18
“Ferri’ll lure them out—you find them and deal with them!”
Julius, occupied by his defensive struggle, went white when he heard what Ferris shouted as he came racing out of the woods. Why hadn’t the purple-haired knight been able to say anything back? Perhaps because Ferris’s commitment was so clear. Or perhaps because the shot that tore through his small body simply came too quickly.
“Ferris!”
Balleroy had taken change of situation immediately and acted to remove this new variable in the battle. Ferris, shot from behind, lay bleeding on the grass. Even Julius could tell at a look that the wound was fatal. However, the healing spell that erupted promptly after closed the grievous injury, healing Ferris’s damage before his very eyes.
He knew that if Ferris had decided to face the enemy, it’d be with a plan in place to ensure he survived.
“I spotted him!”
In the second before Ferris was shot, there had been a rippling of the air behind him. Julius realized instantly that it was the product of Balleroy’s unique strategy: using light and wind magic to make himself all but transparent. And once Julius knew what his enemy was doing…
“Al Clauzeria!!” Judging by his friend’s wound and the location of the waver in the sky, Julius pointed his saber and leaned on the powers of his greater spirits to create a whirling vortex of magic. Six different colors joined into one beautiful rainbow. The aurora filled the sky in a whirlwind, and a multicolored labyrinth engulfed Julius’s opponent. The magic construct was a wall of light, composed of six elements, which meant it was able to repel any sort of magic that might’ve been leveled against it. It was thoroughly impregnable to physical attacks as well. It went without saying, of course, that serious harm awaited anyone who tried to hit it head-on.
The result was that a green serpent got caught in the rainbow maze and then quickly began to drop through the air.
“It manifests as a rainbow of light—no one can see what is at its end.”
The wall vanished, and at the same moment, there was a dull thump of a sky dragon hitting the ground. It was a gruesome sight; the creature’s wings were broken, and its scales were soaked with blood. Such was the product of the dragon slamming into the earth at the speed of sound. By its ragged, shallow breathing, it seemed it had just a minute left to live, perhaps less.
“So ya…did us in, eh…?”
There was a human form as well, dragging their feet, their own breath coming in gasps. This person had similarly struck the ground, a moment before his dragon. It was Balleroy Temeglyph.
It only took Julius an instant to understand what had happened. The dragon had thrown its partner from its back before the rainbow caught them, saving him. Balleroy understood this, too. Hence, why he shambled straight past Julius, to where his beloved dragon lay. The man was there beside his partner for the last few seconds of its life.
“Thanks fer everything, Carillon. Tell Miles to wait for me.” Balleroy patted the still creature on the nose, smiling gently at it. Then the warrior rose to his full height and heaved a sigh. “Sorry t’ keep ya waitin’. Ya didn’t have to.”
“A master was saying farewell to his beloved companion. I have a land dragon of my own that means the world to me. I would not wish to be so uncouth as to intrude on this precious moment.”
“Keh! Look who’s Mr. Noble… But I guess I oughtta thank you. Givin’ me a moment to see Carillon off proper. Now listen…” Balleroy turned, his blue eyes looking straight at Julius. His hair was a mess, and blood trickled down his forehead. He had escaped the knight’s spell, but he had fallen an awfully long way, and he looked the worse for it. The general’s pale face and copious sweat spoke to his internal injuries and broken bones, as well. This much was clear; if he didn’t receive treatment immediately, he was done for. “…Don’t go saying I gotta ask you for healing, or anything like that. Things are what they are. Ain’t a doc in the empire who can fix me up now. Even if there were, I’d refuse.”
“But why would you…?”
“You really gotta ask why, sir knight? It’s easy. This is the empire, I’m one of the Nine Divine Generals, and you’re my enemy.”
Julius had assumed this contest settled, but Balleroy spoke with strength. In his hands was his spear, his favored weapon, and he spun it with dismaying speed as he took up a fighting stance. This was not a man to be dismissed, even at the edge of death. Balleroy had begun his rebellion against Emperor Vincent with the utmost determination. Even if his life was to be saved now, if his mutiny failed, all that awaited him was execution.
“So you’ll fight to the bitter end, in forfeit of your very life?”
“Nothin’ so high-minded as all that… Let’s just say I don’t know when to give up. All I want is to get this spear to my aim. That’s all. That’s all I want.”
“Your aim…?”
“’S right. The Sword Saint’s throat.”
The tip of the spear exuded a murderous intent, and Balleroy’s aura grew sharper than before. Julius sensed his immovable pride as a warrior and took a moment to admire the man. Then, a beat later, he took up a stance with his own saber, prepared to fight.
