Chapter 6

Translator: Willia

After the snow stopped, rain came down in a steady drizzle. The snow piled on the ground had left the roads muddy and filthy.

On nights like this, the best thing to do was stay shut up at home. Especially after dark.

At a certain tavern in the city of Blackcen, it seemed that people of just that opinion had gathered.

A cozy fire burned in the hearth, and the patrons were quietly sipping drinks or playing cards.

Still, it did not look like an ordinary tavern. Nor did the customers look like ordinary folk resting after a hard day's work.

Something loose and insolent about their postures, a bored-looking serving girl, a dagger stuck into a table, coins strewn about, knife marks gouged into the pillars as if clawed in.

Something felt off about the place, one might say. Anyone unaccustomed to such an atmosphere would have felt it.

Then suddenly, in the midst of that quiet dullness, the tavern door rattled open. Every eye turned toward the entrance.

Shhhhhh......

On that rainy late night, a tall, broad-shouldered man stood there, wrapped in a long cloak with his hood drawn up. As he stepped into the tavern, heavy footfalls rang out.

The floorboards let out a creaking groan. Rainwater streamed down from the cloak he wore.

He strode up to the nearest table and, without preamble, spoke. His voice was a low rumble, as rough and heavy as his footsteps.

"Where's Raven."

Raven was a common enough name among commoners. But in Blackcen, and in this tavern in particular, it referred to exactly one man.

None other than the boss of the Winss Brotherhood. To put it plainly, the head of Blackcen's Thieves' Guild.

Naturally, it was not a name just anyone could throw around lightly. Not unless they had more nerve than sense, or a death wish.

Yet the men at the table said nothing. They did not bark out the usual thug's fare, "Who the hell are you?" or "You want to die?" nor did they spit any harsh curses.

One had his feet propped on the table, another lounged with his hips slid forward, sprawled in his chair. They were silent because, looking up at the man who had suddenly appeared, their tongues had gone momentarily still.

Beneath the hood, in place of a face, the man wore an iron helm. A spangenhelm, to be precise: the sort that shielded the nose and the area around the eyes, with chainmail draped below to cover the lower half.

The two eyes visible beyond the helm were cold and detached, yet something like rage, or madness, pulsed behind them.

While no one answered, a gloved hand shot out from under the cloak and seized one of the nearest men by the hair.

Then the man spoke again.

"I said where."

"Uh, w-well."

BAM!

Apparently sensing the answer would not satisfy him, the man did not bother to wait for the rest. He slammed the man's head into the table.

A single blow left the face unrecognizable, and the man crumpled, senseless.

The one with his feet on the table yanked them down in horror, only for the intruder to seize him too by the hair. The hand was the size of a cauldron lid.

At that, someone at a nearby table sprang up, drawing a dagger.

"You bastard......!"

Thwack!

Thud.

But the helmed man did not even turn to look. He swung the back of his closed fist at the attacker. One strike shattered the man's jaw, and he too collapsed, senseless.

The rest of the men in the tavern rose from their seats all at once, about to do something, but in that instant the man pulled the battle axe from his belt and drove it into the table with a crash.

The dice and coins strewn across the tabletop jumped. A few clattered to the floor.

That single display of force froze every man in the tavern where he stood.

Throughout all of it, the man had never once let go of his captive's hair. His gaze, too, had not strayed from him.

Only now did the man in his grip begin to tremble, and he hurriedly spoke.

"U-upstairs, upstairs......!"

Crunch!

CRASH!

He seemed to have answered well this time, but it appeared the man had never intended to show mercy anyway. That brutally large fist drove straight into his face. He went all but flying backward and crashed down.

And such had been the grip on his hair that a whole fistful tore free with a sickening rip.

The man in the sodden cloak, head still lowered, spoke in that same heavy voice.

"Bring him."

Who was he speaking to? It hardly mattered. He had given his order, and should it not be obeyed, he looked ready to kill every man in the room.

A pack of foxes and jackals, however many, could not stand against a lion.

And the man, built large by nature, strong, hardened by long years of training and real combat, armored head to toe, was closer to a beast than a man.

This man was none other than a knight of House Winsloe, by the name of Norman, Gidwin's father. That he had come in full armor and helm made it plain he had come tonight with serious intent.

"What, what is it. Who? Hiiik!"

Coming down from upstairs at his underling's summons, the boss named Raven met the knight's eyes and was seized with terror. His instinct was to run, but what thread of reason remained held him in place.

Trembling, he approached the knight. But he kept a safe distance and pulled his head back as far as he could before speaking.

"Wh-what brings you here, My Lord."

Safe distance or not, Norman strode forward and grabbed him by the collar, and Raven was taken without so much as a flicker of resistance. Norman dragged him straight out of the tavern.

The Brotherhood men inside could not lift a finger. Even after the knight had hauled their boss outside, they remained rooted in place, as though the axe buried in the table had pinned their feet to the floor.

Outside, the rain poured down. Everything was darker than usual, the only loud sound the rain itself, yet in that darkness stood several armed figures. Winsloe's soldiers. They had already fully surrounded the tavern.

One man sat beneath the eaves. His hair and clothes, too, were soaked. An oil lantern set beside him lit only one side of his face. It was Count Aethelred.

Norman dragged Raven over to him and flung him down at his feet.

"Ungh!"

Raven sprawled forward at the Count's feet and, as a matter of course, sank to his knees in the muddy ground. With a terrified face, he kept glancing back and forth between the Count and the dirt.

Count Aethelred watched the rainwater run and run in streams off the eaves, and spoke.

"Who was it?"

"Sir?"

"Make me ask again, and every man inside dies."

"Ah, w-well......"

Raven knew what the Count was asking about. It would be, most likely, the near-abduction of the young master.

