And this, right here, is one of the many weapons created by my father Lord Yuuto Suoh, who you so foolishly mocked. It is the nihontou, a sword which can cut through even iron. Your iron axes are nothing but trinkets by comparison.”
She brought the curved blade back around and thrust it toward the large man, angled so that it glimmered in the sunlight.
Technically speaking, Yuuto himself had not forged that blade. It was a replacement Ingrid had forged for her when she had lost her first one during the climax of her fight with the Lightning Clan patriarch, Steinþórr.
Still, even though she’d only just begun using it, it already felt familiar, and seemed to fit her hand perfectly.
One could expect no less from the famed master craftsman Ingrid, wielder of the rune Ívaldi, Birther of Blades. She had indeed poured every ounce of her strength and spirit into forging it for Sigrún. It was a blade for her, and only her.
“Grrr... Tch!” With a vexed click of his tongue, the bandit leader turned on his heels and began to flee.
He moved with a quickness that would be hard to imagine from just looking at his bulky build. It seemed that even this overconfident braggart of a man wasn’t arrogant enough to think himself capable of beating Sigrún without a weapon.
“Hmph, now it’s time I showed you the Múspell Unit’s signature tactic!” Sigrún raised her hand and shouted, “Fire the signal arrow!”
Immediately, in practiced response to her command, a soldier behind her fired an arrow that emitted a loud, screeching whistle as it flew off to the right hand side of the settlement.
“Raaaaaaaghhh!!” A war cry rose up from within the trees in that direction.
Suddenly, twenty or so lightly-armored soldiers emerged, charging towards the settlement at top speed. But the bandits had all clustered themselves close to the main entrance to meet the initial assault, and so they didn’t have anyone near the other gateway.
It was the Hammer and Anvil tactic, the Wolf Clan’s winning strategy. An attack by well-armored infantry was used to pull the attention and attacks of the enemy forward in response, leaving them open to an attack from the flanks or rear by another, more highly mobile group.
“All right, men, forward!” Sigrún called. “We’ll break through, as well!”
“Yeaaahhhhhh!!”
Sigrún raised her sword up high, and her frontal assault team responded to her shout with a war cry of their own.
In a battle between large groups, the most important determiner of victory or defeat was morale.
In other words, winning was also a question of how to elevate the morale of one’s own fighters while tearing down that of the enemy.
The bandits had seen the towering Einherjar who was their commander suffer a clear defeat, unable to fight back any further, and now a surprise attack from another group of Wolf Clan soldiers had left them without any route of retreat.
They quickly fell into a state of abject panic. They were now nothing more than a disorderly mob.
The scales of the battle tipped decisively, and Múspell soldiers poured through the fence and into the settlement, securing the exits and subduing the bandits.
At last, Sigrún and her soldiers cornered the defeated Einherjar at one end of the bandit encampment.
“That’s as far as you go,” she declared.
Behind the man was a steep precipice plunging down for a great distance.
“I’ll give you one last chance. Surrender.”
“Khh...” Gritting his teeth, the man took one step backward. As he did, his foot brushed a small rock over the edge, and it went tumbling down the nearly vertical cliff face with a dry clatter.
Half of his back foot was already hanging over thin air.
“If you apologize sincerely for insulting my father, I might be inclined to spare you.”
“Heh! I’m not gonna bow my head to anyone!” With that boastful declaration, the hulking man kicked off the ground and leapt into the air...
...backward.
He hung in mid-air for only an instant, as the laws of nature ran their course, and he quickly plummeted downwards.
“Ah!” For the first time since arriving at this mountain, Sigrún grimaced bitterly at her mistake, and she ran to the edge of the cliff and looked down.
Partway down, the man had grabbed the branch of a small tree growing out of the steep cliffside, but it soon snapped under his weight, and he fell again.
Still, that was enough reduce the momentum of his fall by a decent amount, and though his body slammed hard into the ground below, he was able to get unsteadily to his feet after a moment, and he started to stagger away.
“Tch! I can’t afford to let him escape,” Sigrún muttered.
That huge oaf of an Einherjar was still immature as a fighter because he was too caught up in doing everything his own way. But she could tell he had plenty of innate talent and potential. With time and the right experiences, he might transform into something incredible.