“As a warrior myself, I acknowledge your skill. But Reinhard is my friend. For the sake of my kingdom, and for that of my companions, I cannot allow you to reach your goal.”
“Great! Then all that’s left for the two of us is a test of skill!”
As Julius’s fighting aura grew quietly sharper and more focused, his opponent’s violent excitement began to burst from his spirit. The two of them locked eyes.
“Julius Juukulius, knight of the Royal Guard of the Kingdom of Lugunica.”
“Balleroy Temeglyph, ninth of the Nine Divine Generals of the Empire of Volakia.”
As was the custom among warriors, they both announced their names and stations, and then the fight began.
It was Balleroy who made the first move, striking so quickly with his spear that the attack was almost invisible. One had the sense that the tip of the spear had vanished, and then a moment later, it was coming to bite into Julius’s chest. The polearm was faster than should have been possible for being wielded by a man riddled with wounds, but Julius swept the strike aside with a flash of his own sword. His defensive reflexes remained sharpened by his light magic, and the knight was reluctant to claim victory via augmented abilities. However…
“That’s just another part of your skills, eh!” Balleroy exclaimed, seemingly sensing Julius’s thoughts even as he loosed blow after blow. The knight parried each strike of the spear, pushing off the ground to pursue Balleroy. He raced across the plain, sweeping aside each stab as they came. Sparks flew each time the steel met, and the impacts were clearly taking a toll on them both. Julius felt as if every exchange took a bit of life out of him as his concentration and spirit were worn away.
There were, broadly speaking, two ways to attack with a spear: to thrust and to sweep. This was not unlike a sword, but thrusts were more common with a spear. They were a series of attacks aimed at a specific point, or points, demanding an opponent exhaust an enormous amount of focus in order to maintain their guard.
Neither of them could sustain this battle very long, and they both knew it. So after some probing exchanges and feeling each other out, the fight began in earnest.
Clang!
When Julius deflected an oncoming thrust and closed in to press his attack, Balleroy caught the swinging blade with the haft of his spear. He was unable to completely blunt the impact, though, and flew backward. In that instant, the mood of the battle changed.
“ ”
It happened before Julius could even register that it was coming. From the tip of the spear Balleroy had pointed at him, a magic missile of colorless light erupted. It was the same kind of attack the general had used when sniping atop his dragon mount. The charge, aiming, and firing all took such a short time that it was almost artistic. The projectile flew at Julius’s chest with no sound or warning.
The purple-haired knight could see a furious intent to kill in Balleroy’s eyes, and Julius pushed the limit of his reactions until they were as fast as lightning. The blade of his saber just brushed the magic missile, nudging it off course so that it only collided with Julius’s shoulder. At the very least, the knight had avoided a mortal wound…
“Ngh!”
That was when an impact slammed into his sternum, causing his organs to shudder and coaxing blood up and out his mouth, along with a groan.
He had avoided the magical sniper shot. And yet something had pierced his chest with terrific force. Desperately trying to process what had happened through a fog of pain, Julius hit upon the possibility of a second sniper shot.
By hiding a second shot behind the first, it ensured one of the shots would hit, even if the first was parried. A simple but extremely effective trick. If one was facing an opponent with the wherewithal to defend against the magic missiles, such a trick would be all the more likely to destroy them.
Unfortunately, things only got worse from there.
“Your life is mine.” Balleroy was on the offensive now, following up his ploy with a deadly third shot. This final round followed the previous one with an uncanny swiftness. The Divine General’s weapon was pointed directly between the eyebrows of his prey. The attack was aimed at the heart and the head, twin vital points. It was a move that seemed as if it could have even killed one of the allegedly immortal vampires.
It appeared that the sniper shots would prove the point. However, at the last instant, Balleroy’s face stiffened.
“ ”
Julius, who had been blown backward by a shot to the heart, was holding his ground. That by itself was shock enough for Balleroy; closer inspection of the knight’s chest revealed something very strange. Ferris had been hit exactly the same way, and yet Julius’s wounds were much lighter. Julius had prepared a second line of defense: a layer of earth-element armor upon his body.
“My spear—he was still able to—!”
Balleroy could only be impressed by such meticulous fighting, but he was still a hair faster. To cheat death did not necessarily mean to be completely unaffected by an attack. He put all his strength into his hands, which held his spear, and his legs, which pressed forward as he gave a decisive thrust, seeking to penetrate Julius’s defenses. Even a knight of the Kingdom of Lugunica wouldn’t survive a crushed skull. A single, fatal pass—that would decide this contest…
“Al Clarista,” Julius intoned.
