"It's simply that it was time to die. Everyone dies."
He watched Sachsen face his own death with composure. After Sachsen came Audin.
"The Apostle of War will guide you."
Audin used his last breath to raise a consecrating prayer.
"I think those were the happiest times."
The half-giant Teresa sang quietly as she died.
"Fiancé, it's time for you to take a wraith for a bride."
Shinar kept up her jokes right to the end.
It was just like her.
Grrrr.
'Why is Esther a panther?'
The only witch Enkrid knew died in the form of a panther. And others died as well. The book called Nightmare was filled to the brim with a content called Loss.
The specifics of how they died were hidden, but the approaching of death itself drew near with a reality so vivid it made his heart ache.
"Look and take delight. This is only the beginning."
The Ferryman maliciously gnawed at Enkrid's mind.
Like a squirrel gnawing the shell of an acorn, he pushed a little more of his mental fang inside with each bite.
Enkrid, waking, set aside the nightmare whose cast had grown more splendid than yesterday's.
Remembering it wouldn't change anything, and even if he tried to persuade the Ferryman with words, it wasn't as if he'd stop pulling this stunt night after night.
Moreover—only a feeling, but—
'He's aiming for something.'
There was a reason to the Ferryman's behavior. It wasn't easy to see it at a glance, so there was nothing to do but leave it be.
So: do what needed doing.
Pel had stood for three days, then toppled over last night.
"What did you call us all here for, Brother?"
From one side of the drill yard, Audin asked as Enkrid stepped up.
"Don't you know I'm busy?"
That layabout Rem was here, as idle as the day is long.
"From dawn?"
Dawn had long since broken, but the sluggard claiming it was still dawn was there as well, arms folded and silent—Jaxen—and Shinar, who sometimes smiled recalling the Dorothea beauty painting, but today wore her usual blank face.
Esther had turned into a panther and set her muzzle on her forepaws to watch, and Teresa sat demurely beside her.
Enkrid limbered up while looking over them. He warmed every muscle carefully, from fingertips to whole body.
"Seriously, what are you doing?"
"Stand in front. Rem."
Enkrid met the barbarian's eyes as he mouthed off.
At a glance, the air changed. The only "movement" was Enkrid sliding his left foot slightly forward.
Watching, Luagarne knew Enkrid's action was part of the Tactical Sword.
'That left foot could be the start of an attack—or the beginning of a feint.'
The Tactical Sword is a way of fighting that seizes the high ground on every front.
Rem started to say something and shut his mouth. His hand had closed around his axe-haft.
The distance was just right for swinging a weapon.
In truth, both were so used to brawling that they could swing sword or axe at any distance, but it was close enough that a cut would land.
The world's sound vanished and his vision narrowed. In Enkrid's sight, only Rem remained.
'The measure suits me.'
Tri-Iron had been left with Aetri, so only Penna hung at his waist.
Even so, it was longer than an axe, so distance favored him.
The environment? Rem would use that better. Thought optimization was originally Rem's specialty, and he used everything around him through instinct and intuition.
While Enkrid accounted for situation and terrain, he never took his eyes off Rem.
Rem was the same.
Neither blinked once. Even with dust riding the wind, they didn't move.
Early summer sunlight brushed the blades of grass sprouting between stones in the practice ground.
It was hot for standing still.
Enkrid and Rem swung their weapons at each other. It was hard to tell who moved first.
So fast—and they read each other's breaths just as closely.
'You've grown again.'
Rem judged the sword Enkrid thrust out as fast as his own axe.
Tham!
Metal met metal and spat sparks. Dozens of attack-lines tried to touch the other's body and all missed.
Enkrid moved by calculation, Rem swung his axe and stepped by instinct.
There would be no holding back, so Rem immediately whirled his body, packing sorcery into himself with Descent. When it was over, it would leave a burden on the body.
Enkrid too. He drove Will hard through every limb with an explosion of lines.
Their fight was like a cart that had picked up speed on a downslope. To stop it, someone would have to absorb all that force.
If you helped one to kill the other, that would actually be easier.