If she allowed him to make his escape as he was now, still holding a deep grudge, then eventually he might become a true threat to the Wolf Clan.
And more than anything, Yuuto had ordered her to eradicate the bandits. Allowing their commander, the most crucial of these criminals, to escape was an absolutely inexcusable failure. There was no way she could bear to return to Yuuto with such a report.
“Give me a spear!” she called.
Sigrún had dropped her own spear earlier during the duel at the entrance, so she grabbed one somewhat forcefully from one of the trainees. Then she flung herself over the cliff’s edge.
“Ahhhh!!” screamed one of her soldiers.
“Commander?!”
The trainees shouted in surprise bordering on fright, but Sigrún could spot the few places on the cliffside where jutting rock could serve as footholds, and she kicked off of them as she dropped down, reducing her momentum.
It was one more impressive feat by the prodigy who had seized the title of Mánagarmr at her young age.
She ended the descent by thrusting the spear into the ground to kill the rest of her momentum, then righted herself and dropped lightly to the ground.
“Whaaat?!”
The fleeing Einherjar was downright pitiable. He surely hadn’t thought this woman would actually pursue him off a cliff. His face was all shock and awe.
And that wasn’t all. He had jumped off in an all-or-nothing gamble, resolving to receive injuries and even risk death, but she had made it down without so much as a bump or scratch.
The man’s pride finally crumbled. He despaired, wondering how he could have acted so tough before. There was no way he could win against a monster like her!
“A-ahh... Aaaagghhhh!” He screamed in terror and took off running, with no trace of shame or honor.
Sigrún was not one of the knights of the Middle Ages, with their codes of chivalry that demanded only fighting an opponent head-on.
She was a warrior — in essence, someone who survived on the battlefield.
And on the battlefield, one did not show mercy to an enemy just because he was facing the other way.
No, actually, that was the best chance to pursue and attack them from behind. Letting such a chance go to waste would be absurd.
Her enemy had already sustained some injuries from his fall. Catching up to him was easy.
“Ha!” Once she had him within range, she slashed once, cutting down diagonally from his right shoulder, then cycled into a follow-up slash from above his left shoulder, striking him down.
“Guah!” With an anguished cry, his large body toppled. His feet slipped out from under him, and he rolled away from her down the steep mountain slope.
After a moment there was a loud splash, telling Sigrún that the man’s body must have tumbled into the river below.
“Tch. Damn.” As the river came into view, Sigrún looked down and could see the bright red “X” shaped wound on the man’s back just above the surface of the water, as the river current carried him away. “I’m... not going to be able to catch up with him now.”
She could see how fast and fierce the river’s current was. In the space of only a few seconds, the bandit leader’s body grew smaller and smaller in the distance.
She’d managed to deal him a heavy wound, and he’d fallen into the water in this freezing weather. It was safe to say there was almost no real possibility that he would survive. But the inconclusive way things had ended still bothered her.
Sigrún sighed. “I suppose I also have a long way to go.”
Reflecting on this, she sheathed her sword and returned to the landing point where the spear was still stuck in the ground.
“Commander! Are you all right?!” The voice of one of the trainees called to her from far above.
Looking up, she could see the tiny faces of her soldiers huddled over the cliff edge, looking down at her worriedly.
She pulled the spear out of the earth and shouted back up to them. “Yeah, I’m fine, no problems. More importantly, even I won’t be able to climb all the way back up this cliff by myself. Take some of the bandits’ blankets or clothes, and use them to make a rope long enough to lower down here.”
“Understood, ma’am!” The people above moved into action.
Sigrún took a long, deep breath.
And that was when it happened.
Every single hair on her body stood on end, and before Sigrún could think, she had already taken a fighting stance, spear raised and at the ready.
Slowly, ploddingly, its figure emerged from behind the trees.
“GRRRRRR...!!” The force of the figure’s deep growl reverberated to Sigrún’s very core.
The first thing she took notice of were its bright, crimson eyes, which seemed to glow like embers blazing with wild and murderous intent.
Next, she noticed its ash-grey fur.
It was exactly the same color as the fur mantle she wore, the one handed down to each successive bearer of the title Mánagarmr, “The Strongest Silver Wolf.”
She took in its massive size, large enough to equal a full-grown lion or tiger.
“It’s a garmr!” she yelled.