The enemy who had avoided Balleroy’s killing blow, who had backed away so as not to fall—that man was even now responding to the general’s final thrust and had managed to utter an invocation. When had there been time? Why had Balleroy allowed him that? Why, why, why—?
For that matter, why did his own strike feel so slow? The tip of his spear should have arrived first, yet it was being erased by this knight who exuded such brilliant, multicolored light. There wasn’t even any sensation of metal on metal; there was no shearing as steel was cut away.
In the end, Balleroy’s senses didn’t even permit him to draw back or press in farther. The contest was decided in that one, brief instant of attack pitted against defense.
“Well now, ain’t this a surprise…?” The shimmer of a rainbow had pierced the left side of Balleroy’s chest, the scintillating colors scorching his soul. But what filled Balleroy’s heart was admiration for the skill of this enemy who had brought him to defeat. When it was all over, the reason the rebel’s moves had felt so dull and slow hadn’t been because of the fear of losing, nor was it merely his imagination.
Balleroy’s body had been enveloped in a faint light. It was the glow of dark magic encountering and opposing light magic. Light magic to strengthen his own body, dark magic to weaken that of his opponent—Julius was casting both at the same time, a delicate and involved maneuver. Who knew that the kingdom held such a fearsome opponent?
“To think I ain’t even made it to my real target… I guess I really have…lost my touch…” Balleroy dropped his spear and stumbled back a step, whereupon the knight’s sword pierced his chest. Blood didn’t even flow from the wound. The light, short and intense, cauterized the cut and incinerated the man’s organs, his very spirit.
Balleroy continued on, unsteadily, until he arrived at the still form of his beloved dragon. He managed to slump down beside her, leaning against that great form, and let out a breath. Behind him, Julius the knight sheathed his sword.
“Lord Balleroy, what drove you to such plotting?” The young man seemed to presume the fight was over—a naive idea. Even without his spear, Balleroy was capable of attacking with a deadly accurate magic missile. But no; let no one say he didn’t know when he was beaten.
He could do it, and he might. At least, Julius should have regarded him that way.
“You don’t pull your punches, do you? …Can’t say I would expect you to understand.”
“You nearly shattered the empire and brought on war with my kingdom. You’re right, I don’t understand. Nor do I understand your obsession with the Sword Saint—with Reinhard.”
“That one’s easy enough to explain. To put it nice and simple, it was about…revenge.”
Julius’s eyes widened in surprise, as if he could never have expected this. It wasn’t the pettiness that seemed to shock him, but the whole idea. The man had seemingly never imagined the Sword Saint might incur the ill will of anyone. In Julius’s mind, Reinhard was above such trite tragedies as becoming the object of revenge.
“Looks to me like you’ve got…some pretty innocent ideas about the world…”
“…I’ve heard the same from my friends. I believe I am working to improve that aspect of myself.”
“Good, good to hear. Otherwise, y’ might just end up one of the bad guys, like me…” Then Balleroy laughed at the outrageously frank exchange, his hilarity coming in thin, reedy breaths. His consciousness was gradually dropping in and out, and he tried to hold on to it long enough to say something else. But what, he didn’t know. Words of hatred, perhaps.
“Are there any last words you wish to leave to Reinhard?”
Balleroy let out a harsh breath. “…That’d be downright ignoble of me. A loser ought to just go his way. But I do feel bad for your pretty cat-eared friend, the way I…”
Julius seemed to be shaking his head as if to preempt this apology, but Balleroy found himself thinking about the unfortunate young woman, the one poor innocent who found herself involved. Things like the success or failure of the rebellion started by the person who had contracted him, and whether Vincent lived or died—they were unimportant to Balleroy. That was why he had the wherewithal to feel pity for those whom he himself had killed in the course of this all.
Condolences or no, Balleroy’s clouded eyes afforded him the vision of an approaching figure. It was coming toward him through the grass. The person stopped beside Julius.
“Hate to break it to you, but Ferri doesn’t go down that easily.”
“…Hah.”
There she was, her white outfit stained with blood, but her movements showing no sign of any wounds. Ferris breathed a sigh to see Balleroy.
Julius, Ferris, and the red-haired Sword Saint, Reinhard. Three people Balleroy could not best. The dying Divine General knew about the whispers, the nasty hearsay making the rounds in other lands that spoke of the Volakian Empire being protected by a barrier constructed by devils. However, the Kingdom of Lugunica seemed to be made of nothing but extraordinary and fearsome characters itself.
“Do tell His Majesty one thing for me… Tell him that if he’s gonna have it out with the kingdom, to make sure he stays the course till it’s all dust.”