To subdue both without injury—even if King of Mercenaries Anu were here, it would be hard.
Even Ragna and Audin, charging in together, would hardly be able to block it unscathed.
It would not be easy.
Enkrid swung—and sank into himself.
'Faster.'
He narrowed the gaps between thoughts.
As narrow as the instinctive intuition Rem showed.
Enkrid's blade sped up a beat. Flash. No—lightning: the chain-form of Flash.
Rem's axe moved to meet the blade drawing a white line. That side became a typhoon that cut and swallowed lightning.
The axe drew the optimal line and met it.
Enkrid took one step further. He gathered the explosion of lines in a moment and burst it as a point.
At the end of the exchange, Penna rose with his left foot as pivot and drew a line in the air, and Rem's arm caught on that line.
Skrrk.
Enkrid cut Rem's right arm. Rem heard the sound of flesh tearing by his ear.
At the same time, he brought the axe down and did strike Enkrid's shoulder, but he didn't cut. It would leave a moderately deep wound.
Thus Rem knew: with time as it was, he would lose.
'I've lost.'
It was Rem's inner voice. As a fight went on, the side that lost an arm lost, naturally.
Not "only an arm."
Once what was attached comes off, there's a disharmony of sense, and time is needed to adjust to a shifted center of mass. Against a Knight, that becomes a fatal weakness.
'And still, he wouldn't lose prettily.'
Enkrid muttered inwardly and narrowed his eyes, acknowledging that even one-armed, the warrior named Rem was no easy thing.
It wasn't hard to imagine a berserker swinging an axe even after losing an arm.
A death-match that needed no harmony of senses or center of mass: close the distance, trade flesh for flesh and bone for bone.
He could see it. And there was no need to fight that far.
The fight ended here.
"…What did you just do?"
Sweat gathering at the tip of Rem's chin fell to the ground.
"Fun, isn't it?"
Enkrid asked back.
Rem rolled his right arm in a circle and answered.
It had all been an illusion. More exactly, because each knew the other's skill well, they had fought in a virtual domain.
"It is fun."
"I hear in the Empire they teach as basics the embodiment of intimidation. So I figured this might be possible."
When he first saw Zaun's head of house, his greatsword had looked like it could cut a man any instant.
The embodiment of intimidation.
Handle that a bit more delicately, and you could compete in a virtual domain.
That meant you could clash fiercely without real swords—a way to realize a deeper, denser, more dangerous spar.
Now that their level was high, if they fought with lives on the line, one of the two would end up seriously hurt; this was the method he'd thought of.
Enkrid had no interest in learning "sparring sword arts."
Discipline was well and good, but—
'Nothing is as good as real battle for training.'
He'd realized it while teaching those struggling to survive in a small village.
In effect, what Enkrid and Rem had done was twitch their fingers and shift their feet, fighting with nothing but the force they put out from where they stood.
Not only did each need keen insight—they had to grasp their present state correctly for this high-wire act to be possible.
"The Lord's servant awaits the next turn."
"You've made something truly amusing."
Audin and Ragna each put in a word. Shinar raised force as well, showing the will to step forward.
Jaxen unfolded his arms and spoke.
"If it's like this, I can show something interesting too."
Clash in a virtual domain, then test a few exchanges in reality. If this process itself wasn't enjoyable, what in the world was?
Moving the body was joy. Swinging a sword—more joyous still.
With every attack that leaped out from beyond common sense, Enkrid was steeped in elation.
Before he knew it, last night's dream was a blank black.
Shinar showed a summer thunderstorm different from a winter mountain wind.
Audin tightened his body and burst it, showing not only Will but how fearsome a trained body was.
Especially if those hands got hold of you once, it was hard to regain the initiative. Audin's hand that bent and broke joints looked like it would break anything.
Ragna, nonchalantly baring his blade, said:
"The sword's name is Sunrise. Its epithet is Rising Sun. If it touches you, you burn."
A weapon passed down in the family, made into an inscribed weapon by ramming in his Will.
It wasn't a newly forged blade, but to Ragna it felt like a sword prepared for him.