“GRR... GHAAAAAAGGHHH!!”
And with a roar that made Sigrún shudder, the giant wolf leapt towards her.
......
............
“To think you’d be this strong...” Sigrún muttered.
This beast which had managed to completely corner her was known as a garmr. Its name roughly meant “greatest among wolves” in the language of Yggdrasil, and it was a species of giant wolf that was among the largest known predators on the continent, said to only inhabit the Himinbjörg Mountains.
A full-grown adult could weigh well over 300 barr, or 150 kilograms, and boasted unequaled strength, enough to damage and knock over trees. Despite that, it could also dash and maneuver with extreme agility that seemed unimaginable for a creature so large.
Defeating one of these ferocious beasts was considered one of the highest marks of honor for a warrior of Yggdrasil. And that high honor reflected just how difficult a feat it was to accomplish.
The standard practice was to bring along a group of a few dozen soldiers for the hunt, beginning by launching arrows or spears from a distance, and only move in to fight once it had been weakened.
Fighting an unharmed garmr one-on-one would be considered absurd, even suicidal.
However, by accident, that was exactly the hopeless situation Sigrún was now in.
“GRRR...”
With slow, heavy steps, the garmr paced a circle around Sigrún, and she slowly rotated her own body to keep facing it.
Suddenly, the garmr quickly jumped in the opposite direction.
Sigrún’s eyes had grown accustomed to following its slower movements, so it seemed all the more fast by comparison. Her reaction lagged by just a bit.
She hurriedly turned and slashed with her sword in that direction at the same time. She swung before even seeing if the garmr was there.
She would have been too late if she had relied on following it with her eyes. So she had followed her gut, thanks to the extraordinary intuition bestowed upon her by her rune Hati, Devourer of the Moon.
Still, the garmr evaded even this counter with split-second timing by jumping over it, and came down at her in yet another leap attack.
“Kh!” With a grunt, Sigrún quickly leapt to the side and let the initial attack pass her by, then retreated a pace while throwing out another countering slash as a deterrent.
The garmr, which had already begun its next attack, used its powerful front legs to bring itself to a sudden stop.
“Haah!” Seeing this brief pause as an opportunity, Sigrún darted forward and unleashed a powerful vertical slash from a high overhead stance.
It was a serious attack with all of her strength behind it, executed with perfect form.
But the garmr was far swifter.
With lightning speed, it hopped to the side and evaded the downward swing, then took advantage of the brief opening and lunged at Sigrún once more.
She just barely managed to catch its oncoming claws with the flat of her blade, but the incredible momentum and weight behind the attack was too much for even Sigrún’s strength.
At this rate, she would be pushed to the ground, and that would be the end.
“Hup!” She managed to redirect the force with her willow technique, then immediately followed up with a wide horizontal slash.
But even that didn’t so much as graze the beast. In a flash, the garmr leapt backwards out of Sigrún’s range.
“At this rate, I’m just going to get worn down bit by bit,” she muttered gravely. There was just too much of a difference in their overall physical abilities.
It honestly felt like fighting the man known as the Battle-Hungry Tiger.
Her foe was not only terrifyingly fast in its movements, but could react to her attacks with unbelievable quickness, perhaps owing to wild instinct. The result was that Sigrún had yet to land even a single attack on the garmr.
The injury to her thigh she’d sustained in the first exchange was also painful for her, though not in the literal sense.
The wound itself wasn’t that deep, and posed no threat to her life on its own. She could easily tolerate the physical pain, but the injury hindered her movement, which was far more difficult to bear. Against this beast, even a tiny delay in movement could potentially prove fatal.
She was managing to evade its attacks by a hair’s breadth right now, but she honestly wasn’t confident she could keep that up much longer.
“But even so, I can’t afford to die here,” Sigrún whispered to herself, then calmed herself and focused on her breathing.
In moments of greatest crisis, one must keep the mind cold and sharp, like a honed blade. An agitated mind will only lose sight of the path to survival. That was the wisdom of the warrior that she could always turn to.
“I’m still only partway through my training in this, but I suppose it’s all I’ve got.”
Sigrún jumped backwards and put some more distance between her and the great wolf. Then she deftly returned the nihontou to its scabbard, and lowered herself slightly with her sword hand still on the hilt.