If such a thing had befallen the sole heir of the county, then some kind of hell breaking loose was only to be expected. Raven was well aware of that. What astonished and unsettled him was how quickly the Count had come.

One wrong word here and he could truly die. No, he might already be a dead man. All he could do was give his utmost, for the sake of the sliver of hope that remained.

"Th-they arrived two days before the horse fair opened. So, so, f-five days ago, it would be. Yes. Indeed, My Lord. And, and, they spoke with a W-Winddale manner of speech, so they must be from that region. Wh-when asked if they had come to sell horses, they said yes, but they hardly seemed interested in selling any...... No tokens or other signs that might give them away......"

It was said that the eyes and ears of the Thieves' Guild were everywhere. After Harold's near-abduction, he had at once put out inquiries about the kidnappers.

If any of the city's merchants or any of his underlings had exchanged words with them, done business with them, or quarreled with them, there was information to be gathered.

However, perhaps because the Count had come so quickly, for the moment the only useful scrap he had was that they had spoken in a Winddale accent.

Now, Winddale was none other than Winsloe's neighboring territory. Duke Sven had several vassals beneath him, and Winddale was a house that served the same Liege Lord as Winsloe.

The trouble was that the two houses had long been on poor terms.

It was a grudge that predated the Nordic conquest of Astria, and the root of it lay in each side claiming that the other's lands were rightfully its own. The reason being that both houses had split off from the same family.

Raven kept reading the Count's expression. But Count Aethelred only went on watching the rainwater fall from the eaves, and there was no telling whether he was angry or not.

"I-if you give me a little more time, I can find out for certain......"

"First you answer for it."

The Count cut him off.

"Sir?"

"Have you forgotten the agreement between us? Whatever business you ran in the city, so long as no great disturbance came of it, I would not trouble you. In return, any disturbance that displeased me, you alone would answer for, without question. Have you forgotten?"

"......"

"My son was nearly kidnapped. My son. If you thought you would live through this, I'm disappointed in you, Raven."

Count Aethelred turned to look at Raven and spoke in a calm tone.

Hearing the Count's words, Raven felt many things in that brief moment. Rage. Resignation.

At the flick of Count Aethelred's glance toward Norman, Norman at once raised his foot and stamped Raven's head against the tavern wall.

Thud. Crunch. Thud. Thud.

A few stomps and Raven's skull was crushed; he could not even scream. An eyeball burst free and lodged in the muddy ground.

"Bring me the vice-boss, Norman."

"Yes, My Lord."

Norman went back into the tavern.

Count Aethelred turned his gaze once more to the rainwater falling from the eaves. Watching the streams pour down, he thought.

The one behind the kidnappers was not, in truth, hard to infer. It would not be the Count of Winddale, but most likely Duke Sven himself.

The reasoning: the Count of Winddale was neither base enough nor meticulous enough to hatch a sly scheme of this sort.

At best one might call him hearty; at worst, boorish. In that sense, he and Aethelred were, if anything, polar opposites.

The common talk that the two houses coveted each other's lands was an old story. By now, it was less coveting than simply an old, festering grudge.

And the one who stoked the quarrel between the two territories most eagerly was Duke Sven. The reason being, that was how he governed his vassals.

By fanning strife between them, he kept his vassals' power in check; by playing mediator, he exercised his influence and, at the same time, shored up his own standing. For a Nordic noble, he was uncommonly shrewd and cunning.

From the receiving end it was hateful, but from another angle it might well be called good management. There was no rule saying a Liege Lord could not fall by a vassal's blade.

As ever, Count Aethelred had no sharp answer to such things. All he could do was throw his weight around and keep his own house in order.

So in truth, what weighed on him more at the moment was Wid. Or rather, Valery.

He had taken a report from Gidwin, who had been there at the scene that day, but on top of that, all manner of stories had been reaching him from countless others.

It was like seeing a hero of legend. They had taken him for a young Einheri (Einheri: one who fights alone, a one-man army, a member of the Royal Guard). The majesty of a king seemed to come off him. Things of that sort.

Exaggeration on the part of onlookers was only to be expected, but even weighed against the bare objective facts alone, it made no sense. Astride a wild horse without saddle, stirrups, or reins, the boy had killed two men with two strokes of a blade......

Count Aethelred felt a strange sensation then, because the people's exaggerations, if anything, seemed to make more sense than the bare facts themselves.

Mounted combat was no easy thing. To become a proper knight, one had to train for at least ten years, and had to weather a variety of real battles before one could master the art of killing a man from horseback.

It was not in the realm of luck, and still less was it something talent alone could accomplish.

And what was even harder to believe was that Valery had never been taught martial arts in the first place. So far as he knew, the boy had never once laid a hand on a sword.

Is it really this much? The blood of House Vǫlsungr? Is he truly the last bloodline of the gods?

To have no way of making sense of what had plainly already come to pass was a deeply unsettling thing. And above all else, how was he to handle Valery from here on?

At the same time, Aethelred felt he had known far too little of Valery, and on the other hand, he was grateful to him for having saved Harold. Worry, relief, and unease seemed to circle round and round in his heart.

And one small shard of guilt......

CRASH!

The noise from inside the tavern broke Count Aethelred out of his thoughts. A moment later, a man was flung out through the tavern doorway.

Splat!

"Ugh!"

Eyes wide with shock, he glanced about, and then his face went ashen at the sight of his own boss, skull crushed, dead.

"Hiiiiick!"

Looking at him, Count Aethelred spoke. For the moment, all such musings aside, it was time to do what had to be done.

"Those bastards in Lecton's Gang, every last one of them, bring them to me. That is the one way you and your family live through this."

Not long after, in the square of Blackcen, the severed heads of young men were mounted on pikes for public display.