“I must say I have complicated feelings about relaying that message… But very well.”
There was a rumble in Balleroy’s throat; what he had intended as his life’s final joke had been received with utmost seriousness. He had the distinct feeling Julius really would give Vincent the message, verbatim. He was confident, then, as one of the Nine Divine Generals, that his last words would reach the emperor. “I’m glad that…in the end…I really didn’t kill any women or children…”
Balleroy let out a breath, and in it, he realized he was shyer than he had thought. The man was having a laugh at himself when a familiar face arose in the distance against his closed eyelids. He saw it was the face of the person to whom he owed his life: his older brother-in-law, who had raised him like a parent. He looked down. “Sorry, Miles. Think this is the end of the line for me.”
Balleroy murmured something, in a voice so soft and faint that it couldn’t be heard, and then breathed his last.
He had come full circle: The tale that had begun with the faking of his death had ended with his actual demise. At the very least, there were unlikely to be any among his subordinates who would prove to be consummate opponents in the way Balleroy was for the knights. That was not to say, of course, that the other assassins they faced, like the Insect Cage Clan that Reinhard had confronted, were not a threat.
“But, Julius, with you and Reinhard here, we should be all right. Don’t you think so, too?”
“I mean to do my very best to justify your faith in me. But before that…”
“Before that, what? Hey, what is it?!”
Ferris peeked over at Julius from one side. The spirit mage turned to his friend with his innocent gesture, looking at the site of Ferris’s sniper wound. He touched the spot with his fingers. The young demi-human’s back and chest were both soaked with blood; there was no question a missile had passed through him. But when Julius wiped the blood away, there was only pale skin, smooth and soft. Not even a scar remained.
“…That sets my mind at ease. If you came back with so much as a scratch on you, I don’t know how I would ever face Duchess Karsten again.”
“Hmph! That doesn’t mean mew can just go pawing all over me! You’re the one who just stuck your hands in my blood, so don’t go blaming me if mew get sick!”
“Your safety comes first. Indeed… I thought I might expire myself when I saw you.”
When Ferris had gotten it into his head to serve as bait, there had been no time to stop him as he went running out. In the blink of an eye, he had been hit by Balleroy’s sniper shot and collapsed, covered in blood. Julius had engaged Balleroy then, not wanting the opportunity Ferris had bought to be in vain, but he could hardly hide his wish to run to his fallen friend. He may have had faith that Ferris had some sort of plan, but—
“I never wish to see one I cherish fall before my eyes. I can’t tell you how glad I am.”
“Feels pretty nice to hear it from you. But well, that’s just like you, Julius.” Ferris received the other knight’s words with an embarrassed smile and a scratch of the cheek. Julius noticed the slightest difference in his demeanor from a moment before. Ferris had sustained a seemingly fatal wound, been covered in blood, and yet seemed downright cheerful—perhaps something had changed in his heart?
“Ferris, I doubt I need to ask, but His Majesty, Emperor Vincent…?”
“Fully healed and resting under the trees. At least, he’s probably still there—don’t think he has it in him yet to go running off.”
“I see. Another relief.” Julius removed his own cloak and handed it to the cat-boy. It had hardly come through the battle unscathed, but at least it wasn’t soaked in blood and riddled with holes, as Ferris’s was. It would at least cover his shoulders.
As the healer pulled the cape on, Julius turned toward Balleroy, offering another silent prayer on his behalf. He had been a terrible enemy of astonishing skill, a warrior whose loss was keenly felt.
“Thank you for your help, Ferris. If you hadn’t done what you did, I don’t believe I could have defeated him. Ugh, I still have so much to learn.”
“Ferri feels a little funny realizing he knew exactly what you needed without so much as talking about it… Well, Ferri’s no stranger than you, Julius.”
The purple-haired man didn’t respond to this rather backhanded acknowledgment. Instead, he simply narrowed his eyes. Balleroy had betrayed the emperor and conspired to commit rebellion, but Julius didn’t think he would go out of his way to explain why. Balleroy himself hadn’t spoken of it, and he would respect those wishes. It didn’t matter whether the fallen was an enemy or a member of his own kingdom. If there was one thing he could say, though…
“I wish I’d had the chance to speak more with you.”
He might not have been able to fully understand everyone he met, but that did not excuse him from making the effort. His wish was futile, though, in the face of this corpse, and Julius turned back to the forest path behind him. Ferris followed after to find two figures coming their way.
One was Reinhard, uninjured and waving. The other was Vincent, leaning on the Sword Saint’s shoulder.
The unrest in the empire, unrest that had involved the Kingdom of Lugunica as well, was approaching its end.
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