It was the stance of iai, a uniquely Japanese traditional sword style seen nowhere else in the world.
“GRR...”
With heavy steps, the garmr began to close the distance.
It was only a beast, after all. It had seen Sigrún’s sheathing of her weapon as a simple opportunity to attack.
It continued to approach, and stepped at last within the range of her strike—
—and immediately took a great leap backward.
“Heh, so you were able to sense my lethal intent in your own beastly way, eh?” The corner of Sigrún’s mouth pulled upward in a fierce smirk, her face beading with sweat from the tension.
If the beast had continued to step forward into her range, she’d had every intention of unleashing a fatal attack that truly was as quick as a flash of lightning.
And it seemed that the garmr had been able to sense that from her somehow. It now began to quickly make weaving jumps left and right, back and forth, feeling Sigrún out for an opening.
It did all of this just outside of her attack reach.
But however swiftly the monster maneuvered, it was doing so in a fixed circle around her at a distance. All she had to do was keep turning to face it head-on, and she wouldn’t lose sight of it.
Sigrún breathed, long and deep. Quietly, deliberately, she refined and sharpened the killing intent within herself, the blade in her heart and mind, and through her silent glare, she thrust its tip at the garmr.
“GURR! GAAGHHH!” The great wolf roared back at her in a clearly threatening manner.
In other words, it now felt threatened by Sigrún. It was unable to make itself attack her, and completely unsure of what to do.
That was exactly what she was aiming for.
Iai was not a technique for killing the enemy.
It was a technique that relied on the power of an indomitable mind and soul, refined and tempered a hundred times over, to intimidate and overpower the enemy with sheer presence and drive them away without having to fight.
Back around the time when Yuuto had been arranging to formally ally with the Claw Clan patriarch Botvid and take him as a sworn younger brother, Sigrún had humbly but clearly expressed her opposition to the idea. It was then that Yuuto had taught her this core mystery of iai.
“I’m sure you don’t understand human words,” Sigrún said to the beast, in a low, chilly tone, “but... if you leave now, I won’t follow you.”
She bore no grudge against the animal. Certainly, defeating a garmr in battle was an achievement of the highest order for a warrior, but she held no particular interest in such things.
Her sword, her Chalice oath, her body and heart, everything she was, she had already pledged to Yuuto, her sworn father.
She had carried out her father’s orders and eradicated the bandits. So her utmost priority now was to make it off this mountain alive and in one piece.
Putting it the other way around, even if she defeated the garmr and gained glory, if doing so cost her an injury somewhere on her body that hindered her future ability to be useful to her father in battle, that would be the same as utter defeat for her.
Thus, there would be no greater victory for her right now than to avoid further combat by getting this beast to leave her alone.
However, it seemed like that wouldn’t be so easy.
“GRRR! GRRRRRGH!”
The garmr lowered its head and bent forward with its back raised, indicating it had no intention whatsoever of backing down.
Just what was driving the beast so fiercely? Was it hunger? Its pride and honor as a great wolf, the apex predator? Or was it merely conceit, a stubborn insistence even now that it could surely defeat Sigrún with ease?
“There’s no point in thinking about it now,” Sigrún muttered dispassionately. If the creature would not back down, she had no other choice but to fight.
The garmr, greatest among wolves, and the Mánagarmr, the Strongest Silver Wolf. Only one of them would leave here alive.
In which case, all that was left was for her to put everything into this one strike.
For a few moments, the two wolves simply continued to glare at each other.
“...!” Suddenly, Sigrún’s sixth sense picked up on something, a rising tension from the garmr. In the next instant, the creature kicked off with its back legs into a charge.
Sigrún felt the instinctive urge to unsheathe her blade, and resisted it with all her might.
Not yet. It was too soon. If she didn’t wait for it to draw closer, it would be able to dodge out of the way again with its incredible reaction speed.
The great beast’s open jaw, its pointed fangs, grew ever closer.
Strangely, they seemed to be approaching almost in slow motion.
In reality, it was an interval less than a single second.
But to Sigrún, it felt maddeningly long.
At long last, the garmr’s enormous frame moved fully within the range of her technique, her domain.
“Hah!!” With a shout that carried the full destructive spirit of her all-or-nothing attack, Sigrún set free her blade.