It held heat. Even brushing your collar with it raised fire.
Compared to fighting in the virtual domain, when they traded light blows in reality, the might of Sunrise could be felt far more plainly.
'Even a brush sets your clothes alight.'
He said it could put out heat hot enough to vaporize running sweat.
Sunrise—rising sun; it wasn't for nothing it had that name. There's nothing hotter than the sun.
With Jaxen, it was a fight of single blows.
Before, the non-lethal thrust had been a stab with killing intent erased.
This time was different. He stabbed without a thought for his own body. He'd throw away an arm and go for the throat.
"Try blocking it."
Jaxen said it with a smile. A satisfied smile.
It wasn't only Enkrid being drunk on elation.
In any case, the Mad Knight Order was a gathering-place for people like this.
"It is fun, though."
Rem's words spoke for them all.
It was time of ordinary life back at the Border Guard.
He sweated and forgot the nightmares, but that night, and the next day as well, the Ferryman labored over Enkrid.
"My child became fatherless."
It was Ayul, Rem's wife. A newborn was bundled in her arms.
Rem and Ayul's child, no doubt.
"Is this right?"
She asked.
Asking if there had been no choice but for Rem to die—if this had truly been best.
The Ferryman's nightmares were a cycle.
After Loss came Grudge.
"My son is dead."
Next the Ragged Saint appeared and looked at Enkrid without expression.
Leona, who had lost her company, sat down and muttered that this wasn't what she'd wanted.
"It's not over yet."
Said the Ferryman.
After Loss and Grudge, he presented a third piece.
The theme of the third nightmare was Despair.
Enkrid dreamed a long dream.
He lived on like that for another dozen years.
In the end, the Border Guard held out, and with Krang's help Nauwil grew strong.
But one day, black darkness wrapped around the Border Guard.
The entire city was filled with monsters and magical beasts.
There was no contact with the outside. An inevitability brought on by the existence of the Demon Realm had arrived.
"Captain!"
Krais found him. It wasn't hard to read the emotion in his eyes.
"We'll fight to the end, right?"
He asked it.
The spirit Enkrid had shown had seeped into Krais as well. He wasn't devoured by fear or anxiety. Still, he knew the end.
"We'll fight until the moment we die, won't we?"
They all acknowledged that everyone would die here.
Krais spoke, and everyone gathered. Enkrid and all of them fought the darkness wrapped around the Border Guard for a long year.
The stockpiled food ran out, and even the keening born of the dying fell silent.
If you go alone, you'll live. You know that, don't you? Go. Live. Walk to a comfortable Today.
Was it a dream within a dream? The Ferryman whispered in despair.
Enkrid didn't listen, and still the enemy was on every side, and still they could not block them.
Trapped in a Today where you die fighting monsters and magical beasts, the Ferryman spoke to him:
"Was this truly what you wanted?"
Loss, Grudge, Despair.
The three stabbed and churned his heart, but their effect wasn't great.
In truth, he had already found his answer to the Ferryman's shows.
'It's foolishness to wait, hoping for someone's help.'
Nor can you do anything alone.
Enkrid had already realized the truth.
Shaking off the nightmare, he heard the Ferryman's last words from the dream:
"You won't be devoured, will you."
From that, Enkrid concluded the Ferryman had been uncommonly industrious of late. That he'd ended up disappointed—well, there was nothing for it.
When he stepped out, dawn hadn't even broken, but someone was out first.
Pel had the tip of Idol Slayer resting on the drill yard floor and wore a serene gaze.
No tremor in the pupils, and his force was calm. Like a still lake.
"Captain."
"Right."
"If I win, do I become the Knight-Commander?"
At a glance, Enkrid read Pel's state. A fool drunk on omnipotence had lifted a blade.
"Then it seems today is the day I take that seat."
Pel was far more of a mad bastard than when they'd first met. Likely all Rem's influence.
Among the Mad Knight Order, there were few who held up as stably as Enkrid did.
Enkrid took up a practice sword. The edge wasn't honed, making it well-suited as a cudgel.