Something felt different, different than anything before.
Her body didn’t feel like it was moving as it usually did. It felt slow, sluggish.
The air around her felt thick and heavy.
It was almost like she was moving through water.
However, contrary to her perception, in reality Sigrún wasn’t moving slowly at all. Indeed, as she struck, her body moved faster than it ever had before.
Sigrún’s intense concentration, sharpened and focused to a fine point, had caused her mind’s perception of time to speed up dramatically.
At last, she felt the edge of her sword meet with greater resistance.
It was cutting through the flesh of the garmr, the creature she had until now been unable to scratch.
Sigrún put just a little bit more power into the hand gripping the sword. Just a little bit more, not too much.
More than raw force, she focused all of her consciousness on cutting cleanly at the correct angle, her sword’s tip tracing the path of the ideal arc through and beyond her target.
Precisely, without the slightest waver in angle, deliberately, carefully, carefully.
The instant she fully completed the stroke, Sigrún’s consciousness reverted from its quickened state, and the time around her sped up to normal.
A red line streaked across the garmr’s chest, then hot red blood sprayed violently from the newly opened wound.
I did it.
For an instant, Sigrún was certain of her victory.
“GRRAAAAAAAUUUGHHH!!”
“Wha—?!” Sigrún was shocked.
She had felt her blade strike true. Despite that, the garmr was still alive and breathing, and as it let out a furious roar, its sharp claws plunged toward her.
Once again, Sigrún’s consciousness sped up. However, her physical body did not speed up to match.
She was wide open after a full swing of her sword, and wouldn’t be able to pull the blade back for a returning slash in time.
Images flashed through the back of her mind, various memories of Yuuto smiling—
No, I can’t die here!
Her heart screamed those words, and without thinking, Sigrún’s left hand darted to the other sword at her waist and drew it.
It was the blade that had saved her life many times now, the very nihontou that Yuuto had forged for her himself!
And now, that sword ended up protecting her once again.
There was a hard, loud clang! as the sword of her father, still only halfway out of its scabbard, intercepted the garmr’s claws.
The impact nearly threw Sigrún backward, but she managed to plant her feet and hold steady.
It seemed the iai strike had significantly weakened her foe. If that attack had been at the creature’s full strength, she would have surely been thrown backward, just as she had been at the beginning of the fight.
“Haaaaaaaah!!”
Summoning the remainder of her strength, Sigrún let out a howling cry and brought back her right arm to strike down with the sword forged by Ingrid, right into the great wolf’s skull—
—and with that, the beast breathed its last.
“Haah... haah... haah...” Her breathing ragged, Sigrún kept her sword held at the ready as she looked down at the fallen garmr.
The most important thing in battle was to maintain the mind’s awareness and readiness, even in victory.
The garmr’s head lay sideways on the ground right in front of her, its fur stained deeply red. There was no longer any light in its eyes.
“Whew...” Finally fully sure the beast was dead, Sigrún exhaled and dropped out of her combat stance, and returned her weapon to its scabbard.
A second later, fatigue washed over her whole body like a wave. If one only considered the time that had elapsed, the fight hadn’t lasted all that long. But the terror of death, and the extreme level of mental focus required, had extracted a heavy cost on her body and mind.
“Somehow, I managed to survive...” she murmured, half in wonder herself. It had truly been a narrow victory, decided at the very last second. Even a tiny mistake or slip up at any point would have led to Sigrún’s body lying lifeless in the snow instead.
She had only won due to good luck. That, and...
Sigrún slowly unsheathed the sword forged by Yuuto, and held it up to reflect the sunlight. “Once again, Father saved me.”
The blade had been with her through so many intense battles, and yet still remained so beautiful and pristine that looking at it gave her goosebumps.
Of course, that was in part because she sharpened it and fully maintained it after every battle, but even so, she was awed by the strength and hardness of the steel.
She found herself to be so unrefined and incomplete by comparison.
“Iai means not cutting down others and not being cut down by others;
Know that not having to act is victory.
Iai means not cutting down others and not being cut down by others;
Victory by killing another means you have lost.
Iai means not cutting down others and not being cut down by others;
Hold yourself to account, that you may walk a peaceful road.
Iai is like a scrubbing sponge, porous and empty.
If you have drawn, then kill, if not, then do not;
That the sword is meant only to kill is what is important.”
Yuuto had taught Sigrún this poem which spelled out the teachings of iai.
She had failed to take control of the situation without fighting, and thus she was still lacking.
If her beloved father Yuuto had been in the same situation, he would have used his unique and incredibly powerful spirit to overpower the garmr’s will and force it to yield to him.
If it had been Steinþórr, he would have demonstrated to the garmr through battle the overwhelming difference in strength between it and the Battle-Hungry Tiger, Dólgþrasir. The great wolf would perhaps have fled, seeing no possible chance of victory.
In other words, Sigrún was still not on the same level as either of them.
Additionally, according to the principles of iai, once she had drawn her blade to strike, she was supposed to kill her foe in one blow, and she had failed to do that, as well.
She was still quite far from achieving the ideals of that style.
“However, thanks to you, I believe I was able to grow stronger by a step.” She faced the body of the garmr and bowed her head deeply. “Now I will be that much more useful to Father. You have my thanks. At the very least, may you rest in peace.”
Sigrún always paid her utmost respects to warriors that had fought with great bravery and strength, regardless of if they were friend or foe. That was part of her way of life.
That her foe had not been human did not make a difference.
She concluded her silent prayer, and scanned the area around her. “Now then, for the moment I should look for somewhere safe to rest.”
She had no way of knowing how long it would take for the others to rescue her, and she was also reaching the limits of her stamina. At minimum, she needed to find some shelter from the elements.
Luckily, there was a cave in one part of the rocky cliff nearby. She would be able to rest there, and would still be nearby and able to react easily when help came.
Her body heavy, Sigrún dragged herself over to the cave entrance and took a step inside.
As she did, she heard a faint, cute, whimpering sound, like that of a puppy, echoing off of the cave walls. The whimpering cries sounded feeble.
“I see... so that’s what it was,” she murmured.
This was the garmr’s den. There were five or so infant garmr puppies, their bodies huddled together.
Only one of them was whimpering; the rest weren’t moving at all.
They looked asleep... but looking closer, they weren’t breathing. They had most likely starved.
“Uuuu!” The last remaining puppy noticed the presence of someone other than its parent and let out a tiny, panicked growl, like a squeak.
A sour feeling spread through Sigrún’s heart. “I’m sorry. It was kill or be killed, but still... I’m sorry.”
She knelt down and scooped up the infant garmr in her arms, her eyes filled with pity and pained regret.
The puppy tried to resist her, but it lacked any strength to do so, partly because it was still an infant, but mainly because it was weak from starvation.
“Here... It’s not much, but it’s all I have.”
Sigrún unfastened the sheep’s stomach canteen from her belt and held it up to the baby garmr’s mouth.
The canteen contained goat’s milk, which was more nutritious than cow’s milk. More importantly, it was easy to digest, so it would be gentle enough for the puppy’s body to handle.
As the baby garmr cradled at her chest hungrily gulped down the milk, Sigrún felt a strange, inexplicable emotion within herself.
She had to protect this child. It was her responsibility as the one who had taken the life of its parent.
If she had been stronger, she would have been able to resolve the situation without killing, and the baby garmr would not have been left alone.
No, she thought, shaking her head. In the end, that fight was unavoidable. The adult garmr was fighting for the life of its child, to feed it. It could never have chosen to yield.
And no matter what the case, Sigrún wasn’t going to let herself be killed. There was nothing that could have been done.
But even with that knowledge, she was unable to completely put it behind her. The feeling in her heart would not disappear.
The baby garmr emptied the last of the milk from the canteen, and with a whimper it licked Sigrún’s cheek, as if asking for more. “Kuuuuun.”
Apparently by feeding it she had alleviated some of its fear, and it had developed some small attachment to her. That, too, triggered a feeling of tightness in her chest, as if her heart was being squeezed.
“Your parent was a splendid warrior,” she said. “So you need to grow up to be one too, just as strong and as proud. Until you do, I’ll look after you.”
She held the puppy under the shoulders of both front legs, and held it up in front of her.
Apparently, it was a boy.
Sigrún smiled, the kind of smile one makes while holding back tears.
“I guess I should give you a name. Hmm... how about Hildólfr? How does that sound?”
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